Why Movies Suck Now Part Two: The Reality

[Gaming King]

Newsweek is floundering while Us Weekly is thriving. We are not living in an intellectual age.

Liberal rag with important-but-slanted stories versus a rather respectable magazine among tabloids. They're about equal, and that's being KIND to Newsweek.

The end of the article also wreaked of leftardation.

 

[Withall]

having only read the first page, a thought struck me regarding the third reason.
"FANS". Who can't stand if someone else has their own impression of what they like.

Bloody FANS. (To those who don't understand what I mean, I use "FANS" to describe those who defend what they like with alot of fervor, and do no take the time to listen to others, and therefore don't accept other interpretations, or changes from the original creators).

 

[Sentox6]

In Star Wars, Darth Vader and The Emperor are great villians, but we don't want them to win.

Speak for yourself.

 

[gl1koz3]

No. It just takes the right people to do the job. If a movie sucks, one more try and they're all fired. Simple.

Best example: the computer you use. If electrical components don't work closer to 100%, then it just doesn't work.

 

[Ian S]

While it's nice to be a bit laid-back every now and then, what you're basically suggesting is that we say "this movie sucks, but that doesn't matter". Or even "I could say this movie sucks, but I don't want to be a whiner so go see it anyway, four stars!" Basically, endorsing shittiness. You know what the consequences of that would be? We'd get even LESS good films because filmmakers would come to realise that they have no reason to bother trying any more. After all, if critics don't criticise, why bother trying? Only those who genuinely "do it for the art" would make any effort at all. The only way you're going to get better quality is to constantly demand better, to hold people to higher standards. You won't always get what you want, but you have to make the effort.

I'm not necessarily saying saying, "lay there and take it," but there's only so much complaining one can do before it becomes useless and annoying. Movie studios may care about what professional critics like Roger Ebert and Peter Travers have to say, but they don't care about amateurs like Bob, Harry Knowles or Rob Bricken, and by and large their criticisms sound like fanboy whining. And even then, sometimes when they praise a movie they DO like, it's suspect. To wit, I just saw Predators, a movie Bob liked. And while it was decent, I felt it pandered way too much to the fans of the original what with its constant callbacks to the first movie. Say whatever you will about the previous sequels including the AvP movies, but at least they tried to be something different. If the film geeks are truly judging a movie sequel by the degree of fan-service it gives them, then that's not good criteria to base a movie on, I'm sorry.

 

[Anachronism]

I don't care how elitist and snobby people think it is; I always turn on subtitles on my foreign DVDs. I really don't like dubbing, mostly because it's nigh impossible to appreciate the original actor when someone else's voice is coming out of their mouth.

Besides, have you heard a dubbed movie before? The English speaking voice actors pout about as much emotion into it as a cardboard box

This is usually the result of dubbing, which just makes the problem even worse. When I first got Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on DVD, I tried to watch it with the dub, and it was awful. I turned on the subtitles, and it promptly became one of my favourite films.

Dubbing is, at the best of times, a distraction because it never sounds quite right. At worse, the dubbing is so horrible and wooden that it can ruin the movie. Subtitles are the best way to watch foreign movies.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

This is usually the result of dubbing, which just makes the problem even worse. When I first got Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on DVD, I tried to watch it with the dub, and it was awful. I turned on the subtitles, and it promptly became one of my favourite films.

Dubbing is, at the best of times, a distraction because it never sounds quite right. At worse, the dubbing is so horrible and wooden that it can ruin the movie. Subtitles are the best way to watch foreign movies.

Most of the time, though, you get stuff like this:

 

[Cynical skeptic]

How hiply cynical.

"Movies suck because they've always sucked for various reasons and making any effort to correct these reasons will just generate a new reason."

I suppose its more thought out than "movies suck because people suck," but its still garbage.

In reality film, as a whole, has been nothing but improvement after improvement. The worst movies today are better than the worst movies at the dawn of film, the best movies today are better than the best movies at the dawn of film. The only difference is the growing gulf between them (think lin-lin graph (google it!)) and the amount of people unwilling to venture beyond their little bubble realities (as that would be tantamount to, gasp, admitting fault! Oh no!).

Also, the idea that twilight is so successful because large studios don't target "stupid teenage girl" demographics very often is likely the most cynical thing I've ever read. "If large corporations aren't going out of their way to harvest demographics for money, the demographics won't, like, ya know, actually go out and find stuff they, like, like."

 

[Dectilon]

God.. one thing I cannot stand: subtitle snobbery.
I'm here to watch a movie, not read a book. I don't give a shit what the original actors voices sound like. I won't understand the inflections and tone anyway -- I DON'T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE.

Maybe you would if you watched more things with subs. Hell, that's how I learned english.

 

[warmonkey]

Maybe you would if you watched more things with subs. Hell, that's how I learned english.

I've tried learning languages before; it doesn't work for me. No biggie. That's beside the point.

My point is part of the reason sub snobs give for panning dubs is that you lose the inflection and tone and emotion of the original voice actors -- but that's a lot of shit that I just don't understand, since the language makes no sense to me. And most of the time? *They* don't know the language, either, and are just talking out their ass.

Any good dub will capture the same emotions, the same subtle tones, but translated into whatever language you speak -- in other words, no meaning is lost, and it's actually easier to understand. Bad dubs? Sure. There are bad dubs. That doesn't mean dubs are bad.

And frankly, who cares if the lips sync up or not. That's not half as distracting as it's made out to be.

 

[Artheval_Pe]

I've tried learning languages before; it doesn't work for me.

