I’m still on the marvel train, but I was fascinated by the comics already and really love to be in a Marvel universe “from the start” I really don’t have fatigue there, they even cut release a series every month and I happily consume it, lol
Almost finished watching all 20-odd James Bond movies. Fun but Not sure I’d watch any more. No interest in other franchises I used to like e.g. alien or Indiana jones.
Jurassic Park was a good book and the original film was great. Just let it die, people.
I was done with everything Marvel after the 3rd Spiderman movie and 2nd Iron Man. Saw Endgame cuz of the memes, but will never watch another Marvel flick willingly again. Ditto for Star Wars after the latest trilogy.
Star Trek is dead for me midway through Discover; just kinda stopped caring. Ditto for anything Lord of The Rings or Wheel of Time. Got halfway into the new stuff and just tapped out.
Fargo and True Detective were good a couple of times but kinda don’t care.
Regarding the Marvel movies, I’ve slowly been working through them because I missed the bus when they were big and only saw a handful here and there (Doctor Strange, Guardians Vol 1 and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man movies, which are actually pretty good).
I made it past the first Avengers movies and I think they start getting better after Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Avengers: Age of Ultron, but oh my gosh if the majority of the movies up to and including the first Avengers aren’t incredibly mid at best. I think watching them after all of the hype as they were coming out loses some of the charm, and I have to give props to what they accomplished creating a Cinematic Universe. But they are just so whatever.
Just kind of rambling, but the whole MCU seems to be incredibly over-saturated and I would be amazed if they are able to continue to carry popularity even close to what they had leading up to Endgame.
I’ve grown to the point of exhaustion with Marvel where I wont choose to see anything new on my own. They still make things I enjoy, like Loki, but unless a friend asks me to see it I wont even consider it. This isn’t just a superhero or quality thing either. I will still at least consider something by DC even though it has had a far worse track record in terms of me enjoying their output (though it’s still at a significant disadvantage).
Star Wars was a really early example for me starting to lose patience with franchises. As a kid, I devoured Star Wars content. I watched all the movies, read the EU, played the games, excitedly showed up to the theater for Episodes 1 & 2. But in the three years between 2 & 3 I was tired of it, and ended up seeing it after the movie came out on DVD because a friend put it on at their place. This is despite a very high success rate - I liked the EU stuff I was reading, I enjoyed Episode 1 (and to a lesser extent 2), I loved the games. Episode 3 did end up being a miss for me, but I think it might have been the first and it came after my exhaustion with the franchise.
In general, I don’t really have a fatigue for franchises. Though I’m growing more sensitive to the sorts of milking decisions studios etc will make to make money off of the franchise … and relatedly have a bit of a craving for stand alone films or stories.
Watching Ahsoka right now and enjoying it and the way it sits on the franchise.
Something I’m growing weary of is Star Trek. I’m rather tired of the obsession with prequels and the TOS era and really prefer they tried something new like in the TNG era. I’m not sure how many more times I can tolerate Kirk appearing in SNW.
Franchises have always struggled to reconcile the need to reinvent themselves on the one hand, and the need to retain those elements that attract fans to the franchise on the other. As a long-time Star Trek fan I also want the franchise to push forward and try new things (and in some ways recent shows have done so - eg Lower Decks being Trek's first sitcom), but at the same time many fans just want to see the characters that they know and love, hence the obsession with bringing back - or tying new characters to - legacy characters (ala Strange New Worlds or Picard's third season). I wish they'd kept Kirk to the very last episode of Strange New World, and was even a bit disappointed to see the TOS Enterprise appear at the end of the first season of Discovery.
a bit disappointed to see the TOS Enterprise appear at the end of the first season of Discovery.
My memory is that many were to the point where there was some sort of consensus of concern about it loud enough that the show runners made assurances that S2 wouldn’t take place on the enterprise.
Sentiments have shifted since then, interestingly, to being more accepting of SNW evolving into a hard TOS prequel flirting with rebooting TOS. I can’t help but think it’s an MCU effect.
I think the fact that Anson Mount nailed it as Pike helped. (He followed in the footsteps of Jeffrey Hunter and Bruce Greenwood - all three Pikes have been really good.) Personally, I suspect that the more SNW edges towards being TOS the less I'll enjoy - or, more accurately, the less I'll respect - it.
Mount nailing Pike though is part of my problem. SNW’s promise was that it could be a very independent fork of TOS, an alternate take on what the show could have been that also happened to be consistent with the canon due to the 10 year time jump between the two pilots and the few constraints canon put on the period.
Honestly I’m still enjoying most of the newer Star Wars shows! I was worried that Disney would ruin it entirely for me like they eventually did with Marvel, but I’ve really enjoyed almost everything that’s come out despite that god awful train wreck that was The Rise of Skywalker lol
I enjoyed the show too. So figured I’d enjoy the books. There’s a lot to praise the books for and I understand that the fandom exists … but IMO they are overrated and book fans hating on the show can get really toxic. The first three books are honestly kinda crappy in important ways that book fans struggle to even acknowledge or remember and reading them made me appreciate the show even more because of the stuff they had to struggle with in the adaptation.
I made it up to halfway through the fourth book, which is supposed to be the one where the series really gets going (yes, it doesn’t start until about 1.5 LotRs worth surprisingly repetitive story telling) and the best book of the series according to many … and I just had to stop. I felt manipulated as a reader and that the story was weirdly unsurprising or derivative feeling. There’s a lot to like about its scope and ambition and characters, but as an author I think Jordan/WoT has proper flaws that book fans just don’t acknowledge enough. AFAICT, the appeal for fans is the breadth of the world and a sorta soapy concentration on character stuff.
I posted my thoughts on the first three books over on !wheeloftime if you’re interested.
What kinda saved it for me was finding value in the Sauron / Galadriel arc. As a Galadriel fan I struggled with the show.
But in the end, the idea that Sauron and Galadriel had this one off sorta platonic/spiritual hook up that flirted with the possibility of joining forces is interesting and sticks on my mind. It’s a nice exploration of the canon idea that Sauron was maybe contrite for a moment and that Galadriel has a rich and special past. And resonates nicely with the Doom of the Noldor.
I didn’t like a lot about how the story was told, but there were kernels there that stuck with me.
Otherwise, I’m not sure I can tolerate the wizard being Gandalf. Like if they clarify that I might just be out. I’d prefer they don’t clarify it, maybe tease that it could be Gandalf, so that book/canon fans can safely have the head canon that it’s a blue wizard who happens to be similar to Gandalf in some ways while everyone else can feel comfortable with it feeling like Gandalf.
You know it’s Gandalf. Lol Just like you knew Halbrand was going to be Sauron. It’s the kind of amateur writing you’d get from inexperienced showrunners.
Pretty sure they didn’t get back in touch with PJ was because they were scared he’d overshadow them, regardless of how little he’d be involved.
But anyway, I enjoyed the show just enough to keep watching the rest of the seasons.
Add comment