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Science Fiction

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The 15 Best Hard Sci-Fi Movies That Define the Genre (movieweb.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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We took a trip through decades of the genre and came up with a list of the most important and best hard science fiction movies of all time. They are the essence and the foundations of the book of sci-fi rules that's still being written as we, the audience, become much more self-aware of our relationship with technology, the future, and whatever those two will bring.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 10 months ago (12 children)

Their list:

 15 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

 14 Interstellar (2014) 

 13 Gattaca (1997) 

 12 Solaris (1972) 

 11 Ex Machina (2015) 

 10 Coherence (2013) 
 
 9 Sunshine (2007)  

 8 Primer (2004) 
 
 7 Stalker (1979) 

 6 Gravity (2013) 

 5 THX 1138 (1971) 
 
 4 Ad Astra (2019) 
 
 3 Contact (1997) 
 
 2 The Martian (2015) 

 1 Blade Runner (1982)

doesn't contain Arrival (2016) wtf.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Doesn’t contain Moon, 12 Monkeys, The Arrival, Alien, District 9… there are quite a few movies I would out ahead of Ad Astra and Sunshine at the very least. And possibly Gravity and Solaris too. Also, listing 2001 in 15th place???

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago

doesn’t contain Arrival (2016) wtf

I agree, that was one of the most thought provoking scifi films I’ve seen in a long time.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Doesn't contain The Arrival either. Or Moon, or Alien or Twelve Monkeys… Basically there are a lot of more deserving candidates then Gravity, Ad Astra and Sunshine.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Conspicuous in its absence: anything animated, like Ghost in the Shell (1995), which I'd argue is harder than quite a few things on this list.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Great movie, but I'm not sure it's considered "hard SF." There's no real basis to anchor much of the science in it.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'd say the same thing about "Sunshine" and "Interstellar".

Some movies I might consider including, in no particular order:

  • Moon (2009)
  • 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)
  • Silent Running (1972)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Agreed, and those are all good adds, especially Moon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Silent Running... what a great, prophetic movie.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Both the book and the screenwriting required the invention of a form of alien linguistics which recurs in the plot. The film uses a script designed by the artist Martine Bertrand (wife of the production designer Patrice Vermette), based on scriptwriter Heisserer's original concept. Computer scientists Stephen and Christopher Wolfram analyzed it to provide the basis for Banks's work in the film.[32][33] Their works are summarized in a GitHub repository.[34] Three linguists from McGill University were consulted. The sound files for the alien language were created with consultation from Morgan Sonderegger, a phonetics expert. Lisa Travis was consulted for set design during the construction of the scientist's workplaces. Jessica Coon, a Canada Research Chair in Syntax and Indigenous Languages, was consulted for her linguistics expertise during the review of the script.[35]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrival_(film)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

If you're trying to say that the fact that they invented a realistic language for the film makes it hard SF, I think that's quite a stretch. What's the basis for

spoilera language changing a human's concept of time and allowing them to remember the future
?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Sure, good point, I think of the movie Arrival as two parts:

For most of the movie, a scientist is struggling with a novel interesting scientific problem with guidance from subject matter experts who have established environmental knowledge but not theoretical insight, with a great deal of interference from funders, with inter-team rivalries and a collaborator / competitor tension with similar teams around the world. The problem in question is based on linguistics with the type of thoroughness that is never shown on screen and rarely in print SF. (Compare it to the "Shaka when the walls fell" episode of TNG. I like that episode! But it's cartoony by comparison.) So both the practice and the principle of the research shown has a scientific basis, and if the movie had ended with the lead scientist solving the problem then I think we'd all agree it's Hard SF. However, we also have the last part of the film.

You question the scientific plausibility of the last part of the film. Regarding the story the film is based on, apparently:

In the "Story Notes" section of Stories of Your Life and Others, Chiang writes that inspiration for "Story of Your Life" came from his fascination in the variational principle in physics. -source

but I don't know enough to judge that and though it was kind of uplifting, the last part of the film was qualitatively different from the first, and I agree seems a lot less "Hard SF".

To recap, I argue that at least the first part (a majority?) of the movie is Hard SF. Now the question is: does the last part disqualify it from a) being on this list and b) being Hard SF? Regarding a), the authors of the list say "Contact is hard sci-fi by association because it's not a very realistic film" so they are taking a very forgiving definition of Hard SF. Therefore I stand by my assertion that Arrival is qualified to be on that list. By virtue of the quality with which the first part of the movie proceeds, I argue that it also deserves to be on that list. Regarding b) whether Arrival is Hard SF beyond the definition used by that list I am less certain.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I'm with you on the first part, but the fact that the whole conclusion to the story - the solution to the mystery - ends up being as close to fantasy as to SF to me makes it not a hard SF film. But we're talking about terms for things that exist on a spectrum, not crisply defined black and white. I don't begrudge your take on it, I just feel differently.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I think there is a large gap between Contact and Arrival. Contact involves creating a giant machine that allows ftl communication. Arrival involves the idea that we are born with our neurons already physically imprinted with every memory we will ever save. This is already known to be wrong because we have observed change in neurons.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, though decades old & sounding like it’s from Star Trek, is the basis, from actual linguists. Highly implausible for humans & long outdated, but as the film’s linguist consultant quips, “for aliens, all bets are off.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

what’s the basis for

fiction

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I don't think we're connecting here. Hard science fiction is science fiction with an emphasis on scientific accuracy or plausibility. It's sort of a subgenre, and this list is about movies in that subgenre. It doesn't mean that there aren't great SF movies outside of that subgenre, but this isn't about those.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Although now I have to question the inclusion of Interstellar on this list, because it gets pretty far out there as well, especially at the end.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yeah, valid point

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Ah, gotcha, obviously I didn’t understand the proper connotations of “hard” here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

IRC when I watched it, it seemed to make references to the work of Niklas Luhmann, systems theory and of course Sapir–Whorf.

Sure, those aren't hard sciences, but then again Asimov's the Foundation is also about sociology.

Certainl y as deserving to be on the list as Solaris or Stalker. I absolutely love those movies, but they're very religiously inspired rather than science based.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Haven't heard of half of them. And no Alien? What silliness.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Strongly agree! A sci fi movie list with no “Arrival” is … DOA.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I thought it was time 6 on the list.

Bah…. Never mind. That was another list loaded below that one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I've seen... Primer and Gattaca.

[–] peyotecosmico 2 points 10 months ago

thank you

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I'm guessing you don't know what hard sci-fi is.