A decade into the 21st Century and we have arrived at the future. The promise of Tomorrow. But instead we have looming energy crises, endless middle east conflict and more disappointing, we have no flying cars, Heck, for all the bright and clean future promised in 2001: A Space Odyssey, none of the real companies used as brands in the film even exist anymore. Even moving from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s, nobody makes DeLoreans (although they occasionally sell on Ebay), but cloning and tablet computing (as promised by Star Trek: The Next Generation) have more or less come to pass in this century. It is not the gizmos or the distopian aesthetics, that have brought Science Fiction into the new millennium, but the questions it asks of people or society in a future time or place and how they reflect on our own times. There have been a surprising number of excellent science fiction films to come about in the past decade that do this and do this well. After the 80s and 90s were more or less defined as CGI test-beds and blockbuster multiplex fodder, it is nice to see we are in a bit of a high point for lovers of ‘harder,’ ambitious science fiction. The films that tackle ideas in a significant and sophisticated way has actually risen dramatically even as cheap digital effects and mega-budgeted event pictures have also increased the number of bad films that are bad fantasy with science fiction trappings. If it seems there are fewer smart science fiction pictures out there, it is more a signal-to-noise issue than a reality.
Below are over two dozen science fiction pictures that are worth your time. Fans of their respective franchise may cry foul on the lack of Star Trek or Serenity, but really those films are about the characters and plots and not really about the loftier ideals of science fiction. In an attempt to quickly go through the list, I will offer up the general idea of the film and how it relates to the ideals of science fiction, namely exploring the consequences of the fictional part of the science in a way that it relates to the real world.
In the interest of talking about the films, it should be noted that *SPOILERS* are sprinkled through out the list.
Code 46
Welcome to a world with borders, very difficult to permeate borders. Cloning has become de riguer in Michael Winterbottom’s near-future to the point where you do know who you are genetically related to anymore. The title refers to a sexual act, a pregnancy resulting between two people with too-similar DNA. But the film has much more on its plate, including how communication has evolved – an extreme example of this is learning by an injection of a virus – and how the gap between the poor and rich has taken off. It is a more subdued and less stylized version of Blade Runner, in which Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton and others are all the replicants living in a brave new world.
Children of Men
How would social mores change in a world without hope? This question is enticingly asked in Alfonso Cuaron’s fast and loose adaptation of PD James’ novel. In the near future, people have simply stopped having children, the youngest person on earth is 18 years old, and when the last couple of generations die out, that’s all she wrote for the human race. Suicide kits are distributed by the government, and the whole environment is left to rot, as who needs clean, responsible energy if everyone is going to dead in 60 years. While the film is mainly a chase-movie with tour-de-force long takes and set-pieces, it never stops being a thoughtful piece of science fiction on the value of hope and the consequences of taking things for granted.
Primer
Time Travel has never been more ‘real’ than in Shane Carruth’s debut film. Shot for only a few thousand dollars, it does not have budget or stars or even significant locations to rely on, it has to exist on pure ideas and conjecture. What a wonderful job it does of exploring the morality and logistics of ‘realistic time travel’ (and by realistic I mean it is awful similar to physicist Ronald Mallett‘s extension of Einstein’s theories. It is one of the few films that the themes are easier to elucidate than the plot logistics (to figure out how everything fits together in the film, a flow chart is darn near necessary!) But Primer is not so much about the puzzle-box plot, but the implications of morality in the onrush of new and powerful technologies. Primer is without a doubt, a mind-bender. It most certainly appeals to fans of science fiction for both its insanely complicated structure (it is a puzzlebox of the highest order) as well as its grounding discovery and science in the most mundane terms possible (home garages, U-Haul lockers, and my favourite, stealing palladium from the catalytic converters in their cars). It is a ‘hard’ science fiction film without any special effects and set in the present. It is dialogue, dialogue, dialogue matched to gritty and disorienting camerawork. Beyond the surface of its lo-fi aesthetics and nested plot, lies all sort of moral and ethical traps. These engineers may have the technical chops to invent something which could change the world (or like most game-changers, recognize the potential of an accident or unintended side-effect) but wowsers do they go off the rails in terms of dealing with it. The invention, a form of time travel, offers power in the gather limitless wealth, the potential to change events, or simply muck with causality: Abuse the stock market, prevent a potential murder, punch your boss in the face then go back and stop yourself, or the real kicker – kill yourself. Fear, paranoia and greed supersede any chance of trust. (“What’s worse, thinking you’re being paranoid or knowing you should be?”) There is a lot of 21st century post-tech boom subtext from the characters behavior and it has a lot to say about the way things are done in high-tech (nay the entire business world) sector since the 1990s of instant-riches-today, burnout-crash-tomorrow. Ethics in business, Morality (and boy-oh-boy the difficulty) of playing God and the power of filmmaker may be summed up with this line of dialogue, “You want to put my camcorder inside the box that’s so dangerous we can’t look into it.”
Moon
After 1979′s Alien, nothing gets hammered harder than corporate culture (usually the functioning body of government) in science fiction films. Duncan Jones’ film seemed to be undervalued simply because of its visual references to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solyaris, and Silent Running, but really the film is its own beast. As Sam Bell (a versatile and understated Sam Rockwell) nears the end of his 3 year mining contract on the moon he starts falling apart (literally) and hallucinating. Sam Bell wrestles with himself (again, literally) on what his existence actually means, while holding out for joining back up with his wife and daughter. Ironic, indeed, that the corporation, Lunar Industries, is willing to cross some interesting ethical lines (lets just say extreme exploitation of its workforce) in the name of ‘clean’ energy (the Helium-3 on the moon is what is being mined). Contrary to what the detractors of this great piece of science fiction often say, the film is much more than the sum of it is parts, and has a lot of interesting things to ponder about the use and abuse of cloning and the mental strain of meeting ‘yourself’ in ways that you are certainly not prepared to do. Moon finally offers a little tease of the social significance (again hammering on the corporation-behaving-badly) of Sams return to earth to meet himself once again.
The Prestige
Despite being set at the dawn of the 20th century, Christopher Nolan’s magician movie is most definitely a science fiction film. Think about the early 1900s. Electricity, the telephone, the car, airplanes, motion pictures projected on a screen, all of these technologies sprung up in a relatively short period. Renowned science fiction author, Arthur C. Clark wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” and The Prestige takes that and runs with it in the tale of two determined magicians struggling with each other and with their own desires to be at the top of their art. The sabotage, subterfuge and showmanship of their aggressive competition is echoed in the Thomas Edison Nicola Tesla battle to define how electricity is going to integrate fully into society. How far will we go as a species into the dark corners of our own soul for the fulfillment of the promise of art and technology?
Time of the Wolf
Here is another film ripe for examining the human condition stretched to its extreme limits. There is little in Michael Haneke’s film other than the spoken language and the make and model of the family car to identify the time and setting of the film. Some sort of undefined, likely global, apocalypse has occurred, and civilization has collapsed. How does a family continue to survive in a survival-of-the-fittest new world? Things are gray, bleak and the world feels very lonely in this film. In France, nobody can hear you scream. It is certainly a companion piece to John Hillcoat’s The Road, it is actually the better of the pair, but both films examine how morality is relative to the comfort and the implicit enforcement of law and behavior of civilized society and how we are only a few days away from the line at any given moment.
Watchmen
I believe that this is the only comic book movie on the list. The problems with style and tone are often noted in talking about Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s ‘Citizen Kane’ of graphic novels. But that does not change the fact that the writers actually fixed ‘the squid’ problem with the books. Thus, Watchmen, with its alternate-history 1980s setting, an escalated cold war with the Soviet Union and a doomsday clock set at 1 minute to midnight, gets a bit more oomph out of the ‘for the greater good’ scenario by postulating humanity would be better off with a bigger, post-human entity as a threat. In re-purposing the the threat to Dr. Manhattan, a godlike being who is beyond time and space, but really a glorious stand in for the nuclear age, Watchmen the film asks some fundamental questions of human nature which favours contradiction over logic more times than not. Then again, nothing is black and white.
Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind
The experience of following Lacuna Inc. a loose small-business that specializes in erasing memories, and two patients, former lovers, who submit themselves to treatment spans the gamut of romantic nostalgia, comic farce, science fiction, drama, you name it. Michel Gondry’s fascinating take on the first blush of falling in love (twice) is surely one of the best films of the Aughts. You can be swept up in the pure entertainment of the movie, or you can dive down the moral rabbit hole. How much right to do have to exert over your own body? Is it illegal to chop off your own arm? Commit Suicide? Erase significant portions of your memory? Should an easy way of absolving oneself of guilt and conscience exist as a business venture (some would argue that most commercial ventures do this to one extent or another!)? The curious thing is that the film, showing a surprising romantic streak for screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, makes a fairly compelling argument for emotion to trump morality. Maybe he is right.
District 9
Neill Blomkamp, who miraculously struck commercial pay-dirt (making it the only film on the list to find a wide audience theatrically) with an urban apartheid allegory District 9. But the film seems to abandon the segregation/racism thread at about the half-way mark, opting for a (literal) transformation of its central corporate stooge, Wikus Van De Merwe, into the very aliens he was working to relocate. This may simply be the plot of the film kicking into high gear. The governing body, the MNU (some sort of state-corporate privatized military operation) upon discovering the half-alien, half-human immediately attempts vivisection (why beat around the bush) to get to its sole purpose, alien weaponry. This forces Wikus into a fugitive of the very organization he worked for and is a genre staple from Minority Report to Logans Run, but it is also a bleak commentary on how we eat our own – especially if they ‘go native.’ At the end of District 9, I am not sure if Wikus ever becomes a ‘hero,’ or even the everyman finding his moral center, but he is a creature who generates empathy (or at least pity) despite his shortcomings.
Solaris
Like most great science fiction films, Solaris (and I mean the more recent Steven Soderbergh remake) was not appreciated all that much on initial release. I am not sure if a re-evaluation of the film has started yet, but if not, here is as good a place as any. While the film may on the surface come across as a strange love-story in space (the One-Sheet, included in the Gallery, would confirm this), indeed, Soderbergh took that one thing that was rather clunky in the 1972 film adaptation Stanislaw Lem’s novel (Lem himself calls the American version a remake of the Russian film rather than his novel), and expanded it out to his much shorter remake. But if you want to dig a little deeper, a variety of subtle and interesting notions are explored beyond simply flirtation, love, loss. Delicately sprinkled with the debate on divinity vs. astronomical probability, the film seems to tap out on the side that Solaris, the planet, is in fact The Almighty (or at least an intelligence that is close enough to God so as to be splitting hairs). The entity-planet affects the cosmonauts on the station with mirrors of their own thoughts, in essence resurrecting dead or far away family members. After requesting friend and psychiatrist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) to come up an evaluate the problem on the orbiting space station, the scientific leader on the shuttle, Dr. Gibarian, commits suicide. Later, the Doctors ghost (or perhaps Kelvin’s own conscience or even, more daringly, God Himself) offers, “There is no solution, only choices.” (Earlier Gibarian also equates space travel as the search for divinity in another choice quote, “We do not want other worlds, we want mirrors.”) Kelvin has to make the choice between returning to earth and his morbid, regretful existence, or living with a ‘sub-atomic-particle’ version of his deceased wife who is more of a collection of his own impressions of her, than *really* her. Events lead up to the orbit station being sucked into the Planet’s energy mass with Kelvin still aboard. Is it a ‘moment of fear’ or a ‘moment of truth,’ because Kelvin has made his decision. The last minutes, visually, are akin to an awakening, first of pain and suffering, then help by way of Solaris-version of Gibarian’s Son (an corporeal in essence, The Son of God) who reaches out a comforting hand, and a offers a serene (Jesus-like?) face. That he ends up in Heaven (of sorts, where “Everything we’ve done is forgiven. Everything”) with his deceased wife – all radiant and finally at peace, seems to cement a spiritual read, but the question of whether it is OK to destroy an alien race because it happens to freak you out and seemingly has no motive for doing so remains unanswered.
Sunshine
Can the last gasp of humanity look god in the face, take destiny into their own hands and survive the experience? Danny Boyle’s foray into hard science fiction is as much a religious allegory as it is the nuts and bolts of flying to the Sun. It postulates that the best of humanity can indeed see beyond the awe and magnificent ‘face of god’ and survive the experience to give Sol a much needed jump-start. But overcoming religion, and sacrificing oneself for the greater good is not without its challenges. Sunshine is not only a stunningly gorgeous film, but it is a sophisticated look at human interaction, specifically in dealing with hard, hard choices. If only those blockbuster adventure ‘mission’ movies like Armageddon, The Core, or even Mission to Mars had the wonder of the majesty of Sunshine.
Minority Report
If you look past the glossy ‘chase’ aspect of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report, and ignore the rube-goldberg crime solution embodied by pool-confined super-psychics and wood-grain marbles, you will see that the film is actually at its best in depicting the ‘all knowing’ future society through the mundane details. Animated cereal boxes and newspapers, intrusive hyper-targeted advertising, and just how important your unique eye balls are to navigating this strange world. John Anderton’s drug addled policeman who ends up on the wrong side of the law thanks to the experimental Future-Crimes program – those psychic women who prevent crime by predicting it and allowing the enforcement officers to arrest and prosecute you on the basis that you WOULD HAVE committed the crime. So much for self determination, but being able to see, really see what is going on is at the heart of this film. When down in the muck of humanity, it is harder than it looks.
The Fountain
One simple message, “Make the most of the time you have,” is given in the most convoluted (but stimulating) of ways. Three narrative threads all find Hugh Jackman separated from his love. In the past it is his queen, who remains behind in a dying Spain. In the present it is for his wife, who dies (slowly and radiantly) at home, while he struggles for a cure to her disease. In the future, it is for the essence (his memory, his ideal representation) of his wife, contained in a spirit tree, and his journey to a nebula which will perhaps resurrect her. Darren Aronofsky attempts to ask the big question of life – Why is it worth striving? or living? or running around on faith? – by tackling a man in three different states of mind and time. Duty is put above enjoyment in all three cases, and it is letting go that achieves transcendence. Science Fiction or Fantasy? Most of us could use a little letting go, and The Fountain reminds us of this. It is essential science fiction and drama and a wonder to behold.
28 Weeks Later
Why the sequel and not the original, which ‘invented’ the fast-zombie? Well, for one thing, 28 Weeks later takes survival and destruction to a far more visceral level. How does fear and survival instinct destroy the nuclear family? How does government hubris and control fold inward in the face of infection gone wild? Fear and panic spread faster than the virus in 28 Weeks Later. Months of rebuilding shattered in less than 24 hours. The film is one of the ultimate chase films, from the prologue of Robert Carlyle fleeing his life and thousands of the running dead, to his children fleeing the collapse of the Green Zone in London as infection spreads (again) through the small populace. More importantly, the film asks (urm, like Star Trek II) at what point do we lose our humanity upon facing the societies dilemma – “The good of the many versus the good of the few?” – empathy and good Intentions or pure Darwinism? The zombies, blossoms of fire, or creeping chemical clouds do not seem to care.
The Host
Sitting satisfyingly in the middle between Jaws and Godzilla, Bong Joon Ho’s The Host, uses the ‘giant monster terrorizes city’ as a big fat metaphor. Yet a playful sense of humour, a quiet and sad bit of mourning, and clumsy but quite rousing bit of heroism all factor into the mix of tonal shifting that the Korean’s do so well. When the exiting American military order several tones of formaldehyde dumped into the Han River, an amorphous tadpole roosts under one of the large concrete bridges before going on a feeding frenzy that culminates on it spiriting off the very young offspring of a narcoleptic father, one member of a dysfunctional family unit who are ground up in the crucible of the misinformation, confusion and quarantine before taking the monster head-on in its lair. It is the clan vs. modern society locked in a farcical struggle to survive a crisis. In this movie, a bumbling family is far more effective than the American military presence, and the media is comically clueless in their coverage and hysteria of the anomalous event. Truth and cliche and more than a little genre-bending are all rolled up into a satisfying and stimulating package.
