Ruined TV Show/Movie/Comicbook characters

[Train Operator]

What are some characters that were beloved by millions of people only to be ruined by their writers?

can be due to the people writing them wanting to shove their own politics into them, the company who owns them trying to turn them into something else to chase a trend or just they just generally don't understand what made the character popular in the first place.

i think the prime example of this is Harley Quinn.

When she was first introduced she was an interesting character, a psychiatrist that was manipulated by the joker into being his henchmen. not an earth shattering character but she had some complexity and had a lot of good character moments throughout the animated series.

now however because of a combination of all the factors listed above she's completely unrecognizable. they turned her into a whore lesbian Deadpool knockoff that increasingly has less and less to do with the joker (which doesn't even make any sense because without the joker she doesn't really have any motive to be involved in crime or superheroing in the first place.) until now she's just this weird, unlikable clown based anti-hero girl boss.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Where to even begin, well, I guess I could go with an obvious one, Luke Skywalker. The man went from an admittedly op power fantasy of a grandmaster with an extremely hot wife, nice son, great friends, and a badass descendant to a sad and cowardly shell of a man hiding on some islands in the middle of nowhere, speaks for itself really.

 

[Frank(en) Castle]

Spider-Man has been in a state of arrested development since that spic Quesada undid the marriage in One More Day and it's just fucking embarrassing at this point. The fact that Nick Spencer was so close to managing to undo that, only to be caught right before the finish line will forever be a tragedy.
THANK GOD Hickman is over in the new Ultimate Universe writing a grown up, married Spider-Man with kids.

 

[Stephanie Bustcakes]

Sonic's Arms Are Not BLUE!!! You all continue to make me most Angry with this Most Criminal Of Changes In History EVER!!!
You Either Recall EVERYTHING of the New Sonic Boom, RIGHT NOW, or I will Seriously (not) RIP HIS ARMS OFF and Seriously (WILL) Watch You All At SEGA DIE from this Heinous Of Crimes EVER!!!

 

[Train Operator]

Where to even begin, well, I guess I could go with an obvious one, Luke Skywalker. The man went from an admittedly op power fantasy of a grandmaster with an extremely hot wife, nice son, great friends, and a badass descendant to a sad and cowardly shell of a man hiding on some islands in the middle of nowhere, speaks for itself really.
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i still can't believe they had Luke almost murder his nephew for having a bad dream then made him just fuck off to an island and mope around waiting to die when his friends and family needed him most.

Spider-Man has been in a state of arrested development since that spic Quesada undid the marriage in One More Day and it's just fucking embarrassing at this point. The fact that Nick Spencer was so close to managing to undo that, only to be caught right before the finish line will forever be a tragedy.
THANK GOD Hickman is over in the new Ultimate Universe writing a grown up, married Spider-Man with kids.

i feel like one of the big problems with Spider-man is marvel just hates that peter parker is so popular and they desperately want to replace him with miles Morales like they're doing in the PlayStation games.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

Where to even begin, well, I guess I could go with an obvious one, Luke Skywalker. The man went from an admittedly op power fantasy of a grandmaster with an extremely hot wife, nice son, great friends, and a badass descendant to a sad and cowardly shell of a man hiding on some islands in the middle of nowhere, speaks for itself really.
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They pretty much did the same thing to Han Solo as well. Undid his character arch and his accomplishments in the previous trilogy to make him a geriatric looser. Oh and he dies without being reunited with all his friends.

 

[Space Police]

All of the IDW Transformers, but especially IDW Star Saber since he was turned from the embodiment of justice to a genocidal religious fundamentalist. Also IDW Arcee since they made her a canon tranny. Captain Picard was also ruined in his new show by being made into a weak old man, and Spock is being ruined with the constant crying (he only cried once in TOS and it was a big moment -- this is just incompetently using canoncially significant moments to attract attention) and discussion of his sex life.

When she was first introduced she was an interesting character, a psychiatrist that was manipulated by the joker into being his henchmen. not an earth shattering character but she had some complexity and had a lot of good character moments throughout the animated series.

There's a Batman videogame where the dynamic is reversed: Harley manipulates the Joker into being evil and you have to save the Joker. That's the best take on the character I've seen since it touches on psychiatric abuse.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

 

[I'm Retarded?]

Doomguy's transformation from desperate survivor trying to find his way out of the apocalypse to Edgy Master Chief is absolutely horrendous. nu-id's writers are fucking retards who only know how to manufacture slop for idiots. Doom 2016 and its successors are tailor-made for Call of Duty kids who are impressed by a game stopping the player every 15 seconds with a cutscene to remind you that you are a badass. to me, the original Doomguy feels halfway between an avatar and a companion, silent witness to realms of horror beyond man's comprehension. Doom Slayer, the heckin' super badass immortal omnipotent Enemy Killer who makes even the most powerful demons piss their panties (unless you don't press F to RIP AND TEAR at the right time and have to respawn at the last checkpoint), is some of the soyest shit I have ever seen in a game this side of the Ubislop collection. nothing about it is organic at all, it's forced in the lamest possible way. Doom Slayer is this generation's Marcus Fenix.

