The prequel hatedom needs to go die in a fire

[Jub]

And those metrics are measuring quality are defined by people.

So are the units we use to measure everything else, does that make my ruler suddenly become useless?

You can measure the quality of the image and sound objectively, but those are not connected to how a person might evaluate the overall quality of a film because a film might have worst sound and video quality, but other qualities like writing and acting might affect the overall experience and reception of a film.

What about when those areas are also poor

You're using the "average audience" as a barometer, which in itself has already made your criteria non-objective. You're defining the audience taste, then making an argument about how films can be "objectively" measured according to the taste of the audience you've created. That's not objectivity.

How is taking the tastes of the present day moviegoer and creating an average based on that not perfectly objective when it comes to measuring quality? I haven't created anything, I'm merely using trends to examine audience tastes.

Objectivity is a set of definable facts, like pixel numbers and etc. Taste and preferences can never be objective.

That's untrue. If a not particularly skilled child submits a stick horse to a life drawing competition which is judged by a group that doesn't know who drew it will always lose to a drawing of a horse done by an accomplished life drawing artist who specializes in animals. It's objective fact that one picture will more accurately recreate a horse on a sheet of paper than the other.

The same measure can be applied to movies within the same genre and especially to movies within the same franchise.

We got a lot of development about how the Jedi and the Republic functioned, we got a lot of new designs of ships and etc. We got to experience what life was like in the core worlds. That's a vast expansion of breathing room for the OT.

Those opportunities were always there and, in point of fact, many of these things were covered in novels long before the PT was ever penned. The PT created nothing new, it only fixed in place a version of events that did happen rather than allowing for an open space where any number of things could have happened. It objectively narrowed the space people had to work with by nailing down these details.

See the video by CGI artists commenting on the CGI. Every special effects will feel dated as time went on. I can make the same argument about the movement of some puppets in the OT being too jerky and stop-motion like.

Yes, there are some dated looking effects in the OT as well which Lucas was right to go back and correct with his special edition. It's going to be far easier to CGI over a practical effect than it will be to update a CGI shot that was designed for a specific resolution. This is why it took so long for certain Star Trek series to get a BluRay release.

That's what the creators did with Star Trek. The atmosphere and "feel" of Star Trek evolve with time, and that brought in new generation of fans to the franchise.

It also strayed away from its Roddenberry's vision as the creative team on TNG had forced him out before the end of TNG's first season. You could go so far as to say that everything past season one of TNG isn't canon because it wasn't created with Roddenberry's input. I wouldn't go that far, but I could easily argue that everything DS9 and onward is just high budget fan fiction for exactly that reason.

Because people enjoy different kinds of entertainment and they are under no obligation to share your preferences?

I'm asking why such shows were greenlit in the first place, before audiences could even watch the first reality show it had to be pitched, planned, funded, shot, edited, and then finally aired. Are you telling me that cost and effort weren't factors in the first reality shows being produced?

Films are meant to entertain the masses, especially blockbusters. You are under the illusion that studios should cater to your sense of entitlement instead of trying to cater on what the masses actually want to watch.

I don't care if films solely cater to me, I just want them to cater to somebody rather than pander to everybody. There's a massive distinction there that you're missing.

They might not be a film "classic", but most people don't go into movies expecting a "classic".

Why shouldn't they? It's not that unreasonable to expect every team working on every film to want to create something timeless, it's the studios that force these teams to make something for the masses.

Did you watch the special edition?

Nope, I saw the original VHS cut where Han shot first.

Disney tried the same tactic with Chinese audience, and many Chinese casual film goers said the movies look too dated for them to enjoy.

We've already established that Chinese audiences prefer CGI spectacle over any other criteria when it comes to blockbusters so that isn't surprising in the least. I don't want to rehash the Chinese audiences have shit taste debate again debate though so I'll leave it at that.

Read what I say. The popularity of the films is connected to the zeitgeist of the era. Your personal enjoyment of the OT is your personal taste and experience. What "revived" the popularity of Star Wars as a franchise in the 90s and early 2000s was the prequels being released in cinema, combined with the airing of the OT on tv stations and release on DVDs.

How can you measure the popularity of a movie that's out of theaters? Where are your facts showing that Star Wars wasn't popular between 1980 and 1997 when the special edition was released?

Without the same set of cultural zeitgeist, a franchise can fail to take off in certain parts of the world. The Star Wars franchise had trouble breaking into China because the cultural zeitgeist for responding well to the OT movies simply wasn't there in the 2010s.

I should care that Chinese audiences have poor taste because...?

Casual fans are important because they made up the majority of the viewers. The bombing of Solo suggest there are Star Wars movies that won't interest the casual audience.

The bombing of Solo was more due to a lack of studio confidence that lead to a lack of advertising compared to other movies they'd released. A notoriously troubled shooting history and news about the lead failing to capture a Harrison Ford-like tone combined with a general dislike of TLJ among some audience members also probably contributed.

Endgame succeeded because it managed to turn a large portion of casual fans into loyal fanbase that have to see Endgame on opening day. And Endgame was marked as an end of an era, and these kind of movies usually prompt even the non-fans to be curious about it and watch it in the cinema.

For example, The Return of the King made a lot more money than the first two LOTR movies. There were many people who decided to check out ROTK even though they have never seen the first two movies or read the books. Once a movie is properly hyped up, even the non-fans will check it out.

There are plenty of finales that didn't draw more than the first movie in a franchise.

Back to the Future III only did $244.5 million at the box office compared to the first movies $389.1 million.

The Neverending Stories series went from $100 million to $17 million to $9 million at the box office over its 3 film run.

I can find plenty more examples to counteract your presumption that finales always sell.

Yes. I think as superfans we can be too entitled in what we want in a movie. Take the recent Godzilla movie. It looks like it is going to make a loss at the box office. While many Godzilla superfans felt the film gave them what they wanted, the casual audience seems bored or indifferent to the movie.

Would the casual audience have responded to any Godzilla movie though? It's the same for Dredd it was a great movie that took a while to find an audience. Just because something isn't an immediate success doesn't mean that it can't go on to find an audience.

-----

Considering that they're media products designed for mass consumption and cross promotion (tie ins everywhere!), I think the ship has sailed on that one.

I'm arguing that I wish it hadn't or that we could return to the days of vision trumping marketability. I'm well aware that we're not going away from a model designed to make all of the money instead of merely some of the money so we can fund future projects.