Paprika
Paprika is a film about dreams, and dreams about film. A breathtaking visual achievement grafted onto a rather interesting bit of science fiction. When the DC Mini, a machine that allows the operating scientists to enter peoples dreams, is stolen, one of the chief architects of the project makes it her personal mission to recover the device. Is this because of the threat of smashing others subconscious, or the addictive and personality altering thrill she achieves by becoming the ghost in the Machine. Satoshi Kon crosses all cultural barriers with images and alterations of well known film genres and images. Seeing the collective imagination bust through the screen as pure cinema unleashed is overwhelming and intoxicating to anyone ever bowled over by the power of the movies. And identity and ego are placed under the microscope in novel and interesting ways. Ultimately Paprika is a celebration of creation and creativity; it certainly practices what it preaches, and goes into some dark and disturbing places along the way. Suspend your biases of what anime is capable of, for Paprika (along with Oshii’s The Sky Crawlers, also on this list) is science fiction inquiry and evocation at its finest.
Pontypool
What is the difference between hearing and understanding? Is language itself a virus? Can talk radio save the world or is it really the pestilence? Pontypool may be a small Ontario town, but it is also an interesting linguistic confection, “TYPO” is in fact buried in the middle of the word. The film is unafraid to wear its brains on its sleeve, yet still remains thrilling, not the least from taking the well-trod Zombie subgenre and giving it a solid and fresh new premise. Bruce McDonald and screenwriter Tony Burgess surprisingly inject a lot of playfulness along the way. Words are ideas and ideas are passed along through words like a form of contagion. As addictive as an adventure flick, yet never leaving it’s only location, a church basement, Pontypool is the real deal.
A Scanner Darkly
A man trying to escape his own demons end up spying on himself by way of a shape-sifting scramble-suit and copious amounts of surveillance equipment. Thus is the rather nested loop narrative of Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s novel. Never has animation style, a rotoscoping technique of animating over top of filmed footage Linklater tested out with dreaming-talk-piece Waking Life, been more suited visually and thematically to a film. Who are we? What we project to the world? How we act? What we believe? Everything is mixed up for poor Bob Arctor who lost his family from addicted to Substance D, a ubiquitous narcotic that has more or less escalated the war on drugs to ludicrous proportions. We are all the watchers and the watched, and the world is a strange place. You are indeed paranoid if you are really following yourself.
Avalon
The few works of anime director Mamoru Oshii that I’ve seen, namely the two Ghost in the Shell pictures are fascinating motion pictures. Subverting genre conventions into lengthy philosophical tangents along the lines of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Takeshi Kitano’s various yakuza pictures (Hana-Bi comes to mind), Oshii’s films are always gorgeously crafted but ponderous to those raised on Hollywood fare. Avalon is his first (and only) live-action picture. It takes the Gibson-esque cyberpunk future and injects it with an anime-tinged heroine. Ash is one of the top players of a massive worldwide multiplayer war game. This is not an ordinary game. It is underground and illegal, due to the unfortunate side-effect of rendering losing players brain-dead from time to time. She plays by herself even though the norm is to play with a team. Her old team was top ranked until a serious error of judgment (not hers) caused one member to be lobotomized. When she gets wind of a secret level in the game called “Class Real” she goes looking for it only to find the cusp of reality and virtual existence colliding. All of this sounds like comic-book stuff and it is. But watching the film, set in Poland, with a polish cast (keep in mind, the Writer/Director is Japanese), there is a dark atmosphere which belies the slick video-game roots. Ash’s reality is as cold, dank and repetitive, featuring long pauses of meditation and contemplation. It is quite the opposite to as the game she plays which is sepia toned, fast-paced and people explode into pretty showers of polygons when the are killed. At one point the film breaks into ‘natural colour’ of the modern day Poland and the effect is jarring to say the least. Avalon evokes Andrei Tarkovski’s Solyaris and Krystof Kieslowski’s Blue (from his Trois Couleurs Trilogy) over the course of Ash’s quest to find the nature of her game/existence. How many genre pictures can do that?
Mr. Nobody
Has quantum physics and romantic fantasy ever been successfully combined in a large-scale science fiction epic? It has now. The arrow of time points supposedly forward, but it is thorny and messy and vague (with more choice and tangent universes than Donnie Darko). The resulting film is delightfully confusing, sublime and above all else visually impressive. Writer director Jaco Van Dormael is clearly a fan of Vonnegut, but he manages to drop in a whimsy and lovey-dovey warmth as well. Following the death-bed recollections of Nemo. the last mortal man on earth, we soon learn that the brain is a mysterious beast. Nemo seems to recall several significant decisions in his life he may or may not have actually made, yet he remembers all the outcomes. Which one is real? Which one is a dream? Does it matter? The perception is in the pudding, and the final climax of Mr. Nobody proves there is always one more divinely perverse trick up the universes sleeve. What if?
Battle Royale
At the dawn of the millennium, the nation collapsed. At 15% unemployment, 10 million were out of work, 800,000 students boycotted school. The adults lost confidence, and fearing the youth, eventually passed the ‘Millennium Educational Reform Act.’ That is the opening text crawl for a film that has a class of Japanese school kids, ages 16 to 17, slaughter each other against their will on the anxieties and fear of revolution against the totalitarian government. They are forced to kill each, via randomly assigned weapons distributed at the start of the ‘game,’ until there is only one student standing. This student will become some sort of celebrity (the film is never clear on this) which acts as a symbol of will of the country (like breaking a horse) on the uprising youth, while also, providing some sort of entertainment outlet for the masses. During the ‘contest,’ the crucible of the high-school experience: Self-discovery, cliquism etc. are captured here, is amplified by the high-stakes of the situation. With Uzi’s and cross bows, things are elevated up to levels of serious ultra-violence. The kind of gauche visuals (kids killing each other) that science fiction stands best to carry out (see the films of Paul Verhoeven, particularly Starship Troopers.) The gory onslaught plays out as part melodrama, the other part black comedy, part action-adventure. It is a tricky balancing of tone which gleefully posts the kill numbers and remaining students while simultaneously building character and perhaps motivation beyond the trials of youth.
Symbol
Perhaps the most baffling film on this list (and that is certainly saying something,) Hitoshi Matsumoto’s farce on both the human and the divine condition sees the painfully awkward birth of God in the form of the director himself in pastel pajamas trapped in a white room with baby-cherub penises as the only potential form of escape. In the meantime, an impoverished Mexican family prepares for a low-rent luchador match. How the twain shall meet? Recalling Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker novels, Matsumoto’s take on life, the universe and everything is spiritually absurd, but also telling of many of the human contradictions, desires and motivations. You can be a good person or bad, and be punished or rewarded for either. Perhaps Symbol, despite its high amount of sight gags and silly laughs, is the most depressing film on this list. We’re all going to hell in a hand-basket because some clown pushed the wrong button just for kicks.
Blindness
A prestige co-production from several countries, a adaptation of a Pulitzer prize winning novel, and a high-profile international cast, Blindness certainly aims to play as high-brow filmmaking. It is a disaster film, where an unexplained Blindness (again, big fat metaphor) takes over the population and there are the obligatory scenes of society collapsing, deserted and trash strewn streets and the various accouterments that accompany these types of tales. The anarchy that allows for men to indulge their evil side because nobody is watching (made very much literal in this case) is an interesting (and rather unique) on the rights of privilege. This is clear early on in the film as it indicates the privileges of the rich Japanese couple contrasted with the petty thief and a prostitute. You see it in the doctor (an optometrist, naturally!) and his wife and the dynamics of their relationship. He is the career driven man, calm and the focus of the relationship; she is not too responsible for much housewife. Their dinner at home and how the conversation and the texture of their interaction reflects this. When the blindness epidemic hits you see the evolution of these privileges amongst these characters and the palette gets richer in the ecosystem of the quarantine cell. The entrance in particular of a man born-blind character who becomes an accountant/adviser of the all-male ward lead by a violent thug. This privilege (a more proficient blind man) enables the ward to prey off of the more benevolent and mixed ward being lead by a more committee approach and the good Doctor. Of course, our heroine, (a superb Julianne Moore) who can actually see, uses her position of privilege to help in subtle ways to allow for the democratic approach the group enjoys. It’s not till the kinder ward is overtly and drastically threatened that Moore begins to assert her significant perquisite to declare all out war in the quarantined zone and later lead the surviving members into the wide and smashed world. The surviving members get to reform a semblance of civilization not because they are better or more moral than the other parties, but rather this privileged few and their Queen (she who possess sight) are given an exemption from falling back down to the animal-state only from the privileged (all seeing) leader.
Wall E
We can all agree that the first half of Pixar’s WallE is the stronger part, both in terms of visuals and overall establishment of its science fiction tale, but when our hero arrives to greet the last vestige of humanity on a far-flung cruise ship, there is some solid social commentary about American pop culture. Government take-over by big box stores, privatization and consumer detritus have made life on earth forfeit. That all is left is a single garbage handling unit (and the cockroaches, natch). Mountains of garbage and dust-clouds seem to cover the planet and its non-human survivors. The story kicks in when another robot drops in from outer space on a surveying mission and provides ‘the last sentient being on earth’ with some desperately needed companionship. The plot arrives when WallE finds a plant, for which the possibilities and significance are lost on him, but not his new-found ‘lover.’ Pixar throws a loaded cannon ball across the bow of the mother corporation for making the hermetically sealed Disneyland (happy ignorance) and the endless merchandising of instantaneously disposable plastic toys (happy meal) be the destruction of the planet, and (over the process of 700 years) turning people into immobile slugs. Underscored triply by the last vestige of civilization blissfully ignorant on a pandering paradise of a cruise ship, every whim indulged with zero (actually, negative) progress as the result. And get this, the ship is called Axiom, where Wikipedia tells me, ‘is a proposition considered to be self evident.’
The Road
The iconic image of a charcoal horizon and two small figures, parent and child, pushing a cart of few, precious belongings through the snow is a powerful one. This is drama and struggle boiled down to the essence and only slightly, sparsely contrasted by warm moments at night in front of a low fire. Perhaps the polar opposite of most films of this type, (apocalyptic disaster) where the night is much more dangerous, here it is someone spotting you during the day that is the biggest danger, beyond starvation. Human encounters are the key danger which punctuate a journey to ‘the coast.’ A quest which hopefully has some sort of sanctuary for the emaciated duo. Alternating between the full blown horror of people butchering other people for food, to lone travelers that shuffle forward only because that is the only thing left to do. How each of these two encounters play out shows the poetry of The Road. The father wants his young son to be able to defend and fend for himself, but also (and perhaps more importantly) he needs to protect his son’s innocence as it is the only thing left keeping him from turning into one of the lost, blank foot shufflers. Even the suicide of his wife (cameo flashbacks feature a grave but gorgeous matron opting for the group suicide option many chose as the world went into its rocky slide into savagery in slow motion) is made bearable by the survival of his sons innocence and will to live. His flame. It is tough to watch The Road without comparisons to its slightly more affecting source novel, but there is still a exemplary film on offer here. A minimalist science fiction film that focuses on family and hope in the face of the collapse of society. See also Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf, the films are remarkably similar.
Donnie Darko
Time Travel. Coming of Age. The End of the World. Richard Kelly is well known in his over-ambition. But when the studio forced him to trim down his debut film to the bone, it created a mysterious and elliptical mythology. One of the first and most significant cult films of the new millennium it crossed into the mainstream, endured a backlash and a dreadful ‘fully restored’ directors cut. Nevertheless, any film that has its characters go to a pre-Halloween double bill of Evil Dead and The Last Temptation of Christ, debate Graham Green, expose the sexualization of pre-teens via popular culture, discuss smurf genitalia and have Patrick Swayze as an empowerment guru is doing something wonderful. The film has been read as a Christ allegory, an examination of determinism, and a nostalgic 1980s fantasy. Scott Tobias, of the Onion A.V. Club says it even better: “A dense and wonderfully stylized amalgam of genres and influences, Donnie Darko resists any clear definition, which is perhaps its most appealing quality. Is it the flip side of Blue Velvet, a blistering satire of Reagan-warped suburbia? Or is it an anarchic, Fight Club-style punk film about the impulse to tear down a corrupt world in order to build a new one? Is it mind-bending science fiction? An adolescent romance? Catcher In The Rye?” It is all of those things. It doesn’t tell, it evokes. More movies, both science fiction and otherwise could take a lesson from this so-called mess of a film.
AEON Flux
I believe the director of Aeon Flux, Karyn Kusama, and her screenwriters did aim to move past the super-cool action extravaganza promised by its blockbuster mandate and into science fiction head-space (shades of the Matrix, which no doubt was in large part inspired by the original Aeon Flux cartoon series). She is somewhat successful here, riffing on the Crichton/Spielberg “Life will find a way,” Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four and the body modification of William Gibson’s Neuromancer. The end result is a fizzy and brightly coloured bubblegum version of its influences, but many of the images are memorable and the passion and misguided intentions of people to ‘evolve’ are dealt with in an interesting (if rather expository) way. It may be one of the weaker entries on this very solid list, but do be tempted to write this off (as it was at the time) as another post-Best-Actress Oscar disaster, a la Cat Woman.
Splice
With David Cronenberg’s recent efforts moving towards more traditional narratives, his last explicitly icky exercise in social science fiction coming in at the tale end of the 20th century with eXistenZ, it is a good thing we have Vincenzo Natali to pick up the (eye)ball and run with it. His science experiment, elegantly named Splice pushes the merging of genetic materials where mainstream hit The Fly left off. Wherein the anxieties of the 1980s, The fear of STDs (after all, the merging of Seth Brundle and an exterior ‘bug’ and the body decaying in a very explicit fashion) are updated to post-millennial parenting pressures. The number of social and medical choices which stress out the anxieties of expecting parents is one of the interesting paths that Splice unexpectedly wanders down. When two prominent geneticists start combining human and animal DNA on the side of their pharmaceutical research grant, their ‘baby’ proves to be as challenging as it is fascinating. It rapidly matures through a lot of physical changes, leaving the emotional and mental side of things rather left in the dust. Science and technology, say hello to the human race!
The Sky Crawlers
The world of The Sky Crawlers is a social and geographical fusion of 1950s America, Japan and Western Europe that favours propeller styled fighter planes along with satellite television, large multinational corporations and genetic science. While it is a time of apparent peace and prosperity, the large corporations conduct ‘real wars’ (mostly over the border ocean zones), televised of course, to placate any unrest or rebellion from the masses. Contrary to Orwell’s “1984″, where London is a perpetual war wreck and society fragmented and controlled, Oshii (and the writer of the original novel, Mori Hiroshi) postulate that for the most part, this ‘perpetual war’ has actually benefited society. Wars and equally importantly, all the social problems of an idyll, purposeless populace, involving real people can be avoided if they are fought in a fully manufactured way which has ‘real consequence’ built into the equation. The fighter pilots that fight for their parent corporations are of a genetically modified race who never age, fittingly called Kildren. Set in state of perpetual adolescence, they live to fight and pilot the fighter planes, and die for the entertainment and attention of the worlds citizens. The fact that this race is immortal otherwise, only ups the ante and the dramatic spectacle of flaming angels falling from the sky from the fantastic machines. “Somewhere, in a country similar to ours There are children who do not become adults. They are very similar to us.” The Sky Crawlers is Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game melded to Kazuo Ishiguro’s with Never Let Me Go and it is bloody good science fiction for those with a little patience.
Southland Tales
Richard Kelly, with his sophomore film, upped the ambition of the narrative, the politics, the kitsch imagery, and the religious noodling which made him a cult sensation with Donnie Darko to a pitch that deafens the all important humanity (which was a significant key to making Darko a hit) out of the equation. Maybe that is his point, but much like Mike Judge’s Idiocracy, if you have a film which requires a world populated by crass imbeciles, you may just have shot yourself in the foot. Phillip K. Dick had to good sense to keep his people human, even as they were being slowly digested by the machine. In short, the writer/director’s insistence on keeping things messy makes it awful hard to keep any honest-to-goodness emotion (thus, interest) on the table. To say the narrative lacks focus, is an understatement of the highest order. So in the end, we are left with a zesty enterprise, signifying nothing other than the fact that US is going to hell in a hand-basket. Only in such a miasma of media saturation could a movie like Southland Tales be even possible. It is a bitter pill and we don’t have to like it, but there is no denying that it is a product of our times. I’m still waiting on that energy drink though – The Rock tells me that it is mighty tasty (its the electrolytes); but then who is to trust a schizophrenic movie star with political ties.
A.I.
I actually rather loathe the execution of Steven Spielberg’s overly ambitious, but ultimately flawed science fiction drama. A blunt screenplay and some fairly clumsy narrative contrivances (not to mention the painfully obvious Pinocchio moments) mar what is otherwise an interesting tale of how parents value their biological children, to the point of wishful self-indulgence. When given the opportunity to replace their sick and in cryo-stasis child with an artificial surrogate, two clueless and shallow parents are left with a number of difficult decisions, and consistently choose the easy wrong path. Thus, audience empathy is (more or less) transferred to the robot who is on the verge of transcending into sentience. Spielberg throws in his usual whimsy, and also some over-indulgent action set-pieces before an awkwardly grafted on conclusion says something halfway between trite and vague. I am not saying that Kubrick would have handled this material any better, but there is something interesting at the core of this film struggling and ultimately failing to get out.
Now, bring on Never Let Me Go, Looper, A Topiary and Inception, three of brightest candidates as we push into the next decade. I am sure there are more on offering as science fiction filmmaking continues to break new and interesting ground in this still young century.
Before anyone beats on me, I already regret the omission of both Kurosawa’s PULSE and Tsukamoto’s NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE. Something about J-Horror and its connection to technology could potentially put another half a dozen films onto this list.
I will add:
Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.
Timecrimes
The Experiment
I will also add:
2046
Big Man Japan.
I struggled with 2046, because ultimately the sci-fi trappings are a fictional element of the storytellers imagination, it’s really a romanticized relationship drama, or more specifically a wong kar wai film.
By the same rational, I would not consider The Road, 28 weeks later (maybe), and Time of Wolf. Not all post-apocalypse are science fiction.
Blurry line, but those films do deal with the morality of the situation. I guess a case could be made for TimeCrimes, although I believe that film was mostly clever plot mechanics and didn’t seriously delve into THE WHY or the difficult questions of WHY. The Road, Time of the Wolf and 28 Weeks do dig into things much more deeply.
Never Let Me Go is my most anticipated movie of the year, closely followed by Inception. Will Looper be coming out in 2010?
Looper is doubtful, I believe Johnson is still seeking funding for the project. But I remain hopeful nonetheless.
Great choice with Mr. Nobody! Favorite film I saw last year – I hope it gets a US distributor soon (or at all!).
Also, much rewatch Code 46. I think I confuse it with the other Robbins movie, Catch a Fire. But Code 46 has an awesome soundtrack composed and performed all by “Free Association.” It’s a good listen.
I’d also throw Man From Earth into this ring. No jet packs, no time machines, no ray guns, no outer space. Just some people sitting around talking about “what if…”
Maybe my favorite screenplay of the past few years.
Some interesting choices – personally I didn’t like Code 46 back when I saw it in the theatre, but I did sleep through about 10 mins of it (it was hot and I was finding the film quite dull). I don’t hold 28 Weeks Later in as high regard as everyone else seems to round here either, but I did just inherit a copy so it’s time for a rewatch. I’d avoided films like Southland Tales and Aeon Flux due to poor reviews, but maybe I should check them out after all too.
Of course everything is subjective when it comes to taste, but I happened to think that Aeon Flux was unfairly maligned. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s not as brain-dead as the Resident Evil Series, and it certainly did not warrant comparisons to Cat Woman, which I recall (both leading ladies were following up their Oscar Wins, which I suspect was the source of the comparison….but still unwarranted)
The majority of that list reads like “Marina’s Weekend Getaway of Awesomeness.” What this means? The few films on the list I haven’t seen (all three of them) are now must sees. Nice call on AVALON too.
I happened to think that Aeon Flux was unfairly maligned. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s not as brain-dead as the Resident Evil Series
Okay, I’ll give Aeon Flux a watch, despite its alarming lack of Milla Jovovich.
…And that particular DVD release of AEON Flux has almost a Criterion level cover. Very pretty.
Kidding aside, this is a great list, and I’m definitely going to check out the ones I haven’t seen (a lot of the Japanese ones, plus the 2009 festival ones). I’m such a fan of cerebral sci-fi, for want of a better term; sometimes I want to go through and relabel all the mainstream/blockbuster type sci-fi as action or adventure, because that’s what they really are. So far my attempts to do that even with my friends have been unsuccessful.
Excellent list, Kurt. Lots of my favorite sci-fis are on here (Children of Men, A Scanner Darkly, Battle Royale, The Fountain), as are many that I really need to catch up on. This list will serve as a nice reminder/guide for the next little bit.
I’d personally add The Clone Returns Home, a gorgeous, Tarkovsky-like Japanese flick that was made in 2008.
I have yet to catch CLONE, but I remember the stills and a trailer for it, and I was very intrigued. “Tarkovsky-Like” always gets my attention.
On Symbol, you forgot to mention its video-game like qualities that really make the film pop from the screen. I don’t think I would call it depressing exactly (though I see where you’re going with that), but it certainly makes for a lot more thoughtful presentation than one might think based on the description and the first 3/4 or so of the film.
Yeah, a lot of these are definitely worthy. I was ready to argue that you missed Wall-E… but you got it. Good job guys!!! There are a lot of great ones on this list, but I have to say Children of Men stands out of the pack, its just so real.
I may be missing something here, but i would think that The Matrix deserves a spot on this list too. Call me a cliched mainstreamer, but The Matrix made sci-fi cool again right?
I would also like to add the following to the list:
Being John Malkovich
Cloverfield
Gattaca (A MUST)
and Monster’s Inc.
Lucas N–the Matrix and Gattaca come out in the 90s. However, the Animatrix could count.
Very surprisingly I remember REALLY liking The Animatrix. The stories were awesome and the imagery was way cooler (and diverse) than I had anticipated.
Well The Matrix Reloaded would also count, which happens to be my favorite of the series, and I think Kurt’s as well? I guess maybe not, since it’s not on here. Definitely could be.
Kurt– You should check out Oshii’s Angel’s Egg. It is an insane, surreal, art house anime film. It makes David Lynch look like Ron Howard.
Good Call, Henrik. Totally forgot that that series spilled into the new Millenium, and yea, #2 is my favourite in the series.
Henrik and Kurt, since you guys are in the minority, can you explain why #2 is your favorite of the series? Personally, I did not hate Reloaded, but I can not praise the film, since all it does is set up the next film. To me, it follows the same pattern as the original Star Wars trilogy: where the second film does a good job in setting up the shitty, final chapter. However, unlike in Star Wars, the first chapter is superior to the second chapter.
My rankings:
The Matrix>The Animatrix>>>>Reloaded>>>>>Revolution
For the Reloaded, I do enjoy the car chase in the freeway.
I do believe that the first one is going to age the best, since the sequels used more unnecessary CGI. The final battle in Revolutions is simply unwatchable.
Henrik and Kurt, since you guys are in the minority, can you explain why #2 is your favorite of the series?
Because Kurt likes movies that are a total mess and Henrik likes being a contrarian.
Matrix 2 is alright. Agreed with Antho, the car chase is pretty awesome and there are some interesting characters. This is a series that should’ve just stayed at one and let us think about that. Anyone who says #3 is their favorite is lying. That has to be one of the worst movies of the decade.
Also, Return of the Jedi is not “shitty.”
The whole Matrix trilogy works as a trilogy (watched all back to back, and including The Animatrix and Enter the Matrix if possible), but the first one is the only one that I think is good on it’s own. And I don’t just mean it’s the only one that’s self-contained, though that is true; the others, to me, aren’t really that good as films, but I appreciate where they took the story in the context of the trilogy. There are a lot of moments and scenes in Reloaded that are great, though.
Jandy– Instead of the watching the whole franchise, I rather watch Ghost in the Shell, Dark City, The Matrix, and The Animatrix back to back. After all, the original The Matrix borrows a lot from Dark City and Ghost in the Shell.
Would anyone else consider Man from Earth to be sci-fi? I think it draws a fine line, but I would say it is sci-fi before any other genre.
Oh its easily sci-fi.
To Gamble: “Nothing is more exhilarating that pointing out the shortcomings in others.”
To Antho: Why I enjoyed 2 more than one. The first one has a very saggy, rather all over the place 1st act, particularly the ‘total-recall-homing-device’ segment, it is also learning how to show the bullet time and other gravity defying visuals, which are at times a little clunky. Much like the technical improvements between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back (which are night and day), all was brought up to the ‘envisioned’ level with #2. Lastly the first one with it’s ‘if you love me you will come back’ between Neo and Trinity was a bit grating for me. Almost killed the proposition with that big fat cliche (See also Ron Howard’s FAR & AWAY, the worst offender of that….ever!)
I also really adored all the ‘mysteries’ that were set up in part 2, more than the first one, there is a sense that anything is possible thematically and plotwise. I’m a firm believer that anticipation is always better than pay-off, and Matrix 2 is a lesson in anticipation. Unfortunately, Part three took the easy-overkill route (the Christ imagery, the huge battle, etc.)
Lastly, I was quite taken by the visual representation of back programming metaphors -> The Back Door, the set of keys, the chocolate cake orgasm, even the dreaded rave sequence attempted to get at a uni-racial underground future, and the melding of Trinity Neo (both of the characters as androgynous as they come — as an aside, why was Tilda Swinton never cast in these films!!) was both Gigerian and Cronenbergian and a wonderful image. I think visually (and yea, the lobby to the 18-wheeler 20+ minute sequence is one of the action best set pieces, like…ever!) Matrix 2 is the best of the bunch. The Merovingian and Monica Bellucci were both wonderful additions to the series).
For a long time I would defend the TEMPLE OF DOOM as the best Indiana Jones movie (i’m over that one, Raiders is the best), and the only star wars movie that I truly love is THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, so I guess I just like middle chapters in a trilogy (Godfather Pt. II excepted, but someone mentioned to me an angle of GF2 that I’d like revisit that one. Also LotR excepted, because the pretty much did it all in Fellowship and the continuing chapters got worse (if only slightly) with each entry, I expect the Hobbit to be decidedly mediocre, even with GdT direting).
Formula for continuing story telling (not upping the bar) trilogies
Part 1 – Test the tools, intro characters.
Part 2 – Take the storytelling or narrative action to the peak.
Part 3 – Wrap Up, become repititive.
External Parts (Prequels, 2nd Generation, etc.) – Diminishing returns, or lose the spirit of original trilogy by being stuck with continuity or formula)
Kurt– Though Reloaded had pretty impressive aspects, it is not above the original. The reason being that the original ends up satisfactory ending (maybe because it was not intended to be a trilogy). Reloaded would of been great if Revolutions was not awful. With its cliffhanger and mystery set ups, Reloaded is connect to Revolutions– unlike the original.
As I said, anticipation can be more rewarding than closure, I’d argue completely opposite to you above statement, Antho, the open-endedness, the potential is actually part of what makes RELOADED great. See also, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
And here I thought I was in the minority for my love of all 4 matrix films. I agree that #1 is likely to age better than the rest but I love all three equaly. As for The Animatrix – all sorts of awesome.
@Antho42 – Angel’s Egg being added to the watch list. At this point, I’m thinking it would be safe to simply add Oshii’s entire back catalog to my watch list.
@Kurt
I firmly believe in a ruling class, mainly because I rule.
Matt, I do not appreciate your ruse (your cunning attempt to trick me!)
By all accounts Kurt, it sounds like, by your rationale, that you might really enjoy Iron Man 2 in that case. Mamo and FJ both said exactly that – it’s full of plot and no action. It’s the definition of a middle chapter.
I’d hardly say that Empire Strikes Back, Temple of Doom or Matrix II have “NO ACTION” – I’d not call any of these films boring, which seems to be the chief descriptor when people talk about Iron Man II.
So I deftly dodge your snarky riposte!
I didn’t say “boring,” just very plot driven. Lots of narrative and set up. I haven’t seen the movie (the first one was banal enough), but only going with what you’ve said and what they’ve said, it seems to fit the formula.
The Mamo! guys liked the movie, but they basically said it’s the quintessential middle chapter.
Empire and Temple of Doom are both pretty low on the action side, Empire especially. Of course Empire devotes almost the entire first half hour to one extended chase sequence, but after that their is next to nothing.
Iron Man 2 is probably pretty comparable to the action in Temple of Doom, which really only has three sequences itself. And Temple, when directly compared to Raiders, certainly can be nit picked for its lack of action sequences. Honestly Temple is probably a pretty apt comparison to Iron Man 2.
I used to claim Temple as my favorite as well. There might not be much action in the first half, but whoa daddy is the second half full of it! Pretty much anything after Indy drinking the blood is nonstop action…
Short Round escapes
Indy almost pulls Willie’s heart out until Shorty burns him
they fight their way out of the main temple area
save the children
fist fight with huge guy while simultaneously being stuck with voodoo pins
shorty fights/burns prince
mine car/roller coaster ride
runs away from tidal wave
entire sequence on bridge
sequence on collapsed bridge
That entire thing has got to be close to an hour long and is absolutely non stop. But as I’ve grown older I think Raiders is easily my favorite.
As for SW, I know I’m in the huge minority of fans that has Empire ranked third in the trilogy in terms of enjoyment. Cloud City and Dagobah still mostly bore me (comparatively speaking). But it’s funny, I rewatched a good chunk of it over the weekend and then Jay was talking about it on FJ and mentioned the cinematography. The camera work and cinematography of Empire is absolutely stellar. They way the camera moves in the Falcon while they are trapped in “the cave” is fantastically chaotic without being annoying shaky cam. There are several instances in which I noticed for the first time how great that movie is in terms of composition and direction.
Actually, as I think about it, Raiders action is actually pretty subdued. I know it’s a fine line, but I would call it more adventure than action. A lot of sneaking around, but not much high-octane action (which is what the 2nd half of Temple does). Raiders has only three action sequences (opening cave, fight with big guy, truck chase). The rest of it is simply Indy being Indy (digging, looking for clues, sneaking around desert, hiding on a boat, sneaking around a submarine, threatening Belloch, keeping his eyes closed in fear while tied to a pole).
The snake pit might be called action, but its more of just a harrowing situation than true action.
I do love me some Temple of Doom.
I don’t know what you’re on Andrew, but the last time I saw Raiders it reminded me of LXG with Sean Connery, because the last 60 minutes or so was basically just one set-piece after another, to the point of giving me a headache. There’s tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of action in that movie.
I like Matrix 2 the best because the music and effects are better than in the first one, and the third one is extremely boring. I mean, I watch something like The Matrix to see the action scenes, I don’t really care if it’s properly told and if the sequences are paced in a certain way and all that textbook stuff, it doesn’t matter as much if the action scenes are awesome, and I think the 10.000 Smiths fight and the highway scene are amazing.
