Established Franchises Tarnished by Outside Writers -

[Polyboros]

This was an idea that seemed to gain some traction in the Star Wars Griefing as I started to get off topic, or at least nostalgic in my griefing, over Karen Traviss and her work in the Star Wars universe.

I'm going to post my summary of Karen Traviss in Star Wars next, but I'm planning on keeping this first post short, and possibly updated, linking to other good synopsis of awful writers shitting up big franchises.

I know @BR55 wanted to talk about Karen Traviss' work in the Halo universe, and @Flexo had something to contribute.

Off the top of my head a few other examples that I'd be interested in, but am not familiar enough with either the horrible writing that came after or the source material:

• Kevin J Anderson after being awful in Star Wars, moved on to shitting on Dune with Frank Herbert's Son(also a good take down of his work in Star Wars, I only read is young adult Star Wars novels, Young Jedi Knight series)
  
• Karen Traviss moved on from Star Wars to both Gears of War(even writing the third game) and Halo
• Eion Colfer wrote "And Another Thing..." a sixth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series long after Douglas Adams death. I don't know that its an abortion, but considering Adams last two books weren't good, I suspect this to be a trainwreck.

 

[Polyboros]

Karen Traviss wrote a series of 5 novels spinning off from the 2004 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando, three books in the death knell of the Star Wars novel market Legacy of the Force, a few novelizations of The Clone Wars CGI animation, and several short stories. She was a controversial writer in the Star Wars book fandom. Some liked her style with out getting autistic over the details. Some autisticly loved the Mandolorians as much as she did. However she created a sperg out in fanbase with her second novel, Republic Commando: Triple Zero.

In the novel it is stated that the Clone Army is 3 million Clonetroopers strong. This rustled a lot of Jimmies. Why? Well to put it frankly, it is extremely exceptional. The Republic at that time was 1.3 million systems, that's fewer than 3 Clonetroopers per system of planets. It's smaller than many of the armies fielded on Earth in World War II. Previously existing information on the Droid Army put its numbers in the hundreds of quadrillions to quintillions, making the Clones outnumbered upwards of several hundred billion to one.

Honestly it shouldn't of been a big deal. Star Wars Fans have hated writers in the past(Kevin J Anderson) and there has been exceptional inconsistencies in canon statistics before. However, Karen Traviss couldn't leave the this fan outrage alone. She was active with the fans on early social media like Livejournal and the official starwars.com forum. She lashed out at the readers sperging out over her ridiculously small minded numbers, calling them Talifans(as in Taliban, it being early 2000's, also in my research this was allegedly started by Kevin J Anderson).

LucasArts literature responded to this blacklash in a surprisingly modern way. They doubled down on the crazy lady stirring shit online with the people paying their wages. She wrote a short story soon after the controversy, Republic Commando: Odds in Star Wars Insider magazine. In it Omega Squad finds new data, doubling down on the 3 million clonetrooper number, and instead making the Droid army numbers also exceptional(the Separatists were only producing 1 Million battle droids a year, approximately 100 per system in the Confederacy).

She continued on writing more Republic Commando books, and three books in the second to last major series of the now non-canon Expanded Universe, Legacy of the Force. She was apparently on the docket to help write the last series, Fate of the Jedi, but was replaced by another woman because Traviss' schedule was too busy. While never as reviled as during 3 million clonetrooper controversy, she was still disliked for her constant masturbating over the Mandolorians(she would eventually move on to COGs in Gears of War, even writing Gears of War 3, and SPARTANs in Halo). This blog post does a better job than I can of going into her obsession with the Mandos better than I can, as I checked out of her writing real quick. It's also goes over a lot more of her mistakes(like stating that Qui-Gon Jinn killed a Sith on Naboo) in the Canon. However I thought this quote was a good example of her canonized fanwanking:

Traviss' Mandalorians have a mandatory draft for all males, who craft their own armour. Females often do likewise and go to war as well. Some of them stay at war, acting as high-paid mercenaries for various individuals and governments, although some take up less warlike professions (apparently the surname "Fett" means "farmer") all are nonetheless required to have armour and fighting capability.
The language has a single gender-neutral pronoun for living things and is quite easy to learn; the society is welcoming to those who can fit into it, all of them love children, marriage and divorce are done with a few phrases in a few minutes. Women bearing sons traditionally wait five years to conceive again, one year if it's a daughter, because daughters don't always want to go to war. While this would be an interesting and valid society, and it's more developed than a lot of the others in Star Wars, Traviss always portrays it as a desirable culture with several of people wanting in and no-one but a few degenerates wanting out, and with most Mandalorians believing themselves superior to all the other societies.

