This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Caswin: Removed
- Gundam Seed Destiny is generally considered to be a giant Epic Fail in continuing the series, mostly because it starred an unlikeable Replacement Scrappy and heaped Idiot Plot on top of Idiot Plot and Character Derailment to the max. The mecha battles were actually well animated, but it ended up being all garnish and no substance for many people, especially when you stop caring about the people in the mecha.
"Emperordaein"
- ALERT. Half the examples have been erased. Attention must be taken to this.
Charred Knight: Moved a lot of examples to Audience Sucker Punch, and deleted those that where already there.
That Other 1 Dude: No, Audience Sucker Punch was when they have fight scenes with very large amounts of budget-saving tricks that make it so we don't actually see most of the actions that take place during the batle, and Epic Fail is when you don't see it at all, but now there doesn't seem to be very clear distinction between the two.
Charred Knight: Don't see a difference, its just instead of having a low budget fight, you don't have a fight at all and only state that a fight has happened. Also I think its better not to have a trope that specific, that its Audience Sucker Punch if they have a low budget fight, but Epic Fail if you don't have a fight at all and only imply that a fight is done. It would just be easier if you have Audience S Aucker Punch as a general fighting example of Epic Fail. It just seems like things like Xenogears is the Ultimate Audience Sucker Punch.
That Other 1 Dude: That leads to two problems:
- The division between the two articles is completely arbitrary. Why do we have one article about not directly showing a scene that isn't a fight scene, and one that's about not showing a fight scene and having little actually happening during a fight scene.
- It essentially makes the two articles redundant when they were formerly two different tropes: one was skipping a scene that was lead up to, and the other was when you're actually shown the scene but there are few actual actions done (almost entirely an animation trope). Now it consist of mostly the same article split in half with part of it fused with an entirely different trope.
Charred Knight: What is a bigger Audience Sucker Punch? The typical DBZ fight where a bunch of guys stare at each other, powerup for 20 minutes, and then finally start fighting? Or Mat Cauthon about to have to fight the Shaido, when the next we see him his bitching about having killed Couladin, an annoying bitch that people have waited about a thousand pages to see his death? I am taking the second option. I don't see how Mat Cauthon killing Couladin offscreen is Epic Fail while a typical Dragonball fight is Audience Sucker Punch.
That Other 1 Dude: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!? You're ignoring everything that I just said the articles were suppose to be about, and seem to be assuming it based on their names. Just because you feel that was more of a "sucker punch to the audience" doesn't mean it's automatically an example of the trope Audience Sucker Punch. We have names that are based on tropes, not the other way around. If a name is inaccurate you definitely don't change the article. Mat Cauthon killing Couladin is an Epic Fail because something that would be awesome happening off screen is the freaking definition of Epic Fail, and the same thing for DBZ: until you moved all of those examples it was about animation with a bunch of shortcuts. There's also the fact that Epic Fail is one instance while Audience Sucker Punch refers to this happening over the course of the series. You've essentially destroyed one article in order to make a duplicate of another one with a different name.
Zephid: Removed
- All the buildup and foreshadowing in the world (and there was much, and it was very above-par) can't make up for one very glaring shortfall in No Country For Old Men: It leaves out the climax. Completely. Even the fact that the ordinarily canny hero picks up the Idiot Ball right beforehand can't compare.
- Yes, but that was intentionally, because it was [i]art[/i].
Geese: That was exactly my point. I don't want to get into a big Adaptation Decay slash Adaptation Distillation rant, but there are things that work brilliantly in a book (I don't know if it did, though, not having read it) and don't come off so well in a movie. That was one of them.
This entry is also about leaving out things that would have been cool, especially things that you continually build up expectations to. Adaptations build this expectation by having had it in the original material, but in the end it's the same thing.
Zephid: Epic Fail concerns scenes that filmmakers could reasonably have done but chose not to, but those scenes have to be expected for there to be any sense of disappointment. Both the narrative of the book and the film leads to the expectation, and the author of the book decided not to fulfill that expectation as a move to get his themes across. What you're talking about sounds more like a description of Adaptation Decay where elements of one medium don't transcribe well to another.
If it's going to be listed, it should at least be listed as an inversion and not a straight use. That would be inaccurate.
Geese: This I can live with. Putting it back in, with caveats.
