The 13 Best Space Opera Movies, In All Sci-Fi
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Set largely in the future and in outer space, they require massive effects budgets, huge set pieces, and leaps of imagination almost unlike any genre.
When a filmmaker gets space opera right he becomes a legend, like Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott, and George Lucas. More than any other type of science fiction, truly great space opera is deserving of praise.
These are the 13 best space opera movies, of all time, ranked in order.
13. The Fifth Element
12. The Last Starfighter
11. Thor Ragnarok
10. Starship Troopers
9. Galaxy Quest
8. Dune
7. WALL-E
6. Guardians of the Galaxy
5. Interstellar
4. Alien
3. Serenity
2. Star Wars
1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
How in the world can you, with a straight face, rank Thor Ragnarok above The Fifth Element and Last Starfighter?! If anything, Thor should be at 13, Guardians at 12, then go from there. Personally I think The Fifth Element deserves to be in the top 5
Fifth Element is great, but not that great!
@@GiantFreakinRobot Same can be said for Thor & Guardians. The Fifth Element was at least close to a space opera. Thor & Guardians aren't even close to qualifying. They're barely scifi
Amen
And the Last Starfighter is AWESOME!!! 🎉🫡. "Greetings Starfighter!"🚀🛸
As a comparison, this is dandruff placed next to psoriasis, placed next to Shingles.
I have two words for anyone at Giant Freakin' Robot who thinks that The Fifth Element deserves 13th place on the list - "Smoke You!"
We have a TV channel in Australia that on 5th day of 5th Month (May) it plays 5th element on repeat - 5 times. Brilliant
Eliminate the Marvel movies. They have their own genre. Add Forbidden Planet and I know its long, drawn out & doesnt have modern day effects, to be taken seriously, 2001 HAS to be on the list.
Not a space opera
You have preached, how can anyone not include the science fiction movie that paved the way for STAR WARS. ALIEN, & THE FIFTH ELEMENT later on.
The movie was bad, but The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy deserves at least a dishonorable mention since the base story is so great.
Spaceballs 100% deserves to be on the list because even as a parody the movie is great.
There were pieces of the movie I liked best. I never liked the BBC visual of Zaphod...but I liked the Elvis crossed with Bill Clinton and the pop up hidden head made the party meeting with Trish work logically. However the radio Zaphod voice was best.
Alan Rickman voicing an Apple TM cybernetic worked the comedy better than the sad sack robot costume. A manic depressive AI stuck in a happy looking cute Apple Ipod style robot wirked for me.
Slardy was better than the Tele actor.
Trish was more believable as an astrophysicist that was cute than the club girl that played Trillian as a rather silly blonde bimb0.
Deep Thought was great.
Arthur and Ford I liked better in all BBC renditions.
However put all together with the new stuff...it was meh....partly because it had to be rushed to hit 90 minutes.
2001 A Space Odessey deserves a place.
When was the last time you watched it?
@@GiantFreakinRobotlast week. Still fantastic
@@GiantFreakinRobot About two weeks ago, I watch it at least once a month, you also missed the sequel off your list.
2001 is one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made, and (depending on your tastes) is arguably a better sci-fi movie than anything on this list. But it's NOT a space opera.
@@chrisoconor9314 in North America i think we call them Space Western
Great list. But you seemed to unfairly throw some shade at 2001.
A pillar of sci-fi, I could equally see it omitted since it lacks the opera of space opera. Rather, 2001 represents the science half of its fiction (see also the Martian).
So, agree it should not be in a space opera list. Yet it remains seminal and essential science fiction.
2001 is the most Space Opera of Space Operas. It’s just a little boring seen through a modern lens where we are no longer as wowed by the Fx.
@@GiantFreakinRobot Aside from the trippy ending, I think the visuals hold up great nowadays. I agree the entire movie can seem slow by modern standards.
if you havnt watched 'Serenity' i would suggest watching the tv show Firefly that inspired IT,the cast and fans got together to fund the film. Serenity ties up lots of loose ends the tv show never got to because it was canceled too soon. i vote them both EPIC.
Yes. It was cancelled too soon.
Everybody has a list...
Some higher, some lower, and others off/or on.
For me, Serenity will always be my number one... Somewhere out there, there is a Firefly with my name on it, waiting to be rebuilt...
I can’t fault anyone for loving Serenity.
I have watched most of them and I agree with the list mostly.
