TOP TEN Lists - This Week: "Blank Check" Media Projects.

6. Terradon/Ripperdactyl Riders (2013): As with the Stegadon and Bastiladon, GW nailed the plastic incarnation of these. It's still impressive now how they managed to get the same wing-sculpts to look as though they're swooping on the Terradons and more diving forwards on the Ripperdactyls to get two really different-looking units from the one set, and including the options to make one of the riders a Skink Chief or Tiq'Taq'To as well was just the icing on the cake. These were the first of the 8th Edition Lizardmen releases I bought in a family day trip to Dorchester not that long after they were released. I still sometimes wonder if just three of these chaps is enough...

7. Temple Guard (2009): A solid 7th Edition plastic kit that was a worthwhile upgrade on their metal 6th Edition predecessors, and looked more stocky and intimidating than the standard Saurus while keeping the long, powerful jaws and lean-but-strong build that the old plastic Saurus started and the 2011 Oldblood sculpt perfected. A significant stepping stone made toward getting the Saurus to look right before the 8th Edition release took things in the wrong direction.

8. Kroq-Gar on Grymloq (2003): The previous model for the Carnosaur was another good one released back in 6th Edition - a better-proportioned Carnosaur, perhaps, as others have said (though its larger head for its body size undeniably takes it closer to real-world predatory dinosaurs, and thus makes it less unique and fantastical), and a great pose for both mount and rider, but significantly smaller (fine in the day and age it was released but puny in comparison to standard-fare plastic monsters from the 8th era to the present) and with no options to make an Oldblood that wasn't Kroq-Gar (though this of course is no trouble for a skilled converter). Still a solid model though without a doubt, and easily worthy of an entry in the list.

9. Slann Mage-Priest (2023): Some prefer the older Slann model (though I always thought he looked vacant or bored rather than contemplative), but I like this newer plastic one - still fat, still froggy, and doing something to showcase his magical power, along with some beautifully-rendered jungle scenery and creatures including a baby Coatl. I do agree that the webbing on his feet was perhaps oddly executed, and I have a more interesting plan for a Slann conversion in the works anyway, but still a worthy evolution of a classic concept into plastic.

10. Raptadon Hunters/Chargers (2023): I liked these when they came out, like some of my other entries on this list they're a more unusual sculpt that, although obviously inspired by feathered dinosaurs, made sure not to follow any real-life creature too closely - just what I like to see. However, they only reach 10th principally because they're only officially usable in AoS, with no real counterpart in Fantasy without having to dig up some hokey Dogs of War rules all the way back from 5th Edition and tweaking them, and perhaps look more suited to AoS with their massive odd-looking clubs/blowpipes/lances that the Charger configuration wields. Of course I can write my own rules for these and use them in friendly games, and they'd certainly add something new to the Lizardmen army, and for that reason I still have given them a place on the list.

Honourable Mention 1 - Saurus Cavalry (2005): Without a doubt the most controversial pick from anyone for a while , but I've always liked our Saurus Cavalry models in a way that sadly not many others seem to. True, the Saurus riders are rather skinny for what they should be, but I've always liked the Cold One mounts themselves principally for the different direction they went, compared to the often weirder old sculpts that preceded them and in particular compared to the sculpts released for the Dark Elves in 2009 and the Lizardmen in 2023. I like how they look so different from any real-world dinosaur, with their big upper jaws and long claws that could easily showcase a willingness to feed on a piscine diet if fellow reptiles are scarce. They're a clearly fantastical creature designed for a fantasy world - just so Warhammer. By contrast the Dark Elf Cold Ones and the new Aggrodons are so blatantly obvious Velociraptor rip-offs, designed by guys who most likely watched Jurassic Park (or Jurassic World in the case of the Aggradons) before sculpting them, that, in my opinion at least, they look pretty bland and boring in comparison. I suppose the facts that velociraptors were never my favourite dinosaur, that I've still not yet taken the time to see the first two Jurassic Park films, and that I do not intend to watch the Jurassic World films because from what I've heard they offer so little to the franchise, also contribute to my general dislike of those newer sculpts.



