Ebert’s review was on point in this regard:
> “The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.”
One thing I always liked about him was he was willing to rate a movie based on what it was trying to be. He had no problems giving a thumbs up to a stupid movie if it was a good stupid movie. So many critics today will review a stupid movie as shit since it is stupid, when that was the whole point.
I remember reading his review of “Dude, Where’s my Car” and he starts off by saying basically movies like these are kinda review proof because it just is what is.
*Dude, Where's My Car?* legitimately has one of the tightest, zaniest, funniest scripts in comedy history.
Is also fucking stupid as shit.
God I love that movie.
One of the very few movies where I think he's actively wrong in his review (to the extent that an opinion can be "wrong") is Battle: LA. He famously hated the shit out of it, and I think it's a tight, no-nonsense alien invasion flick, that fits in its genre in the same sort of way that John Wick fits in the action genre. Good? Debatable. Great? In my opinion, definitely.
Agree to disagree. I think that movie is like a big budget direct to streaming style movie. The plot is so bland and the characters are generic cardboard cutouts. I found it to be terrible.
That was always the difference between him and Siskel. Ebert had his biases but more in terms of he favored certain genre but he could meet any movie head on and see what it was on its own merits.
Siskel was so formulaic and rigid. A comedy had to fit the conventions of comedy to be good, action/drama etc same.
Even when Ebert trashed Ace Aventura initially and years later rewrote his review saying he was wrong and completely missed Jim's "Jerrry Lewis-esque" physical comedy genius at work.
That stuff always stuck with me
Every music reviewer that reviewed Pinkerton by weezer when it first came out basically came back years later and reversed their opinion once they realized it wasn't a good power pop album, but an amazing emo album.
Pacific Rim’s story, character motivations and general realism of “why is this here and why aren’t obvious smarter decisions made” are horrible. But the movie sets out to be a big robots versus monsters movie and it delivers.
Yeah, I think whoever made Pacific Rim 2 didn't understand the assignment. We only needed the one. It was bonkers, we all had fun, monsters and robots fought, then it was over. Let's call it what it is.
Pacific Rim 2 seems almost designed to be nothing like PR1. The first movie paid so much attention to the movement and setting of the mechs. When a Mech started a punch, it was an entire buildup with rockets to push the fist up to speed and punch that sucker. And even then the scale meant the fist was still visually traveling slowly to sell that scale and the sheer amount of power to put that thing in motion, and in turn the sheer amount of power needed to stop it with a Kaju face. Also when a Mech comes up with a cargo ship as a Katana it’s everything wrong with continuity such as size and scale and realistic strength of such a ship but the way it’s handled as part of the fight choreography it fits perfectly in escalating the fight. Add to this the atmosphere and darker visuals due to mostly night and storm locations and you can hide erroneous movement and make people’s minds trick themselves more easily to accept that what they are seeing looks correct for a thing that size.
PR2 does away with all that. It oversaturates everything by making it the brightest day, as in “omg a nuke is going off in the distance” type of glare is a constant in how bright everything is. The movements are more what you’d expect of a couple of fighting insects than giant robots. Everything is so fast and not on the scale of giant robots duking it out. It breaks down the one thing PR1 set out to do well, and it has nothing to offer in return.
I remember his Ted review was a great example of this. Dude gave it 3.5/4 stars and people lost their shit but he's like "its a comedy that is funny as hell, its not trying to be citizen kane."
I love this part of the review for Freddy Got Fingered:
“This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.”
I love reading his piece: “boy, his dog, and a puddle”. https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-boy-his-dog-and-a-puddle
He was a great writer and his warmth came through in it.
Roger Ebert was quoted earlier in the thread.
> “The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.”
Prompting the philosophical question;
Is it technically a Dutch Angle if it's unintentional because the camera operator was just as likely drunk?
>I've seen Lisztomania, I've seen Zardoz
Whoa now, Listomania and Zardoz are genuine cult classics by eccentric auteur filmmakers operating at the peak of their abilities. They're weird films, but they're also examples of unhinged creativity and personal vision delivered with full Hollywood resources. On even the worst day, they don't deserve to be thrown together with Cats and Battlefield Earth. This is like putting Under the Silver Lake and Beau is Afraid on a list with House of the Dead and Ghost Dad.
Beau is Afraid was certainly a movie. It is something put on film, that I watched. Maybe I just need to get real fuckin high for a rewatch or I'm simply too dumb to get it, but it felt too fuckin long for no actual payoff. It just felt like the director should have just gone to therapy instead.
I'm glad I watched it, but I won't rewatch it like i will Ari Aster's other films. Beau is Afraid was definitely too long, and the last hour was the weakest part. The first hour was one of the best depictions of anxiety I've seen. And my favorite part of the movie, perhaps weirdly, was the very long stop motion animation sequence. But overall it was indeed a director dumping a therapy session onto film and then making us sit with it for 3 hours.
Oh yeah I agree with that first hour being a great depiction of anxiety. That's a main reason I wanted to really like it for that reason alone. Plus the "My Bruthah" part. But it really is the meme "Men Would Rather XYZ than go to therapy"
I saw that movie in the theater, back when we even knew that it was supposed to be God damn awful before it even came out, and the funniest thing in the movie was there was one part where John Travolta's character said a line but he didn't laugh after it like he does in every other part of the movie so some kid in the audience about 10 or 12 years old or whatever did the John Travolta laugh and then we all laugh and clapped.
Dear God that sounds like I'm making it up but I was one of the ones that laughed and clapped
I saw it in the theater also, this is easily the worst movie I've ever paid to watch.
I remember the audio being so loud it was an assault on your senses. You could hear the speakers cracking like they were out of the range they could produce clear sounds.
I saw it at the cheap theater, which was half off from regular theaters, on cheap movie Tuesday. It was $2. I've never felt ripped off for two bucks before or since.
I saw it in the theater too with a high school friend, we were probably 17 or 18, likely drunk and/or stoned and I think there was only one other guy in the theater. At some point, we lit up and smoked our camel lights like we were at a bar. Remember absolutely nothing about the movie.
If you want a good terrible movie: Nothing But Trouble with Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John Candy, and Dan Aykroyd. It's one of my favorite movies despite knowing it's fucking terrible. This movie is the exact reason you don't let Dan Aykroyd write by himself. He's has good ideas that someone needs to ground in reality. This movie is batshit insane at every turn. He pours Hawaiian Punch out of an oil spigot at dinner. Dinner is on a train with disgusting looking hot dogs and all the stuff to put on them. John Candy plays a police officer AND his twin sister. At one point, Dan Aykroyd has a dick for a nose. There are two fat baby-men in diapers named Bobo and Little Debull (pronounced like devil, but with a B). There is a roller coaster that kills people and debones them. Digital Underground and Tupac have a musical number where Dan Aykroyd plays the organ. It's straight insanity and I love every minute of it.
