What's one highly extolled piece of media that you absolutely cannot stand in any way shape or form.
For me if I had to pick a good contender it would be the UK version of The Office.
I know many tend to debate how Ricky Gervais really fell off and how he repugnantly acts like a whiny centrist edgelord but me personally IMO I actually don't think he was ever funny not even a little.
His big break through television was just so painful to sit through it's so charismatically boring the characters are completely generic at best (notably Tim) or straight up insufferably unlikable at worst (especially the protagonist David FUCKING Brent) and most importantly the humour is just embarrassing.
Always seemed like The Thick Of It but without the nuisance tongue in cheek and charming satire.
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Harry Potter, even ignoring how much of a piece of shit the author is the books just aren't particularly well thought out.
I'm just here to see if anyone has any wrong opinions about something I love.
Big Bang Theory
Paying a subscription to watch sports.
A big part of why many of the things in this thread haven't aged well, is because a lot of what made these shows original and unique was copied to death following the fame of the original.
If you weren't there for the original release of a piece of media, there's a good chance you're not necessarily seeing it in the context where the accolades make sense.
Seinfeld basically invented the 3 camera sitcom and a lot of the key tropes in the format. If you go back today having not watched it before, the vast majority of it just comes across as a boring sitcom, because every sitcom to follow took notes from the way they did Seinfeld.
It's the same with the UK office, it basically invented the modern mockumentary format as well as the cringe comedy era that followed (and gave us things like peep show). If you look back now without that context, it just looks like a generic combination of both those things.
I believe "I Love Lucy" is credited with inventing or popularizing the three camera sitcom. Not to dampen's "Seinfeld"s contributions or the point of your comment, but I just wanted to add that small correction.
Just to mention it, this is literally named the Seinfeld is Unfunny effect on TVTropes
I think the bigger issue is that most of the show isn't that good. Less than half the seasons are good, and the lows from the bad seasons are really low. Watching it on a streaming scenario exposes this a lot more than reruns of the good parts.
I actually still enjoyed it for the most part last time I went through. Jerry's standup is terrible and I have no clue how he ever got an audience, but the actual show I enjoyed most of, even if nowadays pretty much all the plots would be solved because everyone would have a cell phone.
Seinfeld didn't invent the three camera sitcom, but it was important in creating modern sitcoms that didn't have a lesson to learn at the end of redeeming protagonists.
Ahh so THAT'S what they meant with the whole "It's about nothing!" thing...
The Office (US) pretty much killed laugh tracks in US sitcoms.
Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence." I like the original Simon & Garfunkel, or at least the more upbeat version of it. And I like Disturbed (see below). But this cover absolutely blows.
Yes, I know the lead singer is a grade A shitbag. I liked the band long before I knew anything about any of it and have since stopped listening to them.
American football. Fox turned it into a video game you can’t play.
Mens soccer. Stop with the fucking cry baby drama! Women’s soccer is better in this regards.
Sports. I have little tolerance for it because every time a big event is on, people get incredibly obnoxious. They think they know better than the professional players, they keep making so much noise, it polarizes people into arbitrary bands and start talking shit like using that as an excuse to be a homophobic POS, sometimes they'll even riot because their team lost/won (da fuk), and even kill people over their favorite fucking team, and so much more. If the game is on I'd rather steer clear because it really brings out the worst in people.
The James Cameron Avatar movies.
They’re so bad.
…well the first one was. Didn’t bother with any after that…
I thought the wecond one was way better and more intereating than the first one. It even made me genuinely sad at one point. I watched like 15 or 20min of the third one and found unwatchable. I'm not saying you should watch the second one, because it's a masterpiece or something, but i thought that if they keep that pace, maybe the third one will be good are something. It's still a technical marvel, at least the first one at the time and the second one for the insane water scenes and water physics and time and effot that went into it. The third one looks a lot more like a greenscreen movie.
The first 2 are pretty much the same plot so you're not missing much. Not sure about the 3rd one not interested in it.
It also has basically the same plot with the same enemies. Except they added a red lady villain that is weirdly sexualized and a kid gets magic powers - because nature.
Utter snoozefest I didn't get the hype at all
I lost all respect for the movie and the entire franchise after hearing "unobtainium" as the name of the super rare space mineral. Nearly walked out of the theater.
I can't remember if they ever refer to it as anything else in that movie but I actually appreciated this scene in the first movie for two reasons:
Info dumps irritate me in sci fi. He's like the main guy in charge talking to one of his lead scientists. They both absolutely fucking know why they're there. They know what it's called and what it's for. He's spelling it out for our benefit without breaking in-world character. If, in-world, someone started pedantically outlining what the rocks were for to their lead scientists, it would be the equivalent of calling them an idiot. Calling it "unobtainium" is like saying "we've had this argument before, I remember everything you said last time, you know everything I'm about to tell you, and nothing you or I do will change what's happening because you cant get it anywhere else and oh yeah it's worth a fuck load of money".
I can't remember if they later retcon that into being the actual name, but in that moment, it didn't sound like the actual name, it sounded like slang being used informally during a semi heated discussion.
Whether or not that was the original intent I LOVE this interpretation. I like to be entertained and err on the side of "Maybe this is a deliberate choice these very smart and passionate people made to smooth out a story."
Sometimes I feel like people get mad that they aren't just dropped into a completely fleshed out imaginary world.
It's entertainment delivered to them as they relax in a chair, requiring zero effort on their part, and they make it a goal to nitpick whatever reminds them this slice of imagination was designed by humans, and isn't actually a fully functional parallel universe they can literally isekai into to escape the mundanity of modern existence.
Critic culture is overrated, and I wish people would exercise their suspension of disbelief, basically. Hahaha
When did you watch it? When it came out, it was technically impressive for the computer-generated graphics, which included a lot of highly-detailed and expansive "organic" stuff like forests.
Here's some quotes from the Roger Ebert review from the time:
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/avatar-2009
I mean, I remember being underwhelmed after I went to watch Avatar with a friend who was deeply impressed, but it did show off a lot of render capability for the time. I'd call it more impressive as a tech demo.
It’s way beyond a tech demo. Each Avatar movie invented dozens of new techniques. They actually film using cameras. They do a CGI movie with cameras, filming real actors acting. And they become huge blue aliens, while being filmed on a camera. It’s truly insane. I don’t like the movies themselves, but the BTS for them is crazy.
