The Best of Science Fiction Animation.
January 30, 2014 in ANIMATION
ANIMATION – The Best of Science Fiction Animation.
Science fiction in feature animation is pretty much non existent. Very, very, very few science fiction feature films are made. And even when they are made they’re not necessarily always all that good, so they wouldn’t be worthy of the list.
So instead, I’m doing a list of the best in animated science fiction, animated science fiction as far as the movies that they have made, plus straight to DVD movies, plus TV series, plus straight to DVD series.
There’s a plethora of those types of science fiction animated cartoons, but not necessarily movies. So I’m just going to clump all of it together and I’m going to make my top 10 best in animated science fiction.
Science fiction is one of my favorite genres and I really, really want to watch more science fiction animation. I would love there to be more science fiction animated feature animation.
You can watch the video below or simply read the transcription, it’s up to you:
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So let me begin.
10. Futurama
It is a great, funny, fantastic show which makes fun of the genre. Overall, it’s really disappointing that it was cancelled but it is really fantastic.
Please watch Futurama if you love sci-fi. It’s a satire on all things sci-fi, so I highly recommend it. My number 10 is Futurama.
9. Cowboy Bebop
Cowboy Bebop, about two bounty hunters in space and the crew of crazies that end up joining them. It’s got a very deep through line throughout the whole story and it ends really dramatically.
It’s really interesting. You don’t know where these characters are going. It’s great.
Character designs are great. The art is great. The universe that this takes place in is very cool. Spaceships are fantastic; the warping and it’s just cool. So I highly recommend this show – the series Cowboy Bebop.
8. Giant Robo
Boy, and his robot surrounded by the Experts of Justice. It’s got fighting, action, adventure and it’s beautifully drawn. Like I said, I did a whole entire post about it.
You could just watch that. It’s ten minutes long; it’s how much I rave about this show.
I highly recommend watching this show, my number 8 best in sci-fi animated cartoon Giant Robo.
7. Akira
Akira is the name of the weird boy that blew up. Yeah, it’s about a boy who blew up Tokyo named Akira, and so they had to rebuild it and called it Neo-Tokyo. It was built around the explosion site.
It turns out that there’s some kind of thing about evolution and experimentation with humans and about energy that can’t be contained. And it’s basically about a motorcycle gang that kind of gets involved in the middle of all these thing. And it’s amazing.
It’s one of the most fully animated anime movies you’ll ever see. It’s one of the rare animated Japanese movies where the dialogue was recorded first and the mouths actually work with the dialogue – the Japanese dialogue – because usually in Japan it’s done the other way around.
They animate it first and then they record the dialogue. In America it’s done the other way. The audio is recorded first and then you animate to the audio.
They did this movie the western way, so it is a little bit more fully animated than most anime you’ll actually see. It’s a beautiful, beautiful movie Akira. It is my number 7.
6. Macross Frontier
I don’t own this one because there is no American distributor of this movie. You’ll have to find it online in the translations sites, and that is Macross Frontier.
This was my number one anime series, I believe or my number two. I talk about in another list but this is basically – they expand the idea of Robotech from the 80’s.
Macross is basically what Robotech actually was in Japan. They took Robotech years into the future.
This takes place in another spaceship with another different types of set of aliens as the villains and it’s also got a love triangle again. It kind of follows the follows the Robotech formula but it veers off of it.
It’s got transforming robot. The fighting is incredible. The story is so much fun. Highly recommend it. Really great sci-fi, my number 6 is Macross Frontier.
Watch macross frontier 1 in Animation | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Tron: Uprising is based on the movie – the prequel to Tron: Legacy. It kind of takes place in between Tron and Tron: Legacy.
It’s called Tron: Uprising, and it’s a story about a guy who becomes Tron’s protégée so that he goes and tries to liberate The Grid from the bad guys who conquered The Grid.
It’s beautiful. I dedicated an entire post just to Tron: Uprising. Here’s the link:
Thoughts on the Animated Show, Tron: Uprising
I highly recommend it.