Other than the three examples I gave, Henrik, which scenes are you referring to that have so much action? If my memory serves, here is approximately the last 60 minutes of Raiders (right after the truck chase scene):
Indy and Marion are introduced to pirates.
Marion and Sallah kiss.
Sallah sings a song and kisses crewman. Everyone laugh, haha.
Indy and Marion get on the boat.
They kiss.
Crate with Ark magically burns swastika off of itself. God kicks ass.
Marion is taken hostage, Indy hides in a pipe.
Indy swims across the ocean and boards a sub – everyone cheers, triumphant music.
A red line on a map goes somewhere.
Indy gets somewhere and steals a uniform, bumps shoulders with Belloch… heh.
They trek through the desert.
Indy threatens to blow up the Ark. Belloch calls his bluff, nothing happens.
Indy and Marion are tied to a pole while ghosts kill everyone (sequence lasts about 90 seconds).
They go back to America. Fucking bureaucrats, “they don’t know what they’ve got there”
Giant Warehouse.
End credits.
Indy and Marion spawn, creating Shia LeBeouf.
So where is the tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of action? I’m not being sarcastic or facetious, maybe I’m forgetting something?
And I’m not saying it’s boring. NOT AT ALL. I love that movie. But what I like about it is how it’s more like a mystery and adventure and it’s about the characters and how fucking cool they are. I like the supernatural element, though we don’t really see it until the end. Great movie.
I do want to sound like a troll, but after seeing recently for the first time– I did not like Raider of Last Ark. Like Goonies and Red Dawn, it felt like movie that can only be enjoyed if you grow up with the film for nostalgia to cloud your viewing. I agree with Henrik: the film was basically a set piece after another. The movie had little comedy(apart from the quick pistol victory) or substance. It felt like watching a video game.
I guess my opinion of Raiders of last Ark stems from my believe that actions film are the genre that age the worse, since usually they have little else substance besides the eye candy. For instance, I do not enjoy the first Die Hard and Hard Boiled. That is also why I prefer Alien over Aliens(I do like the film), since Alien appears to be timeless while Aliens is clearly an 80′s action film ( with the cheesy, macho dialogue).
Notice how everything you have described is actions. Little-to-no dialogue, no character development, no story, it’s just actions. I can’t remember the movie as well as you, but the point where I was about to give up was after a big action set piece on an airfield, indy immediatly gets a horse and starts chasing and fighting tanks. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way it just reminded me that the setup in the beginning is gone from the end of the movie, where it just was action-action-action, and I kind of liked the beginning, the history lesson being the best part of the movie for me.
If you don’t count a scene like the Snake Pit as an action scene though, your way of understanding movies is a hell of a lot different than mine. An ‘action’ scene, is a scene that is composed of actions – as opposed to dialogue. The snake pit is about the action of doing what he is supposed to do down there (I forget).
Most Hollywood movies have much less dialogue in the final third of the movie compared to either the first or second third. Certainly this has been the case since Jaws re-wrote the blockbuster.
I did not hate Raiders of the Last Ark; instead, I was simply indifferent to Raiders of the Last Ark. To me, it feels like the 1980′s version of Iron Man ( another film that I felt indifferent towards). When Raiders of the last Ark came out, many grown ups or cinephiles probably felt indifferent towards the film like many though with Iron Man today. Twenty years from now, people,who grew up with Iron Man, will probably treat the film in the same manner that Raiders of the Last Ark is treated due to nostalgia. Look at the young generation: they do not care about Indiana Jones. Heck, I believe that it is hard to remove oneself from completely from nostalgia in certain film. I was born in 1989, my nostalgia films range from Jurassic Park to Face Off.
I seen Raiders of the Last Ark and Die Hard with a group of friends that did not grew up in the 1980s. Almost no one like the two films. It is not like they do not like old movies, since the group do lots of 1980′s films( Blade Runner, Aliens, Terminator, and etc).
“Most Hollywood movies have much less dialogue in the final third of the movie compared to either the first or second third. Certainly this has been the case since Jaws re-wrote the blockbuster.”
Do you have a point?
Blasting Raiders of the Lost Ark because it is all hustle and bustle and little character building or plot in the final third is a pretty trite argument. That is my point, I guess.
” It is not like they do not like old movies, since the group do lots of 1980’s films( Blade Runner, Aliens, Terminator, and etc).”
Yikes that statement makes me feel old. I cannot really think of 1980s movies as old. Old for me is the 1920′s ’30s and ’40s. Heck I don’t even think of most Hitchcock films as truly ‘old.’ And yea, I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theatres on its original release, twice.
Well, I wouldn’t say I was blasting it Kurt, I was reacting to Andrew saying it didn’t have a lot of action in it. I disagreed enough to take the bait I guess.
There are some movies that I would are all hustle and bustle in the third act that manage not to bore me and give me a headache. I think I would agree that action doesn’t age well, but it’s not just that, it’s the underdeveloped characters as well that just make it seem like one set-piece after another. I mean something like Avatar has a much more developed main character and a far more interesting conflict – which people hold against it I guess, saying it promises too much and should just have nazis instead of pretending the bad guys have motives – but I think I can bear over with that gripe more easily than the gripe of just not developing anything and riding horses, flying planes and crashing tanks.
I think you are missing the main point of Indiana Jones. It’s the American (movie) way of thinking: “Do the right thing, at all costs, and who cares about all the collateral damage!” That is the spirit of the final act in Indiana Jones.
Personally, I do not count the 1980s as being old, since I grew up with Mexican satellite; however, most young people think that anything outside the 1990s (2000s in some cases) is old. For me, anything before 1960s is old: simply due to the acting style.
Ahh, Pre-Method Acting?
I think Peter Jackson’s KING KONG took a lot of extra flack because he had the actors go back to that older style of acting. Personally, it made the movie for me. Underrated, that remake.
Soderbergh’s fantastic The Good German is another excellent example of new millennium, pre-method acting.
“Do the right thing, at all costs, and who cares about all the collateral damage!”
Are you talking about Transformers or Iron Man?
Most comic book movies follow this mentality. Indiana Jones movies as well. Loads of buddy cop movies. A huge chunk of American Blockbusters. And they stay PG or PG-13 rated because most of the carnage is anonymous and off screen.
It certainly enabled the gag on the Austin Powers special edition where the film would cut away to some of the collateral damage anonymous extras, give them a back story (about what they were doing that evening or whatnot) then annihilate them in seconds. Good Joke, that – but perhaps too lengthy and it got cut from the theatrical cut of the film.
Kurt- There something wrong with your avatar.
Dunno what’s up with that?
Wouldn’t the collateral damage in Indy be Nazis, therefore justified?
I can’t figure out how what you said refers to what I said, let alone shows that I somehow missed the main point of the movie…
sorry, whats the difference between pre-method acting and bad acting if taken out of its original historical context? I remember some people bitching about the acting in Avatar, how is that not a throwback in the same way as King Kong? I appreciate when acting is stylized according to what the film is aiming to do, but I feel there are some here that would take a part a film, and look at acting separate from the aims of the film, and be critical without context.
That said, there is a lot I don’t like about pre-method acting even though they belong within a historical milieu. The comedic delivery in something like Bringing Up Baby has not aged well.
Shane Carruth, please make another movie, you are awesome.
Equilibrium?
Excellent article and I do like the sequel hailing / bashing match in the comments afterwards.
One note concerning Oshii though: “Avalon” was his fourth live-action film, not his first.
The first three are “Red Spectacles”, it’s sequel-of-sorts “Stray Dog: Kerberos Panzer Cops” (interestingly with “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade” being a prequel-of-sorts), and finally the utterly daft “Talking Head”.
Heh. You let in the Twitch writers, particularly an OSHII expert like Vijn and they expose your ignorance! I must admit it is the only live action Oshii film that I’ve seen were the previous film features or OVAs?
Recently, I seen Tetsuo: The Iron Man and The Fly (1986)… I realize that I miss practical effects in Science Fiction/horror. By the way, along with the films Following and Pi, Tetsuo shows that low budget films look better in raw black/white format.
Kurt– any other Shinya Tsukamoto’s films that I should watch?
Absolutely. VITAL was my favourite film of 2004 (http://kurtscomment.blogspot.com/2005/01/kurts-top-10-of-2004.html), I don’t know if there is actually a Region One DVD of that one. The other one I very highly recommend is A Snake of June, very, very good film. Really, you cannot go wrong with Tsukamoto (Nightmare Detective Bullet Ballet, Tokyo Fist – all good!), Although I hear Tetsuo 3 is not good (sadly!) Never saw Haze or Hiruko the Goblin though, so I don’t know one way or the other on those.
Most people know Tsukamoto from the more gonzo Tetsuo films, but there is a lot more to the filmmaker. I also recommend Tom Mes’ book “IRON MAN – The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto” it’s a solid and breezy read.
This whole ‘ the world is neither black nor white ‘ shit, is so goddamned EMO….
@Once and For All?
My sarcasm meter is busted, did you seriously call me Emo? ha! HA! Melodramatic and confessional, I most certainly am not!
This is as close as I get to EMO:
I just got emailed from one of the companies that sends me screeners and they’re releasing an all guns blazing Blu-Ray of Donnie Darko complete with the director’s cut and original version. Can’t wait to revisit that in High Def.
I have never gotten the fascination with D Darko. I mean I get that it’s kind of cool and very deep and interesting, but I really find most of it rather boring and confounding. With the endless discussions about the movie, it seems like that should be enough to get me interested, but I’ve seen the movie three times now and just feel the same after each viewing: malaise.
A few comments back re: avatars (Gravatars actually), they operate by corresponding your email address you enter with your gravatar.com account. If you type in a different email address or misspell it, your pic won’t show up. Kurt used his Twitch email for the comment with no picture. FIX: either edit the comment with rowthree email, or go to Gravatar.com and make sure both emails are registered with them.
Carry on.
After seeing for the first time, I agree with Andrew on Donnie Darko. Although, I did not find it boring, I simply found to be a complete mess. It felt like a gothic kid trying to duplicate the tone of Blue Velvet. I still found it to be entertaining;but, Donnie Darko is far from being a great film.
Great list and kudos for including such great poster art for each film.
I would include Sleep Dealer and The Box (because, god, if Southland Tales is here then The Box should be).
Wow, just noticed that Kurt and Rowthree are quoted in the official trailer for Skycrawlers.
Somehow, my review is used for the DVD on YesAsia under the heading “Professional Review” which always makes me giggle a bit.
http://www.yesasia.com/us/sky-crawlers-us-version/1014533132-0-0-0-en/info.html (scroll down)
don’t worry Kurt if you think you may have left out Dante 01, probably cause you haven’t seen it i’m guessing, its very much like Sunshine which it is far inferior, though also like Alien 3, more me better than that film, though in my opinion that ain’t saying much.
Agree. Dante 01 is great. I wasn’t sure on first viewing, but it ages well.
i just don’t agree with aeon flux being there – at least not in this version…the original episodes from the ’90s trump any recent interpretations
“Sunshine” proves that Hollywood can make real sci fi and entertain immensely in the process. “Children of Men” and “District 9″ however prove that Hollywood probably for the foreseeable future will remain a tool of propagandist and social engineers……………..
first of all what they write about solaris is bullshit, Lem himslef called the movie a remake of the Trakovski movie, and said it was about an alien enouter nout about love in space. and sunshie? Badly writen and with a flat plot aimed at an ignoratn and braod audiance
I don’t disagree that the Soderbergh film is a remake of the Tarkovsky film, what it most interesting about the remake is that it takes the one aspect of the Tarkovsky film (the relationship) which completely fails, and makes it the centerpiece of the film. Just because it is not the ‘literal’ version of the novel, doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not it is a good film. I think the issue of ‘otherness’ and a being composed completely out of your memory and perception is a very interesting (and here very well executed) hard-sci concept.
The ‘stay in reality’ vs. go into the planets energy is very William Gibson, far from Lem, but nevertheless still interesting sci-fi even in 2005, 25 years after Neuromancer and 6 years after The Matrix.
And the first half of Sunshine is excellent, nuts-and-bolts space travel stuff, not guns and battles, just a small diverse crew trying to run a ship and make good decisions. The second half of Sunshine, when it gets all spiritual and ‘FACE OF GOD’ is actually even stronger. Sure it can be watched and enjoyed by a broad audience as a science fiction thriller (in the same vein as EVENT HORIZON, actually) but there is more to it than that. And I cannot think of a more gorgeous (and full of wonder) science fiction film in the last 10 years. SUNSHINE is one of the best looking, at 1/50th of the budget of the Star Wars Prequels, new Star Trek movie, or War of the Worlds.
Amen, Kurt! Sorry for re-opening this old thread, but Sunshine is in my top 10 all-time and I get annoyed by everyone writing off the second half. To me, the second half is what elevates the movie from very good to truly great!
And of course Solaris is awesome as well.
The Matrix Reloaded is much better then people give it credit for, if only for the freeway chase and the Merovingian scene.
Now, if I can just get you to reconsider the first Underworld . . .
Eden Log, Immortel, One Point O… kinda unusual approach to SF classics
Unfortunately Eden Log is too obtuse, and completely unwilling to engage in any form of humanity (oddly enough, I think this, the ability to be flawed, empathic, compassionate, etc. well into the future to be a major strength of science fiction – from Code 46 to Children of Men to Moon. In short, Eden log was set design first, everything else second.
Immortel is so bloody cheeseball and goofy, I couldn’t get into it. It doesn’t have much to say, and it says it in the same way as Luc Besson’s dreadful ’5th Element’ Not a fan of that one personally.
I have yet to see Dante01, One Point O, Cargo, or The Clone Returns Home, and probably a few others. Thanks for passing these suggestions along as a reminder to get watching them!
I want to see S. Lem’s ONE as well as that Kenyan riff on THX1138, called PUMZI
Dante 01 moves along the road with Sunshine, then surpasses it, just for the sake of surpassing (and to make the point of the movie, of course). I would like to express my disagreement in regard of Eden Log, because I see that film as a bleak and rather dark vision of humanity’s fututr. But, it is just my opinion. The positive thing is, though, that EL will catch you, one way or another (either you will like it, or hate it). I guess, in your case is the second option. Immortel is just a play with futuristic images, so typical for Enki Bilal (his other movies are dystopiangly bleak). And, do not watch Stanislaw Lem. Read it! (OK, I am Polish, so it really helps to know the language, most of the translations are plainly awful). Sorry abusing your space, have to go to an endless party. Everybody’s invited!
Opinion are always welcome Arthur, Don’t Panic.
Now I want to go rewatch The Fifth Element for the umpteenth time and post incessantly about it just to annoy Kurt. But I won’t. Because I’m at work and can’t.
I’m only ragging on 5th Element because it is a total mess, and the ‘all you need is love’ is so asynchronous with the wacky visuals, weird character turns from Gary Oldman and Chris Tucker (whose performance I actually LIKE in this film). No, the film looks satisfyingly weird, but plays out so damn clunky an awkward, looks like the film was more or less lost in the editing room. Other than the wacky production design, I’ve never understood why this film has a cult following.
@Kurt – ’cause it’s a mess of awesome proportions that is soooo cheesy and fun one can’t help but have fun watching it. At least that’s how I feel about it. <3
What Marina said. I don’t know that I’d ever call it “good,” but it’s so much damn fun to watch. I don’t care for the second half as much, though. And I’m not a big fan of the Chris Tucker parts. So each scene is kind of hit or miss with me, I guess, but there are enough scenes I think are awesome that I put up with the ones that I don’t care for.
Plus, MOOLTI-PASS!
I think too many people confusing “Good” with “A Goofy Lark” -> There are certainly some exceptions – Big Trouble in Little China, The Quick and The Dead, Braindead.
