# What are the five worst science fiction movies you've ever seen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832 "2009-07-22T06:12:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/1 "2009-07-22T06:12:56Z")
The title says it all, folks. Give me your worst of the worst. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/2 "2009-07-22T06:28:26Z")
I saw _Star Crash_. That really should cover #1-5 all by itself, but I’ll try to actually think up some others, later. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/3 "2009-07-22T06:33:05Z")
Do the Star Wars prequels count as “science fiction” movies? If so, then those three would be on my list. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/4 "2009-07-22T06:48:11Z")
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Stargate Battlefield Earth It’s late and I can’t think of two more. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Scruff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Scruff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruff)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/5 "2009-07-22T06:58:07Z")
Battlefield Earth Starship Troopers Armageddon Mission To Mars Keanu Baarata Nikto, aka The Day the Earth Stood Still Do I need to explain? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/6 "2009-07-22T07:11:21Z")
I can’t think of any. It’s a win-win genre where good is good and bad is still good. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/7 "2009-07-22T07:35:21Z")
In no particular order: **Battlefield Earth** : Good lord, why? The director when to the Batman (Adam West version) school of directing. Notice in the scenes in the Psyclos, or whatever the aliens were called, the camera tilts a few degrees. Just like in episodes of Adam West’s Batman series when filming the bad guys at their lair. Also, 1,000 years after the invasion of Earth and Harriers that have been laying around all this time are repaired and used? WTF? I actually find this movie somewhat entertaining because it’s so bad. **Starship Troopers** : A controversial movie. Yeah, I saw it, and no, I don’t care if it was supposed to be a satire. It just wasn’t a very good story on it’s own and that’ s before taking into account the silly tactics and mind numbingly stupid asteroid attack on Earth. **The Day After Tomorrow** : This movie bored me to tears in ways that Starship Troopers and Battlefield Earth didn’t. It was ham fisted and overly preachy to boot. **Independence Day** : I can think of very little to say about this movie that is nice. The closest I came to having an actual emotional reaction to this movie was when the dog almost died in the tunnel. Weird, I almost cared about the dog but the death of millions had no effect on me. **Wing Commander** : For many years this has been my gold standard for bad movies. ie. If I saw something like Independence Day I’d say “At least it wasn’t Wing Commander.” Where to start? There’s a scene were a damaged fighter is pushed off the flight deck into space. Upon being pushed off the deck it immediately falls in the same manner as pushing a modern plane off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. What takes the cake is the scene where a space ship is using what appears to be a sonar device. Fans of the movie will handwave this away but it was really goddamn stupid. Add to that the story wasn’t interesting and you’ve got a really really bad movie. Honorable mentions go to Lost in Space…which could have easily made this list. ---
**Author:** ![mrpayday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@mrpayday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrpayday)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/8 "2009-07-22T07:44:45Z")
battlefield earth, lol dutch angle dracula 3000, we ran outta money so thats the end of the movie starship troopers 2, incredibly lame and i liked the first one highlander 2, that counts as scifi, it did happen, who knows maybe we will meet again, not fucken likely i can only think of four ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/9 "2009-07-22T09:19:46Z")
> [@mrpayday](#): > > battlefield earth, lol dutch angle > dracula 3000, we ran outta money so thats the end of the movie > starship troopers 2, incredibly lame and i liked the first one > highlander 2, that counts as scifi, it did happen, who knows maybe we will meet again, not fucken likely > i can only think of four You mean you could only think of three; there is no Highlander 2. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/10 "2009-07-22T09:59:38Z")
Ha. I think the sole pupose of \*Highlander 2 \*was to convince people that \*Highlander 1 \*was a good movie, which it really, really wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/11 "2009-07-22T10:20:19Z")
> [@Nametag](#): > > You mean you could only think of three; there is no Highlander 2. This _may_ have been funny originally. If it was though, it certainly isn’t any more. Highlander 2 existed and it was terrible. So did Star Trek V, (but it wasn’t terrible.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/12 "2009-07-22T10:23:55Z")
