New Scientist Favourite "sci-fi"

New Scientist recently ran a poll of favourite science fiction books and films. And the results are now in. And completely unsurprising:

Films
1. Blade Runner
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Serenity
4. Forbidden Planet
5. The Matrix

Books
1. Dune
2. Foundation series
3. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
4. Ender's Game
5. Hyperion series

Things worth noting:-
- it takes a lot to dislodge the old crap stuff - it's been categorised as "best" for so long, its worth is no longer questioned. I mean, the Foundation books just don't stack up all that well against more modern novels.
- the poll was clearly dominated by US voters. Ender's Game, while not unknown, doesn't have the prestige in the UK that it does in the US - most likely because it's never been studied in British schools (and so it bloody well shouldn't be). I should point out that New Scientist is a UK magazine.
- the Star Wars fanboys didn't get a look-in - because the NS staff decided not to lump the votes for individual Star Wars films together. Smart move on their part.
- Serenity is probably the most popular not-stupid sf film of the 21st century - and not-stupid is a sadly small subset of all sf films released since 2000 - so I suppose its appearance on the list shouldn't come as a surprise.
- but Forbidden Planet's does. Good film - amazing, even, for its time. But I'm surprised it was that popular. There must have been a large bloc of older voters...
- what? No Alien?

Quick response off the top of my head:

-Any explanation from New Scientist on how they decided to aggregate (or not) votes in the books category? Why the "Hyperion" series and not (say) the "Ender" series?

-Mildly surprised that Forbidden Planet, rather than The Day the Earth Stood Still, got the Old Fan vote . . . the latter runs far more often on US television, and is in the news because of the upcoming remake (Keanu Reeves for Michael Rennie . . . heaven help us). Not unhappy, though, to see Forbidden Planet get some recognition.

-I wonder if everyone who voted for the "Foundation Series" had the same thing in mind. Was it the original 1940s/50s trilogy? That plus Asimov's later additions? Those plus posthumous additions by others?

-Serenity *and* Forbidden Planet outpolled any individual Star Wars movie, any Terminator movie, any Alien movie? Well, I'd have lost *that* bet . . .

ETA sentence-changing punctuation mark

i haven't seen that issue of new scientist yet - my issues tend to come a few days late..But that is surprising giving it's UK origin. There's a fascinating story on revising the understanding (yet again) of the placebo effect.

AND major props for Serenity doing so well! And, as always, it depresses me to see the Matrix do so well...Serial Experiments Lain did the same topic first and w/ far more intelligence..as I never tire of repeating!

Damn..since i've gotten the paper copy i've stopped going to their web unless i want to copy an article..so i didn't even get my vote in.

The thing about both Ender's Game and Foundation..is that they're both essentially kids / young teens books...maybe voters were thinking about 'influence' - in which both score heavily, regardless on one's feelings about Card's own person or Asimov's writing.

I don't subscribe. I read it on the Web here.

Keanu Reeves for Michael Rennie

Nooooooooooo

Noooooooooooo

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

nonononononononononononononononono

It is all about the writing, William Shakespeare and Josh Weldon.

Well, TL beat me to it. I am delighted to see "Forbidden Planet" and "Serenity" on the list. I would rather see that minor bit of genius and much underrated because of its cult status movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" on the list than "Matrix". Aside from its cult status, at least here in the US, Rocky Horror is one of the most imaginative movies I've ever seen. Not a slow or dry spot in it and making a musical (and what music!) was inspired. Help me, Mommy!

You know, I think Keanu Reeves would probably make a wonderful Klaatu.

Let me see....
Klaatu was the robot? Right?
Keanu Reeves would be perfect.

OK..here's the feature article "Is SF dying?" I got to it from a browser after kicking out all my cookies (why i have 4 diff. browsers...) and had no problem..so..
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026821.500-scifi-special-is-science-fict...

I haven't tried the rest of the articles to see if they are open to the non-subscribing public or not...

Forbidden Planet is also being remade.
How dare they. Bah!

From http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/
"J. Michael Straczynski to write the long-gestating remake
By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez
Oct 31, 2008, 01:00 AM ET
J. Michael Straczynski, the writer of the Clint Eastwood-directed "Changeling," is penning a long-in-the-works update of sci-fi classic "Forbidden Planet" for Warner Bros. Joel Silver is producing via Silver Pictures."

Bah!

I can only hope Michael Bay has already been locked in to direct...

Since I consider Bablyon 5 to have been just about the only serious extended piece of television science fiction (as opposed to skiffy), I'm willing to wait and see on this one.

What was amazing about the original movie is how much it's a real science fiction story from people with no connection to science fiction, except maybe the original story guy (no, not Willy S.), and look at what else he was later involved in.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0088726/

What happened to A Canticle for Leibowitz?

