Works of Fiction With Good Premises And Bad Execution [Archive]

Amaril

2016-03-05, 09:38 PM

This is something I've been thinking about. There are quite a few works of fiction I've encountered that start out with a really cool premise, or have a really interesting setting, and feel like they could be good, if the story and characters they use that premise or setting to tell were better.

One example that occurs to me is Naruto, at least from what little of the manga I've read and everything I've heard about the rest of the story. I think a lot of the world Naruto sets up is really cool, and could be used to tell good stories, but so much of what the creators have actually done with it has been tooth-grindingly bad to my sensibilities. Another is RWBY, which I even mostly like, but as interesting as I find the setting and the background, the actual story has a lot of problems that get on my nerves, and the dialogue is often awful. I guess a good way to say it is that both works make me want to roleplay in their settings, because I feel that can lead to great places, but I either don't like the work as it actually stands, or do only with reluctance.

Who else has this experience? What works do you feel this way about, and why?

Hiro Protagonest

2016-03-05, 10:15 PM

I don't find RWBY's setting particularly interesting, though that's not quite the same as premise... anyway, moving on.

Sword Art Online. As a psychological work, it utterly fails. I mean, the people in it act kinda like low-level MMO players, I guess. They don't act like raid guilds, and they certainly don't act like they're actually trapped in a deathgame. As a young-adult fiction... it still fails. There are so many better works out there.

Dragonexx

2016-03-05, 10:34 PM

The Star Wars Prequels. Not to say I hate them (I don't really hate anything star wars, but they could be so much better).

The jedi become corrupted in their purpose and Anikin becomes more and more disillusioned with them as he drifts further and further into the darkside. Revenge of the Sith kinda got that right (and it's second favorite star wars movie) but the other two episodes really struggled to show the corruption of the republic and the maniuplations of the sith.

RWBY: It had so much potential with the world it's been given. We have a defined world, with an easily understandable threat. Unfortunately, Monty was a shameless weeaboo who really wasn't that good at telling a story. Thus, the story looses itself in a storm of cliches and anime tropes, way too many characters for them to handle, plus god awful pacing and mostly boring villains. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The show is seriously better off without him.

cobaltstarfire

2016-03-05, 11:35 PM

Hamatora.

It had a really interesting premise with the inborn powers and stuff, but the execution just seemed...I dunno more and more icky the longer it progressed? Probably didn't help that it included some anime tropes I really hate. (the same sort you see in Aldnoah, and Code Gease, where you have these two characters that were friends, or just convenient people to work with who turn on each other for reasons).

Rodin

2016-03-05, 11:43 PM

One example that occurs to me is Naruto, at least from what little of the manga I've read and everything I've heard about the rest of the story. I think a lot of the world Naruto sets up is really cool, and could be used to tell good stories, but so much of what the creators have actually done with it has been tooth-grindingly bad to my sensibilities.

My biggest regret with Naruto comes very early on, when Naruto and Sasuke fight Haku. After Naruto's vow to protect his friends and change the ninja world by never letting anyone die, Haku apparently kills Sasuke. Right there, they could have left Sasuke dead and you have the premise for a very interesting series - a fundamentally optimistic person having to deal with the harsh realities of battles to the death, and the psychological strain that puts them under as they try to change things.

Instead, Sasuke survives (with Haku's reasons for not killing him handwaved) and we wind up with a standard paint-by-numbers fighting show.

---

My pick from recent shows would be Charlotte. Given a premise of trying to protect high school kids who suddenly gain not-terribly-useful superpowers, the show chose to spend very little time on that and dove right into the high drama. It's one of the few cass where I felt an anime needed a lot more episodes to tell its story.

For Western works, The Hobbit movies. They spent far too much time on filler and flashy special effects for a movie trilogy that could easily have been done in two movies. One movie to get them to Laketown and a second dealing with the infiltration of the mountain, the battle with Smaug, and the Battle of the Five Armies. They instead tried to make it as epic as the LOTR movies, which simply doesn't work.

Edit: Ooh, also seconding Aldnoah Zero as a show with good potential and horrible execution. The second season apparently having each episode written by a different writer that didn't consult any of the others didn't help.

Amaril

2016-03-05, 11:53 PM

Edit: Ooh, also seconding Aldnoah Zero as a show with good potential and horrible execution. The second season apparently having each episode written by a different writer that didn't consult any of the others didn't help.

Well, thanks to you guys for saving me from watching the rest of that :smalltongue: Shame. I liked the first few episodes.

Dienekes

2016-03-06, 12:00 AM

The Prelude to Dune series. Where we find what was going on the years before the Dune Saga. Great ideas, some of them brilliant. But it just comes across as boring and pretty bad.

Actually, on that note, I wasn't much of a fan of the actual Dune books after God-Emperor of Dune. It just got really weird.

cobaltstarfire

2016-03-06, 12:01 AM

Well, thanks to you guys for saving me from watching the rest of that :smalltongue: Shame. I liked the first few episodes.

Yeah I was saved the trouble of watching the second season by being told be many to just avoid it.

It was interesting enough to ignore the bits that annoyed me and get to the end of season 1....and I hated to end of season 1.

Can't think of much western stuff right now...ahh I know!

Maleficent!

Looked intriguing, was a bit disapointing.

I hope the live action Jungle Book that's coming out soon doesn't have the same thing happen to it..

nyjastul69

2016-03-06, 12:11 AM

The TV series, Kindred: The Embraced, had decent potential with it's source material and completely blew it. The D&D cartoon was also an epic failure as regards the source material. I'm not sure if these are the types of examples you're looking for though.

Kitten Champion

2016-03-06, 12:52 AM

If I had to pick a top three

Star Trek: Voyager - a show which often just ignored its own premise when it was slightly inconvenient. Being lost in the other side of the galaxy felt less like a hindrance and more like something they paid lip-service to while doing TNG-type stories.

Prometheus - Ridley Scott doing a big-budget SF movie that not only returns to his world of Alien, but promised something cerebral rather than 'splosions and over-obvious allegory? That's music to my ears. However, then I watched it. I honestly couldn't say a piece of media has truly disappointed me before, so that was a first.

Gundam 00 - an ambitious and epic story - with echoes of Asimov and Clarke - that took a fairly well thought out future setting that reflected many of our contemporary issues and flaws and brought it into an utopic age of peaceful post-humans colonizing space. Unfortunately it just got lost in subplots and needless characters, so that, yes, that story was there, but it was so noisy it was hard to hear.

HardcoreD&Dgirl

2016-03-06, 01:30 AM

I will defiantly echo D&D cartoon, Star trek Voyager, and Kindred the embrace...

I will then add Comic book Civil War... the story idea was a good one (heck mutant registration has been the basic story for 30ish years). But they droped the ball like it was hot... Both sides were supposed to be in the right, but Iron man works with villians, and pays one to fake an attack on him... then cap (who can not break the law as proposed, he is a shield agent fully registered) is forced to break out of a shield helicarrier at the end of issue 1, but issue 2 is when the bill gets signed into law. (You read that right, shield tried to arrest someone who was already complying with a law not yet passed)

Superman Returns.... soft reboot/sequel to the donner films sound great, but that isn't what we got.

Deadly games.... a Live action TV show from when I was little. I thought it was great as a kid, video games come to life... the Disney channel does it better now.

Aotrs Commander

2016-03-06, 08:06 AM

Andromeda. Started off excellently in the first season and then tapered off with an increasing curve through to the ndir in season seven.

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. A series I remembered fondly... Until I re-watched it. The sad part was, the was actually a huge amount of potential there - especially in the character of Flora - that was hinted at, but never exploited (but it was written by Michel J Babylon5guy). That is the 1980s cartoon series that I think would benefit most from a modern reboot. Heck, the one-shot character of Swamp Witch actually could be promoted to full cast member to round out the cre a little, as she had the potential to have some interesting dynamics with Flora. (Actually, I consider that "Flora and the Wheeled Warriors would be a rather better series.)

Oon could afford to get the boot though, I found him annoying even at the time. Though even there, if they actually made his character... not crap (i.e. incompetant, cowardly "comic relief", there would be room for improvement. Heck, he could keep that, even, if it was written more competantly - perhaps closer to Ron Stoppable (from Kim Possible) or Johnny English, characters that are goofy, inept and unlucky a lot of the time, but at their core, have the right motivations and occasional flashes of competance when it really matters.

Honourable mention to Terrahawks, which struggled a bit too much against it's budget and being written a little too down for its audience to not explore the more interesting ramifications. (This is driven home by the recent audio dramas, free of the latter restriction, have managed to dip into that well, as well as sharpen the silly, humourous-toned episodes for good measure.)

Gnoman

2016-03-06, 08:20 AM

Yora

2016-03-06, 08:26 AM

Star Trek: Voyager - a show which often just ignored its own premise when it was slightly inconvenient. Being lost in the other side of the galaxy felt less like a hindrance and more like something they paid lip-service to while doing TNG-type stories.

They dropped the premise by episode 2. :smallannoyed:

Season 4 or so was when I lost interest in Star Trek any only went back to watch DS9 and some of the old movies.

Sapphire Guard

2016-03-06, 01:26 PM

Cassandra's Clare's work. Demon hunters descended from angels attempt to keep the world safe in secret, with an uneasy truce with semi demons like vampires/werewolves etc. Now if there was more interest in that dynamic and less with incestuous romance, this could be pretty interesting.

Amaril

2016-03-06, 01:39 PM

While I'm at it, I guess I'll add my voice on Sword Art Online. I watched the first few episodes knowing almost nothing in advance, and was hopeful. Bunch of people trapped in a virtual reality fantasy game where if they die in the game they die for real? Awesome, sounds like a cool concept. It's just a shame it was so swiftly abandoned in favor of...whatever the hell you call what it turned into :smallannoyed:

BeerMug Paladin

2016-03-06, 02:14 PM

I would really like to see a re-attempt of Voyager, one which actually uses the premise of Voyager. Bonus if it uses SF Debris's parody crew.

Cikomyr

2016-03-06, 08:58 PM

I would really like to see a re-attempt of Voyager, one which actually uses the premise of Voyager. Bonus if it uses SF Debris's parody crew.

Actually, a DS9/Voyager series relaunch. Have the Space Station and the Voyager run somewhat concurrently with each others. Sometimes an episodr focuses on DS9, sometimes on Voyager. Sometimes its about both.

Merge the characters of Chakotay and Eddington, and have the Maquis leaders be a personal betrayer of Sisko. Have the Voyager captain be merely a Commander and second in command to Sisko, and thu inexperienced to command. While Chakotay is actually experienced in command and would have potentially more clout.

Have them stranded in the Gamma Quadrant, with the Wormhole rendered Innaccessible explaining why they cant get back (sealed to stop a Dominion invasion).

While DS9 deals with the Alpha Quadran politics, the Voyager discover a whole new landscape of Dominion territories, protectorates and resistants. They would have to work to undermine the Dominion on their own home turf.

DomaDoma

2016-03-06, 09:20 PM

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine was my biggest disappointment. Snow White in Ayortha (a country given a fascinating treatment in Ella Enchanted)? And the big wrench in the original story is she's actually incredibly ugly, but she's the fairest singer in a country which is very big on singing? Look, when it comes to fractured fairy tales, Gail is it. But she went and spoiled it by making the Snow White character just... thoroughly unlikeable in every respect. She's a total coward who can get talked into anything no matter how much her stomach roils about it, and she never finds it in herself to come clean about it or act on her own initiative. And no, she's definitely supposed to be sympathetic. Bizarre.

Inversely, Oblivion had a trite premise - I won't clarify for Reasons, but the key points and MacGuffins of the main quest had absolutely been done before - and, it has to be said, much less adroitly. Oblivion has supplanted Final Fantasy VI as my Favorite Game Story of All Time, and that's after having experienced the thing it ripped off first.

