Reviews that didn't age well.

[Paul Farquhar]

There were public libraries in the United States that banned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in 1885 characterizing it as characterizing it as "rough, coarse, and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people."

Wasn't that just a case of not wanting to admit to the real reason for banning it?

 

[MarkB]

I hate how hard people want to go into the 'subvert expectations' thing in recent memory. I've never really thought about it until I'd discovered the podcast Babylon 5 For the First Time where two Star Trek guys finally sit down and get into Babylon 5. There are certain things they talk about where, yeah, this event was probably a surprise Back Then, but we've seen it so many times since it's not. Really in a long form, I don't think 'subvert expectations' should come up more than 10% of the time especially in material where you've had to worldbuild since S1E1

GoT is built on subverting expectations, though. Right from Ned Stark losing his head, it lives for taking the unexpected direction.

 

[Ryujin]

Based on the advertising campaign, I walked into Falling Down thinking Douglas was playing the hero. The television ads were edited in such a way that Douglas appeared to be playing the everyman who was either having a really bad day or was just fed up with it, whatever it was, but as the movie progressed you could see that his character was unhinged. I saw it in the theater while I was still in high school and even I could tell he wasn't the good guy.

There are still people who think he was a hero.

 

[Ryujin]

GoT is built on subverting expectations, though. Right from Ned Stark losing his head, it lives for taking the unexpected direction.

Ultimately making it as predictable as an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I knew that if I liked a character, they were ultimately likely to die horribly. I just stopped watching some time in season 3.

 

[MGibster]

There are still people who think he was a hero.

I don't doubt that. There are some people who think Homelander is a good guy. Go figure.

 

[billd91]

Ultimately making it as predictable as an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I knew that if I liked a character, they were ultimately likely to die horribly. I just stopped watching some time in season 3.

I think that's a bit unfair. After being successful at it once, the plot twist became Shyamalan's irrationally treasured writing tool. Whereas SoIaF/GoT isn't really based on the plot twist tactic after that first investigation of Ned's and the vindictive beheading he suffers at Joffrey's insistence. Rather, that particular twist sets the tone and raises the stakes for every other betrayal to follow. At least, that's how I see it.

 

[payn]

Ultimately making it as predictable as an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I knew that if I liked a character, they were ultimately likely to die horribly. I just stopped watching some time in season 3.

Early on, Ned and red wedding are actually set up really well. Its a situation were the danger is in the air but you are not entirely sure if the axe is going to fall. Though, Jon getting shanked was seen a mile away since the trick is old hat now.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I remember the discussion about the prince coukd also be female but can't recall any Arya hints.
And they had been playing up the Jon vs NK since season 5 not vague hints it was someone else.

I'm not talking about speculation in-show; in-show the most they did was show it was prophecy and as such subject to interpretation. I'm talking in the fan press where some people noticed how non-specific it was.

Everything was really rushed eg Jamie pulling a 180 from one episode to the next. I can buy into him failing at his redemption (hes a PoS lets face it) arc but once again very poor execution imho.

I'm not going to argue the pacing wasn't rushed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

On the original topic, Falling Down is a movie that had a handful of critics who reeeeeealy missed the point of the movie. I've been hunting for a couple of the ones that screwed up an actually thought Michael Douglas was the "hero", and I'm finding that a lot of them have been scrubbed from the internet. Specifically, Wikipedia notes that Kenneth Turan wrote a review where he though DFENS was the hero, but if you search the LA Times website for it, all you'll find on the free side of the site are a couple of follow up commentaries arguing with his original critique.

This is a case of people not paying attention (which is not as rare with critics as it should be). The character himself realizes it late in the movie, for crying out loud.

 

[SJB]

In the US, it seems so. In the UK their albums were continuing to go to #1 repeatedly through that period. In the US they often weren't even breaking the top 20.

Ebert and Siskel do have some interesting hot takes through the years. Pauline Kael is a very interesting and fun critic but managed to come out with some spectacularly snobbish and ridiculous opinions re: movies that are still widely regarded as classics.

Talking of film critics, I will never forget Barry White, a British film critic, being appalled by Hong Kong movie featuring a lot of kung fu, and saying "The fights seem almost like dances!", and it's like, buddy, you're a pro critic with your own TV show on one of the main channels, do you know not what a fight choreographer is?

Barry Norman? Barry White would have been fine with dancers.