We’ve all had it happen at least once in our lives. We build up a movie, only to have it crumble at our feet. That failure of a movie is so much more tragic than other bad movies because we had such high demands for the movie. The movies in question differs from person to person. Similarly, the reasons that it has been built up varies from movie to movie. But, it has happened once, and will, inevitably, happen again.

The first major time that a movie had such hype and failed so hard was Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace. Releasing the first trailer for Episode 1 was a huge experience. Sure, it had all the usual tie-ins, but this was the first time that I can remember people buying tickets to crappy movies just to see the trailers. The first trailer was released in front of Meet Joe Black, and the second was for Wing Commander. This was before the internet was huge, and people flocked to theaters to see the trailer in full resolution. Eventually a bootleg ended up online when LucasFilm put it on their website (subsequently causing a server meltdown). But, Episode 1 is not a good movie. And, the difference between expectations and reality made Episode 1 suck that much harder. Sure, there had been previous incidents where a movie with massive hype actually sucked – Batman & Robin, Godzilla – but, Star Wars was the first time it actually hurt.

But, it’s not just marketing that can hurt a movie by creating elevated expectations. Both word of mouth and critical hype can also create unrealistic expectations for a movie. The hype for The Birth of a Nation coming out of Sundance was immense. People were critically raving about it as this perfect and flawless important film that everybody needs to see immediately. The critics raved about it for months until the Nate Parker scandal broke. But, the movie itself had some major issues, largely about how narcissistic writer/director and star Nate Parker was. It was his movie to showcase him as a movie hero. It couldn’t live up to the hype from Sundance, and inspired a backlash it didn’t fully deserve.

I’ve almost trained myself that a film with universal critical praise can’t be as good as people say it is. Not that I go into a movie looking for flaws, but I lower my bar because the movie couldn’t possibly live up to the hype built in my head. Frequently, it helps me enjoy the movie more and, sometimes, I even join the chorus of unadulterated praise. Contrastingly, I like being surprised by a messy movie that gets critically lambasted, and their lowered expectations probably helped me like a movie more.

What do you do with movies that are universally loved or hated? Do you set your expectations accordingly? Do you go in believing the hype? Do you still have expectations for certain directors, and have they generally lived up to them?