With only a few weeks to go until Guardians of the Galaxys August 1st release date, excitement for the film is reaching its peak. The 17-minute preview Marvel Studios just released gave fans a taste of all that this cosmic installment of their cinematic universe has to offer: an expanded universe, raised stakes, pounding action and comedy. Above all of this, however, one thing was made abundantly clear. This film is going to be an epic, unique take on the genre. Science fiction has always been a perfect setting for creating stories and characters ripe for the grand scale, and heroics associated with classic notions of what an epic should be. Guardians of the Galaxy looks to be a weird, post-modern take on this age-old style and the buzz surrounding this film got us thinking about all those films that have come before it. What are the most epic space movies in cinematic history? Since the unexpected is what one expects from a galaxy-spanning saga, our picks include a mixture of Guardians of the Galaxy's emphasis on action and comedy. Leaving out the Big Two (the Star Wars series and the Star Trek series) for being too obvious, we made our picks for the most epicly strange of the epicly strange and explain what makes them so. Have anything to add to the choices presented? Let us know in the comment section. Now, off to adventure
David Wagner is an author/musician who splits his time between Oakland, CA and Istanbul, Turkey.
David has published two novels, both available on his website, and as a fan of movies, comics, and genre television, he is happy to be working with WhatCulture as a regular contributor.
