Additional reporting by Josh Snyder.

Gossamer (Looney Tunes)
Cute? Look at him. He's basically a hairy valentine in tennis shoes.
Terrifying? He tries hard, but he's ultimately no match for Bugs Bunny. Then again, no one is.

Giant Killer Rabbits (Night of the Lepus)
Cute? They're your average giant mutant bunny rabbits.
Terrifying? Actually, they just seem more adorable when they're gigantic and raiding people's kitchens. But I suppose that whole eating people business could be scary. Maybe.

Beep the Meep (Doctor Who)
Cute? Passably. It helps that he looks like giant puffball.
Terrifying? Absolutely. Meeps are a murderous species who revel in pain, torture, and galactic domination. And Beep is the worst of the worst and a notorious war criminal.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters)
Cute? He's basically a giant version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Plus, I've had a soft spot for him since the cartoon.
Terrifying? He nearly destroys New York with his deliciously sugary body.

Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl
Cute? It's right there in the name.
Terrifying? Not on purpose, but let's just say you should probably keep your pets (and yourself) clear of Lenore.

Hello Cthulhu
Cute? He might be an unspeakable horror, but he's a huggable one.
Terrifying? Honestly, he's no match for Hello Kitty.

Mogwai (Gremlins)
Cute? Sure, for now.
Terrifying? Just try feeding them after midnight and see if they're still they're still so cute.

Wolvogs (Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood)
Cute? These genetically engineered dog-wolf hybrids look like adorable domesticated puppies.
Terrifying? They may look like dog pups, but wolvogs hunt and kill as vicious wolves.

Beryllium Miners (Galaxy Quest)
Cute? They look like little children, at least until they open their mouths.
Terrifying? They look like they'd happily chow down on any of the Galaxy Quest cast members.

Were-Rabbit (Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit)
Cute? Just about everything Nick Park designs is at least a little bit cute.
Terrifying? He's a strictly vegetarian monster.

Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
Cute? Despite the teeth and the thirst for human blood, she is pretty cute when she's small.
Terrifying? Even forgetting the business about eating people and wanting to take over the world, Audrey II's most frightening aspect is her ability to convince milquetoast Seymour to kill for her.

Goblins (Labyrinth)
Cute? In an adorably ugly sort of way.
Terrifying? They're by no means the most critters in Labyrinth, but they do an impressive job of slinking around in the shadows and stealing infants.

Shmee (Squee)
Cute? Squee's teddy bear has seen better days, but he's still cuter than the Doughboys from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
Terrifying? Shmee provides emotional comfort for the perpetually terrified Shmee, but he also encourages Shmee to take violent revenge on his enemies. Of course, it could all be in Shmee's head.

Pac-Man (Blade: Trinity)
Cute? If you happen to like pomeranians.
Terrifying? It wasn't enough to make a vampire pomeranian; the vamps of Blade: Trinity had to create a mutant vampire pomeranian with xenomorph mouth.

Woodland Critters (South Park)
Cute? In a Disney sort of way.
Terrifying? Anything that comes out of Cartman's brain is automatically terrifying, but the woodland critters get extra points for possessing satanic powers and holding blood orgies. Also, they're trying to ensure the birth of the Antichrist.

Nubbins (Sanctuary)
Cute? It's doubtful anyone would bother taking care of the troublesome little things if they didn't resemble fat chinchillas.
Terrifying? They're basically tribbles with teeth. They're cute and cuddly until they start breeding and eating. And when they get hungry, they can take down the most vicious predator.

Bunnicula
Cute? He's your standard bunny: long ears, fluffy tail.
Terrifying? Maybe if you're a vegetable. Or a conspiracy-theorist cat.

The Denizens of Halloweentown (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Cute? There's a reason they've been lining the shelves at Hot Topic all these years.
Terrifying? The Oogie Boogie is especially nightmarish, but the rest of Halloweentown gives a good scare, even when they don't mean to.

Sully (Monsters, Inc.)
Cute? That one child calls Sully "Kitty" throughout the entire movie pretty much sums it up.
Terrifying? About as scary as a monster from Sesame Street. But he does make his living terrorizing children, so we'll give him a pass.

Bun-Bun (Sluggy Freelance)
Cute? Yes, even while wielding a knife.
Terrifying? With a violent temper and the ability to produce switchblades seemingly out of no where, Bun-Bun is a force to be reckoned with. He's been known to slay telemarketers, the Easter Bunny, and anyone else who gets on his nerves.

Ickis (Aaahh!!! Real Monsters)
Cute? Unfortunately for him, yes. The small children he's supposed to be scaring frequently mistake him for a bunny rabbit.
Terrifying? Not as much as he'd like, but he gives it a solid try.

The Gingerbread Men (The Tick)
Cute? And delicious.
Terrifying? They're thoroughly evil and pretty clever, but because they're made without preservatives, they tend to go stale after a while.

The Gingerdead Man
Cute? This one falls a bit more on the disturbing side.
Terrifying? A psychotic killer resurrected as a knife-wielding cookie and voiced by Gary Busey? Actually, yes, it's pretty terrifying.

Reynardine (Gunnerkrigg Court)
Cute? Sometimes. He's trapped in the body of a stuffed wolf.
Terrifying? He's a body-stealing demigod, although at the moment he's confined to a single body. Still, he can shift into a pretty intimidating wolf form.

The Rabbit of Caerbannog (Monty Python and the Holy Grail):
Cute? From a distance.
Terrifying? It's not just the fact that the rabbit can decapitate you with its teeth. It's the awful can opener noise it makes when it does it.

Evil Children Everywhere
Cute? Creepifying to be sure, but reasonably cute.
Terrifying? Absolutely. It doesn't matter if they're banishing you to the cornfield or sacrificing you to the Devil; evil children are always utterly terrifying.

The latest look at GB from Cinematical has Sam Rockwell talking about Tim Allen's villain theories on the Galaxy Quest set. I must admit if I was hanging out with Sam, GQ would come up more than once. I like these little GB looks as I believe it's preparing audiences for the exceedingly dry humor that comes out of this movie.

Galaxy Quest: Granted, the worst thing that happened at the actual convention celebrating the long-cancelled (and nonexistent) TV show Galaxy Quest was its star getting wasted and telling off a fan. But a long ways away, the Thermians were experiencing the minor crisis of genocidal war. For them, the convention is a bit of a salvation, as it puts them in touch with the actor they mistakenly believe to be the heroic Capitain Peter Taggart.

Futurama "Where No Fan Has Gone Before": Yes, the slaughter of all Star Trek fans (whose conventions had evolved into religious ceremonies) was pretty horrible, but the cast of the original Star Trek series seemed more miffed by the actions of noncorporeal fanboy Melllvar, who stages the most annoying Star Trek convention ever, and forces them to battle the crew of Planet Express.

