Blade Runner Is The Best Sci-Fi Film 972
Delchanat writes "Now there's scientific proof: according to 60 of the most influential scientists in the world, including British biologist Richard Dawkins and Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) is the best science fiction film. Late Mr. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) finished 2nd, followed by George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)." There are several other stories as well: favorite authors, the basics of science fiction, and an excerpt of a new Iain M. Banks novel.
I suppose... (Score:1, Interesting)
At least I hope scientists have more sense than to vote for that Greedo-shoots-first crap.
Star Wars? (Score:5, Interesting)
No Star Trek...Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Gattaca (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Star Wars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Silent Running (Score:3, Interesting)
But I thought that Silent Running was pretty cool.
Also The Andromeda Strain... that was pretty neat in its day.
Just saw Soylent Green too... nice dystopian idea.
War Games (Score:2, Interesting)
No surprises (Score:2, Interesting)
Planet of the Apes should be on any top list.
Totally agree (Score:3, Interesting)
Dark Star (Score:4, Interesting)
"Best?" (Score:5, Interesting)
But there are a lot of not named movies that plays with very hard sci-fi topics, i.e. 12 Monkeys with time (or Terminator or even Back to the future), or Avalon with virtual reality, or more topics covered by the science fiction concept or even Dark City.
But also, they are movies, not just must touch some advanced scientific or science fiction topics, but must be good as a movie... ok, Blade Runner is good, but there are a lot that were don't even named there.
And if well is the author behind Blade Runner, the article don't even names P.K.Dick, that have a bunch of really good sci-fi movies based on his books and tales, maybe him alone should have most top ranked movies in their selection.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Non sequitur (Score:4, Interesting)
I think your appreciation of cinema is far too constrained by the mainstream.
Re:No Star Trek...Wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Star Wars? (Score:4, Interesting)
The original Star Wars was a great movie. But it's space opera at its best.
I think part of the problem is just the relative lack of good sci-fi films. There's a lot, sure. But there's more good dramas.
Yeah, it's a bit nit-picky to knock them quite so much on what may be a small topic, but I think the article would have made out much differently if they'd only allowed sci-fi movies.
A film without heros or villans (Score:5, Interesting)
Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time. There's so much to like. One thing that fascinates me is that there is really no hero and no villains in the movie. I'm sure that most people argue that Harrison Ford's character is the hero. But let's think about that: his job is to execute escaped slaves. Hardly a noble persuit. Yes, he does this very relucantly but really that's not much of an excuse. When the film starts, we see him looking in the want ads for a job. Really, I wonder just how hard he's looking. With so much of humanity on the off-world colonies, there's probably plenty of jobs available -- just not very good ones. In addition, once Deckard is on the assignment, he seems to really get into it. Even when he's at home drinking he's studying the photo that he took from Leon's apartment with that fancy photo analyzer of his. He hardly seems to be someone who can't stand his job.
The part about no villians is probably easier to argue. The replicants are simply doing what they can do survive. Yes, they have killed some people when they were trying to escape but they were slaves for chrissake! Pris is described as "'yer standard pleasure model." Basically she was created solely for use as a prostitute. It's not too surprising that she'd be willing to kill to get out of such a depressing situation.
Even though the movie is set in the future and deals with technology and places that don't exist, I think the fact that there aren't any real true 100% heros or 100% villans makes the film very interesting and realistic. I think most people realize this on some level and it draws them to watch what happens when "realistic" people have to deal with messy situations.
I think this is one reason why hardcore fans hate the dubbing. It makes the viewer tend to side with and identify with Deckard. That makes you see him as the hero even if he does questionable things. The Director's Cut lets you watch the movie as an impartial observer.
GMD
Other Great Sci-Fi Movies (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are a couple missing sci-fi films that should be considered. They were not exactly blockbusters, but they made for good sci-fi.
I know I am forgetting a whole host of other options, but at least this is a start.
The reason I can't watch blade runner any more (Score:3, Interesting)
(if you don't want to risk ruining the film for yourself, stop reading!!)
If they are so worried about replicants infiltrating humans, why didn't they just make them green or put a huge tatoo on their forehead? Or even in a less conspicuous place? There is no logical reason that I can think of why such a precaution could not have been taken. If they did that, the entire film falls apart. As may the original story, but I can't remember it too clearly.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:2, Interesting)
Just another trip into Kubrick's mangled mind, but I think in this case you just needed a little too many drugs to appreciate it. Good for the swinging 60s I'm sure, but I'm just a little too sober for it these days.
