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Blade Runner's the best, vote scientists

LONDON - A poll of top scientists has named Blade Runner as the world's best science fiction film.

The 1982 movie, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, was the favourite among the 60 British, North American and New Zealand scientists surveyed by the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper.

Starring Harrison Ford and set in the future in a dystopic version of Los Angeles, the film portrays a retired cop hunting down human clones.

"It was so far ahead of its time and the whole premise of the story ? what is it to be human and who are we, where we come from. It's the age-old questions," said Stephen Minger, a stem cell biologist at King's College, London.

2001: A Space Odyssey came in a close second, followed by Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, which tied for third place. The other favourites, in descending order, were: Alien, 1972's Solaris, the first two Terminator films, The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, The Matrix and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

In a related poll, the scientists named their favourite science fiction authors, with Isaac Asimov, John Wyndham, Fred Hoyle, Philip K. Dick and H.G. Wells being the top five.

[original article]

Posted by thinkum at August 27, 2004 03:59 PM