Powder. I got sick during it and went and threw up. I should have known it was directed by a Pedophile.
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Mission Impossible 2. I love the TV series and hate the movies. My friends talked me into seeing it. Most expensive nap I ever took. Yep, I literally fell asleep to defend myself from that crap.
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Watching The Phantom Menace at 12 years old was probably the first time I felt disappointed by a movie. When you’re a kid you haven’t really developed proper taste yet, and the year before I saw the awful American Godzilla and I loved it because I was 11 and big lizard go stomp stomp. It took a few years for me to realize that Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla was trash, but I couldn’t tell because I was a child. But The Phantom Menace… that movie changed me. I felt like I walked into that movie as a child and came out older, more cynical, wiser, but at the cost of the movie I’d been anticipating for years being loud and boring and nonsensical. That movie let me down and my expectations were not that hard to meet at 12 years old, and it failed.
I would end up seeing Attack of the Clones in high school, but I barely remembered it and all my friends were instead all talking about The Matrix Reloaded. Nobody cared about Attack of the Clones. And when Revenge of the Sith came out, I was on break from college, I was 19, and I saw that movie and when Anakin turned on his light saber in front of that little kid (I’m sorry, youngling), I cracked up in the theater. I laughed harder at that than I did Darth Vader yelling “NOOOOOOOOO!”, even though I’d go home and go to YTMND where that scene was being remixed and turned into a fad.
The prequels just… they broke me, man. The first one broke my heart, the second one turned me completely numb and I would forget the events of the movie for years until I watched the Plinkett Star Wars reviews, and the third one, while definitely more memorable in many ways and actually made me feel emotions, was mostly a slog with some interesting and meme-y parts. I remember being on the playground in like, 1997, talking with friends about upcoming Star Wars films, that George Lucas was going to make Episodes I, II and III, and then he was going to make VII, VIII and IX, and it was going to be AMAZING.
Disney would end up making VII, VIII and IX. The Force Awakens was fun, it added new characters, I didn’t mind that it was basically a retread of A New Hope. I had fun with it, I was excited for episode VIII. The Last Jedi was… well, I don’t think it was as bad as the prequels. It was kind of frustrating because there were a lot of ideas that I liked in there, but there also was just a lot of really stupid stuff shoved in and bizarre choices, but there was stuff in there I liked a lot. I enjoyed it, but I felt myself feeling like the movie just had so many problems. And then I got home and saw the discourse online and I regretted all of my life decisions. The discussion surrounding the movie was just awful. Everything became personal. Though, personally, I think it’s better to make a movie that’s divisive, that some love and others hate, rather than making a movie everyone hates.
I haven’t seen The Rise of Skywalker. I feel like I can’t handle it. I heard nothing but awful things. The things I found interesting in The Last Jedi were apparently retconned. It honestly sounds more soul-sucking than The Phantom Menace was for me and I can’t do it. I can’t. I saw all the other prequel and sequel movies in the theater but I couldn’t muster the will to see this committee-approved mess that seemed like it was trying so hard to please everybody and pleased no one.
I’m done with Star Wars. I’m burnt out. I’ve heard The Mandalorian is good but I don’t care anymore. These movies have hurt me too much, all because I loved the original trilogy as a kid, three movies that came out before I was even born.
I’m sorry for writing so much. I am in a mood and my emotions are all over the place. All because of Star Wars. Friggin’ Star Wars.
Insert semi-unrelated gif of Rich Evans succumbing to Star Wars madness.
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Try the Mandalorian, Cat. Seriously. I absolutely refused to watch any of the newest set of movies because they were just so awful. I did finally watch 7 recently (it didn’t have the power to hurt me anymore) but I watched the Mandalorian as it came out, week by week.
It (probably) won’t hurt you. It might even make it better. It made it better enough for me that I gave 7 a try. (and then I still haven’t seen 8, so there you go)
It really is good and enjoyable in a wholesome way. I wanted to be all too-cool to fall in love with Star Wars anything. I went into the series wanting to hate it. I loved it.
Try. Just a little.
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I don’t have Disney+. I’m getting real tired of every single studio having their own streaming service, just let me watch stuff on Netflix on my mom’s account, argh.
I might watch it. Maybe it’ll be like when I watched Avatar: The Last Airbender after people stopped talking about it so much and I wound up loving it because it was a great series. It was a couple of years late but it was good. I only really know that Werner Herzog is in The Mandalorian and he saw Baby Yoda (I’m sorry, The Child) and he cried and said it was beautiful. So that’s definitely something that makes me want to check it out.
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He has an actual name now and I still call him Baby Yoda. And I feel you with the streaming accounts. We added Disney+ and HBO Max to a list that already included no less than 5 others and I’m a little tired of it all.
And you could always do a free trial of Disney+ and shotgun the whole series in that time frame.
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I’ve only ever walked out of two films - The Man In The Iron Mask (1998) and one of the Saw sequels. Can’t remember which. So I guess they must be the worst, but I can’t really remember anything about them.
I have to give a special commendation to M Night Shyamalan’s latest Old. It’s The Happening level of bad, but sadly nowhere near as funny, save for some specific instances of ADR (“The dog is dead!”).
