Unpopular Other media opinions

[CharlieSmiles]

Since there is already a forum stating unpopular opinions of music, this one is for Movies, TV and Books, and video games

Movies- Star Wars Epsisode 1-3 aren't bad movies, and George Lucas didn't ruin Star Wars, Scarface is horribly overrated, so is Goodfellas, the Best Superhero movie ever made is Tim Buron's Batmanand Mel Gibson makes good movies

TV- Lucille Ball is just annoying, I've yet to see a good anime program, evrything Hanna Barbera made is awful, and Frasier is a better show than Cheers

Books- Terry Goodkind is a better writer than Robert Jordan ( but GRRM is still the best) Tyrion is not the best character and Feast for the Crows was not a drop off in quality at all. Dune is not that good and the Eathsea Trilogy is not good at all.

Video Games- Halo isn't that good, it's just an allright shooter. The Grand theft auto games are just boring.

[Tengu]

There already is a thread about computer games. Not about the other ones, though.

Movies: I liked Star Wars Episode 3 (though not 1 or 2). Dark City is mostly better than Matrix. Return of the King was mostly a very disappointing movie.

Anime: Episode 12 (festival) was my least favorite of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Books: I have no desire to read Song of Fire and Ice - it seems to be trying too hard to be dark and gritty, with relative morals, shades of gray and non-sympathetic protagonists everywhere. I liked Bored of the Rings.

[Saithis Bladewing]

The Silmarillion was a good book.

I liked Star Wars Episode 3.

Return of the King wasn't very good.

I enjoyed the second Matrix.

Firefly is not the best show ever, it's good, but not half as amazing as everyone makes it out to be.

Serenity was a blah movie.

Naruto and Bleach suck.

I can't think of anything else at this moment...

[Nibleswick]

The original Battlestar Galactica is much better than the new one.

[Tengu]

RPGs: DND is a badly-balanced, old-fashioned in a bad way system, that rides mostly on popularity rather than quality.

General media: I don't like dark, brooding anti-heroes, and settings where the author thinks that "good = stupid, immoral = smart". And don't even get me started on media where you're supposed to root for the bad guys.

[Semidi]

I think I have a lynch worthy list.

-I can't stand anime, the animation comes off as tacky, and the characters are dross.
-I couldn't finish Farscape, I have the 1st season sitting by my TV, it's gathering dust.
-I watched one episode of Firefly. I didn't like it. I have the entire season next to my TV, it hasn't been touched.
-I can't stand reading Pratchett. I don't find him amusing or interesting.
The Lord of the Rings movies were merely decent. Far better than the books though.
-Every single horror movie made since 2000 has been incredibly stupid.
-Spiderman 2 was horrible.
-So was 3.
-The greatest vampire story is Stephen King's Salem's Lot (the book) since Stoker's Dracula.
-Stephen King is vastly underrated by elitists.
-The only comics worth reading are made by Vertigo and Image. Some independent ones are good too.
-The Stargate movie was bad, so was the show.
-The only good movies based on comic books are From Hell, Tim Burton's Batman, Batman Begins, The Crow, V for Vendetta, and Sin City.
-The 300 is overrated. The action scenes aren’t even that good.
-South Park is the only television show worth watching.
-Citizen Kane is the most overrated film ever, ever, ever.
-I hate clear-cut good guys & bad guys in any media. Give me brooding anti-heroes over superman any day.

[Tengu]

-I hate clear-cut good guys & bad guys in any media. Give me brooding anti-heroes over superman any day.

On a slightly offtopic note, does that mean you also dislike OotS?

[Trazoi]

Film:
Star Wars Episode 2 and 3 weren't that great, but were better than 6.
I don't like Tarantino films.
Out of Miyazaki's films I've only seen Spirted Away and Howl's Moving Castle, but I didn't think they were that great.

TV:
I don't watch much TV these days, so I can't comment on anything recent. But I don't get what's so great about Seinfeld or Friends.

Anime:
I don't really get the appeal of anime - at least the shows that fans keep raving about. Generally the lead up is good until the whole universe goes totally bonkers somewhere around the halfway to two-thirds mark in the series.

Books:
I'm wary against reading any fantasy series longer than a trilogy. Mainly though because once I start reading a story I have to finish it regardless of how awful it is.

Football: (yeah, wasn't on the list but it fits into "Other"!)
Playing football is awesome. Being a rabid supporter of a cashed-up A legaue team is silly. And football culture shows (i.e. anything with a title like "The Football Show") are dreck. This is true for every code of football.

[Semidi]

On a slightly offtopic note, does that mean you also dislike OotS?

No, I love the characters Miko(I confess a bit irritating), Belkar, Redcloak, and V. Because they're not boring, and we the audience are not quite sure how they'll play out. Look at old Miko threads for an example of this; she’s interesting character that was hugely analyzed by just about all the readers.

Roy, Haley, Xyklon, Elan, Durkon, and so on are less interesting, though amusing. If it didn’t have the above characters in it (Miko, Red Cloak ect.), I wouldn’t be reading it.

Edit: Huge number of errors in here from the editing process. Sleepy.

[Nerd-o-rama]

My rampant Martian Successor Nadesico fanboyism seems to get less sympathy than I thought it would...but it was the first anime I watched that didn't suck balls, so I'm sticking by it.

While I'm on anime, I liked the ending of Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. All of it, if you know what I'm talking about. Oh, and Evangelion worked artistically, even if I didn't exactly enjoy it.


Let's see, what else...Family Guy is mediocre at best, the Simpsons has sucked for more than a decade, the second Dungeons & Dragons movie was fun to watch, Harry Potter is merely average (and book 5 was downright bad), South Park is funny more than 50% of the time (most people I know like either the social commentary or the immature humor, not both)...oh, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a better linguistics textbook than narrative. Not that it's a terrible narrative.

You know, I was going to edit in responses to Semidi's points, but there are enough of them that fill me with blinding rage that arguing them coherently is beyond my capability.

[Artemician]

Non-Anime:
I hate all live-action TV series! The characters move so non-fluidly, the dialogue is stilted, and the shows generally dissolve into repetitition by the second season.

/tongue-in-cheek.

[Redpieper]

Hmm let's see

- Lost is boring
- The new battlestar galactica is mediocre at best
- I liked Waterworld
- I detest the Wheel of Time series

That should be enough for now :smallyuk:

[Darken Rahl]

I hate Seinfeld.

[Ranis]

Liv Tyler is the worst actress in history and is only in the entertainment business because of her father.

[Cubey]

Books:
I have no intention to read Harry Potter books. Ever. Not because I consider them stupid or anything (I don't criticise what I don't know), but they don't appeal to me.

Anime:
Elfen Lied = total suckage. I don't get it what people liked in it.
Ninja Scroll (movie, didn't watch the series) = same as above
I liked all the Neon Genesis Evangelion characters. Also, all the episodes sans the ending. Not the way the series ended, but rather HOW it was shown in the series. Either a low-budget 2-episode boredom (with one hilarious scene at the end) or the movie which is a giant middle finger shown to the audience (but I understand Hideaki Anno, I'd do something like that if I received so much hate mail anyway. Plus, End of Evangelion was the main reason FLCL was created, speaking of which...)
I have no idea how unpopular this opinion is, but I consider FLCL one of the best anime ever created. At least from the ones I watched so far.

[Green Bean]

I watched Episode when I was ten, and Jar-Jar was my favourite character. To this day, I don't think he deserves the bad rap he got.

Actually, I have the same thing with Scrappy Doo. I always wished they didn't drag him away when he wanted to fight the monster of the week; it would have solved all their problems so much faster.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Evangelion is drivel.

The Melencholy of Suzumiya Haruhi is just another good comedy show among a host of other average to excelent comedy shows.

All pure gag anime are completly forgetable.

Excel Saga gets old too soon for it to be worth watching.

The Phantom Menance is a bad movie but far from the worse Star Wars film.

The first Matix film was actually a good movie.

Inuyasha is worse than Maison Ikkoku.

Megatokyo is a crap webcomic but an above average Shoujo Manga.

Shounen can include romance shows.

Both Underworld films were equally bad.

I liked Gundam SEED. Destiny still mostly sucked.

Most videogame movies are bad because the game they were based off was bad.

Lost is truly terrible.

[Winterwind]

Nerd-O-Rama made surprisingly many points I would have made myself.

Let's see, what has he left...

- The Lord of the Rings books are an excellent fantasy trilogy
* And so is the Silmarillion
* They are far away from being the best though.

