Top 10: Sci Fi Flicks

One of the first movies I remember seeing at the theater was the top pick here.  I recall seeing it at least twice and loved the experience.  At that age I did not know the phenomenon that was going on around me at the time.  Sci Fi movies have been around along time but really took off in the late seventies and continue to march on today.  Here are some the best.

1. Star Wars/ The Empire Strikes Back- George Lucas not only made a great movie but created a new universe with fantastic characters and other worlds that will live on forever.  This is a classic western set in space with good versus evil and a mythical force surrounding it all.  It introduced the best villain of all time and also the careers of quite a few people in  front and behind the camera.  Is this one of those rare times where the sequel is better than the original?  It happens more than once on this list.
2. Blade Runner- Director Ridley Scott's fantastic future drama of a police man on the hunt for clones or as they are called here Replicants. The future Los Angeles looks awesome and bleak at the same time.  No one has been able to create that atmosphere since, many have tried but not been able to duplicate it.  A debate that can always be made here is whether Harrison Ford's Deckard is a replicant himself or not.  Rutger Hauer's "I've seen things..." speech at the end of the film is amazing.
3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind- Director Steven Spielberg just kept the hits coming after Jaws and the under appreciated 1941.  Richard Dreyfus becomes fascinated with Alien visitors and the government is determined to keep him and everyone else away because apparently they have been here before.  I will take this over E.T. any day.
4. Alien/Aliens- The first is a balls out space horror film and the latter is a balls out space action flick.  Pick your favorite alien acid blood here.  Ridley Scott makes the list here again as he shows that yes in the future people will work in space and it will be long and mundane.  So you get bored and stop to check out some great Goth looking stuff and bam you have one your co-workers with a alien wrapped around his face.  No big dea,l said alien face sucker dies and your man is okay.  You think.  Now the movie really starts.  No one can hear you scream in space.  For the follow up Jim Cameron steps in and recreates the Alien world and decides we needs to blow these Aliens all to hell. Game over man. Good stuff and great characters too. 
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still- The '51 version, not the Keanu crap.  Aliens land in DC during the Cold War era so everyone and especially the government is scarred to death.  Turns out they just want to check us out but the government is convinced they are here to blow us up so they are going to get to them first.  Back in the fifties sci fi flicks were B movies and were quite bad.  This was one of the first to have a more serious tone and not so cheesy.
6. T2- Jim Cameron and Arnold followed up the Terminator with this great sequel that had ground breaking special effects and showed that humans and robots could co-exist.  It also conveyed the fact that Arnold really likes to blow stuff up.
7. Star Trek 2- I like the original Star Trek crew series and movies and I do like the new reboot of the movies.  I loved this part after the underwhelming Star Trek The Motion Picture, that was supposed to be a new series but since Stars Wars made alot of dough so we need to make this a movie now.  Kirk, now an admiral is bored, alone, and feeling old but a routine inspection brings a new adventure and old enemy that reinvigorates this old space captain.  Kahnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
8. The Matrix- I think in the late nineties sci fi needed some fresh ideas and did this flick deliver!  Great special effects and an original story catapulted this movie to great heights in the sci fi territory and also had two lackluster sequels.  Did you take the red or the blue pill?
9. War of the Worlds-  The '53 version, not the Cruise crap.  This is a Martian invasion that was based off an Orson Welles radio broadcast that ran some time earlier and scared the H out of people.  The show ran for 60 minutes and they only said this is fiction on 3 occasions so people were really scared that the events were happening in real time.   The movie ran off this popularity and again was famous because of it cold war theme.  It is pretty nifty on how we won the battle.
10. Predator-  An Alien hunter shows up on Earth and runs into the wrong dude, Arnold.  Director John McTiernan does a great job of balancing the action and the suspense in this flick.  Did you know that Jean-Claude Van Damme played the Predator for about two weeks when movie makers decided that his different looking Predator was not big or scary enough so he was scrapped and a seven footer and a new design were brought in.  We move!