Second Question: What do

Hypothetical. The Vogons are in orbit and it’s time to make your exit… You’ve got time to grab your favorite films on the way out… Remember, you only have a towel and bath robe pockets… I grabbed, in alphabetical order…

  • 12 Angry Men
  • Casablanca
  • Chinatown
  • Gone With The Wind
  • In The Name Of The Father
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  • Open Range
  • Philadelphia Story
  • Predestination
  • Pretty Village Pretty Flame
  • The Commitments
  • The Ref

OK, so I had big pockets… As you can see, they don’t all need to be Palme d’Or winners…

What do you take?

With all those movies, you won’t have room for your essential bag of peanuts. You’ll need them for reconstitution after travelling through hyperspace.

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I’m in this weird place where despite being a former movie buff I’m so out of that game now I’d have trouble coming up with a list. We don’t seem to watch much of anything anymore for various reasons. But … I’d certainly include the ones on your list I recognize (1-4 and 6). From there it would involve whether I wanted to prioritize cultural preservation or entertainment. Probably Star Wars “episode 4” (the original), “Star Trek II: Wrath of Kahn”, “Titanic”, stuff like that for pure escapism. For early Hollywood it’s hard to fault “Wizard of Oz” or even 1938’s “Robin Hood” or indeed anything prior to that involving Errol Flynn, from “Captain Blood” onward. Most Laurel & Hardy comedies are structurally perfect. But now I’m way beyond what would fit in my bathrobe pockets unless I cheated with high-capacity thumb drives.

I had 4 of those: (though I do like Open Range)

  • 12 Angry Men

  • Casablanca

  • In The Name Of The Father

  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

  • The Shawshank Redemption

  • Cool Hand Luke

  • Jeremiah Johnson

  • Tombstone

  • Aliens

  • Blade Runner

Likelihood is the Vogons would get me, as I would also have to take Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Pulp Fiction, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, The Birdcage, Mousehunt, Lord of the Rings, Ben Hur, Sweet Smell of Success, arrrghhhhh!!! I can’t do it…Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the version with Donald Sutherland, Omega Man, Soylant Green, OMFG I forgot about Rollerball, Misery, Salem’s Lot, nah it’s no good I am Vogon food…

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tired of mucking around in hyperspace? try the bad-news drive!

A pre recorded video of me reading Patriotic Toasts by Fred Emerson Brooks in its entirety.

If those nasty Vogons can use piece of shit poetry as a torture method then turnabout is fair play. We must defend as we are able.

Top ten in no particular order:

  1. Kiss of the Spider Woman
  2. Blue Velvet
  3. The Last King of Scotland
  4. A Knight’s Tale
  5. Nashville
  6. The Crying Game
  7. No Country for Old Men
  8. Die Hard (gotta have a Xmas movie on the list :wink:)
  9. Psycho
  10. To Kill a Mockingbird
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I would go in a rather different direction. Considering that I prefer watching documentaries rather than movies, I’d go for the collected works featuring David Attenborough.

None of those would be on my list. My list, in no particular order:

  • American Grafitti
  • Star Wars
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Star Trek the Motion Picture
  • The Hollywood Knights
  • Patton
  • The Godfather
  • Pulp Fiction
  • The Hateful Eight
  • Good Will Hunting
  • Apollo 13
  • Animal House
  • Revenge of the Nerds
  • The Blues Brothers
  • The Sting

I love me some starship porn too and I was suckled on classic Trek but particularly if you’re talking the Director’s Cut there’s just no comparison to Wrath of Kahn and really Kahn was the high point of the original franchise IMO. It benefited from a limited budget and being forced to focus on characters and relationships, the original series’ true strength.

I’ve never gotten my mind straight again after watching William Shatner amaze-grimace his way through the experience of the Enterprise being (very slowly) swallowed by V’ger. That has to be the most BORING sequence in the history of film – even for a fan.

IMO, ST:TMP is better science fiction than the others, which are shoot-em-up action-adventure flicks.

