Subverting Expectations: The Megathread - Or How Baby Dick Creators ‘Sort of Forgot’ What an Anti-Climax Is

[AnOminous]

How "subverting expectations," specifically "subverting audience expectations" actually works is that you give the audience something that isn't what they expected, but actually is what they wanted, but didn't know they wanted. It requires actually knowing your audience's expectations and desires and then fulfilling them in a surprising but pleasing way.

What these shitheads are doing isn't that, though. They know what the audience wants and shit all over it to show their absolute, utter contempt for the audience. Often, they even explicitly state their contempt for the audience publicly. This is fairly unique.

As with other perverse artist behavior, a very great artist can actually pull even this off, but these are not great artists, at all. They're not even up to the level of mediocre hacks. A mediocre hack who gives the audience what they want is a better artist than these absolute assclowns.

This isn't even subverting audience expectations. It isn't subversive. It's not creating art. It's usually done with someone else's art. It's more like vandalism. They aren't subverting, they're just cheating and stealing, like a cook at a restaurant substituting a chuck steak for the New York strip you actually ordered, then acting like you're the dick when you send it back.

 

[EmpireOfTheClouds]

Well I finally watched Mystic River for the first time ever last night. And if there's any movie we should be blaming for the "subverting expectations" thing, it's not The Last Jedi, it's THIS piece of garbage.

Basically, the movie's story surrounds a man's daughter being brutally murdered, and everyone trying to find out who did it.

In the movie's final 20 minutes, Sean Penn basically gaslights Tim Robbins into confessing that he murdered the girl (The girl being Penn's daughter), and somehow managing to convince Robbins that he actually did it, this effectively taking advantage of a severely mentally whacked man whose mental state was stunted by a man pretending to be a cop capturing him and repeatedly sexually molesting him. Now granted, they do emphasize that "he wasn't the same when he came back" quite a few times throughout the movie, but it's repeating the exact same mistakes that The Last Jedi did by relying on a handful of measly lines of dialogue to justify it.

Meanwhile, we find out that who really killed the girl was her boyfriend's mute brother and a his friend as result of a prank too far.

So in other words, an innocent, mentally disabled dude got murdered for absolutely nothing, a murderer is allowed to walk free, and all the emotional turmoil conjured by this is completely pointless now because of two teenagers' pranks going too far.

The weird part is, there's tons of reason for Robbins actually having murdered the girl to have happened. He wasn't the same when he left the molestors' place as a kid, the movie keeps building up to a reveal that it was him, but no, some kids we don't know the first fucking thing about were the ones who did it. Because fuck logic, right?

I bet Rian Johnson and M. Night Shyamalan are masturbating furiously right now.

 

[Trig.Point]

I bet Rian Johnson and M. Night Shyamalan are masturbating furiously right now.

A few months back when Kathleen Kennedy was trying to get Rian Johnson involved in the Mandalorian, the Babylon Bee published this.

The whole article is worth a read.

In New Episode, The Mandalorian Has To Protect Baby Yoda From Being Ruined By Rian Johnson

U.S.—In the latest episode of Disney+’s hit show The Mandalorian, Baby Yoda -- widely regarded as the greatest cultural contribution of the last one hundred years -- faces his greatest threat. And that threat: Rian Johnson, full of ideas.“I’ve got some great ideas for your kid there,” says an...

babylonbee.com

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I bet Rian Johnson and M. Night Shyamalan are masturbating furiously right now.

Did M. Night Shyamalan really overuse subverting expectations? I didn't watch a lot of his films but the ones I did had the twist fit the movie theme and being logical based on the events of the film.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Pretty much the only genre that can get away with really killing characters off at random are war stories, 'cause war is hell and all that jazz. For example, All Quiet on the Western Front kills off its lead Paul Baumer anti-climactically at the end of the book on a random, otherwise quiet day, and though we've followed him and cared about him to the end we find out he's so insignificant to the war at large that the situation report doesn't even acknowledge his loss (the titular "all quiet on the western front"), and for added tragedy it was only a month or so before the war ended. There, it's not a massive letdown, it's unrelentingly tragic. Then again, killing him so randomly is also not really "subverting expectations" within the confines of AQotWF. All the characters die out of the blue, and even though Paul's best buds last longer than the randos he's only barely invested in; yeah I guess that's technically plot armor but it heightens the tragedy if they bite it after not only Paul but also the reader has gotten attached to them. No one reading AQotWF is expecting it to end with Paul suddenly becoming superhumanly powerful and ending the war on his own. That would be the subversive ending. Paul dying randomly and unmourned isn't satisfying per se, but it's fitting and a stereotypically "satisfying" ending would have undermined the themes.

