I can see you out there, hovering over your keyboard, slack jawed, staring with squinty questioning eyes into your bright LCD screen, yearning for something new. Thus far your movie watching existence has been confined to the clinically brain dead genres of the romantic comedy, the buddy movie or films starring Ben Affleck. Something has to give.

You’d like to branch out, stretch the neurons out a little, watch something that doesn’t find you vacant eyed and drooling some short time after the opening credits. Desperate, you consulted The Google and typed in “Movies that won’t make me stupid”.

The Google provided a list of possibilities but there are many choices, some with frightening titles like “THX 1138″, “12 Monkeys” or “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. For the challenge a growing mind really needs there is really only Science Fiction movies. Science Fiction, sometimes to it’s destruction, is not afraid to go there. Most Science Fiction movies assume you have both brain hemispheres and that they are largely intact and somewhat joined together.

In order that we may assist you, the novice Science Fiction movie adventurer, in your pilgrimage for a larger understanding and appreciation of the Sci-Fi movie experience, SciFiCool brings to you your watch list of beginner Sci-Fi movies that will get you on your Sci-Fi way and hopefully not frighten or bewilder you, unless being frightened or bewildered is your thing.

1. Star Wars

This is where you need to start. “Star Wars” is an end unto itself. Kind of a hybrid Sci-Fi, Western and Fantasy movie, it’s full of glowy stick sword fights, big fuzzy brown eyed dog bears and a ridiculously perfect bad guy that wears a black mask and breathes funny. Add in really helpful robots that make cute sounds, a handsome pirate, a princess and the fate of free people throughout the galaxy and you get what is not only one of the best Sci-Fi movies of all time but one of the best movies period. Plus, you finally learn that the Force is not the feeling you get after eating a bad burrito.

2. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

Generally, when you begin your Sci-Fi movie education you want to stay away from films that take a bleak and cynical view of humans and their place in the cosmos. Optimism is something that Sci-Fi can do better than any genre. In the future, we can all pretend we have worked out our larger issues. Happy endings and happy aliens abound. “Close Encounters Of the Third Kind” is an early Stephen Spielberg movie and is jam packed with cool extraterrestrial neon lighting and soothing alien communications. Richard Dreyfus stars as a man who has a Las Vegas worthy brush with aliens one night on a lonely country road that draws him obsessively to a higher purpose. Close Encounters is unlike any alien movie made before or since. It is beautiful, a bit creepy and stuffed full of feel good Spielberg magic.

3. Back To The Future

Time travel movies are tricky. Science Fiction is in love with time travel and it’s accompanying paradoxes. Time travel movies require lots of sleep before watching and if you want to understand them, you should be sober. For some people, not being sober during time travel movies is kind of a hobby. I think it is best you start small, aware in your faculties and enjoy the easy breezy time travel entertainment that is “Back To The Future”. In the present, Marty Mcfly, our hero, played by Michael J. Fox, meets and befriends Doc Emmett Brown, a mad scientist type played expertly and perhaps singularly, by Mr. Christopher Lloyd. Marty uses a modified Delorean (car) of Emmett’s design to time travel back to the 50’s, where Marty makes the classic mistake of preventing the hookup of his parents and of course possibly terminating his own existence. Thankfully, “Back To The Future” keeps it simple and Marty just has to play matchmaker to avoid collapsing his personal timeline. This is all done in lively Happy Days fashion. “Back To The Future” is a lot of fun, very entertaining and a completely non-threatening Sci-Fi smoothie.

4. Children Of Men

So far we’ve touched on Sci-Fi movies in the happy happy, joy joy, category. You ask yourself. Sure those first three were entertaining. They were frothy and filled to brimming with the feel good, but where is the meat? You’re not ready for quantum weirdness or anything super spacey for now. You’ve heard rumours of movies with chest bursting aliens or shape shifting cities populated with giant bald guys in black but you’re just not ready to go that far yet. What you need is a dramatic tween-er. It has to be gritty, darkish and adult, but light on the heavy Science Fiction lifting. “Children of Men” is for you. In the near future, Clive Owen lives in a world where women have stopped having babies. The youngest person on Earth is in their late teens. People are seriously bummed out. No one knows why woman have stopped having children and this fact is mostly explained away to the moral or spiritual decline of mankind. Clive, as bummed out as everyone else, is soon confronted and tasked with the protection of the only and perhaps last pregnant woman on Earth. “Children Of Men” is a serious dramatic film worthy of your time and is an essential step in your Sci-Fi education.

5. Star Trek 2 : The Wrath Of Khan

Never watched the original Star Trek series you say? No idea what a warp drive is or what the deal is with the guy with the pointy ears? No worries. “Wrath of Khan” is really the only Star Trek you need to see and sums up all the Trek  lore you need to know. It is kind of like the Readers Digest condensed version of Trek. All the characters from the original series get to do their signature things, say their catch phrases and hungrily chew on a ton of scenery. We get one heck of a cool naval battle in space with trippy nebulas, big destructive balls of photon torpedo action and especially get to enjoy the great William Shatner as James T. Kirk in a battle of wills with the vengeful and ticked off Khan (Ricardo Montalban).  The movie is noisy and bright and gloriously over the top. Please note, you better tear up when a certain someone makes a certain sacrifice or I’m coming to your house and shoot out your porch light.

6. E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial

Another Spielberg masterpiece. While it hasn’t aged as well as Close Encounters in my view it is as safe and sound as Sci-Fi gets while not insulting the viewer. A boy finds an alien in a backyard shed. The alien is wrinkly, large headed and makes nice cooing noises. He has been left behind. His finger can light up as well as other parts of his body. The movie, despite these things, is very good. You will not want to love the little guy, but you will. You will be powerless to resist. See this one with a member of the opposite sex. You will seem more attractive and be perceived as highly sensitive thereafter. Some facial tissues are mandatory. We will forgive you. You are after all, a newbie.

7. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

I thought long and hard about whether to include this one. You obviously need to have seen the first Star Wars movie and you obviously need to have liked it. “The Empire Strikes Back” is largely considered to be the greatest Science Fiction movie of all time. Why did I hesitate to include it? Well for one, the first Star Wars is a complete universe onto itself. No one suspected there would be a 2nd movie and so Star Wars the first just sort of ends. It ends wonderfully, but it comes to a complete stop. Once you watch “The Empire Strikes Back” you’re in deep trouble. There is no turning back. “The Empire Strikes Back” will nerdify you and you will be a kind of happy hopeless from that moment on. Return of the Jedi, the sequel, is a fine film and will then be mandatory viewing. You’ll start waving fake lightsabers around the house and making light saber noises at your cat or significant others. You will perfect the Wookiee noise. Your home will be filled with Ewok action figures. Soon, you will develop a curiosity for the other three Star Wars movies Mr. George Lucas was kind enough to make recently. Unfortunately, Mr. Lucas forgot what made his first three so good and so completely and utterly botched all three of these recent films. Even though I tell you that they are bad, you will still watch them. You will sit in rapt attention and take whatever pleasures you can from the really very excellent special effects and stunning world building whilst despairing at the terrible acting and even worse scripts. “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” marks the point of no return for you, young Jedi (what’s a Jedi?) Though I am not your father, I will advise you to not underestimate the power of the dark side.

The above Sci-Fi suggestions are just a taste of possible beginner fare. It is a good beginning. An advanced class will soon follow. Below is a gallery of images for your review. Please proceed soon after to your nearest DVD repository.