Family Guy "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven": After watching the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation field a litany of irrelevant fan questions, a frustrated Stewie builds a transporter and kidnaps the actors to stage his own personal Star Trek convention (taking a page, it seems, from Futurama's Melllvar). And, in the spirit of the show, he kills off Denise Crosby early on.

Family Guy's Stewie meets Star Trek The Next Generation from Work Avoidance on Vimeo.

CSI "A Space Oddity" and "Fur and Loathing": Some fans will take drastic measures to keep their favorite shows from getting remade. In "A Space Oddity," a filmmaker looking to remake the cult TV show Astro Quest turns up murdered. As if that weren't a sufficiently obvious reference to Battlestar Galactica, Grace Park, Kate Vernon, Rekha Sharma, and Ron D. Moore all have cameos.

Perhaps more notorious is the episode "Fur and Loathing," where a dead murder victim is found wearing a raccoon fursuit, leading the CSI team to a furry convention. But it's portrayed as less a fan convention than an opportunity for costumed attendees to "yiff" one another.

Mr. Monk in Outer Space by Lee Goldberg: How do you get away with murdering a science fiction creator? Dress as one of the show's most popular characters and escape into the convention. That's the set-up for the fifth Monk novel, where Monk must investigate the creator of the fictional scifi drama Beyond Earth, and rely on his agoraphobic fanboy brother to help identify the killer.

Bones "The Princess and the Pear": When a booth babe from a science fiction and fantasy convention is found decomposing in a nearby sewer pipe, her fellow convention-goers seem less concerned for her well-being than for the fate of a sword she owned, a prop from an early fantasy film. The otherwise geeky team is out of their element here, relying on gloomy intern Colin Fisher and wunderkind psychologist Lance Sweets (who, amusingly enough, dons a redshirt Star Trek uniform) to infiltrate the con.

Numb3rs "Graphic": Admittedly, this episode of Numb3rs has occupies a soft spot in my heart, and not for the theft-of-priceless-comic-book-ends-in-murder primary plotline. It's because in addition to Numb3rs star David "Mr. Universe" Krumholt, it features Wil Wheaton as a douchebag collector.

Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb: Sharyn McCrumb's novel is an object lesson for all crotchety creators. Appin Dungannon is a fantasy author whose temper is so legendary that his fans attend conventions just to watch him throw furniture. When the small-statured author winds up dead, a hard science fiction author (implausibly named James O. Mega) has to figure out if one of Dungannon's fans took his insults to heart.

Deep Secret by Diana Wynne Jones: Jones' novel brings the entire multiverse down on an unsuspecting scifi and fantasy convention. Rupert is a Magid, a sort of magical lobbyist aiming to make Earth more magic-friendly. When his mentor dies, Rupert must take on an apprentice, and he gathers all the likely candidates at science fiction convention. Naturally, when things go awry, all multiverse breaks loose, leaving the convention vulnerable to rampant centaurs and assassins.

Atomic Betty "Cosmic Comicon": Conventions just wouldn't be the same without the occasional supervillain attack. When Atomic Betty's pal Noah publishes Atomic Chick a comic book based on her adventures, Dr. Cerebral becomes confused by a fan cosplaying "Dr. Brainy," and launches an attack on the convention. But, fortunately, a group of cosplayers portraying Atomic Chick make short work of him.

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Sandman "The Doll's House": The "cereal convention" described in the second arc of Neil Gaiman's epic comic series isn't precisely a fan convention, but it's too weird and disturbing to ignore. Like any other group of professionals, serial killers apparently need to meet, hold panels, and swap trade secrets. But woe unto any tourist who inadvertently wanders into panels titled, "Women in Serial Killing" or "There is No Sanity Clause."

Power Rangers: Dino Thunder "Drawn into Danger": Who knew that Artists' Alley could be weaponized? The Power Rangers run into typical trouble at a comic convention, where their nemesis/high school principal hands a famous comic book artist a magical pen that traps the Rangers in a superpowered battle with the latest monster of the week, Fridgia.

Roswell "The Convention": It's no surprise that the city of Roswell, New Mexico, would attract the occasional alien enthusiast convention. And, given that Jonathan Frakes numbers among Roswell's executive producers, it's hardly shocking that Commander Riker would make a guest appearance. What couldn't be anticipated is the bloodshed that ensues when a conspiracy theorist meets up with an actual alien.

The Simpsons "Mayored to the Mob": Generally, the worst thing to hit Springfield fan conventions is the Comic Book Guy and his perpetually superior attitude. But during one ""Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con," a riot sparks, threatening to kill Star Wars actor Mark Hamill. And in, a first for celebrity guest stars on The Simpsons, Hamill finds Homer Jay Simpson is his only hope.

We've all been there. Watching our favorite show when we realize that the situation we find our main characters in is completely and utterly ridiculous. The characters are stepping into plot holes so deep, you can't help commenting on it from the sofa. It's actually a relief when someone on screen points out the absurdity of what everyone else is struggling to take seriously. So it's a good thing modern science fiction has a particular talent for giving the audience a surrogate in the storylines.

Joss Whedon, in particular, has a great talent for lacing his shows and movies with smart-aleck rebels who provide a running commentary. His characters are often hyper-aware of the weird, outlandish situations they find themselves in. Take this scene from the pasted together Firefly pilot, "The Train Job." The great "villain doesn't care about money" cliche is turned on its head at the hands of the great Mal Reynolds:

The Whedonverse's most emo couple, Buffy and Angel, come in for their share of mockery as well. Most famously, there's the great scene involving Spike providing his own voice-over for Angel's superhero run. But there's also this barely remembered Cordy/Wes gem instead. The point is, it could just as easily be Topher, Spike, Wash or even Boyd on a good day making the observations that we seem to yell at our tv screens.

And then there's Heroes, which gave us Hiro Nakamura serving as the next best thing to an audience surrogate, the fan who becomes part of the action, for most of season one. He goes out of his way to break down the comic book rules of the Heroes world and even sneaks in a few Star Trek references along the way. But perhaps the most self-aware character on Heroes is Sylar, who manages to keep a sense of irony about his own actions long into the show's decline. One of the few pleasures of the past two years has been those moments when Sylar practically smirks at the camera.

But even a deadly serious show like Battlestar Galactica serves up a voice of audience mockery in the form of Gaius Baltar, who regularly comments on how goofy everything is. The Baltar syndrome can enable the audience to swallow a lot of bizarre and nonsensical plot twists, because at least Gaius is admitting it's all a bit silly.

