Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.
Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?
My own view is that dramatic or comedic productions do not pretend to portray historical reality and should primarily be entertaining and engaging rather than pragmatic.
I think us gamer sorts tend to over-think plot contrivances, my current peeve is 'hackers' essentially being Wizards able to pull plot development out of 30 seconds of random keyboard mashing
Otherwise I tend to let it go, although casting tall pretty people in Poldark suggest the casting team have wisely never been to Cornwall
Kilkrazy wrote: Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.
Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?
My own view is that dramatic or comedic productions do not pretend to portray historical reality and should primarily be entertaining and engaging rather than pragmatic.
I watch filsm adn tv primarily to be entertained.
Personally I (and friends) am happy with "unlikely" events if they are at least internally consistant. Not bothered by race or gender as long as the character is portrayed well.
Examples that broke my concentration:
The sheer unbrideled stupidity of the entire crew in Promethius
or made me want to vomit: 75% of the Last Jedi.
Any moment Lex Luthor is on screen in Batman vs Supermen
We all have different tastes and tollerences however.
I am horrified that my fantasy viewing doesn't meet up with my view of reality, I mean if you are going to make stuff up why call it fantasy or science fantasy or let alone fiction?
Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.
Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.
Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.
Automatically Appended Next Post: while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?
OldMate wrote: Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.
Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.
Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.
Automatically Appended Next Post: while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?
See, I don't see that as a problem with realism as a problem with gak cinematography. Might just be me though.
Kilkrazy wrote: Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.
Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?
My own view is that dramatic or comedic productions do not pretend to portray historical reality and should primarily be entertaining and engaging rather than pragmatic.
Like most folk who take your view, you're creating a false choice.
Though the issue is not helped by the word, which has come to have an additional and not very intuitive meaning. "Realism" as in "realistic" as in "like real life" is not important in a fiction unless it purports to portray real life, or uses elements of real life(or history) as a shorthand. "Realism" as in "consistent" as in "obeys its own rules" is vital. If you establish that something in your fictional world works in a certain way or that your works have a certain tone, and then you contradict that later because the established way was inconvenient, or because you'd written yourself into a corner, or because you've changed your mind/come in to an existing IP and decided you want to "subvert expectations" because fnar look at these plebians enjoying a thing for what it is don't they know the only value is an endless cycle of futile novelty fnar, then you have written bad fiction.
Some people choose to ignore that because they like other aspects of the work, but that doesn't mean the problem isn't there, any more than an individual deriving ironic enjoyment from really really terribly acted shlock movies means the acting is actually good. The fact that some people choose to ignore it also doesn't mean that people who don't or can't are somehow being unfair, or have had their minds addled by watching too many episodes of Dragon's Den or whatever.
Films are generally set with a real world setting or a fantasy one, but both have a set of rules that govern reality. Fantasy films have more latitude for the absurd but they still need to play within a system of reality they have defined. This means that things that happen are credible within the parameters defined. Real world films rather have to reflect some sense of reality.
Films that break these by having the character do things absurd lose the respect of the viewer because it breaks the illusion and disbelief can’t be suspended, the writer has done something that smacks of thoughtlessness or laziness in order to drive the plot along or get out of some corner they’ve painted themselves into.
With programmes set in the real world or depicting historical events, there’s a struggle to buy into something that claims to be something it isn’t. For a start, things where you break the laws of physics with people doing the absurd, lots of films seem to have people performing like they’re in the Matrix, which was fine in the Matrix but not in something supposedly set in reality.
Some films clearly are marketed at a particular audience but don’t show the respect to that audience to write things that reflect common knowledge. Most driving/racing films are like this, clearly marketed at a crowd knowledgeable about driving but then have absurdities in the way driving is depicted. Always being able to drive flat out and then change down a gear for a boost in speed to outrun an opponent is seemly ubiquitous among such films despite everyone knowing you can’t do this.
Sometimes it claims to be real, but it’s just fantasy, and usually for needless reasons. Most historical inaccuracies are avoidable and just betray a lack of knowledge on the part of writers. And then there’s the downright disrespectful, films like U-571 or The Imitation Game, which are offensive in their wrongness.
TLDR: films need to respect reality to have credibility, even fantasy films which should define their limitations and stick to them. Films aimed at particular markets of knowledgeable people, like car or war films, should at least get those bits mostly right because the writer will struggle to have credibility if he breaks the reality of the subject he’s specifically chosen.
OldMate wrote: Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.
Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.
Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.
Automatically Appended Next Post: while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?
You see, that's exactly where I disagree. I like elves surfing down castle walls while shooting off loads of arrows with 100% accuracy, or a lone star pilot buying time against an invasion by a prank call to the enemy admiral.
OldMate wrote: Yeah but you can't help but think that the battle of five armies or the last Jedi would have been more entertaining and interesting with a more realistic battle, with a degree of tactical competence or common sense.
Automatically Appended Next Post: It sorta undermines the entertainment when you are suddenly caught in a "What in hell was that?" moment.
Like elves jumping over dwarves into a charging tide of orcs.
Or an admiral having a cry about who the general is to some random lone rebel fighter.
Automatically Appended Next Post: while it is clearly a diversion, and besides why not just waste the rebel scum?
You see, that's exactly where I disagree. I like elves surfing down castle walls while shooting off loads of arrows with 100% accuracy, or a lone star pilot buying time against an invasion by a prank call to the enemy admiral.
I think it's cool and fun entertainment.
And again, you're free to think that, just like you're free to think Chudmonster XVII - The Second Enchudening or whatever garbage shlock film is great fun. It doesn't mean the criticisms levelled against those things are wrong.
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene? It's complete tonal whiplash, it makes no sense in the context of either character's supposed character, and there's no reason it should have worked in the context of that setting. You can overlook all of that because hurr hurr man made a funny if you like, that other people are not willing to accept rubbish doesn't make them unreasonable or addled by reality television.
Real life realism and entertainment realism are quite different. Ex #1: tv show “the last ship”, the ship’s captain goes on missions meant for marines all the damn time; in real life the captain would be on the ship 100% of the time.
Ex #2: tv show “TWD”, I believe it was first half of aweful S8, where bunny Rosita shoots a RPG at a single guy about 20 ft away inside a warehouse, no backlash, not much damage outside of the disappearing guy. There would be hell if a lot more damage in real life, for entertainment purposes we expect somewhere in between the two.
Ex #3: aweful straight to dvd movie called ‘Mercenaries’, so dumb it was memorable, it became funny when the actor was trying to be serious; 4 mercs sleeping overnight right next to each other in sleeping bag with no rotation of watch duty, this done in supposed hostile territory. I think even us regular joes think that’s absurd if done in real life situation.
Kilkrazy wrote: Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.
Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
.
I think it's exactly the opposite. Movies in particular are far too much about jamming in excessive over the top action (especially CGI) that they don't even bother to -try- to make good dramatic productions.
If they calmed down and aimed for realism (or at the very least, verisimilitude and consistency with their own setting), they'd make better movies rather than incoherent gibberish masquerading as narratives, which are then almost completely obscured by explosions and cut-cornered CGI.
I think this is part of the nebulous and virtually indescribable aspects of suspension of disbelief and different members of the audience will find different things are jarring.
I didn't care about the prank call at the start of TLJ. I thought it was mildly amusing.
I did care about the bizarre "we're not going to tell anyone we have a plan, we're just going to tell people to HOPE" and that just had me rolling my eyes and groaning. Other people haven't had that issue with that scene.
I would say that in the internet age, we are far more aware of the aspects of reality than layman would have been. If I so desired, I could find out if Leatherface's chainsaw ran for a reasonable amount of time given the make and model of his chainsaw.
I could google appropriate arms for a Macedonian soldier, a Roman Centurion, and find an article on chariot tactics while going to the bathroom midfilm. Back before the internet was so accessible, such specialist knowledge was incredibly limited- if you had swords and the right helmets, bang you made a historical drama. Now heaven help you if you have plate when you ought to have chain, or if your brigandine plates are on the outside.
Of course, filmmakers and prop makers can too- so it just comes down to how much care is put into a film. If you are doing a historical piece, be accurate to the time. If you aren't, cool, just roll with it.
Basically anything that takes you out of the moment of a movie is bad. Same thing as a car in the shot, music that doesn't match the mood you're going for, or bad acting.
For me it depends on the attitude of the work itself. If a movie/book/show doesn't take itself too seriously then I'm willing to forgive it for its oversights and contrivances, but if it presents itself as serious business then it had better produce the goods. I can easily enjoy a b movie for what it is but I can't stand unearned gravitas and pretentiousness.
The Expanse is a really good example of a sci fi show that takes itself seriously, but earns my respect by actually putting effort into getting things right. In contrast, I love Star Trek but pretty much all of it is ridiculous and I can't take it seriously. DS9 took a different track and while it had a darker, more serious tone, it didn't overextend itself with an insistence on nonsense junk science and moralizing and stayed focused on story and character.
TL;DR: as long as a work of fiction is honest with itself about its quality and tone and doesn't try to be something it hasn't earned I'm willing to forgive a lack of realism or seriousness.
Question for OP - would you be surprised to see Hobbits spontaneously fly in lord of the Rings?
After all, why not - it's a fantasy story with wizards, right?
It entirely depends on the rules set by the media in front of you itself.
I've got no problem whatsoever with a show like BoJack Horseman, that is partly-realistic and partly-not, because the realistic parts stay realistic and the not-realistic bits stay obviously fantastical.
What annoys me is when a film/show presents itself as super-cereal/gritty/realistic then throws it all out for the sake of a spectacle or because of terrible writing, or both.
If the Dark Knight movies had said, from the beginning, here's some (more) stupidly contrived superhero movies, they'd have been a lot more enjoyable than the pseudo super-cereal insult to your intelligence that they were.
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?
The word most of the posters here should be using is not realism, it's verisimilitude. The feeling or appearance of being real within the context of what's going on.
When established characters act out of character, that goes against verisimilitude. When you establish that something takes lots of specialized training to do, and then a new character can do it 'just because' that goes against verisimilitude. When smart characters do dumb things that goes against verisimilitude. When characters lose resources they had earlier in the story with no explanation as to how or why they were expended, that goes against verisimilitude. When you portray something as being from a specific historical period and they have resources not available in that historical period, that goes against verisimilitude.
(And my pet peeve - when two people are supposed to be fighting with swords and spend the entire fight swinging not to hit the other guy, but to always pointedly hit the other guy's sword, that really goes against verisimilitude...)
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?
Boring conversation anyway.
And Threepio and Artoo delivering themselves as slaves to Jabba the Hutt. Pranked!
Kilkrazy wrote: Reading comments on films and TV here in Geek Media, I often see complaints about plot holes, or the lack of realism of casting a black actor in a role traditionally protrayed by a white actor, or of showing an SF show where no-one has mobile phones, or whatever.
Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?
No, I think it's much more things like a revolver shooting 30 times continuously without reloading, heroes walking away from clearly fatal car crashes without even mussing their hair, plots erupting into action while clearly major unresolved plot issues remain that otherwise narratively undermine the rest of the story, etc.
Entertainment should be entertaining, but if the suspension of disbelief cannot be maintained, then the entertainment value is relegated to much cheaper thrills that don't lend themselves well to re-experience.
EDIT: mostly what Vulcan said about verisimilitude.
Yodhrin wrote: The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene? It's complete tonal whiplash, it makes no sense in the context of either character's supposed character, and there's no reason it should have worked in the context of that setting. You can overlook all of that because hurr hurr man made a funny if you like, that other people are not willing to accept rubbish doesn't make them unreasonable or addled by reality television.
Exactly. That scene would make perfect sense, in a comedy movie. But Star Wars is not a comedy movie, so the scene feels completely out of place.
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?
Boring conversation anyway.
Not a good comparison. There's a huge difference between occasional moments of comic relief and one-liners and extended comedy scenes. Han makes a joke, but it's a momentary joke that you could imagine someone doing in a real situation as they grab their gun and prepare for a fight. And the person Han is talking to doesn't buy the bluff at all, it's portrayed as a failed act of desperation rather than a viable plan. Having Han make a final parting joke doesn't take away from the flow of the scene, or expect us to suspend disbelief about how such a ridiculous idea could actually work. Contrast that with Poe's prank call scene, where it's a drawn-out mess of awkwardness that you have to focus 100% on because it's the only thing going on for an entire scene and where the plot depends on the joke actually accomplishing something instead of being a throwaway line.
Kilkrazy wrote: Could this be partly a result of the rise of "reality TV", which purports to portray realistic scenarios but of course actually is highly "produced"?
No, because nobody believes that reality tv is realistic.
Kaiyanwang wrote: Question for OP - would you be surprised to see Hobbits spontaneously fly in lord of the Rings?
After all, why not - it's a fantasy story with wizards, right?
Yes. It isn't part of the background.
I wasn't surprising to see characters flying in Harry Potter, or Kiki's Delivery Service, but to be fair it wasn't spontaneous. Flying is part of the background in both of them.
Kaiyanwang wrote: Question for OP - would you be surprised to see Hobbits spontaneously fly in lord of the Rings? After all, why not - it's a fantasy story with wizards, right?
Yes. It isn't part of the background.
I wasn't surprising to see characters flying in Harry Potter, or Kiki's Delivery Service, but to be fair it wasn't spontaneous. Flying is part of the background in both of them.
Same thing. I acknowledge that there is a component of "geek culture" that is made of pointless nitpickers that even cash-in their shallow approach to media (Cinemasins, as an example). These people are despicable and add nothing to discourse, fandom, and for sure they are not entertaining. But sometimes, people want consistency in their story. Not realism, but that the story follows the established rules in THAT universe, and that the characters behave like how such rules made us expect people in THAT universe would behave. This is why IMHO Yodhrin's complaints above are completely sound and logical, BTW.
Not a good comparison. There's a huge difference between occasional moments of comic relief and one-liners and extended comedy scenes. Han makes a joke, but it's a momentary joke that you could imagine someone doing in a real situation as they grab their gun and prepare for a fight. And the person Han is talking to doesn't buy the bluff at all, it's portrayed as a failed act of desperation rather than a viable plan. Having Han make a final parting joke doesn't take away from the flow of the scene, or expect us to suspend disbelief about how such a ridiculous idea could actually work. Contrast that with Poe's prank call scene, where it's a drawn-out mess of awkwardness that you have to focus 100% on because it's the only thing going on for an entire scene and where the plot depends on the joke actually accomplishing something instead of being a throwaway line.
Very well put. Especially the part concerning the FLOW. That prank is bad writing not only from the standpoint of a SW movie (tone, type of story etc) but as comedic scene in general because the timing is all off, and in comedy timing is EVERYTHING. Is bad even if confined within itself.
I do not expect scifi-movies to have Carl Sagan-level scientific accuracy. Lots of the things in Star Wars, for example, make absolutely no sense physics-wise: sounds in space and how the spacecraft fly around like aerodynamic aircraft, super-dense asteroid fields and so on.
However, one thing which does annoy me is if the distances are completely treated as out of whack. One of the worst offenders there are new Star Trek movies, and in fact I call the phenomenon as "JJAbrams distances". Lets start with Star Trek:
-Spock witnesses death of Vulcan from another planet. Vulcan shows up bigger than Earths moon on the sky. Even if the planet was in same system, it would have shown up a little dot, or at very best, tiny disc.
-whole 'supernova threatening the Galaxy' feels really fishy. But I guess that if a supernova was blowing up somewhere really close to many habitated worlds it would be a catastrophe so I'll give them a pass.
Then 'Into Darkness', oh boy...
Their order is to get 'as close as possible to Kronos without crossing the Neutral Zone' which, as turns out, puts them to weapons range of Kronos! Some 'Neutral Zone'. Then they casually cross the most guarded orbit in the galaxy with few shuttles.
And hey! More JJAbrams space distances in 'Force Awakens'. First Order shoots their planet killer weapon (which is located in Outer Rim) at Republic worlds (which are not) and the rebels and everybody sees the Republic worlds blow up. Thousands of lightyears away...
