Franchise Original Sin / Multiple Media

• The things that fans of BIONICLE usually cite as the worst parts about later stories had their triumphant coming-out party in Time Trap, which was one of the best-regarded books in the franchise. Time Trap leaned heavily on Science Fiction over Fantasy, pushed the Dark Hunter faction and their rivalry with Makuta to the forefront, had the first allusion to the Order of Mata Nui, and was the first story to really play up Makuta as an Evil Genius with very clear goals and "plans within plans" to manipulate everyone, rather than the formless Ancient Evil of the online game or the mysterious Tragic Monster of the films. All these things were interesting at the time because they were new, and Time Trap in itself was an excellent story, with the implication of a larger world and Makuta's larger plans providing a lot of intrigue. But later on, pretty much every mystical element was removed or retconned out, multiple extra factions were introduced with increasingly complicated motivations, leading to a Kudzu Plot, and Makuta's planning was exaggerated to the point of him being an Invincible Villain who was always behind everything no matter how little sense it made.
  • Going even further back, the second movie, Legends of Metru Nui, and the 2004 story arc as a whole introduced the faults that Time Trap brought to the surface. The story took on a sci-fi bent, contrasting with the Polynesian-influenced fantasy of the previous arcs. The Dark Hunters were introduced in the form of Nidhiki and Krekka, and the Brotherhood of Makuta was first alluded to in the film. Finally, Makuta's plans for the Mask of Time were the first sign of him having a long-term plan. These traits would be magnified greatly in the franchise's later installments.
  • The diminishment of mysticism in favor of sci-fi is often brought up by a section of fans as the worst aspect of the later years, with some even pointing to the franchise's big reveal of Mata Nui being a giant robot who housed the Matoran Universe as the ultimate betrayal of the original concept. However, all of this was the original concept — the story's main image in its first three years, robots leading a tribal life on a beautiful natural island, was literally a surface-level facade that was always intended to be turned on its head. It was all a setup, but since the story was told from the characters' POV, the audience only knew as much as they did. The twist was foreshadowed in the very title: "Biological Chronicle", meaning the characters were allusions to Mata Nui's biological workings, meant to live inside Mata Nui in a sci-fi environment to keep the giant robot functional. The cancelled The Legend of Mata Nui PC game would have set up this reveal better, as the final levels took place in Mata Nui's "brain", a mechanical environment made of circuitry to contrast with the natural world outside. As this game was not released, a lot of this foreshadowing got lost, hence the shift from mystical tribal fantasy to futuristic science-fantasy felt more abrupt.
  • The latter half of the toy-line was derided for using the exact same build scheme introduced in the 2006 waves, which used many specific parts that made sets easy and uninteresting to build — the only variance came from swapping part designs, which gave figure hit-or-miss proportions / visual cohesion. That said, the first year to do this was a direct continuation of last years story, so reusing the build scheme made sense, and it was bolstered with a number of unique sets (the Barraki, Nocturn, Karzahni, Gadunka, Maxilos & Spinax) that did interesting things with the pieces available to it. The next year wasn't so lucky, as not only did it reintroduce the Toa Nuva with underwhelming Adaptive Armor designs, but the impulse sets were simplified to the point they barely qualified as construction toys, and the larger price points were mostly occupied by impressive-yet-expensive vehicle sets instead of interesting titan figures. On top of that, an attempt to correct faulty socket-joint manufacturing from last year ended up Gone Horribly Wrong, dooming the already limited limb parts to breakage. These problems plagued the line for another year until LEGO pulled the plug on it.
  • And way before that, you could look at the Toa and Bohrok sets, who made up the first four waves of canister sets. The Toa sets were all very similar, the Toa Nuva sets were basically the same as those but with armor, and the Bohrok and Bohrok-Kal sets were all totally identical with the exception of colors and weapons. This wasn't seen as a killer because a) it was early, and the later Rakhshi and Toa Metru redesigned even harder, b) the Toa and Bohrok sets were, if nothing else, very different from each other (a humanoid warrior versus a squat bug-creature) and c) the various Rahi and Titan sets all had very different builds.
