The Good the Bad and the Ugly - Review

[DLPB_]

It came to my mind that generally I am always looking at what I don't like (because these days I don't like a lot) and this may give the impression that I don't like anything.  So to address this imbalance I wrote an IMDB review on my favourite film, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

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I have just come from watching that pigswill, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, so I thought it only fitting that I review what I believe to be the greatest film of all time.

I don't say that lightly. If you dislike this film, you have a problem. This is why:

1. Characters are perfectly cast and perfectly executed.
2. Story is perfectly executed.
3. Dialogue is perfectly executed.
4. Screenplay is perfectly executed.
5. Pacing is perfectly executed.
6. Tone and feel are perfectly executed.
7. Acting is perfectly executed.
8. Direction is perfectly executed.
9. Music is perfectly executed.
Case in point:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVc2MQwMkg
  and
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upjlKlV9uIA
 
10. Set design is perfectly executed.

And I mean PERFECTLY EXECUTED.

There is not one negative I can find about this film (apart from the fact it ended). Not one. Even the added scenes were brilliant and only added to the spectacle. The whole film is a masterpiece, and unlike a lot of films with that tag, this film deserves it. I have not seen another film this perfectly executed across the board. I haven't the words to describe just how well made this film is from every point of view. I never get bored of watching this film or quoting it.

And guess what... no CGI, no stupid chase scenes, no action scenes for the sake of it. The film couldn't be made today because people just aren't capable of this level of magnificence anymore.

Finally, Eli Wallach stole the show as Tuco, even upstaging Clint Eastwood. If you haven't seen this film yet, I envy you.

DLPB

[sl1982]

The funny thing is you dont back this up with any facts either. While not arguing you that this is a good movie, all the points you made are subjective. Much like every other review or opinion on something you have seen.

[DLPB_]

It was sent as a none spoiler to IMDB and so I didn't go into it.  It isn't subjective either (pacing, story, characters, setting, direction, script and otherwise can be visually and objectively confirmed), and even if it were it is number 4 on IMDB by overwhelming consensus for a reason.

I keep explaining that opinion does not mean "all opinions are equal". And many opinions contain observable facts which make up that opinion.  It isn't as simple as comparing one colour to another... far from it.  The Phantom Menace, for example, being full of plot holes, cliche bad writing and otherwise are basic facts which can be demonstrated.   I find the whole "it is only opinion" "It is all objective" reasoning a complete cop out.

Whether someone still likes that film is their own bad luck haha!

[Covarr]

(pacing, story, characters, setting, direction, script and otherwise can be visually and objectively confirmed)

Then give examples. Dividing something into categories doesn't prove a point, but examples and critical analysis does.

[DLPB_]

As I said, I made this review for IMDB which has a militant stance on containing spoilers when you have said it doesn't.  It was not meant to be a genius review, it was whipped up in under 5 minutes.  Maybe if I am feeling up to it one day I will get round to it for that film but I am far too busy at the moment.

[sl1982]

You still have yet to show any facts. While i will give you the plot hole thing, the rest are pretty damn subjective. What makes perfect pacing? Perfect characters? etc...  If you have some magical formula that determines these i would sure like to see it.

[DLPB_]

In order to do that I would have to do what Red Letter Media did and dissect the film and then compare to other films in video (that's the only way you can prove pacing is wrong, see Confused Matthew and Star Trek Generations)... and that takes a long time and is boring. The review here isn't meant to show any facts and it can't really without spoilers.

Let's take the hobbit... it's not my opinion that it is an endless series of unrealistic, filler-type battles, or that a 300 page book being made into 3 three hour films is a bad design choice, these are things that plain fact.  But asking me "prove it" is asking me to spend the next 5 hours with editing software and I am not prepared to do it.

[Covarr]

Let's take the hobbit...

