Entertainment recommendations that you regret following

[Casual Shinji]

I don't think any of it is supposed to be comfortably anyways. Its about a mother trying and failing to bond with her sociopathic murderous son.

Well that's what I meant. Those scenes had a realism to them, where there's obviously something off about this boy, but the mother isn't handling the situation very well either, and it made them unnerving. It gave a realistic depiction of a mother completely failing to bond with her child, and whether or not this is what has actually warped the child.

With Ezra Miller's acting though it's like I was watching a typical Hollywood serial killer. The scene with him eating the pickled onion after he shot his sister in the eye with an arrow might as well have been from a Bond movie.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Hobo With a Shotgun.

Now if that's not bordering on torture porn, I don't know what is.
Doesn't help that I found things too stupid to even be remotely affected by it, considering it didn't bother to be anatomically correct.

Still, it is not the kind of stuff I would watch again.

Then there is Sin City: A Dame to Kill For about which I guess I had once read a good(-ish) review, but oh damn was that a crock of shit. No regrets though, Eva Green goes topless in it (once again).

I'm not afraid to admit that I like A Dame To Kill For. But some scenes are really obvious greenscreened, and there's also the fact that the Gambler storyline (forgot the guy who played the role) was unnescecary.

 

[mrdude2010]

Someone wholeheartedly recommended Sorcerer's Apprentice to me, and I figured that, at worst, I'd get a few laughs out of Nic Cage.


I did not. This is when I started extensively vetting entertainment recommendations.

 

[Godhead]

The Second Hobbit movie, also Independence Day.

 

[Zhukov]

People kept telling me that the Honor Harrington books were good. So I read the first two.

Turns out they were not good at all.

Nerd-bait garbage with a great throbbing military fetish.

 

[KissingSunlight]

I had a friend insisted that these movies were great that she loaned them to me. They were Transformers and Borat. I hated them both. At least, I didn't pay anything to see that my instinct about movies were correct.

Something that I heard everyone praise that sucked. Titanic still tops my list as the worst movie of all time. Grand Theft Auto series is unplayable to me. There isn't one aspect of gameplay that isn't more than mediocre. How can you call yourself a "sandbox game" if you don't let the player approach the game they way they want to? Oh right! There is a storyline that you have to follow.

For the most part, I am good at sorting through the hype and see what will appeal to me or not.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

So I'm gonna be that guy: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I followed this from announcement to release and every instinct I had was saying "You're gonna hate this movie and think it's garbage" but not wanting to condemn from ignorance and taking my friend's advice that was actually pretty good I took the plunge.

Aside from (happily) eating crow over Gal Gadot's role as Wonder Woman, I felt the movie was as big a train wreck as I was expecting, it not bigger.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Forgot about Fate/Zero, perhaps my defining example of a piece of non-interactive media feeling like a video game, and adding to it a whole heap of action anime cliches that I hate. Completely incomprehensible, utterly bizarrely written, no relatable characters, but good animation though.

 

[Signa]

I remember everyone telling me to watch the newer Battlestar Galactica show. Once I finally did, it was the worst show ever. I sat through the whole thing, because I was watching it on lunch breaks. The story started with a good premise, but once it started to explore itself, the story literally devolved into being about God telling a bunch of robots to kill all of humanity so that they could chase the remains of them to a distant planet where they could fuck space apes and build a better future. A future that is just about to repeat itself 10,000 years later as robots become a thing again in modern day civilization.

 

[Superlative]

Final Fantasy 7.

Now now, put the pitchforks and torches down. The story is fine, combat is fine, but I picked it up on steam in 2014 and that game aged like milk. Movement was damn near impossible because the (at the time) lovingly rendered fixed backgrounds are indistinguishable from interactable objects. many maps did that diagonal=straight bs, a personal pet peeve, and they forced you to use their clunky as all hell movement controls for real time puzzles. They say its worth it for when you get out of generic magi-punk city, but I'm not willing to waste the time.

I brought Suikoden II twice, why play a game that fights me tooth and nail when I have nigh perfection two ways at my fingertips.

A friend of mine coerced me into watching RWBY, and still tries to talk to me about it like I didn't think it was an empty-headed action series with mediocre writing and awkward animation. Granted I don't have the heart to tell her that I think it's overrated garbage.

There are others, but RWBY stands out particularly.

I do not understand why RWBY has such an obsessive fanbase and I actually like it.

I agree. Its a good shonen but...yeah, its just shonen. I guess people are just ecstatic that there is an anime willing the play around with the tropes a little. that, and most of the characters are wifu/husbando material.

 

[Signa]

My brother recommended I watch Avatar: The Last Airbender show because he thought I'd love it. And I watched a few episodes and I felt like Cartman talking about Family Guy; personally insulted someone thought I'd enjoy it.

