# Worst... Sci-fi...Ever...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 15, 2004, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049 "2004-12-15T22:40:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 11

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**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/201 "2004-12-30T16:23:18Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Babylon 5

What?

You. Did. **NOT**. just say that.

I sure hope I read you wrong.

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**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/202 "2004-12-30T17:37:45Z")

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> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> It’s kind of hard to make the case for “bad dialogue” in **Battle Beyond the Stars** when it was written by perhaps the best film scriptwriter working (John Sayles – and he’d already filmed **Return of the Secaucus Seven** at this point).
> 
> Yup, it was Star Wars Meets the Magnificent Seven. It made no bones about that, even casting Robert Vaughn. But given the exploitative nature of the film, it was a neat little entertainment, with some witty dialoge (e.g., “We always bring a spare”) and a nice sense of fun. Not a great film, but not a terrible one, either.
> 
> This is just typical Internet thinking: the concept that a film can have good and bad parts is just plain alien to most people.

Gotta agree with **RealityChuck** on this one. **Battle Beyond the Stars**  
really didn’t take itself too seriously. And it was a lot of fun. My favorite scene is still the night before the battle, with George Peppard (as the Space Cowboy) playing harmonica in the background, while a couple of other characters roasted wieners over the two Kelvin characters. (The Kelvin communicate by radiating heat.)

Maybe you had to see it though.

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**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/203 "2004-12-30T18:20:34Z")

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> [@CynicalGabe](#):
>
> What?
> 
> You. Did. **NOT**. just say that.
> 
> I sure hope I read you wrong.

I think that poster was responding to a comment asking him what sci fi he actually likes. At least I hope that’s what was going on.

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**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/204 "2004-12-31T01:07:32Z")

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> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#):
>
> Disney’s _The Black Hole_.
> 
> The single worst _Star Wars_ ripoff ever.
> 
> There was no reason for it.
> 
> No reason for _any of it!!_  
> Plotless, clueless, this film is _so bad_ that it is a waste of Ernest Borgnine.

I think Stephen King cited this movie, noting that, at one point one character says to the other, “Why are we out here”, and the reply is “We are looking for habitable life”. King notes that this would only be true if the cast were pinworms, lice, or toenail fungus, “and for all acting the director managed to get out of them, perhaps they were”.

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