Seppl

2016-03-06, 10:58 PM

I would really like to see a re-attempt of Voyager, one which actually uses the premise of Voyager. Bonus if it uses SF Debris's parody crew.
Battlestar Galactica? :smalltongue:

tensai_oni

2016-03-07, 12:33 AM

Right there, they could have left Sasuke dead

Unfortunately Kishimoto loves Sasuke too much for that to have happened. That should've been a warning sign right there - if only we knew what would happen later.

Of course the creator's love for one of his character isn't the only one of Naruto's faults. But it is a major one.

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. A series I remembered fondly... Until I re-watched it.

That sounds like me.

Let's see what is the most obscure work I can think of.

Galilei Donna - from the first two episodes, you'd expect a frantic adventure show about a trio of sisters with clashing personalities who travel the world in their steampunk goldfish airship/mecha, looking for macguffins.
What we get instead is two of them relegated to supporting roles, an unsympathetic a-hole of an antagonist who steals all spotlight (but we're supposed to feel sorry for him because backstory boo hoo), deus ex machina magic trinkets, recycled plots in a 12 episode show, and the scavenger hunt being given a passing mention at best.
What a waste of time.

Rodin

2016-03-07, 01:01 AM

Another one that failed for me is Stargate Universe, which was basically going to be Stargate SG-1 meets Voyager with the grimdark atmosphere of the new Battlestar Galactica. Stargate style universe, but without all the OP tech they'd built up over the series...and with a much darker clashing of personalities since none of the group actually trusted one another. Great idea in theory.

However, they fell far too in love with making the characters clash at the expense of the Sci-Fi element, they spent long periods back on Earth with those personality-swapping stones and generally just mucked things up. The show felt like it had potential, but the writers didn't know what to do with it since it was created based on what was popular (BSG) rather than writing out a cohesive story to begin with and then going from there.

Hiro Protagonest

2016-03-07, 01:09 AM

However, they fell far too in love with making the characters clash at the expense of the Sci-Fi element, they spent long periods back on Earth with those personality-swapping stones and generally just mucked things up. The show felt like it had potential, but the writers didn't know what to do with it since it was created based on what was popular (BSG) rather than writing out a cohesive story to begin with and then going from there.

I hear that it started to pick up right as it got canceled.

Lethologica

2016-03-07, 02:40 AM

Honestly, the Kingkiller Chronicles did this for me. Prose that's either ornate or achingly beautiful depending on your POV, plus a fascinating protagonist in an interesting setting, but...I'm not sure if 'bogged down' or 'scattered' is the best word to describe what happened to its plot. I don't believe in the central romance, and I don't see a path to a satisfying conclusion from what's been written so far.

The Wind Rises. Horikoshi Jiro is a fascinating historical figure around whom to base a story. But the story we actually got was Fun With Planes with a side of invented tragic romance. I thought it was a tremendous wasted opportunity, albeit a pretty one.

Still miles better than most of the stuff mentioned in the thread, of course.

Eldan

2016-03-07, 04:25 AM

The Name of the Wind was fine. More than fine, really. But the second really had no idea where it was going, or even what to do on the way.

Gastronomie

2016-03-07, 04:55 AM

Sword Art Online.

I watched the first episode of the anime and was like OMG THIS WILL BE LIKE THE BEST ANIME I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE I ALREADY KNOW IT OMG and then I watched the second episode and was like what is this s***

For those of you don't know: Imagine Hunger Games. Like, a fight to the death, full of survival and action and all that. Then re-imagine it with the protagonist piloting a Jet Fighter and bombing every area where the other participants were hiding in and laughing like OHOHOHOHO all over the place. Because that's basically what Sword Art Online is.

veti

2016-03-07, 06:17 AM

Oh, so many examples...

The Matrix. A computer nerd learns to do cool stuff, acquires superpowers and a girlfriend, without having to go through all those boring steps like "exercise" and "practice" and "personal hygiene". Then he beats up his enemies, because apparently they've all forgotten they can rewrite reality at will. Morons.

Supernatural. I watched half a dozen episodes of this drivel before giving up on it. It looked as if the writers had eaten an encyclopedia of mythology, and then written down whatever they found in their toilet bowl next day. Awful.

The Hobbit (movies). Take out all that nonsense designed to sell Xbox games. Take out every scene involving named elves, every scene involving Sylvester McCoy with bird poop in his hair, every scene involving some stupid goblin with a personal grudge against Thorin, and the whole inexcusable Laketown sequence, and it might just have made two passable movies. In Hollywood's heyday it would've been done in a single two-hour movie, and it would've been better than what we got.

The Star Wars prequels are kind of a sitting duck, but honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a less interesting or convincing portrayal of political and personal corruption. Not a single character, including Palpatine, showed any believable signs of having an IQ above 100, or a motivation that would hang together for 30 seconds under interrogation.

House of Cards. Again, paper-thin characters all inexplicably taken in by a villain who practically introduces himself as "I'm Evil, nice to meet you".

Murk

2016-03-07, 06:18 AM

This is actually how I feel towards most of the popular "teen fiction" I've seen over the past few years, especially the post-apocalyptic teen angst fiction (Hunger games, Mazerunner, Divergent, etc.): they have cool settings, really, there's nothing wrong with the idea. I can imagine the autors thinking "Oh, hey, I've got a cool idea for a setting!"
But then they still need a story.
That's where it goes wrong: a setting does not yet make a story, and since the setting is the only interesting thing they have, the book or film goes horribly wrong.

The same could be said for the wave of superhero movies, probably: "Damn, let's make a cool superhero!", with all the attention going to his/her powers and character, and the actual plot feeling like an afterthought.

Now I'm writing this, I realise this pretty much goes for a huge amount of movies and books.

DomaDoma

2016-03-07, 07:55 AM

Hunger Games' saving grace wasn't so much the plot as the theme: 1) it's all about the narrative, baby, and 2) the primary problem of history is people being unable to forgive their enemy after they've won. Though admittedly I haven't read the actual books but once; the reason I'm in love with the series has a lot more to do with a fanfic-verse that relates things from Haymitch's point of view. (Because the biggest detriment isn't the plot, either, it's the general urge to hit Katniss with a clue-by-four.)

Frozen_Feet

2016-03-07, 08:56 AM

Top Gun (videogame). Doesn't have anything to do with the movie, instead being a passable console flight simulator. With a proper story mode, the ability to land, and a bit of polish, it would've been much better.

Death Note (manga). I... can't bear to reread the series. There are just so many places where it could've just ended, and it'd been better for it. Instead, it justs drags on and on and gets increasingly hammy.

Dexter (TV series). Like Death Note, could've just ended before fatigue set on. I feel the relevant story had already been told by time Doakes left the show.

Rinne and Inuyasha. Solid setting, solid characters, interesting abilities, good first few books... and then a whole lot of no advancement. Come to think of it, Ranma 1/2 was much the same. Goddammit Takahashi!

DomaDoma

2016-03-07, 10:59 AM

I like the Death Note manga a good deal, and thought the anime rather lacking by comparison (and yes, it's in my av years after I stopped being in the fandom, so you know perfectly well I like the anime), but that's probably because I love exposition so much I could marry it. The only things that set the anime above the manga after the midpoint were a) the artistic direction of episode thirty and b) the hallucinatory-ish flashback in episode thirty-seven. Honestly, I can't envision it stopping in any kind of satisfactory manner at any more than two points, and I'm glad they went with the one they did.

As for Dexter, I'd have ended it at season four. But yeah, season two would have made a perfectly satisfactory conclusion to the series, and I'd have been none the wiser that I was missing out on season four. So.

Gastronomie

2016-03-07, 11:06 AM

Death Note (manga). I... can't bear to reread the series. There are just so many places where it could've just ended, and it'd been better for it. Instead, it justs drags on and on and gets increasingly hammy.The movie version ends in a pretty nice way, for those of you who don't know.
The climax scene is a mix of the final battle between Light and Near, AND how L dies in the original series. Except it's not some stupid "I exchanged the notebook for a false one tee-hee-hee" trick that makes Light lose.

L had realized prior to being actually killed that he will soon be killed by Kira, and thus he wrote his own name in the Death Note, saying he dies 23 days later without any pain or suffering (23 days being the limit length of death that occurs by the Death Note).

Since L's death has already been decided, writing down L's name has no effect. L uses this to prove that Light is Kira without being killed on the spot - though it is now an immovable destiny that he too will die in 23 days. So it ends in some ways in a tie, and then again, some ways in L's victory. It made sense, it felt awesome, and it seemed like the best "table-turner" anyone could think up for the story.I actually like Mello as an unique character but I despise Near for being basically a douche kid version of L. Also, Mello should have got that badass scar from the start, because that's what made him really cool. And he should have had more screen-time, doing more unique and "smart" stuff.

Closet_Skeleton

2016-03-07, 11:52 AM

The Wind Rises. Horikoshi Jiro is a fascinating historical figure around whom to base a story. But the story we actually got was Fun With Planes with a side of invented tragic romance. I thought it was a tremendous wasted opportunity, albeit a pretty one.

Still miles better than most of the stuff mentioned in the thread, of course.

Technically that one was "let's adapt a entirely fictional tragic romance story and then randomly make the hero into a in name only version of a historical person so Miyazaki can include planes in his attempt to copy what Shakespeare is assumed to have been doing with Prospero."

The Wind Rises is a terrible biopic despite being passable historical fiction but is best if you don't see it as either of those.

Rinne and Inuyasha. Solid setting, solid characters, interesting abilities, good first few books... and then a whole lot of no advancement. Come to think of it, Ranma 1/2 was much the same. Goddammit Takahashi!

Advancement isn't the point of an adventure series.

The point of long term goals in adventure stories is to keep propelling the heroes between events, not to be the focus on the plot. Taunting the reader with 'Naraku gets away again' was pretty egregious at times but if you wanted more plot and less sidetracks you were just plain reading the wrong series.

I probably share all your complaints about Inuyasha, but if you feel that the series 'missed its potential' because it wasn't the genre you wanted it to be, that's really not the series' fault.

ThinkMinty

2016-03-07, 12:14 PM

Honestly, Captain Planet really fits. The core premise of an ecological superhero team was fundamentally sound, but between the villains almost all being cardboard cutouts that pollute for fun (instead of having to be stopped from polluting by accident even when they have the most benign or even benevolent of intentions and not just greed), the ironclad "Wheeler is always wrong" rule, and a habit of mangling the lessons kind of killed it.

I would've said "as someone who likes the environment, the solutions are sometimes even dumber than the problem" like the episode where game ranching is the alternative to factory farming, or the overpopulation one, or...well yeah. Wheeler was right in a couple episodes I think, but he was almost always set up as the one who needed to learn, when it would've served the show better to spread out "who's wrong this week" among the cast. Also why did Captain Planet not have pants? Why?

The villains being cartoonishly evil was kinda fun, although an anti-villain or three would've improved the show significantly.

Lethologica

2016-03-07, 02:11 PM

Technically that one was "let's adapt a entirely fictional tragic romance story and then randomly make the hero into a in name only version of a historical person so Miyazaki can include planes in his attempt to copy what Shakespeare is assumed to have been doing with Prospero."

The Wind Rises is a terrible biopic despite being passable historical fiction but is best if you don't see it as either of those.
Oh, so it added WWII to The Wind Has Risen rather than the other way around? I guess that explains the focus. Still, uuuuuuuuuuuugh.

Frozen_Feet

2016-03-07, 03:39 PM

Advancement isn't the point of an adventure series.

I disgree. If you want a comparison point, use One Piece. One Piece, if anything, has an even more vague end goal and is even slower in moving toward it, but it feels a lot less stagnant due to greater variety in characters, smaller plotlines concluding themselves along the way, and the feel of those plotlines building on each other.

