mamoru: However, less shaky cam would have been nice. I mean, seriously. They used shaky-cam (well, basic hand-held camera rather than a tripod) for Kirk talking to Uhura at the bar. Completely pointless to have any camera shake in such a scene unless you want to deliberately remind people they are watching a movie.

It's the new fad...use hand-held to give a "documentary feel" and make it more real. It'll fade into the background here shortly.

Also, the filmmakers have stated they're going to back WAAAY down on the lens flares for the sequel.

/"In the future, everything is SHINY!"

mamoru: I understand it when a movie is meant to be a documentary (or even a fictional documentary, like District 9), but as far as I know, Star Trek wasn't meant to be such.

And I do understand and even enjoy shaky cam for intense, hectic scenes like battles and such, because it does give you a feel for how hectic the situation is. But chatting a girl up at the bar? Bleh.

A lot of shows/movies have been doing that. Firefly, for example, used handheld cameras (including the same style for space shots) to attempt for more "realism" via handheld camera work and badly-timed focus pulling during a quick zoom out/in. It actually does work, because we associate that sort of camera work subconsciously with documentary filmmaking. However, it's getting horribly overused at this point and it shouldn't be too much longer before it gets replaced with whatever the new fad is.

/My bet is big, sweeping wide-angle tracking shots...sort of like in old 40s/50s/Bollywood musicals and in the first Highlander movie.
//The big TV show trick right now is just having a shiatload of oners (long single takes).

The rest of that list is fine, but Star Trek shouldn't be on there because it's not sci-fi. They just USED pseudo-science as a background for an action-adventure story that was a loose allegory for Taliban terrorism! That's not what sci-fi is! Oh, and District 9 wasn't about the science, it was just a fantasy about apartheid!

/Seriously, that's what you "Eternal Sunshine/Dark Knight/etc. isn't sci-fi" people sound like.
//Genre nazis

costermonger: Useless without:

THUS

Ghastly: I'm sorry, but the new Star Trek movie was crap on so many levels. Absolute crap. Trekkies embraced is simply because they were desperate for anything Trek and thus willfully overlooked the movies many glaring flaws.

The trekkies I know were a mixed bag because Abrams wasn't trying to sell to them. The enormous success it enjoyed was not due to trekkies. Personally, I thought it was a great movie. The only thing I would change was having the Tyler Perry cameo.

El Chode: I am dying to see Moon.

But is the Dark Knight really Sci-Fi? I mean I guess conventional meanings of it would say so, but it's not what I think of when I think "sci fi"

I also really enjoyed Sunshine.

The movie was sci-fi, its plot hinged on a nonexistent analysis technology. Several, in fact, if you count the super sonar imaging glasses of wizardry +5 and the grappling devices with physically impossible mechanical characteristics and such as well.

Darth_Lukecash: First of all, the only Superhero movie that should be on the list is Iron Man: And that's because it's about a rich guy in a science gadget.

The Dark Knight, The Incredibles and Spider Man2 did have some technological elements...was more superhero genre than sci-fi.

The Revenge of the Sith should be on that list not at the top. more towards the lower teens : It was clearly the best of the prequels and is considered equal to Empire for most Star Wars fans.


You had a point until there.

GAT_00: Ghastly: I'm sorry, but the new Star Trek movie was crap on so many levels. Absolute crap. Trekkies embraced is simply because they were desperate for anything Trek and thus willfully overlooked the movies many glaring flaws.

So you're another one of the fans pissed the movie was entertaining? How sad.

He clearly wasn't entertained. Neither was I.

The Host was a horrible film that would have been completely unwatchable if it weren't for me and my best friend making fun of it the whole time.

bob_ross: Thought the new Trek was kind of lame. I mean, time travel? Come on, really? They couldn't think of anything else so they go the cheap time travel route?

I bet Picard is facepalming somewhere...

Actually, of all the things you can complain about, I think that one can be put pretty far down the list. They actually *used* it really well as a great way to reboot the series without wiping out everything from before. They way they treated the time travel stuff really lets you nerd out over how little things change, big events go straight to shiat, but some people still wind up in the same place. There are worse ways to deal with destiny, free will, and alternate possibilities.

My biggest "complaint" about the movie (besides the standard points covered here and everywhere a million times already) is that the moral of the story was that Kirk's number one qualification for being a captain was his ability to hang off the edge of cliffs really well.

But I just laugh it off. I'm a trekkie, but in the end, I was alright with this movie.

/DS9 is still the best, though.

before halloween (the holiday), The Host was in many lists for best horror movies. and here it's made the decade's best sci-fi?

/wasn't impressed with it, regardless of genre

Oh, and the list needs The Prestige. It's a great sci-fi movie to show people who think that sci-fi is nothing but robots and aliens. They don't even realize they are watching a sci-fi flick until the last act. (Unless they were watching closely.)

