Best/worst Sci Fi Movie

Come on guys, do we want to have this thread or not?

Where is the fun in all of this listing? We can all make ever-larger lists of science fiction movies we enjoyed or didn't enjoy until the sun burns out, but where is the fun in that? If you can't even give a justification beyond merely describing the film then maybe you're not ready to post yet.

We've had threads like this before, and they weren't interesting. They died quick deaths without much discussion because nobody was willing to make any effort. You can't just claim to have seen a bunch of movies and expect that to be an acceptable contribution.

Let's face it: whether any of us enjoyed or didn't enjoy a given movie, or whether they're even good or bad in the first place is hardly interesting material. It's very clear that the only real discussion and amusement we're going to have in this thread is if we treat it like a game. The objective of the game is not to create some stupid list of every movie we've ever seen, but to create a set of rules for determining whether those movies were good in as close to an objective fashion as possible. That's what I was getting at earlier.

If we want to submit a movie for best or worst consideration, we should do so and explain why in as precise a fashion as possible. Then, if someone objects to the assertion that it belongs in the running for best or worst, they can challenge with their own specific explanations, or even apply to add or edit a rule to prevent the consideration altogether. I shouldn't have to hold your hands like this.

I know this is a fairly advanced kind of idea for OT, and laying it out by the numbers here takes half the fun away, but it was clear that nobody was going to pick up on the concept unless I chiseled it in granite.

Now we can choose to go the above route and geek out making jokes and references and coming up with silly rules in our little game, or we can simply carry on as we have been so far, without any standard of excellence or goal beyond yapping at each other without listening to anything that's spoken.

If everyone decides they'd rather do the latter, and rehash a numbskull-style post-fest that's been done before, I can make this thread disappear.
 
The Rules, First Edition
  • Low-budget pictures from atypical sources (Star Crash, any kind of Turkish ripoff, etc.) are exempt from consideration. The field of selection would be otherwise far too broad and include candidates that would have never otherwise been held to any sort of standard in the first place.

This does not limit us to major Hollywood releases, but I do think a little common-sense culling is in order. This rule is not up for debate.

Suggested rule: Certain franchises should be considered for exemption on the basis of extreme popularity. I love Star Wars, and if I didn't deliberately restrain myself I would have six Star Wars movies in my list of best-ever Sci-Fi films. Along with that are people who do not like Star Wars, or at least certain individual Star Wars films, and if they chose to submit any for worst candidacy, I'd have to kill them.

Because of this I propose that "No major properties (including but not limited to Star Wars and Star Trek) may be considered on the basis of their popularity and importance."
 
Initial Submission For Consideration

For best, I humbly submit 2001. This may violate my proposed rule of avoiding foundationally-huge properties, but ironing out whether that's a good rule and whether this would break it is what this thread is about.

The excellence of the special effects, the creative and convincing set design, the attention to detail, all of it amounts to 2001 being a movie that screams quality. As a technical and artistic achievement it's unassailable.

Beyond that, the pacing is perfect, firmly hammering home the monotony of long-distance space travel and the gravity (pardon me) of being so far from home.

HAL is a terrifying monster of a kind never seen before: completely unshakeable, unfeeling, entirely too clever, and driven by goals that are impossible to understand until the very end. HAL's function in the film transforms from friendly, non-threatening shipmate to murderous psychopath without HAL himself changing at all as a character.

It's mind-blowing and perfectly executed.
 
I'm revising my worst movie to Plan 9 From Outer Space. Although Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a real close second place worst sci-fi movie.
 
Good to go on the offensive there, but a "bad movie" does not mean it is bad in every way, why do you think i own all those titles?
 
I'm putting forth Light Speed for this. It was a Sci-Fi channel movie, but with a twist- Stan Lee was involved in this one. You know, Mr. Marvel comics himself. So what's the issue here? Oh, where should I start? My brain has repressed some of the memories, but let's list off what I _CAN_ recall, in no particular order....

-The horrific special effects. We aren't talking low budget- I could actually SEE the ketchup packets (squibs? is that what they're called?) flying out from a guard as he "bled" to death. This is early on, and it sets the tone for the sheer awful that we see through the entire movie.

-It's really just a poor ripoff of the Legendary Flash. Guy gets super speed. But wait, we have to switch things up a little! He'll risk severe metabolic damage if he moves too fast... unless he takes adrenaline, or something.

And naturally this is meant to be some sort've "super hero in the real world" crap, so we can't have a fancy costume. Instead, we'll go to a random sporting goods store (I think) run by the neighborhood crack addict. Get some boots that'll withstand my new speed, some goggles.... YEAH! CLASSY! It's not bad in and of itself, but the execution feels awful.

