Your top 5 sci-fi movies (and why)

[Ryujin]

Doesn't sound familiar, but there are a few movies of the era I only know of by reputation. It especially gets bad when I know there were some early SF TV shows that have pretty much disappeared completely (though I gather most of those are no great loss).

It might well have been an anthology series like "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits", but is wasn't those specifically, as far as I can tell. There were a few of them that are now all but forgotten. For example "One Step Beyond", which ran concurrently with "The Twilight Zone" and was pretty darned good.

 

[Parmandur]

On the other hand, the overwhelming focus on Star Wars in this thread is res ipsa loquitur evidence that it's science fiction. So, carry on.

On the contrary, that is evidence for why the distinction is important.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It might well have been an anthology series like "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits", but is wasn't those specifically, as far as I can tell. There were a few of them that are now all but forgotten. For example "One Step Beyond", which ran concurrently with "The Twilight Zone" and was pretty darned good.

"One Step Beyond" didn't do much overt SF though; most of its stuff was supernatural-adjacent at least. It might have been reruns of something like "Science Fiction Theatre" though, if that ever had a rerun set.

 

[Ryujin]

"One Step Beyond" didn't do much overt SF though; most of its stuff was supernatural-adjacent at least. It might have been reruns of something like "Science Fiction Theatre" though, if that ever had a rerun set.

Like a lot of that old oddball stuff, I think all of the episodes of "Science Fiction Theater" are available on Daily Motion.

 

[dbolack]

Do we consider Event Horizon?

 

[Autumnal]

Do we consider Event Horizon?

We do, but I think it’s a better horror move with an sf setting and story than it is an sf movie.

I don’t think the supernatural element disqualifies from being sf (or we’d get into all sorts of ugly snarl including whether Christins, Muslims, etc. can write hard sf), but the focus of the characters and the emotional load is all on encountering that element rather than the well-done sf context of it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Do we consider Event Horizon?

Nothing says an SF movie can't also have supernatural elements, even big ones. After all, we have the end of Brainstorm.

 

[Thomas Shey]

We do, but I think it’s a better horror move with an sf setting and story than it is an sf movie.

I don’t think the supernatural element disqualifies from being sf (or we’d get into all sorts of ugly snarl including whether Christins, Muslims, etc. can write hard sf), but the focus of the characters and the emotional load is all on encountering that element rather than the well-done sf context of it.

While not wrong, if you start getting picky about the horror/SF divide, a number of movies become a problem including Alien.

 

[Autumnal]

Sure. It’s all about where I think an entry will have neighbors that make for productive comparisons I’m very impure in my taxonomy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think that you missed something in "The Day the Earth Stood Still." Aliens weren't helping us. They were threatening us because if we went off into space the way that we are, we'd be a danger to them. They just didn't want to kill us out-of-hand, because they were more advanced than that.

Sounds like helping to me.