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Darko posted:re: The "stupid characters" discussion. If this is so malleable, why don't people simply adjust their expectations? Why hold yourself hostage to your preconceptions?
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Sep 29, 2015 19:52
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Lt. Danger posted:If this is so malleable, why don't people simply adjust their expectations? Why hold yourself hostage to your preconceptions? Okay that's a loaded question, but the point is still the same. If people have a personal expectation of how characters should behave based on a myriad of subjective factors, asking them to just change their expectations to allow for (subjectively) "bad" elements in a movie might not be reasonable.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:01
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Xenomrph posted:Is "adjusting your expectations" different from "turning your brain off"? Yes, of course. The point of 'turning your brain off' is that you're no longer required to engage with the work.
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Sep 29, 2015 20:20
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Lt. Danger posted:Yes, of course. The point of 'turning your brain off' is that you're no longer required to engage with the work. In fact, I'd kind of say they're the opposite. Adjusting your expectations attempting to udnerstand what the work was trying to say. Turning your brain off is not caring about it.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:05
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Lt. Danger posted:Yes, of course. The point of 'turning your brain off' is that you're no longer required to engage with the work. Your point reminds me of when Grindhouse came out, where people were hand waving criticism of Death Proof by saying saying "of COURSE Death Proof is bad, it's an authentic Grindhouse movie and Grindhouse movies are bad, therefore that makes it good because it's authentic! You need to change your expectations!" That always struck me as a really bizarre leap of logic that I couldn't agree with. Besides, what should someone change their expectations to? Should they expect the characters to act (subjectively) unbelievably, and all of a sudden, they'll enjoy the movie? Like I kinda get your point on a wider scale - every piece of advertising for Inglourious Basterds made the movie look like a non-stop action fest with Brad Pitt killing Nazis the entire time. The movie wasn't that at all, and I ended up being incredibly disappointed because the advertising had been so misleading (and especially after getting burned by the misleading advertising for Death Proof). All of that was due to my expectations. Expectations are really hard to change, especially after-the-fact. It's subjective and it isn't "fair", but I don't think it's quite as easy as you're making it out to be. Edit-- MonsieurChoc posted:In fact, I'd kind of say they're the opposite. Adjusting your expectations attempting to udnerstand what the work was trying to say. Turning your brain off is not caring about it. I *understand* what Death Proof was trying to do, from the standpoint of an authentic Grindhouse movie. But I still thought the movie sucked. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 21:08
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Lt. Danger posted:If this is so malleable, why don't people simply adjust their expectations? Why hold yourself hostage to your preconceptions? 'subjective' does not mean 'malleable' hth also i still can't get over the image of an eight-foot-tall albino plopping a neil-from-the-young-ones wig on his bald noggin and trudging out to deliver the sermon on the mount
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Sep 29, 2015 21:10
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What it comes down to for me is that I really don't care if a particular person "likes" a movie or not. If they don't like it, but their reasons for not liking it are interesting and informative, I want to hear what they have to say. If their criticisms are rooted in unfair, unreasonable, or wrong expectations then I'm not interested. Going into every movie experience with the same expectations is limiting yourself. Even something basic like "the characters should act like realistic human beings" will hold you back in terms of enjoying a lot of high quality films.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:30
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No one is saying to have the same expectations for every movie, and by definition, having subjective expectations means that you don't. When I watch a Farrelly Brothers comedy I have a different set of expectations for the characters than from a Spielberg historical docu-drama. And again, understanding is not the same as liking, and changing your expectations to accommodate one is easier than for the other, especially on a repeat watch of a movie someone may not have enjoyed the first time around. I'm not saying it can't be done - people's opinions of Alien3 have softened over time, and a lot of those initial negative opinions were due to expectations. But I don't think it's something you can just force people to do, or expect them to do like switching a light switch.
