# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/81 "2018-01-11T17:35:53Z")
> [@SingleMalt](#): > > [**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? Yeppers. Even though by the time the movie came out, I was already laughing at the overseriousness of the characters in the book - all that ‘terrible purpose’ stuff\* - I was still hoping that the movie might remind me of the reasons the book kept my interest in the first place. > [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Too many to list. > > Worst: > > The Phantom Menace > Bakshi’s LOTR > Jackson’s LOTR Yeah, all these. We’re both being heretical by including Peter Jackson’s _LOTR_, but for me, the heart of the entire trilogy was that moment of deep silence at the end of the Council of Elrond, into which Frodo finds himself saying he will take the Ring. Jackson took an enormous crap on that moment, turning it into a riot of shouting and cacophony. > [@DesertDog](#): > > One I haven’t seen mentioned yet is [_The Postman_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman_(film)). That’s the one I was going to mention! Good book (re-read it last month), devastatingly bad movie. \*Ably parodied by the National Lampoon’s _[Doon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon%27s_Doon)_. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/82 "2018-01-11T17:45:59Z")
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I love the Narnia books and was reasonably happy with the first two movies, realising that they had to be updated a bit for a modern audience. But VODT was awful. No resemblance to the book plot at all beyond the names of the characters and the fact that they were sailing across the ocean to the world’s end. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/83 "2018-01-11T18:00:34Z")
My two that spring right to mind are: \* Watchers\* and _Starship Troopers_ Not that either is a terrible film considered stand-alone but more that I really loved both books and wish at least one of the screenwriters had actually read said book. So much license was taken as to stretch the limits of the phrase “based on”. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/84 "2018-01-11T18:12:05Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#): > > Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I love the Narnia books and was reasonably happy with the first two movies, realising that they had to be updated a bit for a modern audience. But VODT was awful. No resemblance to the book plot at all beyond the names of the characters and the fact that they were sailing across the ocean to the world’s end. Well, you have to admit, they did touch upon the transformation of Eustace, which was a fairly central part of the story. I cannot blame you for perhaps not noticing, though, as the rest of it was such a mess. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/85 "2018-01-11T18:44:32Z")
\*\*Without a doubt my number one film in the “Disastrously Short” category was **The Wild Wild West**. As guy who grew up in the late 60s / 70s, Jim West was the coolest, most bad ass dude in the world. And I waited and waited for the film, and when it was proposed, I said, “How can this fail?” Steam punk meets the western, with modern special effects and a big budget. My god what a complete kick in the balls that was. ---
**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 11, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/86 "2018-01-11T18:48:00Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > \*\*Without a doubt my number one film in the “Disastrously Short” category was **The Wild Wild West**. As guy who grew up in the late 60s / 70s, Jim West was the coolest, most bad ass dude in the world. And I waited and waited for the film, and when it was proposed, I said, “How can this fail?” Steam punk meets the western, with modern special effects and a big budget. My god what a complete kick in the balls that was. One of my complaints about the film was "How can they do this without that wonderful theme music? They did manage to work it in, at the end, but it was too little, too late. Wild, Wild West with Rap music just doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![blobus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blobus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blobus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/87 "2018-01-11T19:15:28Z")
Star Trek, The Motion Picture Highlander II Two movies where I thought they’d expanded on the worst parts of the original and thrown out the best. ---
**Author:** ![blobus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blobus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blobus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/88 "2018-01-11T19:19:47Z")
Regarding Star Trek - The Motion Picture: If you can listen to Goldsmith’s ‘The Enterprise’ as stand alone music - I think it makes the best marching band piece EVER. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/89 "2018-01-11T19:39:25Z")
Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World I \*love \*Jurassic Park. It’s one of my all-time favorite movies. When it came out, I went to the theater every Sunday morning during its entire run to watch it. I still stop and watch it when I surf by it on TV, and I’ve got large chunks of the dialog memorized. My favorite character in it is Ian Malcolm. So when I heard that the second movie was going to feature him as the star, I was beyond excited. And then I won free tickets to see an early pre-showing, so I was even more excited. The movie was thoroughly underwhelming. I loved weird, edgy, vaguely creepy-but-charming scientist-Malcolm. I hated action hero/boyfriend worried-daddy Malcolm. I didn’t like his daughter and how they had to fit in her gymnastics moves. I just generally disliked how much they changed the character of Malcolm to shoehorn him into the daddy role. So yeah, not a hit with me. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/90 "2018-01-11T19:42:00Z")
Oh my word, all these pages on the thread and neither I nor anyone else has mentioned the worst letdown of my filmgoing life - **Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze!** My dad had been a huge fan of the pulp magazine series as a kid, and began rereading them when the Bantam series came out in the 1960s with the wonderful James Bama covers. He gave me a whole box of them to read, which hooked me when I was 14. I loved the Philip Jose Farmer “biography” of Doc, which tied him into many of my favorite literary characters and also got me started looking at other supposed “relatives” of Doc of which I hadn’t heard. Then I began seeing the promotional material for the film, starring former Tarzan Ron Ely and produced by the great George Pal, whom I felt could do no wrong. I practically had to be wrapped in wet sheets waiting for it to be released…to be followed by crashing disappointment. Ely was still quite good and physically matched the Doc of the pulp magazine covers and interior illustrations. The Amazing 5 were okay except for the pivotal figures of Monk and Ham, who were completely miscast. The film took a camp attitude like the 1960s Batman series, had bizarre gaps in logic (like Doc being shot up with a tommy gun to no effect - and he was seen not to be wearing a bulletproof vest when he dived into the water and disrobed afterwards. ), cartoon-like animation. It was just a crapfest. There is supposed to be a fan edit which removes all the campy subpar comedy and is a great improvement, which I have to find someday. There have been announcements of remakes starring everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Chris Hemsworth. I hope some day they do it right. The style of Indiana Jones (which was admittedly influenced by Doc) would have been the way to go. I even thought the adaptation of The Phantom was not so bad as others thought, and had the right attitude for this type of material. _SIGH_. ---
**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 11, 2018, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/91 "2018-01-11T19:56:04Z")
One from childhood that still pisses me off: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Our (3rd? 4th?) grade teacher read the book out loud to us, one chapter per day, during the hour after lunch, as part of her effort to lure the non-reading kids to an appreciation of books. I became quite fascinated by this old derelict high-performance car that had an array of secret buttons and a mind of its own. The book was a love poem to a car by an author who had an appreciation for the power and mystery of a car, particularly a non-boring quirky fascinating old thing with old-style features like mudguards and an enormous capacity supercharged engine and the styling and trim of a luxury performance roadster. Whereas _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ suffered from way way too much obsession with the freaking Enterprise, _Chitty Chitty Bang Bang_ erred in the opposite direction, taking a story that was first and foremost a story about a car and not bothering to make the car believable, fascinating, or even interesting. They turned it into a parade float, something to putt through the skies on lollipop wings with cute twirling parasol-propellers while Dick van Dyke grins and clowns and sings. In the book, the car reveals its capacity to fly when the family had decided to go to the beach, but they were stuck in traffic because everyone else had had the same idea. As the time and miles wore on the car itself began taking on an ominous appearance as if it were glaring, personifying the impatience of its driver and passengers, and the folks in the cars in front of it kept looking back nervously. Then the car begins flashing an instruction at Pott to pull a button on the dashboard (and changes that to “PULL IDIOT” when he delays) and when he finally does so the mudguards sweep out and become wings, the fan in front of the radiator emerges out the nose, and with a mighty roar the vehicle takes to the air. Anyone who has ever been caught in a long line of traffic can totally relate and would instantly yearn to have a similar car if they’d done that in the movle. Damn car needed to be the 12 cylinder 8 liter supercharged Paragon Panther, with long-forgotten little luxury details and functions galore, capable of making you suspend belief and allow as how maybe it could fly (and go roaring across the water like a speedboat). I wish someone would remake it. Preferably not as a musical. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/92 "2018-01-11T20:01:46Z")
> [@galen\_ubal](#): > > I’ve rarely walked out of a movie angry, but I felt like I’d been ripped off. Blair Witch. I’m _still_ pissed! :mad: Goddammit! Gimme my money back! ---
**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 11, 2018, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/93 "2018-01-11T20:13:20Z")
> [@Arizona\_Mike](#): > > Oh my word, all these pages on the thread and neither I nor anyone else has mentioned the worst letdown of my filmgoing life - > **Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze!** > > My dad had been a huge fan of the pulp magazine series as a kid, and began rereading them when the Bantam series came out in the 1960s with the wonderful James Bama covers. He gave me a whole box of them to read, which hooked me when I was 14. I loved the Philip Jose Farmer “biography” of Doc, which tied him into many of my favorite literary characters and also got me started looking at other supposed “relatives” of Doc of which I hadn’t heard. > > Then I began seeing the promotional material for the film, starring former Tarzan Ron Ely and produced by the great George Pal, whom I felt could do no wrong. I practically had to be wrapped in wet sheets waiting for it to be released…to be followed by crashing disappointment. > > Ely was still quite good and physically matched the Doc of the pulp magazine covers and interior illustrations. The Amazing 5 were okay except for the pivotal figures of Monk and Ham, who were completely miscast. The film took a camp attitude like the 1960s Batman series, had bizarre gaps in logic (like Doc being shot up with a tommy gun to no effect - and he was seen not to be wearing a bulletproof vest when he dived into the water and disrobed afterwards. ), cartoon-like animation. It was just a crapfest. > > There is supposed to be a fan edit which removes all the campy subpar comedy and is a great improvement, which I have to find someday. There have been announcements of remakes starring everyone from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Chris Hemsworth. I hope some day they do it right. The style of Indiana Jones (which was admittedly influenced by Doc) would have been the way to go. I even thought the adaptation of The Phantom was not so bad as others thought, and had the right attitude for this type of material. > > _SIGH_. This has become one of my favorite BAD films. It’s hilariously awful. I have a copy on DVD. For a while, there was an “MST3K”-ization of the film, with appropriate lines for Tom Servo, Crow, and Joel/Mike, but it’s sadly gone now. Some of the lines were pretty good. (“This movie is brought to you by the letter “W””. “Long Tom, no see!”) Reportedly, George Pal (whose last film this was) thought he’d made a great flick, and that it was responsible for the revival of 1930s-style adventure film, like the _Indiana Jones_ films. ---
**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 11, 2018, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/94 "2018-01-11T20:19:20Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > 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. I actually found some things to like in the _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ movie. I liked the animation style they used for the book, and Stephen Fry as the voice, Bill Nighy and the factory on Magrathea, Alan Rickman and Marvin, and Zooey Deschanel was delightful as Trillian. But the good pieces didn’t fit together as well as they should have. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > The movies – I’ve seen all but the latest of the four\*, and not one even comes close to achieving the feel of the comics at all. I’ve not seen any of the _Fantastic Four_ movies, but I find the story behind the making of the first one to be strangely fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![blobus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@blobus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blobus)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/95 "2018-01-11T20:27:22Z")
Pearl Harbor. I went to see this with my dad, before he died, and I think it was on December 7th. Anyway, the movie started off with the absurd choice of Alec Baldwin playing the essentially modest Jimmy Doolittle, and moved on to equally unlikely happenings for no reason that we could figure. My favorite was the scene where they had people like George Marshal and E.J. King acting like simpering cowards until the great Roosevelt heroically got to his feet and lectured them on how we weren’t going to take this sitting down. What rot. ---
**Author:** ![Noelq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noelq/32/16438_2.png) [@Noelq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noelq)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/96 "2018-01-11T23:02:48Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > **Cowboys and Aliens**. Sounded great on paper. I was all psyched to see it, I even went to a theater!☹ +1. Only movie I’ve ever taken the nephews to that I’ve actually fallen asleep in. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/97 "2018-01-11T23:49:59Z")
> [@Noelq](#): > > Only movie I’ve ever taken the nephews to that I’ve actually fallen asleep in. Speaking of which, I heard that “Eyes Without a Face” was one of the creepiest, most stylish horror movies of all time. I fell asleep after 45 minutes of not much happening. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/98 "2018-01-11T23:57:03Z")
_The Phantom Menace_ put me off the series. Thought I’d try again with _The Force Awakens_. Screw it, I’m done. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/99 "2018-01-12T00:23:54Z")
I agree! I thought _TFA_ sucked! It had JJ Abrams’ schlocky bullshit splashed all over it. The guy is a hack. I thought _Last Jedi_ was a bit better, but still nowhere near as good as anything in the original trilogy. _Rogue One_ was better than either. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316/100 "2018-01-12T17:24:43Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > Blair Witch. I’m _still_ pissed! :mad: > > Goddammit! Gimme my money back! Must’ve blocked that one out of my memory. Yes, it totally sucked. _The 'Burbs_. Lord, what a turkey. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-a-movie-ever-fallen-disastrously-short-of-your-expectations/806316.md?page=6)