I shall file an appeal and a motion to stay forthwith, M’lud. 
You forgot the brylcreem. All the scientists used brylcreem in their hair. I came in to mention these myself. I grew up with these broadcast on saturday afternoons. I’d watch the beginning, then get bored and either start building the rocket ship or some other prop from the movie and give up on that too.
I know the Matrix Sequels were horrible, as were the Highlander sequels and Alien Resurrection, but there were worse Sci-Fi films made in the 70’s in a rush to cash in on Star Wars’ success.
**Dark Star ** The ship’s pet alien is a beachball with feet. The astronauts (now with unkempt 70’s hair and beards) kill it by puncturing it with and letting the air out.
Damnation Alley. Pre-alcoholism Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard launch atomic missiles and start WWIII, wiping out humanity. They leave their missile silo after a couple years to drive an unlikely giant vehicle across the desert that now covers the USA, stopping to battle giant blue-screened scorpions and rubber cockroaches in Salt Lake City. On thier arrival in Albany, New York, they find living trees and well-groomed lawns. It’s like they ran out of money, dropped the pretense and slapped an ending on this turd of a film.
I saw it in the theater with a friend, and we both thought it was pretty funny. Maybe it’s one of those movies you have to be a certain age (pre-highschool) to enjoy.
Highlander 2. Worst movie, EVER. I was a big fan of the original, so I went to the premier of Highlander 2 when it came to town along with all the other Highlander fans. The movie was so excruciatingly bad that we – the fans of Highlander – catcalled the movie, threw popcorn at the screen, and groaned through the whole film. For those who have not seen Highlander 2 yet, here is a synopsis:
On super-advanced Planet Scotland, a half-dozen men with claymores rush the castle of the Evil Overlord of Planet Scotland, Katana. Yes, the Lord of Planet Scotland is named Katana. And no, he doesn’t use one. Also, everyone on Planet Scotland speaks English. Okay, so the two defenders of of the castle (we never see anyone else except Katana and an assistant) fire mortars (?) at the half-dozen men running with claymores. The Hero Protagonist is captured, so the dastardly villain teleports him to Earth. Why? I dunno, he just does. The device sends people to Earth with no way to return.
Then, for some reason, Lord Katana of Planet Scotland decides that he has to send assassins to Earth to kill the Hero Protagonist. Why didn’t he just kill him when he captured him? I don’t know, ask the Lord of Planet Scotland. So these two guys with wings arrive on Earth and there are some really dumb fight scenes. In one scene, one of the assassins hijacks a subway and makes it go hundreds of miles an hour, accelerating so quickly that everyone on the subway is hanging horizontally from the grab-bars. He accomplishes this by spinning a dial on the subway control panel. Apparently subways are capable of escape velocity acceleration if you spin the speed dial quickly enough.
Anyway, the two assassins die. Somehow the Lord of Planet Scotland realizes this and then beams himself to Earth, stranding himself there. Why? I don’t know. We are now instroduced to the world’s stupidest sub-plot. It seems an Evil Corporation has put an energy barrier around the whole Earth because the ozone layer is gone (?). But, see, the ozone layer isn’t really gone. People just don’t notice it’s still there. Or something. Anyway, Lord Katana of Planet Scotland arrives on Earth, gets a gun, and then wanders randomly into the HQ of the Evil Corporation. The building apparently has no security, no locks, and is entirely empty except for the board of directors, who are having a meeting. Lord Katana stumbles randomly into the board meeting and shoots the CEO. He now proclaims himself the new CEO of the Evil Corporation, because apparently corporate takeovers are accomplished by a random alien wearing leather armour walking into your boardroom and shooting the old CEO. I’m not making this up.
Meanwhile, the Hero Protagonist has encountered his Official Love Interest. Of course, they hate each other at first sight for no adequately explored reason. Then the very next scene they have a gratuitous sex scene without any explanation. Everyone in the theatre with me groaned and much popcorn flew.
The Hero Protagonist invades the corporate headquarters with a sword, only to discover that it’s full of deathtraps like giant whirling fan blades that lower slowly from the ceiling. I’m not making this up. The ghost of Sean Connery appears – literally deus ex machina – and saves the day. Finally, all the problems are solved with a swordfight, and the Evil Corporation’s energy field is destroyed. The end.
Damnation Alley is actually a pretty good movie. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s creative, and a lot of the tropes of post-apocalyptia (the radroaches and radscorpions of Fallout spring instantly to mind) came from Damnation Alley. And the vehicle is so far from “unlikely” that the Pentagon was interested in the design.
Damn, you have a lot of time on your hands to be playing video games and watching movies when you could be out defending the plight of the homeless…how selfish.
The movie Damnation Alley was based on a short story of the same name by Roger Zelazny. The story was pretty good but Hollywood did it’s typical Bizarro-mutation of the source material. The theme of the original story-having to cross a hellscape US overland- was more or less recycled into an arc of the Judge Dredd comic.
M’lud then…you, M’lud, not you, M’lud…M’lud then did proceed to break out his copy of Saturn 3, cue up the scenes showing Farrah Fawcett’s naughty bits, threw his judicial robes over his head, and began to emit low moans.
Don’t forget the cigarettes. My sainted mother, I know people smoked in those days and thought nothing of it, but films like Lost Continent took it to a whole new level. Every time there was a crisis, they start passing out the cigarettes! :smack: Who was president then, Phillip Morris?
Dark Star came out three years before Star Wars. It started as a student film project by John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon. Basically, a producer saw their film, paid for added footage to bump it up to feature length, it showed at a few film festivals and got a distributor. O’Bannon later reworked the Beachball into the basis for the xenomorph in Alien.
Duly noted.
A Sound of Thunder
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Battlefield Earth
The Day After Tomorrow
Timecop
Chronicles of Riddick
These are movies with zero redeemable value. They give me shivers when I reflect on them, and a mere mention of their name induces my gag reflex.
You may be right - I checked some online reviews and they seem to indicate it was right for that age-group too. I was 25, so I was way out of range - all I can do is plead “deceived by the trailers”