"It's popular, so it sucks"

[Redstar]

I'm taking a cue from TVtropes and launching this thread to discuss works that are generally popular and/or well-received, yet are personally disliked. The topic should fit the contrarian within us all, Serum in particular.

I've never especially enjoyed the Indiana Jones, Star Wars or Back to the Future films. I mean, I realize they're good and worth watching, but I just don't see them as particularly amazing as so many do. Back to the Future Part II was very weak despite the clever time-twisting it executed, while only The Empire Strikes Back can be considered solid.

I absolutely loathed Scott Pilgrim.

Anybody else?

[1upmushroom]

What's wrong with Scott Pilgrim?

[Serum]

I'm not exactly sure what you're driving at here... But, I'll give it a shot.

Here's a little list of movies that are popular that I absolutely loathe and why...

Forrest Gump (I turned it off as soon as Forrest started running when he was a kid and his leg braces shattered.)
Titanic (In fairness, the final act is good, but the rest of the movie sucks.)
Avatar (An overblown remake of "Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest.")
Gamer (One of the few movies I demanded my back for.)
Batman Begins (Christian Bale is terrible as Batman and the movie was just a poor excuse to remake a perfectly good franchise.)
Dazed and Confused (I never made it more than a half hour into this movie, every time I watch it makes me suicidally depressed-- I do love most of Richard Linklater's other films, though.)
Almost any Wes Craven movie... (The best things with his name attached to them are the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," the "Carnival of Souls" remake and the remake to the terrible 1970s "The Hills Have Eyes.")
The Amazing Spider-Man (Again, I walked out of the theater about twenty minutes into it.)
Animal House (Because I hated everything about my college experience, I hated this movie, it does the same thing for me that "Dazed and Confused" does-- it makes me want to run a straight razor across my wrists.)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Romance is usually stupid, the only romance movie I truly enjoy is "Vanilla Sky.")
Inception (Overrated, convoluted piece of crap from a crappy director who has one good movie.)
Re-Animator (Terrible acting, terrible script, terrible direction.)
Labyrinth (David Bowie was the only good thing about this piece of crap.)
Transformers (Megan Fox is Snow White Trash.)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (A racist, self-appreciative and demeaning movie that I walked out of in theaters.)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (I didn't even watch the whole thing, I saw part of it on Cinemax and got disgusted.)
Donnie Darko (While it has a solid story, all the high school stuff bothers me and gives me what I like to call "douche chills.")
The Breakfast Club (Again, makes me want to open a vein and die.)
Saw (All of them, the first one is the worst-- a total rip-off of David Fincher's "Se7en.")
Pan's Labyrinth (And anything else that Guillermo del Toro has made, he's just a godawful director and writer.)
Tron (The first one, it has no plot and nothing going for it, it's hard to follow and none of what they're talking about makes sense.)
The remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (The 2003 Michael Bay produced one. R. Lee Ermey was the only good thing about it.)
Rudy (Self-righteous movie starring Samwise the Brave.)
Jurassic Park (It's just a terrible movie, there's nothing redeeming about it and furthermore I blame this movie for "Super Mario Bros.'" box office failure. And Jeff Goldblum sucks.)

...and there's about a million more.

[1upmushroom]

Some people have weird taste in movies. But people are entitled to their own opinions. But it's kind of surprising how many of my favorite films are ones you hate Serum!

[OniWolf]

I absolutely cannot stand any show by Seth Mcfarlene. Is that really what American humor is coming to?

[Redstar]

What's wrong with Scott Pilgrim?

I found Cera completely unlikeable and unsympathetic in the role. The entire premise felt like it was pandering towards the gamer/nerd culture, which irked me. It seemed more like they were trying to make something zany and cult-pleasing on purpose, which rarely ever works.

I absolutely cannot stand any show by Seth Mcfarlene. Is that really what American humor is coming to?

I would have to agree. While I have a soft spot for American Dad, the reliance on rape/molestation, abortion and sexism jokes in Family Guy is not in any way amusing.

[OniWolf]

What's wrong with Scott Pilgrim?

I found Cera completely unlikeable and unsympathetic in the role. The entire premise felt like it was pandering towards the gamer/nerd culture, which irked me. It seemed more like they were trying to make something zany and cult-pleasing on purpose, which rarely ever works.

I agree. While I thoroughly enjoyed the novels, the movie, while it had cool effects and great music, just had this unpleasant tone to it. Cera is a terrible actor who brings no emotion or effort to the role, while Mary Elizabeth Winstead performs Ramona as a complete, uncaring (excuse my french) asshole.

Both main leads were nothing like their comic book counterparts & had actors who did not understand the roles (The secondary actors were pretty good though). The movie just missed the whole purpose of what the heart of the comics were about, and took away the charm & instead pumped up all the video-game references. It was a cool looking movie, but that's all. I'd rather go for the soundtrack on iTunes.

[Serum]

I absolutely cannot stand any show by Seth Mcfarlene. Is that really what American humor is coming to?

I would have to agree. While I have a soft spot for American Dad, the reliance on rape/molestation, abortion and sexism jokes in Family Guy is not in any way amusing.

Yeah, you can only make so many abortion jokes after the classic "Abortion really brings out the kid in you." Though Seth seems to have failed his way to the top of the ladder.

[Phlibbit]

I've never really enjoyed anything from McFarlane--although most everyone I talk to loves his shows.

As for the other comments, I've gotta throw my two cents in:

Back to the Future Part II was very weak despite the clever time-twisting it executed, while only The Empire Strikes Back can be considered solid.

I love the Back to the Future series. Part II is probably my favorite. It's incredibly creative and inventive, IMO it's one of the best film trilogies ever made.

Batman Begins (Christian Bale is terrible as Batman and the movie was just a poor excuse to remake a perfectly good franchise.)
Inception (Overrated, convoluted piece of crap from a crappy director who has one good movie.)
Saw (All of them, the first one is the worst-- a total rip-off of David Fincher's "Se7en."

Everyone knows how much I love Batman and Chris Nolan's films in general. Overall it seems that most people that don't like the Dark Knight films really have a problem with Bale in particular. I think he's a fantastic Batman. We have an Oscar-winning actor playing Batman. I don't think any other superhero franchise can say that.

Inception was awesome. It's really mindbending and maybe too convoluted for its own good, but I really appreciate the effort. Actually a lot of Nolan's films are like that.

And overall, I really love the Saw franchise. I guess it's kind of a guilty pleasure. The last film of the series was absolutely atrocious and pretty much ruined the whole thing, but it's the only horror movie franchise that I've ever been interested in.

[Serum]

And overall, I really love the Saw franchise. I guess it's kind of a guilty pleasure. The last film of the series was absolutely atrocious and pretty much ruined the whole thing, but it's the only horror movie franchise that I've ever been interested in.

First of all, winning an Oscar doesn't mean you're talented, it means the coke fiends at the Academy need a way to make money.

Second, "Saw" isn't horror. It's torture porn that borrows heavily from "Se7en."

[Redstar]

Back to the Future Part II was very weak despite the clever time-twisting it executed, while only The Empire Strikes Back can be considered solid.

I love the Back to the Future series. Part II is probably my favorite. It's incredibly creative and inventive, IMO it's one of the best film trilogies ever made.

I will admit that BttF is one of the best trilogies ever made, all things considered, but to me I just sort of see it as a pop culture-diluted illustration of time travel. I'm a very dedicated fan of science fiction, so time travel must be approached very intelligently for me to be interested in it at all as a premise.

[Serum]

I will admit that BttF is one of the best trilogies ever made, all things considered, but to me I just sort of see it as a pop culture-diluted illustration of time travel. I'm a very dedicated fan of science fiction, so time travel must be approached very intelligently for me to be interested in it at all as a premise.

"Back to then Future" and the sequels that followed are more comedy than science fiction. However, the trilogy is riddles with plot holes. For instance...

When Old Biff from 2015 gives himself the Sports Almanac in 1955, he returns to the future and dies. Later, when Doc and Marty return to 1985, they find it corrupted by Biff's rise to power-- Marty suggests that they just go back to 2015 and stop Old Biff from stealing the time machine but Doc says they can't, because if they travel into the future, it will be the future of Biff's reality-- but Old Biff did exactly what Marty suggested! He returned to 2015, which was untouched by his own reshaping of the past.

[Phlibbit]

No, no, no. In deleted scenes, you see that Old Biff actually faded from existence when he arrives back in 2015, much like Marty would have done if he hadn't set things straight in the original film. One of the writers said that Lorraine probably shot Biff around 1994, and that if Doc and Marty had stayed even a few moments longer in that time period, they would start to notice that things had changed dramatically.

[Serum]

No, no, no. In deleted scenes, you see that Old Biff actually faded from existence when he arrives back in 2015, much like Marty would have done if he hadn't set things straight in the original film. One of the writers said that Lorraine probably shot Biff around 1994, and that if Doc and Marty had stayed even a few moments longer in that time period, they would start to notice that things had changed dramatically.

I know he faded out of existence in the deleted scene-- but he technically shouldn't have been able to even return to 2015.

[1upmushroom]

Well to be fair time doesn't just quickly alter things in BTTF. It has to catch up with you before it alters you completely. Like in the first movie, notice how it took at least a week before his entire siblings and almost him were erased.

Plus BTTF is a time travel movie, and a trilogy at that! So it's expected that plot holes would happen

[Serum]

I've always thought of the "Back to the Future" movies as being in the same vein as the "Bill & Ted" movies-- I mean, yes, there is time travel in it, but the movie is really just a comedy.

If you want to see a movie that depicts time travel in a serious manner, watch George Pal's 1960 magnum opus "The Time Machine," starring Rod Taylor as H.G. Welles.

Or, read a book.

[Redstar]

The "rules" of how time travel operates in the Back to the Future series are just there to serve the plot. They don't make a lick of sense beyond that. Most hard science fiction stories that tackle the premise establish the rules first, then demonstrate how the characters react to them.

It makes for a much stronger story, in my opinion.

[Serum]

The "rules" of how time travel operates in the Back to the Future series are just there to serve the plot.

Well, I should hope so, considering the movie is called "Back to the Future."