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Sep 29, 2015 21:39
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The issue is more of the difference between willingness to accept internal change or not. Some people's initial emotional response is tied into a right/wrong response. They are unwilling to ever see anything they once saw as bad as good and vice versa. They get as much enjoyment from being firm in their opinion for disliking something than liking that thing in the first place. If you don't view things that way, you're more likely to be able to revisit something after being told to revisit an expectation and change your opinion. You want more enjoyment, so you look for ways to enjoy things, and don't get any particular pleasure from disliking things. Again, none of this is binary (I'm just stating the two extreme ends as the "sides") and operates along a long gradient, along with other emotional factors that come into play and affect judgment.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:16
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On one hand, people's life experiences will paint the way that they see the world, including media. But on the other hand, I don't think it is impossible for people to see things from a different perspective. One movie that trips me up is the Director's Cut of Blade Runner. I know the film is supposed to ambiguous about Deckard, but the addition of the unicorn scene makes it all but certain to me to the point where I kind of get annoyed that it was added to the movie. On another note that is kind of similar, I am annoyed with the Blomkamp Alien film for kind of going the fan servicey route because one of the genius moves of Alien 3 was sliding that right out of audience expectations. Also, gently caress Aliens:Colonial Marines.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:18
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blackguy32 posted:On one hand, people's life experiences will paint the way that they see the world, including media. But on the other hand, I don't think it is impossible for people to see things from a different perspective. One movie that trips me up is the Director's Cut of Blade Runner. I know the film is supposed to ambiguous about Deckard, but the addition of the unicorn scene makes it all but certain to me to the point where I kind of get annoyed that it was added to the movie. Is it right? No, it's subjective.
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Sep 29, 2015 22:28
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Basebf555 posted:What it comes down to for me is that I really don't care if a particular person "likes" a movie or not. If they don't like it, but their reasons for not liking it are interesting and informative, I want to hear what they have to say. If their criticisms are rooted in unfair, unreasonable, or wrong expectations then I'm not interested. I read a review of Taxi Driver that said it was unrealistic that Travis would take Nancy to a porno theater because he would have had street smarts. That is never not funny to me. Darko posted:The issue is more of the difference between willingness to accept internal change or not. You can see it in objective things like sports fans going "X is going to win/lose" then figuring afterwards why them being wrong didn't count.
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Sep 29, 2015 23:46
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blackguy32 posted:Also, gently caress Aliens:Colonial Marines. Truer words were never spoken.
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Sep 30, 2015 02:11
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Always felt like Clemens was wasted as a character so early on. Oh well.
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Sep 30, 2015 06:57
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LoveisOver posted:Always felt like Clemens was wasted as a character so early on. Oh well. My only real criticism of the movie has always been that Andrews AND Clemens are both killed so early in rapid succession. I think it would have been very effective with Ripley's leadership and knowledge of the Alien pitted against Andrews' authoritarian desire for order and not making waves with Clemens' constant curiosity about things. But at the same time, I mean it's Alien 3, so there's no real mystery to how the Alien is going to operate. Just both actors are particularly excellent among an already excellent cast so it was a shame to see them both go. You can tell how the history and conflict between Clements/Andrews is one of the things held over from the whater version of the script was around for the monk wooden planet concept. Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 07:14
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Xenomrph posted:I agree with all of this, and it's part of why I made the comparison between "switching off your brain" and "changing your expectations". In both cases, some people just *can't*, don't want to, or don't feel that they should, even if it might make a movie more enjoyable for them. If it's not right though why not try your best to engage in it with a different way your not used to. It's like when my friend saw spring breakers and took it all 100 percent at face value,and no matter what we told him about the movie being very purposeful he just refused to see it any other way. Also Death Proof is way better than planet terror.
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Sep 30, 2015 07:34
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The_Rob posted:
Facts. I actually like Planet Terror more because of my love of the various films it takes from but Death Proof is a straight up superior film to it.
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Sep 30, 2015 07:42
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Xenomrph posted:But I don't think it's something you can just force people to do, or expect them to do like switching a light switch. Okay, but you can't force me to consider those opinions to be worthwhile or valuable. There are a lot of things out there - genres, media - that I don't like enough to engage with. The difference is that I don't run around vomiting my useless opinions of them everywhere. "I didn't like it, it didn't make sense to me", "it was good, it made me laugh in my belly", etc. etc. Largely because, as mentioned above, my opinion there is neither interesting nor informative. In fact, those opinions say very little about the work and much more about me - so why would I share them with a bunch of strangers interested in having a real discussion?
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Sep 30, 2015 09:36
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LoveisOver posted:Always felt like Clemens was wasted as a character so early on. Oh well. The point of Clemens wasn't to give Ripley a Hicks 2.0 boyfriend though
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Sep 30, 2015 11:20
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zVxTeflon posted:The point of Clemens wasn't to give Ripley a Hicks 2.0 boyfriend though It also marks more or less the only instance of Charles Dance playing someone nice.
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Sep 30, 2015 11:56
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The_Rob posted:If it's not right though why not try your best to engage in it with a different way your not used to. The_Rob posted:Also Death Proof is way better than planet terror. Lt. Danger posted:Okay, but you can't force me to consider those opinions to be worthwhile or valuable. It seemed like your response to people doing all of that was to toss a vague, ambiguous "change your expectations!" into the mix, without explaining what they should change their expectations to, how exactly they should go about doing that, or why they should need to do it. And if you don't think other people's opinions are worthwhile or valuable, that's okay. I think the people who shared them will be okay if someone on the internet doesn't agree with their opinion on a movie.
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Sep 30, 2015 13:00
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Xenomrph posted:
What people are trying to get across to you is that your expectations have(in this case) have made your thoughts and opinions uninteresting and not relevant to any discussion we're looking to have about Prometheus. You're right that "change your expectations" isn't really contributing to a discussion, but that's because the discussion should be over already. Either change your expectations or continue disliking the movie, nobody really cares which. I've written some fairly detailed explanations of the way I see the characters in Prometheus, and why I don't agree with your criticisms. At this point you know the other side of the argument, I'm not sure what else there is to talk about.
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Sep 30, 2015 14:35
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I agree, and it's why I tried to steer the discussion back towards Alien3. Darko made a point about subjective biases and suspension of disbelief, and now we're back here. You might notice that my last several posts haven't even mentioned my specific views on Prometheus at all. That's no accident, I've been trying to keep from retreading the same ground while still talking about why I think "change your expectations" isn't as easy or effective as Lt. Danger seems think it is.
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Sep 30, 2015 16:40
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Xenomrph posted:But that's not what's been going on in this thread. There have been plenty of people in this thread saying what they didn't like about aspects of Prometheus and articulating exactly why they didn't like it, what they were expecting, why they were expecting it, and what they felt would have made it better/more effective, and why. Okay, but that isn't talking about Prometheus. It's just talking about what the film is not. I think people do this because it's easier than talking about the film. If you talk about the film, you might actually have to know things like shot technique and intertext and which actors are in the film, and knowing things about films is marginally more difficult than saying what you like and dislike, however elaborate your justifications. If you do want to just post about yourself and how you feel about things then cool beans my friend, I am not the boss of you. Post away. If you don't want to engage with media then that is also officially okay with me. See how little I care! But I don't think people should hide behind "all opinions are good because they're all subjective" because that's not a defence. And if people aren't willing to put the time in to think about how a piece works and what it's doing, then maybe they should accept that instead of pretending they have equal insight to someone who did make an effort. quote:I think "change your expectations" isn't as easy or effective as Lt. Danger seems think it is. e: I don't think anyone said it was easy
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Sep 30, 2015 16:52
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Talking about what a film is not is pretty important, because it lets us recognize what makes films good/bad, or what they lack or don't lack. That's still an entirely valid, useful way of looking at films, and doesn't require being held hostage by the film itself. You're saying that people aren't "putting forth an effort", and you're implying that people aren't knowing things about the movie, and therefore their opinion is worthless. It seems to me like you're not understanding what people are actually saying about the movie, or that they're engaging in a different sort of film analysis than you are. If your response to people saying what they liked or didn't like is "change your expectations, put in some REAL work", then I get the impression you don't understand what people are saying, why they're saying it, or why it's important. Remember: understanding something is not the same as agreeing with/liking it. Maybe you should change your expectations regarding film criticism? TLDR Edit: there's more than one way to discuss movies, pooh-poohing one form as "no effort" stifles discussion, let's agree to disagree and talk about cool things like movies (or you can PM me if you want to keep talking about this I guess) 
Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 17:37
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I don't know why you guys bother conversing with a grown man who considers playtime with his Kenner Aliens action figures as continuity in a franchise that actively tries to distance itself from it. e: also, Death Proof is a masterpiece.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:20
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Death Proof is great.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:42
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I just watched Alien Resurrection again for the first time in over a decade and holy  its bad. Even the Predalien in AVPR isn't as ridiculous as the Newborn.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:47
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Immortan posted:I just watched Alien Resurrection again for the first time in over a decade and holy Even the Newborn isn't as ridiculous as Sigourney Weaver finally getting her wish to have a sex scene with the Alien.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:50
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The Newborn is a pretty great effect. You can argue about the design, but functionally? It looks and moves very realistically. The Pred-Alien is a bad cosplay project. So loving stupid and clunky.
