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Space.com's Top 10 Space Movies of All Time 539

Posted by Zonk from the they-should-have-sent-a-poet dept.
Comatose51 writes "Space.com has posted a Top 10 Space Movies of All Time list based on reader ratings on each movie. Apollo 13 is currently the #1 movie, followed by Star Trek: First Contact at #2, and Wrath of Khan at #3. I was surprised by Apollo 13 at #1, since I initially equated space movies with sci-fi. However, I don't disagree with it. What do other Slashdotters think, or suggest as good space movies?"
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Space.com's Top 10 Space Movies of All Time More

Space.com's Top 10 Space Movies of All Time

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  • Serenity! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PsychicX ( 866028 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:51AM (#14074057)
    I think Serenity hasn't been around long enough to sink in to the culture properly, but god, such a good movie. Firefly was a good series too.

    • Re:Serenity! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:35AM (#14074181) Homepage Journal
      I think Serenity hasn't been around long enough to sink in to the culture properly, but god, such a good movie. Firefly was a good series too.
      I have a pair of friends (BF/GF unit) that aren't into sci-fi at all. She is arguably the least sci-fi person I have known in a long time. She admits to seeing "that trek thing" but didn't like it. He's just not interested usually.

      First the boyfriend saw a couple of episodes of Firefly with me (I have the DVDs) and got really exited to see Serenity. I took them both. The very next day they borrowed my DVD set and watched all of Firefly for the next week.

      I'm sure there of hundreds of stories like mine. Give that movie/series to pretty much anyone and I'll bet they like it. It's got a broad appeal and no weird looking costumes. Everyone can identify with working hard (even if what you do is nefarious) and having to defend it in some way. That's it's essence. Within 2-5 years it will be a landmark film, IMHO.

      • Serenity flopped! (Score:5, Informative)

        by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @05:25AM (#14074486)
        I'm sure there of hundreds of stories like mine.

        Before everyone here starts oozing with happiness about Serenity, it should be noted that IT FLOPPED [boxofficemojo.com]. Despite a lot of attention, lots of dedicated fans, and great reviews, it was not even able to recap production costs at the box office. Look at this years yearly box office [boxofficemojo.com] to get an idea of just how badly it did (for those tired of scrolling, it is in place 77).

        Now, with DVD sales I am sure the studio won't end up in the red when all is said and done, but $25 million for a high budget high profile movie is terrible. Serenity will probably be pointed to in the future as a good reason not to use cult DVD followings as a reason to greenlight films. Sorry to tell ya all.
        • This is possibly because it got very, very little cinema exposure. When it is released, I fully intend to buy it on DVD - I missed it at the Cinema since it wasn't shown anywhere near me - and I suspect that most people who bought the FireFly DVD set will as well.

          Don't forget the large number of films that are made that go straight to DVD. I suspect that with the increase in home cinema quality (and the corresponding decrease in price) there will be a shift over the next decade or so away from seeing t

          • Re:Serenity flopped! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Hobbex ( 41473 )
            This is possibly because it got very, very little cinema exposure.

            Not so. It opened in over 2000 theatres, but had a very weak first weekend (only a little over $4000 per theatre, when a solid movie with lots of media exposure and buzz should be earned >> $10000 per theatre). The reason it was pulled fast was because it did so bad, not the other way around. Similarly, I think we have to accept the show didn't do badly because it was moved around and given strange timespots. It was moved around and g
            • You sound like a fan, so I'm surprised you're overlooking the fact that Universal did a terrible job at marketing the film. Instead of really spending money and publicising it they decided to market it to the existing fans in the hope that they would take people along to see it and it would be marketed by word of mouth. Conversely, films that everyone and their dog will go and see anyway (Harry Potter, Star Wars etc) have huge marketing campaigns. I know this is because those films will make their marketing

            • Re:Serenity flopped! (Score:4, Insightful)

              by tricorn ( 199664 ) <sep@shout.net> on Sunday November 20, 2005 @10:38AM (#14075260) Journal

              What are you talking about, it opened with 40% of the gross for that weekend. At #38, Wallace and Grommit didn't do $10000/theater either. I don't see that being in the top 100 means it was a "flop". It shows it as being #42 for September openings (going back at least to '91). It did better than the other two widely released films that week (Into the Blue and The Greatest Game Ever Played). For a film that everyone said was going to be a total failure because only "the faithful" would bother watching it, it did spectacularly well, and will undoubtedly also do well on DVD.

