Tag Archives: SF

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (7) Fantasy: Girl from Nowhere

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(7) FANTASY: GIRL FROM NOWHERE

(2018 – 2021: SEASONS 1-2)

 

A little like my previous entry Sweet Home – in that I’ve found myself dipping into east Asian fantasy televsion series…you know, in the absence of consistency of enduring quality (or in some cases initial quality) in Western fantasy television series.

I’ve only dipped into this Thai series on Netflix just a little, but enough to find it intriguing. It prompts to mind Japanese anime (or live-action adaptation) in its staple school setting – one wonders why an apparently immortal supernatural being spends her time hanging around high schools as one of their students but why not, I suppose?

That supernatural being is the titular trickster Girl from Nowhere, who seems to delight in serving up karma with a side of mind-screw to wrongdoers – made even better by her beaming smile in her guise of how nice she is helping them to their own self-destruction.

Funnily enough, it prompts to mind one of my special mentions, the forgotten gem of American Gothic, where Sheriff Buck played a similar role but more in the way of deals with the devil (with himself as the devil of course).

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Fantasy obviously – dark fantasy. Although it would be interesting as an SF variant of Nanno as a telepathic alien – or perhaps AI?

 

HORROR

 

More than a few horror elements – although perhaps in the sense that the creeping doom of tragic drama has always reminded me of horror.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & TV Films (7) Fantasy: Indiana Jones

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The iconic poster image of the first film

 

(7) FANTASY: STEVEN SPIELBERG – INDIANA JONES

(1981-1989: INDIANA JONES 1-3 – yeah I don’t count Crystal Skull or Dial of Destiny)

 

“You call this archaeology?”

Indiana Jones is the pure awesomeness you get when you mix George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in a bowl of serials – the adventure cliffhanger serial films of the 1930’s. The centerpiece of that awesomeness is the film trilogy of the 1980’s, although there is a media franchise or expanded universe extending to books, comics and television. For Indiana Jones, archaeology was adventure – racing Nazis for mystical artefacts such as the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, as opposed to the much less adventurous reality of dusting off and sorting one piece of broken pottery from another, barely above watching paint dry in excitement. Who’d have thought that a bullwhip and pistol were such indispensable archaeological tools? In fairness, Indiana does actually teach archaeology at a university, but even then his classes are full of hot coed groupies, who spend their time writing love messages to him on their eyelids rather than studying.

It is hard to choose between the three films of the original cinematic trilogy (ignoring, as I do, the fevered dreams of a fourth movie nuking the fridge two decades later, let alone the hallucinations of a fifth film, hence my entry only extends to the first three films), but it is equally hard to beat the introduction in Raiders of the Lost Ark to the character and his historical world much cooler than ours. I assume it needs no further introduction? From the iconic opening scene in the South American tomb of terror to the equally iconic finale, it is a masterpiece of cinematic adventure. The plot of course revolves around the archaeological arms race between the United States and Nazi Germany for the titular Ark of the Covenant. (That’s right – they’re going Old Testament on each other). Indiana Jones is enlisted by the United States government to thwart the Nazi recovery of the Ark. (“Nazis! I hate those guys!” We all do, Indy, we all do). Which explains why Nazi Germany lost the war – well, that and they lost too many men in Castle Wolfenstein.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (8) Fantasy: Sweet Home

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(8) FANTASY: SWEET HOME

(2020 – 2024: SEASONS 1-3)

 

Monster apocalypse!

Adapted from a webtoon, apocalyptic horror hits South Korea, as people turn into monsters inside and outside an apartment building – with the second and third season expanding the setting from the original building, as well as featuring the remnants of the army and government studying the monsters in hope of finding a cure.

It’s distinct from a zombie apocalypse – as while the transformations have symptoms of onset, the transformations themselves are not contagious and don’t have the qualities of viral infection of your standard zombie apocalypse. Also, the monster transformations are metaphysical or even karmic in nature, usually reflecting some character trait in the person being transformed. Hence, some monsters are more monstrous than others, in appearance or in morality.

I mean, the first episode sets the tone with the series protagonist hears his neighbor complaining she’s hungry as she eats his ramen (ransacked from the package delivery outside his door) – and her cat.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Unlike a zombie apocalypse which usually is more SF than fantasy, the monster apocalypse is a little too metaphysical for SF and so I’ve ranked it as fantasy. However, it still retains some SF trappings, for being set in the contemporary world with the government or military trying to study the monsters for a possible cure.

 

HORROR

 

What part of monster apocalypse did you miss? You can pretty much rank it as straight-up horror.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films: (8) SF: Back to the Future

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Classic promotional poster art for the first film

 

 

(8) SF: BACK TO THE FUTURE

(1985-1990: BACK TO THE FUTURE 1-3)

 

“If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious sh*t.”

Alternatively, “McFly!”

