SF Movies

Saw both Alien Covenant and the Star Wars Rogue One in the last week. Could hardly keep my eyes open, they were so boring. Is it me or has the genre gone downhill?

Rogue One was trash. One of the worst movies I think I have ever seen. Alien Covenant was tolerable, with some laughable scenes, and some true cheese. It was no Aliens, not even close, but I've seen worse. I loved the android.

I think the part that pissed me off the most in Covenant was the neutrino storm damaging the starship. I was like... o_O at that, because... well, umm... neutrinos are non-interacting particles. It was a worthless scene, much like the terraforming equipment impaling whoever it was that got impaled off the side of the flying landing platform, which was another o_O scene.

I think superhero movies are responsible for wrecking the entire SF scene, but there are some good movies here or there that come out but alas, they are rare. The Martian and Interstellar stand out as fantastic examples of what the genre could be in the last few years. Another decent one I saw was "The Machine", and "The Signal" was decent.

The Martian was good hard SF, but Interstellar? Well not too impressed I'm afraid.

Interstellar was good until the rushed BS explanation. It was just too much, too far fetched. I do get just not understanding something, but not under those circumstances.
Rogue One is better every time I see it, but I admit it wasn't what I expected. After that shock, I find it to be excellent and a sign of the SW universe growing up some.
Alien Covenant was on par with Prometheus, but at least the crew wasn't quite as stupid. Once again, they wasted a good character by killing off...well, no spoilers I guess.
The Martian was excellent. I love having a confident and intelligent character that doesn't break down emotionally every few minutes. Also a very good adaptation of the book that was written as a journal.

Edge of Tomorrow was good. Oblivion was good, but didn't go far enough. Both worthy of watching, but EoT is the one I'm more likely to crank up to rewatch.
Ghost in the Shell was good.
Ever see Wall-E? It's animated but one of the better scifi movies of the last many years.

As for GREAT scifi, I don't know. Star Wars aside, as I'm a huge fan of the recent two movies so far. I'm worried Blade Runner 2049 will just try to capture the mood and look of the first movie and drop the ball on the story.
Still haven't seen Valerian.
Bright looks really good to me, but that's in Dec I think. Mute takes place in the "Moon" universe, so it might be really good. Watch Moon if you haven't already.

The best scifi is on tv now...insert my standard plug for The Expanse.

My wife and I were a bit excited about a new Star Trek spin-off on Fox (USS Orville). We watched the premier last night...it was really bad. It was touted as a Star Trek spin-off, but only loosely followed the usual Star Trek structure.

There have been a few really good sci-fi shows in the last few years, but every one of them was cancelled. Television networks aren't giving new shows long enough to build a following before they axe them.

I agree - good science fiction is like a good work of art

To true, to many good SF writers are getting the shaft with cancellations. I really wanted to see season 3 of Dark Matter.

As I wrote in the Orville tthread: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.p...scovery-ill-be-watching-this#Post4357583

"I liked it, didn't love it. The humor is juvenile / sophomoric. First episode started off slow but got better, I hope the series does the same."

I haven't seen Alien Covenant, but Prometheus was terrible, so I haven't expected much from Covenant. I thought Rogue One was pretty good, though, and the end had a lot of action. Way better than TFA. Different strokes, I guess.

Last night I watched Star Trek: Beyond on the tv, don't know how it ended as I switched it off and went to sleep.

So many Sci Fi TV shows get cancelled during their first season, usually just after the 2nd episode that I do not want to invest the time to watch a new show knowing that the story is going to go nowhere. It was the BBC's Outcasts series that finally broke it for me, they didn't even finish the first series before they cancelled the show.

The previous Sci Fi film I watched was Lucy, it was ok, but I don't think I'll bother watching it again.

Looking at The trailer for The Orville, I think I will pass on it.

LOL!! Now that's a loaded and great question!


In my humble opinion I think your age has a lot to do with it. Most of these current sci-fi movies are not watched with such a critical eye by people who are in their 30's or younger. In other words, NOT the SimHQ demographic.

I think the greatest example of this are the Star Wars prequel films like "Phantom Menace". Those films were overwhelmingly enjoyed by viewers who were in their 20's and younger (ie people too young to remember the original trilogy). On the other hand, many people in their 30's and older who watched the prequels hated them.


Concerning Alien: Covenant specifically, I didn't find the film to be dull so much but instead found the plot and the character motivations to be uninspired. The film really brought nothing new and I think Fox just needs to retire the Alien franchise now before more damage is done.

Really good "hard" sci-fi unfortunately really doesn't sell in theaters so hence why we get almost exclusively "action scifi" movies. Like Raw mentioned earlier, if you really want good hard scifi you can find it on cable tv or streaming.

That has changed a lot now since the ratings now take into account both streaming and DVR viewers. There are sci-fi shows now on tv that aren't even getting 1 million live viewers per week but are still around thanks to streaming and DVR viewers. The best example of this is "The Expanse" which is definitely not a cheap show to produce.


In the past, any scifi show getting less than 1 million viewers per week meant certain cancellation during the first season.

The Expanse is the best thing to happen to sci-fi on television in years.

All the touting I had seen, showed a parody. Which it did very well. You have to leave your brain in the drawer, I thought they had cool looking ships even parodying the crash landing shuttle bay maneuvers from SW, ST, and "Space Above and Beyond".