Troubled Production: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Gex]]'', as discussed by one of the programmer [http://games.greggman.com/game/gex/ here]. The development team was inexperienced, overworked to the point of doing 12 to 16 hours a day, understaffed and rushed to finish the game for Christmas. A lot of content was cut due to time and manpower constraints, and the Lead Designer was fired after hiding an insulting message that included an employee's actual phone number.

* The infamous ''[[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (video game)|E.T. The Extraterrestrial]]'' for the [[Atari 2600]], which was so [[Christmas Rushed|rushed]] that it ended up to be made just in six weeks. Considering that it was made basically by a single person, Howard Scott Warsaw, and that programming for 2600 was notoriously idiosyncratic, it's actually a minor miracle that the game is playable at all. The game was enormously hyped by the Atari's marketing department, so when it turned out to be [[So Okay It's Average]], the failed hopes of the gamers led it to be an enormous flop and to its (somewhat undeserved) reputation of both being So Bad It's Horrible and almost singlehandedly causing [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]].

* The [[Sega Saturn]] game ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic X-Treme]]'' is perhaps the most tragic example of all, as unlike the other examples here, the game was never finished. The problems started when the design team decided to use the ''[[NiGHTS Into Dreams|NIGHTS]]'' engine for the game, but Yuji Naka would have none of it and forbade them from using the engine, setting the developers back several weeks, then the publishers decided that they wanted to use the engine in the boss battles for the whole game, causing further delays, Chris Senn ended up doing most of the work himself, tirelessly working 20 hours a day until doctors told him he had 6 months to live, he then realized that there was no chance of finishing the game before the holiday season, so there was no choice but to pull the plug on the game.

* ''[[L.A. Noire]]'' completely destroyed Team Bondi due to the lead designer having [http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1179020p1.html serious rage issues] and treating it like his [[Magnum Opus]]. In order to get the game back on budget, they hired and chewed up nearly every budding game programmer and artist in Sydney and they were so hostile that publisher Rockstar publicly swore off ever working with them again.

*** Thankfully, injures were minimal compared to ''Kickassia''. However, the few that did happen created controversy shortly before SK came out. During filming, Elisa of Team [[The Nostalgia Chick|NChick]] was duct taped to a wall and got a little overheated. Somehow this got interpreted as "crucified upside-down" and one of the site's biggest critics used this info to try and "ruin" TGWTG. Thankfully it didn't go anywhere.

** ''[[To Boldly Flee]]'', the Year 4 special, in contrast with the above, has little to no injuries, but it had a ''very'' rushed and constrained scheduled (about a week to film enough content for a three hours film), during which Doug Walker was in a yet another depressive mood and got very emotional on his scenes. To made up for the smooth filming, the ''post-production'' was the troubled one, with the special effects insertion and edition taking more time than expected, and then the servers refusing to upload the files, having to show the episodes each two days instead of daily as originally announced.

* On a smaller scale, the big crossover review between [[The Nostalgia Critic]], [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]] and [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] for ''[[Alone in the Dark]]''. To begin with, Doug Walker had lost his voice the day before Spoony and Linkara arrived in Chicago (hence the use of [[Synthetic Voice Actor|text-to-speech]]). Secondly, construction work was being done outside Doug's house, so they had to film the review in Doug's basement. In addition, they didn't decide which [[Uwe Boll]] movie to review until the day they started writing. Spoony gives the scoop [http://spoonyexperiment.com/2009/09/10/alone-in-the-dark-noahs-commentary/ here].

 

** ''[[Bolt]]'' suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'' director Chris Sanders, who wanted to make another quirky animated family film. To that end, he envisioned ''American Dog'', which followed a popular television star dog named Henry who (after being knocked out and waking up on a train to Nevada) enlists the help of two other talking animals, including a cat and oversized bunny rabbit, to drive him back home (while believing he's still in a television show). The film went through several different cuts (and suggestions from [[Pixar Regulars|John Lasseter and other Pixar directors]] on how to improve the film), but Sanders reportedly rejected all of the changes. Lasseter then fired Sanders from the project, and the film was drastically reworked (under a constrained timeframe) into the final product. Tellingly, ''American Dog'' is not mentioned anywhere on the film's DVD features, and only receives a passing reference in the making-of book ''The Art of Bolt''.

* The film version of ''[[Astro Boy]]'' managed to go through no less than three different directors, several different writers and a budget that spiraled out of control due to constant production delays. The bottom fell out when the film's production company went bankrupt a few months before opening. The final product manages to show the chaotic production with its unevenness and lack of direction in terms of plot.

* The CGI filim ''Foodfight'', a production of Threshold Entertainment and directed by Lawrence Kasanoff<ref>The producer of, among others, ''[[Mortal Kombat: Annihilation]]''.</ref>, is a peculiar case in which its [[Troubled Production]] is more fascinating than the movie itself. Originally slated for a Christmas 2003 release and reaching a budget of $45 Million, it faced several setbacks and issues, forcing the studio to constantly postpone the film's release.<ref>In fact, the original animation files even went missing in what's claimed to be an act of "corporate espionage."</ref> The movie eventually did see a mainly [[Direct to DVD]] release in 2012, the final product being an utter trainwreck to the surprise of no one.

* ''The Emoji Movie'', a CGI film released in 2017, is a peculiar case as its production coincided with, though not directly responsible for the cancellation of [[Genndy Tartakovsky]]'s planned ''[[Popeye]]'' movie, itself a victim of [[Executive Meddling]] prior to its end. The film in question, already one of the worst animated movies of the year upon release, has also gained notoriety for being a virtual "perfect storm" example of [[Executive Meddling|poor and shoddy corporate decision making]]. This is complete with rushed development and its own share of controversy prior to its release, be it questionable marketing or excessively politicized PR. To say nothing of the scorn heaped upon it even before the movie was finished.