Of movies I’ve personally paid to see, Nothing But Trouble has the worst ratio of talent to output by a mile. It was be like building an all-star major league baseball team and having them finish the season 20-142.
Débile exists in French and Aykroyd does speak some French thanks to his French Canadian mom and probably thanks too to growing up in Ottawa which is separated from Quebec by a river.
Wait Wait Wait, OMG is this the one they have like an automatic road sign as a trap for people passing through? And the judge is incredibly old?
Holy shit, I've been searching for this movie because I only had vague recollections of the roller coaster and the road sign so Google was unhelpful. I had no idea such big names were in it!
What is it about this movie that so many people vaguely remember it like a forgotten childhood fever dream? I had the same experience with it and it took years to find what it was
> He pours Hawaiian Punch out of an oil spigot at dinner.
You laugh but that was actually a thing. Hawaiian punch used to come in sealed off cans like soup cans and you had to pierce it to open it. Some people absolutely did use oil spouts for this(obviously one kept solely for drinks not oil). My grandma being one of them.
*Battlefield Earth* was, by a country mile, the **UGLIEST** movie I have ever seen. I believe it to be the ugliest movie ever made, but I’ve not seen every movie ever made.
It is visually ugly. I don’t want to live in that world not only because everyone looks ridiculous and terrible, but I imagine that world **smells fucking awful.**
Its audio is ugly. Not only is the dialog so fucking dumb that everyone watching the movie gets dumber listening to it, but the noises made by the characters — aliens and humans alike — are likewise profoundly unsettling.
The message is ugly. The plot is ugly. The denouement is uglier still.
To bust out another Ebert quote from his legendary review:
>"Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way.
Wow I thought I was the only one who felt that. The movie made me feel exactly the same sensation as a nasty smell, somehow. Weird. It's disgusting to look at.
I think the ugliness, since we're using that word, was intentional and is the only element of actual artistry in the movie. It wants you to be uncomfortable and disgusted the entire time, devotes everything to achieving this goal, and succeeds 100%.
At the time it came out, I remember one reviewer referring to the movie as "Battlefield Dirt" as they commented on how the producers inexplicably decided to throw clods of dirt around in nearly every scene.
I remember when it came to dvd and I used to play “find the Scientologist” in the Amazon review section. Tons of 1 star reviews, and a smattering of glowing 5 star reviews calling it the best movie of all time.
I heard that John Travolta and other Scientologist think those who did not like the movie were not evolved enough to understand it. Yeah that is on my list of movies to never watch again.
I read the book when I was 13 or so. All 900+ pages of it. Then again. I read all the Mission Earth books as a teen and loved them. I have first edition copies of them all. Great covers. 3000+ pages.
I've read Battlefield Earth again as an adult and still loved it. Mission Earth not so much.
So huge fan of the book and the movie absolutely stunk. In addition, unlike 3 Body Problem which takes a 300 something page book and lays it all out in 8 or whatever episodes, they try to cram 900 into 2 hours.
Impossible. So much out of context and not explained. Seriously doubt anyone in the movie read a 900 page book. I doubt they understood any of it.
You must read the book to even understand a majority of what's going on in the movie.
Also when I read it first in the 80s there wasn't nearly as much stigma around Hubbard. He wrote some really good sci-fi. The book to me is a legendary post apocalyptic journey.
Hard to believe it is as long between Battlefield Earth and now as it is between Star Wars and Battlefield Earth. I watched Battlefield Earth a few months ago and thought the special effects holds up pretty well.
Imo, Zardoz is a product of its time. A time when surrealism wasn't ignored by film makers and a time when drugs induced fever dream was a legit inspiration material
Zardoz is a movie where Sean Connery rides around in a thong while a giant floating stone head spits out guns saying, "The penis is bad. The gun is good." Unfortunately, at some point, it gets weird.
>Sean Connery rides around in a thong
A red monokini thong, knee long boots, a colt and a long black braid.
>Unfortunately, at some point, it gets weird.
And we all remember, Sean Connery turned the role of Gandalf down, because the script of LOTR was too weird for him.
>"Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way.
- Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert's savage review of *Battlefield Earth* is my favorite piece of his writing.
"Some movies go off the rails. This one is like the train crash in 'The Fugitive'."
I worked at a video store when this came out and a customer we all liked there rented it despite our warnings because he was a big scifi nerd. After he came back with it the next day I gave him a free rental and he was just like, "Yeah, I should have skipped this one." Bet everyone involved in this abomination of cinema feels the same way.
This is what I bring up whenever anyone asks for "The worst movie ever." I'm sure there are tons of movies that are equally bad, but those are very low budget movies made with inexperienced people. This was a movie made by professionals that had made movies before, and it was this terrible.
Yes, I'd rather see Sean Connery's hairy ass in a loincloth than a John Travolata vanity project which really is cheap promotion for scientology.
Which by the way should have the opposite effect on anyone sane and with a above room temperature IQ because all that shit is insane and stupid.
By the way, Hubbard was never considered a good sci-fi writer. None of his work, pre or post scientology, is considered of any relevance or importance in the genre. He wrote mostly in pulp magazines and graduated to cheap paperbacks. While giants of the genere like Issac Asimov or Robert Heinlein started the same way, Hubbard just never reached a next level.
It’s a terrible book that was published in the 1980s. I remember my copy had a sticker on the front saying “Soon to be a major motion picture”
The very very worst part of the book was the introduction written by L Ron Hubbard himself wherein he “rewrote” the entire history of the golden age of science fiction and fantasy and had him be the biggest player and “hacks” like Moorcock, Asimov and Heinlein were bit players.
Disgusting
The first half of the book is pretty decent sci-fi adventure, the second half turns into pretty lazy "Earth is so wonderful" unearned plot diarrhea.
But the movie only covers the first half, and managed to take the best part and make it terrible
I read it as a 13 year old in '85 and I had no clue about scientology or all the other crap Da Do Ron Ron Hubbard was spewing, and I loved it. For me it was a good read. I was expanding my science fiction horizons and like a thirsty man in the desert, I drank in everything. Did it stand the test of time for me? Nope. Did I watch the movie? About 20 minutes. Absolutely horrible.
Same sort of time period for me. Did You ever read any of his older stuff? It can be quite hard to find. Most of it was very much 40s-50s pulp magazine style stuff.
I quite enjoyed his Mission Earth series He wrote it just before starting the Scientology crap and it seems to me this is where a bunch of the stuff scientology believes in comes from (at least by the understanding of it I have from south park).
Would have been around 1990 and having no idea what Scientology was I saw Dianetics in a secondhand bookstore. First thought “something I haven’t heard of from Hubbard should be a bit of mindless fun” read the back cover and put it straight back down.
