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David_Dweedle

Favourite Sci-fi?

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What Sci-Fi do you guys watch on a Normal Basis? for me I watch Doctor who all the time(I got series 1 to 4 on DVD) and I also love Star wars..

Never really given Stargate or Star Trek a proper watch tho.. will rent DVDs sometime..

Wish we could get battlestar galactica.. never seen it before but everyone seems to love it.

anyway what Sci-fi do you guys watch.

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If you mean TV, Firefly is possibly my favorite, though it got canceled way too early. Babylon 5 is pretty awesome, too. I grew up on Star Trek: TNG, and Deep Space Nine is pretty good too. If Futurama counts, I love that show.

If you're counting movies too, I think Blade Runner might be my favorite, followed closely by The Fifth Element, Tron, and Dark City. Also a big fan of Total Recall, Dune, and Heavy Metal.

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I've also fallen in love with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The Radio broadcast and TV series were grand, Movie not so grand.

I've wanted to get into Dr. Who but I sadly discovered the majority of the episodes have been destroyed some time ago.

Oh and for you Blade Runner fans.

http://www.411mania.com/movies/news/106438/

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I picked up the BluRay version of Star Trek TOS. It can be a bit hokey at times, but it was still a pretty fun show. The last few ST series lost that feel.

I particularly liked Babylon 5. As far as movies go, Blade Runner was awesome. That was one of the first DVDs and BDs I got.

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As for sci-fi on television, I'm a big Stargate SG-1 fan. At least before Richard Dean Anderson left. Although I haven't seen the show a whole lot after Claudia Black and Whats-His-Face-From-Farscape joined, it just isn't the same.

Speaking of Farscape, it was pretty good. Love Firefly, and it's really too bad it got canceled. Star Trek: TNG is usually a good viewing experience.

As for movies, Equilibrium has to be my favorite, closely followed by Event Horizon. Also Stargate, Minority Report, The Fifth Element. Love the Men in Black films. The Cube films are kinda sci-fi, and I enjoyed them (The first and third one anyway). K-Pax was a surprisingly good film (and I'll bet no one here has heard of it!). Can't go wrong with The Matrix films, despite the popular trend to bash the second two.

I'm sure there are more, but I have to go to work.

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Dunno if reading counts, but whenever I stumble upon sci-fi compilations from classic authors like Asimov or Clarke I grab them and read them through.

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Doctor Who, Firefly, Star Trek to a lesser extent and Bab 5.

Star Wars, Blade Runner, Event Horizon, Equilibrium.

Asimov, Orson Scott Card, Philip K Dick.


I agree that "Firefly" got cancelled too early, but not "way too early". Why? Because I also like Buffy and Angel and I have been frustrated by the interminable interpersonal angst of not-quite happening relationships that Whedon likes to drag out (the late middle seasons of Buffy and the similar period in Angel) . I'm sure that if He'd been given further seasons with no obvious end in sight, we'd have seen frustrating, almost embarrassing, scenes between Mal and Inara never quite managing to have a proper relationship, someone would have been forced to act totally out of character just to move a plot along, dull story lines with no direction would have crept in towards the end of season three etc etc. However, in the cases of both Angel and Buffy, when Whedon knew that he had to wrap things up, it all came together again. So, if he'd been told that he had one, or possibly two, seasons left of "Firefly" and then that would be it, then he could have worked towards an end point and given us even more meat than "Serenity" did. However, "Serenity" did provide a good wrapping up of the main loose ends of the series whilst still leaving enough hanging in the balance for our imaginations to complete.

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Cowboy Bebop. In my opinion, scifi that lasts more than a season with no clear end on sight tends to fuck it up somewhere down the line. The budget constraints for TV series also play a big factor here.

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Firefly, Stargate Atlantis, and any Star Trek that isn't the original series. Too bad I've seen every episode of any of those. :(

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stargate and star trek tng.. both when they did fights or exploration or mad science, with strong presence of macgyver/picard. i HATED the ultra-lame childish politics with tokra/romulans/insert gibberish name, or the unbelievably stupid emo-episodes about past emotional traumas of characters who are there to say 'indeed' or 'photon torpedoes fired' and then kick ass. data discovering human feelings? ew.

i like firefly, cowboy bebop, lain.. but ghost in the shell: stand alone complex is easily the best sci-fi tv series i've seen. although they probably went too far with the hypercomplex conspiracy plot in the second season.

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SlayeR said:

Red Dwarf, if that counts. The earlier seasons in particular.

Damn, I forgot Red Dwarf. I love that show.

Zaldron said:

Cowboy Bebop. In my opinion, scifi that lasts more than a season with no clear end on sight tends to fuck it up somewhere down the line. The budget constraints for TV series also play a big factor here.

I think the one thing that annoyed me the most about Babylon 5 was how the last 2 seasons ended up. The creator of the series actually had a full 5-season story arc planned out (though not perfectly, since he ran out of ideas for Sinclair so wrote him out as a regular after season 1), but he could only get a 4-year contract. During the 4th season it looked like the contract would run out, but at the end it did get renewed. The end result is season 4 feeling too rushed and season 5 kind of meandering along without much point after the series had already climaxed. Season 4 should have just been the conclusion to the Shadow War while 5 was them finally going toe-to-toe with the new totalitarian regime on Earth.

The guy who created it did have a lot of foresight. Having worked on many shows before, he knew actors are prone to get bored or get movie careers and drop out, so he came up with ways to write off every character from the beginning. Aside from the whole season 4/5 issue, Babylon 5 is pretty much a casebook on how to handle a good TV drama.

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An small selection of movies and series that I liked alot.

Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Buck Rogers, Pitch Black, Cronicles of Riddick, Robocop, Alien, Predator, Back to the Future, Event Horizon, War of the Worlds, Terminator.

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Favorite Sci-Fi TV: Star Trek, The Original Series. The Twilight Zone. The Outer Limits. That's about it.

Favorite Sci-Fi Animated: Cowboy BeBop, Heavy Metal

Favorite Sci-Fi Movies: Blade Runner, Paycheck, The Matrix, Forbidden Planet, Alien, Starship Troopers, War of the Worlds, Terminator 2

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Patrick said:

Alien, Starship Troopers, Terminator 2


Oh, forgot about them. 'cept for me it'd be Alien, Aliens, Starship Troopers, Terminator (original). T2 was good but I remember something about it bothered me - though I forget what. Haven't seen the new Terminator movie, T3 or the TV series.

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if you want something animated Gundam 00 seasons 1 and 2 are great (jap versions of course). The themes raise political issues regarding energy and war.

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Technician said:

I've wanted to get into Dr. Who but I sadly discovered the majority of the episodes have been destroyed some time ago.


The majority of the second doctor's episodes, and a large chunk of the first too... but everything from when it went colour in 1970 still survives (though i think one of the early colour serials only exists in black and white for some reason)

Personally aside from Doctor Who i like old Star Trek, and TNG and Voyager in moderation. I liked SG-1 when it first started but havent seen it for years. Battlestar Galactica never really did it for me at all, the "shaky cam" "documentary style" filming of the new version really put me off to. Back when The Bill started it had "documentary style" filming, but that didn't mean footage of people's feet back then... look which show has been going for more than 20 years now.

I used to loooove the Star Wars films, but the early Trek ones have more grown on me now. They look more "natural", if that's the right word? They are futuristic but it's not screaming "THIS IS THE FUTURE" at you constantly, if that makes sense.

2001 and 2010 are amazing in book and film forms too. Never read 2061 or 3001 though.

In comics Judge Dredd (and the wider universe of those stories) sweeps all before it when on form. Mega City 1 has become so perfectly realised over 30 years of production that it has a language and culture all of it's own. "The Simping Detective" comic strip, for instance, fitted right in despite being a totally different style to the usual Dredd stories.

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In other forms, I love the Following Books:

2001 a Space Odessy, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Ender's Game, War of the Worlds, Foundation Series, The Watchmen, Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z

And why the hell do people keep calling Star Wars Sci-Fi? Star Wars i'd consider fantasy or Space Western.

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Patrick said:

And why the hell do people keep calling Star Wars Sci-Fi? Star Wars i'd consider fantasy or Space Western.

As would I, but it's easy to mention it in a sci-fi discussion as a lot of people consider it to be sci-fi and it does have a lot of themes in common with sci-fi. It could be argued that Firefly also fits into that category but then Joss Whedon happily acknowledges Star Wars as an influence on the series.


And another vote for Dredd, The Big Meg and 2000AD (and not the Sly Stallone movie).

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Firefly is a lot more science-oriented than Star Wars, though. Aside from a few things like how the ships fly through space or how a Solar System can house a hundred or so rocky bodies that are all survivable with a little terraforming, it sticks to science pretty well. Most notably is the fact that nothing on the show makes sound when it happens in space (aside from characters talking through helmet communicators), which I don't think has been used on any other sci-fi show. There are some other often overlooked aspects of space travel used in the show as well. It's not terribly sciencey, but it does have about as much as Star Trek or Babylon 5 (and Babylon 5 had all the (human) stations and ships needing to spin to maintain gravity, which was pretty cool and accurate).

Anyway, now that books have been thrown into the mix, I'll add that I like anything by Frank Herbert, Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, or Robert Heinlein. Ray Bradbury is pretty good, too.

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I forgot to mention LEXX. The miniseries was better than the show, but still good stuff.

Also, for books, I love Piers Anthony and James Alan Gardner.

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Talking about tv shows, I'd recommend:
- Battlestar Gallactica (reboot) which is SUPERB!
- Star Trek DS9 which is good if you skip the worst episodes

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Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek (TNG and Voyager are my favorite) and occasionally Stargate. I'm sure I'm forgetting something but these are the ones I watch the most.

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Danarchy said:

Damn, I forgot Red Dwarf. I love that show.


Yeah, that was pretty funny, despite being British. ;)

I think the one thing that annoyed me the most about Babylon 5 was how the last 2 seasons ended up. The creator of the series actually had a full 5-season story arc planned out (though not perfectly, since he ran out of ideas for Sinclair so wrote him out as a regular after season 1), but he could only get a 4-year contract. During the 4th season it looked like the contract would run out, but at the end it did get renewed. The end result is season 4 feeling too rushed and season 5 kind of meandering along without much point after the series had already climaxed. Season 4 should have just been the conclusion to the Shadow War while 5 was them finally going toe-to-toe with the new totalitarian regime on Earth.

The guy who created it did have a lot of foresight. Having worked on many shows before, he knew actors are prone to get bored or get movie careers and drop out, so he came up with ways to write off every character from the beginning. Aside from the whole season 4/5 issue, Babylon 5 is pretty much a casebook on how to handle a good TV drama.


Actually, most of Season 1 was written by "guest" writers... mostly Star Trek writers. Reportedly, JMS was so pissed at how bad they were writing that he decided to do ALL the writing himself from then on. It shows - most of Season 1 is very reminiscent of Star Trek, but it settles down into Bayblon 5 starting in Season 2. Most of your other comments I agree with.

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Parts like this are what make Babylon 5 my favorite Sci-fi:



Plus, the "Severed Dreams" episode has to be one of the best episodes of anything. Ever made.

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