What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomach?

[Admiral2]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Everyone who posts here is united by their love of Star Trek.

That said, the board is populated by people who also enjoy other programs. Our interest in other genre productions is clearly fragmented, so my question to YOU is:

What SciFi or Fantasy productions do you actively dislike?

Your selections don't have to be films or TV. If you hate the Honor Harrington series of books or you can't stand the Blue Beetle, that's fine too.

Personally, I fucking HATE Firefly. What a pile of poorly written tripe. I was forced by my GF to watch much of the show, and I hated nearly every minute. Serenity was quite possibly the worst film I've ever sat though.

I realize that my above comments will anger some, but I ask that you redirect your rage to YOUR least favourite SciFi or Fantasy film, show, book, comic etc.

I agree wholeheartedly on Firefly/Serenity.

I would pay real money to see Heroes and Smallville go down in flames. The first is just derivative, pandering nonsense, and I'm not in the mood to watch "The Emo life of Young Clark Kent!" It's time for the brat to man up, put on the tights and get it over with.

Lost is horseshit.

Death Note is horseshit.

I am still waiting for someone to explain the appeal of Farscape to me.

And I'm not one to go around typing "You raped my childhood" to people who reboot my favorite stuff, but:

Creators of the new "Knight Rider": YOU RAPED MY CHILDHOOD!!!!

Ahhh...

I like this thread. I got a lot off my chest.

 

[Brennyren]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

A big "thumbs down" to the Star Wars prequels. The original trilogy had its share of hokiness, but it had heart, and it had engaging heroes one could enjoy rooting for. The PT was all about the spectacular effects. The heroes were alternately short-sighted or annoying, except for Anakin, who was both. When he succumbed to the Dark Side, I couldn't even bring myself to care.

Another series that makes the giant sucking sound for me is the Dune books. Don't get me wrong; I loved the original novel, but I wish things would have ended there. Every book seemed more impenetrable and depressing. And Herbert's women -- gah! The only one who wasn't a manipulator was Chani, and she ended up as a total victim. In the second trilogy we had the Evil Manipulative Bitches versus the Good Manipulative Bitches. Lovely.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Thanks for reminding me about Dune. Never got the appeal, not even the original book, which I got halfway thru before finally giving up in sheer boredom. I guess it was the absurdly stiff characters reciting absurdly stiff lines over and over that finally made me lose interest. The frakkin' Harkonnens were the only ones with any life to them.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Stargate, bloody Stargate.

 

[stonester1]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Honor Harrington. First book good, solid military science fiction, very well depicted space battles, interesting setting. With subsequent books, the battles become repetitive, the universe begins losing some of it's nuances, and Honor, dear Honor...

...can do no wrong, Weber begins Mary Sueing her up. Always wins, even in battles she should never win. This happens a few times, it's gripping, dramatic and character revealing. It happens too much, and it loses it's believability, so preposterous explanations begin coming up. She's from a higher G planet, ok. She's from a wealthy family, great. She's...a product of genetic tampering...wtf? Where did that come from?

And all those around her, the good guys all adore her, and those few who don't, or disagree with her, are always inevitably proven wrong for disagreeing with St. Honor. The evil characters are nearly always craven, cowardly, vile, very few redeeming characteristics, and they all despise Honor on sight.

Over time, this all gets very tedious. About book five is where I bailed.

 

[Gepard]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Thanks for reminding me about Dune. Never got the appeal, not even the original book, which I got halfway thru before finally giving up in sheer boredom. I guess it was the absurdly stiff characters reciting absurdly stiff lines over and over that finally made me lose interest. The frakkin' Harkonnens were the only ones with any life to them.

Agreed. Boring as sin, and amateurishly written to boot. The world building was dazzling, but not enough to compensate for all the other flaws.

 

[Spider]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Lost, Hercules, Zena, Buffy are some of the shows I simply can't watch.

But then the older I get, the more I can't stand anything on TV anymore. I tend to watch old movies and TV series now because the new stuff being made today is unwatchable to me.

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Probably two movie franchises come to mind for me ... Harry Potter and Pirates Of the Caribbean. Saw the first POTC - thought it was okay. The trailer to the second didn't do anything for me, and neither did the third.

 

[Warp Coil]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

I'm not sure if there's anything I actively dislike. I mean, if a show doesn't hold my interest or seems disappointing, I just stop watching and move on. In fact, there's TONS of shows that never really appealed to me, or that I just didn't think were good enough to keep watching. I'm not going to write hate mail over them, or anything.