Then there's the character who's both the ascended fan (like Hiro) and the audience surrogate. A perfect example of this dynamic combo is Venture Brothers' Henchman 21:

He is us, and unlike Hiro, he didn't have any awesome superpowers to distinguish himself from any other random dude who wears tights and butterfly wings. His jokes don't come from a generic fan P.O.V. (which is what Hiro's jokes devolved into) but came from someone who truly knew nerd culture.

Futurama's Fry has a similar position. He's unapologetically below average in every way, and his voice represents the audiences' most basic observations about the "future." What really makes that show shine, however, is the reversal of the surrogate's role with the main cast. Fry's seemingly logical observations are ridiculed and laughed off as a caveman's ramblings. And then, the caveman is told that he's the most important person in the universe. I don't know about you guys, but it's definitely this fangirl's dream to be told that she's destined to defeat a race of glowly brains for fun, glory and profit.

1999's Galaxy Quest was a whole movie built around the premise of teasing the Star Trek and Star Wars cultures. What made that film great wasn't merely the laughs (or Rainn Wilson's role) — it was the fact that it could make fun of itself while respecting the genre fans who would inevitably go and see it. It wasn't a "look how stupid geeks are" representation (like, say, Big Bang Theory), but had a message more akin to "geeks are pretty weird, but they've got a heart of gold."

Lost also takes a stab at the ascended fanboy with Hurley. He plays the part of the not-insanely-good-looking castaway that seems the most like the guy that works at your local video store. And whenever there's a bizarre time-travel plot or mysterious hatch, Hurley is the guy who asks the questions you wish you could ask the writers:

It's not easy for genre shows to have a surrogate who accurately represents the main audience, but when it's done right, they're most often our favorite characters. I know Ryan Reynolds has a lot on his plate right now, but he should seriously take this all into consideration before the Deadpool film comes out.

10. Spaceballs

The Particulars:

Mel Brooks's Star Wars parody is from his later, weaker period, and it lacks some of the wit and inspiration that made Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein classics. Neither Bill Pullman's Han Solo character nor Daphne Zuniga's Princess Leia are particularly memorable, placing most of the comedic responsibilities on the rest of the cast.

Luckily, the supporting players are more than up to the challenge. Brooks roped in two SCTV powerhouses, John Candy and Rick Moranis, to play the Chewbacca and Darth Vader roles, and these two are crucial to the film's success. Candy's Barf is about as lovable as any half-man/half-dog (he's his own best friend) possibly could be, providing Spaceballs with the bare minimum of emotional investment needed for it to be more than a string of hit-or-miss comedic setpieces.

Still, it's the villains, including Moranis's Dark Helmet, Brooks's President Skroob, and George Wyner's Colonel Sandurz, who consistently steal the show. Moranis is particularly inspired as the least likely person to play the galaxy's greatest villain, and the fact that he plays the part as though it's any other Rick Moranis role gets funnier with each passing scene. The film's constant willingness to break the fourth wall doesn't necessarily make for the most satisfying narrative, but it does provide some fantastic gags, as we'll see below.

Spaceballs is far from perfect, but it established many of the conventions that would dominate future space opera parodies, and it represents a comedy legend's one great attempt to take on the science fiction genre. For that alone, it earns a place on our list.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

If you're looking for an even sillier parody of Star Wars, look no further than Hardware Wars. If you're looking for something of the unintentionally hilarious variety, I'd recommend Starcrash, the highly unauthorized Italian remake of Star Wars that may or may not star Christopher Plummer and David Hasselhoff. (It totally does.)

9. Mystery Men

The Particulars:

The film flopped on its initial release, providing yet more evidence that, as a general rule, big budget comedies just don't do very well at the box office. For all its pyrotechnics, Mystery Men is really just an alternative comedy with surprising insight into the superhero genre. If I'm being honest, Mystery Men probably does a better job deconstructing superhero conventions than the Watchmen movie does.

It helps that almost everyone is perfectly cast. It's hard to imagine anyone better suited than William H. Macy for the straightforward family man the Shoveler, Hank Azaria for the wannabe British fop the Blue Raja, Greg Kinnear for the narcissistic sellout Captain Amazing, Ben Stiller for the irritable asshole Mr. Furious, or Geoffrey Rush for the ludicrously over-the-top supervillain Casanova Frankenstein. The only real misstep is Paul Reubens as the Spleen, but I suppose that's because he's just a little too convincingly creepy.

Better than any other superhero movie I've seen, Mystery Men captures what it means to have a city full of costumed heroes and villains, a concept it exploits to hilarious effect. The superhero tryouts really hit upon the absurdity of D-list superheroes, the discussions of whether Captain Amazing is really Lance Hunt (which is impossible, because Lance Hunt wears glasses and Captain Amazing doesn't) make it difficult to ever take the Clark Kent concept seriously ever again, and the climactic fight sequence manages to brilliantly use every last one of the heroes' lame powers. Plus, Michael Bay cameos as a douche bag henchman. Sounds about right.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

The Specials, starring the always awesome Thomas Haden Church and Paget Brewster, came out around the same time as Mystery Men and is its low-budget equivalent. It may lack the action of Mystery Men, but that just allows the film more time to develop its oddball cast of characters. The recent Sky High is actually a pretty decent movie, grafting a lot of good jokes onto what could have been a lame kid's movie (supporting turns from the likes of Kurt Russell, Lynda Carter, and Bruce Campbell certainly help). And of course there's always The Incredibles, which isn't exactly a comedy but is always worth watching.

8. Army of Darkness/Shaun of the Dead

The Particulars:

I'm probably stretching things a bit to consider these films science fiction. (I'll count Army of Darkness because there's time travel and a Day the Earth Stood Still reference, and Shaun of the Dead makes it, because the zombies might have been caused by a meteorite, which is sort of like science.) As such, I'll just combine these two brilliant horror comedies into one entry and say that, together, they just about add up to one science fiction comedy. And why not?

The debate as to whether Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness is the better film will likely rage on into eternity, but I think it's fairly clear where I stand. Casting aside the last shreds of seriousness seen in Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness is nonstop badass quips and undead slapstick. That's a winning combination right there, and Bruce Campbell has never been better than he is here.

Meanwhile, nobody puts more time and effort into their comedies these days than Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz might be the most intricately constructed comedy I've ever seen). Shaun of the Dead is no exception, taking the relatively mundane idea of a zombie comedy and adding onto it a dense web of callbacks and subtle visual gags that demand repeat viewings. It's also just a funny, eminently quotable movie, with Nick Frost's Ed getting all the best lines. Although I still don't see the point of owning a car in London.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

For more Bruce Campbell goodness, look no further than Evil Dead 2. If you must look slightly further, then check out Bubba Ho-Tep, where Campbell plays an aging Elvis Presley in a nursing home who teams up with a black JFK to fight a mummy. It's as awesome as it sounds. Fans of Shaun of the Dead should definitely give Wright and Pegg's series Spaced a try. It's not science fiction, but it's one of the most proudly geeky series ever made.

