President Obama Picks His Favorite Sci-Fi Films and TV Shows
Politics is a total mess these days, but here’s some news out of Washington that everyone can enjoy. President Obama is the guest editor of the new Wired Magazine, and as part of his work for the publication, he shared his favorite science-fiction movies and television shows. The POTUS even went to the trouble of providing helpful links to where you can watch each of the shows or films online. What a guy.
His full roster of picks:
2001: A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Star Wars
Star Trek (The Original Series)
The Martian
The Matrix
Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
There aren’t any real shockers here; it’s mostly the agreed-upon “classics” like 2001 and Close Encounters, Star Wars and Star Trek, a series Obama has praised in the past. (There’s a separate piece and video on Wired about Trek and how it influenced Obama as a child, specifically its “values and relationships.”)
The most recent addition on his list, of course, is The Martian, last year’s film about an astronaut, played by Matt Damon, who gets stranded on Mars and struggles to survive while NASA engineers a rescue mission; a story that definitely resonates with Obama’s values about hope, teamwork, and togetherness.
Here’s what President Obama has to say about Star Wars:
Obama praises ‘because it was fun and revolutionized special effects,’ is the ultimate science-fiction popcorn flick, and the franchise will entertain people for generations to come.
Again, Obama doesn’t have any bold picks of his favorites, and that’s fine. The classics are classics for a reason. You can’t go wrong with any of these.