Most Hurtful Franchise Downfall

[Sheikah_Witch]

So, media sees downfalls from time to time - franchises that were once at the top of their game, only to fall from grace with new entries and spinoffs that were inferior or, in some cases, outright terrible to the degree that they dragged down the entire franchise with them.

This is all subjective and subject to discussion of course, but generally speaking, there's no denying that season 8 of Game of Thrones left a sour taste in many fans' mouths - that The Rise of Skywalker did pretty badly compared to it's predecessors - that the Hobbit films has caused many to see LotR in a bad light going forward. Even fans of Harry Potter has turned their backs against the franchise in light of the Fantastic Beast films and the Cursed Child play. And gaming has it's fair share of franchise downfalls as well - for some people, it's Mass Effect, for some people it's Sonic, and for some people it's perhaps even Metroid.

What about you? Is there any franchise that you have witnessed that has in your eyes caused such a downfall that it has almost hurt to watch? If so, what is that franchise, and do you ever see it recover?

 

[Spirit]

Plenty

Star Trek, Star Wars, Game of Thrones and the decline of The Simpsons were all pretty bad.

But my saddest loss has been Doctor Who. DW has never been highbrow entertainment but it is almost always fun. And at its best it can tell some genuinely touching stories and have some of the heaviest hitting character moments in media...

But it's an absolute joke now. The BBC have bought into this woke movement and are using the show for their political agendas.

As well as all of this, the lead actress playing the Doctor has never watched an episode of it and thr showrunner didn't want the job but the BBC gave him enough money.

But even then it gets worse because the latest season has had the biggest canonical retcon I have ever seen. It undoes almost sixty years worth of franchise history and undermines all of the great talent that has come before to make the show what it is.

It's sad to see what this show has become. It is a walking abomination.

 

[Ten Thousand Needles]

Final Fantasy X is one of my all time favorite games. X-2 was pretty different, and I disliked the drastic change to the main character's personality but it was still a good game. But then when the remasters came out they continued the story in the worst possible way and took a steaming dump over all of the games' events. If they ever do make a third game, I can only pray that they pretend anything outside of the two games didn't happen.

 

[Echolight]

I haven’t really watched doctor who that much because some are too scary for me atm, but my dad loved doctor who. They ruined it for him. He’s not even going to watch it, because he can already tell it bad by the reviews. I’m sad about that.

Hobbit was also actually pretty good for me. Though lotr is 100% better, it still was a well developed movie trilogy. It’s just missing something, but I can’t pinpoint it. I do wish they could’ve made it better, but I just don’t know how they could. Somethings just off about it.

But doctor who is definitely the saddest. I thought it would last forever, and be really cool, because it would never end with a new doctor taking over. But then they went and ruined it. And why did the doctor turn into a girl??

???

Idk, that just doesn’t make any sense.

 

[mαrkαsscoρ]

Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Odd Parents, I grew the heck up w/ these cartoons in their prime and they were some of my favorites ever....then they kept on going

First 3 seasons of spongebob are legendary, yada yada, seasons 4 and 5 are a bit hit and miss but they were still overall not too bad, heck I think season 5 had some of the best spongebob episodes ever. Season 6 is kind of a guilty pleasure for me but you can definitely see the quality dropping off. But then around 7 or 8 is when I checked out, too many stupid or awful episodes and I just really couldn't take it any more. I hear there were certain good episodes that came somewhere along the line, but in a way, it's kinda too late for me, this show just needs to end.

Same thing w/ Fairly Odd Parents, awesome first 3 seasons w/ a pretty ok 4th and 5th season. And then the infamous Fairly Odd Baby. I didn't hate that special, but it was easily the beginning of the end. I remember watching the new episodes that followed after and thinking "man, these episodes suck". I basically drifted out from there, and good thing too b/c from the small bits I've seen from the later episodes, oh my god the show became terrible. I honestly feel like it sank lower than spongebob, by the end of the show, it was just a zombie that desperately needed to be put out of its misery. How the mighty have fallen

I also wanna say Family Guy briefly b/c, surprise surprise, I really enjoyed the first 3 seasons and I even remember its comeback in 2005. But at a certain point, I lost track of the show, and when I came back at around 2011 or 2012, it basically became the awful show that most people recognize it for today.

 

[Spirit]

It also hurt me really bad to see Metroid go sour.