I read all those books as a kid before knowing anything about Scientology - I loved it, the world building was immersive, great humor, lots of taboo stuff for a kid (drugs, sex, scheming). Once I realized this was the Scientology guy, and after reading Dianetics, I felt quite differently about a lot of the topics and attitudes in the series. The Scientology/Dianetics belief system is very big on repressed memories or feelings, and how that can manifest in perversions or addictions.
I recently thought I'd like to read those again, but I'm not sure they'd be easy to find.
One thing I'm not sure you're correct about - these books came out in the mid to late 80s. Battlefield Earth came out in 82. At that point Scientology had been going for a very long time, it began in the 50s. So I guess these books were either fundraising (and maybe even tax related), or an attempt to appeal to a new audience.
I enjoyed Mission Earth quite a bit when I was a kid, even knowing a bit about Hubbard. Thinking back on what I can remember of it, I must have been on either too many drugs or too few drugs.
If you tried to read Mission Earth again you'd probably toss it in the trash in the first few chapters. L. Ron Hubbard had a hatred for gay people and it really shows in that series. Lots of "Gays are degenerate scum" stuff in it. He also writes 1 dimensional characters. The bad guys are completely bad and the good guys are perfect in every way.
Not unusual for stuff from his period. I remember an EE Smith book where a guy starts a bar brawl by ordering a “girly’ drink and cigarettes and then “insulting the manhood” of the other patrons. (Got to love that early sci-fi where they fly spaceships while chain smoking).
I find the simplicity of the characters in stuff from around then to be a quite fun read.
Hmm, I read it was a 15 year old in '85 and i was so proud of myself reading a 1000+ page book. My dad was even impressed and he was never impressed. My criteria in watching the movie was its faithfulness to the book which it failed IMO
Yeah. For context, *Battlefield: Earth* was published in 1982. We were well into the “new wave” of SciFi by then. Herbert, Le Guin, and Dick had already published all or most of their best work by that point. 1982 was one year out from *Neuromancer* hitting the shelves. *Battlefield Earth* was a pulpy relic of bottom of the barrel 1940’s dime store SciFi.
*B:E* was a fun campy SF story that was about 700 pages longer than it needed to be. The core story of aliens have conquered Earth and are using slave labor to extract its wealth, powerful alien tries to gain more power and in his hubris gives the slaves the ability to cast off their chains is a formula that works.
But it is also a story that can be told adequately in 250 pages, not 1,000.
Yeah, that was...forgot about that, but it was funny in moments, and at least I was rooting for the birds. In Battlefield Earth I wanted them all to die.
It may be a bit early to make such judgments, but Battlefield Earth may well turn out to be the worst movie of this century. - A.O. Scott, NY Times
I went into this movie hoping it would reset my baseline for bad movies. It did. It also gave me a new comparison to use: Did the movie have cavemen flying 1000 year old Harrier jets on a week's training? No, then BE wins!
Probably a bad hot take but 13 year old me loved this movie. I didn't know anything about it being connected to scientology until way later. I saw the bad reviews but I didn't care. I equate this to you people watching stuff like kong v godzilla or ready player one. It's popcorn fun for people who don't know any better. I had fun.
I also saw double dragon so I know how much worse it can get than this.
Battlefield Earth is a whole lot dumber and overall just 100x worse than a movie like Kong v Godzilla. The story is beyond ridiculous, the dialogue is terrible, acting is atrocious, every shot is angled for no reason, everything about it just terrible. It's not "just a fun popcorn movie". The movies you're talking about have a following / they did OK, everyone (except maybe 13 year olds) hated Battlefield Earth. You need to watch it again, it's absolutely horrible.
As a counter point the new Jurassic Park (the star lord ones) made a billion dollars I've watched most of them, do they function sure, does that mean I enjoyed them, no. I saw battlefield earth in theaters. I'm not saying the film holds up I'm saying it's fine to like bad movies, especially when you likely don't know better. I care little about opinions because I've seen what you people will enjoy. The original Jurassic Park is awesome btw.
Try The Room or Troll 2. Those will seriously numb your brain. I have an existential crisis about 2/3 through either of them now, like part of me would rather be staring at a wall.
I don't know, The Room is entirely worse in every way but somehow immensely more watchable to me. I think it's because The Room is just this crazy passion project by a guy who wrangled up a bunch of people who have no idea what the hell was going on until it was too late. Meanwhile Battlefield Earth was made by actual professionals, award winners with years of experience and a huge budget, and if somebody told me it was supposed to be one of these movies done at a loss for tax purposes that wasn't ever legally supposed to get screened for anyone, I'd believe it.
>The Room is just this crazy passion project by a guy who wrangled up a bunch of people who have no idea what the hell was going on until it was too late.
Does this qualify The Room as a meta-horror movie?
I'm not OP, but I'm here for you.
[10,000 BC](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/10-000-bc) is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Watch it with booze and friends (actually, watch all of these with booze and friends). I'll never forget watching this movie, and Phil standing up off the couch to say, "Today...is our INDEPENDENCE MOON!"
[Doomsday](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/doomsday-uncut) Yes, that one. It doesn't just twist the plot, there's like 4 different genres of movie one right after the other. It's awful and oh so hilarious. If you ever need a medieval respite from 28 Days Later, you'll get one just before the movie goes Mad Max on you.
[Kung Pow: Enter the Fist](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/kung-pow-enter-the-fist) maybe doesn't even belong on this list, because it's *maybe* not a bad movie? But it definitely is because most of it is Steve Oedekirk digitally inserting himself into a truly awful 70s kung fu flick. It's also endlessly quotable and is somewhere in my top 20 films of all time, just because it is so unabashedly what it is.
The movie seemed to me like it knew it was stupid. But then pretended like it wasn’t.
Travoltas character points out the gold is smelted and in bar form, and scolds the main character about it, but doesn’t press further. Like dude you told him to mine for gold and he brought you perfectly weighted smelted gold bars. And you just barely question it???
They find the base with 1000 year old perfectly working military equipment and teach literal fucking cavemen how to use it. Bro, you park a humvee for a month and don’t run it, that bitch needs a major overhaul. But all this military equipment works great?
The same level of military equipment earth had when this alien race invaded btw that apparently lasted just a few minutes. Now 1000 years later, and it can kick the aliens asses.
Every part of this movie is dumb, and we are all dumber just for having watched it.
The book is far better than the movie, in that the book is ok. I didn't know much about the author when I read it. I thought it was written by someone who knew how to put a story together, but not a good sci-fi writter.
It really could have used an iteration or few with an experienced sci-fi editor. Idk if he was beyond taking criticism at that point, but there's a few placeholderish elements.
Still, it does some interesting things, that are not in the movie. Like asking, what happens after the big baddies are defeated? Who cleans up after? and who swoops in to scavenge what's left?
This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen 4 times.
First time, it was so bad that I thought something was wrong with me and I didn’t get it, or wasn’t in the right mood. So I gave it a second chance. I fell asleep at some point, woke up when it was over. Third time, I decided to give it my full attention just to be sure.