  • On that matter, the figures slowly growing more expensive was noticable from the get-go, with the cost of a single canister set slowly rising from $6 to $10 over the course of its run, but that was initially an understandable trade-off as sets grew more complex and articulate. Unfortunately, the increased cost of petroleum in the Great Recession of 2008 would saddle the figures with a $3 price-hike right as the line was going through all the problems detailed above. When Hero Factory took the reigns, its figures began their evolution from the impulse sets in an effort to curtail their expense, but by the time the new BIONICLE hit shelves, it wound up costing $100 to collect all six Toa.
  • One of the most roundly criticized sets of the later years was the Toa Mistika, who became infamous for looking absolutely nothing like the characters they were supposed to be new forms of. However, Bionicle had long had a habit of completely throwing out a character's design when they got a new body—this is particularly evident in the Toa Metru, who look nothing whatsoever like the Turaga, and the Toa Inika, who look even less like the various Matoran they were claimed to be. However, the Turaga and the Matoran had relatively simple and generic designs that weren't seen as particularly "iconic", with the Matoran in particular having only been distinguished by mask and color (and even the mask was shared with their respective Toa). This was not the case with the Toa Mistika, who were meant to be new versions of the main characters of the first three years of the franchise, making the lack of design continuity both incredibly apparent and difficult to defend.
• A common criticism of Hannibal is that the title character pulls off so many improbable feats that it strains Willing Suspension of Disbelief to the breaking point. To whit: he kidnaps, murders, and/or cannibalizes dozens of people without leaving any evidence, he successfully frames three different people for his crimes, and he nearly drives an FBI analyst insane without any of his superiors noticing. Understandably, some viewers find it hard to buy that an ordinary psychologist could actually do all of that. ^note  For his part, Mads Mikkelsen has admitted that he always played Lecter as if he were an ethereal demon in human form, recognizing that the writers essentially wrote the character as superhuman. While the classic The Silence of the Lambs also had Lecter pull off plenty of improbable feats, like talking a fellow inmate into committing suicide, and using a guard's severed face as a mask, it was nevertheless easier to tolerate all of that in a two-hour movie where Lecter was a supporting character; in an ongoing series where he was the Villain Protagonist, it became much more glaring. And even in the movie, Lecter's genius was something of an Informed Attribute: he ultimately never "solved" the mystery of Buffalo Bill, since it turned out that he already knew who he was through a Contrived Coincidence.
• Hellaverse:
  • While it's a heartwarming and funny episode, "Loo Loo Land" has many of the hallmarks that would make the series much more divisive in the second season of Helluva Boss, such as IMP taking a job outside their usual profession, Loona having little to no screentime, an increase in character-based drama, and greater focus on Stolas and Blitzo's relationship at the expense of the other characters. Fortunately, all of these aspects are well-balanced in this episode, but not so much in later ones.
  • The series has received plenty of criticism regarding the depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins of the Hellaverse as being Reasonable Authority Figures (such as Beelzebub, the sin of Gluttony, encouraging extreme consumption with the only people who can handle it and Asmodeus, the sin of Lust, condemning Love Potions on the grounds that "lust should not be about force" in direct defiance of most classical depictions of Lust also including rape. This was present since the pilot of Hazbin Hotel where Charlie Morningstar's ambition is rehabilitating Sinner demons so they can go to Heaven, the difference being that Charlie was shown to be a uniquely well-meaning person in a World of Jerkass. Since the introduction of numerous demonic characters who are at the very worst morally complex people like normal humans, people have argued Charlie does not stand out as the protagonist anymore and that having Ambiguously Evil demon characters cheapens the initial overall atmosphere of Hell from being a Crapsack World to A Hell of a Time.
