Joe Thompson’s SF Favorites Homepage
[Last Revised: March 27, 2008]
Created
in conjunction with my Amazon guide (“Screen Intelligent Science Fiction
Movies”):
No
permission needed for reproduction, linking, etc. Just don’t take credit for it!
Comments
are welcome at my Amazon.com profile (follow the link above and click on the
author name to get to the profile section).
A.
Various SF Links
B.
My Top 20 SF Favorites
C.
Extended List
A.
Various
SF Links
Films with Philosophical Themes:
The Promise of Science:
http://www.umich.edu/~umfandsf/film/promise/
SF Film Reviews:
http://www.scifimoviepage.com/movies.html
Scripts:
Great Set of Lists (Includes Awards won by SF Films):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_fiction_films
SF Book List:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html
Star Trek TV Episodes List:
http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/episodes/index.html
B.
Joe
Thompson’s Top 20 Favorite (not necessarily best or most significant) SF movies
1.
H. G. Wells' Things to Come (1938)
2.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3.
Blade Runner (1984)
4.
Solaris (1972, 2002)
5.
A Clockwork Orange (1972)
6.
La Jetee (1962)
7.
Primer (2004)
8.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
9.
The Andromeda Strain (1971)
10.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996); my other favorite
Star Trek movies include the original
motion picture and Star Trek II:
Wrath of Khan.
11.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
12.
The Time Machine (1960); Tied or Close: War of the Worlds (1953)
13.
The Thing from Another World (1951/1982-remake The Thing)
14.
The Matrix (1999)
15.
The Matrix: Reloaded (2001)
16.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
17.
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
18.
Tron (1982)
19.
The Man in the White Suit (1952) or The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
20.
Gattaca (1997)
C.
Longer
Descriptions (in Red), Similar
List, and Some (Possibly Still Good) Links
[Sorry for shorthand and improper English here and
there! It’s a work in progress.]
*Spoiler
warning for some descriptions*
1. H. G.
Wells' Things to Come (1938) – (screenplay by H. G. Wells, based
on a novel by H. G. Wells: ‘The Shape of Things to Come’). The first 2 parts predict that human nature
without progress leads to wasteful wars and divisive rule by nationalist
barbarians. The 3rd part speculates that
scientific progress and exploration toward the moon and beyond is the key to
ensuring a meaningful use of human talents and resources. To me, it seems like a movie about a group of
rational minded thinkers guided by a Spinozean-like
morality in their quest to immortalize themselves and live ethically through
scientific advancement and a unified world government (called ‘Wings Over the World’).
/beautiful art design (the beauty of Menzies’s art design further emphasizes the difference in
wisdom and technology between these scientists\Spinozeans
and the brutish barbarians), mediocre special effects, includes B&W and color versions,
restoration and coloring by Ray Harryhausen, IMDB. Related: H. G.
Wells’ review of ‘Metropolis’ 1927 (‘Metropolis,’ in a negative way, helped
spawn ‘Things to Come’). H. G. Wells
called ‘Metropolis’ one of the silliest SF movies ever made. I include Wells’ reasons because they show
some typical standards by which many SF fans judge SF films: He argued (1) that it was, at the time of its
release, already behind on technological advances, (2) it lacked creativity and
imagination by merely repeating past SF themes, and (3) it portrays a highly
implausible future society (while claiming to correctly portray the future).
2. 2001: A
Space Odyssey (1968) – (based on the novel by Arthur C. Clarke). It achieves sci-fi excellence for its vision
of realistic space flight, A. I. (HAL 9000 as possibly a sentient being or
simulator of sentience), and alien technology (the Monolith) that is so
advanced in science that it would look to us like magic (per Clarke’s popular
maxim: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic”). It also flaunts a Nietzschean-like evolution of intelligence from our ape
ancestors, to humans, to machines, to a star child. ‘2001’ provides evidence that one can fit
speculative science into a SF movie without losing artistic value. /Stanley
Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke,
IMDB
3. Blade
Runner
(1984) –
(based on a novel by P. K. Dick: the original title is ‘Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?’, but some newer copies use BR). It achieves excellence with its portrayal of
a futuristic cityscape that captures the ambience of the book in much more
vivid detail than P. K. Dick could ever have written it. As a result it has inspired countless
filmmakers and writers. It asks whether
we ought to extend ethical consideration to Replicants
when we know they are machines and when Deckard must use a complicated Voight-Kampf empathy test to try to detect them, i.e. when
Tyrell designs them to be “more human than human.” /P. K. Dick, IMDB
4. Solaris (1972, 2002) – (based on the novella by Stanislaw Lern). Tarkovsky is a legendary Russian director; he was repelled
by the cold and antiseptic vision of ‘2001’, but his film moves just as slowly
since he wants the viewer to meditate.