I’m amazed by how many people agree. Very cool.
WTF where is the First and greatest space Opera ? BARBERELLA QUEEN OF THE GALAXY ? Also the gender swapped Flash Gordon ? Not the first to say this but there is a plethora of Japanese Anime, Hopeless list.
I can’t tell if you’re joking.
3:22 You only know what I'm thinking if YOU are thinking, "man, what an ass choice for this list!"
3:58 And again, an ass choice for the list. Ironically, there's a CG animated TV series adaptation that's MUCH better.
8:16 Haven't seen it, though I should. The MacGuffin is pretty basic, though. It assumes that (A), mankind could destroy the environment and NOT destroy mankind at the same time, (B) we have the technology to practically span interstellar distances, and (C) it would be at all cost-effective to take enough of us there to create a colony that can perpetuate itself. All three are some tall damn orders.
9:06 "Alien" is not a space opera. It's a haunted house/slasher flick complete with a final girl, (just the year after the trope was invented in "Halloween") SET in space. A good space opera uses space as an unwritten character. Being in space wasn't necessary for "Alien." Actually "Aliens" would be an acceptable substitute, being very action-packed and space itself is definitely a factor in all the goings-on.
9:55 Nice fan service, dude. That'll get SOME haters off your back! 😁
11:56 Oi, seriously? ROTJ? It's just there to round out the trilogy. A New Hope broke all the rules, like any good 1970s movie. And then The Empire Strikes Back broke all of ANH's rules. Attempt to be daring, dude.
12:26 Okay, you *mostly* redeem yourself here. But "Wrath Of Khan" is more simply put THE best movie of all time. Space opera, submarine movie, sure, but it transcends genre. It's just that GREAT.
15:21 Ho. Lee. Fuk. Did you just piss on 2001, you frelling Philistine?! I take back any praise above.
15:43 Not ALL horribly wrong. You did see fit to ignore Forbidden Planet, an all-time classic and the acknowledged progenitor of Star Trek, despite peppering this list with shots from it. If that ain't space opera worthy of this list, then the list is wrong, not the movie.
I would also add Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I've come to greatly appreciate the grandeur and majesty of this movie, which follows the best admonition of movie making: show, don't tell.. It's not peak Star Trek obviously, but for everyone who bemoans how most other Star Trek movies either feel like TV episodes writ large (yes, I'm aware of the irony) or sacrifice a thoughtful plot for loads of action sequences, I give you ST: TMP. Director's Cut only, of course. I still love that after a legendary career, Robert Wise consented to at last do a proper cut of this movie, which improves the pacing SO much. It also set the stage for the remastered OG Trek series, which is one of the great treasures in this world.
I think StarTrek the Motion Picture is a worth while memtion. As a sci-fi film its special effects still hold up and it was made as an epic film. Not quite with the campyness of other Trek films. As a sc-finmovie from a franchise that has literally impacted things in the world I think it should be mentioned, espcially the re release that was recntly done. Very underrated film.
If you want to see the REAL "Wrath of Kahn" Space Opera, watch Robot Chicken: The Wrath of Khan Opera! You'll see that this video is absolutely correct, and laugh long and loud!! :)
😊😊😊😊😊top 3 for me are starship troopers star wars 1977 the fifth element
All good choices!
@@GiantFreakinRobot thanks 📼
A great list and nothing I would disagree with but I wonder if some older movies one of which you had showed a couple of times "Forbidden Planet" does not earn a place on the list, or for a dark horse an Italian classic "Planet of the Vampires" for which Aliens is in many ways a remake or revision off? 🤔
I don't think so, for the same reason 2001 isn't on there.
I know this will be controversial, but the original space operas were the 1930s Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers. I think the 1980 Flash Gordon deserves a place, for its homage to the originals. It literally looks like a color remake of the original.
Not controversial at all - that's where space opera came from
Event horizon was terrible and really sucked it seemed it couldn't decide what sort of film they were making. One of my most loathed films ever.
I thought it was pretty clearly about a ship that went to hell.
Very right. I'd shift a couple up or down, but that is a great list! I have seenvthem ALL, many times.
We are now best friends.
I may not agree with the order of your choices, I can say you nailed the list!
Well close enough! Thanks!!
Excellent! The Wrath Of Khan is my favorite space movie of all time.
You have excellent tastes.
Multipass.
Leeloo
Great list! Many thanks.
Thanks!!