Or to put it another way: in One Piece the goal may be far, but at least it feels every step gets closer to it. In Inuyasha, the goalpost keeps moving, but the game stays the same.

Yora

2016-03-07, 03:49 PM

Hiro Protagonest

2016-03-07, 05:40 PM

I disgree. If you want a comparison point, use One Piece. One Piece, if anything, has an even more vague end goal and is even slower in moving toward it, but it feels a lot less stagnant due to greater variety in characters, smaller plotlines concluding themselves along the way, and the feel of those plotlines building on each other.

Yeah, One Piece is good because it immediately set this vague and grand goal - find the One Piece bathing suit. And it's shaped to more "take down the World Government" which is also this grand, daunting task. And everything works toward those goals - the Strawhats slowly moved towards the One Piece, first they got to the Grand Line, then they found the New World. Any plots that start off with a new villain end up tying to one of the Shichibukai or the government itself.

russdm

2016-03-07, 06:21 PM

The TV series, Kindred: The Embraced, had decent potential with it's source material and completely blew it.

Did this involve the Whitewolf World of Darkness material? If so, it sounds like it have been interesting in some fashion.

My personal one would be:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer-She slays vampires, yet somehow it apparently turned a Xander-fest (Who was the weak pathetic guy) pseudo-early Twilight RomCom. (To be honest, I barely watched any of it as I only liked barely a few of the characters. It felt too much like a more supernatural version of Scooby Doo, with Buffy being the other girl besides Velma. I like Spike, Giles, and Willow, didn't care for Xander (What does he provide anyway?), Buffy (Her vampire slaying felt like it came as a job or a side job, with a few moments trying to make the whole Slayer thing actually big or dangerous or mind something, but she plowed through vamps with little to no trouble)

Then you have her job, and that it apparently wasn't a big deal ever. I think Sabrina the Teenage Witch did a better job of trying to show the difficulty of growing up in high school and having to deal with Supernatural stuff. (Plus the talking Cat, Salem, was awesome. It featured cameos by Penn and Teller as well, and never felt like it got as stupid as Buffy did)

I prefer Firefly to Buffy and had a heard time getting into Angel. What was the appeal of either Buffy or Angel exactly? Popular teenage girl slays vampire, ohhh the angst (Buffy), or Vampire has relationship with Slayer who is totally jail-bait, suddenly has an awareness that being a vampire sucks, cue Angst and effort (Angel).

I loved Spike and Gils though, they were awesome.

JoshL

2016-03-07, 06:33 PM

I like many of the things people have mentioned, and prefer to think about things that I like rather than things I do not. That said:

The Prelude to Dune series. Where we find what was going on the years before the Dune Saga. Great ideas, some of them brilliant. But it just comes across as boring and pretty bad.

Actually, on that note, I wasn't much of a fan of the actual Dune books after God-Emperor of Dune. It just got really weird.

I never read the prequels books, but the last two, published post-Frank definitely count for this. The story is brilliant. The last book lays out what the entire series was about from the very beginning. That said, Brian Herbert can't write his way out of a paper bag, and they're really REALLY poorly written, with occasional moments of passable that one can only assume came directly from Frank's notes. Still, I'm glad they were written, because, again, it makes the entire series make perfect sense!

Morty

2016-03-07, 07:16 PM

My prime example of this is the first season of Legend of Korra. It tries, or seems to try, to tackle a premise that's usually ignored - how would people with no powers relate to those who do have them, in a fantasy setting? The direction it seems to pick is also the opposite of how it's usually done, with the non-powered people being the underprivileged group, rather an an oppressive majority. But the execution falls incredibly flat, since the revolution has two people to speak for it - one of them is a liar, the other is a screaming maniac, and no one cares about what they say, regardless. Every other Equalist is a faceless mook, and they all go home after being shown they don't matter.

Got to agree with people who mentioned RWBY, as well. The show has some good ideas in it, but the writing, the scripting, the... everything just makes it very stiff.

Another thing I really tried to like was Brütal Legend. Like, a game where you fight your enemies with the power of metal, and Ozzy Osbourne sells you gear? Sign me up. Unfortunately, the actual game is a confused mess of conflicting ideas that ends too quickly. If there was more actual battles, and less driving sections, it'd be a great game. As it is, it's entertaining, but in a very frustrating way.

Arcanum is another video game that fits the bill. It's got a great story and setting, but the technical and mechanical execution is poor. Combat is chaotic and unbalanced, and sometimes you can't avoid it except for running. Guns are weak, not only compared to magic but also, well, swords. And so on.

Gnoman

2016-03-07, 07:22 PM

I would've said "as someone who likes the environment, the solutions are sometimes even dumber than the problem" like the episode where game ranching is the alternative to factory farming, or the overpopulation one, or...well yeah. Wheeler was right in a couple episodes I think, but he was almost always set up as the one who needed to learn, when it would've served the show better to spread out "who's wrong this week" among the cast. Also why did Captain Planet not have pants? Why?

The villains being cartoonishly evil was kinda fun, although an anti-villain or three would've improved the show significantly.

My memory is a bit fuzzy since I haven't watched the original show since it was first-air, and stopped watching at some point ( I remember the intro changing from "Soviet Union" to Eastern Europe, but that wasn't that late in the series' run), so I can't cite too many specific examples. One thing that sticks in my mind about the show is that their vehicles completely undermined the concept - they had solar-powered gear vastly more efficient than anything on the horizon, and distributing that tech would do more environmental good than anything they did in the series. Besides that, giving them such super-eco-friendly vehicles (which are far beyond possibility even today) also set up a perfect-solution fallacy, where it would have done more for the intended audience to show how to use real tech in ways that do less harm (which kids would be able to do as they grew up), which would have been a valuable ecolesson.

GolemsVoice

2016-03-14, 08:03 AM

One of the greatest disappointments for me was the main plot of Dragon Age. The five side plots are all fine, but the main plot is just a flimsy excuse to get you from one side plot to the next and it all ends very boring.
At the end of the prologue level I was very excited because it seemed like a big supernatural conspiracy in which generals, demons, and immortal witches were plotting for various mysterious goals. But it wasn't. In the end it turns out
that the archdemon simply wants to blindly rampage through the countryside, the evil general wasn't allied with the demon at all but was just acting stupid, and the immortal witch really was just unhappy about the archdemon blindly rampaging through her backyard.

Felt like watching a whodunit about an elaborately staged suicide that turns out to have been simply an accident with no foul play or cover up involved. :smallannoyed:

I actually felt the same way about the game. While I still think it's really good,

turns out Loghain is just stupid. Let's abandon our king to become ruler and then never do anything to combat the blight that is ruining my kingdom ever because our only hope did get desttroyed but at least we are not dirty rotten Orlesians that'll show 'em

I watched the cutscene were Loghain abandons his king and I always thought that there would be some big reveal, some grand reason why an allegedly legendary general chose such a suicidial action, and it just turned out to be... nothing. I was waiting for them to make him seem likeable, or somewhat justified, in the typical Dragon Age dark fantasy fashion. Do you follow the traitor who actually has a point and get's things done, or do you bring him to justice, with the chance of finally destabilizing Ferelden? But it just went nowhere

Amaril

2016-03-14, 09:01 AM

Eldan

2016-03-14, 09:05 AM

Huh. You know, I never finished Dragon Age, I found the middle parts really frustrating and kinda boring. But I really expected an explanation along the lines of "The king was too weak, we need a stronger king to defend against the blight" or somesuch. Like, he had a plan and the king thought it was dishonourable or something.

druid91

2016-03-14, 10:06 AM

Divergent. When I first heard about the series, it was explained to me as, "There's this world with different factions, that are kind of like castes. Who do different things. Only the main character is a girl who's 'divergent' which means she has a CHOICE about which caste to join."

That seemed like an awesome story to me. Of course that's not what happened and I was dissapointed.

McNum

2016-03-14, 12:02 PM

I can't help but think "Metal Gear" for this. Such an awesome setting, with great characters, and it has super soldiers vs. giant mechs and cyborg ninjas and everything. Plus some personal drama between our hero Solid Snake against his father/mentor and a whole range of colorful and sometimes quotable characters. Plus, it even has a strong message for each game. "Be yourself, not who everyone else thinks you should be.", "Information control is a powerful tool, be critical with who you trust.", and "We are all shaped by our past. Own it, or be ruled by it." and so on.

Now going from Metal Gear Solid to Metal Gear Solid 2, things got... weird. For one, Snake had taken the advice and become his own man, meaning a third through the game he doesn't want to be the player character anymore and tags out for newcomer to the series, Raiden. And the game itself just straight up lies to you about several things, playing up that it is, in fact, a video game sequel. It's a crazy premise, but it works about as well as it could. (I could type a whole lot about MGS2, including a silly idea of when you actually start playing it.) It ended on a cliffhanger, and set the tone. In the next game, you go after the big bads. Except, no, we're going to pla Big Boss' start of darkness, see what turned him against the world. ...okay, fair enough, and the James Bond-like theme song sets the tone quite nicely. (Snake Eaterrr....) It's a solid tale, his mentor betrays him, they have to fight to the death, and then the bombshell that she was ordered to betray him. I could see how that would make Big Boss become disillusioned with everyone. Good villain origin story, in that you never feel like the villain... until the end and you totally want to beat up the supposed "good guys" for what they did.

So far, so good. I mean, I'd preferred to go after The Patriots La-lu-li-le-lo and end in some crazy Snake vs. Mech fight to end all Snake vs. Mech fights, but eh, sure, Big Boss me for a game. And then MGS4 came out and... well, wrapped it up as best it could. It DID give me my awesome Snake vs. Mech fight in a way I didn't know I wanted, but I so totally did.

But beffore that we got we got another Big Boss game. And another game. And another game. And after MGS4, we got MGS5 in two parts, also about Big Boss. And to recap on those, as far as I understand them, and I'm gonna spoiler it since MGS5 is somewhat recent.
Big Boss founded a base. It got blown up. He fought several Metal Gears. He built more bases. And then there were... parasites that you got infected with by talking? And it turns out that Big Boss from the very first Metal Gear actually wasn't Big Boss, but some random guy who had plastic surgery to look like Big Boss?

What...? No seriously... what?
Um... Can we just roll back to the whole "He killed his mentor and turned against the world" thing. It worked pretty well as a motivation and made a great parallel to Snake who did something similar, but did not try to take over the world. Metal Gear: The Prequels is such a clear example of needing to stop writing. Just... stop. It's gone from tragic to silly now.

*sigh* At least Raiden got blown clear of this mess. He's a cyborg ninja who fights giant mechs with his sword. He likes to suplex them, it's like a thing. It's stupid, but it's fun stupid, and honestly, Metal Gear works best for me when it's fun stupid. Oh, look, this boss fights with a giant pair of scissors. Neat! And here's a spider-mech the size of a small stadium! Wanna suplex it? Yes, yes I do.

Dienekes

2016-03-14, 12:22 PM

Godfather Part 3.

A movie about the downfall of Michael Corleone as he watches his family business take away everything he loves leaving him a shell of himself. The original script even had the major conflict be about the growing tensions between Michael and Tom Hagen finally coming to a head giving Michael his greatest enemy yet, the man that knows him best in the world. It could have been great.

Instead we got hours of boring drivel and a weird incest plot with maybe 2 scenes that lived up to the Godfather name.

Pex

2016-03-14, 12:24 PM

"Sliders"

Starring Jerry O'Connell and John Rhys Davies, four people are lost continuously travelling between parallel Earths where history took a different direction. It was a fun show offering comedy, drama, and playing what if. Then cast members started to leave and be replaced one by one. The show was done when they went full speed ahead on the Kromags. Cro-Magnon Man did not evolve into Homo Sapiens on their Earth. They developed sliding technology and now seek to conquer every Earth. The Kromags were fine for their one episode introduction. A one-shot reappearance in the next season would have been fine. But no, the show became all about war with them on almost every Earth they find. It was not the same show it was.