Backfire wrote: I do not expect scifi-movies to have Carl Sagan-level scientific accuracy. Lots of the things in Star Wars, for example, make absolutely no sense physics-wise: sounds in space and how the spacecraft fly around like aerodynamic aircraft, super-dense asteroid fields and so on.
And hey! More JJAbrams space distances in 'Force Awakens'. First Order shoots their planet killer weapon (which is located in Outer Rim) at Republic worlds (which are not) and the rebels and everybody sees the Republic worlds blow up. Thousands of lightyears away...
Yeah, this. I expect Star Wars to play fast and loose with science. (Heck, I expect that from Trek). But Abrams and FA had no concept of time and distance at all, with the above just being the most egregious example. Travel time and navigation were established as a big deal in the first film, and carried on in later films (Luke ended up places after everyone else because he went to Dagobah first in 5 and 6, and needed to actually fly the X-wing rather than let R2 take over, etc). In 7, everything just instantaneously goes from not!Tatooine to Han's giant cargo hauler to Frogbar planet to rebel planet to superweapon planet. Unless Rebel Planet was the same place as Frogbar planet and the film doesn't even bother to establish that in a meaningful way. Planets go from important settings to just sets (or more likely, just green-screens).
Where and when things happen doesn't matter at all, which seems a crime against storytelling in a Space Opera.
Backfire wrote: I do not expect scifi-movies to have Carl Sagan-level scientific accuracy. Lots of the things in Star Wars, for example, make absolutely no sense physics-wise: sounds in space and how the spacecraft fly around like aerodynamic aircraft, super-dense asteroid fields and so on.
And hey! More JJAbrams space distances in 'Force Awakens'. First Order shoots their planet killer weapon (which is located in Outer Rim) at Republic worlds (which are not) and the rebels and everybody sees the Republic worlds blow up. Thousands of lightyears away...
Yeah, this. I expect Star Wars to play fast and loose with science. (Heck, I expect that from Trek). But Abrams and FA had no concept of time and distance at all, with the above just being the most egregious example. Travel time and navigation were established as a big deal in the first film, and carried on in later films (Luke ended up places after everyone else because he went to Dagobah first in 5 and 6, and needed to actually fly the X-wing rather than let R2 take over, etc). In 7, everything just instantaneously goes from not!Tatooine to Han's giant cargo hauler to Frogbar planet to rebel planet to superweapon planet. Unless Rebel Planet was the same place as Frogbar planet and the film doesn't even bother to establish that in a meaningful way. Planets go from important settings to just sets (or more likely, just green-screens).
Where and when things happen doesn't matter at all, which seems a crime against storytelling in a Space Opera.
It makes the galaxy feel so small. They did the same with politics, and the size of the rebel alliance (resistance). And how fast the FO took over between TFA and TLJ (days? Minutes?). It looks more like a squabble than a galactic war.
Definitely minutes, as 7 ends and 8 begins with some staring and the lightsaber passing from one to the other.
Which also hits the travel time (and communication) issue yet again, as Rey's transit (in 7) from Rebel Planet to Luke Planet apparently took exactly as long as the FO finding out their superweapon blew up, finding out -exactly- where the rebel ships had come from (down to the kilometer on the surface), and moving an entire fleet to that planet.
While apparently taking over everything else, even though big boss mutant was out in space...somewhere.
Legolas surfing down stairs on his shield one shotting enemies with a bow is perhaps cool, but cheapens the sacrifice of the men dying to defend Helm's Deep. Same with him soloing one of the giant elephants and all its crew in the third film. Why waste resources building fortresses when you could just train up a handful of elves and make an elf primarch death star that scythes through any enemy forces they come across. Send them into Mordor, empty it in a few days and send word back that it's safe to bring the ring now
It also really bugs me when the protagonists in a HH book are super powered and the enemy legion they're fighting are nothing more than cannon fodder, going down in one perfect hit every time. I'm just finishing Wolfsbane and it's a bad offender for this.You'd think the Luna Wolves are conscripts who've been put in scary looking power armour for the sole purpose of putting over the Space Wolves. Ugh.
Long answer? Geek culture has become overly concerned with "plot holes," whose definition has been stretched into a catch all on par with "ironic" and "shallow and pendantic". In response, we see a lot of movies that are overly concerned with air tight plot at the expense of narrative pacing. Long slow info dumps because the audience is no longer capable of accepting that things just work the way they work anymore.
To be fair, some of that is a result of the emphasis on evergreen franchises. With worlds that never really end, there's a much greater tendency for people to "live" in them outside of the narrative, which creates a greater demand for this sort of thing.
Still, I watched A New Hope over the break again and forgot how much of what I "know" isn't in the movie at all. Nothing irks me more than sparse seconds we see two vaguely similar women in the bar who are not in fact, famous twin sister con artists, but two con artists posing as the famous twin sister con artists. Modern movies bother with this stuff, and they're definitely worse off for it.
A lot of it is rooted in a score card mentality. Geek cred and the pursuit of that which is truly trivial is the core of this. Where I can really tell its been taken too far is TVTropes. What was once pretty genuinely funny and insightful has become a ridiculous exercise in defining a half dozen tropes for ever minute or two of content, largely so people can find some new territory to claim in the endless race to see who can pick the most nits. The sight has become a boring collection of people who missed the joke and mistook it for legitimate criticism.
Of course, the reason we see all of this is because all our communication tools are not designed for criticism of any depth. Anything of substance is pretty much doomed to the same kind of TLDR as this post.
Kilkrazy wrote: Have we become too concerned with realism (or what we think is realistic) at the expense of actually enjoying a good dramatic production?
At some level, the viewer has to identify with the characters and the situation presented as "real" within the context of the movie. A good dramatic production maintains some sort of believable consistency throughout the story. If the unreality (Deus Ex Machina / Ass-pull / Idiot Ball) breaks the suspension of disbelief, then how can you enjoy it as a serious work? You can't, which is why mass zaniness doesn't really work outside screwball comedy.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Snake Tortoise wrote: You'd think the Luna Wolves are conscripts who've been put in scary looking power armour for the sole purpose of putting over the Space Wolves. Ugh.
They're actually Commonwealth Troops being expended to preserve the sons of England.
LunarSol wrote: Long answer? Geek culture has become overly concerned with "plot holes," whose definition has been stretched into a catch all on par with "ironic" and "shallow and pendantic". In response, we see a lot of movies that are overly concerned with air tight plot at the expense of narrative pacing. Long slow info dumps because the audience is no longer capable of accepting that things just work the way they work anymore.
Except that's not what people mean by "plot holes". We aren't talking about nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology works or whatever, the sort of thing that can be "fixed" by long info dumps. We're talking about situations where characters act in stupid or out of character ways because that's what the next step in the plot requires, where the audience has to forget the thing they saw earlier in the movie because the new thing contradicts it, etc. To give a popular "geek media" example, consider C-3PO in the Star Wars prequels. We're told that Vader built C-3PO, but he doesn't show any sign of recognizing the droid at all when they meet in ESB. The problem is not that Lucas didn't include enough info dumps about how C-3PO was a common model of droid and Vader has memory problems, it's that he pulled a lazy nostalgia attempt in the prequels by bringing back characters from the original movies without bothering to think about the consequences of that story choice. That's just plain bad writing regardless of genre.
IMO if there's any change at all in how we view these things it's that "geek culture" has become more respectable and therefore held to higher standards. If you're watching a porn movie you don't complain about how unrealistic it is that the pizza delivery guy shows up wearing nothing but a pizza box and the hot customer conveniently doesn't have any money to pay, the plot is just a flimsy excuse for what you really want and you're not going to remember or care about it the next day. Same thing with the geek equivalents. When "geek culture" is considered to be a porn movie but with spaceships instead of sex the standards are low. The flaws are still there, but nobody cares because they expect it to be flawed. But when "geek culture" goes mainstream, gains huge budgets and top-tier talent, and expects to be treated as serious art and literature and such, well, those flaws are no longer so excusable. If a director shovels out garbage as quickly as possible to make an easy profit we're going to point out that the product sucks.
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?
Boring conversation anyway.
And that comparison shows exactly why I can never have these kinds of discussions. I've seen your posts, you're an intelligent person, you must grasp how ludicrous a comparison that is given the contexts of the two scenes, but people are so desperate to prove they're a Big Brain who doesn't care about silly nerd stuff they'll make really, really daft claims and then plant the flag and defend them to the death, because they know anyone who takes the time to actively rebut the flaws in their position can be painted as some ranting sadsack.
Peregrine wrote: Except that's not what people mean by "plot holes". We aren't talking about nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology works or whatever, the sort of thing that can be "fixed" by long info dumps.
I see people nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology/a super power/whatever tiny insignificant detail works and declaring plot holes all the time.
Peregrine wrote: Except that's not what people mean by "plot holes". We aren't talking about nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology works or whatever, the sort of thing that can be "fixed" by long info dumps.
I see people nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology/a super power/whatever tiny insignificant detail works and declaring plot holes all the time.
Technology needs to remain consistent for verisimilitude. If the car Riggs drives in Lethal Weapon 3 suddenly started flying because the plot needed it to, would you consider pointed it out nitpicking?
I assume you're talking about Star Wars or Star Trek with that comment, both long series built upon a setting with clearly identifiable rules and expectations. When the rules are broken, or expectations broken against precedent, it makes the film inconsistent and pulls any viewer paying attention out of the movie.
Technology needs to remain consistent for verisimilitude. If the car Riggs drives in Lethal Weapon 3 suddenly started flying because the plot needed it to, would you consider pointed it out nitpicking?
No.
I do however remember the cliche'd argument about "The Enterprise can't do X" and the nerd rage that followed that came with every JJ Trek film. And then there was the one time someone was like "The Flash would never fall for Y cause in this one panel he says he can react down to the wateversecond."
I'm not saying there's no merit in attacking a lack of consistency, but I frequently see people invoke plot hole over really tiny stupid gak. Everyone knows the shields exist in Star Trek, so yeah I agree is odd in the Dominion War when people openly talk about how they have shields even though in every battle all the ships seem to have them turned off, but then you get the people who bitch about how Kirk got from the bridge to the engine room in ten minutes like it's some herculian leap in logic that he took the elevator and just got there.
I see two sides here. There's lazy script writing, which often favors sensational set piece action sequences with little thought given to internal coherence. Then there's the fans, who seem to relish jumping on even the smallest and most insignificant of details so they can rant about it on the internet.
Technology needs to remain consistent for verisimilitude. If the car Riggs drives in Lethal Weapon 3 suddenly started flying because the plot needed it to, would you consider pointed it out nitpicking?
No.
I do however remember the cliche'd argument about "The Enterprise can't do X" and the nerd rage that followed that came with every JJ Trek film. And then there was the one time someone was like "The Flash would never fall for Y cause in this one panel he says he can react down to the wateversecond."
I'm not saying there's no merit in attacking a lack of consistency, but I frequently see people invoke plot hole over really tiny stupid gak. Everyone knows the shields exist in Star Trek, so yeah I agree is odd in the Dominion War when people openly talk about how they have shields even though in every battle all the ships seem to have them turned off, but then you get the people who bitch about how Kirk got from the bridge to the engine room in ten minutes like it's some herculian leap in logic that he took the elevator and just got there.
I see two sides here. There's lazy script writing, which often favors sensational set piece action sequences with little thought given to internal coherence. Then there's the fans, who seem to relish jumping on even the smallest and most insignificant of details so they can rant about it on the internet.
Some is nitpicking - some is not.
For example in startrek with shields. Sometimes it is portrayed as a bubble sheild (I think that is the cooler version) and sometimes it is portrayed as a force projection seeming to come from close to the hull (this is more common in earlier startrek films). It's hard for me to forgive but I can forgive it - they became much more consistent with it when CGI made things easier on screen. Also - I think a lot of the time in startrek when ships are getting ambushed - their sheilds ARE down (what's stupid is they aren't destroyed when being hit by antimatter weapons with their sheilds down). We have to assume - sheilds are very taxing to the ships power supply - otherwise they would always be "up". You are right though - stuff like that is just weak. But it is more of a nitpick. It doesn't hurt the realism...you can always say...well their armor is super powerful too ( )
The you have TLJ with hyper-drive suicide. This invalidates the entire story of starwars....It invalidates the deathstar - invalidates deathstar 2....just so they could get that really cool looking epic shot. And stuff like lasers arching in open space...WTF is that man?
Well the Dominion War arc explained it by saying that shields had become ineffective against newer weapon harmonics or some such. Early Dominion polaron weapons didn't get stopped by shields for example.
The real reason of course is budget. It was already expensive making battle scenes with dozens of ships on screen and they didn't have the money to add shield flickers to all of them so they just quietly pretended.
Which I was fine with, and I can get the people who saw it as odd. I'm talking about the really stupid stuff though. I'm talking the morons who cite joules when asking how the Enterprise couldn't penetrate the shields. If you're nitpicking down to that level you probably weren't remotely invested to begin with, so complaining about your lack of investment comes off as tedious and self-indulgent more than anything.
Star Trek is kind of a bad example if we're going to hold the writers and producers accountable for technological consistency and realism. 100% of the technology in Star Trek operates on make believe, and the rules governing its operation change frequently as demanded by the plot. And every time it happens they just pull out of a short lexicon of phrases such as "phase" and "subspace" to explain why. Transporters work this way, until they don't and we need them to perform some hitherto unmentioned function to save our bacon, etc.
On the other hand, no serious person watches Star Trek for its scientific realism. It's more about one man's utopian vision of a possible future society and the travails and adventures the members of that society experience as spacefairing explorers. To my knowledge Star Trek was never promoted as a well considered and realistic take on space flight or exploration. It just uses the possibility of advanced technology to explore sociopolitical and ethical quandaries.
Internal consistency is important, respect for the time investment of the audience is important, but it's also important to judge different pieces of work in the context in which they're presented. Star Trek violating its own made up scientific principles IS consistent because they only exist to facilitate other themes and plot devices anyway.
The "prank call" thing is a perfect example - in what way does that fit with the rest of Star Wars? The rest of the movie? The rest of even just that scene?
Boring conversation anyway.
And that comparison shows exactly why I can never have these kinds of discussions. I've seen your posts, you're an intelligent person, you must grasp how ludicrous a comparison that is given the contexts of the two scenes, but people are so desperate to prove they're a Big Brain who doesn't care about silly nerd stuff they'll make really, really daft claims and then plant the flag and defend them to the death, because they know anyone who takes the time to actively rebut the flaws in their position can be painted as some ranting sadsack.
Right, I'm making one response then I'm out, this isn't a thread about the Last Jedi, and I've no wish to either make it about that or participate in one.
The paradigms of the two exchanges are the same. "Hot shot pilot character, who hitherto hasn't really done anything of particular comic note, has comedy conversation over intercom in an attempt to delay/distract the bad guys."
You can bang on about "context" all you like, but you asked for how it was Star Wars and I showed just one example where comedy and Star Wars are hand in glove.
What it boils down to is whether you feel it works as a scene or not, and then it becomes a matter of personal preference. I strongly suspect that the comparison is "ludicrous" to you because you simply don't like TLJ.
It isn't even like bad comedy is unusual in SW. I mean, I find Chewie yodeling like Tarzan in ROTJ jarring to this day, plus literally everything Jar Jar is involved with.
Subjectively you're entitled to like what you like, but objectively there's a large body of precedent within the SW cinematic universe to entirely justify the scene.
What it boils down to is whether you feel it works as a scene or not, and then it becomes a matter of personal preference. I strongly suspect that the comparison is "ludicrous" to you because you simply don't like TLJ.
People raised points about tone and timing, and you are conveniently ignoring them.
You can reliably measure the amount of time the "boring conversation" joke takes, and how long the dragged on catastrophe of the mama joke is in TLJ.
Azreal13 wrote: Yes, but "this scene isn't very good" and "this scene doesn't belong in Star Wars" aren't the same argument and I'm not debating the first one.
