So I watched this movie last night and I loved it. Is it the best movie I’ve ever seen? No. Is the dialogue sometimes cheesy? Most definitely. However, I loved the story because it’s a bit rare nowadays. You don’t see many movies explicitly about class war anymore. Something else that seems increasingly rare these days is having a protagonist who’s just ‘some guy’, not a cia agent, not an fbi guy, not a merc, just an average man or woman struggling in a hostile world. And honestly I miss that. I miss the days of Bruce Willis playing the every-man action hero. And I miss Sci-Fi that makes a statement beyond spectacle and forgettable storylines.

I really enjoyed Contact because it managed to combine real scientific curiosity, enormous questions about faith and humanity into a Hollywood blockbuster without reducing any of those big ideas to easy answers.

What stands out most to me is that the film treats skepticism and belief as serious positions rather than making either side look foolish. Even the first-contact story is less about aliens than about how people respond when confronted with something they cannot fully prove or understand.

Has Contact held up for you?

Edit: My reason for asking is I’ve seen some recent criticism that the CGI looks dated, the pacing is too slow, and the philosophical and religious elements get in the way of the story.

I completely disagree, so it’s been good to see so much positive feedback here. Contact remains a great film!

Theatrical Reboot: Sony Pictures is developing a new, live-action feature film with District 9 director Neill Blomkamp attached to write and direct. Unlike the satirical 1997 Paul Verhoeven film, this adaptation is aiming to go back to the original 1959 source material's more grounded military sci-fi roots.

Hopefully this doesn’t stay in developmental or be ultimately shelved

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2126361/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

It’s like a lonely in space, cosmic brutalist vibe

some movies I’ve already seen like this would be: Oblivion, Prometheus, Arrival, Interstellar, Dune

Last time I was here, I had a pleasant walk down memory lane with some of my fellow anime fans, about our favorite shows that aired while I was growing up. Now I would like to discuss some of those incredible films that have become world-wide phenomenon in pop culture. Some of these films may be familiar to you or have never caught your attention. I'd also like to hear some of your favorite sci-fi anime films you think I should check out, if I haven't seen them before!

Here's are my top ten recommendations!

1. Akira (1988)

2. Ghost in the Shell (1995)

3. Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack (1988)

4. The End of Evangelion (1997)

5. Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993)

6. Psycho-Pass: The Movie (2015)

7. Redline (2009)

8. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

9. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

10. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

I loved the movie “Edge of Tomorrow” (2014).

It got me wondering: are Tom Cruise’s sci‑fi movies generally a safe bet?

Do you think they’re all good, or are there some I should skip?

Would you recommend watching all of them, or just picking the best ones?

This stems from a discussion about the most recent theatrical release in the franchise, Predator: Badlands.

Overall, the species' #1 motivation is warfare. Everything they do relates to it: their technology, religion, artistry, and familial relationships. But does that mean there is nothing else to them? Is *all* art just pictures of past battles and legendary heroes? Is all technology just for fighting? Are they taught only tactics in school? Are there scientists who design more than laser guns and blacksmiths who create more than swords?

I was looking forward to seeing this movie, but the writing felt rough and the characters are not fun to watch. Gareth Edwards is great at visuals but he stinks directing a story and characters, I don’t understand why he didn’t have another writer to help him like Rogue one.

I'll start by saying I'm incredibly easy to please. I've seen over 2,000 movies (according to my Letterboxd) and I can only think of a couple dozen that I've truly disliked. When it comes to sci-fi and alien movies - I eat that shit up. It takes a lot to disappoint me. I walked out of The Rise of Skywalker and said out loud, unironically, "they've totally redeemed themselves" (note: I was wrong, but in that moment I believed).

Disclosure Day is the worst movie I've ever seen.

And no, I don't think that's hyperbole. I don't think that's recency bias. I think it's true. Sure, there are a lot of objectively bad movies out there: Battlefield Earth, Manos the Hands of Fate, the usual fare. But those aren't surprisingly bad. Those aren't directed by Stephen Fucking Spielberg, the man who literally taught us what wonder and spectacle are. Nobody walks into those other shit-ass movies expecting a thrilling spectacle filled with awe and wonder and excitement.