But in every other genre that sort of realism just isn't appreciated or even appreciable. Jumping genre to sports movies, so many tournaments end exactly as they are seeded - the #1 team steamrolls everyone beneath them, leading to an equally one-sided final game they win. But those tournaments don't get movies made about them. Yeah, it's realistic to have the #1 team win the tournament, but there's no stakes, or if there are stakes, they're too low to care about. A lot of sports movies are about the #16 team winning several upsets in a row to face the #1 team and the cost of losing the big game is the entire team folding forever. And, again, it's be realistic for the #16 team to get clobbered and then disband, that certainly happens IRL. But no one wants this underdog story to end with them losing everything. Yeah it's formulaic to have the #16 team win by a single point and win the championship and revitalize the program, but it's a satisfying ending. The only sports movie I can think of off the top of my head that doesn't end with the underdog team winning the big game is The Bad News Bears (which, notably, was not based on a true story - I imagine that if the same story had been a true story it probably wouldn't have gotten a movie made of it). Nevertheless, the ending is triumphant, since the fact that such a rag tag group even made it to finals at all was an accomplishment and the characters celebrate, with the indication that they'll try again next year. You could make an argument that this is another subversive ending that works - it subverts the classic "underdogs win the championship" trope in favor of a more realistic ending where they lose, but nevertheless it's not unsatisfying.

TLDR, a realistically gritty ending really only works if you go all the way with it and it satisfies some greater theme. There's nothing wrong with using a cliche but tried and tested ending, because those endings generally work for a reason.

Edit: Can't believe I thought about The Bad News Bears of all movies before Rocky.

I mean, All Quiet on the Western Front was written to emphasize the absolute pointlessness of the war, so its going to be miserable like that. Also Ernest Hemingway was massively scarred by his time in that war, so it really puts that through its paces. I mean, literally, WWI was one of the most tragic wars in human history. There was fighting even after it ended because officers wanted to gain pointless territory so they could look good on their resume. Officers were sending men to their deaths for their own careers even though the war was offically over.

How "subverting expectations," specifically "subverting audience expectations" actually works is that you give the audience something that isn't what they expected, but actually is what they wanted, but didn't know they wanted. It requires actually knowing your audience's expectations and desires and then fulfilling them in a surprising but pleasing way.

What these shitheads are doing isn't that, though. They know what the audience wants and shit all over it to show their absolute, utter contempt for the audience. Often, they even explicitly state their contempt for the audience publicly. This is fairly unique.

As with other perverse artist behavior, a very great artist can actually pull even this off, but these are not great artists, at all. They're not even up to the level of mediocre hacks. A mediocre hack who gives the audience what they want is a better artist than these absolute assclowns.

This isn't even subverting audience expectations. It isn't subversive. It's not creating art. It's usually done with someone else's art. It's more like vandalism. They aren't subverting, they're just cheating and stealing, like a cook at a restaurant substituting a chuck steak for the New York strip you actually ordered, then acting like you're the dick when you send it back.

I mean, its not that the audience didn't know they wanted it, its just different from what they were expecting. The requirement is you just have to give them something equivalent. The problem is these hacks just don't give them anything. Its taking something away without adding anything. You're absolutely right its like artistic vandalism. Its like graffiti. There's gang tagging and then there's wall murals. Subverting expectations done well is a wall mural. Typical subverting expectations by these hacks are just a gang tag. It ruins an otherwise good looking building.

It used to be rather unique, but its grown more common, especially in Western media. In addition to hating your audience. I mean, I don't know how people think its smart or intelligent. Its just really easy to do.

And of course mediocre hacks are. They at least respect what their audience wants and gives it to them.

Well I finally watched Mystic River for the first time ever last night. And if there's any movie we should be blaming for the "subverting expectations" thing, it's not The Last Jedi, it's THIS piece of garbage.

Basically, the movie's story surrounds a man's daughter being brutally murdered, and everyone trying to find out who did it.