7. Groundhog Day

The Particulars:

It's easy to forget how committed this film is to its time loop premise. Bill Murray is funny enough that I'd gladly watch a film about him as an asshole weatherman even if he wasn't trapped reliving the same day for an unspecified span of time. (Director Harold Ramis once said it was thousands of years, but the official word now seems to favor about ten years.) The fact that the film keeps coming up with new takes on its premise is what elevates it to the heights of science fiction comedy.

Murray's repeated attempts to woo Andie MacDowell, each day slightly modifying his behavior so that he can give her exactly what she wants, is one of the best examples of what makes Groundhog Day so good. On the one hand, it's simply a funny idea, as the callbacks and repetition mount and build up comic momentum. But the film also wonders about what it really means to live a life without consequences, as by his hundredth attempt Murray isn't even bothering to hide his preparations for his next attempt, fully aware no one will remember his sleaziness.

The film is also refreshingly willing to tackle darker territory. Murray's attempt to save a homeless man are positively heartbreaking, and there's real pathos in a nurse's observation that this is simply his time. His ultimate despair and repeated attempts to kill himself are funny in the bleakest, grimmest way possible, but they're part of the reason the film's eventual happy ending feels so richly deserved.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

There's at least one other Bill Murray/Harold Ramis science fiction collaboration I can think of that's worth watching, but I can't quite remember the name. Maybe it'll occur to me later in the list.

6. Tremors

The Particulars:

Of all the homages to fifties monster movies, Tremors was one of the first and it's still the best. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward make a wonderfully stupid, profane pair as they try to evade the massive earthworms that have come to devour their desert town. The other twelve residents of Perfection, Nevada, are just as fun to watch, with the survivalist couple and their well-armored rec room a particular highlight.

The film reverently captures the charm of old monster movies without resorting to cheap parody for laughs. Instead, the humor comes from exploring how actual people might react to being attacked by fifty-foot earthworms, and the results are pretty damn hilarious. The gloriously terrible special effects are also part of the appeal of Tremors - if, as is sadly inevitable, they ever remake Tremors, I can only hope the Graboids don't make the leap to CGI. Some things really ought to be sacred.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

Slither is a much more recent homage to this kind of movie, and it has the added advantage of starring Nathan Fillion. For more cult eighties movies, there's always The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension, which is sort of paying homage to every film ever made.

5. Ghostbusters

The Particulars:

Oh yeah, this is the Murray/Ramis film I was thinking of. The special effects in Ghostbusters haven't necessarily stood the test of time, but the movie's enduring themes of "Who you gonna call?" and not being afraid of no ghosts have kept it relevant well into the 21st century.

Day Aykroyd has always struck me in interviews as being far more interested in the paranormal than any normal person should be. (It's possible his claims that he sincerely believes we will soon be visited by ghosts are all part of an elaborate joke, but if so, that is some serious commitment to a bit.) Either way, his and Harold Ramis's complete belief in the seriousness of the ghostly threat lends the film some much-needed authenticity. The rest of the cast, including Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, and Ernie Hudson, all get their moments to bring the funny, and nobody wastes their opportunity.

Still, this is pretty much completely Bill Murray's movie. Legend once had it that he didn't even read the script, instead electing to ad-lib all of his lines. That's since been denied by pretty much everyone involved, but his hilariously natural, seemingly off-the-cuff readings make it easy to see why the rumor took hold in the first place. Besides, he really made me rethink the wisdom of strapping an unlicensed particle accelerator to my back, and that's really just a public service.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

Whatever you may have heard, Ghostbusters II is a pretty decent film and worth checking out, if only for Cheech Marin's random cameo (his one line is still stuck in my head years after I first saw the movie). The eighties was something of a golden age of science fiction comedies, and there are no shortage of other movies to check out, including Weird Science, Short Circuit, and Earth Girls Are Easy.

4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

The Particulars:

It's the rare science fiction franchise that has the guts to make one of its big-budget movies into a fish-out-of-water comedy, but that's exactly what Star Trek does here. I'm not sure anyone would have guessed the series would have concluded the loose trilogy begun in Wrath of Khan with a lighthearted time travel story about saving humpback whales in eighties San Francisco, and I really doubt anyone would have guessed such a movie would end up being one of the best Star Trek movies.

It helps that the entire cast has so completely grown into their roles. William Shatner is legitimately good as Captain Kirk here, and he displays a newfound willingness to not take himself seriously that would serve him well in pretty much all of his future roles. Leonard Nimoy, who also directed the film, is appropriately spacey as the recently resurrected Spock (though that also might have something to do with all the LDS he took during the sixties). The always brilliant DeForrest Kelley adds another dimension to their adventures in the past as McCoy angrily surveys the state of 20th century medicine.

Then there's Uhura and Chekov's attempt to find the nuclear vessels in Alameda, which takes the form of an amusingly unrehearsed scene where they ask real passersby in San Francisco where the ships are. Speaking of nuclear vessels, it's quite possible that, without this film, Chekov's inability to pronounced his v's would never have taken on such legendary status. And there are few things quite as enjoyable as watching Scotty wrangle with a primitive Apple computer.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

The two Star Trek fans in Free Enterprise are way too insufferable for their own good, but the film is worthwhile if only because William Shatner takes his capacity for self-parody to its logical conclusion. In this case, that conclusion is a rap interpretation of Julius Caesar where he plays all the parts.

3. Sleeper

The Particulars:

Woody Allen only once turned his attention to the science fiction genre, but it was more than enough to show he knew what he was doing. Supposedly a "wildly distorted" adaptation of When the Sleeper Wakes by H.G. Wells, Allen's story hits upon pretty much every science fiction trope that doesn't involve space. From cryogenics to dystopias to changing sexual mores to slapstick robots - it's all here, and it's all hysterical.

The decision to freeze his character in 1973 and awaken him in the 22nd century was undoubtedly part of the movie's success, as it would have been impossible to believe such a staid, repressive future society could ever create an oddball like Allen's trademark character. Besides, Allen's unique status allows him to return to similar territory he tackled in Bananas, as he becomes the world's unlikeliest revolutionary.

