Sandbox / Heehee 47

Seinfeld is Unfunny is supposed to be used for when a work's conventions have been overused to the point they seem unoriginal and derivative. Here's a check of all the wicks to see which ones are good, and which ones... not so.

Also, this is my first Wick Check. It may not be that great, so please excuse that.

WICK CHECK COMPLETE! Wicks checked: 52/52

Misuse or ZC Es (17/52) 32%

• Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: When adapting a space opera comic which started in 1967, and which was very original and influential in its day, it's going to be hard to not have bits that feel incredibly similar to subsequent huge sci-fi franchises. The colorful aesthetic was obviously an influence on Besson's earlier The Fifth Element, and even the two leads' Belligerent Sexual Tension really brings to mind Han and Leia. Simply describes how the film adaptation has bits that feel similar to later space operas without any explanation as to how or why that's a bad thing or how it has caused the work to be considered unoriginal or derivative. Not enough context.

• The Stanley Parable: The Stanley Parable was designed to be a commentary of how choice was implemented in video games up to 2011, namely that they were still essentially railroading the player despite promising freedom. While gaming had not evolved enough for this message to be irrelevant for the 2013 HD Remix, the same could not be said for the Ultra Deluxe version in 2022. By this time, it was commonplace for developers to acknowledge players' awareness of railroading, and as a result games promising freedom tend to be Wide Open Sandboxes to better live up to the hype, with some games taking a more retrospective view of choice, such as Undertale and Disco Elysium. Looks at the trope from an objective viewpoint without really going into further details as to how or why that affects the perception of the work since it came out. The example doesn't really explain why or how the work may seem mundane or derivative. Not enough context.

• AKIRA:
  • The 1989 dub, which was well regarded when it first came out, is disliked by newer fans who are used to hearing the 2001 dub or original Japanese audio. Likewise, older fans who are used to the 1989 dub dislike the 2001 dub. Fits better under Dueling Dubs or Broken Base.
  • The movie overall also falls into this, with newer viewers finding that the movie is a beautifully animated but standard cyberpunk film that has little going for it outside of its notorious Body Horror scenes.Doesn't really mention the film being derivative or how it seems mundane.

• GoldenEye: Although it is still regarded as a phenomenal movie, modern viewers might raise an eyebrow at the emphasis of Bond being modern. Even though the franchise has been wrangling with that issue, the fact is that it has been a cinematic mainstay for the past twenty years. However, in 1995, the issue was more valid, as Soviet collapse was more recent, and Bond had been on a six-year hiatus and changed actors. There's no mention of the film being derivative or how it seems mundane. In fact, the example says the film is still regarded as great and therefore, it still holds up. Not an example.

• The Mysteries of Udolpho: The book may seem like a Cliché Storm by today's standards, but it was the Genre Popularizer for the Gothic Horror. ZCE. Not much substance here. Insufficient Context.

• Atmosfear: The original game and its expansions lost a lot of cachet over the years because the interactive VHS game was quickly superceded by DVD, which allowed much greater interactivity and choice for the players (and likely motivated the decision for the 2004 relaunch to be released as a DVD board game). The example says that the game was outdated by Technology Marches On and makes no mention of it being derivative or that it seems mundane. Also, on another note, it was superseded by DVD, because DVDs are technically superior to VHS.

• The Screaming Skull: The documentary on the film's history accompanying the MST3K release reveals that this was considered a genuinely scary film when first released in theaters. Even today it retains some legitimately creepy moments and atmosphere, even if the effects and presentation haven't aged nearly as well. The example says the film holds up and no mention of it being derivative accompanied by genuine praise for it.

• Dragon's Lair: It can now be pretty hard to appreciate how mind-blowing it was to see fully rendered Don Bluth animation next to the likes of Donkey Kong. ZCE. Doesn't mention how the game is derivative.

• Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: ZUN has lamented that Remilia's character concept of being the vampiric Final Boss who looks like a little girl doesn't seem novel anymore, since in the time since EoSD's release, the "powerful vampire is really a little girl" gimmick has essentially become an archetype of its own. Applies the trope to only one character and not the entire work. The trope is for works themselves.

• Seven Samurai: A major victim of this phenomenon, it has been so influential that modern viewers can often miss its brilliance. Many of the visual jokes can now be recognized from miles away. It's often called the first modern action film. The various tropes had all existed before, but this was the first time they were all used together. This one is a ZCE. There's no mention of it being derivative or mundane.

