ike any genre, especially one that has been in existence for at least three-quarters of a century, the sci-fi and fantasy world has its own lists of classics—works that are generally accepted to represent the best the field has to offer.
In prose, you have novels such as Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Walter Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz and Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, as well as shorter stories such as Isaac Asimov's "Nightfall," Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" and Jerome Bixby's "It's A Good Life."
In television, there are series such as the original Twilight Zone, the first Star Trek and now, I feel safe in saying, The X-Files.
Classic sci-fi or fantasy films? Miracle on 34th Street. The Day the Earth Stood Still. Forbidden Planet. 2001. Star Wars. Close Encounters. Field of Dreams. Blade Runner.
These are not all-inclusive lists. I'm sure everyone who's ever read sci-fi or watched a film has a different list. But these are some of mine.
How do stories or TV series or movies become classics?
First, they have to survive for years. (If they were university professors, they would be said to have earned "tenure.") Most of the items listed above are decades old—only The X-Files dates from the 1990s. Good as the Lord of the Rings movie was, you won't really know if it's a classic until about 2010.
Second, they have to have had some commercial success—if not immediately, like Star Wars, then over time, like Stranger, 2001 or Blade Runner. (None of these classics of the genre was a "hit" when first published or released. But each found a steady audience.)
Third, and here's where it gets tricky, they have to be unique. By that I mean, each work has to explore some concept for the first time, or in such a memorable way that every subsequent attempt will be compared to it. Isn't every space adventure movie compared to Star Wars? Every TV series set in a starship judged by Star Trek? Every "modern messiah" novel held up to Stranger?
Fourth, the work has to reward re-visiting.
In my case, it means when I open the book, or see the movie, I sit down with it again.
With those admittedly subjective criteria, I have two additions to the list of sci-fi and fantasy classics.
Two newcomers become classics
The first is Groundhog Day, the 1993 comedy in which Bill Murray plays a smarmy, self-centered TV weatherman who finds himself stuck in Punxsutawney, Penn. (home of Punxsutawney Phil, the titular groundhog) on Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, doing a boring bread-and-butter TV feature about whether the creature sees its shadow or not, thus predicting the continuation of, or early end to, winter. (There's a fantasy concept for you.)
The weather gets bad. Murray's character (also named Phil) gets stuck in Punxsutawney, and when he wakes up the next morning, it's still February 2nd.
So is the next morning. And the next. And on and on.
At first, Phil is surprised, then bored, then self-indulgent (using the information he collects to ingratiate himself with local women, for example), then suicidal.
He lives Groundhog Day over and over again until he finds a whole new attitude toward the people he encounters, and finally moves on to Feb. 3 a happier, wiser man.
Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis wrote the script; Ramis also directed. Other cast members include Andie McDowell and Chris Elliott. The movie is funny and smart and filled with charming bits that have not, for me, worn thin even after 20 viewings.
Then there's Local Hero, a 1983 feature written and directed by Bill Forsyth. The movie stars Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster.
Now, including Local Hero—the story of a developer for a rapacious Texas oil company trying to persuade the citizens of a small coastal village in Scotland to give up their land—on a list of sci-fi/fantasy films is a bit of a stretch. The only thing that gives it any connection to the genre is that one of the characters—a minor one—happens to be a mermaid.
But Local Hero feels like a fantasy film. As with most of Forsyth's work, there are odd coincidences and people with unusual talents, not to mention a sense that there are forces at work on the characters—and all of this, for the most part, is never explained, and yet somehow magical.
How can you not love a film in which an oil baron is more concerned about the northern lights and "uncharted objects" in the sky than he is in building a new refinery?
Or where the Scottish engineers planning that refinery have "proof" that it will survive the next Ice Age?
Or that features the manager of a small coastal hotel who is far more financially savvy and worldly-wise than the hotshot negotiator from Houston?
I saw Local Hero twice in the past two weeks, once on Showtime, another on BBC-America, and I found myself transported on both occasions.
Even our favorites have their flaws
Classic works aren't necessarily perfect. The original cut of Close Encounters spends far too much time with Roy Neary ripping up his yard, trying to create a physical model of what is later seen to be Devil's Tower. The last section of Stranger in a Strange Land appears to be from a book by a different Robert A. Heinlein. The third season of the original Trek contains more than a few truly awful episodes.
When I first saw Groundhog Day in a theater, I felt it took too long to achieve escape velocity. That is, I kept telling the screen, yeah, yeah, I get it, Phil's an ass, let me see what he does when he wakes up tomorrow, and it's still today. On television, however, especially when broken up by commercials, Groundhog Day seems perfectly paced.
Local Hero has moments that are too cute and quaint for its own good. And, unlike Groundhog Day, it plays better uninterrupted than when broken up by commercials.
Occasionally I ask myself why these two movies have become such personal favorites. On first glance, they don't have much in common.
On second glance, however, I see that both are stories of troubled men arriving in magical towns, and finding themselves.
I'm as troubled as the next writer, I suppose, and I come from a small town that had its share of magical characters and now memories. Maybe Groundhog Day and Local Hero resonate with me because they take me back to my childhood.
I like that.
Now, of course, I have to explain my fondness for dark or even horrific classics like Blade Runner and "It's a Good Life."
Michael Cassutt wrote scripts for forthcoming episodes of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda and Odyssey 5. His is currently writing a novel called Tango Midnight. None of his work has ever been called "classic," but he's hoping.
