Reader Anne-Kari recently suggested that we talk about
Favorite and least favorite movies within specific genres (drama, b&w, scifi, comedy)?
So that’s what we’re doing all this week. Today’s question:
What are your all-time favorite and least favorite science fiction movies?
This is really tough for me, because I’m such a geek and SF is my favorite genre. But I think I have to choose The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Eighth Dimension, for a few reasons that are particularly pertinent to my pet themes. First, it makes science and scientists look cool: Buckaroo isn’t just a rock star, he’s also a neurosurgeon and a particle physicist, and his exploits in all these areas are as interesting to everyone as the rock-star thing is. Two, the movie plays with pop culture itself as a sort of science fiction, not only in the idea that a scientist could be a pop culture hero but in the idea that a fictional story — Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds — could be a cover for a real alien invasion. Brilliant stuff.
Worst is tough, too, because there are so many bad sci-fi flicks. But I’ll go with Battlefield Earth, which commits the particular sin of completely misunderstanding what it is about science fiction that makes it interesting. It’s not FX and spectacle but ideas… the latter of which it is entirely bereft of.
You?
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
Aliens is probably number one for me. Leviathan is mostly forgotten, but was much better than anyone wanted to give it credit for in the face of The Abyss – unlike most survival horror, it mostly involves grownups acting like grownups. (For the same reason, I enjoyed Red Planet, mostly for Bowman (cough cough) in orbit – I’d have liked a film about her, mostly ignoring the people on the ground. Even Ghosts of Mars had its good points, apart from the heavy-metal zombies.)
Least favourite… as with all of these, I don’t tend to think much about the films I don’t like. But Contact was definitely up there – yeah, they got the science jargon right and a lot of scientists love it for that, but the religious guy was even more of a cardboard cutout than the rest of the characters, and all that happened in the end was… one person had a way-out experience, and the radio telescopes got funded. That film left me feeling cheated.
(Thinking of that, can we please have a moratorium on female scientists who only got into science because of their fathers? This describes approximately none of the female scientists I’ve met.)
Yup.
Really? Cause I know several.
*Rubs hands*
Best: Quatermass and the Pit, The Day the Earth Stood Still, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, Avatar, Back to the Future, The Empire Strikes Back, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Flash Gordon, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Time After Time, Solaris (the American remake; I must check out the Russian version some time) and The Wrath of Khan. I also watched The Voyage Home the other day, for the first time since 1986 – I’m renting the Trek movies on Blu-ray – and adored it, not just because it’s unadulterated fun, but because its setting now lends it a nostalgia appeal.
Worst: Ghosts of Mars, Starcrash, The Humanoid, the Rollerball remake, The Time Machine remake, and some films that were shown on the UK’s Channel Four in 1983 as part of a Worst of Hollywood season (presented by Michael Medved, then best known as co-author of The Golden Turkey Awards). I’m talking B-movie atrocities like The Creeping Terror, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Mars Needs Women, Robot Monster, Godzilla vs the Smog Monster and the unwatchably boring They Saved Hitler’s Brain. As presented, they were more tedious than ludicrous: we never got MST3K on this side of the pond.
Heh, I just watched Starcrash on Netflix a few weeks ago. It’s all the way into so-bad-it’s-good territory for me, but your mileage may vary. How they talked Christopher Plummer and John Barry into getting involved with that I have no idea. But on the plus side: Caroline Munro.
Favorite? I’d include Forbidden Planet, The Empire Strikes Back, 2001, and a couple of others on the list.
Least favorite? The list is too long. I spent too many years watching the weekly SF/monster movie shows when I was growing up.
Favorites: ‘Metropolis’, ‘Buckaroo Banzai’, ‘Repo Man’.
Least favorite: ‘Dark City’. By a country mile.
SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN FOREVER!
I agree with you about Independence Day. I’ve never stopped to think about its unfortunate legacy. I’ll chalk that up as my least favorite too.
Most Favorite: Gattaca.
Yeah, this IS hard. Plus, it kind of crosses over into the previous category.
