# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![phaishazamkhan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@phaishazamkhan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phaishazamkhan)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/41 "2004-12-16T03:22:59Z")
firefly ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/42 "2004-12-16T03:27:24Z")
HERETIC!!! ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/43 "2004-12-16T03:27:46Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > 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.) Nah. Lost In Space actually had some babes in it. As for _Stargate_ what I really wanted to know while watching that turd was…who teh hell wrote all that stuff in the pyramid about the Alien Guy? How did their GOD’s life story end up on a wall…did his biographer go rogue or something? -Joe ---
**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:** [December 16, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/44 "2004-12-16T03:37:00Z")
I. Walter Farley, he of the **Black Stallion** series, also did a series about a horse named Flame who lived in the heart of a tiny island, and a kid who found and rode him. At a certain point, Farley decided he wanted to have the island stallion in a horse-race but he still wanted Flame to be this undiscovered horse running wild and free… what to do, what to do? Ooooh, how about if we have these space aliens come down and land on the island, and they take an interest in horse racing, you see, and then they manage to get Flame registered as an unknown entrant and they fly the horse and the kid to the races in the flying saucer, you see… [(_The Island Stallion Races_)](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394843754/qid=1103167885/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1275728-4156622?v=glance&s=books) II. Jacqueline (_“Valley of the Dolls”_ Susann does sci-fi. Manages to get snarfed up by the swashbuckling extraterrestrial known as [_The Yargo_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553128558/qid=1103167978/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1275728-4156622?v=glance&s=books), with whom after a due turnaround time of a few chapters falls madly in bed with him… ---
**Author:** ![Glassy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@Glassy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glassy)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/45 "2004-12-16T03:38:21Z")
Can we award an honorable mention to novelist **Lin Carter**? He wrote a lot of books, all of them (as far as I can tell) either (a) cheesy ripoffs of Robert Howard’s Conan, or (b) cheesy ripoffs of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. He was the cheesy ripoff king. He also edited numerous fantasy anthologies for Dell and Daw, and he always included samples of his own immortal prose in his own anthologies, even those purporting to be “The Year’s Best.” Horrible, derivative, yet strangely entertaining crap. Sample: > [@](#): > > Then the boy turned to explore this peculiar ring of monoliths … where even the fanged predators of the sky dared not come near. This circle of stones which mailed dragons of might dared not pass! Oh, and I remember an episode of the Buck Rogers tv show in which some villain tried to \*melt \* our hero and heroine, by putting them in a hot place. They got all shiny. But then they were saved. ---
**Author:** ![JDeMobray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@JDeMobray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JDeMobray)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/46 "2004-12-16T03:49:14Z")
> [@Glassy](#): > > Can we award an honorable mention to novelist **Lin Carter**? He wrote a lot of books, all of them (as far as I can tell) either (a) cheesy ripoffs of Robert Howard’s Conan, or (b) cheesy ripoffs of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. He was the cheesy ripoff king. He also wrote middling ripoffs of H.P. Lovecraft - which is quite a feat since most Lovecraft ripoffs are either indistinguishable from Lovecraft or truly terrible. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/47 "2004-12-16T03:54:27Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > 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. Come on now…you got to see a slightly-undressed Erin Grey…that can’t be all bad. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/48 "2004-12-16T05:55:35Z")
> [@bubastis](#): > > What wins your vote for worst sci-fi creation ever? It can be a character, place, device, anything at all, as long as when you were watching a Sci-fi show or movie, you spooted it/them and thought " WTF?". I personally have to go for Darwin, the talking dolphin from shipwrecked mega bomb Seaquest:DSV. Eek Eek Eek Lucas Friend Darwin Swim Eek Eek shut the hell up. Hey , no one has mentioned starlost yet Declan ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/49 "2004-12-16T06:28:26Z")
Oh my ghod. The Starlost. I liked that show when I was about 9, but only because of the cool spaceship/ark model. Remember the Librarian with the cokebottle glasses, whose image was displayed on the round-screened terminals, and who would respond to any inquiry with this weird singsong “Can I …_hellp_ you”? And the bounce tubes between the arcologies…? I wonder whether it’s available on DVD? 😃 I remember seeing Logan’s Run in the theatre when I was 13, and thinking it totally sucked. Then later that summer I saw a little ad for another SF movie, and thought the title sounded really cheesy, but I convinced my sister to take me anyways, and it turned out to totally awesome… [sub]the original Star Wars[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/50 "2004-12-16T06:37:02Z")
No, no, no. If we’re including books, there is one and only one clear choice: The “Mission Earth” series, by L. Ron Hubbard. I don’t have time now, but do a search and you’ll find many of my fine rants about this pile of dung that I’ve posted in the past. I cannot see threads like this go past without putting in a plug for how awful these books are. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/51 "2004-12-16T06:37:04Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > But apparently you never made it through _Lost in Space._ So Washoe and I win. In which case I win, too. Although I don’t feel like a winner, nor would I call the people who took me with them ‘winners.’ I think I only see bad movies when friends talk me into it… ---