Zephid: Removed
- Sonic and Solid Snake much hyped pre-release as characters in Smash Bros. Brawl. Guess which characters you have to play single player for hours to unlock for your multiplayer party game.
Thatother 1 Dude: Well, that would still take a while. Anyway, an inconvenience to get something is not an Epic Fail.
Citizen: This page just isn't complete without the Epic Fail Guy
◊!
That Other 1 Dude: Is that something from xkcd?
Citizen: No. Google it.
Nirual: You should probably add an explanation for the picture. Not everyone is familiar with memes.
Charred Knight: Deleted this for obvious reasons, if the master copy was destroyed then it should be obvious that they no longer exist.
- But then they were also omitted from Substance and The Document of Metal Gear Solid 2.
Sean Tucker: Someone doesn't know the meaning of the word "burned" in that context, and I think it's you. Re-adding it.
Charred Knight: THEY WHERE FUCKING REMOVED BECAUSE IT WOULD BE FUCKING TASTELESS TO BRING UP MEMORIES OF AN ATTACK THAT KILLED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE! Do you not understand the gravity of the attack on 9/11? Do you not understand that it will never go away! The nation called the United States of America changed that day, and it will never go back. Those people who died are not going to come back, they are never going to see their family again. Putting out cut scenes of a giant mecha/oil platform crashing into the Twin Towers would do nothing but bring up controversy. This isn't a case of too soon, its a case of NEVER
- Mike: Okay, perspective check time. I'm sure we can all agree that murdering between two to six thousand TIMES as many people (depending on how broadly you define it) is far, far worse. And yet—NEVER? No, there are plenty of games that let you play as the people who fought FOR that. They're called "WWII games". Its possibly too soon at the moment, but don't say "its a case of NEVER". I think that the fact that there are games where you can play as the Nazis go to show that such a thing (that is, something so terrible it will NEVER be appropriate to bring up) won't be happening anytime soon.
Mark Z: Cleaned up the introduction to give a clearer sense of what's going on here. Euthanized a sentence that tried to define "Epic Fail" as something that's annoying because the audience is annoyed, and and can be especially annoying. Rephrased the explanation of the title to be 90% less condescending.
This should be a warning: if you name a trope after a phrase that commonly means something different, the definition had better be rock-solid. Do not start the article by telling what it is unlike, especially with a counterexample from an entirely different category of trope (a type of adaptation, when the trope you're "defining" is, strictly speaking, a scene trope). This will just confuse everyone, as we've seen.
Also removed the unexplained cartoon character. I'm told this is the "Epic Fail Guy". Unfortunately, I wasn't told this on the article page, which is where the picture was. I'm also told I should "Google it". Not sure how I'm supposed to Google a picture with no caption.
Citizen: You're supposed to google "Epic Fail Guy", idiot, not the picture itself. There's even a link on this page.
Why is the Buffy example explained by the two series airing on different networks? Characters did cross back and forth all the time. Also it seemed as if the audience was being whipped up in anticipation on PURPOSE - seeing both characters dash off in a state of considerable agitation - and then never being allowed to see what happened or even hear much about it.
Micah: There actually weren't any crossovers during the 2001-2002 season, which was the first season the two were on different networks. Of course, this doesn't mean it wasn't kind of silly to explicitly set up a meeting that they apparently couldn't show.
Rissa: Tried to add a caption, unfortunately it... failed. This is not intentional or ironic, just something that needs fixing by someone with better markup-fu than me.
That Other 1 Dude: Removed
- Ben 10 Alien Force: The "Build a half-alien Plumber-kid army." plot has been largely ignored in favour of Filler episodes.
- For that matter, Julie seems to have vanished again after Pier Pressure.
That's not an Epic Fail, that's an Aborted Arc.
K.o.R: So um, what do we call it when something fails epicly (which was kinda what I was expecting this page to be about)?
Charred Knight: To be specific Epic Fail was originally about scenes in adaptations that sucked. We now just put in scenes that sucked. So I guess it actually would go here.
Ungvichian: I've linked They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot to here. So Let Me Get This Straight...: TWAPGP is basically, "it'd be awesome, but it doesn't happen" while EF is "it'd be awesome, but they don't show it", right?
Rebochan: Subjective Trope tag added. I mean come on, how can it be anything but?