One of the two definitive SF time travel franchises of all time – as per South Park, “Terminator rules” are that time travel is “one way only and you can’t go back”, in contrast with “Back to the Future rules, where back and forth is possible”. The other distinction is the mutability of time in the latter as opposed to the former – or to put it simply, you can change the past in the latter, for better or worse. Which in my opinion makes for the more entertaining franchise for the actual time travel – combining “fish out of water comedy with high-stakes drama, making deft use of threatened temporal paradox” (not to mention running gags based on similar events across time) and shuttling back and forth 30 years before and after 1985 as well as a century into the past.

The first film in the trilogy is the best, setting the basic themes and tropes for the sequels to follow:

“Marty McFly, a teenager from 1985, accidentally sends himself to 1955 in the time machine Doc Brown built out of a DeLorean, and requires 1.21 gigawatts of power to return home. After initial confusion, the 1955 Doc Brown agrees to help Marty get back home by striking his car with 1.21 gigawatts of lightning, giving Marty a week to make his parents fall back in love at a dance and put bully Biff Tannen in his place”

Not to mention inventing rock ‘n’ roll…

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Again, it’s obviously SF – one of the definitive SF time travel film franchises! Although time travel can work as a fantasy trope – and I do like it whenever it pops up in fantasy, although it is perhaps more limited in fantasy use because of its potential story-breaking power if done by means of magic controlled by a character or protagonist.

 

HORROR

 

Unusually for fantasy or SF, virtually no element of horror – unless you count the existential horror of erasing yourself from existence by changing the past….

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (9) Fantasy: House of the Dragon

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(9) FANTASY: HOUSE OF THE DRAGON

(2022 – PRESENT: SEASONS 1-2)

 

For six seasons, Game of Thrones reigned supreme in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series, albeit the first four seasons set the gold standard while the fifth and sixth season started to show signs of silver or bronze wearing through.

Then came the seventh season in which it slipped from its supreme reign – but even worse, its eighth and final season, in which it definitely did not stick its Kings Landing, or perhaps, stuck it somewhere winter never comes and painfully at that. I don’t think it’s overstating just how bad this season was to state that it undid all the previous seasons – perhaps not to the point of erasing it from my memory but at least to shuffling it off into my special mentions instead for fond reminiscence of its golden seasons.

And there I thought Westeros and the world of Game of Thrones would remain, to be politely passed over for new fantasy fare.

So imagine my surprise that just when I thought I was out, the prequel series, House of the Dragon – or Hot D for short – pulled me back in. The first season seemed a return to the quality of the early seasons of Game of Thrones – or at least seasons 5-6.

In fairness, quality fantasy fare is hard to come by on screen – which is why my top tens for cinematic or television fantasy & SF is predominated by SF. For some reason – or indeed a number of reasons – directors and producers just seem to adapt SF better than fantasy to the screen, albeit usually with fantastic elements rather cold hard SF.

Also in fairness – once bitten, twice shy. I still have that taste in my mouth from Season 8 of Game of Thrones, particularly as I know that’s how it all ends up, even this prequel series set nearly 200 years earlier – and season 2 showed some signs of sagging or treading water.

But so far so good with that classic Westeros territory – wars of succession and civil wars. Also dragons – only more of them and bigger. And casting an Australian girl as the young Rhaenyra Targaryen, even if they then time jump to another actress for her as one of the two rival claimants for the throne (for the Blacks against the Greens, named for their house colors).

I’m at least in it for the next season.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

The most fantasy of my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series. No SF to be seen!

 

HORROR

 

Perhaps some elements but not as many as the original Game of Thrones series, with its wights and White Walkers…

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films: (9) SF: Jurassic Park

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(9) SF: JURASSIC PARK

(1993 – yes I know there’s an ongoing franchise but I’m only really counting the first film)

 

Everything’s better with dinosaurs!

We all love dinosaurs, ever since we started digging up their bones – and we particularly love them in cinematic form. I’d argue that there is not one film that would not be improved by a dinosaur (or dinosaurs). Citizen Kane would have been MUCH improved by a dinosaur.

Anyway, Jurassic Park is the pure awesomeness you get when you combine dinosaurs with Steven Spielburg’s mastery of cinematic action and visual effects. Does it need any further introduction? You all know it. You probably can all quote it, from some point or other in the film or franchise.

I actually read the book first. Michael Crichton might have gotten a bit…controversial in his later years, but he sure knew how to craft a story – and Jurassic Park was one of his finest and certainly his most successful. Of course, there are the usual differences between the book and the film – the former had a starring role for the T-Rex’s tongue and the lawyer Gennaro was much more heroic (as lawyers should be), punching out a velociraptor and surviving rather than sniveling in a toilet before being slurped down by the tyrannosaur like the film’s lawyer.

