Worst SF Movie Ever?
I’m guessing by some of the responses to this week’s Wingin’ It that there are many different opinions out there about what the worst movie truly is.
So, what should we do about that?
First, let’s narrow down our focus.
While Showgirls truly is a horrid endeavor, I really was trying to limit the topic to SF movies, although it didn’t come across that way in the show. Besides, as video expert Randy said in Scream 2, it truly was absolutely terrifying, which makes it a horror flick, and not eligible for the list I had in mind.
Next, we have to disqualify horror flicks. We can have a separate contest for worst horror movie, but that’s for another day.
Now, do we include fantasy films too, or do we get rid of the sword and sorcery and stick to straight science fiction and science fantasy? And do we break this down from worst movie to include categories such as worst scene, worst opening, worst ending, worst dialogue, or stay on point with worst overall SF story project ever committed to film?
You tell me… I’m still mulling over things to talk about on the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas podcast…
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:39 pm
Interesting… it seems that a new release this weekend may instantly be vying for the honors: Check out this review of A Sound of Thunder.
Yes, I knew the movie would be awful, and that Bradbury would get filmically screwed, but I never expected to see that level of venting in a major outlet review. Almost makes me morbidly curious about it…
September 4th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Let’s do this just w/ SF. Otherwise, Labyrinth (or however the fuck you spell it) would win.
September 4th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
Oh, no, you, di’int!
Labyrinth is the shit!
Dance, magic dance!
September 4th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
Not counting the MST3K-treated clunkers, I would say it is a close tie between Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (in Super 3-D) and Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:49 pm
I agree, it’s almost unfair to allow the MST3K films; gotta be something that you really suffered through, without the aid of wisecracking robots.
And since I didn’t speak up on this while in the studio, I must direct you to 3 of the worst loads of crap ever:
“Fortress” (Christopher Lambert).
“The Dungeon Master” (Richard Moll). Yes, that guy. And yes, it is Sci-Fi.
“Bicentennial Man”. I’ll never forgive Robin Williams.
I should include Van Damme’s “Cyborg”, but … I kinda like that awful piece of crap.
September 4th, 2005 at 10:53 pm
I actually have a movie that would give a strong run for worst SF: Ice Pirates
and Labyrinth did redeem itself a bit by having a rather cool soundtrack.
September 5th, 2005 at 8:11 am
Has everyone forgot this one:
Yor: The Hunter from the Future
You couldn’t ask for a more bonafide piece of crap.
This movie has absolutely no saving graces.
September 5th, 2005 at 11:48 am
Oh, I’ve got the winner….
Zeon: Z3 or it might have been Xeon. Something like that. It’s a Disney movie that starts out on a space station with a girl in a pastel colored shuttle trying to parallel park (which should have been the first clue). She enters a race to the Moon where they are holding “Moonstock” (I kid you not). Apparently the moon has a ghostly spirit which makes it snow in space among other things. The Moon Goddess is played by a british actress dressed as a goth punk (with various piercings). Any ways… If you ever want to feel like Episode 1 was a GREAT movie, go check this one out!
~Lynn
(and yes Michael should get his own cult, and no, I’m not a stalker even if Evo thinks I am)
September 5th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
Does Krull count as fantasy or Sci-fi?
My vote goes for Nightfall. Nightfall was a GREAT Asimov story, but the movie left a LOT to be desired. Poor acting, complete lack of special effects. Love scenes that lacked everything, and no sign of an ending to the actual movie. It just sorta stopped playing.
September 5th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Krull is definitely fantasy, and if Yor is that movie about the super-powered longbow with a big red gem in it, yes, that was butt-awful, but it was also fantasy.
September 6th, 2005 at 5:00 am
I just had the displeasure of watching the abortion that is “Alone In The Dark”
Nothing could save this utter POS.
Freaking Tara Reid as a Archeologist/Historisn….hehehehehehehehehe
“Let’s bring the pathetic blonde bimbo down to fight the monsters…hrmmm okay”
September 6th, 2005 at 5:08 am
I just remembered the movie called either Inseminoid or Horror Planet.
This has to be the worst. ?
September 6th, 2005 at 6:17 am
As horrific as some of these movies are, can we really not mention some of the lame attempts by SciFi for movies on Saturday night? (Oh sure, they show Mansquito but the new Dr Who is “too British”?!? WTF??)
I’d have to say their adaptation of Riverworld was pretty bad.
September 6th, 2005 at 7:22 am
OK, I will go with Ice Pirates, and Wingcommander.
Yes, I did go and see Ice Pirates in the Theater. I can’t believe that I just owned up to that.
September 6th, 2005 at 7:44 am
A reporter friend of mine worked for the school paper back in high school, and she got to see a preview of Ice Pirates. When she got back to class, I asked her how it was, because I was a Robert Urich fan and wanted to see it… her rant had me on the floor laughing. It was the very first time I’d heard someone use “I want that two hours of my life back”, and I’ve been using it ever since. And no, I never saw it in theaters, but I did catch it when it hit cable.
And I think we have our categories! One category would be silver screen releases, and another category would be made-for-TV releases.
The downside of that is that SciFi Channel may well take the top 3 spots, and 5 out of the top 10.
Unless we also count all those mega-disaster TV movies as science fiction, which would then open the gates wide to include Fox and NBC Networks.
September 6th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
I don’t know why I would admit to this, but Galaxy of Terror needs to be on this list. Though it contains Robert Engulnd (of Freddy Kruger fame), Erin Moran (mostly famous for Joanie loves Chachi), and was co-directed by James Cameron, it is be far one of the worst movies (not just Sci-Fi) that I’ve ever seen.
Oh, and it’s on DVD now if you must own it.
September 6th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
I’ve seen more than my fair share of bad sf movie in my time but I’ve managed to block them from my memory.
