# Poor science fiction blockbuster films



## Studying (Dec 27, 2012)

Hey!

I'm looking to reference a film in a study I am doing. 

I am looking for a very well known science fiction film but I want it to be well known in the world of Science Fiction for being a total flop and a terrible film!

If anyone can offer me any examples of very poor science fiction blockbuster films that would be fantastic!


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## Gordian Knot (Dec 27, 2012)

Your statement is unclear. Do you want a suggestion for a film that is well known amongst SF fans and enjoyed by SF fans, but flopped amongst general movie goers?

Or are you looking for a film that was highly regarded amongst general movie goers, i.e., made a good amount at the box office, but was panned by SF fans.

I "think" you are looking for the latter, but want to double check.


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## Victoria Silverwolf (Dec 27, 2012)

*Battlefield Earth* was very famous for being an SF film that generated a lot of hatred.

Here's a mock poster that quotes some of the very bad reviews it got.


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## Rodders (Dec 27, 2012)

I still haven't seen it. 

We've recently had John Carter released that was a huge flop for Disney. I can't say whether it was bad or not, but I do want to see it. 

The Core. (How I loathe that movie.)

Stealth (a guilty pleasure and one that I felt was not really given the credit it deserved.)


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## alchemist (Dec 27, 2012)

As per GK's questions, I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but *Prometheus* seemed acceptable to the general public but SF fans (Alien fans in particular) didn't like it.


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## Jo Zebedee (Dec 27, 2012)

Dune; did well, but generally seen as a pretty poor telling of the book.

John Carter is probably the best example of being a total flop both with sci fi lovers and in general, which I think is what you're asking?


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## Abernovo (Dec 27, 2012)

What's the reference for, and why are you asking us to do your research for you? 

Not quite sure what sort of thing you're after, but if it's bad science in Science Fiction movies, I give you *The Day After Tomorrow* (2004), *Deep Impact* (1998), and *Armageddon* (1998). *Volcano* (1997) is also a bit iffy, but it's got Tommy Lee Jones, who makes most movies fun, so I give it a bit of leeway.

Deep Impact actually didn't do that well at the box office, despite being a better film (in my opinion) than Armageddon, and having a little more scientific accuracy in it. Not a difficult task, though, that. 

And, please, *2012*? John Cusack, what were you thinking?

Give us a bit more information to work with, please, Studying.


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## JunkMonkey (Dec 27, 2012)

Though I think_ Battlefield Earth_ should be on any all-time terrible film list  I would suggest _Red Planet_ (2000).  SFishly it's utter pants, as a film it's a stiff, and it bombed at the box office.



			
				 JunkMonkey's Film Diary said:
			
		

> *Red Planet* (2000) - The first manned mission to Mars goes tits  up.  The movie fell to pieces before the end of the opening credits, the  plot had more holes than a lace doily, and Terrence Stamp forgot to act  - probably deliberately. He did play most of his scenes with Val Kilmer  (the 'star' of the show) and was, presumably, instructed to make Kilmer  look good. (As evidence for this almost certainly libellous assertion  I'll point at a deleted scene included on the DVD where Stamp is playing  opposite another actor and almost looks interested in what he is  saying.)  Another £1.20 (inc. postage) wasted on eBay.  I really should  learn shouldn't I?  If it's going for  £1.20 (inc. postage) on eBay  there's probably _a very good reason_. ?
> _Red Planet_ has more than its fair share of SF  movie  illiteracies and dead pure stupid moments but the one that made me   really spill my gravy* while watching it tonight was the moment when   heroic Val Kilmer - having walked for 19 hours across the Martian   desert, survived attacks from a killer robot, an ice storm with   temperatures of -50F, killer exploding nematodes, and all the rest,   finally reaches the 30 year old Russian unmanned explorer which is to be   his salvation.  (It failed to launch see, so if he can hot-wire it and   sit in the box on top where the Russians were going to shove rock   samples, he might just make it into orbit - just in front of the mother   ship piloted by Carrie-anne Moss five minutes before she *has* to burn the big engines and blast for home, because if she doesn't there won't be enough fuel to get back etc... - its one of _those _movies.)
> Anyway, arriving at the site of the 30 year old piece of s*** Russian   lander he prizes off a panel and fires up the 30 year old Russian   computer within.  Clickity-click! Aha here it comes now up on the   screen...
> 
> ...





