History FranchiseOriginalSin / Film

** A critique of ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' is [[https://acoup.blog/2022/12/16/collections-why-rings-of-powers-middle-earth-feels-flat/ a general lack of care put into the world:]] [[TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot characters teleport across continents in a matter of days]], [[EasyLogistics armies can travel vast distances with no difficulty]], an entire region seems to consist of one small town, the Harfoot society makes very little sense, [[HollywoodTactics the battle tactics would flunk their commander out of any military academy]], etc. The Jackson films did all of this, too: Gandalf can ride all the way to Isengard before Frodo and Sam are out of the Shire, the elves march an entire army to Helm's Deep and it gets there ''ahead'' of an army that had to march about 1/6th the distance, Minas Tirith is a major city that can somehow feed itself despite being surrounded by nothing but mountains and empty grassland, and the Rohirrim regularly charge into massed pikes and still win. For the most part, though, these moments were the exception: they were directly adapting Tolkien, who [[ShownTheirWork cared quite a bit about those kinds of things]], and most of them can be credited to either budget issues or [[CompressedAdaptation squashing down the original timescale]]. ''Rings of Power'', meanwhile, was about 90% original, and without a real base to work with, the wonkier aspects of the worldbuilding were now free to dominate it.

** A critique of ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' is [[https://acoup.blog/2022/12/16/collections-why-rings-of-powers-middle-earth-feels-flat/ a general lack of care put into the world:]] [[TravelingAtTheSpeedOfPlot characters teleport across continent-wide distances in a matter of days]], [[EasyLogistics entire armies can travel vast distances with no difficulty]], an entire region seems to consist of one small town, the Harfoot society makes very little sense, [[HollywoodTactics the battle tactics would flunk their commander out of any military academy]], etc. The Jackson films did all of this, too: Gandalf can ride all the way to Isengard before Frodo and Sam are out of the Shire, the elves march an entire army to Helm's Deep and it gets there ''ahead'' of an army that had to march about 1/6th the distance, Minas Tirith is a major city that can somehow feed itself despite being surrounded by nothing but mountains and empty grassland, and the Rohirrim regularly charge into massed pikes and still win. For the most part, though, these moments were the exception: they were directly adapting Tolkien, who [[ShownTheirWork cared quite a bit about those kinds of things]], and most of them can be credited to either budget issues or [[CompressedAdaptation squashing down the original timescale]]. ''Rings of Power'', meanwhile, was about 90% original, and without a real base to work with, the wonkier aspects of the worldbuilding were now free to dominate it.

* ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'' and other slasher movie franchises frequently get criticized for their reliance on shallow, stereotyped characters whom it's difficult to connect with. But the first movie in the series, ''Film/TheTexasChainSawMassacre1974'', has characters that are even more one-note than typical of the genre, and yet is generally considered one of the few truly great slasher movies. What differentiated it from its sequels and imitators was its efficiency: rather than devoting a substantial amount of the runtime to DevelopingDoomedCharacters, the original TCM takes only the bare minimum amount of time necessary to establish the cast, and what follows is so relentlessly thrilling from beginning to end that the protagonists' lack of personality doesn't have time to register.

** Fans often complain about the overuse of human drama, MonsterDelay, {{Exposition}}, and (in a rare case) {{Technobabble}} to explain the science in the series. The thing is, all of that started with the original ''Film/Godzilla1954''. That film does this on purpose since it uses RealitySubtext and RealLifeWritesThePlot as a theme (specifically, the UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki and the ''Daigo Fukuryū Maru'' incident)[[labelnote:History lesson]]It was a Japanese fishing boat that got caught within the radiation burst of the Castle Bravo nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, with many of her crew getting radiation sickness and one of them died later[[/labelnote]]. Many other monster movies in the era tried to replicate the success of this approach by using these tropes up until the monster's reveal as well, but lack the horror-tragedy balance that lets this film succeed (which explains the human drama and technobabble being written done ''right''). After the polarizing reception of ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'', the series would go into hiatus and try to use the tropes that made the this film successful with ''Film/ShinGodzilla''.

