# Worst... Sci-fi...Ever... **URL:** \ **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:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bubastis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d07c76/32.png) [@bubastis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubastis)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/21 "2004-12-16T00:03:13Z")
Sabrina Lloyd? She’ll be in a new show on CBS next year called Numbers. And she’s [still extremely cute](http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/1856/Events/1856/SabrinaLlo_Vespa_840356_400.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Lloyd,%20Sabrina%20(I)). [/QUOTE] Ah, time marches on… While I’m ranting: :Couldnt Ziggy the computer (Quantum Leap) Have been a bit cooler than a mashed up Rubiks cube? Still, didnt stop Al from getting all sorts of info by pressing the same button over and over… :The statue of Liberty is a big memory erasing device (Men in Black2)? WTF? :One word- Midichlorians. I sense a great disturbance, as if a thousand assholes puckered up at once… ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/22 "2004-12-16T00:04:15Z")
This thread can’t pass without a big shout out to Tweeky from Buck Rogers. Little annoying bastard wrecked my head. As did Wilma, but in a very different way. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/23 "2004-12-16T00:07:50Z")
[**Camelot 30K,**](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312852150/qid=1103154420/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-8154966-6687210?v=glance&s=books) by Robert L. Forward. Take Mr. Forward’s horribly clunky heavy-handed writing, then couple it with a plot about humans meeting a race of shrimp-sized aliens who live in a blatantly bad rip-off of Arthurian society. And you’ll definitely need a brain scrub to get over the idea of these aliens having 130+ orifices – one to _excrete every element in the periodic table._ (I vaguely recall another bad sci-fi novel about an alien probe that crash-lands on a planet and then inadvertently creating a robotic analog of Victorian England, complete with robot genders and sex. I can’t remember the name of it, though…) ---
**Author:** ![LordVor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90ced4/32.png) [@LordVor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LordVor)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/24 "2004-12-16T00:22:04Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Stargate - Uh, gee - we found a magic arch that magically transports you to another planet with magic Egyptian dudes on it. What the hell were they smoking when they thought _that_ one up? When the movie ended, I remember having the following line of thought: 1. So, these people lived in the desert. No significant plant life, some various little scavangers. 2. It’s supposed to be like Egypt, only there’s no “river of life” to provide irrigation, fish, drinking water, etc. 3. So the gods must have been supplying those people with food and water to live on. 4. So by defeating the gods, the heroes have sentenced them all to a slow and horrible death. -lv ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/25 "2004-12-16T00:23:26Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > [**Camelot 30K,**](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312852150/qid=1103154420/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_5/002-8154966-6687210?v=glance&s=books) by Robert L. Forward. Take Mr. Forward’s horribly clunky heavy-handed writing, then couple it with a plot about humans meeting a race of shrimp-sized aliens who live in a blatantly bad rip-off of Arthurian society. And you’ll definitely need a brain scrub to get over the idea of these aliens having 130+ orifices – one to _excrete every element in the periodic table._ > > (I vaguely recall another bad sci-fi novel about an alien probe that crash-lands on a planet and then inadvertently creating a robotic analog of Victorian England, complete with robot genders and sex. I can’t remember the name of it, though…) **Code of the Lifemaker** about the sentient robots of Titan who evolved from a crashed von Neumann probe. Hogan proved he did not posess the gift of nomenclature in that one. The robots names were unthinkably ugly. It seemed more Renaissance Italian than Victorian England to me, if we are thinking of the same book. Thnak you ever so much for reminding me of that. I now need some acetone and steel wool to scrape it off my brain… ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/26 "2004-12-16T00:33:53Z")
Can _Lost in Space_ count, or does that fall under the category of children’s comedy? ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/27 "2004-12-16T00:43:47Z")
I vote for the robot assasin teddy bears in the horrible movie “screamers.” If your friend has proven bad taste in movies and he asks you to see an unknown movie with him, just say no. It is a toss up between screamers and aliens 4 for worst movie I have ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/28 "2004-12-16T00:46:51Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > Feh, the [_Logan’s Run_] TV series made the movie look like a David Lean epic. No kidding. [I absolutely **loved** the movie](http://www.stellar-database.com/non-ISDB/LogansRun.html) when it was out in the theaters (I was 10 years old), and couldn’t **wait** to see the series when it fonally premiered. Hoo boy. What was I thinkin’? And you know what I hated most about the TV series? **They didn’t have any lifeclocks on their palms!!** Grrr! How can you call it _Logan’s Run_ without colored crystals on your palm signifying your age?! ---