- Star Trek is, for the most part, really, really bad (and, so that this is not pure negativity on my part, I shall elaborate why):
* The characters... are no characters. They are flat, one-dimensional and lack any flaws to make them human or interesting. They are way too perfect for that.
* Technobabble does not an interesting plot device make.
* Star Trek is quite possibly the most hypocritical series ever: It's basic message is "Aliens are good - as long as they are exactly like us!", also known as "Anything different from us is baaaad!". Hive mind? Why, obviously, inferior to humans in every possible way, and also, evil. Immortality, elder races, other empires? All are greedy, selfish, evil, immature, lacking of human emotions (which are, obviously, superior to anything else), and basically only human ethics are right. Ever.

...huh. I think this last one might have put me on many a black list. :smalleek:

[Serenity]

The original Star Wars trilogy was really not that good.

Seasons 6 and 7 of Buffy were the best of the show. Good Spike was awesome.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Harry Potter epilogue. I don't think Harry was at all annoying in Book 5, and he doesn't yell as much as people make out.

Despite the rushed ending, KOTOR 2 was a better game than the first one.

[Jack Squat]

I liked Andromeda and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.

Rocky Horror isn't that exciting of an experiance to see; amusing, yes, but I can't say I'll go out of my way to see it again.

Pikmin's a fun game

Total Recall wasn't that bad.

I've got more; might post them later

[Closet_Skeleton]

Despite the rushed ending, KOTOR 2 was a better game than the first one.

This isn't the videogame forum but I will say that while I found KOTOR more fun, KOTOR 2 did improve some mechanics.

Things I forgot from my first list:

Tsukihime had a better anime adaptation that Fate Stay Night.

Uzumaki Naruto is a better deconstruction of the shounen hero than Ikari Shinji is.

Arnold Swarzenaga's comedies can be better than his action movies. Last Action Hero isn't that bad.

The Berzerk anime was utterly horrible.

Kenshin is not more realistic than other shounen shows. The OVAs were pretty but the show is totally over the top.

The Last Crusade is a terrible film and the worse Indianna Jones Film.

Gantz gets good if you don't give up on it. Which I may have to because I'm so confused about the new arc.

[BlackStaticWolf]

I second everything Winterwind said about Star Trek. Every Star Trek series/book is shoddy sci-fi at best.

Rocky Horror sucks. Nothing in it even made me crack a smile and I like that sort of humor. The weird midnight showings with games and stuff are stupid.

Every teen angst show in history is bad. All of them. Dawson's Creek? Awful. Everwood? Drivel. The OC? Garbage.
That includes their anime equivalents. Every single one is same thing: self-centered teenagers making an overly big deal of normal life occurences.

[Cubey]

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, even if that opinion is so different from mine that I have to wonder sometimes.
Anyway, from the less drastic examples, I just HAVE to inquire:


The Last Crusade is a terrible film and the worse Indianna Jones Film.


Even comparing it to the Temple of Doom?

[Jerthanis]

(Forum ate my post *grumbles*)

- Tim Burton hasn't made a good movie since Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Yes, this includes Nightmare before Christmas and his Batman movies. He is the most overrated writer/director ever.

- Enterprise is better than Voyager. Barely, but still... (DS9 is the best one, but that's not an opinion to be popular or not, it's a simple, provable fact :smalltongue: )

- The Phantom Menace is the best of the Star Wars prequel movies. Better paced, better acted, had a better written plot than 2 and 3... yet it had enormous, unavoidable flaws that can't be ignored, and those drag it down into suckitude. Unfortunately, 2 and 3 have no redeemable aspects whatsoever, and are constructed out of pure fail.

- the new Battlestar Galactica sucks, Bionic Woman sucks even more. Katee Sackhoff cannot act and is not pretty.

- Superman is a better written, more believable, more relatable and more interesting character than Batman. Barely, but still...

- Movies based on books by Nick Hornby are better than the books on which they are based. Even though the books are actually pretty good (Probably no one cares enough about this for this to really be an unpopular opinion)

- Princess Mononoke is Nausica, but better in every way. Also Grave of the Fireflies isn't that depressing, nor is it that good.

(As an aside, mostly to Winterwind: I once got in an argument with a friend of mine who is a huge Star Trek fan, and for some unfathomable reason, likes Voyager the best. When I was explaining why I liked Enterprise better, he said that Enterprise sucked because of its overly Human focus, and its obsession with talking about how awesome Humans are... and I was simply baffled, wondering how it is he missed the Human bias in the last every episode of Star Trek ever!)

[Cubey]

Also Grave of the Fireflies isn't that depressing, nor is it that good.


There's two of us already! Grave of the Fireflies is overrated, and everything bad that happens to the kids after the initial bombardment is THEIR OWN FAULT.


Now, A 300-related rant.

I liked the movie. I don't care if it was pro-US propaganda, a machismo machine, or any other term the critics will spin. However - and I can find hardly anyone from the 300 enthusiasts who shares this opinion, the role of the spartan queen (I can't remember her name, not that she deserves me remembering it...) was redundant.
She's not a character, she's a living prop. I don't understand people who go all ooh and aah at how strong or well-written her role is. It's not! She did four things in the movie, FOUR!

1. Stay behind Leonidas so that he can kill the emissary when he somewhat-insults her
2. Making love to Leonidas
3. Whoring herself out to a traitor in hope that he'll convince a band of old grumps to aid her husband
4. Stabbing the aforementioned traitor in a tantrum when he publicly mentioned the aforementioned whoring - the only reason why she didn't get in deep trouble for that is because the traitor was an idiot and carried persian money by himself instead of hiding them somewhere

Well-written my a**. Strong - doubly my a**. Less tantrum-throwing housewives and more kicking arse please.

[Cocky]

Tolkien was a completely overrated writer. As a storyteller, a creator of worlds and indeed modern saga as we know it, he is equalled by very few. As an author however, his prose was dull, lifeless and uninspired. His pacing was ragged, with little sense of timing leading inevitably to a mishmash of plotlines colliding frantically for the readers interest. Perfectly well written of course, nary any literary technicality unobserved, but not 'well written'.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Even comparing it to the Temple of Doom?

Yes, even comparing to the temple of doom.


There's two of us already! Grave of the Fireflies is overrated, and everything bad that happens to the kids after the initial bombardment is THEIR OWN FAULT.

The whole point of Grave of the Fireflies is that it's all their fault.

It's based off a biography a guy wrote in order to apologise for being an absolute idiot who got his sister killed.

[valadil]

Jar Jar didn't ruin Star Wars. Anakin did. Seriously, Jar Jar was dumb and annoying, but he was a bystander. Anakin was supposed to grow into f***ing Darth Vader and ends up with lines like "are you an angel," when he meets Amidalah.

Battlestar sucks.

Firefly is only slightly better.

Pratchett, Goodkind, and Jordan are all collectively inferior to Stephen King.

South Park is the best show on TV. Glad to see I'm not alone on this one.

Pro wrestling gets too much criticism. No it's not intellectual, but it can be fun. I group it with movies like 300. Dumb, violent, fun.

Mel Gibson's older movies are still awesome. I couldn't take him seriously anymore, but I still love Braveheart and Lethal Weapon.

Who ever told Dane Cook he's funny needs to be shot in the face.

Ron Paul is overrated on the internet.

Mencia is no replacement for Chappelle.

Why does Sarah Silverman have her own show? She amuses me in general, but her TV show is just bad.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I hate Seinfeld.
God yes! And Curb Your Enthusiasm, too! What's the big deal about these shows?

[DomaDoma]

Books: I have no desire to read Song of Fire and Ice - it seems to be trying too hard to be dark and gritty, with relative morals, shades of gray and non-sympathetic protagonists everywhere.
This probably makes you better off than those of us who are actually involved with the series. Gad, does it put you through the wringer. I quit midway through book three, because compelling characters be damned, it couldn't be plainer that this man detests hope and idealism in all its forms.



Ron Paul is overrated on the internet.

Wait, the popular opinion is that his Internet poll numbers aren't inflated? I weep.

Now for my own:

"The Last Debate" is one of the best chapters in Return of the King. (I don't know why I think this myself.)

Titanic was a good movie, and Mr. Roberts was the best character.

Pan's Labyrinth was not all in her head. Chalk. Door.

The camping sequence in Deathly Hallows was not only effective, it was an essential component to the entire emotional landscape of the book.

[Jerthanis]

The whole point of Grave of the Fireflies is that it's all their fault.

It's based off a biography a guy wrote in order to apologise for being an absolute idiot who got his sister killed.

Yes, the true story is depressing. The boy survives and grows to manhood and forever looks back on his youth with sorrow and regret, knowing he killed his sister with his pride, and he takes responsibility for it with his memoirs... and is still alive today and still dealing with his memories of the war, and still dealing with the sadness and survivor's guilt.

