I need to see a good sci-fi movie I haven't seen...

Let's see if anyone can name a great sci-fi film to watch that I haven't seen. I want to watch some, but I've practically run out of things to watch...

You and me are in the same boat then. I'm always looking for new stuff to watch and SimHQ usually provides some good results.

Midnight Special?

Snowpiercer?

Children of Men?

Seen Midnight Special and Children of Men, but haven't seen Snowpiercer, but it's one I have been saving for when I'm absolutely out of everything.

What else?

Midnight Special was pretty good but kinda unravelled in the latter half. Children of Men was great.

I usually just google for stuff. 'Best sci-fi films you've never seen' usually does the trick.

Have you tried 'A Scanner Darkly'? Dark City?

Hopefully someone else will pop in with some recommendations.

I love Dark City. Scanner Darkly I turned off about halfway in. I just wasn't jiving with the drug use. Sad, too, because I love Phillip K. Dick adaptations.

Moon

The Expanse (TV series; admittedly "not a film")

Gravity (arguably "not science fiction")

Interstellar

2001

Hard to make recommendations if we don't know which ones you have seen, and which of them you would rate as a "great" film; I mean, I know some who think that DIsney's "The Black Hole" was a "great film" when I found it to be absolutely terrible... Does "STar Wars" count as "science fiction" or is it "fantasy in a space setting"? Are the Marvel Avenger films "science fiction", and would you rate them "great films"?

Seen Moon, Expanse, Gravity(I loved it despite the critics), Interstellar(plenty of gripes but loved it), 2001(one of the best), and The Black Hole was pretty awesome to me as a kid.

Comic book movies SUCK ASS. They are NOT science fiction. #%&*$# superhero #%&*$#.

Star Wars is scifi/fantasy.

The Andromeda Strain

Frau im Mond

The Noah’s Ark Principle

Primer

Seen Andromeda(of course!) and Primer.

Not seen Frau or Noah's...

This one?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3794028/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Doesn't seem science fiction?

But this one?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086911/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Looks interesting. =)

Cargo https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381940/


Oblivion was on tv here last night it was not too bad

LOL. No, this one:


https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0019901/?ref=m_nv_sr_1

Saw Cargo and Oblivion a couple years ago. Loved them both.

Don't really care about Cruise's personal life, and have yet to see a bad film he's in.

That's going way, way back, Panzer. :P I'm pretty sure I've seen it before, but I'll check it out.

Ex Machina

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls005758238/


https://screenrant.com/greatest-overlooked-sci-fi-movies/


https://medium.com/singulardtv/10-obscure-sci-fi-classics-youve-probably-never-heard-of-bd4312cc30d5

I thought Oblivion was a good film,I've seen it 3 times so far.

I'll check out Cargo.

Betcha didn't know about Approaching the Unknown

I know you've seen a lot of scifi so I was trying to suggest some obscure films.


Having said that, "Frau im Mond" is the first film ever to portray a countdown launch sequence.

Never heard of this one but it has several well known actors in it!

I like "Oblivion" but it loses a lot in subsequent viewings once you know what the big twist/reveal is.

I watched Cargo last night. It was a good film but about 10 minutes in I realised I'd seen it before. I still did the whole thing again though.

Stupid memory

One major reason why I liked "Oblivion",

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-andrea-riseborough-disconnect-2012-66591295.html

I enjoyed "Annihilation."

I was going to recommend Oblivion too but you all got that covered. One of the few movies I took myself to see and I had the whole theater to myself! I thought it was pretty good and visually fun to watch.