But even the second is wrong. The scene doesn't fit because it's the wrong kind of humor for Star Wars. The scene with Han is in character, the humor is in the situation and how Han fumbles his attempt to talk his way out of trouble. You're laughing at it, but it's something that could plausibly happen in the Star Wars setting. And that makes it feel real and fit with a serious movie like Star Wars. Contrast that with Poe's prank call, where it's completely out of character. We're supposed to believe that this serious hero character, who has never been comic relief up until this point, is going to open a battle by literally making a prank call to the enemy leader. It's ridiculous and against the tone of everything else, and feels like a comedy routine being performed instead of a character acting naturally. If you showed someone that scene before they watched TLJ they'd probably think it was some kind of parody of Star Wars rather than a real scene.
That's the one kind of realism I can't forgive the lack of. Characters behaving inconsistently with their disposition and motivations is worse to me than a lack of realism in physics or what have you.
Luciferian wrote: That's the one kind of realism I can't forgive the lack of. Characters behaving inconsistently with their disposition and motivations is worse to me than a lack of realism in physics or what have you.
This is basically why I couldn't like Voyager. Kate Mulgrew described herself as playing Janeway as a woman with bipolar disorder because her character went back and forth from episode to episode (cause the writers all disagreed about what kind of captain she should be), and it wasn't just Janeway who had the problem. About the only consistent characters in the show were the Doctor and Harry Kim.
This is basically why I couldn't like Voyager. Kate Mulgrew described herself as playing Janeway as a woman with bipolar disorder because her character went back and forth from episode to episode (cause the writers all disagreed about what kind of captain she should be), and it wasn't just Janeway who had the problem. About the only consistent characters in the show were the Doctor and Harry Kim.
The Doctor practically carried that show on his own. Some inconsistency is to be expected with an episodic format and a rotating crew of writers and directors, but then again plenty of shows do manage to keep it all straight in spite of that.
Agreed. I think that's a big part of why other sci-fi serials like TNG, DS9, SG-1 worked so well, even with their own flaws. Consistent character work can carry you a long way with an audience and right past a lot of other problems.
Peregrine wrote: Except that's not what people mean by "plot holes". We aren't talking about nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology works or whatever, the sort of thing that can be "fixed" by long info dumps.
I see people nitpicking the details of how a piece of technology/a super power/whatever tiny insignificant detail works and declaring plot holes all the time.
Technology needs to remain consistent for verisimilitude. If the car Riggs drives in Lethal Weapon 3 suddenly started flying because the plot needed it to, would you consider pointed it out nitpicking?
I assume you're talking about Star Wars or Star Trek with that comment, both long series built upon a setting with clearly identifiable rules and expectations. When the rules are broken, or expectations broken against precedent, it makes the film inconsistent and pulls any viewer paying attention out of the movie.
The point here I think is that some people have built up "clearly identifiable rules and expectations" which aren't the focus of the series which is a dramatic 'liberal-progressive' SF universe. In other words, externally generated "rules" are imposed on the programme, and they aren't always going to be met because firstly, they aren't the programme's rules at all, and secondly, the point of the programme is not to meet some set of rules, but to set up and resolve dramatic situations for the characters.
As such, if the transporter needs to do X to put the away team into a situation of dramatic tension, that's what the transporter will do, even if some people think it should do Y.
I think the writers of Legends of Tomorrow have talked about this before. They've said they'll do as many completely crazy and ridiculous things as they can think of and as long as they're allowed but the one thing they'll always, always respect is their characters and their relationships.
Because, at the end of the day, that's what the show is about.
If we talk about american movies I think yes, both the producers and the public are overly concerned about realism.
I mean, stupid interactions between the characters (aka unlikley love stories) and plot holes are largely tolerated but what about the aesthetics?
I read a lot of critiques about Emma Stone getting the leading female role in Aloha because the original character was from Hawaii so she must look asiatic. Someone has even invented a word to define cases like this one: whitewashing. But seriously, is that a problem? Who cares about that? Emma Stone is a terrific comedy actress and that role could have been great for the success of the movie. Which ended up a flop for other reasons (actings and plot), not because one of the protagonist didn't look like the character in the book.
Another example can be made about biopics where every detail is perfectly portrayed and the actors/actresses become look alike of the real people they are impersonating. But who cares about Gary Oldman being identical to Churchill? It's the acting and the screen play that matter, not the (over) realism.
In this sense I think there's an overreaction to realism.
I can't stand two characters that hate each other, have nothing in common and yet fall in love while I don't care if an actor looks completely different from the character's aesthetics he's portraying if it's a real one or something taken from the novels, comics, videogames, ecc...
Yes. Aside from the realism aspect it's a problem because it almost always happens in one direction: taking a character that is described as non-white in the source material or should be non-white to fit the setting and casting a white person in the role. It rarely goes the other way, with a previously-white character getting a non-white actor. That's a significant problem when non-white actors and characters are already badly under-represented.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kilkrazy wrote: As such, if the transporter needs to do X to put the away team into a situation of dramatic tension, that's what the transporter will do, even if some people think it should do Y.
And this is writing. If it's a plot point in one episode that the transporter can't go through shields and a plot point in the next episode that it can the setting loses its sense of internal consistency. You're no longer watching characters in a "real" world, everything is happening at the whim of the plot regardless of how much sense it makes. And that rapidly kills off the drama and tension. You know a resolution is coming, you know that it won't necessarily follow from previous events, so why does the current action matter? Worse, you keep having to ask yourself why the characters have suddenly forgotten everything that happened in the previous episode and become clueless idiots for the sake of the plot.
The solution is to stop using technology as a plot device unless you're willing to commit to internal consistency in your universe, especially if you're going to insist on milking the cash cow of an existing IP for decades and making consistency with that established history a primary selling point.
"Whitewashing" is a problem because minority ethnic performers already have a much more limited selection of roles than the dominant white group.
To relate it to the topic, though, fiction is fiction, not fact. Actors are playing roles, not being themselves.
There's no reason why a black woman can't play the part of a white male character in a fiction production. If you go and produce Shakespeare in a Nigerian girls' school you won't get it done any other way.
Kilkrazy wrote: Actors are playing roles, not being themselves.
However, they have to be believable in that role. Having a black woman as Luke in a remake of Star Wars works just fine, neither his race nor his gender are significant parts of the character. Having a black woman playing the role of a KKK member does not work, because being white is a key part of the (hypothetical) character. And yes, that's what you're going to have to do in your hypothetical Nigerian girls' school, but it's understood that amateur school productions are not going to be high in quality and you work with what you've got. The same doesn't apply for a movie with an obscenely huge budget and the ability to hire anyone they want for a role.
Yes. Aside from the realism aspect it's a problem because it almost always happens in one direction: taking a character that is described as non-white in the source material or should be non-white to fit the setting and casting a white person in the role. It rarely goes the other way, with a previously-white character getting a non-white actor. That's a significant problem when non-white actors and characters are already badly under-represented.
Choosing an actor/actresses is always a choice of marketing, it has nothing to do with racism. Companies want to profit, nothing else. In the example I made, maybe there wasn't an actress with asiatic look that was considered good enough for the part or interesting enough to attract more public. On the other hand I see a lot of non-white actors, actresses, directors and productions that are overly rewarded at the academy awards (and similar events) with several wins that were clearly a compensation for the issue you described, because it's true that they are under-represented in comparison with the country population.
What's the problem with a female or a black James Bond for example? A black spider-man? If the acting was solid there shouldn't be any race or gender issues, they are generic characters that can be refreshed. Of course historical and real ones should keep the original race, gender and age but even if the people portraying them don't look exactly identical under hours of make up and special effects it shouldn't be a problem at all. In the matter of biopics the absolute realism about aesthetics has the same role than special effects in action movies, they give something to the public in order to shift the attention from the plot holes, or the fact that many biopics are absolutely boring and deal with characters of no interest, but if they're beautifully portrayed maybe it's enough for the critics and the public.
Movies like Jackie or First Man deal with matters of very little interest and they are extraordinary boring, but how the movies' teams managed to portray those characters and their specific historical period was outstanding. In the end how did I care about realism? I almost fell asleep when I watched those movies, despite I loved the actors, actresses and directors. Appartently being very consistent to realism is more important than the acting and the screen play.
Kilkrazy wrote: Actors are playing roles, not being themselves.
However, they have to be believable in that role. Having a black woman as Luke in a remake of Star Wars works just fine, neither his race nor his gender are significant parts of the character. Having a black woman playing the role of a KKK member does not work, because being white is a key part of the (hypothetical) character. And yes, that's what you're going to have to do in your hypothetical Nigerian girls' school, but it's understood that amateur school productions are not going to be high in quality and you work with what you've got. The same doesn't apply for a movie with an obscenely huge budget and the ability to hire anyone they want for a role.
Sophie Okonedo -- a black actress -- was great in the role of Queen Margaret in the BBC's adaptation of several of Shapespeare's history plays a couple of years ago.
I read a lot of critiques about Emma Stone getting the leading female role in Aloha because the original character was from Hawaii so she must look asiatic. Someone has even invented a word to define cases like this one: whitewashing. But seriously, is that a problem?
Because being replaced with white people has been kind of a sore point for a lot of people, historically speaking.
Blackie wrote:
Choosing an actor/actresses is always a choice of marketing, it has nothing to do with racism.
Except when the racism is part of the marketing, either overtly or subconsciously. And yes, that does happen. 'So-and-so isn't right for the role' has a lot of layers, and some of those layers are racist and sexist.
And given how audiences react, it's understandable, if crappy, behavior (in terms of studio behavior priotizing cash over social issues, they're businesses). The pushback on, for example, on a minor character like Heimdall was really high. Casting Idris Elba as Thor was never even in the cards, it wasn't even imaginable. And yes, that is racism.
Your hypotheticals on Jame Bond and Spider-Man are just weird, because it's really obvious those aren't happening because of racism, and if it does happen, it will be a deliberate statement against racism that will 100% be part of the marketing. Same as the new Doctor was a deliberate statement against sexism that was in every single advertisement. Which is largely good, except they kind of forgot to make a show behind the advertising, and audiences being what they are, a lot of that is going to be blamed on her being a woman, rather than the writers/director.
I mentioned James Bond and Spiderman because I read about Idris Elba and Gillian Anderson being considered/rumored for the role and the fact that a black Spider Man already exists in the comics.
In the Marvel universe any new version of any hero can be imagined and brought into "reality", e.g. the teenage Muslim Ms Marvel comic which came out a few years ago. I think they are planning a film.
Blackie wrote: I mentioned James Bond and Spiderman because I read about Idris Elba and Gillian Anderson being considered/rumored for the role and the fact that a black Spider Man already exists in the comics.
Yes? And there is racist, sexist push back against both, and it would be ridiculously naive to assume that their identities wouldn't be part of the marketing, if/when it happens.
My point was that your claim that racism isn't part of marketing is pure idealism, not reality.
Blackie wrote: I mentioned James Bond and Spiderman because I read about Idris Elba and Gillian Anderson being considered/rumored for the role and the fact that a black Spider Man already exists in the comics.
Yes? And there is racist, sexist push back against both, and it would be ridiculously naive to assume that their identities wouldn't be part of the marketing, if/when it happens.
My point was that your claim that racism isn't part of marketing is pure idealism, not reality.
I'm sure everyone recognises that culture is produced within a general social milieu with effects and reactions in both directions.
And given how audiences react, it's understandable, if crappy, behavior (in terms of studio behavior priotizing cash over social issues, they're businesses). The pushback on, for example, on a minor character like Heimdall was really high. Casting Idris Elba as Thor was never even in the cards, it wasn't even imaginable. And yes, that is racism.
I respectfully disagree. I think Idris Elba even as Heimdal was silly.
I prefer my Norse gods, even third generation derivative ones to look the part, and that has nothing to do with racism.
That being said, I did enjoy Idris Elba as Heimdal, and the Marvelverse is silly enough that I could overlook it (and he made a great Roland in the Dark Tower, which I have, and had, no objection to, nor to a black girl portraying Hermione). I still think that particular role was a very silly decision.
But why would alien Norse gods have to be white? The ancient peoples they appeared to on Earth, sure, but the aliens Norse gods themselves? This isn't a religious film recreating an actual sacred event of the Aesir faith.
I am more concerned about my media being able to help me suspend my disbelief long enough to go along with the story or plot of a film. I do not expect a movie to get everything 100% right, but as long as it is not jarring enough to take me out of the movie, then eveything is fine. However, the line between jarring and not jarring varies a lot by consumer.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But why would alien Norse gods have to be white? The ancient peoples they appeared to on Earth, sure, but the aliens Norse gods themselves? This isn't a religious film recreating an actual sacred event of the Aesir faith.
What part of "even third generation derivatives" did you miss?
I even bolded it for crying out loud.
I am more concerned about my media being able to help me suspend my disbelief long enough to go along with the story or plot of a film. I do not expect a movie to get everything 100% right, but as long as it is not jarring enough to take me out of the movie, then eveything is fine. However, the line between jarring and not jarring varies a lot by consumer.
White Jesus may be the original whitewashing subject.
Indeed. I cannot enjoy Nolan's Dark Knight because the notion of a ground-penetrating microwave that instantly aerosolizes the fear poison in the pipes. Every time it comes up, the implausibility of the thing takes me right out of the movie. Just writing about it right now is starting to wind me up for an extended "well, actually..." rant.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But why would alien Norse gods have to be white? The ancient peoples they appeared to on Earth, sure, but the aliens Norse gods themselves? This isn't a religious film recreating an actual sacred event of the Aesir faith.
What part of "even third generation derivatives" did you miss?
I even bolded it for crying out loud.
I'm asking you to defend why it matters even with second gen derivatives. Why does it matter? Complaining about third gen knockoff that are clearly aliens not fitting ethnicity sounds like complaining that the (theoretical) anime version of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter portrays him as a black robot. Why is ethnicity so important to you for these particular deities?
I am more concerned about my media being able to help me suspend my disbelief long enough to go along with the story or plot of a film. I do not expect a movie to get everything 100% right, but as long as it is not jarring enough to take me out of the movie, then eveything is fine. However, the line between jarring and not jarring varies a lot by consumer.
White Jesus may be the original whitewashing subject.
Indeed. I cannot enjoy Nolan's Dark Knight because the notion of a ground-penetrating microwave that instantly aerosolizes the fear poison in the pipes. Every time it comes up, the implausibility of the thing takes me right out of the movie. Just writing about it right now is starting to wind me up for an extended "well, actually..." rant.
As a fan of Adam West Batman, that was the most relatable aspect of the film for me.
And given how audiences react, it's understandable, if crappy, behavior (in terms of studio behavior priotizing cash over social issues, they're businesses). The pushback on, for example, on a minor character like Heimdall was really high. Casting Idris Elba as Thor was never even in the cards, it wasn't even imaginable. And yes, that is racism.
I respectfully disagree. I think Idris Elba even as Heimdal was silly.
I prefer my Norse gods, even third generation derivative ones to look the part, and that has nothing to do with racism..
Fourth, actually. [Movie<-Comic<-Snorri's Edda's [as a Christian writing them down two centuries after Iceland converted, well after the Viking era]<-original mythology] So fictionalized fictionalization of fictionalized fiction.
And how does it not? No matter where you place it, its either reject the modern actor because he's black, or claim that Scandinavians wouldn't worship black gods.
Blackie wrote: I mentioned James Bond and Spiderman because I read about Idris Elba and Gillian Anderson being considered/rumored for the role and the fact that a black Spider Man already exists in the comics.
Yes? And there is racist, sexist push back against both, and it would be ridiculously naive to assume that their identities wouldn't be part of the marketing, if/when it happens.
My point was that your claim that racism isn't part of marketing is pure idealism, not reality.
Here where I live no one complained about a black Heimdall, even some of my friends who are fans of the comics. And I live in a country where non white actors only get the roles of strangers or citizens with foreign origins.