Okay

it's not my opinion that it is an endless series of unrealistic, filler-type battles

Other than the nearly hour-long intro without battles and the long exposition scene at Rivendell. But you are right, there are objectively a certain number of minutes devoted to battles.

or that a 300 page book being made into 3 three hour films is a bad design choice

No, that's an opinion, not an objective fact. There are plenty of ways he could've made that design choice that could've lead to a movie you would've liked, even if it were at the expense of faithfulness to the original book. Making a 300 page book into three 3-hour films does not AUTOMATICALLY fill the films with action scenes, that was another, albeit closely-related, design choice. It does not AUTOMATICALLY cause the pacing to be inconsistant, with some scenes far longer than others. (By the way, pacing is something that can be measured, by scene length. Saying the pacing is *inconsistant* is objective, because it's provable. Saying it's *bad* is SUBjective, because inconsistant pacing isn't necessarily a bad thing by default).

You keep saying you understand the difference between fact and opinion, but you have repeatedly qualified things as objectively good or bad based on whether or not they suit your own tastes. You don't like long-ass CG action scenes? Good for you, that doesn't make them objectively bad. Some people do like them. They are not objectively wrong. They like the movie that gives them the feeling inside they want.

[DLPB_]

I'd wager it is impossible to make a 9 hour film off a 300 page book like the Hobbit  and have good pacing.  And certainly, the film did not do it.  Fact.  We can go round and round all day but without video review you are just gonna keep coming back saying it is opinion (and it isn't).  So I am signing off there. 

[Covarr]

I'd wager it is impossible to tell a 300 page book like the Hobbit in 9 hours and have good pacing.

As I said, it largely depends on two things:
-How true they are to the book
-How you define "good pacing"

And certainly, the film did not do it.  Fact.

No. Opinion. Here's why:

It did not meet YOUR DEFINITION of good pacing. But YOUR DEFINITION of good pacing is not objectively correct. Different people have different definitions, different expectations of what makes good pacing. So while it is definitely a fact that it wasn't what you wanted in terms of pacing, YOUR DEFINITION of good pacing is an OPINION, therefore it is an OPINION that the pacing was not good.

It is a fact that the pacing was inconsistant. That is measurable. However, INCONSISTANT PACING ISN'T OBJECTIVELY BAD. Many people may like, or even prefer a lack of consistency for one reason or another. Just because you don't doesn't mean it was objectively bad.

[Cupcake]

It is a fact that the pacing was inconsistant. That is measurable. However, INCONSISTANT PACING ISN'T OBJECTIVELY BAD. Many people may like, or even prefer a lack of consistency for one reason or another. Just because you don't doesn't mean it was objectively bad.

Example: Fargo.  Fargo had VERY inconsistent pacing, but that doesn't mean the pacing was bad...  Unless you're Dan.

Dan, you have to realize, your design sense isn't the end-all be-all of design sense.  That doesn't mean your design sense is better or worse than other people's design sense, it's just different.  You, however, seem to have it in your head that what you perceive to be bad is bad, and that's the end of it.  You can't appreciate opposing viewpoints to your own, and you use opinions to back up those viewpoints rather than facts, invalidating your reviews.  Every time I have ever seen you review anything, you've done nothing but invalidate the review, by overloading it with bias.  No matter how much this gets explained to you, you can't seem to understand this.  Are you the real life, or just fantasy?

Keep it civil, Cupcake. I'd be warning you right now, but Obesebear seems to have already. ~Covarr

[DLPB_]

Yes, it's all opinion, everyone.  Let's stop making reviews because Covarr et al have decreed that no matter what is said and observed, ultimately it is all personal taste and illusion.  In other words, every review has equal weight, every opinion is equal, all observable facts are illusion and you are no better off, before and after having read reviews.  There is no degree of reality involved.  There is no way to judge whether one thing is better than another.  A man who draws a complex painting and takes hours on it has created the same art as the person who threw paint at a wall.  There is no good or bad, there is no right or wrong, there is no truth or lie, there is no moral or immoral, and there is no point in life. 

Thank you, and goodnight rofl! 

