Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused
, started by Folamh3 on Mar 14th 2017 at 10:29:52 AM
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
I have started a cleanup thread for this trope, Franchise Killer, and Genre-Killer. Thread here if anyone wants to join
Links don't work in dissection pages. Can you post the link unformatted so we can cut and paste it into browsers?
Do we really need so many mentions of that "What Were They Thinking?" book in the TV section?
What would be the contrast to this trivia entry? Where the creator is so sick of their work, they want to conclude it asap, or failing that, kill off their intellectual property?
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Spaceballs killed Mel Brooks' career? Really? Should we really use this image? I mean, Brooks isn't even listed on this page.
Sometimes life just sucks. You have to learn to take the good with the bad. Why should you expect anything different in the mediums? Hide / Show Replies
Spaceballs, while indeed a Cult Classic and decent box office success, didn't really meet up the standards of his previous films. After that film, Life Stinks, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It were mostly critical failures (with LS and D:DALI flopping at the box office), thus damaging Brooks' reputation and killing his career as a director and leading man, though he has since found more success in theatre.
"The devil's got all the good gear. What's God got? The Inspiral Carpets and nuns. Fuck that." - Liam Gallagher
Essentially, Men In Tights was the ONLY decent Mel Brooks movie made after Spaceballs, which itself is highly YMMV in terms of quality.
The image isn't an example of the trope. The trope is about "A work that forever sullies the creator's reputation and/or career." Spaceballs isn't an example, as it did not in itself harm Brooks' reputation or career. The image merely points out a starting point for a decline in Brooks' artistic reception.
Spaceballs would only be an example of the trope if the movies that followed were all noticeably smaller films, showing that Brooks was not able to get the funding to make A-list films after Spaceballs. That's not true in this case. Brooks' following movies still enjoyed major releases, even though they were not as successful as his previous films. Spaceballs didn't kill his career, his later movies were simply not very good.
Edited by 66.193.194.130
I'm quite insulted Life Stinks is on that image. It was my favorite Mel Brook's film ever.
Folamh3
I think there should be some sort of time limit placed on examples added to this article, as from going through the examples, it seems an awful lot of them are being added too soon before we can see if a creator's career is truly "dead" or not. To list just one example:
- Over the course of the '00s, Cameron Crowe saw his reputation as an acclaimed countercultural auteur slowly erode, with his films after Almost Famous receiving mixed receptions and a growing number of critics feeling that he was coasting on his past glories. (Notably, his 2005 film Elizabethtown wound up being, by way of Nathan Rabin's criticism of it, the Trope Namer for Manic Pixie Dream Girl.) The final straw was Aloha in 2015, which was criticized right out of the gate for its WTH casting of Emma Stone as a part-Asian woman (a casting decision that Crowe and Stone themselves later apologized for), and those who actually saw the film weren't any kinder about the rest of it. Tellingly, he had to turn to television (specifically Showtime) to get his next project, Roadies, made at all, and that show got middling reviews and only lasted a single season before it was cancelled.
Aloha only came out two years ago and wasn't a major flop, and although it had a controversial casting choice, it's far too early to tell if that controversy was significant enough to kill Crowe's career altogether. It's not at all uncommon for major studio directors to take breaks of several years between projects, and if we took "since their last movie, this director had a TV show which only lasted one season" as evidence that a given director's career is dead, half the major directors in Hollywood would be listed as examples on the Creator Killer page.
My suggestion would be that, in the case of major studio directors, they should not be listed as examples on the Creator Killer page unless it's been at least ten years since they directed a major studio film (TV movies or independent films are okay). Likewise for screenwriters or producers. It might be tricky to create hard-and-fast guidelines that govern all media, but the page is a bit of a mess as it stands.
Musician, writer, game designer.
I was adding on a bit of further text on Squaresoft's slide in quality after Spirits Within(namely how they've become an RPG developer, though still a large one, instead of the RPG developer like they were at the turn of the millennium) and I was curious:
Would Final Fantasy 13 count as a Creator Killer? Despite selling well, it still received a lot of critical flak for its linearity and subpar storywriting, and caused a massive Broken Base due to many longtime FF fans considering the game Square's shark-jump.
