When it comes to being a fanboy, you really have to be out and proud with your opinions. I've been thinking about it lately, and with all of the reboots and comebacks of these great francises, there really is no better time to be an out and proud geek than right here and right now.
To that extent, I give to you my list of the top ten fanboy things to geek out about:
10. Indiana Jones - We won't let the current troubles in the state of Indiana sully Indy's three great adventures. (And to that extent, we'll also pretend that hot mess of a fourth movie never happened.) Why? Because the first film is quite possibly the greatest action/adventure movie ever made. The second and third films are alternately dark and twisted then fun and poignant. No better popcorn movies have ever been made, and I can't wait to show these to our son in a few years.
9. Sherlock Holmes - Countless incarnations from the original books to the new Sir Ian McKellen movie out soon keep bringing this character back to life. Not sure this would have made the list except for Benedict Cumberbatch's version, which manages to capture the exact brilliance and arrogance (as well as the bromance with Watson) of this timeless hero in a new and modern context. Honorable mention goes to the Star Trek the Next Generation story arc that features Data as Mr. Holmes and a holodeck Moriarty that comes to life, too.
8. Harry Potter - I taught fifth grade when the first movie came out, and oh boy, I remember the excitement and then rather harsh reviews that came with that first movie not having EVERYTHING exact. Those kids had every word and every scene of those books memorized and envisioned in their heads. The movies are kind of hit and miss for me, with sheer moments of brilliance scattered among some average movie making. But stories like these come along once in a lifetime -- if you're lucky. And we are VERY, VERY lucky.
7. Battlestar Galactica - Forgive the saggy, baggy series finale and the forgettable spin offs. How someone took a rather cheesy Star Wars rip off of the late 70s television and turned it into a dark, political thriller that analyzes humanity's worst impulses by contrasting them with our occasional acts of loyalty, brilliance, and sacrifice, is nothing short of brilliant. These episodes were so dense, thrilling, and dark that we couldn't Netflix-stream them for too long. We'd watch a few episodes, let them percolate, come back in a month, and wonder how the rest of entertainment wasn't this brilliant.
6. Lord of the Rings - Brilliant books, mostly brilliant movies. As with Harry Potter, worlds as rich in beauty and detail as these aren't created often. Nor are heroes of such small stature contrasted with so mighty of tasks. Perhaps it's these contrasts which ultimately make Mr. Tolkein's classics so wonderful. We'll forgive Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies, I suppose, since he honored the series with his first trilogy, which can be watched and re-watched without losing any of the magic of the books -- a trick seldom accomplished by Hollywood.
5. The X-Files - Again, we'll selectively forget about the Duchovny-less season, The Lone Gunmen spin-off, and two barely adequate movies. At its peak, The X-Files captured imagination and paid homage to everything from cop-dramas to horror movie standards. Mulder and Scully took aliens and conspiracy theories and somehow used them to contrast the worlds of faith and science to find humanity somewhere in between. Sure the blocky cell phones look a little dated (heck, there were more pay phones in the first season), but the story-telling here is nothing short of superb. And the moments of terror, disgust, humor, love, and wonder ring as true now as they did back in the 90s.
4. Star Wars - Words can't describe the adoration George Lucas's creation has brought to the world. Yes, we can hate on JarJar and The Phantom Menace for all eternity, and Lucas's umpteen reworkings of the original films for that matter as well, but, oh those original films! Never has story telling felt so out-there and so elemental at the same time. The soaring John Williams score and the light saber battles are classic in every sense, as are the spine tingling moments of heroism from the destruction of the Death Star to Han Solo's swagger just before being frozen in carbonite. Every boy's sense of imagination and heroism is ignited here by Lucas's mythology. And like all great myths, these stories are continuing to be told, retold, reimagined, and expounded upon. Now that's one in a million, kid.
3. Bond. James Bond - Books, music, fashion, cars, and of course, the movies. There's something about James Bond that transcends every other spy, cop, or detective story. Is it Sean Connery's machismo? The perfect cut on his tailored suit? The ruthless nature of someone licensed to kill? The cars? The women? The sex? The iconic theme? Whatever it is, it's a character that has set the standard for everyone detective and action hero that's followed. Pick your favorite Bond actor, Bond flick, Bond song, Bond car. Nobody does it better, indeed.
2. Marvel - It took Hollywood a long time to get comic books right. Superman and Batman had their moments on screen for sure. But Marvel consistently and brilliantly doubles down on itself - getting bigger, badder, and more human with its story-telling with each and every movie it makes. Sometime in the future, we'll look back on the movies that started with Iron Man and Robert Downey Junior and remark at how they revolutionized movie making, story-telling, and our idea of what it means to be a hero. These stories have been there for decades, often stored in boxes in the closest of grown little boys' old bedrooms. But they're just now starting to come to life for everyone else, and that really is something to marvel at.
1. Star Trek - Fortunately, I was giving a test in my classroom when the news of Leonard Nimoy's death broke. It wasn't really a surprise, but I really couldn't keep tears back. Spock was dead. Of course, I couldn't keep tears back in the Wrath of Khan either when I first saw it in theaters. Nor could I maintain my sense of wonder watching those reruns of the original series on tv on the weekends of my youth. Nor could I contain my excitement as the story-telling on the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager took leaps and bounds into a future that seems so much a possibility that we can almost reach out and touch it. And that's why Star Trek deserves the number one spot here. More so than any other entry on this list - it has inspired. And it keeps on inspiring. Its legacy reaches into our very history of our civil rights and expands all the way into our future with our technology and our vision of who we can be when we work together. With it's 50th anniversary coming up, it's still boldly going where no one has gone before, and that is definitely cause to geek out.
Have an addition to add or want to argue with my ranking? Leave a comment!
