Blade Runner tops scientist poll (1 Viewer)

[george kaplan]

Statistics and Psychology. And while I'm not eminent, I am sometimes imminent.

 

[Steve Christou]

Really George? I was actually replying to DaveF's post, I thought you were just playing along. A doctor of psychology eh? Been studying our behaviour on the forum for some time now have you? The tourneys and contests all part of some sinister forum experiment eh? Statistics too? The plot thickens...

Back to our main topic. Solaris, I prefer the remake myself, Soderbergh made a good stab at it, and it was mercifully only half the length of Tarkovsky's version.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

I'd rate them as follows:

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Solaris (1972)
.
.
.
big gap
.
.
.
3. Blade Runner
4. Alien
5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

-Dennis

 

[DavidLW]

What happen to "Silent Running" and "Soylent Green" and "Logan Run". All truer to the gendre of SciFi than Stars Wars. Science fiction should at least have some message about the future of Earth or humans. Not about something that happened a "long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." But I got to admit, Stars Wars is a much more enjoyable movie to watch.

 

[DaveButcher]

Couple I'm surprised didn't make the list are:

Things To Come and When Worlds Collide. Esp. in a poll of scientists, both of these movies extol the virtues of "science" more then almost any others.

Good list though, mine would be different

 

[george kaplan]

I can only speak for myself, but those three (and many others such as the original Planet of the Apes) are definitely great films, but just not in my top 10. I disagree about your definition of science fiction, but that's a debate we've already hashed out on this forum, so no need to revisit it here.

 

[Jack Briggs]

What Dennis said in post #23. I especially love the "big gap" part.

Disappointed in the list.

At the time those abominations Mission to Mars and Red Planet were released, the Los Angeles Times asked some planetary scientists at the JPL what they thought about the movies.

Their reply?

"Why aren't there any intelligent, forward-looking science-fiction movies being made anymore? Like 2001: A Space Odyssey"?

The Times reporter then cornered them. They owned up that they thought that the movie with all those monkeys and the talking computer was the best-ever example of the genre on film.

Of course, I found myself agreeing with them.

 

[Brook K]

Ho hum just the usual suspects, no Stalker (Tarkovsky's other sci-fi film that betters Solaris for my money), Paris Qui Dort, La Jetee, Last Night or Tetsuo The Iron Man?

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Scientists are a lot like the rest of us. They'll like the same movies the general public likes, with an emphasis towards movies about scientists. You'd get similar results surveying almost any profession, I think.

 

[Cees Alons]

This begs for the rolleyes-"smiley" of course.


As a long time sci-fi reader I agree with Kubrick's 2001 not getting the first position on a Sci-Fi-list. I remember when I first saw the film, I was disappointed (having read the Arthur C. Clarke book long before) about the way it wandered from the purely sci-fi domain into the esoteric.
As a film it's tops.

I'm not going to try and formulate my own list, the one above is the result of a statistical process. I've found it always extremely difficult anyway to order films (or books or works of music) in a sequential quality or appreciation list. Such a list depends on many factors, most of which aren't fixed in time for me at all.

An exception (sort of) can be made for Isaac Asimov: I rate him as the very best sci-fi writer by far, which encompasses his whole work. I do love several other writers, though. Most of those slightly deviate from the "pure" sci-fi field as I see it.

The above list is excellent, IMO. Most of the movies on it are in my group of very best sci-fi films too.
Unfortunately, that's almost all one can add to this discussion: own opinions.


Cees

 

[DaveF]

I was just thinking that. But it's a movie that I enjoy but also find disappointing. The "deep" questions I thought were shallow and didn't represent the discussions the characters would really have had -- unless they never before had considered the interaction of faith and science.

 

[Zen Butler]

There have been quite a few intelligent sci-fi films since. I can name ten easily and none of them part of any trilogy.

 

[TommyT]

I'm gonna get slammed for this but I'd say the same thing about the Star Wars series. I've loved those films since I was a kid BUT I still don't believe that "classic" sci-fi was really a central theme of the story. The trilogy is really more of a sword/sorcery/fantasy theme along the lines of King Arthur (which the fans already know, of course). Sure, the film has sci-fi elements; weapons, space travel, hyperspace travel, galactic warfare, holograms, droids, etc. But a concept like the Force is really a magical element more than scientific.

Not that I want this thread to turn into another discussion of the Trilogy but I'd like to hear participants in this thread.

Anyone else agree with my heretical views?

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, yes, Zen. Your fave, for example. And Boorman's Zardoz. Phase Four. Dark City. Solaris. To some extent, Gattaca. The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "The Inner Light."

Maybe Alien. Maybe.

And that's about all, in my opinion.

 

[Michael Harris]

As a solid fan of the Star Wars canon I agree 100% with your heresey. But it goes to the basic question of "what is SCI FI?" for which there is no one answer.

 

[Zen Butler]

As good as 2001? No, probably not since. I must contest and say there have been a few more "intelligent" sci-fi films than you mentioned. Where do we draw the line? Do the great post-apocalyptic 70's films count?

THX1138
The Omega Man
A Boy and His Dog
Andromeda Strain
Zelazny's Damnation Alley
Fantastic Planet
The Man Who Fell to Earth

While some not literary giants and pale in comparison to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 70's-early 80's gave us some great, if not the best science fiction films to date. Many of them deep compared to today's video game mentality. Opinion, of course.

 

[Angelo.M]

Room for another, to quote Troy McClure, scientician?

Fave: Bladerunner. And probably my favorite film, period. It's funny: I don't think of it as a "sci-fi" film anymore; it is, obviously, so much more and, thankfully, less. Beyond that, I'm not much for sci-fi, actually. I do like 2001, Close Encounters..., 12 Monkeys, Gattaca, Unbreakable, Dark City, The Road Warrior (anyone else mentioned this yet?) and a few others.

I'm not much for trilogies or pre-quels, however. :wink:

 

[Jack Briggs]

I'll concede A Boy and His Dog. I saw a prerelease special world-premier screening -- introduced by Harlan Ellison -- at the 1974 World Science Fiction Convention in Washington DC. It's a good one, and certainly deserving of the designation of "true" SF.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

DaveF wrote (post #31):


Someone---and I'm sorry I don't have the time to research the credit (was it Patrick Sun?)---suggested in one of the discussion threads on this film that its story is really a "fairy tale" for the Mechas (so-called). I like that interpretation. I don't doubt its credentials, despite that maudlin ending.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, I've softened up on my assessment of that film. I took some heat here for my first posted comments about it. But I used the disc to calibrate a bedroom HT and ended up screening A.I. about four more times. Got to where I kinda, sorta like it.