-While we're discussing the costume, might as well point out that the art tries to imply that he's Tron v2.5. At least Tron had some decency when it put me to sleep the first time I watched it, and on subsequent watchings I understood it enough to enjoy it.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2352648704/tt0822827

-Final "Epic" fight between LightSpeed and Python so far from exciting that it was sad. I'd tell you more, but you need to leave an impression to get me to remember. Suffice to say I recall being the most bored at the biggest moment.

-No really, nothing LightSpeed does is very exciting. He runs really quickly along the highway doing things, and all of these ordinary tasks were more interesting than the Python fight.


In short, there's a reason that we don't see this movie widely publicized- Stan Lee wants to die with dignity, and there's no way that'll happen if you watch this movie.

Finally, I leave you with this quote, simply because I went to imdb and I don't want to leave empty-handed:


Python: I've always liked the color blue, Daniel. I think it's such a pretty color to die in.
 
Battlefield Earth: Craptacular plot but the last half of the movie is harrier jumpjets kicking some ass. Pretty awesome glory shots of planes blowing stuff up. anyone who wants to sit and watch stuff explode can appreciate the last half of the film even if the explosive nuke gas stuff is a bit ridiculous.
 
Max gets it.

The Best:
  • 12 Monkeys
  • 2001
  • The Abyss
  • Alien
  • Aliens
  • The Black Hole
  • The Day the Earth Stood Still
  • Forbidden Planet
  • The Last Starfighter
  • The Matrix
  • Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
  • Star Wars
  • The Empire Strikes Back
  • Starship Troopers
The Worst:
  • Armageddon
  • Alien 3
  • Battlefield Earth
  • Flash Gordon
  • Ice Pirates
  • Immortel (Ad Vitam)
  • Infra-Man
  • Lightspeed
  • The Matrix: Reloaded
  • The Matrix: Revolutions
  • Plan 9 From Outer Space
  • Solarbabies
  • Star Trek: Generations
  • Star Trek: Nemesis
  • Starship Troopers 2
So what have we got left to add to these lists, and what can we take away, and for what reasons?

My thoughts:

I think 12 Monkeys has gotta go. For me, any movie with time travel has necessarily got to be dropped from consideration for best. I can't explain why; it's a gut thing. Some of the others I haven't seen, but if they do time travel as well, then I'm including them in my objection.

Star Trek: Generations on the worst list? Are you kidding me? I hope you get rabies.

Lightspeed is a nomination I particularly like, since one of the first thoughts I had when this thread was created was that the worst list would be heavy with SyFy originals.

The Rules, at present:
  • Low-budget pictures from atypical sources (Star Crash, any kind of Turkish ripoff, etc.) are exempt from consideration. The field of selection would be otherwise far too broad and include candidates that would have never otherwise been held to any sort of standard in the first place.
Currently proposed rules:
  • Certain franchises should be considered for exemption on the basis of extreme popularity.
  • Time travel automatically disqualifies any given film from consideration for best.
What are your thoughts on these? Have you folks any to add, or proposed edits?
 
Allright, some points:

TAKE AWAY FROM WORST
- I can see dinging Generations (it's an *odd* movie, especially in the context of following All Good Things), but it certainly doesn't belong on any worst list.

- I would reject Starship Troopers 2 from the list; I think it counts as a low budget movie from an atypical source... and it's just entirely harmless. It's biggest crime is that it isn't Starship Troopers, and if you bought a direct-to-video movie hoping it was going to be Starship Troopers then you're an idiot (if you tried to direct a direct-to-video movie hoping it was going to be Starship Troopers then you're Ed Neumeier *and* an idiot).

- Similarly, Plan 9 -- it's much, much more "famous for being bad" than it is the kind of movie you accidentally picked up and were angry at. The same goes for Manos, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and just about anything else that appeared on MST3K.

ADD TO BEST
- We should go ahead and add 2001 to the 'best' list for now.

- Contact. Yeah, we all saw that episode of South Park, too, up yours. I think Contact is about as close to being a perfect movie as you could make.

RULES COMMENTS
- I don't agree about time travel; I view it as a narrative device/conceit (ditto FTL, aliens speaking English and the like) rather than some disqualifying fantasy element. I am also angrumpy at ten quazillion internet Star Trek suboids who get doofy whenever Star Trek has a time travel episode; they make me want to seek out a time travel movie for the main list.

- I do think there are a few movies we can accept are classics (Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, Wrath of Kahn, 2001) with absolutely no debate... but I don't think broadly killing franchises is a good way to segregate them. Sure, I'll be angry at the next Goku who wants to add TPM to the bad list... but I also recognize that people have those arguments (and look what we've done with Star Trek here already).

