Best Sci-Fi Film?
 

"Best" is dificult to define, peoples opinions differ but I'd go for "The Forbidden Planet". Yes I know, people claim it's based on The Tempest, but that's no different than claiming that "The Lord of the Rings" was based on "The Ring Cycle" which in turn was based on Nordic Legends which possibly owed their roots to people getting blind drunk for much of a very long night.

"The Forbidden Planet" has a great plot and sense of scale and like Alien, doesn't have a monster that's misunderstood, and really just wants to be loved.......

Forbidden Planet is certainly one of my favorites, although I think the dialog is often stilted.

How about the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers? More towards the horror side, but I think the top of that genre.

I'm a HUGE "Forbidden Planet" fan for sure. It still looks great 56 years after it's release. I'd also suggest considering the 1951 film "The Thing from another World" as a candidate. The very effective use of the theremin really cranked up the tension and scare factor in the film. It still send chills down my spine to watch it today.

If we're talking 1950's here I'd go with War of the Worlds or The day the Earth Stood Still, for more modern films I'd go with The Terminator or T-2 or Alien/s, also Blade Runner.

Day the Earth Stood Still gets my vote despite none of the Zenith TVs seen in the film being portholes.

i own a copy of forbidden planet , i wish they would bring back the late late shows like they had on in the 60'-70' if you lived around chicago area they used to have on creature feature, theyed show the classic sci-fi and moster movies till the wee hour's of the morning.

lets make it easy, best BW the day the earth stood still, best color the forbidden planet (with the lovely Anne Francis). Agreed the dialogue is a bit "50's in forbidden planet, but with Anne in there I can live with it.

Michael Rene as Klatu set the standard for class other worlders.

As long as we are on movies how about best in other category

Suspense
North by Northwest (never been a leading man like Cary Grant)

Love stories
Casablanca

Drama
The Fountain Head

War
Sargent York

Religion
this was tough
10 Commandment
Ben Hur
(yes I am a fan of Chuck)

Horror
I dont know why but
An American werewolf in London, it just is creepy and makes me LOL.
a couple that had me wide awake for days
The Exocist (I saw it when I was a teen, yikes)
Alliens (calling this Horror vs Sci Fi)

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"If we're talking 1950's here I'd go with War of the Worlds"

If you can get round Tom Cruise and his tombstone teeth the second version had its good bits. The first version with the USAF 'flying wing' (I believe this was a real aircraft) was OK, but neither owed much to the book.

That's a shame but understandable. If US studios fund something this expensive to make it has to be aimed at the largest market available.

How could I forget, "Back to the Future" which is Sci-Fi despite it's comic undertones (or are they overtones?)

I saw it about 13 times in the Theater and several times since on Video.

I'm a big John Carpenter fan, so I vote for 1980's "The Thing" with Kurt Russell. Another of my favorites is another Carpenter film "They Live". One of my favorite lines in that movie is "I'm here to kick a$$ and chew bubble gum....and I'm aaaall out of bubble gum."

"This Island Earth" w/the dudes w/the white bouffant hairdos, dying world, & the funky TV-like Gizmotron...

Here's an oldie for ya. "The Twonky" with Hans Conried. About an alien robot in the form of a TV set. Really spooked me as a kid when I saw it on the "Dialing For Dollars" movie, especially at night when the old Zenith would get turned off and that dot would appear.


http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...3&d=1344721755

Oh, I remember RACING up to the screen & crammin' me eye as close to the dot to see if I could see what was still goin' on in the program that had just been turned off...

Didn't ya know? That light goes away and hides in the refrigerator. :D

Yeah, THAT one bugged me when I was a kid, too...

when i was a little kid ,i seen who turned the light in the refrigerator ,it was a old man with a long beard walk over a flipped off the switch, it had a window in the door .[ it was on the bugs bunny cartoon hour , thing's in the future cartoon or something like that. ]

"Invasion Of the Body Snatchers", with Kevin Mccarthy.
Best Sci-Fi of all time, I think anyway....

Missed One.ne
 

How could I possibly have forgotten that all time classic, BARBARELLA?

"Science Fiction, Double Feature. Dr X will build a Creature...See androids fighting Brad 'n' Janet...Anne Francis stars in "Forbidden Planet"....." ROCKY HORROR !! (grin)

YES YES YES! Both of these films are incredible on a big theatre screen!!

I also love Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

Forbidden Planet, in my opinion, while still loaded with great effects, suffers from the Walter Pigeon syndrome... a bit pompous in it's delivery.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is no slouch either.

