Well, the actual story of the Titanic is an interesting one, punctuated by enormous tragedy. If nothing else, it’s great movie fodder… you KNOW that as soon as some damn fool says the thing is unsinkable…
The James Cameron movie, however, is notable for having a completely fictional love story at its centerpiece, as opposed to most of the actual historical interesting stuff. Then again, it’s not like it matters, since he only made the thing to pay for his then-hobby of extreme deep sea diving…
When Titanic came out, I remember an almost immediate hate-dom alongside the acclaim, often along gender lines. Things haven’t really changed.
I don’t think Spider-Man 3 is bad so much as Spider-Man 2 is overrated as hell. The plot holes and science headsmackers take me out of it. These movies also suffer from the non-MCU comic book movie problem of too many villains and reusing the same villain. Now I heard some talk (maybe not current) that the [del]reboot[/del] re-reboot is talking about using Green Goblin again!
FTR: Spider-Man 3 is a respectable 63% at RT.
I don’t know if Gump was *wrongly *decayed, but I didn’t notice that people actively disliked it until maybe 2 years ago.
I think for films that people know but haven’t seen like Waterworld, people conflate the fact that the movie was commercially unsuccessful with objectively terrible. 42% at RT (keep in mind that it predates the website), which is not “fresh” but doesn’t make it the worst. movie. ever.
I think what sank Waterworld was bad word of mouth before it ever came out. I was hearing that Waterworld was going to bomb like Pearl Harbor MONTHS before it came out.
It didn’t, but it didn’t justify its budget, either. How much money do you need to spend to film an ocean?
No, I grant that Forrest himself is magic, with the writer doing whatever is necessary so as to be able to work him into all sorts of scenarios. But the scenarios and situations are set up to allow the storyteller to cast a light on various aspects of life and say, “Look, here’s the ‘real world’[sup]TM[/sup]. Ooh look, AIDS! AIDS EVERYONE! Kid’s got problems? Moms sleep with teachers! MOMS SLEEP WITH TEACHERS, EVERYONE! Vietnam makes you handicapped. HANDICAPPED PEOPLE, EVERYONE! OMG, BETCHA DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THAT!? She was molested by her dad. DAD’S MOLEST THEIR DAUGHTERS, EVERYONE! Chinese people like Ping Pong. PING PONG, HAHA, SO FUNNY!”
So it’s like, a) C’mon dude, these are not mysterious things that were just introduced into the world (and no, mom’s don’t sleep with teachers to get their kids into school), b) It is not deep to show that bad things exist, that good things also exist, and that some things are silly, again, we are aware of this, and c) It’s cheap to try and quickly roll over the dark bits, throw in some crazy antics and silliness, so that you can still do a light and happy puff piece on the meaning of life. Again, you’re not being deep. You’re just being wimpy AND still not revealing anything new to the world. We all watch the daily news. We are aware of the sorts of things that happen in the real world.
It went from “worth watching” to “not worth watching” pretty quickly.
If I had any complaint about Titan A.E., it’s that it was a tad too Disney. Seems to me your serious science fiction fans have enough flak about their guilty pleasures that they don’t want Disney in their science fiction extravaganza.
I suspect that’s also what sank* Treasure Planet.*
HOOPER
Don’t make me bust a cap in your ass,
yo! Jedi’s the most insulting
installment, because Vader’s
beautiful, black visage is
sullied when he pulls off his mask to
reveal a feeble, crusty white man!
They’re trying to tell us that deep
inside, we all want to be white!
BANKY
Well isn’t that true?
*Jedi *deserves every bit of its hate. It’s half a good movie.
So the OP is flawed from the get-go. 
As for Titanic, the love story is the stupidest part of it. Makes zero sense at any point in the movie.
Related to that, I will nominate Dances with Wolves. It was incredibly well received when it came out, won the Oscar for Best Picture, and was considered both a critical and audience favorite. When Kevin Costner followed it up with films like Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Waterworld, and The Postman, Costner’s reputation took a hit and people started to reassess the greatness of Dances. It is like the Rocky effect–subsequent poorer quality movies cast a shadow over an earlier great film.
Like how everyone thought Police Academy was a great film, but by the time Police Academy 6 came out its reputation was in tatters.
Or possibly not quite like that.
What’s a Nubian?
I wasn’t all that crazy about DWW, but I think you may have a point. Weirdly enough, I also think DWW took a bit of a hit when Avatar came out, considering they had vurra similar plotlines in which bumbling white guys come charging to the rescue of incompetent natives… and someone noticed this and pointed it out.
It wasn’t just the Ewoks, the contrivances, and the retread plot that made it lame though, it was also the vanilla-fying of the protagonists. In the previous movies everybody had their own quirks, their own strengths and flaws, their own agendas that they were following. In Episode VI, they all became “The Super Best Friends of the Galaxy”. They were all skilled at the same things, they all were shooting for same goal, they all had each others back–because that is what super best friends do! They became bland and interchangeable.
…wait, what?
I think he is referring to the 12-year-old Really Not All That Bright.
So, what he told you was true… from a certain point of view. 
Shut the fuck up!
Saw. The first one.
Yes, I know what you are thinking. “Torture porn”. “Everything that’s wrong with modern horror”. “Dumb”. But you are actually thinking about the sequels. The original Saw movie is an intense, thoughtful thriller with minimal bloodshed and perfectly directed and edited to steadily grow more and more suspenseful. Hate on the sequels as much as you want, I do too, but the first one is practically Hitchcockian. Sure, the ending is a bit contrived, but I didn’t say it was perfect.
I loved the first Star Wars, hated the ewoks at first sight.
Yeah, I loved the first Saw movie when I saw it. It was pretty well received from memory. But, as you say, the sequels…
I gave up with them about half way through the third.
Seriously? Most people I know thought it was the worst of the three. Wait a minute, Marko killed Uncle Ben? They put in a plot point predicated on the idea that the audience didn’t see the first Spider-Man movie so they could build up tension between Pete and Sandman. Then we have some mysterious butler who we’ve never seen before that suddenly decides to tell Harry that Spider-Man wasn’t responsible for his father’s death. It was just all around terrible writing and I recognized it at the time.