Both GT and Super are about as "fanfiction" as the DBZ movies, as far as I'm concerned. They're all blatant cashgrabs that lazily recycle DBZ tropes.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Sequels which read like bad fan fiction?
- Thread starter Lightning Count
- Start date
Both GT and Super are about as "fanfiction" as the DBZ movies, as far as I'm concerned. They're all blatant cashgrabs that lazily recycle DBZ tropes.
I at least had fun with Super and the tourney arcs. GT was just annoying.
Did he really write Omega? I thought he just supplied some concepts like he does with other spin off series.
As someone who liked, but didn't love the original and had no idea that there was a sequel, I hate that a sequel even exists. It was such a good standalone thing.
A terrible follow-up to the original science fiction classic and it gets even worse as the series progresses.
All Kingdom Hearts is 'fan fiction', the premise is. All the disney villians team up, Squall and other Final Fantasy charaters have a resistance in town, to fight back.
Rise of Skywalker. The whole plot leaked months in advance and so many people, myself included, didn't believe it because it sounded like fan fiction trash.
Turns out that it was!
Turns out that it was!
Bravo.
Also yeah the sequel trilogy. Ep 7 was hilarious, like it used a template.
Aside from plot premise being completely antithetical to Mayuri's character (her allowing Okabe to give up really didn't sit right with me), the whole plot about
the woman in the biker helmet is so bad. And Kagari too.
He tries it and fails miserably, but the technique he does use to win is pretty ridiculous on its own.
I've seen plenty of mediocre sequels but I've honestly never seen anything quite like TRoS, a film that not only didn't try to gel nicely with its predecessor but directly repudiated it. It felt like a hijacking.
A basic rule of storytelling is that you don't introduce major new elements (like, say, the actual villain) in the third installment of a trilogy; if the Emperor is the big bad of part three they should have some sort of presence, however veiled and shadowy, in part one. We don't see the Emperor in A New Hope but he is mentioned (and the audience can intuit that an evil Empire has an evil Emperor); we see him via hologram in The Empire Strikes Back; we see him in the flesh in Return of the Jedi. This is generally seen as essential for storytelling unity; swapping out the villain in the last installment is like breaking a promise to the audience.
With TRoS, there is no storytelling unity. It's like, at the last moment, Abrams decided that he didn't want to make a movie that made sense as an ending for this trilogy; he decided that it was really a nine-film "Skywalker Saga" and he wanted to make an ending that he thought made sense for that. So he had to dig up the Emperor, and he had to make Kylo want to serve him even though in the previous film Kylo was all about "letting the past die" and was through being a puppet, and he had to make Rey end up saying she was a Skywalker, even though one of the first lines in the first film of the trilogy was "you can't deny the truth that is your family."
I've seen plenty of disappointing movies but only with TRoS did I feel like I was really just mourning the loss of a movie that didn't exist. I wanted to see the ending of Rey's journey, the final movie in a trilogy about her and Finn and Poe, and Abrams simply decided not to make that.
Really any time they bring in some new guy who grew up watching the show his supposed to be writing is inevitably just going to read like fanfiction especially if they didnt understand the material.
Gundam Unicorn takes place 3 year after Char's Counterattack but still repeats the exact same themes as Char's Counterattack so the themes ultimately rings hollow because if nothing changed after CCA why would anything that takes place in Gundam Unicorn mean anything. They also brought back Mineva Zabi after Tomino wrote her out in ZZ Gundam, despite the fact that Mineva's entire character was that she was supposed to be a normal child and not being presented as the last hope of the spacenoids.
Even worse is Gundam Narrative where the movie just brings up past events like Operation British, the Titans, and this utterly minor company just to relate how the main characters were all involved in them. Also there's this one scene in CCA where Amuro imagines Lalah Sune as a bird so naturally Fukui just has characters imagine people as birds like 10 times in the movie.
TFA takes 30 minutes to reset the status quo right back to a New Hope which made the entire original trilogy just seem pointless, and then in TRoS the guy just brings back the Emperor despite the fact that he was in an exploding Death Star, and then made Rey Palpatine's granddaughter because he doesnt understand why Darth Vader being Luke's father actually meant something.