              I know the reason we didn't watch Firefly on TV was because it was on Fox. Fox has a history of screwing up good shows, so we tend not to even bother watching them, if its any good they'll just cancel it. They showed the truth of this by airing them out of order from the beginning, confusing the audience, then screwing up the scheduling and "counter-programming", then canceling it.

        • Re:Serenity flopped! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Wraithlyn ( 133796 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:26PM (#14076830)
          You're right except for one aspect, it did NOT get "a lot of attention" and was not "high profile".

          Almost nobody I know even knew this movie existed until I told them about it. Nobody saw a poster or ad that they remembered.

          I blame it entirely on the marketing effort. Advertising was almost non-existant, and what little did seemed to consist of posters with Mal and Inara staring wistfully into space [specialopsmedia.com]. Combine that with a name like "Serenity" and on casual inspection it looks like some instantly forgettable romantic schlock.

          They should've had posters that emphasized the action, the spaceships, River kicking ass with an axe and combat boots.

          And MAN... where was the marketing blitz after the opening weekend? Critics and audiences everywhere LOVED it, why weren't they trumpeting this fact all over the place? I was expecting to be assaulted for a week with choice quotes from respected sources, and shots of people exiting the theatres absolutely gushing about the movie, interwoven with some good one-liners and action shots from the movie. But we got NOTHING.

          Fuck, this movie got 87% from RottenTomatoes' "Cream of the Crop". The New York Times wrote "Joss Whedon's unassuming science-fiction adventure is superior in almost every respect to George Lucas's aggressively more ambitious screen entertainments." Orson Scott Card called it the greatest sci-fi movie ever made. Why they didn't exploit this kind of praise for all it was worth is completely beyond me.

          Maybe they thought grassroots word-of-mouth would be enough, but it obviously wasn't.

          Nonetheless, many terrific movies did poorly in box office, and went on to become cult classics. I still have faith that Serenity's quality and accessibilty will be major assests in the long run.

      • Re:Serenity! (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SamSim ( 630795 )

        I have a pair of friends that aren't into sci-fi at all. ... they borrowed my DVD set and watched all of Firefly for the next week

        You know the real reason for this, right? Firefly isn't actually science fiction.

        "Wait," you'll say, "it has spaceships and brain experimentation and a futuristic setting and all sorts of cool future stuff!" But I say "No!". Because I am of the opinion that in order to be truly science fiction, the science has to be important. The science has to take the centre stage. Star

    • Gattaca! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Clueless Nick ( 883532 )
      It was a wonderful movie - and it was about /going/ on a space mission. Not too much of science fiction in there.

      It should have been there on the list. 'Contact' sucks, really, except for '22 hours of static on the tape'. It's more about Jodie Foster as this astronomer(!), and her fixations. The part where she uses the 'man can fly' analogy is the worst, and very obvious.

      But hey, don't flame me, I'm clueless.

      • Re:Gattaca! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @06:15AM (#14074581) Journal

        It should have been there on the list. 'Contact' sucks, really, except for '22 hours of static on the tape'.

        Seeing as this whole "news" item is just an invitation for a flamefest anyway, I would rate Contact as easily the best of the ten films listed. It has the most interesting and original premise in it, it has the most coherent internal logic, it has the strongest basis in science (and yes - I am aware of the ending), it is the best acted (*cough*Star Wars / Star Trek*cough*), and it has the strongest emotional engagement with the characters.

        If Aliens rather than Alien was in the list, I might give that equal place for different reasons - it's just Hellishly good fun ("They cut the power? How could they cut the power?"). Alien is also very good, but not as good as Contact.

        I haven't seen Apollo-13 though, because Tom Hanks disturbs me. He looks like a serial killer.

    • I want real astronomy in my space movies (Score:5, Interesting)

      by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:08AM (#14074268) Homepage
      I thought Serenenity was a very good movie, which leaves me more annoyed that like effectively all hollywood SF movies, it had no real concept of astronomy, how really far it is between planets in a solar system. (Or how vastly far it is in a galaxy, which Firefly sometimes declared to be its setting.)

      A solar system is not like a western frontier where you meet other ships along the trail. And a solar system with hundreds of moons around many planets will have, depending on the place in the orbit, immense vast distances between planets on opposite sides of the star, and relatively short ones between moons, but still a vast void on all trips. You are not going to happen to run into Reaver ships.

      Now as I said, most shows get this really wrong. To some extent the shows with FTL get it "better" even though FTL is itself fantasy, at least you get a reason to not treat the differences as so vast. Hyperspace jumps, another fantasy, are even better.

      2001 got space right. Apollo 13 did (duh.) Few other films and very few TV shows ever did.
      • I thought Serenenity was a very good movie, which leaves me more annoyed that like effectively all hollywood SF movies, it had no real concept of astronomy

        I really appreciate science realism in movies, but I also enjoy space/sci-fi movies that just have fun instead of sticking to science facts.

        Mixing hard science with entertaining narrative is almost impossibly hard due to the fact that well, space really is a bleak, vast, nearly-featureless void. 2001 is the only film I can think of that did this successfully, and swashbuckling tales like Star Wars, Serenity, or Firefly would never work with larger doses of reality.

        On a "science realism" note, one nice touch in Firefly was that the space scenes had no sound, since obviously there's no sound in space. They broke with that for Serenity, though.

        Another sci-fi story that adds a little hard science to the mix is the anime series Gunbuster. Near-lightspeed travel features prominently in the plot, and - surprise! - the relativistic time effects are actually handled in a fairly realistic fashion. A large part of the plot deals with the emotional hardships of the characters, whose friends back on Earth are aging much more quickly than they are since they frequently travel near light speeds.

        It's regarded as one of the greatest anime productions of all time. Sadly, it's currently commercially unavailable in the U.S. although it can be downloaded...

      • Re:I want real astronomy in my space movies (Score:5, Funny)

        by ozbird ( 127571 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @08:11AM (#14074813)
        Or "Spaceballs" take:

        COLONEL SANDURZ: Prepare ship for light speed.
        DARK HELMET: No, no, no, light speed is too slow.
        SANDURZ: Light speed, too slow?
        HELMET: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to ludicrous speed.
        SANDURZ: Ludicrous speed? Sir, we've never gone that fast before. I don't know if this ship can take it.
        HELMET: What's the matter, Colonel Sandurz, chicken?
        SANDURZ: Prepare ship, prepare ship for ludicrous speed. Fasten all seat belts, seal all entrances and exits, close all shops in the mall, cancel the 3-ring circus, secure all animals in the zoo...

  • Order... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Madd Rapper ( 886657 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:52AM (#14074061)
    First Contact before Empire Strikes Back? I liked them both, but c'mon now. Overall I think the top ten are solid choices, but the order leaves a little to be desired.

    • Why is First Contact on the list at all. It had to have one of the most hard to believe premises of all space movie history. One guy by himself, in a post-apocalypse world, builds a warp drive spaceship and says he did it to get chicks!? That has got to be one of the dumbest subplots in recent memory. I'm sorry, I just could not suspend disbelief for that one. Oh, and I felt that the Queen Borg idea, while clever, pretty much ruined the original Borg concept entirely. I was entertained by the movie to a deg

    • Overall I think the top ten are solid choices, but the order leaves a little to be desired.

      Agreed. It's nice to see a "Top X" list that actually adheres to the genre at hand and seems to have been chosen by people who know what they're talking about.

      Personally I think ST II was more entertaining than VI and deserves a higher spot. VI had some good moments, but you can't beat Khan (or I suppose you can beat Khan, but he'll piss you off [khaaan.com] and make a mess of your ship before you do :)

      The only thing I'd change wi

    • Re:Order... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by neoform ( 551705 )
      Am i the only one who's tired of hearing about star wars? It was like what, 3 decades ago? All the new Star wars were horrible.. when is this trilogy franchise going to die?

  • my top pick (Score:5, Funny)

    by all your mwbassguy a ( 720029 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:52AM (#14074063) Homepage
    khan is #1 for me, just because it resonates so deeply with me. i, too, was left stranded on ceti alpha five.

