10 Movies Totally Ruined By Fan Service

It's not charming. It's lazy.

By Jack Pooley /

Sony

Fan service is an extremely tricky element of franchise filmmaking to get right, because when it feels earned - as in Avengers: Endgame - or actually adds something interesting to the lore - as in Doctor Sleep - it can deepen an audience's love for an IP.

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But as Hollywood has proven time and time again, studios and filmmakers too often use nostalgia and past successes as a crutch, over-relying on iconic characters, imagery, themes and even entire plots, dining out on them past the point that it's acceptable.

It's often said that casual viewers actually like predictability and familiarity in their movies, hence why the recent trend of re-starting an ailing franchise with a half-sequel, half-reboot has proven so popular and successful.

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But there's a line where fan service isn't fun or charming anymore: it's just lazy, cynical storytelling hoping to wring every last dime out of a movie property before fan fatigue finally kicks in.

These 10 films are all especially outrageous examples of movies actively harmed by their excessive approach to baiting fans with familiar yet vacuous, even soulless, ideas and images...

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