Do you not normally like animation or "kids" cartoons? I find it incredibly hard to believe that someone with a Zootopia avatar wouldn't like The Last Airbender. They hardly are the same thing, but what I know of Zootopia, it's a kids movie with mature themes for the adults. Avatar is the same that way, though it doesn't start out expressing that well. By the end of the first season, it stops feeling like a Nicktoon show and a lot closer to an epic adventure like a Tolkien book.

I'd compare Avatar to Gravity Falls or Adventure time, but better. They are all shows that attract all ages of viewers. If you've seen those shows and didn't like them too, then I'd understand. But everyone I've shown it to loved it and basically binged the whole thing.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Read the script for Sausage Party....

A good 2/3 of a movie, with a really terrible last 3rd. Nothing gets resolved in any satisfactory way.

 

[Shock and Awe]

Legend of Korra, post first season, I continued watching despite how bad it was and seriously feel like it destroyed every thing I liked about the original Avatar, canon defilement in it's fullest.

Whaaat? Thats a but surprising. Yes the second season was generally regarded as poor, but the third and fourth seasons were very well received, particularly the latter. May I ask why?

OT: Game of Thrones because it consumed my life.

 

[Ironman126]

Easily 90% of the anime I've been recommended. I've basically stopped bothering with it. My experience has been "Cool premise - aaaaannnnnd it's nonsensical Japanese tropes." Probably culture shock, but I can't get into it.

Also all fantasy literature I'm recommended that prioritizes descriptive text. If I wanted to know how the forest/street/crypt is, I'd visit the mountains/a back alley/Chernobyl. Don't mistake me, though, descriptive text is a good thing when it's limited to a paragraph or two. But when it's 30 pages of it, you need to stop and get to the damn story!

And finally Pillars of Eternity. What potential that game had. If only the UI were as superb as the potential. As it is, the game is effectively unplayable. Again, I'm no slouch. I play tabletop D&D, for Christ's sake. But that game needs to be turn based and the UI designers need to be flogged until they understand how action bars are supposed to work. I wanted to like Pillars of Eternity, but in the end, the UI killed the game, buried the corpse, dug it up, re-animated it, and killed it again.

 

[Hawki]

Malazan Book of the Fallen. I read the first two books (well the second had like a 100 pages left and I did skim through the final chapter) after having seen glowing recommendations for it on this very site, and left almost angrily disappointed. it wasn't exactly badly written, but incredibly self-indulgent, confusing bordering on incomprehensible, horrendously bloated with little in the way of relatable or interesting characters, and had some of the worst handling of dramatic potential I've ever seen. In retrospect, it felt like reading a story the author had planned to the most minute detail in their head, but didn't know how to write it in a clean, comprehensibe way, almost as if it were meant for a different medium. For most of the first book I was just scratching my head wondering what was supposed to be going on, and while the second was better, it started to peter out 2/3 through, and I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Not a series I could honestly recommend to anyone.

This. Replace "first two books" with "the first book", cut out "this site" with "other site" and...yep, pretty much.

What really gets to me is that the first book has an author's note that basically states that "there's people who like these books, and people who are stupid to get them." No, Mr Erickson, I don't "get" your book, because you make no effort to explain what the hell is going on, and act like all these terms you throw around are meant to mean something.

Now, concerning other stuff off the top of my head:

-Brute Force (The Xbox's "sleeper hit" my arse...)

-Fallout 3 (The only Fallout game I played, and one of the last games I bought based on hype. And...I really don't think it's a bad game, but it's just not one that appeals to me for a variety of reasons.)

-Diablo II (Played this game out of a sense of obligation so I could play the two prior Diablo games prior to starting D3. As heretical as this may sound, it's easily my least favorite Diablo game.)

-Almost every single MCU movie ever (How are these movies the gold standard in their genre? How? HOOOOW?!)

-The Expanse (first novel was okay, but they've gone down in quality with every installment, so that by the end of book 4, I had (and have) given up on the series. No idea how this got the fanbase it did, or warranted a TV series adaptation)

-Tomorrow series (No, I don't like these books, and I don't care that everyone else in this bloody country does either. Granted, that's only the first book, but I have no desire to read more of them)

-2001: A Space Odyssey (Absolutely adore the novel. The film? Not so much. I feel it's a film that people should see for a variety of reasons, but no, I don't like it despite that. Quite like the film 2010 though.)

 

[FPLOON]

I hate to say this... but the rumored Captain Underpants movie... I can't even...

Other than that, almost everything involving FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood... Fuck your shonen-ass [happy] ending!

