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Spoilers What are your unpopular Sci-Fi & Fantasy Opinions?

...whereas Smith is the only new Who Doctor I consider a genuine heir to original Who. Each to their own.
 
Many fan favorite actors/actresses are just mediocre actors.

Case in point Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones - huge breakout role but i don't see any acting awards in her future. I like her as a person, she comes off quite well in interviews and she would surely be fun as a friend but as an actress she is not that remarkable.
 
...whereas Smith is the only new Who Doctor I consider a genuine heir to original Who. Each to their own.
Since I know little of the original Doctors my reference points were far limited than others. I think Capaldi is closer with what limited knowledge I do have.
 
I have plenty of these. In no particular order:

* Roddenberry wasn't a genius visionary who single-handedly made a great show full of brilliant masterpieces. He was a bloke who, along with many others, made a TV show in order to make a living. No more or less than that.
* Voyager is nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be.
* "Threshold" isn't even the worst episode of Voyager, never mind the worst episode of any Trek series. DS9 has at least three episodes which IMO are far, far worse than anything Voyager ever did ("Profit and Lace" is the worst episode in any Trek. "Let He Who Is Without Sin" is the runner up, and "Life Support" is an abomination that killed my interest in DS9 stone dead).
* DS9 isn't as great as it's made out to be. Neither is Firefly.
* the episodes of nBSG I sat through were some of the most boring hours of television I've ever watched.
* Braga isn't evil incarnate, and Moore isn't the second coming.
* Blade Runner is one of the most boring, pointless movies ever made.
* the LOTR movies are okay, but no more than that.
* Star Wars in its entirety holds zero interest for me.
* "The End" - aka the Lost finale - was brilliant.
* Felicity Smoak was a terrific character whose only "crime" was that she was sometimes very badly written. (So was Kathryn Janeway.)
* Now and Again was the best single-season cancelled series ever made.
* Tennant was an awful, unwatchable Doctor.

There are others, but that will do for now.

This isn't an unpopular opinion. It's an incontrovertible fact.

I agree with bladerunner, I saw it for the first time only a couple of years ago and was bored stiff.

Two relatively unpopular opinions, I really loved Kin and Mars needs moms
 
I also never got into Firefly. It had a lot of good moments but often felt like it was congratulating itself for subverting clichés.

Some of the stuff like “You need a prostitute to get into ports felt puerile and gimmicky.

Between glamorizing Inara's prostitution work and so much of the very premise of Dollhouse being high concept prostitution, I think those were some early red flags re: Joss Whedon.

I have a Bond opinion that might be unpopular. More than half of Die Another Day was a pretty decent Bond film. That title sequence (Not the song, just the scenery) was some of the best of that era, with Bond being tortured.

Agreed. I'm totally with Die Another Day up until they get to the ice hotel.

The Matrix lost me when they used humans for energy rather than processing power.

Using the brains of the humans for processing power? That makes so much more sense! How have I gone 20 years without hearing this idea or thinking of it myself!?

Chris Chibnall's Timeless Child retcon is a brilliant idea that answers so many questions about all of the Doctor's incarnations and fits perfectly with storytelling decisions made throughout the entirety of "nuWho and " Classic Who"

I don't object to the Timeless Child in principle. I'm withholding final judgment until I see how they follow up on it next season. But I hate the way that it was revealed through a massive info-dump that had nothing to do with the rest of the story.

Revenge of the Sith is as good as any film in the original trilogy.
The SW prequels are all better than the sequel trilogy.
The Sean Connery 007 films are a fucking drag to watch these days.
Roger Moore made the most entertaining bond films.
For Your Eyes Only is Moore's worst film.
The Mission Impossible films from 3 onwards are better than Craig's Bond movies.

Agreed on nearly all of these. I prefer Brosnan's movies over Moore's. And it's hard for me to choose Moore's worst film, since The Man with the Golden Gun is so dull and Moonraker, Octopussy, & A View to a Kill are all pretty silly in places. But For Your Eyes Only is definitely in the running and certainly has one of the worst pre-credit sequences in the whole franchise.

Avengers Endgame was nowhere near as good as Infinity War.

Agreed. Last time I ranked the MCU movies, Infinity War was #3 while Endgame only managed #18. I also think that Age of Ultron is better than people give it credit for.

I liked Leto's Joker, and I don't care about behind the scenes stuff. I liked the updated look and found it fitting for a modern day version. He was a sick and dangerous Joker that really fits with the atmosphere of the DCU. I would love to see him back.

Jared Leto is my favorite live action Joker. He's the only one that I ever found scary and he does perfectly fit into the style of the DCEU. I'd love to see just a straight-up Batman movie with Affleck, Leto, Irons, & Simmons. Nothing too fancy. Just a really solid, by-the-numbers Batman movie with that excellent cast.

