Favourite Sci Fi movie

[Glongpre]

For the past couple years, sci fi has been the most enjoyable genre for me. The ideas that they present can be very intriguing, and I love what it brings to my imagination.

I just watched Inception again this morning, and I think it might be one of my favourite sci fi films. Nolan in particular has been one of my favourite directors as of late, and I have watched most of his movies, and they are all pretty darn good. From Memento to Batman to Insomnia, the ideas he uses all get me thinking and immersed in his movies.

But I am talking sci fi right now, and Inception is amazing at what it does. Much like the dream layers, there are layers of storylines going on within it.
At the surface it is about the planting of an idea.
Then there is the grief of Cobb, and his journey.
Then there is the idea that the movie itself is perhaps a dream.

This is what I love most about it. I can watch it again and again, but each time I can consciously try and follow a different story thread. This movie just really captures my imagination.

The Prestige is also one of my favourites, but I would put Inception slightly above it because of how complex it is.

Does anyone else have a sci fi movie they would like to gush about? (I could also use some more movies to watch!)(Also, has anyone seen The Skin I live In? The idea intrigues me)

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Tough Tough Tough Tough Tough choice.


Between Robocop 1 and Star Trek in general (Meaning All the movies except Abrams and the first 3 shows, TOS, TNG, and DS9)

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Aliens, or maybe Star Trek First Contact.
Oh! Starship Troopers! That movie it legit!

 

[Ogoid]

Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior. It's not just my favorite sci-fi movie, it's quite possibly my favorite piece of fiction across all media, and the more I watch it, the more ways I find in which it blows my mind.

For example, one thing I've recently come to realize I find particularly effective in its conveying a sense of desolation (even more so if you consider it didn't take anything more than an intelligent choice in filming locations) is that through all of its 95 minutes' runtime, all enduring human works we see are roads. There are no constructions, not even ruins - not two bricks laid together, anywhere to be seen; cars are the only form of "habitation" characters seem to have, aside from Pappagallo's refinery (which Big Rebecca quite appropriately calls a "junkyard"). Thus, what little scraps of fallen civilization do appear here and there give a feeling of something incredibly remote, distant not only in a temporal and philosophical sense, but physically as well. When Pappagallo mentions a bridge, towards the end of the movie, it seems like he's talking about something from a completely different world than theirs.

I don't know if this was intentionally done by Kennedy and Miller, or if it was simply the result of the very limited budget they were working on, but the end effect is the same, and it's something no other post-apocalyptic film I can think of managed to do half as well.

 

[Queen Michael]

I couldn't possible pick which movie of the one's I've seen is the best one. All I can say is that Star Wars is the one I love the most. Childhood memories, you know.

 

[Bilious Green_v1legacy]

It's either T2 or Aliens. Can't pick between them.

 

[Zontar]

2010, which contrary to what some may believe is miles ahead of 2001.

 

[Queen Michael]

Generic answer but an easy one: 2001.

Wouldn't really call Star Wars sci-fi.

*puts on nerdy glasses* Yeah, well, I wouldn't really call science fiction "sci-fi."

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Wouldn't really call Star Wars sci-fi.

Care to explain that? How is it not? Science Fiction being a fantasy story where magic is replaced by technology. That's what Sci Fi is, magic through technology. And Star Wars is a space opera about space wizards with laser swords. Sounds like pitch perfect sci-fi to me.

 

[Chanticoblues]

Not really my favorite genre, but a few of my favorites are 2001, Stalker, je t'aime je t'aime, Brazil, The Quiet Earth, AI, Repo Man, and Starship Troopers.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

Friend, all sci-fi is in a made up Universe. That's where the 'Fiction' part comes in. Nothing that happens in a Sci-Fi movie is possible in real life. That's the point of the whole thing!
Star Trek is made up, despite Gerodi using technobabble jibbery joo to solve the problem de jure. And traveling 10 times the speed of light.
Aliens is made up; Acid for blood anyone? Replicants? Plant wide atmospheric terraforming in only 20 years?
Starship Troopers have a race of cockroaches launch an asteroid that clears the entire Milky Way Galaxy in like 2 days without running into an gravitational fields that would have thrown it off course.
2001 has a giant black rock telling monkeys how to hit one another with sticks. And Space Babies.
Terminators has time-traveling robots!
War of the Worlds, Species, Event Horizon, Serenity(They literally say the plot is something out of a sci-fi book!), Robocop. All of them.

None of that is possible according to science, but we let it slide because magic. Drawing a line at Star Wars, for whatever reason, is just silly. Even if George Lucas at one point said otherwise(and lets not pretend that man is all there, or that all his ideas for Star Wars were great) Star Wars is Sci-Fi.
Yeah, Lucas may have cited LotR as source material, especially relating to myths and religion, but that hardly makes Star Wars a High Fantasy story. Lots of stories take elements from Tolkien, who himself takes elements from folklore. To say Star Wars is not sci-fi because it takes from the Rings is like saying Star Wars is Germanic folklore 'cause Rings takes from that.

