Vindicated by History: Difference between revisions

Compare [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff]], where a different country does this instead of time, and [[Cult Classic]], where something gains popularity but not on a widespread/mainstream scale (although the two tropes sometimes overlap). See also [[Popularity Polynomial]]. Additionally, see [[Dead Artists Are Better]] for cases where the belated popularity occurs because [[Author Existence Failure|the artist is no longer around to bask in it]]. Contrast [[Deader Than Disco]] (something that goes from insanely popular to a popular target of mockery), [[And You Thought It Would Fail]] (a work that's expected to be a flop instead becomes a smash hit). Compare [[Acclaimed Flop]], when the work is a critical success but a commercial failure when it comes out.

{{examples}}

== Automobiles ==

* In Australia, the [[wikipedia:Ford Escort (Europe)#Australia 2|Ford Escort]] (the MkII version was the only one sold there) was never popular due to sales of large cars like the Holden Commodore and Toyota Camry, but now with the downsizing trend, it's again been vindicated by history. It's become a [[Cult Classic]] again (but [[Inverted Trope|on a mainstream scale]]).

* The [[wikipedia:Renault Safrane|Renault Safrane]], a luxurious hatchback with "edgy" styling. However, it's the originals (that is the Mk I, 1993-1996, and MkII, 1996-2000) which have now been seen as great, if underrated cars with excellent engineering. The latest Safrane, from 2008, is [[In Name Only|unrelated to this]], and a rebadged Renault Samsung SM5 / Renault Laguna.

== Film (Live Action, 1916-1979) ==

* [[German Expressionism|The German Expressionists]]

** Well-regarded filmmaker F.W. Murnau provides several examples:

*** ''[[Nosferatu]]'' was taken down by the estate of Bram Stoker, due to it being quite obviously a rip-off of ''[[Dracula]]'', and only survived in the form of pirated copies until ''Dracula'' entered the public domain (or more precisely, was discovered to have been public domain all along in the US). It single-handedly launched the idea of sunlight killing vampires.

** [[Fritz Lang]]'s ''[[Metropolis]]'' had the most advanced special effects of any film from the silent era, which nearly bankrupted the UFA Studio. The original Berlin premiere in 1927 was not a failure; however, the film did become one when its American distributor got hold of it and made drastic edits. Thanks to a 95%-ish complete print found in Argentina in 2008, fans of sci-fi are rediscovering just how much of a masterpiece it really is.

** G.W. Pabst's silent version of ''Pandora's Box'', considered today to be one of the greatest examples of Weimar Cinema, was overlooked by German audiences of the late 20s.

** ''[[Blue Velvet]]'' didn't turn much a profit at all ($8.6 million gross versus $6 million budget), but was well-liked by most critics who stuck by it and soon it was re-evaluated by the general public as among the very best pictures of the 80s.

* [[Tim Burton]].

** Burton's [[Biopic]] ''[[Ed Wood (film)|Ed Wood]]'' failed at the box office with a $5.9 million gross versus an $18 million budget. But there was was enough critical and industry affection for it that it won two Oscars (Makeup and Supporting Actor) and eventually became known as a great work.

* ''[[Buckaroo Banzai|The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai]]''.

** ''[[The Adventures of Baron Munchausen]]''

** ''[[Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]]''

* [[Woody Allen]]'s ''[[The Purple Rose of Cairo]]''.

* ''[[Highlander]]''.

* ''[[Stand and Deliver]]'' was completely overlooked on its release in 1988, buried amid a slew of big blockbusters. Critics are nowadays championing it as a top-notch drama.

** Weird Al [[Lampshades]] this in the DVD commentary. During the credits, he reads several poor reviews the film got, ending with one positive one (possibly the only one he could find). While ''[[UHF]]'' has soured him on the idea of ever doing a movie again, he seems pleased that people still enjoy watching it.

* ''[[Heathers]]'' was shunned in theaters for [[Unfortunate Implications|the perceived glorification of teen suicide]] ([[Satire|although this was not the case at all]]). It made $1.1 million against a $2 million budget. Upon arrival on home video it was a top seller, and is highly regarded nowadays.

* ''[[Licence to Kill]]'' was initially another disappointment of the blockbuster-heavy summer of 1989, further hurt by comparisons to the Bond films that had preceded it. This, combined with legal issues over the franchise, ensured that another Bond film would not be made for 6 years, and that [[Timothy Dalton]] would not return to the lead role. ''License to Kill'' has since been re-evaluated as among the best installments of the franchise.

** [[Timothy Dalton]]'s overall taciturn, violent portrayal of Bond is now considered to be almost prophetic, as it heralded [[Daniel Craig]]'s rendition of the character by nearly twenty years. At the time, most viewers had grown comfortable with Roger Moore's lighthearted Bond.

