| |
I see science fiction
films as being tied, however tenuously, to some scientific concept.
It can be space travel, research, medicine, psychology, time travel,
alternate worlds, or even psychic powers. Some of these things could
be considered as crossing the line into magic, so some of the
choices here are arbitrary. Please note that I don’t demand that the
film take any of these concepts seriously; in fact, I often prefer a
spoof to a solemn film that takes itself too seriously.
Fantasy films, in
contrast, deal with things magical or religious. They can be fairy
tales, stories of ghosts, possession, werewolves, angels, vampires,
the devil ... and also alternate worlds and psychic powers. (See
above.)
To make this list I went
over the genre lists at the
Internet Movie Database, which lists
6,804 SF films and 7,079 fantasy films. (Some are on both lists.) I
also scanned the 9,262 Horror movie titles (“Horror,” in this
context, is usually a synonym for “stupid.” Migod, who
watches this crap?), and culled out a few that don’t
fit either the fantasy or SF definitions. That is, the horror
element was “natural,” either animals or human beings ... which is
where the real horror always lies.
I put animated films in
a separate list. In a sense, probably 90% of animated movies are
fantasy, what with talking dogs and ducks and wabbits, with
alternate laws of physics:
Wile E. Coyote runs out into thin
air, hangs there looking foolish, then falls half a mile, only to
pop up again with a new device from Acme;
Elmer Fudd blows
Daffy’s bill off; and so forth. If
I were to list all my favorites that fit that definition, I’d have
to include the complete works of
Chuck
Jones,
Tex Avery,
Friz Freleng,
Robert McKimson, and all the others
at
Warner Brothers'
Termite Terrace from the ‘30s
through the middle of the ‘50s, when animation budgets got slashed
and
Hanna-Barbera (“Huckleberry
Hound”) and a lot of Japanese (“Speed
Racer”) cheapened technique so badly that only geniuses
like
Jay Ward (“Bullwinkle”) could make
it work. So I pretty much limited the short features to those which
had an actual SF theme. But I cheated a few times. Sue me.
Last, and definitely least, I listed all the SF or fantasy
television series I have ever liked. It’s a very short list, and I
had to stretch even to get that many.
These are films I liked. I don’t claim they are all great. Just a
good night at the movies.
VarleyYarns or
Home |
|