No way can I pick a #1.
Favorite(S):
Terminator 2
The Matrix
Children of Men
Minority Report
Alien & Aliens
Least favorite:
Like some others, I tend to forget the movies I disliked. I have a hard time coming up with least favorites.
Armageddon?
Funny thing is, I actually thought I liked Independence Day when I saw it in the theater opening day. All the excitement and energy must have frazzled my brain. Although, even back then I hated the ending with the 2 guys walking out unscathed.
Now, while I still kind of dig the slow reveal of the aliens, the rest is total garbage.
Serenity, 2001, The Matrix and Alien. But the list could go on and on and on. It is honestly my favourite genre. I can’t get enough.
As for the worst, I hope I’m not the only one who saw Red Planet and Supernova? The latter is basically PG-13 softcore porn.
I wrote something on my favourite sci-fi film of the aughts. Yes I’m definitely plugging: http://nostagjicmoviesandthings.blogspot.ca/2012/11/overreaching-for-stars-10-best-sci-fi.html
My favorites aren’t necessarily all good. I just like them for a variety of reasons, or I found over time that they had really stuck in my mind — maybe particular images, maybe themes.
Really like: original Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, The Time Machine (the one by George Pal), Born in Flames (a “documentary” by Lizzie Borden, someone who’s work I’ve found memorable, but unfortunately she hasn’t gotten to make a whole lot of films), Confederate States of America (another “documentary” which reminded me a bit of Born in Flames), Iceman (which no one I know seems to have seen), Eve of Destruction, Brazil, Liquid Sky (! I really liked that one, saw it twice in the theater, haven’t seen it since, I wonder if it would hold up now), Akira, Blade Runner of course, Deathwatch (which could have been better, but I really liked it for it’s themes and for Harvey Keitel even though he wasn’t at his best), Cafe Flesh (for its ambition, even though its execution left something to be desired), and a short film made mostly of stills about time travel that I had to do some searching to figure out its name La Jetee (accent aigu on the penultimate ‘e’).
Really don’t like: Godzilla, The Postman, Sphere, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Metropolis (finally saw it as complete as it can be a few years ago, yes, I can see why it was considered ‘revolutionary’ in the context of the cinema of the time, but, maaaaaan, what a crock of ^&%$ with the shoehorned philosophy), New Rose Hotel (because they ruined a beautiful little Gibson story and ruined it with Walken), and Naked Lunch (because it made the book just into a panoply of weirdnesses instead of the allegory the book was).
(Edited to fix a parenthesis.)
Yikes. The Postman. Thanks for reminding me of that particular atrocity.
So sorry. I should have kept my pain to myself. Yes, it was that bad.
I just remembered that I sadly left off The Man Who Fell To Earth of my list of favorites. Haven’t seen that in a long time. Must find it and watch again…
Favourite: Forbidden Planet / the first 10 minutes of War of the Worlds
Least Favourite: AI: Artificial Intelligence / the last 10 minutes of War of the Worlds
PS Ignoring MAJ, that’s 10 ‘favorites’ versus 6 ‘favourites’ so far.
People have already listed my favorites, but the worst has to be Wing Commander. Just watching the trailer makes me shudder – it’s every horrible, lazy sci-fi action movie trope ground up into a bland paste, and then spread over Freddie Prinze Jr., the crown prince potato of blandness. Calling the script juvenile and derivative would be a compliment. I write better scripts when I was twelve – that’s not bragging, all of us could have. And the most horrible thing is that there are several skilled actors present and the effects really aren’t that bad for the time. What a colossal waste.
Wing Commander is great fun with the right liquid refreshment.
Draino with a Strychnine chaser
Favourite: The original Russian Solaris
Least favourite – Oh, so many too choose from but probably Independence Day
Solaris was wonderful.
I love Serenity. I’ve watched it many times, but only recently realized that all these planets they visit? They’re all in the same solar system. All this time, I thought they were travelling everywhere. They constantly say ‘verse, so that’s what I thought they were doing, but at the beginning the teacher specifies that they found a whole new solar system. Huh.