And that sort of thing totally DOES permeate throughout the industry. Whenever Pixar or Weta(RIP?) or Cameron or DreamWorks or whoever invent something REALLY COOL. . .
. . .At some point we eventually get it in Blender, and I think that's neat.
I’m pretty sure that’s Cameron’s goal. He saw the direction movies were going and wanted to guarantee a niche for artists will keep existing within it 🤷♂️
@MonkeMischief you're into animation ?
I'm a Blender hobbyist, yeah. I wouldn't say I'm "into" animation yet but I'm taking a course right now. Making a ball bounce believably is insanely hard! But I'll animate one day. :)
I watched it in 3D too and was blown away
Didn't expect this is how I found out Roger Ebert was a furry
The plot sucks and the characters are forgettable, but that's not the point. The point is the graphics, the locations, the crazy wildlife and eywa. The neural queues and the floating islands. Its a masterclass in world building, and has been an endless source of inspiration.
The first time I saw the first one in the theater I was blown away. Then I went and saw it again with someone else and paid more attention to the plot the second time and ....yeah.
Great example of; just because it was a technical masterpiece, that doesn't make a movie good. The special effects were outstanding for the time, and still hold up very well. That is something I will always praise it for, but it is the only thing worth praising about it. It really is a very polished turd, in that sense.
Yeah I saw it in IMAX 3D and it was certainly a spectacle. The visuals were phenomenal, but the film itself was otherwise completely forgettable.
...as opposed to the M. Night Shamalan movie?
I've never seen them, probably not going to either
We will never get along
My aunt Gisela promised to bring me into touch with my father. In reality, she simply darkened the room and, with a lowered voice, gave a bad imitation of my deceased dad. That’s one medium I could do without.
Funny and original comment. Nicely done
You're right and you should say it. Ricky Gervais has always been weird and off-putting and the idea that he was ever good has always baffled me. I never enjoyed The Office. When my dad tried to get me into Extras I just found all of Ricky's parts annoying. When my sister told me how great Derek was, I just found the whole thing simultaneously tasteless and bland, like it couldn't commit to being offensive but didn't put the work into being real. His standup is often clever, but always the kind of clever that is let down by a complete lack of emotional intelligence. The man just does not understand people, but thinks he really does.
The US version of The Office, LOL.
Watched 8 episodes and would rather watch paint dry for the rest of my life than watching the rest of the series.
Dr. Seuss. I really don't know why, but that stuff is creepy and disturbing in a way that almost nothing else is. All of it. The art, the writing, the themes. I literally just can't even.
3 body problem. What a fucking terrible shit waste of paper.
The worst part is that if you somehow drag yourself through the first book and rightly declare that it sucks, fans will all say "Oh, yeah, the first book is bad, but it gets sooooo much better after that!"
This is a fucking lie. The books actually get progressively worse at a genuinely shocking rate.
Do you like reading a series of Wikipedia articles about all these really cool ideas the author had? Do you like being slapped in the face with moments of truly egregious sexism? Do you like characters with zero defining traits? Do you like entire plotlines built around Death Note style "I know that you know that I know that you know that I know..." style bullshit that falls apart the moment you think about it for five seconds? Do you like like awful solutions to the Fermi Paradox? Oh boy do we have the book series for you!
Oh my God, I thought it was just me. I usually consume a lot of sci-fi media in general and was like, "why can't I like this highly acclaimed work?"
Preach.
For me it's Friends. I don't get all the hype about it until today. I tried watching a few episodes but it was nothing special. It was just a sitcom, nothimg special about it.
It was special because "everyone" watched it. The meh or bad parts were whatever, while the exciting or good parts were something you could talk with all your friends about at school. This made the good parts uniquely good.
So unless you happened to both be alive and watch it when it ran, it just won't be amazing.
Alternately, you were "the kind of person who didn't watch Friends", which still made it a cultural touchstone.
Same here. Personally I thought the British comedy Coupling was so much better done.
I rewatched Coupling a little while ago. There are some aspects which have not aged well. Anything Geoff centric is still pretty good. Anything Patrick centric is "yikes" and some of the relationship stuff is a bit messed up too.
Except the last season. That was bad.
No Geoff. No show.
I haven't seen a full episode but Big Train seems like it had some legs, and was right around The Office timeframe.
My favorite scene with a VERY young Simon Pegg: https://youtu.be/VKH9ECC_Qa4?is=sntN4AxaEXgPHFsg
The US Coupling could have been the new Friends, but they bungled it just as bad as That 80s Show.
Mad Men. Everyone on that show is a fucking scumbag and not in a funny or interesting way.
Also Thor Ragnarok. I hate it for the reasons people say they hate the next one but it was the same people that said they liked Ragnarok so Idk what the fuck is going on there. I'm not watching the second one to find out.
I thought the American version of The Office wasn't much better. Just constant cringe humor, it's exhausting.
Breaking Bad for me. I just can't stand it and find the characters and the situations just unpleasant and undesireable to watch.
Your mom's OnlyFans page.
Kinda surprised I didn't see breaking bad already listed. I guess I'm one of the few who dislikes it. I don't like tragedies in general. Life is already a tragedy.
I'm sure it was extremely well executed and totally worth making, but it's not my flavor of ice cream.
It started out a lot funnier and slowly became darker over time. I think I remember Gilligan saying this was a conscious choice, to grow darker in tone over time.
Anyway, that's what hooked a lot of people initially, and a lot of them stuck around for the drama that followed
Genuinely though the Talking Pillow scene is still my favorite. As someone who lost a dad to cancer the conversation was morbidly funny and real to me, with the pillow as a perfect set piece.
Dave Matthews band. Also, any "jam" band in general.
Dont forget what they did on the Kinzie Street Bridge in Chicago.
Ok, what did they do?
Dumped a bus load of shit and piss off the bridge onto an architectural tour boat full of people.
none of the band members were in the bus at the time
The shit and piss they dumped out of the bus didn't appear from nowhere. Even if he didn't dump it himself dave matthews supplied the shit and piss for it to happen.
That is the stuff of legend.
100% with you on this.
I just don't get the appeal at all. I knew a couple that were all about String Cheese Incident. Finally listened to their stuff...fucking 15 minute long songs of fairly standard 90's ironic music zapped by bloat ray. Hard pass.