"Person of Interest"

Starring Jim Caviezel, a machine built for the government predicts terrorism. It also predicts murders, and our heroes work to prevent them from happening. It was a nice new take on a cop show. Then they started on the mythology of the Machine. It became a spy show as villains tried to take over the Machine. When that failed, they got a second Machine to run and then the show was no longer its former self. It was all about this spy war and not saving people.

"Moonlighting"

The show that made Bruce Willis a star. It a nice fun detective agency show. Then they decided to hook up the two main characters and every episode was all about their on again/off again romance.

McStabbington

2016-03-14, 02:58 PM

Did this involve the Whitewolf World of Darkness material? If so, it sounds like it have been interesting in some fashion.

I think it would be fair to say that they were playing extremely fast and loose with the White Wolf source material. Could it have been interesting? I believe so, but I think between it being a 90's television show and produced by Aaron Spelling, it went into production in a state that made exactly what happened (first 2/3 of the first season, not renewed for the Back 9 episodes, mostly forgotten) by far the most likely result.

Star Trek: Voyager was fascinating in no small part because it's premise was so good that by my count no less than three other sci-fi franchises adopted very similar ideas, and each of them made it work better, albeit probably not more commercially successfully. Those three were Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Stargate: Universe.

I do think one movie that most people wouldn't mention, but should be mentioned is Star Trek: First Contact. Now, I realize that among the TNG movies, this is the only one that was actually good, but the thing is that FC really had the chance to become brilliant, but only got to good because of how they executed it. It really, really, really should have been a TNG/Deep Space Nine teamup. The more you roll that idea around in your head, the better the idea gets, and the more you can take all those little scenes that were ". . .Eh." and turn them into really bang-up character moments.

Just to give you a sample, take the scene where Cochrane runs away because he built the Phoenix just to get rich. As written? It's all right, nothing special, and I only vaguely remember that it involved Geordi misunderstanding the use of the word "leak" and Riker shooting the man. But let's take that same scene, and give it to Kira Nerys, where she sits the guy down and says something to the effect of "Look, I get that you're upset and chagrined. These smug Federation types bug the hell out of me too, but I still work with them, and you know why?" *points to a star* "Because these same self-satisfied jerks nevertheless put my world back on its feet, and asked for nothing in return. In all honesty, I'm kind of glad to meet a human who isn't in it for anything other than women and booze. But I don't care. What I care about is the fact that, jerks or not, these guys made sure that millions of my people didn't go hungry or cold when they had nothing. But that won't happen if you don't do this job. So cut your self-pity, and get it done."

That would have made a very memorable scene. Not as memorable as the one where Picard had his "The line must be drawn HERE!" speech with Sisko, and Sisko realized just how brutally damaged Picard was as a result of his experience with the Borg, and they worked out their differences at the same time as Sisko brought Picard around to realizing what he was doing, but still very memorable all the same.

Gnoman

2016-03-14, 03:59 PM

BannedInSchool

2016-03-14, 05:06 PM

You do realize that Battlestar Galactica is a reboot of a 1970s series with the initial premise unchanged, and Farscape was largely conceived before Voyager as well, don't you?

And Odysseus got blown off course some before that.

DomaDoma

2016-03-14, 08:15 PM

Upshot: "been done before" =/= "should not be repeated."

(Especially where BSG is concerned.)

russdm

2016-03-14, 11:00 PM

Star Trek: Voyager was fascinating in no small part because it's premise was so good that by my count no less than three other sci-fi franchises adopted very similar ideas, and each of them made it work better, albeit probably not more commercially successfully. Those three were Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Stargate: Universe.

I thought Stargate: Universe had potential to be more interesting than Stargate SG1, but it turned out to be not interesting in some fashion. I don't know what happened, but I liked watching the show. Maybe the Lucian Alliance and bit with the military guy and the scientist guy was too much? It seemed to be about the ship, what the ship is looking for, and the military guy with his relationship with the doctor military gal. With Nerdy Eli being a nerd.

Why couldn't they have encountered more Gould? or something like that? Why couldn't they have kicked the stones off, so they had to try to use the Stargate for just communication and had no stone business. It seemed disappointing that could just hop home with the stones, which should have gotten tossed. There was a lot about visiting earth and difficulty with earth, but they should have played up the distance thing, and maybe more exploration.

I think the ending showed more story available, but I still can't figure out why people didn't like the show. It had mostly interesting characters, and it wasn't SG1 so people who didn't like that show didn't have to worry.

And the other stargate show had more seasons, that Altantis one with the bugs/roboty things that were trying to eat them ( this statement is based on my interpretation of the show information listed on tv tropes)

I still think Buffy could have been done way better.

Another I know of:

Terra Nova) A show where apparently earth is messed up and polluted, but we can send people back in time and do so to the time of the dinosaurs. As opposed as getting people from the future and sending them to before the earth started getting polluted badly, and trying to fix that. No, we can only go to the dinosaur period, but apparently instead of trying to work out way they can go back to dinosaur land, they decide to focus on a bunch of teenagers.

Why exactly do we care about the families? or how this people live here? What about how and why they can only go back to dino-land, I want to know that. And then it is also about how the earth got polluted. Why don't they find out ways to fix that?

Knaight

2016-03-15, 12:31 AM

I thought Stargate: Universe had potential to be more interesting than Stargate SG1, but it turned out to be not interesting in some fashion. I don't know what happened, but I liked watching the show. Maybe the Lucian Alliance and bit with the military guy and the scientist guy was too much? It seemed to be about the ship, what the ship is looking for, and the military guy with his relationship with the doctor military gal. With Nerdy Eli being a nerd.

If there's one thing that encapsulates everything wrong with Stargate Universe (and I did honestly like a lot of what it was doing), it was Eli. The character seemed like a blatant bit of audience pandering, an open invitation for self insertion wrapped in the demand that you give the character some slack when it comes to things like being appropriate for the setting. Ugh.

On the topic of space fantasy, Star Trek Voyager has already been mentioned. I'd put a fair few others in that category as well, notably the original Star Trek. The underlying vision was rock solid for a lot of it, but it's riddled with episodes that undercut it, characters that undercut it (including Kirk), and other such things.

BannedInSchool

2016-03-15, 08:24 AM

[Re: Stargate Universe]
I think the ending showed more story available, but I still can't figure out why people didn't like the show. It had mostly interesting characters, and it wasn't SG1 so people who didn't like that show didn't have to worry.
I think a problem may have been how un-SG1 it was. Anyone who was looking for something SG1-ish wouldn't have found it there, and people who didn't like SG1 wouldn't have gone looking for something non-SG-ish in a show with "Stargate" in the title. It smells a little to me like someone had an idea for the show about people stranded on an alien ship on autopilot and someone else said, "Hey, let's call it a Stargate show to cash in on that name." :smalltongue:

OldTrees1

2016-03-15, 09:06 AM

ThinkMinty

2016-03-15, 11:45 AM

Rodin

2016-03-15, 10:43 PM

Throw another one in for Sword At Online.

The story of a population of mostly innocent civilians trapped in a foreign world. With escape in sight but initially out of reach, how do individuals, groups, and the whole react?

We see glimpses of the good story here and there:
Those that decide to risk their lives to bring escape closer
Those that decide to give up on escape and build a new life
Those that want to help but don't become or are unable to be combatants
Those that go dark given the power to do so

This "group trapped alone in hostile foreign world" story is one I really find interesting. But all the examples I can think of (SAO & MazeRunner) are poorly executed. Does anyone know of any good executions of this story?

The March Upcountry series by John Ringo and David Weber is a very good take on it from a militaristic point of view. To sum up the concept: A prince and his bodyguard of a couple hundred Marines are forced to crash-land on a planet, and the only space-port is on the exact opposite side of the planet...and since they don't know whether the people controlling it are hostile or not, they have to troop the entire distance across the planet on foot. The planet is environmentally friendly enough, but has insanely dangerous wildlife and a full society of aliens at around about the Medieval Dark Age tech level (complete with roving hordes of barbarians). The story is them trying to adapt to this planet and make it back home.

Velaryon

2016-03-16, 12:23 AM

I'm going to say the Witchblade anime fits this to a T. I've never read the original comic or the manga, but the anime had some interesting things going. I was totally on board with the single mom superhero who barely has her act together and actually needs a lot of help from her daughter to keep their lives running semi-smoothly. Add in the Witchblade itself slowly destroying the main character's body and all the intrigue of various factions trying to obtain and/or copy the weapon for themselves, and you have the setup for a pretty awesome story.

But then they had to take that interesting premise and basically turn it into softcore porn. Outfits that barely covered the minimum amount of skin for decency and look like they would absolutely never stay in place if they were real. The main character being referred to as "Melony" so many times (because she has BIG BEWBZ guys, get it?) that I literally don't even remember her actual name. The moaning during combat that made me frankly embarrassed to be watching this in a house where other people might see or hear it. I honestly can't think of a bigger missed opportunity that I've seen than the Witchblade anime.

Cassandra's Clare's work. Demon hunters descended from angels attempt to keep the world safe in secret, with an uneasy truce with semi demons like vampires/werewolves etc. Now if there was more interest in that dynamic and less with incestuous romance, this could be pretty interesting.

SO MUCH THIS. I binged on YA fiction for a year or two in preparation to become a teen librarian (before events pulled me toward working with adults instead), and one of many I tried was City of Bones. It started off interesting, but the longer I went the more awful it became, until it was a chore to finish the audiobook.

I've heard that her Infernal Devices series is supposed to be much better, but I really have no interest in finding out for myself.

Another thing I really tried to like was Brütal Legend. Like, a game where you fight your enemies with the power of metal, and Ozzy Osbourne sells you gear? Sign me up. Unfortunately, the actual game is a confused mess of conflicting ideas that ends too quickly. If there was more actual battles, and less driving sections, it'd be a great game. As it is, it's entertaining, but in a very frustrating way.

I think the game would have benefited from a smaller map. I also found the RTS-style battles a pain in the butt, especially at first.

The one really, truly awful thing about the game though, was the noticeable lack of Iron Maiden. Barely any references to them, none of their music. I've read that Maiden's licensing fees were too high, but I say too bad - if you wanna make a game that's a heavy metal tribute, it needs to have some Iron Maiden in it. :smallcool:

Jon D

2016-03-16, 04:07 AM

I have two.

The Anita Blake series, which started of as good urban fantasy with a strong female lead and then decended into supernatural rape fantasy. Bleh.

Qnd the Nolan Batman trilogy. Batman made for a more adult audience? Hells yeah. Unfortunately, it was badly written and hamstrung by the decision to make Batman realistic. Which Batman never has been and never should be realistic.

GloatingSwine

2016-03-16, 06:23 AM

The one really, truly awful thing about the game though, was the noticeable lack of Iron Maiden. Barely any references to them, none of their music. I've read that Maiden's licensing fees were too high, but I say too bad - if you wanna make a game that's a heavy metal tribute, it needs to have some Iron Maiden in it. :smallcool:

They wanted to have Iron Maiden. The fortress escape scene set to Through the Fire and Flames was originally intended to be set to Run to the Hills.

They were declined the rights though, possibly even without explanation.

(Good premise, Bad/patchy execution is pretty much a signature of Double Fine by now)

nyjastul69

2016-03-16, 09:15 AM

Did this involve the Whitewolf World of Darkness material? If so, it sounds like it have been interesting in some fashion.