* ''Film/Transformers2007'': The series may have pulled the franchise out of an early grave, but its reputation took a nosedive after the first movie. In truth, the flaws that later killed the series proved to be more than meets the eye, hiding in plain sight in the first film.
** The main character, Sam Witwicky, was never a particularly well-liked character, but his use in the first film is generally seen as the only one where he was tolerable. While he had a lot of ThisLoserIsYou traits, this was counterbalanced by his vague attempt at a character arc and a few sincere moments that implied [[ComingOfAgeStory those traits were a passing thing]]. Later films not only had him keep those traits, but seemingly had him get worse, and gave him nowhere near as much of a clear arc in favor of him being a PinballProtagonist, putting his increasingly unlikable personality in the spotlight. Eventually the later films got the hint, and he wound up disappearing after the third film, replaced as protagonist from the fourth film onward by [[Creator/MarkWahlberg Cade Yeager]], and implied in a photograph cameo in the fifth film to have been KilledOffscreen.
** Optimus Prime in the first film was involved in a few surprisingly brutal action scenes, including driving a sword through Bonecrusher's head, but these moments were fairly brief and mostly counterbalanced by his many [[WarriorPoet thoughtful speeches]] that gave the impression that he wasn't just a killer. By the second film, though, said speeches are a lot rarer and seemingly every fight Prime gets in has at least one person [[CruelAndUnusualDeath having their head ripped apart]] while delivering lines that make it clear that he is ''revelling'' in it. The series didn't exactly improve in that respect from there, to the point that Prime has become the biggest MemeticPsychopath in the franchise. Tellingly, when ''Film/TransformersRiseOfTheBeasts'' was released in the Knightverse continuity, Prime was given an arc that gave him a more justified and cynical distrust of humanity as a result of being stranded on Earth for so long before he realizes his selfish attitude and changes into the hero the world knows him as.
--->'''Optimus Prime''': Give me your face!
** The ''Transformers'' film series has gained a reputation as LowestCommonDenominator blockbuster series that was largely an action driven flick for teenage boys, but all of those problems could be traced back to the original film. Specifically, the first film had all the aspects that the later installments were heavily criticized for--humans overshadowing the robots, numerous amounts of product placement, heavily sexualized female characters, plenty of racial stereotypes, the robots [[YouDontLookLikeYou straying so far from their G-1 designs]] that they looked impossible to discern onscreen, the United States military being played as an unstoppable force capable of taking out Decepticons without Autobot assistance, and big-budget action sequences filled to the brim with slow motion and explosions. At the time, fans were far more forgiving back then because the spectacle of seeing the Transformers brought on screen for the first time since ''WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie'' made those complaints a bit easier to ignore, along with hinting that those flaws would be shed in later installments through Sam Witwicky's CharacterDevelopment. However, as the sequels progressed, the film's creators doubled down on those very flaws and undid much of the development for cheap laughs from its characters--angering longtime fans who felt that Bay and the writers were treating the robots as a joke ([[TheScrappy Skids and Mudflap]] come to mind) and hurting the brand's reputation despite having saved it from falling into obscurity after the controversies of ''Beast Machines'' and ''The Unicron Trilogy''.
** Megatron was seen as undergoing VillainDecay in his film appearances, which was rather shocking for the series ''main bad guy'', but Megsy wasn't always the most competent villain around, or even the top dog in the Decepticons. [[NostalgiaGoggles Nostalgia]] may play a part in it, but Megatron was never the most effective bad guy in ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'', and was known as a GeneralFailure whose own incompetence or that of [[TheStarscream a certain treacherous lackey]] he never bothered to kill for his betrayals frequently cost him victory, and even becoming Galvatron subjected him to mockery for being [[AxCrazy absolutely insane]]. However, he was still ''Megatron: Leader of the Decepticons'', and the character never lost his threat factor or menace, and always proved himself to be the superior commander towards even the most treacherous of his minions who tried to stage a coup against him. In this series, fans couldn't overlook the fact he was being subservient to both The Fallen and [[spoiler:Sentinel Prime]], neither of whom were {{Eldritch Abomination}}s with the powers of chaos itself like Unicron in ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'', nor the fact that Starscream was surprisingly ''not'' TheStarscream in this series outside of supplemental stories, making Megaton look much more pathetic by comparison. It was also more noticeable because he decayed even within the films; in the first, he was TheDreaded who defeated Optimus Prime in their 1-1 fight, but the next film he needed two more Decepticons backing him up to do so again, and was easily defeated in the third with barely any explanation. Fortunately, his return as [[spoiler:Galvatron]] undid that decay, making him a menace once more.
** The film's use of non G-1 designs were subject to heavy criticism by fans in later installments for the robots [[YouDontLookLikeYou not looking like their original counterparts enough to be recognizable]]. Again, the first film and even other series later on did just that, but it still kept many familiar elements (such as Prime's helmet, window pecks, and grill abs) and color schemes (again on Prime and Bumblebee) from their original designs to make them stick out, not to mention that for what changes the characters did undergo, they still had a robotic look mixed in with the parts of the vehicles they turned into. As the series went forward and the robots' designs changed, they started to take on a more organic look, not only making it impossible to tell what they turned into, but making it much harder to tell who was who in the middle of the series' big-budget action sequences. Tellingly, when ''Film/{{Bumblebee}}'' came out, it went out of its way to restore those old designs while updating them to fit with the film's aesthetic, proving it could be done in a modern setting.
** The later films have been criticized for their needlessly sexualized portrayal of women, most notably through Bay's use of the MaleGaze. However, although the female sexualization started with the first film's female lead Mikaela, most audiences were more forgiving since she is an actual character. As noted by Lindsay Ellis, Mikaela was written sympathetically with actual depth as a WrenchWench trying to atone for her criminal history, while also contributing to the plot and actually [[ActionGirl saving Sam or Autobots more times than she needed to be saved.]] Subsequent LoveInterest female characters; Carly in ''Dark of the Moon'' and Tessa from ''Age of Extinction'' were still used frequently as EyeCandy and [[DamselInDistress Damsels in Distress]] while having none of Mikaela's charisma or HiddenDepths. Not to mention, the titular race, which is used to explore themes of humanity, had a grand total of ''four'' female coded members (three of whom are essentially the same character and DemotedToExtra from the source material) despite each film introducing more cybertronians, making the films increasingly seem like a boys-only affair that saw women as even stranger than giant alien robots. Thus, these criticisms overshadowed discussion of the female representation, even though there ''were'' prominent female characters in later films who weren't sexualized or incompetent.