Although Allen's turn as a robotic butler and the orgasmatron are justly famous, perhaps the film's best running gag is Allen's willingness to wildly fabricate 20th century history. He calmly agrees with a historian that sportscaster Howard Cosell was used to punish political prisoners, he tells Diane Keaton that giving guns to criminals was considered a public service, and he claims that Bela Lugosi was the mayor of New York. I wish I could get cryogenically frozen, if only so that I could get the chance to make up historical "facts" half as good as those.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

Mike Judge's Idiocracy tackles a lot of the same material, although the dystopian elements of Sleeper are replaced with a more straightforward brand of dumbassery.

2. Galaxy Quest

The Particulars:

Galaxy Quest is a rare trifecta: it's a great science fiction comedy, it's a brilliant comedy about science fiction, and it actually works as a pretty decent science fiction film in its own right. The film never loses sight of its parody of Star Trek's most cliched tropes or its affectionate skewering of the various neuroses of the has-been actors, and it's a tribute to Galaxy Quest's comic dexterity that it perfectly balances both threads. It's also about a million times better than any film starring Tim Allen should be.

Admittedly, some of that is down to his supporting cast. Alan Rickman long ago passed the point where he was even capable of turning in a bad performance, and here he actually has good material to work with as a seriously tortured British thespian who absolutely despises his catchphrase. The movie's deconstruction of science fiction wouldn't have seemed quite so definitive if Sigourney Weaver hadn't been involved, and she shows even more comedic chops here than she did in Ghostbusters. Tony Shalhoub and Sam Rockwell get tremendous comic mileage out of the latter's existential angst over whether he's the doomed extra or the plucky comic relief, maybe the film's best bit of sustained meta-comedy.

Even so, one shouldn't dismiss Tim Allen's contribution just because the rest of his filmography is so full of, well, total crap (the Toy Story movies excepted, of course). More than any other recent actor, Allen captures all that was so distinctive about William Shatner: the hamminess, the bravado, the willingness to turn in terrible performances in terrible films.

It's an open question whether a better actor could have so fully inhabited the Captain Kirk role; in fact, I might go so far as to say he was perfect for the role. Considering the stories that Allen "purposefully" tried to replicate Shatner's legendary dickishness and prima donna tendencies on set, I'd say he knew that too. Whatever works, I guess.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

There's plenty of other Star Trek parodies out there, but I don't think any will ever top the Futurama episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before." Or, for that matter, any episode with Zapp Brannigan, who Matt Groening has described as 40% Kirk, 60% Shatner.

1. Back to the Future

The Particulars:

Quite simply, there's never been a more complete science fiction comedy. It's legitimately interested in the mechanics of time travel, placing a time paradox at the heart of the film's central conflict. The film never backs away from the admittedly creepy comedic potential of a mother unwittingly falling in love with her time traveling son, and the film's exploration of Marty McFly's culture shock and unwitting anachronisms hilariously climaxes in rocking out just a little too hard at his parents' dance. Back to the Future also respects the rest of the science fiction genre, as can be seen in Marty's brilliant disguise as Darth Vader, extraterrestrial from the planet Vulcan.

Michael J. Fox plays the kind of likable, active protagonist I still don't understand why we no longer see in comedies. Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown might just be the definitive mad scientist in modern film, and it's hard to imagine a more perfect bully than Thomas F. Wilson's Biff. Lea Thompson is cute and hilarious as Marty's mom, and Crispin Glover dials down his total insanity to steal the film as George McFly.

I'd keep going, but I think I need to go rewatch Back to the Future now. Sadly, there's very little of the film on YouTube, so the trailer will have to do.

The Visual Evidence:

Also worth checking out:

Why, Back to the Future Part II and Part III, of course. The first sequel might be the best pure science fiction of the bunch (though it's not as funny as the original), while the third is basically a payoff for all the running gags set up in the first two movies by doing them all over again in the old West. Which is, to be honest, kind of brilliant.

Galaxy Quest gets a much-deserved fancy presentation in this tenth anniversary DVD, which just hit stores. The movie itself has never looked better - I figured I would just watch 15 or 20 minutes to see how it was holding up, and wound up watching the whole thing. The effects don't look nearly as dated as I'd feared, and the humor is just as fresh as ever - especially with all the excitement about Star Trek coming back from retirement.

Besides the above rap song (which Weaver explains she made as a "present" to her agent, because he was having a giant birthday dinner in New York and she couldn't be there) and the above deleted scene, there are tons of great extras. The other deleted scenes are mostly pretty great, including a sequence where Alexander (Alan Rickman) gets shown his quarters aboard the NSEA Protector — including a very unconventional bed.

There are also the usual featurettes, which are pretty entertaining and bizarre. I didn't realize that GQ started life as a spec script called Captain Sunshine - and that the Alan Rickman character was the villain. He was a science fiction writer who has written a ton of successful books, but felt frustrated and limited by our petty world - so he did a ton of experiments and created an interplanetary gateway, which took him to another planet. There, he enslaved the simple inhabitants and became, basically, Ming The Merciless. Until the inhabitants saw the "historical recordings" of Tim Allen's character, and went to fetch him, as the only person who could scare their dictator.

Also, it sounds as though Tim Allen really went "method acting" on the set and tried to be as much of an arrogant jerk as his character, ham actor Jason Nesmith - on purpose, he claims. (Sam Rockwell remembers Allen being a total dickwad in the makeup trailer when they made him wait his turn, saying "Guess whose name is first on the call sheet.") And Allen and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell (who's rapping with Weaver and Rockwell, above) would clown around on set, until Rickman asked them to act professional. Rickman and Weaver, meanwhile, were constantly doing exercises and being actorly. (But then at the end of the day, Rickman would invite Allen and Chill to his trailer for wine.)

One thing that endears me to Allen, though: He talks in the featurettes about how he reads "scifi blogs" and knows that everybody thinks every movie he's been in was a piece of shit... except this one.

Space 1999
Perhaps understandably (The show's second season showrunner was a Trek veteran), Gerry Andersen's moonbase drama went from 2001-style cerebral sci-fi to Trek-esque adventure as it tried to avoid cancellation. In came an alien science officer, as well as a lot more action and even short skirts for the sexy female crew members, as the show tried to "Americanize" itself in order to win viewers... and each change made it that little bit more like original Trek. And, if you were a kid watching at the time, more than a little bit better.

