Stories that "Dropped the ball".

[Hochmeister]

Here's a rather controversial one: A Song of Ice and Fire. Started off great, but by the fourth book I just couldn't care about the series anymore. The plot threads and number of characters became far too convoluted and bloated, and most of the characters I cared about (for good or ill) were dead. The lack of a strong central focus as everyone increasingly went off into their own increasingly distant side quests just killed my enjoyment of the series. GRR Martin had some great ideas and did some excellent writing, but bigger is not necessarily better.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Here's a rather controversial one: A Song of Ice and Fire. Started off great, but by the fourth book I just couldn't care about the series anymore. The plot threads and number of characters became far too convoluted and bloated, and most of the characters I cared about (for good or ill) were dead. The lack of a strong central focus as everyone increasingly went off into their own increasingly distant side quests just killed my enjoyment of the series. GRR Martin had some great ideas and did some excellent writing, but bigger is not necessarily better.

Controversial but actually I somewhat agree, nice call. I still kinda enjoy the series but he's got a real issue with story bloat at the moment and just way, way too much going on simultaneously and jumping about all over the place. Frankly I found A Dance with Dragons to be an utter slog to get through. I actually took two weeks off half-way through to read another (rather shorter) book in-between in order to get over how fatigued I was feeling with it.

 

[Grottnikk]

Heroes. First season was great, but ... then the main villain, who had just been stabbed through the aorta with a katana, somehow gets whisked away right in front of half a dozen people by the remnants of a shadowy conspiratorial group instead of dying within seconds like he ought to have. The second season just fell to hell in a handbasket, starting with the first episode. Why did the guy who can allow objects to pass through him not use his power to avoid being shot by the guy he clearly saw coming to shoot him? Bah, it just kept getting worse, too.

Indigo Prophecy. Story was pretty cool until 75% of the way through. The world turns to shit and the story follows suit.

 

[Auron225]

The other is Soul Eater for a similar reason.

The entire show has focused heavily on team work. First between Meister and Weapon (The weapons are living beings who can transform into weapons in this series so it's like a partnership) and later with your entire team via a process called soul ressonance. (Which is just standard Anime power of friendship crap) No problem. Except you get to the end and every single team attack we can think of fails one girl (her gender isn't the important part) stands up decides she's done being afraid and beats the final hazard in one on one combat! You can't spend 50+ episodes telling me that Team Work makes the Dream Work and then have the finale be "I am the chosen one, alright?!"

A few months ago I would have agreed with you, but that was before I re-watched the series. I love it up to and including the penultimate episode, but the last one did disappoint me greatly. Having watched it a second time, it disappointed me far less as I'd realised what they'd actually been going for with it.

It wasn't that Maka was some chosen one who could win because destiny or anything like that. First bear in mind that a big theme in Soul Eater is madness/fear. Maka used everything she had in her arsenal (along with Soul, and the others in the attempt right before them) to bring Kishin down. None of it worked... in fact, none of it even came remotely close. When using all that stuff, she couldn't be sure it would be enough, and she feared it wouldn't be. Only upon seeing it all fail could she eventually stop being afraid, because she knew she had no chance. As it turns out, courage was the only thing needed to beat Kishin - courage to fight, even when to do so was considered a guaranteed failure. Courage to not even use a weapon, but instead just punch him in the face (hardly something anyone would have considered before) was enough to end him.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still not the biggest fan of it all, but I can at least sorta get now what they were intending with it. Some would argue in this instance, courage is almost synonymous with stupidity, so would being really f*cking dumb work to beat him too, but that debate (courage = stupidity) already existed.

The thing that still bugs me though is how they pulled that whole;

Spoiler

Maka is ALSO a weapon

bullsh*t within that fight. No foreshadowing, nor suggestion of it happening - it really felt like the writers just remembered that they were supposed to do that somewhere within the show and at the last minute had to shoehorn it in there. It added nothing.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Supernatural and Gantz. Supernatural had a good run for about 7 seasons, but it really fell apart (for me) by the end of season 8. I realized it was never going to change. It was always going to be the same characters fighting the same characters with the same means going through the same motions over and over again. Plus one episode towards the end of season 8 was so bad it kind of woke me up to the shittiness of the writing. I can't say it's continued on that path to be honest, I haven't watched anything post-season 8.

Gantz showed amazing promise for mean-spirited, edgy and dark satire, but totally fucked itself in the ass after around chapter 110. Stupidity, gratuitous sleaze, gore and angsty melodrama mix together like chicken soup and ice cream, and I still have a hard time believing I actually read the piece of crap all the way through.

 

[Shiftygiant]

We Stand on Guard drops the ball the moment you realize there is no reason it has to be set in the 2120's

 

[KayeFaye]

The movie "High Tension" by Alexandre Aja.

For the most part, the movie was solid. It wasn't anything groundbreaking, it was mostly just a really well made, intense horror-thriller that had you on edge and made you care about the main characters enough that you didn't want them to die and were genuinely rooting for them instead of the bad guy, so it largely avoided the biggest misstep most slasher movies made while still being satisfying for the gore hounds in the audience. The setup was pretty simple though: Alex and her best friend Marie are going to head over to Alex' parents house to study for their finals in college. Too bad a serial killer is out doing things that serial killers do, much to the chagrin of the large amount of living people in the vicinity.

But then there was the "Twist." The twist that ruined the WHOLE. DAMN. MOVIE.

Spoiler

The twist? Marie has been the killer all along, and is actually a Lez-bean with the hots for Alex which is why she had to kill everyone because everyone knows us lez-beans can't be with cute women cause all the cute women are straight. Oh, and she's also a witch who can BEND TIME AND SPACE. Sarcasm and cynicism aside, like the rest of the movie this twist isn't necessarily new but it lies ENTIRELY in the execution and there is NO WAY IN HELL MARIE COULD HAVE BEEN THE KILLER. Not unless she could be in two places at once and was killing before she even arrived at the place where the killings were happening. Some people have also complained that it makes no sense that Marie was strong enough to be the killer since she was killing heavy, fully grown men that probably had more fighting experience but I don't necessarily buy into that, I can agree that it'd be harder for her but there's no real reason to believe she's weak. But what I definitely don't believe is that she can hide behind a wall AND rip a book case off another wall at the same time, and I'm also pretty sure she can't murder someone while that someone getting murdered is looking at her and telling her to go call for help BY NAME while she runs off like a pansy; not to mention Alex ACKNOWLEDGES the killers presence multiple times while being right next to Marie.

Bleh. Might mention other examples later but that's the first one off the top of my head.

 

[Valkrex]

The Original Full Metal Alchemist Anime... its really good for a while until it completely lost me with just pure BULLSHIT. I'm not talking where it diverged from the Manga, cuz it still told an interesting story until the THING happened. No, my beef is with the Elrics, Dante, and the Portal. FUCK THAT NOISE.

Spoiler

So the main characters get knocked into the Portal towards the end of the show... and end up in our universe, in WWI London, and then pulls the whole "we're inhabiting the bodies of our alternate universe selves" thing. STUPID. This was one of the moments where I lost ALL good feelings towards the show, lost all suspension of dis-belief, and all I could think was "you have GOT to be kidding me." It was a twist that was just completely over the top and ridiculous and punched massive holes in the tone.

 

[ghalleon0915]

The Weis & Hickman "Prophet of the Rose" trilogy books fall on their face in the last 5 pages. It builds to a big closure then kind of just sort of lies down and takes a nap.

Didn't think people read the Rose of the Prophet trilogy besides myself, but I'll echo this sentiment. Still preferred Auda over Khardan, but anyway...

As someone had mentioned, the Sword of Truth series had good potential; I thoroughly enjoyed Stone of Tears and Wizard's First Rule. The longer the series went, the worse the writing got though, and it got a bit convoluted ( a common failing of any long fantasy series )

The same could be said for Wheel of Time, the first 3-4 books were great then it just dragged on. I think one of the reasons I was happy with Sanderson was that at least the pace picked up ( maybe a bit much at times). Jordan was great with creating a fantasy setting and describing it, but he did get bogged down a bit with the details and thus the story suffered as well as the characters. While I still liked the series overall, it could have been so much more and that's what grates at me. I think we always want the best for the ones we cherish.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The only one I can think of at the moment (or I'm not thinking hard enough) is probably Eureka Seven AO.

Ok it started simple enough and had a monster of the week and while the return of a certain item was awesome to finally seen a connection AO and the original series but it went downhill from there. They added in time travel and foes in time travel that contridate the original series, the protagonist potiential GF went all AWOL and became a villain and aswell that other psycho was a psycho for no reason! Even when the protagonist from the main series did show up it only made thing worse due to knowing how their series lives has ended for the worse

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

I'm going to have to go with The Universe. I mean it started off all exciting and action-filled with that huge explosion and all. The formation of super-massive stars was a solid follow-up and the whole formation of galaxies and the start of life was just excellent.

But then it just kinda peters out. I mean, the whole "heat death" thing is just such a let-down in comparison to the opener, you know?

 

[Coruptin]

Considering that over the past over the past couple of decades its become somewhat apparent that in all likelihood you probably didn't actually NEED to drop the nukes because Japan would have surrendered anyway given the conventional bombing campaign and everything else...yeah I'd say nuking the hell out of a couple of cities was the wrong thing to do. Some would argue a war crime in fact, an act of state terrorism. But because the Allies won the war nobody got in trouble for it.

Pretty sure that atrocities don't cancel each other out like that. Its not a game of "who is the most morally upstanding". The Holocaust in Europe and the Nanking Massacre in China, for example, were both awful, terrible, monstrous things. But this isn't a children's nursery and you don't get to say 'well he started it' to excuse when you do a terrible thing. An immoral act is an immoral act and it can be criticised as such, as illustrated the backlash against the bombing of Dresden DURING the war.

Flip it around. If Germany had had nukes and dropped them on...say...London and Moscow is there any doubt in the fact that if they'd still gone on to lose the war that the people responsible would have been the first up in front of the court at Nuremberg and charged with crimes against humanity?

I just gave an admittedly cursory look into if Japan would've surrendered. First article was by the leader of a Holocaust denial group, so my you could say my opinions are more than unfairly biased against that notion now.

You're also right about two wrongs not cancelling out, but there's a reason why things like Godwin's Law (which you invoke with your post) exists. You have to take into consideration scale when you make comparisons.

 

[Erttheking]

Knights of Sidonia. Really interesting concept and potential for interesting characters...and the show never really does anything with it.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A SHOW WITH A TALKING CYBORG BEAR BORING!?

 

[Qizx]

Why is America portrayed as an enemy of Japan in so much Japanese media? We're on friendly terms, all things considered, and we certainly wouldn't ally with China and Russia against them.

America did ally itself with Russia against Japan in WW2, and bombed the fuck out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And Dresden. So it goes.

**this will be heavy sarcasm**

indeed, why would a country we were at war with and dropped 2 nuclear bombs on, which in turn forced said country to fundamentally change as a result, ever see US as a bad guy in their media?

boggles the mind I tell you, truly shocking.

why do we use nazi's and russians and communists as the bad guys in our media?

Because we Germans always portray the US as being evil in our media and stuff..
Except we don't, we understand that we were in the wrong, committed atrocities, and were in the end defeated.
The Japanese still see themselves as the victims of a war that was just another war. Ignoring the genocidal acts they were committing and other horrendous atrocities. This is what happens when you try and ignore your history instead of coming to terms with it.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Here's a rather controversial one: A Song of Ice and Fire. Started off great, but by the fourth book I just couldn't care about the series anymore. The plot threads and number of characters became far too convoluted and bloated, and most of the characters I cared about (for good or ill) were dead. The lack of a strong central focus as everyone increasingly went off into their own increasingly distant side quests just killed my enjoyment of the series. GRR Martin had some great ideas and did some excellent writing, but bigger is not necessarily better.

Actually, that's not as controversial as you might think. It's a pretty standard opinion that A Feast for Crows (and to a lesser extent, A Dance with Dragons) were pretty meandering and lacking in any strong overarching plot. As a fan of the series, and someone who is (impatiently) waiting for The Winds of Winter, I have to agree. As nice as the political and character stuff is, the business with the dragons and the Others is quiet clearly the subject of the overarching plot, and the limited amount present in both books really made the entire plot feel like it was just spinning its wheels. Interest in the series really can't survive on a protracted game of political backstabbing indefinitely; sooner or later there has to be a point to it all. I've actually heard that GRRM planned to simply jump the story forward, but opted not to, which might explain why it all feels rather bloated.
Hopefully, now that winter is no longer coming, but is more or less here, we may begin to see the plot get going again.

 

[happyninja42]

The movie Knowing with Nicolas Cage. It had the potential to be an interesting supernatural thriller/mystery, but it drooled all over itself and tripped on it's own shoes, and just became a religiously themed piece of shit. The plot elements became pointless, and ultimately a waste of time, the characters were mostly forgettable, and one in particular I was eagerly awaiting her death so she would get off the fucking screen.

The skeptic/scientist was so strawman it wasn't even funny, and he was just there to blindly deny the protagonist's theory about the code, even when he presented something fairly reasonable. Just, bleh.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I just gave an admittedly cursory look into if Japan would've surrendered. First article was by the leader of a Holocaust denial group, so my you could say my opinions are more than unfairly biased against that notion now.

The authors of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey Report of 1946 were Holocaust deniers?

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/AAF/USSBS-PTO-Summary.html#jstetw

Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

How about Dr. Leo Szilard, a major figure in the development of the bomb and a massive opponent to its actual use, and his colleagues?

http://members.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html

Q Dr. Szilard, what was your attitude in 1945 toward the question of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan?

A I opposed it with all my power, but I'm afraid not as effectively as I should have wished.

Q Did any other scientists feel the same way you did?

A Very many other scientists felt this way. This is particularly true of Oak Ridge and the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago. I don't know how the scientists felt at Los Alamos.

...

Q Would a demonstration have been feasible?

A It is easy to see, at least in retrospect, how an effective demonstration could have been staged. We could have communicated with Japan through regular diplomatic channels - say, through Switzerland - and explained to the Japanese that we didn't want to kill anybody, and therefore proposed that one city - say, Hiroshima - be evacuated. Then one single bomber would come and drop one single bomb.

But again, I don't believe this staging a demonstration was the real issue, and in a sense it is just as immoral to force a sudden ending of a war by threatening violence as by using violence. My point is that violence would not have been necessary if we had been willing to negotiate. After all, Japan was suing for peace.

Major General Curtis LeMay, the guy actually responsible for the strategic air campaign against Japan?

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/

Even the famous ?hawk? Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Twenty-First Bomber Command, went public the month after the bombing, telling the press that ?the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.?

Or Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet?

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0806-25.htm

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, reflected this reality when he wrote, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace.the atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan."

Seriously, it took ten minutes on wikipedia of all places to pull up these references. There's plenty more if you really want to dig into it. I know its easier to buy into the myth that it was necessary to excuse your country, but I take severe umbrage that you imply its solely the position of "Holocaust deniers".

You're also right about two wrongs not cancelling out, but there's a reason why things like Godwin's Law (which you invoke with your post) exists. You have to take into consideration scale when you make comparisons.

...Godwin's Law involves comparing your opponent or their actions to the Nazis. Its nothing to do with actually talking about WW2 and the Nazis. It doesn't work like that because otherwise you could never discuss WW2 online. I mean seriously. *facepalm*

And "take into consideration scale" is another way of saying "this is a competition about who is more morally upstanding". Sorry but no, I don't buy into that nonsense. Terrible things were done in the Pacific War, particularly by the Imperial Japanese Army; but that doesn't allow for the handwaving of two nuclear weapons dropped on populated cities

 

[Quellist]

I had two major problems with Sword Art Online (The first part). After the villian gives his big speech everyone is all "Ok, lets form clearing teams and start making our way to the top, many will die on the way" Instead of "Fuck you and your stupid game, we'll all stay safe in the town until pretty much the intelligence community of half the world figures out where you are, burns your ass to a crisp and gets us all out"

Related to that, i felt the story of what was going on outside, which should have been the biggest fucking manhunt in history combined with just about every dev and coder for the game working on how to crack it wide open, would have made a far better story than the bullshit we actually got about the angsty 'hero'.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Lightspeaker]

I had two major problems with Sword Art Online (The first part). After the villian gives his big speech everyone is all "Ok, lets form clearing teams and start making our way to the top, many will die on the way" Instead of "Fuck you and your stupid game, we'll all stay safe in the town until pretty much the intelligence community of half the world figures out where you are, burns your ass to a crisp and gets us all out"

For the record: tons of people did. Its implied in the anime but, in fairness, its not made as explicitly clear as it is in the books but the majority of the population did precisely that.

Quotes from book one, chapter 4:
"The players split up into four rough categories.
First and largest of those groups, at nearly half the game's population, were those who chose not to believe Akihiko Kayaba's conditions for release and simply waited for help.
...
They stayed within the first city, using their initial allotment of money-measured in a currency known as col-bit by bit to buy food and cheap lodgings, grouping together in loose cliques.
...
But as time dragged on, there was no sign of help. ... Their initial allotment of money wouldn't last forever, and the waiters would eventually have to do something."

The other other three groups were:
1. "The Army" which was a huge group of cooperating players, around three thousand of them, kinda banding together for mutual protection and to try to clear the game in an organised way. But after a disaster on one of the major floor bosses ended up losing most of its most elite members and retreated to control the lower floors as a sort of totalitarian government. There's an episode about the problems in their higher ranks as I recall (its been a while since I watched the series), after which it became more humanitarian.
2. Outlaws. Thieves, murderers, bandits. Either stealing to keep themselves going (because hunger was a thing that was simulated) or just because they preferred to prey on people. Around a thousand people ended up like that.
3. And a miscellaneous group of a bit under a thousand; containing the most active people in actually trying to clear Aincrad. Half of this group (around five hundred) formed numerous smaller guilds (including the clearing guilds running the front line), a large part of the rest were crafters and traders (around three hundred) and the last few dozen were the solo players like Kirito. Most of the story focuses on people in this group.

Again though, its pretty poorly explained in the anime as I recall because they don't spell it out as explicitly.