I've been banging on about Lord of the Rings in Mark's comment boxes, following a couple of posts about movie trilogies.
A couple of things have got me thinking.
Firstly, all lists are subjective. We all like different things and when you start asking "What's the best...?", you get all kinds of answers - none of which could be guaranteed to agree with your ideas. I personally like hearing other people's opinions. If it weren't for them, I would never have discovered Firefly, or my most recent music purchases. Anyway, I really don't understand it when people start saying "Tsk, you can't have that choice because I don't like it". Well, I do, but I reject the kind of snobbery and egocentricity that makes people say it. My choices are as valid as anyone elses, and the fact that I don't spend most of my time in a fantasy world of paranoid print and celluloid anasthesia doesn't mean I don't have the capacity to pick a favourite movie.
That aside, the plain fact is that I don't dig horror movies, and I find most sci-fi/fantasy movies rehashed hokum.
"But Why?" I don't hear you cry...
It's not some stupid reason like horror movies scare me - I've never watched one that scared me - it's just that watching people get variously eviscerated using very bad special effects - or even decent effects - leaves me cold. I've watched all the Elm Street films, all the Hellraiser films, The Exorcist and others and none of them - apart from maybe Candyman and Event Horizon - have impressed me at all. They bore me. I can't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy watching all the pretend blood and gore. Instead, I laugh at how ludicrous it all is.
So that's Horror dealt with.
Why do I, a sci-fi fan, not like a lot of modern sci-fi?
Y'know, I've been reading sci-fi for almost as long as I could read. Age seven, I was bought my first edition of 2000ad. Fourteen years later, I was still reading it. For the whole of my childhood, I lapped up the cutting edge of british science fiction. So when stuff like Universal Soldier, Minority Report, Fifth Element, AI, The Matrix came along, all I could think is: "This is crap". Why? Because I'd had this - and things much better than this - at my fingertips for decades. What it boils down to is this: My imagination is better than what's on the screen. I sit through it and wonder why they didn't do this or that to progress the story more, or make it more exciting, or inspiring. They hype these movies beyond belief, build up the promise of an unmissable experience but ultimately do not deliver.
Look at the movies I do like:
Serenity - hyped as a continuation of the TV series. It delivered. I like.
Lord of the Rings - Promised a faithful interpretation of the books by a lifelong fan. It delivered - although with caveats.
There's others, but you get the point. Promise the heavens and earth, then not deliver and you'll lose my patronage.