• Many complaints about Spider-Man adaptations in the 2010s could be blamed on Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis. For the series, Bendis went with an Adaptation Origin Connection approach that would interconnect much of Spider-Man's mythos. Some examples include Norman Osborn getting his powers from the same Applied Phlebotinum that indirectly empowered Peter Parker, Uncle Ben's murderer working for The Kingpin and Peter relying on outside figures for support^note His father co-created the Venom symbiote with Eddie Brock's father, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury served as his mentor and Peter later worked for Stark Industries.. While some complained how Bendis's approach made Spider-Man's world too insular, it was tolerable since Bendis was careful to show Peter starting off as an independent superhero and held off the major reveals until after Peter became an established character in his own right. Newer adaptations, however, focused too much on trying to connect everything at the cost of Spider-Man's independent origins. In The Amazing Spider-Man Series, Richard Parker became one of Oscorp's head scientists and by proxy became involved with every part of Peter's life, from his powers to his rogues gallery, since he created the spider that gave him his powers and was involved with the Osborns' entire motivation of wanting to cure their illness. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Peter received his iconic suit from Tony Stark and would later be mentored by both Stark and Fury^note Or rather, Talos disguised as Fury., with the first two of his released movies focusing heavily on his relationship with Tony^note This depiction of the character was eventually cleaned up in the third released film, allowing him to be reset to a version of his traditionally self-made comic counterpart and lose everything connecting him to Iron Man. Likewise, the Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) animated show had Peter joining a team of teen superheroes with him arranged by Nick Fury to be their leader ^note Said team initially consisted of Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Nova, and White Tiger, but greatly expanded as the show progressed, most notably including Flash Thompson as Agent Venom, Amadeus Cho as Iron Spider, Ka-Zar and Zabu, Cloak and Dagger, Squirrel Girl, Triton, Scarlet Spider, Miles Morales, Sandman, Julia Carpenter as Madame Web, Harry Osborn as Canon Foreigner identity the Patrioteer (though modeled after his American Son identity), Mary Jane Watson as Spider-Woman, and even a redeemed Rhino. By adapting the interconnected mythos of the Ultimate comic wholesome, these adaptations ended up making Spider-Man less of a grounded Self-Made Man and more of a Pinball Protagonist.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power:
  • Older adaptations that took great liberties with Tolkien's work such as Middle-earth: Shadow of War also received their fair share of criticism. Unlike The Rings of Power, however, the Shadow games were never marketed as "the novel Tolkien never wrote" and instead took after the Peter Jackson trilogy more than anything. They also treated the story as part of its own continuity rather than taking place in the film or book continuity, which dampened criticisms concerning continuity issues.
  • Galadriel is not the first major Tolkien character to be given an Adaptational Angst Upgrade, an implied Age Lift, and a more combat-oriented and brusque characterization; Thorin Oakenshield underwent the same transformation for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit. Moreover, even the well-loved Peter Jackson adaptation of The Lord of the Rings wasn't above making extreme characterization changes, most notably with Denethor, Gimli, Faramir, Aragorn, and Elrond. However, since most fans today were introduced to The Lord of the Rings through the films and the characters still follow the same plot between book and movie, the changes are far less noticeable.
  • This criticism was already in effect as the LOTR movies progressed and even more so with the Hobbit movies, but criticisms of Galadriel's showy and acrobatic battle feats are often countered by pointing to Legolas's increasingly showy and acrobatic feats in the Jackson movies as well. That being said, Legolas was already established as being a fairly skilled fighter in his own way in both the original books and the movies, and the fact that most fans today were first introduced to him through the movies anyway meant that his more showy and acrobatic side displayed in the movies wasn't quite as jarring compared to his not showing such skill in the books. But by the time The Rings of Power came out, the image of Galadriel being the type of character who largely avoids direct conflict and mostly uses magic to get things done instead of straight up physical sword fighting and similar warrior-like actions had become heavily cemented and ingrained in public consciousness by the LOTR movies, making her characterization in Rings of Power as a sword wielding Amazon style warrior seem radically different and more difficult to accept despite such a characterization having a small degree of basis in the original Tolkien source material.
