{"id":1981,"date":"2011-04-11T13:00:20","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2018-10-30T15:25:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T19:25:06","slug":"top-20-sci-fi-movies-rottingcorpses-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=1981","title":{"rendered":"Top 20 Sci-Fi Movies: Rottingcorpse’s List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0What are the top twenty sci-fi movies of all time?! Really? Is there a geekier question we could ask? How about asking which episode of Star Trek TOS<\/em> was the best? (Actually that\u2019s easy. It\u2019s City on the Edge of Forever.<\/em> Go ahead. Argue with me, Mister Space Seed.<\/em>)
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

All right, full disclosure: I haven\u2019t always been a big sci-fi guy unless you count superheroes, supernatural horror, and slasher films, which for this little experiment we didn\u2019t.\u00a0 I guess when you get right down to it, it all inhabits the same space. It\u2019s all fantasy.\u00a0 Yet I\u2019m the guy who argued that\u00a0John Carpenter\u2019s The Thing<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Alien<\/em> couldn\u2019t be on the list because they were horror films. I also argued that\u00a0Star Wars,\u00a0Ice Pirates<\/em>, and\u00a0Buckaroo Banzai<\/em>\u00a0were really more\u00a0LOTR<\/em>\u00a0style fantasy than pure sci-fi. And NO! Ice Pirates<\/em> and Buckaroo Banzai<\/em> would not on my list even if I did allow that type of stuff.
\n\u00a0
\nJesus. Listen to me. You know, I wasn\u2019t always like this.
\n\u00a0
\nOkay, fine. I\u2019ve always preferred\u00a0Friday the 13th<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0The French Lieutenant\u2019s Wife<\/em>. However, if you would have asked me if I was sci-fi fan, I could have emphatically told you, \u201cno.\u201d Yet as I\u2019ve gotten older, I\u2019ve found myself becoming (a) more interested in science fiction, and (b) snottier about what should be considered sci-fi and what shouldn\u2019t. I used to think\u00a0The Fifth Element<\/em>\u00a0was ingenious Euro-pop. Now I think the whole thing is kind of silly because there\u2019s no basis in real science. It\u2019s all magical gobblety gook dressed up in sci-fi trappings. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s bad.\u00a0 In fact I couldn\u2019t think of one good reason why it shouldn\u2019t be on a top twenty list without pulling out the\u00a0Buckaroo Banzai<\/em>\u00a0defense. It\u2019s just not, you know, \u201cscience-y.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nIt\u2019s funny because unless it had to do with UFOs, the \u201cscience\u201d stuff used to bore the tits off me. But see, there\u2019s a science to \u201cUFOlogy.\u201d Sightings and abductions really maybe sort of happened. Sure, I got into Issac Asimov in high school because I\u2019m also obsessed with robots and technology taking over our lives. The stories sort of engaged me, but I think I went in looking for action and adventure, and got these psychological treatises on ethics and responsibility. Still, the robot stuff was pretty good. Yet when I tried to move on to his Foundation<\/em> series, I found that\u2026
\n\u00a0
\nOh my God. Have I always been a sci-fi geek? I mean, this whole thing started because I said that\u00a0Total Recall<\/em>\u00a0shouldn\u2019t be remade because it\u2019s easily made a list of the twenty best sci-fi movies of all time.
\n\u00a0
\nAnyway, figuring out the best sci-fi movies of all time wasn\u2019t easy for me due to the criteria I set for myself. For one, I\u2019ve developed a taste for really bad movies due to years of being a horror film fan. (That I attest to proudly.) Yet I felt weird putting guilty pleasures like\u00a0Fantastic Voyage,\u00a0Dune<\/em>, and even\u00a0The Fifth Element\u00a0(Ice Pirates<\/em> and\u00a0Buckaroo Banzai<\/em>\u00a0too) on a list that was supposed to be \u201cthe best.\u201d\u00a0>em>The Last Starfighter\u00a0might have been a really fun movie when I was ten. However, it also kind of, you know, sucks.
\n\u00a0