In the movie's final 20 minutes, Sean Penn basically gaslights Tim Robbins into confessing that he murdered the girl (The girl being Penn's daughter), and somehow managing to convince Robbins that he actually did it, this effectively taking advantage of a severely mentally whacked man whose mental state was stunted by a man pretending to be a cop capturing him and repeatedly sexually molesting him. Now granted, they do emphasize that "he wasn't the same when he came back" quite a few times throughout the movie, but it's repeating the exact same mistakes that The Last Jedi did by relying on a handful of measly lines of dialogue to justify it.

Meanwhile, we find out that who really killed the girl was her boyfriend's mute brother and a his friend as result of a prank too far.

So in other words, an innocent, mentally disabled dude got murdered for absolutely nothing, a murderer is allowed to walk free, and all the emotional turmoil conjured by this is completely pointless now because of two teenagers' pranks going too far.

The weird part is, there's tons of reason for Robbins actually having murdered the girl to have happened. He wasn't the same when he left the molestors' place as a kid, the movie keeps building up to a reveal that it was him, but no, some kids we don't know the first fucking thing about were the ones who did it. Because fuck logic, right?

I bet Rian Johnson and M. Night Shyamalan are masturbating furiously right now.

Mystic River was very divisive and I thought Sean Penn was a cunt. I disliked the ending, but for me it has fucking nothing on Gone Baby, Gone. It was one time where I actively LOATHED the protagonist. Gone Baby Gone is kind of not subverting expectations though, because the protagonist was always a self-righteous cunt and he's a self-righteous cunt to the end to the point he loses everything he cares about. Which is what he deserved, honestly. I can't really recommend it though, since I don't think the ending was as morally complex or as smart as they thought it was. It was kind of straightforward to me yeah, maybe leave the baby with wise police captain Morgan Freeman with his loving wife who desperately want a child, not turn her over to her coke head, drug addict mother who doesn't give a fuck about her and exploits her for publicity. I mean, you're just begging for that kid to get abused. REAL HARD CHOICE THERE CASEY AFFLECK. Oh you fucked it up., but all the characters were consistent. I mean, I guess its what happens when you introduce a moral absolutist into a moral relativist situation, really really bad decisions. I'm not sure if it belongs in the thread, but I want to bitch about it.

 

[AnOminous]

And of course mediocre hacks are. They at least respect what their audience wants and gives it to them.

I honestly expected a lot better out of Rian Johnson, as there is nothing in his resume that to me suggests someone who despises his audience. He directed one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad ("Ozymandias") and, practically by definition, of television itself.

I have no idea why he did what he did. If you had just told me in advance Rian Johnson was doing a Star Wars movie I'd have expected something incredibly good, not an absolute shart of an insult. Maybe he just specifically hates Star Wars fans. I have absolutely no idea why he did what he did.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I honestly expected a lot better out of Rian Johnson, as there is nothing in his resume that to me suggests someone who despises his audience. He directed one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad ("Ozymandias") and, practically by definition, of television itself.

I have no idea why he did what he did. If you had just told me in advance Rian Johnson was doing a Star Wars movie I'd have expected something incredibly good, not an absolute shart of an insult. Maybe he just specifically hates Star Wars fans. I have absolutely no idea why he did what he did.

He Directed it but he didn't write it.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I honestly expected a lot better out of Rian Johnson, as there is nothing in his resume that to me suggests someone who despises his audience. He directed one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad ("Ozymandias") and, practically by definition, of television itself.

I have no idea why he did what he did. If you had just told me in advance Rian Johnson was doing a Star Wars movie I'd have expected something incredibly good, not an absolute shart of an insult. Maybe he just specifically hates Star Wars fans. I have absolutely no idea why he did what he did.

As @Honka Honka Burning Love said, you had Vince Gilligan and a writer's room. I mean, Vince Gilligan is arguably the best current show-runner and television writer alive. Not to mention by that point in BB he was a director himself, plus you have his crack team he was used to working with. "Ozymandias" was not Rian working alone, but part of a team who had a vision for it. He wasn't going to be allowed to do what he wanted completely. The vision wasn't his alone.

The biggest problem I think is that Rian Johnson wanted to do his own thing, but was bound by JJ Abrams and Star Wars itself. He seemed VERY bitter about this fact, which is basically why he reduced everything Abrams did to scrap metal. I also think it was Disney's policy as a whole to burn the original OT to the ground, because they were bitter with Lucas.

So I think TLJ was a work produced with absolute bitterness and it fucking shows. God does it show.

