Alright, this might be fun. Here we go. So, new MST in April, and I know that this is a moment that is huge in everyone’s hearts here. I also think it will not disappoint. It’s gonna be great, maybe different than what is expected, maybe something that will take time to soak in, but great. But, what I want to know about is a pop culture moment in you peoples lives that did disappoint. Video game, tv, movie, whatever. What’s the thing that broke your heart the hardest. Also, I want this post to be a safe space, so anyone is allowed to have hated whatever they want without repercussions.
For me, the first thing that comes to mind is the episode “across the sea” of Lost. Us diehard losties knew this was going to be the origin episode we needed, and instead it was just more vague half-implied and half-hearted explanations and pretentiousness that was the foreshadowing of the polarizing ending of the series we got. Just a huge punch in the gut after spending the whole season waiting for it.
Anyways…. your turn.
For some reason the first thing I thought of was the first Tomb Raider movie. I loved the game (well, I loved the memories I have of playing it with my daughter) and I really wanted it to be good. And it just wasn’t.
I would also mention the Seinfeld finale. I was a big fan and it felt like somebody pulled the plug and all the comedy drained out.
One other: the terrible Hitchhiker’s Guide movie, which may be unfilmable but they could have done something better than this.
Have at it!
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(Oh, right, the one they decided to “counterprogram” by opening up the SAME WEEK as the Harry Potter finale, which even the trailer ads parodied, and was so goofily self-destructive an idea, it contributed to studio chief Rich Ross being fired from the company?)
There was nothing wrong with Princess & the Frog that an actual plot and characters couldn’t have fixed. (And less female-demographic soapboxing by making Charlotte look like a raving obnoxious looney-toon for liking princes.)
And because nobody figured out that it probably WASN’T a good idea to open your movie one week before Avatar (hey, I thought it was going to flop, too!), people kept trying to come up with “industry” reasons why nobody went to see it, even though it did get #1 on the traditionally lowest-grossing movie weekend of the year.
And then Tangled came along and showed everyone how to do a Disney musical the RIGHT way, but it was in CGI, and that ended up grabbing all the credit.
of course cornjob’s a metalhead; he likes to scare little kids by threatening to shave their heads!
hey someone upthread mentioned “superman II” being disappointing; i’d like to say, if you’d only seen the recent “restored director’s cut” of it, i understand your disappointment! be sure to retry it though with the original theater cut. (one of the many reasons i am way long post-“director’s cuts” on most every movie; 9 outta 10, they just prove to be underwhelming/too much, too much.)
In the interest of transparency, I did heartily approve of Sandra Gould taking over for Alice Pearce as nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz.
The extended cut of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Europe got the longer version of the movie back in the ’60s and that’s fine. Everyone was dubbed in Italian or already speaking it in the movie. We didn’t need it here in the year 2010 or whatever with an elderly Clint Eastwood, an even more elderly Eli Wallach, and a barely-sound-alike Lee Van Cleef dubbing scenes that add nothing to the plot and ruin the pace of the movie.
Here’s a few things that have disappointed me over the years:
The main Dragonlance novels: Seeing the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I remember thinking to myself “we have the technology”, and my favorite book series could be done in a way that would do it justice. Sure, there were a few comic book series, but comics cannot do that story justice. So, what did I end-up getting in today’s world? An animated direct-to-dvd movie adapting the first book in the series that was incredibly boring to watch, visually bland, and holding absolutely no surprises for someone who had already read the books. I understand that some people will complain when their favorite story is tinkered with (“change for the sake of change”), but I’m not one of those people as long as the story is good and the characters remain true to the source material. If there is not going to be anything different about a story as it goes from a book (or cartoon, comic or tv show) to a movie, then what’s the point of the adaption existing at all?
X-Files original series finale: It wasn’t as if the producers didn’t know it was their last season, and it’s not like they were told the week before that Fox wasn’t going to give them another year. They had enough time to craft a final episode that could have given the fans a real sense of closure. Instead, we get people in a room talking about stuff with some dramatic music drowning-out most of what they’re saying. That ending killed the series for me, so much so that I didn’t even bother to watch the six-episode series last year.