[Gandalf]

Did vision ever trump marketability, or was it just that Lucas's original vision was sufficiently marketable for Fox back in the 70s?

[Galvatron]

As I recall, the only one at Fox who really believed in Lucas and Star Wars was Laddie. Everyone else expected it to be a huge bomb.

[Jub]

Did vision ever trump marketability, or was it just that Lucas's original vision was sufficiently marketable for Fox back in the 70s?

What Galvatron said.

There's no single formula for making a hit. There are expected blockbusters budgeted and marketed as such that flop and small indy movies that go on to become massive genre-defining hits. I'd much rather see studios reward vision than crank out similar movies until trends change and one finally flops.

[The Romulan Republic]

The box office numbers suggest that a large portion of the general public enjoyed the Prequels, even if, as noted, they don't care enough to talk about it at length on-line.

I tend to see the hate as coming more from a mix of die-hard OT fans with rose-tinted glasses and built-up expectations, and the snootier of the professional critics.

Hell, I remember talking to a guy (who was not a die-hard fan) once and mentioning how people hated Jar Jar, and he replied with a derisive comment about how only nerds didn't like Jar Jar. I expect that kind of attitude is more common than most of us realize.

Edit: I expect its often the same with the ST, too- albeit with an added layer due to current political polarization making the casting of women and minorities in lead roles a flash point, and advances in social media allowing the usual fan backlash to be weaponized by the neo-fascists.

Wrong. Box office numbers suggest that a large portion of the general public saw the prequels. The common consensus would not be that the prequels sucked if most people liked them, and it very much is.

Who's consensus? The general public's? Or critics/die-hard fans?

I'm not saying the majority considers them timeless classics. But the majority enjoyed them as popcorn movies, I think, which is all the majority was probably looking for to begin with.

Also, you don't run up numbers like Phantom Menace did without repeat views. And while AotC and RotS had smaller audiences, that happened with the OT too. And they still turned ample profits. Hardly a resounding rebuke by the public. People liked the Prequels enough to keep coming back by the millions.

By your metric, Minions is a good film with a silent majority behind it just because it did well at the box office and is beloved by a segment of people who loved it before they developed taste. Is Transformers 4 as good as the Star Wars OT, too? It did well at the box office, and I'm sure you can find individual adults who don't get the hate.

You're muddying the waters. I am not saying popularity is a metric of quality. Neither is unpopularity, though that doesn't stop the OT purists from claiming TLJ and Solo's smaller box office returns validate their dislike. I am simply saying that the films were relatively popular, outside of a mostly niche/online circle of die-hard whiners.

[The Romulan Republic]

I will say that from a slightly crass and cynical perspective, you could say that the prequel films served their purpose, which was to entertain enough people to turn a tidy profit and keep the franchise going indefinitely.

[Jub]

I'm not saying the majority considers them timeless classics. But the majority enjoyed them as popcorn movies, I think, which is all the majority was probably looking for to begin with.

If all that most people want is thoughtless popcorn action why even bother catering to them? They'll go see whatever is in theaters anyway as long as it's marketed correctly. Make a good movie first and let marketing figure out how to get asses in seats afterward.

That doesn't stop the OT purists from claiming TLJ and Solo's smaller box office returns validate their dislike.

Why do you keep bringing up shit from around the internet in debates here? The only people I've seen on this message board relate Solo's poor box office take are the people saying that it catered too much to OT fans and thus didn't find a wider audience.

The reality is Solo had well-publisized production issues, was telling a story people didn't really need or want to see, and Disney, smelling a bomb, didn't market it as heavily as they would have for a different stand-alone Star Wars movie. If one of those three issues aren't present the box office numbers would have been significantly higher.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm not saying the majority considers them timeless classics. But the majority enjoyed them as popcorn movies, I think, which is all the majority was probably looking for to begin with.

If all that most people want is thoughtless popcorn action why even bother catering to them? They'll go see whatever is in theaters anyway as long as it's marketed correctly. Make a good movie first and let marketing figure out how to get asses in seats afterward.

That might make a better film (or it might not- some writers and directors have fucking batshit ideas of what constitutes a good film), but it doesn't change the point that the Prequels were not generally reviled by the public, as their bashers (who are the ones actually using an appeal to popularity fallacy) like to claim.

Why do you keep bringing up shit from around the internet in debates here? The only people I've seen on this message board relate Solo's poor box office take are the people saying that it catered too much to OT fans and thus didn't find a wider audience.

Maybe because we are having a discussion about the larger response of the fan community and the general public to the films, not just the participants on this board? Also, while I'm not sure about Solo, I have seen TLJ's box office numbers used to attack the film on this board. I think it was back in the original main TLJ thread.

I do think there's something to the idea that Solo failed because it was too much aimed at just the die-hard fans, but even if that's the case, again, box office numbers say nothing ultimately about its artistic quality. Just that it failed to appeal to a wide audience.

The reality is Solo had well-publisized production issues, was telling a story people didn't really need or want to see, and Disney, smelling a bomb, didn't market it as heavily as they would have for a different stand-alone Star Wars movie. If one of those three issues aren't present the box office numbers would have been significantly higher.

Maybe, maybe not, there's really no way to know what would have happened in an alternate universe where Solo was handled with maximum competency. But that has nothing to do with any point I was making.

My only points here are basically that a) the Prequels were not actually reviled by the general public, and their box office numbers support that, and b) that people who bash the newer Star Wars films tend to rely on (often misrepresented) claims of popular support/box office numbers to make an appeal to popularity fallacy.

[Gandalf]

Did vision ever trump marketability, or was it just that Lucas's original vision was sufficiently marketable for Fox back in the 70s?

What Galvatron said.

There's no single formula for making a hit. There are expected blockbusters budgeted and marketed as such that flop and small indy movies that go on to become massive genre-defining hits. I'd much rather see studios reward vision than crank out similar movies until trends change and one finally flops.

Then that's up to audiences. When audiences attend riskier films and therefore justify the investment on the part of the studios, studios will take more risks. But owing to economic downturns, people go out less, and will therefore be more discerning with their entertainment dollar.

[Jub]

Then that's up to audiences. When audiences attend riskier films and therefore justify the investment on the part of the studios, studios will take more risks. But owing to economic downturns, people go out less, and will therefore be more discerning with their entertainment dollar.

It's a two way street. Movies like Dredd that were disappointments in theaters but sell well on home releases should get more respect than they do but investors, preferring a quick turnaround on their investment, don't fund sequels for those kinds of sleeper hits. Is it still the fault of the audience when it takes slow word of mouth to make a hit?