I've seen String Cheese Incident live a few times at a festival. It was honestly a pretty good show, and I think that's pretty much the only way jam bands work. When everyone's a bit high and dancing and the band is playing off the crowd, it's great.
I listened to a couple of their tracks at home, and had no interest in listening to any more. Jam bands are only good live.
That's a fair point! Thanks.
You gotta be taking some psychedelics and want to dance, I'm not into it either. But I have plenty of friends who are and it makes them happy to have a show that lasts for long sets and they can get their freak on
Well, that's just what the ass-crack bandit would say to throw us off their trail, isn't it...
Clearly they don't have two ears connected to a heart
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Its not just that the humor is unfunny (and basically just bigotry porn with a side of cringe), its that none of the "friends" in the show are even friends with each other. The whole show is just a bunch of assholes being bigoted assholes and then you are supposed to think that its funny.
Well, yeah, the whole show is based around each character being the worst narcissistic and self-serving asshole you can imagine, and then some.
I personally find it really funny, but I can sort of see why some people don't like it
They take their twisted logic and antics to such extremes that it resembles a live-action version of some mid-20th century American cartoons. Same level of slapstick cruelty but the plotlines make it all more premeditated and sociopathic.
(I laugh hysterically at it, but I totally understand anyone who thinks it's depraved!)
Not depraved, just pitiful.
Danny DeVito is still "pitifully" entertaining 50 years later, with his studio producing the longest-running American live-action sitcom.
I think it's supposed to be Seinfeld but moreso. Part of the humor is watching these assholes screw themselves over with their terrible plans.
This is a style that I first noticed with Archer, and it is very hard to do well. I enjoyed Archer, I enjoyed some of Rick and Morty, but I also recognize that I'd refuse to engage with someone like that in real life. Iasip takes it to the extreme of being genuinely unpleasant.
I like it, but it seems really overrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyoWmkhRyp8
Last Christmas. Whenever it pops up in the radio, I switch to the next station.
Woah surprised no one mentioned South Park yet, it quite common in discussions like this.
I don’t like it but I cut them some slack for their willingness to tackle some issues publicly and mock people who deserve it.
I never really liked South Park (with occasional exceptions where it shone) but I loved the movie.
Honestly one of the best musicals I've ever seen.
They absolutely deserved the Oscar for that movie (almost literally any of its songs) over fucking Tarzan
It would have been fun to see the accepting speech
I think out of all the Adult Swim type shows ( Family Guy, Robot Chicken, American Dad, South Park, etcetera ), I cannot stand any of them besides King of the Hill or Futurama. So definitely gonna agree with you.
I don't think any of the shows you listed are Adult Swim shows
I distinctly remember at least Family Guy, American Dad, and Robot Chicken airing on AD where I lived, so maybe I might be misremembering, but I meant those shows as in the style of show I'd expect to see on there. If I wasn't clear about that, my bad.
Family Guy and American dad are famously fox shows made by Seth McFarlane. Plenty of networks do reruns.
Futurama is one of the best TV shows of all time, at least forst 5 seasons.
I've got a good one: Andor. People can't stop raving about it and I had to force myself to finish it. Deathly boring all the way through. I didn't like anyone in it so I couldn't root for anyone, and it was just a slog til the end. Crucify me star wars fans, I know you want to. 😇
Have a few in mind:
Catcher in the Rye. Holden is insufferable and I found it baffling that adults expected me to relate to him as a teen.
Grease aged very poorly and I do not understand the hype (is it because John Travolta is wearing tight pants?)
Family guy. The ship that launched a thousand cringe as fuck "adult animation" shows. Yes, I'm salty as hell about it.
It terrifies me that there are people walking around out there who feel seen by Holden Caulfield.
Just a bunch of phoneys.
Or to reference another overrated work: John Galt. Lol
IDK, I can see that making sense if you read it as a teen.
As adults? Absolutely. But there are phases we all grow out of (well, most of us).
A lot of the hype about Grease is nostalgia, no doubt about that.
But a lot of the rest is that a loooot of the songs are both catchy and very easy to understand. The movie also forms a social dynamic that is easy to understand for kids.
We learned to sing "Summer Nights" in school, and then friends and I would sing the song over and over, adding more and more childish humor that we found hilarious (because...kids). We also instantly got the implied social dynamic (boys just want to get sex, girls want to have mushy romance).
Catcher in the Rye was always an unforgivable whiney crap-mound of a book. Its notoriety is based on its banning, and the larger issue of whether people should be allowed to read books with swears, misanthropes, and sexual references in them, but there are and were so many better books featuring those things out there.
Family Guy is a fascinating case of a crappy show insisting upon itself so hard that it successfully got itself uncancelled and forced into pop culture as a zombie endlessly repeating itself on the level of its inspiration and closest rival The Simpsons.
I also loathe Grease but its general appeal is pretty easy to explain: it came out in the 1970s as a rose-tinted nostalgia piece for white middle-class boomers who grew up in the 1950s and, as so many people of all ages do, idealized their childhood era as when things were so cool and simple. (Spoiler to folks of all eras: things weren't actually any simpler when you were young, you were just shielded from more of the bullshit than you are now.) It was the same nostalgia that fueled the runaway success of Happy Days on TV in that era, though at least that show managed to be a functional sitcom with more substance to it than the empty-headed misogyny-flavored story of Grease.
Family guy has always been bad, I lived through its peak and it was so painful
Oh you think that's bad? What about the time I fell off of that elephant and broke my ankle in 75 places while a monkey played la cucaracha on a tambourine?
(wince) "aHHHHhhh!...(wince)...Aaaaghh!!... It's in my raccoon wounds! :("
Friends...
I would rather watch women's tennis or a fishing show. I don't fish, I don't play tennis.
The US Office is unironically a better show because it understood what path it wanted to take as it went on and stop trying to rely heavily on cringe comedy to focus more on absurdist but still relatable scenarios.
There's a huge regional and cultural aspect to what you're saying. You're comparing slapstick in-your-face American comedy to subtle cringe British comedy. The Office is an excellent example since it is exactly the same script used in both initially. Watching S1E1 for British vs American version is an excellent comparison of styles. I don't like British comedy particularly and don't even like The Office, but watching both back to back, I would prefer the British version.