Phoenix 5
Oh, to have been Australian and of television viewing age in 1970. Then, I could have seen Phoenix 5 instead of just reading about it on the internet and catching up with snippets on YouTube. Sure, the Phoenix 5 is no Enterprise - three crew members ("and their computeroid, Carl!") doesn't really allow for an endless supply of securitymen and interns to be killed - but look at those outfits and shitty special effects, and tell me that a mission to keep the peace in the 26th century isn't just a little bit ripped-off of Gene Rodenberry's dreams. Bonus points go to the show for having better theme music, as well:

Babylon 5
Yes, yes, I know; there are many Babylon fans who think that, not only is J. Michael Straczynski's television space opera epic not a Trek rip-off, but that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was actually ripped off of Straczynski's original Babylon pitch. Nevertheless, the intergalactic political backdrop of the show - and the visuals, especially the alien make-up - still strike me as strongly reminiscent of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Albeit, in terms of the writing, perhaps handled better), and the epic scale of the story overreaches in the same way as the original Trek's best episodes as much as any of the admitted influences. "Rip-off" may be too strong a term, perhaps, but surely we can agree on "heavily influenced"?

(And this is where the flames start.)

Switchblade Honey
Warren Ellis' 2003 graphic novel may have started out as a joke, but it's one that stays funny throughout its short (72 pages) lifespan; essentially, "what if the Enterprise was crewed by bastards?", Honey apparently got its origins when an episode of Star Trek: Voyager made Ellis imagine a Trek where Ray Winstone was captain. The result? The kind of Star Trek that you'll never see on television, and that's a good thing.

Galaxy Quest
Sure, it's a Trek parody, which really protects it from being accused of being a rip-off. But by the end of the movie, when there's such a heartwarming message of self-empowerment that would make even Harve Bennett blush (not to mention all manner of technobabble and action), it somehow transcends parody and comes back around the other side as something more akin to... well, a Star Trek rip-off. That's the problem with affectionate parodies, sadly; they really just want to be loved by the things they should be making fun of... but it doesn't stop us from having a soft spot for this movie, anyway. Blame it on Alan Rickman.

I have to admit, I expected more BSG shoutouts than Star Trek, but I guess that it is a CBS show, and they are the Trek owners who might want to raise awareness a month before the movie comes out... The episode airs this Thursday.

DC Comics have a pretty hefty week of important launches hitting stores tomorrow. (And, no, I'm not including "WWII Heroes Fight Dinosaurs" book The War That Time Forgot, the first collection of which is released this week.)

You can catch a glimpse at how Gotham City has been affected by the disappearance of Batman in Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead?, or follow Superman as he abandons Earth to kneel before Zod in the first issue of Superman: World of New Krypton. You can even catch up with the storyline that led to the creation of New Krypton in the hardcover collection Superman: Brainiac, which also includes the last days of poor Pa Kent. There's even a brand new space superhero series launching from the cosmic-awareness addled mind of Jim Starlin, called (appropriately) Strange Adventures.

Marvel are heading into space themselves, with the launch of their new "Intergalactic War - Again!" series, War of Kings; it's one of a number of launches from the House of Ideas this week, which include the Hulk anthology mini-series Hulk: Broken Worlds, a continuity-heavy Dark Reign: Fantastic Four, the wonderfully goofy one-shot Spider-man & The Human Torch in Bahia De Los Muertos (The plot of which is "Spidey and the Human Torch go to Puerto Rico and meet monsters." Seriously, how could you resist?) and the surprisingly fun New Avengers: The Reunion, which offers marriage counseling via superheroes and evil mad scientist cults.

(If you're jonesing for some Wolverine ahead of the upcoming movie, Marvel are there for you as well; they're re-releasing both Barry Windsor-Smith's classic Weapon X and Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's even-more-classic Wolverine mini-series in new editions, just in case you've never read them before.)

Of course, all of the above pales before IDW's Galaxy Quest: Global Warming, which proved that apparently comic book spin-offs of minor SF comedy movies years after they came out can still manage to be more fun than the movies themselves. Just don't let writer Scott Lobdell know I said that.

All of these releases, and many more, can be found by perusing the complete list of this week's new comic releases, and then purchased - if you have "the green" - at your local store which can, as ever, be found using the Comic Shop Locator Service. Although, really, you should know where it is by now. What're you waiting for?

Marvel's third issue of Halo: Uprising (delayed, if rumors are to believed, because Bungie changed the direction of the next Halo game mid-production) isn't the only treat that the House of Ideas has in store for you this week - They're also expanding their Secret Invasion with three new mini-series about the Skrull attacks starring the Inhumans (written by Heroes writer Joe Pokaski), Thor (written by Casanova and The Invincible Iron Man's Matt Fraction) and the X-Men. And if even that just leaves you hungry for more Mighty Marvel Action, then there's also X-Men Origins: Jean Gray, a one-shot starring everyone's favorite telekinetic redhead with some stunning art by Mike Mayhew.

DC Comics, in comparison, take it relatively lightly; in addition to the fourth part of Batman RIP, there's the launch of Final Crisis: Revelations (which sees the new Question take on her former partner-turned-official-personification-of-the-wrath-of-God, Cris Allen) as well as the long-awaited (by me) collection of 1988's most awesome crossover, Millennium. Alternatively, you could take that $100 you have laying around and spend it on the oversized hardcover Absolute League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier.

To get back to the tie-in books of the week, though: Moonstone has the first issue (of two) for Buckaroo Banzai: The Prequel, while IDW pushes both boundaries and your wallet with the following: Transformers Best Of The UK: Time Wars, Transformers Animated: Arrival, Igor: The Movie Adaptation (in both comic form and collected edition), as well as the first issue of Scott Lobdell's Galaxy Quest: Global Warning. Most importantly of all, however, is Viper Comics' sole release of the week, The Middleman: The Collected Series Indispensability, which collects all of the original comic series into one handy-dandy, easy-to-carry-and-just-as-easy-to-read 336 page book for your entertainment enjoyment. If you like the TV show, you owe it to yourself (and your local comic store) to pick this up.

That local comic store can be found here, in case you're wondering. And if you're also wondering what else is coming out this week? You can find your answer here. You can thank me later.

Q: Why did you want to write a Galaxy Quest comic?

I think that Galaxy Quest got short shrift by being identified only as a Star Trek parody. When there really was a lot more going on in that movie. Galaxy Quest the comic will show you more of the mythology of the show, the actors and their relationships and the adventures they go on. You get to see more of the characters and see how their lives have been affected by the movie.

Q: Does the comic take place right after the movie ended?

The comic book opens with the final scene from the movie when they are showing the title sequence for the new Galaxy Quest series. The idea is that the actors are watching a screening for the new show, hoping it will get picked up and they can all have their old jobs back. But during this process a few terrible things start to happen in space and the government asks the crew to pilot their ship out to space and check it out. As we know from the movie the ship was made based on the actors movements and actions so no one else can work it. The government has no choice but to send the cast up in space.

Q: How are all the old characters doing?

