FAIL : How Steve Jobs Returned to Apple After Palm Messed Up January 26, 2022

Settle in everyone, Maniac is going to share a story with you. After Steve Jobs returned to Apple in the early 2000s, he went on to revolutionize the world. However, most people don’t remember Jobs was actually fired from the company he co-founded some time in the mid-80s. The circumstances that saw his return to Apple are just incredible and it all rested on several poor decisions made by a company called Palm. Let’s take a look at what happened in this epic FAIL.

FAIL: Comcast Won’t Broadcast the 2018 Winter Olympics in 4K February 13, 2018

We’ve occasionally strived to offer 4K content on this website at our own expense, which is more than Comcast has done for their customers for this year’s Olympics. Welcome back to FAIL, an unscripted series where we talk about the biggest blunders in film and television. This week marks the return of the Winter Olympics, where the best athletes across the world will get together to compete in a wide range of winter sports.

4KTVs/UHDTVs have received an incredible installation base over the past year, despite the lack of readily available UHD-capable devices and content. At this year’s Winter Olympics, Sony provided 4K-capable broadcast television cameras. In the US, Comcast/Universal has exclusive television rights to broadcast the Olympics, and has been airing them on their various NBC owned channels. The problem is, Comcast, by its own admission, does not have a cable service capable of 4K, despite being one of the most successful companies in the world. That means most of the US will not be able to watch the Olympics in 4K, even if they own a 4K television. Why not?

FAIL: The Episode I Trailer Was NOT Attached to the Wing Commander Film December 19, 2017

It’s become an urban legend over the past decade that the only reason people went to go see the 1999 film Wing Commander was because the iconic trailer for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was attached to every copy of the film that went to theaters. The story goes that movie goers purchased their Wing Commander tickets, watched the Star Wars trailer and promptly left before the film they paid for began. It would be a great story, only it isn’t true.

Back in 1999, Maniac saw Wing Commander twice at his local movie theater. Like most theaters, his local movie house only showed trailers for awful, unwatchable films nobody was interested in before a feature film. Unless a studio attached a good trailer before a film and made them show it, his local movie theater would never air it, and when the Wing Commander film was projected onto that theater screen, the Episode I trailer never accompanied it.

Sit back and relax as Maniac sets the record straight on this urban legend, and hear his brief thoughts on the Wing Commander movie and movie trailers in general.

This is probably why Apple’s Movie Trailer website got so popular back in the early 00s, they actually offered moviegoers the chance for people to finally watch the trailers they wanted to see, something their movie theaters utterly failed to provide them. Hope you all enjoyed this FAIL, and have a happy holiday!

FAIL: How Disney Got Back Oswald November 8, 2017

Welcome back to the highly-anticipated return of FAIL, where we look at Hollywood’s epic business management failures. Today, we’re going to be talking about a FAIL that ended up working out very well for one major company and for an all-new generation.

Before Mickey Mouse was a twinkle in Walt Disney’s eye, Walt created Oswald The Lucky Rabbit for Universal Studios. After Walt decided to leave Universal to start his own company, he was told he could not take Oswald with him, and Walt went on to create Mickey Mouse. Since they both were created by Walt Disney, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was considered by many Disney historians to be Mickey Mouse’s brother. Sadly, Universal had kept the legal rights to Oswald in one of their vaults for decades, despite the fact they had done nothing with him for nearly a century.

Who would have thought that a contract renewal for famous sportscaster Al Michaels would trigger a series of events to bring Oswald The Lucky Rabbit back to his true owners?

FAIL: Konami’s Bad Business Decisions January 25, 2016

Done by request, Maniac is doing a FAIL about a video game company.  In this video, Maniac goes over Konami’s horrible decision to separate themselves from the creator of Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima, and calls into question many decisions that Konami has made over the past decade.

FAIL: The Massive Plot Hole in the Movie PIXELS January 4, 2016

Welcome back to FAIL, our ongoing video series where we take a look at Hollywood’s biggest blunders both behind the camera and in front of it.

By all accounts, the Adam Sandler movie PIXELS was a complete disappointment. While it had great special effects it suffered from unfunny jokes, constant plot holes and a completely miscast lead actor.

That’s right, this film has plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. In fact, most of the film’s plot holes are so huge, most of them have already been talked about by the online community. However, there is one glaring plot hole in this movie that nobody has seemed to notice up until this point and up to the time of posting hasn’t even been published as a goof on the movie’s official IMDB page.

We at GameXcess.net pride ourselves on finding errors that others miss, and oh boy do we have a big error to tell you about.  So sit back and relax as Maniac tells you a story about the plot hole the Internet seems to have missed.  Just be aware, there will be spoilers.

FAIL: Why Haven’t There Been Sequels to Who Framed Roger Rabbit August 28, 2015

FAIL is back, and it’s back in a big way.  For those of you unfamiliar with this series, it’s a chance for us to take a look at Hollywood’s biggest failures, both on the screen and behind the camera.

After already speaking about popular franchises like Superman and The Terminator, Maniac has now set his sights on something a little more personal.  After being inspired by YouTube creator The Dom and his fantastic series Lost in Adaptation, Maniac decided to set his sights on one of his favorite films of all time, the 1989 classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  When it was released it was one of the most groundbreaking and successful films of all time, and yet in all the years since its release it never received a sequel.

Turns out there’s a very complicated reason why.So sit back and relax as Maniac gets to the bottom of why Disney never produced another Roger Rabbit movie even though scripts were made, money was set aside, and the actors were willing to come back.  Prepare yourselves to hear a story of Hollywood at its worst.

FAIL: The Plot of Superman Lives July 21, 2015

Here’s a new episode of FAIL for you guys today, a brand new series where Maniac talks about Hollywood’s ongoing failures.

Today, we’re going to be talking about the plot to Superman Lives, a bonafied Superman film planned for production in the mid-90s. It was written by Kevin  Smith (writer/director of Clerks), produced by Jon Peters (producer of Batman and Caddyshack), star Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider) and get directed by Tim Burton (Beetlejuice).

Sadly, production issues and creative differences forced the project’s cancellation before production began, and the script Kevin Smith wrote was never shot.  A documentary has just recently been produced which details the film’s failed development, but a small criticism about it was that the documentary never talked about the film’s plot.

So what was the plot of this movie, and why was it never produced while other films like Man of Steel and Superman Returns were?  Give the video below a watch and find out. Then you can decide for yourself if it was a shame or a good thing that the movie was never made.

FAIL: Why Terminator 3 Has a Broken Ending June 29, 2015

Apologies for this particular item not being about a gaming related topic but darn it there have been a whole bunch of Terminator games made in the past twenty years, so I figured this is close enough.

I was a huge fan of the Terminator movies up until the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was released in the early 2000s. Then I saw that horrible film and thought it was so badly written that I haven’t seen a new Terminator movie since. But then I discovered Terminator 3‘s ending is not only bad, but it’s fundamentally broken with a plot hole big enough to drive a semi truck through.

So what is wrong with this ending?  Let’s watch the video and find out.