I found The 5th Element, oddly enough, took itself too damn seriously. Weird, but true.
Thanks so much for the list (and all the suggestions); Netflix has almost all of them and I will be making the most of the postal system. I just recently watched Sunshine and found that I liked the cinemaphotography and strangely, the music.
I disliked District-9 (too many obvious political statements…) but will re-watch it (mostly because the wife loved it and I love that she’s a nerd/geek too) in the hopes that it ages well. Cheers,…
Also, would anybody recommend ‘The Sky has Fallen’? It sounds promising…
I saw many of these and agree with many (Paprika, omg). But I take issue with Southland Tales. The most sophomoric of all sophomore films. I found it without a single redeeming factor. I also disagree with 28 Weeks Later. The first (28 Days) was fresh and new and scary. The sequel (28 Weeks) was naught but a tired retread.
One thing that would help this list is the addition of what year the films were made, or by whom. There are several films called ‘Blindness’ on Netflix, but none of them has the same cover art as the Blindness you include here.
*and* I would have to add Brazil to this list. Have to.
What about existenZ?
I don’t want to be negative, but I disagree with including Splice on your list. I get why you liked it, but it’s just a bad movie that really brings nothing new to the table.
Well, the list is Films of the 21st century, so obviously Brazil was in the 1980s and doesn’t qualify (and eXistenZ is 1999, and bloody awesome, but yea, wrong century!), if this list were to go back a century, there would be a ridiculous number of titles.
Blindness is directed by Fernando Meirelles and stars Juliannne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. That isn’t the DVD cover art, but rather the wonderful Japanese Poster. Much of the artwork included above are the poster or DVD jacket that most struck my eye, not simply the R1 release artwork. In fact the Aeon Flux one is actually fan-made, but far far better than anything put out by the studio.
On Southland tales, if you want some ‘redeeming’ ideas to think about, check out my review of the film where I somewhat defend it. It’s no masterpiece, but far more chew on than your average sci-fi shoot ‘em up. http://www.rowthree.com/2008/03/19/extended-thoughts-southland-tales/
I noticed recently the SUNSHINE soundtrack popped up in the trailer for the ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, and it seemed oddly appropriate there. Surprising, but yea, the music in Sunshine is WONDERFULLY GOOD.
fuckin awesome
I don’t think Pandorum or 12 Monkeys were mentioned. Most everything else worth watching in this genre seems to have been hit upon.
Uhh… Of course several of these movies contain social commentary. The whole point of this list is that the best SF makes you think. Children of Men is based on the book of the same name. If you feel it is politically charged, then perhaps the issues are even more timely. Philip K. Dick wrote A Scanner Darkly specifically to comment on drugs after losing several friends to them. Neill Blomkamp wrote District 9 with aliens treated almost exactly like blacks in his native South Africa during apartheid. Watchmen was strong political commentary when the graphic novel was released. Think about the whole point of the plot.
If you try to apply a movie too narrowly to one hot button issue, you are missing the point. They challenge you through hypothetical situations to re-examine the world.
Does Blade Runner tell you treating sentient AIs different from humans is wrong? No. But it does challenge you to examine where that line is. The best movies illuminate a lot of gray area as food for thought.
Your list is amazing! I watched most of those movies, but those I haven’t heard of I wrote down and will watch them as soon as I can. My absolute favorites are Mr. Nobody, Sunshine, District 9, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Donnie Darko and The Fountain. However, I have to say that Paprika wasn’t all that interesting to me. A good premise but sometimes it just felt awkward (and not the good kind). I haven’t checked your whole website out but you should (in case you haven’t) make a movie list about “philosophical” movies. For example, I truly recommend “Waking Life” to you, well to everyone who takes the time to read this comment.
There are some that I think could have been left off this list to make way for some better films.
For instance, I think that “The Man From Earth” written by Jerome Bixby, was bar none one of the best movies to come out in the last 10 years. It had no flashy special effects. Was shot in one location, and had a relatively low budget. But you get the excellent actors (Tony Todd was AMAZING) with that Fantastic script, “hypothetically” talking about an immortal man and how he would survive from caveman times to the present day, and you have the intelligent masterpiece worthy of the highest honor.
I also think that films such as “Ink” (though that may be too “Fantasy”), “Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel”, and as much as I hate to admit it, “Vanilla Sky”, would’ve been welcome additions.
There are certainly some that deserve to be on here such as The Fountain (My favorite movie of all time), Donnie Darko, and Moon, but could have done without crap films like “Æon Flux” and “Watchmen” (what a sellout that film was).
And thank you for warning everyone about “Southland Tales”. I went in with high hopes, as it was from Kelly, but sat though the whole two hours of it getting a headache and screaming out “WTF?!” every ten minutes. The ending was cool (visually), but in no way was justified by the prior 110 minutes. Showed that the Rock is an AMAZING actor, though: Those affectations he had as he went more crazy were brilliant.
Hey, we both agree 150% on Man from Earth.
Ink is good too for what it does visually, but not sure if I’d prop it all that high in the best Sci-fi of the aughties.
And interesting you mention Vanilla Sky. I think it’s at least worthy of discussion in the sci-fi realm. I think it is unfairly shat upon and believe it’s equal to, if not better than, its original counterpart, Abre los Ojos (the “j” is pronounced with an “H” sound, Kurt).
Side note:
Kurt, I was looking through the comments and wanted to point out something about what you said earlier-
“For a long time I would defend the TEMPLE OF DOOM as the best Indiana Jones movie (I’m over that one, Raiders is the best)…so I guess I just like middle chapters in a trilogy…”
Since “Raiders” is actually set (chronologically in-universe) after “Temple of Doom”, that comment still holds water I think. Odd to bring up, but I just love to blow people’s minds (non-Indy UberFans, of course) with the fact that “IJ:ToD” is actually a prequel, instead of a sequel…
I think you are splitting hairs on this one though JYH3. It may be chronologically a prequel, but it plays very much like a sequel.
Yea, I left Vanilla Sky off the list because Abre is both a better film (for the most part) and was a product of the 1990s.
Although Amenebar’s AGORA is a worthy entry, even if it is more of a sword and sandals flick, the philosophy of science (and religion) on display certainly puts it in the spirit of this list. Highly recommended, nevertheless.
The one I wrestle with is “Children of Men,” I was really excited when this movie came out. There were some great moments like when they hear the child cry and the whole damn thing stops. It was so powerful. Yet at the same time the movie never felt finished or started for that matter, I think that might be because we knew the whole story before we walked into theaters. Yet at the same time, I think that total confusion is necessary, as well as a very empty feeling considering the plot. It’s one of those movies…
Any how, great list you have given me something to watch this summer.
couldn’t be bothered reading all the comments so apologies if this has been mentioned but gibson wrote a book called neuromancer. Necromancy is something very different. Also sunshine is one of the very worst films i have ever seen.
This was actually an excellent list of sci-fi movies. Most “top sci-fi movies” lists leave me severely disappointed. Of the 30, I’ve seen about 20 of them and loved most of those ones. I’ve written the last 10 down and am already working on tracking them down. Excellent list, thank you!!
Obviously the author has yet to see “Six String Samauri”
Not to speak for Kurt, but Six-String Samurai is 1998, and this post is limited to films post-2000.
All of our wonderful new readers and commentators seem to be missing that fact, eh, Jandy?
I’d suggest you put a disclaimer at the top, but I mean, it’s in the title, so…. Not knocking all the new readers and commenters, though – very glad to see this post continuing to get the attention it deserves! Added a batch of films from it to my Netflix queue just yesterday – though I’m going through non-Instant Watch titles a lot slower these days, so who knows when I’ll actually get to them.
What about Pandorum? I know it got dreadful reviews but i found it to be a really good film. Also definitely like your choice of the Road, although the book certainly drew to ones emotions more than the movie. Great List though!
Hey Kurt, as has already been said numerous times- Great list! Just wondering what your thoughts about Equilibrium being on this list are.
As soon as I wrote this I saw the previous comment.. Disregard ^^
Kurt, not just a great list but great reviewing. Thank you for taking the time to bring intelligent writing to the Internet wilderness.
Chris F., As to Kurt Wimmer’s EQUILIBRIUM, it’s stylish goofy fun, but really just a facile pastiche of better science fiction influences (Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Matrix, THX1138). It’s not on the list for the same reason that Michael Bay’s THE ISLAND (a similar not-too-brainy pastiche) is not on the list.
I think people give EQULIBRIUM more credit than it deserves because the Weinstein’s and Miramax all but buried the film on its initial release, that and things like GunKata, the fine near-A list cast (Emily Watson, Sean Bean, Christian Bale) and that made those who ‘discovered’ it think it was far better than it actually is – a serviceable B-flick with more brawn than brains.
Another vote here for The Man from Earth.
“Fans of their respective franchise may cry foul on the lack of Star Trek or Serenity, but really those films are about the characters and plots and not really about the loftier ideals of science fiction.”
Star Trek practically invented science fiction, and has spent four decades defining the loftier goals of it, you jackass!
Well, first off, I’m knocking J.J. Abrams and the Transformer writers version of Star Trek, the one that came out in 2009. There is no science fiction in it at all. But while we are on the subject, Gene Roddenberry’s original pitch of Star Trek the TV Show was “Wagon Train” in space, more of a western than hard-sci fi. But the show did end up dealing with lots of interesting technology, moral, etc. questions and that is great. Ditto with other incarnations of the show. The new one is an action adventure movie with the primary focus on SPEED and CHARACTER where everyone REACTS and SHOUTS. Considered moral or ethical implications of Red Matter or the destruction of entire planets are untouched. There are no ‘loftier ideals of science fiction’ – and to be frank, I’m not sure if those that occurred in the original series were an accident (but they are there and that is why the show has endured so well, it found the balance of action, character, and science fiction to be pretty good. The new 2009 reboot leaves out the final component, probably the result of a generation who thinks that Star Wars high adventure is science fiction.
Also, your statement of star trek inventing science fiction, well, I think Jules Verne, Mary Shelly, Edwin Abbott, H.G. Wells, Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C. Clark, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, Hell, even AMAZING STORIES pulp-magazine might get a little credit for getting Science Fiction to where it was before Mr. Roddenberry came along.
You may call me a jackass, but really, who is the ignorant troll in this equation?
What Kurt said.
Hammerhead.
Hey! What’s wrong with Serenity?
Holy shit what’s with the arrogance? If you read what the commenter quoted it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that Kurt was talking about all Star Trek movies (several of which came out after the year 2000 too), so chill out. And Andrew, why the heck are you all of a sudden Kurts Yes-man? Let him dig his own holes!
The list is alright, but I would have preferred something alittle more Star Trek-centric, since I like Star Trek alot, and much more than most of the movies on the list. So don’t knock a guy for trying to defend it.
Actually, only Star Trek: Nemesis, the last sequel before the reboot, came out in the post 2000. That film, to be quite frank, sucks balls. Many of the past Star Trek films, particularly parts 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7, are interesting science fiction ideas on the table, (yes even the one about the Whales) and would likely end up on an analogous 20th century list.
On SERENITY, fun film, great characters, really entertaining. But I don’t think the MIRANDA, tranquilize the population, can’t stop the signal stuff is all that critical to what the film is about. I’d hardly call Whedon’s Space-Western hard-science fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I love that movie.
Yeah, so you’ve got Nemesis and Star Trek. That’s several Star Trek movies.
I think I’m more offended that you think Star Trek: Generations is an interesting science fiction idea on the table(?), than anything on the list!
Well, yea, Star Trek Generations is debatable, and yea I was thinking mostly J.J. Abram’s Star Trek when I made this list, because it seemed to be loved so much (again more as an action picture than a sci-fi, but still, people tended to arch eyebrows when I voice my displeasure at last years ST reboot, and I felt the need to clarify why above.
There are no ‘loftier ideals of science fiction’ – and to be frank, I’m not sure if those that occurred in the original series were an accident
You go and tell Harlan Ellison that The City on the Edge of Forever is an accident. Or hell, just take this one quote about the episode:
When asked in February 26, 1992 interview whether the makers of this episode consciously intended it to have the contemporaneous anti-Vietnam-war movement as subtext, producer Robert Justman replied, “Of course we did.”
But no, Kurt thinks its all an accident.
“Fans of their respective franchise may cry foul on the lack of Star Trek or Serenity, but really those films are about the characters and plots and not really about the loftier ideals of science fiction.”
Not sure how this could be construed as shitting on the original series (since it specifically says, “films”) or talking about any of the other previous films in an article about 21st century science fiction. But you can read what you want into it Henrik.
And really, the only movies I like in the Star Trek universe are the ones created simply to entertain (and succeed). II, IV, VIII. The rest to me are pretty boring or uninspiring.
I’m sure there are plenty of star trek fanatics that can tell me if when the show as original conceived the plan was to bring in quality writers like Ellison, or if this happened by sweet awesomeness as the show went on. Again, Roddenberry pitched the show as a western adventure, I’m very happy that the original series ending up being quality science fiction. Yes it is great. I think you misunderstood me.
I think it just shows that Roddenberry was a shrewd businessman along with being a great thinker.
There are two types of sci-fi. Hard sci-fi, which Kurt is focusing on in this post, deals with the limits of science and what happens when those limits are tested. Softer sci-fi (don’t know if there’s a right word) has sci-fi trappings, like spaceships or aliens or time travel used merely as a plot device. Star Trek: TOS I think hit both types – it’s structured as a western, exploring the final frontier, but definitely deals with the ethical questions arising from the situations that ensue, many of which involve science or the application of science. Firefly is almost completely a western; if the River plotline had been allowed to play out on the show, it might’ve gotten into hard sci-fi territory, but as it is, it only flirted with it. You could argue that Serenity does finish the River storyline and gets more sci-fi-y, but all the beats of the film are emotionally tied to the characters, and the science part seems secondary. I don’t actually remember most of the Miranda plot; I only remember the character stuff.
I once spent a long time trying to convince friends that Star Wars isn’t science fiction, but adventure/western. I don’t think I was successful. But if you think about it, the central tenet of Star Wars isn’t science, it’s religion. There’s no science in Star Wars AT ALL. It’s only because we’ve come to associate spaceships with sci-fi that it gets classified that way, but you could have Star Wars play out exactly the same way without it being set in space. I think that’s the difference to me. Can you take the science elements or the setting away and still have essentially the same story/characters? If so, it’s not hard sci-fi. (None of that is saying anything against action or adventure sci-fi, just adding my two cents to the distinction I think Kurt is making.)
Feel free to give me counter-examples, because I know that there are films that blur this line – I find genre criticism interesting precisely because the boundaries are often quite fluid.
Thanks, Jandy for being far more articulate on the distinction than I could ever be. It’s also the dividing line between Fantasy and Science-Fiction (for me), and Star Wars is clearly in the Lord of the Rings Fantasy mold, just with space-ship, laser guns and alien trappings.
I’m sure there are plenty of star trek fanatics that can tell me if when the show as original conceived the plan was to bring in quality writers like Ellison, or if this happened by sweet awesomeness as the show went on. Again, Roddenberry pitched the show as a western adventure, I’m very happy that the original series ending up being quality science fiction. Yes it is great. I think you misunderstood me.
The City on the Edge of Forever is from the first season of the show and it was an episode that Ellison has noted for how long he had to work on it. Hard sci-fi was absolutely the original intention of the show as they hit on it from the very first episode.
And I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous as judging the actual merits of a show by its pitch to network execs. Of course the concept was dumbed down, they were talking to network execs afterall!
Also, the best Star Trek movie is easily VI. Watch it again Andrew, its freaking awesome.
You are probably right, but this whole argument is so bloody tangential to the article at hand. I am not disagreeing, merely clarifying my position very poorly. I’m a bloody Star Trek fan fer chrissakes!
