I might have to revisit this thread as more ideas come to mind; I can't say that all of these necessarily had fanfare but I was interested in them:
1. Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda: I had checked out the All Systems library or whatever before I saw the show and I thought the description of the alien races and technology, etc. were indications that this show was really going to be well thought out and good. Though it had flashes of potential, it was largely unfulfilled.
2. War of the Worlds: The FX were good, Cruise was good, but the story just didn't do it for me. It just ended so abruptly.
3. Quantum of Solace: I know, not sci-fi but it popped into my head. I really got into Casino Royale and I'm no the biggest Bond fan. But I just thought Quantum was such a let down. It didn't have the emotional core of CR and Bond just became a completely cold fish that lucked into things far too easily. Plus Mr. Green and the bowl cut guy were lame. And Olga didn't get naked like in Hitman, and Tim Oliphant is no James Bond.
4. The Phantom Menace: I waited my entire youth for this? Though I liked AOTC and ROTS better, I can never quite remove my distaste for TPM.
5. Threshold: Loved this cast, liked the concept, but the execution was lackluster and the show was just too vanilla. It needed to be grittier and darker, more paranoid like the best of the X-Files.
6. Event Horizon: Good cast, great production design, but I thought the story was lacking and the characters' actions made little sense. But I still love the design of that ship. For sci-fi horror I think the recent Pandorum did it much better.
7. Blade Trinity: Loved the first two films but man was this one a downer. It seemed to exist solely for David Goyer to do all the 'neat' scenes excised from the other two films. To some extent Wesley Snipes took a backseat to Reynolds and Biel. Reynolds, had no problem with, but Biel? Goyer didn't even show off her body. What's up with that? And Parker Posey had to be the lamest vampire pre-Twilight.
8. Flash Gordon: Can't say I really wanted to see this Sci-Fi show, but man did it blow.
9. Superman Returns: What can I say that hasn't been said before? Slavish devotion to the Donner films, poor casting (particularly Bosworth), and a lack of super feats made this a snore fest.
10. Alien V. Predator: I might sound like a sexist or perv now, but how can you have the delicious Sanaa Lathan in this film and not give her a Sigourney Alien scene? You know the one I'm talking about? From that to the bulky Predators, the PG-13 rating, and an annoying cast, it just pissed on a really cool idea.
11. Omen 3: Sam Neill was the perfect older Damien. One thing about those films that I liked was that the casting people really did a great job. With O3 you had a great selection and the potential to really do an intriguing story, but they didn't do much with what they had. The movie didn't lost that great impending sense of doom from what I can recall and it became boring.
12. Terminator Salvation: The FX were good, the casting decent, but McG took the heart out of the franchise. For the first time ever I didn't care about John Connor, and I even cared about him in the first film before he was even born. But these characters were written so poorly and acted so remotely that it sucked out much of the warmth and relatablity I wanted to have for them. I wish that McG had either had the guts to go with his original idea to off Connor, or just change the storyline to make it more about him than Marcus.
13. Transformers 1 & 2: These films are just wrong on so many levels, from the uneven characterization to Shia LeBeouf, to the forced humor, and the probably racially offensive caricatures, its like Bay unleashed with no one putting the breaks on him. I found the robots faces hard to make out and at times too different from their cartoon and toy incarnations (plus I think the Optimus mouth thing is just so dumb), the fight scenes hard to follow, and most of the writing and plotting atrocious, particularly in T2.
14. H2: I loved Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween, but the sequel blew. It suffered from his poor casting of Laurie who had to now carry the second film, his desire to shoehorn his wife into every film of his, and to some extent his desire to bring back Malcolm McDowell.
15. The Mummy 2 & 3: The sequels got burdened with poor FX (part 2) and bad miscasting and story (part 3).
16. Push: Started out with a good Firestarter opening but then it just evolved into Chris Evans taking multiple beatdowns for a girl I didn't find worth it and Dakota Fanning wearing a skirt that was way too short. The potential was there perhaps for a good TV show or comic book, but I don't think the film had enough umph.
17. Underworld 3: Totally unnecessary sequel, though I had been intrigued to find out how the war started, I was hoping that we would learn something new or more about some of the side characters than we did in the film.