* FranchiseOriginalSin/MarvelCinematicUniverse

* ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'':
** A common criticism of later sequels is that the humor became both [[ToiletHumor increasingly]] [[DemographicallyInappropriateHumor out of place]] and [[ComedyGhetto too bountiful]] to allow the films to be taken seriously. However, while the original film was considerably more serious compared to the sequels, it wasn't entirely devoid of humor itself. The difference however, is that the original film balanced out all the slapstick and snark based humor with plenty of drama and heart that granted the story a sense of sincerity while also allowing only at least one instance of each of some of the more potentially unfitting forms of humor and allowing all the humor in general to be well timed enough to feel natural and provide levity when as much was needed. Unfortunately, with each sequel released, the amount of humor present became increasingly high to the point that, by the time of the final theatrically released film ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeCollisionCourse'', all potential drama and heart to be found was almost completely buried under an avalanche worth of jokes that were at best [[MoodWhiplash jarring]] or out of place[[note]]Such as one of the opossum brothers nearly licking a piece of poop until Buck told them not to, the opossums later making reference to hashtags, or Sid's angered date from earlier on in the movie disparagingly giving him a negative comparison to his 'profile picture'[[/note]], and at worst annoying or redundant[[note]]Such as Crash and Eddie generally acting like complete idiots when such a niche of humor is technically already being fulfilled by Sid[[/note]].
** A related complaint was how the series became increasingly DenserAndWackier after the original had managed to maintain a fairly realistic tone and setting (barring small cases of MisplacedWildlife and AnachronismStew including animals that died off long before the Pleistocene, when the ice ages would've actually occurred). However, the earliest seeds for this trend's worst excesses could be found planted in ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs'', which introduced a hidden LostWorld filled with LivingDinosaurs[[note]]something that was even [[LampshadeHanging acknowledged by Sid]] in ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeContinentalDrift'' [[AnachronismStew to have not completely made sense for the setting]][[/note]]. But many fans were entirely willing to look past this due to how the film contained a natural heartwarming conclusion to Manny's character arc and the introduction of insanely popular BreakoutCharacter Buck--plus, of course, dinosaurs. But when ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeContinentalDrift'' and ''especially'' ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeCollisionCourse'' kept on introducing even more unrealistic elements and cranking them up to increasingly cartoonish and exaggerated levels[[note]]''Continental Drift'' had the idea that the tectonic plates had not actually ruptured yet (despite species who evolved after the continents drifted off being present in the films) until [[ButtMonkey Scrat]] fell into Earth's core and ran along it (when in real life Earth's core would be too hot, and partially liquid, for anything to survive down there), as well as pirate animals sailing on boats of ice and [[OurSirensAreDifferent sirens]]. ''Collision Course'', meanwhile, had ''the solar system not actually formed yet'' (in spite of life being on Earth at all) until (again) Scrat knocked it into place, with the conflict revolving around stopping a giant meteor he inadvertently created from wiping out all life on the planet, which all only became possible because of Scrat accidentally becoming an unwitting passenger on a ''spaceship'', while also featuring rocks that make old animals younger and create a literal FountainOfYouth[[/note]], the stories became so difficult to take seriously that even the fans finally began to agree with the critics that the series had overstayed its welcome.
** Another common criticism of ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeContinentalDrift'' and ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeCollisionCourse'' is the constant adding in of new characters to the main cast. But for all the hay made about this detail, the beginnings of this trend could be found as far as the comparatively better recieved ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeTheMeltdown'' and ''WesternAnimation/IceAgeDawnOfTheDinosaurs''. In ''The Meltdown'', Ellie's romance with Manny takes up so much of the runtime that, between said romance and the threat of the flood, Diego's arc about [[FaceYourFears overcoming his fear of water]] has only about 1/4 of the film's running time at best devoted to it while Sid's DudeWheresMyRespect arc feels like a complete afterthought. But this was easier to overlook in ''The Meltdown'' since Ellie's presence made understandable narrative sense on account of how her romance with Manny felt like a natural continuation to Manny's arc from the first movie about being able to move on from the pain of his tragically lost first family and provided a happy resolution to his fears of being the LastOfHisKind he'd been undergoing prior to meeting Ellie; meanwhile, all the time she got devoted to her in the narrative allowed her to be fleshed out enough to be able to stand on her own merits as a character and not come across as a SatelliteLoveInterest. And as comparatively underserved as their respective arcs are, Diego still managed to have the 2nd highest amount of screentime devoted to his arc after Manny while Sid made up for his own individual arc's comparative lack of focus by playing a crucial role in helping Diego face his fears. And while Crash and Eddie were hardly considered the most beloved new characters at even their introduction point, they still largely only contributed their brand of humor fairly rarely and still had their humor mitigated by how much they genuinely cared for their adoptive sister Ellie. Similarly, ''Dawn of the Dinosaurs'' introduced Buck and Peaches while having Diego's arc of feeling like he's starting to lose his edge get much less screentime compared to Manny's arc of becoming a father once more and Sid's arc of trying to be a parent to the trio of baby ''T. rex''. But Buck was fleshed out enough as an equal parts [[{{cloudcuckoolander}} crazy]] and [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass badass]] adventurer to become a popular character in his own right, and was also written out of the story at the end by [[IChooseToStay choosing to ultimately stay]] in the LostWorld so that he wouldn't risk overstaying his welcome in the narrative. Peaches, meanwhile, wasn't introduced until her birth fairly close to the end of the story, and largely served as more of a living prop than an actual character with her own arc due to only being a fairly newly born baby at that point. And much like how Sid played a crucial role in Diego's arc from ''The Meltdown'', Diego similarly made up for his own arc's comparative underserving in ''Dawn of the Dinosaurs'' by playing a key role in Manny and Ellie's shared arc. But by the time Diego's [[HeelFaceTurn formerly evil]] {{Pirate}} love interest Shira, Sid's Granny dumped on him by his uncaring family[[note]]Who stays behind with other older animals in a FountainOfYouth at the end of ''Collision Course''[[/note]], Peaches' hapless fiancée Julian,[[note]]Who alongside her was preparing to be written out in the ending of ''Collision Course'' due to them getting married and leaving, the film wrapped up on their post-wedding party before this could happen[[/note]] and Sid's passionate new girlfriend Brooke got introduced to the fold, alongside bringing back Buck and having him stick around again, the cast had become so massively overcrowded that not only did the brand new characters get nowhere near enough time to get properly fleshed out enough to allow fans to like them on their own merits, but many of the characters that had come before them get increasingly pushed to the wayside or flanderized to the point that even ''they'' started to become increasingly difficult to continue rooting for and getting invested in. ''WesternAnimation/TheIceAgeAdventuresOfBuckWild'' seemed to get the idea and [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome pushed out]] all main characters that weren't Manny, Sid, Diego, Ellie, Crash, Eddie, or Buck.
** Later installments got criticized for turning the franchise from a semi-accurate portrayal of animals surving the Ice Age into a FantasyKitchenSink with dinosaurs and fantasy elements. However, it can be argued that the trend started with Cretaceous and Maelstrom, who are reptiles from the Mesozoic era that were long extinct by the time the Ice Age started. The main difference is that, first of all, they do have a semi-realistic justification in the plot, [[MonsterInTheIce by being sealed in the ice and then realesed with the titular meltdown]], meaning that the creators were lampshading the fact they wouldn't be alive during the Ice Age with these two being a notable exception. And most importantly, they don't drive attention away from ice age-related natural disasters like the main flood, which is still the focus of the plot. In the latter movies, the more historically inaccurate and fantastical elements took center stage in the plot, leading the Ice Age-elements to become irrelevant, and they never bothered to give them any sort of handwave to the more jarring elements.

