Regarding the deeper issue you raise about the current state of SF films, I’m conflicted. I certainly think that some of the ones I mentioned in my previous post press the big red “WHAT IF?” button you’re talking about. Of those, Primer is my favorite—with the first 45 minutes of I Am Legend running a distant second. Have you seen either? The former handles the discovery of time travel (in the context of a garage-based start-up company) in a way that blew my hair back. It’s a breathlessly paced, exposition-free mad scientist story. The latter—ostensibly another Richard Matheson retread—starts off like a cross between Robinson Crusoe on Mars and Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us. I found the director’s vision of an unpopulated Manhattan under siege—not by silly, Elasticman-type vampires, but by nature, reasserting itself in the absence of humans—hauntingly beautiful. And had the film concerned itself only with Will Smith’s character slowly going mad for lack of company, it might have been one of my favorites in 2007.

But I know what you mean: for all that it sometimes looks like Kubrick himself shot it on a $10,000 budget, Primer isn’t 2001: A Space Odyssey. In some ways, I think 2001, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, etc. have all helped to diminish our capacity for wonder—by exciting it too much, too often. Frankly, I feel a little over-potentiated. I had a similar feeling in the Uffizi (the antique version of Kim’s Mondo Video), walking through room after room full of masterpieces. Eventually, too much awe benumbed me. I found myself hurrying through the Baroque galleries at the end, thinking, “Ach, why couldn’t Carracci do something as amazing as di Cosimo’s ‘Perseus Frees Andromeda’?”

Maybe what our futurists need is simply more future—for some time to pass since the last generation of major touchstone films (and for audiences to reuptake the stuff their dreams are made of) before filmmakers try to shock our sensory nerves again with ideas that ride the mind’s lightning.

The last era of Sci-fi films to even attempt that sense of “what if?” on a big scale was the Carl Sagan adaptation of Contact the above mentioned pi, and the first Matrix (though ExistenZ was damned good at playing off the same pool of ideas.)

I only mention those because they got heavy media attention and in the case of pi became the “Die Hard” of the Independent Film Channel.

I’ll readily admit I’m a total Ghost in the Shell fanboy of the Manga, Anime, and Films…they continue to provoke some interesting questions about what feels more like the real world to come than any other portrayed currently.

Though if I had to pic one future world I’d choose Enki Bilal’s comics and film Immortal to play in. Shark Head Hitmen, Immortal Gods with unrestrained libidos , and sexy dames with blue hair…too much to love.

But hey at least we have Torchwood ;D

That said, here are five more horror flicks I adore:

Deep Red (dir. Dario Argento)
The Invisible Man (dir. James Whale)
Kwaidan (dir. Kobayashi)
The Black Cat (dir. Ulmer)
Seconds (dir. Frankenheimer)

If they can kiss and make up I’d be the first in line. Last I heard they were still very much pissed at Besson for using that comic as “inspiration” …then again this is Film we’re talking about. They’ve been stealing from comics for decades rarely giving the proper praise until it’s been convenient or advantageous to do so.

If that scenario didn’t pan out I’d actually like to see a director who knows how to do character work take a crack at it. Like Mamoru Oshii…it’d be a nice project to see him either do live action or animated. Cause when it comes to Sci-fi he’s the only one doing anything interesting with it (well him and Production IG as a whole.)

And the link you left for Jodorowsky’s Dune didn’t work, but I found another one here:
http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/jodorowsky.asp

I can imagine an alternate version of Dune set to Krautrock. Something from Can’s Tago Mago, maybe. Blue-in-blue-eyed Paul Maud’Dib, tripping on the Water of Life, alone in the vast emptiness of Arrakis, facing an unbroken horizon, waiting, watching for worm sign in the desert’s pre-dawn hush. Then the sand starts to tremble, almost imperceptibly, and Damo Suzuki’s quavering voice begins:

When I saw the mushroom head…
When I saw the mushroom head…
When I saw the mushroom head…
I was born and I was dead.

Or something to that effect.

Re: the Jodorowsky Dune: Don’t forgot the other band that was going to be providing music for the soundtrack, Magma. The linked clip is a fairly recent recording, but the song is from ’73; I really what starts happening 2:40 or so into it.