There's also the many examples to networks like Fox killing shows with out of order airings and time slot shuffling. Or the case of Undergrads and Mission Hill which only gained popularity after a few seasons of late night airings. Studios that only look for immediate success make it hard for anything to catch on over time and good series don't get follow up seasons even when viewership would warrent it.

[ray245]

So are the units we use to measure everything else, does that make my ruler suddenly become useless?

No, because objective measurements are not subject to a human's personal experiences. Units of measurement are consistent. Human preferences aren;t.

What about when those areas are also poor

The problem is there is no way of objectively declaring what is "poor" and what is "good". People can enjoy something that might popularly be decried as "poor" or "bad", because there is no universal rule regarding what sort of things people liked.

Humans have differing preferences in a variety of stuff. What turns some people off might appeal to others. We should have no right to judge whether people's preferences are bad just because we find certain stuff to off-turning to us.

How is taking the tastes of the present day moviegoer and creating an average based on that not perfectly objective when it comes to measuring quality? I haven't created anything, I'm merely using trends to examine audience tastes.

Because you are already "averaging" them out. And the average audience taste differ and can change according to circumstances of time and etc. The "average audience" in North America used to enjoy slow paced four hours long biblical epic movies. They don't now.

That's untrue. If a not particularly skilled child submits a stick horse to a life drawing competition which is judged by a group that doesn't know who drew it will always lose to a drawing of a horse done by an accomplished life drawing artist who specializes in animals. It's objective fact that one picture will more accurately recreate a horse on a sheet of paper than the other.

The same measure can be applied to movies within the same genre and especially to movies within the same franchise.

No. I think that's the main issue you are having. You think of art as something that can be objectively defined by one set of criteria, namely how well you think they look. The issue is people can have different criteria for evaluating an art piece.

Some people might value the technical composition of a piece, some might value the expressiveness of a piece of art. Abstract art for instance is a deliberate break away from traditional representation of art. So while some people might think of them as inferior to a traditional, technically-well executed piece of art, there are art critics that differ on that.

The same applies to movies. Even amongst movie critics, you rarely have a movie that have a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Even if a majority of critics think a movie is bad, there will be some critics that find a movie is enjoyable enough to give a positive rating.

Those opportunities were always there and, in point of fact, many of these things were covered in novels long before the PT was ever penned. The PT created nothing new, it only fixed in place a version of events that did happen rather than allowing for an open space where any number of things could have happened. It objectively narrowed the space people had to work with by nailing down these details.

The novels didn't really elaborate on how the Old Republic operated and what was the relationship between the Jedi and the Republic. In addition, the prequels expanded upon the visual design of how things looked in the old republic era.

Yes, there are some dated looking effects in the OT as well which Lucas was right to go back and correct with his special edition. It's going to be far easier to CGI over a practical effect than it will be to update a CGI shot that was designed for a specific resolution. This is why it took so long for certain Star Trek series to get a BluRay release.

All effects can become dated. The issue is whether people mind the dated effects. Some people do, some people don't. Older fans might look back at dated effects because they were nostalgic about it if they have seen the movies as kids.

It also strayed away from its Roddenberry's vision as the creative team on TNG had forced him out before the end of TNG's first season. You could go so far as to say that everything past season one of TNG isn't canon because it wasn't created with Roddenberry's input. I wouldn't go that far, but I could easily argue that everything DS9 and onward is just high budget fan fiction for exactly that reason.

And if they kept to the original vision, Star Trek might have died and faded away.

I'm asking why such shows were greenlit in the first place, before audiences could even watch the first reality show it had to be pitched, planned, funded, shot, edited, and then finally aired. Are you telling me that cost and effort weren't factors in the first reality shows being produced?

They were factors. But if no one watches those shows, studios would not have produced them in the first place.

I don't care if films solely cater to me, I just want them to cater to somebody rather than pander to everybody. There's a massive distinction there that you're missing.

Why should films (especially big budget SFX-heavy films) aim for a niche audience?

They might not be a film "classic", but most people don't go into movies expecting a "classic".

Why shouldn't they? It's not that unreasonable to expect every team working on every film to want to create something timeless, it's the studios that force these teams to make something for the masses.

I think you are severely underestimating the difficulty of creating a film that is a "classic". If people had actually figured out the formula, they would be milking it for all that's worth. Film production is a tricky animal, and despite years of film-making, people still haven't quite figured out the golden formula for making a "good" film.

Nope, I saw the original VHS cut where Han shot first.

And many kids would have seen the special edition when it came out.

We've already established that Chinese audiences prefer CGI spectacle over any other criteria when it comes to blockbusters so that isn't surprising in the least. I don't want to rehash the Chinese audiences have shit taste debate again debate though so I'll leave it at that.

Audience taste are specific to a variety of factors, and how films compare against other films they have seen. Someone who have seen the OT as a kid will approach the franchise very differently from how an older audience view the franchise if they only saw it as an adult. In other words, people's taste in films are dependent on their personal experiences.

How can you measure the popularity of a movie that's out of theaters? Where are your facts showing that Star Wars wasn't popular between 1980 and 1997 when the special edition was released?

Popularity is relative? The prequel era saw a huge production and good sales of Star Wars products, including those of the OT era merchandise.

I should care that Chinese audiences have poor taste because...?

Because there's no such thing as "good" taste or "bad" taste? It's dependent on a variety of factors as to why people or communities respond in different ways to movies. So there's no such thing as an "average audience" because tastes are affected by a variety of factors.

The bombing of Solo was more due to a lack of studio confidence that lead to a lack of advertising compared to other movies they'd released. A notoriously troubled shooting history and news about the lead failing to capture a Harrison Ford-like tone combined with a general dislike of TLJ among some audience members also probably contributed.

There was absolutely no hype whatsoever when a Han Solo movie was announced, or when the trailer was first released.

There are plenty of finales that didn't draw more than the first movie in a franchise.

Back to the Future III only did $244.5 million at the box office compared to the first movies $389.1 million.

The Neverending Stories series went from $100 million to $17 million to $9 million at the box office over its 3 film run.

I can find plenty more examples to counteract your presumption that finales always sell.

Again, read what I said. I never said finales will ALWAYS sell. I am saying finales often do sell well because there had been a lot of hype going for it.

Would the casual audience have responded to any Godzilla movie though? It's the same for Dredd it was a great movie that took a while to find an audience. Just because something isn't an immediate success doesn't mean that it can't go on to find an audience.

