I think in it's world building, it's attention to detail, and with showing us a real away mission as well as conflict spanning the stars and the Klingons, the movie is unparalleled within Star Trek. JJ Abrams creates more believable worlds in a few scenes with almost no narrative than even the TVs shows often did, much less the movies. In order to have scale you have to cross scale...hence the faster speeds, and transwarp beaming. I don't have a problem with a greater star-spanning ability, look how well Star Wars did it (even though Lucas apparently didnt understand what a lightyear or parsec was). RAMA
What else would they be connected by? Paper clips? Where else would they be scrambling to reach in outer space but a spacecraft or station? A taco stand? It's like saying Rush is basically a shot for shot remake of Ronin because of the fast cars... and all the chasing on the asphalt. Also, Mission to Mars took a gigantic steaming dump on the previous 4/5ths of the film with that horrendous ending, so I'm offended on general principle with any comparison being made between it and Gravity. Good day, sir. I said GOOD DAY!
My favorite scifi film of the year would be The World's End. After that, in no particular order, I enjoyed Pacific Rim, Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel the most. I haven't yet seen Gravity, which by all accounts is fantastic, so until then I'll also add Iron Man 3 to my list. Thor 2 was entertaining but incredibly forgettable with probably the Marvel series' least interesting story yet. World War Z was very, very meh. I think that's all I saw last year.
Top Five of 2013 Star Trek Into Darkness IMAX Pacific Rim 3D The Wolverine 3D Elysium Gravity 3D Honorable Mention Jurassic Park 3D Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Best of Both Worlds
Now that I've seen it, I'll definitely be adding Europa Report to my list of favorite sf films from 2013. It's a really effective take on the found footage movie, which is surprising, considering how quickly that genre has played itself out. Not that the Academy agrees or anything, but I found it to generally superior to Gravity (although I like both). I still need to see Oblivion and Elysium.
In no particular order: Star Trek Into Darkness Pacific Rim Iron Man 3 Oblivion Thor: The Dark World Honorable Mentions: The World's End Man of Steel I haven't seen any of the other movies talked discussed above, but I do plan on seeing Europa Report, Elysium, Gravity and maybe Ender's Game, I haven't decided for sure on that last one yet.
Mecha is only cool to a small realm of sub-fandom. What's easy to forget with all these cheap live action mecha shows and a handful of decent animated movies and tv shows, is that there has never been a big budget live action mecha movie other than Transformers and none involving machines vs nature (kaiju).
After seeing Upstream Color and Her, I'd have to say Her might be in my top 5, and Upstream Color MAY be in the top 10, tough I'm still mulling it over. I was surprised to find out a day two after I watched Her it was nominated for 5 Academy Awards. So two scifi movies were nominated for Best Picture this year. RAMA
Sci fi films I enjoyed in 2013: Elysium (was I the only one who liked it?) Man of Steel Star Trek Into Darkness Pacific Rim About Time (hey, it has time travel in it) Thor 2 Hunger Games: Catching Fire Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug (I'm lumping SF and fantasy together) Didn't see Oblivion, After Earth, or Enders Game Was let down by Gravity. Beautiful visuals, but I think Bullock is tremendously overrated as an actress. An hour and a half of her whining, and breathing heavily. No thanks
I've only seen The Man of Steel, STID and Gravity. I liked all of them, and Gravity certainly had spectacular effects. The flying debris made me duck.