Since I don't live in the USA I was interested in this matter because from my point of view it's impossible to understand if critiques like this one are generated because of racism or an overreaction towards realism, which seems to be more important than the acting and the plot in the majority of american movies.
The first example I made was about an Hawaiian character that didn't look asiatic, but not all the people from Hawaii look japanese. Was that push back caused because her look was not realistic enough or because a choice like that one is a consequence of a racist society? You say the latter, I hope you're not always right.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But why would alien Norse gods have to be white? The ancient peoples they appeared to on Earth, sure, but the aliens Norse gods themselves? This isn't a religious film recreating an actual sacred event of the Aesir faith.
What part of "even third generation derivatives" did you miss?
I even bolded it for crying out loud.
I'm asking you to defend why it matters even with second gen derivatives. Why does it matter? Complaining about third gen knockoff that are clearly aliens not fitting ethnicity sounds like complaining that the (theoretical) anime version of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter portrays him as a black robot. Why is ethnicity so important to you for these particular deities?
Err, I said why when I said *Norse* Gods, even third generation derivatives. You then delved into how they were derived, as if that's pertinent to my preference. It's not. When a film is named "Thor", and is about him and other Aesir, I expect people who look like larger-than-life Vikings. That's all there is to it.
But you said it wasn't racism. Now you are saying that the ethnicity matters more than the capabilities of the actor when the role happens to be of an ethnicity you care about.
And in case you claim realism is your motivation, that's why I specified that these are aliens, not Earthborn Nordics. Just because the worshippers were white doesn't mean the alien gods were all homogenous. If we're talking realism, there are no aliens and no Aesir, but rather the yawning emptiness of a meaningless void.
I mean, if we were talking about a historical film, I'd likely agree. But we're talking feel-good pew-pew quippy-quip movies. It's much more important to cast an actor who can deliver lines like "I'll cast your dark elf soul back to Swartelfheim" with sufficient gravitas and then do a spit take at some old scientist's flapping buttocks.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On a slightly different note, how does everyone feel about Jeanette Goldstein and Fisher Stevens, white actors most famous for playing iconic minority characters? (Vasquez from Aliens and Ben from Short Circuit/2). I haven't seen much pushback against them, presumably for taking their roles seriously, but they do illustrate how difficult it has been historically for minority actors to land any notable roles.
JohnHwangDD wrote: In the recent past, the only good racelift has been RDJ in Tropic Thunder. Fight me.
Does Galaxy Quest count as recent? Tony Shaloub played an actor named Kwan playing a character named Tech Sergeant Chen. That's a hat trick.
Yeah, it was lampooning race lifting, especially how Hollywood will often cast actors of one minority to play a different minority because...they don't think people notice?
JohnHwangDD wrote: In the recent past, the only good racelift has been RDJ in Tropic Thunder. Fight me.
Does Galaxy Quest count as recent? Tony Shaloub played an actor named Kwan playing a character named Tech Sergeant Chen. That's a hat trick.
Yeah, it was lampooning race lifting, especially how Hollywood will often cast actors of one minority to play a different minority because...they don't think people notice?
Kwan/Chen might be my favourite Galaxy Quest character, he just takes everything in his stride with an almost herbal infused calm and gets the girl (well Squiddy thing) to boot
Kilkrazy wrote: Actors are playing roles, not being themselves.
However, they have to be believable in that role. Having a black woman as Luke in a remake of Star Wars works just fine, neither his race nor his gender are significant parts of the character. Having a black woman playing the role of a KKK member does not work, because being white is a key part of the (hypothetical) character. And yes, that's what you're going to have to do in your hypothetical Nigerian girls' school, but it's understood that amateur school productions are not going to be high in quality and you work with what you've got. The same doesn't apply for a movie with an obscenely huge budget and the ability to hire anyone they want for a role.
Sophie Okonedo -- a black actress -- was great in the role of Queen Margaret in the BBC's adaptation of several of Shapespeare's history plays a couple of years ago.
We just had this discussion in James Bond thread...
It is not just the question of "whitewashing", when they cast Angelina Jolie for the role of Kay Scarpetta, all the Patricia Cornwall fans charged the barricades, as Jolie doesn't match all how Scarpetta is described in the books.
If we are not caring about the actors matching the visual expectation, what about props and sets? What if some hypothetical Hollywood director, lets call him Michael B., decides to make a new movie about D-Day and gives all the Germans AK-47's because they just look more menacing and badass than historical Mauser carabines? Who cares then if they're unhistorical?
Well, I for one would care very much. Setting is important part of a movie and if the screenwriters do not care about consistency within the setting, I am not going to be interested about the setting and consequently, about the movie.
JohnHwangDD wrote: In the recent past, the only good racelift has been RDJ in Tropic Thunder. Fight me.
Does Galaxy Quest count as recent? Tony Shaloub played an actor named Kwan playing a character named Tech Sergeant Chen. That's a hat trick.
Yeah, it was lampooning race lifting, especially how Hollywood will often cast actors of one minority to play a different minority because...they don't think people notice?
Galaxy Quest was 1999 - practically 20 years ago...
RDJ went deeper, though... playing an actor, playing a dude disguised as another dude.
We just had this discussion in James Bond thread...
It is not just the question of "whitewashing", when they cast Angelina Jolie for the role of Kay Scarpetta, all the Patricia Cornwall fans charged the barricades, as Jolie doesn't match all how Scarpetta is described in the books.
If we are not caring about the actors matching the visual expectation, what about props and sets? What if some hypothetical Hollywood director, lets call him Michael B., decides to make a new movie about D-Day and gives all the Germans AK-47's because they just look more menacing and badass than historical Mauser carabines? Who cares then if they're unhistorical?
Well, I for one would care very much. Setting is important part of a movie and if the screenwriters do not care about consistency within the setting, I am not going to be interested about the setting and consequently, about the movie.
JohnHwangDD wrote: In the recent past, the only good racelift has been RDJ in Tropic Thunder. Fight me.
Does Galaxy Quest count as recent? Tony Shaloub played an actor named Kwan playing a character named Tech Sergeant Chen. That's a hat trick.
Yeah, it was lampooning race lifting, especially how Hollywood will often cast actors of one minority to play a different minority because...they don't think people notice?
Galaxy Quest was 1999 - practically 20 years ago...
RDJ went deeper, though... playing an actor, playing a dude disguised as another dude.
When was Tropic thunder? Feels like a decade or more at least.
Anyway based on trailer, it looks like 'history based fantasy' story like '300', which wasn't remotely historical but was passable as escapism trip. Realism standards are going to be lower for that.
The you have TLJ with hyper-drive suicide. This invalidates the entire story of starwars....It invalidates the deathstar - invalidates deathstar 2....just so they could get that really cool looking epic shot. And stuff like lasers arching in open space...WTF is that man?
I think it is estabilished that 'Turbo-Lasers' of Star Wars aren't really 'lasers' but some kind of blasters. I mean, it has always been obvious their bolts don't move anywhere close to lightspeed.
In RTJ they had car-sized A-Wing knock out 17km long Star Destroyer by ramming...
But even the second is wrong. The scene doesn't fit because it's the wrong kind of humor for Star Wars. The scene with Han is in character, the humor is in the situation and how Han fumbles his attempt to talk his way out of trouble. You're laughing at it, but it's something that could plausibly happen in the Star Wars setting. And that makes it feel real and fit with a serious movie like Star Wars. Contrast that with Poe's prank call, where it's completely out of character. We're supposed to believe that this serious hero character, who has never been comic relief up until this point, is going to open a battle by literally making a prank call to the enemy leader. It's ridiculous and against the tone of everything else, and feels like a comedy routine being performed instead of a character acting naturally. If you showed someone that scene before they watched TLJ they'd probably think it was some kind of parody of Star Wars rather than a real scene.
I disagree. Poe did almost exact same thing in TFA when he met Kylo Ren so him playing a smartass is hardly out of character. If there was Luke playing such a trick, then you would have a point. Difference was that Kylo Ren completely ignored Poe's (false) bravado whilst Hux fell for it. Any way, while the scene was quite poor attempt at comedy, I can't fault it as such from realism perspective. One might argue that it is unrealistic how such an obviously idiotic person like Hux is in so high position in FO fleet, but even that would be quite weak poke at realism.
Much bigger 'internal realism' problem is how a single X-Wing, no matter how skillfully flown, could knock out most of the defensive guns from a battleship.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vulcan wrote: The word most of the posters here should be using is not realism, it's verisimilitude. The feeling or appearance of being real within the context of what's going on.
When established characters act out of character, that goes against verisimilitude. When you establish that something takes lots of specialized training to do, and then a new character can do it 'just because' that goes against verisimilitude. When smart characters do dumb things that goes against verisimilitude. When characters lose resources they had earlier in the story with no explanation as to how or why they were expended, that goes against verisimilitude.
'Characters acting stupid' is much used trope in horror movies, where writers often face difficulties putting characters plausibly in tense situations. "Horrible killer is hunting us down one by one. Lets split up."
It was particularly acute in 'Prometheus' where characters were written to do all kind of dumb things to get them in 'exciting' scenes, like poking their face within 5cm of a potentially dangerous alien, getting lost in a cave despite powerful mapping drones and hologram maps, running in straight lines whilst small sidestep would have avoided danger...
But this kind of stuff is not just a realism problem. If the characters endanger themselves by doing dumb things, we, the viewers, may lose respect to them. If someone is in danger we need to care about the character at least little bit for scene to have effect, but if they are going on harms way out of sheer stupidity, why should we care? The guy was an idiot going poking T-Rex nest in nighttime. Let him be eaten and have natural selection take its course.
Typically, I find the kind of sloppy writing that leads to noticible inconsistencies in technology goes hand in hand with the kind of sloppy writing that ruins characters. Writers who work to maintain consistency and pay attention to set up and pay off typically apply that ethic across the board.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But you said it wasn't racism. Now you are saying that the ethnicity matters more than the capabilities of the actor when the role happens to be of an ethnicity you care about.
And in case you claim realism is your motivation, that's why I specified that these are aliens, not Earthborn Nordics. Just because the worshippers were white doesn't mean the alien gods were all homogenous. If we're talking realism, there are no aliens and no Aesir, but rather the yawning emptiness of a meaningless void.
I mean, if we were talking about a historical film, I'd likely agree. But we're talking feel-good pew-pew quippy-quip movies. It's much more important to cast an actor who can deliver lines like "I'll cast your dark elf soul back to Swartelfheim" with sufficient gravitas and then do a spit take at some old scientist's flapping buttocks.
Question - would be ok to have Japanese actors for a movie with characters based on the Bantu Mythology?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But you said it wasn't racism. Now you are saying that the ethnicity matters more than the capabilities of the actor when the role happens to be of an ethnicity you care about.
And in case you claim realism is your motivation, that's why I specified that these are aliens, not Earthborn Nordics. Just because the worshippers were white doesn't mean the alien gods were all homogenous. If we're talking realism, there are no aliens and no Aesir, but rather the yawning emptiness of a meaningless void.
I mean, if we were talking about a historical film, I'd likely agree. But we're talking feel-good pew-pew quippy-quip movies. It's much more important to cast an actor who can deliver lines like "I'll cast your dark elf soul back to Swartelfheim" with sufficient gravitas and then do a spit take at some old scientist's flapping buttocks.
Question - would be ok to have Japanese actors for a movie with characters based on the Bantu Mythology?
How closely based? Superheroes? Criminals using code names? Stargate ancient aliens stories? A recreation of a sacred story?
And you mean one Japanese actor who has the acting chops? Or hiring based on race exclusively?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But you said it wasn't racism. Now you are saying that the ethnicity matters more than the capabilities of the actor when the role happens to be of an ethnicity you care about.
And in case you claim realism is your motivation, that's why I specified that these are aliens, not Earthborn Nordics. Just because the worshippers were white doesn't mean the alien gods were all homogenous. If we're talking realism, there are no aliens and no Aesir, but rather the yawning emptiness of a meaningless void.
I mean, if we were talking about a historical film, I'd likely agree. But we're talking feel-good pew-pew quippy-quip movies. It's much more important to cast an actor who can deliver lines like "I'll cast your dark elf soul back to Swartelfheim" with sufficient gravitas and then do a spit take at some old scientist's flapping buttocks.
Question - would be ok to have Japanese actors for a movie with characters based on the Bantu Mythology?
How closely based? Superheroes? Criminals using code names? Stargate ancient aliens stories? A recreation of a sacred story?
And you mean one Japanese actor who has the acting chops? Or hiring based on race exclusively?
Any of those. When it's ok, and when it's not? I ask thinking about the storm after Ghost in the Shell and the accuses of whitewashing.
Blackie wrote: I mentioned James Bond and Spiderman because I read about Idris Elba and Gillian Anderson being considered/rumored for the role and the fact that a black Spider Man already exists in the comics.
Yes? And there is racist, sexist push back against both, and it would be ridiculously naive to assume that their identities wouldn't be part of the marketing, if/when it happens.
My point was that your claim that racism isn't part of marketing is pure idealism, not reality.
Here where I live no one complained about a black Heimdall, even some of my friends who are fans of the comics. And I live in a country where non white actors only get the roles of strangers or citizens with foreign origins.
Since I don't live in the USA I was interested in this matter because from my point of view it's impossible to understand if critiques like this one are generated because of racism or an overreaction towards realism, which seems to be more important than the acting and the plot in the majority of american movies.
The first example I made was about an Hawaiian character that didn't look asiatic, but not all the people from Hawaii look japanese. Was that push back caused because her look was not realistic enough or because a choice like that one is a consequence of a racist society? You say the latter, I hope you're not always right.
Its always going to be racism. Most general audience wouldn't know 'realism' if it came up and bit them, and frankly most studios don't bother attempting it at the first place. It's part of the reason most movies are so terrible.
As for Aloha, for one thing, the character wasn't Japanese at all. I'm not even sure why you're mentioning it, other than stereotypes about a lot of Japanese nationals in Hawaii.
But the character's whole schtick is aggressively pitching Hawaiian culture at people- the character's ethnicity was central to her role in the film, so going to such great lengths to avoid it so completely in the actress is going to make even the densest audience member reviewer go, 'Wait, what?' It's an obvious talking point for a film that probably didn't have much else to discuss.
I ask thinking about the storm after Ghost in the Shell and the accuses of whitewashing.
That just struck me as the studio saying... 'Yeah, this sucks. Grab successful white actress #23 so we might be able to get some money out of this slug'
[Tip: just go watch the anime. It's better, and doesn't have stupid decisions like that. This trend of converting animation into 'live action' or rather, CGI, is terrible. The limitations of live action make them so much worse.]
BobtheInquisitor wrote: But you said it wasn't racism. Now you are saying that the ethnicity matters more than the capabilities of the actor when the role happens to be of an ethnicity you care about.
And in case you claim realism is your motivation, that's why I specified that these are aliens, not Earthborn Nordics. Just because the worshippers were white doesn't mean the alien gods were all homogenous. If we're talking realism, there are no aliens and no Aesir, but rather the yawning emptiness of a meaningless void.
I mean, if we were talking about a historical film, I'd likely agree. But we're talking feel-good pew-pew quippy-quip movies. It's much more important to cast an actor who can deliver lines like "I'll cast your dark elf soul back to Swartelfheim" with sufficient gravitas and then do a spit take at some old scientist's flapping buttocks.
Question - would be ok to have Japanese actors for a movie with characters based on the Bantu Mythology?
How closely based? Superheroes? Criminals using code names? Stargate ancient aliens stories? A recreation of a sacred story?
And you mean one Japanese actor who has the acting chops? Or hiring based on race exclusively?
Any of those. When it's ok, and when it's not?
I ask thinking about the storm after Ghost in the Shell and the accuses of whitewashing.
