SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The weekend is upon us and if you are looking for something to help pass the time, look no further! The Ars Technica science fiction bucket list—42 movies every geek must see ...and nine bonus stinkers from which you should run away screaming.
[...] Lists of science fiction movies are a common item for discussion on the Ars staff Slack channel—particularly short lists of the best science fiction movies ever made. But "best" is an impossible word to quantify in any broadly applicable way—one person's "best ever" might be another person's worst, especially in a genre of movies as rich and varied as science fiction.
["Science fiction" is a meta term that refers to a huge host of sub-genres, from "hard" science fiction to skiffy to all points between. For this list, we've chosen to constrain eligibility requirements to movies that deal speculatively with science and/or the future. This lets us include classics like Frankenstein (which is properly sci-fi) while excluding films that skew heavily toward fantasy. Then again, we've got Star Wars in the list and that's not a future movie, so author's discretion trumps all, I suppose!]
While the Ars staff has some bitter disagreements on which movies are better than others, it's undeniable that some science fiction movies are mandatory viewing for the modern geek. To that end, rather than try to pull together another tired "top ten sci-fi movies" listicle, we've instead polled the Ars staff to try to come up with a definitive "science fiction bucket list"—that is, a list of sci-fi movies that you should absolutely see at least once before you die. They aren't necessarily the "best" movies by any specific set of criteria, but every film on this list is outstanding in some particular way. Some were groundbreaking in their stories or subject matter, some were controversial, and some contained a character or plot twist that went on to become an archetype, referenced in and reused by countless other films. Some films on the list, like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, are pure cinematic poetry; others, like Pacific Rim, are pure popcorn fun. And, as a bonus, we even included a bonus list of a few absolutely terrible stinkers at the very bottom.
[Continues...]
Here is Ars Technica's list of forty-two must-see movies. See the linked Ars Technica story for writeups on each film or follow the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) link provided here.
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (IMDb)
- 28 Days Later... (2003) (IMDb)
- Alien (1979) (IMDb)
- Blade Runner (1982) (IMDb)
- Brazil (1985) (IMDb)
- The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) (IMDb)
- Children of Men (2006) (IMDb)
- A Clockwork Orange (1972) (IMDb)
- Computer Chess (2013) (IMDb)
- C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) (IMDb)
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) (IMDb)
- District 9 (2009) (IMDb)
- Dune (1984) (IMDb)
- Enemy Mine (1985) (IMDb)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) (IMDb)
- Forbidden Planet (1956) (IMDb)
- Frankenstein (1931) (IMDb)
- Galaxy Quest (1999) (IMDb)
- Ghost in the Shell (1995) (IMDb)
- Ghosts with Shit Jobs (2012) (IMDb)
- Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1954) (IMDb)
- Her (2013) (IMDb)
- Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) (IMDb)
- The Matrix (1999) (IMDb)
- The Martian (2015) (IMDb)
- Metropolis (1927) (IMDb)
- Moon (2009) (IMDb)
- Pacific Rim (2013) (IMDb)
- Planet of the Apes (1968) (IMDb)
- Primer (2004) (IMDb)
- RoboCop (1987) (IMDb)
- Stalker (1979) (IMDb)
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) (IMDb)
- Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (IMDb)
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) (IMDb)
- They Live (1988) (IMDb)
- The Thing (1982) (IMDb)
- THX 1138 (1971) (IMDb)
- TRON (1982) (IMDb)
- Videodrome (1983) (IMDb)
- WALL*E (2008) (IMDb)
- WarGames (1983) (IMDb)
And it may be best to avoid these:
- Bad Taste (1987) (IMDb)
- Barbarella (1968) (IMDb)
- Battlefield Earth (2000) (IMDb)
- Brain Damage (1988) (IMDb)
- Re-Animator (1985) (IMDb)
- Robot Jox (1990) (IMDb)
- Solarbabies (1986) (IMDb)
- Star Trek Nemesis (2002) (IMDb)
- Zardoz (1974) (IMDb)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 06 2016, @02:08PM
I'm trying to figure out exactly who is supposed to use this list. You generally have some sense of criteria for lists like this, but I cannot imagine there's any overlap AT ALL between the set of people who think "Pacific Rim" qualifies as a movie for a "bucket list" and the set of people who would have a similar opinion about Tarkovksy's "Stalker". I'd go so far as to say that every person who absolutely loves one of those two films would absolutely hate the other, and would likely think viewers who love the other one are crazy.
I could nitpick other things, but the most confusing choice here to me is CSA. It's actually a really interesting and rather unknown film, but it in no way qualifies as sci-fi. There's no science, and at best it's alternate history or something (as well as parody).