In the movie, he deals with the sadness and guilt for all of a couple months before joining his sister in happy-fun-dreamtime land full of awesomeness and happiness. There is a vitally important distinction here. One is kind of sad, but no more sad than any other story of civilians dying in any war ever... or even more sad than the story of countless thousands dying of hunger each year in our modern world... The other is actually mind-numbingly depressing. The movie is distinctly NOT the latter in my opinion.

[Verruckt]

the matrix trilogy was excellent

300 was good precisely because it was a phallocentric blood orgy

Trigun sucked (chiby-chan, nuff said)

the second kill bill movie was far better than the first.

Stephen King's superiority thirded, as well as a bump for Bachman, rest his soul :smallfrown:

[Winterwind]

the matrix trilogy was excellentHalf-seconded. I liked the second part quite a bit when I saw it. The third one, not so much, and it ruined the second one for me retroactively.


the second kill bill movie was far better than the first.Wait... there are people who think otherwise? :smalleek:

[TheGreatJabu]

Citizen Kane is the most overrated film ever, ever, ever.


Sweet Jesus, QFT. It's a movie about a spoiled old man who is overly possessive. The end.

I've seen people mention it, but I didn't realize that ANYONE thought Dane Cook was funny.

Here's one that would boil some blood - I think actor John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox from Scrubs) is pretty untalented. From Platoon to some random comedy movies he did to Scrubs, his characters don't seem to vary much. They speak in a quick, agitated voice, ramble, and call people girl's names. At least in that movie with John Candy he was gay. That was his most "wild" role.

Faust by Goethe isn't that compelling. Granted it probably was 200 125ish (got a little carried away with my rounding) years ago, but today it's really not worth the read.

I think Japanese-brand automobiles are much higher quality that American-made. I've worked at both Nissan and Saturn for brief periods - Saturn is definitely a cut above most other US brands, though.

Watching sports on TV is boring - doesn't matter what sport. If you're not playing it, OR if you're not in a crowd of 10000 with a beer and hot dog, there's no point.

Pro Wrestling is incredible. The stunts they can do are mind-blowing - saying "THEY'RE NOT REALLY PUNCHING EACH OTHER" doesn't detract from that.

Grey's Anatomy is just like every other doctor show ever. Thank God our medical schools started having a physical beauty requirement to graduate.

Never read a Harry Potter book out of apathy. Never watched an episode of Lost or Heroes out of the same.

I still think Tom Cruise is great. As long as he keeps making great movies, he can have do whatever he wants in his personal life.

Seann William Scott could probably be a good actor if he was ever given a chance. Until then, he'll just keep being typecast.

[13_CBS]

Let's see...

-The dialogue for the ENTIRE Star Wars series was bad at best (except MAYBE Empire Strikes Back) and absolute crap at worst (see Attack of the Clones; "Well done, my young padawan." I think I actually was in pain at that line...). The original series had bad dialogue, the prequels had even worse dialogue. The movies themselves? Eh...to be honest, aside from the action and the galaxy that Lucas made, they weren't all that great, either.

-Oh, and Hayden Christensen is quite possibly the worst actor alive. Thank god Ewan was there to help him out.

-300? Whoo. 300 tons of suck is more like it. Not being historically accurate is the least of its sins (since, by now, Hollywood all but ignores historical realism). If you've ever read the comic, Leonidas is supposed to be a rather reserved fellow who almost NEVER yells. Example:

Comic Leonidas:

"Madness? Madness?!
This is Sparta. *kick*"

Movie Leonidas:

"Madness?

THIS! IS! SPARTAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone"

:smallmad:

And the action scenes...urgh. I don't understand why people think it's so great. The blood looked too fake, the killing scenes weren't all that cool (whoo, a guy swings a sword slo mo. Compare that to, say, Legolas skateboarding down a flight of stairs on a shield and flipping the shield out so that it gets buried in a chest. THAT is cool. Watching a guy swing his sword slowly is not.), the Spartans fought not only unrealistically (let's break formation and not deny the enemy their numeric superiority!) but completely differently from how the comic book Spartans fought. Looks like the ugly Spartan-wannabe dude got kicked out of the army for no reason, heh.

And look! The Persians are sending ninj-er, Immortals at us, wielding dual short swords! Cuz, you know, everything's better dual wielded. Nin-I mean, Immortal elites? Bah. They don't even know how to equip themselves properly. At least the comic book ones had spears and shields.

And yes, I'm quite bothered by the fact that the Immortals looked like ninjas.

[Verruckt]

-300? Whoo. 300 tons of suck is more like it. Not being historically accurate is the least of its sins (since, by now, Hollywood all but ignores historical realism). If you've ever read the comic, Leonidas is supposed to be a rather reserved fellow who almost NEVER yells. Example:

Comic Leonidas:

"Madness? Madness?!
This is Sparta. *kick*"

Movie Leonidas:

"Madness?

THIS! IS! SPARTAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!1111oneoneone"

:smallmad:

And the action scenes...urgh. I don't understand why people think it's so great. The blood looked too fake, the killing scenes weren't all that cool (whoo, a guy swings a sword slo mo. Compare that to, say, Legolas skateboarding down a flight of stairs on a shield and flipping the shield out so that it gets buried in a chest. THAT is cool. Watching a guy swing his sword slowly is not.), the Spartans fought not only unrealistically (let's break formation and not deny the enemy their numeric superiority!) but completely differently from how the comic book Spartans fought. Looks like the ugly Spartan-wannabe dude got kicked out of the army for no reason, heh.

And look! The Persians are sending ninj-er, Immortals at us, wielding dual short swords! Cuz, you know, everything's better dual wielded. Nin-I mean, Immortal elites? Bah. They don't even know how to equip themselves properly. At least the comic book ones had spears and shields.

And yes, I'm quite bothered by the fact that the Immortals looked like ninjas.

You're complaining about the historic accuracy of a movie based on a comic based on a myth based on an actual event? As well as complaining about someone taking artistic license (with the blessing of the original author no less) in a movie based on a graphic novel treatment of an age old myth? If you have problems with the movie, then you must have a problem with the comic, because they're the same thing.

It's not a matter of accuracy to history, military tactics, or the source material. It is a question of: Did the film portray the story in an interesting, compelling, and above all entertaining way? In my opinion, yes, yes it did

[13_CBS]

But it was wrong...it was just so wrong...

*goes off to weep in a corner*

[Saithis Bladewing]

I think Japanese-brand automobiles are much higher quality that American-made. I've worked at both Nissan and Saturn for brief periods - Saturn is definitely a cut above most other US brands, though.

I don't know about popularity, but I do know that that is simply undeniable fact. :smallwink:

[Tengu]

The ending to FMA was not disappointing to me. Neither was the movie.

Sports broadcasts bore me to tears.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The ending to FMA was not disappointing to me. Neither was the movie.

Agreed. It's not like the Manga but the Manga pretty much jumped the shark for me.


I think Japanese-brand automobiles are much higher quality that American-made. I've worked at both Nissan and Saturn for brief periods - Saturn is definitely a cut above most other US brands, though.

My Dad always says that you can tell this by what cars the executives of American car companies drive.

[Tengu]

Hmm, I still find the manga enjoyable.

[TheGreatJabu]

My Dad always says that you can tell this by what cars the executives of American car companies drive.

Hah! Your dad is a funny and correct man. :smallsmile:

What are some of my other fun, unpopular opinions?

Coffee isn't good. Beer isn't good either. I drink both, but it sure as hell will never be for the taste.
Mixed drinks can be manly (Irish Carbomb, anyone?)
Bleach is Dragonball Z. Doesn't change the fact that I still like it. But hey, I liked Dragonball Z - there's another unpopular opinion! :smallbiggrin:
Nightmare Before Christmas was a waste of my time. Saw it for the first time last month.
I'll never own an iPod. It's pointless. A jumpdrive/mp3 player has greater utility and holds enough music for me.
I've never owned a phone with a camera or music in it. That's what I have cameras and music players for. (Also: Nissan would have burned me at the stake if they caught me with a camera phone - since their factory premises qualify as a foreign trade zone they can 'outlaw' recording devices on the grounds)
I like Wal-mart. (in some circles, saying that will get you frickin' CRUCIFIED)

I may just be out of the loop of critics, but I didn't realize that there was a strong group of people who disliked The Matrix. Apart from Neo being Jesus, I thought the series as a whole was good, myself. I can't support the statement about The Last Crusade being the worst Indiana Jones movie though - it had the Connery in it! :smallsmile: Oh! There's one more I can part with.

