"Two Fighters Against a Star Destroyer?"

November 26, 2010 8:20 PM

"The 100 Best Movie Spaceships"
posted by bardic (116 comments total)

What does it say about us that we are interested in debating which movie spaceships are "the best"? (And what are the metrics, by the way...realism, sheer visual fun...?) All Freudian, postmodern and Hollywood tropes are up for grabs, apparently.
posted by kozad at 8:30 PM on November 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

Frankly, I'd settle for a ride in any of them.
posted by Rinku at 8:32 PM on November 26, 2010

In case anyone is wondering why you're staring at a blank page that says UGO, you have adblock enabled, and it's trying to show you an intersital ad. Click "continue to ugo" to see actual content.

Personally, I didn't bother. Sounds like a great concept though. I'd love to look at movie spaceships. I just hate sites that try to monetize themselves at the expense of their readers.
posted by inedible at 8:32 PM on November 26, 2010

Ugh. Lost me at 99. Bespin Cloud Cars aren't spaceships anymore than my car is.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:32 PM on November 26, 2010

...in no particular order.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:34 PM on November 26, 2010 [9 favorites]

Too much Star Wars. Yeah. I said it. Watchagonnado, re-release yourself in retrofitted 3D at me?

All the best spaceships are on tv, not movies, though. So I guess I'll just let this list lie.
posted by Mizu at 8:41 PM on November 26, 2010

> 74: Jerry's Ship - Sphere

Nothing in Sphere was the 74th best anything.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:42 PM on November 26, 2010 [7 favorites]

Jeff Russell's Starship Dimensions is way more enjoyable a browse.
posted by zengargoyle at 8:44 PM on November 26, 2010 [4 favorites]

That's at least ten awful sci-fi movies I've never seen. Thanks for the torrent fodder!
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:51 PM on November 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Holy crap, no Space Battleship Yamamoto? I figured that might have been #1 (admittedly, I may be overly excited by the imminent release of a live version) but to not place at all?

I laugh at this list.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:54 PM on November 26, 2010 [8 favorites]

> Frankly, I'd settle for a ride in any of them.

I'll pass on the restful Event Horizon cruise package, thanks.
posted by Decimask at 8:54 PM on November 26, 2010 [25 favorites]

Never have ironic double quotes been employed so effectively as in your link, bardic.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:55 PM on November 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love how they have a ship from the Green Lantern movie that hasn't even been released yet. Clearly a major criterion is "we can get a cool still shot of it".

(Also, yesss! Millennium Falcon!)
posted by immlass at 8:55 PM on November 26, 2010

Raise your hand if you scrolled all through that stupid article and its inane text to see if (your favorite spaceship) made the list.

... metal baby chicken, my gorram ass. >:(
posted by The otter lady at 9:00 PM on November 26, 2010 [9 favorites]

Here's a different "top 75" list, with all ships on one page.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:02 PM on November 26, 2010 [14 favorites]

And their number 1. That list has some actual background design notes for each ship rather than just a bit of snark.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:04 PM on November 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

...in no particular order.

Indeed. I had to click through ten pages of junk-laden content to find out whether this pundit had even bothered to watch Serenity.

Oh well, at least now I know whose opinion not to take seriously on the subject of movie spaceships.
posted by trip and a half at 9:18 PM on November 26, 2010

There's a huge difference when you include TV in your choices. Since TV shows generally use shots of their spaceships over and over and over again, and bottle-style show structures need vessels that are as versatile as possible for different types of episodes, you get ships with much more thought and variety that goes beyond visual coolness factor. True, some movies have this going for them, too, but they're few and far between.

When you include TV you get stuff like the TARDIS, the Shadow & Vorlon ships from Babylon 5, Moya from Farscape, and everything from Stargate past flying pyramids, not to mention the glorious options anime provides.
posted by Mizu at 9:21 PM on November 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

Oh, Nostromo. You deserved so much better than that.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:28 PM on November 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

Gunstar at number 9? Fuck them and their hipper than thou bullshit. Sure the millennium falcon made the kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. But the falcon is pretty much a souped up mustang held together with spit and bailing wire. The Gunstar was built from the ground up to be the greatest fighting platform ever developed. It's like comparing your cousin's camaro to an Enzo.

