Unpopular Geek Media Opinions

[Bedrockgames]

Part of that can be attributed to JMS bringing in the ego in human form otherwise known as Harlan Ellison, as the "continuity consultant." He helped to keep things on track and appeared in at least one episode, as a PsiCop.

That was pointed out to me by the person I was watching it with. The man certainly has an ego but he is a force of nature when it comes to quality writing

 

[Bedrockgames]

Snow Crash is awful except for the funny chapter that introduces the deliverator

 

[Bedrockgames]

Neil Gaiman (whom I don't particularly care for), Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, Alan Moore, and John Carpenter all acknowledge Lovecraft influenced them.

He was a pretty direct influence on a number of people. Personally I was more influenced by Lovecraft than the people who wrote inside his mythos (unless you include Howard). But we have also had infinite discussions on whether Lovecraft was great, mid, horrible, that there is probably not much that can be said on that as a topic that is new

I never really landed with Gaiman either for some reason. I can't even put my finger on it. There isn't anything I can point to as bad. I just have trouble getting into him. I did like Good Omens but I think that is more because of Terry Pratchet's involvement (hard to say though when a book is co-authored)

 

[Ryujin]

People made a living by publishing "penny dreadfuls" in the 1800s, too. Something doesn't have to be good, to catch the public consciousness.

People decry Lovecraft's overly flowery prose but it's at least somewhat responsible for the rather large vocabulary I developed at an early age. In grade 6, I tested at a 9th grade graduate vocabulary level, so his stories were good for something. He was also popular enough, in his time, that he was sought out by Harry Houdini for a collaboration. That would be somewhat akin to someone like Chris Evans asking for a specific author to write a story, with himself as the lead character, today.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a good movie.

Good pick for an unpopular opinion.

Is this an unpopular opinion? It shouldn't be.

I would add the following-

The Rise of Skywalker was not just a terrible movie, it actually managed to make both the first and second movies in that trilogy worse by existing.

Very poor pick for an unpopular opinion. It's a common sentiment, I'd say.
I'd actually say it is a theme with all 3 sequels. They each make the preceeding worse. But Rise of Skywalker is certainly the worst. Which doesn't mean TFA or TLJ were good movies (though better than RoS), it's just that each carefully did everything it did to invalidate the preceeding movie(s) and seemingly did whatever it could to not salvage anything. TFA was a poor copy of ANH that invalidated the victory of ESB, then TLJ doubled down on it while also invalidating anything TFA did without a coherent message, and then RoS invalidated TLJ and told a a weak sequence of Find-The-Random-Artifact-Of-The-Day-Stories told poorly that undermined itself as well.

---

Star Trek Discovery had one of the strongest pilots in Star Trek history. (Then came SNW, which isn't an unpopular opinion anymore.)

 

[Ryujin]

That was pointed out to me by the person I was watching it with. The man certainly has an ego but he is a force of nature when it comes to quality writing

He even openly stated that he knew his ego was massive, on many occasions. One of them was when he was interviewed about the issues involving his lawsuit over the original "Terminator" movie.

He was a pretty direct influence on a number of people. Personally I was more influenced by Lovecraft than the people who wrote inside his mythos (unless you include Howard). But we have also had infinite discussions on whether Lovecraft was great, mid, horrible, that there is probably not much that can be said on that as a topic that is new

I never really landed with Gaiman either for some reason. I can't even put my finger on it. There isn't anything I can point to as bad. I just have trouble getting into him. I did like Good Omens but I think that is more because of Terry Pratchet's involvement (hard to say though when a book is co-authored)

If you are interested in the formative background of Lovecraft's life, then I would recommend looking for a documentary called "Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown." The producers had lost control of this property shortly after its initial release, regained it a couple of years back, and then re-released it with a bunch of additional footage. Short Version: A lot of what made the mythos what it is, came from his fear of the "other." That would be White Man's fear of immigrants, in no small part.

 

[Mannahnin]

Look, people like what they like, right? Danielle Steel is one of the best-selling authors of all time. Kanye's ex, Julia Fox, had a book out that was ... well, it was something, and people bought it. If you are "ride or die" with Team Salvatore, then enjoy it! Some people like Hummel figurines. Some people like Kinkade paintings. Some people like Love Island. Who am I to gainsay Milton Friedman's invisible crushing hand?

Dude. I'm 90% agreeing with you and this is in fun. Did you need a laughing emoji to catch that I was damning him with faint praise?

It's not "ride or die" for Bob to call his better work mediocre, or to put it on par with de Camp, Carter, and Offutt (all of whom were writing swords and sorcery in the '60s and 70s, for the record). He wrote some decent action, and as you say, to SOME extent Millions of Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong. (Yes, they can).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Discworld is overrated, I will not be taking questions.

I am completely unbiased here, obviously, but I think that is truly an unpopular opinion.



Mass Effect "sub-arcs" are much better than its meta-plot.
It can be debated whether the whole idea of this super-powerful Cerebrus organization in ME2 and resourrecting Shepard was already the "jump the shark" moment, or it was the reveal of the Human Reaper, but I think ME2 is the point where they kinda lost their meta-plot. They couldn't maintain the build-up for the Reapers in ME1, and what they came up with feels implausible and poorly thought out.
At the same time, there are so many strong character arcs in ME2 and ME3, the whole deal with the Geth/Quarian conflict or the Salarian/Krogan are great, characters like Moridin or even fan disfavorites like Vega are done really well. But the metaplot with the Reaper kinda devolves and the ending is not liked for a reason. (THis isn't the unpopular part, the unpopular part is really that the problems start already in ME2.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

He wrote some decent action, and as you say, to SOME extent Millions of Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

(Yes, they can).

 

[Deset Gled]

... that invalidated the victory of ESB...

Who do you think were the victors at the end of Empire Strikes Back?

I disagree with a lot of your opinions, but that statement feels particularly off.