Wired's top 20 sci-fi movies

[Guest crandamaniac]

Wired magazine just ran a list of the top 20 sci-fi movies ever, here it is:

 

1. Blade Runner:Friedrich Nietzsche meets film noir in this tale of renegade replicants who want to meet their maker.

2. Gattaca: Little stands between us and the strangely stratified society the movie depicts. We have already begun screening embryos for serious disease.

3. The Matrix: It's a visually perfect movie, a finely conceived world--from the pod caverns to the light socket in Keanu Reeves' neck.

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick created the modern SF movie in a single blow with 2001, nailing not one but three touchstones, space, artificial intelligence, and aliens.

5. Brazil: Reality is just graffiti, and the never-never present is mishmash of all the horrors of the 20th century, from the terror of hidden bombs to the banality of advertising.

6. A Clockwork Orange: Of all the dystopias out there, this one may be the most plausible in the near term. With bad parenting, lax law enforcement, and imaginative pharmacology, the streets could fill with incorrigible degenerates.

7. Alien: This haunted-house version of 2001 crawls down your throat and grips your viscera with the ruthless efficiency of its ever-mutating monster.

8. The Boys From Brazil: As popular as cloning is in science fiction, The Boys may be the only movie that takes the science seriously--here, Gregory Peck grows a flock of boy Hitlers.

9. Jurassic Park: JP takes threads of legitimate science--cloning, DNA mapping, evolution--and knits them into a blockbuster.

10. Star Wars: All the elements of the future are here--robots, space travel, flying cars, aliens, ray guns. Only this time, they're put to novel use, and so a science fiction franchise is born.

11. to 20. are as follows (in order): The Road Warrior, Tron, The Terminator, Sleeper, Soylent Green, Robocop, Planet of the Apes, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Akira, and Barbarella

[Guest razazteca]

Ghost in The Shell is as ground breaking as Akira in anime yet it gets no respect?  Where is the War of the Worlds and Metroplis, 1984?

 

Matrix is too high

[Guest J*ingus]

They're awfully high on "giant conspiracy to pull the wool over humanity's eyes" and "the future will SUCK" type movies, aren't they?  

 

My thoughts on each placement:

 

1. Blade Runner: no problems here

2. Gattaca: haven't seen it

3. The Matrix: shouldn't be anywhere near this high

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey: just fine

5. Brazil: very overrated, a mildly satirical take on 1984

6. A Clockwork Orange: never liked it, never considered it "sci-fi", but I'm in the minorty there, so whatever

7. Alien: excellent film, surprised it got placed this high

8. The Boys From Brazil: haven't seen it

9. Jurassic Park: strange choice, mostly a just thriller

10. Star Wars: should be higher

11. The Road Warrior: okay

12. Tron: also okay

13. The Terminator: not Cameron's best sci-fi, would've put Aliens or Abyss here

14. Sleeper: odd choice, but no complaints

15. Soylent Green: shouldn't be on the list, routine thriller

16. Robocop: stylistic thriller, but still questionable for "best ever"

17. Planet of the Apes: no problems

18. The Day The Earth Stood Still: ditto, could be higher

19. Akira: if you're gonna pick just one anime, I'd pick this one

20. Barbarella: should NOT be anywhere near this list

[Guest]

I didn't like Gattaca much, don't think it should be there, at least not that high

[Guest]

How Barbarella made it on there, yet Ghost in the Shell, 12 Monkey's, or even TIME F'N BANDITS aren't on there is a mind-boggler for me!!!

[Guest RetroRob215]

Where is Empire of the Ants, Frogs, and all those other cool when animals attack movies from the 70's?  I guess those must be considered HORROR!

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I'd have Planet of the Apes on my list before half of those.

[Guest El Satanico]

Um...why would movies like Frogs be considered Sci Fi?

 

 

Only movie that i see which shouldn't be anywhere near a sci fi movie list is Jurrasic Park. I can see all the others being considered Sci Fi and it's their opinion so they can pick whichever scifi movie they want. Also Matrix was way too high.

[Guest RetroRob215]

Frogs is sci-fi because the frogs used their reptilian powers too summon all of the other reptiles to attack the rich family.  Well, I consider it sci-fi, IMDB doesn't, but I do.  I don't see how it could be considered a horror movie.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Where the hell is Metropolis (the 1920's one, not the anime)?! Just because there's no "definitive version" of the film because of it being cut to ribbons after its original release doesn't mean the film has no value... the first big sci-fi film, and still the best, in my humble biased opinion.

 

Plus, if you're going to put The Matrix on there, even though it added nothing new to the genre except for being really popular and featuring "revolutionary" (that have now become really annoying) special effects, you might as well add 1902's A Trip to the Moon... at least that's cool.

 

But then, who the hell are Wired to come up with a top sci-fi films list... aren't they a computer magazine?

