My Top Ten Sci-Fi Movies

There are two problems when it comes to compiling a list of my 10 favorite sci-fi movies: first, not everyone would agree that every movie on my list qualifies as science fiction; and second, how do I limit it to just 10?

Well, I agree that some of these movies aren’t really science fiction. I mean, that whole nonsense about being able to erase yourself from existence if you upset the “space-time continuum” in Back to the Future? Yeah, that’s great for the plot, but it has no scientific basis. It’s what Doctor Who would call, “Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.” But it’s still a great movie franchise with a pseudo scientific basis, so it stays. The Avengers, on the other hand, is one of my favorite movies of all time, but it didn't make the list because, well, I just don't think superhero movies qualify as science fiction, particularly when they involve Norse gods.   

And there were about 10 other movies I put on and took off the list, because there really are so many great sci-fi movies. I could play with this list forever, but I had to settle on a top 10, so this is it. Some are classics, while others are just personal favorites. Maybe some are your personal favorites too.

1. Serenity

The movie that followed Joss Whedon’s Firefly: a TV series about Captain Mal (Nathan Fillion) and his motley crew of outlaw space cowboys. Like anything done by Joss Whedon, it has the perfect combination of excitement, comedy, strong characters, awesome heroes, and even more awesome heroines. Netflix has both the series and the movie available for streaming, so if you can, watch the series first and then the movie. Prepare to laugh and cry. A lot. Shiny.

2. E.T.

A young boy named Elliot tries to help a friend from another planet get back to his spaceship. I’ve seen E.T. so many times, and I’ve cried every single time. E.T. will always hold a place in my heart.

3. Inception

A dream in a dream in a dream, and audiences argue which is reality. That’s kind of missing the point, though. This is really a movie about movies and how they affect us. That’s what’s real. Everything on the screen is a dream, and yet those dreams have the power to change our perceptions and our lives.

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4. Star Trek

J.J. Abram’s reboot of the original Star Trek series is nothing short of brilliant. Star Trek Into Darkness is brilliant too. The only question is--where does the series go from here?

5. Blade Runner

What makes someone human? That question isn’t so black-and-white in this movie about a man who hunts down and kills renegade robots that have been programmed to think they’re just as human as the rest of us. This movie does what the best science-fiction does: it entertains while making you think.

6. Back to the Future

Marty McFly endangers his very existence when he travels to the past and accidentally stops the event that led to his mother falling in love with his father in the 1950s. Can he fix the past, save himself, and get back to the present? Yeah, it doesn’t make sense, but it is so much fun.  

7. Men in Black

The Men in Black help good and harmless aliens on Earth, while saving the planet from otherworldly threats. So silly and so funny.

8. Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope

The Star Wars movie that started them all. I know it’s probably just me, but this has always reminded me of a game of Dungeons & Dragons played in space. And I like that. Some things are better when they’re produced on a shoestring budget. The Star Wars series proves it.

9. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Ordinary people are joined together on a quest after an encounter with aliens, in this early Steven Spielberg film. Just thinking of the scene with the car headlights, or the one with the mashed potatoes, puts a smile on my face. Da, da, da..DA, DA.

10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay for the movie based on his hysterically funny science-fiction novel--my all-time favorite in any genre. Arthur Dent is rescued from planet Earth just before it’s demolished to make room for an inter-galactic highway. This isn’t for everyone, but if you love Douglas Adams as much as I do, you should definitely give it a try. Don’t panic, and don’t forget your towel. It’s not as good as the book, but that’s like saying a Hershey bar isn’t as good as Max Brenner truffles. It’s still chocolate, and that means it’s still wonderful.

Fantasy, Science Fiction and the Many Worlds Theory

Before the Many Worlds theory, the separation of fantasy and science fiction was clear. If a story was based on science and scientifically plausible yet not currently possible, it was science fiction. If a story had elements that weren’t based on science and that were not scientifically plausible—like magic, dragons, vampires or ghosts—it was fantasy. The division was clear, and which shelf every book belonged on was simple.

Then along came science fiction writers who used some of the elements of science fiction but sometimes fudged the facts or went beyond what was scientifically possible. So science fiction was divided into hard and soft science fiction. Hard science fiction stuck with what was scientifically possible, and soft science fiction went into the realm of the scientifically impossible. Both were still based on science, but where they went from there on was different.

