The Romulan Republic wrote:Well, The Martian seems to be the clear winner.
Incidentally, the Golden Globes seem to agree- as of last night, The Martian took Best Picture (admittedly in the comedy category), and an acting award for Matt Damon.
Though TFA wasn't in the running- it came out after the nomination cutoff, so it's in it for next year.
Hm, with Martian in comedy, it wasn't going against any of these others, oddly enough...
I thought the Furiosa movie was pretty good, the Doof Warrior being one of the highlights of the movie, and I would argue it belongs in the 'scifi' category as much as any of the others, but overall I would agree The Martian as the best of the year.
'Ai! ai!' wailed Legolas. 'A Balrog! A Balrog is come!'
Gimli stared with wide eyes. 'Durin's Bane!' he cried, and letting his axe fall he covered his face.
'A Balrog,' muttered Gandalf. 'Now I understand.' He faltered and leaned heavily on his staff. 'What an evil fortune! And I am already weary.'
- J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
I'd certainly count AoU, as pseudo-magical stuff aside, its a robot uprising movie.
Spectre was stretching it, I admit. Their are certainly Bond films I would be inclined to call science fiction, but Spectre not so much. But it made the poll a little more diverse.
I am oddly gratified to see AoU getting zero votes.
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist
"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin
The Martian fell apart at the end with the rescue of Damon. It's a good movie overall but I do not like that much humor in my science fiction. Ex Machina is the one I choose, whose absence in the poll I find obscene.
Unfortunately for Ex Machina, the movie reverted to the old "robots want to destroy you" trope, which I was hoping wouldn't happen. But the character development and thematic material made it miles above most of the science fiction I've seen lately. I take that back, actually. It's not as good as Interstellar, but it's up there.
I wasn't aware of Ex Machina (might have heard the name, but didn't see it and don't know much about it). And their's limited room on the poll. Hence the existence of the "other" category.
As for AoU, I found it... mediocre. It wasn't a bad movie, exactly. But I think it felt a little messy and, at times, tedious/dragged out. It didn't move as quickly or smoothly as the first Avengers film, and it didn't have the thematic depth or emotional intensity of some of Whedon's other works (at least for me) to make up for it, though that might be at least partly due to the confines of working with Marvel and in their universe (I've read that Whedon had a bit of a falling out with Marvel over the film).
Edit: It did have some pretty good moments, including that group shot of the Avengers charging the Hydra base at the beginning, the scene with each Avenger trying to lift Thor's hammer, Ultron's crazy singing, Hawkeye's family and their interactions with Romanov, parts of the final battle, the final confrontation between Vision and Ultron, and the new Avengers line up at the end. It just didn't really gel as a whole.
I'll comment I really liked Jupiter Ascending- great visuals, interesting worldbuilding, and doing a 'secret princess' story in a space opera is something I haven't seen before in film and had appeal to me. It's not my fav of the year of course, but it's memorable.
'15 was a *really* good year for SF movies. We had the A-list big films, but we also had a couple B-list ones with their own things going for 'em.