Honourable Mention 2 - Salamander/Spawn of Chotec (2023): I really do like this version of the Salamander, very fitting with the Fantasy lore of it being a water-dweller that is sluggish on land, and the handler sculpts are pretty good too (I like the new invention of giving the handlers fan-shaped crests that look like the Salamander's sails). Why isn't it a main contender on the list, I hear you ask? Firstly, because it's much closer to a real-world Dimetrodon (and thus less imaginative) than the older metal versions, secondly because there is only one per box, when typically you'd want two or three, making this chap a particularly uneconomical way to build your hunting pack, and thirdly because no upgraded counterpart was made for his cousin the Razordon, which I've always preferred from a lore and gameplay standpoint. However he still deserves an honourable mention for being a good update into plastic and just generally being an aesthetically-pleasing model.

 

Great list.

 

Nice picks!

 

A nice list. Some oldies but goodies in there

 

A very solid list. Love for the Dread Saurian! I feel like I should have included the Terradons and/or Guard, too. I really like those models.

 

The new Kroak miniature is not better in every aspect. It's bigger and far more detailed, but that is not always better.


Great list by the way!

 

No surprise that we each prefer different versions. I'd say one looks more dinosaur-like and one looks more crocodile-like.

Hahaha... I was wondering if these guys were going to make your top ten. I'll take solace in the fact that they were only able to crack your honorable mentions! I wish we had gotten the Dark Elves' variant.


Interesting list, it's nice to see different selections.

 

That's fair actually... I thought the 'normal' Kroxigor versions more resembled the Stormcast Dragons than anything else, but now that you mention it there is also the look of a theropod dinosaur about them.

 

I think we need to tackle a new topic.

 

Topic #20 - Top Ten Disappointing Movies / TV Shows

The key word here is "disappointing". This differentiates it from the "worst" movies/tv shows, since something that you expect to be really bad which ends being bad, is not necessarily disappointing. Meanwhile, something that you are extremely excited for that then massively underperforms, results in a far greater level of disappointment.

With that in mind, I'll get us started with my list:

1. Game of Thrones Season 8 - I had such high hopes for this show. At one point Game of Thornes was my 3rd favourite show of all time. @Mrs. NIGHTBRINGER and I would always watch the episodes together, with great joy and excitement. Many people started to become disenfranchised with the show after season 5, but we loved it all the way through season 7. Season 8 was completely different. 6 episodes provided nowhere near enough screen time to wrap up all the major story arcs. Things felt rushed. The big bad fight against the white walkers was a disaster, with the extremely poor lighting (you could barely make anything out) and nonsensical decision making by the characters... a trend that continued until the very end of the series. This makes number one on my list because I simply never would have guessed that they would have botched the show this badly. The highest of expectations coupled with surprisingly poor execution.
2. Disney Star Wars Sequel Trilogy - the death of Star Wars. I've ranted so much about this that it isn't worth repeating here. The only reason this isn't number one on my list is that I found it conceivable that GoT S8 would be botched, but Star Wars has always had an element of hit-or-miss to it. That said, I never would have guessed that it could have ended up so badly by trilogy's end. I bitterly hung on to hope for much longer than I should have, but eventually it is simply undeniable. RIP Star Wars.
3. Captain Marvel - While I didn't have high hopes for this movie itself, I did have big expectations for the MCU in general. I would have never have bet that they would have flushed the most lucrative movie franchise of all time down the toilet. The MCU movies have been staple date nights for @Mrs. NIGHTBRINGER and I since the very beginning. While the MCU movies have always varied in quality, this marked the beginning of the end. It was also the first MCU movie that I didn't watch in the theaters.
4. The Hobbit - The LOTR trilogy was an absolute masterpiece. With Peter Jackson at the helm I expected this to be as good or even better (as I really enjoyed the hobbit novel). Sadly, this turned out not to be the case. It still had some enjoyable moments and some great casting, but it is an extremely steep fall from grace. Three long movies to cover one novel felt like a pure cash grab and ended up with a bunch of filler being pumped into the films. You might say it felt thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. The tonal shifts in the movie also were a big fail, with outlandishly goofy segments undermining the mood of the film.
5. Star Trek Discovery - We've seen the death of Star Wars and the MCU, well here is the Star Trek equivalent. This one falls lower on the list since outside of TNG, Star Trek doesn't come close to the other franchises for me.
6. Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie - What a shitshow this was. You can still find some old posts of mine on this forum discussing and excitedly waiting for this film to drop. Finally a Warhammer movie... if I had only known. It was riddled with low budget garbage animation that was laughably bad. Even so, the fact that Dan Abnett (who gave us some of the best Horus Heresy novels) somehow managed to pen such a poor and simplistic story for this film was the biggest surprise of them all.
7. Transformers (all live action films) - I grew up with G1 transformers, so I was excited for this. What a shame. All special effects and no substance. At the very least they could have made the Autobots and Decepticons look like their cartoon counterparts. At least then I could have derived some sort of enjoyment out of it.
8. The Last Airbender - Avatar the Last Airbender is my favourite TV show of all time... but man did they bungle this foray onto the big screen. The only reason this is so low on this list is because I was immediately wary of M. Night Shyamalan directing it. While he has some decent movies, I always felt like his style was not right for bringing a pre-existing franchise to the big screen. Turns out I was right, but despite that, it was still disappointing to see my most beloved show being desecrated on the big screen.
9. Gargoyles Final Season - the series had been great until the last season; truly a beloved childhood show. Sadly, they completely overhauled most of the producers and animators for the final season and it really suffered as a result. The show felt cheap and of low quality... a completely different end product. Disappointing.
10. X-men: The Animated Series Final Season - the exact situation as described directly above.