As time went by, the science in some science fiction became softer and softer, to the point where it was given different labels, like space opera, sci-fi, speculative fiction (or spec-fic or simply SF), or science fantasy. Star Trek, at least after the original TV series, is science fiction. Star Wars, though, is a space opera. Science fiction movies and TV shows that are very weak on their science are generally considered sci-fi. Speculative Fiction tends to be more literary and deal more, as the name implies, with “What if?” rather than what could be. And science fantasy is fantasy with science fiction elements, like Doctor Who. Doctor Who has had episodes with ghosts, vampires, werewolves and so on, usually giving pseudo-scientific explanations for them. You can’t argue that things in Doctor Who are scientifically impossible, because it’s not meant to be science fiction. Stick a bunch of planets in the Earth’s sky without gravity on Earth going haywire, and that’s fine. It’s science FANTASY, so it doesn’t have to follow the laws of science.  

But let’s step back in time a little before all this was going on. In 1957, Hugh Everett formulated a theory that reconciled the indeterministic behavior of subatomic particles with the laws of physics. This theory, which he called the theory of Universal Wavefunction, was later renamed by Bryce Seligman DeWitt and popularized as the Many Worlds theory. According to the Many Worlds theory, our world is one of many—perhaps even an infinite number of worlds—that are like our world but different in ways both big and small. Expansions of the Many Worlds theory have taken this even further by saying that many of these worlds might not even follow our laws of physics.

I repeat: according to expansions of the Many Worlds theory of physics, there are many--perhaps even an infinite number of--worlds out there that don’t follow our laws of physics.    

The Many Worlds theory was both troubling and exciting for the science fiction community. It was exciting because it opened up so many new possibilities. There could be alternate histories, like 19^th century worlds with 21^st century technology, or to put it another way, there could be steampunk. Time-travel paradoxes no longer existed, because instead of traveling back in time to a world where you weren’t meant to exist yet, you would travel sideways in time to an alternate world to which you were always meant to have time traveled. In a scene near the end of the most recent Star Trek movie, the two Spocks are having a laugh at Kirk because the older Spock managed to convince Kirk that his meeting with the younger Spock would cause a time-space paradox, which according to the Many Words theory couldn’t happen. But the meeting of the Many Worlds theory and science fiction was also troubling, because how do you define hard science fiction as being different from soft science fiction, science fantasy, and even fantasy if EVERYTHING (except for paradoxes) is scientifically possible?

I think the distinctions between fantasy, science fiction and science fantasy remain the same, but with one exception: fantasy that uses science to explain the fantasy in it can be science fantasy or even science fiction.

Back when I was in college, I fell in love with a science fantasy series by Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (Shadow & Claw: The First Half of 'The Book of the New Sun'). This series starts out as a pure fantasy novel--or at least it seems to--in a world similar to our middle ages but with other-worldly magical elements. As the story progresses, there are hints that this is not a fantasy world based on the past, but a future world based on our own. In one scene, the main character, Severian, is served what appears to be coffee from an office coffee cart. Because he doesn’t know what this is, he gives the coffee and the cart different names, but we can tell from his description what it is. In another scene, he comes to a path with broken bits of black asphalt. Again he doesn’t know what this remnant from our world is or why it’s there. The reader, however, recognizes this as a hint that long ago this world had paved roads, so long ago that anyone encountering them would not even be able to recognize one as a road. It takes four books, but by the end of the series, we know that this isn’t a fantasy world based on the past but a future world, a science-fiction world in every sense.

The novel I’m currently editing, Toren the Teller’s Tale, is a fantasy based on a literary interpretation of the Many Worlds theory. Because if the Many Worlds theory and its expansions are true, every story--no matter how fantastic--could also be true. They might not be true here, but they could be true on alternate worlds. And if they are true on alternate worlds, then that makes stories spyglasses to those other worlds.

But what does that make the storyteller, the person who lets you see through that spyglass? Some sort of bridge to that other world, perhaps, but a limited one. The storyteller can only take you there in your mind, not physically lead you there. If the storyteller is a filmmaker, he can also show you that world in a way that lets you see and hear it, yet physically you still remain in this world.

But what if--those two favorite words in speculative fiction--what if there were a storyteller who could read and retell physical objects, and even people? What if there were no difference between a word that storyteller told and the object, a story she told and the world that story was about? What if a storyteller could be an actual bridge to the worlds of her stories? What if?

That is the question Toren the Teller’s Tale attempts to answer. It’s the Many Worlds theory in literary terms. It’s metafiction--as in fiction dealing with fiction--but what else is it? Is it a fantasy novel? Is it science fantasy? Or is it a work of speculative fiction? I leave it up to the reader to decide. Opinions may change as the series progresses, because this is meant to be the first book in a trilogy.

Whatever shelf you decide to put it on, I hope you enjoy it.  




Toren, from the soon to be released Toren the Teller's Tale by Shevi Arnold