Well you find out that the network that is working on the new Galaxy Quest series has agreed to kill Dr. Lazarus. So Alexander Dane is torn between staying in this character that he says he hates, or exploring new characters. Gwen DeMarco is in a relationship with the head of the studio. She still has affection for Jason Nesmith, who is now dating a young starlet since his fame is on the rise. Readers will get to see how the movie changed each character, especially Jason. Fred Kwan is trying to have a child with Laliari, which you see the results of in the fifth issue [featuring] the human/thermian love child.

Q: Are there going to be repercussions to crash-landing a space ship on Earth?

Yes the second issue reveals a lot on what happened after they crashed the ship into the convention center. A character [named] Colonel Stetson is trying to convince the world that it didn't happen, he's leading the government cover-up. After the crash, the crew spent a lot of time in Area 51 being tested and experimented by the government.

Q: What else are you working on these days? What about Hell Week? Wasn't this originally called Half To Death?

It was in the original script, but now it's Hell Week. It's teen slasher meets Groundhog Day. The main character is a catty sorority girl. She's the chick who nobody likes but gets murdered right away. But then she keeps living the day where she is killed over and over. The main character has no idea who the murderer is but each time she dies she rules out one suspect. She also becomes a better person through this process and begins to appreciate those in her life more. It takes place in a sorority during the 'hell week' period.

The new five-part series, subtitled Global Warning, takes the story in a somewhat expected direction by bringing in a Star Trek: The Next Generation-like spin-off series to accompany another threat to the universe that only a bunch of faded actors can prevent:

"Let's face it. Is there anyone who saw Galaxy Quest that didn't come away wondering about the continuing adventures of Jason, Sir Alex, Gwen, Tommy, Guy and Fred and Jane?" asks writer Scott Lobdell. "We've pined away for a sequel long enough! Now we're going to learn what became of these actors after their first greatest adventure together. Yes, they are excited about the re-launch of the franchise that made them cult icons, but don't think for a moment that success has quelled their quirkiness. And when they have to suit up again, and take the Protector out of orbit...? Let's just say experience isn't going to make their jobs any easier!"

IDW Announces 'Galaxy Quest' Comic Series [Comic Book Resources]

Starblazers. Desslok, leader of the Gamilons, tried to crush the puny humans over and over again, but finally lost his empire. So in season two, he decided to take revenge on the crew of the Yamato, who defeated his ambitions. He finally catches up to them in an episode auspiciously titled "Desslok's Victory," and pounds them with his gunships. Then he surrounds the Yamato with magnetic mines before the humans can fire their famous Wave Motion Gun. And then taunts his adversaries mercilessly. "Go on, take a shot." Ha ha ha ha. (I know it's sacrilege, but I actually prefer this scene in the English dubbed version.)

Battlestar Galactica. It takes less than an episode for things to go south between the Galactica and the newly discovered Battlestar Pegasus. Admiral Cain decides to execute the Chief and Helo, leading to a tense confrontation complete with the whirly cam. Commander Adama shows why you don't mess with Galactica, with his terse "I'm getting my men" speaking volumes. And then the phone comes down, because the space battle is on.

Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. Star Trek pretty much perfected the art of hailing-frequencies bravado, as early as "Balance of Terror"'s Romulan Sub-Commander Tal. "Your ship is surrounded, Captain. You will surrender immediately, or we will destroy you." With Kirk responding, "Save your threats. If you board this ship, I'll blow it up. You'll gain nothing." But Trek's masterpiece of comm-taunting has to be TWoK, where Kirk keeps needling Khan's poor marksmanship, until finally he lures him into a disabling nebula by laughing at his superior intellect. "We tried it once your way, Khan. Are you game for a rematch?" The script says: "Khan's eyes bulge." And they do.

Serenity. This one's a bit different. Chiwetel Ejiofor's Operative is mournful and regretful after he slaughters dozens (maybe hundreds) of innocents to get to Mal. But he still needles Mal via the viewscreen, suggesting that all the carnage is Mal's fault. And he's successful in goading Mal to take rash action — just not maybe the action he was hoping for.

Avengers #94, part of the Kree-Skrull War saga. The Skrull emperor appears on a view screen to warn the Avengers that the Kree warrior, Mar-Vell, is creating the ultimate weapon, an Omni-Wave Projector. And then when the humans don't respond to his threats fast enough, the emperor launches Plan Delta, which sends an all-consuming fireball spiralling towards Earth.

Farscape, "Die Me, Dichotomy." In the second season cliffhanger, Scorpius takes over Crichton's brain via a neural chip, and the mind-controlled Crichton tricks Aeryn into letting him go. She chases after his module in her Prowler, leading to a harsh exchange. Scorpius asks her how the skull fracture is doing, and she threatens to shoot him down. "Make no mistake." Scorpius/John replies: "I believe you'll pull the trigger. I just don't believe - you'll hit anything." And then he goes into a dive. Sadly, this is just a few moments before Aeryn takes her chair-dive into the frozen lake.

Halo 3, "The Crow's Nest" level. The Chief and Johnson reach the Command Center and start making plans to attack Truth's army, but then Truth appears on all screens and says: "You are, all of you, vermin. Cowering in the dirt, thinking...what, I wonder? That you might escape the coming fire? No! Your world will burn until its surface is but glass! And not even your Demon will live to creep, blackened, from its hole to mar the reflection of our passage; the culmination of our Journey. For your destruction is the will of the gods! And I? I AM their instrument!" Okay, so that's not a space battle. But I love that speech.

Galaxy Quest. Jason and Sarris have many great confrontations over the viewscreen, including the first one, where Jason thinks Sarris is just acting, and the second one, where Jason calls Sarris stupid and ugly because he thinks the sound is off. But the best, by far, is the final jaw-dropping confrontation. Sarris reminds Jason that he's a General, who's seen war and death that Jason can't imagine, and Sarris won't blink no matter what. (This scene is lengthier in the original script, actually.) But Jason retorts that it doesn't take a great actor to recognize a bad one, and Sarris is sweating. And then we get to the classic exchange, "You fool. What you fail to realize is that without your armor my ship will tear through yours like tissue paper." To which Jason responds: "Yeah. Well what you fail to realize is... I'm dragging mines."

Babylon 5, "Between The Darkness And The Light. We're totally embarrassed that we missed this crucial showdown between Earthforce and Susan Ivanova, and super grateful that commenters Michael and BcBeBop pointed it out to us. I am going to start calling myself "the right hand of vengeance" and "the boot up your ass" in the same breath now:

Doctor Who, "Bad Wolf." Another one we're embarrassed we missed originally. Thanks to commenter AspiringExpatriate for pointing it out! I love how Christopher Eccleston's Doctor is just like, "No." As if it's not even worth arguing. It mirrors his awesome "No" in "The Long Game" when The Editor asks that long-winded philosophical question about whether a slave is still a slave if he doesn't know he's a a slave. I have to admit, every time I watch this scene I wonder why the Daleks don't just say, "Okay then," and exterminate Rose right then and there.