There are a number of amazing British comedies. They are very different to American. British comedies are understated and a bit miserable. Try "I'm Alan Partridge".....such an amazing comedy.
Equally I've tried watching Curb Your Enthusiasm with British friends and a large portion can't stand that for how cringe it is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
There's no superior choice in matters of art and taste. Just different flavours.
There’s a big cultural difference between Curb and Partridge - cringe isn’t universal!
Specifically, Larry in Curb has a distinctly American sense of individualism. He does what he wants and doesn’t care if someone doesn’t like him for it. The cringe comes from his attempts to enforce his own set of unwritten social values on others.
Alan Partridge is the exact opposite - fundamentally insecure and desperate for approval. His cringe comes from lack of self-awareness and trying to fake social status, which is painfully obvious to a British audience with our deeply ingrained sense of class.
Ultimately, taste is taste, but I think that goes some way towards explaining why some people like one or the other but not both.
Part of the longevity of the US version was the decision to make characters likable, especially Michael Scott / the manager. The UK version leans hard into the cringe / social ineptitude and gives the manager essentially no redeeming qualities.
Good points. iirc, the US Office almost got cancelled the first season. The type of humor in the first episode didn't really work for US audiences. Only after the series found its own style did the series really thrive.
Personally I think Office UK is awesome. The whole Training session is freakin hilarious.
I can't watch The Office.
My empathy makes me feel super uncomfortable watching people do socially mean or cringe things. I enjoyed most of Parks and Rec, but I didn't like the way they treated Garry, and almost stopped watching because of that running gag.
Oddly enough, I devoured The Bear. It's not high anxiety or intensity that turns me off, it's the banal meanness that some express that I can't stand. The Bear is intense, but the characters feel genuine and honest
but the payoff for Garry was SO good.
I nearly stopped after the first few episodes. They are really bad, I just cannot see the appeal of cringe comedy.
I would say the first season is the worst, and then after that it finds its footing and it doesn't rely on cringe comedy but actually humorous situations.
There is still a little bit of cringe after that, but the majority of it is in the first season.
The Office (All versions) because the movie "Office Space" exeedingly outshines the humor and plot of any of the TV shows.
As with most "comedy" shows it's actually a drama disguised with a specific setting and a couple of meme characters to make it look like a comedy.
I'm convinced people only watched that stuff because they were all in on office drama at work/school but didn't want to admit to that fact.
Anything anime. Lots love it, I hate it.
Not liking anime is so isolating as a nerd because people find out I'm into nerdy stuff and all they want to do is recommend anime to me and talk about anime and I have to explain that I don't like anime and won't be watching that show they love (insert show here).
Ya'll be talking about anime like it's a genre but it's a medium
Yeah, but come on. Sure, you could depict anything with it, but in practice, it's correlated with content.
Chinese ink painting is a medium too, but people talking about it probably are not going to it for cyberpunk stuff.
I mean, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Great Teacher Onizuka, Frieren, DragonBall, and whatever are absolutely different genres and have practically nothing in common.
Yeah, but normies don't know that. It's all just cartoons with a weird annoying fanbase to them.
Yeah but some people just can't stand the medium. Me included.
Everything? Perfect Blue? Paprika? Angel's Egg? Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space? Anne of Green Gables? Moomin? Belladonna of Sadness?
I'd be genuinely surprised if the answer was yes, as all of those wildly depart from the tropes people have in mind when anime is brought up.
Yes
Never understood the "I don't like anime" mindset, of course everyone has the right to like and/or dislike anything they choose to, but as you said it's a medium. "I don't like anime" makes as much sense as "I don't like live action movies." It doesn't.
I guess "I don't like the way anime look," or, "I don't like the Japanese approach to storytelling" makes more sense.
It makes sense to me because they're describing in a simple way the thing that they don't like. If you ask why, they'd probably tell you the reason. "I don't like the way anime looks" or "I don't like the Japanese approach to storytelling" or whatever...
Not liking “anime” is just saying “I watched a few hours of popular anime, didn't like it, assumed it's all like that and now I'll never be able to correct my opinion.”
Personally, it's the art form I don't like. I couldn't say why, but there's something about the style of drawing people that I just can't get past.
I accept that I'm in the minority, and I'm not criticizing it or talking down on it in any way. I understand there's an incredible amount of love and talent that goes into it, it's just not for me. Think of it as someone who says they don't like the Mona Lisa, they aren't saying it isn't a famous painting or shouldn't be well known, they're just saying they prefer other styles of art.
Even with the wide variability of art styles, something about that anime gene creeps you out? That's fair, but a little sad that keeps you out of it.
I was speaking mostly from personal experience. I used to think all anime was adolescent violent wish fulfillment and tits, so I didn't explore too much, and found plenty of incidenthl confirmation bias.
Not OP, but some genre conventions of anime weird me out. I can learn to ignore them with practice, but I have to stay in practice to keep doing this.
I don't hate anime, but getting myself in a state where I can enjoy a show is a huge chore.
Another part that makes even less sense: the existence of people that only watch anime makes me less willing to engage. This happens with other things too, but it seems moderately common with anime.
It’s usually ugly as fuck and blatantly misogynistic, it infantilizes and objectifies women and often has very strong pedophillic themes? 90% of it is an incredibly problematic form of media and when a person tells me they’re into it I wonder do they just willfully ignore these problems or are they not actually smart enough to notice in the first place, or are they into that gross shit?
How do you feel about other forms of animation?
I'm picky. Some are ok, some just weird me out. I think it really just depends how close they get to portraying the human figure, when they start intentionally skewing proportions and making features anatomically impossible it's just creepy for some reason. If it's not a human character or if it's still sort of realistic to normal proportions it usually is fine.
If you mean stuff like Fantastic Planet, The Thief and the Cobbler (Re-cobbled Cut) and The Glass Harmonica, then I love it.
(Edit: oops I misread the comment nesting, you weren't talking to me.)
What's wrong with bugs bunny?
Forrest Gump, in my opinion one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
I have seen so much praise for Kingdom of Heaven and all I did was laugh or yell at it, usually both. It's so bad. So, so bad.