  • SERENITY NOW!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ir0b0t ( 727703 ) * <{gro.aluossimnepo} {ta} {llewejm}> on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:53AM (#14074064) Homepage Journal
    . . . and Heavy Metal . . .

    and I'm sorry but Episode IV practically invented the "summer blockbuster" for better or worse. It should be listed first.

  • Solaris (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Compuser ( 14899 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:58AM (#14074076)
    The original Solaris could well be the best movie of all time.
    Bar none. Period. Certainly no other space movie stands close.
    Uhm, IMHO, of course.
    • Dunno... Solaris was good, really good, but Tarkovsky's Stalker [imdb.com] was better, IMHo, and the Strugatsky's book Roadside Picnic [amazon.com] is better than Lem's book too...

  • What's a "space movie?" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LMariachi ( 86077 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:58AM (#14074077) Journal
    Solaris [imdb.com] should be on there. The Tarkovsky version, not Soderbergh's pointless remake. It does take some discipline to watch, but it's well worth it IMO.

    They don't really define what constitures a "space movie," though. Does it take place in outer space? What if it's set entirely on another planet? Blade Runner is one of their candidates, but it hardly involved outer space at all. Are they using the term just to avoid the annoying flamewars about what defines "science fiction?"

    • Was I the only one that liked the remake? I remember seeing a mid-week matinee, there were five people in the theater and two walked out about 15 minutes in.

      I also liked Contact so maybe I'm just wierd like that

    • It does take some discipline to watch

      Well, that's Tarkovsky for you. He's IMO the greatest filmmaker yet; he somehow managed to slip 4 or 5 absolute masterpieces past the Soviet censors... how he did that is beyond me. As good as Solaris is, his best is far and away Andrey Rublyov [imdb.com]: dark, brooding, painful to watch, and absolutely stunning.

      • he somehow managed to slip 4 or 5 absolute masterpieces past the Soviet censors... how he did that is beyond me.

        It wasn't easy, seeing that in all his career, he would only make seven feature films, even though he had ideas for dozens more. It seems that he was allowed to continue to make films after Rublyov mostly because of the critical acclaim and festival prizes it received, but even then it took quite a long time to make a movie, and the budgets were tight (The Stalker, if I remember correctly, is mo

  • Spaceballs (Score:5, Funny)

    by frankmu ( 68782 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @02:59AM (#14074080) Homepage
    "I see that your schwartz is as big as mine."

  • Outrage! (Score:5, Funny)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:03AM (#14074094) Homepage
    How could this [imdb.com] movie not at least make the top three?! Shocking lack of taste, I say. Shocking.
  • Helmet: Yogurt. Yogurt. I hate Yogurt. Even with strawberries.

    Sandurz: I'll call the attack squad, sir.

    Helmet: No, we can't go in there. Yogurt has the Schwartz. It's far too powerful.

    Sandurz: But, sir, your ring. Don't you have the Schwartz, too?

    Helmet: No, he got the up-side. I got the down-side. You see, there's two sides to every Schwartz.


    --Sorry if I'm not the first to post this. My wireless connection is all screwy...

  • Since it doesn't have to be science fiction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jbrader ( 697703 ) <stillnotpynchon@gmail.com> on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:07AM (#14074107)
    Then I nominate "The Right Stuff". Also I think this list is a little too Star Trek heavy (but I'm probably in the minority on that).

  • 2001 was a great movie (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:08AM (#14074109)
    2001 is one of the best scifi movies.

    Also don't forget StarTrek the motion picture. The original was long in spots but none of the others were as deep. The ending was great.

  • Serenity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ngunton ( 460215 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:08AM (#14074111) Homepage
    I never watched the series, and just happened to catch the movie two days before it disappeared from my local theatre. It was the matinee, and there were three other people in there with me. I have to say, I've been avoiding going out to see movies in recent years, because there always seems to be some asshat sitting behind me who feels that it's perfectly ok to discuss plot points in a normal voice, or be in a constant state of candy rustling, or other noise that just ruins the whole thing.

    Anyway, back to the real point: Serenity has restored my faith in movies. Star Wars (the recent run of prequals) almost killed off my hope totally. I just felt so ... empty ... walking out of those movies. All special effect, no humanity, no heart. Is anyone else yawning these days at the latest, greatest special effects? I mean, it's been a while since I was really wowed by this stuff - I think Terminator II was the last movie that really made me go "hey, neat!". The Matrix was ok (the first one only, please, not the travesty that the other two became), but it was mostly the style (and bullet time) that make that movie.