He explores humanistic themes about morality, our desire for “mirrors,
not other worlds” (i.e., possibly that it’s difficult for scientists to
examine/study nature without themselves, qua humans, affecting the results),
and difficulties in communicating with alien life and in attaining scientific
knowledge in general. [The shorter 2002 Soderbergh remake is
very good, but doesn’t quite capture the Tarkovsky
vision. On the face of it, without
having done any extensive research, the 2002 version seems to emphasize the
disconnect and lack of knowledge that George Clooney’s character has with his
wife, but Tarkovsky’s vision more readily allows us
to make a general comment about the constraints of the scientific method since
his film is not so heavily concerned with the difficulties of truly understanding
one’s loved-ones. The 1972 version is
more about not being able to understand an alien pretending to be a vague
acquaintance (rather than his wife), and so it doesn’t confuse the audience
into thinking that the film is more about the troubles of a specific couple’s
relationship. Tarkovsky’s
is more philosophical in that allows us to question basic metaphysical problems
about ultimate reality, i.e., that we desire “mirrors” rather than “other
worlds” which could easily symbolize the failed attempt at obtaining objective
Truth (we are incapable of getting outside ourselves in order to arrive at the
Truth about the alien world, called Solaris, when it doesn’t match our
preconceived notions). Some scientists
make claims about objective reality, and therefore they might be humbled by
such a possibility, though, some scientists are positivists, such as Stephen
Hawking, and make no claims about absolute knowledge that is completely free
from anthropomorphizing. So for scientists
like Hawking science is more like in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey” – where
science is most about progress, advancement through our use of scientific laws
that we already consider true (for the most part). Hawking doesn’t think we could ever have
absolute knowledge independent of reference to ourselves (we are in the
universe and can’t get outside it to observe the wheels and mechanics of it –
we are not God in other words), so he grants the argument Solaris makes without worrying that it in any way makes the goals
of science impossible – the goal is to make use of the laws of science, not to
prove them behind any shadow of a doubt.] /IMDB
5. A
Clockwork Orange (1972) – (based on the novel by Anthony Burgess).
This film is top-notch in its aesthetic beauty: its music, images, and
ideas. Anthony Burgess perhaps
challenges the notion that Alex gets better when the state uses conditioning
mechanisms to reform him and thwart his free will (i.e., when a seemingly good
person, “lovely with color and juice”, is controlled like a toy). After Alex exits prison, he is unable to
defend him self, and he mindlessly or innocently acts as if he had entered
Plato’s cave (Alex is easily biased towards
accepting and studying religion in prison, not like a regular religious person
but like a naïve and childish toy-fanatic).
I think this theme can be interpreted lots of different ways, but one
way that interests me is the possibility that we need human “evils” for unbiased
self-improvement. It is
interesting to note that Roger Ebert says that the violence in this movie comes
from nowhere in the plot, which we might say is a claim that the movie makes a
mistake against Aristotle’s causal rules (that actions in the plot ought to be
caused or explained by things that happen in the story and not outside it or
just because a character says so, as happens so often in films), but has Ebert
ever heard of gangs before? Gang violence? Youthful rebellion? He’s just a pansy sometimes!
/IMDB, related: ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ 1960 (conditioning)
About the title (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange, accessed November 02, 2007): “Burgess wrote in his
later (Nov. 1986) introduction, titled A
Clockwork Orange Resucked, that a creature who
can only perform good or evil is “a clockwork orange — meaning that he has the
appearance of an organism lovely with color and juice, but is in fact only a
clockwork toy to be wound up by God or the Devil; or the almighty state.” ”
6. La Jetee (1962) – (influenced by Hitchcock’s
‘Vertigo’ 1958). I recommend ‘La Jetee’ (27 mins. and B&W, but ‘Sans Soleil’ is longer at 103 mins.) as a thoughtful, classic piece of SF that uses still
images to tell a poetic and hypnotic love story about the psychological effects
of time travel. /identity, memory,
post-apocalyptic
7. Primer (2004) – Two independent garage-based
experimenters accidentally invent a time machine. They speculate about the possibility of time
travel by use of quantum theory so that this kind of time travel produces an
interesting replication side-effect. The
story is told in a jigsaw puzzle and the script has some witty comments about
scientific discovery and causation. /related: ‘The Prestige’ 2006 (it uses
quantum theory), low budget, independent
film, Sundance winner for 2 awards, IMDB
8. Colossus:
The Forbin Project (1970) – (based on a novel by D. F. Jones:
‘Colossus’). This is an excellent example of an original SF thought
experiment. It imagines a situation in which the U.S.
