Summer Sci-Fi Challenge 09 - Discussion Thread

[jmsmath]

I'm in for this; however, as long as I have a job, I'll never get close to 100. I'll shoot for 30 as I'm scheduled to be out of town two weekends in July.

Going to make an effort to get through my Alien Quadrilogy which has been sitting on the shelf unwatched for over two years now.

[Giles]

since Farscape was mentioned in another thread, I should watch my R2 releases.

[MinLShaw]

Originally Posted by jmsmath

I'm in for this; however, as long as I have a job, I'll never get close to 100. I'll shoot for 30 as I'm scheduled to be out of town two weekends in July.

You can do the following:
1) Quit your job.
2) Get portable video content (iPod, portable DVD player, netbook, etc.) for your out-of-town time.

Make sure you buy your portable player and content before step 1. And don't worry; you can go back to work on the first of August. I mean, in this economy, who's gonna fill your position in a month?

[hindolio]

i actually did a search on dvdtalk and found what i was looking for

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/8868120-post264.html

has the list of how it ended last year. this looks both fun and daunting

[Trevor]

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but all of Twilight Zone will count, right? Not just the obviously sci-fi themed episodes?

If Battlestar isn't released in time, I may do a TZ marathon instead.

[Fist of Doom]

Originally Posted by Trevor

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but all of Twilight Zone will count, right? Not just the obviously sci-fi themed episodes?

If Battlestar isn't released in time, I may do a TZ marathon instead.

allmovie.com lists it as sci-fi, so it counts according to the rules. Some episodes may be fantasy, but (imo) it would be too nitpicky to make someone judge each individual episode while they're doing a marathon.

[Boogie76]

I'm in for this. I have the month of July off, so it looks like it will be some a great time to get caught up on some anime and T.V. shows.

[Mister Peepers]

Originally Posted by MinLShaw

You can do the following:
1) Quit your job.
2) Get portable video content (iPod, portable DVD player, netbook, etc.) for your out-of-town time.

Make sure you buy your portable player and content before step 1. And don't worry; you can go back to work on the first of August. I mean, in this economy, who's gonna fill your position in a month?

There's also sci-fi movies and shows on hulu and at archive.org

Originally Posted by Trevor

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but all of Twilight Zone will count, right? Not just the obviously sci-fi themed episodes?

If Battlestar isn't released in time, I may do a TZ marathon instead.

Sci-Fi channel is doing a 4th of July marathon.

Might I also recommend this to be a good time to watch the original V mini-series and tv show due to the new series that's coming out this year?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_(2009_TV_series)

[Mister Peepers]

Found this site just now and thought it'd help give some ideas
http://www.scifimoviepage.com/

[brainee]

I'll probably sign up for this, though my list will pitiful (especially with 2 weeks out of town in early July).

Here's a "is this movie ok?" question: what about "Repo! The Genetic Opera!"? I would've thought it was a no-brainer, being a story set in a dystopic future with many sci-fi technological plot elements. But sure enough, imdb and allmovie don't list it as sci-fi.

[Mister Peepers]

Going off of this review http://www.scifi.com/sfw/screen/sfw19803.html I'd say it counts.

[caligulathegod]

Looking forward to it. But after all that discussion last year, Fantasy gets a simple hand wave off? I said all I wanted to last year, but I'm probably going to include it on my list, regardless. No one is going to harsh my buzz. I want to have fun.

[Mister Peepers]

I just want to focus on sci-fi but as long as a fantasy movie has some fiction based technology, your fine. Something like a staff powered by souls instead of batteries would be science fiction.

I think you'd be able to find a way to fit in what's mostly a fantasy type movie the same way one could fit in The Dark Knight. It's mostly action but has some minor sci-fi elements.

[Numes]

Man, it seems like a year since the last Sci-Fi challenge. Oh wait...

Looking at last year's list, it looks like I had started re-watching Stargate SG-1. Right now I've started re-watching all the Star Trek TV series, so this was good timing for me. Good for the Sci-Fi challenge, bad for the Unwatched Movie Pile.

I'm going to try and get a few more movies in this year. I have a Star Wars fan edit that I have never watched either.

We'll have to see about the stats this year. I tried my hardest to come up with a "hands-free" approach to parsing the shows/movies in excel and various macros, but when everyone lists it a little different, it made for a lot of manual tweaking.

I believe either in last years thread, or in the Horror Movie Challenge, we discussed having people assigned for certain posts to compile stats. Depending on volunteers we could have everyone take 10 of the lists and compile them at the end of the challenge.

[Numes]

Some more thoughts here after doing a once-through of last year's discussion thread. I'm not even going to go anywhere near the commentary and fantasy discussions... except to say that I have a feeling that someday, somewhere, caligulathegod and I might actually agree on something

Someone suggested a double feature last year: Logan's Run and Soylent Green. I couldn't think of a better 70's sci-fi double feature than those two. Maybe add Omega Man if you want a triple feature.

I also found this message which is more for my own amusement (the response is to a post that Mr. Peepers DVR died):

Originally Posted by Numes

Oh man that sucks, I'm sorry to hear that. I would shit bricks if my DVR died. I've had a few scary moments with the DVR that have required multiple power-downs and reboots, but so far it's been stable for about 3.5 years now. I can say for sure, if I had 8 movies in HD on my DVR, I would be at about 150%. I can't keep anything HD for very long before I run out of space. I've been forced to watch a couple non Sci-Fi movies this month otherwise I would run out of space. I think my 160 GB HD is a little out of date. Too bad I am forced to rent from the cable company.

It's funny to read that now, because my DVR DID die last year. I lost a whole bunch of great stuff. Since then I have added an external 1 TB drive and have increased my DVR space by almost 8X (160 GB to 1160 GB.) It was truly a great moment in DVR history. The DVR recognized and formatted the drive and I went from 92% used to 12% used. The funny/sad thing is that I'm at 93% now.

[Dimension X]

Originally Posted by Numes

I'm going to try and get a few more movies in this year.

I'm the opposite. I ended up watching mostly movies last year, and I'm going to try to watch more of my unwatched TV DVDs this time.

[hindolio]

dang i cant wait for this to start already lol. i havent watched anything sci-fi in anticipation of and to save up for this 2 weeks ago.

[Mister Peepers]

bump since it's getting close

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by hindolio

dang i cant wait for this to start already lol. i havent watched anything sci-fi in anticipation of and to save up for this 2 weeks ago.

Same here. I've been going alphabetically through my unwatched film binders, but have been skipping the sci-fi ones lately. Still undecided on if I'll crank out a bunch of films or do a Twilight Zone marathon or a Battlestar Galactica marathon.

[Corey31]

My second competition, just hope to beat my tally from the Oscar challenge.

[Mister Peepers]

Gabbo is coming.

Here's the checklist from last year:

Watch one film from every decade, starting with the 1890s.
--- 1900:
--- 1910:
--- 1920:
--- 1930:
--- 1940:
--- 1950:
--- 1960:
--- 1970:
--- 1980:
--- 1990:
--- 2000:

Watch films in at least two languages other than English.
--- First language:
--- Second language: -

--- Watch the MST3K version of a sci-fi film.
--- Watch a film and its remake.
--- Watch a film based on a video game.
--- Watch a film based on a novel.
--- Watch a film directed by Ed Wood.
--- Watch a film which won an Academy Award -- any category.
--- Watch a silent sci-fi film.
--- Watch a Criterion version sci-fi film.
--- Watch a film with commentary.
--- Watch a film and at least two sequels.
--- Watch a film that takes place on a holiday.
--- Watch a film that takes place in space.
--- Watch a film that takes place on or under the sea.
--- Watch an animated sci-fi film.
--- Watch a film with special effects by Ray Harryhausen
--- Watch a film directed by Roland Emmerich
--- Watch a film directed by Larry Buchanan

Watch a film for each rating:
--- G
--- PG
--- PG-13
--- R
--- NC-17
--- X
--- Unrated

Watch a film in each of the following sci-fi subgenres:
--- Alien invasion
--- Artificial intelligence
--- Cyborg
--- Post Apocalyptic
--- Dying Earth
--- Hollow earth
--- Cybernetic revolt
--- Immortality
--- Parallel universe
--- Mutants
--- Documentary
--- Musical
--- Spoof
--- Time travel
--- Spy-fi
--- Space opera

Watch a film starring:
--- Sigourney Weaver
--- Harrison Ford
--- Peter Cushing
--- Boris Karloff
--- Arnold Schwarzenegger
--- Will Smith
--- Jeff Goldblum
--- Patrick Stewart
--- Keanu Reeves
--- John Agar

For help with the first few decades, things that can easily be found online:
A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912)
Metropolis (1926)

The 1930s and later shouldn't be too hard. For 1930, I'd recommend tracking down a copy of Just Imagine (1930), which is a look at how the year 1980 would be. I saw it on TCM awhile back.

[hindolio]

im a "________" challenge noob, so pardon my ignorance...

who is gabbo? and what is the checklist for? like an optional kinda thing for the sci-fi challenge?

[Mister Peepers]

Originally Posted by hindolio

im a "________" challenge noob, so pardon my ignorance...

who is gabbo? and what is the checklist for? like an optional kinda thing for the sci-fi challenge?

Checklist is optional.

As for Gabbo, all I can say is he's coming and he'll be here Wednesday.

[Trevor]

Yes, each of the various Challenges here on DVDTalk (the last few years at least) has an optional checklist. It is sort of like a Bingo Card, designed to give some variety to everyone's viewing, and to make an additional contest/race out of it.

Here is a thread if you want to explore some of the history of Challenges here at DVDtalk.

[WallyOPD]

I've been watching Star Trek:TNG and been getting ready to start DS9 when I hit it chronologically, but I unfortunately reached that point a week ago. I wanted to start DS9 at the beginning of the challenge so I stopped all of my Star Trek watching just prior to the TNG 2-parter Chain of Command. I'm really itching for Wednesday so I can knock that out along with Emissary. My company is also going to be laying some people off tomorrow, so I may have much more time for this challenge than I want.