• New York Dolls: The band sounds positively tame in retrospect. Their androgyny was genuinely shocking at first, but a lot of hard rock acts that followed copied their visual style. A lot of reviews at the time noted their amateurish musicianship, but they sound downright melodic today. Lampshaded by David Johansen in the Buster Poindexter "Hot Hot Hot" music video, which opens with him giving a monologue explaining his time in the Dolls and how their act being so extensively copied by the hair metal bands of the 80s has lead him to do something completely different. The band's conventions came to be used by many others after them and that's affected them negatively? Not here it doesn't. It also doesn't really note how they seem mundane or derivative today.

• Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem: With the release of Fire Emblem: Awakening, New Mystery as a whole has fallen into this. Generally considered a Surprisingly Improved Sequel and a great addition to the series at the time it came out, with its No Export for You status combined with Awakening borrowing most of its features, the game will most likely be doomed to obscurity among many western fans, though with the fan translation for the game, it's known to diehard fans. Not really an example, the example states that the game is doomed to obscurity. Thus, it doesn't really fit the trope's definition as being derivative.

• Inside Man:
  • However it’s a bit of a gray area and it might also be Unintentional Period Piece. But this movie was a lot more tense at the time since it was just released a few years after 9/11 and was taking place less than a mile from the World Trade Center site. Remember we don’t really know what their intent is until very late in the movie. However with the passage of time and more and more movies and TV shows being made about terrorism and crime since then this movie has lost a lot of its impact. The example states that the film might be either this or Unintentional Period Piece. Examples Are Not Arguable therefore I can't really classify it as an example if it's only an arguable one.
  • In a way, the sequence showing the violent video game scene can be seen as over the top, preachy and anvilicious, due to many studies saying that video games don't make people violent and that violent video games have been around since video games were first created. This is straight-up not an example. In addition to violating Examples Are Not Arguable, the work came out in 2022, so I have no idea how this example is supposed to fit or what it's getting at. Did the work say violent video games make people violent? Not sure what trope would fit better, but as it stands, this entry seems too complainy to keep.

• YMMV/Doonesbury: The strip's humor might seem stale and unoriginal because of many, many imitators. Zero-Context Example.

• American Graffiti: Only the first example really qualifies and most of the time, the other two examples just rehash the fact that it all started in American Graffiti.
  • Fifties nostalgia, now old hat, was still a pretty novel subject for a film in 1973.
  • The habit of movies looking back a decade or two with a nostalgic melancholy in general. Cooley High, Dazed and Confused, Boogie Nights, a lot of Coming of Age movies... it all started with this movie.
  • This was also the first film to make its soundtrack basically another character, made up entirely of specifically chosen songs for each scene, which directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino have since made into its own artform.

• YMMV/Robotech: Yeah, they changed the names. Yeah the voice acting is sub-par by 21st century standards. Yeah, they took three unrelated series and spliced them together for the sake of a TV deal. But they left many of the more mature story elements (such as character death) intact along with an arc-driven story line, and as stated on the main page, the only real changes to the Macross story come at the very end when they are fitting it together with the other shows. Considering this was The '80s, this was groundbreaking. There's no mention of it being derivative, nor any mention of it being overused. All it is is just some facts and there's no example of the trope here.

• Tekkaman Blade: D-boy's Angst-ridden lone-wolf shtick is a bit grating today, but it was far from common in the era the show aired in, when there hadn't been countless Cloud Strife/Sasuke Uchiha characters to make everyone sick of it. Criticizes one character rather than the work itself or a major part of it.

Correct usage (13/52) 25%

• Final Fantasy II: It really cannot be overstated how ahead of the curve this game was in terms of story. A large cast of characters, an epic plot, and a charismatic and intelligent villain all in a NES-era RPG. You might also recognize these tropes from damn near every JRPG released since then. Unfortunately, anyone to have played nearly any other JRPG since then will probably not be impressed, and nowadays the lack of characterization in the game (especially among the main cast, who are all very flat) is one of the biggest complaints about it. Describes how and why a particularly important aspect of the work is derivative. In this case, it's because the story, while revolutionary for the time, now seems bare-bones when you look at it from today's perspective, and the majority of the major characters seem bare-bones today.

