overated SCIFI movies

[The Borgified Corpse]

Another vote for 2001 & Blade Runner. Both of these films frequently appear in the top 2 spots of lists of the greatest sci-fi films of all time. I don't find either of them entertaining.

I like parts of 2001, particularly the Dave/HAL stuff. It would be a great short film. Unfortunately, it's padded with too much surreal imagery and realistic depictions of future space travel.

I want to like Blade Runner but there's just no energy to the film. Harrison Ford seems totally lost playing outside the Han Solo/Indiana Jones archetype.

The original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still would have been a great half-hour Twilight Zone episode but is a total bore in feature length.

Although I loved Peter Weller on Odyssey 5, I think he's just totally incapable of generating any interesting screen presence in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. (I suspect the movie would have been more interesting if Jeff Goldblum in the lead.)

Alien is OK but nowhere near as good as Aliens.

I hear a lot about Dark City whenever The Matrix comes up and I still haven't seen it.

There's sort of an unofficial trilogy of late 1990s sci-fi films that all deal with a similar premise about a world being mysteriously controlled by unseen powers-- Dark City, The Matrix, & The Thirteenth Floor. The Matrix was the only one that found much mainstream success, primarily because it's the only one with a lot of action to supplement the philosophy. The other two are trying for something more noirish.

I kept waiting for the mad scientist and his evil robot to show up.

See, this is the same problem I have whenever I see a new romantic comedy.

 

[davejames]

Query - what do the people here who disliked 2001 or found it overrated think of 2010?

I myself like both, but find the latter far more comprehensible and even enjoyable. Not many hard sci-fi adventure flicks out there, but 2010 pulls it off.

I've only seen 2010 a couple times, but I thought it was about as good a non-Kubrick directed sequel as there ever could have been.

Obviously they could never have duplicated the style of the first movie, so I don't hold that against them. But I still wish they held onto more of the MYSTERY, and didn't try to be so literal with it.

 

[dru]

I've a feeling ST09 will be cropping up on lists like this for the forseeable future. At least fom a certain segment of fandom.

"Now what is that supposed to mean?" - Uhura, TWOK.

ST09 is gibberish.

 

[Blue_Trek]

I agree 2001 is overrated, it has some great classic music, but that alone will not make me enjoy the movie.

As for the Matrix it's not overrated, I found it to be a unique movie at the time, it didn't do so great at the BO, but did well on DVD or VHS at the time. It's international numbers were strong too, it's a 10 year old movie now.

 

[SeerSGB]

-- Matrix (All of them).
-- Alien / Aliens
-- Ghost In The Shell (the movie, not the series)
-- Event Horizon

 

[Ward Fowler]

Several people are calling out both 2001 and Blade Runner. Those are two of my favorite films of any genre. However, after thinking about it, I realize that I enjoy them not so much for narrative reasons, but rather the atmosphere created in each film. I guess it only stands to reason that a strong narrative is important to a lot of people.

 

[Tom]

Here is a true story,

Januarary 28th, 1986

I was watching 2010 on HBO when I was a teen, while watching ( I don't remember if it was near the end of the movie or not) I flipped over to my local station and the Space Shuttle Challenger just took of and then exploded!! So the irony is that I was watching a film about our possible future in space and at the same time the Challenger exploded setting Nasa behind at least 3 years.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Serenity

 

[Chris_Johnston]

deleted

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've a feeling ST09 will be cropping up on lists like this for the forseeable future. At least fom a certain segment of fandom.

"Now what is that supposed to mean?" - Uhura, TWOK.

ST09 is gibberish.

Gibberish or not, it will still crop up on lists of films loved, hated or overrated. The latter two from those most vocal about their distain.

Was that really so hard to understand?

Though the idea its "overrated" after only being out for a few months seems to be putting the cart before the horse. The dust hasn't even settle yet.

 

[zakkrusz]

My list would be:
2001: A Space Odyssey (Interesting tech, but totally boring most of the time)
Blade Runner (Okay, but not great.)
Contact (All build up and no delivery.)

 

[RobertScorpio]

My list would be:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
Contact

Oh oh..I loved Contact. I think its UNDERATED...lol..oh well, what can i say..