Spielberg’s magic was of course to bring the book to life. The plot is the same – scientists discover how to recreate dinosaurs through a complex cloning process, involving dinosaur blood from mosquitoes fossilized in amber and filling in the gaps with other animal DNA, most notably transsexual frogs. Naturally, they come up with a dinosaur theme park to profit from this discovery, and equally as naturally, everything that can go wrong does go wrong – usually in the form of sharp pointy teeth.

Or in the words of character Dr. Ian Malcolm “Oh yeah, ‘oooh aaah’. That’s how it always starts. Then later, there’s the running and the screaming” – neatly summarizing each of the movies in the series, as TV Tropes pointed out. The same quotation might arguably apply to diminishing returns of the sequels, albeit with marginally less running and screaming. To which I offer the counter-argument – shut up, there’s dinosaurs! Even so, I’ll stick with just the first film for this entry – the franchise has been trying to capture the same magic ever since.

Of course, when it comes to the dinosaurs, there is only one true star. Despite the franchise’s effort to focus on the velociraptors (which I understand they beefed up from their actual and less imposing size of chickens), there’s only one true king (or more precisely, queen) of the prehistoric jungle – the tyrannosaurus rex.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Well, it’s obviously SF – genetically engineered dinosaurs! Although I do like it when dinosaurs pop up in fantasy, which they do surprisingly often. Everything’s better with dinosaurs!

 

HORROR

 

Elements of survival horror from animal predators – the tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptors in particular.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series: (10) SF: Fallout

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Amazon Prime promotional poster art for Fallout

 

(10) SF: FALLOUT

(2024: SEASON 1)

 

Yes, I’m running with this series and its 2024 debut on Amazon Prime as my wildcard tenth place entry as best of 2024.

For one thing, there wasn’t much else I saw by way of debut fantasy or SF TV series to outrank it in 2024. For another, as flawed as it was, it was fun, even if that fun was carried by its lead Ella Purnell (who, as voice actress for Jinx in Netflix’s Arcane really seems to be having a banger year or years recently on television) as well as the always reliable Walter Goggins as the Ghoul (also having a banger year or so in television as voice actor for Cecil in Prime’s Invincible). The two of them pairing up was the highlight of the series.

Yes, it’s cheesy, but then so are the games from which it is adapted and you could hardly expect high art from it. It’s your standard post-apocalyptic wasteland, albeit from nuclear war between the United States and China in an alternative twenty-first century with retro-futuristic 50s chic.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Classic post-apocalyptic SF – after a nuclear war in an alternate history timeline to boot. Of course, post-apocalyptic SF can often have elements of fantasy

 

HORROR

 

And more often, elements of horror – as here, notably with the ghouls.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER) – BEST OF 2024

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films (10) SF: Dune

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Promotional artwork from the 2024 Dune film as the cover for the Frank Herbert book

 

 

(10) SF: DUNE

(2021-2024: DUNE PARTS 1-2)

 

“Walk without rhythm, you won’t attract the worm”

That is of course the lyric from Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice, but like this ongoing film series, it is adapted from Frank Herbert’s SF novel Dune. The music video famously featured actor Christopher Walken dancing through a hotel lobby – and much to my delight of happy synchronicity, he was also in Dune Part 2, and as the God-Emperor no less! I might have squealed a little in my delight at that – although they sadly missed the opportunity for him to re-enact that dance scene in the film.

This is perhaps stretching my usual rule for wildcard tenth place entry as best of 2024 but I’m running with it. For one thing, the sequel film Dune Part 2 was released in that year and it easily was the best fantasy or SF film of 2024. For another, I didn’t actually see the first film when it was released but watched it shortly before seeing the sequel film at the cinema – so in effect both films were in 2024 for me.

And for yet another, with two films under its belt and another on the way, with consummate direction by Denis Villeneuve and a star-studded cast, it is easily the best fantasy or SF film franchise at the moment and the closest thing as successor to the epic Lord of the Rings fantasy film trilogy, particularly as that trilogy is offset by subsequent releases from what is now an expanding film and TV franchise.

As a fan of literary as well as cinematic fantasy and SF, I have to confess that I have never read Frank Herbert’s Dune or any of its sequels, although it is impossible to be a fantasy and SF fan without being aware of its plot or elements, at least in broad outline – archetypal space opera with an archetypal Galactic Empire, desert planet Arrakis, Paul Atreides and the House Atreides, Baron Harkonnen and House Harkonnen, the Fremen, spice, the sandworms, and the Bene Gesserit.

Or for that matter, its influence on subsequent fantasy or SF – it’s hard not see Dune’s Galactic Empire in Star Wars, or Arrakis in Tatooine, or even Paul Atreides in Luke Skywalker (although Star Wars could definitely have done with more Bene Gesserit).