Well, race lifting between minorities is still pretty common and rarely draws much controversy unless you hire a Chinese actress to play a Japanese character (and presumably vice versa). The dynamics are different in the US between that and whitewashing because typically representation helps out minority actors, even if not the right minority, which in the long term helps open the doors for actors of all ethnicities. Whitewashing just helps reinforce the idea that white actors need to be hired for various reasons (or justifications) and just keeps the status quo, which has momentum leftover from the days of overt racism. For Asian Americans, who can probably only count a handful of performers of their ethnicity among the stars or household names of the acting world, casting a "safe" white actor in a hundred million dollar movie to play what should (?) be a Japanese character feels like a step back if not a slap in the face.
I find that minorities are poorly represented on screen compared to the society I live in (which, granted, is not representative of much of the U.S.), so I support diversity and studios that attempt to give up and coming actors of all ancestries a chance rather than settling for the nepotism or "safe casting" of last century's studios.
Kilkrazy wrote: Actors are playing roles, not being themselves.
However, they have to be believable in that role. Having a black woman as Luke in a remake of Star Wars works just fine, neither his race nor his gender are significant parts of the character. Having a black woman playing the role of a KKK member does not work, because being white is a key part of the (hypothetical) character. And yes, that's what you're going to have to do in your hypothetical Nigerian girls' school, but it's understood that amateur school productions are not going to be high in quality and you work with what you've got. The same doesn't apply for a movie with an obscenely huge budget and the ability to hire anyone they want for a role.
Sophie Okonedo -- a black actress -- was great in the role of Queen Margaret in the BBC's adaptation of several of Shapespeare's history plays a couple of years ago.
We just had this discussion in James Bond thread...
It is not just the question of "whitewashing", when they cast Angelina Jolie for the role of Kay Scarpetta, all the Patricia Cornwall fans charged the barricades, as Jolie doesn't match all how Scarpetta is described in the books.
If we are not caring about the actors matching the visual expectation, what about props and sets? What if some hypothetical Hollywood director, lets call him Michael B., decides to make a new movie about D-Day and gives all the Germans AK-47's because they just look more menacing and badass than historical Mauser carabines? Who cares then if they're unhistorical?
Well, I for one would care very much. Setting is important part of a movie and if the screenwriters do not care about consistency within the setting, I am not going to be interested about the setting and consequently, about the movie.
This seems very hypothetical. That said, various WW2 films have been made using Chaffee tanks as Shermans, and M3 halftracks as Hanomags, and M26 tanks as Tigers, and so on and so on.
No-one cared, because the exact variety of a tank or a rifle doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a tank or a rifle being used to recreate a dramatic historical event.
We've seen Shakespeare (Henry V) performed in modern dress, with modern army rifles and so on, and it does not compromise the quality of the drama.
@Bob, no intention to sound confrontational, but I think you are using two different standards here. In my opinion, either the "race" of the actor should not matter in blatantly fictional works, or it should. If Elba can be Heimdall (and you have a point in why yes he can be), Scarjo can be a cyborg with an "asian brain", especially because of the design of the original movie.
Speaking of which:
@Voss: seen the anime movie and the sequel, liked both. the first one a long, long time ago, introduced by one of the guy I played 40k with back then!
Gotta see the SAC perhaps, what's your opinion of that series?
As an Asian dude, no, it's not good to have cast ScarJo as Maj. Kusanagi. The "original movie" is exaggerated, not realistic, and most importantly, because there are Asian actresses who would do a better job with the role.
As a general rule, having white people play non-white roles is a lazy casting decision. If Marvel had had cast a white dude as Black Panther, would that have worked? No.
JohnHwangDD wrote: As an Asian dude, no, it's not good to have cast ScarJo as Maj. Kusanagi. The "original movie" is exaggerated, not realistic, and most importantly, because there are Asian actresses who would do a better job with the role.
As a general rule, having white people play non-white roles is a lazy casting decision. If Marvel had had cast a white dude as Black Panther, would that have worked? No.
JohnHwangDD wrote: As an Asian dude, no, it's not good to have cast ScarJo as Maj. Kusanagi. The "original movie" is exaggerated, not realistic, and most importantly, because there are Asian actresses who would do a better job with the role.
As a general rule, having white people play non-white roles is a lazy casting decision. If Marvel had had cast a white dude as Black Panther, would that have worked? No.
So why Elba as Heimdall is ok?
Did you not read what I wrote?
I said that whitewashing is bad.
I have no issue with having space Heimdall in the Marvel Universe who inspired the Norse of the Marvel Universe actually being black, and getting whitewashed by those in-Universe Norse in the exact same way real world Europeans have whitewashed Jesus for past 1,000+ years...
@JohnHwangDD: And I asked because I think that it's not a fair statement. The major is as much fictional as space-Heimdall (for the record, I have no problem with Elba-Heimdall either, for the same reason I have no problem with Scarjo-major).
I would have had problem with Toshiro Mifune playing king Cetshwayo in "Zulu". Luckily it did not happen. That movie is supposed to be historical, albeit the relatives of some of the soldiers could object some detail.
Not sure what Jesus has to do with it. Also FYI - concerning the USA, middle easterns ARE white. It's a very flexible concept. I am Italian, I discovered I am white in the USA... now. 100 years ago it would have been different.
@Voss: seen the anime movie and the sequel, liked both. the first one a long, long time ago, introduced by one of the guy I played 40k with back then!
Gotta see the SAC perhaps, what's your opinion of that series?
First season is good, significantly better than the original film. (Which... eh. For the time was ok, but I'd actually step back further and read the manga, as it needs the extra depth). SAC gives a better read on the society and why things are shaped the way they are.
I found the second season... oddly dull, with some really odd and disturbing random tangents. [And I mean really, really odd, like the Major inviting a child to have sex with her body, and sorta/kinda intimidating him into not actually doing it]
Haven't seen the even more recent stuff, but every time I've tried to watch the second season I've checked out and started just ignoring it (letting it play in the background for the noise) about half-way through.
So why Elba as Heimdall is ok?
Going to be honest, it's partly because he is a better actor. That's not entirely fair to Johanssen, because she's mostly just underused and her character's skills don't really matter much for the kind of stories they tell (she's better in any of the Iron Man films than the Avengers films).
It certainly isn't because he's 'scary' [What the hell, Turnip?], but he does the 'enigmatic guardian' rather well.
The other part is it helps the 'Nine Realms' seem larger. If Earth is more diverse than every other Realm (World? Plane? Whatever?) in the 'universe,' it seems smaller. Idris and Tadanobu Asano (who played Hogun of the Warriors Three) help make the Realms seem more alive, and more reasonable as a setting. That they throw Hogun on a bus to home in the Thor 2 prologue and kill him off real fast in Thor 3 didn't really do them any favors.
This all gets really fuzzy when you hook guardians of the galaxy up and there is a whole galaxy of aliens running around, but still, as presented in Thor, it helps Asgard not look like a creepy racist cult of neo-nazi aliens. Which is unequivocally good, because some of the Jotun stuff really does raise flags (even though alien ice giants and whatnot).
Thank you for the review Voss. Maybe if the first season is auto-conclusive enough I could stop there. BTW the impression I had from the manga is that it's a completely different beast altogether.
Elba is a very good actor and unless historical accuracy is a priority, THAT should be the most important measure, to be honest. I think we are being unfair with ScarJo. I think she is good in exactly this kind of roles, when she can appear distant. I say this thinking about Under the Skin, a movie I loved. I think she is great there, she really nailed it. She is very different in different moments of the movie (so her signature "stiffness" is gradually lost), all while her character is progressing, or at least she looks like someone that she is TRYING to change and progress - which is kinda the point, and from this stems the whole tragedy.
I am also convinced that her possible limits as an actress were not the main reasons of the storm, to be honest.
and the whole MCU is constructed out of inaneium so ripping on it is fair game, of course the majority of them are wizz-bang fun but thats all they are
Kaiyanwang wrote: @JohnHwangDD: And I asked because I think that it's not a fair statement. The major is as much fictional as space-Heimdall (for the record, I have no problem with Elba-Heimdall either, for the same reason I have no problem with Scarjo-major).
I would have had problem with Toshiro Mifune playing king Cetshwayo in "Zulu". Luckily it did not happen. That movie is supposed to be historical, albeit the relatives of some of the soldiers could object some detail.
Not sure what Jesus has to do with it.
Also FYI - concerning the USA, middle easterns ARE white. It's a very flexible concept. I am Italian, I discovered I am white in the USA... now. 100 years ago it would have been different.
It may not be "fair" to you, but then, you also come from what may fairly be considered a privileged "white" background in the current US. Ergo, it's simply not your place to so have any opinion on whitewashing. That is, when you get right down to it, your white opinion doesn't matter here, any more than it matters what you think about who gets to say the N-word. Your white privilege does not extend to allowing you to have any sort of valid opinion on non-white topics. Yes, I'm deliberately playing the race card on a racially-sensitive subject to tell you to STFU and just listen when a less-privileged non-white person is talking about any such subject.
Whitewashed Jesus is a callback to a previous comment I made in this thread.
Kaiyanwang wrote: @JohnHwangDD: And I asked because I think that it's not a fair statement. The major is as much fictional as space-Heimdall (for the record, I have no problem with Elba-Heimdall either, for the same reason I have no problem with Scarjo-major).
I would have had problem with Toshiro Mifune playing king Cetshwayo in "Zulu". Luckily it did not happen. That movie is supposed to be historical, albeit the relatives of some of the soldiers could object some detail.
Not sure what Jesus has to do with it. Also FYI - concerning the USA, middle easterns ARE white. It's a very flexible concept. I am Italian, I discovered I am white in the USA... now. 100 years ago it would have been different.
It may not be "fair" to you, but then, you also come from what may fairly be considered a privileged "white" background in the current US. Ergo, it's simply not your place to so have any opinion on whitewashing. That is, when you get right down to it, your white opinion doesn't matter here, any more than it matters what you think about who gets to say the N-word. Your white privilege does not extend to allowing you to have any sort of valid opinion on non-white topics. Yes, I'm deliberately playing the race card on a racially-sensitive subject to tell you to STFU and just listen when a less-privileged non-white person is talking about any such subject.
Whitewashed Jesus is a callback to a previous comment I made in this thread.
I can only laugh at all of this. Have a nice day m8.
Kaiyanwang wrote: @JohnHwangDD: And I asked because I think that it's not a fair statement. The major is as much fictional as space-Heimdall (for the record, I have no problem with Elba-Heimdall either, for the same reason I have no problem with Scarjo-major).
I would have had problem with Toshiro Mifune playing king Cetshwayo in "Zulu". Luckily it did not happen. That movie is supposed to be historical, albeit the relatives of some of the soldiers could object some detail.
Not sure what Jesus has to do with it.
Also FYI - concerning the USA, middle easterns ARE white. It's a very flexible concept. I am Italian, I discovered I am white in the USA... now. 100 years ago it would have been different.
It may not be "fair" to you, but then, you also come from what may fairly be considered a privileged "white" background in the current US. Ergo, it's simply not your place to so have any opinion on whitewashing. That is, when you get right down to it, your white opinion doesn't matter here, any more than it matters what you think about who gets to say the N-word. Your white privilege does not extend to allowing you to have any sort of valid opinion on non-white topics. Yes, I'm deliberately playing the race card on a racially-sensitive subject to tell you to STFU and just listen when a less-privileged non-white person is talking about any such subject.
Whitewashed Jesus is a callback to a previous comment I made in this thread.
I can only laugh at all of this. Have a nice day m8.
And that is why you are part of the problem. Pity.
Kaiyanwang wrote: @JohnHwangDD: And I asked because I think that it's not a fair statement. The major is as much fictional as space-Heimdall (for the record, I have no problem with Elba-Heimdall either, for the same reason I have no problem with Scarjo-major).
I would have had problem with Toshiro Mifune playing king Cetshwayo in "Zulu". Luckily it did not happen. That movie is supposed to be historical, albeit the relatives of some of the soldiers could object some detail.
Not sure what Jesus has to do with it. Also FYI - concerning the USA, middle easterns ARE white. It's a very flexible concept. I am Italian, I discovered I am white in the USA... now. 100 years ago it would have been different.
It may not be "fair" to you, but then, you also come from what may fairly be considered a privileged "white" background in the current US. Ergo, it's simply not your place to so have any opinion on whitewashing. That is, when you get right down to it, your white opinion doesn't matter here, any more than it matters what you think about who gets to say the N-word. Your white privilege does not extend to allowing you to have any sort of valid opinion on non-white topics. Yes, I'm deliberately playing the race card on a racially-sensitive subject to tell you to STFU and just listen when a less-privileged non-white person is talking about any such subject.
Whitewashed Jesus is a callback to a previous comment I made in this thread.
I can only laugh at all of this. Have a nice day m8.
And that is why you are part of the problem. Pity.
Dude, you called "non-white topics" stuff that is not "white" or "non-white" in a way or another. You layered your arbitrary and biased restrictions on which actor should be allowed to play which role, with a coat of hypocrisy and accusation of "privilege". Also FYI I lived in 4 countries and 2 continents for work, and I also find odd that you bring "cards" into the discussion, while last time I checked asian-americans are far from being a disadvantaged category. You are hilarious. Finally, last comment concerning Jesus: you have no clue how an arab looks like (btw Jesus was a jew last time I checked). You could not tell apart half of my relatives from many people that identify themselves as arabs. Embarrassing.
EDIT: I also wish to point out that you said to another poster: "your opinion does not matter because of your (alleged) skin color". I hope you can see the irony of this, one day.
Kaiyanwang wrote: @JohnHwangDD: And I asked because I think that it's not a fair statement. The major is as much fictional as space-Heimdall (for the record, I have no problem with Elba-Heimdall either, for the same reason I have no problem with Scarjo-major).
I would have had problem with Toshiro Mifune playing king Cetshwayo in "Zulu". Luckily it did not happen. That movie is supposed to be historical, albeit the relatives of some of the soldiers could object some detail.
Not sure what Jesus has to do with it.
Also FYI - concerning the USA, middle easterns ARE white. It's a very flexible concept. I am Italian, I discovered I am white in the USA... now. 100 years ago it would have been different.
It may not be "fair" to you, but then, you also come from what may fairly be considered a privileged "white" background in the current US. Ergo, it's simply not your place to so have any opinion on whitewashing. That is, when you get right down to it, your white opinion doesn't matter here, any more than it matters what you think about who gets to say the N-word. Your white privilege does not extend to allowing you to have any sort of valid opinion on non-white topics. Yes, I'm deliberately playing the race card on a racially-sensitive subject to tell you to STFU and just listen when a less-privileged non-white person is talking about any such subject.
Whitewashed Jesus is a callback to a previous comment I made in this thread.
I can only laugh at all of this. Have a nice day m8.
And that is why you are part of the problem. Pity.
Of course, when you go after someone like this, you discredit your whole argument. I agree with you that whitewashing is a bad thing, but then you tell not just him but me as well (since I am white) that I am not allowed to have an opinion about whitewashing.
NEWS FLASH: Things do not change because the minority wants it changed. Things change because the majority accept they are wrong and WANT change. When you attack someone, you make them defensive. People who are defensive dig in and defend their position right or wrong. To get them to change requires discussion.
And discussion means understanding that BOTH sides do indeed get to have an opinion they can discuss.
Kaiyanwang wrote: @Bob, no intention to sound confrontational, but I think you are using two different standards here. In my opinion, either the "race" of the actor should not matter in blatantly fictional works, or it should. If Elba can be Heimdall (and you have a point in why yes he can be), Scarjo can be a cyborg with an "asian brain", especially because of the design of the original movie.
?
It's not that simple.
I agree in principle that the capability of the actor to perform a specific role *should* be all that matters. However, even at this idealized level, it's not that simple. To play an existing person/character, ideally you should be able to find an actor who resembles the person and who is also the most capable. But that doesn't happen perfectly, so now you have to weigh factors other than pure merit for some roles. How much does the capability of the actor matter more than the similarity of the actor to the character? For some roles, like a well documented historical figure, appearance matters a great deal to avoid losing the audience. For a different kind of a role, like a book character or legend, it matters far more to have an actor who can capture the intangible qualities that define the character. By the time we get to Thor, the alien that pretended to be a god based on the second hand accounts of the oral traditions of a mythological God recognized by a specific people, we are getting into some fairly hazy area.
