Morning all

Last week, the Guardian's "expert panel" voted for the top 10 sci-fi films. They came up with the following

1 Blade Runner (1982) Dir: Ridley Scott
2 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Dir: Stanley Kubrick
3 Star Wars (1977)/Empire Strikes Back (1980)
4 Alien (1979) Dir: Ridley Scott
5 Solaris (1972) Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky
6 Terminator (1984)/T2: Judgment day (1991) Dir: James Cameron
7 The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Dir: Robert Wise
8 War of the Worlds (1953) Dir: Byron Haskin
9 The Matrix (1999) Dir: Andy & Larry Wachowski
10 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Dir: Steven Spielberg

Look; I'm no "expert", but I'm betting that people who are, like Dave for example (you back yet, big man?), would have something to say about that list but here's my 2 pence anyway;

Entries 1-4, 6, and 10; no arguments, except to say that Alien should also mention Aliens as one of the best sequals ever made (of course always bowing before the might of T2)

No. 5; Solaris was fucking boring. Interesting plot but did you actually try and watch the Tarkovsky (original) version? Snail's pace doesn't even come close to describing it. I fell asleep and almost died.

No. 7; I haven't seen, will make a point of renting it (probably only available on 8mm or parchment or whatever they used back then)

No. 8; War of the Worlds is included because it was a cracking story and because of the infamy of the yanks first letting their gullability shine bright in the Great Radio Hoax (for those who don't know about this, they serialised WotW on radio and yanks thought it was real. Major stupidity fuelled panic ensued). Frankly didn't rate it as a film

No. 9; The Matrix IS a top action / Scifi flick, but Top 10?

I think the following would have been better inclusions

Gattaca - So good, some people claim it's not SF
The Thing - Class in every gut wrenching, alien morphing way. Some of the special effects in that movie have never been bettered, and it was made in '82. And it's got Kurt Russel in it
Escape from New York / Escape from LA. More Kurt Russel. Fantastic
Pitch Black - Top Scifi / horror on a budget of 3 quid and a bag of jelly beans. How Tall dunc got his start
Akira - Motorbikes, lasers, ninjas, aliens and it's a cartoon. What more could you want?
Dark City - As bubble pointed out; a much more seminal treatment of confused reality than that battery bollocks in the Matrix (sadly lacking Trin's leather clad bot, though)
Predator - that scene where he rips out the indian's spine...

And several flops that I think deserve an honourable mention

Tank Girl - Top cartoon conversion. Fantastic music. And a girl in a tank. Oh yeah, and Ice T as a kangaroo (his most convincing role to date)
Dune - I think I'm the only person who ever watched this, it flopped so hard. I still think it's ace, and so does FatBoy Slim, evidently.
Starship troopers - Everybody hated this movie, I thought the soap-opera hamminess and the proaganda ads were inspired. Also includes the immortal line form Micheal Ironside "IT SUCKED HIS BRAINS OUT..." Class.
Battlefield Earth - Err, how did that get there. No I didn't men that. This was a truly shit film. Only saving grace was Forrest Wittaker dressed as an alien in big dancing boots playing Travolta's side kick, looking really embarassed in every scene (one assumes about his inclusion in the movie) Scientologist nonsense.

Whew, that went on too long, I'm off to work

Bomber out