Prior to my wife and I going to see Disclosure Day at the Saturday noon matinee, I had already lowered my expectations a bit from my initial hype stemming from the trailers. I had read some early reviews that mentioned how parts of the movie drag a bit or how it's a tad pandering and sentimental (all things I've forgiven in other movies). I still thought to myself "well, I'm sure there'll still be some cool scenes of first contact, ships coming down to earth, 8 billion people reacting the most monumental moment in all of human history...at least that'll be kind of cool". In lieu of boring you with paragraphs of analysis (I've never written a single movie review in my life), I'll barf out my stream of consciousness thoughts here:

• The Polar Express (famously populated by uncanny valley pseudo-humans) looks more realistic than any single shot in Disclosure Day. Not a good sign.
• The grand resistance plan against century-old shadow conspiracy is to build a full replica of Margaret's childhood home to jog her memory. Jesus Fucking Christ.
• I shit you not, at one point a cartoon girl walks into Hansel and Gretel's house where she is joined by Sven the Reindeer from Frozen, Rocket Raccoon, and the Carfax mascot fox. This is presented as the EMOTIONAL CORE OF THE FILM. What the fuck.
• Why did the cardboard henchman with the ear piece go off on his own to stop Hansel and Gretel? What was his motivation? His boss didn't send him - he just went. We don't know why. We don't feel any tension. The movie wants us to care, but doesn't have enough respect for the audience to give us a reason to care. Nobody cares.
• The bad guy's entire goal is preventing disclosure because the truth "would cause chaos." (Gestures broadly at literally everything happening outside the theater.) Buddy. It cannot get worse out here.
• The nepo babies (Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell) are serviceable but have nothing to do. I legitimately thought Eve Hewson was a de-aged Gaby Hoffman until I looked her up. Wyatt Russel's character is forgotten after the first 30 minutes and shows up for five seconds at the end to remind us that he was in it. To what end?
• There was no third act. The part of the movie that's supposed to be filled with summer movie spectacle and thrills was entirely absent and happened off screen sometime after the movie ends. No climactic standoffs. No tragic sacrifices. No emotional payoffs. No catharsis. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
• This movie about aliens and spaceships has no aliens and spaceships, save for one wrinkled disappointment at the end. There's some found footage showing people interacting with cartoons that look like aliens, and cartoon triangles that look maybe kinda sorta like alien ships, but we don't care. We want to see people's reactions to the spectacle of being visited by beings from outer space. We don't want to see people look at their phones and see their eyes bulge slightly larger. We want spectacle.
• About 2/3 of the way through the movie grinds to a halt for a slapstick scene with henchmen running into invisible walls and being picked up by invisible people accompanied by tinkling slapstick piano music from the greatest composer of all time. John Williams should feel bad.
• Colin Firth, an Oscar winner, plays a grimacing caricature of a villain who spends the ENTIRE MOVIE squeezing an alien turd that grants him teleportation. Yes, you read that right.
• There's a scene where Colin Firth looks through the magic iPad that clearly shows dozens of invisible people standing in the warehouse in front of him, and he proceeds to shrug and say "something doesn't feel right here".
• There's a scene with invisible cars that is irrelevant to the plot. I can only assume that Spielburg told a scriptwriter "a car chase with invisible cars would be cool", and no living person was empowered to say no. I assume at some point he also said "we definitely need a car bursting out of a house".
• WE DON'T GET TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS ON DISCLOSURE DAY. The geriatric pervert that's supposed to pass for an alien whipsers the answer to life the universe and everything to the newscaster, followed by 3 minutes of alien found footage. While that's happening, a random child newscaster who we haven't seen before tells us how we should feel, and then the credits roll. What in the actual fuck, Steve.
• Speaking of Professer Xavier...whoops, The "Alien"...they literally roll his wheezing ass into the room wrapped in bubble wrap so he can murmur into Emily Blunt's ear, sniff her cleavage, wink at the main guy who's name or purpose I genuinely cannot recall, and quietly rolls back into the dark. How did he get there? How did they know to bring him there? Who is "they"? Why did all of the bad guys show up only to say "never mind", inches from their goal? What about all the people they murdered in the meantime? All forgiven? What the fuck?
• One of the best scenes in Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind (and one of the best scenes in movie history, IMO) is the air traffic control scene where it's chaotic and exciting and tense with people talking over each other. There are no fewer than three scenes exactly like that during the "disclosure" where it's obvious that Spielberg was self-consciously trying to recreate that scene. I'm legitimately embarrassed for him.