Gundam Unicorn takes place 3 year after Char's Counterattack but still repeats the exact same themes as Char's Counterattack so the themes ultimately rings hollow because if nothing changed after CCA why would anything that takes place in Gundam Unicorn mean anything. They also brought back Mineva Zabi after Tomino wrote her out in ZZ Gundam, despite the fact that Mineva's entire character was that she was supposed to be a normal child and not being presented as the last hope of the spacenoids.
Even worse is Gundam Narrative where the movie just brings up past events like Operation British, the Titans, and this utterly minor company just to relate how the main characters were all involved in them. Also there's this one scene in CCA where Amuro imagines Lalah Sune as a bird so naturally Fukui just has characters imagine people as birds like 10 times in the movie.
TFA takes 30 minutes to reset the status quo right back to a New Hope which made the entire original trilogy just seem pointless, and then in TRoS the guy just brings back the Emperor despite the fact that he was in an exploding Death Star, and then made Rey Palpatine's granddaughter because he doesnt understand why Darth Vader being Luke's father actually meant something.
Yeah, it walks back so many things and feels like a straight up repudiation of The Last Jedi.
And then there's all the other dumb fan fictiony writing:
-Rey is a secret Palpatine
-The Death Star II has huge, intact remains despite being atomized in Return of the Jedi
-Oh, Rey has Force Healing and Force Lightning now
-Millions of Maguffins, the worst being the stupid dagger
-Secret fleet of thousands of working, fully staffed Star Destroyers, each with its own Death Star laser
-All the fakeout deaths
-Palpatine has ALL THE SITH living inside him
-Rey kills Palpy by deflecting his lightning at him cause she gets a power boost from all your favorite Jedi
-The dumb medallion that gives their small party free access to Kylo's entire Star Destroyer so they can just run through the halls, shooting everyone in sight like a video game
-The kiss
-Chewie's medal
-The entire Exegol battle with the stupid beacon
-Burying the lightsabers on Tatooine for cheap, nonsensical nostalgia
-Finn might have the Force but let's not do anything with it
-New, pointless, flat characters like Power Ranger, Space Horse Rider, and Evil British Officer
-Desert planet, jungle planet, snow planet
-The Knights of Ren stand around
-Snokes in jars
-Holdo maneuver was "1 in a million"
-Ninn Nunb dies offscreen
-Hey, Lando brought the whole galaxy with him "Sorry we didn't help you before, Leia (RIP)"
I really just detest it all.
Im sorry ,it just reminded me of this XD
Really tho ,you could tell something is up the moment Poe went "Somehow Palpatine returned"(and it really felt like Osscar Issacs rolled his eyes internally saying that) . If your characters ever say "somehow" in regards to a plot point ,you know that plot element is bad
The sad thing is ,the one fanfictiony thing i did want them to do never happened!
Would've loved them to go all the way and show all the jedi force ghosts at the end go against palpatine but nope ,we just got vague voices siiiiigh
The worst thing about the Poe's past/Zorii Bliss reveal is that it basically just turns Poe into Han Solo. Like, Poe and Han are both hotshot pilots, but the difference was supposed to be that Poe's parents were in the rebellion and he always wanted to serve the Resistance and he's extremely proud to do so and takes that seriously. But then you reveal in the eleventh hour that he was actually a smuggler with a shady past? What?
It also felt a little like they introduced Zorii as a person Poe had a history with specifically to sink the fandom's idea that Poe was gay.
Yeah, I think that was the exact moment I started to have grave concerns about the quality of the movie. I didn't really like the idea that they were going to bring back the Emperor, but I had sort of lowered my expectations to expecting that, and I really didn't like the "lightspeed skipping" that broke all the rules of space travel in Star Wars, but as soon as Poe said "Somehow, Palpatine returned" I was like, oh, this movie's not going to be any good, isn't it?