September 7th, 2005 at 8:54 am
Has everyone blocked out the memory of that horrible piece of Travolta crap called Battlefield Earth? IMHO the worst movie every made!
September 7th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
Gman, glad to see you pay so much attention during our shows.
Summer nominated and I seconded Battlefield Earth. Can you believe that rumors of a sequel have been floating around recently?
September 7th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
How about a wonderful movie from 1979 with David Hasselhoff and Christopher Plummer …..”Star Crash” The bad guys ship looks like a hand and a robot that thinks it is John Wayne? This has to be one of the worst ever.
September 8th, 2005 at 5:55 am
For me, “Liquid Sky” (see http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0085852/) has to be *the* worst sci-fi movie ever. Yup, I’d rate it worse than what little I saw of Battlefield Earth. It seems that I am in a minority (according to many of the comments on IMDB - although the subject matter being mostly sex may have something to do with that)… but that’s my opinion.
September 8th, 2005 at 8:27 am
Not sure if this counts as SF or fantasy, but am I the only one that remembers the crap that was “Masters of the Universe”? Granted, it was from a cheesy cartoon, but the cartoon was more oscar worthy than that abortion. Dolph Lundgren: need I say more?
September 8th, 2005 at 8:30 am
Not sure if this counts as SF or fantasy, but am I the only one that remembers the crap that was “Masters of the Universe”? Granted, it was from a cheesy cartoon, but the cartoon was more oscar worthy than that abortion. Dolph Lundgren: need I say more?
September 8th, 2005 at 9:28 am
The absolute worst that I saw was the late 70’s “Starship Invaders” whose only redeaming qualitiy was that it had Robert Vaughn and Chris Lee. In it one group of aliens had teamed with humans on Earth to fight another group of aliens lead by Lee. The evil aliens were going to take over the Earth by beaming a ray over the whole planet that caused people to want to commit suicide. You know the movie is bad, when in a scene where one of the minor charcters is thinking about suicide and the person behind you starts yelling “Do it!, Do it!” just to hurry along the end!
September 8th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
You know I’ve not seen Battlefield Earth, though I think they should get Mike and the Bots back together so I could watch them mock it….that would be fun.
And I do remember seeing Wing Commander in theaters on opening day for free. A buddy had free passes and we went to see it..mainly to see the preview for Episode I.
September 8th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
Oh, God. Liquid Sky! If I could cut out the portion of my brain that holds the memory of seeing that flick, I’d do it without anaesthesia.
September 8th, 2005 at 10:45 pm
How about that Dolph Lungren vehicle “I Come in Peace” - a movie totally built around its tagline.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099817/
Major stupid.
And how about “Dark Star” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/
The John Carpenter film, whose alien is a beach ball with human hands. Very low budget and kinda hilarious - so I actually don’t remember it with hate, but I don’t think it could stand up to a repeat viewing.
I note that for 2 of the 4 actors it was the only thing they ever made, tho’ another went on to write Alien… (he obviously upgraded his alien monster!).
September 9th, 2005 at 8:49 am
What about Dracula 3000??
Is horror(ible)… it is Dracula after all…
Is sci fi… it is set on a space ship.
Begs the question “what makes sci fi?”
Philip
September 9th, 2005 at 10:47 am
And what about Plan 9 From Outer Space?
Has to be the worst. The bad guys were aliens… so must be sci fi. Mustn’t it?
Certainly is terrible.
Philip
September 9th, 2005 at 11:29 am
Ice Pirates definitly was a doozy. ugh.
I also remember another movie that was equally if not worse then that. It was called Game of Survival, or something like that. It was a futuistic movie where these people came back in time to search for a ball that had spikes. It was horrid. I believe the movie was shot in San Fran.
September 9th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
For me, the biggest criminal act committed by movie makers has to be “Starship Troopers”. With the possible exception of “Startship Troopers II”. I still think somebody ought to go to jail over those dogs.
September 11th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
Oh man, I completely forgot about “Liquid Sky”, and I saw that way back in the early 80s. I know I blocked both that and “I Come In Peace” out of my mind intentionally.
I think we need to have Jack do a Duel of the Fates Movie Edition, pitting these three plus one more against each other.
Plan 9 has one redeeming feature: cheapest sfx ever. A paper plate lit on fire and tossed like a frisbee… ’nuff said… I honestly don’t recall too much more than that, and I’m afraid to watch it again, because my brains would be in terrible danger.
September 12th, 2005 at 6:34 am
Unfortunately, there are a lot more bad scifi TV shows and movies then good ones. When we were kids, we accepted almost anything, and it’s hard to go back to some of that stuff!! I have been watching the Buck Rogers series from 1979-1980 and it is bad scifi!! I still enjoy it in a cheesy kind of way, but I would rather be watching thought provoking scifi, like the new BSG series!!
September 20th, 2005 at 12:07 am
Mission to Mars.
The ONLY movie I left the theatre furious about. Damn did that piece of crap piss me off. Basic Physics? Thrown right out the airlock, as if I’m too stupid to notice.
God, just thinking about it infuriates me.
September 20th, 2005 at 7:32 am
I have a confession to make: I have not yet been able to bring myself to see either Misson to Mars, Red Planet, or Ghosts of Mars.
So, how much pain and suffering have I saved myself, so far?
September 22nd, 2005 at 6:33 am
in my opinion the worst scifi i have had the misfortune to see was “The High Crusade” an adaptation of Poul Andersons novel of the same name. except for the basic story it has nothing in common with the novel. I didn’t expect much and i was still disappointed.
September 22nd, 2005 at 9:00 am
Highlander II: The Sickening
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:37 pm
Does Highlander 2 really still count after so many people have erased it’s existence from their minds?
August 7th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Good job.