Stories that "Dropped the ball".

[TakerFoxx]

The Runaways comic. Everything done by Brian K Vaughn was gold. Joss Whedon's run had a couple hiccups, but was otherwise a worthy continuation. Terry Moore's was complete and utter arse.

 

[Cowabungaa]

One of my favourite comics, The Massive, did this. It was a great portrayal of how an 'apocalypse' would actually look like and the impact it'd have. And then

Spoiler

they thrown in some uber-species that's been on Earth since the dawn of time

somewhere in the third book and it loses some of its uniqueness and story potential. In doing that it also became really preachy with its environmental message which wasn't much fun either. That all leads to a, to me, rather unsatisfying ending. It's still a great book, also thanks to its fantastic art, but it does go a little downhill.

 

[syaoran728]

Snip

If memory serves, GATE started as one of the net novels that get popular enough to get published. Supposedly the publishers asked the author to turn down the nationalistic and anti-west leaning of it for the published version. I also heard that the anime is toning it down as well. I'd really hate to see the original. At this point I'm only watching the series for Rory.

 

[Halla Burrica]

Since there is a lot of talk about series most people know, so I'll throw in an obscure one, a little anime called Chaika: The Coffin Princess. Basically a story about a girl collecting the remains of her dead father to give him a proper burial (which gets complicated considering her father was a ruthless, warmongering emperor so powerful the heroes who defeated him chopped him up in pieces and kept a piece each to be certain he never could return), who enlists the help of some sellswords who have little to do since they were pretty much made for war, and war is completely over (part of a recurring theme in the series btw). It was never going to be a classic like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun or even Berserk, but it had a lot of promise. There was interesting developments with the rather likeable (if sometimes really one-note) characters and the world around them, an intriguing mystery to the whole thing, and strong action that went along on a decent pace. Then season 2 happened, and everything went to shit. It really feels like they had a fairly good story charted out here, but they only got one more season to end it all, so they were forced to rush it out, which is not a good thing because the show had too many characters to finish it in a satisfying way. Interesting developments are pushed to the sidelines or pretty much forgotten about, the motivations for a bunch of the characters was left in the dark, and the big revelation is pretty much given in the middle of the season and it somehow manages to feel both dragged out and severely rushed. The showdown with the villain at theend is also really unsatisfying, and kind of nonsensical. For a guy who's supposed to love war and fighting, he is completely monotone. I don't quite regret picking it up, but it really could have been something much better if given the proper time and I'm not sad to see it go. At least it was given an ending, which is more than I can say for some (looking at you Berserk!).

 

[kitsunefather]

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.

 

[Imre Csete]

Shin Sekai Yori, oh my god. I don't know how can you build up a world with a sinister secret and perfect atmosphere to match in the first few episodes, only to ruin it with such a shitty reveal, then run with it full force. It stands as my only unwatched anime ever, and that's something, because I hated NGE from the get go and still suffered through it.

 

[ThreeName]

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Don't know what the hell happened, but the last 3rd of the show is just absurd. And not in a good way. In a "head writer had a heart-attack and we let his ADHD ten year old son write the rest of the show" absurd.

Holy shit, that show got worse?

Community season 4. Community in seasons 1 to 3 was the funniest show on TV bar none, but in season 4 it completely lost it's edge (I think the main writer wasn't involved that year). I think the problem essentially boiled down to it being played too straight, as in previous years the show had always had a self aware irony, and refused to do the obvious joke or the obvious plot. But season 4 was predictable, and nigh on every episode seemed to end with a morale boosting speech about the meaning of friendship, which precious years had, but it was usually undermined or disingenuous, whereas here you were expected to buy it.

Thankfully season 5 brought it all back up to scratch (including making fun of season 4, showing the self awareness that I so loved and that went missing during the "gas leak year")

The low points of Season 3 (that idiotic fort business that dragged on too long, the carnie ex boyfriend, etc.) totally on par with those of Season 4 (that fucking puppet singing one). Some of my perception may have been to all the fans decrying 4 for being the worst thing since the plague, so I went in with low expectations and didn't really see much of a difference. It's also worth noting that the first half of Season 1 is the absolute worst part of the show.

 

[Hades]

I'm going to join everyone who said Naruto. I'm charitable enough to the series to find that it only completely dropped the ball with the introduction of Madara. Before that the serie Naruto could have been was still in there, even the often criticized war arc had it good points like the zombie kages. There just wasn't any reason for Madara to be so ridiculously powerful that he easily trashed every established powerhouse in the serie with no difficulty. Even if all the strongest leaders in the world or all demonic beasts gang up on the guy he keeps easily beating them and that gets boring really fast. And this went on for a year. I could go on about the new villain but I don't have to. Madara is terrible enough to have doomed the story at that point already.

I'm surprised Mass Effect 3 has only been mentioned once. The previously awe inspiring villains were completely undermined, one of the many plotpoints suddenly got so important as to be the cause of everything and the game clearly went against the message it has been telling the whole time while suggesting downright collaborating with the Reapers is the best option.

 

[EternallyBored]

Snip

If memory serves, GATE started as one of the net novels that get popular enough to get published. Supposedly the publishers asked the author to turn down the nationalistic and anti-west leaning of it for the published version. I also heard that the anime is toning it down as well. I'd really hate to see the original. At this point I'm only watching the series for Rory.

From what I've heard from friends that have read the light novel, most of what got cut for the manga and Anime was general moralizing about how Japan should throw off foreign influences and rebuild the JSDF as a real military again, ultimately anyone that goes against this is shown to either be a weak-willed coward, blatantly treacherous, or basically just either evil or incompetent in some way.

This still happens in the manga, but the light novels take it farther with the U.S., China, and Russia being incredibly inept and trying and failing to do anything to the Japanese, although they mostly get shoved to the side and ignored entirely after being embarrassed by the protagonists fantasy land harem early on, and just kind of slink off into the background just so they can be shown every once in awhile plotting and being both cartoonishly evil, and mind-numbingly incompetent. Basically, the U.S., China, and Russia are the only countries that seem to be interested in the gate to another dimension, the only reason they exist in the story is for Japan to look strong against their scheming ways and provide a paperthin excuse for why the JSDF are the only ones that get to go to fantasy land.

Most of the politicizing actually tends to be shown through Japanese characters rather than foreign ones, the right wing bent basically shows any non-nationalist character as wrong, and the plot will bend over backwards to give these characters their comeuppance. Basically, imagine the protagonist getting up on a soap box to give right wing speeches every once in awhile, and that's what I've heard they cut from the manga and anime.

I don't know if it's in the anime, but I remember the manga having an absolutely silly scene where the protagonist instantly recognizes the special forces team that tried to kidnap them as being American because one of the soldiers was Black, because apparently the U.S. is the only country in the world that has Black people in its special forces. That the story seems to treat the U.S., Russia, and china as the only countries to exist outside of Japan would be the only way that line would make sense.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

So many anime and manga stories have this happen to them. Two come to mind for me.

1) Negima. Anyone who read this series should understand. Yes, I know there were legal issues that kneecapped the series, but damn. When the final book came out, I actually put off reading it for weeks because the way the series ends is just so disappointing. Talk about a smack in the face for everyone who followed it for so long.

Holy Shit Balls, Batman. I was never ever so mad about an ending than while reading this manga. They just.. stopped in the middle of the climax and went: "Lol, we're old and everything is fine now".
But Histroies Greatest Disciple did the same bollocks and was completly anti-climatic. I didn't even recognize that this was the final part of the manga until.. it suddenly also did the fast forward bullshit.

Uh, my pulse is already through the roof by only thinking about that bullshit they pulled with the manga. \o/

 

[FFHAuthor]

I expected to see Mass Effect 3 front and center...but no.

Unless I just missed it or something.

Which is either heartening (that we're finally getting over it) or disappointing (that we're finally getting over it) and I'm not quite sure which one I'd rather it be.

Admittedly, I considered posting Mass Effect back when this topic only had like three posts in it. I couldn't really find the words to express my thoughts on it at the time, though.

But my issue isn't specifically Mass Effect 3 or it's ending. It's kinda the series as a whole. Mass Effect planted seeds for potentially great story elements, and they mostly went either completely unused or heavily altered to suit a story that I can't imagine is the direction that they originally intended to go. Hell, Mass Effect 2 as a whole feels like a spin-off. Other than a few connections here and there, it really feels like it could have been a complete stand-alone title.

I'd say Mass Effect's story is kinda like a very beautifully made soap box racer, you start out looking great and moving well, but as it goes on you hit bumps and things start to fly off while parts are breaking...but you're still moving along so you kinda ignore that because it's a race after all...but then about a teen feet from the finish line your wheels fall off and you start sliding, thinking you're going to make it across, but you grind stop about a foot from the line.

It was a beautiful start, but it just was coming apart at the seams too much and contriving far too many points to keep the story that they wanted to tell going (even in the first game!), rather than telling a story that the universe was equipped to tell.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Japan and the US are close allies. Do you mean they were enemies in the anime?

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

OT: The movie Here Comes the Boom. Kevin James stars as a loveable, but hapless highschool teacher, where the funding is drying up, and they're going to have to cut a lot of extra curricular programs. So, he decides to try and raise the money by doing amateur MMA fighting. Your typical sports movie, of the underdog taking on the established powerhouse. It was genuinely fun and moving to me all the way through it, and they actually made me believe that Kevin James could be a fighter. (Seriously, the dude got pretty beefy for the role. He wasn't super cut and defined, but he had clearly lifted some weights, he was like a bear.)

And then the ending happened.

Spoiler

The money that he raised to pay for the programs was stolen, so instead of just having to actually show up for the final fight, to top off the money simply for participating, he had to WIN, because the cash prize for winning was exactly the same amount of money that he needed. So he goes up against the world champion MMA at the time,.....*sighs*...and wins. This...this was just so wrong to me. They shouldn't have done it this way. The whole movie he talks about how he doesn't care if he wins, that it's just a means to an end. That his real goal was getting the money for the school, he didn't care what his record was. So I think that the better lesson, would've been to have him fight his best, and lose, realistically this is what would happen going up against the world champion MMA heavyweight. BUT, have the champion, who of course would've heard why the guy was fighting, donate the winnings to the school, as a sign of respect for what the teacher was doing. He could jokingly say something like "Hey, the amount of good PR I'm going to get from doing this is going to net me a few million alone in endorsements. Besides, I'm already rich, what's another 50k?" Then he could smile, thump Kevin James on the shoulder, and walk out. And it would be able to teach the lesson that sometimes, even if you lose, you can win. But NO, they had to do the classic underdog ending and have him come back from behind and stomp the champion, and save the day himself. It just, really disappointed me by the end. I was loving the movie, but then they did that and I was just...meh.

Wow, I wasn't sure anyone else had seen that movie. It was one of those that came out and was forgotten after the opening weekend, but I quite liked it too, at least until the ending. Not that the predictable-as-the-tides conclusion was enough to ruin what was a very likeable little movie overall. It just could have done with a more effective and less eye-rolling message at the end.

 

[Burgers2013]

Naruto Snips.

Yep. Hugely missed opportunity of a show; I hope they got their money's worth by deciding to make it last forever instead of focusing on telling a good story. I stopped watching a while after the exams. I got in the middle of the filler episodes (I think just over episode 100--my God; it hadn't been good since like ep 60), finally realized what was happening, and left. Super disappointing. They had a lot of cool concepts and tons of interesting characters (introduced anyway). And then they did nothing with any of it save the occasional side-story of no consequence in the series.

Also, Naruto was an annoying little dude.

The Indigo Prophecy was really cool/different until about 3/4 of the way through. It was a huge let down. I still enjoyed the game, but really the first like 3 hours or so has all the best content.

The Monstrumologist series (4 books): The 3rd and particularly the 4th books weren't nearly as good as the first two. I'd readily recommend the series to anybody who likes horror and doesn't mind a child protagonist. It's extremely well written and avoids a lot of the common teen fiction tropes. I'm actually sort of surprised it's classified as young adult given the extreme level of violent/gory detail and the reading level in general. Still can't get the "What of the Flies?" chapter out of my head from book 1. Great story, great characters. The only hesitation I have is the 2nd half of the series. I think it happened because the publishers cancelled the 4th and 5th books due to bad sales while Yancey was trying to write the 3rd book. Then fans protested and got publishers to agree to give him a 4th book--again, while he was writing the 3rd book. I have a feeling that they turned out strange because he didn't get to write the series he originally planned to write. The 3rd and 4th books have almost the same theme and the 4th just seems to tie up loose ends rather than adding anything new. They aren't bad, but they aren't as soul-destroyingly good as the 1st and 2nd books.

DAMN the first 2 were good though.

 

[Mister K]

I don't know if it's in the anime, but I remember the manga having an absolutely silly scene where the protagonist instantly recognizes the special forces team that tried to kidnap them as being American because one of the soldiers was Black, because apparently the U.S. is the only country in the world that has Black people in its special forces. That the story seems to treat the U.S., Russia, and china as the only countries to exist outside of Japan would be the only way that line would make sense.

This scene was also in the manga, I think. Basically, from what I remember, one of the operators says that one of the foreign soldiers has black skin, and one of the military guy reacts with "Black skin?!! BASTARTDLY 'MURICANS BLAGHAGHAHBLEH!!!", or something like that.

Japan and the US are close allies. Do you mean they were enemies in the anime?

Not so much enemies as both being interested in gaining access to the other world. It all could've been amazing if author wasn't radical rightwing Japan putzriot (I presume) and actually shown US, China and Russia as what they are: current superpowers of our world. Instead, he was more interested in turning them into saturday morning villains, and also loli tits and guns.

 

[Wary Wolf]

The Drizzt series after 'The Spine of the world". Or rather, Spine was more or less the turning point. Admittedly the rest of the books in "The path of Darkness" Series were ok (Jarlaxe!), and the "Hunter Blades" trilogy were tolerable, Spine was just mediocre.

It's a shame, as Salvatore seemed to be trying to experiment with narrative flow, which is commendable, but the whole story ended up being a sort of Franz Lieber rip-off (NLeiber's great and all, but Salvatore's characters were a bit too similar). The 'romance' story was also iffy at best. Didn't like having the hero of the first series become all angsty either.

I guess with a series running as long as it had, it was bound to slip a little, but to me it hasn't really recovered. Still, I regularly enjoy rereading the first three series, with maybe Sea of Swords and Hunter Blades if I've nothing better to read.

And at least Salvatore's Cleric and Jarlaxe/Artimus series hold up really well on their own.

 

[jhoroz]

Holy shit, that show got worse?

No, it got better

The third act is full on crazy over the top bullshit that the series has been building up to and its only Silent Pony's fault for not understanding and appreciating that.

 

[sonicneedslovetoo]

snip

Dunno if I did that snip right but Amen to that.

Why is nobody mentioning the Star Wars prequels?

Anyway I read a lot of fanfiction and the most common theme for bad stories(that I can get through the first chapter of) is that they'll swerve randomly near the end because the author hasn't planned it out. I'm not going to name names because that would be rude but one story the Author started taking acid and decided to spoil the entire mystery of the story inside of the authors notes in a plain statement. Not even inside the normal story, the end chapter notes unspoiled without warning and it went completely against everything they had been setting up in the story up until that point.
Then another one ended with a random suicide for the main character out of nowhere. it was setup so badly inside of one sentence in the chapter before the end that I had to start explaining to people what they missed because they had no idea what was going on.

Neither story was particularly bad(they were actually both pretty good stories) up until that point but those twists were so badly done and out of left field that they completely destroyed the story for me.

 

[Wary Wolf]

Heh, well Salvatore got stuck with doing the novelization of Attack of the Clones. Did a fair job. A lot of the film novelizations are borderline fan fiction. He actually tried to put depth into characters.

The way I look at the prequels to Star Wars was the idea that probably the death of Anakin Skywalker was a good thing. Its surprising that some one as bad ass as Vader could be born from such a psychopathic angst burger. Shame that one of the most iconic villains in film got such a average backstory.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

Why is nobody mentioning the Star Wars prequels?

Why would they? That dead horse has been beaten so much that its atoms are spread across the entire world.