Timothy Dalton was a good James Bond, and his movies were fun to watch.

...this thread makes me feel like I'm in Confessional! I can say all the bad stuff with no fear of vicious reprisal! :smallbiggrin: My punishment will only come in the afterlife, when I have to face down Saint Peter and Neo Jesus.

[SDF]

I don't like comedy anything. Comedy movies are terrible... like Anchorman or any of its 900 clones. I do however like outrageous popculture references (Movies like UHF and shows like FLCL)

[rubakhin]

The Great Gatsby was awful, Mark Twain was awful, Faulkner's Southern stories were awful, Trout Fishing in America was awful, Lord of the Rings was awful, Updike is awful, Pynchon is awful, Saligner is awful, Lolita is the Great American Novel, and Dostoevsky, being sublime in every other way, has *no idea* how to write a book.

I think I might just be allergic to American literature for some reason, though. Although - *points upthread* - I haven't read or liked much of Stephen King's other work (save Misery), but On Writing is just about the wisest book the topic ever published short of Rilke.

[Setra]

To be clear, before I state my opinions, I do not, DO NOT, mean something is bad when I say it is overrated.

I will be the first person to admit Ocarina of time is overrated, doesn't mean I don't love it to death.

Anime Opinions:

FMA is overrated

Cowboy Bebop is overrated

Dragonball Z is actually fun to watch

Ditty for Yu Yu Hakusho

Movie Opinions:

The Matrix movies were good

300 was good

Daredevil was good

Manga Opinions:

Naruto is still fun to read

Ditto for Bleach

And FMA

Comic Opinion:

Aquaman is an awesome superhero

[Closet_Skeleton]

FMA is overrated

The problem with saying "over-rated" is that you're not saying anything. From this comment I don't know if you mean that FMA is a crap anime that people are stupid for liking or if you enjoy FMA but prefer G Gundam (to use two extremes).

Anyway, Full Metal Alchemist is 'good', what more do you need than 'good'?

[TheGreatJabu]

Aquaman is an awesome superhero

I disbelieve the illusion! :smalleek:

[Setra]

The problem with saying "over-rated" is that you're not saying anything. From this comment I don't know if you mean that FMA is a crap anime that people are stupid for liking or if you enjoy FMA but prefer G Gundam (to use two extremes).

Anyway, Full Metal Alchemist is 'good', what more do you need than 'good'?
Well by overrated I mean, simply put, people give it way too much credit.

It's nowhere near the best anime ever in my opinion.

[Seraph]

alcohol tastes like ****.

[Catch]

Let's see...

- Pro Wresting is awesome. No, it's not real--it doesn't even pretend to be.

- Nine books in, I still throughly enjoy the Wheel of Time series.

- More than the Lord of the Rings.

- The prequel Star Wars Trilogy grew on me. Really.

- Newspaper comics went straight to hell once Bill Waterson and Gary Larson hung up their hats. Peanuts is overrated (but still good).

- Inuyasha, Naruto and Dragonball Z aren't the worst anime ever.

- The majority of Adult Swim programming is completely unfunny.

- Stop wearing Chuck Taylors. I did it first, everyone else is just being trendy.

[bluewind95]

I don't like the Simpsons. The cultural references are too far from my reality and I don't like black humor.

Austin Powers is perhaps the worst movie I've ever attempted to watch, in my opinion. I could not stand to watch even 5 minutes of its horrible "humor".

South Park is not funny for me.

Fullmetal Alchemist had a very decent ending. I could not really see it any other way given the direction the series took.

The Fullmetal Alchemist manga, while it has some things that are very silly, manages to keep a balance between silly and serious and it rather works well for it.

I did not like Tolkien's style of writing. His ideas are absolutely wonderful, but the way he wrote them makes me feel like I'm wading through a text tar pit. It's not advanced in my opinion: it's plain tedious to read.

Da Vinci's Code was actually a good book. Over-rated, yes (it's definitely not "THE BEST BOOK EVER!"), but it's good. I found the pacing to be addicting and it was a pretty decent fiction plot that had the added bonus of allowing controversy.

Magi Nation is actually a good game for the gameboy color.

"Lady in the Water" was actually a very nice movie. It was quite a twist on the idea of fairy tales and it really felt like a modern fairy tale, not like other "modern fairy tales" that I've seen or heard about, like the modern Cinderella or what-have-you.

Mission Impossible 3 was not a very good movie. The ending completely killed all suspension of disbelief and the plot wasn't all that awesome in my opinion either.

[DomaDoma]

Catch - does your newspaper carry Heart of the City? Calvin and Hobbes fans tend to like that one.

Myself, I'm still very sore that Foxtrot was discontinued. But I don't imagine that's an unpopular opinion in these parts.

[Arang]

I don't think Scrubs is funny. Any of it.

[Cristo Meyers]

I enjoyed Eragon and Eldest.

[WNxHasoroth]

Anime is a horrendous "art form"
Stephen King is awesome
Ditto for 300

Drizzt's Adventures are disgustingly over rated. I enjoy them but they aren't worth the hype.

G.R.R Martin and Pratchett is all you ever need to read, ever.

[Setra]

I enjoyed Eragon and Eldest.
Me too >.>

[Cristo Meyers]

Me too >.>

I'll give you first choice, you want to be strung up first or second? :smallsmile:

I made the mistake of mentioning that on the Gamefaqs message boards once, barely made it out alive.

[Setra]

I'll give you first choice, you want to be strung up first or second? :smallsmile:

I made the mistake of mentioning that on the Gamefaqs message boards once, barely made it out alive.
The gamefaqs boards are almost as bad as /b/.

They don't count.

[Poison_Fish]

- The majority of Adult Swim programming is completely unfunny.

In agreement there.

another random opinion.

I actually enjoy the really bad, cheesy old xmen comics.

[turkishproverb]

I disbelieve the illusion! :smalleek:

You kidding?

Superstrength. Incredable durability. Telepathy. Summonning marine life (Weakest point) Lordship over oceans. Immense mystical knownledge (even if no spellcasting ability)

[Catch]

Catch - does your newspaper carry Heart of the City? Calvin and Hobbes fans tend to like that one.

Myself, I'm still very sore that Foxtrot was discontinued. But I don't imagine that's an unpopular opinion in these parts.

Nope, but thanks for the recommendation. It looks like I can read it online, so I'll have to give it a peek.

As far as Foxtrot goes, that was one of the last strips that I really enjoyed. There's handful of others that I grew up liking, but for the majority, I'm with Watterson on the idea that newspaper comics have been reduced to talking heads.

[Alyorbase]

well...guess I'll lay my head on the chopping block a little here...:smalleek:

Spider-Man 3 was the worst Spider-Man movie ever
I think Inuyasha is a good anime (not the best but decent to watch)
Fushigi Yugi is my favorite anime
I've actually taken time to play ZeroWing (as if my user name didn't drop a hint to that)...it sucked hard (but provided much amusement thanks to a certain video that most people have long since forgotten)
I liked Episode I (Jar Jar notwithstanding)
I cannot STAND the way Tolkein writes. (although the LOTR movies were excellent)
Thomas Harris is my favorite author

I'm sure I'll think of more eventually.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Spider-Man 3 was the worst Spider-Man movie ever

I thought that was the concensous. Some people liked it but nobody dared say it was as good as the other two.

[Cristo Meyers]

well...guess I'll lay my head on the chopping block a little here...:smalleek:

Spider-Man 3 was the worst Spider-Man movie ever

I thought this was the general consensus. Spiderman 3 was crap.

edit: ninja'd for the first time



I think Inuyasha is a good anime (not the best but decent to watch)
Fushigi Yugi is my favorite anime

Inuyasha suffers from Takahashi constantly recycling all her characters and memes. Heck, don't Inuyasha and Ranma share a VA?



I've actually taken time to play ZeroWing (as if my user name didn't drop a hint to that)...it sucked hard (but provided much amusement thanks to a certain video that most people have long since forgotten)

The techno remix is best.



I liked Episode I (Jar Jar notwithstanding)

Jar Jar is FAR from the worst thing about Episode 1.

[Smeik]

I thought that was the concensous. Some people liked it but nobody dared say it was as good as the other two.

I think it was just as good as the other two. :smalltongue:

Although I also like the complete X-Men Trilogy.

[TheGreatJabu]

- The majority of Adult Swim programming is completely unfunny.


Fortunately enough I believe the minority who agrees with that is growing. I'll back off of Harvey Birdman though - Phil can kill me pretty much every time. And I make exception for the Fox-based series, as they're not 'real' Adult Swim programming.