 

[Saelune]

Wouldn't really call Star Wars sci-fi.

Care to explain that? How is it not? Science Fiction being a fantasy story where magic is replaced by technology. That's what Sci Fi is, magic through technology. And Star Wars is a space opera about space wizards with laser swords. Sounds like pitch perfect sci-fi to me.

Sci-fi generally refers to things that atleast attempt to be grounded in some sort of scientific reality. Star Wars is more Science Fantasy, closer to Lord of the Rings in space, while Star Trek is more Sci-Fi....though some would also not classify Trek as Sci-Fi but there is a limit to nitpicking. Certainly TNG is more Sci-Fi than TOS though.

That being said...I'm still picking Empire Strikes Back as my favorite anyways.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Lord of the Rings doesn't take place in our world either. Terminator does, Alien does, Blade Runner does, all the examples you mentioned do. To say fantasy can only be about alternate olden times is a disservice to the genre.

Terminator does not take place in our world because the world didn't end in 1997, nor do we have time-traveling robots. Aliens likewise, we don't have mulit-stage xenomorphs with acid for blood or space travel. Blade Runner, being the same universe as Aliens, has the same problems. Replicants, sky-cars, you name it.

That's the inherent point of Sci-Fi. To be an alternate world with science happens because of magic. How do they send robots back in time? A giant magic machine that can do it. How do you make replicant humans that think their human? Well its a long and detailed process called Magic. How does a species like the xenomorph come about? Well according to Promethius a race of giant space giants waved a magic space wand and a puddle of black goo decided it liked HR Giger.

Remember Thor? When Thor says that in his world Science and Magic are the same thing? That's sci-fi.

SNIP

Well yes, TNG uses more technobabble to describe their magic than TOS, but I take your meaning. But lets not forget that Q exists, and Troi is a psychic, and there are giant space jellyfish, and Professor Moriarty because self-aware, and they use quantum regulators to inverse the tachyon field of the transwarp anti-matter drive to induce a controlled singularity event. Which is technobabble for 'Use magic'.

There's plenty if TNG that is utter nonsense, just with techy words to describe it.

 

[Saelune]

Lord of the Rings doesn't take place in our world either. Terminator does, Alien does, Blade Runner does, all the examples you mentioned do. To say fantasy can only be about alternate olden times is a disservice to the genre.

Terminator does not take place in our world because the world didn't end in 1997, nor do we have time-traveling robots. Aliens likewise, we don't have mulit-stage xenomorphs with acid for blood or space travel. Blade Runner, being the same universe as Aliens, has the same problems. Replicants, sky-cars, you name it.

That's the inherent point of Sci-Fi. To be an alternate world with science happens because of magic. How do they send robots back in time? A giant magic machine that can do it. How do you make replicant humans that think their human? Well its a long and detailed process called Magic. How does a species like the xenomorph come about? Well according to Promethius a race of giant space giants waved a magic space wand and a puddle of black goo decided it liked HR Giger.

Remember Thor? When Thor says that in his world Science and Magic are the same thing? That's sci-fi.

SNIP

Well yes, TNG uses more technobabble to describe their magic than TOS, but I take your meaning. But lets not forget that Q exists, and Troi is a psychic, and there are giant space jellyfish, and Professor Moriarty because self-aware, and they use quantum regulators to inverse the tachyon field of the transwarp anti-matter drive to induce a controlled singularity event. Which is technobabble for 'Use magic'.

There's plenty if TNG that is utter nonsense, just with techy words to describe it.

Well, personally, I think we need a better word for "realisticish Sci-Fi" and keep the term Sci-Fi itself the umbrella term including Wars, Trek, Alien, Terminator, Warhammer 40k, etc.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

What about just a Science Movie? Like the Martian. All of the science in that is possible. Its all stuff that we can achieve using our understanding of science. We don't need to have 'magic science'.

 

[Glongpre]

2010, which contrary to what some may believe is miles ahead of 2001.

I don't like 2001, but I am interested in seeing how 2010 continues the story now. Is it more of the same? IMDB says it is the opposite of 2001, in that it has more dialogue (possibly too much).

The interesting bits in 2001 were the monoliths, and the space station/HAL. Everything else was pretty boring, especially the lead up to the baby. The movie as a whole was really plodding and boring. At the time it may have been an interesting film, but I think it hasn't aged very well.

snip

Just to put my 2cents in; I would consider Star Wars sci fi.

It is fantasy for sure (fiction), but who can say they haven't thought about the possibility of light speed travel and lightsabres?? There are things which might be possible for us using science(although we cannot replicate it or disprove it yet), and thus, I would say it is a sci fi movie.

Star Wars does not center around the technology for it's plot like Ex Machina, but the technology(science) serves as an important part of the story, and I think that qualifies it as science fiction.

Maybe more broadly, sci fi is about telling a story using real science in imaginative ways (so for Inception, using the science of dreams as the foundation)