If the vicious backlash faced by the Star Wars sequel trilogy seemed bad, it was nothing compared to the response to the prequels. George Lucas set out to tell the origin story of Darth Vader for his legions of fans and while there's a lot to love about these movies, they ultimately led to a huge divide in the fanbase that never fully recovered.
While Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace was met with a particularly polarized reception, it’s far from the only controversial franchise reboot churned out by Hollywood. In fact, there are arguably more divisive franchise reboots than unifying ones.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)
In recent years, The Phantom Menace has been vindicated as a cult classic, with millennial fans praising the “Duel of the Fates” sequence, the podracing scenes, and characters like Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, and Darth Maul.
However, at the time, man Star Wars fans could only see the flaws, like Jar Jar Binks, the adorable nine-year-old Vader, and long, drawn-out conversations about trade disputes.
Man Of Steel (2013)
Superman is a symbol of hope. His only internal conflict is that he doesn’t have enough time to save everybody in the world who needs to be saved. But anyone who only saw Zack Snyder’s bleak, pessimistic Man of Steel wouldn’t know that, because his portrayal of Clark Kent completely betrays the spirit of the character.
Henry Cavill was needlessly committing murder.
Ghostbusters (2016)
Paul Feig’s reboot of the Ghostbusters franchise polarized fans before it even hit theaters because a lot of misogynists were unhappy with the producers’ decision to replace the original’s all-male cast with an all-female one. When the movie was released, it was slammed by critics and underperformed at the box office.
It was convenient for the sexist trolls to claim it bombed because of women, but the real reason for the movie’s box office failure is simply that it just wasn’t that good. The cast is incredibly talented, but they were let down by a flimsy script.
The Mummy (2017)
Universal was desperate to launch a cinematic universe with 2017’s The Mummy. The Tom Cruise action vehicle was supposed to kickstart a franchise updating the Universal Monsters called the Dark Universe, but that franchise was canned pretty quickly when The Mummy bombed so hard that it lost the studio around $100 million.
Brendan Fraser’s Mummy movies were far from perfect, but at least they were fun action-adventures with a couple of thrilling set pieces. On the other hand, this one can’t make sense of its own plot and it forces in-universe setups like Russell Crowe playing Dr. Jekyll.
Fant4stic (2015)
Josh Trank insists that there’s a version of his movie Fant4stic that would’ve received positive reviews, but based on Fox’s reshot and recut version, that doesn’t seem possible.
Telling the story of the Fantastic Four with the gritty, grounded sensibility of The Dark Knight and the body horror style of David Cronenberg was just a bad idea.
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017)
When a reboot of the Jumanji franchise was announced to star Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart, some fans were skeptical, because the original was one of Robin Williams’ most memorable movies, and rebooting it risked tarnishing Williams’ legacy after his tragic ing.
Surprisingly, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle turned out great. By turning the board game into a video game and sending all-new characters into its world as avatars, it differentiated itself from the original movie while still maintaining its spirit.
A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)
Wes Craven’s original script for A Nightmare on Elm Street characterized Freddy Krueger as a child molester but changed it to just child murderer after realizing it was in bad taste and not befitting a fun horror movie.
Jackie Earle Haley was a strong casting choice to replace Robert Englund as Freddy in the 2010 remake, but the remake also reinstated Freddy’s characterization as a child molester.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Just five years after the conclusion of Sam Raimi’s definitive Spider-Man trilogy, Sony eagerly rebooted the franchise with director Marc Webb. The Amazing Spider-Man has a needlessly dark tone like so many other post-Batman Begins superhero reboots.
Andrew Garfield could’ve been a great Peter Parker, but with Coldplay on the soundtrack, he didn’t stand a chance. This movie makes Peter’s parents’ death into a conspiracy just to separate it from the Raimi trilogy, which already nailed Spidey’s origin story.
Hellboy (2019)
In theory, a Hellboy movie with an R rating from the director of The Descent should be a wild moviegoing ride. Unfortunately, 2019’s Hellboy gets everything wrong. David Harbour gives a game performance in the lead role, but his hands are tied behind his back by a weak script and the R rating just seems gratuitous.
Instead of making this dreadful reboot, the rights holders should’ve just allowed Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman to make the third Hellboy movie they’ve been dying to make for years.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
When it was first released, Star Wars: The Force Awakens received almost unanimous praise from both fans and critics, who were just happy to see Han Solo and Star Destroyers and crawling yellow text back on the big screen. However, after that wore off, most fans came to realize that The Force Awakens was just a pale imitation of the original 1977 movie, complete with another rebellion, another empire, and another Death Star.
Plus, the cliffhanger ending with Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To initially had fans excited for the rest of the trilogy because it seemed like the filmmakers had a roap for where the story would go. After the bitter disappointment of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, it’s clear that they didn’t.