My personal one would be:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer-She slays vampires, yet somehow it apparently turned a Xander-fest (Who was the weak pathetic guy) pseudo-early Twilight RomCom. (To be honest, I barely watched any of it as I only liked barely a few of the characters. It felt too much like a more supernatural version of Scooby Doo, with Buffy being the other girl besides Velma. I like Spike, Giles, and Willow, didn't care for Xander (What does he provide anyway?), Buffy (Her vampire slaying felt like it came as a job or a side job, with a few moments trying to make the whole Slayer thing actually big or dangerous or mind something, but she plowed through vamps with little to no trouble)

Then you have her job, and that it apparently wasn't a big deal ever. I think Sabrina the Teenage Witch did a better job of trying to show the difficulty of growing up in high school and having to deal with Supernatural stuff. (Plus the talking Cat, Salem, was awesome. It featured cameos by Penn and Teller as well, and never felt like it got as stupid as Buffy did)

I prefer Firefly to Buffy and had a heard time getting into Angel. What was the appeal of either Buffy or Angel exactly? Popular teenage girl slays vampire, ohhh the angst (Buffy), or Vampire has relationship with Slayer who is totally jail-bait, suddenly has an awareness that being a vampire sucks, cue Angst and effort (Angel).

I loved Spike and Gils though, they were awesome.

Yes (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred:_The_Embraced), it was based on WW's Vampire: The Masquerade. It was interesting on some level because I was playing the game and the system was fairly new IIRC. But overall, it was pretty bad as I recall. I watched them with my gf and she wasn't a gamer and had a hard time following it.

BRC

2016-03-16, 11:25 AM

I actually felt the same way about the game. While I still think it's really good,

turns out Loghain is just stupid. Let's abandon our king to become ruler and then never do anything to combat the blight that is ruining my kingdom ever because our only hope did get desttroyed but at least we are not dirty rotten Orlesians that'll show 'em

I watched the cutscene were Loghain abandons his king and I always thought that there would be some big reveal, some grand reason why an allegedly legendary general chose such a suicidial action, and it just turned out to be... nothing. I was waiting for them to make him seem likeable, or somewhat justified, in the typical Dragon Age dark fantasy fashion. Do you follow the traitor who actually has a point and get's things done, or do you bring him to justice, with the chance of finally destabilizing Ferelden? But it just went nowhere

If I recall

There WAS a big backstory there, you just don't learn it very much in-game.
IIRC, in game all you get is that Loghain is stupid and something about Orlesians.

Apparently, spread out throughout hidden content and tie-in novels and the like you get the full story. Loghain was a war hero who had helped drive the Orlesians out of Ferelden. His daughter is married to the King.

1) At the battle of Ostagar, the King's plan was kind of stupid. It was basically based around the King being a Grey Warden Fanboy who wanted to charge into battle and get a lot of people killed. Loghain didn't think they would win the battle anyway, so he decided to save his own troops.
2) Loghain's daughter (The current Queen) was apparently infertile. In some tie-in property or something you learn that the king was in secret talks to divorce her and marry the empress of Orlais, which, as both the Queen's father, and a guy whose whole career had been based on keeping Ferelden independent from Orlais, rustled his jimmies.

THAT SAID, we never got that story in the game. We got Loghain is stupid and betrays the King and the Grey Wardens, then doesn't do anything about the blight.

It's a problem with a lot of games. They want to mix political intrigue with apocalyptic stakes, which really dosn't work, because it makes all the players in the intrigue look like buffoons who won't drop what they're doing any HELP SAVE THE WORLD!.

Also, seconded on the first season of Legend of Korra, which has always dissapointed me, even if I mostly blame myself for that disappointment. It looked like they were setting up for an interesting take on the classic "Oppressed Underclass" story, with the Protagonist not only as a member of the upper class. In an inverse of Aang's story, Korra starts with the physical abilities needed to win, but has to learn empathy and understanding in order to address the root of the problem, since social unrest isn't exactly something you can solve by punching. Victory Through Character Growth!

...but then their solution was to turn social unrest INTO something that could be solved by punching.

russdm

2016-03-16, 01:58 PM

Yes (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred:_The_Embraced), it was based on WW's Vampire: The Masquerade. It was interesting on some level because I was playing the game and the system was fairly new IIRC. But overall, it was pretty bad as I recall. I watched them with my gf and she wasn't a gamer and had a hard time following it.

Buffy was based on White Wolf? Everything makes perfect sense now. It's Joss Whedon's take on playing through Old World of Darkness. Mind Blown!

kedler

2016-03-17, 10:12 PM

The Greatest America Hero, funniest idea for a TV show ever. A show about a superhero is always cool but, a superhero that has lost the instruction book to his super suit had real potential. He couldn't fly straight, always crash landed, was constantly breaking thing by accident with his super strength, ...

Too bad it was a crummy 80's show, they should make a new one.

Knaight

2016-03-18, 05:28 PM

I think a problem may have been how un-SG1 it was. Anyone who was looking for something SG1-ish wouldn't have found it there, and people who didn't like SG1 wouldn't have gone looking for something non-SG-ish in a show with "Stargate" in the title. It smells a little to me like someone had an idea for the show about people stranded on an alien ship on autopilot and someone else said, "Hey, let's call it a Stargate show to cash in on that name." :smalltongue:

I don't know. It isn't like SG1, but there's some big differences between SG1 and SG Atlantis as well. I can say that the first one I saw was SGU, and after it and Atlantis, SG1 seemed distinctly mediocre. At least, the few episodes I lasted before bailing did.

Giggling Ghast

2016-03-18, 06:52 PM

ben-zayb

2016-03-18, 08:06 PM

I'm gonna pick the low-hanging fruit and say "Fantastic Four in the big screen". Seriously, a family-oriented show in a superhero setting...how can you mess that up? You even had The Incredibles to possibly draw inspiration from.

The problem with Captain Planet is that the presented black and white morality appeared to be a deliberate decision, because adults (ie the ones with purchasing power) being called out by their kids/niece/nephews/etc over the littlest signs of making environmentally unfriendly things could be bad for business.

Divergent. When I first heard about the series, it was explained to me as, "There's this world with different factions, that are kind of like castes. Who do different things. Only the main character is a girl who's 'divergent' which means she has a CHOICE about which caste to join."

That seemed like an awesome story to me. Of course that's not what happened and I was dissapointed.

Same boat here. The idea behind factions piqued my interest, and I didn't even care about some friends comparing it to The Hunger Games.

Kitten Champion

2016-03-18, 10:21 PM

Come to think of it -- I really like the premise of Freedom Wars. It, ultimately being a framework to hang a Monster Hunter-style action game on, isn't explored much beyond adding a bit of neat flavour here or there. However, it's a potentially compelling dystopian far-future setting if someone wanted to put some flesh on its bones.

The premise of Freedom Wars is that after much of the world has been rendered unlivable due to environmental devastation, war, disease, etc. Humanity has been driven into a few Orwellian-inspired underground city-states/penal fortresses that engage in endless conflicts with one another over resources and personnel.

The underground cities, called Panopticons, function by making the draining of State resources a severe criminal offence. To the point that newborns accumulate multiple life-sentences for simply being a drag on society by their mere existence. Some of these newborns are labelled Sinners, have no rights, and are forced to "volunteer" to work for the State and its Citizens until their debt to society is compensated, all while being constantly observed every moment of their lives. In addition to reducing their sentence, they can also earn privileges in the form of things like basic human contact, to sleep laying down, and to walk at a moderately brisk pace.

They do do some cute things with the concept, like your customizable AI pet and major support is an emotionless android that's constantly observing you for potential disobedience, the Panopticon's sole figurehead is an adorable cartoon mascot that explains your horrible situation with pep, the game mechanics allow you to do things which are illegal and will immediately extend your sentence without telling you that they are and are such banal aspects of most games that the consequences seem ludicrously oppressive, and the main menu from the game actually extends from an implant at the base of your eye -- just in case you were thinking the surveillance wasn't quite invasive enough from your prison cell surrounded by cameras and an ever-vigilant android staring unblinkingly at you from the front of your tiny, isolated cell.

It's just not the genre of game to explore the ideas it poses, rather its the backdrop to shooting and slicing robots/people that's more creative than it really has the right to be.

Hiro Protagonest

2016-03-18, 10:51 PM

Angel Beats.

Teenagers who died and went to a specific purgatory, but banded together because they were still afraid of the unknown that comes after achieving happiness? Something that starts out as lighthearted antics, but progresses to something more serious and dramatic as the main character learns why everyone is there, as rare glitches in the celestial system are uncovered, as they delve into the mysteries of who created Angel Player.

It was rushed. So incredibly rushed. I understand that they originally planned for 26 episodes, but that's still not an excuse for how they managed the time they did have. They wasted too many episodes on the antics. They should've scrapped the mystery plot and spent more time on the characters. They should've removed some of the secondary cast, like that purple-haired guy with the axe. Even so, I don't think they would've properly been able to progress Kanade's arc in such a short time, so that one goes more on the executives.

So the fault falls on both the writers and the executives for that one, I'd say.

Rodin

2016-03-19, 12:55 AM

I don't know. It isn't like SG1, but there's some big differences between SG1 and SG Atlantis as well. I can say that the first one I saw was SGU, and after it and Atlantis, SG1 seemed distinctly mediocre. At least, the few episodes I lasted before bailing did.

SG-1 mostly just took a little while to find its feet. IIRC, one of the early episodes of season 1 was actually a recycled Star Trek script. This went about as well as you'd expect, especially since it was the script to a bad Star Trek episode. I think pretty much all my favorite episodes are in seasons 2-6.

Atlantis for me had a great first season, exceeding anything done by SG-1. After that, though, the show pretty much fell apart in slow motion. The Atlantis crew became less and less sympathetic, directly caused all the major threats they were facing, and they got rid of the best characters and replaced them with boring stand-ins.

It's possible that SGU would have eventually found its feet in a similar way to SG-1, but with declining ratings on Atlantis it was pretty much inevitable that the show would be canceled. Heck, SG-1 didn't even manage to eke out its final episodes and had to do them in two TV movies. Then again, the final couple seasons of SG-1 should never have happened in the first place. The plot was done, Richard Dean Anderson wasn't interested in starring in it anymore, and Don S. Davis had died. The decision to renew was foolish in the extreme.

Seppl

2016-03-19, 01:12 AM

Heck, SG-1 didn't even manage to eke out its final episodes and had to do them in two TV movies. Then again, the final couple seasons of SG-1 should never have happened in the first place. The plot was done, Richard Dean Anderson wasn't interested in starring in it anymore, and Don S. Davis had died. The decision to renew was foolish in the extreme.Considering these (production related) premises, I would count the last two SG-1 seasons as bad premises well executed. Sure, they are less good than seasons 2-6 (quite a high watermark) but they are still quite enjoyable and I would not skip them on a re-watch. You can think of them as their own little spinoff series, "Stargate-Origin".

GolemsVoice

2016-03-19, 06:25 AM

I feel that way about Bioshock Infinite. Now, just from a pure shooter perspective, the Bioshock games have always been ok-ish. No horrible, but also not super good. It was all about the story and the atmosphere. At the beginning, Infite has the same feeling. A strange city, not underwater but in the sky, whose inhabitant basically collect all the -isms you could have, all basically jingoistic American nationalism and Manifest Destiny taken to the extreme. They even worship the founding father, in addition to running some kind of super-evangelical religion! Isn't that cool? I thought it was. Add to that the glimpeses of cool enemies we get, and you have a wonderful game.

But they never really DO anything with that.

Instead, it goes off into some quantum-sci-fi infinite worlds story. Which is cool as well, but all the elements we saw at the beginning just disappear. You might as well be chasing Nazis on a secret moonbase, or elves through the magic forest, for all the difference it makes. The religious angle is never really brought up, the stuff with the founding fathers is never brought up again, we don't even really see anything of the city or of the tragedies that happened. The Vox Populi are generic overzealous revolutionaries, and the forces of Columbia become just more targets.

