What is your preferred science-fiction serie or movie.

I've enjoyed many of the ones mentioned already. Although, I have also hated many of them:

I walked out of the cinema in pure disgust at the Firefly (2005) movie. Let's get real here, a bunch of 20 year-old, good-looking hotheads, somehow being allowed to fly around in their own space ship. :D And the baddies had corpses stuck to the outside of their space ship while flying at high altitude or through space. Yes, that's very realistic! :rolleyes:

I also absolutely hated The Abyss. I like to think I generally enjoy strong female characters, but this one just came off as a giant ${b_word}. But I was young at the time, so maybe I would have a different perspective now if I sat down to re-watch and tried to give it a chance.

Then there was the one where the bad alien invaders' weak point was a splash of water - Signs (2002) :rolleyes:

Sci-fi movies and series I have enjoyed:

First Men In the Moon (1964) - wonderfully silly to see how they imagined space flight and the moon in those early days
Futurama - no comment necessary!
Red Dwarf - a masterwork
He-man and Masters of the Universe - animated and - God help me - the live action one! Only because I grew up with He-man figures, but my parents denied me the right to watch the TV-series when I was little.
 
Another masterpiece and even important mile stone of the whole scifi genre for me is "Forbidden Planet" from 1956. It was the first scifi movie with a big budget, not just cheap b-movie and below stuff.

Basically it is "The Tempest" in space, and had for the time groundbreaking special effects (some done by Disney because ILM was not existant yet), great cast, a robot which didn't look clumsy but gave the impression that it could really work that way (and Robby the Robot had a huge impact on pop culture), and of course the big machine of this distinct superior civilization, which is shown in shots which still look very good today. Also that and the fact that the villain of the movie are not aliens, but actually the human id.

Walter Pidgeon was a great Dr. Morbius, a young Leslie Nielsen in a non-comical role as starship captain, and Anne Francis as young, naive beauty amongst many others. Also the soundtrack was very innovative as well, because some parts of it were done with more or less primitive synthesizers long before Moog started his work.

It is the first movie which showed that Scifi can work on the big screen, and therefor paved the way for stuff like 2001 or Star Wars later.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxQ9GG6hUDM
 
No one mentioned a certain
Science fiction,
double feature...
movie yet. Not strictly a science fiction movie, but it has great music. Shows the problems with aliens grasping earth customs and has stunt doubles scared (of being recognized in that outfit).
 
Crivens said:
The ringworld series, but it's books. So last century.
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Ringworld is once again on the cards to become a TV series. I'm hoping they will stay true to the story, but the social side of the Ringworld universe is "of it's time" and the current fad is to "re-imagine" the stories in book to TV/Movie projects. eg Foundation.

Amazon bought the rights in 2017 and announced the start of development. I've not heard much since then though.
 
dbdemon said:
I also absolutely hated The Abyss. I like to think I generally enjoy strong female characters, but this one just came off as a giant ${b_word}. But I was young at the time, so maybe I would have a different perspective now if I sat down to re-watch and tried to give it a chance.
:rolleyes:
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FWIW, you can read the book along with the movie, pretty much word for word with The Abyss. There's an extra intro chapter and an extra afterword chapter, but the book and script were written in tandem. So most likely you'll hate the boot too :)
 
dgmm said:
Ringworld is once again on the cards to become a TV series. I'm hoping they will stay true to the story, but the social side of the Ringworld universe is "of it's time" and the current fad is to "re-imagine" the stories in book to TV/Movie projects. eg Foundation.
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Let's see - Chmee will be queer, Wu gotta be gay and Nessus is what? The pupeteers will demand some real imagination from the "writers". And Teela will be the Mary Su - all powerful and strongest/smartest evar. Irony that she is, in the end.
dgmm said:
Amazon bought the rights in 2017 and announced the start of development. I've not heard much since then though.
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Judging from TROP and how they ignored Tolkien, my hopes are low. Like, challenger deep.
 
Ok, two more.

My avatar picture is Yang Wen-li one of the main characters from the anime "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" I highly recommend it.