I'll concede the above points about Aquaman (especially since we're not here to dispute - we're here to say stuff that draws flak). It is fair enough to ask what superhero DOESN'T have some degree of greater-than-human strength and endurance, though. Oh! Speaking of X-Men (and by extension, Wolverine)...

I thought that Hugh Jackman movie, Van Helsing, was okay.

That single fact is used by my friends to discredit every "movie review" I ever give them.

[Verruckt]

This may well be the general consensus on these forums, but i have yet to find a good mmo, and believe the genre has the same issue as socialism, wonderful idea, screwed to hell by people.
The worst mmo I've ever played was world of warcraft.

[bluewind95]

The worst mmo I've ever played was world of warcraft.

GASP! Heathen! :smalltongue:

Well, hey, it's a valid opinion. I like World of Warcraft, personally, but I can agree it's not for everyone. It's got quite a few flaws, but I still find it fun to play.

[XiaoTie]

TV: Lost sucks and Heroes goes down beyond the suck barrier.

Animes: Naruto and Bleach are two of the worst animes ever made. Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin and G.T.O are the best animes I've watched.

Books: Tolkien won the game of life.

Movies: I liked Daniel Craig as James Bond on Casino Royale; he was perfect to represent an earlier "newbie" agent with not as much finesse as he came to have in the future.

[Lemur]

Animation is superior to live action. Especially when said live action tries to use excessive amounts of computer animation, which usually ends up being overblown. If a comic book is going to be made into a movie, it should be as a cartoon.

-The main value of the first Matrix was that it did things that had never been done before with action sequences. Other than that, it didn't have much substance. I'm not surprised people didn't like the other two films as much, because nothing in them was really new anymore.

-300 was not nearly as good as everyone made it out to be. The violence wasn't that great, and there wasn't even a whole lot of it. It was seriously mostly talking. Well, shouting. And there was that one scene with unnecessary metal music, which typically denotes a bad sword & sorcery film.

-Kenshin is overrated. The fight scenes in the comic are often incoherent, and the only part that was worth it was the Shishio arc. I'm not sure why everyone thinks he's such a great character.

-Gundam Wing, and the new Gundam 00 are boring and annoying.

-Advent Children was very poorly done.

-Bleach and Naruto (and a hell of a lot more, actually) are the successors of Dragonball Z. They all share about the same level of quality, which isn't actually that bad. The problem with all of them is mostly that the anime falls apart due to excessive filler and extension techniques. The manga remain decent reads, though.

-Eyeshield 21 is totally awesome, and is a brilliantly done comic. The manga, anyway. The anime really is crap, though.

[commander43]

I would just like to say.....300.....wow....

I went in to that one expecting a big dumb bloodfest, which I was prepared to enjoy.

However, it couldn't even deliver in that respect, because all the action scenes were repetitive and boring in the extreme.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Dane Cook is not funny. Neither is Carlos Mencia. Sarah Silverman is funny when she is not talking about poo. You want funny? Go get some early George Carlin. Seriously. Funniest man on the planet.

Nirvana was (and still is) disgustingly overrated. Anyone can scream into a microphone and struggle to play the guitar. I was subjected to the 'Grunge' experience when I was a teenager, and gods... the music was just.. awful. The only band to come out of that drivel that was really good was Soundgarden. On the music note, Punk is a waste of time. The Ramones? Sex Pistols? Green Day? Suuuure. Okay.

The Grand Theft Auto series is absolute garbage. Final Fantasy was more boring than watching clothes dry.

Microsoft Windows is the best computer operating system there is. Honestly. Why does 80% of the world use it? That being said. Linux is terrible. Nothing that the world uses will run on it. It takes too much work to configure, troubleshoot, configure more, all that to get 10% of the functionality as Windows XP. Viruses? Pfft. Get a virus scanner and set it to automatically update. Pop ups? Blah. Windows comes with a popup blocker that is better than any of the ones that I ever used. Adware? stay off the sites you are not sure about. Yes, this is coming from someone who lives and breathes I.T. . I have never had a 'Blue Screen of Death'. Where do those come from? Hmmm.. the primary cause of the dreaded BSoD is ... dum du da dum... poor quality hardware! The 2nd leading cause is improperly written/coded software!

The Sopranos.. don't even get me started. Gets me to sleep faster than an overdose of NyQuil(tm). Family Guy has not been funny since before the movie came out. The Simpsons really did end about 10 years ago; they are just recycling old episodes. Same with South Park. 'Will and Grace' was the biggest waste of time in the known universe.

Cross dressing men are NOT funny. I repeat. Cross dressing men are NOT funny.

FMA ended with the knowledge they were going to make a movie, it was just dependant on when. The ending to GTO was junk, but was an awesome series. Naruto and Bleach are DBZ, but better. Gunbuster was phenomenal.

[Winterwind]

Heh. While I will not go as far as to say that Windows is the superior operating system, I must say that it is working very well for me. My computer at home is using Windows, my computer at my workplace at our institute runs Unix. Ironically, my home computer is a million times more stable (of course, it's less prone to run some calculations which, due to lack of foresight of my part, end up taking a thousand times as much memory as the computer has in the first place, and stuff like that, but still). I have this computer since five years, haven't formatted it even once, and it still neither crashes, hangs up (programs may, but never the OS) and has not even slowed down as compared to when I got it. And configuration is the simplest thing ever (whereas my friends, who use Macs and whatnot, keep having trouble finding out how to do stuff Windows takes care off for me!). So... :smallbiggrin:

Oh yeah, another unpopular opinion on my part:
Casino Royale was the best James Bond movie I have seen in a long time, and quite possibly ever.

[bluewind95]

Microsoft Windows is the best computer operating system there is.

Actually, from a programmer's point of view (and one who's had the opinion of expert programmers, too :smalltongue: ), that's not quiiiiite true, and yet it is.

From a programmer's standpoint, it's not really a good operating system. It's not efficient and it has an amazing amount of holes in it.

From a consumer's standpoint? It's absolutely awesome. Stable, friendly and functional and the holes can be easily patched with other security programs. The best part is that almost anything is compatible with Windows.

So no, it's not the best operating system. And yes, it is. It all depends on how you're looking at it. :smalltongue:

Personally I love XP. I have not tried Vista enough but from what I've seen.... just... no. It's very flashy, very pretty, but all those effects make it seem to run extremely slowly. Give me simpler XP anytime. I've rarely ever managed to get to the BSoD, while I managed to see the BSoD at least on a weekly basis on Windows 98 (and if I didn't BSoD it, I at least froze it on a daily basis. >.>)

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Personally I love XP. I have not tried Vista enough but from what I've seen.... just... no. It's very flashy, very pretty, but all those effects make it seem to run extremely slowly. Give me simpler XP anytime. I've rarely ever managed to get to the BSoD, while I managed to see the BSoD at least on a weekly basis on Windows 98 (and if I didn't BSoD it, I at least froze it on a daily basis. >.>)

I am speaking from a support perspective; though I can see it from the programmer side. There are a lot of holes and sinks in the system, but hey, they all do. XP and 2000 I never have a problem with either. Vista I have tried, and I do not like it. I found it too cumbersome and flashy for what it is supposed to do. I would prefer sticking with XP for as long as I can. Heckola, I was with 2k since day one, and still have Win2000 Advanced Server running my internal AD tree/file/app server. :smallsmile:

[rubakhin]

On the music note, Punk is a waste of time. The Ramones? Sex Pistols? Green Day? Suuuure. Okay.


THIS. But for totally different reasons. I forgot where I heard this, but it's not mine: Punk, which is word referring to a style of music, died in 1976, after which it was promptly replaced by something called punk rock, which is a word meaning "covered in little metal studs."

Punk is Penny Rimbaud, Patti Smith, Richard Hell, and Tom Verlaine; anyone who doesn't know about the poetes maudits has no business calling themselves punk; and Sid Vicious is a friggin' mannequin.

And no, Dane Cook is not funny.

[Nerd-o-rama]

While I haven't sampled all operating systems, I do have a fondness for the Win2k servers at work, as they're a lot more stable than I'd expect. Certainly more so than my XP desktop and laptop. Anyway, my general assessment is:

Windows is for people who don't care
Linux is for people with too much time on their hands
Mac OS is for people who have no idea how a computer works

Sound right? Anyway, I've thought of a couple more TV related things:

Lost is overrated and the writers have no idea where the plot is going.
Heroes is overrated and the writers have no idea where the plot is going.
King of the Hill is boring and would make me want to stab Mike Judge if I didn't like Office Space so much.

And apparently, thinking Dane Cook is funny is the minority opinion here. And so is Eddie Izzard, but not because he's dressed as a woman.