• The Exorcist: First-time viewers today appreciate the film's quality, but aren't too nonplussed by it because so many of the things that were new about it when it came out, the things that led many of the sellout crowds who waited on line for hours to see it even if they threw up and fainted have been so widely imitated and emulated that they don't come across as shocking the way they did in 1974. Correct usage that fits the definition.

• Enter the Dragon:
  • At this point, you're probably familiar with multiple works of fiction about martial arts tournaments being held on islands out in the middle of nowhere so in that respect, Enter The Dragon might feel like a Cliché Storm... except that this was actually the first work of fiction about a martial artist hero having to fight his way through an island tournament to face the Big Bad in a spectacular battle. The only reason viewers at the time might have feel familiar with the setting is the film's atmosphere echoing 007's novel You Only Live Twice, whose film adaptation has been acknowledged as a likely inspiration for this movie.
  • A viewer familiar with modern Mixed Martial Arts might find the sparring between Lee and Sammo Hung a failed, awkward attempt of mixing kung fu with grappling moves. However, keep in mind this was 1973, twelve whole years before the first official MMA promotion was founded and even more years before the Anglosphere heard the word vale tudo. For the film's age, however, seeing two tight-clad fighters mixing strikes with grappling and even wearing special gloves for both was basically futuristic. It's even believed that this fight might have been an inspiration for Satoru Sayama, the founder of the aforementioned first promotion and the popularizer of the gloves used now for the sport. Correct usage of the trope describing how consumers today might react to the film and how and why it's derivative.

• World of Warcraft: This game was a pretty big trendsetter amongst MMORPGs, and frankly it shows.
  • At the time, it's very hard to appreciate that this game set a lot of Anti-Frustration Features that became commonplace in games today. When you died, you were not at risk of losing your inventory nor did you receive an experience point penalty. These were both very big things back in 2004, but now most people can't even imagine playing an MMORPG without them. Even games that do have the player lose items upon death don't make items irreplaceable.
  • The game has even had this trope happen with itself. For example, most bosses from Classic and Burning Crusade feel very simplistic, borderline "tank-and-spank". Mechanics that were previously seen in raids were later implemented in five-man dungeons. And most importantly, the standards for the worlds and dungeons have increased a lot over the years, making Outland (at the time, cutting edge) now seem disjointed, bare-bones, and monotonous after the increased standards by Cataclysm.
    • To put it into perspective, some people like Wowcrendor mentioned that mechanics from Classic's Naxxramas of repositioning, by Wrath, became five-man mechanics. By Battle for Azeroth (ten years later), a simple quest boss requires the player to chase them around the arena, while repositioning around environmental hazards — mechanics almost completely unheard of in classic. Correctly uses the trope to describe some of World of Warcraft's outdated conventions that might've been revolutionary at the time, but seem more-or-less mundane now with the advent of MMOs that do that.

• Skins: Nowadays it can be hard to see how Skins once felt so ground-breaking for it's rather diverse portrayel of teen stories. Maxxie being already out and proud with his family and friends and not having to go through a Coming Out story? Not only showing how a same-sex relationship came to be but how they deal with the trials and tribulations (and struggle to remain faithful) once they are officially a couple? The experience of an immigrant teen adjusting to a new country? Another dealing with Aspergers syndrome? The head-on exploration of it's teens mental health struggles (despite the somewhat negative Strawman view of mental health professionals)? The fairly experimental writing and occassional dips into a more surreal tone of a fairly based-in-reality teen drama? All fairly new territory back when the show first aired, now they're completely common place in almost any modern, serious-minded show revolving around the teenage experience that it can feel less surprising or even innovative in hindsight. Correct usage to describe the work, how it once portrayed teen stories as diverse, but that it is commonplace now.

• Key the Metal Idol: When this show first came out, it was regarded as the biggest Mind Screw in the history of anime. Today, when you compare it to some of the shows that take after it, it doesn't seem convoluted in the least and actually makes a lot of sense. It was once a mind screw, but shows that have copied it have ended up being more mind screw to the point where it makes more sense now.

• Mr. Bungle: Although it's still a good listen, it's difficult for a listener coming to the album in a modern sense to appreciate just how avant-garde the band's self-titled album was in '91, and how remarkable it is that it got released on a major label. Since a ton of bands from later or earlier years who were equally (or more) experimental than Mr. Bungle also have crossed into the mainstream. The example states that so since so many more new and more experimental bands have come through, it can be difficult to appreciate how experimental the song was.