Music: I’m actually NOT disappointed in today’s music, but I am disappointed by today’s music industry. Most radio stations in my area are still playing practically the same songs they were playing 25 years ago, and since I didn’t like most of that stuff then, I definitely don’t want to hear it now! There’s plenty of good music out there, but it’s up to the consumer to find it, and most people can’t be bothered to do the legwork themselves. No matter what style of music you like, odds are that there is some new band or artist that you’ve never heard of producing material you would enjoy hearing, but who wants to spend hours on the web searching for it? I really do not understand how record companies can be so clueless in regards to how they should promote new music.
And speaking of music … Led Zeppelin NOT reuniting for another studio album after their 2007 concert is incredibly disappointing. It is so frustrating to me as a fan that the three surviving members cannot seem to get on the same page on this. John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page are ready to go, but Robert Plant wants to play small clubs with his own band. Plant’s ready to go, but Page is working on remastering the old albums and Jones is working on an opera (or something, I forget). You guys aren’t living forever, get to it already! And No, Mister Plant, I am not expecting the music to sound like it did in the good old days. If I want to hear stuff like that, I’ll listen to those albums. I want to hear what Zeppelin can do now.
Maybe next week’s WDT can be the opposite of this one: What pop culture moment exceeded expectations? I’m sure the 1980s film adaption of Marvel’s “The Punisher” will top everyone’s list, so let’s make that one off-limits, and everybody can go with their number two pick.
Without a doubt the biggest pop culture disappointment for me was the cancellation of Farscape. Sci-Fi Channel renewed it for 2 seasons and then pulled the plug with one more season to go. With a major cliff hanger ending. Apparently the channel had such success with airing SG-1 reruns that they decided original programming was not a priority. I hate SyFy for that and I always will.
It took a long time to really come up with this, but remember when “IT” was coming? The whole internet was blowing up because “IT” was going to revolutionize our world more than the PC. Then “IT” turned out to be a Segway. Hey, I’ve ridden on a Segway. Once. (yawn)
It is a cool way for Weird Al to come on stage for “White & Nerdy” though.
The Seinfeld finale is underrated. I think its main problem is that it is very much Conveying A Message in a way that was never really true of the show before. The characters being indicted felt right, but it was also like, NOW suddenly you’re a show that preaches a moral?
I also think it was a mistake to preface a finale that relied so heavily on “Remember him/her?” material with an actual clip show, much less one that employed that sappy Green Day song. It felt pretty tone-deaf to indulge in that syrup given that “no hugging, no lessons” was something of a mantra for the show.
And I’m sorry to see the lack of love for Arrested Development Season 4. I am convinced it will get more appreciation in time. What a supremely ambitious and dense work.
I’m a diehard Genesis fan. Have been since I was 14. Granted, it was the Invisible Touch era, but I worked my way backwards into the Gabriel era, and eventually through most of the side/solo projects as well (everybody got a solo career at some point, but not everybody was at the Phil Collins/Peter Gabriel level of quality). I’m a Collins apologist. I’ve seen more than one Genesis tribute band. I have all the box sets. I get weepy at the end of “Los Endos” (the live version from Seconds Out). I have more than one version of their first album (the rights of which are more loosely controlled than their major label stuff, so it’s constantly being reissued, even though it barely sounds like Genesis). I still love Invisible Touch with a passion bordering on Patrick Bateman levels of pathology. I can name all the drummers in the band before Phil joined (only two appear on record, and he joined in 1970–so in other words, nobody but me cares). And I own every album on vinyl–except one. After Phil left in the mid-90s, Banks and Rutherford stated that they would soldier on with a new singer and drummer. I was skeptical, but I believed that Banks was the force of Genesis anyway, and the new guy’s voice reminded me of Peter Gabriel, so maybe all was not lost.