The casual audience did respond better to the 2014 Godzilla movie, which was more marketed as a disaster movie than a giant monster fighting movie. So what works for niche fanbase might not appeal to general audience at large.

A movie might be successful and profitable on DVDs, but any movie that relies on DVD sales to make a profit will be hard-pressed to find investors.

[Gandalf]

It's a two way street. Movies like Dredd that were disappointments in theaters but sell well on home releases should get more respect than they do but investors, preferring a quick turnaround on their investment, don't fund sequels for those kinds of sleeper hits. Is it still the fault of the audience when it takes slow word of mouth to make a hit?

How well did Dredd do on home media, especially reative to its budget? Because it really got its arse kicked at the cinema. Meanwhile sleeper hits like John Wick and Taken have gone on to become huge.

There's also the many examples to networks like Fox killing shows with out of order airings and time slot shuffling. Or the case of Undergrads and Mission Hill which only gained popularity after a few seasons of late night airings. Studios that only look for immediate success make it hard for anything to catch on over time and good series don't get follow up seasons even when viewership would warrent it.

How long should a network wait, hoping that one of its shows might catch on after a few years? They get ratings data far quicker than twenty years ago, and in an hilariously fractured market. So while in the eighties they could wait around for something like Cheers to find an audience, the changing market makes that an impossibility. Hence the awesomeness of public broadcasting.

[Jub]

No, because objective measurements are not subject to a human's personal experiences. Units of measurement are consistent. Human preferences aren;t.

Something like pain is a near-universal human experience even if it isn't easily qualified and people seem to experience it differently yet we have a pain scale to objectively measure it so the correct treatment options can be given. Are the doctors wrong to judge pain objectively?

The problem is there is no way of objectively declaring what is "poor" and what is "good". People can enjoy something that might popularly be decried as "poor" or "bad", because there is no universal rule regarding what sort of things people liked.

Yes, there is. If you're writing a script in English and a character that is meant to be an English professor is constantly writing with poor grammar and misspelled words that is an objective flaw. Likewise, if you're making a period piece and an actor is wearing a watch for a scene that's objectively poor attention to detail. These flaws may not decrease everybody's enjoyment of the film and some may even find greater enjoyment of the work due to these flaws, but these things are still objectively speaking flaws.

Because you are already "averaging" them out. And the average audience taste differ and can change according to circumstances of time and etc. The "average audience" in North America used to enjoy slow paced four hours long biblical epic movies. They don't now.

Hence why I specified the audience of today so that changing tastes can be accounted for... You're reading skills aren't so good are they?

No. I think that's the main issue you are having. You think of art as something that can be objectively defined by one set of criteria, namely how well you think they look. The issue is people can have different criteria for evaluating an art piece.

So a stick figure horse should win a life drawing contest then?

Some people might value the technical composition of a piece, some might value the expressiveness of a piece of art. Abstract art for instance is a deliberate break away from traditional representation of art. So while some people might think of them as inferior to a traditional, technically-well executed piece of art, there are art critics that differ on that.

No shit, I never argued that this wasn't the case. My argument is that we should expect more from a film than designed by committee, appeal to everybody while offending nobody schlock.

I make this argument because with the right advertising you can get almost anything to find an audience these days. So instead of appealing to the people that have proven they'll watch almost anything why not throw a bone to more picky viewers and let advertising do the job of getting asses into seats?

The novels didn't really elaborate on how the Old Republic operated and what was the relationship between the Jedi and the Republic. In addition, the prequels expanded upon the visual design of how things looked in the old republic era.

Novels could have done so if anybody wanted to pen such stories. With art, there were always art books for Star Wars as well as stuff like the essential guides, such designs could have easily gone there. The point is that new movies really didn't expand on anything so much as they pinned things down and fleshed them out; not always for the better either.

All effects can become dated. The issue is whether people mind the dated effects. Some people do, some people don't. Older fans might look back at dated effects because they were nostalgic about it if they have seen the movies as kids.

So CGI shots don't take objectively more time to retouch for higher resolution releases then?

And if they kept to the original vision, Star Trek might have died and faded away.

Prove that or concede.

They were factors. But if no one watches those shows, studios would not have produced them in the first place.

I'm talking about the first of those types of shows made before any audience was proven dipshit. Answer the question, why did studios, before any reality show had proven to be a hit, greenlit this type of show to be produced?

Why should films (especially big budget SFX-heavy films) aim for a niche audience?

You can aim to really appeal to a smaller group while not alienating a wider audience you know. Plus, movies don't need to make all the money, that's just what current capitalist ideas say a movie should do. You could make movies that only make modest profits or break even and so long as you don't face a string of major failures you should be able to do this for a good long while.

I think you are severely underestimating the difficulty of creating a film that is a "classic". If people had actually figured out the formula, they would be milking it for all that's worth. Film production is a tricky animal, and despite years of film-making, people still haven't quite figured out the golden formula for making a "good" film.

Does that mean that you shouldn't try to make something that will stand the test of time even if odds are against that happening?

And many kids would have seen the special edition when it came out.

Your point being?

Audience taste are specific to a variety of factors, and how films compare against other films they have seen. Someone who have seen the OT as a kid will approach the franchise very differently from how an older audience view the franchise if they only saw it as an adult. In other words, people's taste in films are dependent on their personal experiences.

Most Chinese audiences haven't had the ability to enjoy movies as freely as those in richer and freer nations have, they haven't fully developed a pallet for more challenging fare due to this. Plus, the government censorship and strict controls on which movies can be shown will also play a factor. Are you honestly arguing that these factors are a good thing?

Popularity is relative? The prequel era saw a huge production and good sales of Star Wars products, including those of the OT era merchandise.

Between RotJ's release up to the release of the Special edition in January of '97, there were 681 pieces of Star Wars media released. That's 48 releases each year, while those numbers rose significantly with the release of the prequels it's hardly as if the franchise were dead or irrelevant in the 14 years between RotJ and the Special Edition. Your assertion that Star Wars wasn't popular between movies is clearly false.

Because there's no such thing as "good" taste or "bad" taste? It's dependent on a variety of factors as to why people or communities respond in different ways to movies. So there's no such thing as an "average audience" because tastes are affected by a variety of factors.

Yes, there are. Or would you not consider it bad taste to shit in the punchbowl at a party?

Again, read what I said. I never said finales will ALWAYS sell. I am saying finales often do sell well because there had been a lot of hype going for it.

Prove it. Show that this is actually a trend and not just a thing that's happened with a few notable series.

The casual audience did respond better to the 2014 Godzilla movie, which was more marketed as a disaster movie than a giant monster fighting movie. So what works for niche fanbase might not appeal to general audience at large.

Not that the key term you used was marketed. So if the new Godzilla movie had been marketed differently there's every chance that the exact same movie would have better.box office numbers.

A movie might be successful and profitable on DVDs, but any movie that relies on DVD sales to make a profit will be hard-pressed to find investors.

Yeah, that's one of the issues I have with Hollywood. Try reading what I write and you might pick up on what I'm saying once in a while...

-----

How well did Dredd do on home media, especially reative to its budget? Because it really got its arse kicked at the cinema. Meanwhile sleeper hits like John Wick and Taken have gone on to become huge.

Dredd did $41 million at the box office on a $45 million budget. It then did another $21 million in DVD and BluRay sales with an unknown amount more in streaming revenue. So not a huge hit but enough to show that a sequel, which pretty much everybody involved with the film was eager to make, would have found a larger audience.

How long should a network wait, hoping that one of its shows might catch on after a few years? They get ratings data far quicker than twenty years ago, and in an hilariously fractured market. So while in the eighties they could wait around for something like Cheers to find an audience, the changing market makes that an impossibility. Hence the awesomeness of public broadcasting.

Give something as long as it took for Cheers to find an audience. Are three seasons really so long to keep a show airing for? Is showing episodes in order really a huge ask?

[ray245]

How well did Dredd do on home media, especially reative to its budget? Because it really got its arse kicked at the cinema. Meanwhile sleeper hits like John Wick and Taken have gone on to become huge.

A quick google gives us some numbers.

https://m.the-numbers.com/movie/Dredd

It has been estimated to earn $21,231,450 from DVD sales. Its worldwide box office earning was $41,467,606 and studios typically only take half of the gross-earning from box office ( the other half goes to the theatres), or even lesser considering studios take less of the cut from overseas earning. But let's be generous and assume the studio took back half of the total earnings.

So the movie would earn the studio $20,733,803 from box office and $21,231,450 from DVD sales, giving us a total of $41,965,253. It's production budget is said to be around $45,000,000. (Some estimates say it is actually $50 million). 41,965,253-45,000,000 = -3034747. So even accounting for good DVD sales, the movie still made a loss of 30 thousand.

It could have earned a bit more via streaming rights and tv-station licensing fees, but it would not have made them a massive amount of money. So Dredd would have made either a very small profit or a minor loss, at best.

This article is a good resources for understanding the hidden cost of making a film and how much a studio actually takes back from a movie.

https://deadline.com/2015/03/godzilla-p ... 201389604/

Something like pain is a near-universal human experience even if it isn't easily qualified and people seem to experience it differently yet we have a pain scale to objectively measure it so the correct treatment options can be given. Are the doctors wrong to judge pain objectively?

Are you seriously saying an attempt to establish a rough scale ( with misdiagnosis still being a thing because the patient still can't measure their pain against others) somehow validates the idea of there being objective standards in people personal preferences?

I do not think this is even worth a comparison.

Yes, there is. If you're writing a script in English and a character that is meant to be an English professor is constantly writing with poor grammar and misspelled words that is an objective flaw. Likewise, if you're making a period piece and an actor is wearing a watch for a scene that's objectively poor attention to detail. These flaws may not decrease everybody's enjoyment of the film and some may even find greater enjoyment of the work due to these flaws, but these things are still objectively speaking flaws.

Nope. Different people have varying degrees of tolerance for issues like grammar and etc. Some people are very particular about grammar issues, others are perfectly willing to ignore those issues if they find the narrative engaging.

You admit yourself that these flaws might not decrease everyone's enjoyment of a film, and that means those issues aren't sufficient to measure a film or a book's quality objectively.

Anything that is considered objective must leave absolutely no room to any form of subjectivity.

Hence why I specified the audience of today so that changing tastes can be accounted for... You're reading skills aren't so good are they?

And that's why I said it's a useless average because you are already selecting your audience.

So a stick figure horse should win a life drawing contest then?

It depends on the criteria the judges used to evaluate the contest. Those evaluation criteria are subjective to the organiser of the competition, so they are by no means objective.

No shit, I never argued that this wasn't the case. My argument is that we should expect more from a film than designed by committee, appeal to everybody while offending nobody schlock.

I make this argument because with the right advertising you can get almost anything to find an audience these days. So instead of appealing to the people that have proven they'll watch almost anything why not throw a bone to more picky viewers and let advertising do the job of getting asses into seats?

Nearly every blockbusters is design by committee. Films are always a collaborative effort designed by a "committee". You have producers, screenwriters, directors and studio execs all playing a role in shaping a film. Blockbuster films are always about trying to appeal to everybody. That's what they are meant to do. If you are looking for films that aren't interested in appealing to everyone, you have to look at Indie-films.

I strongly disagree with the idea that with the right advertising you can get anything to find an audience. There are simply some movies that a large enough audience will not be interested in. The recent Godzilla movie is one of them.

Novels could have done so if anybody wanted to pen such stories. With art, there were always art books for Star Wars as well as stuff like the essential guides, such designs could have easily gone there. The point is that new movies really didn't expand on anything so much as they pinned things down and fleshed them out; not always for the better either.

The novels and art style were trying to replicate the OT in almost every way possible. The art books for pre-OT era stuff prior to the release of the Prequels were basically a copy-and-paste version of rejected concept art for the OT. From a purely art design perspective, the prequels greatly enriched the variety of art design you can make for a galaxy that has been around for thousand of years.

Without the PT, what we will have is designs of ships in the ST that looks essentially the same as OT era ships, with some minor updates.

So CGI shots don't take objectively more time to retouch for higher resolution releases then?

This point has nothing to do with the point I am making.

Prove that or concede.

You can't "prove" something that didn't happen? But what I can say is the Star Trek franchise essentially died in the mid 2000s until it was revived with the 2009 film.

Star Trek Beyond, the film that most appealed to the traditional Trek-fanbase, is also the movie that did the worst at the box office. It also had a lower RT score, AND a lower cinemascore. So there are reasons to infer that the more you try and appeal to the fanbase, there is a risk of alienating the causal audience.

I'm talking about the first of those types of shows made before any audience was proven dipshit. Answer the question, why did studios, before any reality show had proven to be a hit, greenlit this type of show to be produced?