Dishonourable mentions: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, War for the Planet of the Apes, Lost (ending), Rocky V, Hulk (2003), Cast Away (final third of the movie)

 

Movies/TV that ended up disappointing me or are considered disappointments to most? I guess I'll go with just disappointing me.
Honestly, @NIGHTBRINGER has a pretty solid list. I'll probably just plunder stuff from that one.

-Star Wars Sequels and streaming: This is the obvious pick for this list but it's also a bit of cheat. It's a cheat only b/c I was worried from day one when I heard about Disney purchasing Lucasfilm. I was concerned Disney would milk SW for all it's worth... I guess in that sense I was not disappointed. Overall bad stories, bad characters and bad direction. TLJ just broke my resolve and I gave up. Rogue One and Mandalorian Season 1 were decent standouts.
-Star Wars Prequels: I don't want to get into an argument with @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl, but I was generally let down by the Prequels. They look better in hindsight, but I remember being disappointed by them at the time; especially II & III.
-GoT Season 8: Ah, Game of Thrones. The "Lost" of the 2010s... showing up right after that show ended. Hmmm. Anyway, what a rushed and clumsy final season. I don't know if it's because the writers only had rough outlines from Martin or the show runners were already checked out, but it was BAD. I have since heard a rumor that Martin has kind of written himself into a corner and isn't sure how to finish the series himself. I guess in a story that's built on subverting expectations, how do you hold to that and end it well? Maybe it was always going to be bad?
-Lost: Ah, Lost. The "Game of Thrones" of the 2000s. My wife and I really fell for this show. It's mysteries, it's clues and it's weird sidelines. Once again, maybe the idea of the mystery became too big to end in a satisfying way?
-The original D&D movie (2000): As a long-time player of RPGs, and D&D specifically, I was SO excited for this movie. Oof! I'm just going to go hide over in this corner for being so hyped about this movie.
-The Hobbit movie trilogy: The Hobbit is a great story. LotR has a more grand story, and it's a favorite of mine, but there's something perhaps more approachable and fairytale-like about The Hobbit. Anyway, coming to the screen after the epic that is LotR, maybe The Hobbit was doomed to struggle? In thinking about the story, it does cover some big events and a pretty big battle at the end. Still, I think the Hobbit movies focused on too many of the grand sweeping aspects of the LotR movies. That, plus some odd story choices, didn't make it feel like The Hobbit to me.
-Transformers "live-action" movies: Honestly, I think I'm more disappointed in the first Transformer movie in just a general sense. I both enjoyed parts and disliked parts of it. Most of the effects and action were pretty cool, and I can get past the villains not looking like the toys. But the transformers were a bit too visually busy, the dialogue was AWFUL, and human characters were lame. The sequels just made those things worse. Man! that original animated Transformers movie was so much better. Definitely kid-oriented, but a lot more fun.
-Iron Man 3: Okay, it's not the worst Marvel movie, but I remember being very disappointed by "Man Man 3" at the time (because there isn't much Iron Man in that movie). Plus, the story sort of ends with Tony just saying "By the way, I fixed everything that went wrong in this movie and with me from the previous movies... the end."
Marvel after "End Game": End Game finished a generally successful and monumental cross-over achievement for comic movies. One that may not be repeated? At the very least, maybe Disney/Marvel should have slowed down and taken a breath (and allowed fans to as well) before jumping back into movies and shows? I don't know, maybe it's just that the streaming shows feel rushed and watered down? Either way, it's just not that great.