• Death Jr.:
  • The game was essentially a 3D platformer... on a handheld. Sure, there was the port of Super Mario 64 (Which had a few porting issues), but the fact that this was a 3D game controlled with the joy-pad allowed some much more sensitive movement. This combination was a pretty big thing back in 2005.
  • This game also had voice acting. Voice acting in a handheld game and it was of pretty high sound quality (for the time). These things were pretty unheard of back in 2005. Even the PSP's rival (The Nintendo DS) didn't feature many games that truly had this kind of feature until The World Ends with You. Both examples state that it once featured pretty big things as a selling point, but those things have since become commonplace.

• The Birth of a Nation (1915): A quintessential example of the trope: the film is credited with inventing a wide range of storytelling conventions that have become so mainstream that they're the fundamental building blocks of modern cinema. There's no way you can appreciate it unless you take a deep dive into very early films. It's already on Condemned by History and is also a pretty extreme form of Values Dissonance. What the example says is that at the same time it invented a whole bunch of storytelling conventions that so many works have used that said conventions have since overshadowed its... less controversial aspects.

• A Love Supreme: A listener coming to this album in 2019 or 2020 might have a difficult time seeing what was so innovative about the album when it came out, simply because its DNA is all over popular music of the last 50 years. At the same time, despite being frequently categorised as Coltrane's masterpiece, it's simultaneously less "out there" than his later free jazz experiments such as Ascension, which still sounds radical today; and yet less accessible than his earlier records such as Blue Train, Giant Steps, and My Favorite Things. It's fairly common for listeners to report needing several listens before the album "clicks" for them. Its conventions have become so overused, they overshadow the original thing.

• Scarface (1983):
  • As noted by Roger Ebert in his retrospective "Great Movies" review: Roger Ebert provides an example that fits nicely with Seinfeld is Unfunny.
    The movie has been borrowed from so often that it's difficult to understand how original it seemed in 1983, when Latino heroes were rare, when cocaine was not a cliché, when sequences at the pitch of the final gun battle were not commonplace. Just as a generation raised on The Sopranos may never understand how original The Godfather was, so Scarface has been absorbed into its imitators.

• Sonic's Quest for Power: Going back and watching the series over a decade later, it doesn't seem like anything too special on the surface; the plot seems bare-bones, the voice acting is amateur, its use of guns and swords screams "edgy", and even the action can be slammed for being overly loud, stiff, and repetitive. It's easy to forget that Quest for Power came out when crossover sprite animations having actual energy was a selling point, and it majorly influenced the likes of Super Mario Bros. Z which pushed the standard even higher. Again, another example where the things that seemed revolutionary at the time are now commonplace.

• Wolfenstein 3-D: Naturally, being the game that more-or-less set the template for the first person shooter genre, it's a given that the game has fallen victim to this. In fact, it's a common complaint of newer reviews (especially the GBA):
  • The biggest thing that makes this game hard to appreciate is how there is no variety in the environments beyond what texture is applied to the wall — every single room is made up of walls of fixed lengths at 90-degree angles and a single universal height, making it very difficult to tell where you have and haven't been if it weren't for the enemies you killed lying on the floor. With how basic the game is, it may be hard to appreciate that there was once hardware that actually struggled to run this. Notable the Super Nintendo and more basic IBM compatibles that lacked advanced features (like a math co-processor) could have difficulty rendering this game at an acceptable frame rate.
  • The other thing is the fact that Doom came out only one year later and basically took every innovation this game made and improved upon it in just about every way, on top of introducing innovations all of its own, which can make this game feel very underwhelming by comparison - Doom II, another year later, even outright brags about it by having a secret level that perfectly replicates the first level of Wolf 3D, with a new secret room attached that shows off all the things Doom can do with its environments that Wolf 3D couldn't. While Doom isn't free from this reaction either, most people can agree that it helped work out a lot of the kinks in Wolfenstein's concepts and holds up much better.
  • Even among fans of "classic"-style shooters, it tends to suffer, due to its wonky pseudo-stealth elements and emphasis on Hitscan. Of course, Wolfenstein came out long before FPS designers had realized the difficulties hitscanner enemies tend to impose. The template that the game set, while revolutionary at the time, now seems mundane, boring and labyrinthine according to the example.