One of my teachers used to say : "Learning a language isn't hard. It's not like math, where you can be awfully bad because you don't do it naturally. You already learned a language since you speak one. So get to work and stop complaning" (that last part was part of the quote, it's not directed at you). But you're lucky, you already speak English.

sub snobs sometimes prefer subs because they sometimes understand the language, prefer to listen to the original performance and the original writing and just need some help at times with the vocabulary.

Anyway, the problem with good dubs is that :
A-They are extremely rare
B-A lot of subtle tones, words, and expressions are language-specific. For exemple, there is no way to translate in french "Get over yourself!" properly. What you mean with that expression, with the tone you usually use, can't be meant using that language. There are even some concepts that don't exist in some language. "Exposition" as a writting technique is a concept that doesn't exist en french. (And there are other exemples the other way around). So the translation often has to use clever tricks to keep the meaning as close as possible to the original work. Granted, subtitles don't help with that, but hearing and understanding the language directly surely does.
C- Something that sounds good in a language can sound terrible in another and vice-versa, because the culture is different. Plus, you can't translate language habits or accents.

Take the original performance in Letters from Iwo Jima (I don't understand Japanese, by the way). The characters have very specific ways to speak when they acknoledge orders or speak to a superior, that are part of the Japenese military tradition and culture (at least, I guess that the film got that right). Even though I don't understand directly what the characters say, I am able to get a sense of the differences between the US and Japenese soldiers, between the two cultures. Use dubbing and put a "Sir, yes, Sir !" in there and everything is lost. You can try to mimic the way a foreign language is spoken using your own, but it doesn't work very well.

That one might come as a surprise to anyone reading this in nations like France, where native-language dubbing is the norm: Americans are huge snobs about dubbing now - even kung-fu movies play subtitled here.

Hey ! Nice, thanks for thinking about your french readers !

By the way, native-language dubbing got a kick in the balls in France in recent years since people in charge have finally figured out that it helped us being rubbish in English. A lot of theatres play both dubbed and subtitled versions of movies, over here, now.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

I live in a country where everything is subtitled.
Not because we are all elitist priks. This is because there are deaf people here.

Besides, dubbing everything would be too expensive, would kill the "industry" here.

I know you guys from the first world like to sell the idea that you are swimming in cash. But dubbing everything that comes out doesn't prevent some releases?

Just guessing.

 

[Rack]

Maybe you would if you watched more things with subs. Hell, that's how I learned english.

I've tried learning languages before; it doesn't work for me. No biggie. That's beside the point.

My point is part of the reason sub snobs give for panning dubs is that you lose the inflection and tone and emotion of the original voice actors -- but that's a lot of shit that I just don't understand, since the language makes no sense to me. And most of the time? *They* don't know the language, either, and are just talking out their ass.

Any good dub will capture the same emotions, the same subtle tones, but translated into whatever language you speak -- in other words, no meaning is lost, and it's actually easier to understand. Bad dubs? Sure. There are bad dubs. That doesn't mean dubs are bad.

And frankly, who cares if the lips sync up or not. That's not half as distracting as it's made out to be.

There are certainly bad dubs. But good dubs? I think there are maybe 5 good dubs in the history of everything. Seeing as I find it very easy to get the inflection and meaning from languages I don't understand that's the way I'm going to want to watch them, considering the alternative. If that makes it more difficult for foreign language movies to be succesful then that's out of my hands, my own personal impact will be almost negligible.

 

[bthecollector]

I will agree with that discription with one correction-black FEMALE american audiances...i've stating what bob has about tyler perry since his first play

 

[bthecollector]

Man, I should probably pay attention to some element of our culture that isn't video games at some point. Who the hell is Tyler Perry? I honstly don't ever remember hearing that name before.

Tyler Perry makes histrionic melodramas that are hugely popular with black American audiences and unwatched by practically everyone else. As you have an anime character as your avatar pic, I'm guessing you're pretty far outside that demographic.

Perry's movies are actually a notch above SATC and Twilight - at least they reflect a kind of auteur's vision. The others are crassly commercial cash-ins based on wish fulfillment.

I will agree with that discription with one correction-black FEMALE american audiences...i've been stating what bob has about tyler perry since his first play

 

[Snotnarok]

Finally someone has published and article on movies sucking, they've sucked bad for ages. AVP and AVP:R were some of the most anticipated and worst movies ever, right up there with the garbage that's DOOM.

People keep asking me to see movies but honestly 99% of movies now are garbage and I'm not wasting my time to hunt for gems in a poo factories sewer runoff into a river of poo.

 

[Guest_Star]

Just some quick comments...

As children of the 90's we were raised with such animated greats such as Animaniacs, Batman The Animated Series, and Pinky and the Brain. Great animated series with sophisticated themes that proved that animation could be a mainstream success amongst any and all audiences.

What does the previous decade have to show for it?

What about Samurai Jack? Or The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy?
Both those shows were problably smarter and more sophisticated than anything produced in the 90's.
Hell, Billy & Mandy even spoofed Herbert's "God Emperor of Dune".

If you remove the nostalgia factor, neither Animaniacs or P&B were that great.
Batman was boss tho.

God.. one thing I cannot stand: subtitle snobbery.

I'm here to watch a movie, not read a book.

So... I assume you don't like subs cuz your lips get's tired?

#1) Wrong. Out of the current Top 20 Box Office movies (your metric for the only thing Hollywood cares about), we have four kids movies, two intelligent thrillers, Twilight, two comedies, four flashy action movies, two relationship dramas, two other dramas, and a documentary. And that's the middle of the summer rush, the time of year that dumb action movies are most common. So where are the massive glut of action movies and geek genre pieces, exactly?

Correct... unless you look at about the opening weekend, then Bob has a valid point. Your intelligent thriller, the current box office lead, is down at #60 on the opening weekend chart. Everything above is either action, animation, comedy or based on an existing franchise with an enormous fanbase.