Apollo 18

The Keep (Saw this a few years ago and it was a cool and eerie little movie)

The Seventh Sign (the theology is junk but its kind of an interesting movie with some interesting scenes so that's why I bring it up in a sci-fi themed discussion. I like Michael Biehn and Jurgen Prochnow who is also in The Keep if memory serves)

Jacob's Ladder (I don't remember much about it other than it was kind of weird but also kind of interesting)

The Ritual (Watched this on Netflix awhile back. Normally something titled like this I would not be watching but it turned out to be quite interesting and with a unique and creepy monster)

Leviathan 1989 (Saw it as a kid I think or at least parts of it. I don't remember the quality but I recently bought it but haven't watched it yet)

Deep Star Six (Similar kind of thing but I've not seen it so not sure if its any good. Its on Amazon Prime right now I think)

Dreamcatcher 2003 (I remember liking this one except for the sh!%t weasels )

The Thing (John Carpenter)

The Thing 2011 (I only saw it once so I can't remember how it was. I think it was pretty decent as a sort of prequel to the other one if memory serves)

Frequency

Outlander (Its been awhile but I remember liking this one with future space man and vikings fighting a really well done movie monster)

13th Warrior (Love this one!)

Solomon Kane

Season of the Witch (One of the few lower budget(I'm assuming) Nicolas Cage movies that I thought was actually quite good)

Europa Report

The Last Days on Mars (I seem to remember not thinking this was very good. Europa Report though is decent and visually impressive at times if memory serves)

Edge of Tomorrow

The Philadelphia Experiment 1984

This was Michael Mann's directorial debut. I saw this on cable sometime during the 1980's.

Thanks for the list Coot!

One to add to the list : Automata (Antonio Banderas). Any Blackadder fans will be surprised to see a certain gentleman in a very different role.

Something a bit left field ... Slaughterhouse 5:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069280/

Nice list, Coot. Great thread, I've been looking for the same.

One that has gone unmentioned is Danny Boyle's Sunshine.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

How is Sunshine? I was curious about that one.


Here are more suggestions from memory and also from looking through some of my stuff to try to help out with more ideas:

Below (With Bruce Greenwood. If memory serves it may be more of a supernatural/murder mystery kind of movie but it takes place on a WW2 sub and I remember it being pretty good)

Deja Vu

Signs (One of the few M. Nights Shamalasomething movies I really enjoyed.)

The Objective (I really liked this little movie! I think it was probably independent, straight to DVD production but its great. I bought it used at Blockbuster years ago and liked it so much I bought a newer copy later. Actors were provided with some real tactical training by ex special forces and its a very interesting story and well done and well acted. The ending was kind of open ended but gives enough closure while still maintaining the story's mystery. I'm not sure if they were intending a sequel but I think it deserves one.)

The Triangle (I think originally a made for TV movie but its pretty good. Not great but pretty good with some great actors like Sam Neil and Lou Diamond Phillips. I remember watching it with my grandmother on TV(One of those three day weekend miniseries I think) and thought it was so so but watched it again after buying it on Amazon a few years ago and enjoyed it more the second time.)

Storm of the Century Stephen King miniseries (I really enjoyed it and the setting though it maybe a little more on the supernatural side)

The X Files 1998

Stargate

Super 8

Roswell 1994 (I don't know where to find this TV movie but I remember liking it. Pretty great cast too if memory serves, very unique such as Dwight Yoakam playing Max Brazel)

The Fourth Kind (I usually don't care for creepy "real footage" movies but this one is supposedly based off of real research and it was pretty interesting)

Fallen 1998 (more spiritual in nature but very interesting. Has Elias Koteas who I always find to be an excellent actor whenever I see him. He's also in the above movie.)

The Mothman Prophecies (This is a drama with Richard Gere that's interesting. However if you want to see a VERY interesting, entertaining and well done documentary try Eyes of the Mothman. One of the few well done documentary's I've seen on what some consider fringe subjects that are rarely done well.)

The Legend of Boggy Creek 1972 (I love this docudrama. Feels like watching an extended episode of In Search Of with great music and filming presentation.)

Fire in the Sky

Legion 2010 (Not a great movie but a fun popcorn movie with an actually pretty well done and eerie angel scene.)

Innerspace (With Dennis Quaid. Always loved this comedy/action movie.)

Enemy Mine (Also with Dennis Quaid. Saw this as a kid but I really don't remember much about it. I need to see it again.)

The Last Starfighter

Capricorn One

The Arrival 1996 (With Charlie Sheen. I really enjoyed this one. The straight to VHS/DVD, not the same actors sequel is garbage though.)