Children of Men, Prestige, the X-Men series, and Minority Report belong on this list.

Knock off Spider Man 2, Iron Man, Serenity, and from what I've heard, Avatar. Their justification for putting esp. that last in the list seems weak.

oldebayer: I went into this in another thread yesterday or the day before. Find me one credible physicist willing to agree that you could stick a huge space ship with a heat shield in a stable orbit between the Sun and Mercury for five years, without any on board computer to perform course corrections as needed, and (a) maintaining the orientation towards the sun so that the thing never melted, (b) taking into account the enormous pressure of sunlight itself at that distance on the heat shield, (c) allowing for all the perturbations of Mercury's gravitational pull, (d) taking into account the different flow of time itself in that region of space, and (e) about a dozen other things, each as absurd as the presence of a space speedometer on the shuttles in Armageddon, and I will admit, grudgingly, that there was actual science in this movie.

It's called a "Lagrange point", look into it.

bberg: It's called a "Lagrange point", look into it.

Is there one between Mercury and the sun though?

Replace Sunshine with Pandorum.

Jensaarai: Darth_Lukecash: First of all, the only Superhero movie that should be on the list is Iron Man: And that's because it's about a rich guy in a science gadget.

The Dark Knight, The Incredibles and Spider Man2 did have some technological elements...was more superhero genre than sci-fi.

The Revenge of the Sith should be on that list not at the top. more towards the lower teens : It was clearly the best of the prequels and is considered equal to Empire for most Star Wars fans.


You had a point until there.

Yeah ... wow. "Most Star Wars fans" must equal no Star Wars fan I have ever met or seen post online. I mean sure, it's the best of the crap that was the prequels, and you can make arguments about it over ROTJ...

Disappointed Serenity was on the list, the thread would have been more fun without it.

I just watched Primer later this afternoon. I'll be confused, but I'll watch it again.

hamdingers: Disappointed Serenity was on the list, the thread would have been more fun without it.

I was actually going to throw a fit because The Matrix wasn't on the list until I remember it was released in 1999.

Hate on Star Trek all you want, I'm just a casual fan and absolutely loved it. The most impressive thing is that the general reaction to the movie is that it was really good. Consider what Abrams was attempting to do, rebooting farking Star Trek, that's a HUGE success in my book.

bob_ross: Thought Host and Paprika were way way overrated.

Haven't seen Paprika, and I find it impossible to get into Asian films, especially their horror films, but I thought The Host was fantastic. One of the very few monster films in existence that has compelling human characters.

Hender: I agree, but..."red matter" my ass.

Learn it, love it (pops)

Darth_Lukecash: hamdingers: Wars fans" must equal no Star Wars fan I have ever met or seen post online

Yeah, wow, because YOUR experience tells you otherwise: Because you think that the prequels were crap means that your opinion isn't colored at all.

I've known people who liked it BETTER than Empire. I known people who said it was a close call,just giving Empire the tip because it has long held to be a classic.

And the Star Wars fan sites that I was on, showed Revenge was considered most peoples second favorite Star Wars movie or their third. Most considered it equal to Empire in terms of darkness and character depth.

For me personally, Empire is the only one I ever fall asleep when I do my Star Wars marathon.

Well, I guess folks have different tastes, but the SW community must have regressed back to the age of 12 for even the best of the prequels to be considered for the number two slot overall. (And I don't mean the age thing as an insult -- More that Lucas's decision to keep it more kid friendly, rather than maturing the series with his fans is paying dividends in a new generation of young fans.) If you're not trying some sort of random troll here, then I am truly surprised. I've met a lot of other Star Wars fans in my day, and none have ranked the movies like you have.

I always liked the space battle of Endor the best, and I love the lightsaber work in Revenge and other prequels, but Empire is the best overall movie out there. It actually stands up outside of Star Wars fandom.

nesler: bob_ross: Thought Host and Paprika were way way overrated.

Haven't seen Paprika, and I find it impossible to get into Asian films, especially their horror films, but I thought The Host was fantastic. One of the very few monster films in existence that has compelling human characters.

Satoshi Kon does a lot of brain breaking stuff as much or more than any horror aspect. Perfect Blue is a scatching social commentary on the nature of fame and fandom, and you're taken along as the main character (a pop idol turned struggling actress) loses her sense of identity (and farking mind.) His Paranoia Agent series was about fear, insecurity, escapism, more people going batshiat insane, and a kid bludgeoning people with a baseball bat.

What I've seen of his work is really good, and I recommend it, but it can be a bit much to take in all at once. That's why I haven't seen Paprika yet. But I will eventually.

