50 Most 'significant' scifi films

[dwndrgn]

...according to John Scalzi in his new book The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies

here they are:
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)

are there any on this list you feel don't belong? What significant movie do you think was left out?

 

[Princess Ivy]

mad max an dthe incredibles...Back to the future? Conatct? has he seen any of these films? meh

 

[Princess Ivy]

and i note, terminator 2, but not terminator?
ah, i get it, a joke, it must be a joke...
*wanders off muttering habloodyhaha*

 

[stencyl]

I wonder why just certain versions were picked. I think that the 1982 Thing with Kurt Russell should get a nod as well as the latest version of Solaris....

 

[Rosemary]

He's missed out one of my favourites - 'V' with Ms Signoury (?sp) Weaver

 

[Brian G Turner]

Can't list Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back without including Return of the Jedi.

Also, Star Trek 1 is a very underrated piece of cinema.

 

[dreamwalker]

:s

 

[Paradox 99]

Yeah, and where the heck is "This Island Earth"?

 

[ravenus]

I mainly raise brows at the inclusion of Star Wars in any SF films list - as I see it there's hardly any science, it's just a fairy tale with laser guns.

 

[Foxbat]

Yeah, and where the heck is "This Island Earth"?

Check out the price for this movie on DVD. The guy probably hasn't seen it because he can't afford to buy it.

 

[garreth Jacks]

There are a lot of good films here but I cannot belive that The Matrix is on the list and not Equilibrium

But the main thing is that this is personal taste and I do not think a lot of people would agree with me but that what makes’s life is interesting.

 

[Leto]

And it's Le Voyage dans la Lune. Voyage (journey) is masculine name.

As such this list don't strike me as one made a real SFF fan, but as one which could be made to have brilliant chat in downtown diner, about movies that you should known even if you haven't seen them. As many above have listed there's a lot of inconsistencies.
Terminator 2 without Terminator 1 is one of the example, no 2001 Space Odyseey mention is another one.

However Star Wars and The Empire Strikes back without Return of the Jedi don't shock me. The third movie is not as innovative in story-telling and directing as the 2 first. It's a good movie, but it relies on the innovations of the 2 before it.

 

[polymorphikos]

I think it's reasonable, given he has to fit only fifty in and it's not a 'best-off' list (it seems, although many of the films are very good) so much as an innovation/influence thing. Mad Max 2, for example, whilst perhaps not to everyone's tastes, has been the major influence on post-apocalypse films since its release.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

ravenus: Much though I'd like to be more high-brow I must admit that Star Wars is inevitable in such a list - apart from being hugely popular, it does reflect a significant aspect of the literary genre too, the swashbuckling space opera.

I'd like to add Rudolph Mate's When World's Collide, a 50's disaster flick which had notably good effects for its time, and set the tone for many more such films to come.

 

[polymorphikos]

That film annoys me on numerous levels.

I'd like to add Videodrome on the reality-bender front.

 

[Paradox 99]

Surely "The Time Machine" ought to be in there somewhere too?

 

[moviefan]

return of the jedi is a must sci fi

 

[Brian G Turner]

I mainly raise brows at the inclusion of Star Wars in any SF films list - as I see it there's hardly any science, it's just a fairy tale with laser guns.

The key to Star Wars was the backdrops - Lucas showed us what the future could look like.

Planets with visible atmospheres and location filming instead of soundstages for external scenes created an unparalleled sense of realism in the viewer.

 

[dwndrgn]

I think it's reasonable, given he has to fit only fifty in and it's not a 'best-off' list (it seems, although many of the films are very good) so much as an innovation/influence thing. Mad Max 2, for example, whilst perhaps not to everyone's tastes, has been the major influence on post-apocalypse films since its release.

His (Scalzi) explanation is very similar, basically, he hasn't placed films on this list as a show of support for fantastic art or wonderful storytelling, his main motivation is their 'significance' in other words, did they mark some change in scifi filmmaking, make an impact on future films, etc. So yes, Terminator 2 is there because of the special effects of a liquid metal man - something not done on such a scale and with such success before and used as a springboard for new effects in other films. Matrix, again, the stylistic effects have influenced many other filmmakers since.

 

[ravenus]

I'd include Roger Corman's X: Man with the X-Ray Eyes, a low-budget but superbly executed sci-fi character piece about a scientist whose invention allows him to see beyond the normal range of human vision but with a frightening price to pay. A beautiful dialog from that film:

Sam: "Only the gods see everything"
James: "My friend, I'm closing in on the gods"

Starship Troopers and Total Recall may not have been faithful adaptations of their literrary sources but they were damn entertaining entries in the popcorn SF genre, as is the first Men in Black. Michael Radford's solid adaptation of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four also deserves to be given a look.

On a side note, modern day classics like Robert Zemeckis' Contact and Steven Soderbergh's Solaris in their commercial failure represent the tragic disinterest of audiences in well-made thoughtful (and thought provoking) mainstream science fiction films.