It’s horrible. I couldn’t believe that a sci-fi movie with Travolta and Forest Whitaker could be so bad. I didn’t care or know much about Scientology, I was not biased in any way, other than I really thought I would like it based on the premise and cast.
I watched it a fourth time with a friend who didn’t believe me a movie could be so bad. It just gets worse each time.
Everything sitting in Dutch angles and John Travolta behaving entirely like he was told to "just be yourself." That's what I remember, and being legendarily bad.
Movie Rec : THE APPLE
It's a canadien sci-fi musical that is so delightfully weird, dumb, and demented. The whole thing is sort of in the style of XANADU (which is also good/bad movie) - the metaphors are heavy, the music is....a choice, and the third act is so fucking bizarre it's like your brain is getting flashbanged.
Really good stuff, you will not be disappointed
I feel that Mortal Kombat: Annihilation somehow topped it in awfulness. Along with GI Joe: Retaliation. But I guess BE had more serious intentions and therefore failed harder.
When it comes to enjoying badly made movies, it’s always about your suspension of disbelief. Sometimes you can get by the faults, sometimes it’s too much. I found this flick watchable, but I always seem to like Kim Coates (even in this movie). When they have the money, and decent idea, it’s a shame when they come out with a dud
Don’t mean to spoil the fun but the dialogue in this movie being judged based on Hubbard’s writing doesn’t quite make sense? They didn’t take dialogue from the book, did they?
I saw this in the theatre when it came out with my friend, we were teens. I didn't know anything about scientology or L Ron, just thought we were gonna be seeing a normal space scifi flick with Travolta in it. I was taken aback with how poor the movie was... Spent some time trying to figure out why it existed.
There’s a line in the movie where, I believe , Travolta skipped the punctuation and created a new phrase that my friends and I use to this day.
“Crap. Lousy humans”
Became
“Crap-lousy humans”. And yes there is a relevant [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/37/).
'L. Ron Hubbard was a scifi writer ' - that is questionable too. If you liked the movie in the way you are saying you should try reading the book. I love sci-fi books, but his are so basic and pointless, that they are more like fantasy of a young child. But, to be fair, he is the proof that mediocrity won't hold you back from founding a religion of idiots.
Can’t be truly certain what the poster meant, but I’m picturing a guy in a crowded Boston bar late in the season standing up suddenly and revealing a Yankees t-shirt, red-faced, tottering a bit, and loudly slurring out to everyone: “New York you Beantown bitches, fight me!”
Me and my buddy rented this once when we were tripping balls I kinda knew what to expect that it was shitty. He frigin loved the movie. I thought it was funny as hell how bad it was but definitely give it watch tripping
I Watched it when I was around 9 or 10 I think. Thought it was a "good" movie. Saw it nearly a decade or so later and realised how shit it was. Didn't realise at that time there was a Scientology connection. Now that im older and barely wiser, I realise it was shit and cult propaganda. Anyway, how good has the cricket been lately?
The worst piece of shit movie I ever saw was The Stay Awake. That movie is so inept I can't quite describe it. The best bad movie I ever saw was Bad Dreams. That was unintentionally funny.
This is fascinating. I haven't watched the "movie" because my wife has no tolerance for bad movies.
But this discussion prompts a subject which I find really interesting and would someday like to write my PhD thesis (no likely to happen) on that is, the difference between terrible movies "cult classics" and "it's so bad it's good"
Thoughts?
Reminder to read this thread at a 45° angle
Ebert’s review was on point in this regard: > “The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.”
Ebert was great. Even when I disagreed with him, he had insightful or at least funny things to say. RIP.
One thing I always liked about him was he was willing to rate a movie based on what it was trying to be. He had no problems giving a thumbs up to a stupid movie if it was a good stupid movie. So many critics today will review a stupid movie as shit since it is stupid, when that was the whole point.
I remember reading his review of “Dude, Where’s my Car” and he starts off by saying basically movies like these are kinda review proof because it just is what is.
And then?
No and then
…and theeeeeeen?
NO! NO AND THEN!!
And then....
*Dude, Where's My Car?* legitimately has one of the tightest, zaniest, funniest scripts in comedy history. Is also fucking stupid as shit. God I love that movie.
One of the very few movies where I think he's actively wrong in his review (to the extent that an opinion can be "wrong") is Battle: LA. He famously hated the shit out of it, and I think it's a tight, no-nonsense alien invasion flick, that fits in its genre in the same sort of way that John Wick fits in the action genre. Good? Debatable. Great? In my opinion, definitely.
That movie is boring as shit, can't really be compared to John wick
Agree to disagree. I think that movie is like a big budget direct to streaming style movie. The plot is so bland and the characters are generic cardboard cutouts. I found it to be terrible.
Battle LA fuckin rocks as a no nonsense action movie. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.
Battle LA is a great movie
I thought Battlefield Earth and this was the same thing uh oh
That was always the difference between him and Siskel. Ebert had his biases but more in terms of he favored certain genre but he could meet any movie head on and see what it was on its own merits. Siskel was so formulaic and rigid. A comedy had to fit the conventions of comedy to be good, action/drama etc same. Even when Ebert trashed Ace Aventura initially and years later rewrote his review saying he was wrong and completely missed Jim's "Jerrry Lewis-esque" physical comedy genius at work. That stuff always stuck with me
Ebert is possibly the *only* critic I've seen go back and say he was originally wrong.
Every music reviewer that reviewed Pinkerton by weezer when it first came out basically came back years later and reversed their opinion once they realized it wasn't a good power pop album, but an amazing emo album.
Pacific Rim’s story, character motivations and general realism of “why is this here and why aren’t obvious smarter decisions made” are horrible. But the movie sets out to be a big robots versus monsters movie and it delivers.
Yeah, I think whoever made Pacific Rim 2 didn't understand the assignment. We only needed the one. It was bonkers, we all had fun, monsters and robots fought, then it was over. Let's call it what it is.
Pacific Rim 2 seems almost designed to be nothing like PR1. The first movie paid so much attention to the movement and setting of the mechs. When a Mech started a punch, it was an entire buildup with rockets to push the fist up to speed and punch that sucker. And even then the scale meant the fist was still visually traveling slowly to sell that scale and the sheer amount of power to put that thing in motion, and in turn the sheer amount of power needed to stop it with a Kaju face. Also when a Mech comes up with a cargo ship as a Katana it’s everything wrong with continuity such as size and scale and realistic strength of such a ship but the way it’s handled as part of the fight choreography it fits perfectly in escalating the fight. Add to this the atmosphere and darker visuals due to mostly night and storm locations and you can hide erroneous movement and make people’s minds trick themselves more easily to accept that what they are seeing looks correct for a thing that size. PR2 does away with all that. It oversaturates everything by making it the brightest day, as in “omg a nuke is going off in the distance” type of glare is a constant in how bright everything is. The movements are more what you’d expect of a couple of fighting insects than giant robots. Everything is so fast and not on the scale of giant robots duking it out. It breaks down the one thing PR1 set out to do well, and it has nothing to offer in return.