			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> *Box office*
> _Red Planet_ opened at #5 at the North American box office making $8.7 million USD in its opening weekend. The film was a box office bomb, grossing $33 million worldwide against an estimated budget of $80 million.
> 
> * Critical response*
> The film received negative reviews, with only a 14% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 100 reviews.Stephen Holden's review in the _New York Times_  was almost entirely negative, calling the film "a leaden, skimpily  plotted space-age Outward Bound adventure with vague allegorical  aspirations that remain entirely unrealized."


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## TheTomG (Dec 28, 2012)

2012 was fun! Hahah - it was film makers living out the old childhood games where you would take your plane and legos and a car and have the plane swoop under the car as it jumped from one crashing building to another, all the while going "Nyyyeeerrrrrrr!" in that childhood engine-noise that kids are prone to make. Did it make any sense? Not any more than those games used to! Heh.

Prometheus was epically bad. So bad, it almost undoes all the good of Ridley Scott's career and fills me with dread about the Bladerunner sequel.


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## zaltys13 (Dec 30, 2012)

For me it's got to be the utter stupidity of Independence Day. Stargate was pretty awful as well.

Anything thats got Michael Bay's name on it is also completely unwatchable for me.

Prometheus wasn't a great film but it certainly isn't in the same band of awfulness as the above films/director.


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## dask (Dec 31, 2012)

Haven't seen it but I heard SCREAMERS (Dick's great short story "Second Variety") was disappointing.


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## LeprechaunKiller (Jan 5, 2013)

At least *Battleship* and *Battlefield Earth* are so bad they're good.

*Adventures of Pluto Nash* is so bad I heard the CIA uses it for torture lol

One of the best worst-movies of all time is* Dark Angel* with Dolph Lundgren, its a buddy cop movie about fighting alien drug dealers!  Masterpiece.  I love it. lol


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 6, 2013)

I think the original _Star Trek_ movie might qualify? People loved it at the time, but if you truly take a good look at the movie, it's pretty terrible, to be honest. When you have _Star Wars: A New Hope _to compare it to around the same time, I really don't understand how _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ became such a big blockbuster movie.


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## steve12553 (Jan 6, 2013)

Warren_Paul said:


> I think the original _Star Trek_ movie might qualify? People loved it at the time, but if you truly take a good look at the movie, it's pretty terrible, to be honest. When you have _Star Wars: A New Hope _to compare it to around the same time, I really don't understand how _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ became such a big blockbuster movie.


 
It's an age thing. You're not old enough to have lost Star Trek due to the early television rating system that did not understand which side of their bread was buttered. ST:TMP was the return of the best Space franchise (to that point) ever. Star Trek is like pizza. When it's good, it's very good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good. That's why Abram's over-special effect, over-action films still work.


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## Grimward (Jan 6, 2013)

Aw, zaltys beat me to Independence Day (Good Job!).

There are more than a few other candidates here, though....


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 6, 2013)

I didn't actually think Independence Day is that bad... but I seem to be the minority in that respect. I've certainly watched and enjoyed it multiple times.




steve12553 said:


> It's an age thing. You're not old enough to have lost Star Trek due to the early television rating system that did not understand which side of their bread was buttered. ST:TMP was the return of the best Space franchise (to that point) ever. Star Trek is like pizza. When it's good, it's very good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good. That's why Abram's over-special effect, over-action films still work.



So it's good just because it's Star Trek, and the quality of the script/plot isn't taken into consideration at all? Half the movie was them going around and around the Enterprise in a shuttle and travelling through a tunnel-like thing in space for ages with absolutely plot development or whatever. If that's really what people consider good back then, then they were naive and very easy to please. The second movie was hugely improved, as if the writers themselves realised that spending so long doing boring stuff for the sake of eye-candy was a mistake, or did they just learn off their competition (George Lucas)?

