Flavorwire “SF/F Films Everyone Should See” Meme: How many have you seen?
The fine folks at Flavorwire recently released a list of 50 SF/F films they think everyone should watch (technically, there are 63 titles on the list, since they counted series as one). I figured it would be fun to turn it into a meme. So here you go: BOLD = You’ve seen it! E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Pan’s Labyrinth Moon The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King The Princess Bride Labyrinth Men in Black Edward Scissorhands Mad Max Princess Mononoke Spirited Away Gattaca Primer Blade Runner Fantastic Planet The Wizard of Oz The Secret of Roan Inish Dark City The Matrix Time Bandits Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark La Jetée Brazil Metropolis Big Fish Solaris (original) Jurassic Park Alien Aliens Orpheus Dark Star 2001: A Space Odyssey Avatar Back to the Future Star Wars IV: A New Hope Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars VI: The Return of the Jedi Close Encounters of the Third Kind A Clockwork Orange Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb The Fountain Sleeper City of Lost Children Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt.1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt.2 The Day the Earth Stood Still (original) Donnie Darko Invasion of the Body Snathers (original) Ghostbusters Being John Malkovich Akira The Terminator Terminator 2 Strange Days Serenity I count 49. That’s not bad, methinks… How did you do?
Star Trek Movies and TV Shows: Ranked by Me
On August 11th, Badass Digest released a Trekkie-voted ranked list of all the Star Trek movies to date (plus Galaxy Quest, for some reason). It’s a strange list, to say the least. Why is Galaxy Quest on there? Other than the fact that it’s a mostly-direct parody of Star Trek, it isn’t actually a Star Trek movie. And why did they stick Star Trek Into Darkness at the end, when it’s obviously not the worst film on the list? OK, so I have a good answer for that last question. We talked about this a little in a recent Shoot the WISB episode. Basically, the reversal of the Khan narrative probably came off as a slap in the face to Trekkies. I even think it smelled disgusting, even though I kind of like the idea of switching things around. After all, Spock isn’t supposed to be an emotional man, so the idea that he’d break down after the supposed death of Kirk adds some weight to the moment. But…it wasn’t handled well. There wasn’t enough character development; the death of Kirk was handled in the way you’d expect a comic book to handle it: he’s dead…wait, no, not really, here’s some magic *poof.* At least in Wrath of Khan, Spock died. He was dead dead dead. The film never says “hey, we’ll magic him into existence…right at the end.” If you’ve never seen Search for Spock, you really do think the guy has friggin died. And that’s a big deal. The audience sometimes needs that slap in the face. But I digress. Prepare to be pissed off. The following is my ranked list of Star Trek movies, minus Galaxy Quest: 12. Star Trek (you can see why I still hate the film here and here) 11. Star Trek: Insurrection (the villains just didn’t do it for me; it felt too much like an unnecessarily extended episode of the regular show, and the absurdity of the plot never seemed to gel or follow through for me, despite some nifty action sequences in the end) 10. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (I want to like this film, but too much of this film’s central elements are ridiculously underdeveloped; for example, both Sybok and the “god” thing at the end are given almost the same amount of characterization, despite the fact that the latter is only in the film for maybe seven minutes — we never really know who Sybok is, except that he’s kinda nuts) 9. Star Trek: Nemesis (there are certainly a lot of problems with this film, most notably in the convoluted plot; however, Tom Hardy does a fantastic job as Shinzon, and Captain Kirk really does almost get sucked dry like a character in a vampire movie, which seemed pretty cool to me) 8. Star Trek Into Darkness (though I quite enjoy this sequel to Abrams’ first ST film, it certainly suffers from reboot-idis; case in point, the fact that the writers could not include Khan in this version of the universe without making annoying and poorly conceived references to the original Wrath of Khan. More on my thoughts, along with some others, here) 7. Star Trek: Generations (I think if I watched this movie again, I’d like it a lot less than I do in my memory; that said, I love the continued development of Data as a character, let alone the fact that this film really does give a lot of closure to the original TNG series — plus, saucer separation = awesome) 6. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (the one thing the original ST movies did well was comedic development between the principle cast; having Spock’s katra, or soul, trapped in McCoy’s body pretty much makes for comedic gold. Add in Christopher Lloyd as the villain and you’ve got a pretty decent ST film) 5. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (while the villain doesn’t have quite the prowess of Khan, his obsession with Shakespeare adds a certain creep factor to this otherwise straightforward political assassination thriller — overall, I thought it did pretty damn well for itself, particularly considering the political implications of an alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire) 4. Star Trek: First Contact (the Borg are probably my favorite villain species in the entire ST franchise; the best part of this film, however, involves seeing humanity make that first stretch to the stars and all that comes with it) 3. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (I know a lot of people hate this movie, but I’ve always found it infinitely fascinating; it kept with the original narrative of exploration at the heart of the show, and the discovery itself was so cool) 2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (you all know why this is in the top two slots; everyone loves this movie) 1. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (my grandma loved this movie, and so she made me watch it…a lot. Obviously, it still has a special place in my heart, and it played a crucial role in my childhood love of whales and the ocean. Also: the movie still makes me laugh) And here’s my ranked list of Star Trek TV shows: 6. Star Trek: the Animated Series (it exists, and that’s good enough for me) 5. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (there are aspects of this show I really like, but the fact that it takes until season two for anything interesting to happen and that some of the actors are just horrible makes me unable to move this higher on the list) 4. Star Trek: the Original Series (it’s classic, I know, but I didn’t grow up on the original series, so I can only put it in the #4 slot because of its classic nature — don’t kill me) 3. Star Trek: Enterprise (everyone hates this one for some reason; I liked the attempt to have a single narrative riding through everything and the focus on humanity as the new kid on the proverbial block. I’m also in agreement with