The Sphere (Not great in my opinion but a fun watch.)

The Relic (I can't remember if its any good.)

Mimic 1997 (Has a pretty cool monster and is a decent but not great 90s film.)

Highlander

The Abyss

My Science Project

The Devil's Rock 2011 (I've never seen it but would like to. Seems to have some fans. I believe its on Netflix or Amazon right now as I remember adding it to a watch list)

Dog Soldiers (I bought this one and remember quite liking it. British soldiers, Scottish Highlands, werewolves. The werewolves are some of the creepiest and best I've seen in a movie using just good ol' practical effects/props. Really well done monsters in this.)

Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (Basically one of "those" kinds of Bigfoot movies but I actually liked it over many of the other junk fictional movies on the topic. It actually has a pretty cool twist and speculation in the movie.)

Devil's Pass (Seemingly another one of "those" kinds of movies when I picked it up, expecting it to be mediocre to poor but this one actually surprised me. It still has some of those annoying youngster type characters but they aren't with you through the whole movie. Without spoiling it, the movie has a very cool, eerie and interesting mystery and foe and one of those movies that get's better as it goes along. Just put up for a little while with what seems like a mediocre movie and it gets much better and interesting. One of the better of "those" kinds of movies I've seen. Plus its fun if you're interested in the real-life Dyatlov Pass mystery.)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Darkman

Transcendence

Limitless

Red Planet

Hangar 18

Hanna

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun

Dragonfly (Kevin Costner)

Minority Report

The Manchurian Candidate (I'm speaking of the remake as I've only seen parts of the original. Honestly I actually greatly disliked it when I first saw it but I watched it again a few years ago and was able to enjoy more the second time around.)


Some of mine may have veered a touch out of science fiction but I think they are close enough. Please forgive some of my commentary next to the films if that annoys. I'm a little bit tired and somewhat compulsive sometimes unfortunately lol. I hope these give you all some ideas. I appreciate your all's as well as I like a good sci-fi movie myself.

I for one didn't like it at all, but others apparently did. It's not even the utterly ludricrous premise of the movie that the sun could stop burning in a not very distant future (which flies in the face of everything we know about stellar astronomy, and physics), or that the human race has the technology to change that (which flies in the face of everything we know about stellar astronomy, and physics). Even if you can forget about that (and I'm not sure if I can, it may be a source of bias), I still don't rate it as a good film. Quoting from some IMDb user, it is as if the movie makers, halfway through making the movie, abruptly changed their mind, turning a space epic adventure with promising potentials into a space horror B-movie.
I'm not against space, horror, or B-movies. Usually you can combine at least two to good effect, like "Alien", but Alien has an extremely solid plot. MId-film in Sunshine you'll spot ginormous plot holes like, . The entire horror part hinges on the laziest premise possible,
The visuals are nice, though.


I wish there wouldn't have been the Alien in the living room, though.
The film is perfect up to the point where the rattling of the house stops and they leave the basement/shelter. Had the film ended there, it would have been deliciously ambiguous, an uncollapsed wave function. But noooo...


I fully support those recommendations.


NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!!!11!1!
My prime example of the terror of wasted opportunity. It could have been great, the Avengers of the 19th Century, and then we get a car chase - in Venice.


Hinges very much on the acting capability of a teenage girl, but she pulls it off. Wouldn't call it a science fiction film however, but it's a solid thriller that is just gradually more far-fetched than a Jason Bourne movie.

League was one of the only movies in my life that I've walked out of the theater from barely a quarter of the way into the film. Yep. I walked out and went home.


Lots of suggestions here, guys! A few I haven't seen(mostly the very, very obscure ones), so I'll keep you updated as I watch them. Thanks.

If I didn't take time to comment on a listed suggestion that does not equate it to me espousing them as excellent. Just some suggestions. League is a movie I did not like either the first time I saw it. I only liked it a little better the second time around and I know its more on the fantasy side. However I tend to believe most of, even the best scifi movies are, truth be told, more fantasy than any actual science. Science Fiction covers a wide range. I listed Hanna, which by the way is not that good, only because I think it has a genetic manipulation angle revealed at the end. I agree that part of what makes Signs so good in what it was doing was the fact they kept the threat hidden for so long. Monster movies are almost always better when they DON'T show the threat.

