Movies or Games you once liked till you rewatched/replayed them

[b.w.irenicus]

Hello escapists,
this topic is about movies or videogames that you remembered fondly untill you rewatched or replayed them again after some time.

For me Batman Begins comes to mind. When I first saw it, I thought it was pretty great, especially considering that the last Batman movie before this was the dreadfull Batman & Robin. But when I rewatched it after the trilogy was complete I was pretty meh about it. The acting is solid, but the action sucks und the villain is boring, and boring is the whole movie. In hindsight from all the Nolan Batman movies I only still like The Dark Knight.

Another exapmle would be the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. When Spider-Man was released I loved it, because I had never seen such a good comic book adaptation before. Spider-Man 2 was even better. SM3 sucked ass, but that didn't hamper my enjoyment of the first two.
However, I rewatched both SM1 and 2 last year and must say, man.... they have not aged well or I simply remenbered them worng. The action is still solid, although the CG-effects sometimes look awful. The acting is highly inconsistend between excellent (Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus) and terrible (MJ), the humor is absolutly unfunny and Toby is a dissapointing Spider-Man. Furthermore, there is almost no development in his character. Peter Parker is the same in SM1 and SM 3. I left out SM3, because my opinion on that one has not changed, I thought it sucked from the begining and have not changed my mind since then.
When it comes down to it, I even liked the new ASM better than the last three, though I have not watched ASM2 (and heard pretty bad things about it).

 

[Queen Michael]

Space Jam. Sure, it's still good. But it was way better when I was a kid.

 

[DanteRL]

Gonna agree with you on the Spider-Man movies (specially the first), and add the first X-men. But I tend to let it pass because they were paving the way for bigger things.

Going onto games, one that I played recently was Jet Set Radio. I have fond memories of the Dreamcast version, then I played on the PS3... MAN, the gameplay is weird! I just couldn't get used to it, failed miserably many times and then simple gave up. Not saying is a bad game, but it was much more beautiful in my mind.

 

[Gatx]

I remember really liking the .hack//Sign anime and the franchise as a whole. There were many a late Saturday night spent waiting for it come on Cartoon Network.

Then when Sword Art Online came out, I was like "This is shit, so much wasted potential in this topic that .hack// does better," so I tried giving it another go and I just couldn't do it. Maybe it was cause Tsukasa was a total dick in the beginning, or the animation wasn't as good as I remember, or that 40%-50% of the gaming talk is bullshit (though granted MMORPGs weren't quite as prominent then as they are now).

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I suspect this is going to be a popular choice, But Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was a lightning in a bottle -type experience that simply couldn't carry further watches. I saw it in theaters twice within a week when it came out and loved it, but the second time I watched it on DVD the flaws just poured off the screen. It's not all that funny in the end, since a lot of the funniest moments rely on the unpredictability and randomness (like the Vegan Police) and once that wears off the jokes themselves simply don't have the same impact anymore. The acting is mostly okay, but a lot of it is blasé and kind of dull. And Michael Cera is annoying as anything as a lead character.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

When I saw it in theaters, I thought it was the best of the prequels. But, when I watched it again after the thrill wore off, my opinion slowly dropped. It has now dropped so love that I think it is the worst of the prequels. There is just so much that is wrong with that movie that it makes me shake.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

When I saw it in theaters, I thought it was the best of the prequels. But, when I watched it again after the thrill wore off, my opinion slowly dropped. It has now dropped so love that I think it is the worst of the prequels. There is just so much that is wrong with that movie that it makes me shake.

Well now you've got me intrigued. I'm not going to debate about whether it's good or not (haven't seen it in years) but why would you name it the worst of the prequels? To say something is more appalling than Attack of the Clones is a tall order indeed.

 

[SNCommand]

Well now you've got me intrigued. I'm not going to debate about whether it's good or not (haven't seen it in years) but why would you name it the worst of the prequels? To say something is more appalling than Attack of the Clones is a tall order indeed.

Attack of the Clones truly has one of the worst second acts I've ever had to watch, every scene with Anakin made me groan, which is a shame, because the beginning and end is actually quite good, the Confederacy is one of the more intriguing factions I've seen in movies, but every scene on Naboo and Tatooine, argh, pure pain

 

[laggyteabag]

Said it before, and i'll say it again. Mass Effect. The gameplay is overshadowed by that of the sequels, and to go back to the first game is a night and day difference. 3 feels like a solid shooter game, whereas 1 just feels floaty to control and like there is no real weight to any of the weapons, and this just makes the gameplay boring to me. Whenever I play the Mass Effect games, I tend to just download a save file for ME1, and then just jump directly into ME2.

The Star Wars prequels. When the films came out, I was in the film's target audience, and I loved them. Then I grew up, and I realised the error of my ways. I still enjoy the third film though, all things considered, but I was young and misguided, and I turned to the dark side. My incompetence to recognise a good movie from a bad one shames me.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

When I saw it in theaters, I thought it was the best of the prequels. But, when I watched it again after the thrill wore off, my opinion slowly dropped. It has now dropped so love that I think it is the worst of the prequels. There is just so much that is wrong with that movie that it makes me shake.

Well now you've got me intrigued. I'm not going to debate about whether it's good or not (haven't seen it in years) but why would you name it the worst of the prequels? To say something is more appalling than Attack of the Clones is a tall order indeed.

Yeah, I do get some pretty strange looks when I say that. The short version is that the movie butchers the lore (something I care deeply about) and murders what little character development anyone had. It also drives me nuts that with all the way technology has advanced, most of the action scenes are more boring than the originals.

Lore example: The steps up to the Jedi temple should have been piled high with dead clone troopers, but we see more dead Jedi than troopers. Anakin is good, but he's not that good. There should have been massive casualties, even if these weren't the top-tier Jedi.

Character: Anakin is in tears, and then with just a few words (four I think), he goes from grieving to slaughtering defenseless children.

Tech: The space battle, while starting out great, quickly switches to just Anakin and Obi talking in their cockpits. Compared to the battle in Return of the Jedi, it's such a waste.

I could go on, but it would take forever to read. I admit that the other two are bad (every romance scene in Attack of the Clones is a struggle to get through), but they at least had moments that I enjoy, even now. Revenge of the Sith just so completely kills everything in order to make up for the bad writing that I can't stand it. My girlfriend doesn't believe how upset I get at that movie and wants to watch it with me so she can see it. I've warned her, but still...

 

[Neverhoodian]

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

When I saw it in theaters, I thought it was the best of the prequels. But, when I watched it again after the thrill wore off, my opinion slowly dropped. It has now dropped so love that I think it is the worst of the prequels. There is just so much that is wrong with that movie that it makes me shake.

I second this. I thought ROTS was amazing in theaters (I was a dumb Star Wars-obsessed teenager back then), but now I don't care for it at all. Hell, I'd even watch Attack of the Clones over it, cringe-inducing romance scenes and all.[footnote]As an aside, I think Episode I was and still is awesome.[/footnote]

Well now you've got me intrigued. I'm not going to debate about whether it's good or not (haven't seen it in years) but why would you name it the worst of the prequels? To say something is more appalling than Attack of the Clones is a tall order indeed.

I know you weren't asking me, but I might as well put in my two cents.

AotC may have been lackluster as a whole, but at least it had some noteworthy scenes interspersed throughout that made sitting through the crap tolerable. For instance, I loved the Jango Fett subplot. He's like Boba from the original trilogy, only you actually get to see him doing shit instead of just standing around all the time. It was also the first time we got to see a non-Force user hold his own against a Jedi outside of the EU (he even gained the upper hand on a few occasions). I particularly enjoyed his fight scene with Obi-Wan on Kamino. It had a visceral edge to it that you don't often see in Star Wars, what with all the kicking and sliding around. You can almost feel Jango's exhaustion as he crawls back to his ship.