    Serenity was a return to something that George Lucas almost had in his grasp with his very first Star Wars movie: A sense of real people, experiencing real life, only in a very, very different environment to ours. This is true escapism - not Grand Councils and "sheratons in space" (thanks Joss), but real, gritty, imperfect, cowardly, funny, wisecracking people. The sort of characters you would probably like if you met them in real life. Who can imagine interacting with any of the recent Star Wars characters in real life? Sheesh.

    Joss Whedon is one of those people who has a talent for mixing the real with the fantastic in a funny, witty way. I think Serenity is right up there at the top of my list of all-time favorite movies. It rocks because it has heart, which so many movies these days lack. The big mistake action movies make is that if you don't care about the characters, then who cares what happens to them? In Serenity, I cared. I took my wife to see it for a second time (had to travel a bit, since it was gone from most places by then). She is not a Sci-Fi fan, but I had a hunch, and I was right - she loved it. That says something.

    I also went right out and bought the Firefly DVD set, and we both watched it all the way through over the next few nights. I have to say I am totally amazed that this show was canceled. They canned this in favor of what? More reality sludge? Yikes.
    • "Serenity" has great visuals, but the space part of the plot makes no sense at all. Space is so crowded it looks like an LA freeway at rush hour. If the bad guys had that many ships, they'd win.

      Star Wars is bad enough, with gunnery accuracy that belongs to the age of sail. They can build interstellar ships and intelligent robots, but they can't build a targeting system that can score hits at point-blank range.

      And it never seems to occur to anybody in the Star Wars universe that the right weapon for

    • Re:Serenity (Score:3, Informative)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
      I completely agree. I watched the Firefly series over the past month, and watched Serenity this past week. It was simply amazing.

      I have to say I am totally amazed that this show was canceled. They canned this in favor of what? More reality sludge? Yikes.

      FOX certainly stacked the odds against it. From the wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]:

      Firefly was promoted as an action-comedy rather than the more serious character study it was intended to be. Episodes were occasionally preempted for sporting events, and episodes were

      • Re:Serenity (Score:3, Informative)

        by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 )
        FOX certainly stacked the odds against it.

        I am so tired of hearing this. Firefly is a show that caters to a vary narrow group of people - it is innovative and unique, but it is not for everyone.

        Serenity was an utter failure at the box office. It has not even come close to the $40 million necessary to recover its budget, even in terms of box office sales (actual revenue for the studio is much lower).

        Why is it any surprise that Fox would replace Firefly with a show that has broader appeal? The only shame was

      • Re:Serenity (Score:5, Interesting)

        by shawb ( 16347 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @06:32AM (#14074616)
        Fox did the same thing to Arrested Development.

        Fox: We're going to cancel your show because there wasn't enough viewership this season.

        Arrested Development: But you didn't actually air anything, we were co-opted by baseball, a sport which nobody watches anyways.

        Fox: And that is our problem how?

        Fox has a long history of screwing with the schedule of a potentially great show and then cancelling it because the ratings drop. Firefly, Arrested Development, Futurama, The Critic, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr, and they keep trying to drop Family Guy. On the other end, they keep showing tripe like MadTV (never saw anything funny on there, just horrible acting, mugging for the camera, and flat out insulting situations) and Malcolm in the Middle. Somewhere in the middle they let series that were once good run way longer than they should after all the creativity is gone and the shark has been jumped over and over: Married With Children, Simpsons, That 70's show, 21 Jump Street, Beverly Hills 90210, arguably the X-files, arguably King of the Hill.