I'm sorry, you're telling me they built siege towers in the middle of the desert. Where did they get the wood??? And there's like 12 of them? And you aimed a Ballista and that took down every single one of them in one swoop? ALSO YOU ARE A SMITH APPRENTICE BUT YOU KNOW SIEGE TACTICS? AND YOU KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT DESERT IRRIGATION WHEN YOU ARE FROM FUCKING ENGLAND? AND
I'm yelling again
And that's not to mention how deeply historically inaccurate it is at moments, like even besides all the general Hollywood of it all. Like sure they get some moments right but generally, holy shit it's bad lol
Though I will say watching Will Turner learn sword fighting from Qui-Gon only to be interrupted by Jaime Lannister was pretty funny
Star Wars. I really wanted to like it, I'm a huge nerd, but I just am not into it. I watched 4 and 5 and got maybe an hour into 6 and got up and walked away. I was so bored with the whole thing.
Never watched any star wars movie and at this points I've seen so many spoilers through memes that I am not very tempted to do so
Save for most of the original trilogy, Star Wars turned into actual dogshit halfway through Return of the Jedi.
I'm curious if you're from the UK, OP, because I think this colours your perception of the The Office very much. For the record I loathe both, but The Office UK is a typical British comedy of taking the absolute piss of the characters, who are irredeemable fools one and all. You re not supposed to find them funny, or like them. You're supposed to laugh at them. That's the usual expectation, with British comedy.
Americans seem to have great difficulty with that concept, and can't seem to handle a protagonist that is made fun of.
Again, not defending the show itself. Just saying you need to be aware of this approach when you watch British comedy in general. The common language should not make you forget the ocean of cultural differences in between.
Now it makes sense why so few British comedies work in the US. The US only knows how to laugh at the hero's jokes.
Overwatch the video game. TF2 felt better in every way - no I didn't play the original team fortress. I never felt good playing the overwatch, never cared about all the backstory considering it had no standing on the game whatsoever - I'm sure they'll add a campaign some day though. The mechanics felt so floaty and slidy, and I never felt like my hits registered at all. The community sucked even more because everyone was "one game off going pro" because they got a cool kill 10 rounds ago. Rocket league was less toxic and that's saying something. Oh and sooo repetitive. I hear the irony of comparing it to rocket league then saying that, don't worry.
I'll take the low blow and say Blizzard can get fucked as a company too, I'd be happy if they went bankrupt tomorrow. They're like the worst of the worst in the video game industry.
Blade Runner
2001: A Space Odyssey
Citizen Kane
These movies are so well regarded and spoken so highly of (ok - maybe not Blade Runner); their champions are so passionate and enthusiastic, every time I hear folks go off on how great they are I get, once again, excited to watch them. But every time I try, I just can’t get into them. 2001 is a particular slog with its ~30 minute intro of no dialogue. It almost inevitably puts me to sleep before even the first word is spoken.
I hate that they’re so well regarded and I really want to enjoy them but I just can’t get into them.
@[email protected] has a comment below stating that some of these are examples where a piece of media did something new and innovative that was so compelling that many subsequent pieces of media copied it, and thus whatever it was that the piece of media did failed to impress later audiences. For them, it was just the new normal. So the work was very influential...but maybe no longer stands out.
I've often seen Citizen Kane cited as being the poster child for this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane
EDIT:
https://thecinemaholic.com/citizen-kane-innovations-flaws/
EDIT2: @[email protected] linked to the Seinfeld is Unfunny trope on TVTropes, and it has an entry for Citizen Kane:
Definitely true. I’ve heard the same and it’s another one of the reasons I want to appreciate it.
A other example of this that’s frequently cited and happened in my own life time which makes it easy to see first hand and understand is The Matrix/bullet-time.
Citizen Kane is generally considered the origin of the "innovative media that's considered boring because everyone copied it so now it seems cliche" trope. It was a masterpiece when it came out, but it pioneered so much stuff that became commonplace. When a modern audience looks back at it, you just see the cliches, without realizing that they're only cliches because they were endlessly repeated afterward.
I like behind the scenes footage far more than the movie. I can appreciate how it's made but I absolutely can't stand to actually watch the resulting movie.
This post made me angry because I’m one of the people that love this 3 movie and go passionate about them.
They are worshipped because they were the first in their particular area (neon cyberpunk, Space FX, non-linear storytelling). Each has been improved on by so many other films that the originals pale in comparison.
They are classics, but not timeless.
Worst take of the thread, edgelord.
2001: A Space Odyssey is so insanely boring and pretentious, I’m still glad I watched it though because it’s very influential, you even see it in the Project Hail Mary movie, and it’s satisfying to have context to art but unless you’re really into watching films I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone
For blade runner the original film is awful. I didn't get the hype until I watched the directors cut which I personally thought was excellent.
2001 definitely overrated.
I enjoyed Citizen Kane though I completely understand why you wouldn't like it.
Blade Runner is sooo boring. I've tried watching it a few times and it just doesn't click for me.
Reality TV
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
All new Star Wars movies and tv shows
Disney somehow made me absolutely apathetic to Star Wars, an IP that as a kid I used to go to sleep daydreaming about while listening to the soundtracks. The whole thing just feels stupid af now, and it's not just because I got older. It used to feel grounded in something, and now it feels unhinged.
Blame Kathleen Kennedy. She took a huge dump all over that and then smeared it around.
She did a fucking awful job. Had no idea what she was playing with or how to play with it.
I'm inclined to think she hated Spielberg and the franchise after working with him for years, and decided to destroy his legacy.
...Y'mean..."Lucas"?
goddammit, I just watched something about Spielberg and had his name in my head...
Heehee I mix them up all the time, too. :P
Andor notwithstanding
Uncut Gems, for pretty much the same reason a lot of people liked it.
Life of Pi. My kids warned me not to read it, they had to for school. I read fast, it was a slim volume, I thought why not, it will be quick. It was quick but I want that time back. I don't get what anyone likes about it, it's unlikeable.
It was a book before a movie?
quick web search
Huh. TIL.
I was pretty young when that book got popular, maybe around 12. My mom really liked it and kept suggesting I read it but I just couldn't take it seriously when two characters had the same exact name. I don't understand if that was supposed to be a joke or just some quirky decision, but it immediately made me lose interest. I don't think I made it past chapter 2
Claymation. It is unnerving and creepy. Gives me the same vibes as nails on a chalkboard or HR Pufnstuf.
This is going to be a semi-spicy take, but World of Warcraft.