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday November 06 2016, @02:15PM
Generally, if there is a number in the title, it is click-bait.
They probably popped "Sci-Fi movie every geek must see" into google or something.
(Score: 1) by NotTheDr01ds on Sunday November 06 2016, @03:24PM
While I agree with your first sentence, at least as a "general" rule, the second sentence tells me that you must not be familiar with Ars Technica, nor RTFA (or even the summary). Ars Technica is one of the most reputable Tech and Tech Culture news sites out there. The entire list of 42 movies fit on just 3 pages, as it was a fairly long article, hardly qualifying as click-bait.
The reason there are some wildly different styles of movies on the list is because this was a group collaboration by all (or at least many of) their editors. That's covered in the summary that was reposted here. They mention that some of these choices involved "bitter disagreements", and yes Pacific Rim was one of those called out as such.
(Score: 1) by NotTheDr01ds on Sunday November 06 2016, @03:39PM
Extending my thoughts a bit on this ... I will say that this is one of the worst lists of "best" sci-fi movies I can imagine. It feels like each editor was trying to get their cult-favorite into the list, and missed so many obviously better films as a result.
They should have made a "Top Sci-fi Movies You May Have Missed" and left out the obvious blockbusters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @11:58PM
Ars is a good site. However, they have lost much of the glow they used to have. Much of their stuff is little more than a few paragraphs of them pontificating on something. Long gone is the in depth review of how something worked and why. Just today 6 of the things on there are about Trump and Clinton, 14 of them are some sort of political thing, and 3-4 actual tech reviews. Not exactly tech anymore. The echos of Unisys live on.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Monday November 07 2016, @01:17AM
They left out plenty of blockbusters. E. T., Back to the Future, Avatar, Total Recall, Deep Impact, Interstellar, Minority Report, The Fly, Weird Science, Hackers, The Last Starfighter, and most of the movie adaptations of TV series and franchise films-- the other Star Treks and Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Matrix sequels, Lost in Space, etc.
(Score: 1) by NotTheDr01ds on Monday November 07 2016, @10:23AM
Agreed - Apologies if I wasn't clear, but that was my point. A mix of cult classics, with some blockbusters, but a whole bunch of both left out made for a bizarre list.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Sunday November 06 2016, @04:21PM
Now that you mention Tarkovsky, that reminds me of Solaris [wikipedia.org] (after the book by Stanislav Lem).
Certainly one of the weirder science fiction films..
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 07 2016, @02:48AM
Indeed. If they wanted to include a Tarkovsky film, Solaris would have been a more appropriate choice for a sci-fi list, I'd think. It's also somewhat more "accessible" to general audiences than something like Stalker (though Solaris is still at a completely different pace than just about any standard Hollywood film). Stalker's a better film (in my opinion), but I'd hardly recommend it to anyone without easing them into such movies first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06 2016, @05:41PM
> I'm trying to figure out exactly who is supposed to use this list.
People who aren't stuck in a rut?
Seems like your post is all about you and your preconceptions about what makes for entertaining cinema.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 07 2016, @02:57AM
Seems like your post is all about you and your preconceptions about what makes for entertaining cinema.
Huh?
Look -- I made absolutely NO critical judgment whatsoever. I respect everyone's opinions and tastes, and I recognize some people love movies like Pacific Rim and others love movies like Stalker.
What I'm saying is that this is billed as a "bucket list" of sci-fi films people should see before they die, and I'm pretty sure that just about everyone who'd put one of those films on their "bucket list" will likely hate the other. I'm not judging either one as better or worse (since that opinion will vary for each person), just noting it's a strange list.
Furthermore, *IF* the goal (as you presuppose) is to expose people to a wide variety of stuff, what makes Pacific Rim and Stalker stand out as the best choices for a "must see" list? There are dozens of Hollywood blockbuster sci-fi films with huge special effects budgets, etc. that could be recommended rather than Pacific Rim. What makes that film stand out? Why not choose a more standard ("classic," even if just a few more years old) representative of that genre?
And for Tarkovsky, I already replied to another post saying I think Solaris would be a much better option for audiences not familiar with his work. And there are a handful of other great sci-fi "arthouse" flicks that come to mind I could also recommend if people wanted to branch out in that direction.
So, it's not even that the criteria seem incongruous, but even if they are meant to be purposefully schizophrenic, the choices still aren't necessarily representative of good "bucket list" options in those genres.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday November 06 2016, @05:44PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @06:01PM
I'm assuming the rationale for CSA is that it is counterfactual, as science fiction is in general. As you suggest, alternate history would be the appropriate term.