Good Fiction that You Hate

[Siege]

I've heard people sing praises about Cowboy Bebop and Firefly, and I gave them a try once and just ended up like "wtf". (Hilariously, I borrowed them from the same friend, who loved them, and Hellsing too.)

Hate might be too strong of a word; I just don't get the appeal.

To be honest, a lot of the appeal of Firefly for me is simply Nathan Fillion, who might very well be one of the best actors working in American TV-land right now. He made Firefly all by his lonesome; he's currently doing pretty much the same thing for Castle as well.

That isn't to say the other actors didn't turn in good performances, or that Mr. Whedon didn't turn out quite a few good scripts, but a lot of the excellence of Firefly in my opinion is tied up with Mr. Fillion and the way he portrays Malcolm Reynolds. The series would be fairly flat for me too (as much as I love the "cowboys in space" concept) if it weren't for him. He steals every scene; and because every other character is pretty much tied to Reynolds, he makes the show for me. (And even then I believe it might be good they cancelled the show when they did, I can't say the Serenity movie was very good at all.)

[Shroom Man 777]

I love Firefly, and while I think Nathan Fillon is all kinds of awesome (mang!), I did like the other crew guys as well man. Like, The Man They Call Jayne and Meatbag Cameron (ROBOT RIVER!) and all that. But I do agree, I can't exactly see what makes Serenity so damn awesome for those brownshirts. It was a pretty average sci-fi movie, and the space zombies were pretty so-so. The Operative was kinda cool, but I preferred Jubal Early.

[Booted Vulture]

I love Firefly, and while I think Nathan Fillon is all kinds of awesome (mang!), I did like the other crew guys as well man. Like, The Man They Call Jayne and Meatbag Cameron (ROBOT RIVER!) and all that. But I do agree, I can't exactly see what makes Serenity so damn awesome for those brownshirts. It was a pretty average sci-fi movie, and the space zombies were pretty so-so. The Operative was kinda cool, but I preferred Jubal Early.

Does that seem right to you?

Yeah, Serenity was a bit of a disappointment for me. But I figured that was just because I'd hyped it up to the extreme in my mind before I'd got to see it. And subsequently spend the movie noting how all the costumes and everything where the same but very slightly different.

Plus, they killed off Wash. Shroomz, Siege, you guys are dead to me for not mentioning him.

[Shroom Man 777]

Because that's a spoiler, mang!

[Booted Vulture]

THe Movie's 5 years old dude. It's time to move on...

[Vagrant Orpheus]

Saying you don't like anime is like saying you don't like TV. It's a medium, not a genre. Also, Hellsing so does not count for this discussion because nobody considers it to be good except morons. And whoever commented on Cowboy Bebop and not liking it, you and I are no longer speaking. Best music in any TV series ever. Bar none.

[Dakarne]

As I said about my opinion of Hellsing; the only thing that makes it work is PALADIN ALEXANDER ANDERSON! Over the top Scottish Catholic priest who kicks vampire arse for the win.

That said, my not-really-getting-anime is mostly tied in with some of the specific cultural tropes that turn up in many anime. I can look past them, but the simple weirdness of some of it baffles the mind to the point of insanity. There are a few areas which stand out for me; Yu-Gi-Oh! for one example, being that it follows the Pokémon-esque 'let's have a battle which ties in with merchandise!', but actually uses a trading card game as this serious business thing that the entirety of society centres around. Also the entire existence of anime such as Strike Witches and Moon Phase, which make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Or how Naruto can be popular. At all.

Anime like Cowboy Bebop are, of course, an exception to this on just about every level.

I've also slowly, but surely, lost a lot of my interest in Warhammer 40,000 for more or less the same reason that I've lost a lot of my interest in the World of Darkness (both of them); the incessantly grimdark tone that is nonetheless worshipped by fanboys (and occasional fangirls) the world over as being some sort of epic awesomeness. At least 40k actually has some awesomeness when it's taken mostly as self-parody, but the amount of pointless 'grr, grimdark' just starts to drive me insane; it's a setting wherein there is an entire species of fungal London football hooligans, and the entire setting still obsesses over being the grimmest and darkest of its type. World of Darkness is, of course, even worse.

[Destructionator]

Saying you don't like anime is like saying you don't like TV.

Is it fair to say that there are a number of conventions common in anime that one might dislike, or would this be a stereotype?

For example, the giant sweat drop, the deformed angry faces, the hand behind the head, etc.

My anime viewing is a bit limited in scope, so I don't know how common those things are, but I find them rather annoying, and if common, would be willing to call it a general strike against anime as a whole.

Best music in any TV series ever. Bar none.

