The Cameo posted:

The co-directors of John Wick were stuntmen on the Matrix movies, which is how they ended up doing the movie in the first place - Keanu approached them about doing stunt work or choreography for it, with the underlying thing being "you should just direct this".

They fell in love with the concept and rewrote the script from there and pitched a take and got the job.

Thus, like half the people John kills in the movie are people who Neo killed in The Matrix movies. Because it's just a big happy family of stuntmen.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

What you asked was whether or not it's fair to call movies bad if people don't like it.

Which irrelevant and nonsense.

quote:

How so? The mostly mediocre-to-bad Marvel movies are used as a standard for successful superhero films. This is the "Marvel Way" negatively influencing audience expectations.

LGD posted:

I'd say people not liking a film is the sine non qua of a film being bad.

Jenny Angel posted:

Alternatively, read Malcolm Gladwell books so you can know when people are quoting Malcolm Gladwell books

Like I'm pretty sure that's where Trump got this idea all of a sudden that we ought to replace our entire military communications infrastructure with couriers

Grendels Dad posted:

John Wick was the movie that made me look him up too. He seems to be Bargain Bin JCVD but whenever he gets to punch Keanu, magic happens

Jenny Angel posted:

Alternatively, read Malcolm Gladwell books so you can know when people are quoting Malcolm Gladwell books

Like I'm pretty sure that's where Trump got this idea all of a sudden that we ought to replace our entire military communications infrastructure with couriers

DrVenkman posted:

For real though this thread is Kevin McCarthy running into traffic, screaming at everyone who'll listen that the Marvel movies are secretly bad and they're all wrong for liking them.

Equeen posted:

I just think they're bland.

Shageletic posted:

The people behind Wick were stunt guys that worked with Keanu on the Matrix movies apparently. Keanu wanted to help them out.

EDIT: Jesus, I'm really slow at the posting thing today.

Grendels Dad posted:

and also poor.

Jenny Angel posted:

Alternatively, read Malcolm Gladwell books so you can know when people are quoting Malcolm Gladwell books

Like I'm pretty sure that's where Trump got this idea all of a sudden that we ought to replace our entire military communications infrastructure with couriers

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

It isn't. Audiences can dislike a movie for thousand different reasons. This is not what makes the bad.

You're avoiding the simple truth that people can love what is bad and hate what is good, and loving mediocre movies influences expectations.

Sir Kodiak posted:

Note that I haven't slagged the competition or made up bizarre theories.

Anyways, this is exactly what I'm getting at. Box office seems to matter right until it doesn't, and there's no cohesive thesis for when it does and doesn't matter. "People do not generally flock to entertainments that they believe are "bad" (as in things that they find unenjoyable)," and yet they flocked to the DC movies, as evidenced by them making more money than most MCU movies. So of course there's this other consideration to explain why in this case they did flock to something they believe is bad.

So it ends up being about the money, until they make a lot of money. Then it's about the critics, but somehow that represents popular opinion, not just critical opinion. I've read all your posts and all I see are special cases, not a single thread that holds together across the argument. I'd love to know what you think that single, cohesive thread is.

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

Thats just what he wants you to think

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

Is that specifically from that Millennium Wargame challenge where the Navy guy sank the US' fleet with a bunch of yachts and fishing boats?

LGD posted:

Yes, I get that you're extremely enraged by other people having different tastes.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

My searing hatred aside, there's nothing wrong with what I said.

LGD posted:

But I am responding to people who have, which seems like important context when trying to follow an argument I'm making? And there isn't a single thread because I'm not predicating my arguments on a single overarching means of determining the truth, which does lead to things being a bunch of special cases. But I don't see where you're seeing any real inconsistency- i.e. my model for how people respond to marketing and the actual experience of a film is identical in every case. They choose to go to movies that look like they're going to be good/entertaining, and the experience of the film can meet, surpass, or fall short of their expectations. You only get "inconsistency" if you think I somehow expect audiences to keep their opinions static, which I do not (or I treat things like initial take and tail differently between franchises, which I am not). I care about money because it's a pretty useful way to measure both initial and sustained interest in a film. Likewise critic reviews and measures of audience sentiment like Cinema Score are pretty useful for discovering how people felt. Sometimes critical thought is in alignment with audiences, sometimes it is not. I'm not really sure what sort of "single cohesive" thread you think I should be using to inform my worldview about how people received various films- accounting for multiple data points seems pretty important.

Sir Kodiak posted:

The inconsistency is in how you determine how an audience reacted. Specifically, box office is a useful metric right up until it disagrees with the point you're trying to make. At which point you go searching for reasons why it doesn't count.