I had a lot of friends who were into it during Cataclysm but I had a hard time getting into it despite it being THE game everyone was obsessing over. It got to the point where I was struggling to get them to play anything else and it pretty much split our gaming group.
Even after all these years, some of them still play it and its still a big piece of their gaming sessions.
It has some hooks that I can see people liking, but it is pretty understood that the game isn't for everyone.
I can a dumbed down version of it being played a lot in retirement homes.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/retirees-playing-wow/1072667/21
Succession for me. I couldn’t stand it. The acting always felt way too self-conscious, like “look at me acting my ass off” instead of anything natural. The dialogue and humor felt really try-hard too, and I hated the cinematography, especially all those weird close-up shots.
Seinfeld.
I think the show is ok, but could've been good with anyone else as Seinfeld. Jerry is the worst part of the show, especially the stand up bits at the beginning and end. I don't understand how he was ever popular
"wHaT's ThE dEaAaAaAaAAL WiTh _____??"
...I don't understand how that guy apparently holds a ridiculous amount of power in the entertainment industry lol.
"Getting coffee with people in cars" or whatever it's called really revealed how nasty and self obsessed Jerry Seinfeld is to me. Up to that point he was passably funny to me or, at least, the show was. Looking back it was really Larry David, and the other cast that carried it all.
I am trying to watch "The Wire" (on ep. 10) because it is one the highest rated show on imdb, but it doesn't click in me. It is high quality product. Acting, music, camera work are all good. But is just boring for me, and I force myself to do it.
Same was with The Sopranos btw.
P. S. Ricky Gervais is funniest comedian for me. I watched his Life's Too Short, After Life and I like it a lot. For me it's very funny and bravely. Never watched British The office, may be shouldn't, thanks.
You're the first person I've ever seen that made it that far into The Wire and didn't like it. Are you American? If not, I think that maybe makes more sense. For Americans, it's just such a great representation of so many things that every city experiences. And the fact that you see the same story from so many different perspectives is just SO compelling. I think it should be watched/taught in high schools because of how many perspectives it gives on the plights of society in American cities.
Only When I got to season 3 did I understand why people rave about it. Each season is like an onion layer.
The wire's magic is that every character seems real, more like the show is a documentary rather than a TV show. And it carries all the way through, the quality never ends. You have to accept that you are watching a slow burn documentary, else you won't get it.
I think it takes a different approach mentally to enjoy it. Especially compared to anything modern. I'm working through it slowly myself and just finished season 3. I watch it with friends tho which maybe makes it easier to watch.
All that said, if it's not clicking after 10 hours, could be best to put it down. You can always try again later.
Agree, I actually think he is a fantastic actor and that’s missed in the role, don’t confuse the role with the actor and the tone of UK black comedy. Yes he roasts but it’s in a highlight kind of way and tends to be pointed at mocking privilege and arrogance. I’d suggest trying his other stuff like afterlife.
Fuck Ricky
If the actual premise of the show isn't interesting, then it may not matter how quality it is.
Hmm. I don’t know how I would feel if a person told me they found the premise of The Wire uninteresting… it’s a deep look at poverty, political corruption, black American life in inner city Baltimore, commentary on police and our justice system etc etc etc… there’s a lot to chew on, unless you came from the same background as the characters idk how a person could find the premise boring intellectually, and even then I’d still be surprised. The pacing however… yeah season one is slow
While I personally liked the show, it is heavy. Not everyone likes watching shows about serious topics.
The Game of Thrones TV series.
I really enjoyed the George R. R. Martin novels that they were based on, but the TV series just didn't do it for me.
I did enjoy the Lord of the Rings movies, so I know that it's possible to do film adaptations of fantasy novels that do click with me.
I was pretty happy with the first couple of seasons, but I didn't keep up with an HBO subscription to keep watching. A friend had some watching parties for the last season, and just ... ugh. Total waste of time.
I feel like most people that read ASOIAF beforehand are disappointed with how it turned out. The first season is practically a perfect adaptation of the first book, except Tyrion now spends his time having sex with whores and getting drunk instead of spending his nights in the library reading as much as he can.
And that was the beginning of it going to shit
I thought all four seasons were pretty good, though they lean on discovering the plot and lose a lot of rewatchability for it.
Heh, too bad they never continued the series past there :P
Boobies equal ratings!
The Netflix adaptation of Altered Carbon or "How a good read was turned into an absolute boring pile of dog shit"
Star Trek in general.
TNG was OK when it was on TV, and everything else on TV sucked more.
The fourth movie was actually funny and enjoyable.
But I don't get the appeal that sparked such a huge fandom.
So.
Star Trek was genuinely groundbreaking when it aired. First was that basically no other sci-fi story had a hopeful vision of the future, so it was instantly different. Star trek was a meritocracy, it was post-scarcity, characters where hailed for being competent moral people, instead of morally bankrupt nepo-babies.
Second was that the show treated people like adults, a lot of the storytelling involved significant moral conundrums, and included scenarios with no easy answer.
Finally, the shows sci-fi setting let it tackle ideas that otherwise would be untouchable. Racism was shown to be absurd not by having black people and white people, but you could see a whole planet where people half-white and half-black would oppress (and be horribly racist) towards exactly the same people, but who had the white part on the other side of the body.
Finally, the casting for the show, and the characterization was amazing. Kirk is (imo) a boring character, but the dynamic of Kirk Spock and Scotty made for genuinely interesting interpersonal dialog.
Granted, its been done again and again, and done better (Notably, TNG is better in almost every way IMO), and so the formula got stale, and you cant help but compare Star Trek to the copies, several of whom inevitably did certain parts better.
My mother is a huge star trek fan from the era where it was biggest. The thing that really did it for her was that it's one of the few good outcomes in the future. They're out on space exploring for altruism and the novelty of it, not colonialism, not for the destruction of earth's enemies, not to find a home became we destroyed ours, almost every other space media uses it as a for-warning of the outcome of the poor choice we currently make. Star trek is the future we want. No money because all needs are met. Alien contact because they believe we have potential to be equals, stuff like that.
The shows actually do a terrible job conveying this and a worse job using the tools at hand, but I honestly don't know any other media with such a hopefully fiew.
It's really easy to rank the Star Trek TV series for me. The earlier it came out, the better.
I liked STNG at the time, but I tried watching them again recently and it didn't age well. I'm not even talking about the special effects or anything, I don't really care. I've gotten used to shorter serialized seasons rather than long episodic seasons.
