I still can’t stop but think how stretched out the Hobbit films were, for an otherwise short book. That’s a sin that stains forever with me. The Lord of the Rings films, do have their own flaws, but they’re fairly contained and can be debated as to whether they were good or not. I have so much trouble excusing anything with the Hobbit though.
And I hope we never, ever see anyone tackle The Silmarillion. Simply because, there will be so much improvised fluff in that would-be film, that it’d make the Hobbit films blush.
When I was younger, the Star Wars prequel trilogy killed the franchise for me. Older me has grown more jaded and does not care as much anymore.
The ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ series by GRRM was bad enough. If the series had ended after the Red Wedding, I would have been at peace. Instead, an entire can of new characters and storylines was opened. The series is unfinished and if any new books come out, they have lost my interest. Now that isn’t too bad, but the last seasons of the Game of Thrones series were so poorly written that it killed the books even further for me.
I read that someone mentioned Highlander. For a movie with the tag line ‘There can be only one’, it sure has many sequels. The original is bad, but in a very fun way. I hold it dear to my heart. The sequels are really forgettable. OTOH, the spinoff television series was not too bad if I remember correctly after 30+ years.
The prequel trilogy is like the original sin of 21st century cinema, spawning not only the era of online criticism as we took solace in our disappointment with each other, but also in how it really heralded the era of franchise film making where all decisions would be made by producers and no more offbeat creative choices by weirdy beardy directors (for better or for worse).
The TV series for Highlander was good. Had a few great scenes and characters. Think of it as an alternate timeline going a different direction, playing with the ideas the movie introduced on how immortality isn’t such a great thing.