Science is the key word in sci-fi. Sometimes robots, some ships, sometimes post Apocalypse, sometimes a simple set of rules for a new world, a better world. Some science fiction is scary, sometimes it is almost mundane…nobody really wants to see a movie about peacetime do they, about a calm society. Imagine a sci-fi movie about a period like the nineteen fifties, Ike at the helm, space ships on our way to work from the burbs, and a whole lot of post war coitus.
Sf movies are a look ahead, they are not always the look ahead that we want, but they are always a move forward. I would not classify either the Postman or the Road Warrior as science fiction, but they are certainly post apocalyptic visions…so is Waterworld. These are visions of a non-scientific world order, a dark ages revisited, and science is decidedly not a part of all that. So without further ado, here are my picks for favorite and best science fiction – top five.
1 - Blade Runner - (1982) Another Harrison Ford masterpiece of film. This is the film adaptation of the Philip Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It is a post apocalyptic view of a world where androids or Replicants are created (as they are known in this story). They are created and used as workers, sex slaves, hit men and soldiers. They are given a limited life span and are genetically engineered. They are perfect for deep space travel, and have no memories or pasts. A crew have escaped and taken over their ships and come to earth searching for a longer life.
Vangelis does the soundtrack and didn’t get the rights to release it as an album until almost thirteen years after it had been out as a movie. It is a brilliant and stirring music that is at the heart of this amazing film.
Harrison Ford is a cop who specializes in Retiring “skin jobs”, as his superior officer calls them. He is a replicant killer. And he is brought out of retirement to take care of these escaped soldiers returned to the home planet. The Replicants eventually work their way to their creator, who has in no way been able to overcome the problems of genetic degradation, he can’t keep them alive any more than he has been able to figure out. Ford catches up with them one by one. Rutger Hower plays the leader of the group and is the last one left alive. In the end he begins to die, but discovers life and the beauty of it as he is fading away. The speech that he gives at the end of the film brings me to tears every single time I hear it….
” I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”
To hear him reminiscing about battles and sights in space makes me weepy.
2 - Dune - (1984) This is a tremendous movie. The novel was an all time best in my view, and I view this as the finest science fiction movie ever made. The story is perfect, with no Hollywoodistic flaws, not many variances from the novel and a deep and fatalistic view of the world to come. There are two Dunes, the original with Kyle McLaughlin, Sting and Patrick Stewart and the new one with William Hurt. I prefer the original, with its view of the desert world Arakis. This is a movie about faith, betrayal, the future and the technology to come. It was well directed, Toto did a lot of the music and the scenery was breathtaking.
I saw this originally in a theater in Fort Worth, on a very big screen and it was even more magnificent then.
3 - Empire Strikes Back - (1980) This is part two in the Star Wars Quartet, and in my view the strongest of the three movies. Harrison Ford is brilliant as Han Solo, taking his role to a more mature place than the rebel rouser he was in the original. They had a little more time to develop characters, but this was the bridge movie, the one that asked far more questions than it answered. Was Luke really Darth Vader’s son? What did Ben mean when he said to Yoda, “there is another?” How was Han going to get out of the carbon freeze, and would he try to make a play for Laya? Was Luke ever going to finish his training, and would he truly fulfill his destiny?
This movie starts out on the ice planet Hoth, and progresses to Yoda’s swamp world where Luke begins his real training and the true beginning of his path. Jedi is very Zen like in its way, and the balance between good and evil, light and dark is a reflection of that world that is around us, that which can capture our minds, and kiss our lips, or sometimes smash our hands. In the Star Wars world, all good and evil eventually balance. This was not my favorite of the three…but it is what I consider the strongest.
4 - The Fifth Element - (1997) – A Bruce Willis, Chris Tucker, classic. This is a movie about an evil planetoid like force, attacking the earth, and ancient races of people defending against that attack.
Chris Tucker plays a loud mouthed, hilarious role as Ruby Rod, and he is going a mile a minute. Gary Oldman plays the bad guys, bad guy – selling arms to rebel forces, dealing with the evil force for a big payoff. So what if the world comes to an end…if I am making my money.
Milla Jovovich plays the Fifth Element, a super being, a God like creation who is the ultimate vessel of love, sent to destroy the evil. She is delightful, innocent and yet powerful. This is a movie about who we are, and yet very comic in its nature…if there are any flaws, it is that we don’t get to see enough character development in some of the elements of the story…a joyous film.
5 - Star Trek – First Contact - (1996) – The Borg are attacking, and they are bad to the metallic bone. Earth is under serious and final attack, by a Borg cube, but Jean Luc has been ordered off of the combat line, as he was once Locutous of Borg. He still hears the collective in his mind, and knows that they are coming and must protect the world from them.
Of course, as he knows the weak points of the Borg ship, he disobeys orders (what would a Star Trek movie be without a disobedient captain?), and brings the Enterprise in for the kill. He does destroy the cube, but then they come storming and pouring toward earth in a smaller command vessel and go through a time warp to a more ancient earth. This means that they get to meet the man who invented the warp drive on earth. The Borg eventually get on the ship, and the crew battles them.
All the gang is here, Picard, Riker, Jordi, Data, and the rest…and it is a classic film. At the end, after the Borg have been dispatched, a ship sees our earthlings first experiment with the warp drive, and come in for a closer look. These are explorers, and their first contact with earth and the rest of the universe is stirring. They are of course, Vulcans. When the Vulcan commander throws back his hood, and we realize who he is….well a more stirring moment in Science Fiction you will not find.
These are they, for better or worse….watch any of them, and you cannot go wrong.