[Guest]

I also think that the original "Island of Doctor Moreau" should be on that list. Hey, it was total cheese, but the story was great.

[Guest]

I'm glad to see Blade Runner at #1, especially considering it's my favourite film.

 

As for the rest, I think The Matrix and Jurassic Park are way too high (JP is overrated) and Planet of the Apes should be in the top 5 at LEAST.

 

I'm not sure if it's considered "sci-fi", but George Pal's The Time Machine should be on that list, and maybe even When Worlds Collide.

[Guest Anorak]

I never liked '2001' personally, 'Moon Zero Two' and 'Dark Star' address the same themes and take half as long to do it, i never did like Kubrick much anyway save for 'Paths of Glory' or 'Dr Strangelove'. 'Tron' and 'Barbarella' are both poor films while some of the choices aren't really sci-fi movies in all honesty.

[Guest Kinetic]

Only movie that i see which shouldn't be anywhere near a sci fi movie list is Jurrasic Park. I can see all the others being considered Sci Fi and it's their opinion so they can pick whichever scifi movie they want.

So, wait.  Is it the science--the DNA from pre-historic mosquitos in ember being used to create dinosaurs-- or the fiction--the fact that it isn't real--that would make you not consider "Jurassic Park" to be science fiction?

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Since there's all this talk of Jurassic Park I figured I'd weigh in on it.  In the traditional sense, it's the best in the Jurassic Park series and a very good film overall, but I'm not sure if it's good enough to make a top 20 of all time list.  Though I'd definitely rank it above The Matrix, that stems more from my dislike of that movie than anything else... I'd be hard pressed to find something I wouldn't rank higher than that... The Matrix 2?

[Guest El Satanico]

Um...well calling Jurassic Park the best of the series isn't exactly that big of a compliment.

 

Lost World was total shite. Haven't seen part 3 but the fact that you rarely hear people bring it up(in a negative or positive way) doesn't make it sound like anything special.

[Guest Kinetic]

Frankly, I don't know that I'd consider Star Wars to be science fiction.  It's generally accepted as that, but there really isn't any discussion of science and science does not factor in as a theme in any of the films.  It's more fantasy than anything else.  The idea that setting something in the future and involving spaceships and robots makes it science fiction is kind of silly.

[Guest]

I actually liked The Lost World more than Jurassic Park. I wasn't crazy about JP, and found it had little action nor dinosaurs for a "dinosaur" movie. The Lost World, on the other hand, was crammed with action, dino's and violence. Sure, the black girl doing the balance beam routine was incredibly retarded, but I liked the rest of the film.

 

If you think that's bad, guess what? I think JP3 is the best of the series. 90 minutes, no BS. Just dinosaurs and action.

[Guest]

jp 1 was ok, but 2 was just bad, and 3 was just worse.  Infact 3 was so stupid that the first time I started to watch the movie, like 25 minutes or so in when the plot filled in, I turned it off cause it was so stupid, but caught it eventually just to say I sawit.  Terrible movie.

 

--Rob

[Guest]

btw, WHO THE FUCK GOES PARASAILING BY ISLANDS FILLED WITH DINOSAURS???????????? ANYONE?

 

--Rob

[Guest Anorak]

Everybody knows Star Wars was a western, it just happened to be set in space. I don't think most people would really call Jurassic Park a sci-fi film, all film genres are associated with certain conventions and while they can be too narrow at times they are there for a purpose of identifying consistant themes and settings. If we consider films like Jurassic Park as sci-fi then the genre loses it's uniqueness as the film is essentially a hybrid of various genres and lacks the cohesiveness and quality to be included on that kind of list.

[Guest RetroRob215]

I think JP1 was the best followed by JP3.  JP3 was way too short and the lack of fatalities bothered me.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I liked Jurassic Park 3 better than The Lost World, but in a popcorn/cheese flick sort of way.  True, Jurassic Park has the least amount of dinosaurs but it also takes itself the most serious and seems to me to be much darker than the others in the series (as much as I enjoyed JP3, it was practically a comedy).

 

Kinetic brings up an interesting point about Star Wars not really being science fiction because of it not specifically involving science or being in the future.  I haven't seen Attack of the Clones yet, but the fact that clones play heavily into the plot would make that the first Star Wars to make heavy mention/notice of "science" and thus be the only science fiction one.  Star Wars doesn't even occur in the future, but rather "a long long time ago", and instead of being technology the light-sabers are a sort of weird psychic energy chi concept.

 

I'd consider Jurassic Park as science fiction more than Star Wars, now that I think about it.

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

Lots of people have already said this, but the Matrix is way too high. 2001 would be my favourite, but then I love Kubrick.

 

Sleeper is a great choice.

[Guest]

I think the list is horrible. They picked so few old school sci-fi movies and instead put shit like The Matrix, Akira and Barbella on the list. They should have put stuff like War Of The Worlds, Forbidden Planet, and Terminator 2 on the list.