(And I don’t disagree, The Undiscovered Country is the Star Trek movie I watch more than the others…it’s one of the best of the films for sure!)
It’s alright. It pales in comparison to 2 or 4 though. The whole gulag thing wasn’t interesting to me at all.
I do plan on rewatching the new Star Trek again soon.
“There’s no science in Star Wars AT ALL.”
Just because they don’t talk about it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
“I once spent a long time trying to convince friends that Star Wars isn’t science fiction, but adventure/western.”
This stuff drives me a little nuts. Is it really such a sin to refer to a film like Star Wars as sci-fi? I’ve had the same conversation (I used to work at a video game developer so OF COURSE I had this conversation) and I wanted to shoot my fucking face off. I’m all for the broad generalization of sci-fi simply to avoid conversations like this.
Here’s my thought: Suppose I’m at a Christmas dinner with the family and Star Wars comes up as being my Aunt’s favourite sci-fi film. What do I do? 1. Argue the differences between fantasy and science fiction, insist it’s actually a western and watch as the rest of the family smiles and nods awkwardly as they attempt to change the subject, or 2. Let it slide based on the fact that there are spaceships in it and you’d find it in the sci-fi section of the video store. I think the answer depends less on the definition of sci-fi and more on basic social skills. Yes, it may not be sci-fi by definition, but it’s close enough that we can at least avoid the same tired conversation over and over and over. I once made the mistake of referring to a black metal song as white metal within earshot of a metal fan. BIG MISTAKE.
The idea of comparing Star Wars to the western would require a basic generalization of the western. If a science fiction film isn’t simply a story set in space with spaceships, then a western isn’t simply a story set in the west with horses. The defining characteristics of a Western (aside from the setting) might be the exploration and settlement of new frontiers and the idea of the industrialized world being right around the corner. It’s an uncivil society forced into civility and codes of honour versus the law. There are just as many sub-genres to the western as there are for science fiction, and to claim that Star Wars falls under all of them is false. I’m not digging for an argument on what makes a western or which of the many sub-genres of the western Star Wars falls under. I’m simply saying that even by your standards, it’s easier to call a western and a western. If anything, with all of the Nazi references, I would say it’s just as easy to say Star Wars is a war film (Where Eagles Dare anyone?).
How often do you hear this conversation:
a: “Tombstone is my favourite western!”
b: “Tombstone isn’t a western!! It’s a adventure/sci-fi film!”
a: “But it doesn’t have any spaceships. They ride horses.”
b: “SIGH. It has western trappings, like horses or Indians or stagecoaches, used merely as a plot device. It’s only because we’ve come to associate cowboys and horses with westerns that it gets classified that way, but you could have Tombstone play out exactly the same way without it being set in the west.”
I argue Tombstone be shelved in the sci-fi section of local video stores.
Where does that conversation leave you? Yes, it’s proof that many genres share the same basic storytelling elements. It’s also proof that genre’s can be quite complex and contain many sub-genres. It’s also proof that when a story contains archetypes that are fairly universal, you can plug it into practically ANY genre. The easiest defining characteristic is the setting. In this case, space.
Seems to me a lot of this might come from high brow science fiction writers who don’t want to dirty up their genre. The same line of thinking as when The Silence of the Lambs was called a thriller in order to avoid the Oscars tarnishing their reputation by honouring a horror film.
Nothing’s perfect, but my position here was to talk about the science fiction of ideas, the simple-go-to category is ‘hard science-fiction’ which I think most folks will not part J.J. Abram’s Star Trek or any of the Star Wars films into that category. End of story.
These categories and filing are for short-hand, but yea, I agree that they can get a lot of people caught up in a lot of semantics.
And yea, it is a distancing effect from the dumbing down (or dirtying up) of the genre.
Setting and Genre are sticky things. I consider No Country For Old Men, and A History of Violence (and OUTLAND) to be solid westerns, even though none of them take place in the 19th century, two of them not in the west. Your mileage may vary. But yea, everyone has different definitions of these things, and Jandy (god bless her) and myself are aiming to clarify this for a general audience.
Ironically enough this article is a celebration of the more cerebral and not-so-dumbed down science fiction films, but the conversation itself has quickly (as often happens on public forums in the internet) delved into exasperated and hyperbolic non-communication – i.e. arguing semantics.
Long Live PONTYPOOL. Long Live THE NEW FLESH.
Kurt, I wasn’t targeting your ‘hard sci-fi’ distinction for this article. I obviously see the difference between Star Wars and Primer. I just hate the idea of lambasting people for casually referring to Star Wars as science fiction. As you said, these categories are for short-hand. I’m more interested in talking about the films themselves rather than the sub-category they might fall under. Even the most casual film fan will recognize a difference between Star Wars and The Fountain without having to create a sub-genre category tell them so.
Heh, in my experience, many people (film people included) often don’t even know the definition of the word “GENRE”, but yea, that is OK, if people are willing to talk about the films.
The hope with this list was to provide my own barometer of taste on what is quality HARD-SCI-FI (with a few exceptions) and for those who agree with many of the choices to get the chance to look at some of the other choices.
(or of course, suggest to me on a few of the hard-er sci-fi film of the past 10 years that I may have missed).
Jay, I agree with you, it’s not a distinction that matters most of the time. In the situation you describe with the family dinner, yes, Star Wars is sci-fi. I didn’t elaborate, but in the discussion I mentioned, I was talking with a bunch of genre geeks, and I was trying to make a fine distinction among a specific group of people who are all major sci-fi fans, but weren’t very academic or discriminating about it. Which is fine, but I was working through genre theory texts at that point I think, and I was interested in seeing how far I could push the discussion with them. I enjoy arguing the semantics of it, personally – it’s fun for me regardless of the final outcome of the discussion – but I accept that not everyone does, and that’s fine. I have no problem with people “casually referring to Star Wars as science fiction,” I was trying to elaborate the criteria behind what types of movies are included in this list and what types aren’t. That seems appropriate, since this post isn’t casually referring to films as sci-fi, it has a specific type of sci-fi film in mind.
Also, I do find that westerns are my biggest stumbling block in trying to apply the same logic I apply to sci-fi to other genres. With your Tombstone example, though, I could see arguing that Tombstone is a drama or adventure with Western trappings, but I’m not sure how you’d argue for sci-fi. :p Although in my own DVD collection, which I organize by genre, I tend not to separate Westerns out, but put them in with either Action/Adventure or Drama. Yet, I do separate out sci-fi/fantasy, and I put Star Wars in it. So, there you go. I am inconsistent.
“With your Tombstone example, though, I could see arguing that Tombstone is a drama or adventure with Western trappings, but I’m not sure how you’d argue for sci-fi. :p”
I agree, I wasn’t really attempting to. I was just trying to illustrate the fact that I think setting is an important defining factor in genre films. When you say Star Wars is an adventure/western, you’re attempting to shoehorn in elements of the western based solely on similar characters and plot points (all of which are based on archetypes to begin with). To me, it would make more sense if you simply said that both Star Wars and some westerns share the traits of typical adventure films. The defining difference being one is in space and one is in the old west. I understand what you’re getting at though. Just like I understand what someone is getting at when they call Star Wars science fiction.
I’m pretty sure The Empire Strikes Back could be called a Roadmovie. I wonder if anybody has written that thesis yet?
I’m pretty sure The Empire Strikes Back could be called a Roadmovie.
So could Back to the Future.
And somewhere, someone’s mind was just blown.
Is the 80′s classic Scanners a hard Sci-fi movie?
On One Point Zero (Paranoia 1). Upon the recommendation, in this thread, I decided to watch the film at Netflix Watch Instantly.
Well, the film looks gorgeous: with the cinematography looking like a cross between Se7en and Day/Nightwatch. It does borrow a bit too much on the Matrix, as well as the whole cyberpunk aesthetics. Despite the prevalence of overuse cyberpunk elements, the film remains visually interesting; it manages to transcend its low budget.
However, the film has to have some of the worst sound editing I have ever experienced from a major release. For large segments of the dialog, you struggle to hear what the actor were saying. In addition, it does not help that the acting and dialog is horrible. No matter how interesting the story or the visual are, the poor sound editing, poor dialog, and poor acting makes the film duration be an excruciating experience.
Anyways, If you still want to watch the film (after all, there are people who like films, such as Aeon Flux and Southland Tales):
http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Paranoia_1.0/70019233?trkid=921403
I’m not sure about some of this such as Sky Crawlers, I couldn’t stand that movie it might’ve had deep questions but it never felt like it went anywhere. It was so boring that I turned it off half way. The Road also had no pay off, and personally as a whole I think it was not well explained as to why this apocalypse happened, and I never found the point. Watchmen was very iffy for me, it didn’t feel like science fiction so much as a poorly done super hero film. The comic book just isn’t done justice and whatever major questions it asked were almost comical due to the fact the film makers decided they had to keep pointing out the fact there was a giant naked blue man in it.
Most others I agree with, such as Moon, which has go to be by far one of my favorite science fiction films for the classic feel of it. District 9 was also lovely, I went to see it in theaters at least twice. I never got to see all of The Fountain, I’ve always wanted to since I own the soundtrack and it’s brilliant.
great list, I would add – The Man from Earth (2007)
Cheers!
This is a great list, Code 46 it´s an incredible, and beautiful story
I will add ghost ina shell
sorry ghost in the shell
Sorry but for me the Man from earth is sooo bad..an unnatural series of stock characters with cliched attempts at humour and some sorta intellectual dialogue…and oh so bad acting…Just trying so hard to be smart and as ol Bukowski said “Dont try”.
Also many thanks too for this very interesting list, bringing much new material to light for me..cheers
Great list, there are a lot of movies on the list I haven’t seen. Guess I need to fill my Netflix list or just go down to the old fashioned movie store.
Serenity anyone? The TV series was the best and I just loved seeing the characters again. If The Road is here, then what about The Book of Eli?
I can get behind THE BOOK OF ELI. It’s solid.
sleep dealer (2008) was pretty good
cube2 hypercube
deathnote (not really hard science fiction but it’s good anyways)
the lathe of heaven
OK, I haven’t read every comment but the original ‘Bladerunner’ marries the old fashioned detective film into a very possible future. The humanity exhibited by the Rutger Huer android character and the poignancy of the memories of things seen, related just before he dies, lifts this movie into a place where there is hope for the future.
sippin_fnordies: Good call there, I’m a fan of the TV (David Strathairn starring) version of Lathe Of Heaven. It’s good, not great. But that says a lot for a syfy channel production.
Wordsmorph. 21st Century. 21st Century!
Anyone familiar with the video game Fallout series? I think it would make an awesome sci-fi/post apocalyptic movie. I heard they were trying to make a movie awhile ago, but it fell through in pre-production.
I played Fallout 2 for a little while on my buddy’s PS3. It seemed like quitethe fun game. Can’t wait to own it myself. Not sure if it would work well as a movie though.
I was a huge fan of the Broderbund game WASTELAND, of which the FALL-OUT series was a direct descendant of. I played and enjoyed the first FALL-OUT game immensely (Clancy Brown on the voice track is always a plus!)
I’d love to see them make a movie out of the original Wasteland plot, although like most video games, they’d have lots of liscence to do whatever they want and simply turn out a generic post-apocalyptic movie, ala BOOK OF ELI (which I very much enjoyed, btw, but would hardly call it ‘hard-sci-fi!’ which is the purpose of this list.)
Fallout incorporated a lot of sci-fi themes into their plot especially in Fallout 2 so I think if they did it right it could be an amazing movie. Fallout 3 was good, but I feel they did their best in storytelling for Fallout 2. BTW I found your site by using stumbleupon.com which randomly picks sites based on what you like. Very glad I found it. I have watched Children of Men and Battle Royale so far. Thanks a lot!
Chris, I hope you and the rest of the Stumble Upon legions (this has been a very popular article there this week and last) have a look around the rest of the site. We’re not just sci-fi, but quality cinema across the board, large and small, foreign and Hollywood.
Hmm, kind of an odd list, there are many excellent movies missing from it. Most people are pretty familiar with, but Gattaca, A Boy and His Dog, and The Stepford Wives really should be on the list as well. Dark City deserves honorable mention at the very least and Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes) is far better than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Once again, for the people who do not read the opening paragraph or title of this post. FILMS OF THE 21st CENTURY, The LAST 10 YEARS.
*Slaps Forehead*
Mr. Nobody blew my mind. and that’s exactly what i needed.
THANK YOU!
=)
Fabulous list! I’ve now got a number of additions to my “must see” list. Although I have to say I absolutely hated Sunshine. Almost everyone I know loved it but to me it was trite and cliche. I’m just reading The Road now and can’t wait to see how it translates to film – the book is almost like poetry. Fabulous!
That I know of there isn’t a FALLOUT movie specifically though there was a film called THE FALLOUT which has now been retitled to THE DIVIDE. A first clip dropped a few months ago and it looks badass. If anyone’s interested, it’s here:
http://www.quietearth.us/articles/2010/05/21/First-clip-for-Xavier-Gens-PA-flick-THE-DIVIDE-now-online-only-for-24-hours#extended
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is awesome!
Solaris is predictable.
Thanks for this list! Is bookmarked. Bye. Visit http://www.woqbow.com and add the list! Bye.
Where is Kubrick’s masterpiece? No sci-fi list can be complete without 2001.
which reminds me, no Wrath of Khan? Total fail.
Alan has a point though, the title of Kubrick’s film does qualify it as a 21st century film. Irrefutable, pertinent fact.
I just wanna know why there are no silent films on this list. Metropolis and The Lost World FTW!
Actually, no, Maxine. 2001 may be set in 2001, but it is reflecting ideas and whatnot from its era (late 1960s). The overall outlook, how it processes its ideas and themes (As massive an awe-reaching as they are) I think is fair to tie them to the filmmaking at the time.
Hey, I love lots of science fiction and if I were to do ‘science-fiction cinema of all time’ this list would be MASSIVE.
I can’t wait to see METROPOLIS: Extended when it shows up in my neck of the woods.
“Actually, no, Maxine. 2001 may be set in 2001, but it is reflecting ideas and whatnot from its era (late 1960s). The overall outlook, how it processes its ideas and themes (As massive an awe-reaching as they are) I think is fair to tie them to the filmmaking at the time.”
Of course, I was just kidding. I probably should have added a smiley…
As for METROPOLIS, I’ll try to buy a ticket tomorrow when the Fantasia Fest starts selling them – hope they don’t go too quickly.
That screening is going to be awesome. I wish I was in town on the 28th of July. 3000 seat venue. Full orchestra!
No one mentioned ‘Hitchhikers…….’ What a shame!
I’m actually a fan of the 2005 Hitchiker Guide flick. But it is a flat out comedy first and everything else second. Not unlike the book. But the movie washed out Adams satire in favoure of more slapstick broad material. Still fun though.
equilibrium
OK, just as we hit the 21st Century there is ‘Strange Days’ which no one seems to mention much. That movie is now almost possible. By the way, I write sci-fi amongst other weird stuff. Its on the website. http://www.wordsmorph.com
Thanks for all pretty advices. I have seen many of those movies listed and im still checking reviews and trying to see all the rest of the movies i have never seen or heard yet. First i tried The Sky Crawlers, if was a nice one, now i will try “The Host”.
As many others advice, i will not talk about this listed movies but there is one important movie i belive: “TOTAL RECALL” also should be listed here…for me this will be always a cult movie, and i heard new one will be on pictures by 2011!
SYMBOL! legendary!
by the way, The Cell would qualify would it not, also Vanilla Sky, a good film, but a remake dose disquiet it for this ‘brave-new-view’
Anybody making it down to the end of the list, first let me thank you for you patience in reading my post.
