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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Best Sci-Fi moments?

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Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

16:16 / 30.11.02

Hm....I'm kind of surprised that a lot of my favorite moments aren't listed, but I like that I'm not the only one who loved DS9...in many ways the best written ST series.

So, my top ten (what a geek):

10) "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that."

9) Keanu Reeves becoming Jack Frost in The Matrix (bwa-ha-ha....)

8) Seeing a Klingon on the Bridge on ST: TNG

7) The unvieling of the robot in Metropolis

6) Mulder and Scully kiss while holding their baby...no matter what season 7 said.

5) Superman catches Lois Lane and the helicopter and flies it to the top of the Daily Planet building.

4) "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!!"

3) Rutger Hauer holding Harrison Ford in Blade Runner: "Wake up....time to die."

2) The alien ship rising up over the mesa in Close Encounters

1) Harrison Ford taking his Taun-Taun into the cold of Hoth to save his friend while saying, "Then I'll see you in Hell!"

17:48 / 30.11.02

4) "THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!!"

That was pretty great. I remember being at work the day after that episode aired and little knots of people were standing around here and there and always a voice would come out the group saying "There are four lights!" Lotta trekkies in that building. Great episode.

uncle retrospective

00:17 / 01.12.02

I'd have to put in 2001's monkey throwing the bone into the air, from savagery to spaceship. Beautiful.

DS9 has a load for great moments, most involving Sisko getting very angry, but as someone already said, his best moment was getting the Romulans involved in the war.

B5 is another show with loads of drop dead moments, the first time you see the Vorlon fleet, Vir waving to the decapitated head of Morden.
I'm going for the first time you see Kosh leave his encounter suit. My jaw was on the floor.

My favourite has to be Roy Batty's "I have seen spaceships on fire on the arms of Orion" speech, gives me goosebumps every time.

01:38 / 01.12.02

In no particular order:

- Dr. Praetorius's toast in "Bride of Frankenstein:" To a new world, of gods and monsters!
- The opening rooftop sequence in "Batman" when I really felt why the criminal element would be afraid of the Batman...
and realized that Michael Keaton was the right choice after all.
- The monstrous Penguin being successfully run for mayor of Gotham City in "Batman Returns"...and then losing it
while snarling and snapping behind a cage of microphones.
- The first time I heard: "Soylent Green is made from people!"
- Much as I appreciate the Statue of Liberty bit from "The Planet of the Apes", I still find the hunt in the cornfield

01:48 / 01.12.02

(continuing as though nothing has happened)
much more harrowing, espcially the gorillas posing beside human corpses while another gorilla snaps their photo and exhorts: "Smile!"
- "Brazil" All of it.
- Yes, it is corny, but I still get choked up at the scene of Han Solo being frozen in a block of carbonite in ESB. He calms down Chewie (no mean feat in itself): "You have to take care of the Princess now!" And his endearingly macho response to Leia finally saying "I love you!", "I know" I say endearingly because you know the man is scared shitless but he doesn't want to worry the woman he loves.
- On those infrequent occasions when I surprise the people around me, and someone asks "How did you do/know that?", I always enjoy making a fist and intoning: "You have no idea the POWER of the Dark Side" (Do NOT attempt this with humorless fundies of any brand!)
I'll probably think of more later. You have been warned.

06:31 / 01.12.02

Good to see a few mentions of Flash Gordon earlier. Seeing this movie at the age of four is one of my personal Best Sci-Fi moments. Kinky space vixens, hero killed half an hour in (but later resurrected, obviously), pounding Queen soundtrack, Ming "remote fondling" Dale Arden, freaky images in Zarkov's head as he's brainwashed, Timothy Dalton trying to push Flash's head onto a spike, dangling hands into the tree stump, Ming sliding of that spiky hood ornament...and my favourite: Dalton shouting "Freeze! Yer bloody bastards" in the most Northern English accent possible. I'm sure having this technicolour madness pushed into my brain at such a young age changed the course of my life forever. Thanks Dad.

Time Bandits also got to me as a child. The ending with the boy completely alone as the camera zooms out into the cosmos...(or should it be classified as a Fantasy film?)

I was working at the local cinema in '98/'99, and the thrills that the Phantom Menace trailers sent out were phenomenal. The process of mentally constructing the possible final movie just from cool-looking fragments was genuinely exciting. This is one of my stand out SciFi moments. Of course the print finally arrived and all our wonderous ideas were brutally crushed.

Current favourite: Roddy Piper, with shades, staring at the money in the newsstand guys hand in They Live. The slow synth sting as we read "This is your God". Right on.