All was lost. Calling All Stations was a bloated mess, full of awkward/embarrassing lyrics and musical passages that went nowhere. It turns out that Collins was actually reining in the others’ tendencies. The planned North American tour was cancelled due to low/non-existent ticket sales. For once, I had to agree with the abysmal reviews of a Genesis album. I bought it the day it came out, took it home, listened to it maybe twice over the next week, and spent the next 20 years pretending it doesn’t exist. In retrospect, I feel bad for the singer (Ray Wilson), and feel he got a raw deal. So I’ll drag it out about every 7 years or so and give it another chance, and nope, it still sucks. They haven’t released another (non-greatest hits) record since.
I did get to see them on the Hits tour in 2007, which was cool. If it had been a full reunion with Gabriel and Hackett, it would have been obviously better, but it was cool nonetheless.
They didn’t play anything from Calling All Stations. Thankfully.
When I was really young I heard about this really weird degenerate artist whose name even sounded sinister: Andy Warhol. War Hole? I thought his art would be something like Bosch (not that I knew who Bosch was yet). Years go by and when I finally see some of Warhol’s art, it’s just paintings of soup cans, silk screens of celebrity photos, and nine hour movies of people asleep. I’m an individual who appreciates existentialism, absurdism, and even some kinds of nihilism, but Andy’s work is so blatantly and deliberately pointless that I can’t fathom why he has such a reputation for genius that he does. I was expecting a visual De Sade. I got a soup can and a still image of the Empire State Building that takes 10 hours to look at.
heh! that reminds me when i was young, i occasionally saw “deadhead” stickers (don’t remember whether they were on cadillacs though ;) and large tie-dye banners at one of the groovier record stores in town; however, area radio was all homogenized top-40 and church-lady muzak, so i had no idea what they sounded like. i thought they were some awesome metal group who were so radical that they never got airplay. when i did finally hear them… heh, was mightily underwhelmed.
i’m still no fan of theirs, but i have grown to like a few of their tunes… never collected them, but would like to get at least a few tracks of theirs (although i already know enough about ’em now that i’d have trouble finding the right album/live show with the versions i like).
For me, it will always be the godawful “Twilight” series. I still don’t understand why that was so popular. I tried reading one of the books (I think it was “Breaking Dawn”), but I couldn’t get through it was so badly written! Seriously, who told her she could write? I’m an amateur and I’m ashamed to have someone like that be allowed to publish such unreadable drivel!
All of it since about the mid-1990s. To paraphrase Crow, I wish I could kick Pop Culture right in the groin.
I like how that nice small town has a random daytime carjacking with a cop apparently only a few yards down the street.
The episode “Too Many Pinkie Pies” of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, in which Pinkie makes twenty or so duplicates of herself with their own thoughts and feelings, all of which are ultimately herded into a building and executed by Twilight Sparkle for their inability to watch paint dry–literally–and because they are inconvenient to the community. Twilight insists they aren’t “real,” only adding to the episode’s revolting parallels to the Holocaust.
#112: I got my parents to buy me a Grateful Dead T-Shirt because I liked the skeleton imagery when I was in about the 4th grade when I didn’t even know they were a band. I still think their shirts are cooler than their music. I like psychedelic 60’s rock, but the Dead always seemed 2nd rate to me. Don’t hate ’em, but give me Hendrix, or the Doors, or The Stones instead any time.
‘mirror mirror!’ truly we are brothas from utha muthas, padre… :) last few/three years i’ve been catching up on old kinks, eric burdon/animals, and the like (‘them’ is big on my list, but haven’t collected any serious amount yet)…
since so many are throwing in their sitcom/series demons, while we’re at it… how about the time when “family ties” tina yothers started an “andrews sisters”-style swing-era girl-group travelling from town to town, singing “mr. sandman” over and over? apparently that was the only song they knew… (yes, i am ashamed i actually saw, and remember, that episode… i try to live a life of no regrets, but that is sadly one i have to admit to. life pre-cable sucked – not many other options/channels to turn to! besides, it was up to a family-vote what to watch on the -one- TV we had at the time, anyways. sighs, i’m old, i’m old!)
I loved Stanhope and Rogan, so the relaunch of The Man Show was the first thing that came to mind. Conan didn’t reinvent late night on as I expected. George Carlin’s and Don Rickles’ sitcoms. I still don’t get Harvey Birdman or Venture Bros.
