Often times, a great science fiction film can make us look at ourselves in the mirror and see where we are as a people and where we could be going. Or it’s just a great, gripping adventure. There are also other times, where the movie is complete shlock - fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000 and dollar bins at a Swap Meet. Science fiction movies have been around, almost as long as film itself, with 1902’s French film, Le Voyage dans la Lune (The Voyage To The Moon).

While movies have been derivative of one another also since just about the beginning of movies themselves, something happened in the seventies that gave birth to the strange space sagas of the eighties. Star Wars success gave way to just about every Tom, Dick, and Harry trying to create their own saga or coming out with some nonsense, hoping it would catch on as those movies did.

Good B-movies are hard to come by. The “So Bad It's Good” category is amongst the most subjective in film, perhaps. Here are 15 80s Sci-Fi Films That Are Garbage (And 5 Everyone Should See).

20 Garbage: Howard The Duck

The Marvel Cinematic Universe begins right here! But seriously, the guy who brought us Star Wars, George Lucas himself produced this epically bad comic book movie. The smoking, magazine-reading duck heads to Earth to save us all from the Dark Overlord Of The Universe. The thanks he gets - Howard The Duck was nominated for seven Razzie awards.

19 Garbage: Maximum Overdrive

One good thing about Steven King’s only directorial effort was the soundtrack was mostly AC/DC songs. Another good thing about Maximum Overdrive was the credits signaling the movie was over! The film answers a question nobody wanted answered – what would happen if Steven King made Transformers, since machines come to life in this strange movie. Poor Marvel, they okayed not only Howard The Duck, but using the Green Goblin face in this movie.

18 Garbage: Mac And Me

Mac And Me is one of the films that famously and habitually has a zero rating on RottenTomatoes. Essentially the movie is a complete and utter rip-off of E.T. While plenty of films rip-off or borrow from other films, at least they bring something new to the table. This one is pretty much the same plot, just different product placement. Instead of Reese’s, we get Coca-Cola.

17 Not-So-Bad: Back To The Future

Marty McFly is accidentally flung back thirty years into the past and had to repair time. One of the coolest things about the great science fiction and fantasy films of the eighties is that a lot of them are also pop-culture phenomenons. One of the only ones that is universally lauded and fun for the whole family is Back To The Future. The original film is still the best one. However, that doesn’t mean the whole trilogy isn’t awesome.

16 Garbage: Killer Klowns From Outer Space

While all of the trash on this list have their cult followings, Killer Klowns is the cultiest of the cult movies, just by its very nature of having evil clowns as the film’s titular antagonists. If you’ve never seen it, the movie’s plot is probably exactly what you think it made. The titular clowns descend on our planet looking to turn humans into – what else? – yummy cotton candy.

15 Garbage: Leonard, Part 6

It could have been a pretty funny spy comedy, starring one of the funniest men in America (at the time). But Leonard Part 6 wound up becoming one of the worst films ever made. But the premise was so rife for things to go wrong that nothing went right. Leonard is tasked with saving the world again (hence “Part 6). This time from an evil vegan who has trained animals to eliminate humans.

14 Garbage: 2019: After The Fall Of New York

Anytime a movie is a complete copy of another cult classic, it’s bound to head straight to the bargain bin at the Flea Market. Submitted for your disapproval – 2019: After The Fall Of New York. If you’ve ever see or heard about the Kurt Russell movie, Escape From New York, then you’ve already seen a movie just like Fall, only the original and far superior version. In a nuclear war-ravaged world, our biker hero, Parsifal, is looking for the last fertile female, being held captive in New York City.

13 Not-So-Bad: Aliens

Ridley Scott gave the world Alien. It was and still is one of the best horror movies you’ll ever see. But why stop at just one Xenomorph, when you have dozens running around a ship. James Cameron crafted one of the best sci-fi/war/horror movies you’ll ever see with the follow-up, Aliens. Ripley is found floating in space 57 years after the events of the first film. With everyone she knew gone, she has to convince a ship full of trigger happy marines that they don’t stand a chance against these acid-bleeding aliens.

12 Garbage: Galaxina

One would assume that no one was trying to make high art casting untested-as-an-actress Playboy Playmate, Dorothy Stratten to play a female robot in the intentionally campy Galaxina. While the movie was intentionally campy and a parody of science-fiction films, the tight 20-day shooing schedule made for an abysmal mess. There are better produced late-night parodies with playmates on cable than this film.

11 Garbage: Ewoks: The Battle For Endor

What’s that? There are no bad Star Wars movies until the prequels, you say? You say wrong, good sir! After Return Of The Jedi, someone (re: George Lucas) got the bright idea to launch his cute and cuddly teddy bear Ewoks into their own franchise. He did this not once, but twice!

The Battle For Endor is nearly unwatchable and it's even set before Jedi, which meant all sorts of human and lizard characters needed to be written off the planet before the Empire could come to the forest moon and take it over.

10 Garbage: The Puma Man

One of the posters for this bad movie has a superhero, the Puma Man, flying at us with a blatant copy of the Death Star. This has got to be good, right? Strap yourselves in, tape your eyelids open, and don’t look away from this Italian movie. Playing off the trends of American movies of the day (superhero and sci-do), but the mashup was so bad that it wound up on MST3K and the film’s star, Donald Pleasence, called it the worst he’s ever been in.

9 Not-So-Bad: Heavy Metal

Don’t let the only animated movie on this list fool you – it is not a kids movie at all. Heavy Metal takes some of the best stories from the Heavy Metal Anthology magazine and combines them with some great music from the likes of Cheap Trick, Devo, Ozzy, and Sammy Hagar. Each of the stories somehow references the sum of all evils, the Loc-Nar. Similar to The Wall, it’s a rite of passage and requires viewing for rebellious teens.

8 Garbage: Parasite

With no government, the US is now controlled by The Merchants. They want Dr. Paul Deen to create a new dangerous life form to control the peace. Instead of handing it over, he escapes with it. Now he’s on the run, trying to understand the creature he created. Parasite doesn’t have a whole lot going for it besides the debut of Demi Moore.

7 Garbage: Piranha Part II - The Spawning

James Cameron’s earliest directorial effort, Piranha II: The Spawning might have shown that the kid had promise, but this movie was buried under all sorts of nonsense. The film featured flying piranhas, because who isn’t scared of being eaten by killer flying fish? Cameron himself has disowned the film. He has tried to retcon his own history, citing The Terminator as his first feature film.

6 Garbage: Warrior Of The Lost World

Another Italian science fiction flick, another near ripoff of a popular franchise. Warrior Of The Lost World, also called The Mad Rider (not so subtle). This is another movie that a lot of people found, thanks to MST3K. The Rider crashes into town with a computerized motorcycle, Einstein. Brought back to health by the elders, he is then tasked with stopping the overlord-type of government. But first, he has to do battle with all sorts of vagrants and vagabonds for their respect and backup.

5 Not-So-Bad: Escape From New York

On its surface, Escape From New York might look and feel like several of its own pretenders, found on this list. But look deeper and the film has several things going for it that the others don’t. Namely stellar performances from Kurt Russell and Sir Isaac Hayes. New York becomes a prison island and the population is allowed to essentially destroy each other. The President is taken hostage and war criminal Snake is tasked with breaking into Manhattan to rescue him.

4 Garbage: Alien From L.A.

Alien From L.A. wasn’t quite terrible enough. So they tried to get even worse with a sequel - Journey To The Center Of The Earth. Both of these atrocities star model Kathy Ireland. She plays Wanda, a “nerdy” girl who gets dumped because she’s not adventurous. She gets a letter saying her archeologist dad has perished. When going through his belongings, she learns about the lost city of Atlantis and decides to head there, a literal “alien from L.A.”

3 Garbage: Space Mutiny

Sometimes it’s hard to blame a film for being bad. But Mutiny In Space from South Africa is pretty bad. Even if this was the country’s first ever movie – they literally stole and repurposed footage from Battlestar Galactica. Since the movie didn’t do gangbusters at the box office, the producers of the original BSG had no interest in seeking damages.

2 Garbage: Heartbeeps

There’s only two type of people in this world – those who love Andy Kaufman and those who didn’t understand his brand of comedy. But neither group of people would be able to appreciate Heartbeeps. The movie featured Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as two robots who fall in love. Despite earning negative reviews from critics at the time, and a 0% rating on RottenTomatoes, the movie did earn an Oscar nomination for its make-up.

1 Not-So-Bad: Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

The Wrath Of Khan isn’t just the best Trek movie of all time, is one of the best movies of all time. It single-handedly saved the franchise after a fairly abysmal first movie. Kirk and Khan play a scary game of “Can You Top This?” all over a life-altering piece of tech. The movie features the debut of the now iconic Kobayashi Maru. Not to mention a little something like Spock perishing to save the crew, which sets the stage for the next two Star Trek adventures.