Plus no love for the Gallactica? That old bird held together through a shitstorm that would have chewed up and spat out most any other ship.Ohhh. I guess you don't consider it a "movie" spaceship. Well fuck you UGO.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:29 PM on November 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

'86 Astrotrain. Flies, rolls, and walks.
posted by buzzman at 9:38 PM on November 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

The list Burhanistan links to is really great: detailed and thoughtful. Although if it came down to it, I would side with the UGO list and its pointless blather because it gets #1 right.
posted by PhatLobley at 9:45 PM on November 26, 2010

Fun list. Bit random.
posted by Artw at 9:49 PM on November 26, 2010

My only beef was that the slick-as-hell, time-traveling, shape-shifting "Max" from Flight of the Navigator was so low. When I was a kid, that ship seemed like the coolest thing ever...
posted by hincandenza at 9:50 PM on November 26, 2010 [5 favorites]

No Moya? *starbursts the frell outta here*
posted by adipocere at 9:51 PM on November 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

The movie version of the Heart of Gold just grates on me. It was very clearly stated that the ship looked "... like a running shoe ...", and I dunno 'bout your running shoes, but mine aren't orbs.

Fun list, though, and definitely ammo for many nerd fights (that I shall start in the near future ...).
posted by barnacles at 9:58 PM on November 26, 2010

Am I a horrible boring nerd for thinking that Discovery from 2001 should have been #1?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:59 PM on November 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

Off topic: my girlfriend passed out early on me and I wanna watch something cool and space pop sci-fi...ish that might not have occured to me to watch.

Think Fantastic Planet or Logan's Run or The Black Hole. The more 70s the better tho I'd be open to something more recent and cerebral in the vein of The Quiet Earth etc.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:07 PM on November 26, 2010

If they can use the Star Trek ship then I nominate:

Satellite of Love - MST3K: The Movie
posted by dgaicun at 10:27 PM on November 26, 2010 [5 favorites]

This seemed like an exercise in trying to name 100 spaceships.
posted by mazola at 10:33 PM on November 26, 2010 [11 favorites]

I have several grievances.

a) Agreed on the "too many Star Wars" comment, but they also totally get the Star Wars ships they do include wrong. No TIE Interceptor? Okay, so not only was the TIE wonderfully weird and imagination-capturing on its own, but then you jazz it up with the bad-ass pointy-winged version? And you're going to ignore that? And no B-Wing? Do they understand that the ship can rotate around the control pod for no reason that makes any practical sense? That's deeply weird and deserves serious respect. These omissions alone indicate that they are not taking this task seriously.

b) No SDF-1? Do they know it transforms into a humanoid form to use the main weapon? Or that the arms were made out of aircraft carriers? (This is totally awesome but I can't find a way to bypass the ad. Everything that happens here is great, though.)

c) How the hell did the ship from Avatar make the list? Hell, I'm one of the people who liked the film, but that seems a bit random.

d) What about this guy?
posted by neuromodulator at 10:35 PM on November 26, 2010 [6 favorites]

I just almost watched THX-1138. But i'm still slogging through SG-1 season 9 and I'll never finish if I keep stopping.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:35 PM on November 26, 2010

What? 100 movie spaceships, and no flying can from Kin-dza-dza? This list is worthless.
posted by pravit at 10:35 PM on November 26, 2010 [5 favorites]

(The embedded player loses the timestamp? Or am I doing it wrong? Follow the link...)
posted by neuromodulator at 10:37 PM on November 26, 2010

Also, I see they use two relatively boring spaceships from the Alien franchise, but they omit one of the coolest spaceships in movie history which is the Derelict designed by H.R. Giger.
posted by dgaicun at 10:39 PM on November 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

39: HMS Bounty - Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

The best thing about that ship is that they take it from Christopher Lloyd, travel back in time, and, from there, are trying to get back to the future!
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:41 PM on November 26, 2010 [10 favorites]

WTF on the lackaMoya.