Rob

 

[SeerSGB]

My list would be:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
Contact

Oh oh..I loved Contact. I think its UNDERATED...lol..oh well, what can i say..

Rob

I was about to say that myself. Contact, in my experience, is pretty much considered not to be that great of a film. I will grant it's not for everyone's taste, though.

 

[RobertScorpio]

My list would be:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
Contact

Oh oh..I loved Contact. I think its UNDERATED...lol..oh well, what can i say..

Rob

I was about to say that myself. Contact, in my experience, is pretty much considered not to be that great of a film. I will grant it's not for everyone's taste, though.

I think its the ending that ruins it for some...when she meets the alien in the form of her father..but i loved it. And I liked how she was seen no better than moses, but with no tablets to prove her trip...great movie..though not for all I guess and thats cool...

Rob

 

[Too Much Fun]

YES. Finally some other people who think "Blade Runner" is overrated. That was one of the most disappointing movies I've ever seen. After so much hype about it being a classic sci-fi movie (and I loves me some classic sci-fi), it was a crushing bore. All that really impressed me were the special effects, production design, and make-up, but I couldn't give a damn about any of the characters. I'll never understand why this movie is considered so deep. All I saw was Harrison Ford chasing Rutger Hauer until an anti-climactic climax fight in the rain. Yawn.

2001: A Space Odyssey is a bit of a slog to get through with its lethargic pace, but I wouldn't call it overrated. I found the interactions between HAL and Dave fascinating and HAL's appearance, voice, and dialog were awesome (as were the visual effects/production design). I think it had a lot more going for it than "Blade Runner".

"Buckaroo Banzai" is just a ridiculous, incoherent mess, but I love it for that. Of all the movies I've seen (and that's a lot), it's probably the one I've felt the most bewildered by (at the end I really couldn't comprehend what what had happened and why), but I enjoyed its absurdity. And I found Peter Weller's character charming, even though I didn't really understand the point of him or the story he was in.

I didn't have to know what was going on to have fun watching it. I couldn't tell you what was up with John Lithgow's character, but I do know that he was hilariously over-the-top and when he yells at and kills Christopher Lloyd's character (for correcting Lithgow on how to pronounce his name!), it was the funniest death scenes I've ever seen in a movie. If nothing else, that alone makes it worth watching and praising.

 

[Nerys Myk]

"Buckaroo Banzai" is Doc Savage on acid.

 

[Harvey]

I don't think 2001: A Space Odyssey is overrated. No intelligent critic has tried to argue that it is a fast-paced entertainment. It's slow, contemplative, and deliberatly anti-narrative (as anti-narrative as a film with a wide release could get, anyway, even in the 1960s with Kubrick's immense power). It's also a visual spectacle that remains a visual spectacle more than four decades since it was released--if you see it in the proper format. It isn't done justice when it's panned and scanned, or the detail is reduced for video or television. The new Blu-Ray version goes a long way in righting such injustice, but there's no comparison to 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen. I've seen it projected twice, and it makes your jaw drop.

Now, The Matrix, on the other hand, has a strong argument to be made that it is overrated. Not only have critics lauded it for being entertaining, but they've also lauded it for being deeply thought-provoking. Egg seemed to be on their face with the incoherent babble in the two sequels, but wiser critics would have noticed the juvenille silliness of the first film. "I know kung fu?" Please.

 

[Rii]

Children of Men, a film that utterly failed to deliver on its intriguing premise. 20 minutes in I was enthralled, by the end I just wanted it to be over.

 

[Chrisisall]

I can see why, with respect to today's viewers and movie aesthetics, that 2001 would be considered over-rated, at least in terms of the viewing experience. Heck, it even drew some pretty widely split reviews back in the day. However, its impact on films and sci-fi in particular stands pretty tall.

Nice FX aside, it's a well-photographed, psuedo deep mess like The Matrix. Star Trek TMP is a better film than both of them, IMO.

Serenity

I can kill you with my brain.

 

[Trubinator]

2001: Quite memorable, but the first and last quarters are retarded.
Star Trek (2009): A good movie, but not a Sci-Fi epic like some seem to think.
District 9: Had some good moments, but overall it was pretty muddled.