ON THE SUBJECT OF HATING

author=kentona
I've been meaning to watch Suckerpunch. It looks good.

It isn't.

Anyway:
The flipside of this is, if people really cannot change their attitudes towards things, then you have to accept if you make anything remotely similar to any form of creative expression, that there will ALWAYS be people who HATE what you make. It doesn't matter what you make, how good it is, or how large or small your audience is. There will ALWAYS be someone who absolutely hates and despises what you've worked hard on, regardless of its actual qualities, traits, or merits. This is human nature; it sucks, and I hope it's changeable, but I really don't know.

inb haters gonna hate.

author=Despain
if something sucks to a person, it's because they expected something different. going into something with an understanding of what exactly it promises has a huge effect on whether or not something is good or isn't.

Nah, there are many times where I get something good even though I was expecting something bad or completely different. I'm wondering if you live in an utopia where everyone accepts what they consume regardless of merit. There are almost too many factors as to why someone will hate or like something. Such as nostalgia (growing up with something), hype (forced attachment), experience (how it relates to previous shit you've watched), etc.

Watch Die Hard and you'll get a smart action movie, watch Transformers and you'll get a dumb action movie. I believe there's a balance between subjectivity and objectivity. You just have to back up with reasons why you like/hate something, and you're golden. If someone can't accept them, then whatever, the world ends I guess.

author=Despain
sucker punch was great dude. maybe you were expecting something different. it promised insane visual effects, hot girls and badass fight choreography and it totally delivered. if you honestly expected anything else then it's your own fault but you can't say the movie sucked.

now i guess i have to tie that into the topic to make this post legitimate:

people will always hate things that don't live up to their expectations. if something sucks to a person, it's because they expected something different. going into something with an understanding of what exactly it promises has a huge effect on whether or not something is good or isn't.

that said, there is absolutely a definitive quality threshold that the average person can see—or maybe FEEL. even though in the end obviously everything's subjective—that's been covered and isn't really up for debate at all.

Respectfully, have you ever taken a film criticism class? One of the most basic criticisms of film critique is that the primary metric by which movies are judged is by what degree the author's intent has been achieved, not by what extent it meets the audience's expectations.

Sucker Punch failed entirely to tell anything resembling a coherent story in a manner that wasn't fully and completely laughable; while all I expected from it was cool fight scenes and hot babes, even those provided me no enjoyment, because: 1) It was extraordinarily obvious from the hype surrounding the film that the authorial intent or pretense was to tell a deep and meaningful story with a message; the movie took itself far too seriously and 2) Devoid of the context of a coherent story or any well-established characters to give even a fraction of a shit about, the action/fight scenes just did nothing for me. It was like a 90 minute music video.

Most segments of the movie made me think, "if this was a video game it would be fun to play, but watching it I just don't give a shit". There were no stakes in any of the fights. I was just bored. It is one of the worst new movies I've seen come out in years and years.

Zach Snyder is a terrifically stylish kinetic choreographer and an absolutely abysmal, rudimentary, overreaching storyteller. Really that should have come as no surprise to me.

But, in light of the OP and Quentin Tarantino and everything...I am trying, very hard, not to hate it. It is after all a magnificent example of what not to do.

Watch Die Hard and you'll get a smart action movie, watch Transformers and you'll get a dumb action movie.

Die Hard is a good example of a movie that I know is good, but I don't particularly like (I have nothing against it, it's just kind of meh). Super Mario Brothers is a good example of a movie that I must grudgingly admit is probably, in most peoples' opinions, pretty bad, but which I remember very fondly largely because of nostalgia. (It is important to note that I like it unironically. Ironic appreciation is a whole different kettle of fish.)

You can like something you know to be bad or dislike something you know to be good.

And art (and I'm "generously" including films as art, although I really shouldn't until Roger Ebert includes videogames) does in fact have objective quality, objective merit, goodness or badness, that exists independent from whether or not you personally liked it or your expectations fulfilled by it.

Sucker Punch is a movie I didn't like, and I thought was very, very empirically bad. Whenever someone else who I consider to be even a moderately intelligent human being likes it, I feel mystified, stunned, and even a little betrayed (odd word to use, I know)...but I'm trying not to be a hater.

EDIT:

Ooops, I was belaboring the point a little. Didn't really see this until just now:

that said, there is absolutely a definitive quality threshold that the average person can see—or maybe FEEL. even though in the end obviously everything's subjective—that's been covered and isn't really up for debate at all.

It was clear from the movie itself as well. At least it seemed clear to me that there was an authorial intent that was--not innately, but compared to the movie itself--deeply, deeply pretentious.

I mean, really, my fundamental gripe was that the movie did not even make any sense, at all. I can't remember the specifics but at the time I was really pissed that it didn't even adhere to its own internal logic. If it was closer to the time I saw the POS, I'd be way better equipped to defend my position.

Give me any kind of meaningful context, at all, to care and enjoy hot samurai babes fighting giant stone samurai with miniguns, and I will. I didn't even think I needed a context, but I learned from Sucker Punch that I do. If there isn't a story or characters, then apparently I just don't care?