- I propose a second 'Near Perfect' list. Seeds: Terminator series, Deep Impact, Back to the Future I and II.
 
EDIT: LOAF beat me to a lot of this as I typed it. Ah, well.

If we ever adopt the thing about the "certain franchises", Star Trek: Generations would definitely have to drop off right away. I can see where someone could hate Nemesis, but I actually rather enjoyed it... it was the only ST movie I've seen in theaters (on account of the age I actually got into Trek) and I must've watched it at least 3 times in theaters, and several times since on DVD. The story makes perfect sense to me.

However, LOAF does have some good points against Nemesis: the story didn't completely make sense on my first trip through, and despite all my viewings of it, I can't tell you what that Romulan genocide-ship looks like either. It's definitely weak as a Star Trek offering, but I can't see it being in and among the worst ever list.

Plan 9 from Outer Space almost has to go off by default. It's too _obvious_ a choice. It's kind've like calling the original Star Wars trilogy a classic. It's an accepted fact, and they hardly need to say things like "Lucas's classic trilogy" on the box- you know it. Plan 9, on the other hand, DOES advertise on at least some of the boxes that it's the worst movie ever. It's to the point where watching it, one can practically put it in the "so bad it's amazing" category.

Which isn't to say Plan 9 is actually a fine piece of cinematography. But I think the worst list needs to have movies that go beyond bad- if you can sit down and watch it and still enjoy it on some level, even if you're laughing at it, then it still had some redeeming value. The ones that you tried to watch and were bored the whole way through, the ones that put you to sleep when you were wide awake at the beginning and had plenty of caffeine... I think that's what should get the spots for worst.

Finally, the time travel rule. It makes sense, if only because I can't recall Hollywood ever getting it right. If there's a movie out there that someone's seen that actually avoids the time travel cliches and actually gets it right, I'd be all for putting it on the best list- I haven't seen 12 Monkeys, so I wouldn't know about that. Meanwhile, I'd say go for the time travel rule, barring something amazing.


OK, well, I feel like discussing Tron. I'm not going to put it forth for nomination on either side, necessarily, because based off my reactions during the first viewing, I'd have put it on the worst list, but I later grew to like it a bit better. It doesn't feel like it's best list material, either- more like it was just a little too far ahead of its time. The concepts are all there, and it was a fairly fun ride- I've heard talks of a movie sequel. Tron 2.0, the game sequel, was a fairly decent continuation, for me... but not QUITE right. I like Tron as a concept, and it did a lot of neat things for its time, but the execution wasn't quite right, in the end. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?
 
However, LOAF does have some good points against Nemesis: the story didn't completely make sense on my first trip through, and despite all my viewings of it, I can't tell you what that Romulan genocide-ship looks like either. It's definitely weak as a Star Trek offering, but I can't see it being in and among the worst ever list.
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The story really doesn't make sense, on an offensive level.

Can you really explain the evil clone of Picard's (?!) plan in a way that's remotely reasonable? It apparently requires that he find a previously unknown prototype of Data, cut it into pieces and then spread the pieces on an alien planet that he hopes the Enterprise passes and decides to stop at (sub-point: the planet he has chosen is also full of hostile aliens who will attempt to kill the man he is trying to capture). Then, he invites the Enterprise to Romulus, shakes hand with the specific person he needs to capture, hosts a nice dinner, kidnaps him and then launches his super-warship on a mission to destroy Earth /for no specific reason/. Now obviously Picard escapes and exciting action ensues -- but at this point ask yourself: what was the point of finding/dividing/hiding B4 in Shinzon's plot? Having a saboteur aboard the Enterprise, created in such an unlikely and elaborate manner, has absolutely no effect on the intended plot - invite Picard over and instead of leading him leave take all his blood.

The script writer didn't think the movie out correctly. Here's my favorite smaller scale example. Remember when Data and Picard are rushing to escape the evil ship and they find a huge hangar full of these really sexy and toyetic space fighters, which they use to escape? And then there's an enormous space battle between the mothership and the Federation and we DON'T SEE THE AWESOME FIGHTERS AGAIN. The movie isn't into complete thoughts.

... and that's just the part that offends me as a thinking human being. There are plenty of parts that offend me as a Star Trek fan.