And my signature from the 1970 movie "Colossus The Forbin Project" in my opinion the best depiction of an AI in movies.
 
i basically watch tron (the original tron) once or twice a week in the afternoon because i think thats the future for basically everything but who cares because neon is actually pretty sick as a color and body suits aren't that embarrassing once you're used to basically being naked underneath the cloth lol so who cares.
 
tingo said:
I was wondering why Arrival hadn't been mentioned yet, until I read Zirias post about it.
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Ahh, yes, that was the one!

That is what SF can actually do: show us that our usual world is limited in a way that we normally cannot even perceive. Here it is a very simple aspect of limitation, and an explainable one - and the movie works, it manages to illustrate the possible consequences. :)

tuxador said:
DUNE= masterpiece
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That one is a different matter. The books were considered guidebook for tripheads, for deep experiences of altered states of consciousness - and I don't think it is possible to get these messages into a movie. The old movie tried to achieve it to some extent - but it doesn't work as a movie. The new one now works well as a movie, but it neglects the more subtle aspects of the story.

In case You do not see what I am talking about, I give you an example:
As water creatures stir up the currents in their passage, so the prescient stir up Time. I have seen where your husband has been; never have I seen him nor the people who truly share his aims and loyalties. This is the concealment which an adept gives to those who are his.
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Now this is obviousely not just pure story-telling, this is a quite precise statement about nature (if you believe in second sight, and if you think that prescience is a natural phenomenon), stating that second-sight is an interdependent effect and leaves a residue. Now, everybody who practises the art can verify this.
The books are full with such things - and you will detect them if you have similar experiences. This is only possible in SF: ignore the whole discussion about parapsychology and whether it is a hoax or not, and instead give the relevant facts on how it works. ;)
The problem with movies is, that a movie already induces a trance-state, but you're the passive part: timing and control is done by somebody else. So you cannot connect to your own experiences. With a book you can.
 
Interstellar. Watch it every now and then.

Start Trek : Deep Space 9. Unlike all other ST (I find them rather primitive) series, it's a very good study of human character, human values etc. Human relationship problems sometimes are easier to evaluate when put into "alien" entourage. Which IS the purpose if Sci-Fi, I think. But then, the Sci-Fi part is also well done.

Battlestar Galactica 200* series. -- same as above. Kind of difficult (for me) to watch at first, but as the plot gradually unfolds, it becomes really interesting how they're going to end it. And I liked it much better than Star Gate or Star Wars. Sure, some third part of the series could be cut off, but then that's true of any series.

Contact IS a good movie from ALL angles, you can just watch it over and over for the good movie that it is. No more comments here.

And "Back into the future" is so much fun :D. Though I don't remember when it was that I last watched it.
Arrival is very good, yes. Stands out.

We're not mentioning books here, or I would mention Isaak Asimov's "Foundation" series. It's a pity this was never filmed. Well then we have "I Robot" from Asimov. Also "Bicentennial Man".
 
I just found that someone recently turned "Solaris" into a movie. Supposedly, it's bad, and doesn't reflect the intent of Lem's original book. But a bad movie based on Solaris might still be better than most ridiculous space operas. Lem's books are sooo good.

I've never seen the Tarkovsky version. Should try it.

Of real science fiction movies, my favorites are Spaceballs and Galaxy Quest. The original Star Wars and Star Trek are so awful, they are more useful for creating spoofs than for actually watching.

The original Dune is ... interesting. I like watching it, but it is so weird, and the emphasis is so different from the book, it is more of an acid trip than a movie. Supposedly the new one is going to be good, once the second half is out.

Similar with Blade Runner: It's not the book, but it is still a very interesting (and trippy) movie. Very well made. The "tears in the rain" speech is marvelous drama, writing, acting, and movie making.
 
leebrown66 said:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
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Not the '78 version? I enjoyed that one too. Actually saw the '56 much, much later than the '78 version.

Speaking of oldies, The Fly, '86 and '58 versions.

Haven't seen anyone mention The Thing yet. The '82 version obviously, the 2011 version had nothing, no thrills, no terror.
 
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