What are your favourite Sci-fi movies?

[annewandering]

As a kid, I watched an episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "To Serve Man". This has haunted me to this day. I can still vividly see the ending scenes in my mind when it's found out "To Serve Man" is a cookbook.

I read the story and it cracked me up. The Twilight Zone did have some twisted thinking. :)

I still like Independence Day even if I was puzzled by the virus idea as well. To me it was a rabble raising movie of patriotism and working together and hope. It was a movie of hope that in the event of extreme disaster we could forget out differences and remember we are all just people where ever we live.

I am not fond of war movies generally even sf. Movies that delve into humanity and how we think are so much better than movies that try to have the best explosions, armor and weapons just turn me off unless they offer hope for people to change for the better.

How is Gremlins a sf movie? Now that is a stupid series and is not sf. Just stupid horror. :)

Edited September 10, 2012 by annewandering

[mnn727]

As a kid, I watched an episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "To Serve Man". This has haunted me to this day. I can still vividly see the ending scenes in my mind when it's found out "To Serve Man" is a cookbook.

To Serve Man was the 2nd best Twilight Zone episode ever.

Time Enough at Last was the best though -- about the guy that no one would let him read (wife/boss/customers, etc), and finally he's all alone after WW3 with a library of books and his glasses break.

Independence Day, great movie - period.

Jurassic Park - once I got over the fact that it was nothing like the book it was a good movie in its own right.

Wizard of Oz -- would you call it SciFI? I would, and its one of my top 10 of all time

Groundhog Day - again its concept was scifi meets chick flick - also one of my top 10 of all time

Young Frankenstein - again, one of my top 10

TV Shows - Battlestar Galactica (the latest one), V (the latest one) Lost -- not sure what genre that really was, Firefly, Flash Forward, Dr Who, Primevil.

Edited September 10, 2012 by mnn727

[classylady]

To Serve Man was the 2nd best Twilight Zone episode ever.

Time Enough at Last was the best though -- about the guy that no one would let him read (wife/boss/customers, etc), and finally he's all alone after WW3 with a library of books and his glasses break.

I remember "Time Enough at Last" too. Amazing what sticks with you after all these years.

[annewandering]

I like Groundhog Day. We watched it over and over and over. lol.

Never saw Time Enough at Last that I remember. Can not imagine not being able to read.

We also watch Jurassic Park over and over. My husband loved that movie. Still does in fact.

Lost is SF. One of the two main writer/directors, Damon Laurence Lindelof, is a great fan of the older sf classics. Not to mention JJ Abrams.

There really are a lot of good sf movies after all. lol. Going to Netflix made me wonder.

[Vort]

As a kid, I watched an episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "To Serve Man". This has haunted me to this day. I can still vividly see the ending scenes in my mind when it's found out "To Serve Man" is a cookbook.

One of The Simpsons' early "Treehouse of Horrors" episodes parodied this. A pair of huge, tentacled, salivating aliens bring the family aboard their spacecraft, promising to take them to a place of never-ending happiness. They keep feeding the Simpsons and testing to see how fat they are. Lisa discovers a book called How to Cook Humans and confronts the aliens with it. The aliens counter by blowing some "space dust" off the book cover to reveal that it really says How to Cook FOR Humans. Lisa then blows off more space dust, showing the title to be How to Cook FORTY Humans. At last, the aliens blow off yet more space dust to reveal the true title: How to Cook for Forty Humans. Shocked that the Simpsons thought they were planning to eat them, the aliens return the Simpsons to Earth and ingloriously dump them at their house, and Lisa has to live with the fact that she ruined everything.

[AnthonyB]

Firefly/Serenity was brilliant.

Gattaca

Blade Runner -Prefer the director's cut version

Blake's Seven -Despite the appauling effects, first sci-fi show I remember that wasn;t full of heroic people.

[skalenfehl]

There's a new sci fi series, I think on NBC called "Revolution." It's kind of a mix between the short lived Jericho series and the film Postman with Kevin Costner. (I thought it was good at the time, though some scenes should have been left out!). Revolution is ok. The character development is weak so far, but it has some potential. Jericho was great. Season one left us hanging and Season Two leaves us wanting.

[NeuroTypical]

Firefly's sealed it's life with it's early death. TV execs can't take the sky from us.

[bcguy]

I keep seeing firefly and serenity. Were these so good, you felt as if you were immersed in these movies as if it was a dream?

BTW, The most modern sci-fi series is Men In black. I had some good moments watching it.