It avoids Star Trek's background aggressively instead of passively. The way you identify Captain Picard as a young man is that... he's the only kid in his class who's bald? Did the director think he was supposed to be some kind of outer space potato person? We're specifically told that the aliens on the planet with Dataparts are a "pre-warp civilization" before there's an oh-so-awesome dune buggy chase. WHY TELL US THIS? The guys making this thing must have said 'that's a Star Trek thing, right?' but not 'that's a Star Trek thing that means we can't chase them with dune buggies for some reason, right?'. That's exactly where Nemesis stops trying. (Also, it sure is lucky that both the Federation and the nameless aliens both invented dune buggies at the same time.)

Other stuff is taken stock from previous stories and jammed into Nemesis because it was a success originally -- Data already *has* an evil brother, Troi already *was* mind-raped. Neither of these things make sense repeated in Nemesis, but they're there for some reason. You see it and you feel the guy with the clipboard checking off stuff. Even the Romulans -- the movie doesn't use *anything* established about them... they're a bullet point instead of something that was thought about (see, there are these *more evil* reverse-Romulans who we've never seen before... and that's what this is about... but they're still called Romulans.) How cool would it have been to see Spock? Or to have the nameless Romulan captain who shows up to save the day be, oh, I don't know, Sela? *There's* some emotional impact.

Just the wedding scene makes me angry. Why include a reunion scene in the movie if you aren't going to do any reuniting with it? What a perfect opportunity for a thousand interesting cameos from the show that would hurt *nothing*... wasted. Heck, if you couldn't afford to hire some TV actors to stand in the background for a scene then you could at least have a shot with two Jonathan Frakeses in it -- just give us that fun nod. (Here's another one -- it's supposed to be touching and important that Data sings at the wedding and then B4 hums the song at the end... why oh why oh why oh why wasn't it Pop Goes the Weasel?)

... and then it's offensive on a pseudointellectual level. Star Trek has always been an enjoyable mix of good storytelling and I guess you'd say class. Nothing *complex*, but all the obvious stuff is treated well (Kahn and Milton, for instance). Nemesis' equivalent is so incredibly fall-aparty that it makes me want to punch something. So your theme is doubling, and the shattered mirrors of the characters are that instead of smart the other Data is a funny (well, not really) special needs robot and instead of a noble hero the parallel Picard is a Romulan vampire. Wooo.

And that's all I haev to say about that.

OK, well, I feel like discussing Tron. I'm not going to put it forth for nomination on either side, necessarily, because based off my reactions during the first viewing, I'd have put it on the worst list, but I later grew to like it a bit better. It doesn't feel like it's best list material, either- more like it was just a little too far ahead of its time. The concepts are all there, and it was a fairly fun ride- I've heard talks of a movie sequel. Tron 2.0, the game sequel, was a fairly decent continuation, for me... but not QUITE right. I like Tron as a concept, and it did a lot of neat things for its time, but the execution wasn't quite right, in the end. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?
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I enjoy Tron, but I don't think it belongs at the top of this list. I guess it's something of an unintentional period piece, but it's still entirely enjoyable (and you're still impressed by the effects). The sequel is in the works right now. The original concept thrown around several years back would have been *brilliant* (Heart of Darkness in a computer, with Jeff Bridges as Kurtz), but I'm not sure they stuck with that.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
Contact. Yeah, we all saw that episode of South Park, too, up yours.
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What episode is that?

- I propose a second 'Near Perfect' list. Seeds: Terminator series, Deep Impact, Back to the Future I and II.
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I think SST would be fit on the 'near perfect' list. A question: it's an intelligent anti-war movie because war, even tough is a bad thing, actually solves some problems (being strictly pacifist in the context of SST wouldn't make a lot of sense).
 
Did anyone actually see Solaris with George Clooney? I never thought I'd actually fall asleep watching a sci fi movie... until then.
 
I think SST would be fit on the 'near perfect' list. A question: it's an intelligent anti-war movie because war, even tough is a bad thing, actually solves some problems (being strictly pacifist in the context of SST wouldn't make a lot of sense).
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It's the big realistic Vietnam movie -- the only one where the conscript doesn't go off to war, learn how horrible it is and decide to express that in some poetic/ironic way. Johnny goes off to war to impress a girl and the minute he begins to suspect there's anything wrong he's promoted or convinced there's some patriotic reason to keep fighting. We're the only ones who are supposed to recognize there's a problem.
 
Max Gene said:
Finally, the time travel rule. It makes sense, if only because I can't recall Hollywood ever getting it right. If there's a movie out there that someone's seen that actually avoids the time travel cliches and actually gets it right, I'd be all for putting it on the best list- I haven't seen 12 Monkeys, so I wouldn't know about that. Meanwhile, I'd say go for the time travel rule, barring something amazing.
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What you mean by right? Have you time travelled? maybe you can tell us how it was?

ok. my point is that time travel is a plot device, and mostly it works fine, as it is mostly used to show cultural shock between periods. I would never agree to the rule.