There’s a giant robot from outer space in a town in Maine. There’s a little boy who finds the giant robot befriends it. Little did he know that the robot is actually not the nice guy it seems but it’s meant to be a weapon.
It’s really interesting. There’s a lot of really, really good things in this movie. Written and directed Brad Bird who also wrote The Incredibles, and directed The Incredibles.
Iron Giant, if you haven’t seen it watch it. It’s one of the best Warner Brothers movies that came out of the Warner Brothers animation studios back in the 90’s. Yeah, I highly recommend it, The Iron Giant.
Anything with Gundam in it is pretty good. There’s some really, really bad ones out there, but generally as a rule, most of the Gundam series are really pretty good.
What makes Gundam robots unique, it was the very first time that any robot was actually used as what they are, which is, as giant tank. It didn’t have any kind of sapient mind. It didn’t have a soul. It was just a machine.
You get in it, and it’s more about the pilot’s skill. It does have to do with the quality of the machinery in the robot, but a lot more of it has to do with the pilots and the drama around the pilots. And that’s one of the things that they really play up on the Gundam series in the different reboots of the shows.
These robots have “Light Sabers,” they came up with the Light Sabers idea for these Gundams before they had seen Star Wars. Star Wars hadn’t come out yet when they were producing this. So when Star Wars showed up, they were like “Oh man! They’re going to think that we stole the idea from Star Wars.”
But these guys actually came up with the laser sword idea as well around the same time that Star Wars showed up.
Interestingly enough the pilots tend to have a kind of Jedi-ish powers, at least on the original version of Gundam.
So that’s my number 3, Gundam.
These shows are sci-fi at it’s best. If you love Star Wars, you’ll love these. That’s it. That’s the end. You want to watch these, period. Science fiction, Star Wars enough said. Watch it.
This is the best in science fiction you can possibly get so much so that I dedicated one post just for the Genndy type Star Wars: Clone Wars, and one for the Dave Filoni Star Wars: Clone Wars. And I even compared the two and tell you which one I think is better, or if there is even a fight at all.
So I highly recommend watching any one of these series, Star Wars: Clone Wars.
This is the second one in this list that is actually an American feature animated science fiction movie. Both feature animated science fiction movies that I’ve mentioned in this list come from the same person, Brad Bird.
Written and directed by Brad Bird, same person that wrote and directed Iron Giant. This is science fiction because it’s got superheroes and they’re fighting giant robots and all kinds of different things. And its science fiction from the 50’s, or the 60’s I should say.
It’s great. I love it. Fantastic, this is what American science fiction can be. It really needs to be pushed more in this direction, I think.
Yes, there’s Wall-E, it didn’t make the list because the other stuff I think that I’ve had on my list, I mean seriously I really do think Futurama is better than Wall-E.
The Incredibles, the best in sci-fi, my number 1.
What are your thoughts?
So what do you think of my list. I really do like to hear your opinions on this stuff.
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Alright then, thanks for watching and I’ll see all next time, bye.
Hi, just happened to come across this site and couldn’t resist commenting since I love SF in all it’s forms. Having watched a ton of anime there’s a bevy SF anime I’d include: Tenga Toppan Gurren Lagann, Steins;Gate, Paranoia Agent, Planetes, Noein, Kaiba, Paprika, The Tatami Galaxy, Eve no Jikan, Shinsekai Yori, Psycho-pass, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, and Space Brothers.
The only anime you mentioned I’ve watched is “Gurren Lagann,” and I’m only a few episodes in.
Like you said, there’s a “bevy of SF anime,” and though I’ve watched quite a lot, I haven’t watched them all. Especially a lot of the latest ones. I’m working my way through stuff. I might revisit this list in the future. Especially if I watch some of the shows you suggested. I didn’t realize there was an updated “Yamato” show.
Thank you so much for your list. I’ll look into all of those.