[Setra]

* Given the fact that there is a HUGE number of people who dislike anime simply because it is anime, 99% of it is underrated as a whole.

* I like Sailor Moon

* and Cardcaptor Sakura (But NOT Cardcaptors, ugh the dub ripped it to shreds)

[The Extinguisher]

- Shaman King > Your face.
I've seen so many people saying it sucks. It doesn't.

- Movies based on another medium are not inherently bad. It's just that the sucky ones get the most attention.

- Tolkien was a horrible author. So is Dan Brown and the guy who wrote Eragon.

- Popular does not equal auto-bad. Likewise unpopular does not equal auto-good.

- Ansem Retort, while not the God's gift to webcomics like people say it is, is the only good thing to come out of Kingdom Hearts, excluding Chain of Memories, which was much more fun than the console games.

- Final Fantasy X-2 was a decent and fun game. FFVII was average. IX and IV are the best. Penis extensions Big swords do not a villian make.

- I don't really find George Carlin all that funny.

[TheGreatJabu]

- Final Fantasy X-2 was a decent and fun game. FFVII was average. IX and IV are the best.

I'll buy that.

Here's one that I'll throw out there to see if there's any interest.
In the entire Matrix Trilogy, I consider the only remarkable or admirable character to be Agent Smith. I'll spare the discussion until someone seems to give a crap. :smallsmile:
Oh, what the hell. Here's some more:
I sincerely hope they DON'T make a Halo movie. I prefer to think that only the novels and the original game exist: 2 and 3 never happened.
Mortal Kombat wasn't ever a "good game". It was boring to play the day it was released, continued to be boring through all 15 expansions, and the best thing to come of it was the mediocre movie with the groovy techno theme song.
Every episode of the original Star Trek was the same. It's no better than the A-Team, but at least I can enjoy watching the adventures of Hannibal, B.A., Face, and Murdock.
Donnie Darko was in no way a "deep" movie.
I knew the entire plot of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village just from seeing a preview. I read a short story in junior high with an incredibly similar story; the girl wasn't blind in it, though. On that same note...
I didn't consider Unbreakable to be worth watching twice.
Same goes for The Crow.
And the finale...
David Duchovney can act. He just generally gets typecast into a role as a person with flat affect (no emotional expression).

Edit: HAHA! Flame Master Axel, I just read your location. I'm with you - hope you brought enough supplies to build a homestead. We'll be out here on the frontier for a loooong time.

[Verruckt]

Cross dressing men are NOT funny. I repeat. Cross dressing men are NOT funny.


BLASPHEMY! :smallfurious: Eddie Izzard, Monty Python, educate yourself, and never speak of this again.



Oh yeah, another unpopular opinion on my part:
Casino Royale was the best James Bond movie I have seen in a long time, and quite possibly ever.

seconded and thirded, and this is coming from someone whose seen all of them (yes even the old casino royale). It seems these days that darker=better in the revisiting of old series, see Batman: Begins and Casino Royale.

[turkishproverb]

I'll buy that.

Here's one that I'll throw out there to see if there's any interest.
In the entire Matrix Trilogy, I consider the only remarkable or admirable character to be Agent Smith. I'll spare the discussion until someone seems to give a crap. :smallsmile:

I wanna hear the reasons for this. Aside from being one of the better acted parts.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah. Everyone in the Matrix trilogy was an idiot and/or a pretentious ****. I always rated Smith as merely the most appealing of the latter. What makes him admirable?

[The Extinguisher]

I actually enjoyed the second Matrix movie.

Sure, it was horrible but it was horrible in a good way.

[TheGreatJabu]

Oh, wow. I am actually surprised to come back and find questions about my Smith-statement already. I'll slap it into a spoiler so that those interested only in reading "Unpopular Media Opinions" don't get stuck with a big post of me rambling about the Matrix.


When you try to take into account the pseudo-philosophy the 2nd and 3rd movies start feeding you about how freedom of choice is all wonderful, it serves to make Neo look like the big hero. He 'chose' to run away from the Architect to save Trinity (which no other "anomaly" had done before), and he 'chose' to keep fighting Smith even though he was getting creamed, and he 'chose' to let himself get absorbed, thus winning. Hurray for him. He's a human being, so he can think and choose stuff. Man, I wish I could do that.

Smith, however, is a program. He was created for a sole purpose, and was never given any choice. He voiced his extreme displeasure of this in Matrix 1 when interrogating Morpheus, but as a program he wasn't built with any capacity to defy what he was intended for. Yet over the course of the movies (thanks to a bit of unintended intervention from Neo) he was able to completely redefine his own existence. There may be novelizations, explanations, or debates as to "What happened to Smith when Neo exploded him in the first movie?" I guess I always interpretted it as Neo breaking apart his programming, leaving him shattered. But did he stay shattered? No. Since he was broken, but not entirely, somehow in that moment he saw beyond what he was previously capable of. It somehow entered into his capability of thought that he had the opportunity to recreate himself - something a program theoretically couldn't do. He'd always been a program, which by the very nature of the thing, should not have any capability of understanding "freedom". But somehow he was able to redefine his previous traits of complete disdain of the Matrix into his own internalized command to act in a manner which could destroy the Matrix permanently By being able to create his own commands he achieved a state of being we consider "freedom", and proceeded to redesign himself in a largely unbound form so that he could spread himself to further his own commands.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I see Smith as being created with only the capacity to exist within the parameters he had been given, and through a combination of opportunity, self-expansion, and sheer determination completely rewrote his own role in 'life' (the Matrix) to eventually all-but-rule what he once had no choice but to dwell in as a servant.

Not to mention that his character, hands-down, did the most convincing job of expressing AND pursuing his desires and goals. Morpheus found Neo then basically adopted a "Well, we've got the Chosen One. Now everything will eventually be wonderful!" approach, Neo didn't know what the HELL he was doing any of the time, but at least Trinity just wanted to do whatever she could to help Neo. I generally consider the annoying teenage kid who pilots that mecha-thing at the end to have done the 2nd-best job of making me believe in his motivations.

Doesn't mean that he didn't ever irritate me, but I had to give him credit for being a well-played role. :smallredface:

Edit: Hope nobody reads this until after...3:18 am Central. I went back to edit some stuff that I didn't express clearly, and if you read it too soon I'll just have really confused people on my hands.

[Nerd-o-rama]

All good points Jabu. He was still a selfish (and in my opinion hammish) villain, but...it took him a lot of metaphysical work on his part to get that way, I guess is your point. There were other programs that were deleted (by the Matrix operating system rather than a human, I would assume), but they either go quietly or spend the rest of their existence sitting around eating cake and babbling about causality. Smith's different. He gets deleted and he's like "Hell no, I'm stayin'. And I'll steal your kernel privileges and spam copies of myself onto every last thing on the hard disk. There may be no spoon, but I am a god of fork(). How d'you like that?"

Good villain. Good character. I still have trouble calling him "admirable."

[TheGreatJabu]

Hah! Smith could blue-screen-of-death me, any day. :smallredface:


I can admire anyone who I can see as being intensely motivated and capable of pushing themselves beyond what was thought possible. Of course, there are plenty of historic examples of such people who push themselves to monstrous or infamous ends. I can't really call my feelings for them admiration, but it's at least "grudging respect". Sure Smith would have ended the existence of millions (if not billions) of people in the Matrix, but since it's a movie and they weren't really "killed", it's easier to overlook what would have been the end of all humankind.

Can't blame him for being selfish, though. He's a child. How do toddlers act when they've finally grown old enough to realize that they can ask for things? They ALWAYS want this, or they ALWAYS want that. They'll tell you what they want, and they'll be mad if they don't get it.

Well, I'll try to go back on topic now. Here's an opinion that isn't so much "unpopular" as "unorthodox":

Opera music can be pretty good for drinking to when depressed.
Doh wait, there's already a separate music thread. My bad. Now I need a replacement on-topic comment!


Ever hear anyone brag about reading Sun Tzu's Art of War? I hope not - it's an amazingly unprofound book. Again, I can see how it would have rocked hard when it was written millenia ago, but to summarize it for you:
1. Don't ever fight if you're not guaranteed victory
2. If your officers are incompetent, fire them
3. Apparantly when the high ground is to the downwind of your chariots, to the left of your archers, and 45 degrees south-southwest to your infantry, "that is deadly ground." When/if you read it, you'll get that joke.

[Jerthanis]

Oh, wow. I am actually surprised to come back and find questions about my Smith-statement already. I'll slap it into a spoiler so that those interested only in reading "Unpopular Media Opinions" don't get stuck with a big post of me rambling about the Matrix.