Reality show has always existed in the form of game shows. Reality shows simply took those concept and expand upon them.

You can aim to really appeal to a smaller group while not alienating a wider audience you know. Plus, movies don't need to make all the money, that's just what current capitalist ideas say a movie should do. You could make movies that only make modest profits or break even and so long as you don't face a string of major failures you should be able to do this for a good long while.

Too bad I don't live in an imagined dreamland where blockbusters don't cost any movie to make and the only way you can attract investment in a film is to assure investors that they can see some return of investment.

You can self-fund and produce a movie meant for a small audience without expecting any major profits. Those are called indie-films and they usually have tiny budgets that make this possible. Once a movie becomes too expensive, no one is willing to throw money at the sink without any expectation of profits.

Well, there is some exception to this but they are called state-propaganda films.

Does that mean that you shouldn't try to make something that will stand the test of time even if odds are against that happening?

I believe every director and filmmakers want their movie to stand the test of time. The problem is there is not magic formula to follow. Movie-making is NOT a science. Art is NOT a science.

Even if you wanted to make a movie that can stand the test of time, no filmmaker can ever know how the film is received until it is actually released. Hollywood studios spent tons of money on test-audience and test-screening, with reshoots and edits to improve a movie before it is actually released. Yet despite this, people can still fail to find a magic formula that makes a film automatically "good".

If you think there is a magic formula for making a good film and you are able to show it to Hollywood studios, they will throw billions of dollars at your feet to reveal your secret.

Your point being?

Updated special effects can make older films more engaging to new generation of audience? Some people don't mind old effects, but a significant amount of people do value updated effects.

Most Chinese audiences haven't had the ability to enjoy movies as freely as those in richer and freer nations have, they haven't fully developed a pallet for more challenging fare due to this. Plus, the government censorship and strict controls on which movies can be shown will also play a factor. Are you honestly arguing that these factors are a good thing?

You've rarely seen any Chinese movies so I doubt you're in a good position to actually talk much about the film taste of Chinese audience. You are making a statement from ignorance. Certain genres of blockbusters do well in some countries but failed to do well in other countries.

Avengers Endgame, which was very well-received in the US and in China had a relatively underwhelming reception in Japan. Are you going to say this is due to Japanese audience having a more "limited" understanding of movies or would you actually say this is due to Japanese film-audience simply aren't as interested in Superhero movies as Chinese and American audience?

I am not saying this is a good or bad thing. I am saying your understanding of how different cultures can look and enjoy the same thing very differently is very limited. Your understanding of cultural difference is too simple and limited.

Between RotJ's release up to the release of the Special edition in January of '97, there were 681 pieces of Star Wars media released. That's 48 releases each year, while those numbers rose significantly with the release of the prequels it's hardly as if the franchise were dead or irrelevant in the 14 years between RotJ and the Special Edition. Your assertion that Star Wars wasn't popular between movies is clearly false.

Which part of popularity is relative do you not understand?

Yes, there are. Or would you not consider it bad taste to shit in the punchbowl at a party?

You do realise you just gave me an example that perfectly demonstrates how taste is dependent on cultural norms?

Prove it. Show that this is actually a trend and not just a thing that's happened with a few notable series.

How many examples should I give before you're happy? Just to make sure I'm not wasting my time on you.

Not that the key term you used was marketed. So if the new Godzilla movie had been marketed differently there's every chance that the exact same movie would have better.box office numbers.

Prove it. Since you like to ask me to prove things that didn't happen.

Yeah, that's one of the issues I have with Hollywood. Try reading what I write and you might pick up on what I'm saying once in a while...

So why should anyone really care about what issues you have with Hollywood? You're asking for an utopia that has no basis in reality where blockbusters can magically find sources of money to appeal to a few "true" film connoisseur. This is pure entitlement at work here.

Dredd did $41 million at the box office on a $45 million budget. It then did another $21 million in DVD and BluRay sales with an unknown amount more in streaming revenue. So not a huge hit but enough to show that a sequel, which pretty much everybody involved with the film was eager to make, would have found a larger audience.

You've ignored the fact that studios don't take 100 percent of the earnings from box office. So hardly a case of a film that would have found a larger audience just because you say so.

Also, since you kept asking me to "prove" things that haven't happen, how about you trying to "prove" a Judge Dredd sequel would have found a larger audience.

Scott Mandelson ( someone who covers box office earnings for a living) made an argument as to why it is a bad idea to make sequels to films like Dredd.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmende ... 3d14351fb5

Pacific Rim: Uprising was a sequel to a box office miss, borne of a notion that having IP was in itself valuable to the overall portfolio no matter if that IP had any worth. You don’t get and shouldn’t expect sequels to truly underperforming originals. You can get sequels to surprise blowout hits like Ted or leggy cult favorites like Pitch Perfect or John Wick. Yes, you can have breakout sequels, but those have to originate from films that earned good reviews, profitable global box office (preferably with a leggy run) and post-theatrical interest. Pacific Rim was 0-3, and you can’t will a franchise into being.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was a hit ($68 million worldwide on a $17m budget), so the production of The Spy Who Shagged Me shouldn’t have been a surprise. Unbreakable was a minor disappointment, earning $96m domestic and $256m worldwide on an $80m budget, so it’s no surprise that a sequel didn’t come until M. Night Shyamalan released Split and then made Glass into a 2-for-1 sequel Unbreakable/Split sequel 18.25 years after the first superhero drama. And even if you argue that Tron: Legacy was a minor hit, nostalgia magic didn’t strike twice for Blade Runner 2049. A movie isn’t more appealing because it’s a sequel.

Unless you’re Batman Begins and you earn $371 million on a $150m budget but with rave reviews, superb legs, great word-of-mouth and strong post-theatrical, your next chapter isn’t going to be The Dark Knight. Pacific Rim: Uprising was a big budget sequel to a big-budget predecessor that wasn’t remotely an outright hit. So if you’re wondering why we don’t have Tron 3 or why Universal is gun-shy about a third stand-alone Hulk movie, well, look at Pacific Rim. They didn’t need Pacific Rim: Uprising any more than they needed The Huntsman or Disney needed Tron 3. Having no franchise is better than having a poor franchise.

[Gandalf]

Dredd did $41 million at the box office on a $45 million budget. It then did another $21 million in DVD and BluRay sales with an unknown amount more in streaming revenue. So not a huge hit but enough to show that a sequel, which pretty much everybody involved with the film was eager to make, would have found a larger audience.

