The child and I have been casually watching the latest season of Power Rangers, in the hopes that the show will get super-awesome in time for the adaptation of the epic Gokaiger season in coming months. Sadly, even at nine years old, she finds the American version to be a little too childish for her, and worries about whether am American Gokai Silver can ever be as cute as her crush, Ikari Gai. At my advanced age, I’m pretty well-insulated against the empty feeling that comes when something you love gets altered into something merely mediocre, but the Widget hasn’t got nearly as much experience with the likes of Liefeld’s ‘Hawk & Dove’ or Solson Comics ‘T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.’ Still, eventually something will break her heart the way the movie version of ‘The Mist’ did mine, at which point I’ll tell her about the time they announced a sequel to ‘Watchmen’ and it was mostly awkward and sad, which in turn begs a query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is still hopeful that things could work out and the Gokaiger/Super Megaforce adaptation could be excellent, but is afraid it may never be as good as the original, asking: What thing that you’ve looked forward to in pop culture ended up being the most disappointing?
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“The Phantom Menace.” It is the Alpha and Omega of things that I wanted more than anything and then completely mashed my future ability to ever look forward to anything again.
On a similar note, I remember in college my friends & I (all of us being dirt poor & them being snots about reading subtitles) were all really excited when it was announced that the 3rd & 4th seasons of Sailor Moon were being dubbed into English for Toonami. Then came the resulting mess with bad recasts, varied names/attacks/terms that changed from one episode to the next, and of course the COUSINS… After that, they weren’t quite as hostile to subtitles anymore (still an uphill battle, though).
For a non-dubbing example, there was Geoff Johns’ run on Teen Titans. He wasn’t quite as bad as he’s become, and he seemed to really enjoy the franchise, but that run was really the start of his downhill turn. It wasn’t necessarily bad, it was just dull for no reason & its “twists” all felt like trying too hard to be shocking. Oh, well, at least he restored the Morrison Doom Patrol to continuity for a hot minute so I could bask in its crazy legacy in that short-lived title.
The 1998 USA Godzilla movie…nuff said
While I still don’t care for the movie, the Japanese movie “Godzilla: Final Wars” managed to make it to where the movie no longer disgusts me quite as much by retconning the movie creature as simply having been mistaken for Godzilla. There was an awesome fight between the true Godzilla and the new one (now known as Zilla) that lasted less than 15 seconds, with the real Godzilla the victor (as it should be).
The Phantom Menace undoubtedly takes top prize. Terribly high expectations, say hello the depths of failure.
In my mind Attack of the Clones was second — not because my expectations were high, but because I wanted so badly for George to prove that Episode I was a fluke. Alas, he did not.
Aliens:Colonial Marines. I was really high on this game and them after beating it, it was a pretty big disappointment. Aside from that I would have to say the 3D movie fad, 90% of the movies that are coming out in 3D nowadays have been poorly done and unless it is being done correctly it really needs to stop. Avatar and Gravity have been done wonderfully but pretty much anything else has been done pretty poorly.
Man of Steel, the third trailer really looked promising, and all I got was misguided direction left-and-right.
I’m disappointed that Power Rangers Super Megaforce is using the Legend War as the END of the series rather than the lead-in as it was in Gokaiger. I’m also confused why they didn’t take advantage of the ideas from Gokaiger to throw in cameos across the season rather than just having about a dozen legends return for the Legend War (while technically it will feature almost all the past rangers, only about a dozen past cast members will actually appear with the rest being suit actors).
Although I guess I’m not THAT disappointed because I didn’t really have that high of expectations from Saban.
Highlander: The Source definitely left me disappointed. Considering it featured characters from the TV series and I had enjoyed Highlander: Endgame, I had expected something better than what the end result was.
But I think most of all I have to say the live action Green Lantern movie. It was a fun movie and I do enjoy watching it, but as a big GL fan I felt the movie was off and missed a chance to be something truly amazing.
I was super excited to get an iPad so I could play Marvel’s War of Heroes. It took months to save up the cash to get the iPad I wanted and WoH was my first download. Come to find out that the game isn’t that interactive and it’s pretty confusing. I was pretty disappointed and don’t play nearly as often as some other games. I’m hoping that the X-Men Battle of the Atom game coming out this December will be better.
Marvel: Avengers Alliance is decent on iOS if you get past the initial learning curve – though it’s a bit harder on iOS than facebook getting the resources you need to advance without paying.
The Dark Knight Rises
Iron Man 3
Man of Steel
Avengers vs X-Men
Age of Ultron
Fear Itself
The New 52
I think Star Wars. And not even the Phantom Menace. As downright dorky as Phantom Menace was, there was still the shine of potential on it. Could you imagine every Jedi battle being as epic as Obi-Won and Qui-Gon vs. Darth Maul? But several years later, I remember watching Jedis charging battle droids like a freakin’ low-rent Braveheart with glow sticks and the Clone Troopers actually being bigger bad-asses than the Jedi.
So yeah . . . definitely the prequels.
Spore. Such potential, totally wasted. A game a million miles wide, and three inches deep. I know it is one of Rodrigo’s favourite games, but I can’t help but be so, so sad at its missed potential
@pearce
I agree. On the surface, it had so much potential, but it was overly simplistic.
Lego Batman 2
I loved playing the Lego games with the wife, AND I love super heroes – so this should have been a slam dunk….
The introduction of the Open World style maps was a huge negative – the story mode was significantly shorter than average
I’m even hesitant to buy Lego Marvel now (and I’m significantly more Marvel than DC)
Marvel’s Agents of Shield. I’m really sad to say that Arrow seems to have better acting, better action scenes, actually uses the canon (albeit wrongly at times), and doesn’t force a bunch of drama into an action show.
Batman & Robin the 90’s movie.
I wished to get that 2hrs. back, but the movie theater only offered me my money.
I had to sit through it 5 times. Various friends took me to the movies that year and despite my pleading for us to see something else, they insisted we see it because I like superheroes.
On the plus side, those friends never questioned my movie choices again.