        On the other hand, they are the only network to give a lot of programming a chance that other networks wouldn't have touched... everything I mentioned above plus Boston Public, Dark Angel, Get a Life, Herman's Head, Normal Ohio, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, etc etc etc (not claiming the quality of these, but that other broadcasters probably wouldn't have touched them.) Also, I'll give Fox credit for not starting the whole reality TV thing (That's MTV's fault, or CBS bringing Survivor in) but when they do bite on it, it's horrid, soulless stuff like Trading Spouses, Renovate my Family, The Simple Life and The Swan (the Swan being possibly one of the most evil shows on. Take a bunch of ugly to average looking women with low self esteem. Give them makeovers, plastic surgery, wardrobe changes, etc. Finally, tell all but one of them that they're still not good enough. Vile and disgusting. Not to mention that usually once you get plastic surgery, after a couple years you grow out of it and need to get it again otherwise you look worse than you otherwise would have.)
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • What were they thinking?! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by davmoo ( 63521 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:10AM (#14074117)
    Any Top 10 Space Movie list that includes ST The Undiscovered Country yet leaves out Heavy Metal obviously cannot be taken seriously. And as much as I like Trek, I really don't think ST First Contact belongs on this list either. I do, however, agree with ST Wrath of Kahn. I also take offense at the absence of Silent Running.
  • Any given Dirty Pair ep or movie.

    Wings of Honnemaise

    Space Battleship Yamoto

    Macross, Mac2, Mac+, but *not* Mac7

    Magnetic Rose (Somewhat obscure, but enthralling)

    Planetes

    Tenchi GXP

    Various Project A-Ko
  • I've got two words for you: 'Dark Star'.
  • Frankly, I'm confounded by the list. When I first saw this post, I thought "Plan 9" is free on archive.org and one of the most memorable (for better or worse ;) alien movies... it SHOULD be on there! Then I actually started thinking and decided that one of the "Alien[s]" movies should be on it and one of the Star Wars movies. Then I R'd TFA and saw that some of them had been chosen. I was confounded when I saw that "Contact" and "2001" weren't (at least) #2 and #3. I didn't even think about them. "200

  • The list compilers are on drugs. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mateito ( 746185 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:18AM (#14074143) Homepage
    They missed Airplane II [imdb.com]. Easily the best space movie EVER!

  • Not bad overall... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Corbin Dallas ( 165835 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:20AM (#14074146) Homepage
    But I think the top ten is a little biased in favor of movies that are part of a series. I guess that's because the characters are better known ( having spent more time with them ) and because it's easy to carry over karma from other films in a series. ( For better or worse. )

    My top five would be, in order:

    1) 2001: A Space Oddessy
    2) The Right Stuff
    3) Apollo 13
    4) Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
    5) Star Wars: Episode IV

    Too bad the list is just space related movies, rather than space related stories in any medium. I'd love to throw Babylon 5 in the mix.

    • Re:Not bad overall... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rjmnz ( 165487 )
      My opening three exactly. Only 2001 makes space look BIG. Jupiter is a long long long way away.
      The Star Wars movies and their space opera ilk make hopping across the galaxy like a flight in a commuter airliner. The amenities are no different! Where do you sleep in the millenium falcon???
      Dune should also be in there as it also makes the distances involved to be a major hurdle to the extent that people are sacrificed as "navigators' in order to make real time travel possible. Prior to spice it was all slow bo

  • No 5th Element?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tmack ( 593755 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:22AM (#14074154) Homepage Journal
    Futuristic with lots of space stuff in it (you know, the whole dark planet, FTL travel to other planets, etc). A Great Sci-Fi movie with excellent scene changes and decent plot (even brief nudity), and even though one of the main characters is Bruce Willis, it still came out great IMHO, it just didnt do well in the theaters (probably due to lack of publicity, I only remember a few commercials for it).

    Tm

  • That says it all. It's shit. I actually liked some of TNG as a series, their best movie was as good as a bad Voyager though...

  • Probably too "cult" for such a list ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tim_uk ( 123339 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:22AM (#14074156)
    but what about Dark Star? Come on people, it was co-written by Dan O'Bannon, who later reused the "alien mascot" section of the film as the basis of his script for Alien FFS!!

    Directed by (the) John Carpenter as well.

    And then there's Silent Running, although wabbits being nuked is probably not a big vote winner among the majority of popcorn-crunchers.

    Spaceballs forever!