And the lack of Centauri's Star Car. It's a car AND a spaceship, and hella cooler than that old junker those Jetsons people from, positively, LEVELS below us drive...
posted by Samizdata at 10:44 PM on November 26, 2010

Er, no Lexx?

And the Necromonger ships from Chronicles of Riddick (a very under-appreciated film) – while not particularly impressive – had a quite wonderful "suction" effect from their engines.
posted by jsled at 11:02 PM on November 26, 2010 [4 favorites]

pravit: I felt that, too.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:02 PM on November 26, 2010

What? They've obviously seen Battle Beyond The Stars - they've got George Peppard's 'Space Cowboy', after all - but they missed including the giant flying nutsack [and|or] ovaries and uterus that is John-boy's 'Nell' from the same movie?

I mean, there I was, hoping it'd be at #1, or maybe #2, but nope. Nothing. Nada. Not even the inclusion of the Dark Star itself made up for that omission…
posted by Pinback at 11:05 PM on November 26, 2010

Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds Nerds
posted by lalochezia at 11:05 PM on November 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

Are those extra greebles in your pocket, or did you just forget to finish adding throughput modifiers on the port nacelle housing exhaust injectors. REVERSE THE POLARITY!

Also; a nice enjoyable vessel design. The Varro Intergenerational Vessel. Train like, super long, extensible, as well as dividable... nice design, ability to eject 'pods' when a suitable target is reached/passed yet have the main train may continue on, traveling further, allowing a continued seeding.

Generational Ships.


Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generational Space Ships;
"The AAAS held a session on interstellar travel in 2002 where the anthropologist John Moore estimated that a population of 150-180 was just big enough to allow normal reproduction for 60-80 generations."
posted by infinite intimation at 11:22 PM on November 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

A flying motherfucking Winnebago doesn't make the goddamn list? THe fuck??!1
posted by tapesonthefloor at 11:25 PM on November 26, 2010 [6 favorites]

Nothing in Sphere was the 74th best anything

Apart from the scrambled eggs, right? Because of the chervil.
posted by cromagnon at 11:52 PM on November 26, 2010

"72. Thunderbird 3 - Thunderbirds Are Go

It's really incredible that the Thunderbirds can tackle advanced rocketry but can't get simple conjugation down."

Ha!
posted by grubby at 12:32 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah, no love for Moya and Talon? Do they get left out because they're alive? Come on, we're not talking about designs for actual space ships, we're talking about cool props, and they are hella cool.
posted by Jilder at 1:14 AM on November 27, 2010

read: 100 ships I could pull out my ass for a web-list article. with minimal copy to accompany
posted by edgeways at 1:44 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yeah 100 is too many. Can anyone here with a bit of experience make a list of the five most awesome spaceships with accompanying explanation for a relative newbie like me?

[I'm always a little baffled that these things hold up against whatever sort of gravity they encounter. I mean, these gigantic blimps hanging in the sky like that...made of what? Dreams? A zillion of Lego bits?]
posted by Namlit at 3:17 AM on November 27, 2010

I have to say, that if we are describing 'best' as 'coolest,' as I do instinctively, then I'd really have to go with this.
posted by sfts2 at 3:18 AM on November 27, 2010

Well, Namlit, first we have to determine our criteria, here.

Are you talking about spaceships in any form of media, ever? So, are we including books, plays, films, television shows, and even video and board games? You get a LOT of spaceships in games and books that can't be touched by tv and movies due to budget constraints and differing priorities.

What, exactly, is a spaceship? Do space stations count? What about enormous planet-sized machines? Where is the line drawn? Is the Death Star a spaceship? Is Deep Space 9? They totally moved that sucker closer to the wormhole. Red Dwarf is a what, exactly, mining factory adrift in space? What of mythical concepts like Chinese dragon-riding emperors flying between Heaven and Earth?

Once we know where we're drawing our spaceships from, and what, exactly a spaceship is defined as, we have to figure out what "most awesome" means. Most innovative and original? Most cool looking (by whose definition of cool looking)? Most badass? Most iconic? What combination of factors equals awesome?

