Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time Tournament (Finals)

I'm pleased that Metropolis made such a valiant showing, but there's no shame, I believe, in losing to Blade Runner. I'm also quite proud of the voters for not letting the second and third films of the Matrix Trilogy negatively impact their voting on the original, which was truly a groundbreaking cinematic experience.

The All-Harrison Ford Finals are probably a shoo-in for Empire, let's face it, but I find Blade Runner being here interesting. If I may: most people are well-versed in the saga of getting the Blade Runner edit right. Originally released in 1982, with a voice over by Harrison Ford that is universally derided, it wasn't until a decade later that the "Director's Cut" came out. It was subsequently revealed that it wasn't really Ridley Scott's final cut, so in 2007 they released the "Final Cut." Nerds of a Feather founder The G and I attended a screening of the Final Cut together when it was released. I remember walking out of the theater thinking that it was certainly the best version of the movie, but it was still a movie plagued by what might've been. It's clear in the final cut what everybody was going for, but there was still a certain looseness in some of the seams. So in a way, Blade Runner is a movie about possibility — a movie with some good performances, some great performances, and some transcendent moments, that still somehow hints that it could've been even more if only...

Maybe that's why it's made it this far, and yet will certainly fall before The Empire Strikes Back. As fans of imagination and speculation, somehow the promise of Blade Runner speaks to us in a way almost nothing else can.

Or maybe I ramble. Either way, off to the voting!

Results will post next Friday. Happy voting, and if there are any movies from this tournament you've never seen, treat yourself! They're all here for a reason.

Posted by Vance K — cult film aficionado and nerds of a feather co-editor since 2012, who couldn't be more proud of a blog that just turned three this month, and has such cute, chubby cheeks.

Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time Tournament (Round of 4)

VOTING FOR THIS ROUND HAS NOW CLOSED. FOR THE NEXT ROUND, CLICK HERE.

Close, close races in the Round of 8.

In two cases, about two percentage points either way made the difference. One of them was the Blade Runner v. 2001: A Space Odyssey matchup. I don't know if we made the right call on that, but personally I'm happy Rutger Hauer's speech is advancing to the next round.

Everybody clearly made the correct decision in the other two matchups, with The Matrix and Empire handily defeating Return of the Jedi and Star Wars, respectively.

And then there were four...

Final Four, Game 1

Final Four, Game 2

Polls will close Thursday next, and the final round will open for voting Friday morning. Spread the word, and get out the vote like it's 1992...

Posted by Vance K — amateur sci-fi bracketologist since 2013, co-editor of nerds of a feather, flock together since 2012.

Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time Tournament (Round of 8)

Folks, I have some bad news: our tournament is now Wilfred Brimley-less. It's probably appropriate that Star Wars defeated The Thinghandily, but I think we should all take a moment to remember the joy that America's favorite oatmeal spokesperson brought to this tournament...

On to the business at hand. The aptly-named R2 Region features the marquee showdown between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. In retrospect, when creating the scoring system for this bracket, I probably should have limited one entry per franchise, but it's too late now and this week we all have to choose between our two most famous children, and kill one. Sorry, everybody.

In other news, Donnie Darko, which never should have made it past The Day the Earth Stood Still bit the dust, as did giant-killer Brazil. One-seeded sci-fi movie emeritus Metropolis justified it's original seeding, though, but sneaking past Aliens.

Click for larger, printable view.

Gort Region

HAL Region

Robbie Region

R2 Region

Voting will remain open until April 9, and the next round will be posted next Friday morning. Happy voting!

Posted by Vance K — resident cult film geek, champion of classic sci-fi, and co-editor of Nerds of a Feather since 2012.

Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time Tournament (Round of 16)

VOTING ON THIS ROUND IS NOW CLOSED. TO VOTE IN THE NEXT ROUND, CLICK HERE.

Folks, I have to admit I'm surprised.

A bunch of my picks bit the dust in the Round of 32, and we had one MAJOR upset: the 8-seeded Brazil knocked off 1-seed Frankenstein. Frankenstein, people! But where you really twisted the knife is in the Gort Region, where Donnie Darko knocked off The Day the Earth Stood Still...and not the Keanu Reeves one. That I could understand, but...man. Here's where I make some crack about young whippersnappers and getting off my lawn.

Here's where we stand:

Click for a larger view.

My guess is the only 1-seed that makes it to the Round of 8 is Empire Strikes Back. And if Brazil is the little engine that could, then we may have to say goodbye to Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick, both. But that's for you to decide.

On to the voting!

Gort Region

HAL Region

Robbie Region

R2 Region

Polls will remain open until next Thursday night (Pacific), and the next round will open for voting on Friday.

Posted by Vance K — who knows where a life-sized Gort can be found if needed, and co-editor of Nerds of a Feather since 2012.

Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time Tournament (Round of 32)

VOTING ON THIS ROUND IS NOW CONCLUDED. VOTE ON THE ROUND OF 16 HERE.

Last year it was sci-fi TV shows, and thousands of people weighed in, crowning — a little surprisingly to me — Firefly the winner of the Best Sci-Fi TV Show of All Time Tournament. This year to coincide with the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament that has offices all around the country flouting local gambling laws, we present our second annual tournament: The Greatest Sci-Fi Movie of All Time.

Behold!

Click the bracket for an expanded view you can also print out.

Here's how the films were selected and seeded. First, I took the top 100 films from the IMDb "Highest Rated Sci-Fi Feature Films" List, and eliminated any films with fewer than 50,000 user votes. In what is essentially a popularity contest, films that few people have seen would skew the results and be easy marks for upsets. Then, to correct for the pronounced "recency bias" IMDb user ratings famously show, I made the following adjustments:

• I revised the user rating of any films released in the last 2 years downward by ten percent
• Any films released in the ten-year period before that, I revised downward by five percent
• For films released between 1960 and 1975, I revised their rating upward by five percent, and
• For any films released before 1960, I revised their user rating upward by ten percent

This is no doubt not a perfect system, and neither are the IMDb rankings themselves perfect (how Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan isn't on that list, I can't imagine). But I think it's a good system that gave us a solid distribution of films from every decade (except the 1940s?) since the silent era of film. But enough about math! To the voting!

Gort Region

HAL Region

Robbie Region

R2 Region

Results and the next round of voting will be posted each Friday until we crown a winner. Happy voting!

Posted by Vance K — Co-editor and resident cult film reviewer of Nerds of a Feather since 2012