** Later installments got criticized for turning the franchise from a semi-accurate portrayal of animals surving the ice age into a FantasyKitchenSink with dinosaurs and fantasy elements. However, it can be argued the trend started with Cretaceous and Maelstrom from ''The Meltdown'', who are reptiles from the Mesozoic era that were long extinct by the time the Ice Age started, the main difference is that First of all, they do have a semi-realistic justification in the plot, [[MonsterInTheIce by being sealed in the ice and then realesed with the titular meltdown]], meaning that the creators were lampshading the fact they wouldn't be alive during the ice age with these two being a notable exception. And most importantly, they don't drive attention away from the ice age-related natural disasters like the main flood, which is still the focus of the plot. In the latter movies, the more historicallly inaccurate and fantastical elements took center attention to the plot leading the Ice Age-elements to become irrelevant and they never bothered to give them a realistic justification.

*** Later installments got criticized for turning the franchise from a semi-accurate portrayal of animals surving the ice age into a FantasyKitchenSink with dinosaurs and fantasy elements. However, it can be argued the trend started with Cretaceous and Maelstrom from ''The Meltdown'', who are reptiles from the Mesozoic era that were long extinct by the time the Ice Age started, the main difference is that First of all, they do have a semi-realistic justification in the plot, [[MonsterInTheIce by being sealed in the ice and then realesed with the titular meltdown]], meaning that the creators were lampshading the fact they wouldn't be alive during the ice age with these two being a notable exception. And most importantly, they don't drive attention away from the ice age-related natural disasters like the main flood, which is still the focus of the plot. In the latter movies, the more historicallly inaccurate and fantastical elements took center attention to the plot leading the Ice Age-elements to become irrelevant and they never bothered to give them a realistic justification.

** The original film, together with ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' two years later, has often been held by many old-guard (or at least highbrow) film critics with ushering in UsefulNotes/TheBlockbusterAgeOfHollywood and all of its worst excesses, killing off the UsefulNotes/NewHollywood era in the process. The makers of both films, Creator/StevenSpielberg and Creator/GeorgeLucas respectively, both came from the same "film school geek" background that many of their New Hollywood contemporaries came from, but their films were made with a far more populist orientation, telling simple plots of "men vs. shark" or "plucky resistance vs. TheEmpire". The difference was in the artistry they put into telling those seemingly simple stories, elevating them into classic tales that still garner the respect of those who watch them. Years later, even Spielberg and Lucas themselves had [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steven-spielberg-predicts-implosion-film-567604 grown disillusioned]] with the trends that their films had kicked off, predicting that they would lead in time to Hollywood's downfall.

* One of the principal reasons ''Film/SpiderMan3'' is the least liked in the original ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' is that it was widely viewed as too goofy in tone (the most commonly cited moment being the "Emo Dancing Peter" sequence), but the trilogy had always been pretty goofy: outsized and hammy personalities, cheesy action sequences, and a lot of moments that were deliberately going full {{Bathos}}. While there were a lot of heartfelt and emotional dramatic beats, the overall tone was very much "comic book come to life." This approach just didn't work as well for the third movie, for a few reasons. For one thing: its plot was notoriously cluttered and overlong due to the film featuring three different villains with their own individual character arcs, which made the more dramatic aspects of the story--Peter and Harry's decayed friendship, the issues with the black suit, Peter's quest for revenge against Flint Marko, Peter and MJ's relationship going south ''again''--feel underserved. As a result, the dramatic beats didn't stick, and the audience only remembered Emo Dancing Peter. For another thing: the first two films drew most of their inspiration from the earliest ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' comics from the 1960s, which [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks were fairly campy and whimsical to begin with]], so the goofy tone actually felt appropriate to the source material. But when Creator/SamRaimi tried to apply almost exactly the same tone to the ComicBook/{{Venom}} symbiote arc--a considerably darker horror-themed story from the [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks 1980s]]--it inevitably suffered from tonal dissonance. The "Emo Dancing Peter" sequence is, in fact, a direct result of this: Peter's "emo" haircut and impromptu dancing were how Raimi chose to depict his personality change after falling under the symbiote's influence, which struck many people as an odd interpretation.