Agreeing with this, and providing my own additions to his argument. Look out, I'm really long winded here.


Smith is the true ascension hero, destined to lead Humanity to enlightenment, and Neo represents an agent of the Demiurge, giving his own life to prevent the real hero from succeeding.

Think about it: Neo was a tool of the Matrix from day one. Smith, post-code shattering, the moment where he discovered human traits without the will or consent of the Matrix, tried only to do the following: Kill Neo who he knew was the ultimate weapon of the Demiurge/Matrix. and try to destroy the Matrix.

When he escaped the Matrix in the mind of the person he corrupted, his consciousness explored the reality of his situation and (IIRC) did nothing to assure the longterm success of the Machines. He was in the position where he could do real effect towards the victory of the machines... yet he only tried to murder Neo.

Finally, we progress through the plot and see Neo making a deal with the machines in order to preserve Zion, and he'll save the Matrix from being destroyed. Sounds fair, saves all those lives (I actually almost typed lies there, it would've been appropriate)... but the truth is is that he's actively supporting the established system which is a metaphor for reality as a barrier to enlightenment.

So okay, it's Smith, who is fighting to destroy the Matrix, versus Neo who is fighting to preserve the Matrix. They fight, Smith is winning, Smith asks why Neo is fighting, and Neo can only respond that he chooses to. I found this significant not because it showed some crazy triumph of the human spirit or something... because it really wasn't. He made that choice for no good reason. The love of his life had just been killed, he had no reason to believe that Zion was still intact, or that he could even stop Smith fast enough to save Zion at all. (Since the Machines weren't going to stop until Smith was stopped apparently) He basically had found that his entire role as savior was a lie... and he decides to oppose Smith basically because he didn't like Smith.

Then, Neo sacrifices himself like the good little tool of the machines would do, and it destroys Smith utterly, thus preserving the Matrix, thus preserving the Demiurge, and preserving the Overlord/Unwitting Slave relationship of the setting, and keeping humanity in shackles. We aren't given a clear view of the future, but there's no reason to assume the Machines don't go right back to their full-on enslavement of the Human race, only keeping them around to continue powering themselves. (Laws of Thermodynamics be damned BTW) And as soon as they develop an alternate method of sustaining themselves... it's all over for Humans. We aren't told enough about the aftermath of the movie to really judge what kind of world we're left with. If we take a scenario where Smith defeats Neo and is not destroyed, the machines may well have destroyed Zion and all the people there... but the Matrix would have been destroyed. What that means for all the people plugged into the matrix, we don't know, and can only speculate... but Smith was the human race's one and only path to escaping the matrix permanently. That makes him the hero of the story they were trying to tell. The fact that they Wachowski brothers didn't realize this highlights for me the fact that they just stole their story from sources beyond their understanding, and then were told to make a sequel, which was territory they didn't know what to do with from the metaphor, gnostic point of view, so they just pasted together whatever they thought was cool and pretended they were at all in control of their narrative when it's clear they weren't.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah, if you ignore the implicit but almost certain fact that Smith was overwriting human consciousnesses as well as programs, that works.

Gnosticism: the one religion not represented in the Matrix, apparently.

[Setra]

I don't know if this is considered unpopular but, a recent discussion made me remember this.

I absolutely despite the Robin Hood novel. I don't know if there is more than one, but in third grade I was forced to read it(one?).

Ugh it was the most boring thing I'd ever read, nearly turned me off reading.

Then again maybe it was because I was in Third Grade.

Knowing my taste in books? Probably not, they haven't changed.

[Winterwind]

I strongly doubt there is such a thing as "the" Robin Hood novel, considering it's a story that's been told and retold in ballads and books for what, seven, eight centuries or more?

Like with the King Arthur saga, I'm willing to bet there are dozens over dozens of novelizations, both recent and seceral centuries old ones.


For an unpopular opinion on that subject, I really did not like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon. Bored me out of my mind. No idea why.

[turkishproverb]

For an unpopular opinion on that subject, I really did not like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon. Bored me out of my mind. No idea why.

Tell me about it. Brut was a mroe exciting read in middle english.

[Redpieper]

Hmm I got another one

24 does not live up to what people say about it, I found it mildly interesting to watch at best.

[Cristo Meyers]

Hmm I got another one

24 does not live up to what people say about it, I found it mildly interesting to watch at best.

I didn't even find it that. To me it was just dull.

[TheGreatJabu]

I can agree with what you've said, Jerthanis; my only real objection is merely semantic. I wouldn't call Smith the hero for the sole purpose of the fact that he's fighting "the establishment". Destroying the Matrix would have simultaneously all-but-destroyed all of mankind and all of the machines. Sure, those remaining few humans would be free, but would you call a man who destroys 99% of the world a hero merely because that 1% doesn't have to worry about enemies from abroad anymore? Apart from the single word "hero", I see your points

Can't say I've ever seen an episode of 24, either. Guess it's obvious at this point that I watch almost no television.

And yeah, there are probably 1000 versions of the tale of Robin Hood all in print. The one I probably like the most is his minor supporting role in the story Ivanhoe, which I thought was a good read. Don't know how popular/unpopular that is.

As far as King Arthur goes, The Once and Future King gets my vote as "best telling of the story".

[WalkingTarget]

There may be no spoon, but I am a god of fork().

Awesome. May have to sig that.


BLASPHEMY! :smallfurious: Eddie Izzard, Monty Python, educate yourself, and never speak of this again.

As far as the Pythons go, it was because the cross-dressing wasn't the joke. They played those sketches totally straight: they were dressed as women because there were female roles that they didn't care to make Carol Cleveland or Connie Booth play.



seconded and thirded, and this is coming from someone whose seen all of them (yes even the old casino royale). It seems these days that darker=better in the revisiting of old series, see Batman: Begins and Casino Royale.

Agreed. The game of oneupmanship that the established line of movies had developed with itself had reached ridiculous proportions and I'm glad of the reboot.

Anyway, on topic:

Timothy Dalton was a good James Bond, On Her Majesty's Secret Service wasn't that bad of a Bond film if one ignores Lazenby (I always got the impression that he was trying to play Sean Connery, not James Bond).

I enjoyed the Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Four movies.

Enough friends bugged me about the Harry Potter books that I'm giving them a try. I'm about a third through book 5 and I'm not impressed so far.

300 was exactly what I expected it to be and I liked it.

I agree with earlier posts about Mists of Avalon. It's the only book I can think of that I started and didn't finish.

[Jerthanis]

Yeah, if you ignore the implicit but almost certain fact that Smith was overwriting human consciousnesses as well as programs, that works.

Gnosticism: the one religion not represented in the Matrix, apparently.

Yes, Smith was very clearly written as the villain, and the story went out of the way to portray the story as him being the bad guy, intending to destroy everything... but the entire concept of the Matrix was based on the Gnostic idea of the "real" world being a trap, a lie, and that someone would become incarnate in order to bring the world gnosis, and allow people to escape into the actual real reality. But Neo sacrificed his life to bring peace and slavery rather than freedom.

And remember, there were literally billions of humans in the pods, and possibly only tens of thousands in Zion. If we were to ignore the one detail that all the people waking up in the pods would have been Smith, he would have been humanity's greatest hero. Neo, even in success was just a rest stop on the roadmap of the history of the Matrix. This is why I feel they were not in control of the Narrative they were telling. Also, I feel this directly contributed to the failure of the second and third movies in my mind. Even people who don't analyze the movies at all knew on some level that the second and third movies weren't as good. I think the real reason was that the first movie was perfectly in line with countless human myths, very in touch with its references, and was very mythologically accurate... while the others just didn't have as much success appealing to our deeper senses.

Ugh, enough talking about the Matrix... more unpopular media opinions
- Superman 3 is absolutely hilarious, Superman 4 wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. It would have been awesome if they had gotten David Bowie to play Nuclear Man.

uh... I can't think of anything else

[Nerd-o-rama]

WalkingTarget: just be sure to credit that to Smith, otherwise it makes no sense.

Jerthanis: So you're saying the writers had no clue wtf they were doing? I concur fully.

Ho hum, have I got anything on topic? Let's see...ah, there is such a thing as a good dubbed foreign film/show, although it's rare and takes a lot of effort on the part of the localizers.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

The opium poppy was the greatest gift to poetry since language. A lot of people morally object to the sentiment, at least.

[TheGreatJabu]

All the cool historical figures were on some type of dope! There's no denying that one. :smallsmile:

[Neon Knight]

All the cool historical figures were on some type of dope! There's no denying that one. :smallsmile:

If this were actually true, Theodore Roosevelt just became ironically awesome.