• Disney's second Mary Poppins movie, Mary Poppins Returns, has received criticism for retreading plot points from the first film, such as Mary Poppins and the children entering a drawing and encountering animated characters, and the kids meeting one of her quirky relatives. This repetitiveness also applies to the original Mary Poppins books, which tended to put new spins on old stories. Unlike the movies, which have a 54-year Sequel Gap between them, all eight books (separated by gaps ranging from 1-13 years) had the same writer — P.L. Travers — and a medium that didn't require any actor changes in between installments.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • The franchise is responsible for kickstarting the depiction of Superman as a distrusted and destructive hero in The Oughties and The New '10s (such as Injustice: Gods Among Us, a number of AU stories such as Superman: Red Son, and also in the DC Extended Universe). However, the franchise's caretakers sparingly depicted the evil/destructive Superman. In the 14 year run of the franchise, Superman had been depicted as evil only four times –- "Brave New Metropolis" and "Legacy" (Superman TAS), "A Better World" (Justice League), and "The Call" (Batman Beyond). "Brave New World" and "A Better World" both feature rogue alternate versions of Superman who have Jumped Off The Slippery Slope (the former has a Heel–Face Turn thanks to Lois, and the latter is part of an evil League who aren't redeemed save for Batman). "Legacy" and "The Call", meanwhile, feature Superman in moments when he is not in control of his actions (due to brainwashing by Darkseid in the former and being controlled by Starro in the latter). The Cadmus arc of Justice League Unlimited is also motivated by paranoia resulting from the events of "Legacy" and "A Better World", resulting in a shady, corrupt government body created to combat Superman and the Justice League. Furthermore, while Superman does cause collateral damage, he still prioritizes saving lives and deliberately holds back, only going all in as a last resort when fighting Omnicidal Maniacs like Mongul or Darkseid.
    
    Over time, more writers started to use the Beware the Superman trope but without any sort of optimism, and it became very trendy to portray an Ideal Hero version of The Cape as a Discredited Trope. The highly popular Injustice games and tie-in comic series feature Superman as a main villain that has Jumped Off The Slippery Slope from a single justifiable Moment of Weakness into outright murderous tyranny. For example, while the Superman of "A Better World" killed Lex Luthor and lobotomized every threat he faced, there was still a justified argument for his and the League's actions.^note Famously, the writers actually couldn't think of a way for Batman to win the argument with his counterpart, because his reasons just made that much sense. Meanwhile, the version from Injustice's alternate universe is actively seen killing ordinary citizens just to maintain his rule through terror, and also kills fellow heroes, including Shazam!, a character that is mentally a child^note to give Injustice some credit though, it did introduce a more traditional version of Superman from a universe who's more of an Ideal Hero and Cape to balance things out, and he's the one who defeats Regime Superman in the end, though he did get Put on a Bus in Injustice 2. Additional psychotically evil Superman substitutes have also hit the mainstream (Irredeemable, Brightburn, etc.). However, this archetype hit its limit in the DC Extended Universe, which shows Superman failing to limit collateral damage and becoming distrusted by humanity (including a dream sequence in which an evil Superman leads the armies of Apokolips). Sure, Superman still fought evil and rescued people, but he was such a depressing Knight in Sour Armor that the idea of Superman as an In-Universe Hope Bringer may as well be an Informed Attribute. At that point, most of the public began seeing the Corrupted Character Copies of Superman as a Discredited Trope in itself. It received such negative feedback that elements of The Death of Superman were incorporated into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in order for him to come back in Justice League (2017) more in line with his idealistic depiction, although it ultimately went nowhere as Superman never made another major appearance until the Continuity Reboot button was hit^note There were plans, as shown in Zack Snyder's Justice League and the storyboards that Zack Snyder showed, that would explain the origin of the Knightmare future from Batman's dream in that similar to Injustice, Superman would be broken into a murderous character following the death of Lois Lane. The difference is that while The Joker in Injustice did want Superman to be broken by everything he lost, which included the entire city of Metropolis, he hadn't planned on Superman actually killing him and becoming a tyrant over it. Darkseid in Snyder's plans, on the other hand, wanted to break Superman into vulnerability to the Anti-Life Equation so he could become The Dragon and enforce Darkseid's will on Earth as the tyrant conquered the universe, with it only taking Lois' death, much less than everything Joker did, to turn him over. This forced Batman to form a resistance with Flash going to Set Right What Once Went Wrong with time travel to prevent this future from happening and ensure Superman could never go bad. While the "evil Superman" trope still has life (see the success of The Boys (2019) for example), the public has made it clear that it just doesn't work unless the original still has Incorruptible Pure Pureness to compare, as demonstrated by the tepid response to previews of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League showcasing a murderous Superman, and the game's explanation for his violence (having him, alongside Batman, Flash, and Green Lantern, be Brainwashed and Crazy by Brainiac) being majorly regarded as too little, too late.
