Endgames, in movies & TV shows...
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Monday, January 18, 2010 16:47
VIEWED: 3793
PAGE 1 of 3
Some movies & TV shows start out strong, then falter towards the end. Others get better as they go. Still others begin boldly, lose it in the middle, and gain grace at the end.
What shows/movies do you feel went through a process that fundamentally changed them, for better or worse?
My initial examples would be Buffy, ALIAS, Firefly & the Matrix films. Buffy seemed (to me) to lose its way somewhere between season 5 & 6, only to come back strong for its finale. ALIAS lost it between season 3 & 4, to regain excellence in 5. Matrix was great out of the gate, then petered down to nonsense in the sequels.
Firefly was an anomaly IMO. Great from the gate, & groovy at the movie.
Thoughts? Additions to the list?
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I'd agree with all of those, except Matrix.
I think I'm one of the few people who actually liked Matrix Revolutions. The first one is still the best, I kinda dug parts of Reloaded, mainly actionwise, but Revolutions I quite enjoyed, as unnecessary as the sequels were.
Other examples....the Harry Potter movies, in my opinion, as much as I like the first few films, they're getting much stronger lately (although a lot of people disagree). I feel the last 2 films have been particularly great. (Goblet of Fire wasn't as good as Azkaban, Phoenix or Half-Blood though.)
I think I'd say that Angel got better over time. I liked all of it, but it definitely grew stronger toward the end, when we started getting much more arc-based seasons, as opposed to standalone episodes.
Scrubs started off well, has been slowly getting worse, and has now pretty much died with it's latest season (although I still watch it, just because I feel some sort of obligation.)
ETA:
Dollhouse has been getting better and better lately. It started off fairly well in season 1, and got absolutely brilliant by the end. Season 2 started off well, and again is getting much better toward the end.
Dexter is a show I loved in season 1, liked in seasons 2 and 3, and loved again in season 4.
And I feel Lost has been terrific throughout so far, with the exception of a few standalone episodes here and there, that felt like they were there just to fill the episode order. Thankfully, they don't have them anymore!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Is Lost better than Fringe?
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I've fallen behind on Fringe actually. Only ended up watching the first 6 episodes of the first season. And not because it wasn't good. Just because my brother and dad want to watch it with me, and I'm not allowed to watch it without them. This therefore means that we'll never watch it, as we're never all free at the same time. I'll just have to sneakily watch it sometime.
From what I've seen though, yeah, Lost is probably better.
I love Lost. It's not for everyone though, and I can understand why some people don't like it.
But personally, it's one of my absolute favourites, and if you want to watch it, I recommend you start now, before the ending is ruined for you.
The final season is upon us.
4.8.15.16.23.42
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
If the reviews of Lost's finale suck, then I saved my coin. If they're great, the I must collect from season one.
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
chrisisall wrote:
Friday, January 15, 2010 19:10
Matrix was great out of the gate, then petered down to nonsense in the sequels.
The new Battlestar Galactica was awesome at the beginning but grew to be nonsensical and then just utter tripe..
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I don't know why, but too many shows that go 7 seasons seem to really falter in Season 6. Buffy did it, to a degree. The West Wing did, Gilmore Girls, even The Shield. Season 6 starts just feeling like nothing more than filler, just a crappy bridge to get to a big finish.
By the way, The Shield didn't really undergo a fundamental change, but there WERE some serious surprises. It was one of the best series finales I've seen. It was wrong, but it was oh-so-RIGHT. But I'll not spoil it for those who haven't seen it.
Mike
Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
If the reviews of Lost's finale suck, then I saved my coin. If they're great, the I must collect from season one.
The laughing Chrisisall
Fair call. Here's to hoping they're awesome.
Honestly, I reckon 50% of people will be disappointed, regardless what the outcome is. It just won't live up to whatever grand pedestal they'd placed the show on. That's what I think anyway.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Hmm. Just off the top of my head:
Star Trek The Next Generation's "All Good Things. . ." set the bar for a finale, neatly book-ending the series with Q's trial, callbacks to the first episode, and a glimpse of a then-possible future, while leaving the floor open for continuing stories.
I'll count Nemesis as a second TNG finale, which I deeply enjoyed; it touched on what I consider to be the fundamental meaning of Trek (are we simply products of our environment, or can we choose to improve ourselves?), and closed one chapter of the crew/family's career while opening another.
Deep Space Nine's "What You Leave Behind" took the bar that TNG set and raised it; ending but a chapter, while leaving the characters and storyline clear for other authors to follow (and thereby setting the stage for a Golden Age of Trek prose --after DS9 is when Pocket decided to pull a Star Wars and start weaving the self-contained novels into a cohesive universe. The Status is no longer Quo.)
I consider "Terra Prime" to be Enterprise's finale ("These are the Voyages" has all but been officially scrubbed from canon), and it's glorious. Resolution to the Trip/T'Pol romance, a reminder of another of Trek's themes (do we hide our heads in the sand, struggling to solve our own problems and protect what little we have, or do we have the courage to boldly go where no one has gone before?), and, ultimately, a hint of what's to come (human/Vulcan hybrids, the Romulan War, a United Federation built on trust, respect, and compassion).
Prison Break managed to find a cathartic end point to Michael's saga. Wasn't necessarily a totally happy ending, but after the non-stop tension of the last few seasons, the story clearly ended.
Oban Star Racers started out awesome, then became moreso. The only change I would've made to the ending would've been the payoff to the romantic arc --Nourasia and Earth are clearly heading for an alliance, and I know an Earth girl who'd make a great ambassador to meet with the Nourasian prince. . .
Stargate SG-1: I loved the non-finale of the series (just another day at the office), and the DVD movies haven't let me down yet.
Transformers Animated's "Endgame" was awesome, but ultimately fell short. Inexplicably, the most well-loved Transformers series ever was cancelled, and the writers didn't quite manage to tie up all the plotlines. The final battle for Earth was a Crowning Moment of Awesome for everyone, the Allspark shards were recovered, Sentinel is discredited, Optimus is ascendant, Ratchet finally saved Arcee, Starscream is dead --but Magnus is still in stasis, we still don't know where Sari came from (or if she'll be returning to Earth [and her dad], or staying on Cybertron), Team Charr is still at-large, Blurr's death is unavenged, Starscream's body is unaccounted for, Swindle is still out there somewhere, and we have no concrete word on what happened to the Constructicons, the Dinobots, Wreck-Gar, and Slipstream.
Voyager wins the prize for the worst finale in Trek; "Endgame" featured out-of-character behaviour from practically everyone, ended with a guillotine before any actual resolution could be offered, and further reduced the Borg to a laughingstock.
-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Y'know, I really need to get that season on DVD! Thanks for the reminder!
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
I consider "Terra Prime" to be Enterprise's finale ("These are the Voyages" has all but been officially scrubbed from canon), and it's glorious. Resolution to the Trip/T'Pol romance, a reminder of another of Trek's themes (do we hide our heads in the sand, struggling to solve our own problems and protect what little we have, or do we have the courage to boldly go where no one has gone before?), and, ultimately, a hint of what's to come (human/Vulcan hybrids, the Romulan War, a United Federation built on trust, respect, and compassion).
The laughing Chrisisall
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME