"Classics" that you were underwhelmed by.

[pyramid head grape]

Half-life 2 just boring.
Star wars 2 OK movies over 4 shit ones score board

 

[gazumped]

Subject is in the title but I got to say I watched blade runner and........

As soon as I saw the title of this thread I thought 'Blade Runner'. I'm glad I'm not alone.

I don't know if it's because I read 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' and loved the book so maybe I got thrown off by the difference in storyline or something... but it just seemed like any old weird 80s film that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

 

[TheKruzdawg]

For books, I LOATHED Great Expectations. I only finished the book because we had a test over it in high school. I disliked just about everything about it: the writing style, lengthy descriptions of everything, the characters. I was bored the whole time and reading it was a chore, and I normally love to read.

For games, it's Half-Life 2 for me right now. I feel about half way through playing it (I think. I'm on the highway section) and I'm pretty much only playing it to finish it and cross it off my list of games I wanted to play. I'm so confused about what's going on and I don't really care about any of the characters as most of them haven't been on screen long enough to give me a reason to care. I understand the graphics are dated, not an issue. Controls feel a little weird sometimes, but that could be b/c I'm used to other FPS setups. The load times are almost as bad as Oblivion (which says a lot). I'm just meh about it.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Austin Powers. All the good and most of the decent jokes have been spoiled a hundred times over by people who think repeating out of context movie jokes makes them funny by proxy, and the rest of the movie is mind-blowingly painful. I actually grimaced a couple of times.

 

[bawkbawkboo1]

Here's another one that I thought of, although it's just for me personally: Toy Story 1. I don't deny that it was a great technical achievement and that it directly caused the development of 3d computer animation, but I keep on hearing about how emotionally affected people were by it and it just didn't do that for me. I don't actively hate it or anything though. I actually like Finding Nemo more. I think Toy Story was mostly aimed at a specific generation that I came after, and most of the toys I grew up with were different from the ones from the movie, so maybe it's just that.

 

[Eggbert]

The entire Star Wars trilogy. Found the original dull and uninteresting, and the second two simply got worse.

Musically, I loathe the Beatles with a passion.

And for books, I think I'll go with Steven King's the Dark Tower series. I found the writing absolutely horrible and quit early.

 

[Comma-Kazie]

Movies: Tokyo Story. MAN that plot took a long time to unfold . . . ordinarily I'd blame it on ADD or being an American, but I expect SOME kind of plot to emerge before the 2-hour marker.

Games: Silent Hill 2. I think playing Amnesia right beforehand may have muddied the experience a bit; after running for my life for an entire game, being able to fight back (and James' cheesy voice-acting) struck me as melancholy.

 

[y1fella]

I walked in expecting a slow burn but talk about no burn. Instead of you know investigating and stuff he just roams around getting in arguments about philosophy with the replicant girl before very suddenly everyone starts very suddenly getting in gun fights. and then at the end it just ends. I mean the bad guy dies suddenly no kind of personal goal is achieved and the movies over.

What version did you watch, just out of interest? There are a few, and it really seems like a few different films.

Your opinion is yours, obviously, so I'm not gonna say you should've enjoyed the film, but there are some definite goals achieved by the 'bad guy' Roy Batty. When he saves Deckard, he shows empathy, the human characteristic that separates (only slightly) the humans from the replicants. In doing this, the character essentially becomes human, there is no definition of human given in the film that he doesn't now fulfill. And it's tough to think of one outside of the film too.

It does get very philosophical, perhaps why I like it so much, and maybe without an insight or care for that sort of thing, the movie may just pass you by.

OT:

Books: Not sure I've ever been let down on this front...nope can't think of anything.

Games: Deus-Ex, definately. Hadn't played it before, and recently bought it on steam, can't really see much good about it, and I've yet to get anywhere in it haha. Perhaps it hasn't aged well, or I don't have the patience to figure out what I'm doing.

Films: The Omega man. Not sure where I got the impression that it was a classic, but the book it's based on is good. The film though, is unbearably cheesy and at times ridiculous...kind of ruins the apocalyptic feel that it was going for.

I watched the directors cut.
And yeah I'm not that fond of Deux Ex myself.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Subject is in the title but I got to say I watched blade runner and........
It was either really boring or I'm really stupid. And I don't think I'm particularly stupid because I have read the entire wheel of time series thus far and you need allot of patience to keep reading book 10.
that aside I don't understand the whole stigma around the movie. I walked in expecting a slow burn but talk about no burn. Instead of you know investigating and stuff he just roams around getting in arguments about philosophy with the replicant girl before very suddenly everyone starts very suddenly getting in gun fights. and then at the end it just ends. I mean the bad guy dies suddenly no kind of personal goal is achieved and the movies over. I walked in with the highest expectations yeah but I still never once enjoyed, was intrigued, liked the characters or anything that would typically constitutes a good movie.
I'm not saying it's a bad movie so don't get angry but I seriously didn't get it.
anyway what classics were you less then fond of.

Which cut did you watch? Some of them are terrible and there are about a million at this point.

I'm going to go with Ethan Frome. I truly detest that book from the very depths of my black and twisted soul.

Movies: Tokyo Story. MAN that plot took a long time to unfold . . . ordinarily I'd blame it on ADD or being an American, but I expect SOME kind of plot to emerge before the 2-hour marker.

Ozu doesn't roll like that. like, not ever. Honestly, he wasn't too big on the whole "plot" thing in general. There's a structure, but the narrative progression isn't what's really important. Also, if you don't know what was going on in Japanese culture at the time in a pretty decent degree of detail the message is going to be completely lost on you, because that's kind of what it's about.

 

[Icaruss]

The Catcher in the Rye
Still don't get why so many people gush over it..The whole damned book is a whiney little pounce being well a whiney little pounce.Nothing is learned or done just the little bastard wandering about and whineing.

 

[Icaruss]

Oh and the orignal Dawn of the Dead was fucking awful.

 

[Skorpyo]

Mostly the Command & Conquer games. I'd always heard that they were good, but I just can't get into any of them.

 

[Fanta Grape]

Game: Half-life 2. But that was purely circumstantial, not the game's fault at all.

What was the circumstance?

I played it only a couple of years ago. It's a game that, by design, does not grow too well.

 

[badgersprite]

I've never liked Jane Austen that much. I also hate Yeats, but then I'm not the greatest appreciator of poetry in general - not to say that I hate all of it, of course, I'm just very nitpicky and particular about the poets, forms, styles and structures I like, and things I can't stand in poetry.

As far as things like movies, I can't really think of any. I'm usually a big fan of classic films, even if it's in kind of a cheesy way. Most movies I own are older than me, and some are older than my parents.

I'm also not the biggest fan of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. They've both done songs that I really like, but I just don't appreciate them on the level of people who consider them the two greatest bands of all time. But, then, I can think of plenty of music from great bands and great artists that I hate, so I'd be here all day if I listed every single musician considered by many to be one of the best that I personally don't like.

 

[LuckyClover95]

I liked the mood and atmosphere, but I could never shake the feeling that the film was just for teenage boys who wanted to smash things up and appear intelligent.

Also it underwhelmed me, I still like it. I still think the fight scenes were some of the most wince-enducing scenes ever.

Fair enough, I can accept that point of view.

To tell you the truth, I have no true idea why I love it so significantly... I think the speech that Pitt delivers about us being the middle children of society and never going to be millionaires really spoke to me though, and the overall existential feel to the movie.

It makes me uncomfortable when he talks about never being "the big movie guy" I mean, it's Brad Pitt. Irooooniiiic!
But yeah, I love that film.

 

[KingCrInuYasha]

Nevermind the *******s, Here's The Sex Pistols. (Don't know if *******s is allowed to be uncensored, BTW).

I don't know why this is considered a classic. I admit half the album is good last time I heard it ("Anarchy In The U.K.", "God Save The Queen", "Pretty Vacant", "Holidays In The Sun", "Submission", "Seventeen"), but the other half just don't do it for me. Were it not for its connections with the punk movement as well as the band's uncompromising stance, it would not receive the praise that it does.

 

[aarontg]

I got ocarina of time on virtual console for my wii. I was excited but a few hours into it I gave it a great big meh.

 

[Fidelias]

Well for books I read Great Expectations. Technically a classic. In my opinion it SHOULD BE BURNED!!! Just kidding, but I hated it because the main character was such an asshole. Seriously.

I also tried reading The Lord of the Rings Trilogy again last year and I just couldn't finish it. I mean, it's a good trilogy, but there is zero character developement. Even Aragorn, who would be the character who changed the most, acts exactly the same from when you first meet him up til he decides he's going to be king. And Legolas is a friggin wimp!

For games, I couldn't get into Half Life. Any of them. I mean, they're good games, but they don't seem ground-breaking in any sense of the word. But yeah, that's just my opinion. Must. Not. Start. Flamewar...

For movies, pretty much any classic horror film besides Alien. I just can't be scared whenever the story is something around the lines of...

"This man was killed gruesomely!!!! And now he haunts this house and tries to murder everyone in th creepiest way possible!!!! OOOOOOHHHHHH!!!"
"Um, but why? Why does he kill people if he was killed? You'd think this guy would try to SAVE people, not kill them."
"He just does, alright. Deal with it!"

Also, I just don't think it's that scary when the enemy is hunting these poor civilians that don't know how to hold a gun and make every stupid decision in the book.
That's why I liked stuff like Alien, or games like Stalker. The main character wasn't stupid. And they knew how to survive. Heck, everyone in Stalker wears body armor and carries assault rifles. And they still get massacred on a daily basis. Now that's scary, knowing that these people who could kill bandits, mercenaries, and other Stalkers; could be killed off so easily by the hazards of the Zone.