But leaving aside a personal favorite, I note that all of the books choices are either series or the best known book in a series. What about stand-alones? (All right, Leibowitz also has the follow-up Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, but that's a not-very-good posthumous work.)

#13 "What happened to A Canticle for Leibowitz?"

Ick. Double ICK.

I absolutely love Armageddon / End-of-the-world / handful-of-survivors type books. But Canticle was just plain boring.

Should I run and hide?

1> Re Forbidden Planet:
I'm not that surprised, actually, for a couple of reasons - it's a SF 'ripoff' of The Tempest so it appeals to the literature crowd as a guilty pleasure, and many rep companies seem to put on productions of Return to the Forbidden Planet (judging by the 'Break-a-Leg' section on Elaine Page's Radio 2 show) which would seem to indicate some familiarity with the source film. Excellent film though it is, 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' doesn't seem to have that recognition factor.

I'm surprised that none of the Star Wars films managed to make it on their own.

>15 JohnFair: "I'm surprised that none of the Star Wars films managed to make it on their own."

Is it because the idea for one fairly decent movie turned into the theme for five more totally unnecessary and increasingly boring movies? This series jumped the shark when they applied the chapter heading to the prologue.

Star Wars (the movie, not the series) was an SFX bonanza, looked good on the screen with lots of pretty people but Spaceballs was a better movie.

I can think of half a dozen forums where you should post that :-)

Are you deliberately trying to get me killed?

#13 agree on Canticle. I would also rate several other books higher than Foundation or Ender, including The Left Hand of Darkness, The Stars My Destination, and The Book of the New Sun.

While I am willing to defend Ender's Game, even I hesitate to put it in a list of top five science fiction. I can point to other books (though they flee my mind at this exact second) that I would place above Card, Azimov, and Adams.

To me Adams seems more of a satire of the genre and as such not one I would even consider for this type list.

As for movies, Good for Joss Whedon to get that high on the list. Though at this time, I must admit to not having seen Forbidden Planet.

#20

I think good satire can enter the "best-of" lists.

I definitely agree with the Hyperion books, those were fantastic as were the original Dune novels.

I recently read the Foundation novels and I was unpleasantly surprised at how awful they were, I guess since Asimov is considered to be a founding author for SciFi it is on the list but there is MUCH better stuff out there.

Can' say I've ever seen "Serenity" and I also can't say I've any intention of seeing "The Matrix" (I'll stick to reading & imagining Gibson's original concept, "Neuromancer".

You must remember, also, that "Forbidden Planet" was hardly original, heavily based as it was on "The Tempest". Like rock 'n' roll the The Bard wil never die. And, of course, there was Anne Francis :)

#7 & 8 How's your imagination? How about Keanu Reeves doing Shakespeare?

Stop laughing, it's true, I tell you. Kenneth Branagh (almost inevitably) teams up with Reeves and then-spouse Emma Thompson in '93's "Much Ado About Nothing"

I adore The Old Bill & couldn't bear to watch.

#9 Some articles are sub-only some aren't; you don't pays your money and you don't gets a choice.

i do subscribe to New Scientist; i defn. agree in re Serenity - but thought the Matrix was one of the stupider movies i've ever rented. NS tends to select hard SF and they have a bias towards SF written by scientists. But all the same i read their reviews w/ interest. Tend to be better on non-SF books than SF however (they do a SF issue each year).

I'll put in my usual plug for the brilliant, if time consuming anime series serial experiments lain if one wants film the considers the implications of massive computational networking and power in a thoughtful and suspenseful fashion.SExL 10>>>Matrix zilch. Lots of (true) historical background in the conceptual background of networks and their social implications. Both famous (Vanever Bush) to lesser known prophets (eg Ted Nelson) get their acknowledged due.

> 24. I would like to see Keanu play Pinocchio, after all they're both wooden. Re: Much Ado Micheal Keaton playing Dogberry as Beetlejuice II was also pretty dreadful.

How does the New Scientist stack up to the old Scientific American mag?

Old, when the articles were published research {sometimes first publication of the research} by scientists and I could only decipher 40% of many articles. I lost most of my respect for the mag when the articles were written by "science reporters" and I could understand all the extracts/abstracts and there were no {pages of !!} unintelligible charts and graphs to impress people looking over your shoulder.

It was kind of neat following the human genome project there.

we get both New Scientist and Science News (which as gone to 2x a month, from a weekly). Because it very much tries to be current, every now and again NS lets a proofing or even factual error slide. BUT it's feature articles are usually very well written (much better, on the whole, than SA ever was) and it does a really fine job of keeping the proverbial "intelligent layman" very well, and entertainingly informed, about what's current in science. We've gone through Discover, SA, the much lamented bulletin of the NY Academy of Sciences which was probably the best popular science journal of all time, still get Science News, National Geo, but unless you're a professional (in which case you'll be using field specific journals), it's easily my favorite. And if you're a pro in one field..there's a lot more science out there!