7,868
edits
Genre Killer: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
No edit summary |
HLIAA14YOG (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| (5 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 10:
Compare [[Creator Killer]], [[Star-Derailing Role]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Watchmen]]'' and ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'' caused a period of [[Darker and Edgier]] comic books by starting a trend of comic-book [[Deconstruction]] and killing off the idealistic [[Silver Age]]-type [[The Cape (trope)|hero]] (until ''[[Kingdom Come]]'' made it viable again). Alan Moore, writer of ''Watchmen'', is incredibly aware of this, having spent a majority of his career after the novel trying to undo its influence on comics.
Line 28:
* It's said that ''[[Airplane!]]'' killed the [[Disaster Movie]] craze of [[The Seventies]] by making audiences unable to take them seriously anymore. While the genre was [[Popularity Polynomial|revived]] by [[The Nineties]] with movies like ''[[Armageddon]]'', ''[[Deep Impact]]'', ''[[Dante's Peak]]'' and ''[[Volcano]]'', which benefited from the development of modern CGI, the airliner-in-peril/stewardess-lands-the-plane trope won't be taken seriously again.
* Thanks to ''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]'' and ''[[Elektra (film)|Elektra]]'', it didn't look like there were be any leading ladies in comic book movies anytime soon after their release. More than a decade had to pass until a film about a film wiith a leading female comic character protagonist premiered, the 2017 ''[[Wonder Woman (film)|Wonder Woman]]'' film, and that was only because of her status as the [[Breakout Character]] in 2015 ''Batman Vs. Superman''.
* ''[[Cutthroat Island]]'' was an attempt to revive the swashbuckling adventure movie. Instead it just sunk it farther down into its grave, along with [[Creator Killer|Carolco Studios and the careers of almost everyone involved]]. The genre was not exactly a thriving one at release, but this made sure no one would even attempt another shot at it. Until the creation of ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]''; but even then, no one seems interested in pirate movies that don't belong to that franchise.<ref>No, ''[[Master and Commander (film)|Master and Commander]]'' doesn't count. First, it was a period piece, not a swashbuckler. Second, it didn't revive the "wooden ships and iron men" genre, either - note the lack of sequels to that picture.</ref>
* [[The Western]] was a major film genre for decades before audience's appetites began to fade around the late seventies. ''[[Heaven's Gate (film)|
** Director Michael Cimino's notorious flop ''[[Heaven's Gate (film)|
* ''Heaven's Gate'' is also usually blamed for the end of the [[New Hollywood|auteur films]] produced by Hollywood in the 1970s. Other flops, such as Steven Spielberg's ''[[1941
* The film ''[[Hello, Dolly!]]'' had, for quite some time, the reputation of having killed the big-scale movie musical, as it was a flop for many
** It was more the music than the form: either they had to feature catchy pop (''[[Grease]]''), become [[Darker and Edgier]] (''[[Cabaret]]''), or both (''[[Saturday Night Fever]]''). Probably the killing blow was struck by the old-fashioned ''[[At Long Last Love]]'', [[Sarcasm Mode|which also held to the long tradition of hideously miscasting actors in musicals]].
* The failure of ''[[The Wiz]]'' caused studios to give up on movies with mostly black casts for some time, outside of [[Uncle Tomfoolery|comedies]], [[Salt and Pepper|black cop/white cop pairings]], and "urban" dramas. The smash success of [[Tyler Perry]]'s films have helped Hollywood take more note of the African-American movie dollar.
* The disastrous failures of ''[[Cleopatra]]'' and ''The Fall of the Roman Empire'' killed the [[Sword and Sandal]] epic for over three decades, until ''[[Gladiator]]'' [[Popularity Polynomial|revived the genre]]. There have been a number of Roman and Greek-era action films in the following years.
* The twin failures of 2007's ''[[Hostel|Hostel: Part II]]'' and ''[[Captivity]]'' brought an end to the "[[Gorn|torture porn]]" subgenre of violent horror films. The ''[[Saw]]'' series endured for a few more years as a [[Franchise Zombie]], but the only other subsequent standalone theatrical release in the genre, 2009's ''The Collector'', played to empty theaters, and ''Hostel: Part III''
* The ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' films are an example of one series' smash success making it impossible for subsequent films to live up to it.
* The first ''[[Scream (film)|Scream]]'' was an attempt to do this deliberately. [[Wes Craven]] felt that the [[Slasher Movie|slasher genre]] had grown tired and stale by the mid-'90s, and so he made a movie that picked apart and [[Lampshaded]] the tropes of the genre, which he felt would make it impossible to take seriously anymore. Did it work? Well, there were three sequels and [[Follow the Leader|a host of copycat films]], so clearly, [[Springtime for Hitler|it didn't go as planned]].
* Many film historians consider ''[[Psycho]]'' to the be movie that killed [[Film Noir]], as the purpose of the first hour or so is to continuously set up and subvert the tropes of that genre.
* ''[[Psycho]]'' and ''[[Bonnie and Clyde]]'' killed off many of the tropes associated with the [[Hays Code]], specifically with how violence was represented onscreen.