Other misuse (3/52) 5%

• South Park:
  • The first few episodes of the show were very controversial when they first aired, but look rather tame nowadays. Even the foul language is more heavily bleeped than it would need to be today.The first example is not an example of Seinfeld Is Unfunny, it is more one of Values Dissonance. Neither two examples have really any mention of derivativeness, and don't fit the trope's definition.

• Kaizo Mario World: After years of other bullshit ROM Hacks being made specifically to piss off the player, and quite the big backlash against these kinds of hacks in general by ROM Hacking communities, even outside of Super Mario World, and LPers alike (quite a few big ROM Hack LPers have flat out quit playing ROM Hacks because they were tired of getting nothing but "Kaizo clones"), the original Kaizo is, at best, seen as a relic of a bygone era, and at worst treated with nothing but bile for creating the mindset that "ROM Hacks need to be bullshit hard for the sake of being bullshit hard" in the first place. It would take nearly a decade for "Kaizo clones" to recover, not returning to prominence until the appearance of hacks such as Invictus in the late 2010s and even then, they often include some form of Anti-Frustration Features like giving the player infinite lives, more generous checkpoint placement, and making the platforming challenges more clever and thought out than having to repeatedly make a pixel-perfect jump to keep things from feeling frustrating. Complains about the work, and then gives a story about how Kaizo hacks in general suffered backlash before eventually recovering. Not really an example.

• Sonic Dissected: Discussed. Frobman is not a big fan of the gameplay of Sonic Adventure 2, he feels it is glitchy and not that fun. Roger says that it was 2001; many 3D games sucked back then.
  Frobman: True true, except for you know, Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, and Banjo-Kazooie.
  • Alex and Roger also discuss this concerning Sonic Adventure and how its multiple gameplay styles and art and presentation choices have aged with varying success with Roger pointing out that the game was made not just to be another Sonic game, but to be the flagship title for the Sega Dreamcast as a whole. As such, they were trying to work in as much razzle-dazzle and variety as they possibly could to show what the Dreamcast was capable of. Despite the trope being Discussed and therefore an in-universe example, the trope is still listed as YMMV on the work's page.

Redundant/Overlaps with another trope (9/52) 17%

• Fritz the Cat: One of the ultimate examples, as it was rated X when it was first released but there's been far more explicit content in animation since 1972. So newer viewers might wonder why it was so controversial. Fits better under Values Dissonance. Shoehorned example.

• Lethal Enforcers: Along with Doom, Night Trap, and Mortal Kombat, Lethal Enforcers was a part of the Violent Video Game controversy of the 1990's (due to using digitized actors that makes it look like you're killing real people). However, as time went on, some video games have taken their violence up to more gruesome and frightening levels (like Manhunt or Hatred). As a result, the violence in Lethal Enforcers seems somewhat tame and cartoony by comparison and modern-day gamers might wonder just what all the fuss was about. More an example of Values Dissonance.

• The Blue Lagoon: Today, it is difficult to understand why audiences considered the 1980 film so scandalous, shocking and almost pornographic when it first came out. However, sensual portrayal of sex between teenagers was completely new at the time — not to mention the nudity of the actors, with actress Brooke Shields being only about 14 or 15 at the time, requiring the usage of body doubles (Christopher Atkins was a completely legal 18 or 19). Yet another example of Values Dissonance.

• Blazing Saddles:
  • The fart scene is thought to be the first mainstream film fart joke and was quite transgressive for its time, but fart jokes have become so mainstream and tame now that it lacks its original punch.
  • In general, Gen Z people often express bafflement that older people find the film so funny. This is perhaps because, when the film came out, it was bold and original to portray racism and racists as completely ridiculous, but Gen Z people are more likely to already think that racism is absurd, so the film's humour tends to be lost on them.Both examples fit much better under Values Dissonance.

• Sixteen Candles: A landmark picture that had a major influence on the future of teen comedies, it's now regarded as a product of its time. The focus on teenage angst and sympathetic portrayal of losers and outcasts has been repeated many times over, and its use here has come under fire for stereotyping others and those it tries to present positively. Probably better under Values Dissonance.