  • Forbidden Planet
    When Worlds Collide
    The day the Earth stood still

    and

    Wallace and Gromit's Grand Day Out

  • Silent Running (Score:3, Insightful)

    by elflet ( 570757 ) * <.ten.noitseuqtxen. .ta. .telfle.> on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:27AM (#14074167)
    I thought the list was too heavy on the "air/sea battles transplanted into space" genre (nee space opera), and light on movies with deep emotional content. It looked like one generation's list. To go back a little bit, I'd nominate Silent Running as one of the better movies (especially for the sense of isolation in space, the challenges of living in such an environment, etc.) Besides, with a gorgeous soundtrack by Peter Schickeley (of PDQ Bach fame, amusingly enough), could it be all bad?
  • How can the list not include Forbidden [imdb.com] Planet [forbidden-planet.org]?


    Geez, this is the movie that first showed us Robby [the-robotman.com] the Robot! [wikipedia.org]



  • Surprising list and odd list (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Belseth ( 835595 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:37AM (#14074190)
    I've got to wonder what standard they used? Apollo 13, 2001 and Contact were solid and obvious choices but a lot of the rest were largely fantasy films. If hard science was a factor most of the rest of the films barely gave science a nod. If it was a science fiction list, several were definately fantasy and Apollo 13 was factual. Seemed to more reflect box office than anything. Another pointless ten best list.

  • In my opinion (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Z00L00K ( 682162 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:38AM (#14074191) Homepage Journal
    2001 is the best one. Even better if you consider when it was made and what you could compare it with! Not that the other ones are bad either.

    When you consider that this film was made in 1968 it wasn't until 1977 when Star Wars appeared that you could get something to actually compare with in quality. And even though that film is almost forty years old it is still a film that you can watch. The only thing that it actually missed was the political situation in the world of today, but wh coul tell that at a time when the Soviet Union was at it's height and al-Qaeda wasn't known. The worst terrorists at the time was PLO and Lebanon was a holiday paradise.

    Personally I don't give much for the Alien films, but it's a matter of taste.

    • Re:In my opinion (Score:4, Interesting)

      by grumpygrodyguy ( 603716 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:53AM (#14074401)
      Personally I don't give much for the Alien films, but it's a matter of taste.

      The reason I think it's there is because 'space movies' are mostly about life in space.

      The original Alien film exposed a lot of possibilities, and left a lot of questions unanswered. The biology of the Alien creature was so bizarre and unfamiliar...it seemed as if maybe the laws of chemistry and physics were being broken, but then again...maybe they weren't. This was something that noone had seen before, or imagined...and instead of being another movie with a 'guy in a rubber suit' the director managed to create something horrifyingly believable. Bottom line: The film does an excellent job of consistently maintaining its plausibility, which is very hard to do in science fiction.

      Some people liken Alien to a 'haunted house movie' in space, but the film also succeeds in creating a deep sense of uncertainty and lack of knowledge about space. It asks the question, what do we really know about what's out there? Most other 'space films' mess that part up, and 'earth-apomorphize' space. Alien however, is truly alien.

  • iMDB's verdict (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ishnaf ( 893700 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:43AM (#14074201)
    Trawling throught the iMDB [imdb.com] top 250 films [imdb.com]i got this list:
    1. Star Wars 4
    2. Star wars 5
    3. Alien
    4. Aliens (the sequel to Aliens)
    5. 2001: A Space Oddysey
    6. Blade Runner (well if Contact is on the list, why not this?)
    7. Star Wars 6
    8. Star Wars 3
    9. Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
    Yes, i've gone against convention and used digits not roman numerals for the Star Wars films. I'd be interested to see are larger list - Star Wars/Trek domaination makes it seem more like a top 5.

    • Re:iMDB's verdict (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) *
      The Netflix top 10 from their Top 25 Sci-Fi list [netflix.com]:

      1. I, Robot
      2. Paycheck
      3. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
      4. Minority Report
      5. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
      6. The Matrix: Reloaded
      7. Signs
      8. The Matrix: Revolutions
      9. Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones
      10. Men in Black II

      Mind you it would be limited by things like Star Wars ANH being released waaayyyy before Netfilx ever existed, but the list is interesting.

    • Re:iMDB's verdict (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Domini ( 103836 )
      I second that list... I thought Bladerunner and Aliens *should* have been on that list.

      I think IMDB's ratings are very much representative of real opinion... more so than other sites. (Larger voting community... and more globalised)

    • Infinite recursion error (Score:5, Funny)

      by Atario ( 673917 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @05:36AM (#14074504) Homepage
      Aliens (the sequel to Aliens)
      Stack overflow
      Core dumped

  • I don't believe my eyes. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:43AM (#14074202) Homepage Journal
    The ONE time those GNAA asshole could post this link [imdb.com] and be on-topic, they are conspicuously absent from the discussion.