Fair enough. I certainly enjoyed Trumbull’s effects work – though the transporter effect was disappointing IMO even compared to the original series, and the costumes … well I guess so. But yeah from a high-concept hard sci fi perspective, which Trek arguably never was meant to be (“Wagon Train to the Stars”) yes it does work on that level.

If I was given the opportunity to prepare for a Vogon invasion, in the terms of the original post, I would obtain a portable DVD player with USB connectivity, and the highest capacity portable hard drive to couple to it. So that taking a large quantity of video footage would simply be a matter of picking up the rucksack and making my escape. Power banks and mains adapters would be included.

I would concur with the idea of taking a full set of Attenborough documentaries, as a memorial for the now doomed Earth, as well as for educational value and unrivalled natural spectacle.

As for movies … hmm. Don’t have a big list of these, but two standouts are:

The Hunt for Red October … I’ve always pictured myself as a Captain Remius figure, preferring strategic planning to being caught on the hop.

Heavenly Creatures … an early outing for Kate Winslet, as one of two young schoolgirls who gravitated into each others’ orbit, entering an ever tightening spiral of obsession. Which led to the real schoolgirls in question becoming embroiled in a particularly grisly New Zealand murder case, with some interesting fallout.

I’d also include The Internecine Project starring James Coburn, a thriller made in the days when Hollywood still aimed to appeal to intelligent adult audiences. I recommend this to anyone who hasn’t seen it.

Blade Runner (the original) would also figure, because Rutger Hauer’s “Tears in Rain” soliloquy is one of the finest pieces of cinema of all time.

Finally, The Expanse sci-fi series has to be included. Billed as the most realistic sci-fi series thus far produced. “This is the warship Rocinante” happens to be my ringtone. :smiling_face:

As for most of the Hollywood dross, in the words of David Hume, “commit it to the flames”.

UPDATE: I cannot leave behind The Name of the Rose. Another intelligent film based upon Umberto Eco’s 1327 monastery mystery. Some nice twists in that one.

One I would not take is Zardoz. Why Sean Connery would agree to do that movie is beyond me. It must have been the money.

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How the actual fuck did I miss to kill a mockingbird off there. Also The Big Country, ten films just aren’t going to work for me. Maybe my late grandmother was right, I do watch too much tv?

Ah, The Searchers, Magnificent Seven, The Eagle has Landed, The Great Escape, Legend of The Falls…tooooooo mannnny fillums sorry….

Did I emntion The Terminator, The Alien, Predator, Silence of The Lambs…oh dear…

OK, the idea of Vogons doesn’t seem to throw up any flags…but since the book is from 1979 we’d likely be talking about VHS tapes…and I can’t suspend belief to that extent and still stay engaged…

NEW RULE: Assuming 2026 rules on technology, you have an 8TB portable SSD.

So, once I’m off the Vogon ship, I’m looking for:

  • Bridge on the River Kwai
  • Kind Hearts and Coronets
  • Lawrence of Arabia
  • The Horse’s Mouth

…just because I was thinking of Alec Guinness movies…and yeah, only 12 movies…seriously…

What else do you fire up?

Zardoz is actually much misunderstood, it’s a critique of elitism and the fascism that accompanies it.

Yes, Sean Connery’s wacky costume is THE bad costume decision of all time, but leave that aside, the film has depth for those who can see past the weirdness, though look at the weirdness accompanying present day American fascism, and the bizarre world of Zardoz suddenly doesn’t seem that strange. Both have decadent hedonism on the part of those at the top, crazy religion, utter contempt for ordinary people, and a strand of anti-intellectualism that ultimately constitutes the seal of doom.

Oh my dog! I forgot to list one of the best movies of all time! The Princess Bride

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Hereditary, The Witch, Midsommar, Weapons, Bring Her Back, The Haunting(B&W version only), Nosferatu(the current version), The Great Race, Young Frankenstein, The X-Files(every season), What We do In The Shadows(movie and series), Nightmare Before Christmas, Evil Dead films(all of them), and Monty Python(movies and TV).

That’s a good start I think.