This seems to me like one of those things where the suspension of disbelief is heavily relied on. It varies in degree from one movie to another, but things happen at the speed of plot oftentimes and this feels like one of those times where the audience is expected to go along with it because... movies!
Right, but that's kind of my point. It's the film lazily establishing a new baseline for the characters' relationship (and for their relationship moving forward) without doing the ground work for it. It's playing off of the audience's meta-knowledge of "how films like this work" to infer the relationship at that level.
That's different (to my way of thinking) from the contrivance of things "moving at the speed of plot." Like, we don't know how long anything takes to happen in ESB, but we accept the sequence of events and don't sweat the "Wait...how long did that
actually take?" because...movies. It's the same reason why, when you're counting down the timer for the bomb in Goldfinger, you aren't
actually counting the number of seconds, you're just watching the counter tick down (which takes longer than the time actually showing on the counter). Again, that's fine because...movies.
But a film simply creating a relationship between two characters out of thin air where no relationship previously existed...I think that's objectively weak storytelling. It ends up not really mattering a ton because audiences "know" what's "supposed" to be the case. They already are primed to accept Finn and Poe as buddies because we know that these characters are stepping into the rough position the OT heroes once occupied, and the OT heroes were all friends (or more). But the film takes two guys who escaped a Star Destroyer together and establishes an apparently deeper friendship based solely on that brief interaction which lasts all of maybe 10 minutes. This is also different from implying a previous connection that the audience simply hasn't witness (e.g., Han and Lando in ESB). We've seen the total interaction between the characters prior to them meeting again at the Resistance base, so other than saying "Well, yeah, but...that's how movies work, I guess," there's nothing within the film itself to establish why/how they've become such close friends.
And again, it's definitely
not a critical flaw in an objective sense, but it is an objective flaw. It works because audiences are ready to infer a relationship where there's no reason for one to exist.
That's purely your subjective opinion. Could you please stop presenting it as a fact?
PoC: Dead Man's Chest comes to the list.
I honestly don't remember enough about that movie other than thinking Davey Jones' CGI looked pretty cool to say. :lol
I haven't seen it but apparently Infinity War didn't end up too well. Where's the rift in the fanbase caused by people not wanting to see their heroes lose there?
Not so much a rift in the fanbase, but people have definitely latched on to blaming Star-Lord for things ending poorly. Of course, we're pretty sure that it will all be undone, given the meta-knowledge of who's been cast in what movies that have yet to be filmed.
Practically almost everything Indy does is foiled or doesn't work out and in the end he makes it out alive. That's his final victory in Raiders.
LOTR to a much lesser degree but eventually (and even more in the end) Frodo fails at the last step and the ring is only destroyed by Gollum's intervention. Again as said to a degree, but hardly your usual hero's journey.
IN MY OPINION OF COURSE!!!
Right, but again, in neither do the actions of the characters end in a sense of futility or crushing failure. Indy succeeds in keeping the Ark from the Nazis, even though the Nazis end up destroying themselves by meddling with it. Granted, Indy "succeeds" only in the sense that he survives, and it's fair to assume that the Nazis would've ultimately destroyed themselves anyway with the Ark, but audiences ignore that because Indy retrieves the ark in the end. He "wins" and therefore all sins are forgiven, so to speak.
In LOTR, Frodo fails at the end, but the ring is destroyed, and so, again, all is forgiven.
Side note: I also don't think that "the hero's journey" necessarily applies in all of these cases, nor is it even necessary. People sometimes want to treat Campbell's breakdown as a road map -- as if deviating from it means a story doesn't work anymore -- and that's not really the case.
But for chrissake, nobody has ever stated that a review is not a subjective thing. So why is it such a huge surprise and exclusion of any validity that the review is not objective? Of course it ain't. IN MY OPINION OF COURSE!!!
