# Best year for SF at the cinema?



## Jennifer Kirk (Nov 9, 2010)

What was the best year ever for SF at the box office?

I'd have to say that 1982 must rank highly, given that over that year cinema goers had the choice of no less than:

1.) The Thing
2.) Bladerunner
3.) Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan*
4.) ET

Quite a year for truly awesome SF films.

For those fancying something else, Death Wish 2, The Dark crystal, Conan the Barbarian, Pink Floyd the wall, Porky's and Rocky III were also showing that year. Get me my time machine and year's unlimited Cannon cinema (remember them?) pass. 


*Greatest Star Trek film of them all.


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## C Of K (Nov 9, 2010)

That Rocky III comment made me Lol



Jennifer Kirk said:


> *Greatest Star Trek film of them all.



No doubt. But this is what it could have been...


> *Development*
> 
> After the release of _The Motion Picture_, executive producer Gene Roddenberry wrote his own sequel. In his plot, the crew of the _Enterprise_ travel back in time to set right a corrupted time line after Klingons use the Guardian of Forever to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy.[13][14]  This was rejected by Paramount executives, who blamed the poor  performance and inflated budget ($46 million) of the first movie on its  plodding pace and the constant rewrites Roddenberry demanded.[15]  As a consequence, Roddenberry was removed from the production and,  according to Shatner, "kicked upstairs" to the ceremonial position of  executive consultant.


1986 was a memorable year for SF 

1.) Aliens
2.) Labyrinth
3.) Highlander (though it didn't do all that well at the box office)
4.) Critters
5.) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
6.) The Fly
7.) Big Trouble In Little China
8.) The Transformers Movie
9.) Legend
10.) Flight of the Navigator


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## Pyan (Nov 10, 2010)

How about 1977?


Star Wars
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Eraserhead
Damnation Alley
Demon Seed
Jabberwocky


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## ravenus (Nov 10, 2010)

Repeat: Star Wars is *NOT* SF

Heehee@Roddenberry: One of the best asides in Stephen King's Danse Macabre was his recollection of Harlan Ellison talking about what an idiot Roddenberry was.


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## Pyan (Nov 10, 2010)

ravenus said:


> Repeat: Star Wars is *NOT* SF



I'd love to see you put together a definition of SF that excludes _Star Wars_ from being part of the genre...



> Harlan Ellison talking about what an idiot Roddenberry was.



Um...wasn't that because Roddenberry cut out the sub-plot involving drug-dealing on board the Enterpise from HE's original script for _The City on the Edge of Forever_? I notice he didn't take his name off the credits, though...


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## Jennifer Kirk (Nov 10, 2010)

I thought that after Star Trek I ran massively over budget, the team that did II came in and basically said "We can give you three films for the price that Gene gave you one". 

Star Trek I was too long, slow, and seemed to be self-indulgent. Edit an hour out of it and it isn't too bad a film. 

1986 does look good ("...come hither Mr Pertwee and set the controls of the TARDIS. And don't forget the Cannon unlimited cinema ticket...."). Aliens is one of my favourites. However the Director's cut version is ruined by the beginning killing the suspense. It was better without Captain Hollister and his crew playing happy families.


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## blacknorth (Nov 11, 2010)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture was, IMO, much superior to all the sequels. At least it had an intriguing idea at its centre - the rest of the series is just soap; by the end of it I was convinced Kirk et al had evolved into aliens they'd become so fraudulently human.

There's a depressing lack of knowledge about foreign language sf on this forum.


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## ravenus (Nov 11, 2010)

pyan said:


> I'd love to see you put together a definition of SF that excludes _Star Wars_ from being part of the genre...
> 
> Um...wasn't that because Roddenberry cut out the sub-plot involving drug-dealing on board the Enterpise from HE's original script for _The City on the Edge of Forever_? I notice he didn't take his name off the credits, though...


Easy. No science, not even speculative. SW is just a fairy tale with laser guns and space ships.

Oh not just that (although Harlan is such a biased person that it may well be the root of his harangues). He was talking about how Gene Roddenberry had just one (and in his view, rotten) idea for Star Trek, and that'd be something like the Enterprise crossing a space barrier and running into God and finding that God was a child or insane or both. Ah no point in me trying to recreate this. If you can get hold of a copy of _*Danse Macabre*_, skip to the chapter where King talks about horror in TV, Harlan gets a huge nod here.


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## Pyan (Nov 11, 2010)

ravenus said:


> Easy. No science, not even speculative. SW is just a fairy tale with laser guns and space ships.



Anti-gravity? FTL flight? Telepathy/mind powers? Intelligent alien races? Miniaturisation of power sources? Artificial habitats? Intelligent robots? 

If you discount all those features of SW as not being SF, you're going to disqualify a good two-thirds of all "hard" SF, aren't you?


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## Rodders (Nov 11, 2010)

Blimey, i couldn't argue a specific year, but the 80's was definately a great decade for SF and F at the Cinema. 

As for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, i remember seeing this at the pictures when it came out and not being overly impressed (except with the new look Enterprise). On second viewing though, i very much enjoyed it and still do. Definately an underrated Trek experience IMO.


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## Foxbat (Nov 11, 2010)

Like Rodders, I couldn't name a specific year but I've always preferred Sci-Fi from the fifties (Invasion of The Body Snatchers, The Fly, Day The Earth Stood Still, Thing From Another World .....etc. etc.)


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## steve12553 (Nov 14, 2010)

Without spending hours researching it year by year, I have to think Jennifer is right. That's a pretty fair group of films that really hit the spot.
 I also want to agree with ravenusas the the Fantasy status of *Star Wars.* We are of course talking about the first three films released that depended on the Fantasy/religious concept of the Force. As much as I like the movies the concept of the Force makes them Fantasy by defination. An excepted (within the film) Fantasy element always overrides the Science Fiction elements. If there is no hint of an attempt to explain it away with Science, then it's Fantasy. The three prequels (which should have remained a backstory) explained away the Force with the concept of "midichlorians" (sp?), thereby making it Science Fiction even though they were far inferior to the Original trilogy as films go.


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## C Of K (Nov 23, 2010)

Hmm. _Star Wars_ has always been an anomaly to me. There are certainly major characters that personify the force, and the story would not be the same without them and their themes. There are other characters, like the droids, or bounty hunters, that just don't have much to do with it, though._ Star Wars_ sits on a fine line between Science and fantasy. But either way, I don't see how it would hurt to include it on this list, but then, I listed movies like _Labyrinth_, _Highlander_, and _Legend_.


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## biodroid (Nov 23, 2010)

Jennifer Kirk said:


> *Greatest Star Trek film of them all.



I disagree, the new one is much better (the reboot version).


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