Harpospoke

The upside of that is that it indicates there is a huge audience out there just waiting to spend money on a movie they like. The people come back quick. Just at Star Wars fans running back after the Prequels when TFA came out. Some of them are unhappy now but they'll be back the minute there is a SW film they like. I know it's not wise to doubt Cameron, but I can't help feeling that he'd better deliver something special with the next Avatar. Marvel is killing it right now in an unprecedented way commercially, critically, and in popular culture. Maybe I'm off base, but Marvel seems to be more ingrained in pop culture than Avatar at the moment.

You on the other hand do "fool somebody" because you are fooling yourself. You "don't really see" because you agree with your politics. Ok...explain what you mean by "current state". What does that have to do with the movie? Not about Trump? Explain how your xenophobic attack on an entire country for not supporting your movie isn't politics? That's the worst kind of politics. You actually somehow saw box office numbers and translated that in your brain somehow to an entire country of people being "dumb". Yeah...that happened. Well of course you would assume things. That's what SJWs do. They often claim to have mind reading skills. I on the other hand know what "important" means. It's about race and race only. It about the color of the skin of the cast and director and that only. It has nothing to do with the movie itself. You actually believe that everyone else should be eager to talk about race first and if not ...they are "triggered". It's called apathy to your politics. I'm more interested in the character, the MCU, and the movie itself. In no instance that you get upset about did I bring up politics first. Is this you not talking about politics again? Yeah...I see no valid reason to make a movie political. And you certainly can't force people to accept your politics while claiming you aren't talking about politics. More politics that of course you claim you aren't talking about. Yes it was a relief to discover that the SJW politics were not present in the movie. That's nothing to be ashamed of despite your inference here. SLW politics are toxic and divisive. SLWs typically speak to people exactly like you did here. Pretty much political bullies. Not that I mind. I find it revealing. And since politics have been brought up...by other people...throughout this thread it was certainly relevant to point out it's not really there in this movie. If we are going to get into mind reading maybe I should try it too. I think it bothered you that the movie didn't bother me. The argumentum ad populum fallacy means nothing to me. Just another logical fallacy that SLWs often resort to. A SLW is "respected" by other SJWs? Well isn't that surprising!

Ok...this is how you know a movie character is getting into the mainstream. Check out what happens at 1:56:

Nice to live in a world where everyone will know who the hell T'Challa is. F**k yeah!

My "problem" is that I notice your SJW tirades. You mean that Paddington post where you obviously brought politics into it? Then you denied it whereupon I quoted you again proving that you brought politics into it? You of course had no answer for that and just posted a "clever meme". You brought "Trump" into it of course. Go dig up your post if you think you were so "innocent". I dare you. So we can dispense with your little act right now. And you think the "important" narrative that has infected this movie for the past few months isn't obvious? It's toxic and cannot possible be a positive for anything.

There is a difference between politics and divisive politics. T'Challa is a king so there will always be politics. It's what the character is and his wise and calm reaction to political problems concerning Wakanda has always been a strength of the character. And it's certainly not divisive that the extremist is the bad guy. Of course he is. Only an extremist would think that is divisive.

Yeah that's been bothering me for years. All the fake complaints about "Marvel never kills anyone" made me roll my eyes. They kill too many characters in my book. ------- My impression was I liked it but didn't quite love it. Maybe a 7/10 or 8/10 even. No preachy politics unless you are really looking for it. It's about a King so obviously there will be politics. (power struggle stuff) But there is a difference between that an an agenda. I didn't feel that except maybe one line. And it's not like T'Challa is going to "throw open the borders" to Wakanda. He's more about helping other countries advance than bringing them to his country. (great idea) So that really isn't there if anyone is worried about that. If there is a political "message" it's that political extremists are dangerous. No big revelation on that one. The bad guy is a left wing extremist. T'Challa certainly doesn't agree with him. T'Challa has always been a voice of reason. He is a wise leader in the comics and they do the same with him here. Well done. The movie also reveals the flaws in a monarchy. It's fine if the leader is a good man like T'Challa....not so fine if you get an extremist in the chair. The flaws I found weren't really about politics. The movie drags a bit in spots and the fight scenes are "meh". Nothing like the inventive and interesting fights in Winter Soldier and Civil War. The CGI was noticeable in spots if you care about that. (I don't) The actors do a good job all around. Chadwick Boseman is perfect. Not overly impressed with Michael B. Jordan though. Sterling K. Brown played his dad and has way more charisma imo. I would love to see him in more movies. As a T'Challa fanboy I was a bit irritated that he seems a little underwhelming as a fighter without the Panther powers. Kinda like how Daredevil gets his butt kicked so much in every fight in season 1...not a fan of that. The odd notion that freezing someone in ice to keep them alive in a coma was weird...but a minor thing. Not a ton of humor but they put it in the right places. One line in particular near the end was perfectly placed to defeat a familiar movie cliche scene. edit: Forgot to mention. Beautiful movie to look at. Very well done there.

