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Top 25 sci-fi moments from the past 25 years

[seriously pissed] WTF!!! Starship Troopers as one of the "Top 25 Sci-Fi moments!! BULLSHI*!! [/seriously pissed] :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
 
I thought it belonged there in its way. Like the write-up on it said, "its a movie you will either love, or hate." You obviously hate it. For me, its one of those movies I can ALWAYS watch. Its just entertaining. Good action, good characters, some mean bugs, a little TnA, some good dark humor and satire. It is brilliant in that it does make some good social comments, yet is intentionally very campy in places. I think its a good movie, and for its type, should be on the list...
 
Recoil said:
I thought it belonged there in its way. Like the write-up on it said, "its a movie you will either love, or hate." You obviously hate it. For me, its one of those movies I can ALWAYS watch. Its just entertaining. Good action, good characters, some mean bugs, a little TnA, some good dark humor and satire. It is brilliant in that it does make some good social comments, yet is intentionally very campy in places. I think its a good movie, and for its type, should be on the list...
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Paul Verhoeven is seriously one of my favorite directors of all time and I absolutely love all of his American-made movies (never seen his Dutch ones, or the new one, Black Book, yet) except for Hollow Man, which he admits he didn't put a lot of effort into.

Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Showgirls. Brilliant, all of them. No one blurs the line between satire and mastery better, you always get a spectacle, and unlike most movies, they are never boring.
 
1. The Matrix:
THE BEST BIT The moment that brought bullet time to the movies: Neo's rooftop gunfight with a nefarious Agent. Slow motion has never been so kinetic.

2. Battlestar Galactica:
THE BEST BIT While any given episode of Galactica is
better than 90 percent of what's on the air, the thrill of discovery makes the
first season (including the miniseries) the way to go.

3. Bladerunner:
THE BEST BIT The genuinely heartbreaking pre-death speech by the replicant played by Rutger Hauer (''I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion...'') is also the most geeked-out, hardcore sci-fi sequence in the pantheon of all-time great movie moments.

4.The X-Files:
THE BEST BIT For the perfect balance of mythology and monster-of-the-week, pick up season 3. You'll get plenty of geeky goodness — the black oil, the Cigarette Smoking Man, the chip in Scully's neck — but you'll also get brilliant stand-alone episodes like ''Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose.'' When guest star Peter Boyle, playing a winsome psychic, tells Scully she'll never die, it's hard not to wish the same could have been said for this show's heyday.

5. Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan:
THE BEST BIT The prize goes to an outwitted Shatner, frothing at the mouth and bursting with rage, bellowing ''Khaaaannnnn!'' at the top of his lungs.

6. Brazil:
THE BEST BIT In a quintessentially dark comic moment, Lowry visits
the office of his genial chum Jack (Michael Palin), who, in a blood-smeared
smock, babysits his cherubic daughter while putting the screws to some rebels.

7. ET:
THE BEST BIT A boy, a bicycle, an alien, a full moon, and John Williams' swelling score: Elliott's bike ride through the night sky, with E.T. stuffed in
the front basket, will keep giving audiences goose bumps until much nastier extraterrestrials come along and destroy the earth.

8. Star Trek the Next Generation:
THE BEST BIT Season 3 brought landmark episodes like the time-travel gem ''Yesterday's Enterprise,'' the classic Trek touchstone ''Sarek,'' and one of the best season-ending cliff-hangers in TV history: the Borg-centric ''The Best of Both Worlds, Part I.''

9. Aliens:
THE BEST BIT While the first film took a less-is-more approach to revealing the gnarly beast, the sequel's queen alien gets her close-up, most memorably in the mano a mano climax. When the queen corners a young orphan, Ripley announces her arrival with Schwarzeneggerian brio: ''Get away from her,
you bitch!''

10. The Thing:
THE BEST BIT Wilford Brimley's crotchety Blair going loco when he's quarantined. You'll never look at a bowl of Quaker Oats the same way again.

11. Lost:
THE BEST BIT The Emmy-winning first season, with its perfect pilot and
getting- to-know-you character flashbacks, is an object lesson in capturing the imagination.

12. Back to the Future:
THE BEST BIT Glover steals every scene as the bullied dweeb, and sci-fi fans everywhere can relate to his sincere horror at the prospect of having ''Darth Vader'' (of the planet Vulcan) melt his brain.

13. The Terminator / Terminator 2:
THE BEST BIT So many killer sequences to choose from! For the way it presages the coming effects revolution, we're tempted to highlight the scene in the original when the Terminator tends to his wounds in front of the bathroom mirror. The true winner, though, is the first big chase in T2, featuring a semi tractor-trailer careening off an overpass into a river basin below. You can't beat that.