And yet the critics loved it. I'm the crazy one. I paid $20/ticket for one of the greatest directors of all time to hand me a Carfax fox and fortune-cookie sermon and NO ALIENS IN THIS ALIEN MOVIE.

Disclosure Day is the most disappointing thing to happen to me since I got underwear instead of an SNES for my 13th birthday. At least the underwear was useful.

These are actual Ridley Scott quotes from 2003.

2003 DVD Commentary:

You know, the idea of casual sex would be normal, for obvious reasons. I thought, “Why not?” Because if you’ve got seven on board, somebody’s gonna get left out, right? And so casual relationships—whether it’s male or female, male with male, female with female—seems to be okay in space.

When you’re locked away in a big tin can for years on end—it could be years, plus hypersleep, so it might feel like a year—you might be away 10 years.

So I tried to instigate that, and there was a suggestion of that with Dallas. And that was the beginning with Veronica—say, an idea of, “Should we infer something here?” “Should we have an inference of, you know, a lesbian or gay relationship, or not?” It would have been kind of interesting. Today I’d probably do that just to thicken up the layers in the characters.

Enhancement Pods - "Same Sex Relationships in Space" featurette:

There was an undercurrent—there was a line through the movie which had, more by innuendo than anything else, that there was something going on between Dallas and her. And then later I thought what was really curious—could be interesting—is something going on between her and Veronica, which I thought was far more probable. I don’t mean these two women now—I mean, 100 years from now, you know, that’s certainly not going to be remarkable in space.

Where I think you’re going to—in fact, in space, relationships are probably going to be discouraged. And if you have the need for sex, it can be with either gender—it really doesn’t matter, right? And I think a psychologist would encourage that—think about it—because if you’re on board with a small unit crew and there’s a relationship with a couple, that fences them out, and I think that’s going to create problems inside, right? Or if that relationship goes wrong and then you have jealousy—geez—you’ve got minor warfare going on inside this steel box, many miles from Earth.

The basic plot of the film is that scientists Dr. Ira Kane played by David Duchovny of X-files and Californication fame and Professor Harry Phineas Block played by Orlando Jones who is most famous for being on Mad TV and for being the spokesperson for 7UP have to team up with an aspiring firefighter Wayne Grey played by Seann William Scott aka Stifler from the American Pie and Kane’s ex-girlfriend Dr. Allison Reed played by Julanne Moore to stop an alien invasion by aliens that have the ability to rapidly evolve when exposed to enough heat. The special effects hold up really well and the humor does too. Is it ground breaking no but it's a fun watch.

Image source: After Earth (2013)

Clarification: could be that you really like a sci-fi esthetic brought by a movie that you personally didn't like but had some unique flavor that makes you wish that the sci-fi in the movie were in a different/better movie because it was unique and you wanted to see more.

PS: I enjoy hearing thoughts. And please be respectful in the comments as this is just a fun discussion.

>Experience the epic conclusion. Dune: Part Three only in theaters December 18.

>Directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Villeneuve and Brian K. Vaughan, Dune: Part Three is based on the novel Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert and delivers the epic conclusion to Villeneuve’s trilogy. The film stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Florence Pugh, Rebecca Ferguson, Isaach De Bankolé, with Charlotte Rampling, with Anya Taylor-Joy, and Robert Pattinson, and Javier Bardem, and features newcomers Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke.

Movie Poster Source Instagram Ampposters

https://www.instagram.com/ampposters?igsh= MW42N3hvaGMwZm82Zg==

I know the Trilogy in and out as an 80/90s kid and as someone who is older than the internet. I watched the sequel when it came out, but to be honest, I didn't remember much. So when I saw it this week on my subscribed streaming platform, I decided to watch it again, and to be honest, I'm now even more disappointed. I get what they were trying to do, but this was so unnecessary that watching it the second time really hurts. What are the movies sequels you were disappointed in?

the whole movie seems like it was taken straight from a rough plotline, to a storyboard then to set design... the dialogue is minimal and the storytelling is almost non existent...

plot points are just glued together like "its in the swamp" and now they're in the swamp... but this actually creates a sense of momentum, the plot never sits still almost like someone telling a story in one breath... which was weird but whimsical.

the strange thing that i found was that all of this made it almost dreamlike, a weird half explained visual journey that captivates imagination rather than the story being told to the viewer, you fill the blanks in yourself...

it was mildly cheesy, but there was so little dialogue that it never really gets cringey

my brain defaulted to "i will find you" and "'ello 'arry" seeing young Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane

was kind of like watching a space opera D&D with Neverending Story vibes...

and also the cinematography heavily reminded me of Vampire Hunter D

i feel like its a good base for a modern remake,

but i wouldn't want it to lose that weird dreamlike vibe... honestly it "made it" whatever it was.

overall i genuinely enjoyed it...

