The science fiction genre has always seen mixed success in Hollywood, from icons like The War of the Worlds to disastrous flops like Battlefield Earth. A lot of the time, the genre’s stories are built around great premises that, whether because of poor writing, bad effects or simply underwhelming execution, just don’t resonate with audiences. All the same, these movies deserve some respect for teasing a great idea, even if they didn’t quite stick the landing.

Science fiction movies are often the most ambitious films in Hollywood, with the likes of Avatar pulling in billions of dollars on big budgets and epic visuals. However, some filmmakers wind up spending too much time on the superficial side of these films than truly exploring their ideas. Moviegoers are just as interested in character development and world-building as flash and style, something these movies should have understood.

10

Waterworld (1995)

Directed By Kevin Reynolds

Following the success of George Miller’s Mad Max franchise, a slew of post-apocalyptic action movies made their way to the big screen. One of the most divisive yet intriguing of these was Waterworld, which takes place in a future where Earth has been submerged in rising oceans. The story follows Kevin Costner in the role of The Mariner, an amphibious mutant man who aids a young girl and her protector in their search for Dryland.

Waterworld has slowly earned some respect from science fiction fans, even if only for its ambition. However, the film tried too hard to be a seafaring Mad Max, and left so much of its premise under-explored. The film has a great story, and Costner’s Mariner made for a great hero. However, aside from trading the desert for the high seas, the film didn’t add much to its genre, only offering brief glimpses of how much has changed.

9

In Time (2011)

Directed By Andrew Niccol

One of the most common — and increasingly popular — sub-genres of science fiction has always been dystopias, which explore the extremes of inequality. In 2011’s In Time, the topic of inequality was explored through the brilliant premise of using time on a person’s life as currency. Following the story of a working-class man as he tries to ransom a rich man’s daughter, the story turns into a veritable sci-fi Bonnie and Clyde saga.

In Time offers science fiction fans a terrifying look at dystopia, as well as a very tangible exploration of inequality that could have resonated with people, especially had it been released later on. However, for such a unique concept, wasting it on a predictable crime story didn’t allow for much exploration of the deeper side of the premise. World-building and the political side of the story were traded for another paint-by-numbers action story. It starts out strong, but audiences understand where it’s all leading by the halfway point.

8

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)

Directed By Luc Besson

Combining high fantasy with science fiction has always been hard to get right, with movies like Star Wars nailing it, while others fall flat. In Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, audiences were given an intriguing quest to save the galaxy, one that lead them on a tour of a cavalcade of alien species and worlds. Focusing on a pair of elite operatives racing to defeat galactic villainy, the story offers plenty of high adventure, but not much in the way of deep world-building or interesting characters.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is like a montage of sci-fi tropes and cool creature designs, dwelling more on the marvels of CGI than a compelling story. For its visuals, the film is worth a watch, but it never manages to achieve anything more than that, feeling more like an ambitious video game than a film. Like Avatar, the film spends more time trying to wow its audience than telling an original story.

7

Jumper (2008)

Directed By Doug Liman

As superhero cinema took off thanks to the likes of X-Men and Spider-Man, a number of filmmakers sought to explore a more grounded, serious side of the genre. One of the most interesting movies to come of this was Jumper, a story that effectively asks and answers the question of what a young man would do with the power to teleport. Here, Hayden Christensen stepped into that role as a morally-flawed but ultimately heroic “Jumper,” David Rice.

It’s clear to anyone who watched it that Jumper was a premise rife with potential, and even had all the building blocks to be great. However, it also suffered from feeling like a film whose creator threw everything at the wall to see what would stick, rushing out to explore as many plot threads as possible in one go. Audiences were left with an open ending that did tease more, but the overall execution was simultaneously underwhelming and bloated.

6

Soldier (1998)

Directed By Paul W.S. Anderson

The 1990s saw the sci-fi/action combination reach its peak through the likes of Terminator 2, Demolition Man and Starship Troopers. These movies allowed some of Hollywood’s biggest action stars to branch out into a fresh genre — including Kurt Russell in Soldier. Telling the story of a futuristic super-soldier abandoned on a barren planet inhabited by lost colonists, the film explores themes of redemption and overcoming ideology to do what’s right.

One of the most intriguing — and often forgotten — aspects of Soldier is that it’s actually set in the Blade Runner universe, albeit only subtly. The film’s core message of a soldier finding his humanity could have been delivered had Russell been allowed more emotional range in his character. Unfortunately, due to bad direction and a story that goes exactly where everyone expects at every turn, the movie is almost unwatchable. The fact that the film’s most interesting part is a throwaway reference is as telling as anything.

