Top Ten Lists

The SciFi Channel did a poll to gauge the best things to read and watch, and compiled three top ten lists. Top 10 Films to Watch 1. Blade Runner 2. The Matrix 3. The Terminator 4. 2001: A Space Odyssey 5. Jurassic Park 6. Close Encounters of the Third Kind 7. The Day After Tomorrow 8. The Day the Earth Stood Still 9. Children of Men 10. Armageddon

Anyone find it interesting that the top four movies involves technology running amok, taking over the world and killing off humanity? Blade Runner has synthetic humans, The Matrix concerns the enslavement of the human race for battery power, the Terminator involves time travel and robots killing everyone and 2001 has the famous Hal, who is out to protect the mission, even though it means the people will be killed. Even frther, Jurassic Park has the same technology going haywire, while Children of Men involves the collapse of society because of an infertility epidemic. I'm not sure why Armageddon and Day After Tomorrow is on the list. Given that this list was designed to look at saving the world, I guess it's understandable, but for a top ten list? Really? It's interesting to see that tales of robotic revolution top the list in this day in age when people can't seem to part with their mobile phones, iPods, laptops, internet or television. I suspect that if all of those items were to go out all of a sudden, just stop working, society would have quite a bit of turmoil, much as we see in #9, Children of Men. I know I would have a difficult time with some things, because I talk to a lot of people all over the place and the internet and my phone are such good facilitators of that. It's also interesting to see that there really aren't a whole lot of environmental films, such as The Day After Tomorrow, given how much media buzz the words Global Warming brings nowadays. And of course, Aliens hardly makes this list at all, with only The Day After Tomorrow making the cut, which really is the only one that deals with flesh and blood aliens. 2001 touches on the concept, but not to the same degree.

Moving on to the television list...

Top 10 Television Series to Watch 1. Firefly 2. Battlestar Galactica (2004) 3. The X-Files 4. Heroes 5. Stargate: SG-1 6. Doctor Who 7. Star Trek: The Next Generation 8. Babylon 5 9. Star Trek 10. Buffy The Vampire Slayer

There's more variety here, and I'm once again interested to see that there's a good number of shows that don't involve aliens - Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and Heroes - All human based dramas. There's a lot more variety here, which is pretty nice. I'm a little surprised that Eureka didn't make the list, given the environmental aspects of the show. Dr. Who has been getting into some of the environmental aspects of Global Warming and climate change, as has Stargate a couple times.

Top 10 Books to Read 1. 1984 by George Orwell 2. The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 3. Dune by Frank Herbert 4. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells 5. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov 6. The Stand by Stephen King 7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 8. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke 9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley 10. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Finally, with the books, it looks as if government control and things like that really are still one of the foremost popular ideas and genres in Science Fiction - 1984, Dune, Fahrenheit 451, A Brave New World, and even the Andromeda Strain fall under those catagories. These are some pretty good picks - I'd say that they're missing Foundation and Ringworld. I don't know anything about The Stand, but it's a solid list.