Top Picks: Best of science fiction

In conjunction with yesterday’s release of Dredd, based on a comic strip, Nur Aqidah Azizi looks at some science fiction action films

The Terminator

1 - DIRECTED by James Cameron, this 1984 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton, is about a cyborg assassin sent back in time from the year 2029 to 1984 to kill a woman. The movie topped the American box office for two weeks and helped launch the film career of Cameron. It spawned three sequels — Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991, Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003) and Terminator Salvation (2009) — as well as TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from 2008 to 2009.

Robocop

2 - THIS movie centres on police officer Alex Murphy (played by Peter Weller) who is brutally murdered and subsequently revived by the malevolent mega-corporation as a superhuman cyborg law enforcer known as RoboCop. Directed by Paul Verhoeven, it received positive reviews and was cited as one of the best films of 1987. It spawned two sequels, a TV series, two animated TV series and a mini-series.

Alien

3 - THE Ridley Scott movie revolves around a highly aggressive creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. Alien garnered both critical acclaim and box office success, receiving an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Scott, and Best Supporting Actress for Veronica Cartwright and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, along with numerous other award nominations.

Artificial Intelligence: A.I.

4 - ALSO known as A.I., the movie is written, directed and produced by Steven Spielberg. It tells the story of David, a childlike android uniquely programmed with the ability to love. Starring Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor, Brendan Gleeson, and William Hurt, it was reported that Law, who played as Gigolo Joe in the movie, studied the acting of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly to prepare for the role.

Star Wars

5 - GEORGE Lucas directed this American epic that tells the story of Luke Skywalker, a spirited farm boy who joins rebel forces to save Princess Leia (from the evil Darth Vader) and the galaxy from the Empire’s planet-destroying Death Star. It stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by two sequels — Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi (1983) — which were released at three-year intervals.

Wall-E

6 - A 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Andrew Stanton. The story follows a robot named Wall-E, designed to clean up a waste-covered Earth far in the future. It won the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film, the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, the final Nebula Award for Best Script, the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was nominated for five awards at the 81st Academy Awards. Wall-E has been ranked first in Time’s Best Movies Of The Decade.

Transformers

7 - COMBINING computer animation with live-action, Transformers is directed by Michael Bay and executive-produced by Steven Spielberg. It stars Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, a teenager who becomes involved in a war between two factions of alien robots that can disguise themselves by transforming into ordinary-looking vehicles. Despite mixed critical reaction to the radical redesigns of the characters, Transformers was a box office success. It is the 45th most successful film released and the fifth most successful of 2007, grossing approximately US$709 million (RM2,170 million) worldwide.

The Matrix
8 - FEATURING Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss, the movie is about a computer hacker who learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. Written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the success of the film led to the release of two feature film sequels. The Matrix franchise was further expanded through comic books, video games, and animated short films.

Enthiran

9 - THIS 2010 Indian Tamil science fiction was co-written and directed by Shankar. The film features Rajinikanth in dual roles, as a scientist and an android humanoid robot, alongside Aishwarya Rai. After nearly a decade of pre-production work, the film was shot over two years from 2008. The film’s background score and soundtrack, which were composed by A. R. Rahman, became the best-selling world album on the iTunes store in three countries — United States, United Kingdom and Australia, within a few days of its digital release.

Bicentennial Man

10 - STARRING Robin Williams and Sam Neill, this movie is based on the novel, The Positronic Man. It is directed by Chris Columbus and centres on an android’s wish to become human as it gradually acquires emotions. In an interview, Williams said he was a huge fan of science fiction and he wanted to be encased in the metallic robot suit although the production team could have built a totally automaton robot for the movie.

The Matrix

Transformers

Wall-E

The Terminator

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