However in Sign's case, I personally disagree about the idea of ending the movie before the threat is shown. The cusp of the story was its moral and prophetic outcome that all at once, in an instant, imparted understanding and revelation to that small family who up until that time, were struggling with the seemingly meaningless nature of their hardships that up until then, had made no sense. Then when the foe does show up, its done literally at the very last minute, you don't really see it clearly for long, which to me continues to add to the mystery, not take away because the viewer is not afforded much time at all with its short revealing. Then enters the beauty of the revelation, the in its own way mysterious wonder that is the unseen hand of Providence at work and guiding this family all along, including equipping them with everything they would need to survive the unknown danger in their future and it was all delivered prophetically by the dying matriarch of the household some time before the event. Everyone was being prepared unbeknownst to them as well as equipped to battle, unto victory, a great enemy that they could not have even begun to foresee coming in their future.

...and yet, if your only, mortal weakness is water, which solar planet would you least want to invade?
Come on.

I watched “Ex Machina” last night and I think it’s an outstanding movie. It’s so awesome to have a sci-fi film that makes you think and contemplate instead of getting yet another brainless action sci-fi movie from Hollywood.

If you liked Ex Machina, Panzer, try "The Machine" next.

How about 'Screamers' with Peter Weller? It's very B movie though

others I like

Ex Machina
Edge of Tomorrow
Last Starfighter

I thought “Source Code” and “Predestination” were pretty interesting.

Recently I rediscovered some classics... still highly watchable and much more interesting than the crap we get today: powerful, with big ideas and amazing scripts


- Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut - 1966)
- 1984 (1984)
- Rollerball (original with James Caan)
- Soylent Green
- Powder
- Jacob's ladder
- Metropolis
- Dreamscape
- Brainstorm
- a boy and his dog
- Slaughterhouse 5
- Tron
- Close Encounter
- darkstar
- Time after time

Stil my top 3:

- BladeRunner
- Interstellar
- Moon

I watched "Another Earth" and "Screamers" this weekend.

Screamers was well, so much potential with the opening premise but they wasted it on a poor script, editing and bad storyboarding. It needed tension. Neat concept though.

Another Earth was pretty good, but quite a different film than what I was expecting. It managed to do what Arrival was trying to do(sort of?), but did it well. Arrival was bad. Another Earth was good. Wasn't so much sci-fi though. Gave some good mentions in the film to classic sci-fi, but probably could have explored the sci-fi aspects moreso.


Those are all great movies Guynemer27. I think I've seen every one, save for maybe Powder, and I'm assuming you mean the Malcom Mcdowell "Time after Time."

yes this one...

you can try these too:

- another earth
- beyond (netflix)
- Monsters 1 and 2

and for the last a little rare one: the firts movie from Luc Besson: Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle) -a post-apocalyptic tale

I'll have to give "Darkstar" another shot. I tried watching it a few years ago and I couldn't get past the endless scene where one of the crew members is chasing the orange ball alien or whatever it was supposed to be.

Silent Running?

Love Silent Running. I like my sci-fi dark and depressing.

Dark Star is required viewing for sci-fi fans, Panzer. =)

Dark Star is a little gem. Directed by John Carpenter and written by Dan O'Bannon (who also starred). Plus it was the inspiration for Red Dwarf. I need to check that out again soon,thanks for the reminder Blastman.

One thing that caught my attention about "Darkstar" is the scene where one of the guys has the "fast knife between the fingers trick" done on one of his hands. I guess James Cameron was a big fan of that movie so he included the same knife trick in "Aliens".

Also notable (but not very non-obvious) is that the entire crew of Dart Star were pretty much stoned as hell during the entire taking of the film, ... legend alleges. Which explains some of the more silly scenes just nicely.

Battle Beyond Space

Decline of the 6th Fleet

Planet of the Vampires

X-The Unknown

Under the Skin

I couldn't find this one on IMDB. Did you mean "Battle Beyond the Stars"?

