Fallen Creator cleanup

Looking at both the discussions on Fallen Creator and some of the entries there, I feel that said page could use a significant cleanup. There are a couple of entries I feel reeks of complaining about creators with vocal hatedoms(even ones legitimately earned their bad reputation), some entries that are poorly formatted or extremely wordy, as well as entries that either don't belong on here because they've genuinely restored their reputations, or do belong on here but with the cavet that they aren't as negatively received. And there are some entries I feel don't belong on here at all because said creators were never "acclaimed" in the first place in the past(meaning Overshadowed by Controversy would work better).

There is also a lack of coordination on which entries constitute a fallen creator as well because of the page lock and it is all "stuff on the discussion page" that rarely gets posted(through some of the suggestions, as mentioned don't really work for various reasons)

I also think we have to define exactly what needs to happen to constitute a FC situation, because of the possibility a couple of these entries fit more in OBC or Condemnedby History.

The reason that its' currently in short term is I'm not sure how often stuff like a creator losing all goodwill or most of it occurs, so it might be more curating old stuff. However it is possible someone might want to upgrade this to long term/perpertual in the future.

Edited by xie323 on Aug 13th 2021 at 11:07:05 AM

Okay so one that looks off to me right of the bat.

• Guy Ritchie's first film Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels was an indie success and critical darling for its fresh, vibrant style. He followed up with Snatch., which was an even bigger success, but some critics complained that he was rehashing his previous film too much. In response, he remade Swept Away, and everyone hated it. When he returned to familiar territory with the crime caper Revolver 2005, he tried to mix things up with a Xanatos Gambit and an Anvilicious Aesop. The film was so poorly received that it didn't even see wide release in America. Ritchie then made Rock N Rolla is an obvious attempt to recapture the violent and irreverent underworld hijinks of his first two films. By this point, people seemed to have lost interest in his original style and the film tanked. His adaptation of Sherlock Holmes appears to have revived his fortunes, at least for now; it received mostly positive reviews, and was successful at the box office, grossing more than all of his previous films combined.

Ignoring how this was clearly written a decade ago. He's done a bunch of films since then that have been critical successes (Both Sherlock holmes films and aladdin ) and critically received (the gentlemen)

I'm surprised Rob Reiner isn't on this page. His reputation took a major hit after North and besides the film after this, has made nothing but duds.

Yeah I don't think Guy Ritchie would fit here.

Now I'm going to bring up some other entries I am familiar with that are rather problematic:

• Ethan Van Sciver. Beforehand, he was one of DC's premiere artists, pretty much the defacto artist for Green Lantern since co-creating Green Lantern: Rebirth, leading to the franchise's massive revival in the 2000s, as well as similarly influential work in The Flash. But in the late 2010s, he became more known for his off-the-page work in supporting alt-right groups, courting controversy, and most prominently being the leading figure in the "Comics-Gate" movement. His descent into alt-right politics, his support (and encouragement) towards people who have harassed and abused his colleagues in the industry, and his own attacks against other creators and former colleagues, have pretty much left his reputation in tatters. DC let his exclusive contract expire without renewal and have not offered him any work since, so while he's not getting work from either of the Big Two, he's pretty much relegated to crowdfunded indie projects where his only audience is the members of his alt-right group. It's safe to say he will never get the esteem he once had within the industry at large.

I'd say this is more overshadowed by controversy or condemned by history and would fit these tropes more than FC. I don't think Ev S has made a flop or a decline in his works quality wise going along with his far-right politics.