Are you forgetting Star Trek TOS? Now there's awesome ass music! (seriously though it is pretty good even outside of comedy)

[Shroom Man 777]

I love Hong Kong comedy movies, especially Stephen Chow movies, but it seems like this is something where people's mileage differs by a long shot. Stuff that I'd find hellarious might actually fall flat for guys like Siege or something. Which is kinda understandable, since Hong Kong/Stephen Chow comedy is kind of slapstick and very lame and often completely nonsensical. Yet, man, it just tickles my funny bone for being so stupid. I'm not just talking about Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle, but one of my favorite comedies was Stephen Chow's older work... From Beijing With Love. That was great stuff.

Dakarne: As for 40k, yeah. It's kinda getting there for me too. Yes, guys like Cain and Eisenhorn and their assorted feats and exploits and adventures are pretty damn fucking awesome, and the Orks are hilarious and all that. But when I see these fanboys just obsessing over the grimdark destrucity or whatever of 40k megabadassness... meh, it kinda falls flat and lame. They totally miss the bloody point of what constitutes good fiction (namely, good stories and NOT stupid spikey-sword-soulshitting shitheads or whatever lame shit people are obsessing over nowadays. It's just like... Wolverine).

[Siege]

Saying one doesn't appreciate anime is in my opinion a perfectly valid opinion to hold. It's similar to saying that one doesn't appreciate American cop shows: a generalized statement about a genre or sub-genre defined by a loose collection of similarities that one can either like or not. It's not usually supposed to be an indictment of every single show without exception, so citing one or two specific examples cannot be considered a valid retort to a generalized statement about one's personal tastes.

For example, if I were to say that I don't enjoy American cop shows because I don't appreciate certain almost universally recurring themes (partnered cops, recital of Miranda rights, murder mysteries, messy cop offices, stake-outs, talks in the captain's office or by the coffee machine, pressure generated by influential suspects or media attention, etc.) it's utterly pointless to point to one or two specific examples of American cop shows that do not share one, more or even the majority of these attributes ("but Dark Blue is different!") and expect that to somehow diminish the validity of the generalized statement.

[Kingmaker]

Saying one doesn't appreciate anime is in my opinion a perfectly valid opinion to hold. It's similar to saying that one doesn't appreciate American cop shows: a generalized statement about a genre or sub-genre defined by a loose collection of similarities that one can either like or not. It's not usually supposed to be an indictment of every single show without exception, so citing one or two specific examples cannot be considered a valid retort to a generalized statement about one's personal tastes.

Except that saying "I hate American cop shows" is more analogous to saying "I hate mecha anime" than "I hate anime". Anime is a medium, not a genre, and most shared conventions across genres of anime are related to art rather than story (and even there, the more noticeable things, like super-deformed, are absent from serious anime). To the extent that there are shared story-telling tropes across genres, I suspect they tie back more to the culture of origin rather than to the medium.

And whoever commented on Cowboy Bebop and not liking it, you and I are no longer speaking. Best music in any TV series ever.

Funny, I didn't have problem with the music aside from not really liking the pervasive Jazz/blues influences. I just wasn't sufficiently entertained. I vastly preferred Samurai Champloo.

If you're taking 40k seriously you're doing it wrong. It has powered-armored super soldiers wielding swords made from chainsaws fighting British soccer hooligans armed with guns that only work because they think they should. How can you take that seriously?

[Dakarne]

If you're taking 40k seriously you're doing it wrong. It has powered-armored super soldiers wielding swords made from chainsaws fighting British soccer hooligans armed with guns that only work because they think they should. How can you take that seriously?

Never underestimate the capacity of fanboys. Or really bad writers who want to turn a setting into something that's SERIOUS and GRIMDARK when it's basically Lord of the Rings meets Dungeons & Dragons meets A Parody of British Society with a dash of Judge Dredd and 2000AD... IN SPAAAACE!!!

But I am getting sorely sick of the 'zero hope for anyone or anything!' attitude.

[Siege]

Except that saying "I hate American cop shows" is more analogous to saying "I hate mecha anime" than "I hate anime". Anime is a medium, not a genre, and most shared conventions across genres of anime are related to art rather than story (and even there, the more noticeable things, like super-deformed, are absent from serious anime).

Analogies don't have to be perfect in order to convey their point. But if we're going down the nitpicking road: television is a medium, at best you can say that anime is a particular style or genre of animation, which it is entirely possible to generally dislike because of commonly observed shared features.

[Shady]

I will agree that Hellsing sucks, and for me - I don't like much other anime, those "common characteristics" are annoying as fuck to me. In fact the only other anime that I really got into was Bleach. And that's probably because I started reading the manga first. I've tried watching other stuff but I lose interest quickly, some things are just too stupid for me to be able to tolerate.

