Poor science fiction blockbuster films

[Studying]

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!

 

[Gordian Knot]

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.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

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.

 

[Rodders]

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.)

 

[alchemist]

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.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

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?

 

[Abernovo]

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.

 

[JunkMonkey]

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.

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...

What?

The Russians not only helpfully labelled everything on the outside of their unmanned lander in big letters, they also built in a 15 inch colour CRT monitor!?

Why?

Why would anyone spend god knows how many gazillion litregallonunits of rocket fuel first launching, and then gently landing, a computer monitor on Mars?

You will be glad to hear that neither the writer nor the director of this turd have made a movie since.

*I'm not really sure I know what that metaphor means - but I like it.

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."

 

[TheTomG]

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.

 

[zaltys13]

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.

 

[dask]

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

 

[LeprechaunKiller]

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

 

[Warren_Paul]

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.

 

[steve12553]

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.

 

[Grimward]

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

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

 

[Warren_Paul]

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.

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.

 

[Huttman]

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!

 

[Venusian Broon]

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.

 

[Warren_Paul]

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.

 

[alchemist]

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