For clarification: serialized = plot continues through episodes - vs- episodic = each episode is a self-contained plot
The Office
Napoleon Dynamite
Grease
Reservoir Dogs
Big Bang Theory (or any popular laugh-track sitcom post 2000)(Nevermind, you said highly extolled, not just popular)
Chicago, Rent, and Cats
Harry Potter (even before JKR went full terf, probably just a generational thing, honestly)
Taylor Swift (again, nothing personal, just not my jam)
Sideways, Marriage Story, Whiplash (intense interpersonal drama, particularly dealing with infidelity or power disparity)
Macgruber. I've tried two different times to watch it once while sober and once while high, and it just, I fucking hate it. I don't know what it is. Everything about it is terrible. I cannot complete the movie.
That and the Broadway edition of Cats. 15 or 20 seconds in and for some reason watching the actors dance around in cat costumes trigger some sort of primordial anger, rage, terror, something in me.
I was screaming at my family to stop it, I had to physically leave the room.
This is a typical response.
So you say it brought forth deep emotions. It moved you.
(never seen it, idk...)
Oh yes, it stirred something deep inside. This show could be used as an ipecac substitute. I may be particularly sensitive as I was on crew for this production many moons ago.
Just stab yourself in the ear with a rusty knife, you'll get the gist of it.
An additional beneficial side effect of watching the first, I don't know, two minutes of cats if you can make it that far is it will confirm for you forever whether or not you are a furry.
I am solidly in the not a fucking furry crowd.
I misread this as "not fucking a furry crowd" at first which changes the meaning a bit!
I don't know if I would go that far.
Hard, hard disagree. Not a fan of his recent stand-up, but The Office was an absolute breath of fresh air at the time and was so hilarious and relatable to my own work experience.
I remember my boss complaining that it wasn't funny and he didn't know what the fuss was about, which made absolute sense to me as it was basically taking the piss out of people like him and highlighting how absurd petty and insecure managers can be.
The characters are timeless, and I think the Christmas special was among the best pieces of British TV ever.
Not quite what you're asking for, because this one I can at least stand to watch, but Futurama was one of the biggest "I'm not impressed but know people who adore it" pieces of media for me.
I've liked past Matt Groening stuff. I liked Life is Hell. I liked (earlier) The Simpsons stuff.
I've sat next to people who crack up while watching Futurama.
But I don't think I've ever chuckled at the humor in Futurama. It throws out a series of jokes that just don't make me chuckle at all.
That being said, I haven't watched it for some time, so I haven't seen the newer stuff.
That's funny, I'm the exact opposite. I grew up never getting why people liked the Simpsons, but Futurama is one of the funniest, most entertaining, and most moving shows I've seen.
It’s very much a Gen-X nostalgia bucket.
I do agree that it's full of cultural references and that lacking it would probably detract from it, but even so, I just don't see how someone having that context makes the jokes funny.
One example I had in mind was when I brought up the fact that I just didn't really find the jokes funny even through some people really did laugh. At the time, the show was showing some robots trying to pack boxes and they kept failing, because when they put them together, they'd eliminate them, in an allusion to Tetris. That is, indeed, a Gen-X reference. The guy I was watching it with was chortling. I remember asking him about it and him saying "it's hilarious!"
I mean...I get the reference there. I've owned a couple versions of Tetris. I played it back when the game was young. But...even having the cultural context, it's just...there's none of the stuff that make something funny for me there. I just look at it and say "yeah, they're alluding to Tetris." Maybe it's that there's not enough buildup or something.
I remember some episode when a bunch of hippies are protesting outside Professor Farnsworth's house. The Professor tells them to get off his property. A hippie says "You can't own property, man!" The Professor says, "You can't, because you're a penniless hippie!" I mean...I'm not offended by it poking fun at communism, but...I see the political conflict there, but it just doesn't make me laugh. Or the Dr. Zoidberg humor, which in significant part is him acting inappropriately...I dunno. It's hard to figure out precisely what makes humor work for people --- if we did, we could probably produce it a lot more mechanically --- but whatever the writing team did just...consistently didn't tickle it for me.
Same. I used to watch Futurama a lot and I usually found it amusing, but I never made any audible noises of enjoyment.
There was a fantasy series that was kind of the same. It never got better than "mildly amusing" for me.
If you didnt laugh at futurama you didnt laugh at the simpsons. Even the early ones. You may have been a child that was giggling at the colors or that a catoon was on at night but you werent listenting to the punch lines at the time.
Star Wars, Marvel movies, basically film in general. Goes for TV shows too.
It wasn't until my mid-twenties that I concluded that video is just not an entertainment medium that works for me. I tried really, really hard to like it, and I gave all of the really popular films or TV shows or even YouTube videos a fair shot.
An Officer And A Gentleman. Absolute sexist garbage.
The Narnia books. Silly, thinly disguised evangelical propaganda.
Star Trek: Enterprise. I just never got into that one.
Doesn't everyone hate Enterprise?
I like ENT. It is far from perfect, but it gets ragged disproportionally.
Season 1 & 2 do have some bombs ('Dear Doctor') but even in these less loved seasons, there are good episodes. 'The Andorian Incident' is a great episode right in the first season that not only introduces Jeffery Combs as Shran, but becomes a touchpoint for future episodes. There's a number of other good to ok episodes, I'd say at least in the same amount as TNG's first seasons.
Season 3 is divisive, but I liked seeing the proto-enlightened humanity backsliding a little bit into the militarized ways. This was an examination of that, done without getting too bogged down. I enjoyed the increasing knowledge of Xindi cultures being a factor in unraveling the situation.
Basically everyone who watched it loves season 4.
Was the show perfect? No. The temporal Cold War running plot was a time wasting slog. Was the finale revealing the whole thing as a TNG holodeck program stupid? Yes. But did the show have a unique take on human-Vulcan relations? Yeah. Did it on the whole keep that optimistic spirit of Trek? Yeah. Was it a long road getting from there to here? Yes, it's been a long time, but my time is finally near.
No, not everyone.... I mean, some people like Discovery...
What, you don't like watching the crew stand around and gently cry over whatever the episode's melodrama is? /s
Anyway, there are some series in the franchise that are definite fan unfavourites. I enjoyed Picard, but both it and ENT are on the list.