I would just like to suggest Makoto Shinkai’s ‘Voices of a distant star’. A short but truly touching study on the distance technology can create between people.
that’s an awesome list, you guys have really outdone yourselves
Time to add INCEPTION to the list, but I have to say it was not quite the 5/5 film I was expecting it to be, almost a little too polished, spit and shined to really niggle at you afterwards. It’s a magnificent construct that does all the heavy lifting for the audience. More thoughts later. Look for R3view monday morning with my full thoughts.
Aeon Flux (the movie) is crap compared to the original series. If you want to watch something that leaves your mind questioning everything then watch the original series. You will probably need to watch it several times before you completely throw out what you originally thought it was about and come up with something completely different.
I admit that the show trafficked far more in surreal imagery and kinetics. I don’t think that the movie is the series all dumbed down though. I think there are some interesting things to say about being ‘walled in’ and coddled by a totalitarian government. Fear of the unknown, and things that the show didn’t go into. I don’t think AEON FLUX the film is a dumb as people give it discredit for.
Brilliant list. I’ve been bit by bit working my way through great sci fi films, and this will help a lot.
Awesome list, but I have to take issue with the exclusion of Serenity. The whole movie is about the ethics of using science to try to “make people better”. You could look at is simply as a libertarian plot device, but I think the film had a lot to say about the (potentially horrifying) consequences of using science to alter individual destiny’s.
wow. I can’t even begin to describe how horrible a list this is.
But what absolutely drove me up the wall was THIS FUCKING LINE HERE:
“the writers actually fixed ‘the squid’ problem with the books”
The Squidy-Vagina monster from Watchmen didn’t need “fixing” because it was PART OF THE ORIGINAL BOOK. Original things don’t NEED to be “fixed” by anyone if it fits the canon of the comic. So you sir, can go die.
Love or hate Zack Snyder’s all-too-literal adaptation of WATCHMEN (a film that has actually quite grown on me over the past year and change), you have got to love the ONE STEP-OUT FROM THE SHADOW OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL decision they did made for the film. And as I said above, there is a more elegant symmetry in making the big guy named after a Bomb-Project actually be the bomb in the film (or at least blamed for it and being a huge part in its creation!).
Being obsessed with canon seems to be a uniquely fan-boy mentality, something I don’t subscribe to in my comic books and cartoons or science fiction.
I ask if n-peterson likes or dislikes Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers which not only plays very fast and loose with Heinlein’s novel, but actually inverts the meaning of it. And the result is wonderful!
spot the fanboy
“Love or hate Zack Snyder’s all-too-literal adaptation of WATCHMEN (a film that has actually quite grown on me over the past year and change), you have got to love the ONE STEP-OUT FROM THE SHADOW OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL decision they did made for the film.”
Why exactly? I much prefer the mindfuck of Alan Moore to the done-a-million-times-before of Snyder, no matter how much more logical it is.
Funnily enough I was having this same discussion with my brother last night. I did agree with Kurt that the film’s ending makes more sense, but my brother made a good similar point to Henrik that it’s Moore fucking with the readers, playing on a satirical angle by having a stab at comic books. I’m somewhere in between personally – I didn’t mind them changing it for the film, but I had no problem with the squid in the book.
Good call on Starship Troopers, that’s a great adaptation. I am partial to a bit of Heinlein, but adapting that book literally would have failed miserably.
Nearly, all of the ‘satire of comics and superhero conventions’ (which admittedly is a huge portion of Watchmen) is more or less scrubbed out of the film. The film is the film, the comic is the comic.
Yeah and the film sucks. When I watched it there was a point where I just started looking for some sort of creative thought behind anything in the movie, and I didn’t find anything.
@Henrik, Not even those wonderfully magnificent opening credits? That is one heck of a way to get a lot of exposition out of the way in a very artistic manner!
The opening credits are good because they picked the right song I think, but the images don’t stand out as particularly creative or interesting. It’s still like 3 or 4 minutes, so the amount of exposition they get in there doesn’t seem very amazing to me either. I will give the people an absolute miniscule of credit for at least putting their credits in the beginning of the movie instead of behind it, but it still opens up with that disgusting kung-fu slow motion action scene which makes no sense, so the credits don’t feel like they set the tone for the movie, it just seems like a recap of whatever Zack Snyder felt would make good images from the graphic novel.
And even then, it still doesn’t beat M. Night Shyamalans use of the song over the end credits of Lady in the Water – a place you wouldn’t expect the song to pop up (as opposed to Watchmen where it seems obvious), and where it makes sense on a much deeper level.
The Sky Crawlers? Really?
I can stand proudly behind most of the choices on this list, but to my mind, The Sky Crawlers viewed as if it were produced, directed, and written entirely by a lone angsty sixteen-year-old. And to those of you preparing the cleverly-constructed argument that I just didn’t *get* it, I offer a preemptive “Fuck you.”
Granted, the core idea of the film is juicy: cloned kids sent to fight phantom battles for a peacetime-and-bored general public; which would be awesome, if they’d actually gone anywhere with it. What the movie really boils down to is a bunch of kids bitching about their lot in life.
Oh, and about a third of the movie’s running time is comprised of extended pauses in dialogue and still scenes (no doubt intended to imply thoughtful reflection, but coming off as lazy at best and boringly pretentious at worst). The dialogue that does end up coming across is dry and uninteresting, and delivered in such muted, detached tones as to make one *glad* that the characters will eventually die gruesome, early deaths.
Yawn, pass.
I am really upset that GATACA is not on here! it is seriously the best sci-fi movie ever. it puts crap like District 9 to shame.
Trust me: It’s Gattaca (two t’s!) and it wasn’t released in the 21st century, although it is a heckuva good sci-fi
DIDNT SEE FIFTH ELEMENT, POR QUE>?
U know that there is 31 one movie title on this page presented… …not 30
OK, The title says 30 sci fi films of the 21st century…. fine, all well and good. “It does what it says on the box” – so to say. However, you could have made sure that more than half the films are ones you can watch again and get something new out of. Wall-E… seriously! It’s a sci fi in genre only, you could have made it with rabbits and achieved the same end. Watchmen!! read the graphic novel first, the film is NOT the book, 28 weeks later… well, I guess 28 days later just wasn’t good enough really but that’s an Alien vs Aliens argument. Anyway, it’s your list and it’s all personal I just had to comment…
28 days later has nothing to do with zombies. I wish people would learn that a zombie is a dead person. If you pay attn to 28 days later you find out that they have a rage virus, wich in turn stops them from eating and they starve to DEATH at the end, yes death…cause they were living prior to that.
Trust me Justin, everyone involved with this site or this post (and likely everyone commenting on the post) is well aware that they are not technically zombies in 28 Weeks/Days. We’ve review both films on the Cinecast many times and have always said that we understand they’re not technically zombies. But it’s much easier and familiar to use the term “zombie” rather than “the infected” everytime we talk about it.
Having said that, from Dictionary.com:
zombie
[ˈzɑmbi]
n. a weird and frightening person. : “Martin is practically a zombie. Doesn’t he ever go out—in the daylight?” “Britney’s getting to look like a zombie. Is she well?”
Technically, zombies were living people before Romero got his mits on them. Which is why Weekend at Burnie’s 2 is one of the greatest zombie films of all time.
There is a Weekend at Bernie’s 2? Awesome.
No. Not awesome – terribly unfunny. Gamble is on meth.
Damn you text and Irony! You shall forever be beyond communication! *SHAKES FIST!*
No, it is awesome. Nothing like corpses being reanimated by voodoo priests so they can wander around searching for buried treasure!
If we ever do that sequels podcast Weekend at Bernie’s 2 is totally in the running for my vote.
Admittedly it’s been many many years since I’ve seen it, but I remember it being terribly unfunny. The first one was gold though (at the time at least – might hate it now; dunno).
The first one is very, very, very unfunny. You want to strangle both of the leads. Halfway decent corpse humour though.
I can’t believe this post has turned into a Weekend At Bernies debate. Awesome.
I can remember enjoying the first film many years ago, but even then I thought it was stupid.
Did anyone ever see Dead Men Don’t Die? Now there was an 80′s (well, 1990) zombie comedy that everyone can enjoy! Or not….
Halfway decent corpse humour though.
What they do in the first doesn’t even compare with how ridiculous it gets in the second. He literally walks around the island all by himself. Its awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRMlvBfSBYQ
Check out Summer Wars. It’s got a little bit of a War Games or SkyNet-ish theme…
Inception!
I would really like to thank you Kurt, and everyone else who’s provided some interesting titles to hunt for, for opening up a wide new world of cinematic exploration for me.
Far too many nights have I spent trying to think of a good movie, or even genre of movie, to watch, and I feel like I’ve finally found my film province.
Also, just watched A Scanner Darkly, and just WOW, loved it!
What might you all suggest as my next choice, given my immense enjoyment of this one?
ISHIK, If you liked A SCANNER DARKLY, try Orson Welles’ THE TRIAL (1962) or John Frankenheimer’s SECONDS (1966).
I shall add Equilibrium, that is one for this list.
I would like to of seen The American Astronaut make the list. A sci-fi western musical comedy with just a hint of film noir wrapped up in a bow few could hardly conceive.
I’m a big booster of both American Astronaut and Corey McAbee (have you seen STINGRAY SAM? Also excellent!) but really the point of AA is not heady social commentary that was the focus of this list – it is more a vehicle for McAbee’s absurdist non-sequitur humour. Be that as it may, AA is delightfully re-watchable and should be seen by anyone who likes a good retro-sci-fi-musical-western-romp!
Stingray Sam was excellent! Though most likely not occuring in the same universe as AA, it was definitely a more fleshed out world thanks mainly to the wonderful narration of David Hyde Pierce.
McAbee’s work isn’t without its social commentary. Admittedly not as blatant as some of the movies in this list that’s for sure. But what commentary you can extrapolate from his work drips with relevancy. Look at whats happening with NASA budget cuts and an increase in private sector aerospace endeavors. Who knows? Maybe in a couple of decades space really will be populated by psycho roughnecks and trade federations… One can only hope!
What about the movie The Time Machine, that movie was saweeet.
“Man from the earth” definetly should be on that list.
I’m really sad that no one appeared to say anything about Sunshine! SOOOOOO good! Should also add on Doomsday. Another favorite of mine is The Signal. Not a well known movie, but worth tracking down.
Hey Good Call on The Signal. Not sure I’d put it on a top 30 list, but it’s a solid film – though if I remember correctly the final segment sort of runs out of gas. I’d love a rewatch sometime soon however – I think I may actually own it somewhere?
Sunshine is on the list though, look closer.
But you’re right, Doomsday is fucking awesome on many levels.
I’m struggling to remember the name of a film I hope someone
can help with. American, 2005ish, it’s about a guy living in a
Sims-esque computer game reality but being unaware of it,
despite the glowing icons above people’s heads.
Beginning to think I’ve dreamed it myself.
D.
Darren, That sounds like the Red-Carpet on the Oscars broadcast 2 years ago….
Jandy, go over and check out TWITCH, for a bit of an ode to Ms. Jovovich and her Mooooooolti-PASS.
http://twitchfilm.net/featured/2010/09/milla-jovovich-is-ready-for-her-extreme-close-up-mr-demille.php
Oh, Kurt. You know just how to get me to click on links, don’t you? :p And thank you. That was awesome. And this statement: “And no matter how crappy her movies may or may not be, I still love to see her do it.” <– That. Yes.
andrew, i saw it on the list, but not anything in the comments. and yeah, the 3rd transmission did leave me kind of upset & wanting more. but if you haven’t, you should totally watch the extra transmissions in the special features. there’s like 3 little short stories.
finalboss I’ll definitely check it out. Keep watching RowThree over the next few days for a contest partially involving The Signal.
Just before Christmas, I should have a full 2000-2010 addendum onto this post. Yea, I know that is 11 years and not 10, but sue me, it’s been a DAMN fine decade for sci-fi, and I might as well be completist. Might even check out MAN FROM EARTH prior as well. Should be nice to be complete on this, the most popular ROWTHREE post ever.
I still need to see The Clone Returns Home and Summer Wars.
Anytime a film is describe as being Tarkovsky-like, it automatically becomes a must see.
Well. Never Let Me go is pared down significantly from the novel, but still a mighty fine success.
Antho, you want tarkovsky-like, only far more deliciously absurd. Check out Fabrice Du Welz’s CALVAIRE. It’s a treat.
Spoilers– Children of Men: Why do people (specifically Kurt) hate the ending? It doesn’t commit the Spielberg syndrome, at all. In my opinion, the ending remains ambiguous. We never know for certain whether Clive Owen’s characters dies; we never know if the ship is from the secret, scientific research team. Heck, in a Spielberg film, we have would have met the research team. Even if it was the them, the film is ambiguous regarding their true motives; they can be as bad the British government.
After re-listening to episode 26 — seriously Kurt — you think that 12 monkeys is better than Children of Men. I love 12 monkeys, but it has far more flaws than Children of Men. Just look at the ending of 12 Monkeys. At face value it is the perfect ending… but after reading and listening to Terry Gilliam’s interpretation, his seem to have missed the point completely!
The movie, CHILDREN OF MEN, would have been a better ending if it was just the two of them alone in the boat in the fog, hopeful but desparate and out of options. It is the correct thematic ending for the film (in my book) Instead they go with the OK, but a bit too pat and a bit too hopeful ending, **SPOILER** convenient showing up of boat just as Owen’s character dies. I still love the film. I’ve softened on my hate for the ending, but it still remains a missed opportunity for me.
Why not BOOK OF ELI? That should clearly be on here.
There will be an update of this post sometime in January 2011 that considers many of the suggestions above, as well as films that have been released (or caught at festivals) since the publication of this post! Thanks all!
Great list dude! I have seen most of these, but there a re few I’m definitely going to try out. Cheers for the list once again.
Just saw Time of the Wolf… wow! Very, very similar to the novel, The Road. I really want to see a zombie film done in this approach.
This has to be the best dystopian movie list Ive ever came across google and I am a dystopian movie fan id have to say thanks a lot for posting all these movie ive seen most of them but learned new ones i havent seen yet. Also I must add “GHOST IN A SHELL” is a damn perfect example of subjects such as cloning, artificial intelligence, and subjective morality. The cyborgh characters even discussed philosphical conversations of th implications their technology has (in the movie). I would also like to add “EQUILIBRIUM” and V for Vendetta.
To Jasmine,
uhm the Book of Eli sucks, there are so many factors that are strange about that movie like why are these people fighting for the last book insead of fighting to survive in an apocalypse are they stupid? and who the hell is Eli really? The movie didnt really show much backround about him other than hes the protector of the book that saves humanity, and that the corrupt government offical wants? It just doesnt make sense. Not very realistic to me. Therefore doesnt deserve to be on this list although i still respect Denzel Washington as an actor.
Actually, I really kinda liked The BOOK of Eli, actually, I really liked it. If Aeon Flux has a place on the list, I think that The Book of Eli merits a spot. Power of Religion and the printed word combined with Tom Waits bartering for KFC napkins is pretty swell, actually.
FWIW, I find Equilibrium far more ‘offensive’ in being obvious.
Yeah not sure how you can love Equilibrium and hate on Book of Eli. BoE is mostly just genre-fare fun, but the lust for power is why everyone is “fighting for the last book.” In the right hands that book would not only guarantee survival, but also most likely fame, fortune and power. It’s also a slightly interesting commentary on the strangle hold religion has on some sects of all cultures.
…plus the gun fight at the abandoned house was technical wizardry at its most awesome.
speaking of that awesome shot in the house. Michael Gambon and his wife done up in American Gothic but rocking out to Gangster Rap was surreal…maybe this was better handled with Michael Caine in Children of Men, but I still dug that Gambon had a solid cameo here.
