Best SF on TV and in the movies?
Entertainment Weekly is out with their list of the top 25 science fiction titles of the past twenty five years. As with most lists of this kind, i suspect the impetus is to stimulate discussion (and attract eyeballs) rather than to create any kind of definitive document for posterity. That said, most of the omissions are relatively minor, and only a few titles are seriously overrated.
But the top pick is absolutely one of them. Matrix for the best SF production of the last 25 years? Give me a break. Use of the most cyberpunk cliches in a single movie, maybe. But Blade Runner is the one film that made everything since possible, besides being the only worthwhile Philip K. Dick adaptation to date.
EW readers have suggested a number of titles that were left out. Of those suggestion, i think Donnie Darko and Men in Black have merit.
My own list of missing titles is pretty short.
Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Sayles' Brother From Another Planet, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai: Beyond the Eighth Dimension, from the little known W.D. Richter, all deserve to be on the list of the best 25 SF titles since 1982. If single TV episodes were counted, the Twilight Zone revival "Paladin of the Lost Hour," written by Harlan Ellison, would also be on the list. And i think i'd find room for Samurai Jack, probably by dropping Tartakovsky's Star Wars cartoon.
Did you read the list? What did you think?
UPDATE: Oh, hell. Ghostbusters was within the last 25 years also. Certainly more inclusion-worthy than either Futurama or Total Recall.
UPDATE II: Oh, hell, again. Repo Man also came out in 1984. What a great year that was for SF movies.
But the top pick is absolutely one of them. Matrix for the best SF production of the last 25 years? Give me a break. Use of the most cyberpunk cliches in a single movie, maybe. But Blade Runner is the one film that made everything since possible, besides being the only worthwhile Philip K. Dick adaptation to date.
EW readers have suggested a number of titles that were left out. Of those suggestion, i think Donnie Darko and Men in Black have merit.
My own list of missing titles is pretty short.
Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Sayles' Brother From Another Planet, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai: Beyond the Eighth Dimension, from the little known W.D. Richter, all deserve to be on the list of the best 25 SF titles since 1982. If single TV episodes were counted, the Twilight Zone revival "Paladin of the Lost Hour," written by Harlan Ellison, would also be on the list. And i think i'd find room for Samurai Jack, probably by dropping Tartakovsky's Star Wars cartoon.
Did you read the list? What did you think?
UPDATE: Oh, hell. Ghostbusters was within the last 25 years also. Certainly more inclusion-worthy than either Futurama or Total Recall.
UPDATE II: Oh, hell, again. Repo Man also came out in 1984. What a great year that was for SF movies.
Labels: pop culture
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6 Comments:
I think it's a clever way of getting 25 ad views with what is essentially one piece of content.
By
Anonymous, at 1:15 PM
Buckaroo Banzai was definitely one of the greatest movies ever made. It's right up there with Lawrence of Arabia. BB is one of the few movies that I own on DVD. :)
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Lenore, at 9:38 PM
Well at least they put BSG v 2.0 at # 2 (it should be #1, though, followed by Blade Runner...The Matrix elsewhere in the top 10, but you have to forget that the sequels ever happened.)
Robocop is 100 times better Verhooven than Total Recall.
I thought Sunshine (came out just this past year) was pretty amazing, but nobody saw it.
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Brian, at 10:49 PM
The Matrix at #1 doesn't bother me nearly as much as Dr. Who languishing down in the 20s. And where was Gattaca, which, like the Matrix, had absolutely no business being good but somehow was?
And not top 10, but Babylon 5 really should be in there somewhere. And 12 Monkeys could easily join Brazil on the list.
And a line up of BSG 2, Bladerunner, and the X-Files at 2, 3, and 4 is at least as ridiculous as the Matrix at #1. All relatively mediocre science fiction. (Yeah, yeah, BSG 2 is amazing and the second coming of god knows what. Whatever.) And Lost? Oh, for the love of...
By
Unknown, at 12:13 AM
Sorry, Michael. 25 years on, Blade Runner remains the seminal SF movie of the late 20th Century.
SF can be sliced and diced in a lot of different ways. One of the most useful for me is near-future, contemporary society extrapolation vs. far future, outer space speculation.
I don't think the definitive movie of the latter subgenre has been made. (Samuel Delany's Nova could fill the bill if someone did it right.) But Blade Runner does the job for the former. Compare it to 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example, which was the critical favorite in the genre for a very long time.
Dr. Who suffers from lack of accessibility. Sci-Fi channel hasn't been consistent in airing the new episodes, and how many people have BBC America?
By
Barry, at 9:04 AM
I feel like a bad person for not liking Blade Runner.
On the other hand, I love the hell out of Buckaroo Banzai.
Speaking of Buckaroo Banzai, the new Ocean's 13 movie features Ellen Barkin. She's funny.
By
Marsosudiro, at 10:15 PM
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