I thought Fifth Element was actually more believable than The Last Starfighter. Starship Troopers tried to be an anti-war flick but to me it expressed Eyes Wide Open trust and verify and definitely should have been placed well below The Fifth Element don't shouldn't be on the list that was a Game of Thrones type plot. The operative in Serenity was not evil he was a soldier doing a soldier's job
i would say that Star Trek II, III & IV are a single entity, as much as Star Wars IV,V & VI or Dune I & II. While Wrath of Khan borrows heavily from nautical tales (Specifically Horratio Hornblower, the inspiration for James T Kirk), and The Voyage Home, may be disqualified from 'Space Opera' for taking place primarily on earth, that film is the closing installment of a trilogy that runs a continuous narrative thread. To only include Khan because it might be the best example on the list, is tantamount to listing a single act of a III-act play. (and out of the approximate 6-hour runtime of the 'Star-Trek Trilogy', Voyage Home only adds an hour of earth-bound adventure, so including the trilogy as a single story, includes all 3 films in your thesis.
Television has now given us Babylon Five (the truest example of Space Opera ever to hit the small screen), Battlestar Galactica's reboot series, Australia's amazing Farscape (where the ship itself is the fat-lady-singing), and the absolutely brilliant "The Expanse", aa the technical advantages of a theatrical release have melted away. (I'd add 'Space, Above and Beyond' as an honourable mention). So perhaps a part two that covers television??
btw, my love of Starship Troopers, is how Paul Verhoeven subverted the overt fascism of Heinlein's novel in a way that mirrors fascist propaganda itself. It is replete with Siss-Boom-Bah patriotism containing the perfect level of blind loyalty. I found it to be so much more that it appears to be on the surface and that it injected more subtle depth to the world-building than Heinlein did. I never wondered if man might be the 'bad guy' reading the novel, and had no doubt that was the message of the film
Also read Clarke's novelization of 2001 - A Space Odyssey, it will completely change your next viewing of the film (which I watch at least once a year for the past since the advent of home media playback).
(I don't take issue with your including Thor:Ragnarok, but it ranked WAY too high IMO.)
No question, these are all great pics for this list. I can't argue with any of them. Very happy to see Serenity rated high!
Flash Gordon from the 80s. Hell, it was the original Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials that created space opera
I'd take out starship troopers and Thor Ragnarok and include Titan A.E and Spaceballs instead
"Interstellar" and "The fifth element" on the same list. Really? Is this just a clickbait or you really don't know the difference between "space opera" and science fiction?
2001: A Space Odyssey was 'science fiction'.
Star Wars was 'space opera' and made the world safe for space movies that blatantly disregarded scientific reality.
Jupiter Ascending? I would have added it to this list somewhere.
I don’t think I would put Interstellar under Space Opera. I would absolutely include those two marvel movies though. What else.. Battlestar galactica? Probably some anime but generally the series are more famous than the movies of the series.
Dune is a brilliant story, but I disagree that the latest remake is in anyway better than the film or mini series.
In fact I believe it's inferior to it's predecessor. Not that there aren't things wrong with it's predecessor, but they went to artsy and disappeared up their own crevices...
I'm just gonna throw this out there. It wasn't the greatest movie ever, but "Black Hole" never gets the love it deserves.
Reason one. There's nothing in space, but there are interesting places in it.
Thor ragnarok is on this list? Mmkay, I'm out. Trash movie. Not scifi.
Last starfigther is the most stupid space opera I have ever seen
*good choices!*
Thanks!
@@GiantFreakinRobot I might have included Andromeda Strain & Fantastic Voyage in your non-spacey sci-fi examples!
The Ice Pirates (1984) : The film includes sword fights, explosions, fighting robots, monsters, bar fights, and time warps
First the category I guess but I would not say it’s good!
I have to admit I really enjoyed Chronicles of Riddick, but that was a lot of being a long 40k player. It felt like I was in the grimdark.
That was one of the things that made Starship Troopers so much fun as well. Verhoeven totally nailed the look of the Tyranids.
I enjoyed Riddick too
Perfect list. I would add in amine like Starblazers and Harlock. They actually created the space opera genre.
Was sticking with movies, but those are great!
Ragnarok was how that clown of Waititi Waitata turn Thor in another clown...
Doesn’t mean it’s not good!
Finally a top x list in which I actually saw and liked each and every entry! Including several others that should be here too.