* ''Film/SuicideSquad2016'' is what started the trend of DC and Warner Bros. attempting to turn the characters into their version of ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', as said film featured a quirky group of anti-heroes going up against traditionally overpowered superhumans despite their own conflicting views on how society had treated them, and all the major characters played by A-Listers survived while very few characters who weren't died unceremoniously--all to the tone of classic rock music from the 70s and 80s while they constantly snark at each other. The problem was, the studio's cut of the film was not well received at all, being seen as [[SoOkayItsAverage mindless but flawed fun at beset]], and heavily lacking on characterization and a coherent plot. However, Warner Bros. saw [[CriticProof the box office numbers]] despite the poor reviews and came to the belief ''that'''s how audiences wanted to see the Squad, and subsequently made it so most iterations followed, with a similar lineup and tone. Even then, when Creator/JamesGunn (who directed the ''Guardians of the Galaxy'' film) released ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' to make everything more in line with the comics (i.e. killing off a lot of characters, featuring numerous C-Listers most audiences had never heard of, sending the squad on dirty black-ops missions against regular people, and even featuring a [[CreatorCameo cameo appearance]] from the squad's most notable writer Creator/JohnOstrander), the lower box-office numbers despite the higher acclaim[[note]]Due to releasing the film in the middle of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, a time when people would not have been going to theaters, and simultaneously on Platform/HBOMax, which made people who didn't want to go to theaters take the safer option at the expense of WB getting less money[[/note]] resulted once again in WB making all ''Suicide Squad'' based stories a combination of the two takes while mostly drawing from the former's tone and lineup. Fans who were pleased about Gunn's film making things more in line with the comics weren't too happy that Warner Bros. took the wrong lessons from the 2016 film and made that the sole template to draw on, especially when ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague'' borrowed too heavily from it and alienated any potential players.

* ''Film/SuicideSquad2016'' is what started the trend of DC and Warner Brothers attempting to turn the characters into their version of ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', as said film featured a quirky group of anti-heroes going up against traditionally overpowered superhumans despite their own conflicting views on how society had treated them, and all the major characters played by A-Listers survived while very few characters who weren't died unceremoniously--all to the tone of classic rock music from the 70s and 80s while they constantly snark at each other. The problem was, the studio's cut of the film was not well received at all, being seen as [[SoOkayItsAverage mindless but flawed fun at beset]], and heavily lacking on characterization and a coherent plot. However, Warner Bros saw [[CriticProof the box office numbers]] despite the poor reviews, and came to the belief ''that'''s how audiences wanted to see the Squad, and subsequently made it so most iterations followed, with a similar lineup and tone. Even then, when Creator/JamesGunn released ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' to make everything more in line with the comics (i.e. killing off a lot of characters, featuring numerous C-Listers most audiences have never heard of, and sending the squad on dirty black-ops missions against regular people), the lower box-office numbers despite the higher acclaim resulted once again in WB making all ''Suicide Squad'' based stories a combination of the two takes while mostly drawing from the former's tone and lineup. Needless to say, fans that were pleased about Gunn's film making things more in line with the comics weren't too happy that Warner Brothers took the wrong lessons from the 2016 film and made that the sole template to draw on, especially when ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague'' borrowed too heavily from it and alienated any potential players.

** The ''Transformers'' film series has gained a reputation as LowestCommonDenominator blockbuster series that was largely an action driven flick for teenage boys, but all of those problems could be traced back to the original film. Specifically, the first film had all the aspects that the later installments were heavily criticized for--humans overshadowing the robots, numerous amounts of product placement, heavily sexualized female characters, plenty of racial stereotypes, the robots straying so far from their G-1 designs that they looked impossible to discern onscreen, the United States military being played as an unstoppable force capable of taking out Decepticons, and big-budget action sequences filled to the brim with slow motion and explosions. At the time, fans were far more forgiving back then because the spectacle of seeing the Transformers brought on screen for the first time made those complaints a bit easier to ignore, along with hinting that those flaws would be shed in later installments through Sam Witwicky's CharacterDevelopment. However, as the sequels progressed, the film's creators doubled down on those very flaws and undid much of the development for cheap laughs from its characters--angering longtime fans who felt that Bay and the writers were treating the robots as a joke ([[TheScrappy Skids and Mudflap]] come to mind) and hurting the brand's reputation despite having saved it from falling into obscurity after the controversies of ''Beast Machines'' and ''The Unicron Trilogy''.

* ''Film/{{Transformers}}'': The series may have pulled the franchise out of an early grave, but its reputation took a nosedive after the first movie. In truth, the flaws that later killed the series proved to be more than meets the eye, hiding in plain sight in the first film.

