Worst Fifth Film In A Series

all final frontier haters:

http://www.millionaireplayboy.com/mpb/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/good_trekv_04.jpg

how about anything w/ that massive bore Captain Picard?

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, November 10, 2017 5:33 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm with morbs here, the mediocre-to-shitty tng movies are significantly worse than final frontier to me, which at least has stupid shit happening constantly

final frontier also has that excellent scene where sybock breaks down the mental barriers of the whole crew

so many choices.

Went for the Die Hard disaster, because I enjoyed all the previous ones (yes I liked the fourth one)

First Contact > Generations > Final Frontier > Nemesis > Insurrection

Also Attack of the Clones is good and you are all crazy.

breathtaking switch from otm to v def notm from phil d's last two posts there

otm

though tbh basically everything below 'first contact' in that list is equally bad in a slightly different way. final frontier and insurrection maybe the most similar, for feeling really cheap and lazy and flat and boring.

Phantom Menace is worse than Clones is worse than not bothering to see Sith.

though tbh basically everything below 'first contact' in that list is equally bad in a slightly different way. final frontier and insurrection maybe the most similar, for feeling really cheap and lazy and flat and boring.

one kinda unique thing about the pre-reboot trek movies, variable in quality though they undoubtedly are, is that no matter how shitty they might be it's still at least a little bit fun to check in with the cast and see what their characters have been up to

that being said, i'd chew glass before watching insurrection again

as before i suspect the worst is probably one i haven't seen, like the die hard or terminator ones (whose trailer just bummed me out endlessly, given how much i love the first one). or probably Saw V (I've only seen long portions of Saw III and they really really bothered me). or the animated ones, whose whole series are really ugly and dreary from what i've seen and god knows how bereft they would be by the fifth installments.

wikipedia can't make up its mind about the pink panther numbering btw. some seem to think this isn't "really" the fifth one since Inspector Clouseau (1968) is missing all the major players. by this count, #5 is revenge of the pink panther and #6 is trail of the pink panther which is built around flashbacks of things peter sellers did in older films, since he was dead. that sounds like a real winner.

those that i've seen:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: serviceable, might accept case that it's the weakest in the series but these are all at least pretty good. main problems are inherited from the book, with the central plot driven, irritatingly, by harry's refusal to take anti-mind-control class seriously. fred & george vs. umbridge was fun IIRC.

Muppet Treasure Island: pleasant as noted upthread.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: cannot imagine watching any more of these after #3. somewhere on the Blank Check podcast, david sims cracked me up by observing the mentality apparently driving these sequels: "because that's what people like about the first one, right? a bunch of pirates turning into things? ... they're always sailing off to the goddamned indian ocean and turning into barnacles or something!" the prospect of bardem and depp trying to out-ham each other fills me with dread.

Prometheus: horrendously dumb and insulting but with occasionally beautiful visuals. the opening scenes with fassbender permit one the possibility of imagining something much more interesting. on the other hand all the goals and content of the plot are infuriating.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: dreary, tedious, characters are morons, effects look like hell. i admit that as a kid i felt some sense of drama and suspense when they arrived on the planet where they're expecting to find God. but this is easily in the bottom 2-3 of the entire series.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones: worse than Phantom Menace, nearly unwatchably ugly and tone-deaf. but almost worth it for the lols over the years. it was cool seeing christopher lee even if his character sucked.

Superman Returns: in hindsight i appreciate the desire to maintain and update the christopher reeve take, versus what they've chosen to do since. a small number of scenes work, and the airplane save is one of the best superhero scenes of the decade and genuinely got me excited and goosebumpy for that good old superman feeling. otherwise though a slowwwwww and wince-inducing failure.

You Only Live Twice: racist, too long, boring. only memorable (and not awful) thing is ken adam's design for the evil headquarters, which is possibly his masterpiece.