And when you count the massive fan outcry at the ending fiasco of XIII-2, in which Square essentially went and sold the "real" ending to the game to the player via DLC, their reputation's taken quite a few hits as a result of their insistence on trying to make another "Compilation" out of XIII...
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No. XIII did well enough to spawn two sequels. Regardless of whether the original game was bad from a story standpoint, it still sold (according to VG Chartz and other data) 7.5 million copies.
If anything, Lightning Returns was the real killer, considering it didn't even break the million-copy mark according to sales data.
I Am The Walrus
Would Robin Thicke's recent album qualify as his Creator Killer? It's done horribly in sales and people hate the guy now.
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I'd say not... that album's failure isn't what killed him, its failure is a sign that he had already been killed. I'd say that, ironically, "Blurred Lines" is what killed him. It was huge for a while, and he imploded because of it. The world collectively had Fridge Logic about the song, it ruined his marriage/was a sign his marriage was failing, and got his ass sued.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
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- As of right now, Frank Miller's Holy Terror seems to have made Miller a persona non grata among most comic writers, and he even had to create his own studio to release it. After being delayed for over four years it was critically panned by everyone up to and including Grant Morrison, and is basically an excuse for Miller to rail against Islam (and much of what he says is inaccurate). And worse, it was originally supposed to star Batman before the DC execs vetoed it. Miller was already something of a pariah after All Star Batman And Robin, but Holy Terror seems to have assured that he won't be getting any major deals anytime soon.
One, it's full of Natter and accusations which are very much YMMV, plus the personal opinions of the poster. It doesn't belong here. Nixed.
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looks like it's back up, and even worse:
Much like his forray into film as detailed below, Frank Miller seems to have been made persona non grata among most comic writers and fans with Holy Terror, finally bringing down a career that even The Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-Star Batman & Robin combined couldn't destroy (though they did contribute to it). After being delayed for over four years, it was critically panned by everyone (up to and including Grant Morrison and even Alan Moore, curmudgeon that he is), and is basically an excuse for Miller to engage in extreme, Eagleland-Type-2 jingoism, paint all Muslims as terrorist sympathizers ready to kill, and compare the Occupy movement to a bunch of nerds barely better than pond scum. Worse, it was originally supposed to star Batman before the DC execs vetoed it (to be part of the "Miller Batman-Verse"), but as Miller was already something of a pariah after All-Star Batman & Robin, the idea was taken to Legendary (normally a film production company) to be retooled after "Miller decided it wasn't a Batman story". The retool ended up still reading like a Miller Batman story. Holy Terror seems to have assured that he won't be getting any major deals anytime soon.
Deleting as well.
Edited by romxxii
Someone just brought it back. Deleted as well. Somebody needs to stop posting inaccurate, subjective information.
So... it'd be nice if someone could say why this doesn't apply. Not knowing Miller's work since All Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder, the inaccuracies aren't readily apparent to me.
Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Why was Family Guy on this page? The show is still on the air and Seth is still working.
Edited by redhed311
Is it just me or is the name of this trope ... disturbing?
Yes, I know it's supposed to be about works which are apparently the final nail in the coffin of a creator's career (while Rock A Doodle was Don Bluth's Jump the Shark moment, Titan AE was the one that really wrecked his career), and be the equivalent of Franchise Killer and Genre-Killer, still the name's kind of disturbing.
Creators are actual people, as opposed to franchises and genres, which are more of abstract concepts. Maybe this trope should be renamed.
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I thought of Career Killer at first, but that would also include actors, and I think we already have a trope about actors being wrecked/rejuvenated by a role. If there isn't one, then perhap actors could be included into this.
Edit:Oh wait, Career Killer is already used? Damn.
Edited by Glowsquid
We could try using "Creator Downfall". But overall, I actually don't mind the name (particularly since we already have a trope for when creators actually die off).
The failure of Astro Boy at the box office resulted in the shutdown of Imagi Animation Studios, including the production of a Gatchaman film in the works, as well as an Astro Boy sequel.
LIE
IT WAS SUMMIT MEDIA THAT KILLED THEM
Edited by jtwade100
gets mad about videogames
deleted the following entries:
- Though out-of-control corporate and financial troubles were largely responsible for Midway's death knell, the blame can also be pointed toward the failures of Unreal Tournament III and Wheelman.
- Speaking of THQ, the poor sales of Darksiders II led to the collapse of developer Vigil Games and the bankruptcy of that company in December 2012, a month after issuing a statement that Darksiders II had to sell 4 million copies in order for it to be profitable. It only sold 1.4 million copies by November 2012, three months after the game was released. Overspending basically killed both companies.
1: Midway released a shiton of bombs (Blacksite Area 51, Blitz II, LA Rush, NBA Ballers Chosen One... etc) around the same time, which failed just as hard (or even harder) and none of which are considered by popular widsom (heh) to be what "killed them". Besides, Wheelman was published by Ubisoft and released around the time Midway was liquiding its assets.
2: Vigil was dismantled because nobody bid for it at THQ's bankruptcy auction, not because Darksiders 2's sales particularly hurt it. Not meeting THQ's optimistic sales expectation doesn't make it a studio killer.
Edited by Glowsquid
The following seems like a non-example to me:
"Jennifer's Body did lasting damage to the budding career of its writer, Diablo Cody. Cody shocked everyone when she won an Academy Award for screenplay for Juno, and then went on to have another success with the Showtime series United States Of Tara, but Jennifer's Body gave her a reputation of being a one-trick pony who was overly reliant on "hip and quirky" dialogue. However, Cody's first post-Body film, Young Adult, has been a hit with critics, so it may be too soon to tell. It also marked the beginning of the end for Megan Fox's career, but that's for a different page. "
Even the page admits she's had another success, and additionally she's working on her directorial debut right now. Doesn't sound like a dead career to me. I'm taking it out.
Rilkar
- "Due to lack of popularity and perhaps a strong fandom, Yamakan was forced to retire after Fractale did poorly in DVD sales"
Is this true? Couldn't he just blame the earthquake or something?
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I'm more perplexed by this justification:
"The fact that was competing against Puella Magi Madoka Magica and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan near the end of its airing (subsequently reducing the market afterwards) didn't help matters, either."
In the sense of ratings (which it probably isn't referring to anyway), the information I checked says they aired in different timeslots. Blu-ray sales are even more unequivocal since Madoka's success doesn't appear to have significantly hindered anything else that aired or is being released contemporaneously, especially Infinite Stratos. Alongside the second volume of Madoka, which has broken the record sales of the first, four other shows have sold over 10,000 copies in their first week, with Tiger & Bunny apparently not even having enough copies to meet demand.
Additionally, the earthquake should have affected all anime sales pretty much equally, so it wouldn't have much impact on its ranking among them, but it's also faring rather miserably in that respect from what I can tell. In all likelihood, most of the potential audience was offended by the overinflated egos and very, very big mouth behind what turned out to be not so different from anything they were supposedly trying to rise above. Madoka may have gleefully rubbed salt into an open wound, but I seriously doubt she inflicted it.
Edited by Te1emachus
This seems to be a non-example, in that it apparently isn't a very poorly received work nuking the career of the work's creator.
- The Gizmondo handheld bankrupted Tiger Telematics.
- May not qualify. More accurately, what bankrupted Tiger Telematics was the fact that one of their executives was the head of an organized crime family.
gets mad about videogames
Regarding the whole "Square merged with Enix because of the failure of the Spirits Within", here's one of the reply I got on the YKTTW:
"Correction on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. It indeed kill Square Pictures, but did not force it into merging with Enix. On the contrary, Enix and Square were discussing merging earlier, and the failure of The Spirits Within actually delayed the merge because Enix didn't want to merge with a company that was currently losing money."
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