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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:50 L wrote: Clearly the quality of a piece of work has no impact on its popular reception, right? It really doesn't. A quality piece of work will have improved chances at popularity but there is no direct correlation whatsoever. Or else how would you explain the phenomenon of "classics" that were unread in their day and only became famous centuries after the author died? | ||
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mucker
United States1120 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:40 DejaVu119 wrote: Hey I was wondering if someone with a better knowledge of the na'vi language could answer this. I've seen the movie a couple times and I THINK that the language is choppy. What i mean by this, is that it seems like the sentence structure changes from subject-verb to verb-subject a lot. Free order with a lot of case marking according to: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1977 | ||
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BanZu
United States3329 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:46 StorkHwaiting wrote: Twilight made $400 million dollars in ticket sales. This must mean Twilight is a superior movie to every other movie that grossed less than $400 million in ticket sales right? Because ticket sales should be the ultimate arbiter in what's considered quality. It means it's entertaining to a large number of people. Or, at least entertaining enough to draw back many people for multiple viewing AND to a large number of people. But of course, it also has its books (which can only help if a lot of people happen to like the series). All-in-all, no, ticket sales shouldn't be the "ultimate arbiter in what's considered quality" because everyone has different standards. Lol, but it's a good indicator of what people like. Duh. | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:46 StorkHwaiting wrote: Twilight made $400 million dollars in ticket sales. This must mean Twilight is a superior movie to every other movie that grossed less than $400 million in ticket sales right? Because ticket sales should be the ultimate arbiter in what's considered quality. You can use whatever personal metric you want to evaluate how you feel about the movie (as every individual does) you can even get together with other people who share your values and together talk about what movies are best according to the values your group has chosen... But when talking about how the general population liked it than yes you have to look at how the general population liked it. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 08 2010 09:01 BanZu wrote: It means it's entertaining to a large number of people. Or, at least entertaining enough to draw back many people for multiple viewing AND to a large number of people. But of course, it also has its books (which can only help if a lot of people happen to like the series). All-in-all, no, ticket sales shouldn't be the "ultimate arbiter in what's considered quality" because everyone has different standards. Lol, but it's a good indicator of what people like. Duh. I'm not trying to be rude or argumentative. I think it's an interesting discussion. What exactly IS the nature of quality? Maybe quality is something indefinable that is relative to each individual? I mean, yeah we can use ticket sales as one indicator. Liking something maybe. Maybe, it's the technical expertise? I don't know the answer. I also think that's what the debate over Avatar boils down to. Some people set their standard for quality at entertaining. Others at technical excellence. Others at literary sophistication. There isn't a right answer here. Although, I think it's possible for any person to argue their own case for quality. That's why the discussion over Avatar is so heated. Because everyone feels they are right in their views, and in fact they ARE right. But then you have a case of Schrodinger's Cat, which claims there are two different states depending on the viewer. Except quality is such a complicated subject that there are more than two states, there are a multitude. I personally think Avatar is a quality film in terms of technical expertise, AKA the graphics, but not so much in terms of literary sophistication or world-building rigor. I have an even bigger problem with Twilight in terms of sophistication. Then again, there are some films that are very "artistic" and very sophisticated in terms of story-telling, characterization, presentation, etc but just utterly fail in terms of entertainment. So is that kind of film considered quality? Yes, to some. To others, it's crappy avant-gard silliness. I'd lean more towards calling that kind of stuff silliness myself. So, I don't really think it's a question of elitism, or not "getting it," or being too picky, or hating on it for the sake of being edgy, or anything like that. Rather, there is no definitive answer to the question of whether ANY movie is quality. There is only a very personal individual answer, which is as right as anyone else's. And I'm probably the first person who should apologize for trying to claim there is any definitive answer for how good or bad the movie was. So, I apologize  . It was still a fun discussion. | ||
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JackMorrisZilah
Italy76 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:03 Archerofaiur wrote: Muwahahahaha Go ahead haters. Feel elitist like you know how to make a great movie and James Cameron doesnt. Cause as we all know the real problem is with all the "braying masses" who dont know true value like you do :p LoL, so why bother about a discussion. We can just adapt to the "braying masses" thinking, it doesn't even need your brain to be used. Seriously, could I have my personals opinions about a film without being adressed as an "elitist"? Oh, and I didn't watch Avatar yet... I still have to wait it will be out in my city ;_; | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 08 2010 09:20 JackMorrisZilah wrote: LoL, so why bother about a discussion. We can just adapt to the "braying masses" thinking, it doesn't even need your brain to be used. Seriously, could I have my personals opinions about a film without being adressed as an "elitist"? Oh, and I didn't watch Avatar yet... I still have to wait it will be out in my city ;_; The crucial part is weither you make it seem like your values are absolute and everyone elses are merely measured against yours. On January 08 2010 09:19 StorkHwaiting wrote: I'm not trying to be rude or argumentative. I think it's an interesting discussion. What exactly IS the nature of quality? Maybe quality is something indefinable that is relative to each individual? I mean, yeah we can use ticket sales as one indicator. Liking something maybe. Maybe, it's the technical expertise? I don't know the answer. I think youd like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". | ||
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JackMorrisZilah
Italy76 Posts
On January 08 2010 09:23 Archerofaiur wrote: The crucial part is weither you make it seem like your values are absolute and everyone elses are merely measured against yours. Well sure, talking about what "film I like", I take my values as absolute... what's the problem. Obviously I can't ignore others values, expecially when so much people seems to think in the same way. But being passively influenced by them, I can't declare opinions as mine at all. | ||
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JackMorrisZilah
Italy76 Posts
On January 08 2010 09:19 StorkHwaiting wrote: I'm not trying to be rude or argumentative. I think it's an interesting discussion. What exactly IS the nature of quality? Maybe quality is something indefinable that is relative to each individual? I mean, yeah we can use ticket sales as one indicator. Liking something maybe. Maybe, it's the technical expertise? I don't know the answer. I also think that's what the debate over Avatar boils down to. Some people set their standard for quality at entertaining. Others at technical excellence. Others at literary sophistication. There isn't a right answer here. Although, I think it's possible for any person to argue their own case for quality. That's why the discussion over Avatar is so heated. Because everyone feels they are right in their views, and in fact they ARE right. But then you have a case of Schrodinger's Cat, which claims there are two different states depending on the viewer. Except quality is such a complicated subject that there are more than two states, there are a multitude. I personally think Avatar is a quality film in terms of technical expertise, AKA the graphics, but not so much in terms of literary sophistication or world-building rigor. I have an even bigger problem with Twilight in terms of sophistication. Then again, there are some films that are very "artistic" and very sophisticated in terms of story-telling, characterization, presentation, etc but just utterly fail in terms of entertainment. So is that kind of film considered quality? Yes, to some. To others, it's crappy avant-gard silliness. I'd lean more towards calling that kind of stuff silliness myself. So, I don't really think it's a question of elitism, or not "getting it," or being too picky, or hating on it for the sake of being edgy, or anything like that. Rather, there is no definitive answer to the question of whether ANY movie is quality. There is only a very personal individual answer, which is as right as anyone else's. And I'm probably the first person who should apologize for trying to claim there is any definitive answer for how good or bad the movie was. So, I apologize . It was still a fun discussion.Well really, you described so deeply your impressions about this film that it wasn't just a claim of your quality rate. The point isn't about who has the right answer, the point is to discuss about it ^^ Now thanks to all those posts I think I'll be much more prepared about what I should expect when Avatar will be out in my cinema too. (and you all made my boring working day a bit more fun, so fell free to do it again ahah) | ||
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iloahz