We can go all Iron Chef and assign 10 points for story-relevant excellence, 5 points for beauty, and 5 points for originality, if you like. That would stick Firefly's Serenity, IMO, around a 15(9+2+4). (Now everybody's gonna yell at me for not giving her a solid 20 but come ON, she's a bug! Her butt lights up! And did you see that spjunk that passes for wall decor?)

Or, we can argue endlessly about importance to genre and contribution, determining which ones are the most iconic and thus, most emulated. Or originality, in which case the British seem always to have the upperhand since they have no compunctions about throwing logic out the window.

(And yes. Spaceships are made of dreams. Why else do you think people get all worked up about them?)
posted by Mizu at 3:48 AM on November 27, 2010

You need to take this list in historical context.

When I was a kid there were a set of books I found at the library which were about monsters in monster movies. Of course I checked them out because HEY! MONSTERS!

And these books always sucked except for two or three pages. Abbott and Costello meet The Werewolf? Really? WTF?! There was at least one page I even vaguely agreed with and that was OK.

So this list is the electronic form of those books, nothing more.

Oh, and for riding on those ships - stay away from Dark Star.
posted by plinth at 3:57 AM on November 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

no love for Moya and Talon?

I love the money shot from the end of Peacekeeper Wars just for the whole "here's all our cool ship designs in one place" of it. Shame I couldn't find a better screen grab really...

Of all the endlessly iterative Star Trek designs I like the Steamrunner most. Regardless of the actual on-screen history of the ship, the look of it always screamed "argh we're being pummelled by everyone at once, time to just throw together a ship from parts and sellotape guns to it" to me.

I want to include the Abominator class picket ships from the new Culture book, but I can't draw so no-one can see how awesome they look in my head.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 3:57 AM on November 27, 2010

The one vessel that struck me as out of place was the frigging mining ship from Star Trek: The Reboot. The movie itself is kinda meh, in a popcorn-cinema kind of way, but that ship...

I mean, it is a mining vessel. I can't think of the top of my head of anything more utilitarian, no-frills and purely functional with no regard to aesthetics than mining equipment. We're talking about stuff that is designed to do heavy work, be robust, something strongly shielded, equipment that cannot afford to be fragile. And what do we get? a freaking metal-bladed space squid with more turrets, spires and menacing tentacles than Cthulhu! That is not good design! That is the kind of over-the-top ridiculous stuff that is just short of hanging a giant cardboard sign saying "a different Nazi" "We're EVIL!" on it and calling it a day.

And don't get me started on the spiked chain they use to lower their planetary core drill.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 4:24 AM on November 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

I realize that it's just movies, but any spaceship list that leaves out the Liberator from Blake's 7 is pretty lame.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 4:26 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

> What does it say about us that

no matter what the topic, the hairy self-regarding monkeys want to turn the attention back to themselves? So glad I'm a space-faring sessile cnidarian who arrived in the Empire State Building (which wasn't built, it landed.) Only two more weeks, then blast-off and home and I can take off this damned reflexive self-awareness gear forever and remerge with the colony.
posted by jfuller at 4:36 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Raise your hand if you scrolled all through that stupid article and its inane text to see if (your favorite spaceship) made the list.

... metal baby chicken, my gorram ass. >:(

I came in to defend the Serenity, but looks like The otter lady has it under control. Carry on.
posted by garnetgirl at 4:52 AM on November 27, 2010

Why didn't they just add the remaining 15 or so and have ALL movie space ships. Would have given them 5 more pages of click through annoyance.
posted by the noob at 5:05 AM on November 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

They didn't even bother to rate them. Lazy.
posted by delmoi at 5:09 AM on November 27, 2010

Wot, no Flesh Gordon?
posted by Decani at 5:11 AM on November 27, 2010

The Jetsons' Family Whaddayacallit is on that list. They might as well have included The Magic School Bus.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:31 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Big fail for picking Buton's saucers from Mars Attacks, since he "borrowed" them intact from Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers. The single greatest flying saucer movie ever made. Period.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:33 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Here's a different "top 75" list, with all ships on one page.