Least favorite? I did not like the new War of the Worlds, with Tom Cruise, because all Dakota Fanning did the entire movie was scream. It was really annoying. I only recently saw 2001, and did not like it at all. I’m sure it was good when it first came out, but man, is it DULL. Every single thing takes FOREVER. With our attention spans nowadays, you could fit that whole movie into a half an hour. How long was he going through that wormhole? 20 minutes? I did not like Signs. You would think that aliens with the technology to travel to another planet and an allergy to water would scan for planets with water and avoid them. That’s just dumb.
I’m thinking particularly of the ones whose fathers died with some big scientific question un-answered – or of the same disease which the character is now trying to cure.
I wonder how many characters (male or female) supposedly have that motivation… after all, that’s sorta Frodo’s motivation (without the father thing): picking up where the older generation left off/failed/messed up.
To be fair, it’s a very very common character motivation in general, mostly because a) it does happen in real life, though not that often, b) it’s easy for an audience to understand as opposed to a more realistic but complex motivation that’s difficult to convey, and c) it gives you an easy structure with plenty of opportunities for juxtaposition and character riffs, etc.
Why does a character’s motivation need to be so “deep”? Why a person is in the profession they are in is often a matter of chance. When it isn’t, it is usually just that they like doing what they do. Further motivation that would be actually important to a story would be something like ‘giving a shit’ or having a strong work ethic and being stubborn. Or someone not liking being told ‘no’ (like “don’t poke your nose in here”).
I think it is a cheap way of creating motivation. The 3 Burials of Meliques Estrada didn’t rely on that for Tommy Lee Jones’s character. Or even Sphere…a completely crap film…didn’t rely on that but instead on curiosity. For example.
The play Proof by David Auburn dealt with some of the same issues in–I thought–a non-stereotypical way. Unfortunately, the movie was dreadful.
Frank, you’ve summed up my thinking on both of those films almost completely, so I’ll second everything you said. I’m not sure Ridley Scott, for all his success, has ever again equaled what he achieved thirty years ago with Blade Runner. (No, I haven’t yet had the chance to check out Prometheus.)
Meanwhile, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin just should never have happened. Their blockbuster travesties are much worse than all the B-movies you can put together, because of their success and mind-numbing influence on big-budget filmmaking. At least there are plenty of B-movies with real heart and charm; Emmerich and Devlin traffic exclusively in soulless sensory overload.
Actually, Ridley Scott has *exactly* matched his achievement of “Blade Runner” with “Prometheus.” Every aspect of it is absolutely superb, except the script.
I’m fairly certain that whatever misgivings you may have about Blade Runner’s screenplay are rendered insignificant when compared to the indulgent trainwreck delivered by Lindelof.
So true. What a shame…
I’m afraid I’ve always been a dissident about “Blade Runner.” It’s gorgeous, but there’s not a character there I give a damn about, and they’re inconsistent in ways which bother me. I’ve been arguing this with my friends since it came out.
I will grant that the script for “Blade Runner” was better than the script for “Prometheus,” but that’s isn’t saying much.
I don’t think anyone will be surprised that my favorite science fiction film is Blade Runner, which has already been put forward. I could go on and on about why this film is great…oh wait, I have.
My least favorite science fiction film also happens to be my most hated film of all, Southland Tales. I’ve written a review of it here, but the short version is: A pretentious piece of indecipherable crap that confuses making no sense with being “deep” and paying ham-handed homage to Philip K. Dick in an attempt to steal some of Dick’s sci-fi cred. (It doesn’t work.)
Favourites: Gattaca at number 1, with Moon, the Time Machine (George Pal version), the Terminator and Silent Running as runners up. Will no doubt remember more the second I hit ‘post’.
Least favourites: Avatar (although it might not have been so high on my hate list if not for the number of people telling me how wonderful, insightful and original it was) and Starship Troopers because….well, i can’t actually remember why I hated that film but am disinclined to go and remind myself.
