Ultimate Geek Fu

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

We all know what that line refers to now, but in early 1977, that cryptic line was all anyone knew about a new movie called Star Wars. I think it's one of the great movie taglines but, due to the initial limited release of the movie, we'll never know quite how great it could have been. It did get me to wondering how taglines for other science fiction movies might compare. For a genre of ideas, it seems good taglines aren't that common...

"From out of space... A warning and an ultimatum." I think a poster of Gort with the words "Klaatu barada nikto" would have been much better.

"Incredible! Invisible! Insatiable!" Certainly better than "They're like alien peas in a pod..." And, in all honesty, it's a pretty good tagline.

"Unspeakable horrors from outer space paralyze the living and resurrect the dead!" Too bad it couldn't resurrect the dead actor...

"An epic drama of adventure and exploration." Yes, a tagline just as boring as the movie, itself; interesting for the 90 seconds in which the overture plays and the apes are banging things but goes straight downhill after that.

"Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven." A very British tagline that works well for this very British movie of violence and social decline.

"Makes Ben Hur look like an Epic." An excellent tagline for an Arthurian movie with such a low budget they couldn't afford horses.

"In space, no one can hear you scream." But they can hear your spaceship blow up at the end of the movie. Other than that little detail, a truly brilliant tagline; perhaps the best ever.

"The human adventure is just beginning..." Too bad none of that adventure was included in this movie. A better tagline would have been "Special effects, the new frontier..."

"He is afraid. He is alone. He is three million light years from home." Obviously, millions of people saw this movie because of Spielberg rather than the tagline.

"He's the only kid ever to get into trouble before he was born." Very clever, telling viewers to expect a good dose of comedy with the time-travel. One of the best taglines.

Skipping forward a couple of decades, "Can't stop the signal." One of the best taglines ever, with one really big caveat. It played off of the series and also showed fans that their efforts to keep 'em flying had been appreciated. The biggest problem was that it probably didn't bring in many viewers who weren't already sold on the movie.

"The future begins." Not bad for the reboot of Paramount's signature franchise, but not that great without 40+ years of television and movie culture to stand on.

"Enter the world." Maybe it has more appeal to ten foot tall blue people?

Without my not-so-subtle hints, how many of these thirteen movies could you have named just from the tagline? If I'm honest with myself, I probably could have only named six of them. (Confession: I used the Internet Movie Database to find almost all of the taglines.)

And what do you think is the best science fiction tagline ever? Despite the whole "hear your spaceship blow up" bit, I have to go with "In space, no one can hear you scream." It's freaking brilliant, even if they do violate it in the movie.

Let the arguments begin!

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