It is bombastic and over the top, but it’s just so well done. And Jaws is actually terrifying (at least, until he drops the stone on his foot), unlike in another preposterous OTT Bond, Moonraker. I’ve got it in my top 5 Bond films.
I argued in my Teemings article “Use the Force, Luke” that after the success of Star Wars and the scene of the destruction of the Death Star, it was copied at least twice. Once in the James Bond film Moonraker (which, as you correctly point out, only got shoehorned into the Bond lineup because of Star war’ success, displacing temporarily For Your Eyes Only) and once in the clint Eastwood film Firefox. In both cases you have the hero doing something that recalled Luke Skywalker’s use of the Force – Bond targeting the last Evil Satellite by guess and by gosh when the sensors fail him, and Clint reaching into his memory for the Russian command that would fire the needed defense system (complete with voiceover of the Russian engineer talking to him, like Obi wan Kenobi’s voice talking to Luke). Neither was really necessary in the context of the film, but they’re there to give us a Luke substitute.
As I said in that article in the now-defunct e-zine, it’s ironic because Lucas’ direct inspiration for the scene is the bombing run in the film The Dam Busters (based on the book of the same name by Paul Brickhill, and inspired by the real-life WWII incident). In that case, though, nobody used The Force to tell them when to release the bombs. The film tells you exactly how they went about constructing what was effectively an analog computer for determining when to do so.
The best overall comment on the situation, I think, is in the third episode of the 2003-2005 Cartoon Network series Duck Dodgers . (“The Trial of Duck Dodgers”) As Daffy as Duck Dodgers climbs into is space ship, Porky Pig (as the earnest cadet) says “T-t-trust your feelings, Captain!”, to which Dodgers replies “Thanks, but I think I’ll use this expensive Targeting Computer we’ve got.”
Wasn’t there something similar with the atmosphere? Even though Io was airless, the atmosphere in the elevator got thinner the closer to the surface. Makes no sense.
“The Razor’s Edge” - I haven’t thought about it in a long time. But that movie showed me Bill Murray could actually act, like a human, not a wacky caricature. Brilliant choice!
“Grounghog Day” in space!
I liked it. The premise of reliving the same day and trying different scenarios and then memorizing all the moves that work - it probably has been covered well in written SF somewhere, but I enjoyed it.
I will add my vote here. Weird, characters it is hard to root for, strange twist on unicorn lore, but somehow provoking.
My additions:
“Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone”, starring Peter Strauss and Molly Ringwold.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086346/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_7_nm_1_in_0_q_spacehun
Preposterous 3D movie that I got to see when at my uncle’s house because he had HBO and we didn’t even have cable yet. Saw it a couple years in a row at christmas.
Largely forgotten except for the line “emergency repair procedure number one” - a solid kick to complex equipment that didn’t want to work.
And “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure!” It’s incredibly cheesy, acting is ridicously over-the-top valley talk, projected future world is insanely ugly for what’s described as a utopia. But the time-travel premise holds up one intriguing idea I hadn’t seen before - the “we have a time machine, we can do it later” premise. And it’s incredibly fun with a great soundtrack.
In another thread, someone mentioned the 1979 film Meatballs, directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Bill Murray. Not a great film but one I fondly remember.
Also a mediocre film was the 1989 How I Got Into College by the same director as Better Off Dead. Not high art but amusing particularly for anyone going through that process.
I don’t know how they would have paid for it, in the pre-CGI era.
Compare that to the bombing run in 633 Squadron, where they really were flying by the seats of their pants.
To paraphrase Father Flaherty on SCTV’s “Match Unto My Feet,” God has a sick and perverted sense of humor,
Also reportedly an inspiration for the Star Wars Death Star sequence.
Paul Brickhill, by the way, also wrote The Great Escape, and had been an inmate at Stalag Luft Drei 9but who didn’t get to escape through the tunnel).
One of my all-time favorite books!
Hearing Eastwood try to speak Russian was almost as amusing as seeing Cliff Cleven as a USN crew chief,
Nitpick…the “Groundhog Day” comparison is on the money, but while it’s a futuristic sci-fi film, it’s not set in space.
In college we used to joke in mock-seriousness that Better Off Dead was the best work of art every produced in the history of Western civilization. 
Exactly. It’s clear in retrospect that they were lucky to get two Japanese Zeros and two F-14 Tomcats on the screen. That final battle was never going to happen. Nevertheless, I agree that the ending was a huge letdown.
Someone should remake it today with modern CGI and the ending we were cheated out of 46 years ago. (Which, strangely enough, is now a longer period of time than the time between Pearl Harbor and The Final Countdown.)
Even more remarkable is the fact that the the USS Nimitz is still in active service, over 50 years after being commissioned. They could even make a sequel in which the modern Nimitz goes back in time to the same moment with F/A-18F Super Hornets and finishes the job.
Especially since, in the context of the movie, he was supposed to be a fluent Russian speaker.
Tapeheads (1988). John Cusack and Tim Robbins try to become successful music video directors. Very silly, but the music’s good. If you’ve seen it I’m embarrassed to mention it was years later before I discovered Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles was a real place.
That’s also a decent description of the similarly titled Airheads (1994). Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi as wannabe rock stars who hold a radio station’s employees hostage Dog Day Afternoon-style to get their demo tape played on air. Watch for Michael Richards as a hilariously inept John McClane knockoff.
I don’t know if these are mediocre or just forgotten. They have remained with me longer than timeless classics.
Heroes. Not the Sci-fi tv show. Henry Winklers first starring movie role. As starring Sally Field and Harrison Ford. This was filmed right after Star Wars and before it was released. Star Wars came out first so Ford went from being an unknown to being a big star by the time this came out. Funny and really sad. My first musical awakening happened when “Carry on my Wayward Son” was used in the end credits.
That made me think of The One and Only a forgotten Carl Reiner directed movie also starring Henry Winkler. A funny movie about an out of work actor who became a professional wrestler. Funny with a nice romance with Kim Darby at the heart of it. Yes it’s very unlike tiny Henry Winkler becomes a wrestler but just go with it.
Later works made me retroactively hate Ralph Bakshi but I still have a soft spot for Wizards. I don’t think it’s a good movie but it’s still kinda great.
Dragging myself out of the 70s into the 80s, the same guy who later did Waterworld wrote and directed Fandango also starring Kevin Costner. I find it funny and quirky with an underlying sadness. Good soundtrack, writing and acting.
A couple of other notables were at Stalag Luft III, including Peter Butterworth (who appeared in many ‘mediocre’ films, some of which were quite entertaining) and Rupert Davies, who played George Smiley in The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (not a mediocre film).
I saw that once, and it stuck with me because the group of friends almost exactly matched the guys I hung around with. It was like watching ourselves have an adventure we never actually lived.
That last ten minutes were excellent. I also fondly remember when he threatened to smash in the guy’s head from atop a pool table. Go, Fonzie!