Because yeah…that’s what I want in my science fiction. REALISM. (Psst, you guys! Pretty sure super-duper-realistic science fiction is just called SCIENCE.) Anyway, here’s the list!
Most Realistic Films
1. Gattaca (1997)
2. Contact (1997)
3. Metropolis (1927)
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
5. Woman in the Moon (1929)
6. The Thing from Another World (1951)
7. Jurassic Park (1993)
The least realistic films after the jump…
Worst Sci-Fi Movies
1. 2012 (2009)
2. The Core (2003)
3. Armageddon (1998)
4. Volcano (1997)
5. Chain Reaction (1996)
6. The 6th Day (2000)
7. What the #$*! Do We Know? (2004)
Interesting list. It helps that all the movies in the “most realistic” list are some of the best Sci-fi films around.
Contact is in the wrong list.
Where’s Moon?
that flying motorcycle battle in Judge Dredd was pretty gnarly.
Our tax dollars at work evidently.
“Most realistic” vs. “worst?” NASA dumbasses.
Uhhh…no; ‘Science’ is there regardless of whether anyone were filming it or no. I suppose you could do a Warhovian film of a bunch of scientists working….
With what’s been happening with robotics, cybernetics, and genetic engineering, I’m a tad surprised Blade Runner wasn’t on the list.
I’m not terribly impressed with the Most list, but it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to see “What the Bleep Do We Know?” on the Least list.
How could they forget the original “Andromeda Strain” ?
@2
I noticed Contact on there too.
I think it must be on the list as a nod to the book, because the movie was a big fat disappointment.
The most realistic one was that one in ’69 about men landing on the Moon and returning safely.
Never understood the hate Contact gets. I say its on the right list. But yeah, Blade Runner missing and Jurrasic Park present makes me go “huh?”
Tremors and Tremors 2 should be on the best list!!!!!
@7 apparently it was given a mention but not put on the list… maybe it was #8.
@Lindy: hardy har barf.
Deep Impact, while not that compelling, is much more realistic than most on their “most realistic” list. Marooned is another, The Boys From Brazil another.
Oh What the Bleep Do We Know….I am so glad that made the list. That movie makes me want to punch people in the throat. The part about how the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, were *literally* invisible to the native Americans because they’d never seen a ship like them before? Gah! I almost had a stroke. GAH!
Why is 2001 not on the most realistic list? It’s one of the few movies that portrays space as silent and shows the length of time required to travel through space.
Yet one more reason we should completely get rid of NASA
Wait, but Gattaca ends with Ethan Hawke flying to outer space in a suit and tie with a bunch of other guys wearing suits and ties. Are space suits unrealistic?
Roger Ebert’s review of Armageddon is one of the funniest ever!
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs…
(But I still love you and your wonderful reviews too, Lindy!)
@18 Go on…
@12 I agree, I really liked Contact (except for the speech at the end.) Whether or not you like the movie the list was about the most realistic and it certainly seems like something like that could happen.
@16 Quadruple thumbs up. What The Fuck Do We Know is new age masturbation at it’s worst. I can’t believe I let someone talk me into seeing that turd burger.
There are a number of GREAT sci-fi films not on the “most realistic” list, simply because I think NASA was judging using a very narrow set of criteria, namely how science in general and scientific knowledge in particular was handled within the context of the films themselves.
“2001” for example depicts space travel in a very realistic manner for its time, but, regrettably, seriously missed the mark in terms of the time-frame of when its technological level would or even could be achieved. OTOH “Frau Im Mond” probably made the list despite its (to us) myriad of scientific inaccuracies, because it was the most realistic depiction of space travel at the time it was made, and made best use of scientific knowledge then extant.
The physics majors at my college got together every year to drink and laugh at the worst science fiction movie ever: Core. Glad to see that NASA agrees with our choice! (2012 hadn’t come out yet.)
Wait. 2012, which shows realistic relativistic space travel and the showcases highly believable philosophical/political situations as they might play out in a multi-country team on an extra-planetary mission is *less correct* then a movie about a train built (in a few days!) of fucking UNOBTAINIUM with LASERS that can cut through *anything* instantly and travels to, then, restarts the earth’s core with nukes?
Total fucking rubbish.
I agree with Gattica and Contact though.
oh, wait. I was thinking of 2010: the year me made contact.
I had totally erased the science nightmare that is 2012 from my brain.
My bad, both 2012 and the core are fucking ridiculous. Followed closely by “The day after tomorrow”
#12 how is the end of Contact at all realistic? And what is unrealistic about Jurassic Park?
@12 and 22: the beginning of Contact is believable, but its conclusion is junk science. Further, the ending makes the movie an anti-science paean, championing anecdote and faith over empiricism. It’s like having Birth of a Nation on a list of best racial-harmony movies.
Love Gattaca and Contact and Metropolis.
I enjoyed 2012 as a no brains required summer action flick and did not pay any attention to any and if there was any science in it.
I’m confuzeled….no Blade Runner?
5th Element was totally believable. C’mon, guys.
@25:
Yes, because the initial premise of “2012”: that neutrinos generated from a massive solar flare are causing all the natural disasters on earth, is completely IMPOSSIBLE, since: A. of all) neutrinos are the smallest elementary particles currently observable, having no electrical charge and essentially no mass and therefore cannot affect normal matter in the way described, and; B. of all) the earth (and you for that matter) has been and continues to be bombarded with uncountable numbers of neutrinos each and every day, with quite literally no deleterious effects whatsoever.
In other words, a few passing references to good science in no way compensate for the incredibly BAD science that forms the structural foundation of the movie itself.
@26:
In that case, please accept my apologies for the “schooling” above.
LOL. I should watch What The Bleep again. When the lefties, scientists & fundamentalist nutjobs all agree on something, something’s going on, something’s wrong there. I remember this from the 80’s. It bears further review.
@31 The 5th element is boron, not love. Check your periodic table, sir (I was actually pissed about this when the movie came out).
I’m surprised no one has commented on ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’, in which our planet is (a) stopped in its orbital/rotational tracks (b) without tearing itself apart (c) by a guy in a generic flying saucer with a cyclopean robot sidekick. Not a bad movie, but its realism is questionable.
@36:
Nowhere in “TDTESS” (and in this case, I’m sure they’re referring to the 1951 Robert Wise directed original, NOT the execrable 2008 Scott Derrickson remake) does Klaatu claim to “stop our planet in its orbital/rotational tracks” (although perhaps that’s the rationale used in the remake; don’t know, didn’t see it, never want to), but rather that he stops all electrical generation; and again, I think we have to presume he’s talking about electricity generated by artificial means, not naturally-occurring electricity, since that basically would have killed every living thing on earth.
I was hoping Serenity was on the most realistic list. :::Sigh::: Guess I won’t be a space cowgirl anytime soon.
“Most Believable” is total bullshit without Starship Troopers.
And regardless of my issues with the film ending of Contact, I have a massive soft spot for that movie and book and will watch it at every available opportunity.