What young people who likely haven't seen any of the classic sci-fi thought of the movies. I'd be surprised if the average age of the voters on this thing was over 16.

 

It's the story that makes it great. There's more to film than titties and 'splosions.

 

I'd put faith in the general public but then films like Meet the Spartans somehow makes enough money to spawn Super Hero Movie which mades enough money to spawn Disaster Movie.

It's sort of like the general public with food, lots of people eat at fast food places but would you really call them good places to eat or high quality nutritious healty part of a balanced diet just because lots of people eat at them?

Popular doesn't have much to do with quality since I'm sure all of us have horrible things we love that should never go on any "best" list. Just because I have a blast watching Plan 9 From Outer Space doesn't mean it belongs within 500 yards of the best sci-fi list.

 

QFT

the last decent genre parody was scary movie 2
after that the good writers went on to better things
and we're left with the hacks making random cultural references tot hings people stopped caring about over a year ago. they should be left to write sketches for madtv, that's about they level of quality they achieve

popular movies aren't always good
spiderman 3 was popular, but it just doesn't scale well on the good film chart
same goes for pirates of the carribean 2 and 3

 

When I think of "the best" in sci-fi I also think "genre defining" and "revolutionary for it's time"...much of that list falls far short of that...

Say what you will about the "old classics" and "movies the old fogies here just like for nostalgia's sake" but if those movies hadn't blazed the trails and been the genre defining and revolutionary works that they were...there would be no Transformers movie that wasn't using 'guy in a rubber suit technology'...oh wait, they left Godzilla 1954 off the list...guess we don't even get that for TF's   and IronMan would look like the Roger Corman Fantastic Four flik because no movie studio would take sci-fi seriously.

 

Clearly number one on that list should be Battlefield Earth.

 

Did you even read my post? That's ENTIRELY what I'm getting at that few other people in this thread are. I have no problem with people agreeing or disagreeing with the list, but calling those who DO rate these movies as top on their list stupid and part of the "mindless masses" is incredibly arrogant and elitist.

 

I don't know what the stats are for how much they made, but that sad thing is that now you literally don't NEED your movie to be as successful as you used to. I heard a couple years ago that because of how cheap DVDs are to make, NO movie had actually LOST money (overall) in years. Sad.

Iron Man was good because NO movie studio was in charge. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were the result of Marvel getting the rights to those characters back, and making the movies THEMSELVES. Obviously they went through various production companies, etc, but the final decisions were all Marvel's alone.

 

as much as i love the 2007 movie....this list is trash because of what they placed empire strikes back at

seriously, that movie PWNS all other movies, it is the single greatest sci-fi movie of all time

 

QFT

 

Discovery Channel also "proved" Spider-Man and X-Men powers, too, but so what? The believability of Batman is one of his greatest draws. He's a normal guy who uses cutting edge tech to supplement his own skills. I still say it's just as "Sci Fi" as ghostbusters, or half the other movies on the list. 40 years ago, tricorders and communicators were sci-fi, today they are known as Blackberry and Razr.

Ironman worked because of the mannerisms and skill of Robert Downey Jr. That's it. Put any other actor in the role, as I said before, imagine Charlie Sheen... and the Ironman movie would just be another sad flop in the history of comic movies next to Ghostrider, Daredevil, Spawn, and Elekra. The story wasn't very good, the special effects were expected of today's movies, but RDjr took control of the Tony Stark character and made him relate to the audience, and that made the movie work.

meh... It's better than RotJ, but I still think the first Starwars defined the Sci-Fi genre. My favorite sci-fi, tho, is still the wrath of khan. I think Starwars is more 'fun', but Star Trek is better sci-fi as well as characters.

 

again star wars is not sci-fi

 

It is sci-fi. Space ships, aliens, "hyperspace", laser swords, robots. It's a sci-fi blended with serial adventure reels of the 50's. But is is sci-fi.

god, I hate it when nerds get their panties in a bunch.

 

Well, I'd say that Batman isn't really more Sci-Fi than James Bond (especially pre-Casino Royale), with the fancy gadgets and whatnot.

Wow, I guess all that last sentence shows is that Bond is kinda Sci-Fi. So I didn't even finish my argument, because I guess you pretty much win  

I guess it's "sci-fi" until the tech is actually out and operation.

I would have to disagree. Yes, Robert Downey, Jr. was FANTASTIC in the role, but I don't think he was the only reason it was a good movie. I don't think it would have been a flop.

You're right. Just because it's really at it's heart a fantasy, (a fairy tale in space) doesn't mean it's less Sci-Fi.

 

I wasn't really arguing that Batman is truly sci-fi, but merely stating that it is just as sci-fi as ghostbusters is. Both movies use some science to excuse the fantastic, but at the heart, they have nothing to do with the gadgets. Same with Bond. As was said in the article, they tossed in Superhero movies with sci-fi for giggles, so with that being said, I think Dark Knight should be in the top 3, easily.

Most of the reviews drool over Downey. Anecdotal evidence supports it as well. Most casual filmgoers went to see a cocky Robert Downey Jr be his usual cocky arsehole, just this time with a supersuit on.

As I said before, no movie is set exclusively in one genre. Wall-E is an action movie with a heavy romance subplot. Jurassic Park is a classic monster movie with a sci-fi rational. Dark Knight is a "comicbook movie" with a heavy dose of "Silence of the Lambs" level psychodrama. Starwars is also a blend of genres, but the sci-fi is the predominate genre. The "peasant boy saves the princess" fairytale is more a lack of George Lucas' storytelling ability than a stab at the fantasy genre. When he tries to expand that basic story, we get a muddled and distorted farce that is known as the prequel trilogy.

 

I meant the quality of the movie in general, not how it did in the box office.

I agree on the prequel trilogy. But Lucas has said on many occasions that Star Wars was conceived as a fairy tale, and the evidence supports it. There is the farm boy, the old "wizard" Ben Kenobi (he's referred to specifically as a wizard), the "Princess", the Jedi "Knights", the armored knights (storm troopers) of the enemy (with Darth Vader being the head of these armored knight), sword fights, etc. Whatever your opinion of his storytelling ability (which I think was grand once upon a time, but was lost to history), he did intend it to be a fairy tale.

 

Was going to make a comment about how internet lists of any kind are fairly much 100% "WTF?", but then after reading through decided against it, due to the fact that this thread is already full of pompous, conceited BS masquerading as fact.

 

Personally I think there are enough superhero/comic based movies for it to become it's own genre.

 

I love that film!  

 

So it's all arrogant, elitist, pompous, or whatever if you don't have blind and total faith in the general public now?

Don't get me wrong the general public can do some great and wonderful things and some times the general public throws their support behind people with amazing talent. I am watching the Olympics and how the general public of nations are throwing support to some insanely talented men and women.

But the general public also does some very bad things and the general public goes for fades so I don't see how you can imply that somehow the general public is always right all the time. That's why so many nations are Representative Democracies instead of pure Democracies. Doesn't take all that much digging in the history books to find things where the general public either supported some really horrible things or turned their head like it wasn't their problem.