Can a Prequel EVER be a Good Film?

My only two cents here (well, that I actually want to discuss, lol) is around the idea of what standards might even look like, especially when it comes to things like writing or acting.

I am a bit at a loss when I try to articulate an answer to the question "what does good acting look like?". The best answer I can come up with is "a performance that fits the material," which is obviously very subjective.

I'd also add that even with standards, it's still incredibly hard to score things. I score student writing and speaking based on pretty clear standards, but it's still hard at times. Did this student write an essay that was well-organized, mostly well-organized, or minimally organized? Did the essay include minimal elaboration on their reasons, some elaboration on their reasons, or strong elaboration on their reasons? Even against a rubric/checklist it's hard to escape some degree of subjectivity, and I think that acting as if you're above that subjectivity is a mistake.

I do think that if you do like something or don't like something, you need to be able to say why. But I think that even having standards doesn't get you to objectivity. If I say, "Wow! That performance was amazing and I felt like the actress totally embodied a social worker!" and another person says, "Really? I felt like the whole time I was watching someone playing a part" . . . I think it's really hard to prove or disprove either viewpoint.

I think that the desire for objectivity is often driven by a need to be provably correct about something, and I just don't think that's possible when it comes to art. (And especially movies which often have so many moving pieces and contributors). This is painful to people like me, who absolutely LIVE for being unquestionably correct about things!

It is objective when we measure one performance against other performances. Not some outside invisible standard of unattainable perfect objectivity, but measured against other performances of the same nature. It's not a question of whether we can necessarily determine who the best athlete is, and if we can't then it isn't objective. Whatever criteria we come up with to measure it is as objective as it based on a measurable criteria rather than a person's feelings. Is which athlete is faster based on your opinion or their running speed?


Edit: I know there's a lot more to unpack in your post, but I'm just trying to cut to the heart of the matter at the moment for the sake of time. Otherwise... I'll spend like one to three hours debating everything.

But that subjectivity that your talking about is within your assessment, not within the work you're trying to objectively assess. That determining how well-organized their work is isn't an exact science doesn't mean that how well-organized it is is based on how you feel about it or what your opinion is. You're searching for the correct opinion, and can't find it beyond a certain degree of accuracy, but how well-organized the work is is found within the work itself, not within your opinions or feelings. That is why its quality is objective. How well-organized it is is one of its qualities. It's identifiable, and measurable to at least some objective degree, and to mark it without bias you have to separate your personal feelings as much as possible from your assessment. You also have to mark it honestly, and your ability to assess it is based on your knowledge and understanding of the principle of what constitutes being well-organized. As someone marking students work I would figure you had some training in that area if that's one of the things you're supposed to mark.


Edit:


That means you are both at different places in your understanding of what constitutes good acting. Years later you may watch the movie and discover that he was right. I've certainly experienced that before. When I watch a movie, I study and analyze the acting trying to discover whether the acting is good or bad. If I thought a movie had good acting, and then years later I realized it had bad acting, and if quality is subjective, then does that mean the acting got worse because my opinion changed? Or didn't my opinion change because I realized the acting was actually objectively worse?

If we zoom in and only focus in on very particular elements in a work of art, and then define what makes those particular elements good or bad, then we can have some kind of objective measure (but still, only to a degree).


For example, if we want to talk about the quality of a films image, and we put clarity at the top, and blurriness at the bottom, we can objectively rank these things because we can objectively prove one image is sharper than another.


But even if we stay in that same tiny closet space of an example, and start asking ourselves how good the quality of that films image is in regards to the story it is trying to tell, finding objectivity becomes infinitely trickier. Maybe a film using a blurry image is trying to evoke the sense of a dream or inebriation or it is attempting to instill some kind of mystery in the view by not letting them see anything too clearly. So at what point here does blurry become too blurry? What is the optimal level of blurriness to depict these different kinds of things? Or should they have just stuck with a purely clear and sharply rendered image no matter what the story is asking for. Is that more important?