There might be more, but this is enough disappointment for now.

 

Now this is an interesting one... funnily enough I don't believe I have watched much that has actually disappointed me, I certainly doubt I have enough for a Top 10... but I might be able to spread certain *trilogies* out to fill the list.

 

As with all of our lists, it's always about each of our personal picks. Completely subjective.

Not to worry, everyone seems pretty on board with the idea that all of our picks are purely subjective, and not a statement on what others should enjoy or not.

Personally I think III is the best of the (prequel) bunch. I definitely agree with your assessment of II, as it is easily the worst of the three in my opinion.

I think Martin has a golden opportunity. The show ended so badly that he has nowhere to go but up. He could completely throw the showrunners under the bus and finish the series in an entirely different way than depicted in the show. Sadly, I do not believe that he will ever finish the series. If he doesn't care all that much about legacy, he has no real incentive to. Financially, he is completely set and can pretty much do whatever he wants. It's a shame though, as a finished A Song of Ice and Fire series could stand as one of the best fantasy stories.

Glad you like it! I look forward to your list.

I guess you're not as much of a glutton for punishment as some of the rest of us.

Surely you can scour through your big book of grudges to fill out a list!

 

@Killer Angel and @Imrahil ... are you guys sitting this one out?

 

Yes. Don't have us make another list of disappointment: Top 10 forum member you were most disappointed didn't respond

 

All right, here's my blacklist of disappointments!

1. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens - We all know I despise the Sequel Trilogy as much as the next man, though where most people blame The Last Jedi for its decline, I've always blamed Episode VII for killing the Trilogy from the start. The first film in any trilogy, or indeed any series as a whole, is the setup film, and The Force Awakens (or The Farce Awakens as I like to call it) is about as soulless and insipid a setup film I've ever seen. Created by a man desperate to appeal to the ranks of OT purists who pressured George Lucas into selling Lucasfilm to Disney, even at its first screening, when I was so optimistic before seeing it, I recognised some of the scenes copying Episode IV, and the more times I've watched it, the more rehashed scenes I've picked up, and the more my opinion of it has soured. Add to that its introduction of wokism into the storyline and a big step back in the quality of world (and galaxy) building, and it remains easily the worst of all the Star Wars films in my opinion, and the biggest disappointment on my list.
2. Atlantis Series 2: For those of you who don't know of it, Atlantis was billed to be the Ancient Greek version of Merlin, a great series on from the late 2000s to the early 2010s. In its first series Atlantis was true to its word, concocting a solid story with tributes to a lot of Greek myths and beasties, and with solid acting from a good lot of British big names (including Mark Addy, Alexander Siddig and John Hannah). Yet as the BBC started becoming a mouthpiece for the wokist agenda toward the mid-2010s, coincidentally it lost interest in a good few non-woke projects, and Atlantis was one of them - they released a second series with the intention of attempting to finish its storyline so they could execute it with a supposed clear conscience. The trouble was that second series was a mess, with Alexander Siddig's character being poisoned offscreen after he had been saved at the end of the first series, the intellectual one of the main three characters being forced into a gay relationship to tick a diversity box (as an intellectual who hasn't had much luck with the ladies I found this attempt to push a stereotype a little insulting) and the ending generally rushed. Why have I put it so high, you ask? Because Atlantis was still very much a series in its infancy, and had the BBC not wanted to needlessly cancel it it would have built up its story a lot more gradually and with more respect to its characters (Merlin by comparison ran for 5 series and had an excellent ending that mirrored Arthurian legend well). Some of my other choices are down to the films in question simply being poor continuations to franchises that already had more depth and were reaching their end anyway, while Atlantis Series 2 was a needless mutilation of what was still a young, growing story with a lot of potential. All tragically wasted.
3. Oh Dr. Beeching!: As I've probably mentioned in some of my previous lists, I'm a big fan of the British sitcoms pioneered by Jimmy Perry and David Croft from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. Dad's Army and Hi-de-Hi! are fondly remembered across the country, and You Rang, M'Lord? took the No. 2 spot in my Best TV Shows list. Sadly that run of glory was not to last - the next and last of the series to feature a largely-common cast, Oh Dr. Beeching!, which emerged in the mid-90s, only lasted for two series of 30-minute episodes before being axed, compared to it's predecessors which all enjoyed longer runs and came to satisfying conclusions. For once I can see why it met this inglorious fate - where all three of it's predecessors consistently tickle me to this day, Oh Dr. Beeching raised far fewer laughs - many of the jokes just felt 'off', they had lost the consistent style of comedy its predecessors revelled in, and we're at best hollow attempts to mimic that successful comedy. The new actors added into this particular series all either played more serious characters or wee just blatantly unfunny. Even the Hi-de-Hi and You Rang M'Lord? old guard, though they obviously did their best, were not given nearly as many good lines to work with, and in the cases of Perry Benson and Barbara New, who played the two funniest characters in You Rang, M'Lord?, were just not used to their greatest potential. To this day I haven't finished watching the series on DVD, probably because I just couldn't bear to see the cast of my favourite comedy series being dragged into mediocrity. A real shame, as it could have been a really great, final farewell to the greatest era of British sitcoms.
4. Night At the Museum 3: Secret of the Tomb: To my greatest surprise I have found that I have forgotten to include the Night at the Museum franchise in some of my other Top 10 lists, which I have now duly amended. I enjoyed both the first and particularly the second films in this series (the second being highlighted particularly for its villain, who I've now added into my Top 10 Villains list), so when I heard that a third Night at the Museum film was being made, and set in Britain no less, I was excited to say the least. I was eager to see which of Britain's many historical figures were going to be given the treatment of coming to life every night, as per in the first two films. Yet all this film proved was how ignorant Americans are when it comes to history beyond their borders - of all the many characterful historical figures Britain can be proud to own, the only human British