Was being serious! Yeah, it's set there and yeah it's been destroyed, but I always thought it was strange all the same. I just thought with Paul Verhoeven at the helm there may have been some other meaning behind it...

He does think about things, like "Nazis - bad, bad, bad!" (Carl in Starship Troopers), "He's an American Jeshush!" (Robocop). Of course he did also say "I like ze titch and ze ash, but mostly I like ze titch" (Showgirls).

If you haven't listened to his commentary on the DVD for Starship Troopers I highly recommend it. When he describes the audience notes received back in the test screening about Denise Richards... hilarious!

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Dogtrooper, Salute of the Jugger was one that I'd forgotten about, that was good fun as well!

Thinking about the post-apocalyptic world in that film made me think of another good film that hasn't been mentioned: Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior in U.S.). "You disobey me... You puppy." Note to self... future profile signature right there.

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I'd totally forgotten about salute of the jugger! Surely robot jox needs a mention... or maybe it doesn't...

Can't believe i've missed this thread till now ! Ok, off the top of my head, top 5 is too hard so i'm gonna cheat...

5. Amen to all Paul Verhoeven's 80s classics - Robocop ("i'd buy that for a dollar"), Total Recall ("Consider this a divorce") Starship Troopers ("Do you wanna know more?"). The original source novels of all of the above are also great and very different - true to the maxim that when adapting for the screen the more you change it the more it true to the spirit it becomes (Zack Snider - watchmen - we're looking at you.) That Dutch sense of irony is just razor sharp. Shame he seemed to go off the boil from showgirls on.

{4.5} Star Wars 4-6 - the battle for Hoth (and maybe transformers) can be blamed for my last 25 years of obsession with miniature tanks. Needs a mention.

4. That said i'd like to put in a heartfelt recommendation for THX1138 - proof George Lucas really did have talent and A New Hope wasn't just a fluke. If you haven't seen it do - the creepy mirror faced robot-cops are reason enough ! The film imho was a big influence on the recent (disappointing) Elysium - but much better.

{3.5} THX harked back to the classic 1984 inspired sci-fi of the 60/early 70s : Logans Run, Rollerball, Farrenhient 451, but for the ultimate man trapped in a nightmare future dystopia keep some Orwellian black humour - you need Gillium - Brazil or 12 Monkeys you choose (plus proof that British humour is not the preserve only of the British.)

{3.4} I'll just sneak Planet of the Apes in here.
{3.3} And maybe Mad Max,
{3.2} And Mad Max 2,
{3.1} Has no one said Terminator ?? !! Dudumn, Dum, de'Dumm... Number 2 is ok, forget the rest.

(3) The Matrix. See previous comment (though the Animatrix are great.) Coolest thing i had seen since 10 years before when i first saw...

2. ...Batman (Burton's.) Not sure if it's really sci-fi, but it blew my mind as a 10 year old. And the reason why every time my friend air strikes an Eldar Vampire onto the table it must first make a trip to silhouette in the spot light over my dining room !

1.5 Alien, Aliens, (and just in case you listened to the nay-sayers and never saw it) Alien 3 - not perfect but not at all bad. Forget the rest. But for the best Scott film (and perhaps best film of all time in all categories) its gotta be...

1. Blade Runner - nuff said.


Well that'll do till i remember a whole load i forgot about !

Starship troopers, such an awesome film. Aside from the convenient way the Arachnids go from being impossible to kill to cannon fodder of course!

The one thing I craved after that film was more to expand on the lore a bit more in film form - "do you want to know more?" indeed. And the televised trial: "guilty". Such a shame then that the "sequels" were such utter cack.

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Love your "5" choices Blip!

Actually, it's made me think that the "top 5" question is too limiting. To make things more interesting, how about I throw this thread wide open? Anyone can now use this as a place to enthuse/criticise/share news about any film they like here. Have fun!

I'll set a precedent by discussing Django Unchained which I watched for the first time last night.

The first hour was really great! I thought there were a lot of clever and funny moments, and that Tarantino was making a return to form after the films he has made this century have failed to replicate the quality of those of the previous one.

But once the film introduces Leonardo Di Caprio's character it really lost its way, and that isn't Di Caprio's fault, but Tarantino's. The film has been good fun up to this point and clearly you're not supposed to have taken things seriously. But the fight scene as Di Caprio is introduced and a later scene which involves a slave being caught in the act of trying to escape didn't feel like they belonged in the same film. These moments felt ugly for no real reason than to communicate to the audience that Leo ain't a nice guy in this film. The fact that he traded slaves was sufficient for me to understand this, I don't need to see people being dispatched in hideous ways to get that point. It reminded me of Kill Bill with the gratuitous hospital scene in which a comatose Uma Thurman is being abused. Horribleness that feels out of place in a film that is otherwise comic-bookish in tone.