I still can't understand that, considering Star Wars came out before it yet was much better quality. They didn't spend forever showing the Millennium Falcon from all angles, they didn't do massive, half hour long laps around the Death Star. They didn't spend half an hour with the Millennium Falcon approaching the Death Star for the first time. The story flowed quick and efficiently. It was engaging and kept me watching the whole way through. Star Trek: TMP was incredibly boring. Don't get me wrong, I like Star Trek, and have watched most of it, including a large portion of the original series, and just can't understand what the producers were thinking when they did the movie.

But from the sounds of it, Star Trek fits perfectly then with what the OP is after. A terrible movie that people loved regardless, just because of its IP.


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## Huttman (Jan 7, 2013)

The original Star Trek was a great film. It has a unique feel to it. They really seemed to be going for a 2001 feel or an epic feel that movies used to have. The problem is they made it 20 years too late. The directors cut trims off about 15 minutes and  improves a couple of sfx shots. I have no problem with a 5 minute joyride around the Enterprise as it was the first time in 15 years anyone had seen it. Kirk and Scott love that ship so much and that scene showed it, along with some great music. The story was good enough for me, although it was supposed to be a made for TV movie to kick off Star Trek: Phase II. Paramount pushed it to the big screen to jump on the Star Wars band wagon. I enjoy The  Motion Picture very much for what it is.
Stargate is another movie I'm surprised someone mentioned. I thought it was done well, again had an old timey epic feel but a rather unique take for a sci-fi movie. Now I want to see it again. Thanks!


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 7, 2013)

I too like the first Star Trek film, something big about it. Then they rebooted the series immediately with a new (old) look afterwards. meh.

As for other reels of pure toxic cinematic gank: 

*Waterworld *springs to mind. I'd admonish you lot for now making me remember it, but to be frank it's just a mish-mash of images of mad max-esque props floating on an ocean to me now...

*Flesh Gordon* was pretty goddamn awful. And I admit going to see it in a cinema (And not a dirty man cinema either, it was an Odeon multiplex.) A bit like the _Confessions of..._ series of films in terms of on screen titillation. It made me feel unclean after watching it.


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 7, 2013)

I really liked Waterworld, and didn't consider it a low-budget/poorly done movie for its age at all.


But Flash Gorden was definitely bad.


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## alchemist (Jan 7, 2013)

Flash Gordon? Watch *Ted *and you'll see it in a different light.


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 7, 2013)

Venusian Broon said:


> *Flesh Gordon* was pretty goddamn awful. And I admit going to see it in a cinema (And not a dirty man cinema either, it was an Odeon multiplex.) A bit like the _Confessions of..._ series of films in terms of on screen titillation. It made me feel unclean after watching it.



Really?  I love _Flesh Gordon_ it's so stupid and enthusiastic.
Any film with a character called 'Dr Flexi Jerkoff' has got to have _something. _ It's a brilliant example of the 70s Golden Age of 'let's get naked and make a movie!' porn.  Before it all got formulaic and stuffed full of silicon ... apparently ....

erm.. (note to self: stop digging...)

...anyway! _Flesh Gordon_ can hardly be described as a 'blockbuster'.


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 8, 2013)

Oh. I thought it was a typo...


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 8, 2013)

I liked_ Flash Gordon_ too.  

The trouble with _Flash Gordon_ is that most people who knock it are comparing it with Hollywood SF films of the period.  _Flash_, though dripping with Americana is in fact an Italian film and comes right out of Italian trash culture.  Instead of viewing it alongside _Star Wars_, _Silent Running_ and _Blade Runner _it should be seen in the tradition of _Barbarella_, _Danger: Diabolik_, _Wild, Wild Planet, __Cosmos: War of the Planets, _and _Starcrash_.  Just as Sergio Leone's films took the Western's tropes and applied great dollops of Italian sensibilities (and Japanese ones; he did nick most of it from Kurosawa) _Flash_ is larded through with (very restrained) euro-sleaze.

By Italian SF standards, _Flash Gordon_ is a masterpiece.


