Most Influential Fanchise to the Sci-Fi Genre

[Locke4God]

Which movie Franchise do you find had more significance to the Sci-Fi genre?

I'm personally a big fan of all of them.

Planet of the Apes was classic, and quite a good film, esspecially given the ending. It's really worth the watch if you've never seen it.

Matrix obviously had the visuals and a number of cultural references.

Terminator 2 was the biggest movie ever for quite a number of years following it's release. I might have seen that movie 30 times through. But more importantly it handled time in a new, fun, and successful manner.

Back to the Future has some serious lasting and mainstream appeal

Godzilla can't be discounted even though it might not be your favorite. It's had a big influence through King Kong, Cloverfield and others.

Alien was simply amazing, and an all time classic. Alien 3 was actually my favorite and it took awhile for me to really enjoy it over the action of Aliens, but the 3rd one is genuinely a great sequel with a great "ending" for the series.

And Star Trek & Star Wars have obviously places. Both possess gigantic worlds and the theme of exploration and over the top circumstances, but both were muddled with some sub par acting and the concept of being fringe films worshiped by the hyper nerd as well.

[Xanatos]

Star Trek, but then again the series had more impact then the movies. But I voted for Star Trek anyway only because it was one of the first sci-fi franchise and it basically father of the genre called sci-fi. Star Wars also had a big impact on sci-fi genre maybe even bigger than Star Trek, but I'm going with Star Trek on this one.

[Che]

I love most of the movies/series listed, but as far as a being the most influential franchise to the entire Sci-Fi genre, I'd have to go with Star Wars. Star Trek might be a close second.

[Andromeda]

There had been sci-fi before Star Trek, but it was pretty camp and silly working on a B movie budget. Star Trek was the first series to really do what a lot of sci-fi story (books) usually short stories do, which was take a current events topic and placed it in a foreign setting so that you can talk about it through a filter that people could accept. Star Trek gave the push that sci-fi could be successful and serious.

It was Star Wars that legitimized sci-fi in a way. Before Star Wars there was pretty much Star Trek and a bunch of other smaller shows that was just followed by a small but highly devoted sometimes fanatical group of people. But Star Wars hit a cord with the public in a way that sci-fi had not really managed to do it. Star Wars made a lot of people realize sci-fi could be enjoyable and fun and not just something weird for the nerds in the basements.

I think you needed Star Trek for Star Wars to have worked, but sci-fi wouldn't be where it is without what Star Wars did as well. The other thing that Star Wars did and this wasn't for sci-fi movies, but the industry as a whole. Jaws and Star Wars came out the same year and were big movies, but they were also summer movies. When we talked about movie times what are the big time for movies? Summer movies, its the big deal when all of huge budget stuff comes out. Back in 1977 for Star Wars the summer was a dead zone for movies. You just didn't release movies big important movies in the summer you did it in the Fall and Winter pretty much. However, Star Wars and Jaws both got summer releases and saw massive sales, Star Wars was the highest grossing movie for like 30 years as a movie that came in the summer. It showed Hollywood that summer was a viable time to release a movie and so now summer considered the best time to release a movie.

[ANGRYWOLF]

Star Trek because Rodenberry was an inspiration to many writers.
I was fortunate enough to hear him speak at a meeting at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville TN many years ago...

I'm not in favor of JJ Abram's version of Star Trek although I hope it does revitalize the franchise..

Of course I am a big fan of all of those listed so I hope we'll see more of them as time goes by.

I hope that Lucas sells the rights to Star Wars to someone eventually and we'll see that franchise continued as well...

[Pete]

I'd go with Star Wars. Star Trek was big in it's own right, but Star Wars really appealed to the masses and essentially made the whole sci-fi culture more mainstream and accepted in society, kind of like a gateway drug. You can even kind of see the results of it today. I'd bet that more people have seen Star Wars and are more knowledgeable about it than Trek. It's mostly because the Star Wars movies were "events" and not just a movie; everybody went.

Godzilla could also be a contender, but it had less to do with the traditional sci fi ideas of space travel. It was more a commentary/ cautionary tale about the results from nuclear weapons. Yknow, when you start dropping the big bombs, you alter a lot more than just the landscape. It was the first of any of above series to really do anything of the sort. Though, a lot of those monster movies were just that, monster movies. It was always stuff like The Thing and The Blob, where were really just science experiments gone wrong... kind of just a warning not to **** with nature.

[Josh_R]

Star Wars is the franchise that first made Sci-Fi loved...therfore I voted for star wars star trek was pretty awesome also...

[smurphy]

I think that Bladerunner deserves a mention as the dark, murky sci-fi world it introduced was the first of its kind and had a huge influence on the likes of Total recall and the fifth element.

Apart from that Star wars wins hands down.