5

After Earth (2013)

Directed By M. Night Shyamalan

After Earth takes place in a future where humanity has been forced to leave Earth following a war with an alien race. Revolving around a son trying to survive the dangerous new Earth to find help for his wounded father, the movie blends survivalism with creature feature sci-fi. Despite its potential, the movie is just incredibly boring, and wastes an otherwise interesting backdrop for a predictable “man versus nature” story.

Despite a good idea, After Earth is one of Hollywood’s biggest cases of an actor making a project about himself, with Will Smith insisting on acting opposite his son, Jayden. The film would have been greatly improved by focusing more on the father/son angle, instead of splitting the two up for most of the runtime. The only interesting part about the movie is sacrificed to give Jayden more screen time, robbing it of its emotional potential.

4

BloodsH๏τ (2020)

Directed By Dave Wilson

Based on the comic book of the same name, BloodsH๏τ cast Vin Diesel in the role of Valiant’s immortal antihero, exploring his origin story. Like many sci-fi superhero movies, the film introduces a variety of elements but doesn’t really explain or explore them in any real detail. Instead, the audience is led on a standard action revenge story, one that underwhelms its audience in just how predictable it is.

BloodsH๏τ suffered from a few problems, from the COVID-19 pandemic depressing theater turnout to compeтιтion from Marvel and DC. Ultimately, the movie just felt too much like a paint-by-numbers 1990s-style action movie, with bland antagonists and nothing but a gimmick to set it aside from other revenge movies. A hero kept alive by nanites should be a cool, high-concept idea on the big screen, but here they’re just used as a way of preventing the audience from asking too many questions.

3

Wild Wild West (1999)

Directed By Barry Sonnenfeld

After his success in iconic buddy movies like Men In Black and Bad Boys, Will Smith made his way to the Old West in the steampunk buddy cop movie Wild Wild West. Casting him in the role of a no-nonsense US Army captain, Jim West, he partnered with Kevin Kline’s Artemus Gordon on a mission to save President Grant from a Confederate plot. Despite a good premise, the film doesn’t really have much that sets it apart from other buddy comedies, and its steampunk elements all come across as too campy.

Steampunk is a sub-genre Hollywood often fumbles, but in Wild Wild West, the stars’ on-screen chemistry and the story’s adventurous premise should have been enough to make it work. The buddy cop dynamic is something not often seen in the Western genre, and seeing that combination made for a promising story. The film has its moments of fun and a star-studded cast, but its execution made for a cheesy mystery that is less enjoyable the older you get.

2

The Black Hole (1979)

Directed By Gary Nelson

’70s science fiction was a mixed bag when it comes to both story and execution, with the decade’s poor special effects and low budgets hindering the genre. One of the best examples of this came in 1979’s The Black Hole, a movie that follows the voyage of a starship to an abandoned vessel on the edge of a black hole. After encountering the ship’s sole survivor, a brilliant but evil scientist, the fate of the crew soon becomes an all-too-predictable Star Trek-style story.

A reflection of ’70s sci-fi, The Black Hole’s limited budget didn’t align with the grand ideas behind the story, making it feel more like a ’50s B-movie than anything else. In its absurd character designs and predictable plot, this movie promises a deep, mind-bending exploration of the mysteries of black holes, only to offer a brief glimpse as a religious concept. Elements of the film were strong enough to make their way into the likes of Event Horizon, which did aspects of the premise justice as a terrifying cosmic horror story.

1

John Carter (2012)

Directed By Andrew Stanton

The work of Edgar Rice Burroughs has been incredibly influential on both adventure and science fiction, contributing enormously to George Lucas’ ideas for Star Wars. In 2012, Disney honored the centennial of his space-based hero, John Carter, in his own movie. An epic journey to Mars, where the hero is caught up in the midst of a civil war, the film was one of the most ambitious of its decade — but was also a record-setting flop.

John Carter is one of those movies that, on paper, should have worked, from the stunning visuals to a tale as old as time in the hero rescuing a princess. However, due to the character’s modern-day obscurity, tough compeтιтion in 2012, and many incorrectly seeing it as a Star Wars clone, the film went down in flames. By no means is the movie terrible, but its execution felt generic and predictable, struggling to set itself apart from other sci-fi/fantasy stories Disney keeps trying to make.