In searching for objectivity, all we ever really find are different questions about what the objective even is. What is good and what is bad. And the reality is there is no clear delineation between these things. And for art to have any lasting value at all, there never should be.

Sorta, yeah. There's no differing opinions about who ran faster over a given distance, but why that distance and not another? Is 100 meters the best way to measure the amorphous concept "faster"? Or is a full marathon? How do we make that determination? And however you make it, what argument would you (could you) make to someone who chose a different standard? What shared premise could you appeal to to make that case?

Yup, and I appreciate it, no need to debate every little point, just the core thing.

Sometimes this is the case, sure. But let me ask you, just hypothetically: how would one tell the difference between an opinion that differs based on "understanding," and an opinion that differs through taste? Wouldn't that look like the same thing?

If we're assessing clarity it's not merely a matter of determining which image has more clarity. We would have to assess how clarity is used creatively in an artistic way, and how clarity is used within the film. For example, some shots may be deliberately blurry for a deliberate effect, and we would assess how effectively the director used it and how well executed it was by the cinematographer, if it was sloppy or there were any mistakes, or if it was done flawlessly. And each aspect of the film can be so thoroughly analyzed, and after every aspect of a film were systematically analyzed you would have a good overall assessment. It's a monumental feat, but in most cases anyone who's watched a fair amount of cinema develops an eye for many things and can spot indications of good and bad cinematography without having to so thoroughly articulate everything.



Yet everyone can agree that most prequels are not good.



So you stop searching for objectivity, even though you found some, but just because you realized its depth was infinite? Did you think "objective" meant there was an end to how much you can analyze the quality of something as complex as a film?


If what you're saying is true then what do you do? Stop even trying to distinguish between good and bad cinematography? So why does the cinematographer need to go to school and study cinematography? Why does he need to practice? Why does he need to make effort? We give out awards in recognition of excellence.

Not at all, take Alien, and Aliens for example. Most people like Aliens more because it has marines and lots of aliens, not because of the cinematography, acting, directing, or writing. I don't find it difficult to identify bias in most people. All it takes is talking to them and questioning them and they eventually reveal something like they were a fan of the book it's based on and didn't like the way the show deviated based on what they read about it, meanwhile they like plenty of other shows that do the same thing, but he just has no invested attachment to the source material for those.


If someone tells me they think a movie is great I ask them what they think was great about it, how was the acting, what was the camera work like, was there deep meaningful content or was it superficial, things like that. And I may point out flaws that they never noticed, and sometimes they end up coming to agree with me, watching the movie again and seeing the flaws I pointed out. There's a conforming our opinions to the facts process that comes with time as we learn more about filmmaking. It's hard to assess a films quality because a film is a very complex thing, but those who've spent years watching thousands of films tend to get intuitively good at it.

Watch movies and do my best to explain what I believe to be good or bad about them. And why those the things I am measuring it against matter to me. Why other things don't matter to me. Being correct doesn't even factor into it. It's a total irrelevancy.

If being correct means I have to scrub my subjective experience out of the equation so as to see the movie more clearly, it's a pretty empty trade off. I'll stick with explaining my feelings to my satisfaction and continue to not give a rats ass if it can ever be proven that I'm correct.

I have to stop talking about these things because I can't prove them?
That is basically the completely opposite of everything I've just talked about.

Not being able to prove what I'm saying is what compels us to continue talking. And discussing things is what is important. It's a good thing not being able to settle on the 'correct' answer.

You go to school for anything art related to learn a skill set. Then you use that skill set as much or as little as you choose to. You follow the rules they set out, or you break them.

You don't go to school in order to learn the equation of how to 'be objectively great'

To learn how to do more things in his field? To get better at the things he thinks he needs to get better at in order to realize his artistic ambitions.

Because they want to realize their idea of what makes a cinematographer great. They want to achieve their idea of greatness.