• Wolf Creek: The film was praised for being subversive at the time for killing off the obvious Final Girl first and having the male be spared. But when horror remakes started popping up in the late 2000s and subverting and deconstructing the genre even more - particularly Scream 4 and The Cabin in the Woods, this film's efforts don't look quite as daring. The film was also considered quite graphic for the time, as the Torture Porn genre was only just starting to emerge (the first Saw film was released just one year earlier, and Hostel came out the same year). These days, the violence in Wolf Creek can seem comparatively tame to other horror movies of its kind. The crux of some of the examples fall under Values Dissonance.

• The Land Before Time:
  • Part of what made the film such a success, and why it was so fondly remembered with 80s and 90s children is because it was incredibly innovative by the standards of the time. Like The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail, it tackled themes more complex than viewers were used to seeing in films aimed at children; rather than the off-screen shot in Bambi, this film showed the protagonist's mother getting wounded and dying, as well as the child actually having to cope with it. This can seem a little passe in light of a glut of children's fantasy films since the 90s killing off a parent or having an orphan protagonist (most famously The Lion King (1994)). The film also had Fantastic Racism in the subtext, which seems rather mild compared to the likes of Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame incorporating real-world racism directly into the plot. At the time, it was compared favorably to Disney films from the 40s and 50s. So while many animated films since have perfected the formula of a darker story with complex themes that children can still enjoy, they do owe a lot to this one's success.
  • For its time, it was also an incredibly accurate representation of dinosaurs in fiction. The fact that it didn't go for stock dinosaurs helped in its favor big time. Then along came Jurassic Park, and a lot more Science Marches On, and the film can be left feeling more derivative of the former.Both examples fall under They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.

• Manhunt: This was one the most controversial games of its time, featuring a lot of brutal violence and disturbing content. However, younger gamers are unlikely to see that thanks to games made in the preceding years boasting even worse-looking violence with better graphics and just as much, if not more, edginess. Example falls under Values Dissonance.

• The Smurfs (1981): A number of jokes and puns in episodes of the series had become dated, cheesy or cliche by today's standards (considered the fact Hanna-Barbera recycled formulas from other shows and incorporated them into the series). Example falls more under Values Dissonance.

Complaining or gushing (4/52) 7%

• Galaxian: If you played Galaga first, Galaxian is a rough, stiff experience in comparison. Of course, Galaxian came out first. How exactly does this state that future works have used its conventions? This doesn't really fit the definition and feels like complaining.

• Rebel Assault: Virtually no aspects of the first game hold up to modern players at all. It already carries the baggage of being part of a genre that has been Condemned by History (being an FMV game), but even disregarding that the story mostly just mirrors the major battles from the original trilogy, something that has been done better countless times since this game's release (such as in the Battlefront series or in the Rogue Squadron games). Most people who do pick up the game find themselves fighting the extremely touchy controls which makes it difficult to be immersed in the experience, and the often Narmy cutscenes may leave one wondering what sold people on this game on its release. With its biggest selling points having worn off, you would be hard pressed to find many avid defenders of this game nowadays. Hoo boy, the complaining's blatant on this one. Reads more like an example of Condemned by History. This one's most definitely not an example, just a paragraph of complaining.

• My Little Dashie: To say this fic was a game-changer in its time would be an understatement, although time has not been kind to it. What made readers weep like babies back when it was first released is now often seen as a melodramatic Slice of Life story that lacks characterization. Complaining, reads more like Condemned by History.

• Treasure Island: People who read this book and find it full of clichés from start to finish probably don't know that it was this book that created all the clichés of the pirate genre. Reads more like Complaining About People Not Liking the Show.

I don't even know! (7/52) 13%

• Futari wa Pretty Cure: While it still gets acknowledgement of starting the franchise, due to the popularity of Heartcatch which have greatly improved artwork and animation along with over-the-top hand-to-hand combat that rivals that of this series, and the successor having been Vindicated by History, the idea of First Installment Wins has pretty much faded. I'm not really sure what to make here, so the example is saying that one of its successors has combat rivaling this series and isn't really giving me much about how or why the work's derivative. Still, listing it here instead of misuse because it hits all of the beats of Seinfeld is Unfunny.

• Stunt Race FX: Suffers from the same frame-rate issues as Star Fox, and the visuals haven't aged well either. However, this was one of the first attempts at a truly 3D racer on a home console, with an actual physics system (an extreme rarity for games of the era) and still plays decently if you can handle the game's speed. Not really sure what to make here. All it's saying is "The game hasn't aged well" no mention of it being derivative or seeming mundane. In addition, the example says that the frame-rate is slow but at the same time it says it plays decently if you can handle the speed.