The Quiet Earth (1985)

I loved The Quiet Earth!

Great movie. Kinda reminded me of "Night of the Comet," which was neat.

Sorry, had a brain cramp,

Battle in Outer Space (1959)

City of Lost Children (1995)

City of Lost Children was pretty good, too.

Someone mentioned a John Carpenter film. I've never seen Darkstar but I love John Carpenter's The Thing which is already mentioned. That being said I just recently watched again after many years "Village of the Damned", the remake. I was surprised to see that it was also a John Carpenter production. Seeing it a second time I think its pretty good. A beautiful setting and it also made me miss those kinds of movies from the 90s. It almost had a made for tv movie film which it may have been, I don't know. Something really went missing though with many movies after the 90s. The movie also reminds me of how much I miss Christoper Reeve. Speaking of him there's also "Somewhere In Time" but that feels out of place in this thread though it does have to do with someone who wills themselves across space and time and travels back to the past.

These are old movies but 'The Monolith Monsters' is different. One of my faves is 'Earth vs. the Flying Saucers'. Don't forget 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'!

...not a "film", but a very enjoyable (British) TV series that may be worth mentioning: "Torchwood"

I hope you mean the original. The re-make with Keanu Reeves was dreadful.

Yes it was

"Jupiter Ascending" was about 20 times worse than the "Day the Earth Stood Still" remake.

Yeah,that was a shame really about JA. I really like Mila Kunis but that thing stank to high heaven. CGI overload.

Even Eddie Redmayne was laughably bad in it and we all know he can act as he's demonstrated in other films.

Mila Kunis, ugh...

How about Valerian? Anyone see that? I love Luc Besson(some of his stuff) but I've avoided the film due to mixed reviews and the potential for nonsensical action. The Fifth Element had a fair bit of action, but also had plenty of slower dialogue and comedy heavy scenes--and great characters, which helps it stay fresh and quite enjoyable, even so many years later.

I’ve not seen Valerian but I know a major complaint from both critics and viewers is that there was zero chemistry between the two lead actors.

Sooo... Valerian is a film of a 1970s/1980s French science-fiction comic book series (sorry, "graphic novel", yadda yadda). So, the question is what to expect from it. If you expect a sprawling, colorful new universe with a mix of high tempo action and a fair bit of comic relief you'll find that the main story actually isn't bad, and that the villain in the film has a somewhat relatable, not too far-fetched motive. He isn't utterly cynical, or callous, or "eeevul just because", and to me that's a big plus. I'm tired of cartoon villains.

Whether the two Vs have a chemistry between them or not, well, I agree that this is a weak point of the film, but it's not so bad IMO that it should prevent you from giving the film a chance.

In a way it shows that this film is a non-American production. It's running against a few conventions that Hollywood has imprinted on us, and some of those conventions are there for good reason. In other cases, it's a nice deviation from the same same. The two lead characters were probably too young to be cast for this role (which may be partially because they wanted cheap ones to manage the budget); then again, it's the future so maybe they already are in their mid forties and just look like twens with such a long list of exploits that they are considered the top agents of the known universe, with such supreme self-confidence that Valerian can goof around like a fool at times and still, somehow, get the job done. I think this is also part of French comedy traditions (the ones that I don't like so much), partly the comic book heritage.

So, it's roller-coaster popcorn cinema, and as such I have seen much worse. It's visual production values are top notch, at times too much so, but it's not the first nor the only film that has occasionally sacrificed substance for presentation. Rihanna plays a remarkable character (I think she hasn't received as much credit for it as she deserved). I got much more from the film than I expected, so maybe that's why I don't have such a negative opinion of it as others do. Compared to, say, Jupiter Ascending this is pure gold. Compared to the original Blade Runner, it stinks. I'd rather watch Valerian ten times than watching Star Wars Ep. I for one more time; I think it's about as bad or as good as most of the recent DC films; the non-chemistry between the leads in Valerian is less repugnant than the Star Wars Ep II Amidala/Anakin love story.

My two cents. Take it for what it's worth.

