I have. I'm justified in saying this because I've heard people compare it favorably to the best films of ALL time. Even though once you remove the shiny CGI, it's really only average.
The Avatar Effect
- Thread starter EBHughsThe1st
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Christ no. I go into everything (excluding Splinter Cell games, including Avatar) thinking that they will be bad, so when I get a good movie/game/book (like with Avatar) I'm pleasantly surprised. I also tend to sledgehammer movies that were hyped but turn out to be shit (I've still got Last Airbender to rage on).
I thought Avatar was all right, but not the ground-breaking blockbuster everyone made it out to be.
I actually kind of liked Avatar. I thought it was a cool return to some of the earlier alien movies where the aliens weren't always the badguys, and the humans weren't always the justified palladins of the universe.
But no, I don't fall for what you call the "Avatar Effect". In fact, the more highly rated a movie is, the more skeptical of it being total shit. I don't know, I guess I'm just a pessimist at heart. (Don't even know if that's how you spell pessimist. Damn, I used to be one of the best spellers in school, how did this happen?)
But no, I don't fall for what you call the "Avatar Effect". In fact, the more highly rated a movie is, the more skeptical of it being total shit. I don't know, I guess I'm just a pessimist at heart. (Don't even know if that's how you spell pessimist. Damn, I used to be one of the best spellers in school, how did this happen?)
Hitler used the Avatar effect at his speeches before he became Chancellor:
Ideal+Lots of Fanatics Screaming for it and Cheering it on+Guy who was indifferent with the Idea=New Fanatic.
No, I haven't fallen prey to the Avatar Effect. I know when something sucks and when it's good.
Ideal+Lots of Fanatics Screaming for it and Cheering it on+Guy who was indifferent with the Idea=New Fanatic.
No, I haven't fallen prey to the Avatar Effect. I know when something sucks and when it's good.
Perhaps the "Popularity Effect"? Or the "Mass Consumerism Law"? Or even... the "Mass Effect"?!Jadak said:
OH NOZE!!!
I dont let reviews of movies influence whether or not I will see it. The problem with hype and reivews is that everyone has different likes and dislikes. I can easily find a review from someone who loved every second of Avatar, as I can find a review of someone who hated every minute of it. Hype is pointless, if you think it looks good, then go see it.
When movies recieve lots of praise it generally means they are by popular opinion, good films. When a film gets labelled as 'over-rated' then this is the audience's problem, not a problem with the film itself. It kind of gets my goat when people point at films like Avatar and say "over-rated" like it was the film/directors/cast's fault. This swells to damn near righteous fury when someone says this of a film they haven't even seen...Drakmeire said:
You make it sound like saying one person's masterpiece is another person's garbage is a valid statement. But here in the real world it is more than likely that some people's opinions are better, more informed and in all probability, correct than others. In other words, Pulp Fiction and Little Miss Sunshine are both critically praised, and rightly so in my opinion. If you didn't like them then that is fair enough but if you thought they actually sucked, then no offense, but you are probably just plain wrong.
I could see why some people would like them but since I heard how great they were before-hand I expected something on Par with The Godfather or 2001:a space odyssey, but what I got was a film with only on character I liked and another film filled with the worst attempt at black- humor I've ever seen. I may be jaded though or I simply disliked them due to hype backlash. your opinion is still valid just like everyone else's but sometimes I think that if a critic sees something "different" they will overlook the glaring flaws and call it a great movie, but then if I go back and watch it a few years after other films have tried what made that one unique for it's time and did them better, than the film comes across as bland and overrated through my eyes... that was quite a rant.Raven said:
Actually I'd argue that:EBHughsThe1st said:
(Movie + Lots of Praise) + Person who thought the movie was meh = Avatar effect
If something is overrated, it causes those who think it's "meh" to (pretend to) like it.