In Bioschock I, we had a tragic story, since the very thing and the very people who made Rapture possible were also its downfall. We see first hand the horrors that ADAM has brought to every part of the city, and take part in the misery of its citizens. In infinite, I feel like there's a disconnect between the first quarter of the game, and the whole rest.

Also, the ending was horribly done. "Hey, let's walk around for 20 minutes, but you can't just relax, nooo, you have to walk yourself and press buttons, while I blather on."

Velaryon

2016-03-19, 11:29 AM

I'll jump on the anti-Divergent train here a bit as well.

When I read the book I enjoyed the quick pacing and thought the action was pretty good. That's definitely Veronica Roth's strength. My problem isn't any particular similarity to The Hunger Games... I don't think they have all that much in common other than being dystopian, and I imagine Divergent starts up a love triangle at some point after I stopped reading because that's one of the most common tropes in YA literature. If anything, the factions more closely resemble the different houses in Harry Potter, what with grouping kids based on a single dominant personality trait.

And that's where Divergent really falls flat to me - the "dominant personality trait" thing was carried to such an extreme that for most characters that's their only personality trait. Being Divergent can literally be boiled down to "having more than one personality trait." I'm not sure even the most talented author could take a premise in which the vast majority of characters are by definition one-dimensional and make it interesting, especially while relying on a lot of tired Young Adult literature tropes at the same time.

Also, the world-building is pretty shaky, at least in the first book. I've been told that the setup with the factions and all that is better explained in later books, but the first one didn't seem good enough to me to warrant further exploration.

No brains

2016-03-19, 08:11 PM

All of the Legacy of Kain games after the first one.

Blood Omen told a fantastic self-contained story and was fun as a sort of M-rated Zelda. Every game afterwards has struggled with that. Soul Reaver went unfinished and from there everything sort of unraveled, no game could just be its own thing anymore, they all had to work as appendices to previous titles.

tensai_oni

2016-03-20, 03:41 AM

No brains

2016-03-20, 01:40 PM

I disagree. I found the later titles' overarching plot to be fascinating. Shame the series is unfinished and will most likely stay that way forever.

Ideally, an overarching plot is excellent and keeps the players coming back for more. The problem for LoK is that the overarching plots are largely a symptom of games going unfinished.

Maybe I wasn't clear about it, but thinking that the game had a bad execution doesn't mean I didn't like it myself. I just wish that the good premise were handled better. Of all the game series that warrant a remake, this one could probably benefit the most. If the story could be tied to more fun/ consistent mechanics and delivered in better pieces, it would be an awesome series.

nyjastul69

2016-03-20, 01:42 PM

Buffy was based on White Wolf? Everything makes perfect sense now. It's Joss Whedon's take on playing through Old World of Darkness. Mind Blown!

Not Buffy, I've never watched it. I thought you were asking about Kindred: the Embraced.

Anteros

2016-03-20, 02:06 PM

Hiro Protagonest

2016-03-20, 02:21 PM

I actually liked SAO. The concept was good, and the first handful of episodes were strong. It starts getting bad towards the second half of season 1, but the start was good enough to carry it through the season in my opinion. Everything after season 1 seems like awful fan fiction though and should be avoided.

...I'm going to assume you mean the Aincrad arc when you say Season 1.

The Aincrad arc wasn't even good at what it ended up being. Kirito is an incredibly boring character and Asuna can't carry the romance story on her own. And as Asuna becomes more important, it starts to have this sexism, to the point where the antagonist, who's supposed to be this kind of detached but still somewhat relateable character, outright admits that his endgame plan was to use her as a narrative trophy.

The author's later work of Accel World still has clear flaws, but it's much better (I wonder how the Infinite Burst adaptation will go).

Anteros

2016-03-20, 03:11 PM

I did mean the Aincrad arc. Like I said, the second half of the arc is pretty bad, mostly due to the awful romance and fatherhood subplots but I felt like it had enough momentum from the first half to carry it through.

Zalabim

2016-03-21, 05:03 AM

I disagree. I found the later titles' overarching plot to be fascinating. Shame the series is unfinished and will most likely stay that way forever.

I thought LoK Defiance wrapped up the storyline from Soul Reaver 1 & 2. It's not *over* but it's not on a cliffhanger either.

Morty

2016-03-21, 12:14 PM

...but then their solution was to turn social unrest INTO something that could be solved by punching.

Not even by punching, honestly. It just... resolved itself.

Knaight

2016-03-21, 10:11 PM

Not even by punching, honestly. It just... resolved itself.

It's more that a charismatic leader rose up on the basis of existing social tensions, which then manifested as social unrest, then the leader was revealed as a fraud, undercutting their movement. It's just that somehow that also caused the social unrest to disperse, instead of something like the movement dispersing temporarily and then someone else who wasn't a fraud coming up and using the exact same underlying social conditions on top of organizations that are presumably still partially in place. They beat it by punching, it just made absolutely no sense that that worked.

nyjastul69

2016-03-21, 10:39 PM

Knaight

2016-03-21, 10:49 PM

I'm going to go the unpopular route here and lose some geek points (assuming I already had them).

Dune. The novels are unreadable to me and the movie was far worse. I don't get any of it. There is potential in that world, somewhere, Frank Hebert just couldn't find it.

With the notable exception of the first novel, this is pretty much the consensus view.

As long as we're losing geek points though, here's a short list of beloved works in the geek cultural canon that I'd consider pretty lousy, but with at least a good idea in them somewhere:

Chronicles of Narnia
Ghostbusters
Wheel of Time
Most Heinlein
Star Trek: The Original Series
Serenity
The Superman movies
A considerable fraction of Marvel and DCs total output (a more considerable fraction lacks the good idea in them somewhere).
Forrest Gump

nyjastul69

2016-03-21, 10:58 PM

With the notable exception of the first novel, this is pretty much the consensus view.

...

Huh, I had no idea. I had always heard Dune as a lionized thing. Good to hear that people have come to my senses. ;) I can't honestly say that the Dune series sucks because I've never been able to finish the first book. So I just assume the rest of the series is as bad as the first one.

BannedInSchool

2016-03-22, 08:44 AM

Huh, I had no idea. I had always heard Dune as a lionized thing. Good to hear that people have come to my senses. ;) I can't honestly say that the Dune series sucks because I've never been able to finish the first book. So I just assume the rest of the series is as bad as the first one.
AIUI, the first book (maybe first two?) were being shepherded by the editor, John Campbell, of the magazine, Analog, in which it was being serialized. Campbell rode Herbert pretty hard with rewrites. After Dune was published and was a hit, Herbert didn't have the same editorial oversight and then after God Emperor he was done with the series but they kept waving money at him to write more. So, yeah, the series starts with the best and gets progressively worse. :smallsmile:

DomaDoma

2016-03-22, 10:33 PM

TBH, Dune Messiah was itself enough of a pointless-seeming left turn that I couldn't finish it. I can't remember what it was that turned me off so badly - something to do with Princess Irulan, Chani or both being disaffected? - but given how deeply I loved the first book for years after that, it must've been pretty jarring.

Rodin

2016-03-23, 04:36 AM

I remember not really liking Dune Messiah at the time I read it, and really only finished God Emperor out of a sense of obligation. Never read the rest.

Oddly enough though, I really enjoyed the mini-series they did that covered those. It had its own issues for sure, but it managed a really solid telling of the story and great effects for a made-for-TV series.

Anteros

2016-03-24, 12:24 PM

...I'm going to assume you mean the Aincrad arc when you say Season 1.

The Aincrad arc wasn't even good at what it ended up being. Kirito is an incredibly boring character and Asuna can't carry the romance story on her own. And as Asuna becomes more important, it starts to have this sexism, to the point where the antagonist, who's supposed to be this kind of detached but still somewhat relateable character, outright admits that his endgame plan was to use her as a narrative trophy.

The author's later work of Accel World still has clear flaws, but it's much better (I wonder how the Infinite Burst adaptation will go).

I gave Accel World a try based on what you said here. It's...It's not good.

Lethologica

2016-03-24, 12:36 PM

I gave Accel World a try based on what you said here. It's...It's not good.
Being much better than SAO is a low bar to clear, so.

I read a dozen or so manga chapters before I'd ever heard of SAO; I found it flashy, and not much else.

Anteros

2016-03-25, 01:35 PM

Being much better than SAO is a low bar to clear, so.

I read a dozen or so manga chapters before I'd ever heard of SAO; I found it flashy, and not much else.

I didn't find it better, but I suppose tastes vary. I only gave it a few episodes though, so maybe it gets better further along, but I didn't feel like slogging through the bad to get to the good.

GloatingSwine

2016-03-25, 01:57 PM

Being much better than SAO is a low bar to clear, so.

Whilst this is true, making a show with the same premise and making it worse than SAO appears to be pretty easy...

Amaril

2016-03-25, 02:50 PM

Whilst this is true, making a show with the same premise and making it worse than SAO appears to be pretty easy...

Dare I even ask? :smalleek:

sktarq

2016-03-25, 09:47 PM

The Matrix. A computer nerd learns to do cool stuff, acquires superpowers and a girlfriend, without having to go through all those boring steps like "exercise" and "practice" and "personal hygiene". Then he beats up his enemies, because apparently they've all forgotten they can rewrite reality at will. Morons. First one I thought was vaguely interestingly done more because the world was interesting but after that and the need for humans as batteries is the dumbest thing I saw in movies for several years in either directions. . . . "when combined with a form of cold fusions"....(erm... guys.... wait... "combined"... wtf ....humans are horrible energy storage devices)

The Star Wars prequels are kind of a sitting duc... seconds under interrogation. I wished I could care about anything that happened in these moves that wasn't directly due the fact I had relationship with these characters from episodes IV-VI.

House of Cards. Again, paper-thin characters all inexplicably taken in by a villain who practically introduces himself as "I'm Evil, nice to meet you". Which House of Cards are you talking about? Urquhart comes off as a bit of bastard but so does everyone at that echelon of the conservative party in the series. Underwood. . . yeah I agree with you.

Anteros

2016-03-26, 08:55 PM

You know, I think I figured out that I like SAO just because the abridged series is so freaking funny.

Bohandas

2016-03-26, 11:41 PM

Lethologica

2016-03-26, 11:50 PM

Tolkien,
I think you're eliding a great deal of 'execution' by burying it in the 'premise'. Also, while Tolkien's pacing is not novel-like, his prose is quite readable.

Reddish Mage

2016-03-27, 12:05 AM

The Sound of Thunder, The Martian Chronicles, Stranger in a Strange Land...oh wait you weren't talking Sci-Fi with innovative premises that just fail to tell a good story on execution?

If your going for a marketable blockbuster that didn't measure up look no further than Batman v Superman.

sktarq

2016-03-27, 12:22 PM

The Martian Chronicles....oh wait you weren't talking Sci-Fi with innovative premises that just fail to tell a good story on execution?

Well I would say the John Carter of Mars saga was a pretty good series of stories. Sexist and racist products of their time to be sure. But the plots each hang together pretty well and are easy quick reads. They are not Tolkien and not trying to be.

BannedInSchool

2016-03-27, 01:48 PM

Legato Endless

2016-03-30, 05:25 PM

Good premise but bad execution?

Any novel by Lovecraft, Tolkien, or Dickens.

The worlds and themes and characters created by these authors are amazing but the novels said themes and characters appear in are effectively unreadable.

I'm trying to disentangle exactly what you're saying here and it's a bit confusing because Dicken's is a weird author to bring up here. The premise of a Dickens novel is part melodramatic convoluted twisting by nature of the author. Unless it's just the sheer wordiness that kills it?