Super retcons stuff because Toriyama never cared to keep track of anything added by other people working on the franchise. It wasn't deliberately setting out to erase anything. It's just that none of that material counted to Toriyama. Super's first director (he was replaced by the time of the Future Trunks Saga) even tried to imply that GT could still be the future in an interview during early Super.
I've been rewatching the Hannibal tv series and season 3 is actually worse than I remember it.
Seasons 1+2 are fantastic, some of the best TV out there, but season 3 goes 100% up its own ass, haha.
The pacing became glacial and a bunch of characters become even more overly philosophical to the point that they don't even feel like people anymore.
Most of the first 8 episodes are just Hannibal chilling in Italy, and the rest is the super boring Red Dragon killer that they try to make soooo scary and badass, but none of it works.
Seasons 1+2 are fantastic, some of the best TV out there, but season 3 goes 100% up its own ass, haha.
The pacing became glacial and a bunch of characters become even more overly philosophical to the point that they don't even feel like people anymore.
Most of the first 8 episodes are just Hannibal chilling in Italy, and the rest is the super boring Red Dragon killer that they try to make soooo scary and badass, but none of it works.
That was my first thought. And also that Raoul turns out to be an alcoholic jackass to justify the Christine and Phantom romance is such a classic fanfiction trope.
Never mind that the Phantom is a psycho who committed multiple murders in the first show. The sequel was just a pure mercenary cash grab by Lloyd Webber.
I saw Orphan Black after it was done (or maybe caught up with the series when it was on its last season) and found that it had a decent quality consistency, except for maybe the last season.
But Killing Eve I honestly think has been as it was planned from the beginning, which is to say I fully believe that they planned for it to be "shipped" to hell by the fan base, just like how Sherlock ended up.
Killing Eve is a recent enough show that at that point showmakers know the response their shows will get and now they know how to milk it even without audience feedback.
It's overall story with the secret assassin organization is only there as a vehicle for Eve and Villainelle's shenanigans.
The Battletech Universe after 3070
This shit reads like bad fanfiction, even just the official history. Especially the Clans after 3070 are bad. bench-pressed into a ridiculous story just so that the baseline for the dark age books can happen at all.
This shit reads like bad fanfiction, even just the official history. Especially the Clans after 3070 are bad. bench-pressed into a ridiculous story just so that the baseline for the dark age books can happen at all.
The correct answer is Rise of Skywalker, which is just baffling that it even saw the light of day.
As a fan of the series, I would also say Saw 7, as it tried to end the series putting together what Saw 7 and 8 would have been (but didn't because the box office wasn't there) and tried to explain and make canon in like two minutes the literal poster boy of fan theories the fans of the series had.
As a fan of the series, I would also say Saw 7, as it tried to end the series putting together what Saw 7 and 8 would have been (but didn't because the box office wasn't there) and tried to explain and make canon in like two minutes the literal poster boy of fan theories the fans of the series had.
I've been told those exact words dozens of times, not variation but literally the same copy and paste "subverting audience expectations and rethinking the norms of the series" but when I ask anyone to explain how it did that they don't. I mean it seriously, how did TLJ do that? I'm genuinely curious.
It popped into my head this morning to mention the Dune sequel/prequel books by Brian Herbert. Completely shits on his father's originals, and is clearly making up fanboy shit where none existed. An author trying to pick up on a beloved epic franchise should never utter the phrase "Wouldn't it be cool if..."
Rey is told she isn't a related to anyone special; the shadowy mastermind gets killed; Luke says the Jedi were wrong and need to end; the heroes have failures that lead to the loss of hundreds of lives; the core conflict of the series is revealed to have grown out of a failure of Luke Skywalker; the main trio is separated for most of the film; the rogue turns out to actually betray everybody; the good guys don't win.
Also, the series broadens its focus from Force magic-users to the ways the larger populace is affected by an endless war, including noting that even the heroic Resistance is enriching evil war profiteers, and the film suggests that the Force may be more democratized than we thought.
Last edited:
Eh. I enjoy Super waaaay more than GT. Yeah, Goku is slightly more stupid but they actually acknowledge his character flaws. The series feels more like Dragon Ball than GT to me. Super starts pretty bad but it gets better as it goes along.