United States964 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:46 StorkHwaiting wrote: Twilight made $400 million dollars in ticket sales. This must mean Twilight is a superior movie to every other movie that grossed less than $400 million in ticket sales right? Because ticket sales should be the ultimate arbiter in what's considered quality. While total box office is not the ultimate arbiter in a movie's quality, the entire box office run, i.e. how much is the daily gross, its week-to-week drops, etc, says very much about movie's word-of-mouth and how the general public views the movie. To put all this into perspective: Twilight is a movie based on existing material and has a huge fan base. It broke the opening day record, previously held by the dark knight. But New Moon's total gross of course cannot be compared to TDK's, and that's because a very proportion of the movie's box office intake is concentrated on the initial days, and the movie has had very steep drops from there on. Good word-of-mouth however can expand a movie's audience, generate repeat viewings, and this is why movies that have insane word-of-mouth like the hangover, Titanic, and Avatar have such high opening-weekend multipliers. | ||
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Smorrie
Netherlands2921 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:02 ShcShc wrote: When the guy makes two movies where we know the story pretty much and/or we know the ending of it (Titanic) and it still makes over a billion dollar and become the two largest gross in history, I do think its much much more than hype and bandwagon effect. ...especially when both Titanic and Avatar didn't have any previous real brand name, no stars whatsoever, that relies heavily on word-of-mouth then all I can say is that both movies won big based on its own merits. I can probably agree the "bandwagon effect" for the latter portion of its boxoffice earnings, but Avatar (and Titanic for that matter) had no real hype. It was tracking at 40 million $ opening weekend TWO WEEKS before it was opening; that means it was predicted to have approx 300-400 million $ overall total gross worldwide based on its hype meter (major flop). Here we are at over 1.1 billion $. The movie actually had less hype than Alvin and the Chipmunks 2. Just adding my 2 cents (well more like a few small fun facts) Hmm.. I think Avatar had a lot of hype.. You don't need big stars to create any I think a large part of their marketing strategy was based on social media marketing. I haven't done any research on this but I'm sure they blew a lot of money on their ads; before the movie was released everyone had heard about it. | ||
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Draconizard
628 Posts
On January 08 2010 11:29 Smorrie wrote: Hmm.. I think Avatar had a lot of hype.. You don't need big stars to create any I think a large part of their marketing strategy was based on social media marketing. I haven't done any research on this but I'm sure they blew a lot of money on their ads; before the movie was released everyone had heard about it. Actually, the only reason I even knew this movie existed was this thread. | ||
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Archerofaiur
United States4101 Posts
On January 08 2010 13:08 Draconizard wrote: Actually, the only reason I even knew this movie existed was this thread. Same. Ironic for the title :p | ||
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ShcShc
Canada912 Posts
On January 08 2010 11:29 Smorrie wrote: Hmm.. I think Avatar had a lot of hype.. You don't need big stars to create any I think a large part of their marketing strategy was based on social media marketing. I haven't done any research on this but I'm sure they blew a lot of money on their ads; before the movie was released everyone had heard about it. Nah. Trust me. I've followed the movie since June (well you can see that because I'm the topic creator). Back then, there was no picture/barely any information what it was about. In terms of general awareness hype, there wasn't much of it. Most public didn't hear about it even 2 weeks before the release. Most of the awareness were mostly internet message boards. Those who did hear about it were divided in 2 groups: -Those that watched the trailer and many of them thought it looked like absolute crap (e.g: shitty cgi, worse than Jurrasic Park, Delgo, etc...) -Those who saw the 16 minutes IMAX preview/insiders who were praising the movie to the max (you can see it on my the first post of the topic). This is where the so called "huge Avatar hype" was coming. But nobody in the public really knew about it. There was however a lot and a lot of negative hype and how it looked like a video game. Anywho, this COMPLETELY changed on December 10th (or was it 11th?) when it premiered at London and the twitters were frenzied with praises...That's where the real hype started rolling into public consciousness. But in terms of $ hype, boxoffice.com were predicting the Chipmunks to outgross Avatar. | ||
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jalstar
United States8198 Posts
On January 08 2010 13:47 ShcShc wrote: Nah. Trust me. I've followed the movie since June (well you can see that because I'm the topic creator). Back then, there was no picture/barely any information what it was about. In terms of general awareness hype, there wasn't much of it. Most public didn't hear about it even 2 weeks before the release. Most of the awareness were mostly internet message boards. Those who did hear about it were divided in 2 groups: -Those that watched the trailer and many of them thought it looked like absolute crap (e.g: shitty cgi, worse than Jurrasic Park, Delgo, etc...) -Those who saw the 16 minutes IMAX preview/insiders who were praising the movie to the max (you can see it on my the first post of the topic). This is where the so called "huge Avatar hype" was coming. But nobody in the public really knew about it. There was however a lot and a lot of negative hype and how it looked like a video game. Anywho, this COMPLETELY changed on December 10th (or was it 11th?) when it premiered at London and the twitters were frenzied with praises...That's where the real hype started rolling into public consciousness. But in terms of $ hype, boxoffice.com were predicting the Chipmunks to outgross Avatar. I think a big reason why is that you really need to see it in 3D to get how impressive the visuals are. I thought the trailer was completely underwhelming. | ||
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L
Canada4732 Posts
On January 08 2010 08:59 StorkHwaiting wrote: It really doesn't. A quality piece of work will have improved chances at popularity but there is no direct correlation whatsoever. Or else how would you explain the phenomenon of "classics" that were unread in their day and only became famous centuries after the author died? How would you explain the fact that they're now famous? Oh shit. Conceeded the point. | ||
CTStalker
Canada9720 Posts
In his post, titled “Avatar: An Epic Nail House Textbook,” Li draws a comparison between the tree where the Na’vi live and the homes of people who resist eviction—known in China as “nail houses” because of the way they stick up out of would-be construction sites | ||
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Tal
United Kingdom1014 Posts
Some people's arguments are based on the assumption that a film can be objectively (or relatively objectively) judged, by analysing the different elements and overall impact. From this school of thought it would be blindingly clear that Bladerunner is a great film, while Transformers 2 is not. The other side of the argument says that judgement is down to an individuals subjective interpretation of a film. So if someone enjoyed Transformers 2 more than Bladerunner, that person should rate Transformers more highly, even if an intellectual analysis seems to show otherwise. As well as this objective/subjective divide, there is also the divide Stork pointed out- some people are rating films as art, others as entertainment. However, even within these categories the objective/subjective difference is important. For example those who believe in some kind of objectiveness might say Armageddon and Con air are great examples of entertainment in film, while Harry Potter 5 is not. The subjectivists (relativists?) would say that if someone liked Harry Potter more then it was better (for them). Personally (as should be evident from my posts), I come down fairly heavily on the objective side (which also seems to be the side which the majority of film critics share). I believe that while someone's subjective life experience will certainly influence their enjoyment a lot, as an intelligent human they should be able to recognise this to some point when discussing a film (or many other things). To give an example, my favourite band is Muse. I absolutely love their melodies, sound, and energy, and they were the band that got me into music. However, when discussing music with others, I wouldn't say 'muse are the best band in the world', or 'muse are better than Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and Jimmy Hendrix'. I can detach myself enough to see why they're not- they don't have the scope, depth, feeling or consistency of those bands. They are often let down by their lyrics (particularly on the latest album). That doesn't stop me loving them or singing their praises, and it certainly has nothing to do with me cutting out my emotions from the equation. So for the sake of discussion, I'd rate them 8.5/10 even though they're my favourite. To me the alternative is a lot of people saying 'I like what I like', which doesn't exactly lead to very meaningful discussions. So to bring it all back to Avatar, I think we can comfortably assume it should be judged mostly as a film aiming to entertain as opposed to making artistic points. Within that, it succeeds with it's great scenery and immersiveness, but fails with it's boring hackneyed dialogue, recycled and jarring concepts, and ridiculously in your face childish political message. So as entertainment I would rate it 7/10 (as art it would be 1/10). Subjectively I really didn't enjoy it, and would rate my entertainment as 3/10. But for the purposes of discussion, I think talking about the first rating (7/10) makes the most sense. Whew. | ||
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zeppelin
United States565 Posts
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36370 Posts
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