Audience-Alienating Premise cleanup

Audience-Alienating Premise is "interesting" because it can be used to either complain about shows you don't like ("Work X is a failure because it's about X, which is stupid) or gush about shows you like ("Work Y is a great work, but unfortunately many people were scared away because it's about Y, leading people to miss out on its greatness"). This, naturally, leads to lots of shoehorning.

As far as I know, the major criteria for AAP are:

• The work is a commercial failure, which requires the work to have been released for a sufficient amount of time and be for-profit.
• The failure is because the work's premise scared the audience off or made them lose interest.

But "the premise scared people off" is highly subjective, and "is a commercial failure" is a relatively recent addition (if it even is an official criterion - it's not currently in the trope description, although it's been used as an edit reason for some example removals), leading to many non-examples being Grandfather Claused in. So I think it could use a cleanup.

For me, the main purpose of the commercial failure qualifier is so that it we can have rather simple evidence that the example drove passerby as a whole away from the work, avoiding "this is weird!" ZCEs or "how is this ever going to find an audience?" and other sewage.

Edited by Albert3105 on Apr 9th 2020 at 9:10:57 AM

Some questionable examples because I don't know if they "bombed":

• The Emoji Movie: The mere thought of having an entire feature-length film all about emojis didn't tick with many. Doesn't make matters better since this was green lit in the wake of both an animated feature of Popeye from Genndy Tartakovsky and an animated film of Medusa from Lauren Faust being put on hold (where most of the criticism for this movie is coming from showing signs of Executive Meddling). As for the movie itself... well, as this review puts it:
  "With its bright colors and cute characters, The Emoji Movie clearly was made, presumably by adults, for young kids, even though it's about technology in a way that a person has to be at least an older child or a pre-teen in order to appreciate. It's a movie that's too bland for adults, too cutesy and juvenile for teens and pre-teens, and too confusing for kids. In other words, it's a movie for no one, except all of the companies that signed on to have their mobile applications and games blatantly promoted without a lick of shame on the part of the filmmakers."
• The Clique is an Indecisive Parody told from the point-of-view of a middle school-aged Alpha Bitch and her Girl Posse (two character types that are nearly universally despised) but does very little to make them likable or sympathetic. And even readers who would want to read something like that are very likely going to be put off by all the Squick (namely the very sexualized depictions of preteen girls^note The author is female.). The author tried to add some Deconstruction elements later on in the series but for many it was too little too late. This trope is possibly why The Film of the Book was Direct to Video — the creators were probably aware that a film with this kind of plot would bomb if released in theaters.
• The Deptford Mice trilogy features anthropomorphic mice in a struggle against a God of Evil and his bloodthirsty rat minions. Violent deaths abound, including decapitation and flaying alive. The cute animal characters would put off older kids, but the stories are Nightmare Fuel for the younger ones. This is likely why these books have yet to see a film adaptation. Who would you market it to?
• Spring Awakening:
  • The original, containing a lot of teen angst, a masturbation scene, underage sex, gay kisses, incest, suicide, and advertised "real onstage nudity", had a lot going against it. Ended up nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won 8.
  • The revival, which incorporated American Sign Language, censored nothing from the original, and had cast members with varying hearing abilities, turned off some hearing audience members who didn't want to see a "deaf musical", assuming it'd be incomprehensible. Result: Nominated for three Tonys and got a national tour.
• Heathers sticks to its original premise of two teenagers who start killing students and framing them as suicides in an upper class white high school, starting with the local Alpha Bitch. It's full of Black Comedy, Mood Whiplash, and frequently Crosses the Line Twice, both playing the deaths of rich kids for laughs yet taking the act of suicide very seriously. Being based on an even darker source film that gathered a modest cult following, it didn't even make it to Broadway before major productions lost steam. It still attracted a very loyal following of adult fans of the original and teenagers that liked the snarky humor.
• Poopsie is a girl-oriented blind-bag slime making kit that's focused on excrement. The aesthetics are done too much in a Tastes Like Diabetes fashion to be considered a complete Gross-Out Toy, and there are unicorn dolls that make the slime (guess how) that go to Uncanny Valley territory and are almost Bratz Babyz lookalikes.^note The fact they're both made by MGA Entertainment might have something to do with this. In the end, you're trying to ask yourself what the hell the creators were on when they were developing this.
• Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating game where the potential mates are birds, most of which are pigeons. It's based off a pun that doesn't translate into English. The main character is a human girl. And the pigeons are represented by photographs of actual pigeons. It was created as a joke but takes itself deadly serious in places because its creator saw an opportunity to tell an engaging story which just happens to be about birds, and the sequel Holiday Star drops the dating premise almost completely. Those who have heard of it often assume it's either an otherwise-normal dating game which is inexplicably about birds, or nothing but a joke, and both groups are more likely to make fun of its existence than play it. Despite this, it managed to somehow gain spinoff manga, drama CDs, official merchandise, and a very small but equally dedicated fanbase composed mostly of people who initially only checked it out because of the strange premise.
• Diabolik Lovers is about a girl who is abused by sadistic vampire brothers. And all of it is played for fanservice. Even people who enjoy that kind of thing reportedly found it uncomfortable. It's considered one of the reasons why the anime adaptation bombed.
• Homestuck is so notorious for its Continuity Lockout, that fans of the comic trying and inevitably failing to get their peers interested in reading it has become a meme unto itself^note "LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HOMESTUCK.". This is mostly due to the sheer size of the project (8127 pages in total when it finally finished, which vary in length from single images to Wall of Text chat logs to elaborate animations to interactive games); the strangeness and complexity of the plot making it impossible to explain to the uninitiated; and the video game-centric nature of it. Additionally, in order fully get all the jokes, it is almost a prerequisite that you read the three comics that came before it: Problem Sleuth, which is a monumental read in and of itself, Bard Quest, an unfinished experiment, and Jailbreak, the first, and as a consequence the least polished of all the creator's work. And on top of all this, in order to reach the parts anyone talks about, you have to read through a good 1500 pages of buildup, during which the characters spend a lot of time meandering and doing largely irrelevant things; even the fanbase jokes about how slow and boring the first two chapters are.
• In general, Gunnerkrigg Court is a perfectly reasonable and non-alienating comic, but the premises for some of the individual chapters are amusingly bizarre or boring sounding, leading to The Rant often lampshading this by jokingly thanking the reader for having bothered to read them:
  "Thank you for reading this chapter about girls getting haircuts."

Edited by Pichu-kun on Apr 10th 2020 at 7:58:56 AM

At the very least, Homestuck did not bomb. It was so absurdly popular that its fandom crashed multiple websites in an attempt to watch one of its videos from the sheer volume of traffic they got.

On the same reasoning, Gunnerkrigg Court, Hatoful Boyfriend, Heathers (the musical), and Spring Awakening need to be cut on the grounds that they were all very successful and have dedicated fandoms.

The Emoji Movie is a toss up, as while it didn't "bomb" financially it was met with universal disdain. However I think there's a case that negative press made it a hate-watch, which means the negative premise just attracted people to the dumpster fire. Can we call this one "played with" or "subverted"?

No, we can't. According to Audience Reactions:

The only exceptions are Lampshaded, Intended Audience Reaction, and In-Universe.

If my sources are correct, The Emoji Movie had rather mediocre box office performance. Does "mediocre" cut it?

I think the Gunnerkrigg Court example could be moved to In-Universe since it's about the characters mentioning that the chapter's premise sounds boring.

Also from the Webcomics section, Dinosaur Comics has a weird premise, but I'm pretty sure it's a well-loved classic despite that. It's currently making 1500$ a month on Patreon, which seems pretty high by webcomic standards.

According to Poopsie’s YMMV page, the toy was a huge hit among young girls during the 2018 Christmas season, so that entry can go.

Honestly, I think this trope needs a rename to make the part about being a commercial failure more clear. A name like “Failure-Causing Premise” could work.