Yessir... the original ... I never was a fan of 'remakes' and I tend to like black and white movies!

While we're at it, the probably most influential science fiction film ever, and at that from the mid 1950s, Forbidden Planet.
If you haven't seen it yet, it's
a) still very watchable (they released a remastered copy on BluRay a few years ago)
b) an absolute must for cineasts and SF fans
c) eye-opening, how much of it was stolen, over and over again, by so many film directors

Dude, Forbidden Planet is amazing. One of my all time favorites. =) Amazing story. I first saw it when I was a kid and it completely changed how I look at things in life.

Agreed.

Which is why that list of the greatest Sci Fi movies of all time to which someone posted a link a little while ago was such a joke, in that it completely omitted Forbidden Planet.

If you have not watched it, go do so!

Fair enough.

I tend to have a slightly higher opinion of A Phantom Menace. Certainly it does not compare to Blade Runner or the Empire Strikes back, but the last act of the movie (the "three-ring" final battle) is actually quite well done. For what its worth, I actually found Jar Jar funny, not annoying as so many did (but then again, I never minded the Ewoks or the Porgs that much either).

As for Padme and Anakin, well, I think it is pretty clear why he is attracted to her, after the outfits she wears in the in the "firelight" and rescue scenes.

What she supposedly sees in him is another mystery entirely . . .

I didn't mean to say that the Phantom Menace was a total disaster; I even accept that some parts of Ep I are actually, well, tolerable. I'm just saying, Valerian isn't worse in its worst parts than Ep II, largely on par, and in some aspects actually a much better film if you just look at the merits of the film as a standalone piece of art. To that extent, all the hate that's often expressed could just as well directed at a few other rather popular films that are actually a bit worse.

Three words:

Of course the huge difference between those two films is that Phantom Menace made a huge profit at the box office while Valerian flopped.


Naturally, this is a different issue from whether a film is really good or not BUT box office performance is the main factor when it comes to the types of movies that get made.

I really don't care about box office results when rating the qualities of a film. The correlation between quality and profits is, while not entirely zero, weak. Valerian had no huge franchise behind it as The Phantom Menace had. That alone makes a big difference. Solo, for example, was one of the better Star Wars films but bombed at the box office - because i was dragged down by the abysmal Ep VIII. The original Blade Runner bombed and yet it belongs to the all-time top ten science fiction movies. "Jaws" was a box office hit, but was it as good a good film as its placement in the box office rankings suggests?

What's the metric of box office success, anyway. The gross turnover? With inflation adjustment? For what, just the pure deprecation of money, or also adjusted for the general growth of the entertainment industry? And if so, including computer games? Including the mobile market? There's good arguments to be made for and against any of these suggestions. But no matter how you decide, popularity and monetary rankings are just as ambiguous as personal taste. Enrico Caruso was a solid tenor. But he wouldn't have achieved world fame had it not been for lucky timing, the advantage of being a first mover in the grammophone business. There were better tenors before him and during his prime, but they were too late to establish themselves as a music brand like he did. There were plenty of better tenors after him, but as time progressed there were more and more record labels, artists, music styles. I doubt that opera tenors of the 1980s will still be remembered by the 2060s; even Caruso's fame as being synonymous for "opera singer" is fading (not the least because a much fewer percentage of people is listening top opera music these days, compared to rock and pop music).

I watched 'The Endless' last night https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3986820/

A low budget,Indie film with unknown actors (at least to me). A perfect combination. An RT score of 94% adds up to an interesting little sci-fi/horror flick. Might be worth checking out.

You made some excellent points in your post and especially this one that I quoted from you. For all intents and purposes, opera is a static dying art form. Who today writes new operas? There are none that I can think of and besides, the Broadway musical replaced opera a long time ago as the preferred method of watching a story set to music.