But that's in an ideal world. In the real world, race matters because it has always mattered. The doors were closed on minority actors regardless of talent for generations. There is a huge history of minority characters being played by white actors: blackface, yellow face, all the way through the eighties with the actors I mentioned earlier, and now into the current generation with the whitewashing in movies like The Last Airbender, and whatever you call the need to cast a white protagonist into a movie that shouldn't have any white people in it. So for a lot of the people who feel on the receiving end of this practice, it matters very much. Does it matter more than talent? I don't think so, really. I think if Elba was a bad actor, everyone would have hated him as Heimdall and called it Tokenism. If Scarjo had just nailed the character, audiences would have been more forgiving, although there would still be more of a backlash for continuing what is seen as an unfair practice ingrained in the most visible field of society.
Blackie wrote: I mentioned James Bond and Spiderman because I read about Idris Elba and Gillian Anderson being considered/rumored for the role and the fact that a black Spider Man already exists in the comics.
Yes? And there is racist, sexist push back against both, and it would be ridiculously naive to assume that their identities wouldn't be part of the marketing, if/when it happens.
My point was that your claim that racism isn't part of marketing is pure idealism, not reality.
Here where I live no one complained about a black Heimdall, even some of my friends who are fans of the comics. And I live in a country where non white actors only get the roles of strangers or citizens with foreign origins.
Since I don't live in the USA I was interested in this matter because from my point of view it's impossible to understand if critiques like this one are generated because of racism or an overreaction towards realism, which seems to be more important than the acting and the plot in the majority of american movies.
The first example I made was about an Hawaiian character that didn't look asiatic, but not all the people from Hawaii look japanese. Was that push back caused because her look was not realistic enough or because a choice like that one is a consequence of a racist society? You say the latter, I hope you're not always right.
Its always going to be racism. Most general audience wouldn't know 'realism' if it came up and bit them, and frankly most studios don't bother attempting it at the first place. It's part of the reason most movies are so terrible.
As for Aloha, for one thing, the character wasn't Japanese at all. I'm not even sure why you're mentioning it, other than stereotypes about a lot of Japanese nationals in Hawaii.
But the character's whole schtick is aggressively pitching Hawaiian culture at people- the character's ethnicity was central to her role in the film, so going to such great lengths to avoid it so completely in the actress is going to make even the densest audience member reviewer go, 'Wait, what?' It's an obvious talking point for a film that probably didn't have much else to discuss.
I mentioned Aloha because the female character is supposed to be a quarter chinese and a quarter hawaiian (other origins not specified) and the movie became controversial because of this alleged miscast. I don't think it was a miscast at all, Emma Stone was perfect for that role and she could pass for a woman with some asian origins. The movie should have been criticized because it's bland, not because of whitewashing. I'd always prefer someone that can do a better job instead of the politically correct option. That also involves the opposite case, for example I'd definitely prefer a talented black (or even asian or latino) actor for the role of James Bond over a white one that doesn't fit the part at all.
All the old westerns had mexicans and white actors in the role of indians, and yet they are masterpieces. Today it would be impossible to cast someone for the role of an indian who doesn't have real native blood. But are those recent western movies better than the old ones, just because they're more realistic? Also the fights and the death scenes are way more realistic now. The original "The magnificent seven" is miles ahead the remake despite having the white Charles Bronson in the role of a mexican and the german Horst Buchholz portraying a character named Chico.
Mikey Rooney in the role of a Japanese is another perfect example, he was amazing and I seriously doubt that a true asian looking guy would have done a better job. Racism behind his casting or not.
Considering american movies I think producers are too concerned about how their films look, their aesthetics rather than the most important parts: plot and acting. Being politically correct at any cost, not only about the matter I discussed, is one of the reasons why most modern movies suck.
You thought Mickey Rooney was amazing?? His performance is the go-to for cringeworthy stereotypes. When the Simpsons wanted to show that Krusty the Clown was both racist and unfunny, they had him imitate Mickey Rooney's Mr Yunioshi.
But that's in an ideal world. In the real world, race matters because it has always mattered. The doors were closed on minority actors regardless of talent for generations. There is a huge history of minority characters being played by white actors: blackface, yellow face, all the way through the eighties with the actors I mentioned earlier, and now into the current generation with the whitewashing in movies like The Last Airbender, and whatever you call the need to cast a white protagonist into a movie that shouldn't have any white people in it. So for a lot of the people who feel on the receiving end of this practice, it matters very much. Does it matter more than talent? I don't think so, really. I think if Elba was a bad actor, everyone would have hated him as Heimdall and called it Tokenism. If Scarjo had just nailed the character, audiences would have been more forgiving, although there would still be more of a backlash for continuing what is seen as an unfair practice ingrained in the most visible field of society.
The Airbender is set in a fantastic world. If Elba-Heimdall is ok, a white kid there is ok too. If the white kid is not ok, Elba is not ok. Sorry but if you think otherwise, in my humble opinion, you have a double standard. And the storm concerning ScarJo happened BEFORE the (mediocre, in my opinion) movie came out. So the issue was clearly not the performance.
Now what I understand is that we had years of, say, John Wayne playing Genghis Khan. That is not ok. So when it can be avoided, whitewashing is worse than the other way around on an historical basis. But if you want to change things, you change them for everyone. Two wrongs don't make one right. But I totally see your point.
For the record, Mickey Rooney as Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's is un-watchable.
I thought the issue with the Last Airbender was that all the good guys became white while all the bad guys remained brown. And Elba is one character, not the entire cast of Asgardians, so there is a difference in magnitude. However, yeah, I will admit there is a double standard. The world is not ideal, and past wrongs cast a shadow: minorities have a reason to be more sensitive to such recastings. Whether it's right or not, it's a fact, and one I can sympathize with. By the same justifications that get us Matt Damon in The Great Wall, movies also want to cast for diversity to boost ticket sales among specific markets and to avoid controversy.
As for Scarjo, I never saw the movie or the source material. All I can imagine is that a class of people saw a chance for more representation in the higher echelons of Stardom, perhaps to see someone they identitify more closely with have a shot at becoming the next household name, and then saw the role given to a safe, already famous white actress, and felt snubbed.
Major Tomoko out of Ghost in the Shell is a fictional SF character from a future Tokyo, Japanese goverment secret police department who is a full body replacement cyborg.
There's no reason why Tomoko couldn't be a man's brain inside a female shaped robot shell. One of the themes of the story is alienation and loss of identity.
Having got this far, "realism" has left the building as far as casting goes.
All that being said, everyone has always assumed that Tomoko is a Japanese woman in origin, and so casting Johansen "stole" the role away from female oriental actresses who get few enough opportunities already at lead roles.
But one of the unanswered questions of the story is whether she was actually a man before the original accident put her in the cyborg body, much to Batou's chagrin. If anything, the Major is a perfect example of a character that could be anything, as she has shown to body swap if her current body gets damaged beyond use.
But one of the unanswered questions of the story is whether she was actually a man before the original accident put her in the cyborg body, much to Batou's chagrin. If anything, the Major is a perfect example of a character that could be anything, as she has shown to body swap if her current body gets damaged beyond use.
One could argue that *not* looking as expected is kinda the point. They even play with it at the end of the live action movie, in a different way compared to the anime.
JohnHwangDD wrote: As an Asian dude, no, it's not good to have cast ScarJo as Maj. Kusanagi. The "original movie" is exaggerated, not realistic, and most importantly, because there are Asian actresses who would do a better job with the role.
As a general rule, having white people play non-white roles is a lazy casting decision. If Marvel had had cast a white dude as Black Panther, would that have worked? No.
Totally - and really I hope they learned their lesson with Ghost in the shell. I didn't see it because I'm not going to support that kind of laziness.
Then lets look at Gods of Egypt. Possibly the most epic fail I have ever witnessed.
If we are not caring about the actors matching the visual expectation, what about props and sets? What if some hypothetical Hollywood director, lets call him Michael B., decides to make a new movie about D-Day and gives all the Germans AK-47's because they just look more menacing and badass than historical Mauser carabines? Who cares then if they're unhistorical?
Well, I for one would care very much. Setting is important part of a movie and if the screenwriters do not care about consistency within the setting, I am not going to be interested about the setting and consequently, about the movie.
This seems very hypothetical. That said, various WW2 films have been made using Chaffee tanks as Shermans, and M3 halftracks as Hanomags, and M26 tanks as Tigers, and so on and so on.
No-one cared, because the exact variety of a tank or a rifle doesn't matter. What matters is that it's a tank or a rifle being used to recreate a dramatic historical event.
However, these have been because lack of available historically accurate equipment, and/or technical means and resources to simulate them. With todays enormous budgets and advances in set building and CGI technologies, they are no longer excusable.
And to some extent, same applies for old movies where actors were completely different ethnicity for the roles they were playing.
In general sense, I am not against actor being a 'wrong' ethnicity/race/gender for the role, if he/she is believable. I mean, it's acting. Some makeup, clothing, learning the speech patterns, accent, gesturers etc go a long way. In 'Orlando'(1992), Quentin Crisp played Queen Elizabeth and did great job.
But one of the unanswered questions of the story is whether she was actually a man before the original accident put her in the cyborg body, much to Batou's chagrin. If anything, the Major is a perfect example of a character that could be anything, as she has shown to body swap if her current body gets damaged beyond use.
One could argue that *not* looking as expected is kinda the point. They even play with it at the end of the live action movie, in a different way compared to the anime.
IMO, the issue with ScarJo's Ghost in the Shell was that it couldn't really decide what it was. Was it relatively loyal remake of the original story, or transferred to Western world? They went with bizarre 'somethinginbetween' generic futuristic Asian setting but mostly with Western Caucasian actors, which ended up looking like really cynical whitewashing with Kitano thrown in as a token Japanese. Johansson playing a main role wasn't a problem as such IMO, after all she was meant to be a generic robotic body.
Movies are not documentaries and therefore they can imo get away with a lot of silly stuff. It only is worrisome, if the silly stuff is down right over the top.
Example:
SW Episode 6: Emperor is thrown down a shaft and dies. That´s okay.
Latest SW movie: Leia Organa is cast into space via an explosion, survives this incident and floats back by herself into the safety of the ship. That´s bogus.
For goodnesss sake, let's not get started on SJW again.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To go back to Backfire's point, in the 1960s if they wanted to make a big tank battle film like Battle of the Bulge (1965), they hired a load of tanks and filmed them zooming around. The tanks used were contemporary types, which were M24 Chaffee and M47s probably in the hands of a NATO ally army such as Ireland or wherever. An eastern European film would ave used T34s.
Nowadays they would be expected to model Shermans and Tigers accurately.
What is more realistic -- real tanks, or CG models of historically accurate tanks?
Does it matter? Is the film less dramatic and exciting because the tanks used are not the historically accurate vehicles? Most viewers wouldn't even know the difference.
To go back to Backfire's point, in the 1960s if they wanted to make a big tank battle film like Battle of the Bulge (1965), they hired a load of tanks and filmed them zooming around. The tanks used were contemporary types, which were M24 Chaffee and M47s probably in the hands of a NATO ally army such as Ireland or wherever. An eastern European film would ave used T34s.
Nowadays they would be expected to model Shermans and Tigers accurately.
What is more realistic -- real tanks, or CG models of historically accurate tanks?
Does it matter? Is the film less dramatic and exciting because the tanks used are not the historically accurate vehicles? Most viewers wouldn't even know the difference.
Yeah, like me. I don't give a damn about being historically accurate. I want to watch a story that should entertain me, period. I'd even accept a roman centurion wearing a watch as a genuine mistake, it wouldn't ruin the movie if overall I loved it.
Otherwise I'd watch a documentary.
In the movie First Man every details are perfectly historically accurate, including the original Omega watch that the astroauts wore. But what do I care about that? I almost fell asleep at the theatre.
Same feeling about special effects' quality. I'd take the dummies from Army of Darkness everytime over the massive amount of perfect CGI that is typical of many modern blockbsuters if the overall result is a mediocre film, or decent at most.
To go back to Backfire's point, in the 1960s if they wanted to make a big tank battle film like Battle of the Bulge (1965), they hired a load of tanks and filmed them zooming around. The tanks used were contemporary types, which were M24 Chaffee and M47s probably in the hands of a NATO ally army such as Ireland or wherever. An eastern European film would ave used T34s.
Nowadays they would be expected to model Shermans and Tigers accurately.
What is more realistic -- real tanks, or CG models of historically accurate tanks?
Does it matter? Is the film less dramatic and exciting because the tanks used are not the historically accurate vehicles? Most viewers wouldn't even know the difference.
Doesn't have to be CGI tanks. In 'Fury' they had real Tiger. In 'Saving Private Ryan' they had T-34 dressed up as Tiger which looked very good. Yes, I do expect moviemakers to put some real effort to make their product look at least somewhat authentic. If you attempt to portray history, it is expected that the movie looks like, y'know, historical. If it doesn't, I am not going to be interested. And for the counter-argument "but what if it is really good otherwise?" It's not. My experience is that if the details are completely messed up, similarly little attention has been paid to writing good characters and dialogue.
Of course if it's in the realm of 'history based fantasy' like '300', then standards are much more lax. For some reason, Frank Miller had decided that ancient Persians were actually black, so can't fault the movie following source material there...
And for the counter-argument "but what if it is really good otherwise?" It's not. My experience is that if the details are completely messed up, similarly little attention has been paid to writing good characters and dialogue.
This may be true for modern movies. But decades ago every historycal movie wasn't historycal accurate at all, and yet a lot of them are masterpieces. Once it was mostly about the plot, the acting and the setting. The attention was about how the movie looked on screen, the picture overall, now it's all about the details. Because everything else is bland, that's my take: now all the efforts are on the special effects, make up and the re-enact of the details typical of the period in which the story was set. Today all the attention goes towards the surface, not the soul.
Of course there are exceptions, I'm not an expert and I can't say if a movie is historycal accurate enough but Dunkirk was amazing, no matter if the details were perfect or not. A movie like Fury? Completely forgettable.
What about Spartacus or Quo Vadis? Full of mistakes, some are even a completely invented re-enact of real histoycal events, but absolute gold in comparison to gak like Exodus, Alexander or any other serious (I'm not considering 300 because it's a different thing) movie that is set 2000+ years ago.
The climax of the film is a battle in which a single immobilised Sherman, short on ammunition and with no communications or support, parked in the middle of a well-marked for enemy artillery crossroads but fairly close to lots of convenient cover for infantry, fights a night action against hundreds of well-equipped, elite Waffen SS panzer grenadiers, and essentially wins by somehow killing loads of them and bogging down their advance for hours, when they could have simply by-passed it.
As a piece of historical recreation it's ludicrous, but it's a hell of a dramatic action sequence.
The climax of the film is a battle in which a single immobilised Sherman, short on ammunition and with no communications or support, parked in the middle of a well-marked for enemy artillery crossroads but fairly close to lots of convenient cover for infantry, fights a night action against hundreds of well-equipped, elite Waffen SS panzer grenadiers, and essentially wins by somehow killing loads of them and bogging down their advance for hours, when they could have simply by-passed it.
As a piece of historical recreation it's ludicrous, but it's a hell of a dramatic action sequence.
The whole film is essentially a live action Battle comic, historically and logically shaky but I loved it
I think in this modern era there's no excuse for not at least trying to keep some aspect of realism, particularly if your film/show/media is set in real life. people have the internet, much more access to sources of knowledge etc, so people are going to know if things are wrong. of course you can forgive small indiscretions. having everything perfect would be exhausting to everyone.
personally I, and probably to a larger extent, my partner, are cursed with the fact that having spent 9 years as an armament/EOD technician, I compulsively point out everything wrong with any explosions, depictions of IEDs, faults in Bomb techs actions etc on screen. it must be a nightmare for her, but I cant help it.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: personally I, and probably to a larger extent, my partner, are cursed with the fact that having spent 9 years as an armament/EOD technician, I compulsively point out everything wrong with any explosions, depictions of IEDs, faults in Bomb techs actions etc on screen. it must be a nightmare for her, but I cant help it.