That's barely a profit, considering that the studio takes about half of that gross. Film distribution is a bastard.

Give something as long as it took for Cheers to find an audience. Are three seasons really so long to keep a show airing for? Is showing episodes in order really a huge ask?

Yes it is a long time. It was doable in the early days of Cheers because there wasn't a lot of competition. Today there's more networks, cable TV, streaming, and various other factors. To sink a season's prime time air time means a huge gamble on the part of the television station. As ratings data is now plentiful, it also can translate to a loss of revenue as that timeslot becomes less valuable. This hasn't taken into consideration the cost of production.

[Elfdart]

As I recall, the only one at Fox who really believed in Lucas and Star Wars was Laddie. Everyone else expected it to be a huge bomb.

The Fox board voted to finish the picture by one vote (which might have belonged to Grace Kelly, who was on the board at the time), probably on the grounds that Fox was so sure The Other Side Of Midnight was going to be a monster hit that they figured they could unload Star Wars on movie theaters that were so desperate to book a film based on a Sidney Sheldon novel. Which is what they did: Theaters had to run Star Wars if they wanted The Other Side Of Midnight -which wasn't a bad movie, just mediocre. Anyway, it was Star Wars that saved Fox (the studio had been floundering ever since Cleopatra) and made up for the shortfall of one of Susan Sarandon's worst movies.

[Elfdart]

Do you think that different generation of fans have a different idea of what "true SW" is? Or should people in general follow the tastes of the OT-generation fans?

There would have been no Star Wars without A New Hope and the sequels it spawned after coming out of nowhere and redefining what a successful movie looked like. It's not a big stretch to say that a Star Wars movie should invoke the feeling of the first three movies that literally created a franchise out of nothing. Even Lucas realized that which, IMHO, was why he ended up stepping away from the franchise he created in hopes that somebody else might be able to give the fans what they wanted again.

Lucas stepped away because he's an old man who got fed up with "fans" being so cunty. He said so himself in the NYT article about his retirement. I doubt I'd want to spend my final years hearing from incels who wish me dead.

Very few people are calling out to make another movie like TPM or even AoTC. There's nobody asking for more silted romances, over dramatic no's, child actors, or bitching about sand. Even you admit that you only enjoy the PT films as popcorn flicks and that's solely because you prefer wuxia style action and feel the OT was too slowly paced.

Who gives a flying fuck what audiences are asking for? No one was calling for the very first Star Wars to be made, so I guess they should have never made it, right?

The question I have is, why should anybody settle for popcorn action flick when they grew up watching a game-changing sci-fi epic?

Because not every movie is going to be a "game-changing sci-fi epic". When Lucas made the very first Star Wars he was hoping that maybe it would make enough that he could finance sequels himself, rather than letting the studio do it. This was because of how studios used to go out of their way to make sequels cheaper (like the Planet of the Apes movies that got chintzier with each movie -hell, Bond movies pinched pennies by having 007 go to exotic locations like Las Vegas and Louisiana).

Because your personal experience is not universal? Sure, a lot of fans might share your views, but the prequels were well received at the box office and it was popular amongst kids when they were released?

Popularity isn't an objective measure of quality. Nor is there any evidence that the PT would have done materially worse had they been made to invoke the feeling of the OT rather than trying to set a new tone for the franchise.

What on earth are you babbling about? Storywise, the PT is going to have to have a different tone since Anakin goes bad and the Republic goes fascist. Unless you think there's a way to tell that part of the story with a happy climax. Story came first, as it should.

And that means that we should only expect actual effort from movies hoping to win an award or passion projects? Your entire thought process is exactly what lead to the rise of reality TV and the decline of educational programming on TV. Your thought process leads to conversations like, "What's the cheapest and easiest thing we can make that'll still get engagement with the least picky 50% of our audience?" It leads to shit like the emoji movie actually seeing the light of day.

Do you see no problem with this?

What bullshit. Lucas went out of his way NOT to do a lazy rehash of his previous films, even though he knew it might rub some of the more narrow-minded "fans" the wrong way. As this article points out:

Many people see the prequels as a cynical cash grab, an easy way to empty the wallets of adoring fans. But the easy way would have been to make three films utterly steeped in nostalgia, films that follow the original trilogy’s structure beat for beat, that are near carbon copies of the originals with today’s technology swapped in. They would be three films with simple stories, unambiguous morals and likable, i.e. “bankable,” leads.

Lucas made choices that are mostly antithetical to the easy way out. In place of nostalgia, he gave us a universe with a decidedly different look and feel. In place of the relative structural simplicity of the original trilogy, he gave us ungainly works, stories that branch out in all directions and follow sidelines that sometimes border on nonsensical. In place of the Hero’s Journey, he portrayed a more complex path, showing how a good person can become a villain. And why did he do this? Perhaps because he cares about his child viewers.

and

This is not an easy theme. It doesn’t sell merchandise. But it’s important, especially now, as candidates for the White House foment fear and xenophobia left and right.Now, go back to 1999. “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” has been released to huge box office success and a decidedly mixed reaction. Its critics are more than vocal—they’re downright nasty. The same fans who grew up on the original trilogy, who wrote fan fiction, who played with toy lightsabers and brought their kids to see the new “Star Wars” film, are telling you that you had no right to make the film that you did, that you’re retroactively ruining your previous work. What on earth could compel you to keep going? After you poured your heart and soul into a work that, to you, was not only a movie but also a moral act? And you’ve promised them two more of these? Perhaps now you start to be overcome by your doubts. Perhaps you start to fear the backlash of your once-adoring fans, perhaps you consider capitulating, ceding your autonomy and your freedom in order to … but wait. Maybe you perceive that your fans are starting to sound like the Empire. Maybe you realize that you are ready to compromise your own integrity because you are afraid of losing their affection. But you believe in your heart that it is more important to make the work you believe in rather than the work they want.

Isn’t this what we want from our artists? Don’t we want storytellers, painters, composers and singers who follow their muse? Who stand in their integrity, critics be damned?

There is one area of the arts where we are stridently opposed to authorial integrity like this. It’s a segment of the film industry that Lucas helped to create: the blockbuster. We like to keep our art over here in one pile, and our blockbusters in another, and never the twain shall meet (“Mad Max: Fury Road” is one of precious few glorious exceptions that proves the rule). Commercial filmmaking is, in fact, antithetical to the idea of artistic integrity. Many of us drool over box office reports and hem and haw about how some irresponsible director didn’t earn his studio’s money back, at the same time bemoaning the lack of creativity and innovation within the medium. Like Alejandro Jodorowsky before him, Lucas dared to spend a lot of money on something meaningful to him—not something that would simply please fans, critics or investors.

