One of the great joys of science fiction movies is that they show us new worlds very different from our own. Most of these worlds are incredibly dangerous places you might not want to actually visit in real life, but from the comfort of your couch, worlds like Tatooine, Arrakis, and Pandora seem pretty swell. Even Earth tends to be a far more interesting place in movies such as Planet of the Apes and Blade Runner.

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Arrakis

Flash! Ah ahh! He's the hero of... oh wait, wrong movie.

Cybertron

Earth

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The Genesis Planet

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It's been a big year for science fiction movies so far, and plenty more are still on the way. With that in mind, we've decided to spotlight our favorite sci-fi worlds, from classics such as Star Wars and Blade Runner all the way to modern hits like Avatar.Dune (1984)Dune is an epic saga of a faraway desert planet in the distant future, warring families, and the war for control of the universe's most valuable commodity, melange spice. The Dune saga spans over a dozen novels, but Hollywood is still struggling to get the original book right. For most, David Lynch's 1984 adaptation is the better effort of the two so far.Distinctly '80s at times in its execution (complete with matte lines around the giant sandworms), Lynch's Arrakis is nonetheless stunning and iconic and more than gives its cartoonish sand-planet competition Tatooine a run for its money in terms of depicting the harsh dilemmas that living on such a barren world would present. After all, its inhabitants basically have to wear special suits that they crap and pee in to survive. Now that's harsh...The Transformers - The Movie (1986), Michael Bay's Transformers moviesThere was a time when the Transformers didn't need to be robots in disguise. They had a whole planet to call their own. Befitting the mechanical residents who call it home, Cybertron is an entirely mechanical world covered in metal structures and Energon processing plants. It was a great place to live if you're the sort of being who can transform into an 18-wheeler or a fighter jet. Unfortunately, in every version of the Transformers mythology, an outbreak of civil war between the evil Decepticons and noble Autobots and/or the arrival of the planet-devouring Unicron forces a small band to depart the planet and set up new digs on Earth.We've only seen glimpses of the mechanized world in the current Transformers movies. But as the franchise endures and pursues a Shia LaBeouf-less future, maybe the time for a return to Cybertron is near.VariousAs this list demonstrates, there are many wondrous worlds to be found in the far reaches of cinematic space, but sometimes the best planets can be found right in your backyard. We're talking alternate Earths, like the savage and alien Planet of the Apes that astronaut Taylor stumbled upon in the far-off future of 3978 A.D. Taylor only realized at the end of his journey that he was actually on Earth all along, and that they'd finally made a monkey out of him.Then there's Detective Rick Deckard's dystopian Earth (specifically Los Angeles) of 2019 from Blade Runner. In this world, various cultures blend into a bizarre melting pot of fashion, language, and food, it never seems to stop raining, and giant, neon billboards litter the skyline. Unfortunately, we never go to see the off-world colonies mentioned in the movie (although Ridley Scott has hinted that Blade Runner takes place in the same universe as the Alien franchise).Or what about The Matrix? In that universe, Earth is a battle-scarred wreckage shrouded in constant cloud cover after a fateful battle between humans and robots. The remaining humans cower beneath the surface, jacking into the Matrix and struggling to topple the robot regime. But the good news is that while earth itself is wrecked to hell, the Matrix allows almost limitless opportunities for fun.Judging from The Matrix and other robot-themed movies like Terminator and I, Robot, quelling the robot uprising might be humanity's single biggest concern in the 21st Century.Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III - The Search for Spock (1984)Created from the folly of David and Carol Marcus, the Genesis Planet was a dream gone horribly wrong. Conceived as a possible solution to the problem of galactic overpopulation, the Genesis Project was a terraforming technology that was used just once on a planetary scale when it was deployed in the Mutara Nebula by none other than Khan Noonien Singh. It was Khan's final act and resulted in the death of Spock.The resulting world that was created was a source of amazement at first -- it contained many of the varieties of Earth's land, vegetation, and weather patterns, but all within walking distance of one another. But ultimately Genesis turned out to be a fool's dream when it was revealed that David had used unstable protomatter in the design, resulting in a flawed matrix that caused the world to rip itself apart after a very brief existence. On the plus side, the planet helped Spock return to life before it went.