I think it depends on the scenes that are added, even just a few extra minutes can add a lot of character development, or help to clarify plot points that were confusing in the theatrical cut.

Agreed. But most "director's cut"s and extended cuts are garbage. They often take away from the tight pacing of the theatrical cut. Off the top of my head, the only extended/director's cuts that I think are an improvement are Aliens, Daredevil, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek VI, Superman, and Terminator 2. (I suppose I'd also add a 2nd category for erotic thrillers that are improved by the additional nudity, like Bound, Embrace of the Vampire, and Wild Things.)

I like the opening music of Enterprise season 1 & 2.

Agreed. After the orchestral opening themes that I was used to, Enterprise took a little getting used to but I ended up really liking it after a few episodes. I'm not too keen on the remix from Seasons 3 & 4. They made the song more, I dunno, jangly, which seemed especially jarring given the darker turn that the story took in Season 3.

Despite the behind-the-scenes Appendices spelling things out very clearly, people strangely continue to cling to the notion that The Hobbit would have somehow been 'different and better' if it had remained a Duology or if GDT hadn't chosen to leave the project.

The duology, as planned, probably wouldn't have been much better. But The Hobbit definitely needed cuts. Right from when the dwarves first arrive at Bilbo's house, everything scene seems to last twice as long as it needs to to make its point. But then, this seems to have been an increasing problem for Peter Jackson's blockbusters. Even throughout the Lord of the Rings trilogy, each installment got progressively sloppier and more self-indulgent. (Let's not even talk about King Kong, which took 3 hours to tell the exact same story that the Simpsons Halloween special was able to tell in 7 minutes!)

* Roddenberry wasn't a genius visionary who single-handedly made a great show full of brilliant masterpieces. He was a bloke who, along with many others, made a TV show in order to make a living. No more or less than that.

Also, any credit that he gets for the franchise should rightfully be shared by writers like Gene Coon & D.C. Fontana. Not to mention that it was really Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer that gave it the longevity that it needed in the 1980s to grow into the sprawling franchise that it is now.

* DS9 isn't as great as it's made out to be.
[...]
* Braga isn't evil incarnate, and Moore isn't the second coming.

DS9 certainly hasn't aged as well as I expected it to. But it was pretty revolutionary for its time and was certainly an important stepping stone between the other more episodic Star Trek shows and the more tightly woven story arcs that we're used to today.

* Blade Runner is one of the most boring, pointless movies ever made.

I'll see your Blade Runner and raise you a 2001: A Spacy Odyssey. Although, really, Blade Runner surrendered its "boring, pointless" crown to Blade Runner 2049.

Many fan favorite actors/actresses are just mediocre actors.
Case in point Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones - huge breakout role but i don't see any acting awards in her future. I like her as a person, she comes off quite well in interviews and she would surely be fun as a friend but as an actress she is not that remarkable.

Her performance in Terminator Genisys made Jai Courtney look good!

I found all that manic, totally-over-the-top, I'm-a-Who-fan-living-my-fantasy-OMG!!!!11111!!! over-acting and mugging incredibly irritating. I didn't care for the adolescent simpering over Rose, either - an aspect of his version of the character and the writing for that version that left me absolutely cold. His exit was probably the worst of the lot, too.

Agreed. I can't be too mad at David Tennant because he's been such a great ambassador for the series after he left. And he was occasionally capable of truly great performances, like in "Midnight." But at his worst he could get under my skin faster than any other Doctor (except for possibly Sylvester McCoy).

I thought he had a decent regeneration episode though. I didn't much care for his victory lap where he revisited all of his old companions. But I'll gladly take "The End of Time" over "Time of the Doctor" or "Twice upon a Time."

Since I know little of the original Doctors my reference points were far limited than others. I think Capaldi is closer with what limited knowledge I do have.

I think that Smith & Capaldi both, in their own ways, capture the essence of the classic Doctors. Capaldi is certainly older, like most of the classic Doctors were. He's also very prickly in a William Hartnell/Colin Baker sort of way. And he moves with a sort of straight-backed swagger that reminds me of Jon Pertwee. Meanwhile, Matt Smith's funny-little-man-with-a-bowtie schtick takes a lot of inspiration from Patrick Troughton. And while Smith was younger than any of the classic Doctors, he played it with a very old soul. I never doubted for a second that he was a 900-year-old man who just never grew up. Certainly they both felt more authentically like classic Doctors than the dashing cosplay boyfriends of Tennant & Eccleston.

So long as we're mentioning Doctors, my unpopular opinion is that Colin Baker is way better than Peter Davison and, if it weren't for the hideous costume, everyone would agree.

Also, is anyone else getting really sick of Christopher Nolan and how self-satisfied he seems to be whenever he makes an expensive sci-fi epic that doesn't make any sense? My relationship with him can be summed up by paraphrasing that one scene from Batman Begins:
ME AFTER WATCHING A NOLAN MOVIE: "Am I meant to understand any of that?
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: "Not at all. I just wanted you to know how hard it was."
 
