TF Views

transtrekkie wrote:

Dominic wrote:So, your saying popularity is not an indicator of how good something is to an individual, but popularity in fact is an indicator of how good something is....universally?

I don't think he's even saying that. I think he's saying that popularity counts for nothing. If you think something's good, it's good to you and to bollocks with what anyone else thinks.

What transtrekkie said.

Dominic wrote:Earlier, Sparky was citing examples that said critics should factor in audience reaction to movies.

No, that was a point about movie critics being often out of touch with the audience and their reactions to the same movie.

I would also like to point out that just because 700,000,000 people go SEE a movie does not necessarily mean they LIKED it.

Indeed, but on that same token not all of those people would hate it either. There is a wide range of different opinions.

Which further proves the point, that sales numbers mean nothing. A movie that does well at the box office isn't necessarily a good movie or even well liked, it just means that a ton of people saw it. It's more an indication of effective marketing than anything else. Critic reviews are meaningless because so many of the moviegoing public disagrees with them (and they often disagree so much with each other) that that's a useless scale of determining what is considered good. DVD sales may prove more useful, but only slightly as people aren't usually likely to shell out the money for a dvd that they didn't like. Course those sales numbers don't account for things like gifts and returns so those are useless as well. In the end, the only way to guage whether or not something is considered good is whether or not you consider it good. Everyone else can suck it.

transtrekkie wrote:Which further proves the point, that sales numbers mean nothing. A movie that does well at the box office isn't necessarily a good movie or even well liked, it just means that a ton of people saw it.

If people don't like a movie, it isn't going to do a lot of business. Word of mouth from early viewers or apathy will kill it. It's probably a truism that if a movie does well at the box office that people categorically like it. I don't see how else you could look at it really. The idea that a movie could attract a huge audience of people who don't really like it just doesn't make sense... maybe for the opening weekend, but I'd expect a quick drop in attendance after that.

Critics may have hated Transformers, but the audiences like it quite a bit, or else it wouldn't have done as well as it has.

andersonh1 wrote:If people don't like a movie, it isn't going to do a lot of business. Word of mouth from early viewers or apathy will kill it. It's probably a truism that if a movie does well at the box office that people categorically like it. I don't see how else you could look at it really. The idea that a movie could attract a huge audience of people who don't really like it just doesn't make sense... maybe for the opening weekend, but I'd expect a quick drop in attendance after that.

Critics may have hated Transformers, but the audiences like it quite a bit, or else it wouldn't have done as well as it has.

I agree. You don't get the type of phenomenal success ROTF has enjoyed by being a movie the audiences hate.

It's certainly been known to happen, but I wouldn't say this is one of those times. The simple fact that it has been known to happen means that ticket sales are an unreliable at best method of determining whether or not something is universally regarded as "good". Now, I'll grant you that a movie making a gajillion dollars at the box office USUALLY means that the audience likes it. It's a bit like the Macarena. Everyone loved doing it at the time, but now wouldn't be caught dead doing it.

transtrekkie wrote:It's certainly been known to happen, but I wouldn't say this is one of those times.

Known to happen? Making over $700,000,000 world wide isn't something that is known to happen that often. In fact, there are only 31 movies that have ever made that much money, all of which were extremely popular with audiences, or else obviously they wouldn't have done as well as they did. Not to mention, for a movie that has been in theaters for a little over 4 weeks now, ROTF is still doing pretty well for itself despite some strong competition. This goes to show the movie is no mere fleeting fad that burns out quickly.

First off, I never said ROTF was the example of this, in fact I'm pretty sure I made a clarifying statement to the contrary specifically to avoid giving that impression. And yeah 700 mil doesn't happen that often, that's not what I was saying (I think my point got lost somewhere). What I meant was that it's not unheard of for a movie to do well at the box office and still be generally regarded as a bad movie. Y'know the third Matrix movie is coming to mind. I seem to recall that doing fairly well at the box office, but is generally regarded as a terrible movie. And note, I said well, not highest grossing ever.

transtrekkie wrote:something being regarded by popularity as good doesn't make it good. Case in point, Natural Born Killers. Most people will say that's a good movie. Personally I think it sucked and is #3 on my list of all time worst movies ever. So just because everyone else likes it doesn't make it good.

NBK is Okay, but I've only seen it twice. And it gave us Burn, so it's always going to rule.