[Gloriano]

Stargate
Babylon5
Blade runner

and few anime series

[Flaser]

I don't know why no anime titles were included:

Top3 series for me:

Babylon 5
- though later it gets a little flat, but even if the overall is not 100% super is has the best moments.


Gundam 0083
-A must be if you want to have a taste of war - not as figting and heroics but as human drama too
-Of all the gundam franchise *only ST is bigger- this is  the only one created by a different director than the original one - though just like the ill-fated 8th MS Gundam it's director died midway through creating the series
-For once you have to abbandon the good-guys/bad-guys setup.

Stargat - SG1
-Definitly a top-notch show, though the sheer lenght of the series forcesthe includement of some mediocre episodes.

[castor]

B5 - the story has some depth to it.. its alive and huge
2001 - a slap on your face, somehow hard to put it into words..

[Goober5000]

Series:
Star Trek (Original was most fun; DS9 was most well-made)

Movie:
Back to the Future
Star Trek II-IV

[Ashrak]

TAS was fun? LMAO

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Setekh
Favourite sci-fi series or movie, and why?

I've just been Stargate-crazy these past few weeks (maybe because I'm waiting to find out more about Anubis, his supersoldier, and the whole Atlantis spin-off), so I'm going to say SG-1. Because: I can believe it; the SGC uses technology they find and aren't in the whole "new episode, everything is wiped clean" grain; and because it has some great tongue-in-cheek moments.

I'd say Babylon 5 for most of the reasons Steak has put up there. SG has the great habit of not pressing the reset button after every episode and they do it well but I'd bet they got the idea from B5 who were pretty much the first to do it.
 And basically no one has since done it better. Almost every character in B5 is changed in some way at the end of season 5. even minor characters like lt. Corwin are different the last time we see them. The fact is no one could go through 5 years like that and not have been changed by the things that happened.

But the icing on the cake is that B5 has the greatest final episode of any series ever. It ties up the whole series and shows that from the moment the first episode was aired that the ending had been planned.

For best movie I'd probably say Aliens : Special Edition. That film was spot on in so many respects and if you thought the original was good the addition of the whole robot sentinals bit just hikes up the tension (I only wish I'd seen that version first).

As for books I'd probably say Larry Niven's Protector.  Basically a realistic view of fighting at a fair percentage of lightspeed and one where the Author didn't feel the need to slap humanity on the back and say how much better we are than other aliens. The pak could go through humankind in seconds.

[kode]

Originally posted by Ashrak
TAS was fun? LMAO

who mentioned the animated series? he mentioned tos, tho.

[Goober5000]

Ashrak: TOS != TAS

[Ashrak]

TOS isnt TAS the last time i remeber

[Goober5000]

That's what I said...

EDIT: "!=" means "not equal to" in many programming languages.

[Hunter]

Babylon 5, hands down. Nothing ever impacted me or taught me as much as that show. Everything about it has inspired me. It has shown me the lives of people in a way that makes you feel your living that life. And, it's quality Sci-Fi. Quality special effects, hell, even the music owns - Some of those scores really made the slightly duller episodes great ! Farscape recreated some of that "impact", but all in all never topped B5.

Please don't state your answers btw unless you have seen all current or the whole series, since you can't pass any judgements correctly..

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]Tv: Bab5 and Farscape really get me going.
Movies: The last starfighter, empire, aliens.
[/color]

[mikhael]

wow. Bab5 and Farscape are number one in my book. Bab5 had the vast intricate story, with the full weight of the series behind each episode. Farscape was lighter, but just as entertaining, but you didn't have to fight each episode to the ground to digest it. One satisfied one half the brain, and one satisfied the other.

Star Wars and Dune come in next on the list. More left/right brain dichotomies.

My favorite scifi though, is not a movie or a series. Its in two series of books: the Bench novels (about Andrej Kosciusko) and the Chung Kuo books.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by karajorma
But the icing on the cake is that B5 has the greatest final episode of any series ever.

The final episode of B5 was garbage. It had absolutely no redeeming standalone qualities, relying instead on its "Hey! I'm the last episode!" status to carry it through. The destruction of B5 was pointless ("It's a hazard to navigation and nobody comes here anymore." Huh??) and ineptly executed (they blew it up, creating massive amounts of spaceborne debris, instead of simply deorbiting it). The Ascension of Sheridan was so predictably executed it was painful to watch. 2001 did it better, 30+ years ago. And then JMS goes introducing some new story arc... in the final episode! Bleah.

B5 has its good points, but the fundamental problem with it is that JMS is a science fiction fan, not a science fiction writer. The science in B5 was pretty firmly at the comic-book level.

[diamondgeezer]

S:AAB (), SG-1, Alien/s, Predator 1/2, Stargate and T2. Then for utterly shallow but cool looking entertainment I'll take Event Horizon, Pitch Black and JC's Ghost of Mars. Does Transformers the Movie count as sci-fi?

Oh, and needless to say Dark City rules over all.

[magatsu1]

I'd say B5 minus post-Shadow episodes (kinda lost it's way)
SG1. No one can beat the genius of Richard Dean-Anderson (just don't mention the McGuyver mullet)
Battlestar Galactica.

The Thing is a favourite film of mine.

can i include Red Dwarf ?

[Singh]

hmmm....nobody here has seen the starship troopers series? O_o
The only other good series i know is ST: TOS, ST:TNG and ST:VOY. These are mostly hte only sci-fi series i have grown up on. We don't get B5 so
Movies:
(keep note that in India, Sci-fi is not considered.....'good' viewing)
ST: Generations
T3 (love that twist at the ending)
Starship Troopers
ST: Nemesis (why did i put this here...They killed Data off!!!!)
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (battle of endor....what can i say? only good part of the movie)
Freespace 2 cut-scenes!

[Ashrak]

uhh


ds9 owns ass off tng and voy

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by ZylonBane
The final episode of B5 was garbage. It had absolutely no redeeming standalone qualities, relying instead on its "Hey! I'm the last episode!" status to carry it through. The destruction of B5 was pointless ("It's a hazard to navigation and nobody comes here anymore." Huh??) and ineptly executed (they blew it up, creating massive amounts of spaceborne debris, instead of simply deorbiting it). The Ascension of Sheridan was so predictably executed it was painful to watch. 2001 did it better, 30+ years ago. And then JMS goes introducing some new story arc... in the final episode! Bleah.

B5 has its good points, but the fundamental problem with it is that JMS is a science fiction fan, not a science fiction writer. The science in B5 was pretty firmly at the comic-book level.

Ah, so because JMS creates probably the most literary, interesting characters that actually evolve during the series, a story that is at least slightly original (oh, I so loved the freakishly original and allegorical (allegory! how many years has it been since I saw you on screen) ending to the shadow war arc) and all that with half of ST's budget, he's not an SF writer. While what the people who keep pumping out crap like Enterprise are? Oh yeah.

Yes, the science is at a comic-book level, but face it: it's better than "Rotate-transphasic-generators-at-megalopump-carnivorous-antonymity" stuff we get at some of the later ST episodes. Hell even Asimov has hyperdrives.

I don't quite understand what new arc JMS introduced in SiL. I do understand that the blowing up B5 part was supposed to illustrate how the fates of Sheridan and B5 are closely tied. Besides, it made one hell of a emotion-impression thing.

I just think you want to argue.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by Singh

T3 (love that twist at the ending)
 

That was rather cool yes. Arnie's always a mouthful. I saw the twist coming a mile away, though.