 

[RedDeadFred]

Malazan is definitely a tough series. There's almost no exposition. You're just thrown into the midst of things and expected to get it. I'm glad I didn't give up because it has ended up being one of the best series I've ever read, but I can see why people would take issue with a lot of things in it.

OT: Wheel of Time. I made it through 5 of the books before stopping. The first one showed such promise to me that I decided to stick it out for quite a while despite not really enjoying it. Seeing how many books the series ended up getting, I'm glad I stopped when I did.

Most other things entertainment things that I'd regret spending time with aren't really worth mentioning since none of them involved a serious time investment (unlike the months I spend on the Wheel of Time).

 

[Jute88]

Bleach-manga. The story had potential but after the reveal of the BIG BAD, it went downhill. Hell, for over a year, maybe even longer, Kubo just drew action scenes after another. I finally gave up when the new villain with god powers was revealed.

The Dreamers book series by David and Leigh Eddings. It basically tells how a group of gods and humans try to stop a zerg-like monster from conquering the world. The problem? They don't know how to write a scene with any tension. Not even once was I worried about the villains possibly gaining some sort victory.
Book 1 - the zergs try to invade west. They are stopped.
Book 2 - the zergs try to invade south. They are stopped
Book 3 - the zergs try to invade north. They are stopped.
Book 4 - the zergs try to invade east. They are stopped.
Also, in the last book the gods realize they are gods and travel in time to have a happier ending. The end. What a load of....

The Lego movie. After hearing just good things about it, I finally watched it and was utterly confused. What was so good about that movie? The first 15 minutes of it were just awful. I liked the ending where it went somewhat meta, but that didn't save the movie.

Zootopia. Again, maybe the hype just ruined it from me. I just saw an okay movie with a gazelle-Shakira shaking her ass. Oh well, better that than nothing.

Legend of Korra. I liked it (at times), but it didn't live up to its predecessor. Problems?
Book 1 - The bad guy was a hypocrite and Korra didn't learn anything in the end.
Book 2 - the bad guy was boring (Unalaqq) and confusing (vaatu) and Korra was an idiot. Wan was cool, though.
Book 3 - good bad guys (for once). But they ate Bosco!
Book 4 - giant mecha seemed dumb and vulnerable Korra was boring. Also, last second romance came from nowhere.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Game of Thrones - I don't actually have any real problem with GoT (besides the weird obsession everyone has with it), it just... isn't for me. Tried getting into the books and show, stopped reading the books halfway through two and made it through half of the first TV season.

Half Life - I didn't like the characters, the story didn't make sense and honestly, the weapons felt pretty... weak. None of 'em had any meat to 'em, which led to a really disconnected experience. Even the much beloved Gravity Gun and Crowbar just felt... meh. Never ended up finishing Half-Life 2 either, which is apparently sacrilege to everyone who still prays to the altar of Gaben.

Team Fortress 2 - WHY DOESN'T ANYONE HELP THE MEDIC. WHY. MOTHERFUCKERS.

'Looking For Group', the Webcomic - It started... you know, thinking on it, it didn't even start good. I got recommended it like, in Highschool, followed it for ages and only dropped it like, a year ago after realizing 'Hang on, this is fucking garbage'. The jokes were cheap, the characters sucked save a couple who barely got any focus so the 'Warlock trying to be Deadpool' could do something stupid, and the story was nonsensical. It just... wow, I need to go back in time and teach myself good taste, what the fuck'. Then again, younger me thought the Amazing Atheist and Sargon were good people to listen to as well, sooo...

The Dreamers book series by David and Leigh Eddings. It basically tells how a group of gods and humans try to stop a zerg-like monster from conquering the world. The problem? They don't know how to write a scene with any tension. Not even once was I worried about the villains possibly gaining some sort victory.
Book 1 - the zergs try to invade west. They are stopped.
Book 2 - the zergs try to invade south. They are stopped
Book 3 - the zergs try to invade north. They are stopped.
Book 4 - the zergs try to invade east. They are stopped.
Also, in the last book the gods realize they are gods and travel in time to have a happier ending. The end. What a load of....

I love David Eddings, buuuut... yeah, they were not his strongest books. I remember reading the first one, going 'huh, that was... alright', then reading the second one and going 'uhhhh... did you guys just Crtl+C, Ctrl+V?'. And that final ending, god damn. Granted it's theorized the last book ended in such a... weird way since Leigh died sometime during the writing of the series, but... still, jesus. An ending where everything that's happened is literally retconned just so some moody archer guy can have a happy ending is a... pretty shitty ending, regardless of the circumstances leading to it.

Whenever people ask for recommendations for his work, I kinda just skip over the Dreamers now. 'Stick to Sparhawk and maybe The Belgariad and their sequels, that's it'.