X-Men: First Class: this was fun IMHO despite some cheaping-out on the forgettable evil mutants and the terrible handling of Emma Frost, a fantastic character who could have become a series icon if written intelligently. the period setting and fanservice/prequelly stuff was
generally cute rather than annoying (except "I was wrong, you're not a nerd... you're a BEAST!!" or whatever). central performances are great. fassbender should be in every fifth movie in a series.

voting star trek. clones is probably objectively worse but i only had myself to blame for going back to the theater after the first one.

the only ones of these I've seen are:

Fast Five: where I came in to the series, and better than any of the others I've watched since [part of 1, part of 2, all of 3 because a cat was sitting on me, 6 and 7 in the cinema. am off the bus until Lin returns.]

Star Trek V: even as a kid this was weak gruel but Spock's flying boots ruled

You Only Live Twice: some cool set pieces, disappointed kid-me for ditching all the plot and themes of the novel

saw a large bit of Seed Of Chucky on TV once, seemed like it was probably great

btw Doc Casino: Fully Loaded is the SIXTH Herbie film - it's no less of a reboot or remake than the Peyton Reed / Bruce Campbell TV version.

TV and VHS entries don't count towards numbering... otherwise i'd be including all those series that became direct-to-video after the second or third movie.

similarly, ernest's first feature-length adventure was a direct-to-video item titled Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam which i'd never heard of until preparing these polls and which i am not counting. that series is such a weird throwback anyway, more like a three stooges deal where every time he's working a different job at a different place... no other characters recur AFAIK, there's never any reference to previous events, it's just, hey, ernest is in this new situation! i haven't seen any of Tyler Perry's movies but i get the sense they may be keeping this tradition alive in the 21st century, with Madea just popping up to deal with these different situations.

i did skim the herbie: fully loaded wikipedia entry and it seemed like it was meant to take place within the existing herbie continuity...? the connections are vague enough that i'm sure it doesn't really play like a 'sequel,' but it's not like they tell a new origin story for the magical car, and it's explicitly arriving from some previous series of adventures:

Herbie, a Volkswagen Beetle, is towed to a junkyard after losing several races, and Ray Sr. takes Maggie to the junkyard to buy her a car as a college graduation present. After Maggie selects Herbie, she finds an anonymous note in Herbie's glove box, possibly written by Herbie's old owner Hank Cooper (from the 1997 film The Love Bug) or Jim Douglas (Herbie's original owner from The Love Bug and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo) which reads: "Please take care of Herbie. Whatever your problem, he'll help you find the answer".

(from the 1997 film The Love Bug)

^ by your own petard

hahaha but that's just some wiki editor! i don't have to use their same criteria!

I voted Terminator Genisys because at least the other movies at least try to have a plot.

at least

Would like to hear more about sic's cat-scale of movie rating

re: Die Hard discussion above, the production history of the third one is kind of hilarious

Like most of the films in the series, the premise of this film was repurposed from a stand-alone project. Various scripts were written for Die Hard 3; a number of them were ultimately rejected by Bruce Willis on the grounds that a number of them felt like retreads of the action movies that came in the wake of the first film.[3] One script, originally titled Troubleshooter, had McClane fighting terrorists on a Caribbean cruise line, but was rejected for being too similar to Under Siege.[4] Troubleshooter was later repurposed for Speed 2: Cruise Control.[3]

The script ultimately used was intended for a film entitled Simon Says, originally positioned as a Brandon Lee vehicle, and the character of Zeus was written with an actress in mind. Warner Bros. bought the script and rewrote it as a Lethal Weapon sequel. Warners later put the script in turnaround, only to be purchased by Fox and rewritten as a Die Hard film.[3]

god that explains so much

only memorable (and not awful) thing is ken adam's design for the evil headquarters, which is possibly his masterpiece.

Amazing theme song/score as well, c'mon.

also Donald Pleasence is the best Blofeld

I forgot both of those but yes - agreed on both counts. Still would rather watch any other Connery Bond, assuming I'm allowed to fall asleep during Thunderball.

pleasence is the best blofeld, regardless it takes 100 years to get to his scenes

Still would rather watch any other Connery Bondp

It's better than Diamonds Are Forever, surely?

I kinda like that one's low-rent weirdness... Bond in a completely ordinary, low-speed car chase in Vegas, stuck getting in and out of parking lots... driving around in dune buggies, escaping from tunnels etc. Good use of a John Lautner house with the campy Bambi and Thumper stuff, nice bit at the beginning when he shows up at Jill St. John's place in Amsterdam... I dunno, there's more stuff I like. OTOH you trade racism for homophobia so on the whole I'd say dud.

Yeah, the death of the gay couple at the end as a button is pretty reprehensible, villains tho they are.

Then again, a ton of things about the series in general are pretty reprehensible. I'm fine never revisiting the Bond universe again tbh.

i had a lot of fun going through the whole series recently but it is.... mostly not very good

Thing about bond is that it's treated like blockbuster/classic/quality stuff when the only way to enjoy it is by treating it as cult/niche/bargain bin trash or as a guilty pleasure.

There isn't four good movies in the job lot otherwise

yeah I think I've posted about this before but it's so bizarre how they're thought of as this top-drawer action-thriller series, when in reality the majority are rather tepid talking-in-rooms affairs punctuated by action that's typically shot and edited in a completely dull, flat fashion. i don't think there's an actually compelling, tense, high-energy action sequence until the dalton era. which is weird cause the same guy directed the last three moore snoozers. but anyway they're like sick-day comfort movies, not edge-of-your-seat spy thriller car chase movies.

I voted Terminator Genisys because at least the other movies at least try to have a plot.

no way, the problem with genisys is that is has too much godawful plot

Thing about bond is that it's treated like blockbuster/classic/quality stuff when the only way to enjoy it is by treating it as cult/niche/bargain bin trash or as a guilty pleasure.

I think the music and production design often lifts the series above that, but in terms of writing, direction and acting you're generally right.

Russia with Love and Goldfinger have great action sequences long before Dalton (Shaw/Connery on a train is one of the hardest hitting fight scenes ever imo). But after that it's one Dalton, first Brosnan and 2/3 of a Craig out of what, 25 big budget efforts?

Yes to music, no to production design, possibly offer marketing/branding instead

i remember From Russia with Love being pretty damn good, and of course about a third of it is a ripoff of North by Northwest.

yes James Bond sucks obviously

nah I'll defend the design - the evil lairs are awesome in all but the weakest entries. and yeah the shaw fistfight rules. but people talk about the movies as if the posters never lie - wall to wall excitement and intrigue!!! - and it's nonsense, i mean you compare the boat crap in live and let die with, say, the big chase in the french connection and it's laughable.

From Russia With Love is good because it has an actual plot, unlike most Bonds. But have you seen Dr. No recently? Boring as hell up to the final act - almost nothing happens.

But maybe we should take this onto a Bond thread.

But after that it's one Dalton, first Brosnan and 2/3 of a Craig out of what, 25 big budget efforts?

man goldeneye is not that good

haha yeah i think we have some version of this conversation in each thread for each new bond movie. i think this is the most robust general bond thread: which is the best James Bond movie?

counterpoint: Goldeneye is that good and a bag of chips.

James Bond sucks, thread was right the first time

AF otm

Goldeneye sucks. bish bosh I'm smashing shit with a tank, vv secret agent

train fight in Russia With Love is great, and there are at least two good chases in OHMSS, the best Bond film

Voted other, for Scars Of Dracula (arguably the sixth film, if you count Brides Of Dracula, which I don't because Dracula isn't in it), I don't even like it that much but it's still my favourite fifth film.

Poll is for worst though :(

Silly me, forgot the damn title of the thread. I haven't seen a single one of these films in whole and don't intend to.

Goldeneye is the Bond that people roughly around my age (b. 1978) tend to love the most because it is the first one that we would have seen theatrically with our friends instead of watching on TV with our dads (that's exactly my experience, anyway; I'm told the massively popular video game might have had a lot to do with it as well). I watched it again a few years ago and thought it was pretty mediocre--for as much abuse as The World Is Not Enough takes, it has a better villain and more memorable scenes.