Kizor: Subjective Trope tag removed. The reason why it can be anything but is that these examples can be generally agreed to qualify. There is no need for subjectivity - whether or not something is Epic Fail does not depend on individual perspective. All it could do is the usual effect of declaring open season for "This Troper thought that..." and "actually..." with effects on legibility that could range from the annoying to the catastrophic.
Personally I see natter as The Virus of TV Tropes and the Subjective Trope index as a way of identifying overrun areas and attempting quarantine procedures until the articles can be cleansed or, if that's not possible, destroyed. You (as well as everyone else) are welcome to tell your perspective if you have a different one; I get the feeling that people are talking past each other on this wiki.
Mark Lungo: I respectfully disagree, Kizor. The fact that several Tropers disagree over some of the examples listed (such as the absence of Tom Bombadil from the Lord Of The Rings films) proves that this is indeed a Subjective Trope. Please leave the tag intact; something this trivial should never escalate into an Edit War.
Caswin: Regarding Superman The Animated Series, uh... the reason Superman never faced Lex Luthor in battle and threw him in prison is 1. Because Lex Luthor was an untouchable Corrupt Corporate Executive, and almost never got his hands dirty himself, 2. For the same reason, he was unlikely to let himself get arrested either way, and 3. The series was Cut Short. (Even so, we got the satisfaction of seeing him in a neck brace.) After which, when he was arrested in Justice League, he was already up to supervillain antics within the same episode, and I'm sure they fought before the series was over.
Danel: Although I've never seen the series, ever, as I actually guessed it might be something like this from reading the entry, which seems to have been written by a somewhat unstable fan with a singular fixation.
Ugh. This page used to have a clear meaning - a stupid and counterproductive name for it, but a clear meaning nonetheless: epic moments in a work that aren't adapted for whatever reason. The shift to allow "epic moments foreshadowed which actually take place offscreen" or just plain "epic moments taking place offscreen" (which is in any case a stupid argument in some cases, which were never about the dramatic battles but about the little people caught up in these events, and struggling to survive around the edges - as if one expected every story set during World War 2 to be purely about the battles). But a lot of these are watered down further to "potentially epic moment that never actually took place outside my head".
Haven: Removing this, since I really don't see how it fits any possible meaning of this trope. The fact that Subspace Emissary was absurdly awesome is incidental.
- ''Super Smash Bros Brawl's'' Subspace Emissary mode has been regarded by many fans as an Epic Fail for its repetitive stages and a cheap fan service plot.
KJMackley: After seeing the discussion going on here, I think there needs to be a very clear line stated about what constitutes Epic Fail. Most of the examples are of Second-Hand Storytelling, to the point where I think they are currently identical tropes. We should probably clarify Epic Fail, Second-Hand Storytelling and Audience Sucker Punch. The best way I can describe it is that Audience Sucker Punch is the conclusion of a great build up that brings out an Ass Pull. Second-Hand Storytelling is describing a monumental event second, making you really wish you had seen it. Epic Fail is when the climax of the moment is just underwhelming, but still shown. State that all Second-Hand Storytelling should go there, because Epic Fail is going to attract complainers just by the name, we don't need this trope any more negative then it should be.
Charred Knight: The problem as I saw is that
- Audience Sucker Punch has an overreacting name, it was originally supposed to be about badly animated fight scenes which are actually quite common in shonen series. Also the first line makes it look like a certain trope
- Epic Fail was supposed to be about a scene which was awesome in the original but became crap in the adaptive works. This eventually began including scenes that people thought where awesome in the mind but turned out crap in the actual version
- A certain trope which is neither second hand storytelling, Epic Fail, or Audience Sucker Punch, its when a huge battle is about to happen, and then its cut off and never told. 3 examples I can think of
- Mat is about the meet the Shaido aiel, when the next we see him his won, and killed Couladin with the only description being of MAT FALLING OF HIS HORSE! We don't hear about the actual battle, just Mat falling off his horse before the storytelling ends.
- Iroh breaking out of prison which isn't really described just someone being shocked about how awesome it was.
- Sanger Zonvolt, and Wodan Ymir which ends with them making a few swings, and then picks up again with them crashing through the roof, and Wodan admiting defeat.
Susan Davis: Removed "Inigo Montoya and the Six Fingered Man meet finally and are face to face. Then the Six-fingered man turns and runs." That scene, and what follows, are a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, and not an Epic Fail in any way.