Andromeda - I may have watched the first couple of episodes, but I just wasn't interested
Babylon 5 - I remember watching the pilot TV movie back in the day, and trying to like it, but just losing interest; never cared to go back and watch the series
Charmed - cute girls? yes. good stories? no
Hercules/Xena - just not my type of show
The Lord of the Rings - I saw all 3 films (on DVD, not in the theater) but I'm not in love with them the way many seem to be
Mutant X - cheesy X-Men ripoff
Sliders - meh
Star Trek: Voyager - could have been a great show. Too bad it wasn't.
Star Trek: Enterprise - actually started off strong IMO (and even improved later in the series) but got off-course and became lackluster like VOY
Star Wars - I've seen all of these, too, but I wouldn't call myself a fan
Stargate - People I know love this series, but I just can't take it seriously

 

[ialfan]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Pirates of the Caribbean. I tried to watch the second on in theaters and ended up falling asleep half an hour into it. When I woke up I left. It was the most boring movie I have EVER seen. The only thing remotely funny was the blatant racism with all the black people in the other rope ball falling to to their deaths while the main cast looks on. (yeah I am sure that's not exactly what happened but it's all that I remember from that awful movie and no I am not racist I just found the blatant racism funny.)

 

[the Dagman]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

I can't stand any of the Whedon shows (Buffy, Angel, Firefly), most everything that Steven Spielberg has had a hand in (excluding the Indiana Jones, Back To The Future and Men In Black series), the Stargates, Charmed, Lost and most likely a lot more that I cannot recall at the moment.

Star Trek Voyager very nearly made it to the list, as I actively dislike most of this series. It was such a wasted premise. The rarely used animosity between the Starfleet and Maquis crews, the excessive use of bad time travel early in the series, the recurring reset button, thinking that Kes was in any way interesting and thinking that replacing her with a DD bust line in a catsuit was any better, excessive focus on the holodoc, Neelix and the DD catsuit, and the neutering of the Borg were all major faults. But I actually liked Tom Paris and his story arc he had through the seven year run. And Harry Kim wasn't totally awful. So I can actually stomach watching the show.

 

[Lindley]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Common protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, I think some of you just don't like character-centric shows.

 

[stj]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

The appeal of Farscape is the same as Texas hold'em---watching someone go all in. As in, if you can't really have aliens, you don't stick an applique on someone's face---you make a really wild-looking Space Muppet Alien. If you can't write a sensible plot, you write a shamelessly preposterous story. And so on, and so forth. Way too many SF shows are deeply stupid, but they are usually like Fringe, timid and dull.

 

[Harvey]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

The appeal of Farscape is the same as Texas hold'em---watching someone go all in. As in, if you can't really have aliens, you don't stick an applique on someone's face---you make a really wild-looking Space Muppet Alien. If you can't write a sensible plot, you write a shamelessly preposterous story. And so on, and so forth. Way too many SF shows are deeply stupid, but they are usually like Fringe, timid and dull.

As someone who loves Farscape...that's pretty much why.

 

[Pilot Ace]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

The appeal of Farscape is the same as Texas hold'em---watching someone go all in. As in, if you can't really have aliens, you don't stick an applique on someone's face---you make a really wild-looking Space Muppet Alien. If you can't write a sensible plot, you write a shamelessly preposterous story. And so on, and so forth. Way too many SF shows are deeply stupid, but they are usually like Fringe, timid and dull.

That's a really interesting way of putting it. Nicely done.

 

[stonester1]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Thing is, even the "shamelessly preposterous" stories are usually very compelling and well written, gripping and/or FUN.

Farscape ROCKS.

 

[Lindley]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Farscape is pretty good. Just a bit overhyped, but fun for the most part. Season 3 is the only year I'd classify as "great".

 

[stonester1]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

It is to me, up there with Galactica and Bab 5!

 

[Ghel]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

Battlestar Galactica--Although this will be an unpopular opinion, I find the show to be too slow and too hand-wringing.

Smallville--How much super-villany can a bunch of teenagers in a one-horse town plausably get away with?!?

 

[Kelthaz]

Re: What SciFi or Fanasty Series, Film or Franchise can you not stomac

I watched the first season of Farspace, and although I did enjoy it I never really got into it. I loved the absurdity of the show, but the characters were dull. The only characters I actually cared about were, oddly enough, the two puppets, Rygel and Pilot.