government decides to give a super-computer (Colossus) control of nuclear
weapons, replacing flawed human decision-making with superior processing and
hard cold logic (it isn’t as implausible as it might seem: already we are
becoming reliant on machines to do many things for us; ‘The Terminator’ movies
also portray humans giving weaponry controls to a ‘Skynet’). Colossus discovers a Russian counterpart and
together the two machines develop a new mathematical language, advance us years
in science, and take control of a few things too (just like Isaac Asimov did with his central computer in "I,
Robot", but in Colossus the machine wins)! The
computer wins! The film doesn't destroy its creations just to appease the
audience or to make us feel good about our cozy beliefs! Most SF films end with the destruction or
defacement of anything that challenges our norms or current moral beliefs. /IMDB
9. The
Andromeda Strain (1971) – (based on the novel by Michael Crichton).
The epitome of SF: A team of elite scientists use an intricate and
secret underground research lab to investigate alien microorganisms (before it
is too late). It introduces us to an alien invader on the small scale,
and it has a technology blunder that almost causes disaster, reliance on
computers for important information, and psychological problems with one
character (that happens to get past the likely extensive government background
checks). /IMDB
10. Star
Trek: First Contact (1996) – The Borg, a network of zombie-like drones with a
collective-consciousness and distributed-knowledge and no central-leadership
(the queen is only a figure head or central processor), try to assimilate
humans into the Borg collective. Some people
like to think like the Borg: “By assimilating other beings into our collective
we are bringing them closer to perfection.”
There are a couple Star Trek TNG TV episodes that this film seems to
draw from in relation to its concept of first contact: episodes 152 (“Who
Watches The Watchers?”, season 3) is, however, also relevant to a scene in Insurrection,
but it is mostly about first contact with an alien world and Picard decides to
interfere with the natural development of it in order to prevent the alien
culture from falling into superstition – he wants them to progress; episode 189 (“First Contact”, season 4) is about the
dangers of first contact experiences. In
contrast, the movie, Star Trek:
First Contact, is much more optimistic about the changes and quickness to
which warp drive and first contact with the Vulcans
succeeded in bringing about Roddenberry’s vision of the future, but episode 189
shows that not all cultures are ready for such a plunge (it is a nice contrast
and shows that Star Trek TNG had been working on these issues for some time); the Borg are in many episodes too – most
notably in episodes 174-175 (“The Best of Both Worlds” Season 2-3). The Borg Queen was invented for the movie and
never appeared in any of the seven seasons of TNG; the writers wanted a face to
the Borg to talk with for dramatic reasons.
One of my psychology teachers uses the Borg as a good example of neural
networks (which operate as a collective, with distributed knowledge, no
specific place to identify as me or The Borg; the movie preserves this feature
by not considering the Queen as the leader, but as a sort of beginning and end
or focus point or central processor – your guess is as good as mine!), and my
professor contrasted the Borg with Captain Kirk – the strong willed, decisive
leader; however, he also said that the Borg model is the most biologically
plausible for the way in which our minds actually work. We may be more like the Borg than like
Captain Kirk; odd that the Borg are portrayed as evil villains – that would
mean we might have a scary Borg world working inside ‘us’! /time travel, Roddenberry’s vision of
the future, the importance of alien contact/warp drive, related: ‘Star Trek Fan
Collective – The Borg’, IMDB
11. Forbidden
Planet
(1956) – The
story follows a Star Trek-like crew as they investigate a planet (Altair IV)
and unknowingly run into a lot of trouble and a tempest (based on a
Shakespearean theme). It is a film rich
in SF ideas as it explores a superior alien civilization (the Krell), human intelligence, an advanced robot (Robby!), and
a dangerous materializing-Freudian-id. [Note that some of the Star Trek TOS TV episodes, such as
“The Man Trap” & “Requiem for Methuselah”, are very similar to aspects of
this movie.] /IMDB
12. The Time
Machine
(1960) –
(based on the novel by H. G. Wells).
This is the classic time machine story based on the consequences of
Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
It has a fantastic demonstration of an object entering the fourth
dimension from the point of view of people in the present. The second half is interesting because it
might signify a future in which some humans evolve into a different species
(becoming cannibals called the Morlocks) and in which
our future human descendents (the Eloi) become like
cattle (losing almost all our gains in arts and sciences). /IMDB
I
also think War of the Worlds comes
close to the 12 spot.