09:09 / 01.12.02

"Good God, Dr. Jerkoff, what is it!?"
"Vell, Flesh, it appears to be some species of...Penisaurus!"
SFX: blinky! blinky!
"Flesh Garden"

"The Road Warrior" - The rolling battle

"This Island Earth" - The Metalunan explaining the battle against the Mut-Ants, then Our Hero saying "I wouldn't trust my own grandmother in this place!" and cold-cocking him.

"Forbidden Planet" - The first appearance of the Monster From the Id.

12:03 / 01.12.02

- The Battle of Wolf 359 as shown in Emissary. J.G. Hertzler as the Vulcan captain (later to have three more roles in DS9 alone as Martok, Laas and the artist in Far Beyond the Stars); Patrick Stewart as Picard/Locutus ordering the Federation fleet to disarm and escort the Borg cube to Sector 001 (that's Earth, dummies) for assimilation; the shot of the ship getting fragged through the window of Sisko's quarters; the death of Sisko's wife; the escape pod sequenc filmed on a handheld, shaking uncontrollably; the hi-speed pull back shot through the escape pod window as it leaves the ship; the Saratoga exploding - Sisko's wife still on board - shown reflected over his face as part of his soul is left behind. Awesome.

- The end of The Visitor, the moment when Sisko realises that his son (perfectly portrayed as an adult, then as an old man by Tony Todd) has taken an overdose, that he only has seconds to live, and that his suicide was planned for years to save his father from being raped in subspace. Possibly the best moments of the most believable father/son relationship on the small screen.

THISISNOTADS9THREADTHISISNOTADS9THREADTHISISNOTADS9THREAD

15:23 / 01.12.02

The TV scene in he man who fell to earth. The moment when you realise just how aien Newton is. And the rest of the film

Foust is SO authentic

02:59 / 02.12.02

All right, it falls to me to come up with some great moments nobody else has thought of.

1) Yesterday's Enterpise, the episode that featured the greatest last-stand battle ever. The alternate Enterprise surrounded and battered by 3 Birds of Pray... Riker dies... Picard hops over the tactical console, and with flames all around him, fights to the end.

2) Bean reminding Ender, "The enemy's gate is down."

3) Delen rallying the league for an attack on Zha'ha'Dum, thinking Sheridan is dead. "An old friend once said to me, 'if you're falling off a mountain, you might as well try to fly.'" Cut to a shot of Sheridan's feet as he storms through the halls of Babylon 5. "I thought you were dead!" "I was. I'm better now."

4) More Babylon 5. Earth ships are about to capture Babylon 5, and Minbari ships appear. "There is only one human captain that has survived an engagement with us. He is behind me. You are in front of me. I suggest you be somewhere else."

5) The arena battle in AotC. A hundred Jedi fighting a losing battle against thousands of droids? Come on. Pure genius.

6) Haven't any of you seen John Carpenter's They Live? Roddy Piper saying "I came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum" surely has to be one of the all time great moments.

15:26 / 02.12.02

Most of my favourites are already here, but I'll put in a suggestion of the bit where Barbarella is lying on a pile of fur, singing distractedly, having learnt that the old fashioned way of having sex is the best.
Threadrot - there was a thread in conversation about adolescent crushes not so long ago. A friend of mine recently told me that his first crush was Pygar, the blind angel, which I thought was quite cool.

16:13 / 02.12.02

John Bigboote: "It's Big-BooTAY! Big Boo-TAY!!"

17:30 / 02.12.02

I think the best bits of B5 were the opening credits. First of all, the "All alone... ...in the dark" bit and then, latterly, "Something is happening out on the rim..." Great Gothic SF.

18:04 / 02.12.02

Oooh yes!

The bit where the Id-monster appears in the laser fire. Wow-special effect, even now.

Oh, and when you see how big the structures under the planet are... yeah. Wow.

(Both Forbidden Planet, obviously).

20:45 / 02.12.02

If TV is legal, then:

"To Serve Man -- it's a COOKBOOK!!"

and pretty much any other five minutes from "The Twilight Zone".

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

21:36 / 02.12.02

Ooooh...Buckaroo Banzai lines!

"What's that watermelon doing there?"
"I'll tell you later."

Foust is SO authentic

23:07 / 02.12.02

Nobody's yet mentioned the falling whale scene in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

00:33 / 03.12.02

Maybe there's a reason for that.

01:01 / 03.12.02

I really don't intend to go against the grain so much but I was genuine when I stated long ago that the 4th installment of the Alien series was the best. There are sooooooo many moments that make me all warm and cuddly inside.

In the beginning, as the camera zooms into the scientist lab, there are 2 guards chewing gums synchronically - neat.

The orgasmic pleasure the scientists derive from the removal of the queen alien from Ripley's chest.

A hardcore Ripley, kicking ass in a basketball field.

Etc.

I just love it.

01:40 / 03.12.02

And how could I omit the amazing scene where Vriess whistles the Popeye the Sailor Man tune. I bathe in shame. It's great to know that it still exists 13.961 years into the future.

06:56 / 03.12.02

1. The chest bursting scene at the dinner table in Alien made such an impression on my twelve year old brain.

2. All the city shots in Bladerunner.

3. ET dying.

4. Riply facing down the Queen in her birthing chamber in Aliens.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:45 / 03.12.02

expressionless DS9- The Visitor -that his suicide was planned for years to save his father from being raped in subspace.

Now that's one of the funniest mis-spellings we've had in a while...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

09:46 / 03.12.02

Purely in the conext of DS9 I hasten to add, not that the subject is normally in any way amusing and I'm getting my coat and running away very fast...

10:07 / 03.12.02

Just saw the Fifth Element recently and it reminded me of one of my favourites. It's the scene where Bruce Willis goes to open the door and checks the cameras, corridor is clear, he opens the door to find a bloke pointing a gun at him with a picture of a clear corridor on his head to fool the cameras.
It's just so wonderfully Mega City one, even the judge dredd film never got the feel so right

.

00:16 / 05.12.02

The Kirk vs Spock battle in...Amok Time?
(the theme alone has made this a classic)

and why hasnt anything from Red Dwarf been mentioned?

09:38 / 05.12.02

So many to choose from and a lot of my favourites are already here but here's a couple of others that I didn't see mentioned...

DS9 : "May I introduce my assistant, Miss Mona Lovsett" - Dr. Bashir.
Star Wars : "There is another...."
Buffy : Here lies Buffy Summers. She saved the World a lot.
Tron : The Lightcycles.
Farscape : A pregnant spaceship.
and finally
Babylon 5 : End of Season 3 "Jump, Jump Now!" About the most exciting a tv show has ever been for me.

Foust is SO authentic

15:55 / 05.12.02

Aliens was better than Resurrection (4), though 4 did have a lot going for it. The two aliens slaughtering the third just so they could use the acid to escape is surely one of the best scenes in any of the Alien movies.

hanabius yamamura

13:35 / 09.12.02

some particular favourite moments from my youth ...

the cinema segment of 'the omega man' with charlton heston

the ending of the same film ...

as previously mentioned in a different light on a different thread - the thought-provoking questions posed by the end of the 1960 time machine film ( details of which i shall omit due to potential spoiler territory )

AND a whole host of moments ( most mentioned already ) incl. sisko betraying the romulans in 'in the pale moonlight', roy batty's speech at the end of blade runner and gul dukat in lots of ds9 episodes-FAB villain

14:33 / 09.12.02

Foust:

"Haven't any of you seen John Carpenter's They Live? Roddy Piper saying "I came here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum" surely has to be one of the all time great moments."

Have you seen the sequel, They Lived? Roddy Piper goes into a newsagents, strides up to the counter and growls: "I came here to kick bubble gum and chew ass. And I'm all out of ass," before booting the Hubba Bubba rack off the counter, up and down the shop - several times - and out into the street.

Sorry, I'm having one of those afternoons.

18:30 / 10.12.02

Avon's shit-eating grin just before the curtains fall on season 3 of Blakes 7.

19:35 / 10.12.02

I didn't watch a lot of Babylon 5, but I remember this great scene where this guy who as basically God was telling everyone that he was going to go off to other universes now. And the evil inhuman shadow beings who has always been the enemy were just like, "Can we go too?" And God was just like "Of course you can."

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

00:13 / 11.12.02

One that leapt immediately to my mind, and that I'm amazed nobody has mentioned yet is the ending of the first (and best) Star Trek movie. You know, where they realised that this seemingly omnipotent entity was actually the Voyager spacecraft.

That was definitely one of those 'hairs on back of neck' moments, which I think I only ever get from good, intelligent Sci-Fi (which, incidentally, is an all too rare occurrence nowadays).

10:41 / 11.12.02

Avon's shit-eating grin just before the curtains fall on season 3 of Blakes 7.

Back a little earlier in that episode, the moment when Servalan tells him:

Blake is dead. I saw the body, I saw it cremated. Blake is dead.

I saw him, I spoke to him, I -

You saw nothing. Heard nothing. It was an illusion, a drug-induced and electronic dream...

Oh, and Rumours of Death, of course:

Is that it, Servalan? Have you lost your nerve? Have you murdered your way to the wall of an underground room?

It's an old wall, Avon, it waits. I hope you don't die before you reach it.

Waah!

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