Also, is anyone else getting really sick of Christopher Nolan and how self-satisfied he seems to be whenever he makes an expensive sci-fi epic that doesn't make any sense?
Nah, I like it. I don't feel like every story I watch must make sense at every point. Though, I will admit to not watching many Nolan films.
 
Also, any credit that he gets for the franchise should rightfully be shared by writers like Gene Coon & D.C. Fontana.
Exactly. The idea that Roddenberry created and sustained the thing entirely on his own, with minimal contribution from anyone else, is insulting to those people, and others afterward.

DS9 certainly hasn't aged as well as I expected it to. But it was pretty revolutionary for its time and was certainly an important stepping stone between the other more episodic Star Trek shows and the more tightly woven story arcs that we're used to today.
Sort of. It built on shows like Hill Street Blues, which basically initiated the concept of TV shows having a "memory" - that what happened last week isn't forgotten forever and is recalled / built on in future episodes. But yes, DS9 took Trek in a different direction so far as ongoing storylines were concerned. (Pity Voyager's producers were stuck with UPN and its ridiculous insistence on no arcs / no ongoing plotlines. But that's another matter.)

I'll see your Blade Runner and raise you a 2001: A Spacy Odyssey.
Each to their own. ;) I reckon 2001 is a masterpiece, but I do get why people don't care for it.

I thought he had a decent regeneration episode though. I didn't much care for his victory lap where he revisited all of his old companions. But I'll gladly take "The End of Time" over "Time of the Doctor" or "Twice upon a Time."
All the wangsty "I don't want to gooooooooooo!!!!1111!!" crap drove me over the edge where that episode was concerned. I struggled to watch it as it was; that just capped it off.

I think that Smith & Capaldi both, in their own ways, capture the essence of the classic Doctors. Capaldi is certainly older, like most of the classic Doctors were. He's also very prickly in a William Hartnell/Colin Baker sort of way. And he moves with a sort of straight-backed swagger that reminds me of Jon Pertwee. Meanwhile, Matt Smith's funny-little-man-with-a-bowtie schtick takes a lot of inspiration from Patrick Troughton. And while Smith was younger than any of the classic Doctors, he played it with a very old soul. I never doubted for a second that he was a 900-year-old man who just never grew up. Certainly they both felt more authentically like classic Doctors than the dashing cosplay boyfriends of Tennant & Eccleston.
I mostly agree with this, particularly the bit I emphasised. I didn't really get into Capaldi's era - I plan to revisit it, though, because he certainly "got" the character and nailed various aspects of it. And Smith's Doctor was convincingly alien in a way none of the other new Who Doctors was. I didn't mind Eccleston, though.

So long as we're mentioning Doctors, my unpopular opinion is that Colin Baker is way better than Peter Davison and, if it weren't for the hideous costume, everyone would agree.
I liked Davison and also liked Baker as the Doctor, but I tuned out of most of his era - only because the writing in the C Baker era was probably the worst in the entirety of classic Who. If he'd had even remotely decent material to work with he'd be far more popular, IMO.


While on the subject of Who and unpopular opinions... I'm not a fan of Tom Baker's Doctor - certainly not toward the end of his tenure, anyway. Some of my favourite - and IMO the best - serials in all Who are from his era, but I found him unwatchable toward the end of his run. And I absolutely detest Jack Harkness.
 
Agreed on nearly all of these. I prefer Brosnan's movies over Moore's. And it's hard for me to choose Moore's worst film, since The Man with the Golden Gun is so dull and Moonraker, Octopussy, & A View to a Kill are all pretty silly in places. But For Your Eyes Only is definitely in the running and certainly has one of the worst pre-credit sequences in the whole franchise.
Pierce Brosnan is my favorite Bond, and Goldeneye is my favorite Bond movie. Tomorrow Never Dies is good too, but I don't really remember The World is Not Enough or Die Another Day.
I enjoy Daniel Craig and his movies too, but they're so different from the others that I consider them their own thing.


Also, any credit that he gets for the franchise should rightfully be shared by writers like Gene Coon & D.C. Fontana. Not to mention that it was really Harve Bennett & Nicholas Meyer that gave it the longevity that it needed in the 1980s to grow into the sprawling franchise that it is now.
I've come to the conclusion that I love Star Trek as much as I do in spite of Gene Rodenberry, not because of him. The more I learn about him the more I've become convinced that Star Trek only worked because of the other people he brought on to work on the show, like Coon and Fontana, rather than because of Rodenberry himself.

Agreed. I can't be too mad at David Tennant because he's been such a great ambassador for the series after he left. And he was occasionally capable of truly great performances, like in "Midnight." But at his worst he could get under my skin faster than any other Doctor (except for possibly Sylvester McCoy).