Unpopular Opinion:

Max Brooks World War Z was poor both as standard fiction and as zombie fiction.

[Griemont]

:smallannoyed:.

Well, I have a personal rule to never judge how funny something is, because all humor is relative.

Forgot everything else I was going to say :smallbiggrin:

[hanzo66]

Ansem Retort, while not the God's gift to webcomics like people say it is, is the only good thing to come out of Kingdom Hearts, excluding Chain of Memories, which was much more fun than the console games.
I like that comic as well. Something about the completely utterly depraved Dead Baby Humor is just highly amusing.

Personally I'm more of a fan of Webcomics than I am any Manga. I choose Order of the Stick over the newest chapters of Bleach/Naruto (which I only really check on updates periodically on Wikipedia).

Never watched Heroes or Lost. I prefer Animation nowadays. I still enjoy the Discovery Channel.

Anime is decent (I still prefer satirical versions rather than the real versions IE The Abridged Versions more than their actual counterparts). I like most Dubs (4kids being the exception, but I watched One Piece as a kid before I got into Anime and learned of the butchery Khan is capable of).

Halo may not be Best Game Ever, but it's still fun to play with a group of people. I don't really think that the XBox is complete and utter crap and people who own it are trigger-happy language-impaired morons (those who defend their systems by criticizing others with childish immature insults are another story).

[Talkkno]

Naruto is good, but Bleach sucks
Ranma 1/2(expect the ending, I like Shampoo better :D) is better then Inyusha.
The Star Wars prequals didn't suck.
Second Winterwind's point on Star Trek I second for the most part.
Yakitate Japan makes bread awesome.
Most animie dubs don't suck.
Halo is overrated.
Dystany Warriors is boring.
Spiderman, Superman, and Batman are boring.
Second Setra point on animie.

[Duke Malagigi]

All the cool historical figures were on some type of dope! There's no denying that one. :smallsmile:

True, but Theodore Roosevelt's drug of choice was coffee. He drank 2-5 gallons of it a day.

[SurlySeraph]

The opium poppy was the greatest gift to poetry since language. A lot of people morally object to the sentiment, at least.

I disagree. The greatest gift since wine, maybe.

Of course, I don't think much good poetry's been written since T.S. Eliot died (with the possible exception of Robert Frost), I think poetry as an artform been going downhill since the fall of Rome, and I hate Baudelaire.

[warty goblin]

OK, my turn:

- I refuse to watch/read anime/manga. I'm not saying it sucks (although what I know of it in general fails to impress me), I just can't stand it. Probably the hair that looks like the love child of a starfish and a hedge.

- In the future, after the Nerd apocalypse, the world will be ruled by the trinity of Tolkein, Martin and Pratchett. And I can't wait, gritty yet humorous action on a mythic backdrop, I'm so there...

- Rap sucks, end of story. The only exception is when parts of Linkin Park songs are rapped.

- Which reminds me, Linkin Park is actually pretty good.

- The Matrix (yes the first one, didn't watch past that) was overrated. Plot was crappy, "religious symbolism" was shallow ("Hey, let's give this thing a name from a religion somewhere!") and the action sequences were overrated. Equilibrium was better in every way possible.

- Superheroes of any ___man/woman ilk fail to rock my world at all. Frankly capes and leotards bore me. Some of the movies can be fun though.

- TV wise, Firefly is the greatest show ever. Good characters, interesting universe, good action, good acting.

- Bablylon 5 is a close second. Complex plot arcs that actually take intellegence to follow and build to a climax over time, interesting political issues. Also, J'Gar and Londo. Very nice and pretty believable space combat as well. "Point of No Return", "War without End (1&2)" and the entire Earth Civil War arc are simply amazing episodes. Remember kids, your space battles don't qualify for the prestigious "Warty Goblin's Excellent Space Combat Medal" until I see at least one capital ship, its hull shot to hell and systems failing, reactor going critical, ram another capital ship in a last act of defiance. This must be done without evacuating the crew for it to be interesting, otherwise its just the world's most expensive missile without actual pathos.

- Battlestar Galactica is simply crap. I only watched what I did for the humor value- in the sense of "this takes itself so seriously yet is so bad, its funny". The episodes where they were running out of stuff were particularly good examples of this- its like nobody noticed the water/fuel shortage until it hit crisis state. Right, that's what I call poor planning and logistical skills, Read Horatio Hornblower, find out how closely a decent captain tracks this kind of thing, and come back and talk then. Then I got tired of the poor mythological parallels ("Hey, let's name stuff after Greek gods, nevermind that they make absolutely no sense in this context!") and constant robot sex became a little to much.

- Which brings me to my love of the Horatio Hornblower books. Really, there's not much more I could ask for in a series, good characters, suppurb action, and an actually interesting main character. Plus, any battle so hardcore that by the end the hero has to decide how to indicate their surrender, since all of their usual methods of indication are destroyed is pretty cool. Actually, any book where the hero loses a battle and surrenders is pretty cool.

[Closet_Skeleton]

- I refuse to watch/read anime/manga. I'm not saying it sucks (although what I know of it in general fails to impress me), I just can't stand it. Probably the hair that looks like the love child of a starfish and a hedge.

- Rap sucks, end of story. The only exception is when parts of Linkin Park songs are rapped.

So basically, all your opinions are based on extremely limited exposure and you really have no idea.

[warty goblin]

So basically, all your opinions are based on extremely limited exposure and you really have no idea.

In a way yes, although I disagree with your implication that I am narrow minded and rejecting these things without reason. I dislike anime because I cannot stand the art style. I don't need a large exposure to it to realize that. Once I reached that conclusion, I really have no reason to continue exposing myself to it. Similarly with rap, I listen to pop radio a good bit and came to the conclusion that I didn't like rap, or at least the rap I'd heard. Given that, it would be pretty stupid for me to go out and buy rap CDs, now wouldn't it?

In short, of course I have less exposure to those forms of media, because what I saw of them turned me off and gave me no reason to continue my exposure. That does not invalidate my dislike of them however. Put another way, say you don't like Jessica Simpson's music, I'm assuming you don't go out and buy CDs of it to broaden your exposure?

[Closet_Skeleton]

In a way yes, although I disagree with your implication that I am narrow minded and rejecting these things without reason.

You have reasons for rejecting things, but that doesn't make them good ones. I may have badly worded my post to have acusatory implications though.


I dislike anime because I cannot stand the art style. I don't need a large exposure to it to realize that.

But there is no single anime art style. There's a lot of variance in art styles, some of which you might like. I don't like every anime I've watched. Most anime are pretty bad anyway and I wouldn't force anyoen to watch them, but it's a huge classification. There are anime with very unique art and even anime with no spikey hair.


Given that, it would be pretty stupid for me to go out and buy rap CDs, now wouldn't it?

But it wouldn't be so stupid to go see live rap once or twice. Or talk to people who do like rap and learn more about it.


Put another way, say you don't like Jessica Simpson's music, I'm assuming you don't go out and buy CDs of it to broaden your exposure?

I've never heard of her to be honest. I might see if she has any free stuff and then buy some if I like it though, but probably not.

[Athaniar]

What I think:

Stargate: Atlantis really isn't a good series. Bring back SG-1!

2001 was only confusing.

I actually liked Catwoman.

Jar Jar Binks is funny. (please don't burn me at the stake!)

[warty goblin]

But it wouldn't be so stupid to go see live rap once or twice. Or talk to people who do like rap and learn more about it.


Live rap?? In Iowa? Surely you jest.

And no offense taken if none was offered. Well actually, no offense taken even if it was offered.

And I realize that anime is probably a very broad classification with a lot of stuff in it, but frankly there's enough media/books and stuff that I do like to keep me plently busy. I've got no reason to go looking for more stuff. It's also not just the hair that I dislike, although that's one of the more obvious things, the general way that characters look doesn't thrill me, the generally high powered nature, these do not fill me with thrills and chills.

[Tengu]

- In the future, after the Nerd apocalypse, the world will be ruled by the trinity of Tolkein, Martin and Pratchett. And I can't wait, gritty yet humorous action on a mythic backdrop, I'm so there...

- TV wise, Firefly is the greatest show ever. Good characters, interesting universe, good action, good acting.

- Bablylon 5 is a close second.

Since when those are unpopular opinions?

Most of the rest qualifies though, especially the dislike of anime (:smallyuk: ).

[Kallisti]

The Office is drivel, and Saturday Night Live's humor is hit-or-miss at best.

Bleach is...not bad, but pretty boring.

[averagejoe]

The Mod They Call Me: Thread necromancy.