The Paula Poundstone Show.
Beanie Babies – We all had to have them, convinced they’d be worth a fortune one day – instead they became the cockroaches of the plush toy world.
The Big Lebowski: Not a bad movie, at least a solid B, maybe a B+. But after hearing about how incredible it was for 20 years it was a bit of a letdown.
The Iron Maiden Albums recorded with their 3rd singer, that Blaze Beetle Bailey guy.
And yes New Cornjob, we are indeed two Cornjobs alike. It does sound in this thread like we should resemble each other except for facial hair. I don’t have a goatee, but I do have sideburns.
At least they aired Peace Keeper Wars which the fans brought into reality. It was good and brought some closure, although a-bit-rushed closure. I keep hearing about webisodes and another movie taking place when D’Argo, son of John and Aeryn, is about eighteen or so, but nothing ever develops.
There ARE graphic novels, which I’ve never read, that continue the story. Maybe I’ll look into those. This show was tie for my favorite with MST3K.
Last 2 seasons of Lost and especially the final were a big disappointment to me. As were Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, such puny sequels. The second Mummy movie, though I do not find it horrible. The final for Frasier was pretty weak. Recent decline in quality of Rifftrax is a disappointment, they are coming off more and more as old bitter farts IMHO. Whatever happened to that young and likable Mike from the 90s? Dr, Strangelove, people go on about what a great film it is, I don’t think it is a good film at all, just generic 1960s stupid IMO. I fully expected The Force Awakens to be the weakest SW film as was not disappointed that it was. However, I was disappointed by how poorly it handled the original heros and completely contradicting the ending of ROTJ. Plus all the new characters I found worse than Jar-Jar, who I think is often over antihyped. Lastly the 3rd Mad Max movie, Beyond Thunderdome I found disappointing compared to both Mad Max 1 and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.
when radio stations stopped playing oldies and change more to classic rock music.
re “big lebowski”: i remember seeing that first-run in a chicago theater, and found it irritating – no, not the movie, but the -audience reaction- to it. they were laughing at the -littlest- things -out loud-… even just the tumbleweeds tumbling around the street as the movie began. i think they were a bit “drunk” on that they had probably only discovered the coens via “fargo” the year or two before, and had no “coen-humor callouses” (i just trademarked that!). that, or they were laughing to try to out-laugh their friends beside them… most of it, i certainly found entertaining, a few chuckles of surprise at their way of finding ways out of such oddball situations, and “the usual” pretzel-style story and plotting. but, “laugh hysterically out loud”… man, one of the most irritating experiences i’d had in a theater! it sucks to watch a movie and -like- the movie, but -hate the audience!-
it took a couple repeat-watches at home for me to appreciate the movie on its own – and yeah, it’s good entertainment, and “the dude” really is a character bridges was born to play. but yeah, some people have this over-reaction… “dood it’s like thu best moovee evur maaade!”… lol! like, no… it’s not!
but any case, i -do- really want to play the pinball machine someday… it looks like ginchy fun! (look it up on youtube!)
p.s. no goatee – i have the old-school nerd’s disposition of finding facial hair far too irritating. best i can do is be lazy for a week, then it just hasta come off!
Not going to be popular, but I might be putting the new MST3K as my vote. For me, Bill/Trace and Kevin are Crow and Servo, and to some I’m not sure how the new voices will work for them., and what direction the riffing takes with the new writers. We’ll see.
Cornjob (original and new), thank you. Your comments about the dreadful “Theater Of Pain” album were 100% accurate. To me, Motley Crue were the future of metal at that time; their 1st 2 albums were rock ‘n roll classics, and the expectations for the 3rd album were enormous… And yeah, you said it, pink headbands, polka-dotted jumpsuits, childish, sappy, cheesy piano ballads – still makes me want to puke.
More examples – the 1st 2 Ozzy Osbourne albums are essential, but the ones that followed?
Metallica – basically after Cliff Burton died, they slowly but steadily descended into, uh, “Some Kind Of Monster,” a lost, clueless corporate behemoth that their younger selves would surely be ashamed of.