  • There were hints as far back as her first two-parter showing in Batman: The Animated Series that Batgirl had feelings for Batman. Later episodes featured, for instance, a Dream Sequence where Batgirl saves Batman, then they attempt to kiss (before Robin interrupts the dream). Most people didn't really mind it at the time, since it pretty easily read as a Precocious Crush and there were no real signs that Batman reciprocated. Later material helmed by Bruce Timm, such as various post-JLU comics and the infamous adaptation of The Killing Joke, made the pairing canon, to generally very poor reception.
• The Flash: Adaptations since the late 2000s are often criticized for using Barry Allen, but giving him traits from his successor Wally West. This has some precedent in the comics, but in reverse; after taking over as the Flash following Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally began to develop in a way that made him superficially similar to Barry (e.g. developing a more responsible mindset in contrast to his Jerk with a Heart of Gold personality from before, and being Happily Married to a reporter, it helped his Flash costume at the time was nearly identical to his uncle's costume). However, at the time, Wally's similarities to Barry were surface-level and easily attributable to Wally's extensive Character Development (such as getting married and becoming more mature, neither of which are exactly unique to Barry), and Wally remained sufficiently distinct from Barry otherwise (for instance, Iris West and Linda Park are different kinds of reporters, the former being a newspaper writer and the latter being a TV anchor). Meanwhile, Barry absorbing Wally's traits in adaptations tends to lead to him regressing as a character, and, given DC editorial's Irrational Hatred of Wally^note Until said editor-in-chief was forced out of the company, is often viewed as a crude patch job to try and mask that their Creator's Pet is in reality less interesting than they think. It even got to the point where voice actors for Wally (such as Charlie Schlatter and Michael Rosenbaum) in adaptations started being cast as Barry in ways that treated them as interchangeable. Furthermore, this has had the side-effect of harming Barry's credibility as well, stripping much of his competence and turning him into a Memetic Loser as a result.
• Jenny Nicholson argued, in her video on the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen, that all the problems that people had with the adaptation were also there in the more widely acclaimed Broadway musical all along. Both the stage play and the film have an Audience-Alienating Premise in which the main character Evan exploits the suicide of one of his high school classmates. The difference was that the stage show went lighter on the earnestness and added enough moral shades of gray to make Evan look like a selfish, mentally unstable idiot, such that it's easy to read "You Will Be Found" as an outright Villain Song. The film tried to give Adaptational Heroism to Evan without changing the nature of the Snowball Lie of his that drives the plot, making it feel like audiences were supposed to root for the kid, and also removed the song "Good for You" in which he gets his comeuppance, turning him into an adaptational Karma Houdini. What's more, the movie scrubbed away the artificiality of the stage in favor of a far more naturalistic feel that only heightened how uncomfortable a lot of the plot was. Finally, the filmmakers made the unwise decision to have Ben Platt, who originated the role of Evan on Broadway, reprise the part for the film, which made it harder to hide the blatant Dawson Casting^note while Platt was already a minor case of this on stage, suspension of disbelief with regard to age is easier in theatre than on film (not helped by the fact that several of Evan's classmates were played by actors of roughly the appropriate ages) that ended up making Evan look even worse than the stage play, despite his actions being watered down - while one can somewhat sympathize with a socially-awkward teenager in over his head, the same actions from someone who is obviously a grown man look downright monstrous.
