# Worst Science Fiction Movie Ever **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 19, 2000, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742 "2000-09-19T17:06:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lucie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed8c4c/32.png) [@lucie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucie)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/21 "2000-09-19T21:36:42Z")
Even limiting this to high-profile, really expensive bad sci-fi movies, you’re still spoilt for choice. Species - although I expect some people consider this worth watching for strictly skin reasons. But it was a terrible film. Battlefield Earth - I only saw part of it, and that was waaay too much. John Travolta owes big time for forcing that steaming pile of ill-advised ego-dung on us. If this is what being a Scientologist makes you do, no wonder it has the bad rep it does. Lost in Space - It must have looked better on paper, because they got some good actors involved, but damn, what happened? What a dull, incoherent mess! And I don’t even want to get into “ID4”. Absurd trash with a couple good performances, but it peaked 15 minutes into the film when the alien ships wiped out most of the major cities in the world. Talk about expensive premature ejaculations. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/22 "2000-09-19T22:30:01Z")
I love sci-fi films, but finding _good_ sci-fi films is like biting around for marshmallows in a stirred trough of pigshit. The really bad ones, well, at least they have some consistency. It’s the mushy, mediocre ones that really piss me off. I have a lot of rules to help me stay away from run-of-the-mill bad science fiction at the vid store. Here’s a few of them. Avoid: Any film that purports itself to be just like the A-list blockbuster of the previous year. Like _Carnosaur_. Any sci-fi film which has a title ending in the letters e-r-s. (_Scanners, Trancers, Troopers_, etc. If I someday see a film that ends in “_Dopers_,” I may reconsider.) Almost all sci-fi films depict sphincters somewhere in the film. Avoid the ones that have sphincters on the cover. (_Independence Day, Sphere_) Michael Chricton. Sorry, Mike, but I’m gonna need a helluva testimonial about your next film before I pay to go see it. I think it was the laser-shooting monkeys that ended it for me. Is there a “gravity switch” in the film? You might be in trouble, but there are exceptions. That having been said, I have to admit that I LOVE _Plan 9 From Outer Space_, so please keep in mind this is just an opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/23 "2000-09-19T22:42:24Z")
You think SCANNERS was a bad film? Some of the later ones, sure, but the original, or even the first sequel? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/24 "2000-09-19T23:28:41Z")
Well, all right. I’ll give you the exploding heads. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/25 "2000-09-20T01:15:11Z")
I went to see **Virtuosity** with high hopes. It was about 10 minutes in when I realized the only way I was going to be able to tolerate it was to MST3K that loser. What a laughably awful movie. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/26 "2000-09-20T01:17:38Z")
Space Mutiny. It was ON MST3K…and boy, was it a stinker… ---
**Author:** ![Scribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Scribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribe)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/27 "2000-09-20T01:20:10Z")
Fortunately, I haven’t seen Battlefield Earth, yet. Thanks for the warning. ---
**Author:** ![JBENZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b77776/32.png) [@JBENZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBENZ)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/28 "2000-09-20T03:05:01Z")
Hmmmmpf…how quickly they forget the truly awful: “Night of the Lepus” The entire Maltin Review is: “Rabbits weighing 150 pounds and standing four feet high terrorize the countryside; National Guard, not Elmer Fudd, comes to the rescue.” ---
**Author:** ![Timon\_of\_Athens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@Timon\_of\_Athens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timon_of_Athens)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/29 "2000-09-20T03:13:47Z")
Allow me to nominate a little piece of poo staring Farrah Fawcett and Kirk Douglas, Saturn 3. As the Internet Movie Database say, the plot is: Two lovers stationed at a remote base in the asteroid fields of Saturn are intruded upon by a retentive technocrat from Earth and his charge: a malevolent 8-ft robot. Remember, in space no one can hear you scream… Yeah, great. Farrah loses her clothing while being chased by a killer robot with Kirk as the mad scientist. Bad plot, bad acting, bad special effects and bad cinematography; it’s the unholy quadinity. This thing was boring even in puberty and sneaking a peek at late-night HBO. Time in my life that can never be returned. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/30 "2000-09-20T03:34:22Z")