A Tale of Two Cities is basically The Human Spirit in the French Revolution: A Soap Opera.

Concrete

2016-03-30, 06:07 PM

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash

The idea of people with regular abilities trying to survive and make a living in a world where even the weakest creature, creatures that a newly arrived hero in many other stories would be dispatching by the dozen, is pretty interesting.

Sadly, it relies far too heavily on fan service, and none of the characters are very interesting. Its light novel heritage shines through in the worst way, with its bland characters, of which the females are there just to be female in the most basic way, one being the token tsundere, the other being a wilting flower whose entire role is pretty much to be sad, weak, and requiring protection. And then, the cold, emotionless one that needs the main character to warm up and actually become a person again.

As with many light novel adaptions, the main character is token audience surrogate #1b, bland, and unspectacular in pretty much every way, yet still somehow he becomes the leader of the party, because the writers decided to make him the smartest character by making pretty much every other character debilitation stupid. Probably to ensure that we averagely intelligent watchers do not feel alienated.

The rest of the characters, i have no real complaints about, if only the could develop anywhere beyond their one character note.

Legato Endless

2016-03-30, 11:47 PM

Fire Emblem Fates

For a franchise that was initially struggling as fairly niche outside Japan, it had a massive bounce back with the 13th game Awakening, a last ditch effort greatest hits compilation of the series. But while Awakening was a solid entry to the series that revitalized the franchise after 3 subpar games, it had a few complaints. Chiefly the plot was fairly simplistic and extremely forgettable despite a solid cast.

It's sequel hired an outside writer to attempt to solve this issue. The gist?

Two Kingdoms are at War and you have to pick between two sympathetic sides with family on both sides. Seems ripe for melodrama no? The Black Hat Kingdom route especially, as you're playing the leader of an expansionist arguably meritocratic inclined power, motivated to war to feed your starving people and out of love for your family, hopefully acting as an internal reformer. There's a lot of potential here.

None of which happens. The writers don't merely settle for a stereotypical black vs white conflict between the two Kingdoms, they actively reject any form of moral complexity to the whole affair or trying to round out the two sides. It plays like some weird form of fictional propaganda, so much so I'm left wondering if the writer actually approved of the classist implications of the Kingdom of Moral Superiority. Shallow themes and contrivances abound, especially in what should be the most intriguing storyline.

All of this trickles down to the cast, transforming some good on paper concepts into paper thin characterizations of Saints and Monsters, and a massive blank space of unexplored territory between characters.

Yora

2016-03-31, 12:42 PM

First one I thought was vaguely interestingly done more because the world was interesting but after that and the need for humans as batteries is the dumbest thing I saw in movies for several years in either directions. . . . "when combined with a form of cold fusions"....(erm... guys.... wait... "combined"... wtf ....humans are horrible energy storage devices)

And there is such an obvious use for biological humans in tanks in a machine society: Brains.
You can do pretty fancy stuff with computers and some stuff can be done much more efficiently than with a brain. But brains are still much more powerful overall. And the machines have already connected all human brains to a huge network. You could easily have said that being awake in the Matrix is when the humans are in their rest cycle and dreaming, and when their Matrix avatars are sleeping, their brains are doing computing work for the machines.
Still some handweaving, as computer engineers might have difficulty of thinking of processes where machines need meat brains over electronics. But saying the machines are working on some esoteric techno-mega-consciousness is a lot more believable than a very obvious violation of the most basic physics of energy.

But that's not even the worst thing. The worst thing is that all the mystery doesn't really exist.
"What is the Matrix?" "It's the question that drives us." Except that the other heroes all already know exactly what the answer is. And then "The Matrix can not be explained, only experienced." Except that it is very easy to explain.

BeerMug Paladin

2016-04-01, 04:38 AM

And there is such an obvious use for biological humans in tanks in a machine society: Brains.

Back before the Matrix sequels were made, I read a fan constructed epileptic tree about what someone thought the sequels were going to be about. Since I had no interest in watching a sequel myself (I didn't believe the story had anywhere to go, and it wasn't a very good movie in the first place), I read it just out of curiosity to see what exactly someone might do for a sequel. The idea was (as much of it as I recall) epic, and would have been quite amazing, with lots of great plot twists that were all hinted at from movie one.

One major twist was based on this observation, and the assumption that the speaker of the battery thing was actually knowingly lying. That it obviously makes absolutely no sense whatsoever was supposedly a clue to the audience that something else was up. I haven't watched those movies, but I think it's a pity they didn't actually go in that direction.

themaque

2016-04-01, 05:20 AM

The Venom solo series with Agent Venom. I liked the IDEA of Flash Thompson being Venom, working with the government, trying to control himself and the symbiot much better than I liked what I actually ended up reading.

Kitten Champion

2016-04-01, 05:54 AM

But that's not even the worst thing. The worst thing is that all the mystery doesn't really exist.
"What is the Matrix?" "It's the question that drives us." Except that the other heroes all already know exactly what the answer is. And then "The Matrix can not be explained, only experienced." Except that it is very easy to explain.

I assumed those remarks were made in terms of the mentality of their previous unenlightened lives - how they perceived things when they were like Neo - with their awareness of the boundaries of their reality being something they were aware of on some unconscious level but could never genuinely contemplate or explore.

In essence, saying "People like you and I knew on some level something was off and it affected our whole outlook on life unknowingly."

Yora

2016-04-01, 07:18 AM

I think it was probably for the trailer.

themaque

2016-04-01, 01:34 PM

Chronicles of Narnia Hard to argue. old fantasy kids books
Ghostbusters Even... even the first?
Wheel of Time Agreed
Most Heinlein Disagreed but that's fine
Star Trek: The Original Series limitations of the time, but fine.
Serenity different strokes
The Superman movies Not one has been without serious flaws, I admit
A considerable fraction of Marvel and DCs total output I like Marvel? but they have faults, some serious.
Forrest Gump Few things my wife hates more, so you're not alone.

Most of my responses are in bold. Nothing to turn your geek card in over... well Maybe Ghostbusters?

In response to Brutal Legend, I LOVED the game, but understand it was all over the place in terms of actual game play. I went through MOST of the game without really leveling up because I couldn't quite figure out how to get the dragons unlocked. Plenty of problems there.

I just can't get behind the Assassin's Creed games. It is something I SHOULD be all over in terms of game play or even story but I just end up finding most of them so BORING. The only one I really enjoy is Black Flag and even then hate it when it goes away from the pirates simulator.

I don't like Bryon Singer's X-Men movies. I think he's.... adequate a director but he just can't seem to really make me CARE about what's going on. X2 is the only one of his that I actually kind of like and Matthew Vaughn blew him out of the water with First Class IMHO.

Tell Tales Sam & Max series. Tell Tale eventually refined their games and made one of my all time favorites with Tales from the Borderlands, but their opening acts where rough. Same thing with Tales from Monkey Island but they managed to salvage that towards the end for me.

Ebon_Drake

2016-04-01, 04:11 PM

And there is such an obvious use for biological humans in tanks in a machine society: Brains.
You can do pretty fancy stuff with computers and some stuff can be done much more efficiently than with a brain. But brains are still much more powerful overall. And the machines have already connected all human brains to a huge network. You could easily have said that being awake in the Matrix is when the humans are in their rest cycle and dreaming, and when their Matrix avatars are sleeping, their brains are doing computing work for the machines.
Still some handweaving, as computer engineers might have difficulty of thinking of processes where machines need meat brains over electronics. But saying the machines are working on some esoteric techno-mega-consciousness is a lot more believable than a very obvious violation of the most basic physics of energy.

But that's not even the worst thing. The worst thing is that all the mystery doesn't really exist.
"What is the Matrix?" "It's the question that drives us." Except that the other heroes all already know exactly what the answer is. And then "The Matrix can not be explained, only experienced." Except that it is very easy to explain.

Actually, I think you'll find the worst thing about the Matrix is all the pretentious nonsense about Neo being "The One". It adds nothing to the plot and bogs the movie down in repetitive and irritating dialogue. I rewatched the first Matrix recently and while the whole thing has aged remarkably badly, that was the part that annoyed me the most. The movie would work much better as straight sci-fi action without having tacked a whole load of pseudo-religious guff onto it. Or if it had turned out that Morpheus was a total loon and the whole "the one" deal was just his obsession rather than an actual thing.

Legato Endless

2016-04-01, 11:08 PM

And then "The Matrix can not be explained, only experienced." Except that it is very easy to explain.

And here I thought Morpheous was just making an allusion to The Allegory of the Cave, not a literal statement about the Holodeck Neo is in, considering he gives a massive exposition scene later concerning said Holodeck.

It's not like Neo is holding a copy of Simulcra and Simulation in his opening scene.

Rodin

2016-04-02, 04:06 AM

I just can't get behind the Assassin's Creed games. It is something I SHOULD be all over in terms of game play or even story but I just end up finding most of them so BORING. The only one I really enjoy is Black Flag and even then hate it when it goes away from the pirates simulator.

I had two issues with the Assassin's Creed games.

The first is that the gameplay simply doesn't change enough between titles. They released them too fast, and made them too similar to each other. By ACIII, I had already gotten tired of effortlessly shanking hordes of enemies and the same jumping puzzles game after game.

The second is that they fell in love with their mind screw plot too much. The plot twist in the first game was great. The second game was bogged down by all kinds of weird symbolism and conspiracy theories, but still had an awesome plot twist at the end.

Then came Brotherhood. Brotherhood's plot was nonsensical and so confusing that I no longer knew or cared what the hell was going on. By Revelations I was completely at sea, and this made it so that when ACIII hit, I completely couldn't follow the plot anymore.

I suppose you could play the games without paying any attention to the plot, but that seems...self-defeating.

Reddish Mage

2016-04-03, 11:39 AM

Well I would say the John Carter of Mars saga was a pretty good series of stories. Sexist and racist products of their time to be sure. But the plots each hang together pretty well and are easy quick reads. They are not Tolkien and not trying to be.

Ah, Martian Chronicles is Bradbury. Barsoom would be Burroughs and John Carter.

I find it interesting you guys worked on the least innovative bad Sci-fi from our 21st Century perspective. Bradbury was doing a lot of "Nobel Savage" stories and other colonial-era stories, but on Mars. They are impossible to talk about these days without noticing his obvious but oblivious racism and sexism (especially if you read Bradbury forward, where he reveals decades later, he was still oblivious). It's more raw and relatable as bigoted to a contemporary audience then say "Heart of Darkness" or anything not 20th century. Stories like "all the blacks move to Mars in 1995 (or whenever the future was) and leave the South bare" cry for attention to the politics of Bradbury's day.

I wouldn't say Martian adventure stories had much anything to do with things, and really the criticism regarding the biases of the author (himself) is the least interesting part to me on any of that.

I would like to see some more classic sci fi that have bad execution but innovative ideas on the scale of Frankenstein's criticism of modernism, Asimov's take on robots as moral actors, Tolkein's mythological reimagining of fantasy, or something similarly earth-shattering (may or may not involve the actual shattering of the Earth).

Shadow of the Sun

2016-04-06, 01:35 PM

I'd have to say The Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellan. A magic system where people can use gunpowder like it was supercocaine or ignite gunpowder to control bullets in flight? I'm sold on the premise!

The execution... the universe wasn't well thought out, explained, or established. There's a character that can do something that is supposed to be impossible. This would perhaps be more impressive if we were told anything about the magic system to tell us WHY that was thought to be impossible, or gave us general guidelines of what the system actually was so that we can see why it's special.

Similarly, the universe just falls flat. It's possible that the author has completely worked out everything about the universe, but a lot of things we're just presented without explanations or a history. I'm not a big fan of in-media res; you have to tell me about the universe to really make me care (which is why I've never been able to read past the first half of Book 1 of Malazan, Book of the Fallen because they won't tell me anything about what's going on or why.)

