Yeah, basically this.
I haven’t seen it yet, but even if I don’t like it I’m not gonna say “your opinion is wrong and it sucks because I say so”, that’s douchebag shit.
Naw it’s one one thing to say “I like it” and another to say “It’s good.” It’s objectivly bad in every single way conceivable caus it does all the things your not supposed to do. It tells you instead of shows you, it has no character development, it can’t even manage to get the names right. From an objective viewpoint its a terrible piece of work. It’s not that people are telling your opinion is wrong because no one is doing that. You’re welcome to like it alllllll you want. i love Van Helsing. I’m not about to go around saying it’s a good movie though cuz if you look at it objectivly it’s not a good movie.
Again opinions don’t work like that. I’m sorry but they just fuckin don’t.
No. Instead of a 103 minute shitfest it would have been a 135 minute shitfest. Movie was garbage. There was no saving it.
Re: this whole “opinion” thing I feel like I’ve tried to explain to a thousand different people a thousand different times:
An OPINION is a personal take on a subjective matter.
“Cats are cute.”
“Cats are ugly.”
Anything that falls under the realm of FACT or is completely contradictory to fact without empirical evidence backing it is NOT an opinion.
“Cats are mammals.” <-- This is not an opinion. This is a fact.
“Cats are reptiles.” <-- This is not an opinion. This is just wrong.
Like it or not, believe it or not, storytelling is neither completely objective nor completely subjective. There are storytelling standards, checkpoints almost every reasonably well-told story passes by, and have passed by for a rather lengthy span of human history. There are, in fact, common qualities shared by well-told stories throughout the world and history: interesting characters, interesting hurdles, interesting premises. There are also subjective things about storytelling, elements that can’t be classified as good or bad but ultimately rely on personal interpretation.
Also, and again it feels like I’ve had to say this a thousand times to a thousand different people, it’s entirely possible, and completely human, to both a) LIKE something you think is BAD and b) DISLIKE something you think is GOOD. This whole “If I like it it’s good and if I dislike it it’s bad” nonsense is bullshit, as is the “Like it on its own merits” argument that, taken to its logical conclusion, means nothing could ever be bad, ever.
When talking about television or film, another measurable quality is dialog. Even in fantastic, supernatural settings, human beings must act like human beings would. What comes out of a character’s mouth has to be believable, or it’s garbage. This is the reason why most anime and Japanese storytelling is complete and utter trash: people say things contrary to what their established characters or real human beings would say. And this is especially true when talking about EXPOSITION, the Killer of Good. No film school, no pitching lecture, no worthwhile screenwriter will ever deviate from this: exposition is bad, and must be dropped or hidden whenever possible. You don’t have characters sitting there explaining the plot to the audience: you show the plot through subtext, action, and clever dialog. M. Night himself has done this before: The Sixth Sense very, very cleverly hides exposition, and while the big twist is surprising at first, you realize, looking back, it was there all along.
So when someone says “I think The Last Airbender is good” and a) makes claims about it that aren’t true (it isn’t anything like the show, it isn’t just a shortened version of the first season, it doesn’t have worthwhile acting or dialog) or b) states that it’s good just because they liked it, I call bullshit, and rightfully so. If you like the movie, fine, but don’t defend it when valid criticisms are made, because it IS, in fact, full of exposition, devoid of believable and well-crafted dialog, missing key plot points present in the show, adhering to the show in places a movie adaptation shouldn’t, guilty of introducing characters and relationships without a single iota of buildup, poorly edited, missing the slightest bit of character depth, and a full on mess of a movie.
You’re my hero and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
You might not like Dr. B but you can’t deny he once saved the solar system while taking a shit.
If you think it’s good now, you’re gonna love the later stuff.
I don’t know why, but the way you described June as “the bitch” made me laugh.
As for the whole opinion debate, I’ve always said that people have the right to express what they like. I myself like a LOT of movies, songs etc that are pretty… well… bad, but I have never said to anyone that they are “good” from a technical standpoint. I seriously doubt that I would be able to convince anyone that ‘Manos, Hands of Fate’ is a good movie, but it happens to be one of my favorites.
The same goes for your typical Michael Bay fan; beyond the huge explosion porn, I doubt anyone could come up with a convincing argument that the man is a competent filmmaker.
I haven’t seen Airbender and I don’t plan on ever seeing it simply because M. Night is a hack who doesn’t deserve my time and money. Don’t waste your time trying to convince me otherwise. :razz:
But you can’t really call bullshit on someone saying its good because they like it. At the end of the day everything that you mentioned that made the movie bad, someone else probably could’ve cared less about it and not let it hinder them from enjoying and saying its good.
