Cerebral Sci-Fi Films

[jefferiestubes8]

I came across a trailer this week for a Russian cerebral scifi film Target from Alexander Zeldovich that will come out later this year.

Other cerebral scifi films would include:
Inception, Akira (1988), Stalker (1979) (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky), Brazil (1985) (dir. Terry Gilliam), Gattaca (1997) (dir. Andrew Niccol), Dark City (1998) (dir. Alex Proyas), eXistenZ (1999) (dir. Cronenberg), Minority Report (2002) (dir. Steven Spielberg), THX1138 (1971) (dir. George Lucas), La Jetee (1962) (dir. Chris Marker), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) (dir. Michel Gondry), Solaris (1972) (dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, The Fountain (2006) (dir. Darren Aronosfky), Blade Runner (1982) (dir. Ridley Scott), The Matrix (1999) (dir. The Wachowskis), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Are they all scifi? Yes. Are they all high concept? no.
Heck, where is Primer (2004)

Target's trailer looks pretty good. the synopsis sounds cool:

In the year 2020, a group of wealthy Moscovites travel to an abandoned astrophysics complex, rumoured to have enough power to halt the process of ageing

No this thread isn't a best-of scifi movie list. Cerebral sci-fi films are not necessarily hard science or realistic science-based scifi films. They are more the thinking man's film. The Matrix would be the most recent example (even from 1999) of a large concept cerebral film other than the ideas in Inception.

Yes we all know scifi action films sell the most tickets (mostly because of the visual effects) but its the cerebral scifi films that can have the best concepts and ideas. Look at Moon.
What do you guys think about cerebral scifi films?

[Klaus]

The Quiet Earth comes to mind... Brazil is my fav on that list.

[Starbreaker]

Some of my favorite films are on that list. I often think of The Prestige as being the cream of the crop, though.

[Mr. Adventure]

What, no Zardoz?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Galaxina.



Dude with the Richard Hatch 'do was on the short list to play Jean Luc Picard, BTW.

[xortex]

Yea, that is a mind blower, quite literally.

[Kegg]

Target doesn't look bad. I'll have to keep an eye out for that.

And I'm going to give the obligatory shout out to Fritz Lang's weird, symbolic opus, Metropolis, as nobody's done that yet, and Duncan Jones' follow-up to Moon, Source Code, is worthy of the nod... also A Scanner Darkly.

[Yminale]

How do you define a "Cerebral" film. There are many great films with themes with intellectual, spiritual and even political themes.

Some I think should belong the list

"Dark Knight"
"Iron Man"
"Hulk (2003)"
"Children of Men"
"Silent Running"
"Solyent Green"
"Empire Strikes Back"
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
"Blade Runner"
"Planet of the Apes (original not the awful remake)"
"2001"
"Star Trek I-VI"
"12 Monkeys"

[Harvey]

I was going to come running into this thread with Andrei Tarkovsky's two great science fiction films -- both quite cerebral -- but the OP got to them before I had the chance. Kegg's suggestion of A Scanner Darkly is a good one, though. I love that movie.

[Mysterion]

Dennis wrote:

---

Dude with the Richard Hatch 'do was on the short list to play Jean Luc Picard, BTW.

He showed up later on as a Bajoran General in the second season of Deep Space Nine.

[Starbreaker]

I like the Children of Men example. One of my favorites.

[Bob Morton]

Children of Men is great, as are alot in this thread.

How about Colossus: The Forbin Project.

[RAMA]

In addition: Man from Earth, Contact, AI, Andromeda Strain, 2010(1984), Sunshine, Inception, Ghost in the Shell(1995), Patlabor I and II, Cypher, New Rose Hotel, Day the Earth Stood Still(2008), Solaris(2002), The Road, Things to Come(1936), Silent Star(1960), Alphaville(1965), 1984, Alien(1979), Moon, District 9, Gattaca, Slaughterhosue 5, Fahrenheit 451, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Illustrated Man, Charly(1968)...all to varying degrees of quality.

RAMA

[Bonzo the Fifth]

Harvey wrote:

---

I was going to come running into this thread with Andrei Tarkovsky's two great science fiction films -- both quite cerebral -- but the OP got to them before I had the chance. Kegg's suggestion of A Scanner Darkly is a good one, though. I love that movie.

Yeah, I'm with you, Harvey. I came in all set to mention Primer, but it also was in the first post.

Personally, I define cerebral SF as anything that makes me go cross eyed at at lest one point trying to unknot the ramifications of the premise. I really have no idea how you would define it formally, though...

[Greg Cox]

I would definite cerebral scifi as sf movies that are not primarily action-adventure stories. Or monster movies. Or war stories.

Note: this doesn't mean that sf action movies are brainless. ALIENS and WRATH OF KHAN are both smart, clever movies. But they're intended, to a large degree, to be rousing adventures that get your heart pumping, not thoughtful, twisty meditations on the nature of time and space or whatever . . . .

GATAACA is a cerebral sf movie. COLOSSUS, which has almost no action sequences or special effects, works on a mostly cerebral level.

Is BLADE RUNNER cerebral scifi? That's a tricky one . . . .