 

[Cupcake]

all observable facts are illusion

You really don't read what's said to you, do you?  There's a difference between fact and opinion.  You keep throwing out the "fact" that the pacing in The Hobbit was bad, but without providing any evidence to support that claim.  Yes, the pacing was inconsistent, but inconsistent ≠ bad.  I'm actually so sure that you don't read entire posts, that I dare you to quote this to prove me wrong.  That may be one of the poor qualities, but isn't in and of itself enough to taint an entire piece of work.

[Covarr]

At what point did I say it's all personal taste and illusion? There are plenty of things that can be objectively wrong with a movie.

• Plot holes and story contradictions (this is objective because it is measurable; you can find the exact points where the movie disagrees with itself)
• History problems in a history movie
• Changes in character behavior or personality without some sort of growth or event to explain this change (the character equivalent to a plothole)
• Non-psychic characters being aware of things they did not witness and were not told about (the other character equivalent to a plothole, usually caused by the writer forgetting who was in which scenes)
• Characters coming to correct conclusions based on illogical reasoning (1960's Batman would be a prime example of this had it not been a joke)
• Visible cameras/microphones/stagehands/anything that wasn't supposed to be filmed
• Low-quality CGI. Not all CGI mind you, but anything with measurable problems, such as:
  
  • Visibly low-resolution textures
  • Visibly low-poly models
  • Models that don't resemble what the artist intended them to
  • Jittery or mis-keyframed animation
  • Lighting that doesn't match the live action content in the same frame
• Acting that is demonstrably bad on a technical level:
  
  • Lets an accent wrong
  • CALLS NICOLAS CAGE "NICK" IN NATIONAL TREASURE EVEN THOUGH HIS CHARACTER IS NAMED BEN
  • Emotions that clearly don't match the character's behavior or dialogue
  • Breaking character
  • Unintentional stuttering or otherwise failing to deliver lines as intended

There. Plenty of things that can be objectively wrong with movies; complaints you can make that are fact rather than opinion. This is a non-exhaustive list, by the way, and exceptions can be made for things done on purpose as stylistic decisions rather than simple accidents, such as visible cameras and cameramen in Drop Dead Gorgeous. The list is even bigger for games, because they can have bugs, control issues, etc. My issue with your The Hobbit review is that your criticisms were all based on stylistic decisions rather than measurable problems. The closest you came to something quantifiable was the pacing, which was measurably inconsistent, but as Cupcake said, "inconsistent ≠ bad". But hey, at least you can identify why you don't like the pacing ("it's inconsistent" rather than "it's bad for reasons I won't explain because they're obvious to me so they should be obvious to everyone"), which is more than you were able to say about ALMOST ANY OF YOUR OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE MOVIE. (You don't like chase scenes? Fine. Explain why the rest of us are wrong for liking them. Explain why they're automatically bad).

You want an objectively problematic movie? National Treasure has all sorts of clear, quantifiable mistakes. The Star Wars prequel trilogy is rife with characters behaving in different ways from scene to scene for no given reason, characters behaving in ways that doesn't match the dialogue, the lava at the end of episode three (doesn't look like lava, doesn't move like lava, and produces light that doesn't match the way the characters are lit)... just as some examples.

As for your The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly review, you've got an entirely different problem: IT ISN'T A REVIEW. Your use of the word "perfect" is no different than the use of the word "epic" in The Hobbit reviews; unless you can in some way qualify what "perfect" means, it means nothing and it gives your review no weight whatsoever. I agree with you that it's an amazing movie, one of the best I've ever seen, but if you want to "review" something you need say what makes it good or bad in some objective way, not just say "there's proof" and leave it at that.

And no, I'm not saying you need to make 70-minute video review of a single movie just because Red Letter Media did. I'm not even saying you need to make a 30-minute review as Confused Matthew usually does (or 10 minutes for his mini-views). But believe it or not, there is a huge space between highly detailed and in-depth reviews such as those, and say-nothing reviews like yours. But in order to be a useful review that anybody will take seriously, you need to have at least some level of analysis. Even just a little.

I don't know why I'm even writing this though. Every time anybody disagrees with you, you only read like 10% of what they actually say, jump to conclusions about what they were getting at, and argue straw men. You've already done that a few times in this thread.