Kind of a similar thing here, as a pilot a lot of stuff stands out as wrong when most people would miss it. Die Hard 2 is a comedy film, etc. But I think in terms of what level of realism we should expect it's probably worth drawing a line between things that experts would catch (tanks not quite being the right model, etc) and things that the average person would go WTF at.
The climax of the film is a battle in which a single immobilised Sherman, short on ammunition and with no communications or support, parked in the middle of a well-marked for enemy artillery crossroads but fairly close to lots of convenient cover for infantry, fights a night action against hundreds of well-equipped, elite Waffen SS panzer grenadiers, and essentially wins by somehow killing loads of them and bogging down their advance for hours, when they could have simply by-passed it.
As a piece of historical recreation it's ludicrous, but it's a hell of a dramatic action sequence.
A hell of a dramatic sequence which ceases being dramatic once it’s absurdity sinks in.
These days flashy graphics and loud noises don’t impress me like they did when I was a kid. There has to be some emotional involvement otherwise I could just snooze through the action scenes. At one point where computer enhanced graphics were new a movie with good graphics could be carried by them, carried by action sequences with no substance. Now decent quality CGI films is common place and we, or at least I, have been desensitised to them and it’s up to the content around the action to pull me in to it.
I’m one of the people that thought the final scene in Fury put a sour aftertaste on what was otherwise okay movie.
I think historical realism is important for several reasons, breaking immersion is one of those.
Historically realistic CGI vs inaccurate practical effects is an interesting one. Ideally you’d have practical effects that are also realistic (eg Fury using a real Tiger rather than using a trussed up T34) but that’s not always possible (Dunkirk using a Merlin powered 109E). I think you go with what feels best at the time, in the case of Dunkirk I think they would have been better off CGI’ing in a “real” 109E rather than a fake Merlin 109, but then I’m an aircraft nerd and to me the silhouette of a Merlin powered aircraft is completely different to a 109E.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: in the case of Dunkirk I think they would have been better off CGI’ing in a “real” 109E rather than a fake Merlin 109, but then I’m an aircraft nerd and to me the silhouette of a Merlin powered aircraft is completely different to a 109E.
Going to have to disagree with this one. One of the brilliant things about Dunkirk's aircraft scenes is that they didn't CGI it, and as a result it has a sense of realness that CGI just can't capture. There's just a subtle wrongness to most/all CGI aircraft, they don't quite move the way they should (too clean, I think, without the slight wobbles and vibration of real planes) and it really hurts the realism for me. It's the same reason that Top Gun IMO has the best aerial photography work ever to appear in a gay porn film. Sure, modern CGI could add more flash and maybe they wouldn't be using black F-5s as "MiGs", but I doubt it would capture the beauty and energy of the real thing.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: in the case of Dunkirk I think they would have been better off CGI’ing in a “real” 109E rather than a fake Merlin 109, but then I’m an aircraft nerd and to me the silhouette of a Merlin powered aircraft is completely different to a 109E.
Going to have to disagree with this one. One of the brilliant things about Dunkirk's aircraft scenes is that they didn't CGI it, and as a result it has a sense of realness that CGI just can't capture. There's just a subtle wrongness to most/all CGI aircraft, they don't quite move the way they should (too clean, I think, without the slight wobbles and vibration of real planes) and it really hurts the realism for me. It's the same reason that Top Gun IMO has the best aerial photography work ever to appear in a gay porn film. Sure, modern CGI could add more flash and maybe they wouldn't be using black F-5s as "MiGs", but I doubt it would capture the beauty and energy of the real thing.
I think these days we could come up with CGI that did look realistic, if the impetus and passion was there to do it. Nolan went to the effort of putting cameras on planes, modifying cockpits of actual aircraft and buying a Merlin powered 109 for the film.
If that same effort was spent on an engineer to work with the CGI guys to create something realistic, I’m sure it could be done.
I much prefer the practical effects with an unrealistic 109 to some crap Pearl Harbour CGI, but I think the same effort that went in to the practical effects put in to CGI could have created something realistic that also was representative.
Also if I recall the 109 was never used as a close up POV aircraft like the Spits, so you still could have done the practical effects with an aircraft that wasn’t a 109, but pulled data from gyros, accelerometers, mocap, etc. to recreate an authentic CGI 109 that actually moved like a real aircraft.
There is also the fact that these days there are actually a couple of Emils in flying conditions, though I assume there was some good reason they weren’t used.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: in the case of Dunkirk I think they would have been better off CGI’ing in a “real” 109E rather than a fake Merlin 109, but then I’m an aircraft nerd and to me the silhouette of a Merlin powered aircraft is completely different to a 109E.
Going to have to disagree with this one. One of the brilliant things about Dunkirk's aircraft scenes is that they didn't CGI it, and as a result it has a sense of realness that CGI just can't capture. There's just a subtle wrongness to most/all CGI aircraft, they don't quite move the way they should (too clean, I think, without the slight wobbles and vibration of real planes) and it really hurts the realism for me. It's the same reason that Top Gun IMO has the best aerial photography work ever to appear in a gay porn film. Sure, modern CGI could add more flash and maybe they wouldn't be using black F-5s as "MiGs", but I doubt it would capture the beauty and energy of the real thing.
Got to agree with that, one of my favorite films is A Bridge too Far precisely because they decided that when you need to shoot a scene with a gak load of planes they got a gak load of planes etc. Okay they used a Leopard rather than Tiger but they actually used a real tank and didn't mock one out of plywood!
What if they painted a real airplane with Andy Serkis' mocap suit grid so they could map a CGI airplane that is accurate in every detail over a real airplane that really flies, but is inaccurate in the details?
AllSeeingSkink wrote: in the case of Dunkirk I think they would have been better off CGI’ing in a “real” 109E rather than a fake Merlin 109, but then I’m an aircraft nerd and to me the silhouette of a Merlin powered aircraft is completely different to a 109E.
Going to have to disagree with this one. One of the brilliant things about Dunkirk's aircraft scenes is that they didn't CGI it, and as a result it has a sense of realness that CGI just can't capture. There's just a subtle wrongness to most/all CGI aircraft, they don't quite move the way they should (too clean, I think, without the slight wobbles and vibration of real planes) and it really hurts the realism for me. It's the same reason that Top Gun IMO has the best aerial photography work ever to appear in a gay porn film. Sure, modern CGI could add more flash and maybe they wouldn't be using black F-5s as "MiGs", but I doubt it would capture the beauty and energy of the real thing.
Agreed, for example airplane scenes of 'Pearl Harbor' were cringeworthy. They had mixed in real aircraft flying with relatively leisure pace (for safety reasons probably), then CGI aircraft doing super-fast clean computer game maneuvers. It was SO stupid.
Regarding 'Fury', until the final battle scene I thought it was an ok movie, with some heavy-handed scenery and way too old cast (50 year old Lieutenant?), but battle scene put it right on 'stupid' category. I couldn't enjoy it at all, it was so illogical. Why did the tank not employ it's considerable range advantage over infantry unit but let them close enough so they could be damaged with assaults and anti-tank weapons? It would have been MORE dramatic had they followed bit more realistic take where infatry attempts to close or get around the tank.
Agreed, for example airplane scenes of 'Pearl Harbor' were cringeworthy. They had mixed in real aircraft flying with relatively leisure pace (for safety reasons probably), then CGI aircraft doing super-fast clean computer game maneuvers. It was SO stupid.
Regarding 'Fury', until the final battle scene I thought it was an ok movie, with some heavy-handed scenery and way too old cast (50 year old Lieutenant?), but battle scene put it right on 'stupid' category. I couldn't enjoy it at all, it was so illogical. Why did the tank not employ it's considerable range advantage over infantry unit but let them close enough so they could be damaged with assaults and anti-tank weapons? It would have been MORE dramatic had they followed bit more realistic take where infatry attempts to close or get around the tank.
Yeah those two examples summarise my issue about the over concern with realism.
Pearl Harbor: bad CGI and special effects which were too fake to be realistic. But I've never even noticed that, that movies IMHO sucked because it was boring as hell and with a cast of actors, actresses and director that I can't stand.
Fury: lot of efforts in order to reproduce the tanks and all the details in a very accurate way, but plot and characters' behaviours were silly and illogical. Overall I don't like the movie because of that, regardless of the visual impact the movie had.
Many modern biopics and historycal movies have the same problem: perfect aesthetics and actors/actress that become look alike (they even learn to talk like the people they portray) but boring plot and actings that are basically an exhibition of the actors'/actresses' skills. Sometimes they work and sometimes don't. I don't want to see Jacky Kennedy, I'd like to see Natalie Portman impersonating Jakie Kennedy. In the movie Jackie I haven't seen Natalie Portman at all. I loved Colin Firth in The King's Speech (and all the supporting cast as well) because he gave something from himself to the historycal character. To reproduce an historycal character exactly like it was it's not worth a movie.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: What if they painted a real airplane with Andy Serkis' mocap suit grid so they could map a CGI airplane that is accurate in every detail over a real airplane that really flies, but is inaccurate in the details?
Modern flight sims are probably realistic enough that you could do it without even putting a plane in the air and have something more realistic than sticking a camera on the wrong type of plane (like using a modern light aircraft, but WW2 fighters were considerably heavier and faster so don’t really move the same way).
As I said before, just because CGI has been done badly (eg Pearl Harbour) doesn’t mean it can’t be done right. Simulators could be a way to reproduce realistic aerial scenes that would be unsafe or impossible to film with practical effects due to lack of authentic aircraft.
I hated 300 not because of the ways it differed from Herodotus but because the message it wanted me to take away from the film was terrible and hateful.
We should judge movies much more harshly on what the creator wants us to "learn" or "understand about the world" based on its subtext and messaging than any realism implications.
In fairness to '300', they were mostly just replicating the Miller's graphic novel, with some extra sizzle added for visuals, and unnecessary role expansion for the Queen.
The sequel, however, was absurd even by '300' standards. Not only it was bad (drink a shot every time Themistocles holds an inspirational speech), the stupidity was mind-boggling. Ships were sailing 100 metre tall mega-tsunamis? WHAT
Compel wrote: I mean the point of 300 was that it was visualising the tale that Faramir was telling, not that what you saw was an accurate sequence of events.
What "actually" happened in the film comprised of the 5 seconds before the end credits.
I only saw the sequel (it was it a prequel?) Once and don't really remember with a framing device in that.
I thought the whole thing was Spartan Queeny explaining to her army how it all got from one state of affair of there not being a War on to there being a War, and how terrible sequels need some recognized name and or Ms Greens ladylumps
And for the counter-argument "but what if it is really good otherwise?" It's not. My experience is that if the details are completely messed up, similarly little attention has been paid to writing good characters and dialogue.
This may be true for modern movies. But decades ago every historycal movie wasn't historycal accurate at all, and yet a lot of them are masterpieces. Once it was mostly about the plot, the acting and the setting. The attention was about how the movie looked on screen, the picture overall, now it's all about the details. Because everything else is bland, that's my take: now all the efforts are on the special effects, make up and the re-enact of the details typical of the period in which the story was set. Today all the attention goes towards the surface, not the soul.
Of course there are exceptions, I'm not an expert and I can't say if a movie is historycal accurate enough but Dunkirk was amazing, no matter if the details were perfect or not. A movie like Fury? Completely forgettable.
Eh? What was amazing about Dunkirk? The only memorable thing about it was that it was far too loud, and the guy who didn't talk was a relief. Other than that, it was over the top melodrama senselessly strung together without any connection with the characters to make me care about the third, fourth or fifth no win situation they were stuffed into for no apparent reason.
I'm just tired of gak overhyped huge budget crap films that a large majority of film goers worship as masterpieces.
Fury.
The last jedi.
90% of anything marvel or DC.
All the CGTRANSFORMERS.
Zombie WWII.
Etc etc blah blah.
Hollywood keeps cranking out garbage and idiots still go watch
ValentineGames wrote: I'm just tired of gak overhyped huge budget crap films that a large majority of film goers worship as masterpieces.
Fury.
The last jedi.
90% of anything marvel or DC.
All the CGTRANSFORMERS.
Zombie WWII.
Etc etc blah blah.
Hollywood keeps cranking out garbage and idiots still go watch
Maybe it depends on the area you live, but here nobody says that any of the movies you listed are masterpieces. In fact for masterpieces the critics considers movies like dunkirk, moonlight, la la land, 3 billboards, the shape of water etc... not the last avengers or star wars episode.
Hollywood keeps cranking out garbage and idiots still go watch
its almost like there some kind of link but I can't quite join the dots
its also partly hype culture of x being the best thing ever, well till the next best thing ever arrives (see also video games, gw releases and streaming shows)
ValentineGames wrote: Hollywood keeps cranking out garbage and idiots still go watch
Do you honestly think this is a new thing? There are plenty of garbage movies in the past, we just don't remember them because they weren't worth remembering. Of course when you compare a full list of movies from 2018 to the carefully selected best movies of the past you'll find that nostalgia wins, but that doesn't mean anything has changed.
ValentineGames wrote: Hollywood keeps cranking out garbage and idiots still go watch
Do you honestly think this is a new thing? There are plenty of garbage movies in the past, we just don't remember them because they weren't worth remembering. Of course when you compare a full list of movies from 2018 to the carefully selected best movies of the past you'll find that nostalgia wins, but that doesn't mean anything has changed.
Just look at the Mini-Movie review thread (or MST 3K) to see the garbage churned out in the past......
AllSeeingSkink wrote: in the case of Dunkirk I think they would have been better off CGI’ing in a “real” 109E rather than a fake Merlin 109, but then I’m an aircraft nerd and to me the silhouette of a Merlin powered aircraft is completely different to a 109E.
Going to have to disagree with this one. One of the brilliant things about Dunkirk's aircraft scenes is that they didn't CGI it, and as a result it has a sense of realness that CGI just can't capture. There's just a subtle wrongness to most/all CGI aircraft, they don't quite move the way they should (too clean, I think, without the slight wobbles and vibration of real planes) and it really hurts the realism for me. It's the same reason that Top Gun IMO has the best aerial photography work ever to appear in a gay porn film. Sure, modern CGI could add more flash and maybe they wouldn't be using black F-5s as "MiGs", but I doubt it would capture the beauty and energy of the real thing.
Agreed, for example airplane scenes of 'Pearl Harbor' were cringeworthy. They had mixed in real aircraft flying with relatively leisure pace (for safety reasons probably), then CGI aircraft doing super-fast clean computer game maneuvers. It was SO stupid.
Regarding 'Fury', until the final battle scene I thought it was an ok movie, with some heavy-handed scenery and way too old cast (50 year old Lieutenant?), but battle scene put it right on 'stupid' category. I couldn't enjoy it at all, it was so illogical. Why did the tank not employ it's considerable range advantage over infantry unit but let them close enough so they could be damaged with assaults and anti-tank weapons? It would have been MORE dramatic had they followed bit more realistic take where infatry attempts to close or get around the tank.
Would not work. The infantry would have just went around.
ValentineGames wrote: I'm just tired of gak overhyped huge budget crap films that a large majority of film goers worship as masterpieces.
Fury.
The last jedi.
90% of anything marvel or DC.
All the CGTRANSFORMERS.
Zombie WWII.
Etc etc blah blah.
Hollywood keeps cranking out garbage and idiots still go watch
Maybe it depends on the area you live, but here nobody says that any of the movies you listed are masterpieces. In fact for masterpieces the critics considers movies like dunkirk, moonlight, la la land, 3 billboards, the shape of water etc... not the last avengers or star wars episode.
Three Billboards was awesome. I still love Fury for all the tank boom boom.
