Science fiction movies do have an expiration date just like anything it would appear since some of them really haven’t aged well. If you need any more proof of this, Honest Trailers and CinemaSins are good resources since they’ll rag on just about anything that comes into their orbit, and it’s likely that they might have already taken a few digs at the movies on this list. It does happen now and again that a movie that we enjoyed as kids or adolescents really doesn’t hold up after a while if it held up at all since the science and the general idea of it was great when it was being pushed as an idea to bring to the big screen, but kind of fizzled when it was really given the once-over by those that know something about the content. Some movies just don’t hold up since their special effects tend to look a bit dated once the years start to pass, while others kind of fail simply because the technology and the application of certain ideas just weren’t sound in the first place and was more or less a fantasy that was made to sell movie tickets.
Here are just a few science fiction movies that really didn’t age well.
5. Flash Gordon
Remember what I said about special effects? This movie can’t really hold its own weight at this point since the special effects and the acting are far worse than any of us likely remember and the overall story of Flash Gordon is kind of cheesy really. But hey, when we were younger this was one of the movies that we couldn’t help but enjoy since it was absolutely awesome and we didn’t know that much about special effects. Once we grew up a little and the technology started getting better, this one got left behind for the most part and became a nostalgic part of the past that a lot of people still enjoy in a quaint kind of way.
4. Cowboys and Aliens
This is one of those oddball fantasies that someone had and ran with but didn’t think of how to develop before putting it on screen. Does anyone remember that much from this movie, apart from the fact that Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde were even in it? Seriously, Scifi and the old west aren’t exactly meant to be kept at an arms-length at all times, just ask Back to the Future about that, but there are times when a movie really needs to be given a bit more thought than went into this one since the end result was something that was entirely forgettable and not even close to being the hit that people were hoping for.
3. Short Circuit
This one is kind of hard to criticize since it was a lot of fun and it was pretty funny back in the day. But then again, so was the Nintendo robot, and it only had a couple of useful functions that it didn’t really accomplish all that well. But those that are into robotics could easily rip this movie apart, and they’ve done so in the past since there’s a tone of iniquities that go along with this movie. While it’s not my goal to rip the movies apart it is enough to say that this one didn’t exactly age that well simply because it was one of the many that decided to take the science that was there and apply it for a split second before making up a lot of other stuff that sounded cool.
2. Planet of the Apes
Has anyone ever noticed how futuristic movies tend to throttle the human race en masse and don’t tend to show us in good favor? It could be that we’re said to be the architects of our own demise, which is kind of a grim way to look at things, but it could also be that as humans we understand our own arrogance and shortcomings, so we know that something is bound to be headed down the pipeline to wipe us out, be it something we concoct or something that happens because of a few things that we’ve done. But Planet of the Apes is an idea that was great for its time but didn’t really make the push into the current era for one reason or another.
1. The Core
A lot of scientists have had a field day with this one since the ‘science’ behind it is so horribly flawed that trying to sort it all out bit by bit would take longer than the actual movie. Just for sake of argument though, the fact that the crew can walk around inside a giant geode without feeling the pressure that their craft was built withstand but their suits are not is kind of hinky. Then there’s the idea of outrunning a set of CHAINED, NUCLEAR BLASTS. First off, firing nuclear weapons inside the essential heart of a planet sounds like a bad idea right from the get. But then, thinking that you can outrun the shockwave that will also produce an EMP that can knock out every electronic on the ship is kind of hard to fathom.
Like it or not there will never be a perfect Scifi movie, but at the very least, some are still enjoyable and have weathered the years well.
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