Scifi fans: what is your favorite CLASSIC SF movie ?

[Amberience]

Either Bladerunner or Total Recall - and Total Recall is Jerry Goldsmiths best soundtrack.

[GaryG]

The Blob. The old black and white version.

if it's the one with steve mcqueen in it it's actually colour (yeah, i was surprised too), horrible red ooze, like, oozing throught the gratings.

The only movie I think that hasn't been mentioned yet (but deserves to be) is Gattaca, nicely stylised imagery (though at times it starts to resemble a mobile phone ad or something...)

And no mention of 'existenz'!? One of Cronenbergs best for sure (though his remake of the Fly is a darn good sci-fi movie too)

Scremers: yeah, a wonderfully dark little film. Not the b-movie trash people make it out to be.

Solaris: the Tarkovsky version is a wonderful 'trance' movie (y'know, laid back, half asleep...) but I think his Stalker film is better. Love the book it's based on too ("Roadside Picnic") though not a strictly accurate interpretation. Someone could do that easily with todays tech.

Nice to see some of the lost classics like 'A Boy and His Dog' and 'Seconds' getting respect.

And for the record:

2001 - I've tried so many times but if you really need so much background material to understand a film then... maybe it's a bit of a failure.

The Matrix - darn cool movie for sure but really worthy of all the hype? what was so revolutionary about it? certainly not the 80s cyberpunk look, the fight sequences (try any HK kung fu flick) or the 'bullet time' (actually 'time slicing', invented back in '83 by a brit). And don't mention the sequels...

work to do.
.g

[GaryG]

ooh yeah, and Jerry Goldsmith died recently! should have had a lot more coverage in the press, one of the soundtrack greats for sure (PotA).

[tony tony chopper]

I way preferred animatrix over the matrix, especially the pointless last 2 ones

[Emerald Tablet]

The Matrix - darn cool movie for sure but really worthy of all the hype? what was so revolutionary about it?

perhaps the combination of all elements mentioned

to me the metaphor.

[Sicklecell666]

The Matrix - darn cool movie for sure but really worthy of all the hype? what was so revolutionary about it?

perhaps the combination of all elements mentioned

to me the metaphor.

Don't you mean THE MESSAGE?

[Dingo865]

And no mention of 'existenz'!?

You might want to read the thread from the beginning... mentioned at least once, possibly three-four times.

2001 - I've tried so many times but if you really need so much background material to understand a film then... maybe it's a bit of a failure.

You don't need all that background material. The only things you need are the same amount of a) patience, b) open mind, and c) attention to the screen that you needed to devote to a film like Solaris or Stalker. If you do that, and sit through it without trying to form judgement off the bat, I promise you will discover its magic.

The Matrix - darn cool movie for sure but really worthy of all the hype? what was so revolutionary about it?

It managed to fuse concepts from Nietzsche, Kant, Kierkegaard, Sarte, and many-many others, into a single spectacular, escapist, multi-layered action movie. It has done more to introduce very heavy intellectual constructs to masses of people without education than all other movies during the entire decade.

IMHO, of course.

[tony tony chopper]

yes, the first matrix was interesting for its story/message. It hurts to see how it was resumed as a 'movie with cool effects', and might be the reason the last 2 were just 'movies with cool effects'. If I wanted to see trucks folding like an accordeon, I'd watch tv ads, they're full of bullet time as well.

btw doesn't 2010 kinda explain 2001?

[GaryG]

And no mention of 'existenz'!?

You might want to read the thread from the beginning... mentioned at least once, possibly three-four times.

hell, i did read from the beginning! Well I thought I had, obviously skimmed a bit... maybe this explains my problem with 2001, think i've watched something but haven't really... I've honestly watched 2001 in it's entirety at least half a dozen times so I've obviously hooked into 'something' about it that I want to understand further. Further viewings needed... And I think it's a wonderful, piece of film making, i'm not dissing it on grounds of it being 'boring'.

[quote="Dingo865" re: The Matrix]

It managed to fuse concepts from Nietzsche, Kant, Kierkegaard, Sarte, and many-many others, into a single spectacular, escapist, multi-layered action movie. It has done more to introduce very heavy intellectual constructs to masses of people without education than all other movies during the entire decade.[/quote]

Do you think it really has introduced people though? Sure the ideas are there but has it driven them home anymore than, say, Dark City has? Don't get me wrong, hearing these existential ideas (I've read my share of the guys you mention) in a major action movie was pretty thrilling when I first saw it and it's to be commended, maybe I just don't feel that's the reason so many people rate it, they rate it for a lot of things I don't believe are *that* original.

IMHO of course.

Of course we could start taking AI apart, that debate tends to go on for a bit...

.g

[Rick1114]

Anyone see 'I worship his shadow'? I thought the first two movies were cool. The original Zev was smokin!

[Sicklecell666]

Horror express was another really good old one..

Telly Sevallas, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, & 2 REALLY hot looking women in Kimonos all stuck on a train in Russia getting thier brains sucked outta thier eyeballs by some phantom alien creature that can jump bodies & had crashed on earth in the dinosuar age.

Great pulp style sci-fi/horror from the err..60's?

[dreibel]

I'd have to list 2001, Alien, The Last Man On Earth (which is the first version done of "I Am Legend" and is a much better film than The Omega Man, Vincent Price rules!), Them!, the first Godzilla movie (apparently a new version of this - minus Raymond Burr - is playing some festivals and is making its way to DVD in the future), Forbidden Planet, The Incredible Shrinking Man, 20 Million Miles To Earth .

series? Star Trek TOS and TNG, Red Dwarf, first season of Space:1999, the original Outer Limits (favorites being "The Zanti Misfits", "The Architects Of Fear", and "The Hundred Days Of The Dragon") The X-Files (except for the dreadful Season 9) and Futurama (yes, it's a sendup of science fiction, but there's some scifi gold in some of those episodes like "Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love?" and "Parasites Lost")....

I'm also an old-time radio buff, so I hear some great stuff from time to time like X Minus One, which did some incredible adaptions of Pohl Anderson and Robert Heinlein stories ("The Saucer Of Loneliness", "The Roads Must Roll", "A Gun For Dinosaur", "The Green Hills Of Earth"). I'm also currently listening to the 1957 adaption of "The Day Of The Triffids", fascinating stuff. Suspense also did adaptions of Ray Bradbury stories like "Zero Hour".

[Dingo865]

and Futurama (yes, it's a sendup of science fiction, but there's some scifi gold in some of those episodes like "Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love?" and "Parasites Lost")....

I just LOVED when they touched down on the planet with the 'edible alien children'...
Fry: "Another M-class planet."
Leia: "Maybe we can find some rodenberries..."


And is there someone who watched the German ORION series? My cheesiest favourite of all old-time TV SF...

[ksn]

2001 ! and Bladerunner and Alien

[plastique]

dune
bladerunner
alien series
planet of the apes
the fifth element (almost a classic i'd say)

and for a good laugh the old jack arnold movies like "tarantula" etc.