The Lists Project

[knives]

Sci-fi totally has to be scientifically plausible at least within the realm it's working in. Like even though it's all bullshit I'll give Star Trek a pass because it at least tries to sound scientific, but Star Wars is pure fantasy.

[Mr Sausage]

Sci-fi totally has to be scientifically plausible at least within the realm it's working in. Like even though it's all bullshit I'll give Star Trek a pass because it at least tries to sound scientific, but Star Wars is pure fantasy.

So it doesn't matter what fantastic 'technologies' you have in your movie, so long as you toss in a stream of jargon and technobabble, no matter how incoherent and nonsensical, it's sci-fi. But if you have those same 'technologies' without bothering about the babble, you're not?

How is the above a generic distinction?

[knives]

I wouldn't say that Star Wars develops it's technologies in the same way. The whole force thing can't be planted in actual science. I realize making it so that everything has to be absolutely scientifically probable will just take take everything out so I'll concede a situation like Star Trek where it tries to act as scientifically possible. Something like Star Wars on the other hand takes glee in it's fantasy elements.

[matrixschmatrix]

They retconned the fantasy aspect of Star Wars so that the space wizards are actually a genetically inherited bacterial infection, though. Totally plausible.

[knives]

Totally not plausible even with stupid retcon. You can't shoot out magic because of an infection. That would mean X-Men is sci-fi and that's just silly.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'd be willing to grant X-Men as sci fi, it's at least as plausible as Star Trek. That show had magic space gods all over the place.

I mean, honestly, it's kind of a meaningless distinction, per the Arthur C Clarke quote that always gets trotted out in these discussions. Metropolis is certainly sci-fi, and that has a straight up medieval wizard in it.

[knives]

In the case of the space gods thing the Clarke quote works, but X-Men so completely misunderstands evolution that I just throw it in fantasy though it walks the tightrope very delicately. Something like Spiderman while just as unlikely I'm willing to pass under the Clarke rule I suppose because it has just the right amount of techno-babble.

[matrixschmatrix]

Actually, this brings up an interesting question: where do things like Quatermass and Dr. Who fit? What about the Godzilla movies? Is it automatically science fiction if it has a rationalist scientist/investigator figure?

[knives]

For the sake of sanity I tend to split things up between tech of now, realist speculation, and bullshit. Something like Singin' in the rain would be tech of now since it deals with real concerns that people have with technology and the general way we confront it. The second set is for stuff like 2001 or Solaris where everything is about 90% plausible but couldn't happen now. The final one is for cases like the good Doctor and Godzilla where existing tech is used to explain away nonsense. Of course that last distinction causes problems with the fantasy line so you have to say that the stuff is invested in real world tech with the applications being extended beyond the realm of possibility but not plausibility.

[matrixschmatrix]

The thing is, the first Godzilla is more or less scientifically grounded, but you go past that and it's pure fantasy- I mean, a bunch of them are pretty straightforwardly in an alternate universe, where there's a Monster Island and so forth. Can a sequel to a sci fi movie be a fantasy movie, or does the established framework of sci fi automatically make it all sci fi?

It might be easiest just to collapse sci-fi and fantasy- it's true that there's not much in common between the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Contact, but there's not much in common between Things to Come and Contact, either.

[swo17]

Just call it the nerd list.

[knives]

The thing is, the first Godzilla is more or less scientifically grounded, but you go past that and it's pure fantasy- I mean, a bunch of them are pretty straightforwardly in an alternate universe, where there's a Monster Island and so forth. Can a sequel to a sci fi movie be a fantasy movie, or does the established framework of sci fi automatically make it all sci fi?

It might be easiest just to collapse sci-fi and fantasy- it's true that there's not much in common between the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Contact, but there's not much in common between Things to Come and Contact, either.

That's what I call the Mothra split. I think it's fair to say that they tried to be sci-fi until Mothra at which point it went into clear fantasy. Of course Dom would probably just say if you think it is list it.

[zedz]

In terms of reasonably easily definable and thus manageable genres, I would have suggested:
Horror
Science Fiction (though given the above nitpickery, which I didn't see coming, let's call the whole thing off)
War Movies
Documentary
Animation

I'd also love to see a non-narrative / experimental project, but that's likely to be way too niche for the forum, and I can just imagine how much shoehorning of reasonably mainstream features would take place.

I think most of the other genres that have been suggested - e.g. Comedy, Melodrama, Thriller - are either so broad or so fuzzy that it would be harder to find common ground or to actually focus on the films rather than the genre boundaries. Would Children's Films be viable?

I also like Sausage's suggestion of a Countries list project after Genres have been wound up.

[knives]

I think even animation can get blurry. Like is Roger Rabbit animation? What about films that use animatronics considering how stop motion is animation. If it exists there's a way. Third (or is it fourth) a countries project though I wonder how we'll decide on which countries to do.

[swo17]

Yeah, I like the idea of countries or maybe regions. I'd be very interested in doing an Eastern Europe list.

[knives]

I would think that Czech and Hungarian cinema have enough available for a separate list or am I thinking out my ass?

[matrixschmatrix]

The Countries idea is really exciting to me- it seems to me that if we went for smaller lists (say, 25 for an overall top 50) and started with smaller national cinemas we could get that one going alongside the current ones, rather than waiting what I assume will be at least three or four years to wrap up genres.

I mean, coming up with the top 100 American movies probably wouldn't involve watching anything that wouldn't get covered by one of the other lists, whereas a top 50 New Zealand movies would certainly push into interesting new territory.

[knives]

There's no way I could juggle three lists. Waiting for genres to close would probably be best.

[domino harvey]

Pretty glad I won't be on the board by the time you guys get to most of these ideas, haha

[zedz]

I mean, coming up with the top 100 American movies probably wouldn't involve watching anything that wouldn't get covered by one of the other lists, whereas a top 50 New Zealand movies would certainly push into interesting new territory.

[cheap shot]Though be prepared for that "interesting" to not extend to the actual movies you'd have to watch.[/cheap shot]

[swo17]

Anyone interested in doing a list of the top 100 sassy quips by domino?

[matrixschmatrix]

[cheap shot]Though be prepared for that "interesting" to not extend to the actual movies you'd have to watch.[/cheap shot]

Take that, New Zealand!

(Although as I recall, the entry for New Zealand in that national film documentary project the BFI did was essentially "Sam Neill's Why Do Our Movies Suck?")

[zedz]

Yeah, though Cinema of Unease is a pretty terrible survey in many respects. I don't know why the BFI couldn't bring themselves to give that gig to an actual New Zealand director.

[knives]

Well there's Campion and I suppose Jackson is good entertainment and um. I suppose, well, maybe, huh. I guess you could say The Ugly isn't bad.

[Gregory]

Well there's Campion and I suppose Jackson is good entertainment and um. I suppose, well, maybe, huh. I guess you could say The Ugly isn't bad.

I could say there's at least one glaring omission here, but it would be a Lye.