Akira. Nearly flawless animation, great music, the movie is absolutely gorgeous. And unless you’ve read the manga, nearly unintelligible. Too much story–including pseudo-scientific gibberish that qualifies it in my eyes for the thread-- for the film.
They may have made spaceship models, but too much of the effects work in and around the ships is clearly CGI.
Dark Star is obscure? Maybe it is now, but it was pretty well known (if not well-distributed)* at the time. Heck, Alan Dean Foster’s novelization has been reprinted a few times.
Dark Star is the first film that I know of to show future spaceships as gritty and lived-in, as opposed to the brilliantly cleasn never dirty look of, say Star Trek. Before Luke Skywalker had a beat-up cruiser, there was dirt on the walls in Dark Star.
*The movie’s New England premiere was actually in room 26-100 at MIT.
P.S. – Thanks to the Mods for fixing the Thread title. I’d hit the “C” instead of the “B”
The plot of Van Helsing was so forgettable that I recently spent THREE DAYS wracking my brain trying to figure out in what context I’d recently (within the last five years) seen the intelligent, gentle, cultured Frankenstein’s monster hiding out from…something? Someone?
I eventually remembered that it was in Van Helsing (Dracula wants the Monster as a battery to give permanent life to his vampire babies), but hell…three days to remember it?! Not exactly the kind of plot that sticks with you.
But it was a REALLY pretty movie.
Transformers. Like Independence Day, I couldn’t care less about the plot. It’s just so fun to watch.
By the same token, Star Wars Ep 3: Revenge of the Sith. The last couple of times I watched it, I skipped all dialogue scenes and just watched the action. Measurably improved the movie, I can tell you.
Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes. The plot almost pisses me off that it ruins such a gorgeous movie, even the ruins of the crashed spaceship looked amazing.
Another 1950s film – Kronos. made by the same folks who did Forbidden Planet, but this time without all that annoying thinking.
Kronos wins huge points for taking a robot that is basically a couple of joined boxes and making it look gorgeous. Kronos, an invasding alien Giant Robot, won all sorts of praise for its originality, but the plot really is brain-dead. The actions our heroes take to defeat it are basically handwaving , with literal “reverse the polarity” stuff. The destruction of Kronos is gorgeous, too.
The film is black and white, but widescreen. It was obviously a big influence on cartoon director Brad Bird, because references to it show up in both The Iron Giant (another alien giant robot invader) and The Incedibles (another Giant Robot – code-named “Kronos”, no less – who wreaks havoc on a city).
Pictures from Kronos:
But she’d’ve looked great doing it!
I once told the costume designer that the costumes were one of the few things I liked about the film. I meant it as a compliment, but it occurred to me afterward that it was a phenomenally stupid thing to say to a friend and colleague of Tim Burton. :smack:
Would you like to know MORE?
Funny, the OP mentions movies with big special effects budgets, and about the only thing I can remember from Dark Star is the alien that was basically a beach ball with feet. 
From what I’ve read about what happened during the production of this film, you’re assessment is spot on. The pretty-but-pedestrian final product was mostly the result of studio (Fox) meddling.
As for good-looking-but-empty-headed science fiction movies, I’ll throw out the 1980 version of Flash Gordon. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it but about the only things I remember about the film are Ornelia Muti and the fact that it at least looked good.
Do the Hellboy movies (particularly the last one) count? Gorgeous visuals, and while not as incredibly insulting dumb as some of those mentioned here, not a whole lot of higher brain functions to be found.
Hmm… Now that I think about it, wouldn’t the list of ‘ugly but smart’ science fiction movies be shorter?
My favorite cheap special effect from Dark Star was the computer consoles that were just inverted ice cube trays, with colored lights under them.
Event Horizon… A fairly atmospheric setting, with the Marie-Celeste of space travel showing up in orbit around Neptune (a planet that doesnt get that much sci-fi coverage, its always Mars or fuckin Saturn). I remember scenes of the crew investigating the ship when the “gravity” wasn’t working, and all the tools and water were eerily floating around. Pretty impressive for the time, then BAM; goodbye plot, hello Hellraiser in Space.
LXG.
Oh, come on - how can you forget Brian Blessed?
Oh, I don’t know. There’s “Dumb”, and then there’s “Deliberately over the top”. Like the scene where Ming eats popcorn-equivalent while watching his daughter be tortured with bore worms.
And then there’s the line from the infoclip at the beginning of StarShip Troopers 3: Would you like to buy MORE?
(It seems that the Sky Marshall is a hot merchandising item in this movie; I’ve only watched the first 10 minutes so far)
I’ve never seen the movie, but thanks to Queen, I’ve always wondered how someone could utter the line
without falling flat on their asses from laughter.