My Book of Eli review in the R3 archives: http://www.rowthree.com/2010/01/18/review-the-book-of-eli/
really? equilibrium isnt on here??
What about Pandorum??
Sorry not to see THX1138 on the list.
Absolutely amazing. Still people would don’t understand the difference between the 20th and the 21st Century. At this rate there will never be a 22nd Century.
What? No Total Recall?!?
I am, of course, kidding. I did actually read the title of the list (21st Century!). Great list! I’ve seen some but not near enough.
Just for fun I would mention Galaxy Quest. Obviously not a “hard sci-fi” but it’s the best sci-fi spoof (that has its own story) I’ve seen! And I do love Alan Rickman’s character.
What about Repo:the Genetic Opera?
It is well documented by loathing of the incompetence behind REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA. It’s not a sci-fi, it’s a wank-off of the highest order!
Repo could’ve been good. But holy crap was it not.
Spirited away?
THX 1138….
2001: A Space Odyssey????
Gattica?????
Matrix???
1984????
I’ll agree on the first three till the end of time. Don’t think I’ve seen 1984 though.
All of these films are fantastic, but none of them were made in “THE 21st CENTURY” which is the title of this post.”
People still have trouble reading this post…they just react (And it is GATTACA by the way, the title (in particular, the lettering, is meant to also be a play on DNA sequencing.) Ah well. It’s FILMS OF THE new century.
Spirited Away, is an interesting choice… I’m not 100% how appropriate it is, but a fascinating movie about an ‘Alice in wonderland’ type culture and a girl finding her place/confidence on her own….
You should list the Original SOLARIS von A, Tarkovskij here. The remake is not hat good… and D.Cronenberg´s ExistenZ should be here too…
I weep for the world.
I’m not sure if the Internet needs to go back to school for reading comprehension or history – maybe people don’t know how centuries work?
What about “The Matrix”, it is one of the best Science fiction films..!!
However, it is not one of the best science fiction films of the 21st century.
great list! I’m excited to watch the movies listed that i haven’t already seen. just a note Kurt you listed William Gibson’s book as “Necromancer” his book was titled “Neuromancer” it was mention twice in the comments before but you didn’t respond to either of them so i figured I’d let you know.
Ryan. Thanks for pointing that out. It has been fixed. I’m chalking the mistake up to spell-check, although it was likely my own idiocy!
Watchman? seriously? “gets rid of the squid PROBLEM”???? that movie was one of the worst adaptations of book to film in the history of mankind. the only thing getting rid of that monster did was make the plot line of the whole thing make no sense at all. the comedian was a hardened man who killed a pregnant woman in Vietnam along with countless others, so why in the world would he go insane if he simply found a list with peoples names that got cancer? he wouldn’t and then the whole mystery goes to hell and your left with no plot. i was excited about this list until i read that. I’m a fan of the book and the movie made me physically ill.
P.S.- the book of Eli was an absolute abortion of a film and I’m glad it wasn’t on this shoddy list.
Reasonable.
While Zack Snyder often gets the tone of things wrong. I still believe that the connection to dr. Manhattan being the cardinal threat (i.e nuclear war) that through fear, uncertainty and doubt ultimately bestows peace (if only momentarily – the truth shall set us into the old slaveries! Good old Rorschach!) is far more symmetrical, thematically than the squid. Sure, the squid underscores the arbitraryness of the fickle human herd, but in terms of storytelling, (and what is Watchmen if not a commentary on storytelling?) the movie does the book one better on that specific account. Say what you will about Snyder’s own slavishness to Moore and Gibbons’ panels with an occasional tin ear, that was a spiffy turn, and even flawed, Warchmen, the movie, is a great piece of science fiction
Of course I do not have a deep emotional or nostalgic tie to the comicbook, this may or may be the case with yourself.
Kurt, it was all handle better in the comic book. The film is too Zack Snyderish. He ends up making the superheros cool, which is contradictory to point of the story. You always complain about modern blockbusters being glossy — Watchmen is, like the rest of Snyder’s filmography, ultra glossy.
Kurt, it will be awesome if you did an article on the top science fiction films from the 1990′s.
Some good nominees:
Abre los Ojos
12 Monkeys
The Matrix
Gattaca
Dark City
Existenz
Total Recall
Pedrator 2
PI
Alien 3
Delicatessen
Starship Troopers
Ghost in the Shell
Memoirs
I keep meaning to fully update this post with some 2010 scifi entries. But a 1990s post is an equally worthy endeavor.
On Snyder, google my review of suckerpunch and you will find that I do not disagree with you on this filmmaker’s needless, often distracting gloss. But I would be lying if I said that Watchmen (the theatrical cut) hasn’t grown on me over time and subsequent viewings.
I never considered myself a sci fi fan, yet I find several films on Kurt’s list that I really love. ‘Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind’ is one of my all time favourites, I love the notion of being able to erase someone from your memory. My favourite line ‘Are we like couples you see in restaurants? Are we the dining dead?’.
I also love ‘District 9′, awesome film! The allegorical aspects to the South African situation really made this film a tear jerker for me. ‘Donnie Darko’, also another favourite, it’s cryptic, mysterious and though I’ve never quite been able to fathom what it’s really trying to say I find it haunting. ‘The Prestige’ was also a brilliant film. ‘The Road’ dragged a bit for me, but on the whole I didn’t mind it.
I haven’t seen the other films on Kurt’s list, but I’m going to make an effort to try to get to see some of them. For it seems that despite believing I wasn’t into sci-fi….I actually am.
Antho42 I like the list of 1990s films you suggest for Kurt to consider for an article. ‘Delicatessen’ now that was a cool film! Though, I couldn’t get into ‘The City of Lost Children’ 1995 also directed by Jean Pierre-Jeunet.
’12 Monkeys’, ‘Alien 3′, ‘Predator 2′, ‘Total Recall’ and ‘Gattaca’, loved them all!
Mmmm….so I’ve been a sci fi fan all along it seems and never realized it. It actually took seeing all these films titles in Kurt’s list and your list and realizing how many I loved to make the penny drop.
Some of the more obscure Science Fiction titles of the 1990s, for those to track down:
The Sticky Fingers of Time (overshadowed by Aronofsky’s equally low-budget and smart pi which grabbed all the Sundance buzz that year) , Cube (Inventive Canadian puzzle-movie), Until The End of the World & The End of Violence (Wim Wenders sci-fi-ish doublebill), and Alexandre Aja’s debut film featuring a very young Marion Cotillard: Furia.
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I might be able to make a 30 list with the 1990s, but it clearly was not the standout decade for smart scifi that the new millennium has been. Props on Gattaca, 12 Monkeys and the wonderful but very underrated eXistenZ amongst others mentioned above, Antho.
‘Cube’ 1 was a great film, though the residual of the trilogy left me a bit a cold. Awesome concept overall, especially for an almost one location kind of production. ‘Cube’ feels like a less elaborate pre-cursor to ‘Saw’. Both travelling down the ‘same vein’ so to speak, though ‘Saw’ appears to me at least to leave sci fi behind and move purely into ‘horror’.
Akira is one i would put on this list
The Man from Earth– Mindblowing. Quite possibly the best film ever dealing with immortal. It looks like shit, has an awful soundtrack, and the acting is somewhat tolerable — but the film is still awesome. It fully deserves the 8.0 rating on IMDB.
It’s available on Netflix Watch Instantly.
You are SO right antho42 – It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I’ve seen it like 5 times and every time I watch it I want the Q&A to go on forever. The script is amazing.
I wouldn’t mind a remake, though. Richard Linklater would be a great choice.
I don’t get why people favor 28 weeks over 28 days? It’s just a bad attempt to sequel Danny Boyles master piece. 28 days evokes so many feeling and sets such an intense mood while 28 weeks does nothing of the sort!
Thanks for the list.
I love you all.
I saw 2046 for the first time. Screw the haters( e.g., Matt Gamble), WKW is one of the world’s best living directors!
I love the science fiction segment. Although it is has a retro style to it, it is a rather unique (perhaps timeless) vision of the future. Plus it a neccassary component the film’s thesis.
I am looking forward to seeing The Grandmasters!
I have no idea to this day how anyone can say that the Watchmen movie ‘fixed’ the ending. If anything it sapped ALL of the weight, tension, audacity, insanity, hopelessness of the scene. I hate saying that people don’t get things but this is one of those cases.
Rick:
Try thinking outside the comic-book canon of things. Sure Snyder may have made Night Owl II, SSII, and others ‘cooler and more kick-ass’ than the comic book’s tone warranted, and that is probably the chief flaw of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen. But I easily stand by that thematically, Dr Manhattan as the omniscient/ominous FUD threat instead of Aliens/GiantSquid is more thematically sound/interesting. Works for me.
My problems don’t stem entirely from a comic/movie place.
Dr. Manhattan makes the attack no longer come from the Unknown it makes it come from a US Super Weapon. The fact that it appears to explode in the worlds face doesn’t change its ties to America, it seems like the blame would still be placed back on his handlers especially in such a paranoid time. It doesn’t click in my head that it would lead to the unity portrayed.
My other problem is the movie sterilizes the event in only showing the explosions and not the aftermath at ground level to really force down what occured. I mean the film is rated R and full of blood in the wrong places but the one place where it works to show the blood it totally chickens out and that pissed me off.
I prefer the movie ending to the comic, even if all I feel like saying about it is that it just feels right to me.
“But I easily stand by that thematically, Dr Manhattan as the omniscient/ominous FUD threat instead of Aliens/GiantSquid is more thematically sound/interesting.”
“I prefer the movie ending to the comic, even if all I feel like saying about it is that it just feels right to me.”
You guys… The movie made a seemingly logical choice, obviously the Alan Moore idea at the end of Watchmen would go above audiences head all over the world, but to say it’s better? It’s a watered-down version, that kind of makes sense if only you make sure the movie ends 10 minutes later.
The comic book ‘squid’ is such a horrifying and perversely creative idea of what would constitute an alien, and in particular, an alien attack. It’s the work of somebody who is not only a genius (talking about Ozymandias here) on the surface, and able to decipher a pretty obvious political situation, but also a creative genius. Truly somebody to be feared, in the movie he ends up just being another bond villain. You might say it works for the movie, and works for movies in generel, but I honestly think any thinking person would get a shitton more out of the ending of the comic book than the movie. Even just on the surface, viewing the death and destruction as a human being rather than through a computer screen, but delving deeper is actually possible in the comic, in the movie it’s just an excuse to end the movie with an explosion.
What exactly is a shitton?
A shitty button… or a shit-ton
“I’ve got a shit-ton of work to do” – make sense?
I was never sure if a shit-ton was supposed to indicate even more than a ton, or just that the ton of work was also shit.
A shit-tonne is a lot of shit to shovel. Meaning a lot of messy, dirty work. And hey, Urban Dictionary confirms shitton to be pretty much the same thing — “An ambiguously large number, larger than a crapton, but less than a holyfuckton”
So, yea.
The ending of the comic (which I read before seeing the movie) felt like a deus ex machina in reverse to me – not a resolution coming out of nowhere, but an enemy. I’m pretty sure my exact reaction was “Oh my god, are you freaking kidding me” and the book going down a couple of notches in my estimation. The movie version made a lot more sense within the narrative.
@Jandy
That was EXACTLY the response they wanted you to have. The exact same one the characters had in that scene and then you can go back and read and see all the little clues sprinkled throughout. It is glorious.
The response they wanted me to have was “this book is way less good now than it was two pages ago”? Heh. I almost didn’t even want to finish it, let alone read it again, even though I do still think it’s amazing up until that point.
No I meant your quote “Oh my god, are you freaking kidding me”
That response.
“The exact same one the characters had in that scene and then you can go back and read and see all the little clues sprinkled throughout. It is glorious.”
Even though I prefer the moving ending, I agree with Rick here. if you reread Watchmen you see stuff all over the place and it’s fun.
I was terribly disappointed after watching District 9. Their trailers looked good and I had really high expectations when I went to see the film but sadly, they were not able to deliver. It was poorly made and clearly a low budget film. I recommended Watchmen to my students instead.
Currently the most viewed post on RowThree, according to the StumbleUpon it has 514,000 click-thrus, just from them. Yay, us!
Gattica should be on this list
im Shocked K-PAX is not in the list…..
I too am outraged for the lack K-Pax love, for shame Kurt
“Well, first off, I’m knocking J.J. Abrams and the Transformer writers version of Star Trek, the one that came out in 2009. There is no science fiction in it at all.”
You’ve got to be shitting me. Oh yeah, space and time travel have nothing to do with Sci-Fi. What? And you’re “knocking” JJ Abrams? One of the people who created what is arguably the greatest Sci-Fi epic ever on television. Christ almighty. Oh yeah, half the movies on your list are garbage too.
Probably pointless to respond since these people come in once, hurl some insults and then are never back again. Quite dubious actually.
“Half the movies on your list are garbage. too.”
My only response to this is you are not welcome in my home. Seriously. Go sit in RowTwentyNine.
Andrew, it’s hard to even know where to start snarking on this thread. There’s so much potential material.
A great list.. have already seen a couple of them before i stumbled on this list, and i will definitely watch does that i haven’t seen
But a potential movie to add to the list would be Steamboy.
‘District 9′….best film ever in this genre (in my humble opinion). Made me cry. Loved the allegorical level in terms of South Africa etc. Having spent some 6 months in SA, I thought this film perfectly captured the awful aspects of that ‘apartheid’ culture (which lives on). Of course, there are great things about SA too.
‘The Road’ was okay. Same thematic concerns of so many other films.. almost made it, but not quite. Ending was acceptable…
Thanks interesting list. Primer sounds interesting, so must make a point of tracking it down.
I have always thought that what was important in Science Fiction was not the special effects, but a glimpse into the possible. It is the plausibility behind films like Gattaca that make them so claustrophobic and chilling. I have watched so many films that splash out in an attempt to overwhelm with effects, and totally ignored a sound script.
the comic invisibles inspired matrix not aeon flux
Ahhhh….merry xmas from Ms Curious to all. It may indeed be a ‘brave new world’…but my heart remembers days of old…chatting with Aquaman…waiting for the next update on ‘Catfish’… I take this opportunity to say ‘Merry Xmas to everyone on this site’…..’may your New Year bring inspiring films, words of wisdom and kindness towards those gone and those who come’. xxxx Merry Xmas!!!!! Ms Curious
ok you spoiled every movie in your list.
Aeon Flux predates The Matrix, and while A.I. was directed by Spielberg, it was written by Stanley Kubrick.
Aeon Flux the movie does not predate The Matrix.
I could be wrong but I think Spielberg did have some collaboration on A.I. even before Kubrick’s death did he not?
Well, the cartoon does predate The Matrix, but the movie is such a different animal…
I consider Donnie Darko my favourite film for a very simple, yet complicated reason (bottom line: It changed the way I looked at films and indirectly lead me into film studies). I actually like the Director’s Cut a bit better, though I recommend that people watching the film for the first time watch the theatrical cut.
Some day we shall have it out about this. I think the Director’s Cut is a textbook example of why some directors should not have directors cuts, and **require** studio interference. (See, also, Evil Dead II)
I’m actually planning on eventually “triple dipping” for the Blu-Ray, which has both cuts on the same disc.
Speaking of which, I’m still lamenting over the price of my original Donnie Darko DVD, which was the first DVD I ever bought at a price of over $50 at a vendor at the CNE (it was a hard to find disc when it was first released).
On a semi-related note, my fandom of Donnie Darko is what caused to me to finally cave and go to to Fan Expo Canada (after many years of balking at the admission price) when James Duval (Frank the Rabbit) showed up in 2009 (I’ve returned to the convention every year since).
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