You've done a man's job, sir!
posted by nomadicink at 5:42 AM on November 27, 2010

I think a lot of the criticism of this list could have been avoided if it had just been called "The 100 Best Movie, Not TV Show, Spaceships That Are in Movies -- Feature Films -- Not Television Shows, Again, Movies Not TV Shows."
posted by Pants McCracky at 6:14 AM on November 27, 2010

I think there needs to be a "that was actually made into a toy" stipulation to these lists. Putting the Icarus or the giant mothership from the end of Close Encounters just feels like cheating to me.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:23 AM on November 27, 2010

This article could also have been titled, "100 movies I thought of that have spaceships in them."
posted by usonian at 6:36 AM on November 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

Not enough Star Wars, IMO. The designs from the original trilogy were detailed and imaginative and alien in ways that mirrored the whole rusty-dusty, messy and lived-in metling-pot universe of Lucas' original vision. The Millenium Falcon was the epitome of this ethos, and should have been included.

There were too many damn saucers - it's just a lazy nod to a trope, a sure sign that the director should not have been allowed near a science fiction movie, born from the brieff buzz of the UFO craze of the '50s. Pick the best one and be done with it.

Other lazy designs include anything that apes Kubrick's Discovery One and anything spherical.

And Max should have been waaaaay higher up the list. Just a beautiful ship, and it comes equipped with PeeWee.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:46 AM on November 27, 2010

100 best? What, are they afraid of making choices or expressing opinions or something? Good god people, even Cracked is willing to stand up and choose.
posted by Bovine Love at 6:47 AM on November 27, 2010

a freaking metal-bladed space squid with more turrets, spires and menacing tentacles than Cthulhu

I vaguely remember seeing scans of a prequel comic that established they did have a fairly normal mining ship, but decided to outfit it with superhyperduper technology after their planet got eaten, the better to travel back in time and fuck with the natives. Superhyperduper technology being spikes, of course.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:48 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wow, both lists missed Wall•E and District 9?
Fail.
posted by geekyguy at 6:56 AM on November 27, 2010

> Wow, both lists missed Wall•E and District 9?

Look again.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:57 AM on November 27, 2010

Wow, nothing from the rebooted Battlestar Galatica?! I would have thought the the ring ship, Colonial One or Cloud 9 or the Raptor would have made the list.

Here's scale models of the BSG ships, just frakking because.
posted by nomadicink at 7:09 AM on November 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Needs more Lexx.

The Lexx is both powerful and very polite.

(Terrible in-flight food, though)
posted by BinaryApe at 7:11 AM on November 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

> Wow, both lists missed Wall•E and District 9?

>Look again.

Gah! Numbers 45 and 17 on the initial list . . . fail indeed.
posted by geekyguy at 7:24 AM on November 27, 2010

I want to include the Abominator class picket ships from the new Culture book, but I can't draw so no-one can see how awesome they look in my head.

I haven't gotten all the way through Surface Detail yet, but Banks actually did a sketch of Limiting Factor from TPoG. It's honestly kinda dull: a cone with blisters.

This (not mine) is an early CGI version of it from Banks' sketch.

If there were movies of them all, I'd still have to vote for either the Clear Air Turbulence or Sleeper Service.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:32 AM on November 27, 2010

When you include TV you get stuff like the TARDIS, the Shadow & Vorlon ships from Babylon 5, Moya from Farscape, and everything from Stargate past flying pyramids, not to mention the glorious options anime provides.

*cough* Liberator. All good British space ships had a huge but never-seen wardrobe room, lampshaded by the new Doctor Who.
posted by DNye at 7:35 AM on November 27, 2010

This list is a poke in the eye to Georges Méliès!
posted by mazola at 7:43 AM on November 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

BinaryApe: "Needs more Lexx."

Commenters seem to be having a real hard time with the idea that this is a list of movie spaceships, not movie and TV spaceships. Not that it isn't a crap list but he does at least stick to the topic.
posted by octothorpe at 8:12 AM on November 27, 2010

ROU_Xenophobe

Ulver laughed. 'It looks,' she snorted, 'like a dildo!'
'That's appropriate,' Churt Lyne said. 'Armed, it can fuck solar systems.'
posted by Hactar at 8:17 AM on November 27, 2010

Can anyone here with a bit of experience make a list of the five most awesome spaceships with accompanying explanation for a relative newbie like me?

