What's the last truly bad movie you watched?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

59. 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Hilariously pretentious. And totally dumb.

Really, men in gorilla suits? It is somewhat prescient about Pan Am going out of business. The load factor on the shuttle to the moon isn't a sustainable business model. And the whole thing with the sentient computer? Really? It may be that I didn't see the movie when it first came out, although I was more than old enough. Maybe by the time I did see it, some 15 or so years later, I was too jaded.

I had read the truly wonderful short story by Arthur C. Clarke "The Sentinel" that was the basis for part of the movie. I'd recommend it to anyone and tell them to skip the stupid movie if you haven't already had the misfortune to waste a couple hours of your life watching it.

But I've been reading science fiction since I was about 7. I'm 68 now, so you do the math. Although, maybe that's the essential problem: I'm steeped in the tropes of science fiction. The people who make movies may never have read a decent s-f novel, although they certainly know how to go about making movies.

Of course, I have a huge problem with most science fiction movies. As a life-long reader of the genre (and an occasional writer of the stuff) I'll say outright that most supposedly science fiction movies really aren't science fiction. They're movies with a hand wave at being science fiction. At best.

For my money, the most truly science fictional movie I've ever seen is "Twelve Monkeys". Just astonishing. A reasonably close second is "The Butterfly Effect" because it stayed true to the essential premise. That doesn't often happen.

Meanwhile, there are some truly wonderful s-f novels that are crying out to be made into movies. I don't know why they haven't been, but it's a shame. And to name some of my favorite candidates: Door into Summer, Time For the Stars, both by Robert Heinlein. The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov.