Asklemmy

The Cube.
Most people saw it as an average horror movie where a bunch of people try to get out of a giant torture box. But there was a pivotal scene that stuck with me where one of the prisoners realizes he helped build part of it. The whole thing wasn't some intentional torture device but just a bunch of people doing their day jobs that were lost in a bureaucracy not ever questioning what their work was creating.
A stark reflection of society and the systems we create and the dangers of not ever looking at the bigger picture.

Of course they proceeded to shit all over this idea in Cube2 where it ended up being just another evil government experiment.

In Time (2011). Time is currency in the dystopia in the film - paying for something decreases your lifespan, earning wages increases it.

The movie sets up a really cool class structure, wherein there are rich people born with/inheriting hundreds of thousands of years of life, and poor people barely managing to scrape enough hours to stay alive until they can earn more the next day. There are segmented areas of the city that cost years to get into.

Overall incredible premise, but the story wasn't exceptional beyond a couple of the cool mechanics you might expect based on said premise.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Amazing world building and visuals that was destroyed by terrible casting and wooden acting.

There was this movie I saw once called Time Trap. I definitely would not call it good, but the premise was interesting.

Archaeology professor goes missing while exploring a cave which was once thought to be the location of the fountain of youth. His grad students go looking for him, find the cave, weird things start happening when they enter.

Jupiter Ascending

They seed the galaxy and harvest whole planets to create an immortality serum. Fantastic world concept ... but a subpar story to make a movie about within that world.

Hot take, “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”. The radio play, books and 80s bbc show were not represented very well at all. They missed well over 75% of the jokes, Mos Def and Zooey Deschanel added nothing to it, and they added plots and scenes, I think just to get more “blockbuster actors” in, that ruin the original story of the radio play. Sam Rockwell, Alan Rickman/Warwick Davis and Bill Nightly were the highlights. One of the few movies I wish they would remake.

Reign of fire. Don't know if that's what you were referencing in the picture but it's immediately what came to mind when I saw the drawing.

Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology

Not a movie, but a TV show. Revolution.

A sci-fi post-apocalypse show where the premise is that all of a sudden all technology (specifically anything that uses electricity) just stops working and nobody knows why. The show takes place 15 years into the apocalypse. The US has Balkanized into various regional states (although you don't learn this until later). Some regions have devolved into chaos while others have basically reverted to a steam-punk type of society. Since all modern ships use electricity, they've begun to revive large ships from the age of sail. The remnants of the US military at Guantanamo Bay eventually return to the mainland and try to reestablish a much more explicitly authoritarian control over the US. You eventually learn that what caused the global blackout was the creation of a self-replication nanotech which rapidly spread across the planet and shut off all electricity.

Great premise, but it got too much into the soap-opera CW-style of writing and didn't last more than 2 seasons.

Man in the High Castle tv show. The premise was interesting, Nazis taking over the US and the population figting back. However, the show quickly devolved into a confusing mess.

Nazis are in charge of the US government, yet there's other Nazis on the run from the Nazis in charge? And they're hiding bibles? I was left scratching my head wondering if there were any characters that weren't Nazis. I guess it's a story about how bad guys always turn on each other?

Also The Witcher season 1 tv show. I've never played the games before and knew nothing about it. I was hoping the tv series would be my introduction to the games, but... what in the actual fuck. Was the director drunk? Is this a show about medieval fantasy time travel and I'm just not getting it?

Basically every Terminator movie after T2. They have some great "what if" premises that could add so much depth to the world, but then struggle to see the vision through is a satisfying way.

T3: Let's actually show Judement Day

T4: Let's show the turning point in the war against the machines (edit: and why people follow John Connor as leader of the resistance)

T5: Exists

T6: What if all this time travel actually branched the timeline? What would it look like if one of Skynet's terminators succeeded?

Not a film, but a TV series? It's called Jericho, and the synopsis in the Wikipedia reads:

Jericho is an American post-apocalyptic action drama television series, which centers on the residents of the fictional city of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States.

But yeah, the execution is mediocre at best. Both the action and the drama are unbearably flimsy and cliche, even the argument flops as metal.

The movie In Time (2011). The premise was interesting but I can't even remember the plot because it was so meh.

I also think Idiocracy could have been better. It had good moments, and that's what most people remember, but the overall cohesiveness falls flat. Great moments, iconic scenes, but could have been a better film.

Interstellar is like Neo-Posadism minus Marxism. The premise was awesome. Climate apocalypse and space travel. But the movie doesn't have humanity solve either of those problems. Instead it pops it's collar and says *don't worry bro, ~~the market~~ ~~Marxist space aliens~~ ~~some scientists~~ ~~a famous shirtless hot actor guy~~ fuck you who cares the green guy behind a curtain made a worm hole or something".

As featured in the picture, Reign of Fire. I had forgotten about it. I truly don't think there is a film out there that has represented dragons as I see them better.

Passengers had the possibility to be really creepy, I still liked it but without seeing Chris Pratts time alone first, we would have all been confused and on guard with Jennifer Lawrence.

Wanted (2008) - The comics are brilliant, sharp, funny and intelligent. By leaving out everything smart/interesting from the comics they managed to create a mediocre action movie.

I feel like the last 30 years of Star Wars movies could qualify here

Terminator Genisys

First creative use of the time travel the series ever had... And totally botched about every other aspect of the movie that wasn't an action sequence.

That whole 30 second idea of a Terminator in the 70s with a young Sarah Connor was far more interesting than what the movie did with Kyle Reese.

A few favorites:

• Constantine
• The Last Jedi
• Jupiter Ascending
• Minority Report
• Prometheus
• Valerian
• Logan's Run

Not a movie, but a TV Show. The Cape.

A former detective is forced into hiding where he is trained in stage magic, sleight of hand, circuscraft, and illusions. He uses them to fight crime.

I thought it was a really interesting concept, a more down-to-earth superhero like Batman, and stuff like this can plausibly happen in real life.

Unfortunately the show was so bad it was canceled mid season and the finale was only streamed on NBC's website.

Christian Bale faking an actually decent London accent, Gerard Butler being a loveable scot, and Matthew McCaughnehey doing his best Norse/Spartan Warrior impression?

Horrible acting all around (except Bale at times), the lead female character was basically there to soothe/flirt with the lead (wish i was joking), you can barely understand anyone, and yet really impressive set/castle and overall atmosphere. You believe you are there, and that the world is gone.

Huge gaps in logic on the hunting patterns of dragons, helicopters seem to run on infinite fuel, and the final plan to take down the main dragon is just stupid at best.... but the execution of fighting dragons in the air with nets dropped by guys without parachutes was a phenomenal air sequence.

Also, the dragon CGI holds up. You never quite see it, but when you do, you believe it's there, and the CGI team did a great job with consistency in that the dragons are always depicted expelling fluid that they ignite, and you see it every time they cast fire.

Brilliant movie, and one of the best opening 5 minutes in terms of origin story. Just a lot of bad acting, and some questionable feats in logic plot-wise.

Lucy

It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.

Twilight. My wife made me watch the first one and it's actually got a really interesting world and hints at a lot of decent lore and possible content.

Then they fill the film with close-ups of their eyes meeting across the room for minutes on end.

Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn't say it's a bad film, but it was really mediocre.

I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What's the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.

(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don't read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)

I'll take "Movies of the Current Decade" for $1000, Alex.

I agree with all the other people in this thread mentioning 'In Time'. It had such a great premise, and I didn't even hate the execution, but it was mediocre. It was like they went 50% of the way to a flawless execution and just said "fuck it, that's good enough". The concept has a lot of elements to explore, like classism, labor exploitation, human rights, even free will to a point... A movie just isn't the right vehicle for that story. It needs to be a series. Done right, you could explore all that while having an overarching plotline, and still have your weekly subplots and B stories. That would give the story time to fully develop the romantic connection between the poor guy who comes into a bunch of time, and the rich girl who empathizes with him. That romance felt incredibly rushed in the movie, but you could build it up over a whole season in a show.

I also want to mention another movie that I'm not sure belongs here. It's not a bad movie, nor do I think the execution was mediocre, but for the life of me I can't figure out why it didn't do better. That movie is called 'Push', with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning. I just watched it again the other night, and I freaking love it. The concept isn't that amazing or original, but the way they present it is great. There isn't a ton of exposition or world-building. They kinda just drop you in and let you figure it out, and I really like that. Evans and Fanning have great onscreen chemistry, and Djimon Honsou is a perfect bad guy. This is another one where I think it would make a great series, even though I think the movie was done really well. It's just kind of a perfect mid-budget sci-fi action movie, and we don't seem to get those anymore.

Madam Web. The premise of your perception being un-stuck in time and the ramifications that has for your psyche is really cool. What's not cool is hiring bad writers and nepo baby actresses to portray that story

Cabin in the woods

Show, but LOST, I remember what could've been...

The Last Jedi was an amazing deconstruction of Star Wars. I don't think better execution would have helped it with a fan base that wants to be stuck in the past reliving the hero's journey ad nauseam but it had a lot more potential than you see on screen.

The original Purge. I thought all the background stuff and setting were super interesting, but the film itself was a generic home invasion movie. The sequel expanded on all the stuff I was interested in, though.