14. Children of Men:
THE BEST BIT Aided by a little CG trickery, Cuarón and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki, deliver some of the coolest tracking shots in the history of cinema — the best being a jaw-dropping, four-minute action sequence built around a carjacking attempt on a remote forest road.

15. Firefly / Serenity:
THE BEST BIT Saddle up for the show, to see how it all started, and the movie, to see the ending. Then pray that someday, some studio exec will have the guts to make more.

16. Total Recall:
THE BEST BIT It's tough to top Schwarzenegger mind-melding with the shriveled Kuato...but Arnold pulling a tracking device out of his skull -through his nose — comes close.

17. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind:
THE BEST BIT All credit to Gondry for using dazzling theatrical effects and the simplest of settings — like a frozen lake — to make Joel's memory erasure so powerful and poignant. The image that packs the most punch? Joel standing in the living room of an abandoned beach house, remembering the day he and Clem first met, as walls crumble and the ocean swirls around his feet.

18. Heroes:
THE BEST BIT The still-in-progress first season rolled out flashy effects, gory dismemberments, and doomsday visions, but Oka's gleeful cheer when he managed to teleport to Times Square trumps them all. It was the cry of a normal dude who just realized his entire world was forever changed...and it's
that transformation that keeps us riveted.

19. Starship Troopers:
THE BEST BIT Doogie Howser (a.k.a. Neil Patrick Harris) in an SS trench coat reading the mind of the captured Brain Bug: ''It's afraid...it's afraid!'

20. Star Wars - Clone Wars:
THE BEST BIT Volume 2. Even though volume 1 is almost wall-to-wall action, the five shorts in volume 2 cover a lot more ground, and lead directly into Episode III.

21. Futurama:
THE BEST BIT The zippy third season. One highlight: Cyclops
warrior Leela falls for Fry after ''intelligent worms'' infest his body, making him smarter and stronger.

22. Quantum Leap:
THE BEST BIT Season 2's ''Catch a Falling Star'' let Bakula flaunt his Broadway background, as Sam leaped into an actor playing Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha.

23. Dr. Who:
THE BEST BIT Check out the first season of the newest incarnation, featuring Heroes' Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Doctor (the best ever — apologies to Tom Baker) and the piercing, poignant wit of writer Russell T. Davies.

24. Galaxy Quest:
THE BEST BIT Sam Rockwell's cocky ''red shirt,'' killed in his first and only episode of the TV show, who spends most of the film fretting over whether he'll get bumped off for real.

25. V: The Miniseries:
THE BEST BIT In one of the best TV reveals ever, lizard
queen Diana (Jane Badler) — still disguised as a sultry brunet human — unhinges her jaw and stuffs an entire guinea pig in her hideously elongated piehole.
 
Nice to see Galactica in there, but no B5? Maybe I'm just a big ole ninny-head biased snob, but B5 outshines most of this list.
 
Well this list with the exception of Galactica looks like top 4 network/movie only list. No B5, no Farscape, no sliders <questionable if should be on there>, no stargate (movies or sg1). Dunno never got V doubt should be on list, trade starship troopers for b5 or Farscape any day. For movies as a child of the late 80's Short Circuit. There a few others.
 
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B5 is still a bit of a culty type show. It might have slipped under the radar of those who created the list. "Brazil" that made top 10 and I've never heard of it. So who knows where they got some of this.
 
I've heard of Brazil, but I've never seen it. I know it's a Terry Gilliam movie, same guy who did 12 Monkeys. I loved 12 Monkeys. Even that should have been on the list before some of this other crap was considered. Other things that came to mind for me were:

Taken, the miniseries (heck of a lot better than V, though I did enjoy V in the 6th grade.)
Deep Space Nine (though TNG was probably enough "new" Star Trek and they didn't want to overdo it?)
The Fifth Element (hella fun movie)
Gattica (loved that flick)

I'm sure more will come to me....
 
"V" > Taken. By far. At least, the original "V." The series "V" and the two part "V: The Final Battle" Were pretty weak. But the original miniseries was fantastic.
 
Yeah, V definitely deserved to be there. It was like Independence Day, just much, much better, and without the cheesy end.

I was, of course, disappointed to not see B5 on the list .. but I guess it's just too "abstract". On the other hand, I don't think "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was a huge blockbuster .. not that I'm complaining about its inclusion, it was a great movie.

