"Classics" that you were underwhelmed by.

[Owlslayer]

I never understood why Deus Ex was so awesome as people said. Maybe i was really young at the time (my brother started playing it, and i tried it out, too. Didn't like it much).
Haven't tried playing it again, though. Maybe i ought to give it one more chance.

Deus Ex is weird in that almost every aspect of it is technically poor. Combat, graphics, animation, dodgy voice-acting, countless ways to break the game, etc. Somehow it still turns into a masterpiece if it finally hooks you.

I got sick of it around the Hell's Kitchen point and quit the first time. Gave it a second chance and with only ONE complete play through it's been in my top five ever since. Granted it was never going to age well.

Hell's Kitchen... that sounds quite familiar. I'm not sure where i called the quits. I think it was after some incident in a subway where a guy(who had better implants or whatnot than you did) found you, and took you in. (to jail? I don't remember...)

 

[teebeeohh]

my problem with this kind of thread is that a lot of people do not put movies/games whatever into context. a lot of movie were so great at the time because they did something new and if the movie was released 20 years before you were born you most likely have seen something similar done better in the meantime.

movie: i guess i was underwhelmed by citizen kane but that may have something to do with it constantly being put on top of best movie lists for the sake of being on top of best movie lists.

I smell a contradiction here.

"This isn't fair, you're not looking at the time they were made! By the way, didn't like Citizen Kane."

so where did i say that i didn't like citizen kane?
i said it was not as good as it was hyped to be
what annoys me is when people with say that disliked lets say the godfather because the movie did keep them interested with the constant threat of explosions.

 

[lord.jeff]

Game: Halo
Movie: The Graduate
Book: Lord of the Rings

 

[kortin]

I think most of the people here who were underwhelmed by something was mostly because they got themselves too hyped up for it. So really, i don't think its a case of "I didn't like it cuz it sucked" and more of a case of "oh. Its not as amazing as I thought it would be."

Personally, I never found the appeal in James Bond. I watched them all, I didn't love them. My friends sat there with their mouths hanging wide open after they forced me to watch it and all I said was "meh. I've seen better."

ALSO: NAZI ZOMBIES! I swear. "zomg nazi zombies worked so good in waw, lets add it to blops, since its the only even vaguely possible innovative thing we've ever done to cod

 

[Kortney]

Off the top of my head:

Music: Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

Movies: The Lord of the Rings.

Books: The Lord of the Rings, 1984.

Video Game: Gears of War (not a "classic" but is a very well received, popular game).

 

[Littaly]

I always try to be careful when it comes to judging things I didn't like. Things don't become regarded as classics for the lulz, a classic is something that has received enormous amounts of praise over a very long time by a lot of people, both high brow critics and average Joes. and just because I don't like the game/book/movie/whatever that doesn't mean it's bad, and claiming that everyone who came before me and praised it is wrong while I'm right seems a bit narrow minded. There are a lot of classic works (mostly movies, I don't read that much :-/) that I don't like, but more often than not I can admit that I don't like it because I lack the deeper understanding for it that the people who like it have.

That said, the prime example of a movie that I didn't even remotely get is Akira. After watching it I went online to read up on all the themes and subtexts that were in that movie, and it really baffled me how I got absolutely nothing of that while watching it. To me it was just a weird movie about a kid who got superpowers and decided to wreck Tokyo for the lulz, with some creepy 90-year old babies and milk-leaking teddy bears thrown in for good measure. I should probably watch it again :-/

I also have a hard time appreciating slow, long movies. If it goes on for too long with too little happening in terms of plot, I just kind of loose interest and stop appreciating it, no matter how good it is. The Assassination of Jesse James is probably the most recent example, I had a hard time staying focused during There Will be Blood too.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Legend of Zelda as a series.

Just never appealed to me. And yes, I've played Ocarina of Time and the others. My friends still won't stop badgering me about it >.<

Not that I hate the series, I just don't gush over it like everybody[footnote]it seems this way sometimes[/footnote] else does.

 

[Schmittler]

I think a lot of the "Classics" are things that you need to think of as, "for the time, this must have been good because of..(fill in the blank)"

I agree, Blade-runner wasn't amazing, but for its time it had a lot of unique ideas and was pretty interesting.

I think the worst case scenario of "Classics" are the books. I read quite a few "Classic" literature novels, and man was I unimpressed. Maybe it's a bias on the reasons I personally read, but there were so many boring plots that once again, were probably better at the time.

Best example is "A Tale of Two Cities" - Seriously the only reason I think that book is even remembered is because of the first page and the last page. Everything that happened in between was just, okay. Granted, I read these when I was younger because I was forced to by our reading standards in Junior High, but I still doubt I'd enjoy them today.

 

[anonymity88]

Gears of War: Who'd have thought genocide could be dull

Bioshock: nice setting, terrible gameplay.

 

[Serge A. Storms]

These sort of threads bug me because so many of the people watch or read a "classic" expecting the full magnitude of the work to be apparent through one sit-through with no attempt to analyze. In the instance of Blade Runner, if you didn't get the ending, you didn't get the movie.

OT: I think, saying what I said, I can safely go with Boondock Saints. It's an extremely popular movie that damn near everyone in college sees, and it has plenty of shooting and otherwise loud noises to maintain attention, but it is an aggressively soulless action movie that doesn't even add decent action scenes to the genre.

Music, I can name a bunch, but picking out a few specifics, Coldplay and Blue October, I think people have called them "rock" at some point and it's an insult to what's left of that genre.

Written works, I honestly can't think of one off the top of my head.

 

[The Funslinger]

game: dangerous dave...

seriously, who played this crap?

movie: pulp fiction wasnt that great, and probably "the birds"...

Pulp Fiction was brilliantblahrgfkaogjerghairhga!!! Funnily enough, I didn't like it the first time I watched it. Re-watch made all the difference for me.

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

Movie: Citizen Kane. Again, my fault. I was expecting something really clever but it felt like something average done to perfection... if that makes sense?

I played Half-Life 2, as well. Borrowed it off a friend, who was like "duuuude, play teh gamez" and it just irritated me, because it felt like something I had to do, rather than wanted. So a couple of months ago, borrowed it again, LOVED IT.

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

Half-life 2... Just... meh.

REALLY dont see the fuss about part 3.

I'll most likely end up playing it anyway, but not straight off the bat.

 

[Harry Mason]

I found Blade Runner pretty awful myself.
But my real answer would have to be the Amityville Horror. There is no way anyone honestly thought that film was frightening!

 

[exp. 99]

These sort of threads bug me because so many of the people watch or read a "classic" expecting the full magnitude of the work to be apparent through one sit-through with no attempt to analyze. In the instance of Blade Runner, if you didn't get the ending, you didn't get the movie.

This. The problem with saying you didn't like a classic is pinning the name "classic" on the title to begin with. What is a classic? Is it simply popular, or is it something more?

Either way, I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and say Half Life 2. I got outside the spire/citadel/tower/whatever the heck the place Breen lived in was called after blowing it up and called it quits. The gameplay was okay, but the plot wasn't spectacular, and it kept dragging on far too long. Granted, I liked the game...but it really, really needed to wrap itself up much sooner rather than drag itself out. In the end it just killed itself, turning a good game into a meh one. Wouldn't peg it as "great", though.

For books, I'm going to go with virtually my entire high school reading list; anything by Dickens or either Bronte makes me cringe.

Don't know of any movies, though. I just don't watch enough to say anything there.

 

[BlueSinbad]

Inception was dull as hell.
Enough said.

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

Flipping Star Wars...the lot of 'em

Everything Star Wars was rubbish, I may not have been around for the first 3 films but honestly...what was the big deal, is it like Avatar? Did people only like the films for their special effects?

The story was awful, the characters were so 1 dimentional it was irritating and the only really interesting part was the whole incest "I love my sister" thing that wasn't really made a big deal out of.

Rubbish I tell you!

 

[Narclaw]

Game: God of War (all of them)
Movie: Avatar. Seriously, I went in to see something truly "spectacular", since that's all anyone would say about it. While it was visually stunning, the story was pretty damn weak and left me wishing the humans had taken over Pandora.

 

[Echo136]

Fallout 1 and 2. Hated them. Cant understand why they are so loved.

 

[Whodat]

Movie: Paranormal Activity 2 and Jaws 3/4.

Music: The Vanilla Albums on London Calling and anything live except for Daft Punk's Alive 2007 which is one of my favorite albums ever.

Game: The Witcher, sure it might have a good story, but the combat is so bland and everything about it is just so boring. Only ever got half-wway through it, tried to play it again, realized why I didn't like it.

Book: Tale of Two Cities, to much Dick(ens)

 

[Breaker deGodot]

Once Upon a Time in the West was supposed to be this great western, but I couldn't stand it. I hated the characters and it bored me to death. Sergio Leone has no sense of urgency (the opening scene of the movie is three guys waiting around for a train for ten minutes while a fly crawls around on one of their faces. That's it.)

This probably won't help; in fact it may just make you hate the film more. But let me explain why Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite film of all time. It's story seems convoluted on the first viewing, with too many characters that all want different things. To make up for this, each of the characters get their own introductions. (First Harmonica, then Frank, Jill, and Cheyenne). The storyline about the railroad fits as a metaphor for the death of the old west, which is being taken over by modern society and technology.
In other words, the reason the film is so long and SLOOOOOOOW is because it represents a dying man breathing his last. It's a movie marked by old age and maturity, which is why it feels so different from Sergio Leone's earlier Man with No Name series (He originally didn't want to make OUATITW).

tl;dr
It's not for everyone, but I suggest watching it a second time. I hated it the first time too, but now it's my favorite movie.