Episode VI -- The Best Science Fiction Movies Ever; More about the top 13

Welcome to Part Six. In the last five parts, I've laid out the strategy behind these hubs...why I'm doing them, and why each one builds up to the next. The hubs began here :

And our last last hub, episode 5, is here :

My last hub explained why a few films you might have expected to see did not my unsorted top 13, or even to 39...

This hub is the tough task of ranking the top 13, and justifying that ranking. As I've already noted, The top 13 is a pretty highbrow list -- The films here had to be one, accessible to non sci-fi junkies, two, critically acclaimed, and three, artistic. There's zero fluff in my top 13.

That said, here they are again, unsorted :

1. Alien, 1979

2. Blade Runner, 1982

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968

4. The Manchurian Candidate, 1962

5. THX 1138, 1971

6. Superman, 1978

7. The Road Warrior, 1981

8. Tron, 1982

9. Rollerball, 1975

10. Close Encounters of The Third Kind, 1977

11. Avatar, 2009

12. The Terminator, 1984

13. Mad Max, 1979

But here we go with the countdown...

The top 13, now in order, will follow. For the sake of space, I'll only review the bottom 13 of the top 13 now.

13. Rollerball, 1975 -- Forget Planet of the Apes. Forget Soylent Green, Logan's Run, Zardoz, Deathrace 2000, forget The Omega Man...The greatest of the 1970's anti-utopian films was Rollerball. Unlike the other films, which could get a little heavy handed, and even silly at times, Rollerball played things straight, and given how we as a species have worshiped athletes and warriors since the beginning of recorded history, and how multinational corporations are indeed more powerful than ever, this film hits home.

The most popular sport in the future is "Rollerball", a combination of brutal, full-contact, roller-hockey, motocross, and outright fighting; Rollerball teams are sponsored by global cities, each city run by a specialized mega-corportation. Our protagonist, Jonathan E, is played by James Caan, who plays for the city of Houston, TX, which is run by the Energy Consortium. The most famous player on the planet, Jonathan E, lived a spoiled, pampered life, distracted and oblivious to the intellectual and social oppression that dominates his word, and to which, only violent bloodsports like Rollerball offer respite for the average man. Johnathan's life begins to rapidly change when, in light of his soaring popularity, he starts to become "too popular", bigger than the game, bigger than the world itself, and is asked by the corporations to retire.

He refuses, and in doing so, begins a non-classical hero's journey...the confortable world he knows suddenly begins to look darker, and Johnathan begins to realize the emptiness of his life, the sham his world is, and the pawn he has been.  For what seems like the first time in his life, he finds himself thinking.

Again, the best of the early post-apocalypse movies. And no, I did not see the remake, and yes, I did not see it out general principle.

12. Close Encounters of The Third Kind, 1977 -- I won't add much more than I already have. Again, Richard Dreyfuss' "guy goes nuts after poorly remembered, but none the less remembered, ufo experience" performance in this film was plausible. An intelligent film about alien abduction/contact that wasn't written for wacko's -- Who thought that was even possible?

11. Superman, 1978 -- I really loved this movie, and was tempted to rank it higher. I can't stress enough impressive it is that such a trite and implausible story was told in such a "real" way, with so little by way of special effects to drive it. Superman, the guy who can bench press the great pyramid, is a damned cerebral, idealized, yet sincere approach to a character most people probably never expected they'd enjoy seeing in a live action-film. His first enemy, goddamned Gene Hackman in a brilliant performance, had zero superpowers.

Reflect on that :P

In tights, he did this. I repeat : Reeves pulled it off in tights. Bright blue tights, a red cape...this was a disaster in the making and he pulled it off. He was well built and all, yes, but he wasn't "jack", like even the extras in toilet paper commercials are now. Althletically built, but not riplely-muscley by the standards of the next generation of superhero films that were any good 20 years later, Reeves totally made me "buy" both his Superman, and his Clark Kent.

Consider that prior to Superman, only Batman and Wonder Woman had been live action and popular; I LOVED the old Adam West Batman, but you have to admit, it set a precident for how comic book characters would be portrayed by live actors. Wonder Woman was just tv, so the bar was lower, but it definitely showed you could, in theory, pull off a more serious superhero with real costumes and real actors. It didn;t hurt that Linda Carter was HOT.

Well, Superman proved you could be both, even be a little sappy and corny, and still get away with a great film.

A recurring theme with my critiques, and praise, will be this : A good science fiction film...even if it is totally insane...even if it just made something dumb and implausible up...even if what it expects you buy as plot, or setting, or character is plain old weak, logically, asthetically, or otherwise...a good sci-fi film should make you forget everything but the story. If, theoretically, a great story doesn't need pictures to be vivid and engaging, a vivid and engaging story should be wrecked by horrific special effects, plot holes, and things that no way in a million years nuh-nuh can't happen.

With Superman, I never once questioned the plot...it was too well done bother with the silly details because the story flowed so well and the characters were so memorable. If you haven't seen this one in a while, its worth a rewatch. The quintessential super hero; The quintessential super-hero movie. No super-hero film that followed comes close to it. Superman 2 was good fun, 3, eh, and 4, the weakest.

And no, I haven't watched any of the remakes.

10. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 -- I'd rank this film higher if it wasn't so slow. The first and last thirds are very compelling, the soundtrack and visuals are so moving...the way the film opens is sheer genius....but... the middle is a little slow. This is a mild criticism.

The films begins in daring fashion...it begins with a tribe of apes, and we watch a lone ape, playing with a femur bone, realizes he can crush the skulls around it. Before is moment, skulls were too hard to break with his bare hands...but now, he's learned something...as small of an epiphany as it might seem, the ape has learned that a weapon makes you more powerful, and with bone clubs, his tribe devastates another, unarmed, tribe. Evolution, man...evolution...

The ape, in celebration of the power his knowledge has given him, throws the bone into the air in triumph, and as the bone spins...it is morphed into a spinning space-station, and we are put into the present the film is set in, and on the very ship all the action takes place.

As I previously said, this film is the spiritual template of any and all "Machine becomes self-aware and logically concludes something horrible" movies that followed. Think about how many of those there are, and tell me that's not a good reason to watch, or rewatch 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With my obligatory personal photo out of the way, I invite you to stay tuned for our next episode, which will get us closer to our full ranking of the Top 13 Sci-fi Films of all time.