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Sci-Fi

Journal FortKnox's Journal: Need Good SciFi's 34

Journal by FortKnox
My wife and I finished watching "Red Planet" which she thoroughly enjoyed, and we saw a bit of "Mission to Mars" yesterday. I haven't seen either of them because of the bad press they got (wasn't particularly thrilled with Red Planet). But that got her kinda in the mood to watch SciFi, which I'm going to take full advantage of. Now I need some suggestions on good SciFi movies.

She's "alright" with wars, hates the horror/bloody slimy stuff, loves the drama stuff.
Didn't really enjoy any of the aliens, like Star Wars (though didn't like any of the prequels), liked Red Planet, got bored with Blade Runner, has watched a couple of the modern Star Treks (loved the last one which I refused to watch).

So, things that came to my mind:
Enemy Mine
Wrath of Khan

And then I kinda drew a blank. What are some good, classic, nerd introducing SciFi movies (sorry, movies, not books... I'm working on her to read "Dune" but her mother(!) is reading my copy right now. Then again, she is in the middle of the second Hitchikers book...). Oh, and she liked the Hitchikers movie, too.
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Need Good SciFi's

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  • I have personally enjoyed the following:

    I, Robot
    The Fifth Element (though there are aliens in it)
    Alien / Aliens (which might be more horror than Sci-Fi)
    2001: A Space Odyssey
    Time Bandits
    Terminator / Terminator 2 (3 was kind of a dud)

    I don't know how she feels about Anime (my wife doesn't like it) but there's a lot of good Sci-Fi from across the west pond...

  • Red dwarf is great , Its a tv show all the seasons are out on DVD though sci-fi/comedy
    quatermass naturaly.
    Futurama is a gentle intro to sci-fi .
    Brazil , well its not realy sci-fi but its great non the less and kind of fits into the genre as it does not fit well elsewhere
    i am sure i could think of thousands but i keep drawing blanks
    • Bringing up Brazil reminds me that 12 Monkeys is a pretty good flick. Gattaca should count. On the sillier front, hmmm... Buckaroo Bonzai? Ice Pirates? Space Balls?
      • Spaceballs rules .
        Hm westworld and futureworld if your in the mood for something semi crap whatch the simpsons itchy and scartcy land eppisode first to see a few of the references (that and jurassic park).
        I enjoyed johnny neumonic, but then i do like cyper punk
  • That is all.
  • I agree that everything on RailGunner's and Fidel's list is great, except for "I, Robot" which I have read but not seen. (Fift Element is especially excellent, and if you like either Brazil or 12 Monkeys you'll probably like the other, too.)

    So I'll have to delve into obscurity here.

    I remember seeing parts of Silent Running [imdb.com] on TV many years ago, and it looked interesting. I've never seen the whole thing, though.

    A friend highly recommended A Boy and His Dog [imdb.com] but this too I have never seen. Considering that
  • ... to non-scifi fans:
    • Blade Runner (not directors cut. Yeah, for non-scifi buffs the horrible narration does wonders)
    • Minority Report
    • Brazil
    • 12 Monkeys
    • Equilibrium
    • Gattaca
    • Alien & Aliens (not a good fit with these but still great movies)

    etc etc. Basically most non-fans think scifi is just a bunch of nerds wearing Vulcan ears and watching spaceships in battle. If you can introduce them to something with depth and some social issues that should be enough to get them into the story and ge

    • Hm....I love Brazil, but I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone but a proven Gilliam fan. Everyone I've shown it to has rolled their eyes back in their head, even those who WERE sci-fi fans.
  • If BoE ever tells me Blade Runner is boring, that's grounds for annulment.

    Otherwise, I second the nomination of Time Bandits. However, if she thought Blade Runner was boring, 2001 will bore her to tears (and I liked 2001).

    I also liked Total Recall a lot -- not terribly intelligent, but still a lot of fun to watch. Ditto The Running Man, though that might be a touch violent for her.