It think it falls back on the context of what the original poster said and meant. You are right. No movie would exist if you removed all visuals. So knowing that...is that what the original poster meant when talking about Avatar? That statement would not mean anything special about the movie Avatar if it just meant "remove all the visual elements and the movie wouldn't be as good". That would be true of every movie ever made. So knowing the poster was talking about Avatar....doesn't that indicate the poster meant "CGI visuals"? ...Or...the main thing that made Avatar a big deal? The counter argument would be that the FX in Avatar is not a minor achievement. Removing that achievement would of course diminish it. But removing a major achievement from any movie would diminish it as well.

I think his point was that you can only define one of those things...box office. All the other stuff you mentioned is just opinion. What is "very good movies"? What is "not very good"? What is "artistic success"?

Of course they are of questionable worth. As in....they are worth nothing. It's just something Hollywood invented to have an excuse to get together, throw a party, get drunk, and pat each other on the back with fake "awards". There is no way to determine that one movie is better than another. The Oscars are just one example of how that fails. Use any other measure and the same thing happens. List movies in order of their RT score or Metacritic score and you won't agree that they fall in order of quality. List movie in order of their IMBD scores...same thing. List movies in order of the box office....same thing. There is no method anyone ever uses that proves anything about art. Art is only good if you think it is good. That's pretty much the end of it. You can be the only person on the planet to like a piece of art and it will be just as good. Popular vote means nothing. "Expert opinion" means nothing because they don't agree with each other either. (they can't even make up their minds about which movie is "greatest of all time")

That's what I read. Not sure what other people are reading. Box office is objective measurement. "Quality" in art is a myth and is 100% subjective. We prove this every single time we talk about it. Getting two people to agree on the "good" art is almost impossible. Get 10 James Cameron fans in a room and ask them to rank Jim's movies. You'll probably get 10 different lists. Try the same thing with 10 Beatles fans. Who is the better songwriter....Paul or John? What are the 10 best Beatles songs? Like Barnack said, we don't have a lot of choice but to talk about the subjective. The objective facts can be interesting, but we can cover it very quickly and there isn't much to discuss. So we have to get into opinions in order to have something to talk about. What box office run is "more impressive"? (that's a big one here) Art being subjective is really the reason it is so important to people. It effects everyone individually and so that makes it a personal thing. Can anyone else feel what we feel when we watch a certain movie or listen to a certain song? We don't know...but it feels amazing so we try to see if it works that way for someone else. We "know" we are the most important people in the world but at the same time we are pack animals who need to fit in to survive. All that stuff swirls around in our feelings about art. Just do that "rank" thing which is done here so often. What happens in your brain when you see a list that is very different from your own? Now how does it feel when a list is just like your own? One prompts a negative reaction and the other prompts a positive reaction. This entire thread is based on those feelings. The poor moderators have to fight this human reaction to art on a daily basis. I love stuff like that. Every "measurement" we try comes up with different results. Even the "experts" can't agree with each other. How good is Titanic? We can't quite work it out, can we? We are about to try the whole futile process again with the Oscars. Surely we can figure out what the "Best Picture" is, right? Nope....all the Academy members will vote for different movies and when they announce the "winner" the annual arguments will begin again. The Academy will either be smart or stupid depending on whether or not you like the movie they settled on through popular vote. But like you said....what else would we talk about if we only stayed with things that are objective fact?

My thoughts exactly. Haven't they suffered enough?

Should have kept this one open longer. Jumanji and TGS are doing crazy things after it closed.

Just heard an ad for "ABBA Mania" tour on local radio. Looks like a tribute act. https://www.abbamania.com/usa-tour-dates/

I'm confused. They didn't cast him. Sounds right.... ...but then they did cast Pierce Brosnan?? I think Klein sings better.

That's what makes me wonder if fans of the WW movie are fans of the character or just fans of that movie. I could not imagine not going to see JL if I were a fan of the WW character. It seemed like there were effectively zero people who liked WW and then went to see JL. Same with BP. I would think anyone who liked him in CW would go see his solo movie based on that. And then wouldn't you go see IW as well? Why would a fan of the BP character skip IW? I guess if you hated the BP movie maybe. That's assuming there is a significant number of people who are only fans of BP and not Marvel in general. Not sure how many of those exist.