“Santa Claus Conquers the Martians”. [http://us.imdb.com/Title?0058548](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0058548) I’ve never seen it–but I mean…come _ON_. Just read the title. 😛 On a side note–the users at IMDB rated this movie with a “2.1”. Making it #54 of the IMDB “Bottom 100” movies of all time. As for a movie I have first-hand experience with–Stargate. Probably the only sci-fi movie I saw that had me dozing off halfway through it. I was even able to stay awake through “Lost in Space”. -Ashley ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/31 "2000-09-20T03:45:40Z")
Wait! Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is great! It has “Let’s Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas!” Oh, wait. With_out_ the MST3k guys? :: shudders :: ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/32 "2000-09-20T03:57:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Michael Chricton. Sorry, Mike, but I’m gonna need a helluva testimonial about your next film before I pay to go see it. I think it was the laser-shooting monkeys that ended it for me. Wasn’t that in Austin Powers? No, no, those were laser-shooting sharks. JONES’S FIFTEENTH LAW: When a movie seriously presents something that was presented as a joke in an Austin Powers film, the movie has problems. The film I totally forgot about - but I’m not exactly sure it was science fiction, per se - was **Highlander II: The Quickening** Friends, I have seen many bad movies. I saw “Deep Blue Sea” and booed as the credits rolled. I actually paid money to see “Deep Impact.” I tried to watch the Liam Neeson version of “Les Miserables” but halfway through I wanted to kill myself. “Home Alone 3” was so bad that had I not walked away from it I would have been driven insane. Remember “Shanghai Surprise”? - I do, in my nightmares. But, there has never, ever, EVER been a movie as bad as Highlander II. Every conceivably aspect of cinema as art was plumbed to new depths of suckitude in Highlander II. “Sucked” does not do this film justice; “Felch” only scratches the surface. Highlander II wasn’t even bad the way “Showgirls” was bad, funny and stupid; it was bad in a bleak, horrifying way that would make the Pope lose his faith in God. Name an aspect of film. Plot? Highlander II’s plot was so bad it not only ruined the original, it ruined unrelated films in adjacent theatres. Instead of being magical immortals, they’re all aliens! Yes! From the planet Zeist! You betcha! Acting? Christopher Lambert turns in one of his worst performances, which is like saying “Charles Manson turns in one of his worst murders.” Michael Ironside was appalling. Even Sean Connery was bad. Screenplay? The dialogue for this film was so bad that some years back it’s my understanding the Writer’s Guild of America had every copy burned, buried in the Mojave Desert, and had the ground around it seeded with salt, with the area being guarded by a crack team of U.S. Rangers with orders to shoot on sight. Dialogue this bad could not have been written by human beings alone; it’s clear that Satan’s hand guided their pens. Compared to Highlander II’s dialogue, “Plan 9 From Outer Space” sounds like “The Godfather.” Direction? Highlander II is virtually pitch black, not that that saves you from the sucking, which oozes from every frame. Every scene is shot from illogical, distracting angles. Actors block each other out. There is no continuity or logical editing. Sound? Music? No film has ever had a worse soundtrack. Visual effects? If you want a laugh, watch the part where Michael Ironside’s character takes over a subway and makes it go 400mph… if that doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, nothing will. Highlander II sucks worse than anything that has ever sucked before or since. It sucks in every frame, in every stilted word of dialogue, every shitty block, every pathetic attempt at mise-en-scene, every note of Stewart Copeland’s awful score. The POSTERS suck. It sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks. It is the worst sci-fi movie of all time, the worst ANY movie of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Danielinthewolvesden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Danielinthewolvesden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danielinthewolvesden)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/33 "2000-09-20T05:28:55Z")
Well, Plan 9, maybe was, and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes definately was not made to be taken seriously. What I think is bad is Movies that folks SAY are SF, but are not. Alien was a horror movie. Set in a spaceship, true, but just another slasher flick. They made 2 pretty good HP Lovecraft movies for TV, with Hp being a PI that does not use magic in a world where everyone does. Not bad, but not true genre, either. Anyone remember the titles? Not having seen BE, I would have to go with Highlander II, altho they re-released it, as a directors cut, which got rid of all the “alien” crap, and wasn’t a bad movie. However, there were 2 “earth almost destroyed by meteors/comet” films released a while ago. The one with Bruce Willis in it was OK, the other was dreck, dreck, dreck. ---