Watch clockwork orange or full metal jacket if you want to appreciate some of Kubrick's better work. (Concentrating more on the story than tedious and trippy visual sequences.)
Re:Star Wars? (Score:2, Interesting)
X-Men!!?! How can you possibly call X-Men "science fiction"? Star Wars has a thousand times the imaginative speculative science that X-Men does, yet you call it fantasy.
Mutations have a basis in scientific fact, but mutations that cause "magic" do not. Magneto's magnetism is magical. Cyclop's eyesight is magical. To suggest that these and other powers can arise through the mutation of DNA is ludicrous.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:3, Interesting)
2001 is a masterpiece depicting the humanity, beauty, and reality of space travel and the genuine incomprehensibility of intelligent extra-terrestrial life. 2001 is as uninvolved as Beethoven's symphonies are cold and heartless.
What would be in _YOUR_ top 10? (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's mine (in no particular order)
- Contact
- Gattica
- The Matrix
- Minority Report
- Star Trek 4
- Star Trek 6
- Back to the Future (1, 2, & 3)
- Short Circuit
- Planet of the Apes
- and, I guess,
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
Of course, I've never seen a few of these on their list, like Blade Runner, Solaris, or The Day the Earth Stood Still, so they could always displace something...What's special about Blade Runner? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mod-up the Gattaca comment. :-)
Re:A film without heros or villans (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Contact (Score:4, Interesting)
Best thing I liked is the human aspect, especially the juxtapostion of the fiercely rational scientist with the preacher.
Hopefully it serves as a fitting epitaph to Carl Sagan. Certainly one of my favourite SF movies.
Re:omg (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider these points:
2001 was reasonably tolerable when it came to spaceflight itself; even the moon buggy seemed somewhat reasonable (I built one of those once.. by Revell, maybe?) at the time. The space station was a bit optimistic, but in the legitimate realm of SF rather than fantasy, no question about it.
Don't get me wrong - I loved the movie then, and I still do - but I do think there's plenty of outright fantasy creeping around in there, fouling up the movie's sf heritage.
Re:omg (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. But there was a purpose and mesage behind both of them.
Admittedly with modern special effects there may have been some better ways to get that message across. I think one of the reasons why some people today "don't get it" is because the special effects in the move are generally so good that it's easy to compare it to your expectations for a modern movie.
The "acid trip" (which isn't 30 minutes long -- closer to 20 :) ) is supposed to represent Dave Bowman seeing wonders of the universe he can't properly comprehend. He's seeing these things, but the best his mind can percieve of them are a bunch of swirly colours, odd planetscapes, the birth and death of stellar phenomenon, etc.
The star child is supposed to be as different as you and I as the apes in "The Dawn of Man" are to you and I. We can't comprehend what Bowman has become through alien influence. How are you supposed to realistically show someething that doesn't exist, and which, by definition, the audience (as humans) can't comprehend? Maybe they should have taken the Star Trek route and had him turn into a green vapour cloud with flashing lights and had some doctor step in at the end to point at him and say he's evolved beyond humanity -- but that ending would have sucked :).
Yaz.
Re:ALIENS! (Score:4, Interesting)
Was it the tense horror of Alien? Nope, but both stand as fine examples of their genre.
Cherry 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)
Cherry 2000
Damnation Alley
The Day the Earth Stood Still
I have been more of a Horror fan (movie & Book)
Re:You got the wrong "omg" (Score:5, Interesting)
The point of the film is summed up early on in Deckard's examination of Rachel. If it takes a trained professional over an hour to spot the small emotional responses that differentiate a human from a replicant, is it moral to enslave replicants? If it is so close to human, does it deserve human status?
This is not a noir dressed up in sci-fi clothes. This is a sci-fi flick asking hard questions dressed up in a slinky noir outfit to get your guard down.
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:2, Interesting)
well for a couple weeks anyway.
