What was your biggest pop culture disappointment?

[Tonitrus]

All of the Wing Commander games after II.

Ultima 7 and the rest.

[Barrister]

All of the Wing Commander games after II.

Ultima 7 and the rest.

I never played WCII, but 3 and 4 were good fun.

[Zoupa]

The Last Jedi. GoT seasons 7 and 8. Fallout 4. Dexter the last couple of seasons. Too many computer games to list.Most egregious was a d&d game called I think pool of radiance. It wiped my hard disk. 

Michael Jackson when the allegations started coming out in the 90s.

[frunk]

Heroes after the first 2/3rds of the first season.  I stopped watching midway through the second season and only regretted not stopping earlier.

[mongers]

Languish, it had all positives I liked and good reviews/feedback and yet some how it never quite took off with the mass of the public. 

[Maladict]

Star wars 1-2, Crystal skull, that piece of shit sitcom John Cleese is doing, EU3, World Cup 2010.

[grumbler]

I'd have to say Fallout 3.  It was just too shallow and sanitary after the first two games.  It later became worth playing after mods came out, but I was very disappointed with the game that was in the box.

[saskganesh]

Highlander 2 was a real bad time. And I payed 1$ to see it at a seedy revue cinema on Granville in Vancouver. Huge waste of a loonie. I think I may have saved the day by committing transit fraud and riding home of the Skytrain for free.

How the Star Wars franchise turned out was a bigger disappointment. I have belatedly decided the original trilogy really wasn't that good after all. I don't care.

Gave up on ASOFAI a long time ago. Perversely enjoyed the recent GoT trainwreck. Payback for me.

Joe Strummer's career post Clash was largely bad: he did a lot of uneven soundtrack work for oddball movies. I even saw him play withe Pogues , replacing Shane McGowan. It struck me as a Pogues/Strummer cover band. That hurt. That said , his last album before he died was very damn good.

The Rolling Stones have been mailing it in for decades, album wise. They can still play live with power though.

NHL Hockey is boring. It used to be a beautiful game of skill and speed and characters. Now it is superspeed, robots and  planned plays. The shoot out (gah) is often the best part.

Robert Anton Wilson. Illuminatus, Cosmic Trigger etal. He was a dull and rambling grey man on stage.

Pop is supposed to be disposable, to be replaced by other moments, so it is all to be expected anyway.

[Duque de Bragança]

Highlander II, unimaginatively subtitled le Retour in French (the return) I managed to avoid though most of my friends watched it and were utterly disappointed. First Highlander was very popular back and re-runs on TV were still a big thing.
Anybody tried the alternative Renegade cut? Supposed to fix problems, and bring new ones according to critics.

As for me, obviously Episode I. Watched in a small cinema specialised in not so recent movies, but not classics, say movies just no longer screened in mainstream commercial cinemas t 1 or 2 months ago. I arrived late and was presented with a dubbed version contrary to what the movie guide said. This was what I was fearing when I saw a mostly family audience. Said cinema no longer exists sadly due to a family dispute AFAIK.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull too, even at 2.5 € (special cinema fest prize) that was too much. Watched it again at the cinémathèque as the final part of the Indy marathon during the Spielberg cycle. While the first 3 were full (400 people) only 40 people remained for the last one. Still a disaster.

As for music, Load of Metallica. Obviously, some metalheads were complaining since Nothing Else matters but this was quite the Schism. I still can't bring myself to hear it, unlike later albums.

No other traumas or rape of childhood/youth come to my mind. Yeah, Master of Orion III was a disappointment but nothing traumatic.

[dps]

Yeah, Master of Orion III was a disappointment but nothing traumatic.

The thing about MOO3 was that I could have seen 3 or 4 movies (even at full ticket prices) for what I paid for MOO3.

[Duque de Bragança]

Yeah, Master of Orion III was a disappointment but nothing traumatic.

The thing about MOO3 was that I could have seen 3 or 4 movies (even at full ticket prices) for what I paid for MOO3.

Well, aren't we comparing apples and oranges a bit there? All right, I confess getting rid of it and getting some money back. 
Don't remember if i bought it online, feverishly waiting for it to arrive or if it was in an import Mac videogame shop. 

[celedhring]

Definitely the Star Wars prequels, since I was personally a HUGE Star Wars geek. I remember that it took me five (5!) viewings to finally accept that Phantom Menace was a piece of shit. The third Indy movie was similar, but being older and wiser this time I only needed one viewing.

A Song of Fire and Ice is "on watch" for making this category. GoT - the show - ironically makes both the biggest surprises (as to how good it was at the beginning, and having such geeky stuff becoming a worldwide sensation) and biggest disappointments list.

[Eddie Teach]

Definitely the Star Wars prequels, since I was personally a HUGE Star Wars geek. I remember that it took me five (5!) viewings to finally accept that Phantom Menace was a piece of shit. The third Indy movie was similar, but being older and wiser this time I only needed one viewing.

A Song of Fire and Ice is "on watch" for making this category. GoT - the show - ironically makes both the biggest surprises (as to how good it was at the beginning, and having such geeky stuff becoming a worldwide sensation) and biggest disappointments list.

Third Indiana Jones movie, huh? And then you aged backward before seeing Phantom Menace. 

I expect ASOIAF not to be finished at all. 

[celedhring]

Definitely the Star Wars prequels, since I was personally a HUGE Star Wars geek. I remember that it took me five (5!) viewings to finally accept that Phantom Menace was a piece of shit. The third Indy movie was similar, but being older and wiser this time I only needed one viewing.

A Song of Fire and Ice is "on watch" for making this category. GoT - the show - ironically makes both the biggest surprises (as to how good it was at the beginning, and having such geeky stuff becoming a worldwide sensation) and biggest disappointments list.

Third Indiana Jones movie, huh? And then you aged backward before seeing Phantom Menace. 

I expect ASOIAF not to be finished at all. 

Fourth, me bad. I got "there's only three Indy movies" ingrained in my soul, hence my mistake.

[Valmy]

Star Wars Prequels. That was kind of a surreal experience sitting there in the movie theater with the realization slowly dawning on me that what I was seeing was, in fact, bad. Then Tim convinced me to see the third one because it supposedly redeemed the prequels...but no it was also really bad. Thanks Tim.

Neverwinter Nights from Bioware. That game was a rude awakening and let me know the short golden age of RPGs I was enjoying was coming to an end. I mean I guess to some people it wasn't a bad game but it was made with a different spirit and with a different audience in mind than peak nerd Baldur's Gate. The games they made later were better but they were all designed for a wider audience in mind. The infinity engine era was fun while it lasted though.