# Has a Movie ever Fallen Disastrously Short of your Expectations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 10, 2018, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316 "2018-01-10T13:04:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/21 "2018-01-10T16:36:31Z")
_The Monk_ (1796) by Matthew Lewis is a quintessential Gothic novel and easily the best book I ever had to read in college. It has been filmed 3 times. I’ve seen the 1972 version starring Euro-woodblock Franco Nero, with a script by Buñuel and his longtime writing partner Jean-Claude Carrière. Buñuel was supposed to direct, but sadly, didn’t. Although the film substitutes an audacious non-ending for the book’s epic ownage ending, the rest of the flick is remarkably dull. I have also seen the 2011 version with Vincent Cassell, which telegraphed a major plot twist, restored all but the coolest parts of the book’s ending and was similarly dull (IMO, the best performance was given by a CG centipede). I have not seen the 1990 version, but don’t hold out much hope it is significantly better. _Death and the Compass_ is my favorite Borges short story. It was adapted for the BBC in 1992 by Alex Cox (of _Repo Man_ fame), who later expanded it to feature-length. Regrettably, he botched it, miscasting Peter Boyle as the detective and filling it in with too many static exposition scenes featuring a Pablo Escobar lookalike. Watching it hurt, but Mr. Cox later redeemed himself with his excellent 2002 adaptation of Thomas Middleton’s 1607 play _Revengers Tragedy_…but that is for another thread. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/22 "2018-01-10T16:39:23Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > So many movies which I had great expectations for are disappointments. But those that I would consider to be “disastrously” short of my expectations: > > - “Star Trek - The Motion Picture.” After waiting so long, and all the excitement about a resurrection into a full length feature, such a let down. It seemed all the character dynamics that made TOS so beloved were just ignored/discarded. And then to add new, annoying characters only raised more questions than “freshness” to the story. I can remember being in conscious denial of how bad the movie was as I sat through it - I wanted SO much to like it. > > - “Conan The Barbarian”. I was a huge Robert E. Howard fan after becoming acquainted with the character from the comic books. So I knew there was this huge wealth of material to draw from to make a whole number of fantastic movies. We also heard that Milius (who wrote the screenplay) was also a big fan of the Howard books. So it seemed this movie had potential. Then…they cast Arnold. > > . Considering that they got the original cast back, got Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still! The Andromeda Strain!) to direct, Isaac Asimov as science advisor, and alan Dean Foster to do the story, you’d think that they’d do better. Heck, they even had Orson Welles – Orson Freakin’ War of the Worlds Welles – to do the voice-over on the original trailer. But the story was basically a retread of “The Changeling” from the original series (with a bit of “Immunity Syndrome”, with that Cloud hiding everything), which was a disappointment. The effects were gorgeous, but the whole thing felt monumentally overblown. I’m glad that they wrested control of the franchise away from Roddenbery and got Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer to do they next three films. I think it saved the franchise. as for Conan the Barbarian, my complain isn’t with Arnold – he looks perfect for the part. John Buscema could’ve drawn him. My complaint is that there wasn’t enough Howard in in it – that character onscreen didn’t seem to have anything in common with the hero of Tower of the Elephant or Rogues I the House or Red Nails. The cheapie flick _Sword and the Sorceror_, which came out a couple of months earlier, felt much more like a Conan film, because they liberally stole the best parts from Conan stories – the resuscitation of Xuthltan from “Hour of the Dragon/Conan the Conqueror”, Conan’s rucifiction, and other parts. Despite being a much worse film and having a lower budget, it grossed almost exactly as much as Conan the Barbarian did. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/23 "2018-01-10T16:53:26Z")
James Ellroys The Black Dahlia. The casting was all wrong and ended up eviscerating the film. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/24 "2018-01-10T17:19:43Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > James Ellroys The Black Dahlia. The casting was all wrong and ended up eviscerating the film. Boo! Event Horizon. I was looking forward to a cool sic-fi flick. Nope. Portal to hell is what I got. Damnit. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/25 "2018-01-10T17:28:43Z")
**Cowboys and Aliens**. Sounded great on paper. I was all psyched to see it, I even went to a theater!☹ ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/26 "2018-01-10T17:30:34Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Star Trek I. > > After waiting for what seemed to be an eternity for the film to be made, (and then waiting on line for half a day), the movie was a pretty huge let-down. Yeah, same here. (I assume you’re referring to “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) I was a trekkie kid and a science fiction kid. Watched the reruns of the original series when I could. This should have been great and it ever so… wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/27 "2018-01-10T17:32:32Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > **John Carter**. I love the book series. I was excited that a big budget movie was planned with the special effects expertise to do the film some justice even if the story strayed. > What I saw was a mess on every front. Bumbling story, unknown actors, forgettable effects. The movie is not even worth a second viewing. Agree with this also. I’d heard (from someone here on SDMB in fact) that it was better than the critics said and worth seeing. It wasn’t. I couldn’t even stick it out to the halfway point. ---
**Author:** ![Made\_in\_Macau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@Made\_in\_Macau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Made_in_Macau)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/28 "2018-01-10T17:35:13Z")
Plus one for Last Jedi. Oh boy. At times it felt like a parody. When Luke drank the creature’s milk it seemed to me like a gag Family Guy would make - without the involvement of a bottle obviously. From the opening ‘I’m on hold for General Gleeson’ or whatever I thought ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’ Ugh. Such a let down. Almost in Phantom Menace territory. MiM ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/29 "2018-01-10T17:39:44Z")
The film adaptation of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ was just painful to watch. Despite being based upon a partially completed screenplay and notes by Douglas Adams and drawing heavily on the source material it seemed to miss the point of _every single joke_, failing to execute the punchlines. Despite a cast of uniformly good (if utterly miscast) actors, and with special effects and set design were wasted on one pointless scene after another until it finally struggled to a conclusion that made no sense, it wasn’t funny in the slightest. It was as if someone remade _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_ with the cast of _Friends_ doing an initial line reading and not understanding the humor. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/30 "2018-01-10T17:41:19Z")
I’m a big Coen Brothers fan, and a big Ealing Studios fan. My favorite Ealing Studios movie is 1955’s _The Ladykillers_. When I heard that the Coen Brothers were doing a remake of this movie, I had high hopes. However, it turned out a big bust. Tom Hanks was miscast, his partners in crime were mostly just annoying, and the old lady somehow fell flat. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/31 "2018-01-10T17:49:22Z")
> [@Made\_in\_Macau](#): > > Almost in Phantom Menace territory. We’re putting\* Phantom Menace\* in parenthetical, “oh by the way” territory?:eek::eek::eek: Have we all blocked out the terror that was Jar Jar Binks? Are we ignoring that the battle between Good and Evil was based on a trade dispute? I have just two words for all of you Midi Chlorians ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/32 "2018-01-10T18:17:39Z")
My wife and I saw [this trailer for Alien3](https://youtu.be/Bk_x9W1xKng) and were so excited we were bouncing off the seat. Aliens! Earth! This is gonna be AWESOME! (Narrator: It wasn’t awesome.) ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/33 "2018-01-10T18:51:41Z")
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The book was raunchy raucous fun with outrageous characters. The movie blanded them all down to limpness and completely left some of them out and confused most of the context. And Clint Eastwood’s daughter as Mandy was a travesty. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/34 "2018-01-10T19:12:00Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > James Ellroys The Black Dahlia. The casting was all wrong and ended up eviscerating the film. Fire and ice. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/35 "2018-01-10T19:43:52Z")
I once rented “the unrated version” of _Electra_, starring Shannon Tweed. Why was it unrated, you ask? Because, if you put “PG” on a Shannon Tweed movie, nobody would ever rent the d— thing. The movie was made in 1996. Ms Tweed was getting older, and attempting to branch out from the Erotic Thriller genre. It was not a successful attempt. With a little work, it could have been a decent low-budget sci-fi film. With a little work, it could have been a decent low-budget detective film. With a little work, it could have been a decent low-budget action film. With a little work, it could have been a decent erotic thriller. It just never quite succeeded at any of them. ---
**Author:** ![SingleMalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/singlemalt/32/3961_2.png) [@SingleMalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleMalt)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/36 "2018-01-10T19:46:52Z")
[**Dune**](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087182/?ref_=nv_sr_1). Huge fan of the book growing up, couldn’t wait to see the movie. “Weirding Modules”? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/37 "2018-01-10T19:58:58Z")
_Batman and Robin_ managed to greatly underperform even my low (after seeing _Batman Forever_) expectations. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/38 "2018-01-10T20:00:32Z")
_ **The Neverending Story** _ is one of many - but it comes to mind immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/39 "2018-01-10T20:00:44Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. > > When I saw the trailer, I thought “this could be the greatest film EVER!” The trailer looked like the perfect example of retro-futurism. The sets, the tone, the P40s fighting giant robots, the whole pulp/comic feel. > > And it was so damn stupid! They screwed up everything _except_ for the look. The plot, the characters, crap. And of course that means no one will ever made a good movie using the same elements. I was in Germany when this film came out, and saw it in a German theater. It was dubbed, and I don’t speak German. But you’re right, it was absolutely gorgeous to look at. Saw it again a couple months later, on my flight home, on a tiny screen on the seatback ahead of me. But it was in English. I liked it better the first time. But it was an interesting failure, and I have tried to figure out exactly why it didn’t work. Despite the alternate-1930s aesthetic, I think the special effects are too video-gamey; hundreds of enemies buzzing around and it’s rather like swatting at gnats. And the character of Polly is all wrong. She should have been a smart, decisive, spunky reporter type (like they might have had in a 1930s movie), but instead she was hesitant and dithering. I don’t know if the fault goes to Gwyneth Paltrow (also gorgeous to look at) or the director. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2018, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/40 "2018-01-10T20:15:38Z")
> [@Grumbacher\_Red](#): > > Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. > > The book was raunchy raucous fun with outrageous characters. > > The movie blanded them all down to limpness and completely left some of them out and confused most of the context. And Clint Eastwood’s daughter as Mandy was a travesty. +1 the book was great, movie just didn’t get there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316.md?page=3)