GloatingSwine

2016-04-06, 01:56 PM

The execution... the universe wasn't well thought out, explained, or established. There's a character that can do something that is supposed to be impossible. This would perhaps be more impressive if we were told anything about the magic system to tell us WHY that was thought to be impossible, or gave us general guidelines of what the system actually was so that we can see why it's special.

Do you mean Nila doing magic without gloves?

I took it as a clue that she was going to develop into a Predeii like Julene had been, the same as Taniel was becoming some equivalent as a powder mage.

I don't wholly disagree, the books are worth a go but they aren't quite as spectacular as I'd have liked.

Yora

2016-04-06, 05:22 PM

I've been playing The Witcher 3 for the last three weeks and the phrase "good premise and bad execution" is exactly what comes to my mind. There are some moments of good writing and even one quest with absolutely amazing writing. But all in all the game is a horribly bloated mess almost completely lacking in any real substance. There are several quests that seem really intriguing for the first 15 minutes as they build up mystery and evoke thoughts that there must be some dark forces at work. And when you think you're about to find the first clue you actually find yourself face to face with the final boss that you simply kill like any other big monster and that's it.
These quests feel like the first 15 to 20% of really great quests, but after the nice opening there is nothing there.

Sadly this all applies to the main story as well. After 60 hours of trying to track down a missing friend I finally found the first piece of actual information. Until then it was really just "Yeah, she was here but left." And immediately after this story finally seems to start everyone agrees to prepare for the big final battle.

The sad thing is that the good moments show that the people really had the knowledge and skill to make amazing quests and stories. But instead they just build this huge world that is way too big and barely holds anything of interest. Instead of a 100 hour game they should have made a 20 hour game and maybe reduced the size of the world by 70%. That could have been an awesome game.
Good thing that came from playing the game is that I now have half a dozen great openings for potentially awesome stories that I can use as starting points for my own work.

Sam113097

2016-04-12, 08:25 PM

Freemason Than

2016-04-13, 05:56 AM

The TV series Jericho. It's ostensibly about a group of people surviving in a post-apocalyptic world after the bombs fell (ala Fallout), but in practice, the 'apocalypse' part was completely underdeveloped. All of the main characters lived in a remote farming community too. Which meant they were largely unaffected by the premise of the show and life pretty much continued on as normal.
What's worse is that a massive chunk of the series' runtime was also spent on romantic sideplots. Not just of one or two characters, but the entire cast. Just one moment of heartwarming lovy-doviness after another. And all of that in a setting that seems as far removed from its own plot as possible. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of fiction put its own premise to such poor use.

Other mentions:
Sense8 (series): very unique idea, but it focuses way too hard on sideplots and neither the main characters nor the writers themselves seem interested in the main plot. The main characters can share their knowledge and skills with each other across the globe ... and do absolutely nothing with it.

House of Cards (series): interesting premise, but after season 1 it just seemed to turn into a cartoon.

No brains

2016-04-13, 02:27 PM

I don't know if this has been brought up, but the Star Wars prequels KILL me. I know many people hate the movies, but I'm mostly ambivalent towards them. It's just that there was so much potential to explore the film universe that so many fans love, and it was squandered as Lucas forgot what made the fans fall in love in the first place.

Wait, they kill you but you're ambivalent to them? I want you as the tank in my party. :smallbiggrin:

Did you mean that you think they were executed only 'decently' well but you had expected way, way more out of them? Like hype backlash damaged your experience or perhaps if these weren't specifically Star Wars films you might have enjoyed them?

Dragonexx

2016-04-13, 04:38 PM

I myself don't really hate any starwars movie. Revenge of the Sith is my second favorite star wars movie afterall (below Empire and above RotJ), but I'm more or less meh on the other two prequels, and could probably just do without them (if I could, I would totally have the clone wars tv show replace them).

sktarq

2016-04-13, 04:58 PM

Two more to bring up.

Already mentioned once but Terra Nova. That the portal could only go to one place/time was fine with me, that the story focused on a family (including their two teens) didn't bug me. That by the end of the season the challenges of living in a new place, with limited support, as an outpost for a dying world was replaced by a war story did bother me. That every major character's main drives ALL were family centred really bugged me. I'm not blowing that up either-I could family as a central pillar of the show but when it is everything from pillar to post it gets annoying and repetitive.

Second would be the movie Paranoia from 2013. Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford as two tech titans engaging in industrial espionage - that is a great set up and casting. A newbie (Liam Hemsworth) set up as an audience vehicle seems okay but wait. Nope they decided to tell Hemsworth's character's story instead of the tech titan's story. Which was even more the pity because both Ford and Oldman were on point-some of the better acting I've seen from Ford in years. And when they were playing off each other (they had two/three scenes together) they were great and made the rest of the movie look horrid by comparison.

The Fury

2016-04-13, 07:45 PM

The anime A Certain Magical Index/A Certain Scientific Railgun. Technically I guess they're two series, but whatever. To me they were always weird to talk about because discussing them frankly always made them seem like better shows than they actually are. I mean, there's people that get super powers through either magic or by inborn psychic abilities, there's a whole city devoted to functioning as one huge school; ostensibly to help said psychics learn to control their powers better, (or is it?) there's clever applications of said super powers, there's a loopy person that's actually a supervillain that's actually trying to correct a horrible mistake she's made, there's conspiracies... I could go on, but basically this sounds like a solid superhero-type show. Except it isn't. Not really. There's just way too much filler, and not filler that does anything to inform the characters or setting. Like a Beach Episode and School Fair Episode which were both so paint-by-numbers that they could have been from just about any other anime. Which is a bummer because the setting is cool and the characters are cool.

KillingAScarab

2016-04-14, 10:17 AM

Sense8 (series): very unique idea, but it focuses way too hard on sideplots and neither the main characters nor the writers themselves seem interested in the main plot. The main characters can share their knowledge and skills with each other across the globe ... and do absolutely nothing with it.I also think the premise was not well executed, but for slightly different reasons. I'm willing to forgive people who under-utilize their new psychic powers. Their abilities were used for some interesting interactions, but they're used almost as often for gratuitous drugs and sex (in one case, it's sex between two side-characters, not even one of the sensates :smallannoyed: ). Also, I'm willing to overlook how flat the series fell in a number of other categories. "The world hates us," was one which was actually completely ignorant of sensates, but the villain had inexplicable influence over. "Normal humans are the best killers," was laughable when you consider about half of Wolfgang's actions and... ...you know, Whispers. "Normal humans should be more like us," was not something I found appealing, especially given the resolution to Will's arc.

Will becomes hilariously awful without context. He's a police officer who gains psychic powers, but instead of quitting when they create a conflict of interest, he continues to use his access to police resources to prioritize helping a small group of people over the community which granted him authority (he wins some points back for getting an ER to accept a kid with a gunshot wound... but Will brought him to the wrong hospital). Rather than explaining that he is using those resources to catch a doctor who is experimenting upon human beings without their consent, he hides his obsession, gets suspended and flies to another country. By the end of his story, Will becomes a catatonic drug addict.

Add in what Will does through other members of his cluster and he becomes less likable as a police officer. He helps Capheus save the life of an organized crime lord by shooting/killing gang members; no attempt is made to involve the local authorities. He has a meeting with Kala when she meets the religious extremists who arranged the attempted murder of Manendra Rasal; no attempt is made to involve the local authorities. Will has a meeting with Woflgang right after he murdered a bunch of people. Will could put in an anonymous tip on his own time to the police in Berlin, but... no.

Tyndmyr

2016-04-14, 12:50 PM

The TV series Jericho. It's ostensibly about a group of people surviving in a post-apocalyptic world after the bombs fell (ala Fallout), but in practice, the 'apocalypse' part was completely underdeveloped. All of the main characters lived in a remote farming community too. Which meant they were largely unaffected by the premise of the show and life pretty much continued on as normal.
What's worse is that a massive chunk of the series' runtime was also spent on romantic sideplots. Not just of one or two characters, but the entire cast. Just one moment of heartwarming lovy-doviness after another. And all of that in a setting that seems as far removed from its own plot as possible. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of fiction put its own premise to such poor use.

Revolutions was tragically similar. It *could* have been very cool, had some solid cast people and a really cool setting but...just no. It ended up feeling like someone sort of halfway wrote down what was happening in a particularly inattentive D&D campaign. Waste of an amazing setting.

Yora

2016-04-16, 06:15 AM

Lethologica

2016-04-16, 03:09 PM

I think the whole post-apocalypse genre is really primarily about frontier-life utopias. Back to the good old days when no government told you what to do and you don't had to arrange yourself with other groups.
Some post-apocalypse is like that, but...how much of the current crop of popular YA fiction is post-apocalyptic authoritarian dystopia, i.e. Hunger Games clones? See also books like Wool (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series)). This assertion seems easy to complicate.

Randomguy

2016-04-17, 10:01 AM

A Korean webcomic called "The Gamer". The premise is that that the protagonist gets the power to interact with the world as though he was an RPG character: he can see people's level and classes; he can see his own stats and improve them by leveling up or by grinding them, and can gain new powers and abilities from his actions. There are other people in the setting with magic / powers, but they don't get video game interaction with the world.

So the premise is interesting, but it's not well written (and the translation's not great, either), and the protagonist spends way too much time angst-ing about how he doesn't know what to do with his future after high-school now, even though he didn't have any idea before he got powers. Honestly, there's fanfiction of it that's better written than the original, mostly because they keep the premise and swap out the protagonist.

First one I thought was vaguely interestingly done more because the world was interesting but after that and the need for humans as batteries is the dumbest thing I saw in movies for several years in either directions. . . . "when combined with a form of cold fusions"....(erm... guys.... wait... "combined"... wtf ....humans are horrible energy storage devices)

And there is such an obvious use for biological humans in tanks in a machine society: Brains.
You can do pretty fancy stuff with computers and some stuff can be done much more efficiently than with a brain. But brains are still much more powerful overall. And the machines have already connected all human brains to a huge network. You could easily have said that being awake in the Matrix is when the humans are in their rest cycle and dreaming, and when their Matrix avatars are sleeping, their brains are doing computing work for the machines.
Still some handweaving, as computer engineers might have difficulty of thinking of processes where machines need meat brains over electronics. But saying the machines are working on some esoteric techno-mega-consciousness is a lot more believable than a very obvious violation of the most basic physics of energy.

I haven't heard that interpretation before. The one that I'm fond of is that the machines are the (sort of) good guys. After humans blotted out the sun with nuclear weapons, the machines decided that humans were to much of a danger to themselves and to the environment to be allowed to run free. But rather than wiping out all humans, they give humans a simulated reality to live in. The first matrix was a paradise, remember?

Legato Endless

2016-04-17, 12:55 PM

Some post-apocalypse is like that, but...how much of the current crop of popular YA fiction is post-apocalyptic authoritarian dystopia, i.e. Hunger Games clones? See also books like Wool (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series)). This assertion seems easy to complicate.

On a related note, while Utopian would be too strong, it's certainly true a lot of the genre merely deals with the fall of the current society and installation of something else. I haven't seen many works actually explore mankind truly dying off, like in The Road.

Velaryon

2016-04-20, 12:31 AM

I hope this doesn't skirt too close to the edge of forum rules since it does involve a religious figure, but...

Are any of you familiar with the movie Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LRIypcaIX4)? As you can see from the trailer, it was filmed on a budget of approximately nothing at all, and it goes for that special blend of super cheesy, so-bad-it's-good humor. Unfortunately, with the exception of a few scenes, namely the fight with the car full of atheists and the one where God speaks to Jesus through a bowl of ice cream, the majority of it is not even funny bad, just... bad.

KillingAScarab

2016-04-20, 12:43 AM