Fantastic Planets, Forbidden Zones, and Lost Continents

The 100 Greatest Science-Fiction Films

The University of Texas Press 2015

Hb, 448pp, illus, £20.99, ISBN 9780292739192

FORTEAN TIMES BOOKSHOP PRICE £18.99

I spent much of my adolescence engrossed in books about horror and SF movies. Tomes from Alan Frank, Ed Naha and Lorrimer Publications were surrogates for the films. In those pre-VHS days, I had to rely on re-runs on TV at unsocial hours, the NFT or the Scala.

Today, it’s still useful to have a guide to the terra incognita of SF films. Fantastic Planets, Forbidden Zones, and Lost Continents meets this need admirably. To paraphrase Ben Kenobi, it helps with those first steps into a larger world.

Brode defines SF as “fantasy + technology”. So, A Clockwork Orange and Brazil, for example, aren’t in the top 100 because they “do not include any specific reference to science”. For each of the 100 films, Brode lists credits, cast, most memorable line, background, trivia and so on.

For the record, Brode puts Metropolis first, 2001: A Space Odyssey second, The Day the Earth Stood Still third, and the original Star Wars trilogy fourth. And there’s the rub. Put two SF film buffs in a room and you’ll get at least four (probably many more) versions of the top 100 movies. He regards Dune and Rollerball – which I know are flawed, but which I still enjoy and regard as ‘bubbling under’ my top 100 – as “highly ambitious films that promised much and delivered nil”. Yet I feel the same about 2001 (I know it’s a minority view) and the Phantom Menace (ranked 89 alongside the rest of the prequel trilogy). I’m with Spaced’s Tim Bisley on the Phantom Menace. More than 15 years later, I’m still not over it.

Lists and rankings are question of taste, culture and criteria. Because of this inherent subjectivity, I prefer to regard