6: Dark Star (1974)

6: Dark Star (1974) - The bomb learns the concept of solipsism.
Dark Star co-writer Dan O'Bannon has claimed a few times that Alien (which he co-wrote with Ron Shusett) was Dark Star V.2.0, played for horror instead of laughs, as he didn't think the original had turned out funny enough. But the concept of having to persuade a malfunctioning, planet-killing bomb to not explode by teaching it dialectics is still a hoot, and a memorable spoof on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Exactly why the bomb explodes with so much less force than the one demonstrated in the earlier part of the movie is not clear - perhaps the detonators blew and not the central charge. The explosion was achieved mainly with lights, filters and editing.

Impact: John Carpenter has built up a nice set of spaced-out and likeable (if rather bored) astronauts by the time he blows them all up, and it's a shame to see them go. Obeying the rule that 'three is good', this is the bomb's third attempt to descend from the spaceship and explode, as it's been programmed to do (and already talked out of twice by the ship's central computer). Therefore the tension has been considerably built up by this point as to whether it will listen to reason a third time. Arguably it's the astronauts' atheism that ultimately seals their fate - if they had successfully converted the bomb to Christianity, they might have been considerably better off.

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