RotS on the other hand...I'd be hard-pressed to give you an example of even one scene that really stood out for me. The lightsaber battles are so transparently choreographed to look flashy that the actual fight moves don't make any sense. [https://38.media.tumblr.com/5babf884d516efded5ac2f16e13d0051/tumblr_mva3m3yQNg1sjzbuao1_400.gif] There's the space battle in the opening I suppose, but that lasts all of one or two minutes before focusing entirely on boring banter between Anakin and Obi-Wan.

In fact, that's one of the problems I have with the film as a whole; it's a cock tease when it comes to awesome set pieces. General Grievous whips out four lightsabers?! This is going to be aweso-oh wait, Obi-Wan just sliced them up. A pitched battle on Kashyyyk with an army of Wookies?! This is going to be aweso-oh wait, scene transition to boring political stuff. Order 66 is issued?! This is going to be aweso-oh wait, the supposedly formidable Jedi become disposable mooks that are gunned down by regular troops without a fight.

And that's not even getting into the contradictory lore ("Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"), stilted dialogue, nonsensical developments ("Lost the will to live?" Look *****, my mom underwent an extremely traumatic cesarian when she had me, but she soldiered through it) and lack of any comic relief for all the doom and gloom that goes on in the second half.

 

[RavingSturm]

Trainspotting - cant watch it anymore. the characters are a bunch whiny prats

High fidelity -same as above

Tom Cruise action vehicles - I still keep seeing him hopping up and down Oprah's couch grinning like an idiot

Edgar Wright movies - they're all the same to me

Star wars ep1-3 - Its hard watching GL take a shit in a bucket over and over

Kevin Smith movies - I grew up

The Simpsons - same as above

Harry Pothead movies - Harry gets something for nothing, kid wish fulfillment obviously

Ben Afleck movies - he should stay in the director's chair permanently

Chris Nolan movies - he's got a formula that's starting to break at the seams for me

Schindler's List, Inglorious Bastards, Saving Matt Damon - I got the message bashed into my skull at this point

The Bourne movies - camera work just makes me want to puke

Marvel studio movies - they've fallen into a by the numbers approach you can smell a mile away

Forrest Gump/Benjamin Button- same dude wrote these movies, 'nuff said.

FF7/FF8 - FF7's basically an interactive movie. FF8's main character acts like the gunblade is shoved up his ass, the rest of the cast is annoyingly pathetic and unremarkable.

Ass Effect trilogy - hours spent and choices you made count for nothing because of "artistic integrity".

TF3:Barked at the Moon - too much military porn and useless scenes with humans especially Shia

Indian Jones:Crystal skull - harrison ford should have stuck SHia in the fridge and nuked him

Matrix Revolutions - Just WTF were they blathering about??

Any James Franco movie - something's wrong with his face

Bleach - The series took a nosedive after the Soul Society arc and is pretty tedious and painful to watch

Brave - the movie starts out strong and then breaks down and grinds to a halt after Mom gets beared!

Stephen Sommers movies - I can tolerate Van Helsing once in a while but the rest I cant stand

Found Footage movies - people acting out in obviously scripted scenes with shaky cam is not my idea of a good time

Seth Rogen movies - same lame jokes all the time spammed all over the length of the movie, same 1-2-3 sequence of Seth Rogen engaging in something depraved escalating in intensity

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Spoiler

It was one of the first RPGs I ever played. I had at one time had fond memories of it based on my experiences playing it as a kid. Two years ago when I started playing again?

...

Well, the music is good. The story and gameplay are both very lackluster compared to the nostalgia I had walking into it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Yeah, the awkward 'comic-to-movie superhero transition' phase is quite strong with the Raimi Spider-Man movies. Still fairly well made movies that paved the way for Marvel, but not too strong on their own anymore.

 

[Someone Depressing]

The Dark Crystal. I remembered loving this movie when I was an infant, and even loving it as a teenager. So I watched up again and I was all like "What the fuck?".

Spoiler: Spoiler tagged for sake of preservation of sanity

Just look at those things. I can feel my childhood dying....

 

[Spider RedNight]

Batman Forever - Okay, I was like eight when I first watched it and I rather liked it. Suffice to say, nowadays... I really don't. Which is a shame because I'm still eagerly awaiting the day they put Riddler and/or Mister Freeze in a hardcore live-action Batman movie.