LGD posted:

Well someone disliking a film is absolutely a sine non qua of a film being bad. How can it be bad if no one dislikes it for any reason? Judgments of an artwork's "badness" is fundamentally rooted is a person's subjective dislike.

LGD posted:

Audiences can of course dislike good works for all kinds of stupid reasons. It's just that if you're explicitly trying to make a work that appeals to that audience it's extremely hard to say you've done a good job if they are cold to it! You can make art for its own sake, but that's not what anyone is doing here. You want to talk about meaningless statements? How about "loving mediocre movies influences expectations?" So you think the public's taste is trash? Fine, its a pretty common opinion and one I often hold myself. But that statement is simply saying that by being exposed to things that they like and that you disapprove of, they'll be less inclined to favorably receive the works you do like because they know there is an alternative out there that more closely matches their own preferences. That's an admission that your preferences don't have a hope of competing if people are given a choice in the matter, and you'd prefer they weren't. That isn't a position that's firmly convinced of the superiority of its position and confident in its ability to persuade people, its paternalistic elitism. Which, given that we're talking about loving big budget superhero movies aimed at the broadest possible audience, is absolutely laughable.

LGD posted:

That is something that would happen if you were taking multiple data points into account to get a picture of the overall situation rather than doing a literal more money = better than dick waving contest. So yes, if you simply cite total box office numbers (as you did) I am going to cite other reasons why that is not actually the full picture. There's no actual inconsistency here, and I'm treating the box office take as a useful metric in all cases.

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

Can someone remind me what the good superhero movies are then? Because I'm pretty sure this thread hates each individual one.

Phylodox posted:

I don't even really see the point of comparing "Marvel" and "DC", like they're these singular, homogeneous wholes. I can't say I think one is definitively better than the other because a) the DC stable of films only has two examples on which to base a decision (soon to be three) and b) I think some Marvel movies are better than the one DC film I've seen, while others are not as good. Wouldn't it make more sense to just discuss the individual movies and their merits than to try and decide which company is "better"?

LGD posted:

Because they were genuinely convinced/hoped it was going to be a good movie based on marketing and a pre-existing attachment to the characters/comics/comic universe? Plenty of them also thought it was good. Just fewer than thought that in the case of the Marvel films, something that can be seen in critical reviews/box office results/etc. This isn't a "more money = better than" thing, it's a "we have pretty solid evidence that these movies have genuinely disappointed a lot of their intended audience" thing, and slagging the competition or making up bizarre theories about how the "Marvel formula" has poisoned audience expectations in such a way that people cannot see the virtues of the superior product placed before them is just daft.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

This logic is retarded and backwards. Movies aren't bad because someone doesn't like them, or good because someone likes them. They have an existence outside of the subjective experience of an individual, rooted in collective experience and in artistic context.

You are so deathly afraid of talking about comic book movies that you've begun denying the existence of "good" or "bad".

quote:

Let's translate the bullshit:

1. "Works that don't appeal to audiences if they were supposed to appeal to audiences are failures."

2. "The public sometimes or often has bad taste in media consumption."

3. "If audiences watch and like movies BotL doesn't like, they'll prefer to watch movies that BotL doesn't like."

4. "BotL is anti-democratic because he knows that people will prefer to watch movies he doesn't like."

The first one is just confused and irrelevant, the second is somewhat true. The third has some obscure reasoning and it seems like a truism. Yeah, audiences prefer movies. And then it devolves into nonsense when I become the key. Now you seem to imagine me to be some authoritarian who wishes to destroy the free market.

(Which is half true, I am a socialist).

Sir Kodiak posted:

I exclusively mentioned box office numbers because the post of yours I responded to exclusively addressed consumption.

Anyways, can you clarify how you integrate these multiple data points? Because I'm curious what you're using that ends up with "People genuinely think the Bayformers movies are good" that doesn't have the same result for the DC movies. Because Christ knows those get slaughtered by the critics.

edit: "doesn't" instead of "does"

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

This logic is retarded and backwards. Movies aren't bad because someone doesn't like them, or good because someone likes them. They have an existence outside of the subjective experience of an individual, rooted in collective experience and in artistic context.

You are so deathly afraid of talking about comic book movies that you've begun denying the existence of "good" or "bad".


Let's translate the bullshit:

1. "Works that don't appeal to audiences if they were supposed to appeal to audiences are failures."

2. "The public sometimes or often has bad taste in media consumption."

3. "If audiences watch and like movies BotL doesn't like, they'll prefer to watch movies that BotL doesn't like."

4. "BotL is anti-democratic because they know that if people have free choise in watching movies, they'll prefer movies that BotL doesn't like." (!!!)