I could only think of four that deserve the moniker 'awesome'. In no particular order...

The eco-sphere spaceship from The Fountain (mentioned in the article under discussion). A man, a tree, and a buttload of light-years to cover.

V*ger from Star Trek: the Motion Picture. Looks like a big cloud. Emits electric-guitar power-chords. Sends out probes in the form of columns of blinding-white energy. Throws a tantrum that threatens to destroy Earth.

The Lexx, from the eponymous TV show. It's a gigantic bio-mechanical insect war-machine which occasionally consumes other spaceships when it gets hungry.

Scooty-Puff Sr. The Doom-Bringer.
posted by Ritchie at 8:24 AM on November 27, 2010

It could have been much worse
posted by timsteil at 8:29 AM on November 27, 2010

Did anyone else feel like this was a elaborately packaged Skyline ad?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 8:31 AM on November 27, 2010

I agree that Méliès is a serious omission.

He also should have included this sweet ride from "Things to Come", and he's heavy on facades and light on interior design, which, I guess, is why he forgot to include Barbarella's bachelorette pad in space. Somehow the sphere from "First Men In the Moon" slipped his mind. And I'd trade his Jupiter II for this sweet mother from "Forbidden Planet." He DID show a ship from "Planet of the Apes." Trouble is, he showed the wrong one. This one is way better. Finally, though you never see them leave the atmosphere, I would have slipped one of these suckers into the list, just for the coolness factor.
posted by grumblebee at 8:48 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Holy crap, no Space Battleship Yamamoto?

It's YAMATO, you cur. (I share your excitement at the live action version.)
posted by Gator at 8:56 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

The X wing single handedly turned more seven year olds into life long sci fi fans than anything else ever and deserved #2 at least (because we all know the Millenium Falcon is always #1, for so many reasons).
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:00 AM on November 27, 2010

Missed the Black Lectroid's ship from Buckaroo Banzai. And the Red Lectroid shuttle that Buck hijacks to zap Lizardo.
posted by warbaby at 9:06 AM on November 27, 2010 [4 favorites]

I have no idea if the 'fist' ship of Count Zarth Arn in Starcrash is in that list (and I can't be bothered to look) but if it's not -- I'm OUTRAGED!

Aside: this one sheet is *awsome*!
posted by mazola at 9:11 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is Freedom 7 on there?

It was in The Right Stuff. Counts.
posted by oneironaut at 9:33 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

"but they omit one of the coolest spaceships in movie history which is the Derelict designed by H.R. Giger."
Oh my God Alien, your right.
posted by uni verse at 10:01 AM on November 27, 2010

WHAT?!?!!11 no [insert spaceship]???!!!
posted by arveale at 10:09 AM on November 27, 2010 [3 favorites]

Here's a different "top 75" list, with all ships on one page.

No Babylon 5 ships? Pft.

(Especially when the first list includes a Vorlon... oh, no, wait, it's a ship from the Star Trek prequel.)
posted by rodgerd at 10:46 AM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

I don't think the 'Sulaco' should be anywhere on the list; it always looked like a badly done futuristic rifle to me. It just barely looks like any kind of vehicle at all - which is probably how starships are going to appear if it they turn out to be possible - but I don't think that that was deliberate, here. The rest of the list I pretty much agree with, though I'd put the Enterprise from Star Trek TNG at the top.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 11:22 AM on November 27, 2010

The Lexx, from the eponymous TV show. It's a gigantic bio-mechanical insect war-machine which occasionally consumes other spaceships when it gets hungry.

Planets. It eats planets, or what's left of the debris after it destroys them.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:28 PM on November 27, 2010

I've got a theory about how every time there is a "best of" list, the comment thread will suck
posted by tehloki at 2:35 PM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Did they miss the Eagle Transporter from Space:1999, or did I overlook it?