 

[AnOminous]

He Directed it but he didn't write it.

Most of the impact of that episode was in the direction, though. He wasn't just some dude who accidentally happened to fall into the episode. Pretty much everyone in that episode was absolutely top notch, and the writer was Moira Wally-Beckett, who wrote a bunch of other top notch episodes. Also nobody ever gives cinematographers the love they deserve, but Michael Slovis was almost certainly responsible for most of the iconic visual moments in this episode.

In any event, though, I'm really unable to grasp how you do this particular episode and then do what Rian Johnson undeniably did to Star Wars. How the fuck do you go from there to there? I'm at a loss.

The biggest problem I think is that Rian Johnson wanted to do his own thing, but was bound by JJ Abrams and Star Wars itself. He seemed VERY bitter about this fact, which is basically why he reduced everything Abrams did to scrap metal. I also think it was Disney's policy as a whole to burn the original OT to the ground, because they were bitter with Lucas.

I'm still not understanding the motivation. You're mad at your shitty boss so you take a giant steaming dump on the audience, which was poised to be completely worshipful at any remotely competent product you delivered? Seriously? How the fuck does this work? Are these people fucking aliens? Their motives are completely incomprehensible to me.

Rian Johnson would be far from the first person in charge of some product executive meddling was trying to ruin. And if he delivered a good product anyway, he would be far from the first to do this, too. Even fucking Shakespeare had to deal with this bullshit. Did he respond by delivering absolutely shitty garbage? No, he didn't.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Most of the impact of that episode was in the direction, though. He wasn't just some dude who accidentally happened to fall into the episode. Pretty much everyone in that episode was absolutely top notch, and the writer was Moira Wally-Beckett, who wrote a bunch of other top notch episodes. Also nobody ever gives cinematographers the love they deserve, but Michael Slovis was almost certainly responsible for most of the iconic visual moments in this episode.

In any event, though, I'm really unable to grasp how you do this particular episode and then do what Rian Johnson undeniably did to Star Wars. How the fuck do you go from there to there? I'm at a loss.

Rian Johnson is a hack writer and a good director.

 

[Trig.Point]

I honestly expected a lot better out of Rian Johnson, as there is nothing in his resume that to me suggests someone who despises his audience. He directed one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad ("Ozymandias") and, practically by definition, of television itself.

I have no idea why he did what he did. If you had just told me in advance Rian Johnson was doing a Star Wars movie I'd have expected something incredibly good, not an absolute shart of an insult. Maybe he just specifically hates Star Wars fans. I have absolutely no idea why he did what he did.

With Breaking Bad he had Vince Gilligan keeping him in line, and making it exactly clear what the overarching story and themes were. While with the TLJ he had Kathleen Kennedy.

 

[Secret Asshole]

I'm still not understanding the motivation. You're mad at your shitty boss so you take a giant steaming dump on the audience, which was poised to be completely worshipful at any remotely competent product you delivered? Seriously? How the fuck does this work? Are these people fucking aliens? Their motives are completely incomprehensible to me.

Rian Johnson would be far from the first person in charge of some product executive meddling was trying to ruin. And if he delivered a good product anyway, he would be far from the first to do this, too. Even fucking Shakespeare had to deal with this bullshit. Did he respond by delivering absolutely shitty garbage? No, he didn't.

Putting in my mindset as a creator, its like being in charge of something you don't really own, and aren't really allowed to make it your own. You don't really care about it, or the people who like it. Or even the property itself. But as a creative, you want to put your mark on it. However, everything that came before it forces you to abide by rules, which you really don't want to. Then you have your boss, who says its ok it ignore these rules, who want to destroy that house anyway because they just care about the land the house is built on.

So you basically make a movie that isn't Star Wars, because you don't really want to make a Star Wars movie. That's what 'The Last Jedi' really is. Its Rian Johnson not wanting to make a Star Wars movie, and getting the OK from Kathleen Kennedy to do so. Because they want to burn the OT to the ground.

You have to look at it like, Rian Johnson didn't want to make a Star Wars movie. He wanted to make his own thing. Disney wanted to basically burn old Star Wars to the ground anyway. So Johnson was allowed to make whatever he wanted. Since he didn't really care about the old audience to Star Wars, he honestly didn't bother trying to do anything to placate or please them.

