I ask this because the other day my oldest brother who is a total normie (plus in his teen years he was busy with one lady after the next while in my teen years I was researching UFO cases, reading sci-fi and buying classic rock and RnB records) was telling me about The Boys and was shocked that I wasn't watching it. I told him that I have some of the comic book and they are fine but that at this point I am just so sick of deconstruction or subversion.
I have the the Watchmen comic by Alan Moore and his life views aside it is a great comic. The only problem is that it spawned to this day so many "what if super heroes were bad" or "dark and gritty side of super heroes" stories. My two worst cases of these modern trends are the Last Jedi because I think Rian Johnson is a typical hollywood douchebag who thinks you aren't smart if you don't appreciate his movies and I question his motivations because I don't think he would give a beloved female character the "Luke treatment". Another example would be Ayra killing the Night King in Game of Thrones because while I enjoy her character in the books I can't help but think that their motivation was girl power and to say "well everyone expected Jon to fight the Night King" is a terrible reason to not do it.
Some good examples off the top of my head are Yoda in Empire Strikes back because it was an interesting surprise to see a little green guy after hearing about a great warrior/Jedi master, but there was a lesson there. Also, in the first Ice and Fire book or Game of Thrones season 1 I didn't see Ned Stark being executed because I thought he would be the main character throughout. Granted there is a pretty sad lesson there about the consequences of doing the right thing and being honest.
What are your examples?
The Mistborn series has this at points. Instead of an arduous trial, the cloak of membership is handed over at the first meeting casually.
Indiana Jones has it. He shoots a guy instead of having a big brawl. He'll lose or be tricked and that's half the movie.
There is a short story in the Dresden files about Harry Dresden complaining about fire damage in dungeons and dragons. He's a wizard that mainly uses fire in modern Chicago.
Before star Trek all the space shows were about scientists or families traveling. So a show about a military space exploration ship, and a captain that earned his position at the academy would be very different.
I really hope Mistborn stays niche enough to avoid getting ruined by netflix. I can see black Vin already.
I really need to get Mistborn series