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Scientists: 'Blade Runner' best sci-fi
Thursday, August 26, 2004 Posted: 2:42 PM EDT (1842 GMT)

LONDON, England (AP) -- A British newspaper survey of top scientists has chosen "Blade Runner" as the world's best sci-fi film.

Sixty scientists were questioned, including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, The Guardian newspaper said Wednesday.

In the 1982 film, a retired policeman played by Harrison Ford hunts down renegade human replicates in a dark futuristic vision of Los Angeles.

"It was so far ahead of its time and the whole premise of the story -- what is it to be human and who are we, where we come from. It's the age-old questions," said Stephen Minger, a stem cell biologist at King's College, London.

Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" came in a close second, followed by George Lucas' "Star Wars" and "Star Wars Episode V -- The Empire Strikes Back."

The list also includes "Alien," the original "Solaris" (1972), "The Terminator," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," "War of the Worlds," "The Matrix" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."