With the new Star Wars flick coming up in a week or so, a cause for celebration to some, a source of anger to others, I thought I'd sidestep the whole 'has George Lucas lost-it?' issue by running through some of my favourite science fiction movies for you, all of which are worth adding to your Blockbuster list. These are the movies big on ideas, most of them action-packed, some funny, some scary, some set here and now, others set way into the future.

Anything is possible in sci fi . It's a genre of unlimited possibilities with all of space and time at its disposal. Which is one of the reasons I love it so much. I'm also madly into aliens and robots, spaceships and gadgets, all four of which make any movie they're in better. I'm not saying I can't sit through a realistic, terrestrial drama. Just that I prefer the extraordinary, and always will. Though I'm a big fan of vintage sci fi, stuff from the Fifties and the years before that, I'm going to focus today on the last four decades of fantasy cinema, which leaves me with more than enough to get through in a single column. So here goes... 

Where else could I begin than by bigging up the classic original Star Wars trilogy? No other film, event or person has made a bigger or more lasting impression on me than Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. And I'm not alone. For many if not most thirtysomething blokes, these films represent much more than entertainment. More like a life-changing religious experience. They're also a lot of fun, with incredible effects that didn't need updating.

Fortunately there are no limits to my fanboy affections, so there's room in my heart for Star Trek as well, the shows (which I'm talking about elsewhere this week) and the second, fourth, sixth and eighth movies too. The Wrath of Khan (#2) is my all-time favourite, so very quotable ("Khaaaan!") with some excellent space shoot-'em-ups and, thanks to the wonderful Ricardo Montalban, an all-time classic baddie too. Time travel features large in The Voyage Home (#4) and First Contact (#8), the first very funny and the second deadly serious, both of them awesome. And finally there's The Undiscovered Country (#6), the last proper classic Trek movie, a terrific mystery with plenty of atmosphere and lots of action too. 

Of the remaining classic science fiction movie series out there, the Terminators always get my heart racing, sensational action-adventures starring ultimate beefcake Arnold Schwarzenegger. And sci fi doesn't come any scarier than Alien, Ridley Scott's monster-in-the-house movie with more scares and acid-soaked fatalities that you could reasonably expect from any movie. Of the many sequels spawned by its success, it's really only the first of them that I watch over and over. James Cameron's Aliens turned a moderately intimate story into an all-action epic, raising the stakes by multiplying the monsters into an army.

Despite spawning multiple sequels, the next three films far outshone their subsequent installments. Funny and charming with countless time-travel paradoxes for us to get our heads around, Back To the Future is entertainment gold. Planet of the Apes is another feature I can never get enough of, surprising and dramatic with the single greatest twist ending of all time. Obviously I'm talking about the original here, and not the Tim Burton remake, which improved upon the make-up but nothing else. Most recently, The Matrix has totally obsessed me, a film I like more every time I see it, though I didn't think the sequels really added that much. And though it's only inspired a single sequel so far, Pitch Black I love because it came out of nowhere, a low budget thriller that starts well and only gets better. Only one sequel, not counting the Treks, has cut the mustard as far as I'm concerned: Mad Max 2, the craziest and most exciting post-apocalyptic action movie ever. Though I'm not exactly Mel Gibson's biggest fan these days, I can still watch this early winner without thinking about The Passion of The Christ.

On to a couple of directors now, people who have made mistakes in their careers, it's true, but who, more often than not, make movie magic. Though generally better known for his horror flicks, John Carpenterstarted out in sci fi with no-budget hippie spaceship comedy Dark Star, a film that has a living beach ball as its monster and climaxes with a wasted spaceman surfing into a planet. A few years later, Carpenter toned down the humour and souped up the thrills with Escape From New York, a gritty, violent thriller starring a very Clint-like Kurt Russell as ultimate anti-hero Snake Plissken. And then there's lunatic Dutch director Paul Verhoeven , who will never live down the likes of Basic Instinct and Showgirls, but then will always be treasured for RoboCop, unquestionably the greatest movie of the Eighties, Total Recall, his over-the-top Arnie epic, and Starship Troopers, the best giant bug-hunt ever.

Of the many sci fi comedies I've seen over the years, the following films are the only ones that still make me laugh (besides those I've already mentioned). Woody Allen in Sleeper, shuffling around like a robot and getting carried away with the 'Orgasmatron', provided a unique blend of East Coast Jewish humour and science fiction. Cruelly underrated and well worth your attention is Tim Burton's alien invasion parody Mars Attacks! dark and hilarious with incredible effects and an ear-bending Danny Elfman soundtrack. Joe Dante's InnerSpace, a comic remake of miniaturisation favourite Fantastic Voyage, sees a microscopic Dennis Quaid stuck in a submarine inside Martin Short. Which has to be worth a couple of hours of anyone's time. Inventive, affectionate and frequently very funny, Star Trek satire Galaxy Quest, in which the cast of a classic sci fi show are recruited for a real-life space battle, is practically perfect in ever way. There's no film that makes me laugh harder, though, than kitsch, camp classic Flash Gordon ("Not the bore worms!").

Serious sci fi works for me too, as long as it's done well. Though I found it slow as a kid, I have since given my heart and my brain to Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Still, every time I'm served mashed potato, I can't help but sculpt it into a little mountain. All I'm going to say about Gattaca , meanwhile, is watch it. It's an amazing, inspiring, terrifying tale.

To round things off, I'd like to recommend something quite new, a stylish, beautiful film best described, I think, as rip-roaring. A boys-own adventure with a mad scientist, flying robots, ray guns, zeppelins and submarines, Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is a sensational blend of old and new, the latest of the greatest science fiction movies on my list.

See you next week! 

Marshall

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