Preach it!

How do you "evoke" the feeling when the feeling varies so differently between people?

You can use the same style of cinematography, use physical models for your space ships, use puppetry/costuming (aided by CGI) for your aliens, write to the same pacing as the OT, etc. The OT feels pretty cohesive so Lucas should have understood what he did to make those look and feel the way they did.

Lucas used the very same cinematographer on all three prequels and they're better for it. As for the OT, as beautiful as Peter Suchitzky's camera work was on TESB, it doesn't make up for the pedestrian work of Alan Hume on ROTJ or the hit-and-miss photography of Gil Taylor, Tak Fukimoto and the rest of the camera crew on ANH.

I'll make a deal with you: If you'll quit bullshitting about the lack of physical models, I'll refrain from posting for the millionth time a link to the TFN thread showing that you're spreading zombie lies. What's more, when it comes to pacing, as Mike Klimo points out, the pacing is pretty damn close, which he explains on his Ring Theory page.

I expect that Disney will never find that tone and will run the franchise into the ground with yearly releases made with hired gun directors and little long term vision.

Do you want that to happen?

That ship sailed back in 2012, sank and the crew and passengers devoured by sharks. I figured the Lucas/PT bashers would start getting buyer's remorse once Lucas was gone and replaced by a bunch of jobbers who want to ride his coattails while pissing on his leg. But this is a bit much. You got your wish. Lucas is gone, so enjoy your Disney Star Wars.

[Zor]

There's no objective measure of quality.

That's complete bullshit. There's a large gap between the fairly infamous Turkish Star Wars and A New Hope and it shows in everything from the effects, to the acting, to the lighting, to the script itself. One can't look at those two films side by side and say that the crews making them were equally skilled, that the technology behind them was equivalent, and that they'd both equally entertain an average audience.

Taking an even broader view there's a marked difference in quality between many consumer goods. Take for example cheap bootleg DVD rips versus official 4k supported BluRay disks, they can show the same film and one will have notably improved visuals and sound than the other. The same goes for a dollar store toy and a collectors figurine, cheap shoes that might last a year and a more expensive pair that will last a lifetime, etc.

In the end a work of art works or not is ultimately a point which is entirely dependent on the mental processes of the viewer which can is in the end any one of a very very large number of viable but often wildly different configurations. We have people who love Bauhaus design and hate Baroque and those who love Baroque and hate Bauhaus and will list the exact same reasons. At best you can make assumptions based on averages, but for all of that the quality of any work of art beyond arbitrary technical categories the quality of a work of art is purely subjective.

Zor

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Please. There is such a thing as consensus. "Everyone" agrees that Battlefield Earth is a bad movie and that Shawshank Redemption is a good movie. Do outliers who disagree exist? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we can make meaningful statements such as "Battlefield Earth is a bad piece of art and Shawshank Redemption is a good piece of art." This ability to classify art as successful or not based on the consensus of the vast majority of viewers is another tool along with film analysis which lets us safely say a film is 'objectively' bad, even when you personally enjoy it.

And if you pay any attention to the world outside of this forum, you know what the consensus is on the prequels as art.

[Gandalf]

Please. There is such a thing as consensus. "Everyone" agrees that Battlefield Earth is a bad movie and that Shawshank Redemption is a good movie. Do outliers who disagree exist? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we can make meaningful statements such as "Battlefield Earth is a bad piece of art and Shawshank Redemption is a good piece of art." This ability to classify art as successful or not based on the consensus of the vast majority of viewers is another tool along with film analysis which lets us safely say a film is 'objectively' bad, even when you personally enjoy it.

And if you pay any attention to the world outside of this forum, you know what the consensus is on the prequels as art.

So do we poll everyone, or just specific segments, bearing in mind that some films do well in some areas and crater everywhere else?

[Zor]

Please. There is such a thing as consensus.

And Consensus about art is still subjective, or rather the subjective opinions of a large number of people averaged out.

And if you pay any attention to the world outside of this forum, you know what the consensus is on the prequels as art.

More complicated and far from the universal loathing narrative the Prequel Hatedom advances. There are plenty of critics which had favorable reviews of them and people which had at least net positive opinions of them.

Zor

[ray245]

Please. There is such a thing as consensus. "Everyone" agrees that Battlefield Earth is a bad movie and that Shawshank Redemption is a good movie. Do outliers who disagree exist? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we can make meaningful statements such as "Battlefield Earth is a bad piece of art and Shawshank Redemption is a good piece of art." This ability to classify art as successful or not based on the consensus of the vast majority of viewers is another tool along with film analysis which lets us safely say a film is 'objectively' bad, even when you personally enjoy it.

And if you pay any attention to the world outside of this forum, you know what the consensus is on the prequels as art.

Who gives a shit about "consensus" with the exception of fanboys? Consensus is useful for deciding political matters, but what does that have to do with art and entertainment?

The world outside this forum don't give a shit about the consensus about the prequels.

[Gandalf]

Please. There is such a thing as consensus. "Everyone" agrees that Battlefield Earth is a bad movie and that Shawshank Redemption is a good movie. Do outliers who disagree exist? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we can make meaningful statements such as "Battlefield Earth is a bad piece of art and Shawshank Redemption is a good piece of art." This ability to classify art as successful or not based on the consensus of the vast majority of viewers is another tool along with film analysis which lets us safely say a film is 'objectively' bad, even when you personally enjoy it.

And if you pay any attention to the world outside of this forum, you know what the consensus is on the prequels as art.

Who gives a shit about "consensus" with the exception of fanboys? Consensus is useful for deciding political matters, but what does that have to do with art and entertainment?

The world outside this forum don't give a shit about the consensus about the prequels.

I guess it's an easy appeal to popularity?

[ray245]

I guess it's an easy appeal to popularity?

And it's dumb. If you like something, you don't need certain views to be popular to validate any insecurity you have over your preferences.

[The Romulan Republic]

On that note, I wish more people could just say "I don't personally like this film, because it wasn't the movie I wanted", rather than insisting that the film is objectively bad in every possible way, an attack on the franchise and fans, and that everyone else has to agree or they're not a real fan.

Its okay for different people to have different tastes in cinema.