Exactly! So many people get caught up with how others value their opinions. So what if we don't agree? The sun comes up the next morning, regardless

Then I block you because I got mad. I actually clicked "view it anyway" to see what you wrote. Chadric agrees with you for example so I blocked him too. Subjectivity, it works on every level and in every way and indeed sun comes up the next morning. (It was a shock initially, I miss our RPG talks. Shame...)

As you see I am still here to defend you defending opinions as an ideal, that's more important than anything else.

those are certainly matters of opinion as well


as i said, I wasn't comparing those as those are certainly matters of opinion, I was simply commenting on the general statement of "opinions can't be wrong"..


"opinion armor" as its called is something that has sadly become all to common on the internet and its a real pet peeve of mine, where when someones wrong on something they just say "its my opinion" thinking saying so means they can't be wrong (as an example, several years ago there was someone of these forums who was constantly arguing that the PS3 can't play Blu ray, and once we proved they could he said "no it can't, and thats my opinion so its not wrong")..


I mean heck, look at some of my earlier posts, I usually do a fairly good job when stating my stance on something is "my opinion", and am among the first to call people out when they are stating something as fact when it is a subject thats more opinion based (as in saying "this games is better than that one in every way" as if its fact when thats a matter of opinion).. but that does not mean certain opinions can't be wrong






anyways, back on topic.. the game Cool Spot for the SNES i suppose.. bought it at a yard sale back in 97 for $10, even though everyone I knew said it was terrible, but I personally thought it was a fun platformer for the most part..

I see where you're going with this and you're right. An opinion can't be wrong when discussing something entirely subjective, but when you try to state something that is factual as an opinion then it is wrong. Making a statement such as "lead is made of chocolate" is not an opinion. it's an incorrect statement. Since lead has an exact atomic structure that can be scientifically proven makes it a fact and not an opinion.

Although, I think this is way off the original topic. That's my opinion

Me and my family loved Batman vs Superman. Same for Transformer movies. Keep hearing bad things about these movies but when we watch them, we love the movies.

I wish I could have enjoyed Batman v Superman more, but I couldn't get past a few things:

1. The music score. To me it just didn't fit the movie.

2. Lex Luthor - Totally the wrong actor picked for the part. Thought it was awful.

3. The political BS. Why was that necessary?

4. The over all tone of the movie was just depressing.

I enjoyed the heck out of all the Transformer movies though

Yes, you can judge someone's skill at achieving a particular aim, but that's completely different to assessing the quality of the thing they produce.

forgot to add Lone Ranger

It is, however, a tool one can use to explain why, for example, soemthing that's supposed to be big completely lacks any sense of size. For a Mechwarrior game that could be a significant flaw (I mean, "giant robots duking it out" just ain't right if they don't feel giant).

And what's so weird about objectivity? It's a simple enough concept...

I'm actually arguing the middle ground here: some things are subjective, some things can be objective, some things are a mix of the two (and some depend on context).

What I was trying to get at is that while the overall picture is usually rather subjective (I can't prove that a movie is 'objectively' bad), there are elements that can be discussed in objective terms (I can prove that the animation was cheap and janky, though I may go on to say I didn't feel it interfered with the storytelling [or whatever]).

To provide a bit more nuance to my statements about musical scores, I will point out that there is a point at which things do become subjective: you can anolyse whether a track is suitable or not, but if you're choosing between two that both fit then question "Which one is better?" pretty much requires a subjective answer (or a tenuous, time consuming [censored] ).

I agree with this point. What I don't agree with is the idea that something can be objectively bad in general. Something can be "bad" against a certain set of criteria, against which it can be measured objectively, but which criteria you value is a matter of opinion.

However, each genre and medium carries with it certain criteria.

I tried to write a more on that, but I'm just not articulating things well enough today, even though I'm doing a bit better than yesterday.


All this ties into the original topic by way of what reviewers should do: provide as much objective anolysis as they can (the animation was slipshod), then give their subjective experience (the movie managed to be fun, despite its shortcomings) and point out things which are a matter of taste (it had lots of _____, which I love). If a reviewer does this well, you can get a feel for whether you'll enjoy the thing, even if your opinion of it will differ from that of the reviewer.

These are the kinds of arguments/discussions that I find totally pointless.

Sheesh, the sheer tedium of "debating" the precise nature and relevance of subjectivity and objectivity is solely the preserve of the anolly retentive and immensely bored of the world.

This right here is pseudo-intellectualism at it's finest and a damn fine example of why I find most academics to be incredibly stupid.

Carry on though, I'm sure you'll all "agree to disagree" and consider it time well spent.

I really enjoyed the Aeon Flux movie, the Keanu Reeves version of Constantine (sorry, comic fans!), and the last Mummy film - plus I also really liked The Scorpion King.

Keanu did an alright job in that movie. The first Scorpion King movie was fun to watch.