You’re right on the money on the problems that the movie had but for me it didn’t make me bitter and hate M.Night and want him to not make movies period. The movie had potential and he fucked it over big time. BUT i’m optimistic that he’ll somehow see the light and just relegate himself back to being a director and let someone else do the writing.
yes he can, well if it’s his opinion he can.
and I’ll state mine, Movie was garbage and no one will convince me otherwise.
I absolutely can. How much you enjoyed something and how good/bad you think something is based on its pros/cons are mutually exclusive things (though the latter can definitely affect the former). Therefore, claiming otherwise is, in fact, bullshit.
However, I agree with The Damned: let’s just leave it at “Somebody other than M. Night should do the next one.”
As for M. Night’s directing/writing, etc.:
I don’t think the problem is that he directs.
I don’t think the problem is that he directs AND writes.
I don’t think the problem is that he directs AND writes AND produces.
I think the problem is that he directs AND writes AND produces AND neither listens to nor cares about criticism. And that’s not going to change. The man’s an imbecile who submitted to his ego after making two admittedly good films.
Dr. B never lets his ego get the better of him, even after his weekly bouts of discovering alternative energy sources that eliminate the need for war.
i always felt there should be a divide between writing and directing and producing. there’s a natural checks and balance in such a process, and foregoing that process eliminates the amount of people that will honestly tell you that your shit sucks. and add in the fact that he even did casting for this movie, he basically put himself all in for failure.
he didn’t have a director to go to him and tell him “I can’t work with amateur hour over here”. he didn’t have a producer that is overseeing everything, telling him he has nothing to work with in the cutting room. it honestly does feel like shyamalan has been given way too much leniency the longer his career goes on, and stepping away from people whose jobs depend on the person before them. because if you cast your own actors when you direct, you’re satisfied with what you get when filming. when you’re satisfied with what you’re filming, when you’re producing, you have problems, but you’re willing to work with it. but since the movie stems from him writing this movie so half-assed, it was already doomed without everyone in the filming crew tying him down to his director chair and beating him up until he rewrote it.
in other news, the movie just got its 10th fresh rating (out of 118 reviews) on rotten tomatoes. i can count 10 people that should probably lose their jobs as film critics.
Thats my biggest beef with it is that no one bothered to say anything after his first draft and they just ran with it.
I finally got around to seeing this contender for worst film of the decade and you know I just couldn’t get over how he blew 150 million on this without his main cast being able to act. Aang , Sokka and Katara should have been fired after a day, hell maybe Sokka had some potential but Aang and Katara just did outright terrible. On the flip side it seems like all the talent went into the fire nation, Dev Patel 's Zuko was very well done along with Shaun Toub as Iroh (Eroh) and Aasif Mandvi’s Zhao . I’m not even going to bother going over the changes or the pacing of the movie it was just a big mess all around, its a perfect example of what happens when surrounded by yes men and I would love to hear what Shyamalan’s daughter really had to say about this movie.
you know… i was holding off on saying that the last airbender is the worst movie i’ve ever seen, but time has passed and i think if its not, its a contender. in terms of money wasted, it is much worse than a student film should be in terms of acting, writing, scripting, and cinematics.
if its not one of the worst movies ever, its competing hardcore, and it will be the biggest $300 million dollar anything that people just forget and sotp caring about.
Oh man, finally got to see this movie thanks to the magic of teh interwebz, and I STILL feel cheated. Also, this is probably the most unintentionally hilarious scene of the movie:
YT version: [media=youtube]iwccNqklC_k#t=2m0s[/media] (linked straight to the moment in the gif, but the whole scene is cringe-worthy).
Seriously, 6 earthbenders to move one little rock at like 5mph and it STILL hits the guy? looooooooooooool
Had no idea it was this awful. Wow. I might have to download and watch this for the same reasons I watched dragon ball evolution.
WOW… I seriously could not imagine anything more painfully ridiculous than what I just saw.
I really and truly pity anyone who saw this movie. It doesn’t matter if they paid for it or not. This is just… beyond sad.
This seriously sounds Dragonball: Evolution level of bad. 
**Hell no, this is a fucking great movie.
Only ones who don’t like it are the ones who watched the show and expect it to be 100% like the show.**
This movie suckedddddddd. It was nothing like the cartoon. Of course I didn’t expect it to be just like the cartoon but I expected it to at least put in the main parts of the story. Where’s the keoshi warriors? Where’s the King of the Northern Water tribe?
you were also the same person who thought the microsoft e3 press conference was amazing. just saying.