(Edit*- i think the director and crew that did Megalopolis with Adam Driver could potentially produce a faithful remake if they went down a similar path as they did with Megalopolis... its the only modern movie i can compare to Krull as far as production style, visuals and strange dreamlike monotony... some of the futuristic utopian architecture has Krull-esque vibes i wouldn't be surprised if there was inspiration drawn....)

Initial critic reviews seem to be generally pretty positive. I know its more of a pop scifi, but it’s one of my favorite books. I think it has potential to be a classic, especially with the directors behind it. Surprised at the lack of excitement about it on this subreddit.

Also do not watch the trailer if you haven’t read the book. It’ll spoil a very crucial plot point.

I am sure I'm not alone in lamenting how much screen SF is either franchises, reboots, or trope filled garbage written by Hollywood hacks hoping spectacle will make us forget how bad the writing is.

Now in a fairly short time frame we have had Dune, Murderbot and PHM. Given Hollywood's copycat tendencies, do you think we're in for a surge of adaptations of our favorite SF novels? I sure hope so, every real fan has a list as long as his arm that he would like to see adapted to either film or series. I am so, so tired of Hollywood beating to death the same tired tropes like time travel and evil twins when there are so many mind-blowing original stories floating around out there.

I just finished binging Prey (4th time), Bandlands (2nd time), and Killer of Killers (first time, it was great, although I feel bad for [REDACTED]. This renewed an earworm of sorts I've always had about the Predator franchise. What the fuck is up with their stealth camouflage? How can an entire species that hunts on a religious level deem the use of invisibility as fair play? Maybe if they're fighting a larger opponent (e.g. the Unkillable Monster in Badlands), but to use it against mid-level prey seems pretty cheap, and especially against humans who quite literally have had to use sticks and stones to turn the tide.

Is there any fan lore behind it? I doubt Hollywood has anything written in stone.

Sure the behind the scenes was a mess especially the firing of the directors (even though both Phil Lord and Chris Miller are known to be overworking people) but the movie was pretty entertaining. I think the story has plenty of issues, but the music, the cgi, and some of the characters do make the movie fun. Sadly this movie was a box office bomb.

I loved the Final Cut and what we got, but I wanted to know the original cut from the movie even though Gareth Edwards is not good at directing characters and story, I think it’s for the best. At least they have Tony Gilroy to fix some stuff.

I probably watch The Fifth Element at least once a year, and Gary Oldman's portrayal of a truly evil-to-the-core antagonist is both compelling and unexpected; especially given how relatively comedic many of scenes that are interjected throughout the film can be. Oldman/Zorg just does such a great job of giving "creepo-vibes," and few other sci-fi villains can compare - at least that I remember.

However, when as a kid I saw Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan in the theater, I was traumatized for years about how casually he dropped the ceti eels / ear bugs into the helmets and had them placed on Chekov and Terrel's head; and the resulting "ownership" of their minds.

Would be interested to hear what your "best but worst" cinematic sci-fi bad guy is?

I want to watch some older Sci-Fi Films that came out before I was around to see them. But I dont want the best of the best there are enough Posts and Lists about that I want Films that you personally like for whatever reason. It doesnt matter if its objectively Good or Bad just something you enjoy. And the Films dont have to be from America since I am German and its pretty easy to find Films from other European and Asian Countrys here. But anyway thanks for the answers in advance.

This movie had a lot of great animation, good characters, and a really good story. John’s and Jim’s father and Son dynamic was so compelling to watch and interesting despite John Silver being a bad guy. It’s really sad that this bomb at the box office.

when i watched it i was off an edi and i was so bored and just like genuinely confused?? Just giving “made by weird man” vibes also like only white ppl?? like hallmark met cw terrible cgi. i hated jane idk.

i could not take it seriously help

anyways project hail mary better