It was a real shame because I thought the film had a lot going for it and that many of the performances - even after the point where I thought it started going off the rails - were very strong and deserved better. Christoph Waltz and Samuel L.Jackson were both expectional in the film.

The biggest problem for me was when Tarantino made his customary cameo. The film should have finished before that. Everything should have been tied up in the glorious action sequence before that. Instead, to paraphrase Lord Elrond, evil was allowed to endure for another 20-30 unnecessary and fairly pointless minutes. Speaking of QT's cameo, what was that accent supposed to be? It sounded South African!

There's no arguing that Tarantino's dialogue is excellent, but someone needs to get a hold of the screenplay and hand it over to a script doctor to tidy it up. We could have had a 2hr classic, instead we got a good but flawed 3hr film.

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I got the impression in Django that the viewer was supposed to feel more indifferent about the violence as it wasn't challenged and as the film went on, and then be reminded of how bad that was at the end to feel guilty. Perhaps as some sort of commentary on how context can skew reaction to what may or may not be shocking. The problem for me was that it didn't really do that, it just seemed out of place.

For instance the escaping slave scene. Maybe this stuff happened all the time, but for me the film failed in that moment to offer a solid argument as to why di Caprio's character acted in the way he did. It just caused me to ponder on whether it was a cynical cinema-talking-point device.

Overall though I still thought it was a good film, if a little long.

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I loved every minute of Django; didn't feel strained or overly serious to me, but then tastes differ, and I didn't find the hospital scenes in Kill Bill 1 out either. Tarentino was slammed for being racist for making this ...

Aanyways - here are my top 5


- Blade Runner.
I like all three versions; kinda missed the commentary the first time I watched directors cut. Bissler said it muc better than I ever will.

- Star Trek Wrath of Khan.
I can't believe noone's mentioned this before here? Scifi with a point!
I loved Voyager and TNG too, even though if they'd edited Neelix and the boy out of voyager, it'd've been quite a lot better. One of these days now, I'll get my act together and watch the original series cover to cover.
I absolutely Detest the two new movies; it just feels like they're having a giant dump all over the old fans.

- Starship Troopers
Ah, good old slapstick humor with a point to make. I might not agree to the morals of it, but at least he has a point, and he's not afraid to state it. The book is pretty good too; it made my 20-some-year-old self think long and hard about the morals of our society, about jail and punishment and what it does to people.

- Cloud Atlas
Calling this epic 'sci fi' might stretch the lines a little, but at least two parts of it are. I loved every second; the period pieces are wonderful, the story rocks, the acting is great and the scenes and music are beautiful.

- Star Wars.
I loved the first 3 from the first time I saw them, back when I was 10 or so, on my friend's . I think A New Hope is the movie I've seen most times of all. Whether this is strictly scifi or fantasy set in space is a different discussion (o:

Runners up:
Enemy Mine, Alien, The Thing, Elysium, Terminator 1, the Matrix - too bad they never actually made those sequels they were talking about.


A side note: I watched the sherlock holmes movie that came out a couple years ago, and i hated it.
Why oh why does Sherlock Holmes reach out for violence to solve his problems before using his famous mind? Also, they go so far out of their way to depict London as the most dreadful dilapidated sullen place on the planet.

It's symptomatic of a world where thought and reason is ridiculed - see Prometheus - and propaganda is accepted without question. I hate it.

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I think Kryt and I seem to have had the same feelings about the film. I think you may have hit the nail on the head when you said that the escaping slave scene may have been a "cynical cinema-talking-point device".

I've long thought QT is guilty of that kind of nonsense and it goes back to his earlier, better films. Reservoir Dogs started it with the notorious "ear-cutting" sequence. Did I like that? Not much, but at least I felt it was in keeping with the tone of the film and the characters that featured in it. Pulp Fiction's cellar-scene? Probably the same but was less-justified. There was nothing in Jackie Brown that I remember being shocking, but it's worth also bearing in mind that film was a commercial failure. Since then, I just get the feeling that QT wants at least one moment in his films to shock the audience and excite them into talking to their friends about it - noteriety sells tickets after all.

I'm glad that Parintachin didn't have a problem with the escaping slave or hospital scenes, and is right to point out tastes vary.

