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Obama reveals sci-fi TV and film faves, to zero surprises

It's hard to argue with the classic nature of the commander in chief's choices, but don't expect anything you haven't already watched a thousand times.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
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1982's "Blade Runner" made the president's list.

Warner Bros.

President Barack Obama may be a science-fiction fan, but his tastes aren't exactly futuristic. When the president served as guest editor for Wired magazine this week, he offered up a list of his favorite sci-fi offerings from TV and film.

It's hard to argue with the quality of his list, but let's just say he's not out watching "Primer" or other cult faves. These are solid sci-fi choices that even your grandma has heard of -- and probably seen a dozen times.

Here's the list, along with some of the president's comments.

1. "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Obama says Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film "captures the grandeur and scale of the unknown."

2. "Blade Runner"

The president says the 1982 film -- now getting a sequel -- "asks what it means to be human."

3. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"

The president calls Steven Spielberg's 1977 film "fundamentally optimistic."

4. "Star Wars"

OK, not all of the president's comments are high-brow and idealistic. Like most of us, he loved the original "Star Wars" because "because it was fun and revolutionized special effects."

5. "Star Trek: The Original Series

"Are you a "Star Wars" person or a "Star Trek" person? Obama, like many of us, is both, saying he loved Gene Roddenberry's show because it "wasn't actually about technology. It was about values and relationships."

6. "The Martian"

The most recent item on the president's list is Ridley Scott's 2015 Matt Damon movie, which Obama said "shows humans as problem solvers."

7. "The Matrix"

The 1999 film that had moviegoers debating between the red and blue pill appealed to Obama, who said "it asks basic questions about our reality -- and looks very cool."

8. "Cosmos"

Only the second TV show on the list, Carl Sagan's beloved 1980 series fed the president's "lifelong fascination with space.