I love ABBA so I'm in. But fear more Brosnan singing. That was blood curdling in the first one. They pretty much have to use a lot of the same songs again since they did all the most popular ABBA songs in the first one. Hard not to think the novelty will suffer from that. But doubting the power of ABBA is a fool's errand.

The funny thing to me about a political movie is how futile it is. The people that go see it already agree with the message. Kinda like hoping to convert more people to heavy metal music by hosting a heavy metal concert. Guess who shows up to the concert? Not a lot of jazz fans out there. So a political movie ends up with a crowd of people nodding their heads in agreement who agreed before they sat down. "Right on!"

I think you got caught up in the "50% of the audience" thing. What I meant was that you are alienating part of the audience if you make a movie political. Going around claiming that "this movie is important and everyone should see it because of the political message" is going to turn away ticket buyers. I know I lost interest in seeing it due to how it was described on this board. (and I love Hanks and Streep) I'll go see Jumanji again instead. Was American Sniper some political message movie? I didn't see it. I thought it was about some war hero. (I guess that makes it "conservative"?) Both parties love freedom of speech and the press.... ....but of course only when they agree with the message. Both work really hard to shut people up they don't agree with. The hypocrisy there is pretty thick. Neither understand that free speech is about freedom to say things people don't like or agree with. It's easy to let people talk who say things you like. Hitler and Stalin pulled that one off without any effort. Real freedom of speech is hard. That's why laws are required to allow it. Oh no thanks. I don't need or want a movie to "change me". I'm fully capable of forming my own opinions without guidance from an "important" movie. Any movie with a political message is going to conveniently leave out any details that don't support the opinion of the filmmaker. Anyone can make a compelling case when they do that.

So this still supports the point that a political message isn't going to help a movie either. Either way you aren't going to gather a mass audience or turn off a mass audience. So the complaints about this movie "not making what it should" must mean it's getting bad WOM or people just aren't interested in it. Can't be turning off part of the general audience with the "message" right? The thing applies to a right wing movie too. I don't see that kind of thing getting people into a theater. I get the feeling you were in "defense of liberal politics" mode here. Now that is an interesting idea. I agree. I've probably watched Back to the Future 10 times but only watched Sophie's Choice once. Supposedly the former is "disposable popcorn fun".

That's gotta be part of the problem. Every person I've seen post about it here brings up something about how it's "important", "relevant to the times we live in", or some other politically motivated statement. Not hard to see who it's made for and that cuts your audience in half. At least half because a lot of people aren't interested in going to the movies for a political message even if they agree with it. Hard pass.

I think the problem is they cast a lead who is never going to be able to carry a movie. Eddie Redmayne is another Miles Teller in my book. A guy who seems to be in the midst of a love affair with the media but doesn't have the necessary charisma to be a lead. Some actors are awesome as supporting players only. I sorta agree but I think some may be under selling Avatar a bit too. I get a feeling that the instant A2 shows up, people are going to flock to theaters to buy as many 3D tickets as they can. If Cameron delivers a movie that entertains (what are the odds?) then we are probably looking at big numbers. Not as big as the original, but maybe bigger than some expect. A middle ground thing. I'm actually expecting the story to be better this time similar to T2 vs T1 provided he doesn't get too consumed with a "political message".

Might want to get her a Metacritic user account too. TLJ has a weak 4.6/10 there. http://www.metacritic.com/movie/star-wars-episode-viii---the-last-jedi Someone needs to invent a new conspiracy theory to explain that one away to keep alive the idea that only a small minority dislike the film. Pretty evident what good word of mouth looks like during Christmas season. It looks like Jumanji and Greatest Showman.

Agreed. He's like the Hawkeye in Avengers...except the Avengers movies don't have to pretend Hawkeye is the most important member and make the other characters into idiots to make him look smart. Interesting how "admissions" was not brought up when TDK was passing movies due to inflation but then it became vitally important when Avengers passed TDK.

The state of my underwear is fine. Thanks for your concern fine citizen. You said this: First of all, your "Americans suck" tirade is political. You singled out a particular country and assigned a broad negative description to them. You are right that you have every right to do that...but others also have the right to notice you wedging politics into a discussion about the box office for a movie because you are upset that it "should be making more". Naturally that means "Americans are dumb" in your mind. And go ahead and tell me what this "current state" is? Not political? Maybe you were talking about the weather perhaps? So go ahead and find a way to make an effort to connect politics to you being upset about a movie's gross. But don't pretend it didn't happen.