The first one is just confused and irrelevant, the second is somewhat true. The third has some obscure reasoning and it seems like a truism. Yeah, audiences prefer movies. And then it devolves into complete where you imagine me to be some authoritarian who wishes to take away choice in watching movies.

(As a socialist I only wish to destroy the free market, not take away choice of liking or watching movies).

And barely any of this relates to comic book movies.

LGD posted:

the films themselves disappoint general audiences as well as critics.

LGD posted:

Some people very obviously think the DC movies are good too

Sir Kodiak posted:

Glad we've cleared this up. Thanks!

LGD posted:

you realize that's not an actual contradiction though

like you keep trying to counter these extreme all or nothing statements I'm not making

LGD posted:

you realize that's not an actual contradiction though

like you keep trying to counter these extreme all or nothing statements I'm not making

LGD posted:

No, I merely deny that you have some sort of privileged position in terms of determining what that is, and that the criteria are different for art as art and commercial art intended primarily as an entertainment. Actually pleasing an audience is important for one but not the other.

And that collective experience and artistic context you're citing ultimately boils down the the subjective tastes of individuals.

LGD posted:

Would you then care to explain why people watching mediocre movies has such a ruinous effect on the public's perception of good movies?

Sir Kodiak posted:

Eh, you can always slice things up for more granularity or group things together to talk about broader trends. It's not pointless to talk about Jurassic Park being better than The Lost World even if The Lost World has a scene (e.g., the roundup) that I like better than some scenes in Jurassic Park.

Sir Kodiak posted:

Things can be contradictory without being extreme. Unless "some people" is a lame dodge where you're like "at least two or people exist."

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I am objectively correct with my opinions, but that's besides the point. There isn't an actual difference between art as art and commercial art.

You're also missing is that subjective experience and statement can be completely true (like mine).

This is a trend I see in nerd circles way too often, where people are so intent on disproving others wrong that they end up denying the existence of truth.

quote:

Uncritically consuming movies leads to difficulties with recognizing or enjoying good moves. Judging bad movies as good inevitably leads to skewed perception, such as MCU movies being held up as an ideal for superhero movies.

quote:

This is again bullshit we need to clear.

"If these movies are all uniformly mediocre, then audiences should recognize a great movie when they see it".

The thing is, this has happened. BvS is more or less recognized as the most important superhero movie since Man of Steel. What's remarkable is that people overwhelmingly express it's importance as dislike. It's supposedly a colossal failure, yet it's constantly put on a pedestal while nominally superior movies like Civil War and X-Men: Apocalypse have been consumed and have faded away (BvS the only superhero movie with a dedicated GBS thread!). This is because people have felt it's impact. They hate it, yet keep honouring it.

HIJK posted:

Careful. If you keep going like this you'll end up becoming DC's biggest fan.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I am objectively correct with my opinions, but that's besides the point. There isn't an actual difference between art as art and commercial art.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I am objectively correct with my opinions, but that's besides the point. There isn't an actual difference between art as art and commercial art.

You're also missing is that subjective experience and statement can be completely true (like mine).

This is a trend I see in nerd circles way too often, where people are so intent on disproving others wrong that they end up denying the existence of truth.

lazorexplosion posted:

I understand that the traits 'obtuse inability to understand moments of likable characterization' and 'likes BvS' often go hand in hand.

MinibarMatchman posted:

I'd say this is an SMG parachute/parody account but not even SMG would get probated from meltdowns in a loving steven universe thread

Phylodox posted:

Except, in this case, it would be like declaring The Lost World the better movie based solely on that scene. It's hard to compare two wholes when one is considerably smaller than the other. I could easily name one Marvel movie I liked better than Man of Steel, but I don't take that to mean that all Marvel movies are better than DC movies.

LGD posted:

if (hypothetically) out of every 10 people who saw a film an average of 2 hated it, 4 thought it was on the bad side of mediocre, 3 thought it was on the good side of mediocre, and 1 person loved it, I would be entirely entitled (and accurate) in describing it as a film that disappointed audiences and was generally poorly received

I would also be correct to say that there were a sizable number of people who liked the film

people have mixed opinions on things, and when I say something was "bad" I don't mean "0% approval ultra-Hitler"

this isn't about avoiding firm opinions, its about being generally in accord with reality and avoiding asinine statements

ThePlague-Daemon posted:

ThePlague-Daemon posted:

I wanted to find some shots for the thread but I'm not very good at finding movie screenshots on Google and I don't own most of these movies. I DID find this piece of Avengers concept art and the shot it seems to have inspired in the movie again: