Kill Your Idols

[Lumenskir]

Have you ever walked out of a movie theater unable to hear yourself think over the collective orgasm of everyone else who watched the film with you?

Have you ever been six tracks into a "Classic" album and wondered when, or if, anything sonically pleasing will show up?

Have you ever read something recommended to you by nearly everyone with eyes, people you thought had common sense and good taste, and wondered if you picked up a heavily defaced and stupidly edited version of the masterpiece everyone else experienced?

In short, have you ever partaken in a heavily touted and praised work, only to discover that everyone who ever praised or touted it must have been on extremely amazing acid?

For instance, I've read Catcher in the Rye. I don't get why it's become this 'amazing' piece of literature, aside from the fact that if you left a copy of Catcher, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and the latest Bright Eyes album in the same room for a day, a fully formed scene girl would spring forth from the combined pointless angst.

So, anybody else experience anything similar in other mediums?

[Fifthfiend]

In short, have you ever partaken in a heavily touted and praised work, only to discover that everyone who ever praised or touted it must have been on extremely amazing acid?

In fairness, a lot of such works are more or less specifically intended to be appreciated while on extremely amazing acid.

[Tendronai]

I've feel the same way whenever I had to read Shakespeare. Old versions, updated to current vernacular, whatever, I just couldn't get involved.

[Robert Paulson]

So you mean to ask have we ever experienced some form of entertainment media we thought was overrated?

Oh man. OH. MAN. Have I a list for you.

We'll start with videogames. One can never forget my disappointment over Halo and Halo 2. Oh, and speaking of games, Earthbound comes to mind. (Yeah, that's right; I said it.) And, quite honestly, Metal Gear Solid 1 is vastly overrated, as is Super Mario 64, Oh! And God of War. That was overrated.

Now, movies, uh, only one comes to mind, and that would be Almost Famous. In case you missed my last bashing of said movie, here's the two things you need to know. One; Almost Famous is virtually unwatchable. Two; Cameron Crowe can't write worth shit!

TV shows, refer to all of the shows listed here that are vastly popular. God, I wish I had discovered Cowboy Bebob and Ghost in the Shell back during my teen years, instead of all those other anime shows . . .

And literature, well, I'm gonna be honest with you; I never got into Discworld. I think Discworld books are alright, but quite frankly, I don't understand why everyone gets all over pretzels just from talking about Discworld.

And with that said, what do you all find overvalued, dear forumers? Puh-LEEZE don't flame me! I will lose all respect for you if you do.

[pochercoaster]

I think over half the things I read/watch/play I don't find that impressive. However, I am very, very picky. And everyone has their own taste. *shrug*

Lumen: You recommended Broken Flowers to me, right? I've already seen it and I think it's horrible. XD On the other hand, I like Catcher in the Rye :P

The Life of Pi: I only tried reading this because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Fifty pages in I gave up because I couldn't get past the author's style. It came off as very pretentious to me, and sometimes I wasn't sure if the author even knew what he was talking about.

[Darth SS]

I'm just going to nominate every book you read in High School English that your teacher is enthusiastic about. They should just realize that showing enthusiasm just builds up your students for the crushing dissapointment.

[Chipper173]

I don't think Queen is that hot. Yeah, Brian May is a badass who made some cool guitar sounds, and they basically invented arena rock, but I don't see much worth liking when I listen to their music.

[POS Industries]

Anything directed by Stanley Kubrick. And yes, fuck you, I do indeed include "2001" and "A Clockwork Orange" on this list and I'm tired of claiming I don't just to avoid getting an earful about how I could dare disparage such brilliant masterpieces.

Stanley Kubrick was a complete hack whose only real talent was the occasional clever juxtaposition of visual scenery with music. "2001" and "A Clockwork Orange" were only good because they were serviceable adaptations of altogether brilliant novels, and "Dr. Strangelove", "Full Metal Jacket", and "The Shining" succeeded based entirely off the merits of their castmembers.

And, of course, Kubrick's knack for musical/visual juxtaposition. I'm sure he would have made a fantastic music video director or something. But instead his body of work is nothing more than a collection of painfully drawn-out, sluggishly paced three-hour trainwrecks that could have actually been quite enjoyable and fit into about an hour and a half or so if he'd just let his actors deliver their lines at a normal pace.

But noooooo, since Kubrick envisioned himself this absolutely AMAZING and GENIUS director, all his movies had to be at least three hours long, because no great movie has apparently ever been under the two hour mark, I guess. And to achieve this goal, rather than simply writing a script with an appropriate amount of scenes and dialogue to fit the intended length of the film, he simply directs his actors to talk... as... slow.... as..... possible....

so that.....

the.........

movie is.....

two or...

three times.....

as long.

So yeah, Stanley Kubrick was a shitty director who immediately stained every potentially great movie he could get his dumbass mits on. Woo.

[Regulus Tera]

May I say Final Fantasy VII? Because I tried to play Final Fantasy VII and there was absolutely nothing good about Final Fantasy VII.

[Fifthfiend]

Let's see.

1. Every Spider-Man movie was piss-awful.

2. Ditto every X-Men movie.

3. I'd mention Superman Returns but I don't really think anyone was kidding themselves that movie sucked.

4. Fuck Toni Morrison and everything she ever wrote.

5. On that note, fuck anyone who ever wrote some bullshit "open-ended" ending cause they were either too lazy or didn't have the stones to actually get to the end of their own fucking story.

6. Also fuck that guy who wrote The Sopranos, not for the above reason, but because his bullshit art-house ending was one massive head-fake to get the entire viewing audience how much every single fucking one of the last eighteen episodes of his show had sucked ass. And fuck his four-episode dream sequence bullshit, too.

7. Fuck Douglas Adams, for reasons that don't need repeating here.

8. You know what? Fuck anyone who ever ended their novel or series of novels or TV show or movie or whatever the hell ever on some kind of awful depressing bullshit downer of an ending. If I need to pay money to be depressed I can go give a fucking dollar to one of the the sad fucking homeless toothless bums who sleep on fucking steam grates in the city, I don't need your fucking bullshit movie to make me feel even worse about our shitty shitty world. I don't fucking care how meaningful it is, if your big meaning is "Life fucking sucks and people are assholes, ha-ha!" then congratulations on taking the half a fucking entire second to go outside your house and take one look around that it takes to figure that shit out.

9. And you know what else, you know every movie where Disney took some classic story and bastardized it by slapping on a happy ending? Kudos to them, cause you know what, having the Little goddamn Mermaid go through all that ridiculous shit and then in the end you just fucking kill her and her fucking prince and then they're just dead and ha-ha fuck you for caring? That shit is goddamn ridiculous and if I ever build a time machine the first thing I'm going to do is go back and find the asshole who wrote that shit and kick him in the nuts. And that goes double for the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

10. And you know what, fuck everything Ronald Reagan ever had to say about anything. I don't know if politics counts as a medium but fuck it, I'm counting it anyway.

Man, that felt good.

May I say Final Fantasy VII?

I'd almost say no if only because on this particular corner of the internet that's almost the default position.