Agree. F4 is the nads. What an amazing game. Way better than F3.

Does this perspective also apply to complaining about things that one could just as easily ignore? Asking for a friend.

Just out of curiosity, how would you prefer a disagreement to be resolved? Endless re-statement of opposing opinions over and over again with no hope of compromise? Just end discussions of opinion with, "well, there's no accounting for taste?"

You're right, it is pointless, but not all of us have the intellectual capacity for the hugely important job of insulting strangers on the internet.

I agree with everything that you said in this post. To be honest I'm surprised that so many others here are arguing against this. I think the problem is that some people do not realise the finesse that goes into a piece of art to make it appealing and to make it work. So some people will state "that music enhanced the feeling of melancholy in that scene" whereas others will state "that scene was sad". That's just a case of exposure to the workings behind the scenes. An example is structure in storytelling: You can say that a story is good however it is written, that the structure of stories need not be fixed and it is purely subjective. But what this would tell me is that you simply don't notice the common structural elements in all of the stories that you consider to be good. Something as simple as action-internalisation-reaction, or simple action-reaction, at multiple levels of story structure is fundamental to a well-written story, because without it the story becomes jumbled and confusing, or unbelievable and, ultimately, boring. Most people won't even notice that they are reacting to this.


There are some flaws to pieces of work that people will enjoy, and that is fine, but it doesn't change the fact that it is, in the case below, bad writing. An example that always tends to get me some sharp remarks is Tom Bombadil in The Fellowship of the Ring. Let's look at Tom Bombadil for a minute:


For those who do not know him as they have only watched the film ( and Peter Jackson completely correctly cut this character from it) Tom Bombadil came from out of nowhere to save the hobbits when they were trapped by a grumpy tree. He then invited them to his hut where he and his missus sang songs and fed the hobbits. They pvssyd a bit about stuff and learnt nothing important to the story, then they went on their way. It turns out Tom Bombadil is some sort of powerful spirit. When the suggestion is made, at the council of Elrond, to give the ring to Tom, the idea is dismissed as he is so powerful that the ring will mean nothing to him, so he will likely just lose it somewhere.


The main problem here is that every character and every situation has to move the story forward, or it destroys pacing. In this case it also let up the tension considerably during an otherwise well-pieced together set of scenes. Before meeting Tom Bombadil the hobbits had a goal. After meeting Tom Bombadil they had the same goal. The same story goal, the same scene goal. Nothing at all was learnt that progressed the story and any other information about Middle Earth lore that was gleaned from him would have been better provided through other sources, or indeed you would question if it was necessary to tell them at all.


So what DID Tom Bombadil do for the story? Well, very little. People enjoy him as a character and people like the scene. However the scene simply doesn't fit in that story, or in that place in the story. As a standalone tale, Tim Bombadil is fine which is why people forget how he impacted the story. As a whole, however, this scene served to pull the reader out of the story completely, so they might as well not have been reading the Lord of the Rings anymore. It caused the book to stutter and the story to slow down. It reduced tension at a position in the book where it should have been building. The only thing he did was provide a little more information about Middle Earth lore, which wasn't important to the story, and provided a mechanic to allow the hobbits to escape from the scary tree, which could have either been adjusted so that another mechanic was used for them to escape that didn't require a deus ex machina, or preferably (as Jackson obviously agrees) the scene should have been removed altogether.


To most people who don't understand certain things about structure and pacing, they might enjoy this scene. They won't, however, realise why it is that the story feels like a bit of a slog for the next chapter or two afterwards, or why they feel so aggrieved that the ring can't be passed to Bombadil. They won't be able to pinpoint why they enjoyed the trek through the woods, and everything leading up the that point, so much, but then felt flat just a couple of chapters later. Tom Bombadil is the reason. A nice, pleasant scene that totally detracts from the overall story.


So there is an example of how objective fact (poor pacing, unnecessary characters, deus ex machina, unrequired exposition, poorly timed exposition, deflation of tension) can be overlooked because the character and scene were subjectively pleasing, despite the harm done to the rest of the work.

Some posts have gone away.

I'm trying to come up with an explanation more sophisticated than "don't be a [censored]."

That's actually a really good way of summing it up, and why I wasn't remotely sorry to see him go.

I've spent my almost my entire advlt life as a critic in the writing reviews sense, and my #1 rule is that it absolutely must entertain. This is why I can objectively look at a song like Gangnam Stle and accept that it is a pinnacle of achievement as far as pop music is concerned, or really appreciate why Jurassic Park is a masterclass in filmmaking.

That doesn't mean that I can't appreciate 'Un Bel Di' from Madame Butterfly (tears every time), or tell you in excruciating detail why Night of the Hunter is the finest example of post-expressionistic noir in movie-making history.

It's just that Planet Terror is a total classic and I defy anyone to tell me otherwise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naH0Htsz1q8