# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/41 "2009-07-22T20:46:52Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > I saw _Star Crash_. > > That really should cover #1-5 all by itself, but I’ll try to actually think up some others, later. The movie itself was execrable, but getting to see Caroline Munro in the skimpy outfits redeems it somewhat, in my opinion. ---
**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, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/42 "2009-07-22T21:28:05Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > It really wasn’t. Though it pains me to admit that. The dialogue was horrible but I think it had a really cool concept. The dialogue was horrible, the direction was overwrought, and that cross-eyed Frenchman Lambert was barely convincing as a member of the animal kingdom. Connery and Clancy Brown were good and the concept had some serious potential, but objectively speaking, the movie is a piece of crap. And I’m saying that as a former 12-year-old who thought it was the most awesome move ever. And frankly, the soundtrack was nothing special. By 1986 most of Queen’s best work was far behind them. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/43 "2009-07-22T22:35:35Z")
I’ll cut some of the low-budget movies some slack. Films that just didn’t seem to have an excuse: **Matrix 3**. Bad. Pretentious. Long. I saw it at an IMAX screen which was like reading a really lousy book in large print. **Stargate**. Let’s be honest, Devlin and Emmerich have produced more crap than a laxative factory. This is a prime example. **Mission To Mars**. I was at a sneak preview, it got very ugly. If anyone involved in that film was in the back of the theatre they snuck out quietly and early to avoid getting lynched. **Highlander 2**. Obvious choice. Two hours of “WTF?” **Battlefield Earth**. This ought to win some kind of prize for sheer crapitude. My friends and I rented this and set up a camcorder so we could film ourselves doing an MST3K kind of thing and within minutes we realized that this was going to be very, very bad, and not in a funny kind of way. Listening to the director’s commentary was amusing though, as the guy tried desperately to put a positive spin on the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Sealemon2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@Sealemon2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sealemon2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/44 "2009-07-22T22:42:56Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. Heretic. so many to choose from, but off the top of my head…(not counting the really, really bad movies like Plan 9) Highlander 2 Godzilla (the remake) Star Wars Ep I Event Horizon (agreed with the above poster…in addition, it wasn’t even a good horror movie) The third Matrix movie (Revolutions or Reloaded or Regurgiated or whatever) ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/45 "2009-07-22T23:15:45Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Exacty. How are we defining “bad” here? The absolute WORST are on that channel. Grade Z. Compared to **Snakehead Terror** , or **Raptor Island** , the Star Trek prequels are Citizen Cane. Star _Trek_ prequels? ---
**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, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/46 "2009-07-22T23:17:10Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Really? :eek: Seriously? ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/47 "2009-07-22T23:36:30Z")
**Armageddon Red Planet Timeline The Chronicles of Riddick A Sound of Thunder** ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/48 "2009-07-22T23:37:01Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > Star _Trek_ prequels? ::waves hand:: I said Star WARS prequels ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/49 "2009-07-22T23:54:29Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > Star Wars episode 1 > Star Trek 5 > Mission to Mars > Transformers Revenge of the fallen > American Godzilla > > All big budget movies which should have been better. Shit, I forgot _Contact_. Don’t know which one to pull from the above list though. Maybe ST5? ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Norder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/50 "2009-07-23T00:18:09Z")
Those of you saying things like \*Armageddon, Independence Day, Stargate, Starship Troopers, \*etc. should immediately head over to Hulu to watch _Robot Holocaust_. Bad sci-fi movies like that are at least a whole level of magnitude worse than whatever big budget mediocre film someone wants to take a knock at to make themselves sound cool. How bad is Robot Holocaust? Well, some actors face the camera to speak their dialog instead of facing the character(s) they are addressing, and the director never bothered to make them stop that. The scariest monsters are basically sock puppets coming out of a wall that for some insane reason the heroes feel like they need to hug up against instead of just walking far enough away to be out of the monsters’ reach. The never explained miraculous powers of the main hero include telepathy, which is only used at the very beginning of the film instead of later when it’d actually be handy, and only to speak mentally with a robot – _not_ a human-brained cyborg, a robot. The costumes look like they were stolen from the set of Scandal’s “The Warrior” MTV video when Patty Smyth went out to buy more hairspray. Really, you just have to watch some of it to appreciate just what kind of level of awful this is working on. The only possibly redeeming value of the film is something that was a complete accident but is kind of funny in a fanwank sort of way: the main character’s name is Neo, just like in the Matrix films, and the basic plot is that robots have enslaved humans so they can provide power for the robots. If you saw the third Matrix film you might remember a bit where the human Neo character supposedly had preexisted as thousands of previous incarnations somehow, which would make sense for a computer program but not for a human… If we decide that the evil robots had to have started the Matrix at some point in the past and then made it more realistic as time went on, Robot Holocaust can perhaps be thought of as being the beta version of the Matrix, where the proto-Neo and everything else is hopelessly unrealistic. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/51 "2009-07-23T00:25:24Z")