I've heard of Brazil - I got the DVD for it on a sale in London last year, but have yet to get to see it. It's by Terry Gilliam, a former Monthy Pyton (the guy that made the visuals, mostly) and the guy that made Twelve Monkeys (a movie I would have loved if Brad Pitt wasn't so bloody annoying). I've heard it's awesome, but like other elements on this list that I own but have yet to see, I just haven't gotten to it yet.

I've also never seen any part of Alien - is there anyone else left on the planet that can say this? Or Starship Troopers .. or Heroes ..

The only items on the list I've never heard of are "The Thing" and "Children of Men".
 
Chilli said:
I've heard of Brazil - I got the DVD for it on a sale in London last year, but have yet to get to see it. It's by Terry Gilliam, a former Monthy Pyton (the guy that made the visuals, mostly) and the guy that made Twelve Monkeys (a movie I would have loved if Brad Pitt wasn't so bloody annoying). I've heard it's awesome, but like other elements on this list that I own but have yet to see, I just haven't gotten to it yet.
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Being a die-hard Brazil fan, I can say you won't regret it. Unless you're my wife; for whatever reason, the dystopian attitude running through it really upset and distraught her (yet it didn't for 12 Monkeys, which she loves, go figure). But yeah, if you liked 12 Monkeys, you should like Brazil (and Jonathan Pryce is a blast to watch).

Oh, and I just thought of something...since you apparently know at least some of Monty Python...do you remember the short The Crimson Permanent Assurance, which was at the beginning of The Meaning of Life? That was entirely done by Gilliam, and was very similar in style to Brazil (and in fact, I think used much of the same crew to shoot it, but I could be mistaken on that part).

Chilli said:
I've also never seen any part of Alien - is there anyone else left on the planet that can say this? Or Starship Troopers .. or Heroes ..
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Haven't seen Starship Troopers myself, I just have this feeling I'd fall on the hate-it side of the fence, dunno. However, just FYI, Alien wasn't on the list, Aliens was, and they are two very completely different films (as the list correctly noted). The first Alien is considered by many (myself included) to be the quintessential study in how to do a sci-fi horror flick, while Aliens is the corresponding study in how to do a sci-fi action flick, not to mention a perfect example in how to properly do a true sequel (same universe, similar setting and characters, but used to tell a completely different style of story. Don't copy the first story, dagnabbit, use it as a springboard to tell your own! *glares at Alien^3*)

Chilli said:
The only items on the list I've never heard of are "The Thing" and "Children of Men".
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Children of Men is actually next on our Netflix queue. Heard great things about it, hopefully it will live up to our expectations. As for The Thing, haven't seen it personally, but how could you not have *heard* of it??

Well, OK, not *that* bad, but still. The Thing, The Blob, The Fly...I mean, isn't there just a long string of B-movies starting with The from that era that everyone has heard of, even if they have no clue what they are about? lol

--mcn


(p.s. yes, I know--way too many parentheticals, and yes I finally just got lazy with all the proper italics. Sue me :)
 
It's actually Gattaca ... the name of the movie being formed solely from the letters representing DNA's four nucleotide bases: Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine.
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You big ole NERD you!! (Grin)

As for The Thing, go watch it (for those who haven't seen it.) It remains one of my favorite horror flicks. I consider it more horror than I do sci-fi, though it is both. That movie scared the holy heck out of me. It's what I wish horror movies WERE in this day and age. John Carpenter rocks it. If you want to see a good, suspenseful, well-done horror/sci-fi flick, please see it. I doubt you guys will be disappointed.

And you get to see Kurt Russell all hippie'd out. I rank it up there with Alien/Aliens as far as dark/edgy and "GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER" movies go. =)
 
Grindhouse made me realise that I, a big Kurt Russell fan, had never actually seen The Thing, so it's high up on my netflix queue. Looking forward to it.

Brazil deserves to be on the list more than B5.
 
Brazil and Twelve Monkeys are both great films. I think Brazil is clearly the better of the two, but I would have listed Twelve Monkeys on a list of sci fi moments, rather that Brazil. I don't think Brazil is even sci fi, I can't think of anything in it we couldn't do right now. It is a political satire. Twelve Monkeys is one of the best sci fi films of all time.

Much as I like Paul Verhooven, I didn't care for Starship Troopers, which I would sum up as 'Cute young Nazis squash giant bugs.' Robo Cop is much more deserving of a listing.
 
I don't think Brazil is even sci fi, I can't think of anything in it we couldn't do right now. It is a political satire.
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Sci-fi doesn't have to have things "we can't do right now."

Brazil fits the classic sci-fi model of a throught-oppressing, bleak future, in which our basest natures are incorporated into industry and The System.
 
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