We Are Here to place President Clark under arrest

Okay, I'm going to go away from my usual personal life rantings and have decided to compile a list of the greatest space battles of all time in cinema and television.  Ever since I was a wee lad, David and I would get way excited whenever we watched a massive space battle; they were the climax of our existence.  They excited us so much.  And they still do!  Who cares about characters and development when you have one badass battle going on screen with dozens of capital ships and hundreds of fighters duking it out!

Now I haven't watched Battlestar Galactica aside from the pilot mini-series, so I'm sure there will be some things omitted from this list that should be on there.

So my Top 5 Favorite Space Battles of all time:

5:  The Wrath of Khan

This isn't a biggie battle, but it is cool on so many levels.  For those knuckleheads who haven't watched this movie, a good chunk of the movie involves two ships, two captains; the experienced Kirk with the more powerful Enterprise, and the intelligent Khan with the Reliant, who managed to get the initial surprise on Kirk.  Its a game of cat and mouse, one trying to outthink the other.  Its not a basic battle where they're flailing photon torpedos at each other, it is very much a thinking man's game.  Utilizing their enviornment, trying to find each other's weaknesses....for the course of the movie.  It is, indeed great.

Plus despite the fact that it was made in 1982 using models, it looks great!  Sure the phaser effects are something to be desired, the ships and their details (not to mention the damage modelling) are superb.

4:  Best of Both Worlds

This is kind of a stretch, but as I haven't seen a lot of sci-fi (and despite watching most of DS9 in its entireity, have no memory of any particular battles since its been a good 10 years since I watched it) so I'm throwing it in here.  Sure, there's a lot of cool battling with the Borg (and saucer seperation) but the best part is the graveyard at Wolf 359.

For those knuckleheads who don't know what I'm talking about, this is the famous Star Trek: Next Generation episode that's in two parts where the Enterprise-D faces the Borg, who capture Picard and transform him into Locutus, their mascot for humanity's doom.  I managed to watch this episode a year ago on Spike, having not seen it in all the years that I've watched this show on and off.  As the Borg cube approaches Earth, StarFleet throws together a massive fleet to fight the cube at Wolf 359.  The Enterprise gets there after the battle is over....and all the ships are derelicts.  I can't remember the count, but the Borg wiped out 100 or so starships with ease.

Even though you don't see the battle itself, the imagination of what went on is surely haunting.  Even 10-12 years ago they could have pulled off a massive battle with the Borg, but it would have lost its emotion (in 1996's First Contact, there is a relatively large battle with a Borg Cube, but its with only a dozen or so ships, not the massive amounts that fought in this battle).

3:  Serenity

I like this because its a recent space battle that's actually cool!  While Revenge of the Sith's Battle of Coruscant was really cool, there were some flaws in there that makes it un-great-worthy (notably the idiocy of the commanding admirals of both sides, plus the fact that fighting is only going on in the foreground, and for the whole ship 'falling' into the atmosphere thing).  Serenity's battle was quite short, and the protagonists weren't even directly involved (instead trying to get to their location and using the battle as a distraction), but there was a lot of ships, lots of cool CGI and explosions, and yeah.  Plus the movie was one of the best science fiction movies ever.  I still prefer First Contact though....nostalgia and all.

2:  Endgame

Ah yes, are you surprised that I have a Babylon 5 entry on a great space battle list?  Of course not.  My favorite episode of my favorite TV show has one of the coolest and most dramatic space battles I have ever seen, because there is so much at stake here.  Out of most the battles on this list, there is so much on the line, that failure means very bad things.  Plus it involves the overthrow of a repressive government, and that's always a plus.

While Babylon 5 was on, David and I really enjoyed the space battle in Into the Fire, which was earlier in Season 4.  It was a much bigger battle, and involved the fate of every sentient being in the known galaxy.  However, this came out in 1997, and on a TV budget as well.  I watch the Into the Fire battle now and it seems....unfulfilling.  Like I don't get to see enough of it.  I'm one who can easily ignore archaic CGI and model work and see the battle for what it truly is, but the composition of this battle just seems to be missing something.  I honestly belief that this battle, made with Battlestar Galactica CGI, would easily top this list.  But until then.....egh, it hasn't aged as well.  Though when the Firstones come in and blow up the Vorlon Planet-Killer to hell and gone is sure win.

I just went off on a wild tangeant.  Anyway, the Endgame battle is much more satisfying, even though it lacks the cool alien ships of the Into the Fire battle.  With Earth as the backdrop, the Planetary Defense Grid firing volleys of hundreds of nuclear warheads at Sheridan's fleet (which is truly a sight to behold)...its way damn spiffy.  Add that on to the fact that the climax of the battle involves the single greatest television moment of all time....gives me shivers everytime I watch it.  So damn cliche, but watching the Agamemnon make it through the fireball is totally epic.

1:  Return of the Jedi

This is contraversial choice even by myself, but when I first watched this at age 8, way back in 1995, I thought this was the coolest damn thing ever.  This was before the Star Wars prequels, the Special Edition versions of the original trilogy, all the major Babylon 5 and Star Trek space battles all came out, I saw this.

The Battle of Endor (the space one, let's forget about the Ewok part for now ;) ) is not only a visual treat, but an engineering feat.  This is one of the largest space battles of all time, and it was done with freaking models!  CGI almost always trumps model usage, though in cases like Wrath of Khan where you have only two slow, lumbering ships, models can work quite well.  Lucas really outdid what anybody thought possible...no one has done this before or since with models, and very few have come close with CGI.  The Rebel Fleet, the Imperial Armada, the freaking Death Star, the Millenium Falcon....oh man.  Even today I think this space battle is cool...imagine what people thought in 1983!

Even though the battle on the ground is something to be desired, intercut with this battle is a really awesome scene with Palpatine, Luke, and Vader.  But even without that....this battle is a sure win.

So yeah, there's my entry....and I see Merrie on Friday!  Yay I'm so excited!