I remember his Ted review was a great example of this. Dude gave it 3.5/4 stars and people lost their shit but he's like "its a comedy that is funny as hell, its not trying to be citizen kane."
Lookup his review of Reanimator. 😂
>stupid movie Coming soon to a theatre near you!
Rob Schneider is... A movie!
And this time he hurrr-duh-durr-uh-duuhr!
I love this part of the review for Freddy Got Fingered: “This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.”
I disagree with much of what he said... but god damn he knew how to make a joke and a bad film's expense.
I love reading his piece: “boy, his dog, and a puddle”. https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-boy-his-dog-and-a-puddle He was a great writer and his warmth came through in it.
I like the part where he insinuates that the opening titles were made in iMovie.
Take a drink for every Dutch Angle. You will be dead in 10 mins.
Roger Ebert was quoted earlier in the thread. > “The director, Roger Christian, has learned from better films that directors sometimes tilt their cameras, but he has not learned why.” Prompting the philosophical question; Is it technically a Dutch Angle if it's unintentional because the camera operator was just as likely drunk?
Dutch Angle comes from some ‘Dutch Courage’? Huh.
How do you think it got the name?
A director had a PLAN!
I just googled Dutch Angle. Well done google! : )
Do a barrel roll ; )
Use the boost to skip through!
Can’t let you do that, Star Fox
I think you get the same effect if you do it every center wipe as well.
>I've seen Lisztomania, I've seen Zardoz Whoa now, Listomania and Zardoz are genuine cult classics by eccentric auteur filmmakers operating at the peak of their abilities. They're weird films, but they're also examples of unhinged creativity and personal vision delivered with full Hollywood resources. On even the worst day, they don't deserve to be thrown together with Cats and Battlefield Earth. This is like putting Under the Silver Lake and Beau is Afraid on a list with House of the Dead and Ghost Dad.
opened this thread just to say this. how is a ken russell production on the same level as cats or scientology themed science fiction…
Ken Russell is Ken Russell Also, Roger Daltrey kept the giant dong and put it in his yard until it broke down (was made of Styrofoam I believe)
Beau is Afraid was certainly a movie. It is something put on film, that I watched. Maybe I just need to get real fuckin high for a rewatch or I'm simply too dumb to get it, but it felt too fuckin long for no actual payoff. It just felt like the director should have just gone to therapy instead.
I'm glad I watched it, but I won't rewatch it like i will Ari Aster's other films. Beau is Afraid was definitely too long, and the last hour was the weakest part. The first hour was one of the best depictions of anxiety I've seen. And my favorite part of the movie, perhaps weirdly, was the very long stop motion animation sequence. But overall it was indeed a director dumping a therapy session onto film and then making us sit with it for 3 hours.
Oh yeah I agree with that first hour being a great depiction of anxiety. That's a main reason I wanted to really like it for that reason alone. Plus the "My Bruthah" part. But it really is the meme "Men Would Rather XYZ than go to therapy"
Came here to say that under the drug fueled mania, Zardoz actually has a great plot and intriguing story.
I saw that movie in the theater, back when we even knew that it was supposed to be God damn awful before it even came out, and the funniest thing in the movie was there was one part where John Travolta's character said a line but he didn't laugh after it like he does in every other part of the movie so some kid in the audience about 10 or 12 years old or whatever did the John Travolta laugh and then we all laugh and clapped. Dear God that sounds like I'm making it up but I was one of the ones that laughed and clapped
I saw it in the theater also, this is easily the worst movie I've ever paid to watch. I remember the audio being so loud it was an assault on your senses. You could hear the speakers cracking like they were out of the range they could produce clear sounds.
I saw it at the cheap theater, which was half off from regular theaters, on cheap movie Tuesday. It was $2. I've never felt ripped off for two bucks before or since.
I take it you never saw Highlander 2 in a movie theater.
I saw it in the theater too with a high school friend, we were probably 17 or 18, likely drunk and/or stoned and I think there was only one other guy in the theater. At some point, we lit up and smoked our camel lights like we were at a bar. Remember absolutely nothing about the movie.
[удалено]
the smell of cloves lives in my teenage memory
If you want a good terrible movie: Nothing But Trouble with Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John Candy, and Dan Aykroyd. It's one of my favorite movies despite knowing it's fucking terrible. This movie is the exact reason you don't let Dan Aykroyd write by himself. He's has good ideas that someone needs to ground in reality. This movie is batshit insane at every turn. He pours Hawaiian Punch out of an oil spigot at dinner. Dinner is on a train with disgusting looking hot dogs and all the stuff to put on them. John Candy plays a police officer AND his twin sister. At one point, Dan Aykroyd has a dick for a nose. There are two fat baby-men in diapers named Bobo and Little Debull (pronounced like devil, but with a B). There is a roller coaster that kills people and debones them. Digital Underground and Tupac have a musical number where Dan Aykroyd plays the organ. It's straight insanity and I love every minute of it.
Of movies I’ve personally paid to see, Nothing But Trouble has the worst ratio of talent to output by a mile. It was be like building an all-star major league baseball team and having them finish the season 20-142.
You have been added as a moderator for r/Mariners
>Debull (pronounced like devil, but with a B debil means moron in my language so this made me chuckle, no way its just a coincidence
Débile exists in French and Aykroyd does speak some French thanks to his French Canadian mom and probably thanks too to growing up in Ottawa which is separated from Quebec by a river.
See ya soon, bankerrrrrr!
If it's an ambulance, you got a chance. If it's a hearse, gotta be worse!
Wait Wait Wait, OMG is this the one they have like an automatic road sign as a trap for people passing through? And the judge is incredibly old? Holy shit, I've been searching for this movie because I only had vague recollections of the roller coaster and the road sign so Google was unhelpful. I had no idea such big names were in it!
Yep, that's the one
What is it about this movie that so many people vaguely remember it like a forgotten childhood fever dream? I had the same experience with it and it took years to find what it was
> He pours Hawaiian Punch out of an oil spigot at dinner. You laugh but that was actually a thing. Hawaiian punch used to come in sealed off cans like soup cans and you had to pierce it to open it. Some people absolutely did use oil spouts for this(obviously one kept solely for drinks not oil). My grandma being one of them.
Mr. Bone Stripper!
I want to get off Mr Bones wild ride.
*Battlefield Earth* was, by a country mile, the **UGLIEST** movie I have ever seen. I believe it to be the ugliest movie ever made, but I’ve not seen every movie ever made. It is visually ugly. I don’t want to live in that world not only because everyone looks ridiculous and terrible, but I imagine that world **smells fucking awful.** Its audio is ugly. Not only is the dialog so fucking dumb that everyone watching the movie gets dumber listening to it, but the noises made by the characters — aliens and humans alike — are likewise profoundly unsettling. The message is ugly. The plot is ugly. The denouement is uglier still.
