Disappointing Albums, Films, Books etc General Chat

[Son Of Jack]

I was listening to a podcast earlier where the two hosts agreed that the Guns' N' Roses album The Spaghetti Incident? was the first album to disappoint them as kids.

So which albums, books, films etc. were your first or biggest disappointments? Not the worst, just the biggest let-downs relative to how hyped you were about them in advance.

 

[Deleted member 63]

The Star Wars prequels. As a huge fan of the original trilogy, these just did not fit well with the backstory hinted at in IV and V. I mean, the Clone Wars didn't even start until the end of episode II and when I was a young Star Wars fan in the eighties, I assumed they would be the setting for Lucas' planned prequels.

 

[Tom]

For me, it was probably Fellowship of the Ring, as it came out when I was three years deep into my Tolkien fanaticism and treated every little change to the source material as if it was the WORST THING EVER!

I've come to respect most of the changes/additions, particularly in FotR, but there are still some that I haven't made my peace with.

 

[David76]

After enjoying the Southern Reach trilogy I read that one of its influences was To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I love reading some of the classics so I got stuck in and finished it only through gritted teeth. God that was hard work.

 

[Spikey]

I'm not sure any film has disappointed me as much as The Phantom Menace. Massive own goal. Utter tripe.

 

[Deleted member 63]

I'm not sure any film has disappointed me as much as The Phantom Menace. Massive own goal. Utter tripe.

To be honest, I thought it was the best of the prequels in the end. Which is a little like saying getting at least you didn't get an F when the teacher gave you a D-. Even the big showdown in Revenge was a letdown I thought. The Clone Wars TV series was much closer to what I wanted from the prequels.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I mean, let's face it, Raiders of the Lost Ark was lightning in a bottle to some degree and no sequel was going to live up to it. But Temple was just like throwing a bunch of (often racist) crap at the wall, cranking the volume up to 11, and hoping either something stuck or the audience would be so stunned they wouldn't know what hit them. Mercifully, they made up for it with Last Crusade, which wasn't quite as good as Raiders but was still a crackling good adventure movie (and putting Sean Connery and Harrison Ford together in an action movie was something that simply had to happen). Too bad about that fourth movie that never came out (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

 

[Dylan]

After enjoying the Southern Reach trilogy

I would add the second and third books in the Southern Reach trilogy, especially the second. Annihilation was great but those two didn't come close to my expectations. Totally lost the eerie and unsettling atmosphere that permeated the first.

For me, it was probably Fellowship of the Ring, as it came out when I was three years deep into my Tolkien fanaticism and treated every little change to the source material as if it was the WORST THING EVER!

Another Tolkien disappointment, but this time The Hobbit. It was an enormous letdown for me because I was a huge fan of the LOTR Trilogy and The Hobbit book.

Martin Freeman was great as Bilbo but I've blocked out most of the rest.