Well, we agree on 2001 at least : ) (Score:3, Interesting)
- 2001
- Blade Runner
- Solaris (original version)
- Metropolis (original version)
- La Jettee (the short film that 12 Monkeys is based on)
- The Day The Earth Stood Still
- Farenheit 451
- Alien
- Akira
- Things To Come
I urge you to check out some foreign-language and / or black and white stuff... most of the great SF movies are from the 70s or earlier, in my opinion.1984 gives people too much credit (Score:5, Interesting)
Brazil is about how these movements fall apart and all we're left with the the crumbling infrastructure of a grand social scheme and petty regulations designed to protect that system that trap the ordinary fellow.
1984 is about what the Western World feared communism would be. Brazil is about what communism, small-time fascism, and British capitalism all turned into.
So yeah, it's just like 1984, but rewritten from the side of things where the worst didn't happen. That's not an insignificant contribution. If more tinfoil hat types would watch Brazil, we could all relax just a bit. It's not a nice world, but it's not that much worse than any world we've ever had.
I think Dave Sims said, in one of his famous misogynists rant, that the key point in communism is that you do a lot of things to prepare society and then *boom*, human nature changes overnight, and you're free. Slashdot type know this as the ??? step. Brazil is about what happens if there is no ???.
I can't wait to see what the similar view of today's "war on terror" is forty years from now. We fear a worldwide network of people who would attack us yearly in horrible ways.... what will we get?
Re: A film without heros or villans (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting analysis!
I first saw the theatrical version (with dubbing); after that, the Director's Cut seemed to lack focus and drive, and the lack of explanation made things a little more confusing if you weren't paying extremely careful attention. So I tended to prefer the first one.
But I see your point. By fixing on Deckard's PoV, we tend to take his motives, and his humanity, for granted, and miss some of the parallels with the (other) replicants -- things that Scott clearly didn't want us to do. Maybe the distance that the Director's Cut brings encourages us question these things. Next time, I'll view it with this in mind. Thanks!
A bit off topic but... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:2, Interesting)
I'll admit that the first time I watched it, I thought it sucked, too. It was slow and non sequitur. However, I realize now that the moments where the movie progresses slowly only emphasize the immense speed with which intelligence exponentially increases. Consider how the final moments of the movie seemingly span decades, culminating in the creation of an intelligence far beyond what had previously existed.
2001 is a movie about intelligence, transhumanism, and the singularity, all of which are amazingly timely. 2001, as a movie, is not merely an artistic statement, though it is among the most finely crafted movies of the century.
Star wars, for all of its fantastic, visual action, wears its short-sightedness on its forehead. Honestly, which is more plausible: attaining faster-than-light travel or hacking our own bodies and amassing intelligence at an exponential rate, building towards some sort of creature we don't yet have any conception of?
I'll answer that: the latter is the case, and is, in fact, currently the case. It's not a thing waiting just around the corner. Slashdot is the star-child of 2001. People wandering around the planet, plugged in to the network 24/7, are far, far smarter than humans who aren't plugged in.
Literally. Ask a person with a cellphone any question at all. As long as the answer is a factoid and that person posesses moderate searching skills, it doesn't matter if the answer is cached in their cortex, because a slightly higher latency but infinitely larger storage medium is a few thumb-presses away.
If that person is able to answer questions that a non-connected person is unable to answer, there is clearly an information differential between the two. One human is more human, and the other, transhuman.
Humans happen to be little more than information processors riding the crest of the real-time-ness wave, and lowering latencies of access to various forms of information are basically the only thing preventing an entity of unlimited intelligence from processing in real-time.
Perhaps these notions were well understood at the time of the making of 2001, but I suspect not, as these concepts are as yet not well understood. All the more reason that the movie should be regarded as visionary beyond imagination; the movie itself is more than the images portrayed on the screen. The imagination behind the images is communicated lucidly, taking only a very limited number of artistic liberties along the way.
The portion of 2001 regarded as artistic are more appropriately majestic, and the rest, that which we consider sci-fi, are analogous to a higher being channeling symbols through a prophet. Does it possess additional significance when the fiction portion of sci-fi is more readily compared to poetry, religion, and logic?
Re:omg (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, why not. I have some extra time on my hands tonight :).
Basides which, there have been theories (some of which have been disproven since) that would make such a system posssible. Many cosmic theorists have postulated that there may be "shortcuts" between two points in space.
Note, however, that of the three monoliths we see, only one is actually a stargate -- and it's several kilometres across. The small units never once are shown to be star gates of any sort -- the first one on earth simply has an effect on the apes living in its vicinity, and the one on the moon only sends a signal out towards Jupiter.
You seem to have picked on the "fiction" portions of the movie pretty good, missing almost completely the science aspects. Note that I didn't claim that the movie was 100% scientifically accurate -- otherwise we wouldn't call it "science fiction" (sorry to belabour that point). Some of the parts that are rather scientifically accurate (or at least possible) include:
These elements make it vastly more scientifically accurate than most scifi movies. Or do you think those movies that involve instantaneous travel between star systems with aerodynamically styled ships using impossible propulsion mechanisms with lasers that travel slower than the speed of light and emit loud sounds in the vaccuum of space are more realistic? :)
Yaz.
Re:ALIENS! (Score:5, Interesting)
From a sheer sci-fi/futurism perspective, it does a good job of taking the original's idea of a universe traversed by space "truckers" working for cynical corporations and adds space Marines, greedy corporate bastards and colonial families. In addition, it fleshes out the alien life cycle by asking and answering the obvious question: who's laying all the eggs?
Add that to the fact that Cameron expanded a cliche horror flick that happened to be set in space to a fairly novel horror/action flick set in... well, space, with characters you actually got interested in over time. (This was his strength in "Terminator 2" as well: taking what could be a by-the-numbers action/FX film and adding good, solid characterization to the ENTIRE cast.) "Aliens" may have played up the cliches itself, but it was a more-than-worthy successor, and a lot of sci-fi today owes tribute to it in some way, shape or form.
Re:2001 sucked, NOT (Score:3, Interesting)
Major Omission: Forbidden Planet (Score:3, Interesting)
Had great special effects for 1956 and quite a bit later.
Good SciFi value with robots, and a pre-cursor at least to Asimov's Laws. And speculative merit in the question of what would happen if you did create each individual as an all powerful being.
And Anne Francis.
Re:It was supposed to be boring. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just boring, but lethally unforgiving. If the normal sci-fi rules were applied to the leap from the pod, or the evacuation of the atomosphere, then it wouldn't seem so desolate and hopeless. Tossing in a crew which gets slaughtered without introduction makes it even more imensely unforgiving.
I think it was a great film, no question at all. It's also probably the only film I know of which tries to get sci-fi accurate rather than cool.
Sure, it gets boring, and the end is just weird, but it makes you think and what it makes you think are not happy escapist pulp-sci-fi thoughts, but frigtening and real thoughts about human purpose and mortality.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think that is a completely fair evaluation of 2001. 2001 was the most honest portrayal of space travel out there. It wasn't glamorous, there were no lasers, communicating with earth involved very long round trip times. It is one of the few movies to show that space is very cold, very quiet and very, very big.
Re:Star Wars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gattaca & Forbidden Planet (Score:5, Interesting)
The scariest movie I remember was Forbidden Planet. Way ahead of it's time. I saw it recently and it's still scary. Even though the ID monster now reminds me of the Tasmanian Devil.
Re:1984 gives people too much credit (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether or not it will ever *actually* get there is where your analysis comes in, and is an open question in the movie. Guess it all depends on how competent those terrorists are.
Re:2001 sucked. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Scientists, please explain Blade Runner to me (Score:3, Interesting)
Even so... in the book says -if I remember it right- that only a biopsy of the bone marrow would show the difference. Not something you do in a hurry.
Bonus:
1. Androids may or not dream but their lack of empaty for living creatures would negate the difference between a live sheep or an electric one to them. That's why the test works.
2. Don't dream, they are just machines.
Art is beauty of form that inspires thought (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrath of Khan (and others) (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know why it's marked "funny" that someone would suggest Wrath of Khan belongs here. I put it not only in my list of top 10 scifi pics, but in my list of top-ten best movies ever. It seems to me that it is the movie sequel that pioneered the idea of treating the time between movies as "part of the movie" instead of as "something to be ignored". So while James Bond grows older and we're supposed to ignore the fact, Star Trek did something boldly different: it allowed the characters to age with the actors, and allowed "grown up" thoughts about aging and death from people who used to be carefree young bucks and had off-screen learned what life was. Not to mention being a brilliant idea for a sequel and an outstanding plot.
Also, before The Matrix, I would always prefer to see The Thirteenth Floor, which it seems to me is the same sci-fi concept cast into a much more thoughtful rather than Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark format.
And while I think War of the Worlds was a pivotal book and radio production, I don't think the movie was an especially important work.