The yellow tint as if someone had peed on the film
a soul of jaundice
To bust out another Ebert quote from his legendary review: >"Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way.
"Unpleasant in a hostile way"...stealing this, for the next person I insult.
Ugliest movie, however defined, might be a good separate post?
Wow I thought I was the only one who felt that. The movie made me feel exactly the same sensation as a nasty smell, somehow. Weird. It's disgusting to look at.
I think the ugliness, since we're using that word, was intentional and is the only element of actual artistry in the movie. It wants you to be uncomfortable and disgusted the entire time, devotes everything to achieving this goal, and succeeds 100%.
At the time it came out, I remember one reviewer referring to the movie as "Battlefield Dirt" as they commented on how the producers inexplicably decided to throw clods of dirt around in nearly every scene.
Don't forget that they took John Travolta at his peak and made him ugly.
I mean peak John tea Olga was really Grease
Do not edit this.
Battlefield Earth 2: The Search for more Gold starring John Tea Olga and Adele Dazeem
I haven't (and won't) see it. What was the message?
It's a recruiting film for the cult of scientology
I remember when it came to dvd and I used to play “find the Scientologist” in the Amazon review section. Tons of 1 star reviews, and a smattering of glowing 5 star reviews calling it the best movie of all time.
I pirated it and felt ripped off
Puny man-animal. You simply cannot comprehend this movie because you eat rats and have no leverage.
I heard that John Travolta and other Scientologist think those who did not like the movie were not evolved enough to understand it. Yeah that is on my list of movies to never watch again.
Do they really think that? Or do they just need to?
Yes.
“*Stupid Man-Animals!*”
I read the book when I was 13 or so. All 900+ pages of it. Then again. I read all the Mission Earth books as a teen and loved them. I have first edition copies of them all. Great covers. 3000+ pages. I've read Battlefield Earth again as an adult and still loved it. Mission Earth not so much. So huge fan of the book and the movie absolutely stunk. In addition, unlike 3 Body Problem which takes a 300 something page book and lays it all out in 8 or whatever episodes, they try to cram 900 into 2 hours. Impossible. So much out of context and not explained. Seriously doubt anyone in the movie read a 900 page book. I doubt they understood any of it. You must read the book to even understand a majority of what's going on in the movie. Also when I read it first in the 80s there wasn't nearly as much stigma around Hubbard. He wrote some really good sci-fi. The book to me is a legendary post apocalyptic journey.
I like Zardoz
It’s important to remember that Zardoz is a 1974 film made before Star Wars. Battlefield Earth was made 26 years later.
Hard to believe it is as long between Battlefield Earth and now as it is between Star Wars and Battlefield Earth. I watched Battlefield Earth a few months ago and thought the special effects holds up pretty well.
Came here to defend Zardoz as well.
There was a campiness in it I enjoyed. It was delightfully weird, but still a bad movie for me. :)
[удалено]
Imo, Zardoz is a product of its time. A time when surrealism wasn't ignored by film makers and a time when drugs induced fever dream was a legit inspiration material
Zardoz is a movie where Sean Connery rides around in a thong while a giant floating stone head spits out guns saying, "The penis is bad. The gun is good." Unfortunately, at some point, it gets weird.
>Sean Connery rides around in a thong A red monokini thong, knee long boots, a colt and a long black braid. >Unfortunately, at some point, it gets weird. And we all remember, Sean Connery turned the role of Gandalf down, because the script of LOTR was too weird for him.
He also turned down the role of The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded because he "didn't get it".
He turned down Gandalf after Zardoz and Highlander 2. That's... a weird sense of weird.
It's beautiful to look at and is constantly engaging. I cannot claim I understood it but I certainly was not *bored* even for a second.
I will gladly admit there's something to be said about a movie that is incoherent but not boring. Battlefield: Earth is, by God, both.
You’re weird but not bad.
>"Battlefield Earth" is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way. - Roger Ebert
— main character teaches primitive humans by drawing triangles in the dirt — next scene, they are flying fighter jets
Hey hey now, they had a simulator that somehow had power and said they had to tame horses or some shit
Roger Ebert's savage review of *Battlefield Earth* is my favorite piece of his writing. "Some movies go off the rails. This one is like the train crash in 'The Fugitive'."
Don't knock zardoz.
my favorite part is when travolta grabs stuff his bad fake fingers bend backward
I worked at a video store when this came out and a customer we all liked there rented it despite our warnings because he was a big scifi nerd. After he came back with it the next day I gave him a free rental and he was just like, "Yeah, I should have skipped this one." Bet everyone involved in this abomination of cinema feels the same way.
This is what I bring up whenever anyone asks for "The worst movie ever." I'm sure there are tons of movies that are equally bad, but those are very low budget movies made with inexperienced people. This was a movie made by professionals that had made movies before, and it was this terrible.
Yes, I'd rather see Sean Connery's hairy ass in a loincloth than a John Travolata vanity project which really is cheap promotion for scientology. Which by the way should have the opposite effect on anyone sane and with a above room temperature IQ because all that shit is insane and stupid. By the way, Hubbard was never considered a good sci-fi writer. None of his work, pre or post scientology, is considered of any relevance or importance in the genre. He wrote mostly in pulp magazines and graduated to cheap paperbacks. While giants of the genere like Issac Asimov or Robert Heinlein started the same way, Hubbard just never reached a next level.
It’s a terrible book that was published in the 1980s. I remember my copy had a sticker on the front saying “Soon to be a major motion picture” The very very worst part of the book was the introduction written by L Ron Hubbard himself wherein he “rewrote” the entire history of the golden age of science fiction and fantasy and had him be the biggest player and “hacks” like Moorcock, Asimov and Heinlein were bit players. Disgusting
The book wasn’t so bad for scifi of it‘s time. The movie was a very poor adaptation of the book
The first half of the book is pretty decent sci-fi adventure, the second half turns into pretty lazy "Earth is so wonderful" unearned plot diarrhea. But the movie only covers the first half, and managed to take the best part and make it terrible
I read it as a 13 year old in '85 and I had no clue about scientology or all the other crap Da Do Ron Ron Hubbard was spewing, and I loved it. For me it was a good read. I was expanding my science fiction horizons and like a thirsty man in the desert, I drank in everything. Did it stand the test of time for me? Nope. Did I watch the movie? About 20 minutes. Absolutely horrible.
Same sort of time period for me. Did You ever read any of his older stuff? It can be quite hard to find. Most of it was very much 40s-50s pulp magazine style stuff. I quite enjoyed his Mission Earth series He wrote it just before starting the Scientology crap and it seems to me this is where a bunch of the stuff scientology believes in comes from (at least by the understanding of it I have from south park). Would have been around 1990 and having no idea what Scientology was I saw Dianetics in a secondhand bookstore. First thought “something I haven’t heard of from Hubbard should be a bit of mindless fun” read the back cover and put it straight back down.
I read all those books as a kid before knowing anything about Scientology - I loved it, the world building was immersive, great humor, lots of taboo stuff for a kid (drugs, sex, scheming). Once I realized this was the Scientology guy, and after reading Dianetics, I felt quite differently about a lot of the topics and attitudes in the series. The Scientology/Dianetics belief system is very big on repressed memories or feelings, and how that can manifest in perversions or addictions. I recently thought I'd like to read those again, but I'm not sure they'd be easy to find. One thing I'm not sure you're correct about - these books came out in the mid to late 80s. Battlefield Earth came out in 82. At that point Scientology had been going for a very long time, it began in the 50s. So I guess these books were either fundraising (and maybe even tax related), or an attempt to appeal to a new audience.
I enjoyed Mission Earth quite a bit when I was a kid, even knowing a bit about Hubbard. Thinking back on what I can remember of it, I must have been on either too many drugs or too few drugs.
If you tried to read Mission Earth again you'd probably toss it in the trash in the first few chapters. L. Ron Hubbard had a hatred for gay people and it really shows in that series. Lots of "Gays are degenerate scum" stuff in it. He also writes 1 dimensional characters. The bad guys are completely bad and the good guys are perfect in every way.
Not unusual for stuff from his period. I remember an EE Smith book where a guy starts a bar brawl by ordering a “girly’ drink and cigarettes and then “insulting the manhood” of the other patrons. (Got to love that early sci-fi where they fly spaceships while chain smoking). I find the simplicity of the characters in stuff from around then to be a quite fun read.
Hmm, I read it was a 15 year old in '85 and i was so proud of myself reading a 1000+ page book. My dad was even impressed and he was never impressed. My criteria in watching the movie was its faithfulness to the book which it failed IMO
Yeah I enjoyed the book. Pulpy golden aged sci-fi
The book was *extremely bad* science fiction for its time Source: I read a lot of science fiction around that time
Yeah. For context, *Battlefield: Earth* was published in 1982. We were well into the “new wave” of SciFi by then. Herbert, Le Guin, and Dick had already published all or most of their best work by that point. 1982 was one year out from *Neuromancer* hitting the shelves. *Battlefield Earth* was a pulpy relic of bottom of the barrel 1940’s dime store SciFi.
*B:E* was a fun campy SF story that was about 700 pages longer than it needed to be. The core story of aliens have conquered Earth and are using slave labor to extract its wealth, powerful alien tries to gain more power and in his hubris gives the slaves the ability to cast off their chains is a formula that works. But it is also a story that can be told adequately in 250 pages, not 1,000.
I read a lot of sci-fi too, I enjoyed it for what it is nothing special but a good bit of fun.
The book was *terrible*. I tried to read it when I was fifteen and I knew it was rubbish.
About the same age I read it all the way through Im still convinced it’s the worst book I’ve ever read.
I think it was the first book I actually stopped reading and walked away from. As a child of 70s SF and fantasy, that's saying something.
You just don’t GET IT, RATBRAIN!! /s
It’s not until you’ve had your third Kerbango that the movie starts to make sense.
The only film I ever tried to get money back after renting.
My favorite detail is that the sixth finger on Travolta's hand switches hands.
Can't spoil what's already rotten.
May I suggest to you, some Neil Breen. Fateful Findings is a real gem.
Seconded if you also play Breen-go while watching. There's enough weird and awful elements that keep showing up that you can put them on a bingo card
One word……leverage
Then I will be CHIEF of se-CURE-it-eeeeeeee!
This is the only movie that made me walk out of the theater.
Watch "Birdemic. Shock and Terror"
Yeah, that was...forgot about that, but it was funny in moments, and at least I was rooting for the birds. In Battlefield Earth I wanted them all to die.
Now go watch the Riff Trax version! Enjoy!
It's the Scientology version of the passion of the christ.
It may be a bit early to make such judgments, but Battlefield Earth may well turn out to be the worst movie of this century. - A.O. Scott, NY Times I went into this movie hoping it would reset my baseline for bad movies. It did. It also gave me a new comparison to use: Did the movie have cavemen flying 1000 year old Harrier jets on a week's training? No, then BE wins!
Probably a bad hot take but 13 year old me loved this movie. I didn't know anything about it being connected to scientology until way later. I saw the bad reviews but I didn't care. I equate this to you people watching stuff like kong v godzilla or ready player one. It's popcorn fun for people who don't know any better. I had fun. I also saw double dragon so I know how much worse it can get than this.
I'm still waiting on battle toads movie, then we can have battle toads double dragon and then I can die
That game was a blast, until you got to the speed bike part anyway, don't think I got past that many times.
Battlefield Earth is a whole lot dumber and overall just 100x worse than a movie like Kong v Godzilla. The story is beyond ridiculous, the dialogue is terrible, acting is atrocious, every shot is angled for no reason, everything about it just terrible. It's not "just a fun popcorn movie". The movies you're talking about have a following / they did OK, everyone (except maybe 13 year olds) hated Battlefield Earth. You need to watch it again, it's absolutely horrible.
As a counter point the new Jurassic Park (the star lord ones) made a billion dollars I've watched most of them, do they function sure, does that mean I enjoyed them, no. I saw battlefield earth in theaters. I'm not saying the film holds up I'm saying it's fine to like bad movies, especially when you likely don't know better. I care little about opinions because I've seen what you people will enjoy. The original Jurassic Park is awesome btw.
Try The Room or Troll 2. Those will seriously numb your brain. I have an existential crisis about 2/3 through either of them now, like part of me would rather be staring at a wall.
I don't know, The Room is entirely worse in every way but somehow immensely more watchable to me. I think it's because The Room is just this crazy passion project by a guy who wrangled up a bunch of people who have no idea what the hell was going on until it was too late. Meanwhile Battlefield Earth was made by actual professionals, award winners with years of experience and a huge budget, and if somebody told me it was supposed to be one of these movies done at a loss for tax purposes that wasn't ever legally supposed to get screened for anyone, I'd believe it.
>The Room is just this crazy passion project by a guy who wrangled up a bunch of people who have no idea what the hell was going on until it was too late. Does this qualify The Room as a meta-horror movie?
Oh hi artgriego!
Your comment is tearing me apart. Do you understand lahf? DO YOU
Any bad movie you reccomend as somewhat enjoyable?