** The Transformers film series has gained a reputation as LowestCommonDenominator blockbuster series that was largely an action driven flick for teenage boys, but all of those problems could be traced back to the original film. Specifically, the first film had all the aspects that the later installments were heavily criticized for--humans overshadowing the robots, numerous amounts of product placement, heavily sexualized female characters, plenty of racial stereotypes, the robots straying so far from their G-1 designs that they looked impossible to discern onscreen, the United States military being played as an unstoppable force capable of taking out Decepticons, and big-budget action sequences filled to the brim with slow motion and explosions. At the time, fans were far more forgiving back then because the spectacle of seeing the Transformers brought on screen for the first time made those complaints a bit easier to ignore, along with hinting that those flaws would be shed in later installments through Sam Witwicky's CharacterDevelopment. However, as the sequels progressed, the film's creators doubled down on those very flaws and undid much of the development for cheap laughs from its characters--angering longtime fans who felt that Bay and the writers were treating the robots as a joke ([[TheScrappy Skids and Mudflap]] come to mind) and hurting the brand's reputation despite having saved it from falling into obscurity after the controversies of ''Beast Machines'' and ''The Unicron Trilogy''.

** Many of the traits that make ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' often derided one of the worst films in the series were present to an extent in previous films, and only taken to extremes here. Most films included some science-fiction elements, usually in the inventions of Q or the villains, but these were grounded enough to pass as cutting-edge technology. But ''Moonraker'' had so many sci-fi elements that were critical to the story and action that it can safely be called a sci-fi story just as much as a spy one, making it feel out of place in the series. The franchise itself developed a basic formula and recurring elements early on, but ''Moonraker's'' whole plot was such a rehash of the [[Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe previous film]] it was hit hard by ItsTheSameSoItSucks. And the franchise has never been afraid to change with the times or imitate elements from other films popular at the time, but making a film about laser fights in space, and ending with a final, desperate shot to destroy a superweapon so soon after the success of [[Film/ANewHope "Star Wars"]] screamed that the films were cynically [[FollowTheLeader Following The Leader.]]

** ''Film/GodzillaVsKingGhidorah'' (1991) is one of the more fondly regarded ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' films of the modern era, but it's also notable for being the first post-reboot film to bring back an older iconic monster from the ''Showa''-era films instead of introducing a new one--a trend that would eventually lead to criticisms about the franchise being overly reliant on nostalgia for the older movies.[[note]] The creative team brought back a pre-existing monster at the behest of the studio after the previous film ''Film/GodzillaVsBiollante'' (which ''did'' introduce a new monster) underperformed at the box office.[[/note]] At the time, though, very few people had issues with King Ghidorah returning to the big screen, largely because the film gave the character a completely new backstory that allowed the new version to stand on its own (instead of a malevolent alien monster, Ghidorah is a mutant created from a fusion of three dragon-like creatures and was converted into a heroic robotic cyborg). Ghidorah's return also wasn't the primary draw of the film (which is primarily a pretty inventive TimeTravel story), so it didn't feel like the studio was relying too heavily on his star power. The subsequent sequels were successful for similar reasons: ''Film/GodzillaAndMothraTheBattleForEarth'' and ''Film/GodzillaVsMechagodzillaII'' introduced Mothra and Mechagodzilla to the ''Heisei'' continuity, but the former keeps things fresh by introducing Mothra's EvilCounterpart Battra, and the latter reimagines Mechagodzilla as a human-controlled HumongousMecha. By contrast, the ''Millennium-era films (''Film/GodzillaAgainstMechagodzilla'', ''Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS'', and ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'', in particular) were heavily criticized for relying more on references to past movies and kaiju at the expense of originality. ''Final Wars'' is often singled out as the worst offender due to its plot largely being a rehash of ''Film/DestroyAllMonsters'' (giant monster crossover involving aliens) and its cast being overstuffed with cameos from "Showa"-era monsters.

** ''Film/GodzillaVsKingGhidorah'' (1991) is one of the more fondly regarded ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' films of the modern era, but it's also notable for being the first post-reboot film to bring back an older iconic monster from the ''Showa''-era films instead of introducing a new one--a trend that would eventually lead to criticisms about the franchise being overly reliant on nostalgia for the older movies.[[note]] The creative team brought back a pre-existing monster at the behest of the studio after the previous film ''Film/GodzillaVsBiollante'' (which ''did'' introduce a new monster) underperformed at the box office.[[/note]] At the time, though, very few people had issues with King Ghidorah returning to the big screen, largely because the film gave the character a completely new backstory that allowed the new version to stand on its own (instead of a malevolent alien monster, Ghidorah is a mutant created from a fusion of three dragon-like creatures and was converted into a heroic robotic cyborg). Ghidorah's return also wasn't the primary draw of the film (which is primarily a pretty inventive TimeTravel story), so it didn't feel like the studio was relying too heavily on his star power. The subsequent sequels were successful for similar reasons: ''Film/GodzillaAndMothraTheBattleForEarth'' and ''Film/GodzillaVsMechagodzillaII'' introduced Mothra and Mechagodzilla to the ''Heisei'' continuity, but the former keeps things fresh by introducing Mothra's EvilCounterpart Battra, and the latter reimagines Mechagodzilla as a human-controlled HumongousMecha. By contrast, the ''Millennium-era films (''Film/GodzillaAgainstMechagodzilla'', ''Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS'', and ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'', in particular) were heavily criticized for relying more on references to past movies and kaiju at the expense of originality. ''Final Wars'' is often singled out as the worst offender as with its plot being a rehash of ''Film/DestroyAllMonsters'' (giant monster crossover involving aliens) and cast overstuffed with cameos cameos from "Showa"-era monsters.