And though I thought Star Wars was a fun movie, I have emotional trouble listing it as a great work of scifi. It's pulp. And maybe that entitles it to a spot. There's been tons of pulp scifi (Flash Gordon, etc.) that isn't represented. But there are such amazingly thoughtful pieces that I just don't see giving up a slot to something like this.
Some other overlooked options for this list:
(Well, I was very moved by it because of the age I was at when it came out. It might not appeal in the same way to a modern audience on a small screen, but...)
(Also high on my list of all-time most romantic movies just for that scene where Virgil and Lindsey are stuck in the sub together needing to get back to the main habitat.)
(Perhaps Wargames is also worth a mention in this general category.)
(You may also like Vanilla Sky and Paycheck in the same category.)
(And if you liked this kind of thing you might also try the more obscure The Lathe of Heaven. I also enjoyed Timecop here, but a lot of people classified that as a simple action flick.)
And, ok, they're funny, but they are also still sci-fi and outstanding:
Re:A film without heros or villans (Score:5, Interesting)
I can think of a couple of reasons. First of all, in an age of firearms, you ultimately don't need much strength to kill someone else, all you need to be able to do is shoot straight. Which Deckard clearly can do, so long as his fingers don't get broken. Considering that your quarry is extremely difficult to differentiate from the populace at large, the key attribute to getting replicants "aired out" is not physical strength and stamina, but excellent detective work. Where Deckard apparently excels.
By the nature of the job, a Blade Runner has to be able to move freely and have considerable police powers, this is something that the society would never tolerate a replicant having. Also, replicants are banned on Earth anyway. If Deckard obviously possessed superhuman strength and stamina, it wouldn't take long before people figured out that he was a replicant. So, he's got to resemble normal humans a little more closely in order to be effective.
Early in the movie when Bryant the police superintendant is showing Deckard the videos of the replicants, you'll note that there is some text that appears next to their faces and in addition to name and incept date, they seem to be rated in strength, stamina, and intelligence (or something close related to those, can't remember exactly now). It appears that there is variation amongst the Nexus 6 replicants in their abilities, so it's not a stretch to believe that Deckard's abilities could be quite a bit different than the others if his job required it.
Re:omg (Score:2, Interesting)
It just goes to show that your frame of reference is everything. I don't see this as some magic obelisk which comes down and "changes" the apes so that they can evolve, I see it as the first clear evidence that the apes have seen which indicates that there is so much more than their "little world" It awakens the curiosity centres in their brains, which are already there, but untapped. In other words the obelisk is simply a marker which inspires the apes to further themselves.
Maybe it's just me though. I've always been a little bit different....
Re:Major Omission: Forbidden Planet (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, a major milestone is sci-fi movies, mainly due to:
1- The history is just old plain good sci-fi, and
2- The making is simply fantastic.
And of course, of course... Anne Francis.
Gotta love this movie!.
best lines (Score:2, Interesting)
That scene always moves me.
Re:It was supposed to be boring. (Score:4, Interesting)
Full Metal Jacket
Dr Strangelove
A Clockwork Orange
The Shining (in particular, slow for a reason, to build tension)
Re:I can't believe... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Major Omission: Forbidden Planet (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:2, Interesting)
(Tokyo is downtrodden humanity
And I was despairing that I was the only one... (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is my interpretation: 6 total replicants. 4 replicants shown, 1 fried, and 1 "other". Deckard, was not "just" a replicant, he was the sixth replicant from the crew.
The theory is consistent and explains some otherwise non sequitirs in the DC. The line of reasoning is that Deckard was imprinted with memory engrams (like we saw in Rachel). It gives a reason for the unicorn scene and implication that he is known as a replicant to the department. More telling is how the four replicants react to seeing and interacting with Deckard.
Next time, watch the film while bearing in mind this postulate... the replicants are reacting to one of their comrades--who has no recollection of them--who is intent to kill them. The flickers of sadness in Batty's face, Batty's reluctance to kill Deckard, and visceral feeling of betrayal Batty communicates is almost tangible.
Anyway, it also explains how each of the four recognized Deckard on sight, even before he pulled his gun.
Re:About the flamewar (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'd have to agree. (Score:3, Interesting)
So, the overcompensating, fedora-wearing dork in the tree-lined suburb is the big market for gritty tales of futurist urban cyber-grit.