I'm not OP, but I'm here for you. [10,000 BC](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/10-000-bc) is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Watch it with booze and friends (actually, watch all of these with booze and friends). I'll never forget watching this movie, and Phil standing up off the couch to say, "Today...is our INDEPENDENCE MOON!" [Doomsday](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/doomsday-uncut) Yes, that one. It doesn't just twist the plot, there's like 4 different genres of movie one right after the other. It's awful and oh so hilarious. If you ever need a medieval respite from 28 Days Later, you'll get one just before the movie goes Mad Max on you. [Kung Pow: Enter the Fist](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/kung-pow-enter-the-fist) maybe doesn't even belong on this list, because it's *maybe* not a bad movie? But it definitely is because most of it is Steve Oedekirk digitally inserting himself into a truly awful 70s kung fu flick. It's also endlessly quotable and is somewhere in my top 20 films of all time, just because it is so unabashedly what it is.
Your shirt is blue!
This is always my answer when the Reddit question comes around “What’s the worst movie you’ve seen.” The answer is always Battlefield Earth.
OP just got added to the suppressive persons list /s
The rifftrax treatment is epic.
I’ll top this. I saw it in theaters 🤪🤢
It was better the 2nd time in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish.
The movie seemed to me like it knew it was stupid. But then pretended like it wasn’t. Travoltas character points out the gold is smelted and in bar form, and scolds the main character about it, but doesn’t press further. Like dude you told him to mine for gold and he brought you perfectly weighted smelted gold bars. And you just barely question it??? They find the base with 1000 year old perfectly working military equipment and teach literal fucking cavemen how to use it. Bro, you park a humvee for a month and don’t run it, that bitch needs a major overhaul. But all this military equipment works great? The same level of military equipment earth had when this alien race invaded btw that apparently lasted just a few minutes. Now 1000 years later, and it can kick the aliens asses. Every part of this movie is dumb, and we are all dumber just for having watched it.
Apparently this film uses a lot of Dutch angles for no apparent reason
The book is far better than the movie, in that the book is ok. I didn't know much about the author when I read it. I thought it was written by someone who knew how to put a story together, but not a good sci-fi writter. It really could have used an iteration or few with an experienced sci-fi editor. Idk if he was beyond taking criticism at that point, but there's a few placeholderish elements. Still, it does some interesting things, that are not in the movie. Like asking, what happens after the big baddies are defeated? Who cleans up after? and who swoops in to scavenge what's left?
L. Ron Hubbard was never a well-regarded scifi writer. Everyone thought he was a hack.
This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen 4 times. First time, it was so bad that I thought something was wrong with me and I didn’t get it, or wasn’t in the right mood. So I gave it a second chance. I fell asleep at some point, woke up when it was over. Third time, I decided to give it my full attention just to be sure. It’s horrible. I couldn’t believe that a sci-fi movie with Travolta and Forest Whitaker could be so bad. I didn’t care or know much about Scientology, I was not biased in any way, other than I really thought I would like it based on the premise and cast. I watched it a fourth time with a friend who didn’t believe me a movie could be so bad. It just gets worse each time.
Everything sitting in Dutch angles and John Travolta behaving entirely like he was told to "just be yourself." That's what I remember, and being legendarily bad.
Movie Rec : THE APPLE It's a canadien sci-fi musical that is so delightfully weird, dumb, and demented. The whole thing is sort of in the style of XANADU (which is also good/bad movie) - the metaphors are heavy, the music is....a choice, and the third act is so fucking bizarre it's like your brain is getting flashbanged. Really good stuff, you will not be disappointed
Oh yes, it’s an atrocity on celluloid if ever I’ve seen one. But still: didn’t you like seeing… OUR FRIENDLY BARTENDER!!!
While you were still learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME...! **I ... was being trained ... to conquer GALAXIES**!!!
I feel that Mortal Kombat: Annihilation somehow topped it in awfulness. Along with GI Joe: Retaliation. But I guess BE had more serious intentions and therefore failed harder.
It might be a bad movie but I also loved it.
When it comes to enjoying badly made movies, it’s always about your suspension of disbelief. Sometimes you can get by the faults, sometimes it’s too much. I found this flick watchable, but I always seem to like Kim Coates (even in this movie). When they have the money, and decent idea, it’s a shame when they come out with a dud
I have just one question for you, puny man-animal: DO YOU WANT LUNCH?!?!?
How dare you defile Zardoz's name by mentioning it in the same sentence as this cinematic abortion.
I love the book and would gladly burn everything associated with the movie with fire.
Don’t mean to spoil the fun but the dialogue in this movie being judged based on Hubbard’s writing doesn’t quite make sense? They didn’t take dialogue from the book, did they?
I saw this in the theatre when it came out with my friend, we were teens. I didn't know anything about scientology or L Ron, just thought we were gonna be seeing a normal space scifi flick with Travolta in it. I was taken aback with how poor the movie was... Spent some time trying to figure out why it existed.
There’s a line in the movie where, I believe , Travolta skipped the punctuation and created a new phrase that my friends and I use to this day. “Crap. Lousy humans” Became “Crap-lousy humans”. And yes there is a relevant [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/37/).
Wait is this movie just filled with Scientologists then ?
'L. Ron Hubbard was a scifi writer ' - that is questionable too. If you liked the movie in the way you are saying you should try reading the book. I love sci-fi books, but his are so basic and pointless, that they are more like fantasy of a young child. But, to be fair, he is the proof that mediocrity won't hold you back from founding a religion of idiots.
I saw this in the theater.
To this day it’s still the single movie that makes me mad I lost $7 watching in L.A. Cavemen flying F-16s. Oh gawd.
This movie is a guilty pleasure and i dont care who knows.
I fucking love this movie. Fight me
I don't want to fight you. I am fascinated. As someone who's seen this movie, I am dying to know what you love about it.
Can’t be truly certain what the poster meant, but I’m picturing a guy in a crowded Boston bar late in the season standing up suddenly and revealing a Yankees t-shirt, red-faced, tottering a bit, and loudly slurring out to everyone: “New York you Beantown bitches, fight me!”
I have seen bits and pieces of it over the years; I just couldn't bring myself to watch it in its entirety.
Me and my buddy rented this once when we were tripping balls I kinda knew what to expect that it was shitty. He frigin loved the movie. I thought it was funny as hell how bad it was but definitely give it watch tripping
I Watched it when I was around 9 or 10 I think. Thought it was a "good" movie. Saw it nearly a decade or so later and realised how shit it was. Didn't realise at that time there was a Scientology connection. Now that im older and barely wiser, I realise it was shit and cult propaganda. Anyway, how good has the cricket been lately?
The worst piece of shit movie I ever saw was The Stay Awake. That movie is so inept I can't quite describe it. The best bad movie I ever saw was Bad Dreams. That was unintentionally funny.
I still have an intense hatred of dutch angles because of this movie.
This is fascinating. I haven't watched the "movie" because my wife has no tolerance for bad movies. But this discussion prompts a subject which I find really interesting and would someday like to write my PhD thesis (no likely to happen) on that is, the difference between terrible movies "cult classics" and "it's so bad it's good" Thoughts?
The book is so much better.