US President Barack Obama shared his must-watch list of movies and TV shows to “expand your mind to new horizons” in the November issue of Wired magazine. Ranging from the 1968 classic ‘2001: A Space Odessey’ to the 2015 Matt Damon starrer ‘The Martian’, Obama’s selection includes groundbreaking classics and contemporary hits, each taking us to a galaxy far far away. Here is the list :
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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968):
Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi epic is an undeniable classic that still seems futuristic, almost five decades later. Obama noted that the film “captures the grandeur and scale of the unknown.”
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Blade Runner (1982)
The film is Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Harrison Ford plays the role of a rugged investigator tasked with tracking down lifelike droids called replicants. “It asks what it means to be human,” Obama commented. -
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Steven Speilberg’s film was one of the first ones to consider aliens a source of wonder to be welcomed, not feared. Obama said the film featured on his list “because it is fundamentally optimistic.”
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Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope (1977)
The first film of the original Star Wars Trilogy, George Lucas’ film features on the president’s list “because it was fun and revolutionized special effects.”
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Star Trek (1966-69)
The Star Trek TV series has Obama’s fancy for the values of humanity that it professes. The show, he says “Wasn’t actually about technology. It was about values and relationships. It uses science fiction to promote a humanistic ethic.”
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The Martian (2015)
The only millennial film on the list was Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel about saving an astronaut stranded on Mars. The POTUS says he likes the film because “It shows humans as problem solvers.”
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The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix, apart from having amazing stunts which have been imitated in hundreds of films, features on Obama’s list because ” it asks basic questions about our reality—and looks very cool.”
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Cosmos: A Personal Voyage(1980)
Carl Sagan’s documentary series Cosmos taught an entire generation great lessons about astronomy and the universe. It features on Obama’s list because it fed his “lifelong fascination with space.”
