Dear God.
Of this thing comes my way in a wildfire, a toxic rubble, or in broad daylight, I can assure you whatever problem it is trying to solve will be forgotten as I do my best impersonation of Superman and attempt to fly through the air.
So, with that in mind, today’s Fodder is asking you this: what’s your favorite sci-fi movie?
My short list:
2001: A Space Odyssey
If you ever wanted to time travel for three hours without realizing it, ethos is your movie. Cutting edge special effects given the time, and a Kubrick film that makes you wonder if the moon landing was, potentially, fake, this set the bar high for space movies. A good story to watch nowadays given our emerging AI and robot overlords, it’s a timeless classic.
Planet of the Apes
The Charlotte Heston one, not the new ones with Marky Mark. Te kiddos might thing the special effects and costumes are goofy, but it just hits different when you see the Statue of Liberty at the end for a dark and surprising twist.
Blade Runner
Speaking of robots, this was a dark venture into a future where robots went from service systems to cold blooded killers. When a group of androids developed to work space colonies that nonhuman wishes to do (sound familiar?), some advanced copies make their way back to earth and Harrison Ford has to hunt them down. Odd how life starts to imitate art, no?
Alien
I still can’t watch this without jumping throughout. Guarantees to give a few jump scares to even the most seasoned of horror enthusiasts, the movie has amazing artistic sets and does a great job of establishing the mood of loneliness and desperation when your millions of miles from home and a parasitic zygote sticks to your face and sucks the life out of you, only to embed a seed in you that explodes out of your stomach and kills everything near and dear to you. No, this isn’t a movie about marriage. I kid, I kid. Also seeing the lone robot get sliced in half and continue to talk is just next level creepy to me, still.
So how’s about you…what’re your favorite sci fi movies? Let’s hear it in the comments.
The Terminator.
Safe to say, if our beloved Ranger Russ were to see or hear that thing creeping in the bushes, Rangertaur-1, centaur-0…God Bless, while raising a glass to the Ranger..!!
Three beers and RR would dare me to ride it, and I would have to.
I would throw in the early Star Trek movies 1 through 3. I loved the tv show as a kid so I enjoyed those first few movies.
Star Wars, and Blade Runner. …”like tears in the rain”; and Interstellar are fantastic.
Those are four great choices. I would Aliens 2, Split Second, Terminator and the 1st Star Trek movie to the list. That first Star Trek movie greased the skids for a wave of great movies.
The first three Star Wars movies, Total Recall, The Terminator, Outland, The Thing, The Brother From Another Planet, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
It is beginning to look like The Terminator was actually not “fiction.”
There’s 2001 and then there’s everything else. To me, it’s one of the best movies ever made.
Soylent Green is a good one.
I would add The Matrix.
Spaceballs.
Inception for me. Chris Nolen was at his absolute best. Another favorite, although it makes my head hurt trying to figure it out is Primer.
Not a big syfy fan but like some of the Star Wars series. My favorite is a series and it’s Fallout. The first two seasons have been one of my wife & I’s favorite watch.
Predator. Jesse the body has some classic lines and there’s more steroids flowing in that movie than pumping iron.
Good call! I re-watched it a couple year’s ago and it holds up. I miss watching it in a theater with a pint of Wild Turkey our Chief slipped us because, “You idiots getting likker’d up at a theater fighting aliens makes being Duty Officer a breeze tonight.” lol
Blade Runner, Rogue One, The Matrix, Dark City……..and of course 2001. I could name many, many more I’m sure.
Star Wars original trilogy
Aliens
2001 and 2010
Star Trek 2,3,4 and 6
Matrix trilogy
Galaxy Quest
Some favorites not yet mentioned:
Arrival – Simple, with a huge late impact
The 5th Element – Some theaters are playing it now as a 30th anniversary release. Campy but influential.
And if anyone wants something longer-form, I cannot recommend the series The Expanse enough. Some of the most compelling TV ever made, regardless of genre.
I’ll throw out Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the remake starring Donald Sutherland).