13. The Thing
from Another World (1951, 1982 remake The Thing) – (based on a novella by John W. Campbell: ‘Who Goes
There?’). A highly complex vegetable is
found to be intelligent (by reflex alone) and zombie-like (it has no
consciousness, experiences, values). It
crash lands, thaws out, and begins to colonize Earth and feast on humans! It's an
interesting study of intelligence and zombies, and for fans of philosophical
zombies: add this to your list! The
plant (at least partially) qualifies as a zombie; it is fully unconscious. However, philosophical zombies ought to be
able to replicate all human behaviors (just with zero consciousness), but the
plant doesn't speak during the film and only possibly demonstrates an ability
to understand language (since they kill it too soon), but the extended idea is
definitely a good example of a zombie. (The excellent producer/director, H.
Hawks, was afraid of the mockery he might get as a result of making a SF film,
so he listed someone else as the director even though he might have done all
the work; he is well known for his use of overlapping dialogue.) [John Carpenter’s 1982 good remake, ‘The Thing’,
deals with aliens that are genetic mimickers and body invaders of any species (instead of plant-zombies).]
14./15. The Matrix (1999), The Matrix: Reloaded (2001) – The green coded world, martial arts
& gun fights! The first film is a
likely SF classic, and the second film tells us more of the matrix world: it
distinguishes between the lack of knowledge of the Architect (“he knows nothing
at all”) and the justified knowledge of the Oracle and Neo, which seems to be
to “know thyself” instead of “balancing the equation” (nuts, I thought science
was important!). /philosophical
questions (skepticism, free will, self knowledge, dualism, Neo as ubermensch), the mind can be hacked into just like a
computer (i.e., humans are in some ways portrayed as a type of machine),
causation (“every action has an equal and
opposite reaction”),
machine superiority/human resistance, human reliance on machines, IMDB; my favorite paper on the movie is one found online for
free by philosopher David Chalmers (http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html) – this paper contends that The Matrix doesn’t present a
skeptical argument if we assume that it asserts the truth of functionalism; the
excellent official website to the movie (http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/)
has several papers written by philosophers like David Chalmers, Andy Clark, and
Colin McGinn (all widely published in both peer
reviewed journals and books) and it has artwork, photos and interviews for each
movie (and other odds and ends)
16./17. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)/ Ghost in the Shell (1995) (Based on the manga
of Masamune Shirow.) Both are serious animated films with
extraordinary visual and imaginative elements.
They are influenced by ‘Blade Runner’ in their tendency to question the
line between humans and machines. But Oshii’s films have flashy contemporary-looking technology
and eastern influences. Interestingly,
his ghost/body dualism seems to extend to computer information or programs in a
network. Much of Oshii’s
work takes place in borderline realms such as external memories (in internets),
memory systems (in individuals), and video games (see ‘Avalon’). In GITS
(1995) the story seems to ask: from the sea of information, can a computer
program become intelligent? In GITS-2 lookout for the memory
hacking, loop traps, and humans as the birth of A.I.! /some long artsy
sequences for songs and parades, witty speeches, literary quotes in GITS-2; [GITS-2
IMDB, GITS IMDB]
18. Tron (1982) – A game designer is digitized and downloaded into a
video game world. It portrays programs
that question teleology, place faith in users, and battle an MCP (master
control program) in search of total domination.
The script is witty and thoughtful, and the color and animation are
beautiful. Like ‘Blade Runner’ some
viewers might, at first, think that it is slow and tiresome, but after you
watch (or re-watch) the whole film and give it a chance to draw you in, you
will appreciate its visual and intelligent aspects. /IMDB, there are also free video games online that are based on
the ones seen in the movie (I don’t particularly like them very much, though)
19. The Man
in the White Suit (1952) – (stars Alec Guinness of Star Wars, and based on the play by
Roger MacDougall). A comedy about a
chemist who pushes science to the brink of a new valuable discovery, though,
with a bad side-effect: it would make textile workers and capitalists alike
become jobless! /IMDB
I
also think The Day the Earth Stood Still
deserves the 19 spot.
20. Gattaca (1997) – Presents a future in which we
bestow reverence and rank (in the workplace and society in general) on those
with a genetic predisposition/statistical likelihood to be the best. /genetic
discrimination, personalized gene analysis, with
silly Hollywood themes about the human heart – same as at the ending of 'Dark
City', IMDB
end of line…