I thought he had a decent regeneration episode though. I didn't much care for his victory lap where he revisited all of his old companions. But I'll gladly take "The End of Time" over "Time of the Doctor" or "Twice upon a Time."



I think that Smith & Capaldi both, in their own ways, capture the essence of the classic Doctors. Capaldi is certainly older, like most of the classic Doctors were. He's also very prickly in a William Hartnell/Colin Baker sort of way. And he moves with a sort of straight-backed swagger that reminds me of Jon Pertwee. Meanwhile, Matt Smith's funny-little-man-with-a-bowtie schtick takes a lot of inspiration from Patrick Troughton. And while Smith was younger than any of the classic Doctors, he played it with a very old soul. I never doubted for a second that he was a 900-year-old man who just never grew up. Certainly they both felt more authentically like classic Doctors than the dashing cosplay boyfriends of Tennant & Eccleston.
I loved both Tennant & Smith.

Also, is anyone else getting really sick of Christopher Nolan and how self-satisfied he seems to be whenever he makes an expensive sci-fi epic that doesn't make any sense? My relationship with him can be summed up by paraphrasing that one scene from Batman Begins:
ME AFTER WATCHING A NOLAN MOVIE: "Am I meant to understand any of that?
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: "Not at all. I just wanted you to know how hard it was."
I've never had a problem understanding any of his movies I've seen, but I did lose a lot of respect for him when he insisted Tenet had to be released in theaters in the midst of a massive, once in a century pandemic.
 
I think Mission to Mars is a pretty entertaining little sci fi movie.

The LotR / Hobbit stuff is worse for me than watching paint dry at an insurance seminar.

2010 is a worthy sequel to 2001 (as “worthy” as a sequel could be I guess)

I don’t hate any of the Alien follow-ups. In fact I love them all. Even Alien 3.

Crystal Skull is way better than Temple of Doom. It’s not even close.

Mass Effect 3 was awesome.

The late-1980’s War of the Worlds series was fun and entertaining

I like the BSG reboot, but I like the original better.

The mid-80s Twilight Zone revival was really good, and certainly better than the recent revival on CBSAA.

Tron Legacy is a really fun film and underrated

I’ve never watched Dr. Who. And that’s not going to change.
 
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Do you have something specific against Doctor Who, or are you just not interested?
 
I found all that manic, totally-over-the-top, I'm-a-Who-fan-living-my-fantasy-OMG!!!!11111!!! over-acting and mugging incredibly irritating. I didn't care for the adolescent simpering over Rose, either - an aspect of his version of the character and the writing for that version that left me absolutely cold. His exit was probably the worst of the lot, too.

Each to their own but I got to a point where I couldn't watch the show because of his presence.
I see. I thought Tennant was OK early on, but his run was tainted by the entire Rose subplots. She was the worst kind of selfish, whining hanger-on character.

Between glamorizing Inara's prostitution work and so much of the very premise of Dollhouse being high concept prostitution, I think those were some early red flags re: Joss Whedon.

Interesting point--and yes, added to the rest of Whedon's personal life portfolio of despicable acts, his use of hookers in two productions makes sense.

I'd love to see just a straight-up Batman movie with Affleck, Leto, Irons, & Simmons. Nothing too fancy. Just a really solid, by-the-numbers Batman movie with that excellent cast.

That has the potential to be amazing.


Sort of. It built on shows like Hill Street Blues, which basically initiated the concept of TV shows having a "memory"

Actually, series such as Naked City (ABC,1958-63) and The Fugitive (ABC, 1963-67) had an established universe with continuity of characters and events. It was not always perfect, but it was present on those shows.

And I absolutely detest Jack Harkness.

Agreed; the showrunners playing up his being self-aware of his over-the-top behavior, etc.,made him an irritant anytime he was on screen. Pointless character.

Pierce Brosnan is my favorite Bond

Please seek help. ;)

Brosnan was as interesting a Bond as a wood plank discarded in a parking lot.
 
The Motion Picture is actually quite good and the most Star Trek film out of them all.

Picard and Sisko are better Captains and characters than Kirk.

A New Hope is vastly overrated because George Lucas isn't that good a director.

Blade Runner is an awful film.

Indiana Jones films have aged terribly and the first two are basically unwatchable.

Matrix 2 & 3 are good films.

I thought "Save Martha" was a great line that tied Superman and Batman together

The line is criminally misunderstood and Snyder should take some of the blame there for rushing that scene IMO. That line humanised Clark in the eyes of Bruce because of his love towards his Human Mother. Bruce was forced to confront his own Demon's and how his rage had consumed him.
 
I also believe that Clark knew who Batman was and his mother's name--it was a calculated bet, not some line that he shouted without thinking.
 
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