So what classic space talk-downs did we miss? Feel free to let us know in the comments, but only in the most trash-talking, mouth-running, space-taunting way possible. You fools! We're laughing at your superior intellects.

6. Trek is a poison dart of nostalgia aimed at the hearts of aging fan-dudes. The franchise caters to a fearsomely loyal cadre of dorks who recite Shatner's Promise Margarine commercials to each other. They also obsess over every minor detail from the show's 40,000 year history, leading to...

5. Obsessive continuity and reveling in cheese. Rumor has it the new Trek movie will feature tribbbles and the Guardian of Forever, and god knows what other callbacks to ancient episodes. Trek also groans under the weight of cliches it can never outgrow, from "beam me up" to "warp nine" to "shields down to 59 percent."

4. It's an out-of-date news flash. Trek's format is a Cold War relic, from the original show's running Soviets=Klingons metaphor to the post-Cold War "new order" of TNG and DS9. Most storylines relate to "our" superpower, the Federation, facing off against other superpowers or coping with third-world planets. Take away the Cold War as a reference point, and you have boring space opera.

3. It's no longer looking ahead. Like Star Wars, Trek is trapped in prequel-land. Enterprise bored us by filling in pointless backstory on the early days of Starfleet, but the J.J. Abrams movie looks to be twice as pointless. We already know everything we need to about young Kirk and the other Trek tots. Mining your own past is a prime symptom of idea bankruptcy.

2. We're tired of the clueless wanker with Aspergers who teaches us what it means to be human. Spock was sort of cute, so nu-Trek served up Data, Odo, that holographic doctor, Seven of Nine and T'Pol. It's not Trek without Rain Man trying to understand our human ways. We prefer the Cylons, who school us about humanity by screwing and killing us.

1. Sanctimonious preaching is in Trek's DNA. From the Prime Directive to the Captain's Log, the franchise was made for droning voices giving us lectures. Starfleet Academy must give would-be captains a special course in holding forth about the moral lesson in every conceivable situation. We're also sick of constantly hearing about how our heroes are too noble to share their advanced technology with other cultures.

In a nutshell, the only Star Trek we've liked in ages was Galaxy Quest, and that was mostly for Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Veronica Mars' dad.

• My Favorite Martian: This series premiered in 1963 and starred Bill Bixby in his pre-Hulk days as a hapless human who takes in a Martian who crash-lands his spaceship near Los Angeles. He passes him off as his Uncle Martin, who proceeds to do wacky things with his Martian powers, much like Jeannie or Samantha would do with their magic. It's vintage 1960s-era television sitcom material and worth seeking out on DVD or watching on YouTube. Just ignore the horrible feature film version they made in 1999 with Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Daniels, and Elizabeth Hurley.

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• Spaceballs: Mel Brooks lampooned Star Wars and a slew of other science fiction films in this 1987 movie that gave us quotes like "I see your schwartz is just as big as mine" and "Prepare ship for ludicrous speed!" Once you've seen this, it's hard to picture John Candy wearing anything except a giant furry dog suit. 20 years later, it's starting to show its age just a bit, but it's still a classic.

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• Red Dwarf: This British series about the last human being in the universe and his annoying holographic shipmate was one of the best things the BBC gave us, after Doctor Who. After an accident kills everyone onboard the Red Dwarf except for technician Dave Lister, the computer keeps him in suspended animation until the radiation dies down some three million years later. The computer also brings his former bunkmate and boss Arnold Rimmer to life as a hologram to keep him company.

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• Weird Science: in 1985 Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith used science, computers, and wore bras on their heads in an effort to create the perfect woman. They end up with Kelly LeBrock, who helps them change from nerds to studs with her pseudo-magic "science powers." It's vintage John Hughes moviemaking that tried to build on the success of the previous year's Revenge of the Nerds, and succeeded. Except it gave birth to a terrible television series.

• Mork & Mindy: This Happy Days spinoff appeared in 1978 and helped propel Robin Williams to stardom by letting him improv most of his scenes as a wacky alien from Ork. Mork reported back to his boss Orson at the end of every episode, telling him what he'd learned that day on Earth, which usually involved something happening with Mindy. They eventually got married and had Jonathan Winters as a baby. No kidding. I still have my Mork from Ork action figure, complete with egg-shaped space capsule.

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• The Ice Pirates: This 1984 movie starred Robert Urich as the heroic Jason in search of the universe's most precious commodity: water. They spoof other science fiction films while hamming it up in b-movie style. You can also catch Anjelica Huston and Ron Perlman in this thing if you don't blink.

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• Galaxy Quest: Hands down the best send-up of the Star Trek franchise and its fans. In the flick, Galaxy Quest is a canceled television show that lives on through fan conventions and autographs signings. Tim Allen parodies William Shatner excellently, but it's Tony Shalhoub steals most of the scenes he's in as the fumbling head of engineering.

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• Mystery Science Theater 3000: This show made comedy out of making fun of movies and television shows that tried to be serious. Broadcast for the Satellite of Love, lone human being Joel and his two robot friends Tom Servo and Crow offered up alternative commentary on the shows that mad scientist Dr. Forrester would beam up to them. It spawned a feature film and two new alternative movie commentary programs, Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax, both from MST3K former cast members Joel and Mike.

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• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: This series has been a radio series, a book, a television series, a computer game, a comic book, and a feature film. In it, lone Earthman Arthur Dent finds himself hitchhiking through the galaxy with a writer for The Hitchhiker's Guide after the Earth gets blown up. Although the effects aren't that stellar (thanks BBC), I actually prefer the television version to the movie. If that means I have to turn in my offical geek card, so be it.

Famous names: Director Dean Parisot had previously worked with Steven Wright, and went on to direct episodes of The Tick and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Screenwriter David Howard has no other credits, and is presumed to be in his mother's basement playing World of Warcraft.

Crunchy goodness: 5

Stunt casting: Alan Rickman, who obviously hates the latex thing on his head as much as his character does.

Sights you'll never unsee: Your heart can't help but break for the Galaxy Quest cast as they stand in an empty parking lot for the grand opening of an electronics store.

Design breakthrough: The hallway of chompy crushy things, which Lucas also used in Attack of the Clones, though at least Galaxy Quest had the temerity to acknowledge that there's no reason for them to exist aside from bad writing.

Onion AV Club review