So Johnson did what he did because: 1) He was allowed to do so. 2) He didn't want to make a Star Wars movie that followed anything but his own ideas. Because they follow his ideas, they disregard the fans, because he's not making it for them anyway. 3) He produced shit because he was given little to no oversight.

Also, Shakespeare is Shakespeare. And probably because if Shakespeare produced shitty products for the nobility or his patrons, he'd probably be killed. Rian Johnson didn't exactly have the threat of the English crown looming over his head like an axe. He had Kathleen Kennedy.

So Johnson did what he did because he didn't care about Star Wars, hated its fans and wanted to go in his own direction and was allowed to do so. I mean, it was still fucking trash and the guy can't write for shit. But being a shitty writer doesn't stop shitty writers.

 

[Mooger Meng]

Also, Shakespeare is Shakespeare. And probably because if Shakespeare produced shitty products for the nobility or his patrons, he'd probably be killed. Rian Johnson didn't exactly have the threat of the English crown looming over his head like an axe. He had Kathleen Kennedy.

All my lizard brain is seeing is "To ensure better entertainment media, hackfraud entertainers and/or producers should be drawn and quartered" and I'm still wondering if there is any net negative to this proposal.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

Rian Johnson is a hack writer and a good director.

I mean with Rian Johnson, he can do some decent stories as Knives Out is any indication. For TLJ, no one kept him in check and everyone was okay with every idea he had and he didn't have anything to work off of as JJ had no structure.

While TLJ is flawed with Rian Johnson still partly to blame, he isn't the sole creative force for why TLJ was a travesty.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Well I finally watched Mystic River for the first time ever last night. And if there's any movie we should be blaming for the "subverting expectations" thing, it's not The Last Jedi, it's THIS piece of garbage.

Basically, the movie's story surrounds a man's daughter being brutally murdered, and everyone trying to find out who did it.

In the movie's final 20 minutes, Sean Penn basically gaslights Tim Robbins into confessing that he murdered the girl (The girl being Penn's daughter), and somehow managing to convince Robbins that he actually did it, this effectively taking advantage of a severely mentally whacked man whose mental state was stunted by a man pretending to be a cop capturing him and repeatedly sexually molesting him. Now granted, they do emphasize that "he wasn't the same when he came back" quite a few times throughout the movie, but it's repeating the exact same mistakes that The Last Jedi did by relying on a handful of measly lines of dialogue to justify it.

Meanwhile, we find out that who really killed the girl was her boyfriend's mute brother and a his friend as result of a prank too far.

So in other words, an innocent, mentally disabled dude got murdered for absolutely nothing, a murderer is allowed to walk free, and all the emotional turmoil conjured by this is completely pointless now because of two teenagers' pranks going too far.

The weird part is, there's tons of reason for Robbins actually having murdered the girl to have happened. He wasn't the same when he left the molestors' place as a kid, the movie keeps building up to a reveal that it was him, but no, some kids we don't know the first fucking thing about were the ones who did it. Because fuck logic, right?

I bet Rian Johnson and M. Night Shyamalan are masturbating furiously right now.

Not a big fan of the movie, and I agree that the ending isn't great (it goes for the whole "Real crime is mundane, kiddo. Deal with it." crap that makes me just roll my eyes) but Tim Robbins' character is such an obvious (and huge) red herring that making him the actual murderer probably would've been closer to subverting expectations.

 

[Deadman]

Three words: Zero Time dilemma.
Okay, that's a bit too vague, let me backup a bit.
Zero escape is a trilogy of video games/visual novels Released from 2009-2016, that has the basic premise of nine people being forced to play a death game by a mastermind only known as "Zero", Who has trapped them all in a giant puzzle box for them to solve and kill each other over, with each installment having a different game, group, and location. There's a lot of puzzle solving, murder mystery,and lots and lots of Weird science (were talking black mirror stuff here, big concepts,big ideas.)
The 3rd and FINAL installment of Zero Escape series (And keep in mind FINAL), was not supposed to happen after the second game, Virtue's Last Reward Sold like shit back in 2012. (And that ended in a cliffhanger that was supposed to lead into "ZE3", which was allegedly written back to back.) when writer kotaru uchikoshi told everyone it wouldn't happen, the fanbase put on a concentrated autistic sperg out in the form of a facebook group entitled Operation Bluebird. And apparently, they got their wish: A mysterious 4Infinity countdown on the website of Aksys Games (The publisher that released the series in the US) lead to a reveal at AnimeExpo in 2015 that production was resumed and the game would be releasing next year:

.
Happy ending,right? Well, on the surface: When the game actually released in summer of 2016 as promised, and people actually played the damn thing:

Does this seem appealing to you? It gets worse: The game takes the Rick and Morty Philosophy of "Nothing matters' ' (in thatThere are infinite timelines and worlds, so nothing matters. Granted, VLR did this too, but ZTD emphasizes it so it can make a point on how "Deep" it is. to the absolute extreme. It thinks so highly of itself, it disregards plot points from the prior games left and right to make said point because it is Pretentious. How bad is it?