** ''Psycho'' killed an entire type of filmgoing: it's unthinkable now to just pay for a ticket halfway through a movie and catch the first half in the next showing, but people did it all the time
* ''[[School of Rock]]'', being a send-up of inspirational teacher movies, basically killed that sub-genre and created a new type of sub-genre where the teachers are rather useless (such as ''[[Half Nelson]]'' and ''[[Bad Teacher]]''). Recent{{when}} attempts at reigniting the sub-genre (such as ''[[Freedom Writers]]'' and ''[[Larry Crowne]]'') have been critical and box office disappointments.
* ''[[Quest for Fire]]'' effectively killed the serious caveman movie by setting the bar so high that nobody could hope to compete.
* ''[[Chicago]]'' was supposed to revive the Hollywood musical, but actually confirmed its death. The film succeeded by framing its musical numbers as fantasies inside Roxie’s addled mind. This suspended the audience’s disbelief, but also proved ''that it needed suspension''—that basic movie-musical conventions no longer work on their own terms.
** Oddly, it ''did'' revive the "backstage" musical, which we hadn't seen for quite a while.
* The [[3D Movie]] genre has been killed three times in the past six decades. The first culprit was ''The Moonlighters'', a forgettable Warner Western starring [[Barbara Stanwyck]] and [[Fred
** Studios have more of a vested interest in keeping 3D around this time - 3D movies are much harder to [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|pirate]], a feature that the industry appreciates very much.
* If it didn't kill it, ''[[Die Hard]]'' certainly did serious damage to a certain type of action film. Before ''[[Die Hard]]'', action films mainly consisted of enormously ripped military types who carried massive weapons and were always undoubtedly going to succeed. John McClane had a lot more appeal, as he was really just [[Unlikely Hero|an average guy in a situation he couldn't control]], and the film had a lot more knowing humor. The new resonance inspired a whole fleet of imitators (in the nineties, every action film was [[Die Hard on an X|some form]] of ''Die Hard'') and all but ended the reign of stars like [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] and [[Sylvester Stallone]].
== Literature ==
Line 80:
* In parallel with Britpop, the British music press went hot for "intelligent drum'n'bass", the authentic new sound of black inner city Britain. Goldie's ''Timeless'' (1995), although a fine album, opened the door for floods of by-the-numbers d'n'b clones, and the genre quickly became a cliché of television background music and film soundtracks. His 1998 follow-up ''Saturnz Return'' was slammed by a jaded press as a self-indulgent, pretentious folly. The opening track, "Mother", was over ''[[Epic Rocking|sixty minutes long]]''. Both Goldie and intelligent drum'n'bass subsequently left the charts, never to return.
* Some people feel that [[Glam Rap]] and pop-rap are currently doing this to [[Genre Motif/Hip Hop|Hip Hop]], just as [[Hair Metal]] did to metal music in the late '80s. But like the metal example, straight forward rap/hip-hop was never particularly popular outside of urban communities. Even [[Gangsta Rap]] at its mid-'90s peak only created a handful of rappers with crossover appeal, most of them [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|powered by controversy]]. In fact, the only time rap in general has ever been hugely successful was when it was infused with pop. The same thing can be said for [[Hard Rock]], [[Heavy Metal]], and [[Country Music]]. The problem likely comes from the fact that pop oriented rap music just doesn't dominate top 40 radio, but the more urban specific niche radio as well. Causing a lot of resentment of that particular type of [[Hip Hop]] as it's the only genre radio is interested in playing now.
* [[Boy Band]]s were a huge thing back in [[The Eighties]] and [[The Nineties]], but the genre was eventually killed off in the early 2000s due to the rising success of white rappers and saturation of the boy band and girl group market, particularly by TV shows like ''Making The Band'' that didn't even try to hide their manufactured qualities. It didn't help that plenty of popular bands were already fading out of popularity — by the time the genre was done, most groups had gone on long hiatus ([[New Kids on the Block]], [[Spice Girls]], [[Nsync]]) or changed their musical style and faded out of popularity ([[Backstreet Boys]], [[Hanson]]).
* ''Live Earth,'' a massive benefit concert co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, was a dismal flop garnering low ratings (especially for the UK and US) and created a massive "carbon footprint," precisely the type of thing the organizers wanted to prevent. The failure of ''Live Earth'' is widely believed to have killed off the concept of the benefit super-concert (in the same vein as Farm Aid and Live 8).
* Depending on where you sit regarding Drum & Bass, Pendulum came close to this, by way of becoming the public face of the genre despite ''never intending to be in it''. Rob Swire himself isn't sure if this has happened, but appears to revel in it, as can be discerned from this extract from his rant on the Dogsonacid forums:
Line 104:
* [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]] is called that for a reason: Caused chiefly by an overabundance of competitors in a fledgeling market and competition from superior micro-computers, it killed ''the entire medium'' in the United States for about two years. Perhaps more importantly, it effectively wiped out North American game/console development, to the point where it took over two decades to fully regain the ground that had been lost to Japanese competitors. There wasn't a successful game console from an American company between the [[Atari 2600]] (dying around 1983), and the Microsoft [[Xbox]] (released late 2001). That's how badly it crashed.
