Lord of the Rings :bow:
Tolkien :bow: :bow:

Star Wars :D - all SIX - yes thats right :D
The Jurassic Parks
The Matrix - all three but one is the best!
Planet of the Apes (the first)
Alien - Sigourney :wub:
The Harry Potters
Signs
I, Robot - underrated or what?
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
Underworld and Underworld: Evolution http://imdb.com/find?s=all&q=UNderworld

ooh and Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I love 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' - good choices SW19 :ok:

And the Matrix - fab films...

do Men in Black come in here, or comedy? the first one was great :D

Planet of the Apes is one of my all time fave movies. Ending is great where he discovers the Statue of Liberty ruined on the beach and realises he is back home. Excellent political concept. I dont; liek the new one though, it was a good effort but pointless really. Mark Wahlberg never looked very scared either. :D My mum met Charlton Heston when he starred in Planet of the Apes, cos sh eworked at the cinema and he came to the premier. She has his photos still and said he was lovely. :D

I'm nto into spaceship sci fi, but Alien is good. I liek stuff like 1984 and brave New World but the films are not that great.

I like old ones, Day of the Triffids is a good old one, . And War of the Worlds. Forbidden Planet with the robot and the scenery is great. :)http://imdb.com/title/tt0055894/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0046534/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0049223/

http://imdb.com/title/tt0049223/

Back To The Future Trilogy :D

I like Part I first, then III, then II B)

Bladerunner and 2001 are 2 of the best sci-fi films of all time. Two other films which I think are highly underrated - Gattaca and The 13th Warrior, I loved both those films.

The 13th Warrior
Gattaca

RT - Gattaca :clap: absolutely brilliant film. It's one of those films that i watched with someone else, and then sat down and had such a long discussion about the issues raised in the movie. I do like films that make you think.....

Yes, all too often sci-fi is just used as an excuse for special effects and lots of explosions, like Independence Day for example. A film like Gattaca comes along far too rarely, IMHO.

Great choices :ok:

Although Im not such a massive fan of 2001.

I agree sci-fi films can be great at bringing up difficult issues and adressing them, they can be even more relevant to our lives than "normal" films. It is a shame that there aren't more films like that, although I do enjoy the blockbuster too :D

The Star Wars Trilogy (IV - VI)
Alien
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Terminator Trilogy
The Thing
Barbarella

Way too many Fanatasy movies to list.

Bladerunner is great. I love a really terrifying futuristic vision.

Speaking of which

The Running Man- based on Stephen King;s story.

I know it's OTT cos of Arnie, but it's such a prophetic story thanks to King. It's about the perils of reality TV and the effects fo the medi on society. people in an audience literally bay for blood in a reality game where people are killed in the vilest fo fashions in the name of entertainment. Look at reality Tv now, cos this was made in the 70s/80s, and we are on the way.

Good point, SB. I always felt that reality TV has become like the Roman Colosseum where we are cheering on failure over success (we'd rather give a "thumbs down" than "thumbs up")

BTW - I love The Running Man.

Totally agree. I can't speak for the TV over in the US, but in the UK in recent years it really has gone down the pan. Some say the shows are harmless fun and people volunteer, but the same people really do seem to enjoy ripping contestants apart, as do the press. As you say, people seem to enjoy failure more, quite sadistic really.

Equilibrium - good film, great concept (not a documentary tho - might have to move to discussing it elsewhere). I really like the concept of the film, and i'm a massive Christian Bale fan :wub: so that kinda made it so much better. It's a shame, i think, that it's very matrix-like, and also that some of the supporting actors are not as strong as Bale, otherwise this would be a truly great film!!!

I think Christian Bale's been great in everything he's done so far (that I've seen anyway). I agree that the supporting cast wasn't that good, Sean Bean was OK but he had a very small role and the 2 bad guys were just dull. I didn't mind the fact that the fight sequences were matrix-like but I just felt that some of them were too illogical and utterly unbelievable.

There's a lot of things in the film which have been inspired not just by Fahrenheit 451 but also Brave New World and 1984 but I think it all holds together quite well. There are some really great scenes like Bale saying to his son that he should "unquestionably" turn in a fellow student who was crying - very chilling. A pretty good film but had the potential to be much better.

Hi RT,

Yeah, Christian Bale is an amazing actor, and i think pretty much any film can be lifted a few notches by having him in it. American Psycho is just brilliant, as well as The Machinist. My brother has recently seen the Prestige, which he says is great as well.