Philipp Glass, to name but one example.
I'm willing to bet that there are a lot more if I can come up immediately with a name (and a title, "Akhnaten"), it's probably just my ignorance. Opera was in the popular domain supplanted by cinema (...and maybe also by Broadway if you insist on it; I don't think I voluntarily watched a musical more than once in my life; "Phantom of the Opera" in Hamburg - three or four catchy tunes, repeated ad nauseam, mixed with bombast in presentation to cover a threadbare story; gracias, no mas.)
My theory is, if opera is dying, musical is dying "almost as much" (if there was such a thing as a comparative to dying).

No, opera and musical have the same basic idea as cinema, but cinema production scales vastly better with a growing audience. Opera simply is too expensive for the extreme locality of each event, and doesn't lend well to reproduction (or at least, opera on the silver screen is an inferior experience to film (you can't really cut, you can't understand what the fat lady is singing about unless you know the production beforehand, even if it is supposedly in your own language and not Italian, you're limited to a handful of camera perspectives, you see the whole stage and the orchestra, few if any special effects, etc.)).

There are of course still opera lovers and opera productions are abundant wherever the population has excess disposable income. OR you can create opera with minimalistic effort (a few musicians, a stage, and a barebone production is possible). We will of course never find out if some village upstream of the Niger delta ever staged something that could be characterized as an opera production ... but it's at least somewhat conceivable that there once was an African Fitzcarraldo (less the boat-pulling madness), or that there might be one in the near future.
So, opera is not necessarily a dying art form, but due to its nature it can't really compete with cinema as "the other" art form that combines music and acting in the attempt to create "totalitarian art" that addresses most if not all senses.

Ah yes, the Gesamtkunstwerk. I know my Wagner.



I don't know what the current situation is in Europe but in the US, ticket sales for opera productions in North America have been declining steadily for at least the past 20 years. In that sense it is very much a "dying" artform. It's failing to draw in any new people so eventually opera in the US will cease to exist as the current adherents die off from old age.

What took you so long? That's arguably my favorite scifi film from the last decade.

Lots of other movies that were further up my "must watch list" and of course my PC gaming which is my main hobby and thus takes most of my free time.

Seems just about everyone loves "The Fifth Element" but I hated the movie when I saw it at the theater and I haven't been able to sit through a viewing when I tried to give it another chance at home.


Wheels

Well, I started to look at the 5th Element as an attempt for a more or less literal attempt to transscribe a space fantasy comic book into a film. As such, it works. A lot of elements are over the top, no matter what (the military guys dying in the freezer within two or three minutes, the insufferable radio host, to give but two examples), but that'd also be part of the comic book style. It doesn't elevate the film to a special status, it remains a pulpy type of story, but at least it took the edge off for me so I could appreciate it for what it is, even the silly parts.

Reading Ssnakes post about Opera and the 5th Element, I did enjoy the operatic scene in that film, I had not visited this thread in a while and coincidently I was listening to Scheherazade in the car on the way to the shops this morning and thinking about how opera back in the day would be somewhat similar to what cinema is today.

It has been a long while since I went to see an opera and that was The Marriage of Figaro in the Grosvenor Theatre in London in 2005, this was sung in English so it made a pleasant change to be able to understand the words without referring to the libretto. It was also the last time I went to a musical Ben Elton's We Will Rock You the following night.

The next one I'm going to is in a few weeks where two of my granddaughters are playing parts in a dramatization of Hechtel-Eksel during WW1

Opera simply went from being a mainstream form of entertainment to being a niche form of entertainment due to its relatively high cost and due to competition from cinema and musicals.

Just watched "Incredible`s 2" By far way better then the first. We own it now. For animated films, This takes it.

How so? I have not seen it, but the first one was probably the best (and defiantly in the top 3) of Pixar movies.

I saw an excellent Sci-fi film last night that came out this year--Annihilation. Though it was a derivative work, borrowing from Tarkovski's works such as Stalker and Solaris, as well as a little 2001, it had a neat concept of its own, too. I even got a neat Hyperion vibe for a minute in one scene.

Yep, both "Incredibles" movies were excellent.

Ditto, except for the seeing it in theater.

It isn't Science Fiction but Besson's "The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec" is very good. Valerian is a thing of beauty but, it is not as good as the Fifth Element. It does have its' moments. I'd watch it anyway and draw your own opinion.