Usually called "going with the flow" ^^
But what you described is also natural, it's a basic human instinct that makes sense. When people don't think something deserves all the praise it gets, to even out the score, rather than saying it's just meh, they say it's crap to pull the balance of the whole thing back into what they think the movie really deserves, their own opinion - a meh
Personally, I thought it was meh and still think it's meh. It wasn't awfully terrible, but it left much to be desired, more likable characters (only one I liked was Sigourney Weaver, outside her avatar), better bad guys and a much better plot. The cinematography was beautiful and it's just done really well technically, but it feels wasted on the movie, can think of many others who could've used those aspects to make a much better movie on the whole.
I said it before, and I'll say it again (though I'm not sure if I've said it here). Good special effects do not a good movie make. Everyone knows now that Avatar basically ripped off the story of "Dances with Wolves", and just replaced the 'evil industrialist military Americans' with 'evil industrialist military humans' and 'noble naturalist Native Americans' with 'noble naturalist blue cat-people'. So a little bit of "Ferngully" mixed in. All in all, the movie was sub-par. It's not that people hate the movie because it's so popular, it's that people who hate the movie speak loudly because they don't want to hear about how 'great' the movie is anymore.
I remember hearing about it LONG before I saw it, both the good and bad about it. So, when I saw it, I was expecting a sub-par movie with really good CGI. And even then, the movie disappointed. The story was crap, the characters were whiny, annoying, over-emotional, one-dimensional stereotypes, the CGI wasn't as good as everyone seemed to think it was (as much as I hate to say it, the CGI was just as good 10 years earlier when they released another horribly stupid movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), the premise was retarded, the details were insulting (USB hair and Unobtanium? Really?), and the ending was completely self-gratifying. Was it the worst movie ever made? No. I've seen "Manos: The Hands of Fate". It wasn't particularly bad. What it was was average. It certainly doesn't deserve to have done as well as it has. It should have lost money, but it's the highest grossing movie of all time (if the information I've received is accurate). I just think that it's safe to say that if you stick something on the screen that sufficiently shiny enough, enough people will flock to it like a particularity bored group of monkeys. And then there are those of us that get offended when people start telling us about how great the movie is when we saw past the shiny.
I think what really got to me about everyone going ON and ON about this movie was when they'd talk about how great it was, and I'd ask them why, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, would talk about how impressive the CGI was. No one brought up plot, or characterization, or theme, or anything like that. It was all about the CGI. When I'd ask about the plot, people would start talking about how 'brave and controversial' it was, because it went into this new territory in movies, discussing the American expansion into native lands. Whenever they'd talk about this, they'd whisper about the similarities of Humans to Americans and Na'vi to Native Americans, as though this was some kind of hidden meaning that you had to be a genius to figure out. They'd talk about how no one had ever made a movie about that subject before, except for the dozens of BETTER movies about the subject. But they didn't have CGI cat people. So thumbs down on them.
Basically, the reason people hate this movie is half because of how well it does (it deeply offends my sense of justice when movies like "Avatar" do that well, and no one has ever even heard of movies like "Mirrormask", which was actually a pretty good movie), and half because of how mediocre it is. Justice has not been served here.
Anyway, that's just my opinion. No offense to anyone who did like this movie. I've heard a couple (and I mean that literally, two) people actually have real reasons why they liked this movie. But out of the literally hundreds of testimonials I've taken about this movie, that's a tiny minority.
I remember hearing about it LONG before I saw it, both the good and bad about it. So, when I saw it, I was expecting a sub-par movie with really good CGI. And even then, the movie disappointed. The story was crap, the characters were whiny, annoying, over-emotional, one-dimensional stereotypes, the CGI wasn't as good as everyone seemed to think it was (as much as I hate to say it, the CGI was just as good 10 years earlier when they released another horribly stupid movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), the premise was retarded, the details were insulting (USB hair and Unobtanium? Really?), and the ending was completely self-gratifying. Was it the worst movie ever made? No. I've seen "Manos: The Hands of Fate". It wasn't particularly bad. What it was was average. It certainly doesn't deserve to have done as well as it has. It should have lost money, but it's the highest grossing movie of all time (if the information I've received is accurate). I just think that it's safe to say that if you stick something on the screen that sufficiently shiny enough, enough people will flock to it like a particularity bored group of monkeys. And then there are those of us that get offended when people start telling us about how great the movie is when we saw past the shiny.