Spoiler: Zero Escape SPOILERS

-The game when it comes to answering questions, boils down to 1 of 4 responses:
I don't know, Transporter!
I don't know, MIND HACK
I don't know, BOOTSTRAP PARADOX
I don't know, MAKE UP YOUR OWN ANSWER! IT DOESN'T MATTER! SANDGRAINS!
-The antagonist hides among the cast as a blind old deaf man, which no one finds suspicious at all
-The antagonist, for some reason, has the ability of MIND CONTROL, which he uses to influence the character's.
- There is an ALIEN FAX MACHINE (i am not making this up) That can transport people across various timeline's, for the sake of contrivance and NOTHING ELSE.
-The game is SUPPOSED to be about stopping a virus that kills 6 billion people, but "event" is so easily preventable thanks to the nature of VLR's Bootstrap, it comes to a point where it only happens... because it does. and EVEN THEN, it doesn't matter, because it's revealed that zero released the virus that killed 6 BILLION PEOPLE.... for a %75 of stopping a unknown (to the point that THEY MIGHT NOT EXIST) religious fanatic from nuking humanity.
-prior characters from prior entries (999,VLR) have been radically changed to the point of Lulziness: The main character of 999, junpei proposes to 999's zero, Well intentioned extremist akane kurashiki(who used him to save herself with time travel... it's a long story), in what is essentially this:

- the new characters are either Extremely stupid (See: Diana and Carlos) or UTTERLY UNLIKABLE (Eric, a paranoid mess with a shallow "Abusive father" that the game expect's you to sympathize with, who's in love with Mira, a SERIAL KILLER that can only feel emotion by RIPPING PEOPLE'S HEARTS out. They live happily ever after. i'm not kidding.)
-The series basically boil's down to 2 people fucking to ensure the birth of this game's "zero", a 124 year old man named Delta, who is "Supposed" to be Brother, a cult leader of "Free the soul", who was apparently responsible for the virus outbreak stated in VLR (the virus (radical 6) and free the soul are major plot elements in the previous game, with one of the characters being a clone of "Brother"' err, brother, left.) Except free the soul is NOT MENTIONED, AT ALL.

Does that sound like a appealing game to you?

 

[Mooger Meng]

Does that sound like a appealing game to you?

In the same manner a trainwreck is appealing, actually: a terrible thing to experience, but a hilarious thing to see.

 

[Namekian George Floyd]

Three words: Zero Time dilemma.
Okay, that's a bit too vague, let me backup a bit.
Zero escape is a trilogy of video games/visual novels Released from 2009-2016, that has the basic premise of nine people being forced to play a death game by a mastermind only known as "Zero", Who has trapped them all in a giant puzzle box for them to solve and kill each other over, with each installment having a different game, group, and location. There's a lot of puzzle solving, murder mystery,and lots and lots of Weird science (were talking black mirror stuff here, big concepts,big ideas.)
The 3rd and FINAL installment of Zero Escape series (And keep in mind FINAL), was not supposed to happen after the second game, Virtue's Last Reward Sold like shit back in 2012. (And that ended in a cliffhanger that was supposed to lead into "ZE3", which was allegedly written back to back.) when writer kotaru uchikoshi told everyone it wouldn't happen, the fanbase put on a concentrated autistic sperg out in the form of a facebook group entitled Operation Bluebird. And apparently, they got their wish: A mysterious 4Infinity countdown on the website of Aksys Games (The publisher that released the series in the US) lead to a reveal at AnimeExpo in 2015 that production was resumed and the game would be releasing next year:

.
Happy ending,right? Well, on the surface: When the game actually released in summer of 2016 as promised, and people actually played the damn thing:

Does this seem appealing to you? It gets worse: The game takes the Rick and Morty Philosophy of "Nothing matters' ' (in thatThere are infinite timelines and worlds, so nothing matters. Granted, VLR did this too, but ZTD emphasizes it so it can make a point on how "Deep" it is. to the absolute extreme. It thinks so highly of itself, it disregards plot points from the prior games left and right to make said point because it is Pretentious. How bad is it?