CtrlAltDelete: ...ALL OTHER OPINIONS ARE WRONG!...you are INCORRECT.

That is every farker's mentality.

The Bad Astronomer: Pitch Black? Pitch Black?

Pitch Farkin' Black?

Everything was blurry after that.

What was wrong with Pitch Black? I thought it was quite a decent and entertaining movie. I like the idea of the "hero" being of less than stellar character.

costermonger: Useless without:

No kidding. I can only assume they forgot about Children of Men. Or, judging from the rest of that list, it was too understated for them, with not enough costumes and/or CGI explosions.

Jensaarai: Darth_Lukecash: hamdingers: Wars fans" must equal no Star Wars fan I have ever met or seen post online

Yeah, wow, because YOUR experience tells you otherwise: Because you think that the prequels were crap means that your opinion isn't colored at all.

I've known people who liked it BETTER than Empire. I known people who said it was a close call,just giving Empire the tip because it has long held to be a classic.

And the Star Wars fan sites that I was on, showed Revenge was considered most peoples second favorite Star Wars movie or their third. Most considered it equal to Empire in terms of darkness and character depth.

For me personally, Empire is the only one I ever fall asleep when I do my Star Wars marathon.

Well, I guess folks have different tastes, but the SW community must have regressed back to the age of 12 for even the best of the prequels to be considered for the number two slot overall. (And I don't mean the age thing as an insult -- More that Lucas's decision to keep it more kid friendly, rather than maturing the series with his fans is paying dividends in a new generation of young fans.) If you're not trying some sort of random troll here, then I am truly surprised. I've met a lot of other Star Wars fans in my day, and none have ranked the movies like you have.

I always liked the space battle of Endor the best, and I love the lightsaber work in Revenge and other prequels, but Empire is the best overall movie out there. It actually stands up outside of Star Wars fandom.

Look - I'm sure there are people who think it's the best one. Hey I like Star Trek III, lots of folks hate that movie.

My issue was with with the word 'most'. I don't think I'm on shaky ground to assert that this is just not true. Some Star Wars fans exist that rank Ep III as as good/better than Ep V. Most do not.

Well, I guess we are guaranteed that no other site will come up with a list like that one.

Why do horror titles always seem to get lumped in with scifi?

I seem to get motion sickness easy when it comes to reading in a car. The whole shakey cam thing sometimes gets to me.

I didn't have a problem with it in Saving Private Ryan, which is about as early as I can remember it being used (Im sure I will be proven wrong). I actually watched it last month again and completely forgot it was used in it, but found out it still didn't bother me.

Then came Cloverfield.

I could not stand that movie. Within five mins I felt like I was going to vomit. God that was awful. THe actual movie was bad as well. For some odd reason I forced myself through that movie (I was bound and determined) and vowed to never see it again.

Now, I thought to myself "Maybe it was because the movie didn't grip me enough to make me not notice the shaking".

And then I went and saw District 9.

I loved this movie, but it had the same effect as Cloverfield. I don't know what it was, because it kept me interested this time. I still powered through it (I guess I am a masochist) and was glad I did this time. I hope that when it comes out on DVD the effect will be less than it was movie.

The point to this story is, I hate the shaky cam. It needs to go, I feel like I can't fully enjoy some movies because of it (Distric 9) and I am going to start not going to movies because I can't stand the effect on a physical level, and I know it will make me miss a lot of great movies.

Maybe I should try to find out if a movie implements this style before I go and take some ginger or Dramamine before I go. Anybody know any sites that tell you if a movie causes motion sickness or not?

/strangely, im fine on boats
//rant off.

oldebayer: El Chode: But it is Sci-Fi. They employed physicists to ensure its accuracy.

I went into this in another thread yesterday or the day before. Find me one credible physicist willing to agree that you could stick a huge space ship with a heat shield in a stable orbit between the Sun and Mercury for five years, without any on board computer to perform course corrections as needed,

Lagrange point.

and (a) maintaining the orientation towards the sun so that the thing never melted,

Gravity gradient boom. They are used by some current ham radio satellites to maintain a proper antenna orientation towards Earth. I would imagine that one could be used to orient towards the Sun much more easily, given it's much greater gravitational pull. It is a passive system that would work quite well for keeping one side oriented to the Sun in the vicinity of Mercury. It doesn't even necessarily have to use a boom: If the heat shield is significantly heavier than the rest of the spacecraft it would naturally settle in that position anyway.

Passive magnetic stabilization is also a possibility, where permanent magnets are placed on board in a particular orientation to keep the spacecraft oriented properly. Magnetotorqueing, which is similar but uses electromagnets (and very little actual power, guidance system only activates them when it isn't oriented correctly) can also be used to keep a particular orientation.