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly - One of the first games I got for my Gamecube and I used to play the crap out of it. Now I'm older and I realize just how... broken that game is.

The Pagemaster - I still KIND of like that movie in a "reminds me of my childhood" kind of way but I think I liked it before I realized that I really can't stand Macaulay Culkin and that the movie has a WHOLE bunch of flaws.

 

[FPLOON]

I remember really liking the .hack//Sign anime and the franchise as a whole. There were many a late Saturday night spent waiting for it come on Cartoon Network.

Then when Sword Art Online came out, I was like "This is shit, so much wasted potential in this topic that .hack// does better," so I tried giving it another go and I just couldn't do it. Maybe it was cause Tsukasa was a total dick in the beginning, or the animation wasn't as good as I remember, or that 40%-50% of the gaming talk is bullshit (though granted MMORPGs weren't quite as prominent then as they are now).

I was kinda the opposite when it came to .hack//Signs... I hated it mostly because it was quote-unquote "nothing like the anime .hack//Legend of the Twilight"... until I re-watch it shortly after watching .hack//Quantum for the first time and found myself enjoying Signs a lot more than Legend of the Twilight...

OT: Outside of The Last Airbender[footnote]I honestly enjoyed it the first time I saw it in theaters with my friend... We were both praising it as the best movie Salalamalama-ding-dong has done so far and, at least for me, I thought it had some potential in its later sequels...[footnote]Granted, at the time, I was dreading the live-action version of the Ba Sing Se arc because, for the most part, I fucking hated that particular arc outside of the first two-parter (with the Drill), the Book 2 finale, the continuing Appa arc, and the "Tales" episode specifically...[/footnote][/footnote], I can't think of any movie in particular that made me dislike it after re-watching it again...

With that said, what the fuck did I see in This Ugly Yet Beautiful World? My glob, this was the first anime that made me think I had shitty taste in anime in general...

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Although I haven't actually re watched it, I will say Dragon Ball GT. When I fist watched it I actually enjoyed it for the most part. The action was pretty good and it was even pretty funny in parts. But after thinking about it in recent years I've come to realize that it really was very very horribly written. The very existence of the Black Star Dragon Balls which kicked of the first story arc is a massive plot hole. According to Pilof, the balls were created by Kami before he was separated from Piccolo, who Pilof describes, at least in the English dub, as the "greediest guardian Earth has had" or something like that. Problem is, Kami didn't become guardian (or whatever) until after his separation. However that's just a minor issue. The big problem is the fact that the balls destroy whatever planet they're last used on if they're not regathered within a year's time of their last use, and thus they were sealed away within the floating palace. Pilof says he did extensive research to learn about their existence, however unless someone actually used them at least once and documented it, how the hell did anyone even know they exist and thus where did he find the research materiel? Same with King Kai.
Then of course there's the series ending which left a shit-tonne of dangling un-answered plot threads.

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

The first Need for Speed: Underground. It was one of my first PC games I bought myself, and I played it to death.
However, it's lost it's luster. I'm so spoiled but more open and airy racing games that Underground feels overly simple in comparison. I think it still looks pretty good though, in my opinion, but the actual racing feels bland.

Ghost Rider was a movie I used to really like. Nick Cage acting aside, I think it was the few moments of sheer awesomeness that got me to like it so much. There was nothing more badass than when Ghost Rider himself was on screen. the scene where he spins around a helicopter, and then glides down the side of a building on his motorcycle, shattered glass and fire chasing behind, and then crashing to the ground in a cloud of smoke, dust and rubble...come on, you will never convince me that wasn't one of the most awesome scenes in any movie ever.
But rewatching it...the rest of the movie sticks out very bad. The poor excuses of "bad guys", the anti-climactic ending, the stupid love interest plot...ugh.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I to agreed with Sam Rami Spider-man and aswell the first X-Men movie.

I supposed now we got tons more Marvel movie, we now got a standard to judged them with.

Also yeah, I can't believed I used to LOVED this film when I was little!