I actually loved the fight scenes, but i felt the fact that they were very Matrix-like, meant a lot of people dismissed the film. Personally (and i know i'm in a minority here) I preferred the concept of Equilibrium to The Matrix. I think possibly because it's actually more more plausible that at some point the government will give us mind control drugs (various government's have already given armies drugs to try to control their minds.) I think that fact for me makes the concept so much scarier.....

Haven't seen The Prestigeyet but am really looking forward to it. Bale was good even in Reign of Fire, an otherwise terrible movie, the only reason I watched it was because of him.

Re the fight sequences - in Matrix, the sequences were even more illogical than in Equilibrium but they were made logical by the plot's simulated reality explanation. In Equilibrium, they tried to explain it by the Gun-Kata stuff but to me it didn't work as well as The Matrix. I have to say, though, that some of the fights looked really great and I loved the last one.

About the concept, I agree that Equilibrium is more plausible than The Matrix. The only thing is that its not very original - its been explored in a lot of great sci-fi books. I think that's why a lot of critics slated the film - with the "Oh, we've seen all this before" kind of review. I actually think that the film got across the message really well, even with that kind of baggage.

Yes I saw Equilibrium recently. have to say I was very dissappointed with it. It had all the ideas there but it was delivered as an action movie which is a right turn off for me. And owed more than a nod to the Matrix which I dont; like I'm afraid. It had the look and ideas of arguably the two greatest sci-fi tales of all time, 1984 and Brave New World, but it was copycat and lost it;s meaning to me cos of the Matrix action stuff. I wish more sci fo films were real sci fi, rather than action/space movies because all science fiction really needs is a 'what if?' premise and a good story to deliver it. I think these days film makers are more into special effects than ideas, which thankfully Orwell and Huxley were not aware of when they wrote their masterpieces. :)

jeez - SB, 7000 posts! Just bumping this thread up 'cos it discusses the film Gattaca. You mentioned on another thread something about Equilibrium and the concept there. I loved the concept of Gattaca, and it wasn't some mad futuristic action movie as far as i remember.

Also, The Running Man- i've regularly thought that we are slowly going down that route. I read something in some newspaper suggesting we should send paedophiles and murderers to Iraq..... :blink: If people are already having these sorts of thoughts - how long before someone thinks something like the Running Man is a good idea?

I remember seeing the trailer for equilibrium in the cinema years ago SB but like you said it was just too action based; I could tell that much from the way they plugged it in the trailer.


Has anyone on here seen the film adaption of 1984? I adored the book and would be interested to know if the film adaption was worth getting hold of...

My favourite book of all time Serena :D

Yes I saw the film, a long time ago (like in abotu 1984 roflmao ) and although you can't really fault it in any way it was a tad dissappointing. It's such a great story with the betrayal twist at the end, that maybe it beign such a great story meant that if you'd read the book the film was a bit ruined? I saw it again recently and I felt that although it does get everyhting in there, you might miss a lot of poignant and interesting sidelines because they are just thrown in visually rather than described at length by Orwell. So I think a bit more narrative woudl have helped so as everyone understood the meanign and genius behind some of the things in the film. To test this theory, my partner who hasnt; read the book was asked about a few things and he said that he hadnt; quite grasped the significance of some features, or had but would have like dmore depth and detail. I cant; think of any specific examples off hand, but you are kind fo thrown straight into scenes that Orwell builds up so brillaintly over a couple of pages in the book.

Maybe I am biased as Orwell is IMO just about the greatest writer ever. His descriptive talent is awesome and warts and all too, and makes you just want to keep reading. You cant; capture that on celluloid. One thing the film woudl have benefittted from would have been being a longer film to allow more depth adn detail. It does annoy me when i see soem movies that last 4 hours with no more than 2 hours justifiable content and then masterpieces are butchered short. I did think that visually they did a good job, and the surroundings and costumes were true to the book. John Hurt was brilliant (as usual) as Winston Smith. Room 101 somehow dissappointed though, the message of it all and the fear did not come over as strongly to me as it did in the book. Do see it though, sadly it is hardly ever on TV so that could eb tricky unless you are prepared to buy or rent it. :)

Now imo, the best film ever made, and my favourite film ever, is Aliens. 'Get away from her you bitch' is also the best quote from any film