And we all know how everyone agrees on who should get awarded? We just have to apply those objective and inflexible measures of greatness and our internal magic 8 ball will once again supply the absolutely correct and indisputable answer.

You say "most," but that implies there are at least some situations where they don't give obviously shallow explanations for what they think, right? Presumably, people have not given terrible reasons for their opinions in 100% of all film disagreements you've ever had, because that's implausible. And a single exception is enough to prove the point and prompt the question, about how you might tell the difference.

If someone disagrees with you about which film out of two is better, and they do not give obviously shallow explanations for why...what then? How would you know which of you was "right," and how would you go about demonstrating it? Or is it actually your contention that this literally never happens?

EDIT: on top of that...how would you go about arguing that the reasons you list above, as examples of bad reasons...are in fact bad reasons? How would you make the case that "marines and lots of aliens" is an invalid reason to prefer Aliens?

I should also note that, if nobody is free of bias (which seems obviously true), then the person most influenced by their bias is the person who thinks they're free of it. It seems self-evident, to me at least, that the person aware of their bias is more likely to reign it in than someone who believes they have conquered it, in the same way Socrates was said to be the wisest man in the world precisely because he was most aware of his own ignorance.

My claim that finding pure objectivity in assessing the value of an artwork is near impossible is objectively true.


And my claim that discussing things and articulating ideas is important I can only hope is also just as obviously true (even though it is clear by how many people resist talking about anything in any kind of depth or with any kind of knowledge that I should by now be pretty doubtful that it has any real value to most)

It's not that 'because determining who's the fastest would be unimaginably complicated so as to be practically impossible' means that who's the fastest is determined by people's feelings or opinions. It is still based on who can actually run faster. If you say blank is blank. A movie is good. The Earth is round. Any "is" statement is a matter-of-fact statement. Usain Bolt is fast. When I say Usain Bolt is fast, I don't need to measure his actual speed. The statement that he is fast is only true in relation to what he is fast compared to. Quality is measured by comparison. So it's understood that I mean he's fast compared to other people. But he's not fast compared to a supersonic jet. It's relative, but it's not subjective. He's not fast because I like him, or because I feel passionately about how fast he is. The statement is factually true or untrue based on what I compare him to. So, a movie can be considered good in one context and not in another, but still based on different objective criteria, not based on someone's feelings. You can try and argue it's subjective which criteria they select, but a person can be objective about selecting criteria by trying to assess what the essential criteria for something are instead of just picking the criteria they have a personal preference for.

Being correct is the only thing that matters to me. That which is incorrect, is that which does not exist.



I would say that by scrubbing away that subjectivity and seeing the movie more clearly that your understanding of and appreciation for cinema will grow.



Well, but how can you say quality is subjective, and then say such and such a movie is good and this or that movie is bad? Shouldn't you say I like this movie and I dislike that movie, or I like the cinematography in this movie, but not in that movie? I don't say something is good just because I like it, and I like plenty of things that are bad. There are lots of movies with bad acting, terrible cinematography, and mediocre plots that I enjoy for other reasons. As much as I would enjoy them, I would never say they are good movies. You don't have to justify liking something by trying to insist it's "good" as if someone else's opinion about what's good even matters. You're free to like or dislike whatever you want and think whatever you want is good or bad, but if you say it's good because you think it has objective measurable criteria indicating such, then you are being objective, and if you say it's good because you like it a lot, then you are being subjective. I just personally don't think how you, me, or anyone else feels about a movie, or any opinion anyone has about a movie, has any impact or effect on how good it actually is. How good it actually is, is something I seek to discover for myself, and I am right or wrong as much as my opinion is in line with reality.




So is there an objective skill involved that you can actually see the progress of their growth and improvement over time as they learn? Is that not measurable in the sense that it's observable? Won't their professor, when they assess their assignments be able to determine when their skill is developed to an impressive degree by comparing them with all of their past students? Like Gordon Ramsey can tell how far someone will make it on his show based on the first meal they cook.