museum exhibit to come to life and interact with the main characters turned out to be Lancelot, at best a semi-mythical one (and in his Medieval guise as a knight is entirely mythical - his semi-mythical incarnation would have been a Dark Ages Romano-Briton). He was played well, I freely admit, but as a villain (or more an anti-hero) he was not a patch on Kahmunrah from the second film. The rest of the British Museum exhibits were just dull - talking but immobile Elgin Marbles, a cheap Chinese copy of the Hydra and a miniature display of Pompeii that is engulfed in a lava eruption (which didn't happen - Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii with a pyroclastic ash cloud). Nick, Larry Daley's eager history-fan son from the first two films, was degenerated into the stereotypical pathetic, party-boy, WOW-geek teenager who became devoid of any remotely redeeming characteristics. Laaa, the new caveman character played by Ben Stiller as a foil to his own protagonist character of Larry, was amusing as a caricature of Larry designed by his ever-cynical boss Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais) as a joke, but said amusement soon wore off as he proved to be an imbecilic comic relief character when he came to life. Rebel Wilson was awful as a British Museum security guard playing up to a gossip girl stereotype. It's a shame because there were still good elements such as Ben Kingsley playing Akmenrah and Kahmunrah's father, but a lot of the time, much like Oh, Dr. Beeching!, I can't watch this concluding instalment in the franchise when rewatching them as a series.
5. Dunkirk (2017): Christopher Nolan may be lauded as a director right now for some reason, but if Oppenheimer is anything like Dunkirk, the one of his films I have seen, I will officially class it as easily the most overrated piece of drivel since Titanic. Dunkirk is absolutely terrible, particularly when compared to the original released in 1958, much closer to the time the event happened. It portrays British troops as actors doing their best to look scared, leaderless and pathetic, losing all hope in keeping the enemy at bay (compared to the 1958 version which portrays our boys as battered but defiantly refusing to snap, and keeping up the camaraderie even in their darkest hours, as real soldiers try to do, because there's no other choice if you want to avoid annihilation). The film itself is a mess, too, with the same events being retold from the perspectives of different characters at completely different times in the film - for instance, you see Mark Rylance's boat, on the way to rescue some of the troops, being saved by a Spitfire, early on in the film, and then you see the same event of the Spitfire saving the boat again, but from the pilot's point of view, quite a while later. It's so unnecessary when you could have just interweaved the two points of view together and shown the event just once. It was pretty sad to see them using an American destroyer to represent a warship when they could have easily replicated a British one via CGI. Also, does Nolan have a gay crush on Cillian Murphy and his cheekbones for some reason? That guy keeps cropping up in his films, and certainly he wasn't particularly good as a shellshocked soldier in Dunkirk. All in all, what could have been a visual upgrade on a solid war film was a massive disappointment, and certainly Christopher Nolan needs to do a lot more to impress me. Never want to see that one again.
6. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker: As mentioned in my No. 1 entry, the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy as a whole was a massive disappointment, though I've ranked these two films lower because, though others trash them a lot more than VII, at least they tried to do some things differently (even if a lot of those things were bad). Because I hated VII I thought it was quite amusing to see Rian Johnson trash Abrams' shite attempt to rehash Episode IV, and originally I was rather impressed with some of the unexpected moments, such as choosing to reveal Snoke earlier, kill him off and have Kylo take over as Supreme Leader. At least he was trying to pull the story away from being a complete soulless remake and take it in a different direction. I also couldn't have cared less about how he turned Luke into Victor Meldrew (indeed the way he jibes at Rey half the time is quite amusing even now given how much of a bad character she was). But I fully acknowledge there were a lot of bad moments too - Leia should have died from cold and suffocation when the bridge of the Raddus was breached, not fly to the open door like Superman. The Holdo Manoeuvre is rightly considered to have needlessly broken canon. And Rey was still made annoyingly OP and strangely immune to the Dark Side while showing vast amounts of anger. In Episode IX meanwhile, I was pleased to see Abrams finally exercise some creativity by digging into Dark Side lore and introducing the Sith planet of Exegol and a resurrected Darth Sidious' cloning facilities. If only he could have introduced that into VII instead and worked more around that, we'd have actually had something different to enjoy. We even got a nice nod to the Prequels and Rogue One with Kylo's trip to Mustafar. Unfortunately though, aside from all those juicy Sith moments and Ian McDiarmid back on supreme form, IX's story was hollow and uninteresting - we no longer cared about Rey, Finn or Poe, or the random new creatures and droids introduced. And we had to see the Second Death Star (which by all accounts should have just been vapourised in its explosion) and briefly Ewoks again. Plus the woke BS that the trilogy was riddled with. Sigh.