 

[HomeAloneTwo]

Fallout New Vegas

 

[OhGoy]

Fallout New Vegas

bitch, are you talkin' shit about new vegas?

 

[Jarilo182]

Karen Traviss took a fairly large part in ruining Halo as well, but it was Brian Reed who really put the nail in that coffin.

Halo 5 actually upset me at the time due to how bad it was, but the series was falling into that place since 343 took over control of the franchise. I have no idea what the new Halo is going to be, but it doesn't look like a proper Halo game so I assume it's more Cortana and special snowflake OC Spartans again.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

The Fate franchise continually gets more and more convoluted and full of shit with every new spinoff, but to be fair a) the original author is part of the problem b) it was convoluted bullshit from day 1.

 

[ES 148]

Sonichu.

 

[QB 290]

Putting in "the entirety of marvel, lol" is too easy. So I'm going to say captain America, iron man and she hulk have become un-readable in the last few years.

 

[HomeAloneTwo]

bitch, are you talkin' shit about new vegas?

the only thing actually wrong with new vegas is the engine, but thats every fallout.

 

[Zaryiu]

the only thing actually wrong with new vegas is the engine, but thats every fallout.

3 and 4

 

[Flexo]

Interesting. Thx for the info.

I should see if I can get my buddy triggered as he has a lot of strong opinions about Supernatural and how recent show runners (and actual canon writers) have ruined their own show.

While I'm still watching through them, I'd also say it looks like Dave Feloni [sp?] has now taken a turn at ruining star wars and is only saved by the fact that Rian Johnson ruined it worse at the same time.

I mean... seriously? Have Asoka survive through RotJ? Just... how???

 

[Furina]

The Jurassic Park franchise has really gone to shit. Jurassic Park and The Lost World are pure nostalgia for me, so maybe I'm biased, but the 3rd film was a disappointment and Jurassic World, while fun, felt hollow. I haven't seen Fallen Kingdom yet but judging by the reviews I've seen and the trailer, it's even more hollow. I might pirate it if I can be bothered but no way I'm paying. Without Michael Crichton, the movies feel like they lost their brains.

The first Jurassic Park was good because it made the point that dinosaurs weren't monsters. They were animals. They could be aggressive, but they were only behaving as any animal would. The raptors were intelligent, but only as intelligent as you would expect an animal to be. You can underestimate the intelligence of an animal and it'll bite you in the ass (literally, sometimes). In Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, the dinosaurs are just movie monsters and somehow less believable than their 90s counterparts.

 

[Flexo]

In Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, the dinosaurs are just movie monsters and somehow less believable than their 90s counterparts.

They double down on this in FK and the movie goes just full on B-flick with the Raptor, "Blue" becoming an outright action hero (complete with running away from a fireball).

For me it crossed the line from painfully stupid to hilariously stupid.

 

[TenMilesWide]

the only thing actually wrong with new vegas is the engine, but thats every bethesda game.

ftfy

no but rly, the fallout franchise under bethesda pretty much counts for me.

 

[Crass_and_Champ]

Arrested Development- Netflix fucked up the 4th season so badly that they had to go back almost three years later and edit it just to make sense. And it still had none of the charm of the original.
Trailer Park Boys- Again, Netflix fucks up an established series, this time by changing the humor from commentary on poverty, slapstick comedy and genuinely funny puns to "DUDE WEED LMAO."
Warhammer- it's literally impossible to pick just one example, but the complete destruction of the setting is a good place to start.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Pro wrestling, most of the brands and the defunct ones like WCW and ECW. According to our old friend Jim Cornette they hired too many writers that don't know a shit about wrestling and they only got the job because of some worthless college degree.

Warning: lots of unnerving ranting

 

[Chester Rigby]

Harry Potter, with that literary abortion that was The Cursed Child and that meh (at best) movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was.

EDIT: I know Rowling wrote the screenplay for Fantastic Beasts, but I think there was a co-writer helping her.

 

[Ruin]

They were never anything special to begin with but ever since James Patterson got rich enough to pay ghostwriters to write his books for him the quality has nose dived to sub fanfiction tier.

 

[Prussian Blue]

I love Ian Fleming and the Bond books (What other classic spy thrillers have chapter titles like "Nigger Heaven" and quotes about Koreans being sub-human apes) but other than the first non-Fleming book ("Colonel Sun" by Kingsley Amis, who polished off Flemings posthumous effort "The Man With The Golden Gun") nearly all the writers that followed have been utter garbage.

Some bits I can remember include Bond hunting a serial killer at Disney World Paris (a serial killer who targeted Princess Diana and her kids IIRC), an appearance from Margaret Thatcher, a female Q called Qt and of course, making Bond drive this monstrosity:

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Sequels that take place in Outer Space