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The biggest problem turned out to be, of course, how to separate what’s “science-fiction” from what’s, well, everything else. The easiest approach turned out to be exclusion. The genre doesn’t have a precise, agreed-upon definition, as far as I know, but I decided to go with the strictest one that seemed reasonable. Mostly, this meant: no superhero flicks (sorry Mr. Raimi), no fantasy (with apologies to Peter Jackson), and nothing that seemed to lean closer to horror (eliminating the 28 franchise, the likes of The Host](http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-host/27267/main) and, heartbreakingly, The Mist](http://www.moviefone.com/movie/stephen-kings-the-mist/27990/main)). That left a list of films that I am comfortable calling “sci-fi.”
Unlike some of my cleverer co-bloggers, I decided to go with a more conventional “top 10” for this exercise, though I also offer some bonus categories at the bottom of the post. The digital revolution obviously made the aughts a banner decade for the genre, though the extent to which the big f/x extravaganzas wound up missing from my list surprised even me. I’m glad Jim Cameron got to spend a few hundred million dollars and a half decade developing the fireworks that made Avatar a technological landmark. But – and this is to take nothing away from Cameron’s achievement – who really needs all that stuff?