The Science Fiction Primer, Episode I -- The Phantom Golden Age (The best movies of all time)

I'm not yet middle-aged, not a generation x-er, and certainly not a generation y-er; In the last few years, science fiction, comic book heroes, and the fantasy genre have all rebounded from places of shame into a new frontier of geek-chic. As an over 35 and under 45 year old male, I very clearly remember the days when you hid your comic books from sight, and when movie studios didn't dare allocate a big budget to a "sci-fi" movie unless it was essentially a re-dressed action film with a big star at the helm.

Not so these days, huh? Yet in spite of the great surge we all see in movie-men in spandex, and tee shirts expressing geek pride, something is missing...and that something, I've begun to realize, is a recognition of what exactly made science fiction the genre that it is. Accordingly, the great science fiction of the past, still, in many ways, remains a niche only people I'll call the "deep geeks" truly recognize.

I realized there was a growing knowledge and reference gap as I linked up with people younger than myself on social media sites like Myspace and Facebook. When The subject of sci-fi came up, I was flabbergasted--yes, literally flabbergasted--When I found out that while they had seen Tron; Legacy, they had never seen great films like 1982's Tron. They had seen all of George Lucas' Star Wars films, but they had never seen George Lucas' THX 1138! Blade Runner, Enemy Mine, Dune...even 1980's Flash Gordon wasn't on their plates.

Likewise, when asking people on said sites what their favorite films of all time were, I was shocked at the answers I received. No one said Apocalypse Now...no one said Cool Hand Luke...No one said One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest...no Citizen Kanes, no Seven Samurai, no The Stings. Never did a guy or a girl under 30 name for me one film that I, or a consensus of film critics or historians, thought of as a "great film".

Given that Sci-Fi has always had its grotesque failures, given that it never quite was mainstream in its appeal, it both surprised and heartened me to always see the best films of the genre overrepresented on lists of great films. Critics who saw Blade Runner, or 2001, or Alien, didn't see science fiction...they saw through the genre and stereotypes and saw...<pause for effect>...great films.

Thus, the knowledge gap I witnessed was twofold; I found that people lacked basic exposure to great classic science fiction, while at the same time, lacking knowledge of what a great film even was--a great plot, well developed characters, and all together, what great storytelling in general really required. This is a formula for the long-term failure in the art form that was once film some of us feel, and it explains quite a lot of why much of what is currently thought of as science fiction, to me and too many, seems deficient. The purpose of my forthcoming series of articles will address precisely that...

Well, one night, a nice kid on facebook became a memeber of a "Tron" movie page I started on facebook, and described himself as huge sci-fi geek; after we traded a few cool comments, I found out he hadn't even seen the original "Tron". Of course, its only one film, a great one, but only one, and in spite of how seriously I take film, there a few great ones I haven't seen yet also, I asked him about a few other, I thought seminal, Sci-fi classics...none of which he had any idea about!

This actually made me a little angry, and prompted me to, from memory, make a list of the best science fiction films I could remember. I came up with about 80, off the top of my head, passed the list along to a few friends, and currently, have a list that counts 110 of them. My plan is to rank the list into groups...I find it hard to pick a #1, for example, but a top ten list, in no specific order, isn't as hard, and then more specifically get into what makes each member of a group special, intriguing, or simply worth watching.

Right now, I'm sure I'll start with a top 25, and then narrow that list to a top ten or 15. Additionally, I'll rank films by sub-genre, years released, and plan to a "Best science fiction you never saw" list as well. Individual films will also be reviewed and submitted for discussion, both critical and panegyric.

So again, welcome to day one, and as the old radio serials may have said...Stay tuned for the next exciting installment of "The Science Fiction Primer".