Ah, and Burhanistan's link also has the Moonbase Interceptor, from UFO! Those made a big impression on me as a young kid.
posted by Xoebe at 3:18 PM on November 27, 2010

Not movies, but TV: Red Dwarf
posted by idiomatika at 3:31 PM on November 27, 2010

The Doomsday Machine.
posted by bwg at 3:46 PM on November 27, 2010

Sorry, the Enterprise is hands down, the finest starship ever. Full stop. End of story.
posted by stenseng at 4:09 PM on November 27, 2010 [2 favorites]

Nah, Galactica would eat the Enterprise for lunch, just destroy it. Kirk wouldn't stay a chance.
posted by nomadicink at 4:30 PM on November 27, 2010

Nah, Galactica would eat the Enterprise for lunch, just destroy it. Kirk wouldn't stay a chance.

Since we don't know anything about how Star Fleet weapons and defenses compare to the Galactica's, there's not really a lot to base something like this on, but I'm guessing it'd be the other way around.

I'm assuming first that the Enterprise's shields would be a fairly perfect defense against kinetic and explosive weapons. Not least because the Enterprise has to withstand incidental meteor collisions that may be moving at enormous speeds, and their deflector technology has to be good enough to fend off collisions at relativistic velocities. (I assume they're impervious for other reasons at warp.) How fast a phaser can chew through the Galactica's armor is a matter of nearly meaningless speculation, but given that even a hand phaser can instantly dematerialize a human-sized mass in less than a second, I'm thinking that it would be a very one-sided fight indeed.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:57 PM on November 27, 2010

FTL, baby, FTL. Jump point blank with the Enterprise, so that they're taken by surprise, then let'er rip with weapons and a nuke or two. Bye, bye o'l lover of alien women.
posted by nomadicink at 5:02 PM on November 27, 2010

FTL, baby, FTL. Jump point blank with the Enterprise, so that they're taken by surprise, then let'er rip with weapons and a nuke or two. Bye, bye o'l lover of alien women.

Yes, but remember the cost to the Pegasus of doing that manuever. Pyrrhic victory, indeed.
posted by KingEdRa at 6:50 PM on November 27, 2010

Pegasus didn't FTL in, it just flew in close, while dealing with two Base ships, so slightly different situation. When I always wondered why they didn't have ships doing more rapid FTL jumps as a battle tactic. The interesting part is how differently the ships travel at faster than light speeds. The Enterprise actually moves while Galatica just pops in and out.

But yeah, the Star Trek tech is more advanced than even the Cylon technology, so the Enterprise is is more powerful. But tactics matter also, so having raw power doesn't always automatically count. But it's doubtful that the two ships would over go against each other, as both Captains usually try to avoid conflict.
posted by nomadicink at 7:27 PM on November 27, 2010

Sorry, the Enterprise is hands down, the finest starship ever.

/me drops gridfire on stenseng.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:47 PM on November 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

The Heir of Isildur, wielding the Sword that Was Broken but is now re-forged, could destroy the Galactica, if he had the help of Pippi Longstocking, Asterix and Wall-E. But only if Wile E. Coyote and either Galactus or Rumpelstiltskin didn't join in on Adama's side.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:57 PM on November 27, 2010 [7 favorites]

Again I must step in and wave the MeFi flag for all the most excellent concept artists that came up with these spaceship designs that we all love/hate/whatever so much. I don't know the names of all of them for all these ships, but a few of the ones I do know are:

Joe Johnston, Nilo Rodis-Jamero, Ralph McQuarrie, Colin Cantwell: all the Star Wars ships from the original trilogy

The incomparable and legendary Syd Mead: V'Ger, USS Sulaco, Leonov

Ryan Church: USS Enterprise, USS Kelvin, Narada, Spock's "Jellyfish" (Star Trek (2009)); Padme's Skiff (SWIII)

Stephan Martiniére: Species Saving Ships from Knowing (check out some of those concepts here. Also, he's currently art directing Rage for id)

Ron Cobb: Nostromo, Dark Star, the Gunstar

Fun to note: ST:TMP USS Enterprise Refit was worked on by the original TOS series designer Matt Jefferies, and then also by Richard Taylor (Flash, music) (Tron, many others) and Andrew Probert (who also did most of the design for Enterprise-D, IIRC)

And a guy I don't think most people have heard of, Mike Trim: Thunderbird 3, among tons of other Gerry Anderson show art including most of the stuff on UFO!

