This top 5 spawned from a discussion with my friends, who are largely geeks, I’m a geek but they are the next level up, so as I asked them about this topic it went into a debate and thus the breakdown “in Space” was born, as Sci-fi was so broad I needed to segregate it. I do enjoy a good Sci-fi film and often some of my more enjoyable films of the past have been set in space, so what was my Top 5?
The List
I quickly thought i better still have the rule of space but if there on earth for like 10 minutes then it still counts because in essentially its space, these can be huge blockbusters and for some of my friends we had the similar ideas, but some did go for more storytelling side of it, I didn’t I went my action Sci-fi I think.
Aliens
In 1986 the sequel to 1979 smash hit Alien was released, set 57 years in the future after she had been in Stasis after escaping the first film, she is part of a team that answers a distress call, needless to say, more aliens are there. But why Aliens? well, the first is good, more of horror than action and even though its a good film, I’m the generation that grew up on scarier and more hi-tech stuff, so I didn’t quite have that same feel, but Aliens was awesome, loved every part of it, one of my favourite films of all time, let alone the genre.
Star Wars (could put many)
Well you can’t really have a Space genre without talking about Star Wars, and another day I will post about each film and rank them, but for now ill keep it brief, and do I need to say much? If you’re a fan of Sci-fi or space films you have an opinion, good-bad, worse whatever, Especially these days, but there’s no doubt its arguably the biggest filming franchise in history across over 40 years.
Serenity
So many people may be asking, What? Why? well I’m a Josh Whedon fan, I grew up on Buffy and Angel etc, so when this came out as a series called Firefly, i enjoyed it, then Fox does what they do best, and cancelled something, luckily to give some love after this Josh whedone managed to get it turned into a film to close a chapter at least as not all its episodes came to pass, but since then its become a cult favourite with generally word of mouth and the Home video audience giving it more life, for both the film and the Series. for me I liked that it was essentially a Western but in space, the story was fine, the cast was great, and it did have promise, maybe not several series or multiple films but it deserved more than it got, luckily there are many that agreed.
Avatar
It seems a lifetime ago that Avatar came to our attention due to its 3D effects in 2009, it was groundbreaking, whatever you may think of the film it truly was, it was a film that took the cinema experience to another level, the story was good, the graphics were simply outstanding, 3D peaked at this and has never hit it since, it was the biggest film ever until Avengers overtook it and remains the second highest-grossing film after Gone with the Wind(when inflation etc taken into account) and that in the numbers is why I loved the film, I saw it twice because of the 3D, still now its a great watch, and we are soon to be joined by 3 more sequels, how and what they will do to take it further? has a high amount of anticipation.
Starship Troopers
I’ll stop you right there, it’s great! its an over the top action-packed silly, but funny, violent, gross, but awesome satirical film on the war in space type genre, it didnt really star many names and you could argue was a B movie with several B movie actors, much like Sharnado etc, Neil Patrick Harris was the only generally well-known actor but even at that point he wasn’t as he had a run with Doogie Howser M.D and a few other small American things, but the cast was generally just full of B movie actors, who have sadly stayed there with the exception of Harris, but it’s great, even now it doesn’t pretend to be this high brow epic encounter, it was always over the top violent bug squashing, in space, and it does it.
Overall
Overall I do enjoy this genre, it’s one of those that often utilise the cinema sounds, graphics and atmosphere, even at home it can still do that, the stories aren’t always the central part of it, Star Wars and Avatar still have a great story and no doubt spread over but often they are the side part of the story, but it’s still great films to have and watch, below are some alternatives to what could have been on the list.
Fifth Element |fantastic and so different
Flash Gordon | great and classic
Event Horizon | i loved this film and is an excellent film
Pitch Black | original is still good, the others not so much as they are abit hit and miss
Apollo 13 | Story was excellent with an amazing cast, still better than many there similar story-based space films.