 

[BrodyDaMan]

All the characters in Big Hero 6. I'm unfortunately one of the very few fans of the short original comic run. Originally, it wasn't just a superhero story set in Japan, it was a conflict between two competing nationalist ideologies, Sunfire and Big Hero 6 fought to preserve the peace Japan had now under the domination of America, and they were in conflict with a demonic being formed out of the souls killed in Hiroshima, who believed that since the Japanese had excelled in every field since, maybe Japan needed conflict to develop further. Every character introduced to the team ultimately proved the villain's point, due to the conflict these aimless people finally found a cause to dedicate their abilities to and became heroes.

If you read the original Sunfire & Big Hero 6, you may not think this is a deep or significant enough story to be "ruined", atleast not in the same way the other characters cited in this thread were, but there was the beginning of a story there, and with the right writer, could have been expanded to a very good series. But later attempts at making Big Hero 6 just made them a generic teen team except in Japan, and the movie hit the final nail in the coffin by removing everything interesting about the characters, sanding them down to pixar characters. Hiro is no longer a genius who's so bored that he ended up attempting crimes and going beyond what's allowed, now he's just a kid making little fighting robots. Baymax is no longer a monster who learns to overcome his programming and become human, now he's a balloon mascot character. Silver Samurai gone, Sunfire gone, Honey Lemon and Go Go Tomago reduced to very basic girlboss tropes.

There's been many other characters who've been ruined over time, but personally, the case of Big Hero 6 feels like a baby that was aborted over and over.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Wannabe commies want to ruin all popular characters.

Luke Skywalker

Han Solo

Those guys have better fates in that "Legends", BTW.

And also Picard seems to have been ruined by Picard.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

THANK GOD Hickman is over in the new Ultimate Universe writing a grown up, married Spider-Man with kids.

Didn't even know this was a thing. Might have to actually start reading a Spider-Man comic again.

Then again, this is Marvel. Their hatred for an adult, married Peter burns so bright that I wouldn't be surprised if they find some way to ruin this, too.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Almost all of the characters in The Boys TV show.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

All the characters in Big Hero 6. I'm unfortunately one of the very few fans of the short original comic run. Originally, it wasn't just a superhero story set in Japan, it was a conflict between two competing nationalist ideologies, Sunfire and Big Hero 6 fought to preserve the peace Japan had now under the domination of America, and they were in conflict with a demonic being formed out of the souls killed in Hiroshima, who believed that since the Japanese had excelled in every field since, maybe Japan needed conflict to develop further. Every character introduced to the team ultimately proved the villain's point, due to the conflict these aimless people finally found a cause to dedicate their abilities to and became heroes.

If you read the original Sunfire & Big Hero 6, you may not think this is a deep or significant enough story to be "ruined", atleast not in the same way the other characters cited in this thread were, but there was the beginning of a story there, and with the right writer, could have been expanded to a very good series. But later attempts at making Big Hero 6 just made them a generic teen team except in Japan, and the movie hit the final nail in the coffin by removing everything interesting about the characters, sanding them down to pixar characters. Hiro is no longer a genius who's so bored that he ended up attempting crimes and going beyond what's allowed, now he's just a kid making little fighting robots. Baymax is no longer a monster who learns to overcome his programming and become human, now he's a balloon mascot character. Silver Samurai gone, Sunfire gone, Honey Lemon and Go Go Tomago reduced to very basic girlboss tropes.

There's been many other characters who've been ruined over time, but personally, the case of Big Hero 6 feels like a baby that was aborted over and over.

The movie wasn't even that good, either. They seemed to be more interested in trying to make the villain's identity a big twist instead of actually developing it. "I'm trying to ruin this person's life because my daughter got lost in an interdimensional vortex" isn't really a great motivation and doesn't make for a sympathetic character when he's a selfish asshat who set the fire, stole Hiro's nanobots, and didn't care that Tadashi died trying to save him, not caring that both boys looked to him as a hero.

As for the thread's topic, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Dr. Who is kind of a given, as well as Indiana Jones.

 

[cybertoaster]

Oh and he dies without being reunited with all his friends.

Not only that but then carrie fisher died IRL so even it you wanted to pretend the soywars trilogy didn't happen and still have your reunion movie you can't, and AI doesn't counts.

Its over.

 

[Testacles Maximus]

Originally, it wasn't just a superhero story set in Japan, it was a conflict between two competing nationalist ideologies, Sunfire and Big Hero 6 fought to preserve the peace Japan had now under the domination of America, and they were in conflict with a demonic being formed out of the souls killed in Hiroshima, who believed that since the Japanese had excelled in every field since, maybe Japan needed conflict to develop further. Every character introduced to the team ultimately proved the villain's point, due to the conflict these aimless people finally found a cause to dedicate their abilities to and became heroes.

That sounds sick. I wanna watch that movie.