**Author:** ![Sxyzzx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sxyzzx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sxyzzx)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/34 "2000-09-20T05:39:10Z")
IMDb’s list of the bottom 10 sci-fi movies: 10 Yusei oji (1959) 1.6/10 (153 votes) 9 Giant Spider Invasion, The (1975) 1.6/10 (268 votes) 8 Space Mutiny (1988) 1.6/10 (535 votes) 7 Future War (1995) 1.6/10 (393 votes) 6 Uchu Kaisoku-sen (1961) 1.6/10 (122 votes) 5 Eye Creatures, The (1965) 1.6/10 (167 votes) 4 Monstrosity (1964) 1.5/10 (50 votes) 3 Nuevos extraterrestres, Los (1983) 1.5/10 (220 votes) 2 Zaat (1982) 1.5/10 (178 votes) 1 Hobgoblins (1987) 1.4/10 (639 votes) ---
**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:** [September 20, 2000, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/35 "2000-09-20T07:03:10Z")
See, the problem with trying to name a “worst” movie is that many really bad movies are actually entertaining in their ineptness. _Plan 9 From Outer Space_, for example, was so incompetently made that it’s laughed at to this day. Therein lies the problem: the movie is being enjoyed, albeit not in a fashion that the director intended. The absolute worst movie must be more than merely inept or ludicrous; it must be _boring_, and unwatchably so. Following that criterion, I nominate _Maximum Overdrive_. Incidentally, you _Highlander II_ bashers have to read the [_Highlander II_ review at Jabootu](http://www.jabootu.com/highlander2.htm). It’s long, but freakin’ hilarious, and it mercilessly mocks the movie scene by scene. ---
**Author:** ![Kilt-wearin\_man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kilt-wearin\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilt-wearin_man)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/36 "2000-09-20T07:09:00Z")
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed how bad Highlander2 was - did the screenwriters actually WATCH the original? What the hell were they thinking? Of course, the cast a French guy as a Scottish Highlander, and a Scotsman as an Egyptian turned Spaniard…so whaddaya expect? At least the series was watchable. Usually. You forgot to mention the special (HAH!) effects - visible wires on flying morons, obvious plastic model airplanes, cheezy fake skies…and Virginia Madsen and Sean Connery wandering around looking for a decent movie to star in…and worst of all, the girlfriend I had at the time thought it was the coolest thing she’d ever seen…I guess that should have been a red flag, huh? Oh, and while we’re talking about disavowed sequels, does anyone remember Star Trek V? Yeesh… ---
**Author:** ![DRY](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a87d85/32.png) [@DRY](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DRY)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/37 "2000-09-20T08:09:52Z")
Another vote for Star Trek V. Actually, movies like Robot Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space are at least amusing to watch (if not for the reasons that the writers/directors/producers intended!). But Star Trek V (aka, “ **William Shatner’s ego defecating on screen** ”) is just PAINFUL to watch. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/38 "2000-09-20T09:05:31Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by RickJay \* \*\* > [@](#): > > But, there has never, ever, EVER been a movie as bad as Highlander II. Every conceivably aspect of cinema as art was plumbed to new depths of suckitude in Highlander II. > \*\* Hey! Good news! There’s a Highlander III (Highlander:the Endgame) out in theaters RIGHT NOW! And to think there are people on this board who want to claim there’s a God. ---
**Author:** ![mazirian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@mazirian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazirian)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/39 "2000-09-20T09:18:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by betenoir \* > Hey! Good news! There’s a Highlander III (Highlander:the Endgame) out in theaters RIGHT NOW! Uhh… That’s Highlander IV. Highlander III: The Sorcerer came out in 1994, I’m not suprised you didn’t notice, no one did. ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742/40 "2000-09-20T10:36:07Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by mazirian \* \*\* [QUOTE Uhh… That’s Highlander IV. Highlander III: The Sorcerer came out in 1994, I’m not suprised you didn’t notice, no one did. \*\*[/QUOTE] Thanks, mazirian. Wow. Just when you think you’re being pessimistic, it turns out life is even worse than you thought. I stand by the rest of my statement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-science-fiction-movie-ever/33742.md?page=3)