**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, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/52 "2004-12-16T06:42:19Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Come on now…you got to see a slightly-undressed Erin Grey…that can’t be all bad. I remember that! I was old enough to be interested, but young enough to not quite realize how TV works, and I remember being freaken **PISSED** that they cut to commercial before those little bastards got her clothes off. -lv ---
**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, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/53 "2004-12-16T09:00:43Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > **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. Yep, that’s the one. I distinctively remember that I was rolling my eyes by page 6, when he got into the “evolution” of “genders” among the robots, and wanted to shoot someone by page 9, when the _faux_ robo-Italy popped up (so I got the wrong European country, big deal). > [@DrFidelius](#): > > Thnak you ever so much for reminding me of that. I now need some acetone and steel wool to scrape it off my brain… And thank you very much for reminding me of the title, though I’m sure I’ll regret it in less than six seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/54 "2004-12-16T12:03:36Z")
There was a cheesy live-action Saturday morning sci-fi show (not Land of the Lost, so don’t go there) that made other cheesy Sat. morning shows look like gold by comparison. It was done in a ‘Flash Gordon’ style serial except that nothing ever happened. The hero had a pet pocket robot that was essentially just a wind up toy. Every episode our hero would be caught and chained to the wall. The pocket robot would come out (never got confiscated) climb up the wall, foot over foot wind-up toy style, and then ‘zap’ the chains and free our hero. Every.Single.Episode. had this happen. It seemed to be filmed in a cheesy cave. I think the baddies spaceship was a giant lump of coal. All I remember is it being on late 70’s in the wake of Star Wars (get anything sci-fi on TV now!) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/55 "2004-12-16T13:16:56Z")
My favourite sci-fi book ever is Space Troopers. I first read it when I was seventeen, and “talking with a soldier in his first leave after boot camp” was a prime social skill for a girl living 60 miles from a big military base. All-male compulsory military service, back then in Spain. Oh, and the military base is shared by them yankees, so “being able to understand what a yankee soldier on leave says before he tries to grab a piece of you that you don’t want grabbed” was a big skill, too. The boot camp stories are SOOOO much like the ones told by those soldiers, I fell off the sofa. Twice. After the second time, I decided it would be safer to stay on the floor. So when I got to the part about wanting to get guard duty so you’ll have the chance to hear a female voice or even _gasp_see a female member of the species, I didn’t fall off anything, but I rolled over so hard that I bumped against the closet and my parents came into the room to check if I was all right. I absolutely. Completely. ForEVER and EVER amen and until a thousand years after the Second Coming refuse to watch the filthy so-called-movie “starring” Ben Affleck which has been reported to me as having as its best moment the co-ed showers with displays of tits (I’m more into Affleck myself, although I still haven’t forgiven him for that so-called-movie) The movie version of “a brave new world” did the nasty with goats, too. Book’s good, but I don’t recommend it if you’re already feeling down. ---
**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, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/56 "2004-12-16T13:29:13Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The movie version of “a brave new world” did the nasty with goats, too. Book’s good, but I don’t recommend it if you’re already feeling down. You’re talking about the made-for-TV version that starred Leonard Nimoy as Mustapha Mond, right? Yeah, I regret wasting two hours of my life on that atrocity, too. That film was the second made-for-TV flick based on Huxley’s novel. There was another made back in the '70’s, though I seem to be the only person in the world who ever watched it. It stank, too. Not as bad as _Lost in Space_, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/57 "2004-12-16T13:40:48Z")
Pikers, all of you. Flash Gordon, the movie. Smart old-gut scientist, woman reporter without a clue, and a professional football quarterback get into a rocket. Hilarity ensues. The entire Universe is saved. But the worse part of this was how they were able to travel from planet to planet in Ming’s system without life support on open air cruise ships and jet sleds. And, of course, Queen performing “The Wedding March.” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/58 "2004-12-16T13:53:34Z")
Nava writes: \> . . . the filthy so-called-movie “starring” Ben Affleck . . . What are you talking about? Ben Affleck wasn’t in _Starship Troopers_. ---
**Author:** ![Uvula\_Donor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e19adc/32.png) [@Uvula\_Donor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uvula_Donor)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/59 "2004-12-16T13:53:51Z")
For me, the Queen soundtrack was the only thing that made Flash Gordon worth sitting through. Most of the contenders for Worst Ever have been chosen, but… Despite a wonderful scene with a hot young Sherilyn Fenn practically bursting out of a tiny bikini, \*The Wraith \* with Charlie Sheen set new standards of suckiness in 1986 when it was released. And let’s not forget \*Masters of the Universe \* with Dolph Lundgren. Or \*Timerider \* with Fred Savage. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049/60 "2004-12-16T13:54:45Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > YOU try shooting straight with your eye moving back and forth like that!😃 Hey, if you are going to quote from Mad Magazine, you have to credit it! My nominee: David Lynch’s version of [Dune](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/) (q984). Man! Did that ever REEK!!! And I was never a big fan of the novel, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-sci-fi-ever/280049.md?page=4)