Best Science Fiction Movies Part 4 and summary

This is the final installment of my list of favorite science fiction films:

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. Some of you will be saying: Wait a minute. What about all that stuff he said against sequels? A fair point, but I would argue that even though it has a “2” in the title, this is not a proper sequel. Is it a sequel of Star Trek: The Motion Picture? I don’t think so. Star Trek: the Motion Picture was a cinematic retelling of the TV show as were all the films that followed. The first film did such a poor job with story and character that it almost doesn’t qualify as Star Trek at all. I don’t think Robert Wise, the director really got it. By contrast Nicholas Meyer, the director of the second film, did get it. The characters were recognizable. The story arc was nicely constructed and led to a satisfying and nail-biting finale. And yes the story was more important than the special effects (not that the special effects were bad).  New characters like the Marcus’s and Mr. Savak dovetailed nicely into the story. Again, the story may not have the best science fiction ideas, but it is a well-executed movie. Speaking as a Trekkie who had been smarting ever since the original series was cancelled, this was the one we had been waiting for.

Jurassic Park. Another movie based on a Michael Crichton novel. Was this guy brilliant or what? The very idea that we could rebuild dinosaurs from DNA recovered from mosquitoes trapped in amber was mind blowing. It seemed so technically feasible (at least until scientists later reported that DNA trapped in amber would degrade after a few hundred thousand years, but still . . .). Not only was it a great idea, but the CGI effects were taken to a level that we had never seen before. Prior to this, dinosaurs in movies were either puppets, or stop motion animation (which tended to be jerky), or film of small lizards with spikes glued onto their backs. The movie basically turns into a horror flick, but it is so expertly done, I didn’t mind. In the end we are left with another reminder that it is not a good idea to screw around with nature. Stephen Spielberg and Michael Crichton, and new CGI proved a spectacular combination (alas, not so much in the sequel).

Okay, this is my final list. There are a lot of movies that could have been on my list, but I had to end it somewhere. I might have come up with a different list at a different point in my life (older and more cynical, or younger and more innocent) but this is the list as it stands today. I look forward to your comments, but please don’t write to me that I screwed up by not including this movie or that movie because this is my list, not yours. Below is the summary of all the movies on my list, and these really are in no particular order:

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Martian

The Andromeda Strain

Interstellar

Star Wars

Alien

The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original)

Blade Runner

The Matrix

Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan

Jurassic Park

(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an ebook through Copypastapublishing.com, Amazon, or the other usual online sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out soon).

Star Liner