Posted on February 3, 2012 
CategoriesI have always been a massive sci-fi fan. After all, I’m named after a character from a sci-fi show (Jenna from Blake’s 7 – do yourself a favor and hire it out if you haven’t seen it. Easily one of the best SF shows of all time). Today I’m counting down the top 5 best sci-fi that the 80s had to offer! What would make your list? Also – you can win some cool prizes related to today’s post – go to the competitions page to enter!
5. The Abyss
This James Cameron film, starring Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, is seriously claustrophobic. It’s about a Navy SEAL team who head deep underwater in an experimental new oil platform, to try to rescue a submarine in peril. What they encounter is far more than normal marine life – they discover a life form that’s completely out of this world.
4. Blade Runner
By all rights, this should be higher on the list, but it faced some amazing competition in a decade full of amazing SF. The film is set in 2019, where robots called Replicants, who look just like humans, have been created. They are banned on Earth and only allowed to be used on Earth colonies – and if they break this rule they are hunted down by Blade Runners and decommissioned. Harrison Ford plays a burnt out Blade Runner who takes on one last job of hunting down a particularly dangerous group of Replicants hiding out in LA. It’s a brilliant dystopian film which is considered a classic for a very good reason.
3. Aliens
Alien (from the 70s) and the sequel Aliens are the rare type of SF that has easily stood the test of time. They don’t look outdated, the stories are still relevant, the acting strong. Aliens sees space pilot Ripley (played by the AMAZING Sigourney Weaver), return to the planet from the first movie where her crew were killed by vicious aliens and she was the only survivor. The aliens are back, as terrifying as ever, and Ripley is as kick-ass as ever. This movie will never, ever go out of style!
2. Terminator
This is the movie that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name. Arnie plays a scary cyborg sent back in time from 2029 to to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, the woman who will give birth to John Connor, future leader of the rebels who will fight back against the killer cyborgs. Though his acting skills are questionable, in this James Cameron film Arnie is perfect as the Terminator. And, Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor gave Sigourney a run for her money as the top kick-ass sci-fi chick of the decade!
1. The Empire Strikes Back
I hate to be obvious in my countdowns, but the original Star Wars trilogy was such a game changer that this movie needed to be at the top. Star Wars ushered in a new era of SF when it was released in the ’70s, and this legacy continued on with the sequels. The Empire Strikes Back is arguably the best of the lot, with lots of Han, Leia and Luke, much use of the force and light sabres, and of course one of the biggest twists in movie history – “Luke, I am your father”! Sci-Fi perfection!
Jenna Cosgrove's Blog - Everything rad, sad and fab about 80s pop culture - movies, music, TV, celebs, reviews and general bodacious goings on. For 80's-come-latelys and those stricken with nostalgia for the best decade in history!
What an excellent selection. These were all films with something to offer *besides* entertainment — there was this obvious concern with rich plots and layered characters, which is missing from most big-budget science fiction these days.
Hollywood complains of piracy… Maybe they should stop neglecting storytelling and producing so much unwatchable crap! Michael Bay is definitely not God’s gift to cinema.
Where are the young James Camerons, the young Spielbergs of this generation? Making shorts and working in advertising, mostly. And it’s a shame.
Btw, Blade Runner would be my #1 here, although The Empire Strikes Back is a solid choice.
Hi Bell, I agree about modern movies! There are a couple of good ones here and there, but so many seem to be just about CGI, without paying too much attention to the storyline and characters (ahem, Avatar!).
And, it was tough picking what order to put the list in! All 5 could have tied for #1 in my opinion!
CGI will be great for movies — yet. So far, everyone seems to be stuck in the fascination stage. It’s “the new toy” and everyone wants to play with it.
So we get these epic, CGI slugfests that are little more than special-effects showreels. Once I was watching an interview with an sfx technician and he said, “If you, the viewer, go ‘wow, that was a really cool effect’, then WE haven’t done a good enough job.”
CGI should help the story along, not overwhelm it.
I haven’t seen Real Steel, but I get the feeling that that one is a new beginning, that the novelty is starting to wear off. Also, I read somewhere that they actually built functional robots, and that helps. The actors were responding to something other than a void.
The Abyss was great in that visual effects blended in nicely and weren’t put in just for the coolness factor. But that could be said for any of the movies in your top 5.
Great list. Every time The Abyss is on TV, I have to watch it.
I also can’t resist adding my agreement about the crap that is today’s movies…or maybe even the movies of the last fifteen years or more.
It seems like so many of them now are two minutes of plot, followed by two hours of explosions. Boring, uninspired. I’m tempted to say these movies are insulting to the viewing public, but obviously the viewing public keeps buying tickets, otherwise Hollywood would stop making that kind of movie.
Anyway, great topic for a post. Nicely done.
I have liked a couple of recent SF movies, like the Matrix, Inception and Pitch Black, but yes, I think in general the art of story telling has been lost a little. In the end, it’s the characters that matter!