Your top 5 sci-fi movies (and why)

[payn]

The idea that "we need a really strong leader to sort people out" is, itself, a problem a really strong leader can't fix. So I'm going to say the aliens just replaced a bunch of problems with another big problem.

Just ask the Citadel Catalyst kid!

 

[Ryujin]

The idea that "we need a really strong leader to sort people out" is, itself, a problem a really strong leader can't fix. So I'm going to say the aliens just replaced a bunch of problems with another big problem.

I guess that I just don't see an interplanetary United Nations as a "strong leader."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I guess that I just don't see an interplanetary United Nations as a "strong leader."

I think any comparison to the UN fails when they start threatening genocide.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Well, going by the movies I believe watched the most

1. Matrix
2. Star Trek VIII: First Contact
3. Mad Max: Fury Road
4. Dark City
5. Terminator

Are these really the best, even just for me? Dunno, but forcing me to decide favorites or whatever never works anyway.

 

[Bohandas]

for me personally I'm tenatively thinking

-Spaceballs
-Scary Movie 3
-Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
-Ghostbusters
-Muppets From Space

Runners up
-Let's Visit the World of the Future
-The Fifth Element
-Ghostbusters 3
-The Whisperer in Darkness
-Star Wars 4
-Star Wars 5
-Back to the Future
-Back to the Future 3
-Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
-Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
-Virtual Nightmare
-The Matrix
-Star Trek: First Contact
-The Rocky Horror Picture Show
-Doom Annihilation
-Event Horizon
-Arise: The SubGenius Video
-Mystery Men
-Superhero Movie
-Prince of Darkness
-Castle in the Sky
-Read or Die
-Space Zombie Bingo
-Scary Movie 4
-From Beyond
-Dune (David Lynch version; I haven't seen the new one)
-Escaflowne
-Daikaiju Gamera
-Plan 9 (2015 version)

Whist the movie looks very dated (especially the evil robot), it's actually a lot more topical now than it was in it's day, with the threat of AI making work obsolete looking far more plausible. And hence humans having no purpose apart from breading more humans

As if existing to work, as you imply, is a good purpose. That's a thousand times more bleak that existing only to breed more humans.

EDIT:
Springboarding off of this, and since people have also mentioned Wall-E, have you all heard the theory that Wall-E is actually Satan? At the start of the film all of humanity exists in an Edenic state with no work, hunger, or strife, but because of a plant which Wall-E gives to a character named Eve, mankind id thrust into a world in which they must toil by the sweat of their brow.

EDIT:
I've found a concise summary of it online: "We have an entity (Wall-E/Satan) who gives an object (Seedling/Apple) to (a robot/woman) named Eve, which starts a chain of events that led to mankind losing a paradise and getting stranded in Earth."

2001: The visuals and the use of music are incredible, and it is ambitious thematically, but, dare I say, it ultimately says too little and too weakly.

The book is incredible. The movie is BORING. I understand that the special effects were groundbreaking at the time, but it feels like the entire movie is no more than an exhibition of those now-obsolete effects, with terrible pacing problems and no plot that can be discerned without having already read the book

How come when Kubrick or Cameron builds a movie out of nothing but visual effects they're a 'genius' but when anybody else does it they're a hack?

 

[payn]

for me personally I'm tenatively thinking

-Spaceballs
-Scary Movie 3
-Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
-Ghostbusters
-Muppets From Space

looks at the above...

The book is incredible. The movie is BORING. I understand that the special effects were groundbreaking at the time, but it feels like the entire movie is no more than an exhibition of those now-obsolete effects, with terrible pacing problems no plot that can be discerned without having already read the book

How come when Kubrick or Cameron builds a movie out of nothing but visual effects they're a 'genius' but when anybody else does it they're a hack?

Looks back at this and suddenly it all makes sense.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As if existing to work, as you imply, is a good purpose. That's a thousand times more bleak that existing only to breed more humans.

You think the life of a virus is desirable?

EDIT:
Springboarding off of this, and since people have also mentioned Wall-E, have you all heard the theory that Wall-E is actually Satan? At the start of the film all of humanity exists in an Edenic state with no work, hunger, or strife, but because of a plant which Wall-E gives to a character named Eve, mankind id thrust into a world in which they must toil by the sweat of their brow.

EDIT:
I've found a concise summary of it online: "We have an entity (Wall-E/Satan) who gives an object (Seedling/Apple) to (a robot/woman) named Eve, which starts a chain of events that led to mankind losing a paradise and getting stranded in Earth."

That interpretation makes Satan the saviour, god evil, and Heaven, just Hell from a different perspective.

 

[Bohandas]

You think the life of a virus is desirable?

Better than the life of a slave

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Better than the life of a slave

A virus is a slave. It has no free will or autonomy. And that's the common factor between Logan's Run and Wall-E - humans have surrendered free will in exchange for a life of indolence. The thing that has really shocked me over the last couple of years is just how quick and eager humans have been to choose that.

 

[Bohandas]

A virus is a slave. It has no free will or autonomy.

Society doesn't let poor people have those things either. Do you think people work jobs because they want to work? They work jobs because they need the money.

In fact, not even just poor people. Because also, if you want to become any kind of celebrity you have to sign the devil's book and give up first your integrity and then any trace of genuine creativity without mass market appeal; and also be sure never to say anything that either the left, the right, or overprotective parents of any description would find objectionable.

And above even that level, I think most billionaire businessmen are either driven by some form of mania or addiction, or else are unable to cash out for some reason and thus trapped in a gilded cage of their own design

The only people in the world who are truly free are the idle rich.

EDIT:
If I was going solely by message, I would probably put Let's Visit the World of the Future at the top of my best sci-fi list