Welcome best friend
I would actually have included Titan A. E. but I can kind of understand why you chose not to.
Somewhere out there in the multiverse is a version of Titan AE that makes it on this list.
Very good post and a list I have no argument with, which as you know is unheard of with the internet. Though I would have thrown in Forbidden Planet and just used #8 twice. Nobody would have noticed. Like Avatar it is not set entirely in space, but wouldn't that eliminate Dune? Event Horizon might be slide-in if you were to add a 14th, but I see that as more of a horror/slasher film than a space opera. No world-building like Alien, it is just a dark castle monster movie. Again, great job.
Dune planet hops quite a bit, it’s not all on Dune! Thanks for the kind words!
@@GiantFreakinRobot Which is why I did not omit it totally. Just the only fuzzy one I would have cut given your topic. 😁
Dude WTF? No Space balls?
It does give good helmet.
I picture a space opera as interstellar in nature, with grand conflicts between species or segments of humanity. Still, I have to agree with your choice for No. 1, although, for the sake of sheer epic scale, I'd say Villeneuve's Dune movies are the greatest space operas put on film. The Wrath of Khan just has greater audience impact because we identify with the characters and their situations more; they're more personal, though that should not depend on our love of ST. Therefore, TWOK deserves the top spot. Dune could have had it, if Villeneuve had put in more dialogue and character development, and not padded it unnecessarily with scenes *not in the novel.* None--NONE of them added anything to the central story. He did do some things right, but overall he missed the brass ring. Still, in spite of Villeneuve's obsession with epic scale it was far better than the previous versions. Thanks for this list. It gives us food for thought.
I get what you mean about Dune, but the books don’t actually have a ton of dialogue either. It’s a lot of inner monologues. Hard to adapt
@@GiantFreakinRobot Oh, I must disagree. There is plenty dialogue in Herbert's _Dune,_ which Lynch incorporated verbatim very usefully in important scenes. As much as he went off track with some vehicles, weapons and characters, he was more faithful in adapting others. And he did the inner-voice thoughts perfectly, with which Herbert set a new standard. No one else has done that.
Enjoyed the list. Alien, Serenity and GOTG are my favourites, and I totally agree about 2001
Thank you so much. And especially thank you for the 2001 support. I think I'm going to need it!
@@GiantFreakinRobot yup, you’ll probably get some hate for that. But you’re right, it’s pretentious and boring. There really is way too little space opera that’s actually watchable. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a lot going for it, and maybe deserves a mention.
@@GiantFreakinRobotI thought it was just me. I like space opera (Babylon5 and Firefly are my favourite TV entries - although I quite liked Dark Matter, which I discovered and streamed recently) but I still haven't seen 2001 all the way through. It is very unusual for me to abandon movies once started (I've ploughed through some dire Asylum movies) but I found 2001 so tedious I didn't get past half an hour. I appreciate its place in scifi movie history but... no. Silent Running was easier to get through. I still have 2001 on VCR so maybe one day.
'Tedious, tiresome and long'? Even though you certainly buck conventional wisdom, to dismiss 2001 (or was it Star Trek The Motion Picture?), you come close to genre blasphemy. But to elevate TWOK to #1 strikes me as delusional. I don't even consider that waste of celluloid 'Trek'. I could go on for 50,000 words, but I think I'll pull my copy of Avatar and watch it again. Forbidden Planet is THE archeytpe, BTW.
Well that’s a thing someone could say!
You started out with "weak" and followed it up with "weaker." I just remembered I need to go to the not-this-one video.
Harsh. I mean really you think Alien is weak???
@@GiantFreakinRobotfirst movie was good for it's time,kinda boring now days tho
@@GiantFreakinRobot I said "started out with." Fifth Element, then Last Star Fighter. It's all just opinion and mine are no better than anybody else's.
That the author conflates films like 2001 and Alien as "Space Opera" seems to me he doesn't quite understand the genre. Films such as "The Andromeda Strain", "2001" and "Colossus" are based on existing science and scientific theories, whereas "Star Wars", "E.T." and even "Star Trek" do not hold to science so much as they do to the human experience in a fantasy world. (The latter is what's known as Space Opera.) I would challenge anyone to give an example of employed science in any of the Star Wars films. (Personally, I do not think George Lucas even knows what science is.)
There’s no rule that says Space Opera can’t have science
@@GiantFreakinRobot True .... but the ones you list (except for 2) do not.