\nBuckaroo Banzai<\/em>\u00a0fantasy rule aside, I used two main criteria when making my list. The first was that the films had to have at least a nod to the \u201cscience\u201d aspect of science fiction.\u00a0Metropolis<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Empire Strikes\u00a0Back<\/em> are the exceptions to this rule. However they both firmly satisfy my second criteria, historical significance. I felt a list of the twenty best sci-fi films of all time needed movies on it that changed the way we make and watch movies.\u00a0The Road Warrior<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Blade Runner<\/em>\u00a0aren\u2019t necessarily my favorite films in the world. Yet their influence on sci-fi cinema is so undeniable that it felt criminal to leave them off.
\n\u00a0
\nMy list (Nacho and Cassander\u2019s lists as well) is almost as interesting for the omissions as for the movies on it. Jurassic Park<\/em> is both scientifically sound (DNA cloning) and historically important (revolutionized CGI) while also being a damn good movie, yet I didn\u2019t put it on my list.\u00a0Starman<\/em>\u00a0is another one that\u2019s not on my list, and yet I can\u2019t come up with a good reason why. When I saw\u00a012 Monkeys<\/em>\u00a0on Cass\u2019s list I slapped myself in the forehead, yet I ultimately left it off mine. Planet of the Apes<\/em> is one of the most historically significant movies ever, yet I stayed away from it. I\u2019m sure you and readers can think of countless others. The difficulty of making this list shows how much good sci-fi is out there.
\n\u00a0
\nI\u2019d also be amiss if I didn\u2019t mention two movies that almost made the list but then got replaced.\u00a0Strange Days<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Death Race 2000<\/em>\u00a0were both on my initial list of twenty for no other reason because I like them.\u00a0DR2K<\/em>\u00a0got omitted because, let\u2019s face it, it\u2019s\u00a0DR2K<\/em>. Have you seen it? It\u2019s terrible. Awesome, but terrible.\u00a0Strange Days<\/em> was a tougher call. Released in the 90s it told the story about a \u201cvirtual reality\u201d drug popular around Y2K. I think the main reason I cut it was because Y2K has passed and\u00a0Strange Days<\/em>\u00a0now falls into that weird sci-fi sub-genre, Future history. Yet\u00a02001<\/em>\u00a0is still on my list, and while the movie version of\u00a01984<\/em>\u00a0is sort of mediocre, the book certainly deserves consideration as one of the best sci-fi stories ever. I love it, but sometimes love isn\u2019t enough.
\n\u00a0
\nSci-fi is most interesting when it shows us who we are and what me may someday be. I think all the films on my list do that on some level. Whether you completely agree with my list or not (and God I hope you don\u2019t) I think that if you marathon every movie I chose you\u2019d come away feeling it was time well spent. You\u2019d feel that you were entertained.
\n\u00a0
\nAfter all, isn\u2019t that the point?<\/p>\n

1. Metropolis
\n2. The Day the Earth Stood Still (original)
\n3. War of the Worlds (original)
\n4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
\n5. Blade Runner
\n6: THX-1138
\n7. Total Recall
\n8. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
\n9. The Empire Strikes Back
\n10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
\n11. The Matrix
\n12. Sunshine
\n13. Earth vs. The Flying Saucer
\n14. Robocop
\n15. Forbidden Planet
\n16. T2
\n17: The Road Warrior
\n18. Aliens
\n19. District 9
\n20. Starship Troopers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0What are the top twenty sci-fi movies of all time?! Really? Is there a geekier question we could ask? How about asking which episode of Star Trek TOS was the best? (Actually that\u2019s easy. It\u2019s City on the Edge of …<\/p>\n

Top 20 Sci-Fi Movies: Rottingcorpse’s List<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,273],"tags":[403,274,406],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cult-culture","category-gs-10th-anniversary-2001-2011","tag-cult-culture","tag-gs-10th-anniversary","tag-rottingcorpse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2004,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/2004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}