[annewandering]

aaah Two more good classics. Men in Black and Jericho. Jericho had potential. It seems that networds cut those kind of shows off before they get a real chance to develop. Life on Mars tv show was very confusing but interesting and cut off. I liked the last V as well but my husband hated it. I admit I am a fan of most anything with Lost actors in them. Oh and that brings up Person of Interest. It is not that far fetched but certainly points out a scary problem.

[Guest]

Hubby and I have been watching Jericho this week. It's kind of addictive. Like any show we enjoy, it ended before its time. Has anyone seen the graphic novels for the last 2 "seasons"?

[Guest]

Tin Man was a fun miniseries and an interesting take on Wizard of Oz, too.

[Guest]

The Last Starfighter. I don't know why I loved it - it was super cheesy. LOL.

And who can forget E.T!

[mnn727]

Can't believe I forgot Jericho on my list. Great series.

Revolution (new NBC series) looks to be somewhat similar. Starts next week but already episode 1 is online at NBC and HULU

[prisonchaplain]

There is a certain radio/television commentator, reported to be LDS, who loves to take the latest technological developments and spin tales of dark government conspiracies. It all makes for some intriguing near-future sci fi. :-)

[mordorbund]

Least favorite, awfulest sci-fi worthlessness:

• ...
• War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise remake) -- A fine idea of sci-fi in turn-of-the-20th-century America. A reasonably decent idea for a movie in the 1950s, maybe. Utterly ridiculous in the 21st century (Martians who have been planning for millennia to invade the Earth don't ever stop to consider microbiological factors?! Who could possibly swallow that?) Plus, Tom Cruise's pitiless murder of the guy who saved both him and his daughter was simply unforgivable. Should never have been made.

• Independence Day -- Okay, this is not an all-time horrible sci-fi movie, just incredibly stupid. Like, unfathomably stupid. So convenient that the aliens just happened to have developed the exact same abstraction levels for computer communications!!! And, wonder of wonders, they happen to transmit on exactly the same frequencies we use for our computer modems!!! And these aliens, who build spaceships capable of INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL, have never quite managed to incorporate antivirus software into their infrastructure!!! It's like the writers thought, "Hey, the aliens don't speak English! We're good to go!"

  Then again, Sister Vort likes the movie, so I can't complain about it too much. (At least not in front of her.)

I guess we can stop there for the moment.

Well, I guess you just saved me from reading the last 40 pages of the HG Wells book. I agree that the Cruise film should not have been made, it was way past it's time. In defense of the film though, the two aspects you deride are true to the novel. The murder is the most uncomfortable part of the whole story. And although it's in the original, the virus undoing the alien overlords definitely needs a modern update if you're going to adapt it to film. Which is why the Couple Book Club I'm in will watch Independence Day when we've finished reading it :).

[Blackmarch]

The Last Starfighter. I don't know why I loved it - it was super cheesy. LOL.

And who can forget E.T!

because it had awesome CGI for its day (still pretty decent compared to what we have today), the fighter designs were great, and because it was cheesy XD

[skalenfehl]

Another cheesy, but goody--TRON.

[Blackmarch]

Well, I guess you just saved me from reading the last 40 pages of the HG Wells book. I agree that the Cruise film should not have been made, it was way past it's time. In defense of the film though, the two aspects you deride are true to the novel. The murder is the most uncomfortable part of the whole story. And although it's in the original, the virus undoing the alien overlords definitely needs a modern update if you're going to adapt it to film. Which is why the Couple Book Club I'm in will watch Independence Day when we've finished reading it :).

would the whole virus thing need an update? that depends.. for round one its not that bad of a concept (supposing the martians' evolution is not so drastically different that viruses on earth have no way of interacting with their cells and dna).

It's round two where the humans get creamed (and if i recall right there was a tv series where this was the premise more or less).

Probably really the only thing that would need updating is some sort of explanation of why they waited so long.

As for the tom cruise movie, yes in the book the main character did have to "murder" the guy he was staying with.. however i disapprove how they went about it in the movie.

[Guest]

Another cheesy, but goody--TRON.

Oh no. That was far from cheesy. That was AWESOME!!! I'm a Tron-culter.

And don't get me started on the absolute epic fail of the 2nd one...

[selek]

I am a die-hard Trekket, but I absolutely hated the last couple of movies.

As far as favorites sci-fi movies go, I think Wrath of Khan and The Black Hole are near the top of the list. Men in Black and Galaxy Quest are technically sci-fi, so I guess they count two.

Does Outland count as sci-fi?

In reality, I'm actually far more partial to sci-fi television than to movies.

[Blackmarch]

Oh ya forgot to ad MIB, Enemy Mine, meet the robinsons.