Kizor: Some three and a half months ago, this article was tagged as a subjective trope. It is not - its premise is not in the least inherently dependent on individuals' interpretation - but when the tag was defended on the basis that some people disagree about something, I left it in to see what would happen. That was a mistake.
Subjective tropes have never been about just having a banner on top, but the way they are edited is radically different. As is apparent from this discussion page between that moment and this one, Thread Mode and Natter have exploded. Both are nigh useless to the reader and completely ill-suited to the medium of this wiki. Worse, when subjectivity causes us to lose the commonality of an article, that article is splintered into private works with very few clearly drawn lines: quality control disappeared to the point that gross typos that were considered to be in personal territory went uncorrected, one of my examples acquired a comment ("You could have just said...") about an outright error instead of actually correcting that error in any way, and the originally clear definition was debased to the point of complete meaninglessness and possibly damaging other articles.
This farce is a good demonstration of the destructive effects of the Subjective Trope designation and writing style. The tag is best suited - and, I believe, in large part created and used to - designate articles that have become too heavily infested with natter and abandoned to await either a concentrated clearing effort or deletion. This one was lucky. I have removed the tag and am salvaging the article. Keep it clean.
Kizor: I had wanted to say that for a while, but wasn't angry enough.
The trope itself is ok, but it should be called something else. I think of "Epic Fail" as a fictional moment of trying to be epic and dramatic but failing at it as the writer/director didn't execute it properly, even causing laughter at its corniness, or boredom: The Patriot, Alexander, X-men 3, anything that has an epic, important scene that just comes off as lame. The current article is more like "plots I anticipated that were built up for some time that didn't turn out the way I hoped" which could have any number of other titles relating to disappointment, expectations, anticipation, prediction, or a sort of being let down by what you feel is owed to you as an audience, like "I was owed a good scene in Spider-man 3 but didn't get it" or "I deserved this scene I expected to see," so something related to what the audience member thinks they deserve would work better than Epic Fail, because looking at the examples, they definitely qualify for "fail" but they don't require being epic, which means the trope starter just stole it from 4chan.
I agree with the suggestion, but I consider "Epic Fail" to be rather more similar to So Bad, It's Good. Something trys to do something and fails, but it fails in such an extreme or interesting way that the failure is a great success in itself, the failure is epic. Its not what it could have been that epic, but what it turned into by failing.
Danel: The name of this trope is really, really awful - it's non-intuitive, and can easily be interpreted differently. It's supposed to mean - according to the description - "a failure to be epic"; given a chance to display an epic battle or what have you, the show does not and has it take place off-screen. Apart from the fact that this is weird (and "given a chance" can be understood in unusual ways) , many people interpret the title as "to fail in epic fashion". That is to say, a License To Whine.
Bok: I agree with the name of this trope being awful. The reason it's easy to misinterpretate it for failing in an epic way is obvious: it does have that meaning and that meaning only everywhere else except on TV Tropes, which is a Bad Thing if you ask me. It'd be like a Wikipedia article called "Apple" being about oranges. I'd suggest renaming the trope to "Failed Epic" or "Epic Abortion" or something, which is similar enough to "Epic Fail" to make the reference but different enough to be non-confusing. But then the problem is the examples listed right now... the only trope name that encompasses that would probably be "Ah Dun Like It"
Main Man J: Re-added some of the Pokemon examples. While the GS ball example is more of an example of Aborted Arc or They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot, and the Kyogre/Groudon battle doesn't fit the trope description (as it is shown in the show, it just wasn't very good), the Mewtwo Returns and Grand Festival examples DO, as they were important battles that happened offscreen (for Mewtwo Returns) and between scenes (for the Grand Festival).
Some Sort Of Troper: Discussion on a rename going + here +. Crowner for new names +++here+++.
Update: Countdown complete- Missed Moment of Awesome has 22 votes for, 6 votes against- a net of +16. The nearest competitor is Epic Letdown which has +6. The names have gone up and down and I think we have settled on a winner.
Gentlemens Dame 883: I don't see why the Sahara example was cut. I added it back, and I'd appreciate some input if you see a need to cut or move it again.
Kizor: Huh, a clear example of a forum-based rename doing good. Nice. Also a thank-you to, well, Mr. 71.54.119.115, for making the Star Ocean example read far better by excising the melodrama.