**Author:** ![Chotii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Chotii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chotii)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/29 "2004-12-16T01:17:14Z")
The worst SF book I ever read was Demon Pig by Karen Brush. I have no idea how it got published. The worst short story I’ve ever read isn’t published yet - it’s current among the stuff to be critiqued at [critters.org](http://critters.org). I’m talking MST3K quality stuff here, with characters so two dimensional they could be slipped through a door crack. At every new paragraph, I had to slap myself in the forehead. (And oddly, it was a story with real promise. But it sure needed work.) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/30 "2004-12-16T01:32:01Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Can _Lost in Space_ count, or does that fall under the category of children’s comedy? I had completely forgotten that film. Now you’ve reminded me. _You must suffer!!!_ ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/31 "2004-12-16T01:32:29Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Can _Lost in Space_ count, or does that fall under the category of children’s comedy? The TV show or the more recent movie? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/32 "2004-12-16T01:34:00Z")
> [@Aesiron](#): > > Sure, but you don’t know its true horror until you see it on a twenty foot screen in a mostly empty room with three of the other seven people that got suckered into paying $10 to see it. In our defense, \*Gladiator \*was sold out though. Dude, I was on the road at a trade show and had an evening to kill. I could have chosen the hotel channel pornography. But I chose to have the hotel on-demand give me Battlefield Earth instead. So I missed out on porn for it. I win. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/33 "2004-12-16T01:42:54Z")
> [@Jonathan Chance](#): > > Dude, I was on the road at a trade show and had an evening to kill. > > I could have chosen the hotel channel pornography. But I chose to have the hotel on-demand give me Battlefield Earth instead. > > So I missed out on porn for it. I win. But apparently you never made it through _Lost in Space._ So Washoe and I win. I honestly believe this is the only major production sci-fi film that’s actually worse than _Battlefield: Earth._ I actually tried to get my money back from the video store after watching THAT pile of dingo droppings. (No luck, though.) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/34 "2004-12-16T01:44:00Z")
> [@Laughing Lagomorph](#): > > The TV show or the more recent movie? I can enjoy the TV show of \*Lost in Space \* as camp, so it doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/35 "2004-12-16T01:45:39Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > And you know what I hated most about the TV series? **They didn’t have any lifeclocks on their palms!!** Grrr! How can you call it _Logan’s Run_ without colored crystals on your palm signifying your age?! Geez, without the life-crystals, what were they running _from?_ (I only saw one episode; something about an android holding a lasergun on a human, and though he couldn’t harm the human, the 'droid argued that the weapon might go off in the struggle if the human tried to take it). ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/36 "2004-12-16T02:06:35Z")
If we’re including novels, I believe _The Eye of Argon_ beats everything on the table, hands down. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/37 "2004-12-16T02:36:59Z")
I’m surprised that the thread has got this long without somebody mentioning the original _Battlestar Galactica_ (if you can use the word “original” to describe that StarWars knockoff). Especially that kid and his toy robot dog. Also, the Cylons were supposed to be these relentless war robots that drove the human race to extinction, except for a few dozen survivors, but they get their shiny metal asses kicked in every straight-up fight in the series, no matter what the odds were. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/38 "2004-12-16T02:40:08Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > Also, the Cylons were supposed to be these relentless war robots that drove the human race to extinction, except for a few dozen survivors, but they get their shiny metal asses kicked in every straight-up fight in the series, no matter what the odds were. YOU try shooting straight with your eye moving back and forth like that! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/39 "2004-12-16T03:14:38Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Stargate - Uh, gee - we found a magic arch that magically transports you to another planet with magic Egyptian dudes on it. What the hell were they smoking when they thought that one up? > [@Manduck](#): > > I’m surprised that the thread has got this long without somebody mentioning the original _Battlestar Galactica_ (if you can use the word “original” to describe that StarWars knockoff). Battlestar Galactica _totally_ trumps _Stargate_ for poorly-contrived “ancient astronaut” hocum. Okay, the Egyptian head-dress space helmets I can handle. It doesn’t make a lot of sense when you bring in the whole Twelve Tribes angle as well, though. And making the twelve home planets correspond with the signs of the Zodiac? Dude, that’s just silly. “I hail from Capricus – the goat planet. It smells a bit but it’s home to us.” “Hey, don’t talk to me about smell. I’m from Piscus.” “Hey, I don’t know why you don’t buy land on Virgus. What with our population dwindling away, real-estate is a steal.” ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/40 "2004-12-16T03:18:33Z")
The worst episode of the already bad Buck Rogers TV show: “Wilma Deering and the Seven Dwarfs”. You need anti-seizure medication to safely watch this, and you may still need counseling afterwards. Not only from Battle Beyond the Stars but also recycled into another couple of movies by the same outfit: The Spaceship That Looks Like A Uterus & Ovaries. Special Lifetime Disachievement Award goes to the hackneyed chiche of evil aliens who can disguise themselves as humans. (With presidential pardons for the twenty or so works where it actually was a good plot device.) The now mercifully extinct “Dinosaurs” That Are Iguanas With Fins Glued To Their Backs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049.md?page=3)