• The Towering Inferno: Considering how this was made in the 1970s, one can probably see it now and wonder why the hell modern conveniences we have today aren't being used. A lot of these "modern conveniences" for fire safety, such as sprinklers, were already common in the '70s, but the builders did skimp on them in the film to save money. Many cities tightened their building codes after the film came out to require sprinklers in all high-rise buildings. The elevator scene and several action stunts probably look incredibly corny. Heck, even the concept seems pretty stupid today.
  • Though, there were a few comparisons made between this movie and real-life events when 9/11 occurred. Some pretty blatant complaining towards the end of the example. There also seems to be quite a bit of info in the example that would fall more under Trivia than anything. In the end, I'm not sure what to make of this example.

• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • While online reviews have been around almost as long as the 'net itself, the half review/half comedy skit format was really his own. In the wake of his success, others wishing to break into web entertainment and share their passionate views on some piece of pop culture used him as an archetype and soon YouTube was flooded with amateur critics over-reacting to entertainment they disliked. By the end of the decade, this style was seen as hyperbolic, amateurish and even outright nasty, and largely perpetuated by pseudo-intellectuals cramming their opinions about pop culture down others' throats, which is what the Critic eventually came to be seen as by retroactive viewers who began criticizing his lack of actual good-faith critique and relying more on reactions than jokes and whose videos' "plots" relied entirely on whether or not your agreed with his opinion. The rising trend of well-respected video essays, which phased out the "skit" part for straightforward tongue-in-cheek humor, only made it look worse. Not sure about this one. The example states that the genre that Doug Walker was a part of and his work itself eventually became derivative so much that Doug eventually began to be associated with the amateurs and his pioneering work in online reviewing came to be viewed as amateurish. Reads more like Condemned by History, but also like this trope.

• The Menu: While the film is lauded for a seemingly contemporary and timely "eat the rich" message which uses high-end cuisine to symbolize the rich's obsession with everything that is of high status and decadent, yet hollow, the vehicle of fine dining hasn't exactly been free from criticism and lampooning over the last decade. The 2010s foodie movement was rather quickly criticized and parodied in both fiction and nonfiction, with food critics calling for a rejection of modernity and an embracing of simple comfort foods. As early as the mid-2010s, critics were calling the fine dining movement "dead" for many of the reasons portrayed in this movie: too exclusive, too absurd and irreverent, and lacking a sense of warmth and love in the food. While the film is more about class than it actually is about food, the food as the symbolic element is not exactly – no pun intended – fresh. It both criticizes one of the work's themes and yet lauds it at the same time. Not sure about this one.

• Nick Drake:
  • So many indie folk artists have copied his hushed vocals, finger picking on the acoustic guitar and introspective lyrics that it can be hard for modern listeners to understand how different his style was from anything that was going on at the time.
  • His style of downtuning and capo use specifically for melancholic feel renders him unique even amongst folk musicians. In recent times it has been more common to downtune this way in the post-hardcore and shoegaze genres. He's both Seinfeld Is Unfunny and Vindicated By History at the same time. I don't even think that that's even possible considering how much the two tropes contrast each other. This one's ambiguous.

• Love Hina: While Love Hina shares a considerable number of clichés with modern works (like the tsundere lead girl and the accidental pervert guy), it still has some refreshing ideas. While most harems are set in a school environment with teenagers, Love Hina is set in a post-school setting from Keitaro's perspective, in an inn with young adults and teenagers. Also, Love Hina never was a fully-fledged harem series, considering Keitaro chose Narusegawa since the beginning and most of the girls are either rooting for them to become a couple or, at best, waiting for a chance if Keitaro changes his mind, while most harems after it have the main character unsure about which girl to choose. Unfortunately, the harem-related tropes the series introduced have been used by so many other manga and anime in the years since that most people would dismiss it as a typical harem comedy, and the liberal use of Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male in particular, while uncontroversial back then, would go on to get it it a lot of backlash once female-on-male abuse started being taken seriously. The example both praises and bashes the work at the same time. Also, some Values Dissonance overlap at the end and in conclusion, I'm not really sure about any of this.