I’m going to fight you on this. I’m going to assume the outer four, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies and Clockwork Orange (book or film, pick one) don’t need defending.
This leaves Soylent Green, Gattaca, Brazil, The Matrix, and Logan’s Run.
Soylent Green and Logan’s Run aren’t particularly well-made films, but their influence both within the SF sphere and in culture at large is way larger than their meagre budgets or box office results would indicate. When they came out, they introduced key pieces into the mix that remain as relevant today as they were in the seventies.
Brazil is an amazing piece of film. A true classic that pops up on “best film” list after 40 years.
GATTACA is the weakest one on this list. There was a brief window were it seemed prescient, but that future quickly receded to give way to the mess we’re in now. I can take it or leave it. If this scheme made sense, I could probably find a better replacement.
The Matrix… well, I’ll come clean with you: I don’t really like the Matrix. If you had been paying attention to SF up until then, the Matrix has zero interesting things to say, paving over its lack of originality with pseudo-philosophical platitudes and action sequences. It wasn’t even the best “the world is not real and the protagonist is the chosen one and is going to save us”-film that came out around that time. It was beaten by a year by Dark City. However, not everyone is a sci-fi snob, and for many people that was their first exposure to a bunch of corner stone concepts. Also, it was pretty cool. So I grudgingly allow it.
I thought I had Soylent Green figured out. Had knew the punchline long before I actually sat down and watched the movie. It was 70s level, so it was both good and bad as far as a movie itself, reminded me a lot of Colossus The Forbin Project in its feel. The forecasting of a environmentally desolate future also felt prophetic. Then a bit after seeing it I ran across someone reviewing it, and they pointed out that the biggest shock isn’t the end…the end is bad, but it is only a higher level of what has been the real horror throughout the whole movie. Complacency. And that is why we are in Soylent Green today, it’s all around us. And like all these other classics, we haven’t learned anything.
That’s an excellent point. With classic scifi, everybody remembers the twist, but hardly anyone remembers/knows the actual point of the film. Most films of the era have strong social messages that are lost when you reduce it to “lol they are eating people” or “kill the old guy”.
It was beaten by a year by Dark City.
I saw both Dark City and The Matrix, in the theaters, when they were released. I liked both, and I have talked up Dark City for years to people who only saw the Matrix.
Recently rewatched Dark City. It is nowhere near as good as the matrix. It’s still very cool, but it’s confusing and janky as hell and that’s not part of the charm.
If you’re reading this and you haven’t seen it, you should! It’s fun and you’ll see some cool shit. But don’t expect it to be better than Matrix.