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## biodroid (Jan 8, 2013)

*Red Planet* was particularly boring and not that great.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 8, 2013)

JunkMonkey said:


> ...anyway! _Flesh Gordon_ can hardly be described as a 'blockbuster'.


 
Yes you're quite right. I just got carried away thinking about bad SF films. 
Perhaps it's veering into the 'so bad it's good' territory. 

_Flash_ Gordon was a pretty good romp and quite a nice homage to the old series. Lead characters were swamped by the stellar supporting cast a bit. But any film with Brian Blessed has the thumb up from me.


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## Fried Egg (Jan 9, 2013)

Just want to voice my support for Flash Gordon; it was a superb film. Light hearted fun, true, but absolutely fantastic. I've seen it too many times to mention. Great soundtrack too...


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## Vince W (Jan 16, 2013)

One that springs to mind is the achingly bad *Paycheck*. This film is a perfect example of Dick done badly.


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## Dr Bloodmoney (Jan 17, 2013)

Warren_Paul said:


> I really liked Waterworld, and didn't consider it a low-budget/poorly done movie for its age at.
> 
> 
> That's because it wasn't a low budget movie, it was the highest budget movie of all time up to that point (about 1995ish). So cast in that light it really was a failure, who puts Kevin Costner in anything that important? Weird.


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 17, 2013)

I really liked Kevin Costner in Waterworld, and as an actor on the whole... 

Especially in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which is still my favourite retelling of Robin Hood.

Oh, and btw, he is in the upcoming Man of Steel. So, I guess people really do put him in blockbuster movies...


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 18, 2013)

Venusian Broon said:


> But any film with Brian Blessed has the thumb up from me.



I'm very fond of the man too:







but I think I'd pull my own eyeballs out rather than watch _The Bruce_ or _Chasing the Deer_ again.


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## The Ace (Jan 18, 2013)

My personal bugbear is; *The Dark is Rising - The Seeker*.

Susan Cooper's brilliant book (the sequence was the, 'Harry Potter,' of its day) was turned into a trashy American soap - the changes in title were due to the author's attempts to stop them from using the name.

Christopher Eccleston, fresh from his role as Dr Who, actually read the book and takes a decent stab at the role of the Black Rider, but the chaotic but close-knit Stanton family becomes a dysfunctional mess, Will ages two years and can only think of girls, the family have moved from LA to Buckinghamshire (rather than having lived there for generations), and Ian McShane's brutal murder of Merriman Lyon only goes to show that he'll drop his trousers and bend over for anyone who offers him money.

The whole thing is an exercise in how not to turn a book into a film.


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## megamaniac (Jan 18, 2013)

Dune(1984), Blade Runner(1982) both were very expensive to make at the time, and both did poorly, and got poor reviews.   However, in time, both became cult classics.
In fact 'Star Trek:The Motion Picture' got bad reviews, and is as well a classic(although I dont like it).

2001:A Space Odyssey got poor reviews, and did bad box office, and is now considered the best sci-fi movie ever made.

So, pick 2001 to write about.


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 18, 2013)

megamaniac said:


> In fact 'Star Trek:The Motion Picture' got bad reviews, and is as well a classic(although I dont like it).



Yay, I'm not alone! Started to worry for a bit there.



megamaniac said:


> 2001:A Space Odyssey got poor reviews, and did bad box office, and is now considered the best sci-fi movie ever made.



The acting and script was terrible, and I found the movie itself atrociously boring and the soundtrack hideous, but surprisingly, the cinematography was ahead of its time and looked like something made in say the 80s, not the 60s. Although, many scenes dragged on far longer than even Star Trek: TMP's trip around the Enterprise. Strange how it started off getting poor reviews, yet a quick look at Rotten Tomatoes shows quite a favourable reception these days. But having read through a lot of those reviews, they come across as fan-driven exaggerated hype to me. Personally, I think the pacing of the movie is terrible.

Oh, and I much preferred the 2000 Scifi Channel remake of Dune. (Probably going to get shot for saying that)


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 18, 2013)

warren_paul said:


> oh, and i much preferred the 2000 scifi channel remake of dune. (probably going to get shot for saying that)



*Bang!*
..............