• One major criticism about Thomas and the Magic Railroad is that Lady is a completely fictional engine with no real-life counterpart, which clashed with how Wilbert Awdry (and later his son Christopher) would use real-life locomotive classes as a basis for the characters. However, even in The Railway Series (carrying over to Thomas & Friends), one character was a largely fictional hybrid of several different steam engines - that character being none other than Percy, an important member of the Ensemble Cast in the books, and eventually one of the main characters in the show. Fans were more willing to overlook this because steam engines designed for industrial use in real life were often either unique or heavily modified, and because looks aside, Percy still behaved as a fairly realistic engine (talking aside). Lady, meanwhile, was shown to be explicitly supernatural in nature, a bridge too far for many fans.
  • Furthermore, Lady's supernatural nature and the film's extensive focus on magic were themselves accused of derailing the original series' cozy Little England feel in favor of pushing Sodor into another dimension away from its very British roots, which opened the door for producer Britt Allcroft to direct the series away from the Awdrys' relatively grounded vision (talking engines aside, they generally told fairly realistic stories, often drawing from real-life incidents). These criticisms would become far more prominent through the later seasons of the show (Andrew Brenner's tenure as head writer notwithstanding), and especially for the Continuity Reboot All Engines Go!, the latter of which would completely jettison any semblance of realism in favor of blatant Toon Physics. Having lost its grounded storytelling, many accused the franchise of losing its distinctive charm in favor of becoming just another generic preschoolers' show.
  • HiT is often criticized for introducing an abundant amount of characters who only appeared in one episode (usually alongside Thomas) before being delegated to cameos or disappearing altogether, created only for merchandising purposes. However such a trend was started all the way back in Season 5, with the likes of Thumper, Bertram, etc. (Salty and Cranky naturally exempt). Even The Railway Series used a palpable number of one-shot characters for stories that got no development or even basic personalities (so much so that the adapted episodes had to replace a lot of them with recurring characters for cost reasons). However, most of these characters were one-shot antagonists that had an in-story reason for leaving Sodor, whilst Executive Meddling demanding more Thomas stories prevented the development of other characters, with Bear being a primary example.
  • Before he was stripped of his main character status come Season 22, there were several seasons where Edward didn't have much of a presence or had only a handful of noteworthy roles. Even in The Railway Series novels themselves, Edward appeared less and less over time. This is more forgivable because it wasn't until Season 8 that there was a designated group of "main characters". This may even count as a case of Tropes Are Tools to some level, given how often Edward's personality was compromised to reach quota following that, with most of his Season 22-onward appearances, while more sporadic, keeping him mostly in-character.
  • Tying into the above point about Edward, Big World Big Adventures wasn't even the first incident a main engine was moved out of Tidmouth permanently. Toby was relocated to Aresdale End (his original shed) in Season Five, and even before then interchanged between Tidmouth and Ffarquar Sheds. The difference being that, while this naturally omitted Toby from some group scenes, he still had regular presence and got his own episodes, while Edward and Henry's leave was a clear indication of them being Demoted to Extra outside odd side roles, with Toby himself and even some engines that were almost never in Tidmouth to begin with getting more screentime than them in Big World Big Adventures.
  • Later seasons, particularly those of the HiT era, are often panned for their overuse of Thomas at the expense of other characters. In truth, this was also the case with many of the original stories from Season 3. Though that is remedied by the fact that there were still many stories in which he was either a minor role, or absent altogether.

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