Some people have approached reviews as if they provide the final word on a given subject. Within this thread, even. RLM comes out with its review and someone in this thread literally posted "Plinkett has spoken. Suck it, TLJ defenders." In the past 9-ish months, I've seen the same from other folks. Definitive statements that the film sucks, is a piece of crap, there's no denying how bad it is, etc. If you press them for examples of stuff that's wrong with the film, it usually either boils down to something that they just
didn't care for, rather than something that's genuinely bad writing. In some cases, they seek to equate "bad writing" with "stuff I don't care for."
There's nothing wrong with stating one's subjective opinion. Nor is there anything wrong with having a negative view of TLJ. I do think that it's incorrect, however, to make blanket statements that suggest the film is objectively bad, especially when the people making that claim can't actually seem to support it. Go ahead and dislike it. Talk about what you disliked. But don't claim that it's
objectively bad as if there's no other legitimate way to view the film.
Well that's the very definition of a critique. Ebert, RLM and tons of other critics do just the same. But then again, in this sea of subjectivity what can then be objectively criticised? The scene is badly lit? Ah that's just artistic choice. Actors hamming their performance? Conscious artistic choice. Lens not in focus and half the scene is blurry? Groundbreaking artistic decision!
IN MY OPINION OF COURSE!!!
Far from being purely a relative matter, I think you can point out objective flaws in films or storytelling when the goals of the creators run counter to the end result they achieved. Example: if I'm telling a love story and nobody ever actually falls in love, I've failed at telling a love story, no? If I'm making an ostensibly serious film, but the performances of my characters are so bad and the writing so weird or off-putting or clunky that everyone just laughs at it, I've failed in making a serious movie, no? Tommy Wiseau may now claim that The Room was always meant to be intentionally bad, but I doubt that. Black Dynamite, on the other hand, is intentionally "bad" because it's satirizing a genre of film and some of the production flaws that wound up appearing in those kinds of films. I thought Gamer was actually a "good" movie but that's because my sense was that it was also a satire of sorts; if it was trying to actually be a thrilling action film with engaging and sympathetic characters that its audience would like...I can't see how you'd rate it anything other than a failure, although I haven't discussed that film much with folks since it came out.
Obligatory TFA/JJ bash bit..:rolleyes
I don't know why this Poe/Finn thing is a new whim, it's not the first time you cited this but the two of them spend like 15 mins together in TFA? They escape, have a bit of a banter, then get separated. Then they meet at the base, have a hug, good to see you're not dead, keep the jacket, off I go, not even a word anymore. I never thought that they were suddenly bestest buddie. It was TLJ that deepened their relationship and jumped into "ah they're really cool and the crowd loved them together". Oh wait, Rian actually wrote the script before even seeing the completed TFA allegedly...
IN MY OPINION OF COURSE!!!
Eh, I got the sense that TFA was really trying to speed their friendship along, partially because they knew that these two would be "friends" in future films, just like the OT heroes were. Look, I like TFA. I enjoy it as a film. But as with TLJ, it had its flaws. Some are what I'd consider subjective. For example, failing to take the time to explain the state of the galaxy and effectively differentiate between the Resistance and the Republic is, in my opinion, a subjective failure. I think audiences would've benefited from having the background info provided to them in some exposition...but it's not really necessary to tell the central story of TFA. Other stuff I think is an objective failure (e.g., the Poe/Finn relationship that I've mentioned). Same story with TLJ. I liked the film a lot, but it has its flaws. Some are subjective. I found the slow-mo chase to be...odd. I think it was risky to put the audience in Poe's shoes for the Poe/Holdo thing, and it strikes me that many in the audience missed what I think is the point of all of that. Some are objective, such as the Finn/Rose romance. That seems to come out of nowhere to me. I mean, I don't dislike it, but again, it feels unearned. There's been next to no romantic energy between the characters prior to the big kiss, just Rose fangirling it up around Finn when they first meet, and then...a big kiss as the gate gets blown open? It's shot gorgeously, and the relationship might be interesting, but...where'd it come from?