• Frank Miller was an icon of comics in the 1980s with his work on Daredevil and Batman, with The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One redefining the character in the eyes of the mass media. But during the '90s, Miller's creative owned work Sin City led to a massive change in his art style and his tone (already heavily inspired by Film Noir) became overt with an added heaping dose of misogyny with the vast number of high profile Sin City stories that involved hookers or strippers. His later Batman work (The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder) were widely decried for bad writing, as Miller quickly tried to pass off his bad writing by claiming to be parodying his own earlier Dark Age-inspiring Batman work.
  • Even if one had never known that Holy Terror began as a Batman story, it's obvious Miller barely did anything to change the fact that the Fixer is Batman, the Cat-Burgler is Catwoman, and the policeman is Commissioner Gordon. Holy Terror can be described as a vehement anti-Muslim Author Tract-filled political cartoon, similar to the others which were created in the first frantic year after 9/11. Any doubts about his writing style (as of ASBAR) being self parody are dispelled as Miller's "patriotism" and xenophobia are presented completely seriously. The whole book is a message that Muslims need to be stopped as they could become terrorists at any point. Just when you thought Frank Miller couldn't sink any lower...
  • His reputation was hurt even more by his vitriolic attack on the Occupy Wall Street movement whom he referred to as "Thieves, rapists and pond scum" and managed to fit even more attacks on Islam. It's as if Frankie boy has been reading comments about him online and thinking "How can I make myself even worse than They think I am?".

By contrast to Ev S, I think Miller is a clear case of FC and has had a marked decline. However, this entry is written with both little neutrality as a "FU Frank Miller" and in a extremely messy fashion, using multiple bullet headings over condensing this into a single paragraph.

• George Lucas wasn't always the divisive figure he is today. When he started out his career, American Graffiti earned him critical success and several Oscar nominations for making such a groundbreaking film. Then, of course came Star Wars, which revitalized the science fiction genre and turned into a landmark film and franchise that, to this day, remains very near and dear to the hearts of many, as well as Oscar nominations for him personally and the movie. Despite a few missteps in the '80s that briefly rendered him under this trope, he made his mark again with Indiana Jones, another series of critical and fan darlings that still endure.
  
  However, much of his success during this period was the result of him getting a number of friends (including future critically-acclaimed filmmakers Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, and Steven Spielberg) to read them and offer advice concerning which ideas worked and which didn't. It's also been said that in the original Star Wars trilogy, especially A New Hope, bad lines were ad-libbed over by the actors (Harrison Ford is on record saying to Lucas while filming A New Hope that he "could type this shit... but you sure as hell can't say it"). As time went on, he stopped asking his friends for help (it didn't help that some of them became Fallen Creators themselves, while Spielberg was insanely busy in his own right), his works were rarely vetted by anyone other than himself, and seemed to borrow more from his own previously rejected ideas.
  
  The results of having nobody to cover up his weaknesses were predictable. Starting in The '90s, his prestige as a fandom idol began to take swift hits due to multiple different Star Wars recuts with some controversial changes, the mixed-reception to the Star Wars prequels that swiftly divided a once relatively united fanbase, and his long-delayed return to Indiana Jones receiving a lukewarm response at best (it was actually widely acclaimed by critics, though the fan base is much more divided).
  
  Today, Lucas is just as likely to be reviled as he is to be praised. He still has no trouble finding an audience to see his movies (even the new Indy was a commercial success), but a sign of his decline is the usually negative reaction a Star Wars spin-off receives whenever his involvement is revealed and the likelihood that a review is going to start calling out the usual flaws in his work.

This is extremely long, written in a very poor multiple paragraph over one paragraph format and honestly..........I am not sure if George Lucas still qualifies as of now.

Bascically thanks to late 2010s appraisal of the Prequels, combined with some of the accusations themselves not holding up to closer scrutiny(ie: the pure CGI arguement) and Dave Filoni's worldbuilding+storytelling using assets and stories from the prequel era for TCW, Rebels and Mandalorian, his own work in steering TCW with Filoni, along with the backlash over the sequels, we've seen the Prequels receive a degree of Vindicated by History. Now it can be argued that this was in spite of Lucas and he never did anything himself to recover his reputation, but if GL stays, the entry deserves a rewrite and it should be mentioned that he is viewed in a less negative light for various reasons now. Discourse nowadays would either look more fondly on the PT or reflect on Lucas' capability for good ideas even if he can't write properly.

If we cut Lucas through, we will have to find a new page quote.

• Bruce Kalish went through this so fast among Power Rangers fans it borders on Mood Whiplash. The first season he produced was SPD, which was received well by fans (though it had quite a few holes that didn't escape notice, while not ruining the show for most). The next that he did was Mystic Force which... wasn't. After that, he produced Operation Overdrive, which is one of the three considered the worst of the show's entire run, alongside ''Turbo'' and ''Wild Force''. Jungle Fury was a little better, but now most fans consider his entire four-year run of the show a Dork Age for the series, and blame him for its near-cancellation (though Screwed by the Network actually carries equal responsibility).

Jungle Fury is much more positively received these days and I think while OO is still seen as a objectively bad season and Mystic Force seen as low tier, the Kalish hate died down due to the extremely bad neo-Saban seasons(minus Dino Charge). So should be at least rewritten to a degree. I don't think the re-assessment is big enough like Lucas that we should consider a cut since OO and MF are seen not in a too good light, but at least we could update the entry to reflect that he isn't viewed as negatively nowadays.

• Markus "Notch" Persson was the original creator of Minecraft and founder of Mojang, and was lauded with praise for his creativity and engagement with said game's fanbase. However, as Minecraft became more and more mainstream, he found himself unable to handle the newfound fame, culminating in the controversial move to sell Mojang, and by extension Minecraft, to Microsoft. Following the sale of the company he founded, he became better known for his racist, homophobic and transphobic statements he made on his Twitter account, as well as his support for alt-right conspiracy theories. In light of these statements, Microsoft has removed all mentions of Persson from Minecraft (sans the credits, where he is credited as the original creator) and excluded him from the game's tenth year anniversary celebration.

As with Ev S, I feel this is more OBC over FC since the entry did not mention if Notch made any flops or poorly received works that tarnished his reputation, moreso that he made objectionable viewpoints that tarnished his reputation.

• While we're on the subject of video game publishers, we have EA which publishes noteworthy titles such as EA Sports, Battlefield, The Sims, Medal of Honor, Command & Conquer, Dead Space, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. However, they later came under fire from several sources after buying Bioware and releasing Dragon Age II, which many hated for its linearity (everything you do makes things worse) and divergence from the gameplay structure of the first game. EA's guilt in this? Certain implications that they rushed the game while it was on early beta. This was made worse with draconian DRM, including the Origin service, which lacks the features available on Steam, runs poorly, and periodically scans the user's hard drive as well as removing all future EA games from it, forcing you to use the service. The capper was Mass Effect 3's Gainax Ending. Ever since people started reaching the end, accusations have been flying about EA rushing Bioware, leading to an incomprehensible, plothole-ridden, and just depressing ending. This has cause stock prices for EA to drop and the company to receive the "2012 Worst Company in America Golden Poo Award". And that was after they were previously known for killing off Pandemic, Bullfrog, Westwood and Maxis completely.

As the original person that wrote that entry....I don't think EA fits after some reassessing. The company gets hate for deserved reasons but here's the thing. They were never seen as good. They were always seen as at best "the gaming company with a million football games" and at worst, always greedy or milking their subsidaries as much as they could, with most of the praise for stuff like Sims or C&C going to their subsidaries that they tend to dissolve like a hot potato. And some of their subsidaries can make good or at least middle of the road games or learn from past mistakes(ie: Battlefront II).

Overall I don't think that most AAA companies fit FC-they either still make some half-decent games or were never seen as "good" in the first place, with the main exception being one company making the headlines nowadays for rampant abuse of female employees(and even then I am a bit torn between writing the entry now waiting a few months, and see if the newer remaster they're working on for another one of their games will be much better received than their first abysmal attempt at a remaster of their games)

EA and most AAA companies are moreso OSC or vocal hatedom over this trope

I could see the case for Bioware as a FC through with Anthem and ME:A, through with the caveat in its' entry that SWTOR continues to be well received and Mass Effect Legendary Edition was seen as one of the better re-masters, with no hard feelings for that ending persisting when the Legendary Edition came out.

Edited by xie323 on Aug 13th 2021 at 12:21:31 PM

Notch at least is definitely OBC. Video Game/Minecraft is still well-liked, I don't know of other poorly-received works, but the man himself is now more well-known as a rightist conspiracy theorist.

Yeah I think Notch and Ev S are both OBC over this trope, I don't think either of them have made any noticiable flops, moreso they embraced far-right rhetoric and it ended up tainting how we see them.

Thoughts on the other entries I've singled out?

Out of them I feel only Millar and maybe Kalish fit, if only because his reputation being cleared up wasn't as through as it could be. I've mentioned Ev S as the same thing as Notch and Lucas I can see the case for but I feel his reputation has sucessfully made a comeback for various reasons, some unrelated to his works, that it at least needs to be rewritten if it stays, and EA was never really well regarded enough in the past(outside arguably their LOTR games, which were "good" but not utterly acclaimed), only to suffer a massive drop in reputation to be this trope(by contrast, they were seen as either than company flooding the market with sports games or more commonly, extremely greedy company doing all it can to make a quick buck at the expense of fun or consumer rights)—what was there to fall if there was never a peak?

Edited by xie323 on Aug 13th 2021 at 12:52:53 PM

Can't comment on the comic book ones since I don't follow comics. Ditto for Power Rangers.

EA is still not well-liked, but not any more so than any other gaming studio today.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 13th 2021 at 8:03:21 AM

There's a reason why some joke that EA stands for "Extraordinary Avarice."

Here's my attempt to rewrite Frank Miller's entry:

I feel Holy Terror needs to be mentioned (since Miller recently was not allowed to speak at a convention because of his work on it). If anyone wants to give feedback or play around with this entry, be my guest.

That entry works

Which is my concern with EA being an example of Fallen Creator. They were never seen as a good company that fell from grace, but a always greedy company making money at the expense of consumers and their subsidaries. A company thats' negatively viewed for the most of its history cannot be an example of this unless they started with a lot of potential.

Personally, I think there has to be a set of criteria for a fallen creator situation:

• Creator has to be genuinely praised at one point. It can't be company or author that had a mediocre reputation at best or a already bad reputation that took a huge dip from there.
• A creator simply developing objectionable views or problematic ones isn't a FC unless it coincided with a significant decline in quality of work(which was the case with Miller). That is for OBC, not FC.

The main thing I am not sure about is situations where we got a full blown career resurrection, or whom time has significantly looked kinder on the works that were panned or polarizing as in the case of George Lucas. Cut them? Rewrite them with the consideration that "these guys aren't that hated anymore?"

Edited by xie323 on Aug 13th 2021 at 8:58:27 AM

Yes I know I was willing to post a entry towards Blizzard Entertainment, but this stood as a bit uncomfortable to me:

• Toshiki Inoue was a great writer for various tokusatsu shows like Changerion, Choujin Sentai Jetman and Kamen Rider Agito. While Kamen Rider Faiz was not bad, his part in the insane Executive Meddling that befell Kamen Rider Hibiki proved to be quite a blow, though really, he was Mis-blamed - if he hadn't done as he was told, he'd have been replaced just like his predecessors were (see J. Michael Straczynski before One More Day was known to be Joe Quesada's doing). He was never really as successful in writing something as his early day works, as seen with Kamen Rider Kiva, the lowest rated and least commercially successful Rider series to date. Inoue showed a return to form in writing the Jetman episode of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, which was well-received with fans and gave the show a slight ratings bump.

From the toy sales chart (note: not entirely accurate)... 8.7 billion yen ain't half bad. I know that Toshiki Inoue is infamous for his Poor Communication Kills antics, but how is his writing nowadays?

So FC is Condemned by History but creators.

Depend on the context. Some of them at least get credit for works they've done in the past, for others its' seen as franchise original sin or never good in the first place

Blizzard is a much better example of this than EA as they were previously well-regarded, whereas EA was never really well regarded as a gaming publishing firm ever, and its' the one I've alluded to. My key issue with when to write this entry is Diablo II: Resurrected, which alpha and beta impressions are noting that it is not shaping up to be another reforged-esque debacle.

But then again, last year I told people on discussion to hold off on Blizzard because despite WC 3 Reforged, Shadowlands release was solid and Classic was extremely well regarded outside the Private Server community and extreme vanilla purists, and only started seriously considering it after the recent abuses came to light and 9.1 being poorly regarded. So I could be wrong about Diablo II: Resurrected.

Edited by xie323 on Aug 14th 2021 at 9:26:54 AM

Also wondering if there should be a waiting period or some sort of threshold before we can consider an entry for FC or not.

Edited by xie323 on Aug 16th 2021 at 9:20:51 AM

I give 6 months like Overshadowed by Controversy.

Do we need a time limit? The page is already locked, and the mods are (AFAIK) refusing to unlock it because people keep submitting unfitting entries in the Locked Pages thread and the Discussion which usually end up getting rejected, so a time limit may not be necessary here.

We do need to clean it as a lot of the entries are outdated.

We can use sandboxes to clean it; that's how I handle locked pages.

Oh no I'm not disputing that, I'm just saying that the page being locked currently solves the issues that a time limit would supposedly address. Although if the mods unlock the page I will support a time limit in that circumstance. I'm just worried Fallen Creator will suffer from similar problems Overshadowed by Controversy suffers from (but with more complaining) if it is unlocked.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 16th 2021 at 9:37:12 AM

Let's draw up a list of ones were planning to remove.

If no one decides, Toshiki Inoue is probably on the cut. As much as his reputation took a hit after the massive Executive Meddling over Kamen Rider Hibiki, it's noted that whatever series he wrote still sold well.

@miraculous So these are the ones I am looking into filing a cut

• Guy Ritchie: Films still a sucess as miraculous pointed out
• Ethan Van Sciver: Never actually shown to have made polarizing works or have flopped, career being tarnished with right wing views is more of a case of OBC
• Notch: Same issue as Ev S
• EA Games: Never actually seen as a good or acclaimed publisher in the first place. Its' overall reputation is actually more of a case of From Bad to Worse over from good to FC arguably.
• Toshiki Inoue: Still does good work as pointed out by Siegfried 1337

Frank Miller and Bruce Kalish would be rewritten.

George Lucas I am not sure to cut or rewrite since he always had vocal defenders and they've gained significant steam as of late as there's been a genuine effort to rehabilitate him due to Prequel fans speaking up more now having grown of age, the Clone Wars and other Filoni-related work(since Filoni draws on Lucas ideas) being acclaimed combined with the lackluster reception of the Sequel Trilogy(which was held up as the "anti-Prequels" and the "salvation for Star Wars" when they were announced, only for them to fragment the fandom even further and spur a reassessment of the prequels).

Edited by xie323 on Aug 19th 2021 at 10:24:33 AM

You can rewrite Lucas.

EDIT: Since this is about Fallen Creator, I've decided to put my entry for Blizzard Entertainment here:

• Blizzard Entertainment was notable for several things, such as the Warcraft video game series which not only paved the way for the Real-Time Strategy genre, but with the massive success of World of Warcraft, helped launch the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game genre that would see many imitators to try to match the game's success, and their fortunes continued throughout The New '10s with the major successes of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Overwatch.
  However, their fortunes would eventually run out. During Blizzcon 2018, audiences who were hyped up for the new Diablo installment ended up shouting boos when it was learned that Diablo Immortal ended up not just being a mobile game, but also being developed by the notorious Tencent as well. Things only got worse as they received international press for the wrong reasons when they banned professional Hearthstone player Blitzchung for showing solidarity for the Hong Kong protesters, which resulted in multiple players leaving their games out of disgust for their actions in favor for their competitors, such as Final Fantasy XIV and Paladins, consequently overshadowing any discussion of whatever positive things they had. The final nails in the coffin was the botched launch of Warcraft III: Reforged, which aside from being an Obvious Beta, had such controversial terms of service that essentially screwed over original owners of the game, the negative reception towards the 9.1 expansion for World of Warcraft, and an sexual harassment lawsuit over the suicide of a female worker that highlighted the terrible state of their workplace. Once held as a pioneer of several game genres, Blizzard Entertainment is now notable for showcasing everything wrong with the modern gaming industry, with their only fanbase being impulse buyers or players who have made too much progress in their games to even stop playing.

Edited by Siegfried1337 on Aug 21st 2021 at 5:59:09 AM

Entry looks good, but I will say that Shadowlands itself wasn’t negatively received at launch. 9.1 was.

It was really to be honest the sexual scandals combined with 9.1 that did them in FC wise. Reforged was a disasater but Classic was well received outside the private server commubity and SL’s initial launch was good enough that I considered initially that they weren’t that trope last year.

Also isnt really the case that the only people that play Wo W or Blizz games are people that sink their time excessively into it. Wo W had a fair share or defenders for a time(Hirumaredx and T&E come to mind for youtubers that leaned pro-blizzard until the recent scandals) and the streamer community stuck by blizzard until at least 9.1(even through some of them were more critical beforehand). So there is a bit of bias here about anyone still playing blizzard games.

Edited by xie323 on Aug 21st 2021 at 5:25:11 AM

Proposed Blizzard rewrite, removing some bias and Take That! claims(as deserved as they may be) and factoring in the fact that Blizzard did make some good releases post-2018 such as Classic and the fact that Shadowlands didn't start out as poorly received:

• Blizzard Entertainment was notable for several acclaimed video game series, such as the Warcraft video game series which not only paved the way for the real-time strategy genre, but also helped launch the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game genre through World of Warcraft, and their fortunes continued throughout The New '10s with the major successes of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Overwatch. Since 2018 however, their reputation took a significant turn for the worse. During Blizzcon 2018, audiences who were hyped up for the new Diablo installment ended up being extremely displeased when it was learned that Diablo Immortal ended up being a mobile game developed by the notorious Tencent. Things only got worse when they banned professional Hearthstone player Blitzchung for supporting the Hong Kong protesters, which resulted in multiple players leaving their games out of disgust for their actions . While Blizzard was still able to maintain a degree of respect in the gaming industry then, things got worse with the critically panned launch of Warcraft III: Reforged, which aside from being an Obvious Beta, had such controversial terms of service that essentially screwed over original owners of the game, combined with a 2021 sexual harassment lawsuit over the suicide of a female worker that highlighted the terrible state of their workplace. Both of these controversies significantly overshadowed any positively received works by Blizzard such as World of Warcraft: Classic and the Shadowlands release, with Shadowlands' initial positive reception being undermined by the extremely negative reception to 9.1 that saw many players jump ship to Final Fantasy XIV in light of WoW streamers praising the latter following said reception and the emerging lawsuit. Once held as a pioneer of several game genres, Blizzard Entertainment is now notable for showcasing everything perceived wrong with the modern gaming industry.

I changed nails in the coffin to "things got worse" because there is a possibility, from what I heard of beta, that Diablo IV and Diablo II Remastered could give them a semblance of decent reputation back from early impressions of the latter. Its' not enough for them to get any goodwill back, but its' possible that it might be a situation where they could pick up in the future, but the bad blood is so bad its' hard for them to gain a massive audience again.

Edited by xie323 on Aug 24th 2021 at 7:44:03 AM