OOOH! I love This game!
My number one choice is a little controversial:
David Lynch's DUNE.
I absolutely love this film. A lot of people have complained over the years that all the politics and the talking and the royalty and the plot and blah blah blah was removed from the books and what we got was a dumb down version. Well, I love it even more for this. I love the book- don't get me wrong. But when I watch sci-FI I want an escape from reality for a couple of hours and watching 2 hours of political chit chat is not that! That's called watching the news or newsnight or any of the other rubbish they stick on terrestrial tv after 6pm.
Dune is fantastic. Far too much fantasy and sci-fi go the route of Modern day with sci-fi/fantasy elements added to it, which allows for a larger mainstream audience as people 'can relate' too it more. Dune does this with out needing to add any 'modern day' elements (like LotR does)
Replace oil for spice, Fremen for middle easterns, the Empire for America- Now Dune is easy to relate too! ( I wanted to say harkonnens were the french- But I deemed that might be a little racist!
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It has a scale that is almost believable- The Spacecraft look like they could hold an army, the buildings look like they could house an imperial army, the Worms look like they really are large enough to be a threat! Scale is important in sci-fi. Everything needs to be bigger then what is modern. Something I find that GW 40k and things like star trek some times get really wrong.
The SFX are old enough to look dated by today's standards but at the same time I dont think that matters, it helps with the look and feel of the film. They are simple enough to have a great look but with out them ever looking too dated.
The guild are creepy as hell in the films- especially at the start.
I love how casual he made the starting narrative with Princess Irulan, how she casually forgets to tell you something and pops back on to remind you! Not only did it provide some humor with out coming out of the setting, but also helped immersion- It made it feel like she really was talking to you!
Alicia Witt as Alia- Just how creepy a child did he find!
Patrick Stewart- 'nuff said.
The battles are fantastic- When the Atreides are attacked it really feels like the base is alive and panicking in and enclosed space.
The music- Brian Eno is bloody fantastic any way, but I love some of the pieces he did for this film.
Bloopers- Just like the original star wars storm trooper hitting his head was left in, theres a part where a guild member trips over his robe! All good sci fi need ones good blooper! Though I hadnt seen the Lance Henriksen one before- now I wont be able to not look for it! (who is an amazing actor. I'm just starting to watch the Millennium box set I picked up- He is fantastic and it such a dark show!)
WOW! I could go on, No one round these parts likes sci-fi So I get carried away when I can get away with it!
I loved primer- Though watching it on a Sunday morning with a hangover may have been the wrong way to enjoy it!
I too love the original Dredd film. The new one had so much promise but was let down by being so hum-drum run of the mill. The original one got a lot wrong- WHY IS HE KISSING ANDERSON!
But also got a lot of things right- The angel gang, the ABC warrior, The look of the walls and the cursed earth. The new one will make a good start to a series of movies, if they then do some of the more epic story lines from the good old days. This one felt like one of the comics one week strips dragged out over 2 hours. Mega city one felt really small and like it was in the early days- It be nice to see 3 or 4 movies now, and have it become more and more sci- fi and crowded as the season goes on! But I'm not holding my breath as sci-fi doesn't seem very popular, other then main stream summer blockbusters that they churn out year after year- simple enough for the masses to consume, not clever enough to make any one think.
The first Lexx Film is a firm favorite of mine. Late one night back many many many years ago, I was having a very bad time in life. I got home very late from a night out, and was emotionally ruined and decided to watch TV instead. The channel I left it on came on and there was my first introduction to Lexx.
In the desert some half naked chick was being arrested but was telling the cops she was a 'love slave from out of space'. Then the end credits kicked in and the music started up! I was hooked! I was amazed how something so cheesy and yet so sexy had made on tv! I went out the next day and brought the first box set, and watched the first film. The cast was the original and not the one I had been introduced to but it was even better! Cheesy soft core pornish sci fi, with some really really stupid moments in between some really really dark and nasty ones! I'm not normally a fan of comedy sci fi (read dwarf is great, but other than that most of it is just awful!) But this has just enough seriousness in between that you can ignore the really really awful moments!
It was nice to see serenity in film. Up to that point I had loved anything Joss whedon had his name on- and it was great to get one more episode of firefly, even if they did ruin any chance of it coming back!
Alien and Aliens will always get me excited. I first watched them at about 8 or 9 years old one a sleep over for my school mates birthday. We stayed at his dads and his dad was like "here watch these two films, I'm off to bed with my new, but half my age, girl friend" (we were far too young to know what that was about, of course
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Are minds were blown- and I remember the school teachers were quite furious as everything that came out of our mouths for the next year was quotes from the films! We were making comics of it during art lessons, we were reenacting it in drama lessons, hell we would have asking to make mock ups of it during science lessons if it hadn't gotten to the point we were dragged out of lessons to the head master and told to stop being in to movies we were far to young to have seen!
There has been some fantastic stories from the Aliens universe, the dark horse comics, the earth war books, the stuff that's swimming about in my imagination, and yet they choose to make Prometheus...
I wanted to like it, It just made no sense what so ever, and felt so forced. Pointless!