Some people just can't leave a great franchise alone...

Can we ever learn from others’ mistakes? We’ve seen it before. A series has a successful run, then churns out season after season of great content. After a while though, you notice something it not quite right. You brush it off as an anomaly, a technical glitch if you will. Then these occurrences are too frequent to ignore and you’re faced with the fact that the show you once knew was no more. It may still be in existence but barely a tenth of its prime.
To me, Peter Jackson has ruined forever the Lord of the Rings franchise with the release of The Hobbit movies. If it wasn’t bad enough that he had to stretch the single book to three movies, he had to alter the story line as well. He had to introduce a new character and a romantic plot which he figured the audience wanted. Well, I'm one part of the audience who didn't like it. What irks me was that The Hobbit would’ve been a good movie if it was just one movie and the director didn’t make too many major alterations with the story line. That’s what bugs me. He had the perfect Bilbo in Martin Freeman. Some say he’s not as charismatic as Elijah Wood playing Frodo but I prefer Bilbo to Frodo. All I can do now is cherish the LOTR trilogy and pretend The Hobbit trilogy never happened.

Another franchise ruined is one I had always admired from afar but never truly experienced. I’m talking about Final Fantasy. I was first introduced to Final Fantasy VIII by my sister. It has a lovely soundtrack and interesting story. After that, a friend in university introduced me to Final Fantasy X. I liked the love story in there and above all, I loved the character designs and animation. It was breathtaking. From there, it was only natural that I discovered Final Fantasy XIII. I really liked the fact that they had a strong, kick-ass girl as the main protagonist. Lightning's character design is awesome.
I thought here was finally a strong and smart main female character. Unfortunately, for the second sequel of FFXIII, the game producers decided to do the unthinkable. They modified the character as if to pander to the fanboys. I read the article about this in dismay. The franchise has sunk so low that I don’t know if they can ever go back to their days of glory. As with the LOTR trilogy, I will cherish the earlier versions of Final Fantasy and pretend the second sequel of Final Fantasy XIII never happened.