I liked fury. I liked the grittiness. I think it was designed to portray the desperate brutality of that stage of world war 2, and it did it like a punch in the face. Sure it was Hollywooded up with the end scene which got a bit silly, and also one on one tank fight(but damn that scene was exciting) I also liked how the explosive effects of the HEAT rounds were portrayed accurately.
The climax of the film is a battle in which a single immobilised Sherman, short on ammunition and with no communications or support, parked in the middle of a well-marked for enemy artillery crossroads but fairly close to lots of convenient cover for infantry, fights a night action against hundreds of well-equipped, elite Waffen SS panzer grenadiers, and essentially wins by somehow killing loads of them and bogging down their advance for hours, when they could have simply by-passed it.
As a piece of historical recreation it's ludicrous, but it's a hell of a dramatic action sequence.
Easily the worst part of the movie. It was pretty great up until this point though. The ending is so bad that I just stop watching once the fighting in that scene starts.
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queen_annes_revenge wrote: I liked fury. I liked the grittiness. I think it was designed to portray the desperate brutality of that stage of world war 2, and it did it like a punch in the face. Sure it was Hollywooded up with the end scene which got a bit silly, and also one on one tank fight(but damn that scene was exciting) I also liked how the explosive effects of the HEAT rounds were portrayed accurately.
Yeah for me the tiger battle is the best part of that movie.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I liked fury. I liked the grittiness. I think it was designed to portray the desperate brutality of that stage of world war 2, and it did it like a punch in the face. Sure it was Hollywooded up with the end scene which got a bit silly, and also one on one tank fight(but damn that scene was exciting) I also liked how the explosive effects of the HEAT rounds were portrayed accurately.
I think the tone was a bit muddled. The movie seemed to bounce randomly back and forth between portraying tanks as awesome because they can blow people up and run them over, and war as terrible because people get blown up and tanks can run them over. Half the slow drama scenes seemed to be about men breaking down into something baser because of war, and the other half were about glorifying the heroes because they're kicking ass.
It created a little mood whiplash for me even acknowledging that I really enjoyed the movie for the tank porn.
EDIT: Oh and as for the final scene of Fury, it's worth nothing there is an incident in WWII that are similar to the ending scene. Audie Murphy basically did the end of the movie himself, and got the Medal of Honor for it. The only real difference is that he commanded an M10, and had most of his men retreat into a tree line to cover his flanks. He spent an hour firing a mounted M2, killed four dozen German troops, and directed artillery fire the entire time.
Kaiyanwang wrote: Question - would be ok to have Japanese actors for a movie with characters based on the Bantu Mythology?
I don't have this, but I have Japanese actors for a movie with characters based on the US Western myth, as told by the Italians with a huge influence from the Japanese themselves :
Yeah, I discovered that movie at one of my favorite film festival, the Festival des maudits films, and they had the best timing, because the festival was happening when there was a lot of ruckus about Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, so they were like, “Hey, we'll show you a movie with Tarantino that has Django in the title", lol.
Most good action movies say feth it to realism, I guess. Or at least most of the action movies I enjoy. Don't care how accurate the guns from A gun for Jennifer are, don't care about how the realism of the very oneiric Jailhouse 41, don't care about all the legal intricacies that would make Mayhem not work, and so on and so forth.
Realism is for historical movies, so we can learn about the past, I guess.
JohnHwangDD wrote: Prometheus' Xenobiologist petting the alien king cobra in full threat display is a perfect example of unrealistic behavior.
Precisely what made me hate the movie so much. It wasn't the meandering story, it was the people doing such immersion-breakingly stupid things. I can take get on board with the amoral robot, I can just barely accept Weyland's surprise appearance, I can even get with the lady running in a straight line - she's under extreme stress and has imperfect information.... but the guy who just took his helmet off (yolo!)? The whole snake alien thing? So many parts that were infuriating. Alien Covenant had the same issues, although they were less egregious.
At least that had one character try to enforce a quarantine, briefly.
queen_annes_revenge wrote: I liked fury. I liked the grittiness. I think it was designed to portray the desperate brutality of that stage of world war 2, and it did it like a punch in the face. Sure it was Hollywooded up with the end scene which got a bit silly, and also one on one tank fight(but damn that scene was exciting) I also liked how the explosive effects of the HEAT rounds were portrayed accurately.
To be perfectly honest, I think WW2 movies peaked with the likes of A Bridge Too Far and Kelly's Heroes (honourable mention to Bridge on the River Kwai, Where Eagles Dae, Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen) and have just gonedownhill from there.
The effects may not have bern slick, but at least those movies understood pacing.
What I find allows a movie or show to have sufficient "realism" is if it stays within the rules and "expectations" it has set-up.
- Hero movies we expect to see heroes that can fly, shoot energy from their eyes and can blend science fiction with magic.
- Star Wars we expect to see people block energy shots with laser-swords, move things with their minds and fly faster than light.
- Star Trek we expect to see people teleport, ships turn invisible and counselors that can read minds.
- Zombie movies rarely make only a passing mention of the "stench" a horde of decaying corpses wandering around would make.
What we tend to get a bit upset about has had a name for centuries:
Deus ex machina: (English ‘god from the machine’) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence, typically so much as to seem contrived. Its function can be to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or act as a comedic device.
You create your story and world, lay down the rules and what magic / tech operates in this world and then spin your story: just do not "actually" break those rules in a key plot development.
I was a fan of Isaac Asimov who created his "Three laws of robotics" as a plot device to seemingly break those rules and then show they had not been with some surprise twist.
It is like any good murder mystery: the audience likes to feel like they had warning of a given key development in a movie about to be sprung on them, if no effort is made to give "hints" the audience feels they were treated unfairly.
Vulcan wrote: The critics actually quite liked the last Star Wars movie, for some reason.
You have to remember that critics see a LOT of movies. Like, several a day in many cases. It leads to a situation where doing something different gets them more invested than giving people what they want. You also have to realize that most critics aren't Star Wars nerds. They probably like the films, but they don't really know or care who Exar Kun is, they don't care about parsecs or Mandalorians or anything like that. They're pleased by novel ideas and unique cinematography and story structure and a lot of the other things TLJ does well.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Everyone should know and care that Exar Kun is a terrible addition to the setting.
The only real problems with Kun are that 1) his story is completely overthetop dramatic, and they really really wanted to emphasis how dramatic it was to the point it was just exhausting and 2) they just wouldn't let the poor guy stay dead. Exar Kun not staying dead is a cliche.
Vulcan wrote: The critics actually quite liked the last Star Wars movie, for some reason.
True. But a masterpiece? Not even the most enthusiastic critic would rate it equally to Episode IV or V.
TLJ was certainly better received by critics than TFA. Even the prequels got quite good reviews occasionally. As I recall, Roger Ebert gave 'Revenge of the Sith' 4 stars. I also remember 'Attack of the Clones' getting some rave reviews at the time.
When you have a very visual movie with lots of things going on, like Star Wars movies tend to be for example, even for an experienced critic it is easy to get distracted. Personally I remember coming out from Ep. II with mildly positive vibe - "Hey, it wasn't the greatest but at least they had fixed the worst flaws of the Phantom Menace". Now, with couple of rewatchs and some perception, I actually think it is the worst of the Star Wars movies.
The thing I've noticed about professional movie critics is that they tend to put a high value on novelty and technical execution.
I don't think anyone can say TLJ wasn't a technically excellent film. They probably had a huge effects budget and boy did they use it. Good sound quality. Good music. Good camera work. From a technical standpoint there's nothing wrong with the movie.
From a novel stand point the film attempts deconstruction, and does a semi-decent job at it even if they wussed out at the end. I don't think I know of a deconstructive film with good technical execution that wasn't well reviewed by movie critics.
Some films are made to win Oscars, some are made to do well with critics and the box office. Neither assures people will actually like the movie when they see it.
Manchu wrote: There is some good editing in TLJ. The lighting is good. The camera is in focus. Everyone remembered their lines.
I still wouldn’t call it technically excellent because the structure is weak, the characterization is poor, the story is not engaging, etc.
OH no. Narrative, theme, characterization, flow. That whole side of the movie is like a grab bag of kind of good, awesome, what were they thinking, and dreadful moments all mixed together into a story best described with the letters W, T, and F.
I strictly mean in terms of the mechanics of a film. I have no idea what the most accurate way to describe that is though. I just call it technical cause it feels apt to me, and generally a movie with good effects, strong camera work, and capable sound/music will get good reviews from critics on those merits alone so long as the story isn't too terrible. I think TLJ gets around a lot of its story pit falls by dabbling in things that normally get critics excited, even if it did those things poorly.
I understand the sentiment you are expressing, LoH, but I think that closer examination reveals the distinction to be rather arbitrary. TLJ is no more “technically” competent than a raft of other films that cost hundreds of millions to make and market. When we talk about why critics praised it so highly, I think it’s not a matter of the huge amount of professional skill leveraged to create it - otherwise, movies like Solo would be just as highly praised. Nor is TLJ particularly novel. Indeed, I think critics liked TLJ precisely because it was familiar to them, in a certain sense.
To wit: I think you’re on the right track, however, when you cite the deconstructive perspective being highly regarded by professional critics. After all, that’s the same perspective with which most of these critics are viewing films. It follows that they would “click” with the methods and motives of TLJ very naturally.
I heard a music critic today talk about how the majority of what he thought were the best albums of 2018 were by female artists. He also said that, in 2018, he has been focsued on the perspective that female artists are bringing to popular music. That makes sense: his tastes follow his interests. This is true of most people. But the result is, if your main interest in music in 2018 has been something other than the perspective of female artists on their gender, this critic’s top picks may not be very relevant to you.
It’ll die to conversation when it’s no longer relevant to conversation.
The notion of being “too hung up on realism” is a method of explaining by explaining away why somebody doesn’t like a film or some part of a film.
If I say, I find plot element X to be unbelievable and you respond, well you’re just too hung up on realism, you haven’t really addressed whether X is believable or not. All you’ve managed is some ad hominem.
Manchu wrote: It’ll die to conversation when it’s no longer relevant to conversation.
The notion of being “too hung up on realism” is a method of explaining by explaining away why somebody doesn’t like a film or some part of a film.
If I say, I find plot element X to be unbelievable and you respond, well you’re just too hung up on realism, you haven’t really addressed whether X is believable or not. All you’ve managed is some ad hominem.
Agreed - there were a large variety of different issues various people had with TLJ which were all dismissed with disdain by the Director, critics and their ardent defenders
Some people did not like the tone.
Others the pacing and length of the film
The characters for many were weak, incoherently drawn and used and often paper thin.
Some found elements of it unrealistic within the defined universe Some just did not enjoy it
(Personally my friends and I would have said all of the above applied to this film)
Critics were not only (very suspiciously) were almost universely falling over themeslves to say how wonderful it was but sometimes using the exact same language - almost as if they were given it in a press briefing and told/paid to churn it out.
They and the Director then attacked anyone that dared speak against their flawless masterpiece - almost as if it was orchasterated. What they did not do was actually provide counterpoints to the issues raised - just that anyone who did not like it was one of more of the following:
A "Superfan" Nerd, sexist or racist - this was then carried on forums such as this one.
Whilst you can and often the best films do in fact sacrifice "realism" for the theme, story, style whatever - sacrifcing plot, characters, tone and pacing is harder to justify when the art form is being judged.
As another example, I recently re-watched Kong: Skull Island. It’s a pretty dire film in terms of characters, plot, pacing, and a number of other points. Yet one issue it doesn’t really suffer from is being “unrealistic” - despite being about 104’ tall ape! A lot of incredible things happen in the movie that are made credible by the exposition and overall tone.
Manchu wrote: It’ll die to conversation when it’s no longer relevant to conversation.
The notion of being “too hung up on realism” is a method of explaining by explaining away why somebody doesn’t like a film or some part of a film.
If I say, I find plot element X to be unbelievable and you respond, well you’re just too hung up on realism, you haven’t really addressed whether X is believable or not. All you’ve managed is some ad hominem.
I'm right there with you on that. I just don't want the thread to get locked. There was less threat of that when we were talking about racism.
Speaking of dismissing people with legitimate issues with a film as hung up on realism, Peter Jackson's King Kong is the film I use as a gauge for that. It's like Prometheus, but dumber.
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Manchu wrote: As another example, I recently re-watched Kong: Skull Island. It’s a pretty dire film in terms of characters, plot, pacing, and a number of other points. Yet one issue it doesn’t really suffer from is being “unrealistic” - despite being about 104’ tall ape! A lot of incredible things happen in the movie that are made credible by the exposition and overall tone.
I haven't re watched it, but I would argue that the film nailed what it was trying to do, even in terms of characters. They were not fleshed out like one would want in a movie about people, but they gave funny lines and great reactions to the monsters, which means they were better Kaiju film characters than the ones from Godzilla 2014, or most Godzilla films, really. As for pacing, I never felt bored.
I'm right there with you on that. I just don't want the thread to get locked. There was less threat of that when we were talking about racism.
Speaking of dismissing people with legitimate issues with a film as hung up on realism, Peter Jackson's King Kong is the film I use as a gauge for that. It's like Prometheus, but dumber.
Oh yeah. It was awful. Even ignoring all the completely implausible stuff (dinosaurs hanging in vines...) it is very badly directed film. It was simply so BLOATED. Jackson's rule seems to be that why tell a scene in 1 minute if you can tell it in 10?
LordofHats wrote: The thing I've noticed about professional movie critics is that they tend to put a high value on novelty and technical execution.
I don't think anyone can say TLJ wasn't a technically excellent film. They probably had a huge effects budget and boy did they use it. Good sound quality. Good music. Good camera work. From a technical standpoint there's nothing wrong with the movie.
From a novel stand point the film attempts deconstruction, and does a semi-decent job at it even if they wussed out at the end. I don't think I know of a deconstructive film with good technical execution that wasn't well reviewed by movie critics.
Some films are made to win Oscars, some are made to do well with critics and the box office. Neither assures people will actually like the movie when they see it.
The fight choreography leaves something to be desired, but other than that, yes, in a technical sense it was quite well done.
But sparkly sparkly alone does not a great movie make.
Temple matches up more closely to the pulps that inspired it. It’s weird and goofy. Last Crusade, by contrast, has always seemed really safe and basic to me.
Temple of Doom also has much safer enemies to fight, making it a better "fun" film. Violence against Nazis is too controversial in 2018 for them to really work in something that is supposed to be a light and fluffy adventure series.
Manchu wrote: Temple matches up more closely to the pulps that inspired it. It’s weird and goofy. Last Crusade, by contrast, has always seemed really safe and basic to me.
I always got a strong serial vibe from Last Crusade. It felt like an episode of Indy's ongoing adventures. Same with Temple, but Last Crusade struck me as better paced with more enjoyable side characters. Raiders I want to like more than I actually do.
The baddies in Temple are extremely controversial in 2018 as well!
No doubt Raiders is the strongest of them all by far. But I have a lot of affection for Temple because it’s zany, straight away from the nightclub number intro right up through the villain falling into the snapping jaws of crocodiles.
Something I really hate about Last Crusade is the opening flashback where we are asked to believe that the scoundrel who seduced Professor Ravenwood’s (very) young daughter and whose motto is ‘fortune and glory,’ got into the whole business because of his noble belief that artifacts belong in museums. It’s just so vanilla. Takes the edge right off of Indy as a pulp adventurer IMO.
I like all of them, though Temple of Doom is my least favorite by a slight margin. You have a good point about Indy being less interesting as a simple boy scout, though.
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writing. If it's a plot point in one episode that the transporter can't go through shields and a plot point in the next episode that it can the setting loses its sense of internal consistency. You're no longer watching characters in a "real" world, everything is happening at the whim of the plot regardless of how much sense it makes. And that rapidly kills off the drama and tension. You know a resolution is coming, you know that it won't necessarily follow from previous events, so why does the current action matter? Worse, you keep having to ask yourself why the characters have suddenly forgotten everything that happened in the previous episode and become clueless idiots for the sake of the plot.