Edited by jandn2014 on Apr 10th 2020 at 3:11:19 PM

I mean, technically the work doesn't have to bomb. It has to fail to attract an audience.

It's just near impossible to prove these works didn't attract an audience if they didn't bomb.

Diabolik Lovers and Deptford Mice also have dedicated fandoms, so I don't know how unpopular they are. The Clique apparently sold well in terms of books too.

When it comes to literature, it's hard to find sales on them. How would we know if they didn't sell well?

Honestly, I certainly agree financial failure can help support calling a premise "audience-alienating", but should it really be a requirement?

It's not. There's just pretty much no other way to determine what works fit the trope, so it's treated as though it is.

Just throwing an idea out there, instances where a work doesn't necessarily bomb but the distributors for the work start taking measures later down the line suggesting that they want to distance themselves from it because of its premise, such as Interspecies Reviewers being dropped by several streaming services, might be good criteria too.

That's helpful too.

What about works that weren't released, but were cancelled due to backlash over the premise? HBO's Confederate (about an Alternate History where slavery is still legal in modern-day USA) fits this bill and was actually listed in the past until I deleted it. If the problem isn't that pre-release examples are forbidden period, but that alienation is extremely difficult to measure without post-release data, this one show sounds like a potential exemption to AAP's No Recent Examples, Please!.

My gut instinct is to say that's a different trope, more closely related to Tainted by the Preview.

Which, incidentally, I think a fair amount of AAP misuse might actually fit better under, unless the requirements have been tightened since I last knew.

• Artemis Fowl is unique in that it fails both as an adaptation of a work, AND as a standalone movie, due to incredibly poor plotting, character, and casting choices. Especially Artemis's change from Villain Protagonist who sought out the fairy world to abduct one of their people and hold them ransom for gold, to a genuinely good (if a bit rude) child who seeks out the fairies to help save his father, did not go over well with fans, since that was the basis for the first book's entire premise. However, to compensate for the many changes that had to be made, the film was pumped full of exposition in a complete disregard for Show, Don't Tell. Combine that with the confused, convoluted plot that's near impossible to follow, a McGuffin that just does whatever the plot wants it to, the underwhelming villain, and many poor casting choices, made for a movie that at the time of writing this entry, sits at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I deleted this as: 1. Lacks objective metric it failed to attract audiences (Critic-Proof means low ratings aren't enough) and way too soon to call. 2. Many of these problems are execution or not apparent in the trailers, not premise. 3. The movie is attracting excess negativity and complaining (brought to ATT).

As a streaming service thus having unlimited time to recoup it's budget and nothing to loose by not being pulled, is there any way to prove it alienated? Or is it like Fan Works which we decided are/can be so niche there's no metric to say it failed?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jun 16th 2020 at 12:36:38 PM

So is AAP NREP? Cuz it's not listed on the page.

I was checking to see if a game trailer getting massive backlash because people hate the premise would count (in reference to this little trending topic from earlier today), I assume it wouldn't since we don't have feedback on the game yet.

Edited by mightymewtron on Jul 17th 2020 at 6:44:57 AM

This was added to Dinner for Schmucks yesterday:

• Audience-Alienating Premise: Needless to say, it's hard to find an audience when your movie revolves around a man being stalked and harassed.

Wait, does Audience-Alienating Premise have a waiting period?

This was just added to Rocket Power:

Audience-Alienating Premise: Even ignoring all of the laughable attempts to be hip, most people would agree that watching animated characters being realistically physically active is nowhere near as much fun as actually doing it. While the kids going outside and being physically active did look fun, you, the audience, had to stay inside and sit in front of the TV for half an hour to enjoy it, making the show's very existence counter-intuitive at best and hypocritical at worst.

That just feels like complaining. Snip snip.

Edited by ImperialMajestyXO on Jul 21st 2020 at 10:09:45 AM

I think that exact thing used to be under Spoiled by the Format, which was obviously not the right spot for it to begin with.

It was. This example was added by the same guy, The Remedy 91

Edited by fragglelover on Jul 21st 2020 at 2:54:51 PM