Best Sci Fi Movies Ever | Top 100

Film as Spectacle

Sci-fi movies often look real enough that we're convinced of the possibility of the worlds we're shown. The silver screen presents visions of utopian futures, dystopian presents, and worlds to explore. The one consideration to keep when viewing SF is that the screen subtly pivots the genre away from its role as the literature of ideas and gives it an operative function of creating spectacle.

Contact - Carl Sagan | Human Technological and Emotional-Cognitive Development

Because of what the science fiction genre is--a genre that considers how science will shape mankind as he moves into the future while retaining the human spirit, then the greatest science fiction novel is Contact by Carl Sagan. During his life, Sagan championed human rights issues and encouraged the search for extraterrestrial life. He was instrumental in developing SETI.

Han Solo - The Hero Disney Killed

Han Solo
Fox / Lucasfilm

The Star Wars Franchise, guided by Disney's hand, killed Han Solo--not just in body but in spirit. Sure, Kylo Ren gave into his anger and it wasn't pretty, but it wasn't just Han the character that died. The idea of Han died too.

Cyborg Manifesto | Donna Haraway, Silko, Octavia Butler, & Nancy Kress

cyborg manifesto - donna haraway

In Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway’s use of the cyborg is, for the most part, metaphorical. She is only tenuously invested in robotics and uses the techno figure of the cyborg to partially refer to the information systems of the cyberneticists like Weiner, Shannon, Kieber, Turing and McCulloch, but mostly to present a de-essentialized feminist vision, one not in need of Edenic metanarratives of patriarchal genesis. As far as information theory goes, she is interested in intersections of a posthuman consciousness vis a vis Katherine Hayles that is free of embodiment.