Just these few artists account for a substantial chunk of those 100, something like one-fifth or so, and a few of those that people complain didn't make the list. You can bet they inspired most of the artists that came up with the rest of the list.

They've all sure inspired me. I, uh, helped design this one here. (not on the list, doesn't qualify)

Meanwhile, nerd pedantry:
"When I always wondered why they didn't have ships doing more rapid FTL jumps as a battle tactic."

Takes a long time to spin up the FTLs on a ship that big. Rapid jumps not really possible. More nerd pedantry: USS Enterprise (TOS) on more than one occasion survived attacks using nuclear weapons, including one that detonated "less than 100 meters from the hull" when, IIRC, the shields were down (see "Balance of Terror"). In addition, Nomad hit Enterprise with a weapon equivalent to ninety photon torpedoes and the shields took it. Refit USS Enterprise (TMP) took one of V'Ger's super-powered energy weapons and, according to Sulu, "the new shields held!" although they were seriously drained. Since these shields were more powerful than TOS shields, they clearly could take all the punishment any ship from either Galactica could deliver. (Yeah, yeah, don't get me started on how easy the damn shields drop in most battles. It's for dramatic effect! Right? Right? :D )
posted by zoogleplex at 1:34 AM on November 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

Jump point blank with the Enterprise, so that they're taken by surprise, then let'er rip with weapons and a nuke or two.

Take them by surprise, meaning they have their shields down. And if you're wrong, your attack is like rain on a metal roof and you get sliced to ribbons by phasers, which seem to be able to destroy pretty much any unshielded matter short of neutronium. So your attack can only work if the Enterprise does not know there's a hostile after it that can appear instantly out of nowhere. Kinda stacking the deck a little there maybe?
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:01 AM on November 28, 2010

P.S. Yeah, I know, NERD FIGHT!
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:01 AM on November 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I had to grit my teeth because it was a MOVIE list, but they did stretch the rules. Jetsons? Come on, people. If the Jetson's stupid little animated car qualifies, then:

The SDF 1 or any of the fighter-mecha from Macross (Macross was a movie before the Robotech series, remember)

Any of the Galactica craft qualify since, technically, the first series started as a TV Movie, and I know there have been several spinoffs of the Galactica reboot (Razor, The Plan) which are feature-length.

Oh, it wasn't a THEATRICAL movie, huh? Hair-splitting bastards.
posted by Thistledown at 9:45 AM on November 28, 2010

The Cylons have your prefix code.
posted by Artw at 10:42 AM on November 28, 2010

Ad hominem writes "Gunstar at number 9? Fuck them and their hipper than thou bullshit."

I can't figure out if you think this is too low or too high so I'll just say I'm glad this great ship wasn't overlooked.

Alex Rogan: Hold it! There's no fleet? No Starfighters, no plan? One ship, you, me, and that's it?
Grig: Exactly! Xur thinks you're still on Earth. Classic military strategy, surprise attack.
Alex Rogan: It'll be a slaughter!

posted by Mitheral at 10:52 AM on November 28, 2010

Mitheral, you forgot:

Grig: That's the spirit!
posted by zoogleplex at 11:01 AM on November 28, 2010

These lists are always more about the people who compile them then the actual content or the readers.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:05 PM on November 28, 2010

Way to mess up my theory, zoogleplex. Back to the lab.
posted by tehloki at 12:50 PM on November 28, 2010

zoogleplex writes "Grig: That's the spirit!"

Well if you are going to include that you have to include the next line by Alex: No, *my* slaughter!
posted by Mitheral at 6:03 PM on November 28, 2010

Indeed. I think the next line is something like Grig saying the odds are good for survival, heh!
posted by zoogleplex at 8:48 PM on November 28, 2010

Nah, Galactica would eat the Enterprise for lunch, just destroy it. Kirk wouldn't stay a chance.

Since we don't know anything about how Star Fleet weapons and defenses compare to the Galactica's, there's not really a lot to base something like this on, but I'm guessing it'd be the other way around.

Game on!
posted by mazola at 12:42 PM on November 30, 2010