May I add a third category: SF-films-we’re-a-bit-embarrassed-to-admit-we-like-because-we-know-they’re-kinda-schlocky (and not in a ‘so bad it’s good’ way, either)? For me these would be Mad Max beyond Thunderdome, Slipstream and Logan’s Run. I’m sorry…..
For me, it’s always “2001,” which is the first film that got me hooked on movies as an experience and an art form. I was sixteen, and up till then, I’d seen less than twenty movies in my life. Some of them were good, but this was the one that got to me in that way one favorite can, and got me curious as to what else was out there.
And yeah, I hear the folks who say it’s too long–they were saying it back when it came out, too. (Although I didn’t see it until a few years after it’s first release.)As to the worst, I’m conflicted. I hate “Logan’s Run” and “Battlefield Earth” about equally.
Star Trek Wrath of Khan, the first Star Wars and Back to the Future.
Worst- Prometheus because I paid actual money at the dollar theater, Chronicles of Riddick (the husband and I walked out after maybe 10 minutes) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture because it could have been *SO MUCH* better.
I see what you did there.
Favorite: 2001: A Space Odyssey. I also liked Forbidden Planet, Solyaris, Planet of the Apes, Moon, WALL-E, The Thing (the one from the 80’s), The Andromeda Strain, Blade Runner, Sunshine, and while these movies were flawed I have a definite soft spot for Silent Running, Videodrome, Starship Troopers, Pitch Black, and A Scanner Darkly.
Least favorite: Idiocracy. I hate Idiocracy so much that I can’t even think of other science fiction movies that I hated. My hatred for any other piece of fiction pales before my hatred for Idiocracy.
I hadn’t even considered it but 2001 is also my favorite movie in general and Idiocracy is my least favorite movie in general. Hmm…….
Yes, Idiocracy is a bit hateworthy. I always preferred to think of it as Mike Judge’s cinematic penance for Beavis and Butthead but even at that, the movie comes across as incredibly hard to watch.
‘the time machine’ (1960) and ‘the man from earth’ are a couple of favorites. and it might not be the worst, but ‘the time machine’ (2002) is way down on my list. what a turd.
ooohhh: now, see, with the qotd regarding comedy I discovered I was nearly entirely of the same opinion of all the other flickfilosopher folks posting, but on this question I find myself sharply divided and at odds with many! Intrigue! Drama! :)
I have some weird, all-over-the-place taste in Scifi. I loved the following (some for really stupid and/or highly personal reasons):
Serenity
Dark City
Alien (and Aliens)
Galaxy Quest
The Matrix
E.T.
2001: A Space Odyssey
Wall-E
The Terminator
Star Wars
Star Trek: Wrath of Khan
Pitch Black
Some that I hated:
Prometheus
Gattaca
Avatar
Armageddon
Chronicles of Riddick
Event Horizon
Aeon Flux
The Fifth Element
Resident Evil – any one of them
On an unrelated note: Am I allowed to indulge in a temporarily inflated ego since MaryAnn chose one of my questions to be a week-long event? Never mind, I think YES :)
OH God, Event Horizon – yes!!! (Must have blotted that one out…)
Well, my favorite film is Blade Runner, but in and amongst the top 20, in no particular order, are:
Empire Strikes Back
Outland
Alien (I know, I know, I’m including it anyway)
Pitch Black (on a related note, Twohy’s Below is a fabulous horror flick)
John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’
2010 (I know, most everyone hates it)
Moon
Buckaroo Bonzai
Serenity
Terminator(s)
The Matrix
Things to Come
The 5th Element
Escape From New York
Ghost in the Shell
Repo Man
Predator
Slipstream
Sunshine
Least favorite? Gods, so many…
Spaceballs, Dune, War of the Worlds (Spielberg edition)…
Hmm..ET, the Terminator, Metropolis, Wall-E. I also like goofy action sci-fi, since it vaguely falls into the action category. So yes, I do like Independence Day and Armageddon, and find them hilarious. Worst? Dunno, even bad sci-fi is usually amusing. Ghosts of Mars, maybe. I hated the Core when I first saw it, but now I find it charmingly idiotic.