In the very small hours of the morning - so small that I failed to notice it -a new group Top 10 went up at The Film Experience: the eleven-including-a-tie best science-fiction films prior to 1977.
As always, lists are a fun and contentious thing to talk about, so head over there and do so. But for the curious, my abnormally on-consensus ballot went like this:
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - #1 on the TFE list
2. Solaris (1972) - on the TFE list
3. The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) - on the TFE list
4. Fantastic Planet (1973)
5. Metropolis (1927) - on the TFE list
6. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) - on the TFE list
7. Forbidden Planet (1956) - on the TFE list
8. Godzilla (1954) - on the TFE list
9. Planet of the Apes (1968) - on the TFE list
10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) - on the TFE list
And the runners-up, chronologically:
When Worlds Collide (1951)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Them! (1954)
La jetée (1962) - on the TFE list
Alphaville (1965)
This was as terrifying to whittle down as any list we've done: between this and its impending sister list, the sheer glut of worthy candidates and the constant terror that I'd forgotten something obvious and brilliant made it almost impossible for me to commit to a final list. Not to mention that "best science-fiction" is not a term that means any one particular thing 100% of the time. So please, tell me what I overlooked!
22 April 2015
15 comments:
Just a few rules so that everybody can have fun: ad hominem attacks on the blogger are fair; ad hominem attacks on other commenters will be deleted. And I will absolutely not stand for anything that is, in my judgment, demeaning, insulting or hateful to any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. And though I won't insist on keeping politics out, let's think long and hard before we say anything particularly inflammatory.
Also, sorry about the whole "must be a registered user" thing, but I do deeply hate to get spam, and I refuse to take on the totalitarian mantle of moderating comments, and I am much too lazy to try to migrate over to a better comments system than the one that comes pre-loaded with Blogger.
Off the top of my head, John Frankenheimer's Seconds and George Melies's A Trip to the Moon might warrant a bit of appreciation.
ReplyDeleteGood to see Godzilla represented.
ReplyDeleteKudos to you, Tim, for your one outlier on the list. Fantastic Planet is wild and trippy and utterly brilliant.
ReplyDeleteMan, it's nice to see The Man Who Fell to Earth get some love.
ReplyDeleteThe absence of Jack Arnold (particularly The Incredible Shrinking Man) makes me sad.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, inclusions of Metropolis on such lists don't make me feel anything anymore.
Good picks, although my list would probably have made room for Soylent Green.
ReplyDeleteI am very pleased to see Fantastic Planet on there! Also the other poster above is right, you should really check out Seconds.
ReplyDeleteBoth are good lists. Here are some other SciFi movies that could have fight their way in there:
ReplyDeleteThe Incredible Shrinking Man (1956)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Colossus (1970)
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
Soylent Green (1973)
Stepford Wives (1975)
I could make an argument that certain thrillers with "science gone mad" themes could count, your Frankensteins and whatnot. I guess those would more properly count under the horror genre, though. Too bad, I wish Island Of Lost Souls could have placed. (But Tim's list does have no less than SEVEN monster/alien thrillers from the 50s...) (And checking the site's list, they did include Bride Of Frankenstein; that's nice, but I do wish they would've gone with the original, it really is the better picture.)
ReplyDeleteFor me, Bride of Frankenstein comfortably falls on the "horror" side of the horror/sci-fi divide, assuming we want to insist on having such a thing. That's what makes this list tough. The Best Films That Have Sci-Fi In Them? The Best Sci-Fi In Films That Aren't Necessarily the Best? The Best Pure Sci-Fi?
ReplyDeleteIt's all arbitrary and thorny, but at least this way nobody will get sad at me when they see some of the things I didn't include in the second list.
Meanwhile, I had my never-watched copy of Seconds sitting right in front of my TV for two days to watch it before I finished this list, and I simply ran out of time.
I'd love to see the follow-up to this list. I can't count myself as a fan of Fantastic Planet, nor Planet of the Apes, even if I like both of them just fine, but the rest of this list is pretty solid in my own book.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering how much politics played a factor in this - like, what keeps La jetée, one of your own picks for the best movies of all time, off of the main list, least of all the top 3?
Mostly that what I love about La jetée has nothing to do with it "as sci-fi". And that consideration led me down some idiotic intellectual rabbit holes when I was completing my second-part ballot, which is such a gross lacework of compromises and wrong decisions that I don't even want to share it.
ReplyDeleteBut our group list for part 2 is here.
Looking at the part 2 list, Tim, I'm guessing what you voted for was:
ReplyDeleteBlade Runner
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Dark City
The Terminator
Brazil
WALL-E
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
And some alternates in my guesses:
Alien - maybe but I feel you might moreso consider that horror than sci-fi (I know I personally do)
Children of Men
Star Wars or The Empire Strikes Back
The Iron Giant
Under the Skin - maybe but I also feel you'd be one to say it's too soon to vote for it.
How far off am I?
Oh and I'll also throw in the first Mad Max as an alternate.
ReplyDeleteSee, Eternal Sunshine and Brazil felt insufficiently "sci fi" to me while the Mad Maxes were just fine. This was one of the the reasons I looked at my ballot, concluded it was incoherent, and decided to throw it in the trash.
ReplyDeleteThat said, you got a bunch right: A.I., Blade Runner, Dark City, Alien - I think it splits the difference perfectly - and Under the Skin for sure. I don't remember if WALL·E made my ballot or if I just thought about it; same with Children of Men. I know at one point I realised that I was at, like, three-quarters post-apocalypse movies, and decided that I needed to back off just for variety. I definitely included 12 Monkeys.
(Close Encounters and Star Wars were ineligible).