Spoiler: Zero Escape SPOILERS

-The game when it comes to answering questions, boils down to 1 of 4 responses:
I don't know, Transporter!
I don't know, MIND HACK
I don't know, BOOTSTRAP PARADOX
I don't know, MAKE UP YOUR OWN ANSWER! IT DOESN'T MATTER! SANDGRAINS!
-The antagonist hides among the cast as a blind old deaf man, which no one finds suspicious at all
-The antagonist, for some reason, has the ability of MIND CONTROL, which he uses to influence the character's.
- There is an ALIEN FAX MACHINE (i am not making this up) That can transport people across various timeline's, for the sake of contrivance and NOTHING ELSE.
-The game is SUPPOSED to be about stopping a virus that kills 6 billion people, but "event" is so easily preventable thanks to the nature of VLR's Bootstrap, it comes to a point where it only happens... because it does. and EVEN THEN, it doesn't matter, because it's revealed that zero released the virus that killed 6 BILLION PEOPLE.... for a %75 of stopping a unknown (to the point that THEY MIGHT NOT EXIST) religious fanatic from nuking humanity.
-prior characters from prior entries (999,VLR) have been radically changed to the point of Lulziness: The main character of 999, junpei proposes to 999's zero, Well intentioned extremist akane kurashiki(who used him to save herself with time travel... it's a long story), in what is essentially this:

- the new characters are either Extremely stupid (See: Diana and Carlos) or UTTERLY UNLIKABLE (Eric, a paranoid mess with a shallow "Abusive father" that the game expect's you to sympathize with, who's in love with Mira, a SERIAL KILLER that can only feel emotion by RIPPING PEOPLE'S HEARTS out. They live happily ever after. i'm not kidding.)
-The series basically boil's down to 2 people fucking to ensure the birth of this game's "zero", a 124 year old man named Delta, who is "Supposed" to be Brother, a cult leader of "Free the soul", who was apparently responsible for the virus outbreak stated in VLR (the virus (radical 6) and free the soul are major plot elements in the previous game, with one of the characters being a clone of "Brother"' err, brother, left.) Except free the soul is NOT MENTIONED, AT ALL.

Does that sound like a appealing game to you?

I'm gonna be honest, I thought all the games were really fucking stupid and that's what I liked about them. They never had any kind of intellectual appeal to me because they just kind of randomly threw around a bunch of niche science and philosophy bullshit that is in no way relevant or applicable to the real world other than to make you do a big think to yourself in an attempt to feel intelligent. I didn't think it could get any dumber after VLR but boy, was I fucking wrong because they mostly dropped all the pseud shit and replaced it with insane events and characters that seem out of place in this series given the last 2 games. Like, this game is amazing in how utterly retarded every single twist in the story is, the writer is legitimately a genius in a very weird and specific kind of way and the reveal of Delta did not disappoint whatsoever. Like when I finished VLR and that series of twists happened and fucking continued on for an indefinite amount of time, I didn't think anything would ever be able to top it in ridiculousness-levels but I was fucking wrong because ZTD blew it out of the water. Like, the entire concept of Delta's character blows that out of the water. Not gonna lie, I love the series and ZTD is my favorite one but I admire it in the way most people admire The Room.

 

[DamageJoy]

The problem is not the concept of subverting expectations, but the fact that it is always used to mask for bad implementation and writing.
Look at Nu-wars and trek. They are meh shows on their own. Twisting the main narrative and tone around just alienates the fans and normal movie goes don't care due to lack of deeper context. Also if you always deconstruct and subvert, then that becomes the cliche and playing it straight feels avantgarde.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

I read on some conspiracy website out there that the reason movie studios are making audience-hating, non-profitable wokecrap is because that, thanks to the current banking/economic system, corporations own all of the money. They own so much that money is no longer an issue for them, so they make propaganda that brainwashes/demoralizes their enemies. I'd scoff at this theory, but it's hard to deny that there may be a grain of truth to it. There's so much income disparity between the top and the bottom, between the corporations and the average Millennial/Gen Zer, that media producers really could have deep enough pockets to act like they're running their companies to the ground, but just keep going with no signs of stopping.