The Score Card

Random information about the movies to date, score card format.

Most novels turned into Top Fifty movies: Tie, Richard Matheson (The Omega Man and The Incredible Shrinking Man) and H. G. Wells (The War of the Worlds and Things to Come).  Wells would have won except for Tom Cruise.

Most SF movies in the Top Fifty by a single Director:  John Carpenter (The Thing and Starman) tied with Byron Haskins (The War of the Worlds and Robinson Crusoe on Mars).

Best Decade for SF movies:  1950s (#48, I Married A Monster From Outer Space; #47, Gojira; #44, It Came From Outer Space, #42, Invaders From Mars; #40, The War of the Worlds; #37, The Incredible Shrinking Man)

Worst Decade for SF movies: 1980s, primarily on the strength of an astounding entry, #46, Strange Invaders.

Best Year for SF movies: 1953 (three movies: #44, It Came From Outer Space; #42, Invaders From Mars; #40, The War of the Worlds).

Disease most likely to affect people who watch science fiction movies: pneumonia (one reviewer, and the rest of the crew has been relatively healthy).

Most misused science concept: radiation (shows up in two Top Fifty films so far in incredibly wrong ways).

Pet most likely to save the day: dog.  See I Married A Monster From Outer Space.

Pet most likely to cause problems: cat.  See The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Most dangerous animal: whatever Godzilla was before he started absorbing radiation, presumably a never-before-seen marine lizard.  Unless you’re really tiny, in which case it’s a spider.

Most gratuitous pop culture reference by a reviewer: Ke$ha.

Most movies unavailable from a single source:  Netflix.  To be fair, I haven’t run out and tried anywhere else yet, but so far we’re at four out of thirty three misses, a 12% failure rate.