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Sep 30, 2015 21:56
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ruddiger posted:I don't know why you guys bother conversing with a grown man who considers playtime with his Kenner Aliens action figures as continuity in a franchise that actively tries to distance itself from it. Speaking of continuity, what is everyone's opinion on the whole Blomkamp bringing Ripley and Hicks back? Part of me wants to give it a chance to see if anything interesting will be done with it. The other half of me thinks its fan service bullshit because people didn't get the Alien 3 movie they wanted.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:00
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blackguy32 posted:Speaking of continuity, what is everyone's opinion on the whole Blomkamp bringing Ripley and Hicks back? Part of me wants to give it a chance to see if anything interesting will be done with it. The other half of me thinks its fan service bullshit because people didn't get the Alien 3 movie they wanted. I generally like Blomkamp's stuff but the whole thing reeks of him just wanting to play with his toys.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:02
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I'd be nice if it ends in a way that can lead into Alien 3.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:05
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Main thing I remember from Alien 4 is a fairly horrific "pinhole vacuum" death for the newborn that made me feel kinda bad for it. That and Weaver making a cool backward one-hand basketball shot in one take.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:19
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Electromax posted:Main thing I remember from Alien 4 is a fairly horrific "pinhole vacuum" death for the newborn that made me feel kinda bad for it. That and Weaver making a cool backward one-hand basketball shot in one take. I just remember the underwater scene complete with the music buildup that seemed like it was ripped straight out of Sonic the hedgehog.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:23
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You guys are WAY overexplaining to Xenomrph. Dude: people are giving you poo poo not because "I didn't like the movie because its characters were so dumb " is an invalid opinion, you can like or dislike the movie for whatever reason you like, but because it's a superficial and dull one and it only gets more annoying the more you get defensive about it. I didn't care for The Matrix because its yellow/green color timing during the inner-Matrix scenes was really ugly to me. It's a valid opinion! I might even mention it from time to time. I would never dream, however, to try to submit it seriously in a discussion like this one, and I'd expect people to get snippy and impatient with me if I continued to talk about it like, "they still could have represented the same themes with a less obnoxious color filter, other movies such as _____ and ____ have done so" and tried to act as if I were contributing anything of substance to the conversation. You thought the characters in Prometheus were dumb and because of that you couldn't enjoy the movie. OK. That's nice. If you have nothing deeper to add, could you pipe down? Because grown folks are talking. EDIT: If you're complaining about something "taking you right out of the movie" it's probably not something you can seriously discuss at length about lizardman fucked around with this message at 22:39 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 22:31
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CelticPredator posted:The Newborn is a pretty great effect. You can argue about the design, but functionally? It looks and moves very realistically.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:32
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ruddiger posted:I don't know why you guys bother conversing with a grown man who considers playtime with his Kenner Aliens action figures as continuity in a franchise that actively tries to distance itself from it. So far the only person who has even mentioned stuff like that in this thread is you.  Re: Blomkamp's "Alien's 2", I think it's a dumb, fan service-ey move that does a huge dis-service to Alien3. Having said that, some of the speculative concept art he posted online prior to his project being officially greenlit was awesome, especially the one of the Derelict in a research facility. lizardman posted:You guys are WAY overexplaining to Xenomrph. I don't know if you noticed in your need to write an essay about things everyone already knew, but I haven't posted about my opinions re Prometheus in a good while now, and had even steered the thread to a completely different movie until someone brought it back. Also I did enjoy the movie, the characters was just a criticism of it. So if you want to drop the issue, can we please drop it? Edit-- also re your Matrix example, I'd sincerely find that kind of stuff interesting and absolutely wouldn't mind if other people posted more things like it, and I'm confident other people would respond to it too. It's why I posted my opinions in the first place, and amidst all the shouting, there were actually people responding to it. I see people talk about things that don't interest me all the time, but instead of stifling their discussion, I just... let them post about it. It seems like a pretty civil way to have discussions; I'd like to think we can have more than one discussion going at a time. Xenomrph fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 22:32
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A:R gave me a lasting, irrational dislike for Joss Whedon. Partly for writing the awful script to begin with, but also for complaining about all the rad stuff in his script they rewrote/threw away even though all his ideas were worse than what was in the movie. He wanted a ridiculous jeep chase scene through a crop field(!) inside the giant ship that read like some kind of horrible Jurassic Park crossover fanfic.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:38
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Xenomrph posted:I don't know if you noticed in your need to write an essay about things everyone already knew, but I haven't posted about my opinions re Prometheus in a good while now, and had even steered the thread to a completely different movie until someone brought it back. Didn't mean to dogpile, my apologies. I was just motivated to make sure it got through to you because I can just see this kind of thing happening all over again in some other thread about another movie. I'll drop it.
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Sep 30, 2015 22:51
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