 

[TheBallPit]

I'm not entirely sure everything, with some remote exceptions, hasn't been ruined at this point. Star Wars became terminal once Lucas invented Jar Jar and made the IP a borderline dramedy, Star Trek by way of Discovery and Strange New Worlds is a joke and probably beyond saving, Marvel (both the comics and the live-action stuff) was headed into the shitter after Endgame (some would say during it), DC is rumored to be getting out of the comics business altogether and licensing their entire crop of characters out to other companies + the Snyderverse made everyone into mopey sociopaths (I doubt Gunn will do much better), the 007 franchise is in serious peril after the grimdark No Time to Die, the Hunger Games prequel flopped (RIP Donald Sutherland), and Roland Emmerich can no longer get the funding necessary for the periodic worldwide disaster romp after Moonfall.

Men in Black and The Witcher suicided themselves, I hear stuff is getting really dire in Transformers-land, and Scott did his level-best to contort the Alienverse into something unrecognizable. Oh, and The Boys is on really shaky ground with S4. God only knows how the new Harry Potter series will fare.

Rings of Power is DOA, it just doesn't know it (yet). And Peter Jackson is perpetually trapped hunting for Gollum when there's an entire Middle Earth to explore.

The Planet of the Apes had an exceptionally strong trilogy, but is now inexorably sliding with the newest film. The Wheel of Time turned into a femiist screed when the books were the opposite. And The Exorcist series can now breath a sigh of relief that The Heretic is no longer the worst of the bunch.

Laurie finally killed The Shape despite the fact Michael was barely in it, yet our favorite boogeyman was still defeated by a grandma with no melee skills (Danielle Harris, they did you dirty).

Doctor Who has become Doctor Fuck-All (I bet people are praying for the return of Chibnall). And almost nothing from Disney seems to be worth a damn, Inside Out 2 notwithstanding.

I can guarantee you that Twisters will come and go without a whoosh of wind to mark its passing.

House of the Dragon seems to be redeeming Game of Thrones to some degree, but we'll see how long the quality lasts.

The last truly enjoyable thing I watched was 1976's Logan's Run. Hell, I might even sit down and groove to the TV series, as Heather Menzies gets my motor going (Jenny Agutter is still the GOAT, of course).

 

[anustart76]

All of them.

 

[TheHarbinger]

House of the Dragon seems to be redeeming Game of Thrones to some degree, but we'll see how long the quality lasts.

They are retconning the Others/White Walkers storylines in both House of the Dragon and Dunk and Egg. For the eventual reboot of the franchise on HBO when the books are finally completed. They had a scrapped pilot about the first Long Night that cost them over $50 million so they seem very serious about turning around the canon of Game of Thrones by rewriting the White Walkers plot.

But unless they do a full reboot they are too late. Even if GRRM finishes the books the ending might be the same (sans Arya's flying dagger killing).

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

Technically videogame characters don't belong ITT but Duke Nukem. I'm a scorned longtime fan so prepare for an autistic wall of text.

It's no secret that there will never be any new Duke Nukem game ever again. Duke isn't PC, DEI groups hate him, they claim the entire theme is chauvinistic and shit like that. Duke's own voice actor Jon St John is a male feminist and a xitter libtard. Randy Bitchford, owner of Gearbox and the Duke copyright, is a greasy cunt who never understood anything about the franchise, thinks it's a joke character, and is happy to let it die and rot.

The reason Duke is perceived this way lies, to no one's surprise, in one of the worst flops in videogaming history, Duke Nukem Forever. You see, Duke wasn't always perceived as a misogynistic evil white man who perpetuates harmful stereotypes about toxic masculinity or whatever bullshit they say. Up until and including the last good Duke game, 2002's Manhattan Project, Duke was written to be a parody of 80s action movie heroes, a super badass muscular guy slinging big guns saving women from evil aliens because he loves women and they love him back. The games actively encourage you to save women or don't even allow you to finish levels without it. Some of it's cheesy but it's all in good spirit. Duke Nukem 3D even features positive depictions of sex work, how progressive!

That's until Duke Nukem Forever, which is a terribly designed game that not only looks like shit and plays like shit, but was also written by a fucking retard who decided to turn Duke into a sociopath. DNF Duke is an asshole. He treats people around him like shit. All male characters in the game (EDF soldiers) are only there for slapstick purposes and for Duke to laugh at them when they act retarded and usually die. DNF Duke has no affection for women. The game starts with him receiving a blowjob from a groupie iirc after which he just fucks off. During the course of the game you come across women who are being held captive and raped by the aliens. Old Duke would've given you a way to save them and included a line of dialogue about how those alien bastards are gonna pay. Nu-Duke merely makes a really disgusting joke about how they're "fucked" (lmao so inventive right?) and leaves them to their fate. The game sexualizes the aliens a lot and it's fairly fucking gross, there is a very noticeable shift from "Duke loves women" to "Duke is desperate to fuck everything that moves" because according to the idiot writers that's how a manly man must act I guess. It's all just in really bad taste. This shit was even present in the trailer, meaning the retards at 2K/Gearbox wanted to make this a selling point. Also the humor, even when not outright distasteful, is still awful and cringe.

Since DN:MP flew under the radar in 2002 and Duke 3D is nearly 30 years old (holy shit bros...) THIS is the impression of Duke that everyone's been left with. A mockery, a fucking joke and a character that is indeed seemingly terrible and not worth featuring in media ever again. No wonder the franchise is dead. But it never had to end this way...