{"id":7,"date":"2012-05-16T09:48:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T23:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/103.227.176.13\/~delahoy\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2015-11-04T10:27:22","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T00:27:22","slug":"my-list-of-the-best-science-fiction-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/my-list-of-the-best-science-fiction-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"My list of the best science fiction movies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a dangerous field into which one ventures. Choosing your favourite movies is like choosing your favourite bands &#8211; it&#8217;s a very personal, subjective thing, and any two random people will rarely agree. Choosing your favourite science fiction movies is even more treacherous. That&#8217;s more like choosing your favourite songs from your favourite band.<\/p>\n<p>In choosing my &#8220;best of&#8221; list, I&#8217;m imposing some definite selection criteria that may be enough to weed out films that others consider better. To be included on my list, a movie must tick the following boxes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Must actually be science fiction. That does NOT include fantasy (which rules out any of the &#8220;Lord of the Rings&#8221; movies right there). I just wish a few bookstores viewed that definition of science fiction the same way. Not that I&#8217;m devaluing fantasy, just that I see that as a distinct category of its own. What actually constitutes science fiction will always be a matter of debate, but as a starting point, a good science fiction story should make you THINK and WONDER. It should have some root in science or alternative possibilities, without which the story could not exist.<\/li>\n<li>Movies that are just westerns set in space don&#8217;t count. This was actually a tough one to add, because it actually rules out a couple of movies that I like. For example, I like &#8220;Outland&#8221; even though I know a lot of people don&#8217;t consider it a very good movie &#8211; but it&#8217;s just &#8220;High noon&#8221; in space and has no discernable science fiction premise other than it&#8217;s set on a moon.<\/li>\n<li>Big special effects do not a good science fiction movie make. &#8220;Independence Day&#8221; had jaw-dropping effects for its day, and I still like it as an action movie. But just because it has spaceships and aliens doesn&#8217;t mean it is good science fiction. I mean really, a computer virus bumped those guys off? C&#8217;mon.<\/li>\n<li>Just because I loved a particular science fiction book doesn&#8217;t mean I thought the movie was any good. A good example is &#8220;I, robot&#8221; &#8211; a classic science fiction book, and one of my all-time favourites, but the Will Smith movie had almost nothing whatsoever to do with the book and was only an average action movie.<\/li>\n<li>Superhero movies (eg, Spiderman, Superman, Green Lantern, Thor, etc) aren&#8217;t eligible, even though they may contain science fiction elements.<\/li>\n<li>An action movie is fine, as long as it is still science fiction. A horror movie is fine as long as it is still science fiction. A comedy movie is find as long as it is still science fiction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It is entirely probable that my list will change over time. My tastes and opinions change, new movies come out, or I can reconsider an older movie in a new way. Finally, they&#8217;re my rules, and I can break them if I want to.<\/p>\n<p>Having said all that, here I go&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>My list of the best science fiction movies<\/h3>\n<p><em>(as at Wednesday 16 may 2012)<\/em><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>2001: A space odyssey (1968)<\/li>\n<li>Blade runner (1982)<\/li>\n<li>Forbidden planet (1956)<\/li>\n<li>The day the earth stood still (1951)<\/li>\n<li>Star Wars (1977)<\/li>\n<li>Alien (1979)<\/li>\n<li>Rollerball (1975)<\/li>\n<li>The matrix (1999)<\/li>\n<li>A clockwork orange (1971)<\/li>\n<li>Inception (2010)<\/li>\n<li>Close encounters of the third kind (1977)<\/li>\n<li>The fifth element (1997)<\/li>\n<li>Terminator (1984)<\/li>\n<li>Metropolis (1926)<\/li>\n<li>THX 1138 (1972)<\/li>\n<li>Silent running (1972)<\/li>\n<li>Gattaca (1997)<\/li>\n<li>Solaris (1972)<\/li>\n<li>The man who fell to earth (1976)<\/li>\n<li>1984 (1984)<\/li>\n<li>Avatar (2009)<\/li>\n<li>Sleeper (1973)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Honourable mentions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here are some movies that I thought were still good (or just fun) science fiction films, even though they may not have made my best-of list.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Adjustment Bureau (2011)<\/li>\n<li>District 9 (2009)<\/li>\n<li>The blob (1958)<\/li>\n<li>The andromeda strain (1971)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a dangerous field into which one ventures. Choosing your favourite movies is like choosing your favourite bands &#8211; it&#8217;s a very&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/space_odyssey_3.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2rvIN-7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17,"url":"http:\/\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/my-favourite-science-fiction-authors\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":0},"title":"My favourite science fiction authors","date":"May 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the things that appeals to me about science fiction is that the storytelling need not have any limitations at all. In a similar way to fantasy, if there is a barrier to the story, it can often be worked around, redesigned, or just plain ignored. Good science fiction\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Science fiction&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/asimov1.png?fit=1200%2C750&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":50,"url":"http:\/\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/my-favourite-movie-soundtrack-composers\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":1},"title":"My favourite movie soundtrack composers","date":"May 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This list crosses two of my favourite pastimes (and two failed careers I never quite managed to pull off properly). Music is as vital to the emotion and drama of a movie as the best acting and photography. Nothing can change the mood of a scene faster than a great\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Movies&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/25887_web.ae_.starwars.pica_.jpg?fit=1200%2C777&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":172,"url":"http:\/\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/star-trek-ranking-all-the-movies\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":2},"title":"Star Trek: Ranking all the movies","date":"November 5, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) Score: 6.5 IMDB Rating: 6.4 With the unexpected success of Star Wars (1977), the work underway to create a new Star Trek television series (\"Star Trek: Phase II\") quickly changed direction and a movie was given the green light (with Paramount hoping to kickstart\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Movies&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/star-trek-wallpaper-desktop-nms8.jpeg?fit=1200%2C750&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":43,"url":"http:\/\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/my-list-of-the-greatest-film-directors-of-all-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":3},"title":"My list of the greatest film directors of all time","date":"May 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"There are hundreds of examples of this list out there, and each of them will have entries that people agree or disagree with. 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This film certainly sets the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Movies&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-11-04-at-8.41.42-AM-copy.jpg?fit=935%2C1037&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"http:\/\/craig.delahoy.net\/myblog\/70\/","url_meta":{"origin":7,"position":5},"title":"Collected Quotes from Albert Einstein","date":"March 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Stumbleupon sent me to a personal page on the Stanford Residential Computing website, but I couldn't access the page directly (page not found error, someone called cheshire). 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