The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Originally posted by Tzeentch
- CGI is extremely dated and by Attack of the Clones wasn't even particularly good for its time.

- Plot, pacing and character actions are inconsistent. Plot points like Sifo-Diyas get introduced and then randomly drop. The characters do weird things like foil an assassination attempt on an important politician, then immediately jump out of windows and leave said politician unguarded against a second attempt, etc.

- Character development is static. Anakin changes and everyone around him stays mostly the same.

etc.

And there's the appeal to relativity. Right on cue.

We could exchange a novel's worth of posts regarding your second point, and I'm not sure how static characters and outdated CGI is indicative of an objectively bad film.

The notion that you can objectively or scientifically measure art's value is retarded.

You're not a retard so I must believe you made this silly post at gunpoint or under similar duress.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
The notion that you can objectively or scientifically measure art's value is retarded.

It's not about measuring value, so much as it's about asking yourself if something makes sense. I don't mean makes perfect sense in the real world, I mean if something makes sense given the suspension of disbelief being asked of the viewer/reader/whatever. It's also about what story the writer is trying to tell.

The PT is about how Anakin became Darth Vader, why the Jedi were destroyed, and how the Empire came to be. It sucks at telling any of those three things.

Something as simple as Anakin and Obi-wan being friends, breaks apart the moment the two characters are on screen together.

Palpatine's politicking degenerates into outright nonsense, and only works because the good guys are artificially stupid.

Anakin himself is an unlikable, badly acted, poorly written little shit. The idea that Darth Vader is supposed to be the evolution of Anakin Skywalker, boggles the mind. I cannot grasp how Vader comes from the Anakin we see in the PT.

Based alone on what the movies wanted to do, the writing is bad, the characters are bad, and the pathos crumbles. The PT reads and feels like a rough draft, something that desperately needed someone else to come in and clean up the garbage.

You and I have had countless, good discussions on the subject in the past 10 years. Palpatine's politicking is something that even the most fervent critics generally concede is well written and I'm confident I can defend all of it. The rest, we could still have a novel's worth of discussion.

But Blax's point to Freshest was that the prequels were objectively bad films and anything else is an appeal to relativity.

In all the years I've spent watching and discussing stories, I've never encountered any sort of comprehensive scientific method by which one can determine if said stories are objectively good or bad. Just a lot of opinionated people with an unhealthy degree of hubris and a tendency to abuse the appeal to majority fallacy.

Hell, even famed professional critics like Roger Ebert have called the notion a futile exercise.

Also just to note, Padme wasn't left unguarded, when Anakin and Obi-Wan left, you see Padme's servants and armed personal guards come running in as Anakin runs out.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
The notion that you can objectively or scientifically measure art's value is retarded.

Anyway, where did I say that the PT is objectively bad? I said that you can't defend the PT's flaws without making an appeal to relativity- ironically you're kind of proving my point.

Originally posted by Zenwolf
Also just to note, Padme wasn't left unguarded, when Anakin and Obi-Wan left, you see Padme's servants and armed personal guards come running in as Anakin runs out.

Originally posted by Tzeentch

She was left unguarded. The servants and personal guards obviously weren't considered adequate protection, otherwise the Jedi would have never needed to be there in the first place, yeah?

She wasn't left unguarded, she had her personal security guards come running in to protect her. They were still protection, Jedi or not she wasn't unguarded.

Okay. My point is that the Jedi were there because it was believed that normal guards weren't adequate protection, yet they abandoned her immediately and left her vulnerable when shit hit the fan.

Originally posted by Tzeentch
The same logic that goes into claiming that art can't be objectively good or bad can be made to defend anything. Can you "objectively" prove that 2+2=5 is incorrect?

Of course not. But based on the various axioms and rules of addition, 2+2=4. If someone wanted to ascribe a different sum to that equation by saying no cosmic law compels him to answer 4, I'd simply nod and move on.

Trying to equate math with artistic critique is more than a bit misleading. Again, professional critics reject the idea you're trying to propagate.

Originally posted by Tzeentch
Anyway, where did I say that the PT is objectively bad? I said that you can't defend the PT's flaws without making an appeal to relativity- ironically you're kind of proving my point.

freshest pointed out that the films aren't objectively bad, you quoted him and cited three examples. I can only infer that these points were intended to indicate the film's objective badness.

And who says that you can only defend the film's "flaws" by appealing to relativity?

Originally posted by The_Tempest
[B]Trying to equate math with artistic critique is more than a bit misleading.

TL;DR: There is no such thing as an actual "objective" metric, and when people say that X is Y, the unspoken preface to that assertion is "according to this generally agreed upon metric, X is Y".

But you already know this, so I don't even know why we're having this conversation.

freshest pointed out that the films aren't objectively bad,

And who says that you can only defend the film's "flaws" by appealing to relativity?

There's also an appeal to majority to consider. Simply because the majority believes something to be the case doesn't mean it actually is. For someone defending the idea of objective film criticism, you're being awfully ambiguous as to what comprises that particular metric. Mind sharing?

Ok. So at what point does a film become objectively bad?

(Not to mention, again, that professional film critics have rejected this idea.)

We already started down that trek on a comparison between Kylo/Anakin in the other thread which I don't think you addressed.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
[B]There's also an appeal to majority to consider. Simply because the majority believes something to be the case doesn't mean it actually is.

For someone defending the idea of objective film criticism, you're being awfully ambiguous as to what comprises that particular metric. Mind sharing?

Ok. So at what point does a film become objectively bad?

Where my nigga Sliced ****ed up is that "**** you I liked it" (appeal to relativity) is a separate argument from "You and I have the same metric for what makes a movie good, but the conclusion you reached using this metric is wrong".

There's every chance that his argument could be the former, but the seemingly deeply personal misgivings against critics of the prequels combined with the concession that the love-story was shit makes me think that the latter argument is being applied.

We already started down that trek on a comparison between Kylo/Anakin in the other thread which I don't think you addressed.

So that leaves us where?

Ok. But what about them? What is considered objectively good pace? What degree of character consistency is considered objectively good? Weren't you just critizing the number of static characters in the prequels? How can something be dynamic and consistent? What is considered objectively believable character development? What is objectively good dialogue? Without explanations, these are just buzzwords.

That's ironic: I found more rabidity among the prequels' critics than its apologists.

It is distracting.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
[B]So that leaves us where?

Ok. But what about them? What is considered objectively good pace? What degree of character consistency is considered objectively good? Weren't you just critizing the number of static characters in the prequels? How can something be dynamic and consistent? What is considered objectively believable character development? What is objectively good dialogue? Without explanations, these are just buzzwords.

That's ironic: I found more rabidity among the prequels' critics than its apologists.

It is distracting.

I win. Blax is a homo and my b1tch forevermore.

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Poor Jessiah does not realizing that by being the first to CLAIM victory, he has in fact, merely conceded it.

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