** ''Film/GodzillaVsKingGhidorah'' (1991) is one of the more fondly regarded ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' films of the modern era, but it's also notable for being the first post-{{reboot}} film to bring back an older monster from the ''Showa''-era films instead of introducing a new one--a trend that would eventually lead to criticisms about the franchise being overly reliant on nostalgia for the older movies.[[note]] The creative team brought back a pre-existing monster at the behest of the studio after the previous film ''Film/GodzillaVsBiollante'' (which ''did'' introduce a new monster) underperformed at the box office.[[/note]] At the time, though, very few people had issues with King Ghidorah returning to the big screen, largely because the film gave the character a completely new backstory that allowed the new version to stand on its own (instead of a malevolent alien monster, Ghidorah is a heroic mutant created from a fusion of three dragon-like creatures). Ghidorah's return also wasn't the primary draw of the film (which is primarily a pretty inventive TimeTravel story), so it didn't feel like the studio was relying too heavily on his star power. The next two sequels were successful for similar reasons: ''Film/GodzillaAndMothraTheBattleForEarth'' and ''Film/GodzillaVsMechagodzillaII'' introduced Mothra and Mechagodzilla to the ''Heisei'' continuity, but the former keeps things fresh by introducing Mothra's EvilCounterpart Battra, and the latter reimagines Mechagodzilla as a human-controlled HumongousMecha. By contrast, the Millennium-era films (''Film/GodzillaAgainstMechagodzilla'', ''Film/GodzillaTokyoSOS'', and ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'', in particular) rely more on nostalgia for nostalgia's sake.

* One of the most controversial aspects of ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'' is that it [[TheyCopiedItSoItSucks brazenly borrows ideas and scenes]] from many big-name Hollywood blockbusters popular during the late 90s and early 2000s. The ''Godzilla'' franchise is no stranger to this trend as previous films tended to appropriate concepts or pay homage to iconic scenes from pop-culture on both sides of the Pacific (e.g. ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', ''Film/{{Reptilicus}}'', ''Film/{{Aliens}}'', ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' and ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' among many more) and even owes its very existence to it as the [[Film/Godzilla1954 1954 film]] was inspired in large part by ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'' and ''Franchise/KingKong''. This tendency wasn't such a problem before because the filmmakers who had a hand in making the preceding films put unique spins on the concepts that they copied or made an effort to hide their influences. ''Final Wars'', meanwhile suffers significantly as the film leaves no room for subtlety whatsoever thanks to it's over-the-top, brash and in-your-face tone while not even bothering to do something different with what it imitates.

** The later films have been criticized for their needlessly sexualized portrayal of women, most notably through Bay's use of the MaleGaze. However, although the female sexualization started with the first film's female lead Mikaela, most audiences were more forgiving since she is an actual character. As noted by Lindsay Ellis, Mikaela was written sympathetically with actual character depth as a WrenchWench trying to atone for her criminal history, while also contributing to the plot. In contrast, the other female characters are depicted as eye candy for male viewers while having none of Mikaela's charisma or HiddenDepths. Tessa from ''Age of Extinction'' is particularly hated by fans for being a whiny, bratty teen who doesn't actually contribute to the plot.

*** ''Film/{{Skyfall}}'' got similarly rave reviews for managing to bring much of the fun of 1960s-era Bond to TheNewTens, balancing out some of the grittier elements of Craig's previous outings by resurrecting some old series favorites. The return of the original Aston Martin [=DB5=], complete with machine guns and ejector seat, was widely applauded by fans, as was the return of Q and Moneypenny. But in spite of its homages to the series' past, it also wasn't afraid to shake up the status quo by [[spoiler:killing off M]] and exploring Bond's childhood with the visit to [[spoiler:Skyfall manor]]. Its followup, ''Film/{{Spectre}}'', kept those same trends going, but it was widely criticized for sloppily [[ArcWelding handling the return]] of the SPECTRE organization, and its attempt to reintroduce [[spoiler:Ernst Stavro Blofeld]] as [[spoiler:Bond's evil stepbrother]] has proven to be ''much'' more divisive. While ''Skyfall''[='=]s odes to the past were seen as a good way to complement a genuinely interesting story with a strong antagonist, ''Spectre'' has been accused of leaning too strongly on them to round out a weak plot hinging almost entirely on old faces.

* A lot of negative reviews of ''Film/Zoolander2'' comment on how dated the movie's joke about [[TheBrainlessBeauty supermodels being stupid]] is. Although the "dumb model" character has always been something of a DeadUnicornTrope, [[Film/{{Zoolander}} the original movie]] received a lot less flak for it, even though models weren't any more popular in 2001 than they were in 2016. The thing is, that movie was so steeped in nostalgia for TheEighties that it was easier to accept it as a sort of RetroUniverse. The sequel, bloated with special effects and celebrity cameos, got no such free pass.