(b) taking into account the enormous pressure of sunlight itself at that distance on the heat shield,

Wouldn't effect a passive gravity gradient system, because it's a radial outward push from the Sun, not a transverse push. Of course, that pressure (along with the solar wind) makes another passive system possible: A very small solar sail system. One big enough to hold the spacecraft in a stable orientation, but not strong enough to significantly change its position in 5 years.


(c) allowing for all the perturbations of Mercury's gravitational pull,

Lagrange points are stable orbits in a three body system (Sun, Mercury, spacecraft).

(d) taking into account the different flow of time itself in that region of space,

Insignificant at that distance. Time dilation wouldn't become a problem until you were well within the Sun itself.


and (e) about a dozen other things, each as absurd as the presence of a space speedometer on the shuttles in Armageddon, and I will admit, grudgingly, that there was actual science in this movie.

The spinning batmobile in Dark Knight was child's play in comprison.

Not a physicist, but I do know my RAAN from a hole in the ground, from having fooled around with hamsats.

A non-annoying version (new window) of the list.

Wow. Most of those movies sucked. With a few exceptions (mostly the Pixar films and Moon) most of those movies were "Look! Shiny object" shiatfests. "Star Trek" and "Pitch Black"? No. Just no.

Ghastly: I'm sorry, but the new Star Trek movie was crap on so many levels. Absolute crap. Trekkies embraced is simply because they were desperate for anything Trek and thus willfully overlooked the movies many glaring flaws.

Yes, thank you. As an old-school Trekkie who watched the same idiotic "It's Star Trek, dude!" fanbase masturbation with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (also a huge pile of shiat), I can't agree with you more.

The Bad Astronomer: Pitch Black? Pitch Black?

Pitch Farkin' Black?

Everything was blurry after that.

Pitch Black felt like a big-budget version of some Sy-Fy Channel telefilm. Yuck.

Ed Grubermann: Look! Shiny object" shiatfests. "Star Trek" and "Pitch Black"? No. Just

Did you even SEE Pitch Black?

It is the farthest thing from shiny!

SilentStrider: GreenAdder: Ghastly: I'm sorry, but the new Star Trek movie was crap on so many levels. Absolute crap. Trekkies embraced is simply because they were desperate for anything Trek and thus willfully overlooked the movies many glaring flaws.

When Karl Urban is the best actor in a movie, something's wrong.

then there was nothing wrong with Star Trek, unless you ignore every scene Simon Pegg was in.

Speaking of... if they're going to include zombie films as scifi, where's Shaun of the Dead?

Moon is garbage, and deppresing. And hes a clone. There, i runied it for you.

Pitch Farking Black was the worst piece of shiat, ever.
/Except for Claudia Black, who's role was much too short.

mamoru: dittybopper: The Bad Astronomer: Pitch Black? Pitch Black?

Pitch Farkin' Black?

Everything was blurry after that.

What was wrong with Pitch Black? I thought it was quite a decent and entertaining movie. I like the idea of the "hero" being of less than stellar character.

Agreed. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I thought it was a very good science fiction movie. It was an interesting take on a story like Asimov's "Nightfall" but with an action/horror aspect. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Same here.

Were there some holes in the movie? Sure, but not bad enough for me to suspend disbelief.

One notable hole is the creatures themselves: How do they survive underground for 20 something years at a stretch, and why would they have evolved the ability to fly for what is presumably just a few hours or days out every couple of decades? Then again, we don't see the entire life cycle, nor is that within the scope of the story, so I can place my inquisitiveness up on a shelf for a bit while I'm watching the movie because I don't expect the entire answer with the limited perspective of a small slice of time.

Abstruse: It's the new fad...use hand-held to give a "documentary feel" and make it more real. It'll fade into the background here shortly.

I wish I could cock punch whatever producer suggests they film in this method.

It works for films like Bourne, because the movie is more or less taken from the protagonist, who is literally seeing the world unfold in snapshots with little time to interpret but instead just take actions.

IN an actual movie epic like Star Trek... not so much. It really just detracts from the shot which should focus on set design, characters, costumes, and dramatic feel.

Some of the best scenes in Wrath of Khan are when the camera is dead still and the characters are weighing in on the situation. Right before they send the decode signal and take down the shields for last ditch effort as an example.

The Bad Astronomer: Pitch Black? Pitch Black?

Pitch Farkin' Black?

Everything was blurry after that.

Say what you want, as a sci-fi horror the movie was actually pretty good. It setup an intriguing situation with a group of eclectic characters, unlikely hero, and a twist on the ending.

farscape: Moon is garbage, and deppresing. And hes a clone. There, i runied it for you.

That was uncalled for. Had it in my netflix queue and hadn't seen it yet.

Welcome to my ignore list.