As to whether QT is racist or not, I haven't a clue. Certainly the intention seemed to be that by brutalising Django, the audience should be on his side and therefore against the racist whites. The way he portrated and mocked the lynch mob in Django Unchained was pretty funny and would again suggest that he is against racism. On the other hand, he has had a long history of using the "n" word in his scripts with what seems to be an incredible amount of glee. I find that incredibly strange. Yes, I can understand that the odd character might speak like that, but numerous characters in most of his films seem to use that word without thought. Like I said, I dunno what to make of that.

@Parintachin: That really made me laugh when you said that you hated the new Star Trek films! I have had a long history of hating Star Trek but liking the new films. Quite simply, I think it is because I was a massive Star Wars fan so hated the (more intelligent) way that Star Trek seemed to try and solve things through diplomacy rather than blowing a whole load of shit up. The new films represent a "Star Warsification"* of Star Trek. While I find that enjoyable, I can imagine that many of the purists are horrified.

I will make a point of watching Cloud Atlas sometime soon, sounds interesting indeed.

Didn't really have a problem with the Sherlock Holmes films, just took them for the nonsense that they were. The BBC Cumberbatch extravaganza is far better though.

"Also, they go so far out of their way to depict London as the most dreadful dilapidated sullen place on the planet." Seems fair enough, although I'm sure Glasgow would win that one if there was a competition.

*I'm claiming trademark of that phrase if it takes off like the Falcon out of Mos Eisley spaceport.

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I couldn't pick a definitive top 5 scifi films, but five I definitely love (in no order) are

1. Terminator - love this film, it's the only one in the original series which has an actual man vs machine, rather than two robots slugging it out, T2 had a great story and groundbreaking effects, but T1 is the best by a long way in my opinion

2. Alien/Aliens - For all the reasons espoused by everyone else, very different films, but equally good, the director's cut of aliens is extra good for the sentry gun scenes

3. Robocop - for the action scenes and all the brilliant satire of the american car industry and wildly out of control capitalism, I'm actually very angry about the new version coming out soon as it's like defiling a grave IMO, the first sequel was quite good too...

4. The Matrix - good thing they never ruined a brilliant film by making a pair of rubbish sequels.... oh wait.... one of the few films I've paid to see at the cinema more than once (3 times in fact!)

5. Primer - best time travel film ever made, the fact that you need to watch it three times to make sense of it, (the first time to realise you need a notebook, the second time to make the notes, and the third to attempt to utilise the notes to get it...) done on a very limited budget, it's just great all round

Honourable mentions go to John Carpenter's The Thing, Dark City, Moon, The Europa Report, District 9, Predator

I have to say I really never thought much of Dune (films or books) all of the points made earlier about the style of the lynch film are very valid, and the Brian Eno soundtrack kicks ass, but I just never really thought much of it

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Hadn't heard of Primer, Kyussinchains, thanks for mentioning. I will seek this one out! I noticed the film Pi (not to be confused with Life of Pi) mentioned on the imdb page for Primer. I must give that another watch, I bought it some years ago but wasn't mad on it.

I meant to mention earlier when Blip was enthusing about THX1138 earlier that I agreed with him, I think that is a great film. One problem though is that every time I watch it, I feel like I've been hit by the soporific musk of a Fiend of Slaanesh. There's something about a lot of white background in a film that sends me to sleep, can't explain it!

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Here's an amusing article about the lack of science in science fiction.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24518305

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I'm one of those very few odd creatures who loves Both the original star wars and the long running star trek series - yeah, I know, I'm an ABOMINATION! =P

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Damn, Dark City !! How could i have missed that one ??! I'll call it dark-fantasy to get round the problem Can slip Batman in their too to free up a slot in my top 5 !

See Strange Days too. If only for them using Mini-discs as data stores !

District 9 was great until the mecha gets brought out - seemed like a stock Hollywood action ending on a very interesting film and the mecha seemed crowbar-ed in from another film. Though better than the stock Hollywood plot on rails all the way through Elysium....

Should also recommend "Monsters" in the micro budget category. Brilliant acting and atmosphere and manages to give a nice downplayed ending. And bonus for epic players - bio titans !

Dune - great "experience", shame about the storytelling.

Cloud Atlas - One of my favorite novels. I'm not sure if i can take Tom Hanks ruining it for me...

Now on my watch list : Primer, Moon, Europa Report, Pi and many more. Good thread !

District 9 has the problem of overstating its point too; the whole racism thing is fine, but it gets hammered home to the point of being detrimental to the story - just like Elysium.

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