Wrath of Khan and TNG Make EW’s Best Sci Fi List

See, Star Trek STILL resonates!

Oh yeah, FIRST!!!

Not one Star Wars Movie, just the Clone Wars animated series? What about Empire Strikes Back or Indiana Jones? The only thing from George Lucas is a 2 minute cartoon short from the Cartoon Network. V: The Mini Series was awesome back in 1983. Props to KHAAAAANNNN!!!

The list only goes back 25 years (1982), hence no Star Wars. Although Episode 3 was pretty damn good.

You’re right. It’s funny how none of the new Star Wars movies didn’t make the list. I think Serenity should be ranked higher. Also, V for Vendetta was a very cool movie. I would have added Independence Day or The Incredibles. I think the Incredibles was the best CGI SciFi Movie of recent memory.

Where’s Babylon 5? And though The Matrix is good, is it really good enough to be #1?

They kind of cheat on the list…Terminator/Terminator 2 as one entry? Filmed years apart? And the first years of the X-Files, but certainly not the end.

And, *ahem*, Dr. Who…1963–Present? Someone doesn’t want to count.

And where’s Snakehead Terror? Huh?!

Oh forget to put the year of Star Wars Ep VI in there -> 1983

and “Akira” should be on place 6 and gladly “Equilibrium is now out. ;)

Surprisingly, I think this is a pretty good list. Sure, I’d make some different choices, but most of these are solid. (But, really, Starship Troopers? Bleagh.)

I would definitely include Babylon 5, although for me its overall vision was much better than its actual execution. I might include Twelve Monkeys, but I wouldn’t include any of the Star Wars prequels. I liked Episode III, but that was purely borrowed glory.

Nice to see John Carpenter’s version of “The Thing” get some recognition.

Don’t people ever get tired of idiotic “Top Whatever” lists?
You can’t swing a dead Mugato without hitting one these days.
I’d rather watch Star Trek XI sitting beside the fake Kirk actor than to have to endure more of those things.

Lope de Aguirre – Alien 3???

I always remember the best remarks about Starship Troopers and Total Recall: that American audiences totally failed to get what they were about! IIRC, Tim Burton laughed his ass off in an interviews saying how staggering it was that an entire nation failed to understand what are very straightforward films by anyone else’s standards.

Starship Troopers is a black comedy satire of American foreign policy. We’re supposed to laugh at the macho posturing and the cheesy dialogue. Verhoeven’s and Neumeier’s genius was to hire a bunch of American soap actors who would take the film seriously, because they wouldn’t understand the script, then have big bugs rip them to shreds. Starship Troopers is also a fascinating film to watch in light of the Iraq fiasco.

Total Recall, based on a couple of Philip K Dick stories, certainly counts as science fiction. It’s loaded with all the usual PKD themes of identity, real world perception and paranoia. When they were preparing the sequel (which never happened) they were going to base it on another PKD story called Minority Report!

Both of these films are classic Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven’s films are always very flamboyant and very European in their sensibilities, so in a sense, they have to be looked at as ‘world cinema’ rather than Hollywood cinema. Verhoeven’s sci-fi films are about the United States of America and how people see them from outside.

I still laugh at many of the major ‘critics’ out there who just don’t get these films. How sad. How naive. How uncultured. How narrow-minded!

Doctor Who is lucky to be there at all. The same for Star Wars. They aren’t science fiction. Star Wars just puts mythical stories in a spaceship context but there’s no actual science in the fiction. Doctor Who is a fantasy-horror series that uses a veil of ‘science fiction.’ DW has occasionally had SF in it, notably for a while in the 1980s, but calling the series ‘science fiction’ is really not accurate.

In fact, how you define a TV show as ‘sci-fi’ is very messy.

Wrath of Khan! BOOYAH!!!!

That’s STILL my favorite Trek movie. such a GREAT balance of interwoven themes, action, and drama.

Sleeper Agent X. Dude, you have every right to dislike a film when you DO get it. You clearly didn’t read my post properly as you were to busy wanting to grandstand. ‘Oooh!’ you thought to yourself, ‘How can I take Dom’s post and repeat sections back in a smug, ironic fashion?’

I simply commented on the hilarity that so many people dissed the film for being what it was a send up of! Critics like Ebert and Maltin just utterly missed the point. Tim Burton’s American and he got the film. My main point was that many of the major American critics attacked the film in error, because, from their criticisms, they clearly didn’t realise the film was a send-up: they actually genuinely thought Starship Troopers was a serious action movie.

Plus, the film is precisely about how people see America from the outside, so why should it be based on how people see it from the inside? Kind of defeats the object doesn’t it? Does that mean the only people who can make films about Nazis have to be Nazis themselves?

So try to be less sad, naive, uncultured and narrow-minded and read my post properly again instead of being pompous and self-righteous!

Robocop? Lists are always subjective. They put them out ad infinitum. Yes to V and Galaxy Quest. Not surprised at the new BSG being there, despite low ratings. Matrix, however is one of very few new SF properties to really resonate hugely. Babylon 5 deserves to be there, but,,hey it all comes down to who’s sitting around the table and how good their memories are that day. The stuff that’s really good doesn’t need a list.

Sleeper Agent X . Who’s guilty of not taking other people’s opinions into account now?! You pronounce a film as ‘a complete piece of trash’, which I openly say you’re entitled to do, while I simply state that the criticisms of certain major critics indicates that they were dismissing the films for the wrong reason. I say that a film should be approached as a non-American film and you start spouting off about ‘ersatz cineastes.’

I work in TV and make small, insignificant films myself, mostly because I enjoy it. I have no time for the pseudo-intellectual, smug media class. I have to hang out with them occasionally because work requires it and they mostly make me want to vomit.

Where I come from, ‘world cinema’ implies anything outside of the Hollywood machine. It’s a shame for American audiences if studios mis-market films for them and it’s a reflection of lack of sense within the studios. I can understand people in the US getting annoyed in those ‘cricumstances’ (sic.)

But, seriously dude, you need to deal with whatever childhood trauma a Cahiers du Cinema reader caused you and join the real world. Saying that a European filmmaker who openly states that he approaches his films from the point of view of a European looking in at a different culture is not an opinion pronounced by an ‘ersatz cineaste’. It’s a statement of fact. Read some interviews with Verhoeven if in doubt.

For what it’s worth, I have hundreds of films in my DVD collection from all over the world. The cinema is an important part of my life and the media is something I have made my career in because movies of all types are important to me. I love anything from well-made trash to well-made arthouse.

Oh, and if you get wound up over what I’ve just said, try ending your post without writing something along the lines of ‘That’s right…you!!!’ or ‘how narrow-minded…of you!!!’ It’s repetitive and dull and resembles a drunk in a bar who keeps pestering you looking for a fight!!

Good morning, Sleeper Agent X. How are you today? I’m just sat here eating my corn flakes after a long, pleasant sleep. Love the ‘j’accuse’ remark: it reminds me of when Robert McKee trashed Citizen Kane on an episode of the ‘J’Accuse’ series.

The remark about the spelling was intended as a joke and should probably have been accompanied by a smiley. It’s the biggest trouble on this site, not being to edit the ferocity of some remarks post-posting! I have no problems with you.

That’s right… je t’aime. ;)

The very notion of a cinematic image from “The Wrath Of Khan,” ranking behind a cast shot of those Battlestar Galactica martinets in their Coast Guard uniforms and “with all due respect, sir” gaze, is sufficient reason to despair the good taste of our age.

The Matrix??? At number one?

Such a fanboy-ish choice of a paper-thin, style-over-substance crapfest kills the value of the article.