* [[Stendhal]] published ''[[The Red and The Black]]'' in 1830; he stated in his letters that he was writing books for the 1930s. That's around that time he was recognized as one of the greatest French writers of the XIXth century.

* ''[[Wuthering Heights (novel)|Wuthering Heights]]'' was too tough a sell when first published in the 1840s, but picked up notability a few years after the death of its author Emily Bronte. Modern readers hail it as a masterpiece.

** Most of the bad reviews were a result of the British edition leaving out the epilogue, resulting in an already difficult novel being completely incomprehensible. The American reviewers mindlessly parroted the British reviewers (even though most of their complaints were no longer true) because they were expected to act European to be considered sophisticated.

** There's also the fact that Melville's prior novels had essentially been adventure stories; fans who picked up ''Moby-Dick'' were in for a [[Mood Whiplash]].

* ''[[Police Squad!]]'' challenged the attention spans of American viewers in the early 80s. Only 4 episodes initially aired, but a few years later it became a cult phenomenon and inspired its creators Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker to revive it in the feature film ''[[The Naked Gun]]''.

* The first season of ''[[Cheers]]'' was the lowest-rated sitcom in 1982. Critical acclaim allowed the show to survive into a second season, which became a smash hit and effectively vindicated season 1.

* FOX's ''[[Space: Above and Beyond]]'' debuted to middling ratings and mixed reaction from critics and viewers when it premiered in 1995. The show, which centered around a group of outer-space Marine pilots fighting to stop an invasion by an otherworldly alien force, was roundly criticized at the time for being "''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' [[Recycled in Space|in space]]". It was cancelled at the end of its first season (due to peer pressure from parents' groups over the violence in the show), and appeared to disappear from the ether... that is, until stations like the Sci-Fi Channel and the Space Channel (in Canada) started airing marathons of the show, and audiences began to watch it in droves. It then picked up a cult following for blazing trails no other sci-fi series had done up to that point: highly serialized plots that relied on minor stories and comments from previous episodes, a realistic treatment of military politics, CGI used as a narrative tool, gender and ethnic diversity, and permanent cast and story changes. It was even ranked in IGN's list of Top 50 Sci-Fi TV Shows. Today, the show is considered to be one of the defining sci-fi series of the 90's, and helped shape the current wave of serialized sci-fi shows (like ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'').

* ''[[Freaks and Geeks]]'' lasted one season and was seemingly forgotten once it was over. The show has since skyrocketed in popularity.

** Rolling Stone readers voted Pinkerton the second worst album of 1996 at the time. In 2002, Rolling Stone readers voted it the 16th best album of ALL TIME. Quite a reversal indeed. The only major magazines who gave Pinkerton praise at the time of release were Pitchfork and the NME.

* [[Nas]]' sophomore album ''It Was Written'' was dismissed by critics as not being ''Illmatic Part II''. It has since grown in status over the years.

* [[Beach House]]'s third album, ''Teen Dream'' was praised by some critics, but was called boring and meandering by many more others. The album also suffered mediocre sales (though it's the only charting release the duo had up to that point) and by the end of the year most Indie fans were decrying it as overrated. As 2010 came to a close, the album barely scraped "Best of the Year" charts and was labeled as being part of a "passing fad". One year later, people who were just discovering it started praising it and the album hit a second wave of acclaim and love. It doesn't look like it's about to fade back anytime soon.

** Part of the reason for it's failure to scrape the charts was because of it being [[Overshadowed by Awesome]] by [[Kanye West]]'s ''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' and most notably, [[Arcade Fire]]'s ''The Suburbs''. ''Teen Dream'''s subtlety got it labeled as "boring" in the wake of the other two albums' bold, loud sounds.

** Looking at [[The Other Wiki]], the long-running ''[[Castlevania]]'' series only has a handful of 3D games. On the [[Nintendo 64]], the series hit the [[Polygon Ceiling]] ''hard'' not too long after ''Symphony of the Night''.

* The Internet has been helping classic game consoles to get more recognition. For years, the NES was the oldest system that is still remotely greatly remembered. Consoles such as Sega Master System and well any game console that came before the NES were fading away into obscurity. However, as the Internet became more and more accessible, there was a lot more information on older games. Some may say that retro gaming is still relatively niche but the Internet has definitely made learning about them a whole lot easier.

* ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' and ''[[The King of Fighters]] '98'' were both derided as being primitive and having "SNES graphics" when they were released, thanks to the Dreamcast being able to produce competent 3D graphics and fighting games being a genre on the verge of extinction. 10 years later, after being re-released on more mainstream systems, did they finally find an audience with both tournament-level players and more casual gamers looking for an alternative to [[Real Is Brown|brown]], [[Darker and Edgier|grimdark]] [[First-Person Shooter|FPSes]].

* Many gamers who purchased ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' when it was first released were disappointed with it (probably because it was so different from the popular ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''). However, over time, the ''<nowiki>FF:T</nowiki>'' fans convinced enough people to try it (or give it a second chance) that it gained a lot of popularity. It was notoriously difficult for most gamers to try it for a long, long time; its initial sales were so poor that it was discontinued soon after release, and thus, once people discovered it and it gained its reputation, used copies sold on eBay for upwards of $150 (USD) until it was re-issued as part of the "Playstation Greatest Hits" line.

* The [[Sega Saturn]] is an even more glaring example. It never really caught on (due to [[Executive Meddling]] and botched marketing in the U.S.), but word of mouth through the Internet captured the interest of hardcore gamers looking to indulge in its arcade-perfect [[Shoot'Em Up]] and [[Fighting Game]] library. (In some cases, like ''[[Twinkle Star Sprites]]'' and ''[[Street Fighter Alpha]] 3'', the Saturn versions are considered superior to the Dreamcast versions!) There were the exclusives like ''[[Panzer Dragoon]] Saga'', ''[[Guardian Heroes]]'', and other notable titles that still can't be had on any other platform without emulation. As a result, it's seen as much less of a failure and more of a must-have for any hardcore gamer these days, especially those who like arcade games. The Japanese marketing campaign (which had a narrative arc featuring mascot Segata Sanshiro) was also discovered in North America years after the system died out, and was considered to be one of the most effective video game system campaigns of all time.

** It should be worth noting that to support that, when all the specs are put together, the Saturn may very well have been the greatest 2D graphics console of its time; alas, this was during a period when 3D graphics were being heavily pushed to the forefront - regardless as to how much better the Saturn performed in the prior category.

* Hard though it may be to believe, even the Super NES is an example of this. When the system first launched, it received a rather lukewarm reception from critics and gamers alike, who felt its initial lineup offered little beyond what was already available on the original NES. For example, Super Mario World (which is itself an example of this trope) was initially perceived as a stale rehash of Super Mario Brothers 3. And, over the next three years (give or take), the system played second fiddle to the Sega Genesis in terms of popularity and media coverage in the US. Over time, however, it gradually gained mainstream recognition and popularity, thanks in no small part to such revolutionary games as Super Metroid and Starfox. It is now considered to be one of the greatest gaming systems ever made.

** One of the main reasons why Super Mario World's popularity grew over time was because, in 1991, its level of depth was unheard of in a platformer. So most critics and gamers initially evaluated it [[Did Not Do the Research|with little awareness of its many secrets and easter eggs]].

* ''[[Super Mario 64]]'' sold extremely well, but there was a considerable backlash against it from gamers (particularly from Nintendo fans who felt the company [[Jumped the Shark]] during the 32/64-bit generation). As late as the early [[Game Cube]] years it was still being routinely trashed by game journalists and forumgoers. Nowadays, ''Super Mario 64'' is recognized as one of the truly innovative games of its generation.

* When it originally released, many gamers disliked [[Super Mario Sunshine]] due to the voice-acted cutscenes and gameplay that was based more around the use of a water jetpack instead of traditionally jumping. Years later, Mario fans have come to embrace the title. It's still not the most popular Mario Title around, but it's reception is much better.

** After the release of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess]]'', a similar phenomenon happened to ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', which (until then) was castigated for its lighthearted, cel-shaded artstyle and sea-based gameplay.

* ''[[System Shock]] 2'' was the sequel to a moderately-successful cyberpunk [[First-Person Shooter]] (that unfairly received comparisons to the original ''[[Doom]]''). The sequel, which had players step into the role of a soldier trying to stop a viral infection and insane AI on a now-deserted spaceship, was plagued with development problems. Although the game did receive several awards and some positive reviews, it failed to meet sales expectations and appeared to be an inferior ''[[Half Life]]'' knockoff. Fast forward a decade later, and ''SS2'' is regularly quoted on "[[So Cool Its Awesome|best game of all time]]" and "[[Nightmare Fuel|scariest game of all time]]" lists, to the point of almost every major gaming website giving it accolades and the game itself creating a [[Spiritual Successor]] in the form of ''[[BioShock (series)]]'' and ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]'' over the years. Both ''System Shock'' and its sequel have also continued to receive significant support from the fan community in the form of mods and graphic upgrades, moreso than most other older games.