We took a trip through decades of the genre and came up with a list of the most important and best hard science fiction movies of all time. They are the essence and the foundations of the book of sci-fi rules that’s still being written as we, the audience, become much more self-aware of our relationship with technology, the future, and whatever those two will bring.
Hard to define ‘hard’, a few more I liked: (no ranking)
The Time Machine (both the Pal and the Wells films; quite different)
Dark City (1998, Pryas)
Forbidden Planet (1956, Wilcox)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, Wise)
Fifth Element (hilarious, Besson, 1997)
Alien (Scott, 1979)
13th Floor (Rusnak, 1999)
Stargate (1994, Emerich)
Steamboy (2004, Otomo)
Movies made from famed series I’d REALLY LIKE to see:
Ringworld (Niven, a crime noone’s DARED to try).
Some setting of Riverworld. (Farmer)
ANY of Neal Stephenson’s SF books, esp. Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age, Anathem.
(Not even the BBC? I mean, who expected Doctor Who to get THIS far?!)
Dark City is an amazing movie!
One of the rare examples of sci-fi mixed with a skillfully unfolded mystery. Even when you know ‘the answer’, there are plenty of ‘how did they do that’ film-making mysteries.
I forgot to mention his entirely ‘I, Robot’, VG 2004 film … maybe because robots don’t don’t seem so science-fictionish these days…
They sold parts of the filming set to the first matrix movie by the way!
Ringworld has an adaptation! It’s one of the most popular video games.
What? Where? What’s it called?
I have no idea what they’re talking about. The only Niven “Known Space” Ringworld games are all DOS based from decades ago.
However, Halo and Outer Wilds have both taken shots at ringworlds, but they are not Known Space universe.
Yeah I was talking about Halo.
I read Ringworld after playing Halo, thinking “haha I’ll check out this thing that looks like it influenced this game that I enjoyed” but then it turns out Bungie just lifted a bunch of stuff wholesale.
They did Johnny Mnemonic from Stephenson, low budget I guess. Imagine Cryptonomicon 💖.
Jonathan Stross Laundry files could be so good too (and so botched I guess).
There’s too much kinky sex in Ringworld to be accepted by puritanical audiences.
I would love a lush tv series version of diamond age that really lingers on the setting.
There are at least a couple of Riverworld attempts. Haven’t seen either
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverworld_(2003_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverworld_(2010_miniseries)
Your list is far better.
I loved Niven’s books, one of my favorite sci-fi authors. However, he might be a hot potato for studios, he is an outspoken libertarian and may not be the best to put in front of a camera with many studios keeping a close eye on stars’ public persona and statements.
Plus, I don’t know how you’re gonna make films about Luis Wu fucking his way around the Ringworld with various aliens. Really gonna have to sanitize the story a bit, or all of Niven’s aliens are going to have to be transformed to Star Trek aliens, basically humans with some weird shit on their nose and forehead.
All of the aliens that Wu is fucking on the Ringworld essentially are Star Trek style aliens.
Spoilers for decades old scifi: >!Star Trek aliens are almost all humanoid because a humanoid progenitor species seeded the galaxy with DNA that would eventually give rise to humanoid life. Ringworld is even more direct than that: it was originally peopled by the humanoid Pak, but they left a bunch of gaps in the ecology and stopped maintaining the ecosystem, so humanoids evolved to fill the empty ecological niches. Hence, humanoid otter-people, bison-people, and jackal-people, all of whom can fuck each other.!<
So…a film furries might like.
Don’t forget all the aliens in Ringworld, besides Nessus and Chmee, are basically humans with weird changes.