7. The Matrix Trilogy: I was intrigued by The Matrix when I received DVDs of the trilogy second-hand from an uncle of mine. What was it going to be about? What was it like? Unfortunately it wasn't what I was hoping for. What I thought would be another interesting sci-fi universe turned out to be more of a crazy martial arts-fest that kept going on and on like a broken record, and shamelessly borrowed the AI-has-won-humanity-is-on-its-knees theme from Terminator while doing far less with it. While I appreciate that the focus on being inside programs and fighting other programs is a unique idea, the fights became rather monotonous after a while, particularly the fight between Neo and Smith in the square in Reloaded. That was just painful to endure. Ironically the one thing I really enjoyed was the mech battle toward the end of the third film, which probably goes to show that this series just isn't for me. But hey, at least I've seen it.
8. Godzilla (2014): I've seen the occasional big monster movie, such as the 1998 version of Godzilla and the 1976 and 2005 King Kong films (the latter of which was excellent, PJ at his best and a much less comical than usual role for Jack Black). When I heard of the 2014 Godzilla film, and particularly after I found it was directed by Gareth Edwards, the legend who made Rogue One as good as it was, I was interested in seeing it... but after watching a DVD of it I really was not impressed one bit. Most of the film was spent following human characters one doesn't care about in these sorts of films trying to get over various crises in their lives, and then when the Big-G himself emerges to fight other Kaiju, just when we're about to see monster mashes of epic proportions, the film conveniently blocks them from view or takes us away from them. Seriously? The whole reason we want to see these films is to see rampaging titans clash (and I'll get onto talking about the film that gave us that phrase in a minute). Why would we want to see some bloke moping about what's happened to his life in between doing research, when we can see Godzilla fighting other giant monsters? This film gave us a great idea of turning Godzilla into an unlikely protector of humanity, yet failed abysmally to take advantage of this concept. By the time the massed crowds were applauding Godzilla like a major celebrity as he takes a dip in the sea, I was really wondering what sort of film I was meant to be watching.
9. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford: Our family are a fair fan of Westerns, and have seen many different films and series set in the Old West over the years. Thus, when we got this film on DVD from an uncle of mine, we thought it'd make good viewing. Boy, were we wrong - this turned out to be easily the most boring Western I've ever seen. The gunfighting is sparse, none of the characters were likeable and the film was mostly padded out with slow-mo shots of walking through fields brushing hands through grass and other twee camerawork. An absolute slog of a film to get through - never again.
10. Clash of the Titans (1981): I will say the 2010 version is also partly to blame because it shares the misnomer, but it is still much more entertaining and simply intended to remake the original, so I'll give it a free pass. The original, on the other hand, I am not a fan of and began the mess. Firstly, the name is misleading - there is no actual clash between titanic monsters! If you want that, go and enjoy Ray Harryhausen's three Sinbad films which are infinitely better in my view. The best you get in Clash of the Titans is the severed head of one monster killing another, which pretty obviously doesn't have the same appeal as a full-on monster mash. Additionally, unlike the 2010 film which has a lot more action, the 1981 original is largely pretty dull apart from the attempt to kill Medusa and the defeat of the Kraken - if anything it's more of a whimsical Greek-inspired fairytale than an epic retelling of the legend. Talking of the 'Kraken', its silly 'Sea-Gorilla' look is easily one of the worst of Ray Harryhausen's creature designs - I know the great man was inspired by the 1930s King Kong to get into stop-motion animation, but that model very much seems like he was itching to add a tribute to it into a setting where it really didn't belong. The actual monstrous nemesis aiming to swallow Andromeda whole in the legend (which wasn't even a Kraken, a name borrowed from giant octopi from Norse myth - its actual name was Cetus, which became the Greek for 'whale') was a massive, flippered, usually fluked, sea creature with a boar's head and a body akin to whales and dolphins - making the 2010 incarnation of the beast significantly more accurate (it missed the boar's head but at least it was a proper whale-like sea creature). While overall I'm a great fan of Harryhausen's animation and the old films that were blessed by it, the original Clash is not among those of his films that I praise and I was rather disappointed when I first watched it. Indeed I'm not really sure I want to watch that one again when I have the superior 2010 version.

Dishonourable Mentions: UFO, Ice Age 5: Collision Course, Die Another Day, Gosford Park, The Eagle has Landed, War for the Planet of the Apes, War of the Worlds (2005), Alias Smith and Jones Series 3