    If you want to see a forerunner of Total Recall with a more psycho twist, I recommend The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a Ger


    • Lastly, for a bit of fun 1970s kitsch mixed with sci-fi, try Logan's Run.

      Ha! Funny you should mention that. It almost made my list based on the fact that about 6 months ago Kim couldn't sleep so she got up and grabbed a movie from the shelves: Logan's Run. She said it was pretty good and she's not a sci-fi buff. The books were much better (remember the TV series from the 70's or am I the only one old enough around there? :))

      • The books were much better

        Isn't it always like that? ;-)

        (remember the TV series from the 70's or am I the only one old enough around there? :))

        I very dimly remember the series (I was still pretty small when it was out on TV), but I also remember the books pretty well, and I have to agree -- the books are much richer and more interesting. Still, the movie makes for a good flick, too... *g*

        Logan-5, do you identify this object?

        Cheers,

        Ethelred

  • I always liked big story arcs, which is why on the most part Star Trek never really interested me. Never seemed to be enough continuity between episodes for my tastes. I mean, how many space-time distortions can you come across in deep space that can be fixed by various configurations of the deflector dish and not remember what you did the last season to solve the problem?

    So, in that case, Babylon 5 always interested me, so if you have 110 hours of free time, you can watch the big story arc of 5 seasons,
    • I feel the same way about Trek as you do and love Babylon 5 as well.

      That is probably why my favorite Trek is Deep Space 9 which has a story arc running over all 7 seasons. Unfortunately I felt the wrap-up of the arcs was all too rushed at the end. The pay-off seemed a bit weak. I also sometimes don't mind ST: Voyager which had some episode to episode and season to season continuity though without as tight a story arc as B% or DS9. Unfortunately Voyager also suffers from some painfully bad scripts and actin
      • I have been watching the Babylon 5 dvds this weekend. Since there was little baseball to watch, no other plans, and nothing as usual on weekend tv, I got through 14 episodes of season 5 this weekend. It is the season I remember the least in between the TNT shift and finishing up college. I can finish up this season then get into the couple of the movies out of the Bab5 movie collection I missed for various reasons.

        And as to your comment down below about Firefly, that was one I missed somehow when it was o
  • Barbarella
    Zardoz
    Soylent Green
    Planet of the Apes :)
  • These are all pretty dark/claustrophibic. Some of them happen to be poster children for post-modernism.

    13th Floor
    Existenz
    Dark City
    Naked Lunch
    City of the Lost Children
    Gattaca
    Donnie Darko
    Big Fish
    Brazil

    That whole list is a bit darkish, Blade Runner goes on it. I'm no help, am I? For straight-up fun there's always the Firefly DVD set.

    The classic: Highlander. Avoid the sequels.

    Of course, if you say "nerd introducing" you've got to see Sneakers and Hackers.

  • My list (Score:2)

    by ces ( 119879 ) *
    In no particular order:

    Movies:
    Star Wars (Empire is the best, A New Hope next, and Jedi the worst though it is way better than any of the newer 3)
    The Matrix
    The Manchurian Canidate (the 1962 version not the Denzel Washington one though the more recent one isn't bade either)
    Metropolis
    Alien / Aliens
    Dr. Strangelove
    2001
    A Clockwork Orange
    Donnie Darko
    Blade Runner
    Terminator / Terminator 2
    Back to the Future
    Frankenstein (1931 version) / Bride of Frankenstein / Young Frankenstein (Watch the Frankensteins in this ord
    • I'm seconding the Firefly TV show suggestion. Its out on DVD and later this year Serenity (a movie about the Firefly crew) comes out.
    • 2010 (2001 sets the scene, but 2010 is a much better film)
    • Contact
    • Silent running
    • Stargate
    • The postman
    • I, robot (if you haven't read the book, you won't cringe too much)
    • Equilibrium
    • Dark city
  • Dark Star
    Day the earth stood still
    Last Starfighter
    Silent running
    Abyss
    Day after tommorrow
    I, Robot
    Quatermass
    Flash Gordon
    Superman
    Supergirl

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