...so I'm working on a podcast series with some guys from work. we shoot the shit about nerd culture over wings and beers. that's pretty much the format. anyway, we are compiling an episode with a twofold topic. everyone's commented at length about how nobody expected star wars to amount to anything, but there are quite a few examples of films, video games, tv shows, music, and whatever else where serendipitous circumstances (good casting, perfect timing vis a vis culture at the time, etc.) turned something that should have been average at best into a staggering success. on the other hand, there have been quite a few films/games/whatever that seemed to have everything going for them, but either a change of directors or unanticipated political changes or some other combination of circumstances just doomed them to utter failure - or worse, forgettable mediocrity. kind of like how last action hero really wanted to be a witty, well-written send-up but nobody in the revolving door of creators could figure out just how straight to play it, so it ended up almost killing 90s action movies. can you think of any examples of either and maybe explain what you think went right/wrong? any contributions will be appreciated, and any I actually use will definitely be credited. thanks.
I recall when
Star Wars first came out, it got really bad reviews. Despite its budget and aesthetic quality, it was still fashionable to pan as juvenile and lowbrow anything in the science-fiction genre.
The original Star Trek tv series when it came out also received abysmal reviews, and only received the legitimacy it deserved over the years due to its enormous popularity (I was only 3 years old in 1966, but Allan Asherman in his book
The Star Trek Compendium quotes a number of the reviews from TV Guide and elsewhere).
The movie
St Elmo's Fire in 1984 had just about every up and coming "brat pack" star of the early/mid 1980's and unexpectedly bombed abysmally despite its star power. (And rightly so, it was an awful movie.)
And huge big-budget epics like
Waterworld and
The Postman that were expected to reap huge box-office went horribly the other way.
One I loved,
Eddie and the Cruisers(1984) bombed in the theatre, but then gained great popularity when it gained exposure on cable. (Two others starring Michael Pare that I loved,
The Philadelphia Experiment and
Streets of Fire also were enjoyable movies that ranged from bomb-status to very mild success.)
Wag the Dog(1997) and
The China Syndrome (1979), were two movies that enjoyed unexpected enormous success because they portrayed fictitious crises that actually occurred simultaneous with their release.