Plus, the latest arc in the manga is shaping up to be really good; dealing with the fallout and history of Freeza and the Saiyans.
I'd argue the Frank Herbert books after CoD are as far from the term fan fiction as you can get as he goes out of his way to distance himself from the notions of the first book and build something far grander and far reaching.
Rise of Skywalker feels like one of those "spite-fics" where someone does everything possible to undo the last movie instead of building upon it. The sequel trilogy would have been so much stronger if they chose to build on the ideas of TLJ instead of undoing them/pretending they don't exist.
They were really smart to put out Mando season 1 before TROS because man, I would have been so done with Star Wars if TROS was all we got in 2019.
They were really smart to put out Mando season 1 before TROS because man, I would have been so done with Star Wars if TROS was all we got in 2019.
The Last Jedi thread? Because that's my answer. It tried way too hard to be funny, and failed just about every time.
Obscure example, but Tales of Destiny 2--and I'm talking about the JP-only sequel, not Tales of Destiny II (aka Eternia) on PSX. The plot becomes some timey-whimey BS that basically leads to an alternative universe that allows them to zip to the key eras of the present--albeit changed, because alternative timeline shenanigans--experience the rebirth of dead characters, and of course a reset button at the end because maybe they went too far.
I mean, it's *fine*, but it really does read like a fanfic.
I mean, it's *fine*, but it really does read like a fanfic.
Know it's probably a dead horse at this point but:
Every game in the series adds some new bullshit metaphorical element to the plot that was not ever even mentioned in any of the previous titles. Then they suddenly have characters act like it's been there the whole time or they just accept it without any inward thought about how much nonsense they're expected to keep up with.
The freakin' Disney characters react more realistically to "heart" "darkness" mumbo-jumbo than anyone actually involved with the main plot.
...The games are at least fun though. Mostly.
Every game in the series adds some new bullshit metaphorical element to the plot that was not ever even mentioned in any of the previous titles. Then they suddenly have characters act like it's been there the whole time or they just accept it without any inward thought about how much nonsense they're expected to keep up with.
The freakin' Disney characters react more realistically to "heart" "darkness" mumbo-jumbo than anyone actually involved with the main plot.
...The games are at least fun though. Mostly.
There's a sequel to Ringworld that is literally (and I mean it) about furry humanoids having orgies and fighting vampires.
I always felt the first 4 books were the strongest of the series, with book 4 being the best. Books 5-7 went downhill for me.
Toriyama's, like, king fanfic writer. FFXIII could pass for a FF game fine (despite it being my least favorite, I'll give it THAT one), but everything after is like some otaku writing a fanfic over the obsession of "rose in the darkness", his "goddess" that everything revolves around. I'm surprised Lightning Returns doesn't end with
Lightning waiting at the train station on Earth, the train pulling in and Toriyama exits it to greet her with a bouquet of roses. It ends on a freeze frame of Lightning blushing... THE END.
It is, but it gets more and more fanfic-y as it goes on. Especially with Nomura adding more and more "concepts" to the world. I'm expecting Nomura to next include The Jaded, negative emotions of a person crystallized by the body's minerals, which is not connected to The Tormented, negative emotions that manifest into cool looking J-pop-looking characters all wrapped in chains.
This is how you know a lot of the sequels are bad, because they ARE handled by the original writers, who for the most part, delivered GREAT, if not, OUTSTANDING first installments, but can't, for the LIFE OF THEM, produce a good sequel. It's like they are capable of coming up with a one-off world and one-off story, and are great at building those worlds as they are creating that first installment, but when it comes to revisiting that world, they go all bungles and just don't know how to handle it. It also seems like they get TOO ambitious for their own good and start tossing in any idea that springs to mind at the second.Remember that Final Fantasy X sequel book? You know, the one where Tidus gets his head blown off.
Last edited:
I think depending on who you ask, it's either book 3 or book 4. Some consider 4 to be a meaningless derail just when the plot was moving forward (considering it's essentially a book-length flashback) but I think it has some of the most emotional writing of the saga and I really liked Roland's previous ka-tet.