That Nikto movie–can’t remember the title, but that alien robot was too funny, as were the reactions of the earthlings. Buck Rogers–the one in the late 1970s. I went to see it 7 times. I don’t know why. Any Star Wars prequel. Why, no, I haven’t seen them. Nor do I want to. Yes, it is unreasonable, arbitrary and silly of me. Waterworld–from the reviews alone. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/52 "2009-07-23T01:04:21Z")
> [@kasuo](#): > > The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Battlefield Earth, Matrix 3, Teenage Caveman (2002), Wing Commander Wing Commander should go on this list five times and we can call it done. “Oh my god, Concordia is going to be ambushed and there’s no way we can warn them!” (bottom of the pilot’s screen shows something along the lines of “downloading from Concordia”) That one gets the points for being insultingly stupid AND assraping a franchise with potential. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/53 "2009-07-23T01:25:48Z")
> [@Yeeter](#): > > This, to me, is proof nobody is watching the movies produced for the SciFi channel (now SyFy…). > > Mosquito > Mimic 2 > Jaws 3 > Alien Vs Predator > Squirm A more interesting topic would be overrated skiffy movies. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/54 "2009-07-23T01:26:07Z")
I don’t have five, just two that I walked out of: [They Live](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/) and [Hardware](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099740/). ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/55 "2009-07-23T01:38:35Z")
[Nightfall](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0249840/), by a really huge margin. Helped along by the sad fact that Asimov’s short story was a really _good_ science fiction story, and they made a horrid unwatchable mess of it. ETA: Yeah, I only listed one movie. This movie by itself was all five of the worst science fiction movied I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/56 "2009-07-23T02:11:06Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I don’t have five, just two that I walked out of: [They Live](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/) and [Hardware](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099740/). Wasn’t _They Live_ a parody? Anyway, it gave us the immortal “chew bubblegum” line, it can’t be all that bad, even if it was. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/57 "2009-07-23T02:20:05Z")
Has no one else ever seen **Prayer of the Rollerboys**? You can’t judge which scifi movie is the worst without having seen it. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/58 "2009-07-23T03:41:45Z")
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn. I sat through the whole movie. I don’t need 4 other films. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/59 "2009-07-23T05:55:31Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I don’t have five, just two that I walked out of: [They Live](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/) > \ I hope you made it to the [fight scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqKFadyJxwg) (video, swearing). Maybe not, since you walked out. I’m getting the idea that some folks just haven’t seen ENOUGH bad Sci-Fi. _ALIEN_? Really? I won’t even try to convince you that it’s good. I don’t know that I’d want to. Instead, I’ll say that there are HUNDREDS more movies deserving of derision. Count yourself lucky if you haven’t seen them. I thought I’d seen plenty of bad Sci-Fi, but somehow missed _Star Crash_. Cheese on a cracker, that trailer looked wretched! SyFy movies should just add up to one spot on the list, collectively, simply because there are only 5 slots, and every one deserves a slot. My list: 1. Every SyFy channel ever made. 2. _Star Crash_. The trailer alone deserves this spot. 3. _Battle Beyond the Stars_ 4. \*Battlefield Earth \* 5. The 3 _Star Wars_ prequels I’ve ignored ‘comedies’ like _Ice Pirates_ and _Pluto Nash_. Ed Wood movies don’t belong on any list except of Ed Wood movies. Totally subjective, I know, but that level of enthusiasm, incompetence, and low budget stands alone. Edited to add: I kinda LIKE _The Black Hole_. It’s bad, I know, but there’s something about it. . . ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832/60 "2009-07-23T13:44:23Z")
> [@Dan\_Norder](#): > > Those of you saying things like \*Armageddon, Independence Day, Stargate, Starship Troopers, \*etc. should immediately head over to Hulu to watch _Robot Holocaust_. Bad sci-fi movies like that are at least a whole level of magnitude worse than whatever big budget mediocre film someone wants to take a knock at to make themselves sound cool. > > How bad is Robot Holocaust? Well, some actors face the camera to speak their dialog instead of facing the character(s) they are addressing, and the director never bothered to make them stop that. The scariest monsters are basically sock puppets coming out of a wall that for some insane reason the heroes feel like they need to hug up against instead of just walking far enough away to be out of the monsters’ reach. The never explained miraculous powers of the main hero include telepathy, which is only used at the very beginning of the film instead of later when it’d actually be handy, and only to speak mentally with a robot – _not_ a human-brained cyborg, a robot. The costumes look like they were stolen from the set of Scandal’s “The Warrior” MTV video when Patty Smyth went out to buy more hairspray. Really, you just have to watch some of it to appreciate just what kind of level of awful this is working on. > > The only possibly redeeming value of the film is something that was a complete accident but is kind of funny in a fanwank sort of way: the main character’s name is Neo, just like in the Matrix films, and the basic plot is that robots have enslaved humans so they can provide power for the robots. If you saw the third Matrix film you might remember a bit where the human Neo character supposedly had preexisted as thousands of previous incarnations somehow, which would make sense for a computer program but not for a human… If we decide that the evil robots had to have started the Matrix at some point in the past and then made it more realistic as time went on, Robot Holocaust can perhaps be thought of as being the beta version of the Matrix, where the proto-Neo and everything else is hopelessly unrealistic. In my opinion, **Robot Holocaust** is worth seeing for the character Valeria, played by a model or something who may just be the single worst actress ever put on film. She must be seen to be believed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-five-worst-science-fiction-movies-youve-ever-seen/503832.md?page=4)