** When [[Nintendo]] debuted the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] in 1985, they bundled it with a light gun and battery-operated robot peripheral primarily to disguise the fact that it actually was a ''video game'' console. [[Crazy Enough to Work|It worked]].
{{quote|[[Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|"You know what? Fuck off. Everyone's always bringing up that fucking robot."]]}}
** In the UK, meanwhile, it didn't even make as much impact as two years. Brits started using eight bit microcomputers as the main way of playing home videogames in 1982, which would last until the late 80s/early 90s when consoles started taking off (with the Megadrive and SNES)
* ''[[Free Space]] 2'' destroyed the space shooter genre born of ''[[Elite]]'' and popularized by ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]]''. It was not the fault of the game itself, which most critics consider the height of the genre and for which fans are ''still'' putting out new content both graphical and gameplay. Its initial sales were so bad that the genre was assumed dead and further development was halted. Many consider the real problem to have been Interplay's marketing.
** A common joke among fans of the game is that the reason it killed the genre was because it was so good that there was no point in making any further games: perfection had been achieved.
* The unfortunate retail failure of ''[[Unreal Tournament 3|Unreal Tournament III]]'', backed up by many freeware first-person shooters, has led to the end of commercially released fast-paced deathmatch-centric shooters as the ''[[Unreal]]'' and ''[[Quake]]'' series, in place of team-based and/or "tactical" shooters like ''[[Call of Duty]]''/''[[Modern Warfare]]'', the ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield]]'' series, and ''[[Left 4 Dead]]''. ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' is one of the few "Quake-like" games released in recent{{when}} years{{when|reason= the date of team fortress 2 is given, but there still needs to be a date given for this entry in case a bunch of 'Quake-like' games get released, if there hasn't already}}, and it came in 2007. Due to the continued updates, ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' could be seen as still being released. It could also be said for true tactical shooters in the vein of the older ''[[Ghost Recon]]'' and ''[[Rainbow Six]]'' games, the ones with planning and stealth as major elements and the slightest muckup lead to the death of your squad due to the line being blurred.
* The insane amount of [[Capcom Sequel Stagnation]] for the ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' franchise seems to have done this to the [[Rhythm Game]] genre in North America and Europe. ''Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock'' and ''Rock Band 3'', released in late 2010, have sold less than 1.5 million units combined, and the competition (''[[Power Gig: Rise of the SixString]]'', et al.) outright bombed. While these are respectable figures given that both games come with expensive peripherals, compare this to ''Guitar Hero 3'' (15 million units sold) and the original ''Rock Band'' (6 million), both released in 2007, and you can start to see how oversaturation of the market has destroyed the genre's profitability. Following the commercial disappointments of the latest installments, [[MTV]] has sold ''Rock Band'' developer Harmonix for '''''[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/01/viacom-sold-harmonix-for-50-saved-50-million-on-taxes.html fifty dollars]''''' and [[Activision]] has pulled the plug on future ''Guitar Hero'' games, and other developers, having bled money from their endeavors, have gotten out of the market.
** While the popularity of "dancing games" in the vein of ''[[Just Dance]]'' and its competitors means that the rhythm game genre has gotten a new life, their more casual gameplay and less need of specialized controls (as the motion controls needed to play them can also be used with other games) mean that the era of the rhythm games that needed special equipment is completely over.
* The [[4X]] [[Real Time Strategy]] subgenre was killed off when ''[[Empire Earth]]'' screwed up with its third installation and ''[[Age of Empires]]'' went bust with Ensemble closed down. Note that Ensemble going bust was [[Executive Meddling]] by Microsoft who shut them down after they cranked out nothing but successful games. Recently{{when}} resurrected with the long-awaited release of ''[[StarCraft]] 2'', however it only brought life to the online Multi-Player segment while the drawn-out single player campaigns are still not taken as seriously.
* The Tycoon genre died when ''[[Rollercoaster Tycoon]]'' title owner Frontier Developments was sued by Chris Sawyer. Coupled off with many famous companies which made such games going bust ended the Tycoon Genre.
* The execrable [[World War II]] FPS ''Hour of Victory'' seems to have killed off WWII shooters in the 2000s, with the only
* The [[Point and Click]] genre in its inventory management form was practically killed off by the success of ''[[Myst]]'', and was only
== Western Animation ==
* According to Stan Sakai, the reason the animated series of ''[[Usagi Yojimbo|Space Usagi]]'' was never greenlit was because of the flop of ''[[Bucky O'Hare and the
* The [[The Golden Age of Animation|1946]] [[Looney Tunes]] short ''[[Book Revue]]'' with [[Daffy Duck]] so thoroughly spoofed the "Things come to life in a store and have fun until they have to stop some book monster" plot that it effectively prevented anyone from picking up the plot again, unless as a direct homage.
| |||