For random reasons, I did some internet sleuthing to see if there’s a really high profile director who fell off as hard and quick as M. Night Shyamalan did. So far, no luck.
That quest inspired this topic. Name a TV/Game/Movie series that started to suck right after you got into it. If the series was good for a while and you became a late fan right before it went bad, that counts (if the quality drop is that bad). I guess actors/directors/musicians count too.
Obviously for me, the answer is Shyamalan. I’ve never seen a director get so big and lose most of his rep so fast. Right now I can’t even think of anything else that matches. I heard several reviews of the Happening where people came out of the theater and kicked a tree. How can you match that level of suck?
This might be a reverse on the topic @HAND, but I think DBZ sucked in the beginning, and then the episode quality progressed during the Cell Saga. Saiyamen Saga was the best one.
I could name a lot of athletes, but that is the nature of the business. It is hard to stay at a high level for a long time when a lot of it relies on being physically able to perform, and you have to deal with things like age, injuries, and up and coming players that will eventually kick you out.
DBZ was great in the beginning (if you are referring to the Raditz Saga or even Initial DB). Cell Saga was great, but Buu Saga, IMO, took a nose dive.
In terms of athletes, if they declined normally when they hit their 30s and eventually fell off, those don’t count. It’s the nature of aging and the business itself.
However, Greg Oden is a great example though. He was hyped through the roof when he first came out of college. Then he got drafted into the NBA 1st overall. But his knees completely gave out on him in the end and he got waived. He’s still only like 25 or something but that’s a real fall off imo.
Freiza Saga is where things started getting really good, and it just went up from there. Buu saga definitely not the best though. Cell/android saga is where the series reached its highest point of awesome.
To use food related analogies…
Frieza Saga: Meat & potatoes.
Buu/saiyaman/kid buu saga/etc: Sauce. Great sauce…but still just sauce.
Cell Saga: Meat & potatoes and awesome sauce on top of it. Emphasizing the best of what made DBZ so kickass as an action anime.
I did not like the first few episodes of Trigun or Evangelion, but both shows became amazingly good mid-way through. Same with Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. A lot of bad or meandering episode but 2nd Gig was superb. I’m not a big fan of anime either
Things I liked that became terrible…Dario Argento. One of the great Italian horror directors and his last good film (filled with plot holes and inappropriate hair metal music) was Opera. Everything else he’s made after that film was just shockingly bad. Same with George Romero. I pretend that the 2nd Dead Trilogy does not exist and the series ended with the superb Day of the Dead.
Probably the best example of something great that became terrible would be The Simpsons.
Whats your opinion of the Evangelion rerelease stuff awhile back? Was supposed to be cleaned up & more accurate.
Anyway, i enjoyed the sci-fi, action aspect of the show, and how things were always on edge with that surreal quality about it…but damn, Eva was DEPRESSING at times.
Saiyan Saga is the correct term actually for the beginning batch of episodes.
I’ve yet to watch the Remade Evangelion films. I have the 1st one on my hard drive but haven’t been inspired to watch it.
Speaking of Sci Fi… The Alien movies. I really love the first 3 pictures, especially Alien 3 (Assembly Cut moreso) and think it’s a very misunderstood picture and the perfect ending to the franchise. Then Resurrection came out, then those AVP movies… Here’s hoping Prometheus will be good.
I love the first 2 Predator films as well, part 2 is fucking awesome. Predators I thought was just okay. I had a lot of nit-picky problems with it but the biggest problem I had being that it was a pseudo-remake of the first film and almost goes into scene-for-scene stealing more than a few times. It’s a good popcorn flick but it doesn’t do much for me. I’d like to see a Predator 4 without Robert Rodriguez involved and have it explore the Predator’s warrior culture.
how is pointing to The Happening proof that M. Night fell off super fast? That was like his sixth movie.
Also Argento and Carpenter definitely fell off a cliff, but I don’t think Romero deserves to be there. His stuff isn’t as good as his classic stuff, but Land, Diary, and Survival are all actually pretty decent and in keeping with the themes that run throughout his body of work. He didn’t really change, just everyone else did
I thought Unbreakable wasn’t too bad. It was anything after that that took a nosedive.
M. Night Shyamalan’s problem was he peaked way too early with Sixth Sense. It wasn’t his first good film, but it was the first good one anyone remembers of him.
Moreover, he was doing other genres aside from suspense before Sixth Sense. After that movie, he typecast himself by trying to cash in on Sixth Sense and do nothing but suspense films. Now that’s all he’s known for, and people can’t even take him seriously anymore within the genre, so how can he go back to making films outside of it?