** One of the most widely criticized aspects of ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'' is the rather insensitive and inaccurate treatment given to Indian culture and religion. This was actually a logical extension of similar content that was already there in ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk''. Spielberg biographer and film critic Joseph [=McBride=] points out that ''Raiders'' begins with stereotypical imagery of angry natives chasing a white man through the jungle after he steals an artifact from their culture (after Rene Belloq steals the artifact from him and used it to turn the natives against Indy), and the portion set in the Middle East is full of similarly stereotypical Orientalist imagery[[note]]according to George Lucas, Indy's theft of the idol was ''supposed'' to [[IntendedAudienceReaction be seen as morally dodgy]] - he envisioned Indy as a borderline VillainProtagonist whose arc involves finding something worth believing in. However, audiences at the time [[ValuesDissonance didn't see it that way]] [[/note]]. What balanced it was that in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' the main bad guys are the Nazis and it's heavily implied the day ends up being saved by God, whereas ''Temple of Doom'' paints local Indians as a psychotic child-sacrificing cult of cannibals while the forces of the British colonial authorities are given the role of TheCavalry, making it far harder to ignore the characterization of foreign cultures. ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' is likewise a GenreThrowback to a whole slew of relatively well-aged pulp fiction and adventure movies, where ''Temple of Doom'' is largely based on ''Film/GungaDin'' which is adapted from a Creator/RudyardKipling story, deriving in both cases from a more [[ValuesDissonance values-dissonant]] time.

** The depiction of Comicbook/LexLuthor in ''Batman v Superman'' was roundly panned, with many fans in particular claiming that Creator/JesseEisenberg's jokey LargeHam portrayal of the character was ill-fitting and more suitable for someone like ComicBook/TheRiddler or ComicBook/TheJoker. This is yet another element that can be traced back to the Christopher Reeve films, where Creator/GeneHackman very much played Lex as a jokester and could be quite campy at times. The main difference is that the Reeve movies were lighthearted enough that Hackman's performance didn't seem out of place, and the first two installments were so well-liked by critics and audiences that even those who didn't care for Luthor were more forgiving. Furthermore, Hackman seemed to be channeling Film/JamesBond villains with his performance, Hollywood's go-to reference point for the kind of comic book {{supervillain}} that Lex Luthor is, and not only was it easy for audiences to picture a Bond villain as a WorthyOpponent for Superman, but Hackman's performance stacked up well by that measure. By contrast, the extremely dark and bleak tone of ''Batman v Superman'' just highlighted how odd Eisenberg's performance was, with many finding it quite jarring and irritating -- the revelation that he pees in jars even became something of a memetic counterpoint to those who claimed the film as mature and philosophical. Eisenberg also seemed to be channeling Creator/HeathLedger's performance as the Joker in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', which invited unfavorable comparisons to that film, especially since his Luthor had little in common with the Joker otherwise. Finally, the Reeve films came out decades before ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'', ''Series/LoisAndClark'', and ''Series/{{Smallville}}'', all of which helped [[AudienceColoringAdaptation cement the popular image of Luthor]] as a cunning and charismatic businessman and a scientific {{Ubermensch}} who would probably have fit ''better'' into the story that Creator/ZackSnyder was trying to tell.

** The film's use of non G-1 designs were subject to heavy criticism by fans in later installments for the robots [[YouDontLookLikeYou not looking like their original counterparts enough to be recognizable.]] Again, the first film and even other series later on did just that, but it still kept many familiar elements (such as Prime's helmet, window pecks, and grill abs) and color schemes (again on Prime and Bumblebee) from their original designs to make them stick out, not to mention that for what changes the characters did undergo, they still had a robotic look mixed in with the parts of the vehicles they turned into. As the series went forward and the robots' designs changed, they started to take on a more organic look, not only making it impossible to tell what they turned into, but making it much harder to tell who was who in the middle of the series' big-budget action sequences. Tellingly, when ''Film/{{Bumblebee}}'' came out, it went out of its way to restore those old designs while updating them to fit with the film's aesthetic, proving it could be done in a modern setting.

* ''Film/BrideOfFrankenstein'' is considered by many fans and critics to be one of Creator/UniversalPictures' best monster movies, if not the greatest of them all--but it also has many of the elements that contributed to the Franchise/UniversalHorror brand ultimately fizzling out in the mid-1940s. It largely started the franchise's shift from dark, psychological horror to goofy, juvenile {{camp}}, it introduced [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute yet another]] archetypical {{mad scientist}} to the cast of characters, and it effectively undid the ending of the original ''Film/Frankenstein1931'' (an early warning sign of the Universal Monster movies drifting into more-or-less NegativeContinuity). But compared to the mid-1940s "{{monster mash}}" movies like ''Film/HouseOfFrankenstein'' and ''Film/HouseOfDracula'', it featured a pretty decent balance of drama and farce, with its more light-hearted moments (like the homunculi sequence) mostly acting as a counter-balance for some truly hard-hitting story beats (like the climactic destruction of the laboratory). Similarly, although Dr. Septimus Pretorius (Henry Frankenstein's [[RememberTheNewGuy previously unmentioned]] {{mentor}}) was effectively just a clone of Frankenstein on paper, he was brought to life through a truly memorable performance by Ernest Thesiger that allowed the character to truly stand out as a gleefully insane science professor with a god complex (contrasting Colin Clive's performance as a more down-to-Earth family man with a dark side). And although the movie elected to ignore the Creature's death at the end of the original ''Frankenstein'', this could be pretty easily forgiven as a necessity of the premise--and it was balanced out by the bulk of the main plot, which featured quite a few {{continuity nod}}s to the first film, and actually moved the stories of Frankenstein and his Creature forward in interesting ways (most notably with the introduction of the titular Bride). The end result ended up feeling like a meaningful continuation of the original ''Frankenstein'' rather than just a rehash or an ExcusePlot.