Fusion was fine to play but the story started planting the seeds, Other M retroactively aborted the series onelce those seeds from Fusion bloomed and then Samus Returns missed the mark of the original and somehow lacked the tone and undermined the point of the original.

This is what happens when you leave Sakamoto in full control.

Rip Samus. I miss you.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Most recent, ThunderCats. What a dreadful abomination the new show is.

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Most recent, ThunderCats. What a dreadful abomination the new show is.

Really? I'd heard fairly good things about the new show. It popularized the Thundercats to the point where they received a crossover with Superman and He-Man.

 

[Shroom]

inb4 The Legend of Zelda

Assassin's Creed sucked to see go south and lazy with glitches because I liked the first two quite a bit. The frequency of which they come out turns me off to them completely and it seems like a series that lost what made it special in the first place.

Paper Mario is a major one to me. I think it could still rebound, but every recent entry seems like a step further away from what the first two did really well. I thought Super was fine enough, but taking away exp entirely and making it a hoard fest while taking away partners completely was so dumb. Maybe they'll get it right soon, who knows?

Guitar Hero/Rockband sorta sucked to see go down. It was bound to happen eventually, but it was a game I'd play with friends pretty frequently growing up, so it's not ideal. If we ever do have a means to play it, we always end up back at 3, but past that, I think it got way out of hand.

 

[Castle]

inb4 The Legend of Zelda

sunofa-



Whalp... @Spirit already pretty much mentioned everything I would have. The OP name dropped Mass Effect to get that obvious one out of the way.

Seeing what these disgusting hacks at the BBC have done to Doctor Who is particularly egregious. I'm not even much of a Doctor Who fan. I was into it there for a while but lost interest when the writing really started turning to crud beginning with Capaldi's run (what a tremendous waste of potential!). I've never seen any of the rest of the series before Eccelston. But I realize what a legacy this show has and how central it is to British culture. More than that, I can tell just by looking at it that Doctor Who has always been an honest passion project worthy of merit.

To see what these butchers are doing to it is just sad.

So what's left to mention? It's not as if there aren't plenty to choose from....

Oh yeah. Star Wars. OP mentioned that too but it's not enough.

Just when you think nobody could screw up harder than ol' Georgey did with the insipid prequels, along comes Disney co. and says "Hold my beer."

And here I actually thought Disney might be good for Star Wars after how great a job they did adapting and planing out the MCU.

I have never been more wrong. Disney aggressively fubar'd Star Wars like nobody's business. It's like they singled out Hollywood's dumbest morons and then set them loose to make as big a mess as no other idiot possibly could. We live in a universe where Disney took the most marketable property in cinema history and made it unmarketable.

I fear the Bond series is next. If they don't go aggressively woke like they did to Doctor Who, at the very least the franchise is getting stale and banal. Nobody is making Bond movies because they want to, but because it's some sort of obligation... like a chore. And it shows. It shows in the trailers. You can see it on the actor's faces, the writers, directors, producers. They're bored and tired and visibly nervous that they're mere months away from pinching out a flop that'll tank the franchise. They just need to put the 007 movies on ice before they get desperate and do something really stupid.

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

Hoo boy. There's a few.

Dragon Age
Mass Effect
Disney
Star Wars

The other franchises that I'm sad to see go downhill were the ones that @Spirit mentioned.

 

[Castle]

Disney

LOL

just, all of it

 

[TheGreatCthulhu]

LOL

just, all of it

Yep. Early Disney cartoons and the original animated films and Pixar is where it's really at.

Everything else just sucks.

I might be old-fashioned though...

 

[Bowsette Plus-Ultra]

Yep. Early Disney cartoons and the original animated films and Pixar is where it's really at.

Everything else just sucks.

I might be old-fashioned though...

I dunno, nostalgia is a powerful drug. Modern Disney/Pixar has produced some excellent work.

 

[Sheikah_Witch]

I fear the Bond series is next. If they don't go aggressively woke like they did to Doctor Who, at the very least the franchise is getting stale and banal. Nobody is making Bond movies because they want to, but because it's some sort of obligation... like a chore. And it shows. It shows in the trailers. You can see it on the actor's faces, the writers, directors, producers. They're bored and tired and visibly nervous that they're mere months away from pinching out a flop that'll tank the franchise. They just need to put the 007 movies on ice before they get desperate and do something really stupid.

What's 'woke'? I've literally only seen it being used as some sort of insult before.

But, yeah, I agree. Bond feels kinda soulless these days.