[speaker-to-trolls]

I've tried watching other stuff but I lose interest quickly, some things are just too stupid for me to be able to tolerate.

Are the stupid things visual or thematic? As has been said, neither are universal, even if they are probably very common.

[Zor]

The 1953 War of the Worlds movie.

Now i am not going to say that i HATE (the acting is alright, the effects were top notch for there time and its story structure is not too bad, although i will say that plods and is a bit exposition heavy) this movie, but people tend to see this film as a science fiction masterpeace, something which i must disagree on. The 2005 version with Tom Cruise blows it out of the water like a Akula class Submarine does a target ship. The biggest thing about it is that, in my opinion, it is not really War of the Worlds. Not because it takes place in the 50s nor that the fighting machines were floating manta ray things with NDF guns, but because it was not a tale of Survival.

The main focus of the book is on a single survivor who is nothing extrodinary and his observations on the Invaders and their effects on the English Countryside, in terms of what the Martians do directly, indirectly (the Red Weed, dead London) and how people respond to them (the priest and the artilleryman). He wanders about and he survives. It is not a tale of resistance, he does not fight back against the martians. There are some fights and action against the martians, but these happen...

1-As things that other people are doing nearby him, beyond his control
2-Plans that were listed, War of the Worlds was written as an after the fact account of the War against the Martians.

In the film, they spend a little bit of time escaping the Martians but are soon ferried off to a safe lab to engage in Technobabble. There are snippits of war of the worlds related things scattered about the movie, but this is a film about resisting the invaders. I also don't like the Religion outlook towards the end, which takes a big long hard dump on the book in my opinion, twisting a line of Victorian colorful dialouge into something complety against the books' comments on Religion. I won't say i hate it, but i WILL say that i consider it massively over-rated and the best thing to come out from it IMHO is the Heat Ray sound effect.

Now, lets take a look at the 2005 Speilberg movie. Its a tale of a common man trying to survive and keep his family safe. There is talk and speculation on what's going on, and i would not be suprised Mr Ferrier would take an interest after the fact about discoveries and so forth. The focus on the film is about refugees, common people displaced by this horrible conflict. It is a tale of survival from start to finish, the fact that the main charecter tries to ensure the safety of his children in the process does not detract from this fact. In fact, i would say that it's a nice twist on the original concept. Tom Cruise delivers a damn good preformance, as did Dakota Fanning (yeah she screamed, what do you think a ten year old girl would do in that situation?) although i do beleive that Robby is a Macho idiot which could have been done better. It's not perfect, but i do like this film and i DO think that it is superior to the 1953 version.

Zor

[Shroom Man 777]

I liked the 50s version because it was clearly a product of the era, and I myself am not too much of a stickler for loyalty to the source material (unless the source material gives me a hard on). The movie had wonderful effects for its time, just like Forbidden Planet and Them, and it had a B-49 dropping nukes at them!

But, yeah. You're rite, Zor. The 2005 is damn badass and, man, the experience of watching it in theater was amazing. When the Tripod came out and made the BHOOOT sound, it made my bowels rumble too! That is a mark of a truly great movie.

Well, kidding aside, but yeah. Seeing the 2005 WOTW movie, I was totally like "HOLY SHIT" and the experience was damn engrossing and friggin intense. The tale of survival, audacity, arduous adversity and whatever. Tom Cruise did a great job, and Spielberg's depiction of an invasion from the POV of some average joe shmuck was great - WAY better than Clovershroom or whatever the hell that flick was. It was a great experience.

I'm kinda disapppointed because the 2005 WOTW wasn't as intensive on subsequent viewings. Maybe it's the TV, or maybe it's because the impact wore off. But when I first saw it, it was totally WOAH! And I was also kind of unnerved and yet exhilarated by the experience - the clothes in the wind, the burning train, the Tripods in the river and the last charge of the military, and the final fall of the Tripod "NO SHIELDS!" and all that. The crazy guy in the basement, everything. Man.

[Kingmaker]

And here I was always just disappointed that every adaption I've seen of War of the Worlds has left the Thunderchild out.

[Dakarne]

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version, on the other hand, gave the HMS Thunder Child its own heroic sacrifice song. Sorry for the crappy quality of that version, but it's the best I could find on YouTube.

[Kingmaker]

One entire genre of speculative fiction that I hate as a general rule is alternate history. Part of it is that a lot of alternate history is utterly implausible, or the ramifications of the PoD aren't well considered. Then there's the fact that a lot of alt-hist is basically wanking one group or another (I'm looking at you, 1632, along with every Axis winning WWII story).