    I don't quite know what to say.

    LK
  • I looked at it and it seems like a Star Wars/Trek fan's wet dream. Some of the choices are obvious, but Star Wars V? Not that great. First Contact? Not sure where that's from. And contact itself - the link to space seems a bit tenuous, leading to the point that other films could easily be shoved into the list. The list seems very biased. I mean even Spaceballs could easily make this list. And the GNAA could easily put their favourite film into there as well.

  • No. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Icehouseman ( 597782 )
    Apollo 13 is a great first choice, along with 2001, Contact and the Wrath of Khan, while First Contact and The Undiscovered Country being the two most overrated of the Star Trek films. Star Wars is more mythology than "space movie" so I don't think they belong on the list. I'm a bit disappointed that plenty of good (and not so good) 50's and 60's space movies were ignored for this list. It's like the guys making the list were all born after 1975.

  • Well... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by IllForgetMyNickSoonA ( 748496 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @03:53AM (#14074226)
    I find it very sad, that the list contains little less than a bunch of star wars/star treck movies. Who was the voting audience? Space Odyssey only #5? No Aliens? (OK, at least Alien is on the list). Where is "Blade Runner"? "Total Recall"? "Dark Star"? Hell, even "Stargate" or "Starship Troopers" deserved to get on that list more than some other entries ("Contact", for example, is a very good book, but a mediocre movie - to say the least).

  • missing classics (Score:4, Insightful)

    by soundofthemoon ( 623369 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:00AM (#14074244)
    Some obvious missing classics:

    Forbidden Planet
    Silent Running
    Powers of Ten (ok, it's a short feature, but still a classic)

    And some good ones that are better than ones that made the list:

    Aliens
    Galaxy Quest

    (And if the new Battlestar Galactica series counted it would be near the top of my list.)

  • I can't believe no one has suggested the obvious! (Score:3, Funny)

    by solarrhino ( 581267 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:00AM (#14074246) Homepage Journal
    "Office Space"!

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:08AM (#14074263)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Staring Krita Allen. Hot stuff.

  • Destination Moon! For crissake!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Xtifr ( 1323 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:14AM (#14074281) Homepage
    I find it hard to believe that Space.Com, of all people, left out the first movie really worthy of the term "Space Movie"! Sure, it's old and dated, but Destination Moon [imdb.com] was the first movie to even TRY to take the idea of space travel seriously. It stands with Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still as the only even half-way decent science fiction movies of its day, but those other two really aren't space movies. They may have space ships, but they're not about space travel, per se.

  • 2001. Here's why. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by k98sven ( 324383 ) on Sunday November 20, 2005 @04:44AM (#14074366) Journal
    Someone said that a good war movie isn't about what people do in war. It's about what war does to people.

    I agree with that sentiment and I think one could perhaps adopt that here: A good space movie isn't about people doing things in space. It's about what space does to people.

    And in that category, there really isn't any movie like "2001". I don't know any movie which has tackled the issues of space travel like that. Man and machine. Man and space. The mysteries of the universe. Alien intelligence. It's all in there, almost like a guide to the philosophical issues of the space age.

    Not that it has any answers. You've got to find those on your own. But it poses questions nobody had dared do before in Sci-Fi films. And it manages to do it without being noisy about it, unlike, say, The Matrix, which is quite overt with its philosophical pretentions. (Or worse, the contemporary 1968 "Planet of the Apes")

    Add to that the stunning special effects for its age which were truely groundbreaking, the great directing by Kubrick, including some now-legendary segues like the bone-to-spaceship cut. And his usual incredible attention to detail. (missing though, that Pan-Am and the Soviet Union would be gone by 2001)

    A lot of people are talking about Star Wars. Really, I'm a huge Star Wars fan, but you just can't compare them. Star Wars was just a revival of the old Flash Gordon matine. It's a great movie in it's own right, but it doesn't really aim higher than to be entertaining, and it's not really a space movie. I mean, the fact it's in space isn't terribly relevant to the plot, is it?

    Well, that's what I think anyway.

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