Off the top of my head though, certainly missing some. Highlander 2. Worst film I’ve ever seen Battlefield Earth Star Trek Insurrection Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers Wing Commander ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/13 "2009-07-22T11:08:31Z")
\*\*Killdozer. \*\*A bulldozer get posessed by alien life force and goes on a rampage. This might be fun to see again but I remember it (from a long, long time ago) as pretty awful. **Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea** (not the TV series, though that was crap too) Dull and ridiculous. One repeated shot I seem to remember is you see a bunch of the protagonists sitting at the ENORMOUS window at the front of the _deep sea_\*\*\*\*\* sub, some of them smoking. I think they saved the world by setting fire to the Van Allen belts or something. Stupid. \*\*Highlander 2. \*\*Haven’t seen the whole thing but I saw some of it while tripping and it was still too boring to hold my attention. \*\*Earth vs Flying Saucers. \*\*Five minutes of Harryhausen fun embedded in hours and hours of tedious bollocks. **Ghosts of Mars.** I think it may have had boobs in it at some point, otherwise all I can remember is thinking at the end that I’d like that hour and a half back please. \*\*\*\*\*IIRC they enter the infamous Marianas Trench with something that looks like a greenhouse at the front of the boat. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/14 "2009-07-22T11:53:13Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > **Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea** (not the TV series, though that was crap too) Dull and ridiculous. One repeated shot I seem to remember is you see a bunch of the protagonists sitting at the ENORMOUS window at the front of the _deep sea_\*\*\*\*\* sub, some of them smoking. I think they saved the world by setting fire to the Van Allen belts or something. Stupid. I don’t have quite as negative an opinion of this one, but one of the elements I love the best is how quickly the crew (and some of the officers) comes to the brink of mutiny (aside from the mundane insubordination). 😃 BTW—I wasn’t able to find a clip of the most famous moment (“Imperial battleship…_stop the flow of time!_”), but I did dig up [another classic _Star Crash_ moment)](http://www.badmovies.org/multimedia/moviesl/starcrash1.mpg) Makes _Flash Gordon_ look like _2001_. Both in technical realism, and general quality. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/15 "2009-07-22T11:53:57Z")
> [@Small\_Clanger](#): > > IIRC they enter the infamous Marianas Trench with something that looks like a greenhouse at the front of the boat. It’s okay - after they ran into some mines and the sub sprang a leak, they had a big wheel they could turn to make the leaks go away. I always loved that bit. I haven’t seen _Battlefield Earth_ and I actually liked _Starship Troopers_ so… - All three _Star Wars_ prequels. During the pod race I genuinely caught myself thinking “I wish I was watching the lightcycle scene from _Tron_ right now”. And The Stupid just kept snowballing. “I’m angry, therefore I’ll kill a room full of children!.” “Gosh, with our incredible technology we totally failed to notice Padme was having twins!” etc etc etc. - Armageddon. You need to destroy the asteroid in the next 60 seconds to keep all life on Earth from being destroyed, so why not take 59 of them to make a mushy speech? - Godzilla (the Matthew Broderick one). [So many reasons.](http://www.brunching.com/harpongodzilla.html) ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/16 "2009-07-22T12:05:19Z")
The first one that came to mind was Zardoz. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/17 "2009-07-22T12:12:30Z")
_Event Horizon_, which seems to have been a horror flick disguised as a Sci Fi flick. It really brought the dumb. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/18 "2009-07-22T12:13:04Z")
Crime Zone Deepstar Six Highlander 2 I Come in Peace Star Trek V ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/19 "2009-07-22T12:16:49Z")
**Alien** **Plan 9 From Outer Space** **The Matrix Reloaded** **Space Mutiny** **Battlefield Earth** ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/20 "2009-07-22T12:52:56Z")
Re _Star Crash_. It wasn’t all that bad, if you concentrated on the [scenery](http://http://www.pollsb.com/photos/o/8179-70_s_caroline_munro_stella_star_starcrash_1979_carrie_fisher_princess_lea_organa_star_wars_1977_jenny). 😃 Seriously, though, yes, _Star Crash_ was bad. So were : _Battlefield Earth_ _Highlander 2_ _Fortress_ (Hmm, two Christopher Lambert movies. might that be the start of a pattern ? Someone should investigate) _Deepstar Six_ _Space Trucker_ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832.md?page=2)