But how do you define faster? This is the whole point, right here.

Literally, if one person ran the 100m faster, but another ran the 200m faster...who would you say is faster, and how would you justify that choice over the other? Is "faster" a measure of someone's top speed or average speed, and over what distance? This isn't rhetorical, let's actually try it, as an experiment.

Ignoring the question above for a moment, for this to be an apt comparison, you would have to believe that things like acting quality can be objectively measured like miles per hour. Is that what you believe?

Being correct often means knowing which things are knowable and which are not. If something is not fundamentally knowable, or not quantifiable, then the more correct person is the one who recognizes this. Our mutual boy C.S. Lewis said something kind of like this:

"We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man."

Not that this is terribly important, but doesn't he decide who stays on the show?

Two Picassos; left painted at age 15, right painted in his 50s. Which one is better? Only objective, non-biased answers please.

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Cool and thanks.

As to that, I can only speak of myself. I enjoy learning why someone thinks and feels what they do about subjects I have an interest in. I try to avoid debates as to me they often become entrenched and adversarial, with people 'talking pass each other'. I'm not referencing this thread per se, only bemoaning the lost opportunities that the internet affords us. I'm always willing to try and explain my thoughts, feelings and reactions to things if people care to ask me.

Oh man, this is turning into quite the debate... :P


I believe truth is universal, if that's what you're getting at?
Exactly, he goes to school and studies art to get better at it.




Sure you do. I know lots of people who went to art school because they wanted to become great artists. And geometry is used in art.



Yes, of course, but it merely serves as a hypothetical example of when people are being subjective. But I also just mean most people in my experience, I haven't surveyed Aliens fans or anything.



Each situation would be on a case by case basis, but I would question them until I discovered the difference. If I haven't discovered it yet, it's just a question of doing more investigating. There's nothing out there that doesn't have an answer. But we can't know everything, and since we're limited by time we have to prioritise.


This is an extremely common occurrence. I listen to what they're saying, question them, and assess it. Then I go back and rewatch the movie and carefully observe to see if what they were saying was correct. If I discover they were wrong, then I show them. Like when someone said the chastity belts in Fury Road must have chaffed and been uncomfortable, I posted a screenshot showing that they were padded, and then he admitted that he hadn't noticed when watching the film. A feeling can be based on a misconception.

With that my point was that I can identify bias in other people's opinions about which movie is better. It was in response to the question, "how would one tell the difference between an opinion that differs based on "understanding," and an opinion that differs through taste?" So I'm just saying if someone were saying they think Aliens as better and it became apparent through questioning them that they really just like it more because it has more action and they find Alien boring, then that would reveal their bias. If I talk to someone else and they're breaking down the cinematic technique and giving deep insight into the director's mindset, then I can tell their opinion is based on a deeper understanding of cinema and is more objective.



In my personal opinion, Marines and lots of Aliens is a perfectly good reason to prefer Aliens, but it's not a valid reason to argue that Aliens is a better movie than Alien. If someone considers one movie better than another, personal preferences are not objective criteria. So you can subjectively say "action is better than drama," but you can't objectively say "action is better than drama." And because I think quality is objective I think the objective response is accurate and the subjective response is inaccurate. To make the subjective phrase accurate you would have to rephrase it as "I like action more than drama." Then it is true and accurate, but it is not true and accurate that 'action is better than drama.' That's a fallacious statement, and it doesn't matter how much anyone feels about it, one genre can not be objectively better than another genre.

Hahaha, you're hilarious. Well I'm not going to do a very thorough analysis, but I'll just try and demonstrate objectivity. Both are excellent, but the problem with the one on the left is that it's influence and style are so obviously borrowed, from Rafael and others, while the one on the right is original in style. Since art is the expression of creativity I'd have to say the one on the right is better because it is more creative and original.



Lets put it this way. I felt captivated by it because it's good. It isn't good because I was captivated by it. The painting and it's qualities preexisted my feelings and opinions about them.