The two Dune films seem to adapt the plot and elements well from what I know of them, particularly given the daunting scale and scope of the literary source to adapt to film (not unlike Lord of the Rings), and in stunning visual style to boot.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Well, it’s obviously classic SF space opera…but like that other classic SF space opera, Star Wars, it has distinct elements of space fantasy.

 

HORROR

 

Like most SF or fantasy, it has some elements of horror – the sandworms can be terrifying – but not predominant or thematic enough to rank the films in the horror genre.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD-TIER) – BEST OF 2024

Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series

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Poster art for Archer Season 10, titled Archer:1999 – a reference to the 1975-1977 SF TV series Space: 1999 (and hence a nod to the anachronistic retro vibe of Archer’s main continuity)

 

Sigh. My Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series may be the most fluid of all my top ten lists.

Many, perhaps most, simply miss the mark for me at the outset. Those that do hit the mark generally fall away quickly or don’t have an enduring quality – or they endure too long, waning until they limp into their final season and fail to stick the landing. The recent archetypal example, for me as it was for so many others, was Game of Thrones, in which the failure to stick the proverbial landing – or dare I say it, King’s Landing (heh) – in the final season left a bitter taste that filtered back throughout the series or at least its later seasons.

Hence, I tend to have a high turnover for shuffling or ranking entries into my special mentions, with so few entries having the consistent or enduring quality to rank in the top ten itself – or remain there. And to be honest, most of my present entries are pretty shaky.

In fairness to myself, there’s also my separate Top 10 Animated TV Series, in which my entries are somewhat more enduring – and animation by its nature tends to be fantasy or SF. Indeed, all but the top entry in my present top ten are clearly fantasy or SF, and the top entry (Archer) has so many substantial SF elements as to be borderline SF. (One season was outright SF and there’s a reasonable argument for the other seasons as alternate history given their anachronistic timeline and divergence from our own world in which they are nominally set.)

Like my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films, my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series leans predominantly towards SF. Only one entry is clearly fantasy, although the distinction between SF and fantasy seems far fuzzier in most of the other entries than it does for SF films. As I did for films, I will note each entry as fantasy or SF, but with a section (Fantasy or SF?) for the fuzziness of the distinction.

It’s also interesting how much supernatural or SF horror features in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series, as well as how many superhero comics adaptations – both of which I will note in each entry.  Four of the entries, including the top entry, arguably fall within the horror genre (with arguable horror elements in two or three of the others) – and an entry is an adaptation from superhero comics, albeit far removed from the A-list characters.

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series.

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films

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Promotional art for the 1982 fantasy film, The Beastmaster. Amazingly, it became a cult classic. Even more amazingly, it became a franchise, with two sequel films and a television series. The film was shown on HBO so often that comedian Dennis Miller joked HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s on!”. And yes – it’s not that good but it’s a guilty pleasure of mine.

 

 

“Fantasy isn’t just a jolly escape: It’s an escape, but into something far more extreme than reality, or normality. It’s where things are more beautiful and more wondrous and more terrifying.” – Terry Gilliam

That’s how I introduced my Top 10 Fantasy Books and it’s even more apt for my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films, given I feature Terry Gilliam in my special mentions as one of my favorite directors of fantasy or SF films.

Although, the definition of fantasy might be less apt as my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films overwhelmingly leans towards SF, with eight entries as SF and only two entries as fantasy. As such, I will note each entry as either fantasy or SF.

In fairness, I might well have ranked more films as fantasy, or SF for that matter. When I compiled my top ten ‘non-genre’ films, I noted those with fantasy or SF elements. The same applies to my top ten comedy films. The distinction is that the fantasy or SF elements did not predominate in those films so as to rank them within the fantasy or SF genres but the elements are still there.

More substantially, I also have separate top tens for animated films, films adapted from comics, and horror films – each of which predominantly consist of films that could be ranked within the fantasy or SF genres. Animated films lean towards fantasy, films adapted from comics lean towards SF (albeit often functionally or outright fantasy for superheroes), and I have deliberately leaned my top ten horror films towards fantasy or supernatural horror.

Ironically, at least three of the SF entries in this top ten could be ranked as horror or more precisely SF horror (a sub-genre also reflected in the special mentions for my Top 10 Horror Films). Given the overlap of both fantasy and SF with horror, I will also note where an entry might have also been ranked as horror or arguably has elements of horror.

Anyway, here are my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films. Just a quick note – if you’re looking for The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, I rank them in my special mention entries. The former is because as much as I love that film trilogy, it is eclipsed by my love of the book trilogy, ranking it in top spot in My Top 10 Fantasy Books. The second is because I have a complicated love-hate relationship with the original Star Wars film trilogy – and that trilogy has been somewhat diminished by them running the franchise into the ground since. Which, to be honest, they’ve also pretty much done with The Lord of the Rings franchise, what with the Hobbit film trilogy and the Rings of Power TV series.