Following on from an exchange that began on the "Clint Eastwood talks to a chair" thread (I know, people coming to this late in the game are going to bemused with that thread title.), I thought I'd start a fun thread for movies that had the potential to be epic but fell flat on their stupid faces.

So, give the movie title and why you feel it was a woeful failure of a movie, which should have went straight to DVD, or, if it did, should have went straight to the bargain bin shortly after.

I'll start: George A Romero ~ "Land of the Dead"

I was so looking forward to this movie. It had the potential to completely relaunch the zombie/ghoul genre into the 21st century. However, it didn't. The whole concept was completely wrong. All these "rich" people hold up in an exclusive sky-scraper, paying money for the privilege. Really? What the fuck value does money hold in a zombie apocalypse? To be honest, that aspect of the movie alone completely ruined it for me. It brought my disbelief to the fore, and from that point onwards I found myself nitpicking at every little detail.

Starship Troopers. Not an abysmal failure, but the way I hear it told, they had budget for either bugs or powered armor, and they went for great bugs. Personally, I suspect there were dramatic reasons for not using powered armor, but regardless, many felt this gutted the story as presented by Heinlein and turned it into just another bug hunt.

(August 31, 2012 at 5:18 pm)apophenia Wrote: Starship Troopers. Not an abysmal failure...

You have very high notion of "Abysmal".

Have to disagree with your analysis of Starship Troopers. I thought it was a fantastic movie. The fact that soldiers were sent to fight aliens with only guns at their disposal serves to enforce the point about excessive nationalism and militarism. True, it's not what the original author intended the story to be about, but it is how the story was taken by many.

It might have had the skeleton of a reasonable story (separate from Heinlein's) in its own right, but the acting, the scene setting, the dialogue, the overall atomsphere of bemused contempt for itself and of a joke being prepetrated on the audience, makes it amongst the worst big budget Sci-Fi movies of all time.

(August 31, 2012 at 5:37 pm)Chuck Wrote: It might have had the skeleton of a reasonable story (separate from Heinlein's) in its own right, but the acting, the scene setting, the dialogue, the overall atomsphere of bemused contempt for itself and of a joke being prepetrated on the audience, makes it amongst the worst big budget Sci-Fi movies of all time.

I disagree; it had shades of Robocop, which was one of the best Sci-Fi cheese fests of all time. Not to sound insulting, but I think the movie went over a lot of people's heads. In saying that, I feel the same way about Machete.

The Golden Compass. The book was awesome and could have been adapted into a fantastic movie. Instead they went and fucked it up and ruined the whole story.

The Matrix sequels.

Need I say more?

I've always thought that King Kong versus Godzilla should have won an Oscar.

Terribly underrated film-making.

(August 31, 2012 at 5:48 pm)Gambit Wrote: I disagree; it had shades of Robocop, which was one of the best Sci-Fi cheese fests of all time. Not to sound insulting, but I think the movie went over a lot of people's heads. In saying that, I feel the same way about Machete.

I agree Robocop 1 was excellent. But Starship troopers simply went over itsown head, but under most of the audiences' feet. It's sort of like the director had a fleeting spark of real inspiration with Robocop, then it was gone. He tried gamely to recapture the inspiration, ending up only parodying himself.