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 18, 2013)

JunkMonkey said:


> *Bang!*
> ..............



Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn't like it. But for some reason I do...


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 18, 2013)

Warren_Paul said:


> Oh, and I much preferred the 2000 Scifi Channel remake of Dune. (Probably going to get shot for saying that)


 
I haven't seen this - but if it's closer to the book then I'd be right there with you!

The silly voice weapon irritated me in the movie, and although it starts out really quite well, by the time they get Paul to the Fremen it starts jumping all over the place and the pace becomes frantic as it tries to get to the end. So a lot of the religion, ecology and other book themes is just barely mentioned or cut out. Needed at least another hour I think, but then I'm a fan of the book - to be fair to the movie, adding loads more time would probably have just added even more weight to it and sunk it utterly.


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## biodroid (Jan 18, 2013)

The Dune mini-series is closer to the book and was better too.


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## Venusian Broon (Jan 18, 2013)

biodroid said:


> The Dune mini-series is closer to the book and was better too.


 
Cheers biodroid, I'll put it on my list of DVD/Album/Books that I should aquire. (A list that is forever ponderously long and only set to grow longer )


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## Warren_Paul (Jan 18, 2013)

Yeah, because it's split over three movie length episodes it's not rushed at all. They definitely deal with a lot more of the religious side of things. Although the movie is also showing its age now. They did make a sequel mini-series based on the Children of Dune books.

Isn't there plans to make another Dune? I heard it somewhere. Will have to go look it up.


EDIT: Looks like it isn't going to happen because paramount dropped support for it when their rights to the story lapsed last year. Although the director made comments about how he still wants to get it done, but we've heard that many times before.


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## JunkMonkey (Jan 18, 2013)

biodroid said:


> The Dune mini-series is closer to the book and was better too.



And, if I remember right Chani, played by a rather yummy actress called Barbora Kodetová, gets her norks out.

Personally I like the Lynch film.  But then I like all of Lynch's films.  Love their dreamy weirdness.  What I would suggest anyone doing is avoiding the TV edit of Lynch's version (though technically it is not Lynch's _Dune_ as he had his name removed from the credits) it is AWFUL.  I mean gobsmackingly dreadful.

There was - and I didn't know this till I just went looking for pictures of Barbora Kodetová with her norks out - a 2003 sequel miniseries: _Children of Dune_.)


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## Rodders (Jan 19, 2013)

I enjoyed the ad avid Lynch movie a lot. It's what put me on to the book in the first place. 

I also enjoyed the TV series and Children of Dune and it's a shame that they're not going to continue.


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## MontyCircus (Jan 24, 2013)

What immediately popped into my head was *I, Robot*.

Just a series of explosions basically.  Boom.  Bang.  Kablooey.  Yawn.


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## megamaniac (Jan 25, 2013)

About 2001; It's more of an avant garde' or art house film than a general release that the public will go see.  Ifcourse, no one got it back then, most dont these days as well.

Apes in Africa go bananas.  A black thing lands infront of a group of apes, an ape uses a bone to kill another ape; we jump-cut millions of years into the future and see ships in space.  Humans end up finding the black thing on the Moon, and decide to send a ship to Jupiter.  Follow me thus far?

A talking computer decides to kill all astronauts, a survivor shuts off the computer, leaves the ship, and is taken on a space journey, and ends up in a white room.
In that room the astronaut gets old, eats, lies on a bed, the black thing pops up infront of him, and he dies... and poof, a baby appears, and then he floats in space above planet Earth.

Got it? If you did, you deserve a Ph.D.


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## MontyCircus (Jan 26, 2013)

Warren_Paul said:


> The [*2001: A Space Odyssey*] acting and script was terrible



The script was nominated for best original screenplay at the Oscars.



megamaniac said:


> ...Got it? If you did, you deserve a Ph.D.



I've read that the novel makes things a lot clearer.  I usually detest movies that are ambiguous and confusing in order to seem "deep" (like *Donnie Darko*).

I shouldn't like *2001*...but I do!


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