I think what really got to me about everyone going ON and ON about this movie was when they'd talk about how great it was, and I'd ask them why, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, would talk about how impressive the CGI was. No one brought up plot, or characterization, or theme, or anything like that. It was all about the CGI. When I'd ask about the plot, people would start talking about how 'brave and controversial' it was, because it went into this new territory in movies, discussing the American expansion into native lands. Whenever they'd talk about this, they'd whisper about the similarities of Humans to Americans and Na'vi to Native Americans, as though this was some kind of hidden meaning that you had to be a genius to figure out. They'd talk about how no one had ever made a movie about that subject before, except for the dozens of BETTER movies about the subject. But they didn't have CGI cat people. So thumbs down on them.
Basically, the reason people hate this movie is half because of how well it does (it deeply offends my sense of justice when movies like "Avatar" do that well, and no one has ever even heard of movies like "Mirrormask", which was actually a pretty good movie), and half because of how mediocre it is. Justice has not been served here.
Anyway, that's just my opinion. No offense to anyone who did like this movie. I've heard a couple (and I mean that literally, two) people actually have real reasons why they liked this movie. But out of the literally hundreds of testimonials I've taken about this movie, that's a tiny minority.
Then be mad at whoever hyped up the films for you. It's just harsh for me to see genuinely good films being slated unfairely. I don't know who suggested that something like Little Miss Sunshine was on par with The Godfather, but they were clearly nuts haha. I found the film to be very sweet, charming and suprisingly thoughtful. Not a masterpiece of moviemaking by any means, but aside from subjective tastes, there's not a lot that can be said negatively of it.Drakmeire said:
Pulp Fiction of course, cannot cater to everyone's tastes but it is very well made and had buckets of originality and style. Those kind of films are always best appreciated upon release as the effects of imitating such films leads to stagnation, cliches and even ridicule of a genre and it's starting points. Imagine watching Star Wars (1977) for the first time now, also imagine you have never seen a film like it (genre-wise) but you are aware of it's existence... You would probably find it to be horribly dated, mercilessly clichéd and somewhat underwhelming. There's just no way someone's opinion of a film wouldn't be influenced by 30 years of public opinion. But this shouldn't change the fact that Star Wars is actually awesome incarnate, despite being flawed in several ways.
The only thing you can do is try and ignore the hype and try to watch a film without any pre-conceptions. You may find you will enjoy films more when you are not distracted with constructing or de-constructing the pedestle you've placed it on. This applies especially to highly advertised blockblusters and classics.
Basically yes, that's why you shouldn't really pay much attention to critics at all before you have seen a film.
When a critic over-looks a flaw in a film for favour of promoting an lesser noticed gem then that is understandable and is the perogative of a good critique. Some people, like myself, want audience's to give certain films the benefit of the doubt when they feel like a film may be dismissed because of a few bits of negativity. Eventually audiences notice these gems and they become much loved "cult classics".
To ignore flaws completely in favour of an obvious strength is just fanboyism. I know whose opinion I'll respect more.
And remember, originality and always trumps over imitations or slick remakes. The classics deserve the respect bestowed to them. Without Pulp Fiction there would be literally hundreds of films that wouldn't exist today...
Ugh, I hate that. Just because a lot of people really love something and you don't think it's as good as they say doesn't mean it's bad. Overrated, maybe, but there's always someone out there who thinks a movie is better than it actually is. Just because it's not as good as people say doesn't mean it's somehow worse; quality is quality, completely regardless of what people say about it. Letting others' opinions affect yours is stupid. Too bad most people who hate on popular things seem to think they're smarter for it...
Alternatively, it could be called the Halo effect.
Alternatively, it could be called the Halo effect.