Hmmm. Let me get my tongue-box for this one.

Funny you mentioned it, I watched it last week, found it on Amazon Streaming Video when I was browsing for something to see.

Barbarella is an amazing film, a true classic, not sure I'd really consider it true Sci-Fi, more like 60's LSD Camp.

Take a close look at the sets on that film sometime, they are wonderfully imaginative, the opening sequence with Barbarella taking off the Space Suit is really good, they did the weightlessness effect quite well.

Duran Duran (the band) took their name from this movie obviously.

I'm sure it was quite a "Trip" back in 69, no doubt 75% of the audience was Fried, the same can be said for 2001 though. :D

for innovation I would go with "2001 a space odyssey" def a lot of drug use was going on a the movies when that came out. the use of classical music was something new if I recall correctly.


Also the spagetti sci fi classic, "planet of vampires" was a VERY good one, I remember going to see it with bottle caps for entry during matinee showings on Saturday mornings in the late 60's.

Some folks claim "Aliens" ripped them off.

I agree with all mentioned, especially forbidden planet, Invasion of the body snatchers, Terminator, T2. But for me I add Soylent Green, and I also think its the only Sci-Fi that has a growing chance of actually coming true one day.

Soylent green....is....people !!.....

Oh it has, perhaps you've heard of, Taco Bell?:D

I remember Soylent Green, I liked the furniture....

anyway I never got what the problem was, seems they had a perfect solution to the food shortage.


How about logan's run? I always liked that movie as well. Back in college we had wed nite outdoor movies in the student center during the summer session. I recall seeing Logan's run one nite. Its really fun seeing old Sci Fi on an outdoor screen.

How many of you remember going to drive ins on a regular basis. Remember the kiddie playgrounds in the back? the dorky intros to the movie and the selling of pop corn ads they would play during intermission.

I really miss the drive ins, the last one I saw was in the very early 80's, they had it for a 5$ car load and the movie was star wars, which has to rank right up there with one of the best.

Back in the early 70's I recall going to an air conditioned drive in, something like 20 screens, it was HUGE down where the current Ft laud airport now exist.

I worked at a drive in for a bunch of years. Ran the films on 2 projectors, and built the shows.

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/24521

oh well thought it had 20, it was still big. I had a lot of good times there.

I just watched the first half of this movie. This movie was ok. But was not mind blowing which i was excepting.

I think it helped to watch it back in 1985.

Anybody else remember "A Boy & His Dog" ? Or another one from the same era, "Zardoz" ? At least w/Zardoz you got to see Charlotte Rampling runnin' around all Nekkid 'n' shee-it....(Grin)

Strange Invaders, Asylum and The Outer Limits episode The Galaxy Being (featuring a semi-transparent microwave-summoned monster with glowing Life Savers eyes :yikes: are 3 of my faves.

Don Johnson in boy and his dog, pre Miami Vice days...

What a hoot for the ending.

"The Blob" with Steve Mcool as a teen. Its funny how the bad boys were at most taunting the local cops with minor pranks.

"The Blob" (1958) is one of my absolute favorite films. It's just cheap enough to seem real.

Didnt know it was made in color for alot of years watching it on TV. We had a Motorola color set that was iffy in every way. Watched the Blob on it one night, and adjusted the fine tuning while BLOB was on the screen. Suddenly it went from being dark grey to RED JELLO looking. I was thrilled, and my mom and dad were not.

My SciFi faves:

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

Panic in Year Zero (WDCA in D.C. used to run this on "Creature Feature")

Day of the Triffids

was that creature feature run back in the 70's? we had that in So FL

We had Creature Features at the TV station I worked for in Middle Tennessee, too.

When I was at U of Richmond in the late Seventies, we had The Bowman Body Show on Late Night TV, Sat night, IIRC. I think it was on Channel 8, they were the poorest TV station in Richmond, their transmtter was like 3.78 watts, they DIDN'T come in very good at our location, but we always tried to catch The Bowman Body...He was Bill Bowman, he wore a cape, tennis shoes, & white greasepaint w/black circles around his eyes...Corny as all hell, but we were generally all drunk/stoned/whatever, so it was feckin' HIRALLIOUS...He showed nothing but grade-Z flicks, & they cuy into 'em so much for him & the 7011 commercials, you could barely follow the movie, but who cared ? It was the Seventies, we were young, drunk, at college, drunk, away from our parents, & did i mention that we were Drunk ? Ahh, the memories...