The Force Awakens.
The Rise of Skywalker.
Alien Resurrection.
AND SPECIALLY:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
The Rise of Skywalker.
Alien Resurrection.
AND SPECIALLY:
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Halo 5 because its goals were retcon Cortana back, instigate a Spartan fight, and make Arbiter cooler
I love the later Dune books that Frank Herbert wrote. Bashar Miles Teg, Honoured Matres, No Ships etc.
His son's efforts, no.
I wouldn't say it's quite fanfic levels of bad. In a vacuum it'd be a serviceable albeit fruitless movie. It truly fails as a sequel to the excellent first film though which traded in subtle menace, overt dread and nuanced performances punctuated by shocking pockets of violence.
The sequel forgoes most of that, the inimitable styling of Denis Villenueve and any nuance whatsoever in favour of a generally dark story with more obvious violence which is all but revelled in.
I'll probably still watch a third instalment though.
The novel Hannibal been mentioned yet?
Read Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon after liking the movies to date (Manhunter and SotL), and it was just so, so bad.
Read Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon after liking the movies to date (Manhunter and SotL), and it was just so, so bad.
Is there an opposite to fan fiction? Like a fanboy fiction that seems dedicated to methodically reject the concepts of the predecessor?
Because,
Edit:
This is it. "spite-fic"
Because,
Edit:
This is it. "spite-fic"
Oh you're not alone. Quality wise I'm in the minority in regards to the Dark Tower.
Where you're pinpointing though is when King picked up the books against post car accident. His writing style changed and he was also off the drugs. Which I guess further answers this thread.
As much as I love the series, DMC4 and 5 have a bit of this.
DMC4: Dante has been replaced as protagonist by hot young hero Nero, who looks a helluva lot like him, except he's got more attitude, and his outfit is blue and purplish, reminiscent of Vergil and Sparda. Nero is also the son of Vergil somehow, and has a magical arm that gives him the power of pro wrestling, a giant revolver with two barrels, and a sword with a motorcycle grip that can rev and go "wroom wroom" for more power. Nero is in love with his adoptive sister Kyrie. Kyrie's brother, Credo, is Nero's commander in chief in their medieval castle city on the island where they live. Story starts by Dante crashing through the roof of a church and murdering the pope. Dante looks all evil and mysterious with pope blood on his face. Nero and Dante fight a bunch. Nero obtains Vergil's sword from DMC3 and awakens his demon power, which takes the form of a big blue ghost stand. Midway through the story, Kyrie gets kidnapped to further the true villain's evil plan, who wants to resurrect their evil god and bring about "salvation". Story ends with Nero saving Kyrie and beating the bad guy through the power of love. Dante lets Nero keep Yamato and also gives him a Devil May Cry neon sign he has available, so Nero can run his own branch of the Devil May Cry shop (which is a franchise, now, apparently).
DMC4: Dante has been replaced as protagonist by hot young hero Nero, who looks a helluva lot like him, except he's got more attitude, and his outfit is blue and purplish, reminiscent of Vergil and Sparda. Nero is also the son of Vergil somehow, and has a magical arm that gives him the power of pro wrestling, a giant revolver with two barrels, and a sword with a motorcycle grip that can rev and go "wroom wroom" for more power. Nero is in love with his adoptive sister Kyrie. Kyrie's brother, Credo, is Nero's commander in chief in their medieval castle city on the island where they live. Story starts by Dante crashing through the roof of a church and murdering the pope. Dante looks all evil and mysterious with pope blood on his face. Nero and Dante fight a bunch. Nero obtains Vergil's sword from DMC3 and awakens his demon power, which takes the form of a big blue ghost stand. Midway through the story, Kyrie gets kidnapped to further the true villain's evil plan, who wants to resurrect their evil god and bring about "salvation". Story ends with Nero saving Kyrie and beating the bad guy through the power of love. Dante lets Nero keep Yamato and also gives him a Devil May Cry neon sign he has available, so Nero can run his own branch of the Devil May Cry shop (which is a franchise, now, apparently).