Great cast (Vicky Krieps, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rufus Sewell) all delivering Marky Mark level performances. I know MNS isn’t considered a great director of people, but even so. And of course the plot makes no sense, even within the confines of its own story world.
I don’t understand this man’s process at all.
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Having watched The Mandalorian from the beginning (and being just as burned out as you on Star Wars), trust me when I say it is 100% worth it.
It helps to have two incredible showrunners for it; Jon Favreau has made a career out of either starting or revitalizing franchises (he basically started the MCU, for example, and that’s still going strong). And Dave Filoni is a Star Wars fanboy of the highest order. You can see how much they care about this show in literally every frame, and it seems that in a lot of ways their team-up is trying to address some of the glaring plot holes that were left as a result of the sequels being directed by three different directors instead of just one as Lucas had intended (even if it wasn’t him doing it).
Plus, you get Grogu! AKA Baby Yoda, who is just adorable. The dynamic that grows between him and Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) over the course of the first two seasons is amazingly beautiful to watch. There’s a reason everyone’s saying that Favreau and Filoni have basically saved Star Wars as a franchise single-handedly, and it’s because of this show. Plus, there are some potentially amazing shows coming down the pike, like Ahsoka, the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, Rangers of the New Republic, etc. We might even get Thrawn! Please check it out; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
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Yeah, I didn’t see it in the theater but I think my mum rented Powder shortly after it came out. Something about the depiction of that character and author’s perspective realllly felt uncomfortable and off. If you were born in 84, then we’re about the same age.
I’m almost curious to rewatch with some -moderately- improved critical analysis to pinpoint the creepy, but it doesn’t really feel worth it.
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1998’s The Avengers. I liked the TV show, and Ralph Fiennes as John Steed was a good fit as far as casting goes, but this movie is absolute insanity and, to borrow a MST3K saying, they just didn’t care.
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You’re definitely not alone there. That’s a level of disappointment that (hopefully) only comes around once in a lifetime.
Although come to think of it, I guess it’s come around at least twice: Alien 3 is easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a theater. Following up after Cameron’s epic should have been easy – he’d done all the heavy lifting so all the new filmmakers needed to do was ride that wave and not f**k it up, yet they managed to turn a compelling, exciting story into a dumpster fire.
(Alien 4 was somehow even worse, but I don’t think I can even go there right now.) [bites lip]
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Ugh, another horrible movie, maybe worst of them all that I actually paid money to sit through:
Bill Cosby’s “Leonard Part 6.”
There’s almost nothing worse than a movie that’s supposed to be funny but fails at it abysmally over and over again.
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I cannot explain this phenomenon, but I am always overjoyed to see Werner Herzog show up in anything.
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Movies used to be cheaper…and only 2 in a theater at a time. Oof.
Metal storm the Destruction of Jared Syn in 3D (I can’t even)
Krull (three times. Options were limited and did I ever want a Glaive!)
Jaws 3 the Desperation in 2.5D (At least 5 times…same reason.)
The cook, the Thief, the wife and her lover. (I’m not sure enough retribution can ever be exacted on the makers of that nightmare fuel.)
Superargo (Double feature warm up before ‘the swarm’)
Star Trek 1. Star Trek 3. Star Trek 5…
So many actual money dollars…
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Eragon is the only film I’ve legit walked out of. I eventually came back because my friends stayed but I went out, refilled my drink, played an arcade game for awhile and then came back.
I probably never left a theater more angry than after Alien Resurrection. I like the original trilogy a lot, even 3, and 4 had a great cast and director so I felt really blindsided.
But flat out worst film may be Wild Wild West But I saw it for free because I worked at the movie theater back then.
So Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes or Shamalyan’s The Village are probably the worst films I’ve paid to see.
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Unpopular opinion, but I walked out of the theater during ‘Jurassic World’. Right out and up to the lobby for a full refund. The supervisor and teller/concession girl both staring at me like I had horns. I only made it like 20 minutes in, too.
I have certainly watched worse movies. I don’t know what it was, but the movie touched my inner child super inappropriately and I wanted to press charges.
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I’m surprise that there are so many people who mention walking out of a movie. Even when I’m in a bad one, I can’t see leaving, namely in hopes of something good coming out of it by the end.
I did have a friend walk out of a showing of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK with me because he was offended that Spielberg thought he was good enough to copy old serials and try to pass it off as something new, which I thought missed the point.
As for me, the only time I ever did walk out during a movie was THE MUPPET MOVIE in 1979. That was a case of simply being the wrong age for it (I was 15; a great age to not be enthused by puppets) and stuck with a group of friends who went only so they could riff the movie in front of all the children in the theater. I just thought that was being pretty mean-spirited and walked out rather than be a part of it. I still can’t watch it these days without reflecting on that and getting a bit bummed out about it.
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Wedding Crashers. By far the worst movie I’ve sat through in a theater. Juvenile jokes and an idiot plot. Just about the only redeeming thing was Will Ferrell’s cameo.
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Some movies just make you give up hope. Or you see something so awful that nothing short of an elf popping out of the screen at the end to shower the whole audience with $100 bills could make things right again.
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It’s the only time I put forth the effort to walk out - I’m usually too lazy to want to even think about the logistics of a refund. But ‘Jurassic World’… man, when the data guy turns around and hams up the fact that he has a (now)retro Jurassic Park shirt on, I just died inside
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