The Guardian’s top 25 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films

For the past week or so the Guardian has been running a series of film lists, running down the top 25 in specific genres.
The science fiction and fantasy top 25 was posted today, and I have issues with it.

How the hell did Starship Troopers make the list? I don’t care that it’s in last place in the rankings, it shouldn’t be there at all.
Howard the Duck is a better science fiction film than that!

Really pleased to see The Princess Bride on the list.

Very pleased to see The Day the Earth Stood Still on the list too, but it should be higher placed, especially given some of the entries that get placed above it.

Dark Star … hooray. \•/

Brazil … hooray. Though, like The Day the Earth Stood Still, it should be higher placed, especially since …

Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes?!? I’m not sure which riles me more, this or Starship Troopers.
Certainly the weakest of Tim Burton’s films and there’s no way that it should be in this list.

Alphaville … hooray.

The Matrix. I’m a little undecided on this one. While I did (and still do) enjoy it, and it has been influential inside and out of the sci-fi genre, is it really good enough to be quite so high on a ‘greatest list of all time’? I’m not so sure.

Solaris (remake). No, Guardian. Just no.
What the hell are you thinking?!? How can you possibly place this so high and yet completely dismiss the original?
How can you preclude the original’s appearance when you place Starship Troopers in the list?
I simply cannot fathom how the original Solaris does not even get a look-in on this list.

I can’t really fault the top 3.

I would like to say that splitting Horror in to a separate top 25 would probably have me putting Alien in that list and not having it in the science fiction & fantasy list, despite that film being set in space it’s very much more a horror film than it is a science fiction film.

To put all this in context, here’s the list the Guardian has composed of Science Fiction & Fantasy films :

1) 2001: A Space Odyssey
2) Metropolis
3) Blade Runner
4) Alien
5) The Wizard of Oz
6) Solaris
7) ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
8) Spirited Away
9) Star Wars
10) King Kong
11) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
12) The Terminator/Terminator 2: Judgment Day
13) The Matrix
14) Alphaville
15) Back to the Future
16) Planet of the Apes
17) Brazil
18) The Lord of the Rings trilogy
19) Dark Star
20) The Day the Earth Stood Still
21) Edward Scissorhands
22) Akira
23) The Princess Bride
24) Pan’s Labyrinth
25) Starship Troopers