Next point is Matrix sequels. I understand why we want both in the worst ten, but there is a problem. I mean, when i saw reanimation (er, i mean reactivation)
I thought it's as bad as Matrix can go. But no, Revolutions was actually so much worse that i just became shocked. I'ts entirely new level of badness that movie. I mean Reactivation had bad and stupid plot, yes but Revolutions had NO PLOT AT ALL. It brought the term bad sci-fi movie to an entire new level. tehnically its just neo fights two guys who look like VIn Diesel-Neo extends his hand and makes lots of squids explode, and for the next HALF of the movie he fights ONE Smith with millions of other smiths watching. I dont think it even deserves place in the worst movie list. It should be closed in the little safe and thrown into the pacific ocean.

And finally Alien 3. Now it's not brilliant it is, but if you place it in the worst list, than what shall be done about both AvP movies. I mean, first one was stupid and boring, and the second one was boring, stupid and disgusting. And it was something like "Alien vs Predator vs American Pie"
 
And finally Alien 3. Now it's not brilliant it is, but if you place it in the worst list, than what shall be done about both AvP movies. I mean, first one was stupid and boring, and the second one was boring, stupid and disgusting. And it was something like "Alien vs Predator vs American Pie"
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I think this cuts to the heart of the list... AvP and AvP2 are terrible, terrible movies -- in any objective sense much more terrible than Alien 3.

At the same time, though, they aren't as big a betrayal. It's the expectation that really cuts you with Alien 3. We went in hoping for a worthy sequel to two of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time -- and we knew it had all the component parts (big budget, original cast, great director). What we got was... just a bizarre let-down.

I don't think anyone sat down to AvP (and especially not AvP2) expecting greatness. We were kind of amazed that something that started as a geeky bar argument in the 1980s had become a movie and we were all angry before it started that they were trying to make an Alien and Predator picture that was rated PG-13 and we were all confused that it was set in present day instead of having space marines... so when we saw the actual movie, it wasn't the level of betrayal that Alien 3 was.

(Related story: when I saw AvP in the theater I was sitting in front of a man who was unconsciously speaking his thoughts about the movie. We didn't tell him to shut up because he was *amazing* -- he was somehow genuinely shocked by everything that happened in the movie. "Oh, no, an Alien queen, there's no way they can stop that, this is all over... oh, wait, the water! They can trap her in the water, that's the only hope!" It made the movie ten times better.)

It brought the term bad sci-fi movie to an entire new level. tehnically its just neo fights two guys who look like VIn Diesel-Neo extends his hand and makes lots of squids explode, and for the next HALF of the movie he fights ONE Smith with millions of other smiths watching. I dont think it even deserves place in the worst movie list. It should be closed in the little safe and thrown into the pacific ocean.
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Heh, yeah. My favorite point about the last Matrix movie, which my brother pointed out first, is the cat. That's probably the most genuinely clever thing in the original movie, where he sees the cat twice and they explain that the feeling of deja-vu is the Matrix resetting itself in some way. It's a really cool piece of writing because the audience reacts immediately... *I* feel that way and I can't explain it!

... then in the third movie we're instead told that *SEEING THAT CAT* means the Matrix is resetting itself. Clearly, clearly, clearly no matter what the credits say, the person who wrote the third movie didn't actually write - or understand - the first one.

ok. my point is that time travel is a plot device, and mostly it works fine, as it is mostly used to show cultural shock between periods. I would never agree to the rule.
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I agree that it's a device, but I think it's for even more than culture shock. It's a tool that can be used in all sorts of ways -- and some stories find incredibly clever things to do with it (think back twenty years -- we think it's overdone today, but Kyle being John's father was a *great* ending for Terminator...). I'm always perplexed by internet Star Trek fans who get angry whenever there's another time travel story... since they'll also turn around and tell you that the best episodes and movies all involve it. Removing it would be an arbitrary value judgement rather than anything that would help shape the list.
 
While time travel in general isn't my favorite subject (at least a few times I've probably been one of those people complaining about time travel in ST that LOAF mentioned, above), due mostly to how a lot of the stories that use it are generally kinda lousy at handling causality and such, I don't think I could go for it being used to prohibit an entry on either list.

And by the way, Mancubus, we all are time traveling. One second per second, forward only. :p
 
No big deal taking off Plan 9. My original votes will be all I need, and neither of them fit the later rules added on the thread. Now if there were a thread for worst movie ever, I'd put in Alan Quartermain(sp?) and the Lost City of Gold. It's basically an Indiana Jones knockoff done in the worst way I can imagine.
 
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