Picard sucked. Last season was a bit better with the old characters, Riker throwing an asteroid, etc, but it was mostly nostalgia fodder.
Both it and Discovery are anti-star-trek in that they're about a person and not a crew.
VH1
Also known as “rich trashy people being rich and trashy.” Who the actual fuck watches that garbage?
They used to play music videos on that channel you know.
Fuck I'm old.
Including Pop Up Video.
Pop Up Video was the best.
TIL: VH1 is no longer a music channel :/
I mean, celebrity news is a thing. Not something I'm into, but there's been demand for a long time.
The Big Lebowski. It's not funny or entertaining in the slightest, and is almost physically painful to watch. I am legitimately confused as to how people can actually enjoy this movie.
Inb4 the "well, that's just, like, your opinion, man" comments.
Edit: also, The Office only became watchable after Michael left. Possibly the worst character in all of fiction.
well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man
I hated it the first time I watched it because it felt trite and asinine. I watched it again years later in a different headspace without the same expectations and it clicked for me.
Its a movie that mixes the deeply mundane with the deeply absurd on purpose, and it does it very well. It has a main charector that is boring as hell as a person but also an iconoclast that is immune from consequence, which the movie just amps up and up and up into mania, all while "the dude" just drifts through it. That conflict is where most of the humor lies, alongside just stunning acting from basically everyone in the movie.
The movie just moves from iconic moment to iconic moment between these insane people doing insane things in sometimes day to day ways, mixing up what normalicy is as a whole. Is it paying for half and half at a grocery store with a check you know will bounce in your bathrobe? Is it offering to blow strangers by your pool for 10k? Is it strapping yourself to a harness and screeching at a painting you fling yourself at to add a new layer of paint? Yes, it's all normal and its all absurd, just like the rest of the human experience.
Personally, I think the plot of just wanting to achieve a task as little as getting your carpet reimbursed and then running into all these absurd situations as a 'normal' dude makes it so appealing. Also the meme-ability helps. If the former is not your thing, we'll then this movie is not for you then (which is totally okay!)
Bergdoktor
Completely agree with your take on the UK office. Worse, it started a trend in trying to make the audience cringe instead of laugh.
And I've always been at least mildly irritated by Gervais, the cunt. Bothered me how everything he did got critical acclaim and I'd have to have the same conversation over and over again about how he just sets my teeth on edge, and no I haven't watched, and no, I don't want to give this one a try, and no, please stop trying to persuade me to like anything with that shit in it, it's not going to happen, yes I guess I probably am the weird one for not liking him...etc.
postal games.
Oh man. I really love the British version of the office and Gervais. It's so much better than the american one. He's done some shows too. After Life and Extras are great.
I have friends who are into jam bands and I'm glad they go to live music shows. However, I'm the type of person that likes movies that are a tight 90 minutes long, and one of my favorite songs of all time is less than 2 minutes long. My time is worth money, treat it like it is. I don't need to listen to a 15 minute guitar solo.
I'm lead tou nderstand that drugs are often involved in developing appreciation for jam bands.
Are you currently on drugs? No disrespect if you are, but it took me awhile to unpack that sentence.
“I'm going to need you to write a concise sentence before I let you go.”--Cop about to perform the Strunk & White sobriety test
Sadly, no, stone cold sober.
got me good
is there an AP style variant?
I'd imagine a devilishly complicated citation of a book by a married couple two-generations into hyphenated last names about their ancestors printed by their parents' eponymous publishing house.
Went to a open session one time in a more jazz-oriented club. Wanted to play some vulfpeck with them if they knew it, but they didn't. All they did was pick 4 random chords from a jar, and jam to that for 10 minutes at a time. Sure, fucking around can be fun and they were great musicians to be honest, but as someone in the crowd at some point it was just boring. Jamming is fun but mostly for the musicians themselves, not for the crowd
Letterkenny. Absolutely zero laughs out of me and something about it just induces a headache. I wanted to like it, gave the entire first season a watch, but my god it was painful.
Michelle Mylett is in it, though, so it's got that going for it.
Letterkenny isn't great, but I really do like Shoresy. The show format works a lot better I think.
US The Office and Friends.
DFW’s nonfiction is his superior work. But who cares because Infinite Jest, bro!
We have truly become the society of the spectacle.
All the GTA games after GTA 2 were shit. 3D ruined it.
Project hail marry. Are you for real this unfunny af mediocre movie is well liked? I was incredibly close to walking out of the movie, thankfuly it got less awful after the ships dock
The book was MUCH better. I think it was made assuming most its audience read the book.
I was also really disappointed by the adaptation, especially compared to the Martian. I'll see if I can find the comment where I talked about why and I'll come back and copy paste it.
Edit: here it is:
NOTE: I've tried to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but even so you may not want to read this until after you've seen the movie.
The movie was definitely good, but fell pretty short compared to the book, and especially when compared to The Martian's adaptation.
For one, the movie felt way too much like a comedy, almost like a Taika Waititi Marvel adaptation of the much more serious (but still very funny) book, which felt tonally weird and didn't really land for me. Even the weight of the reveal of ::: spoiler spoiler Grace's refusal to go :::
was completely undercut by a tonally inappropriate, almost zany ::: spoiler spoiler chase sequence :::
that robbed the scene of most of the pathos it should have had. Reminds me of this excellent video about how modern blockbusters seem allergic to sincerity to their detriment.
We also didn't like how much more useless the movie made Grace feel. The book went out of its way early to show that he was a resourceful, intelligent, excellent problem solver, and while there was certainly a bit of this in the movie, it still felt like Grace was pretty much useless, undeserving dead weight, and like he either completely lucked his way through or had to rely only on :::spoiler spoiler Rocky, :::
while in the book their partnership felt much more collaborative. All of this combined to make the reveal I mentioned earlier feel much darker/more depressing, because you get the impression that no, he really didn't deserve to be there, and then what he says at the end of the movie completely falls flat, because it felt like almost none of it was the result of his choices or character. Feels like it completely undercuts one of the main themes of the book, which is that he did deserve to be there, and that he was the right person for the job, even if he didn't think he was.
We also thought the movie omitted some of the book's best lines. "You can hear light?" is an all-time great line that still gives me shivers, and it definitely should have been in the movie.
Things we liked: 1. The movie was visually stunning - everything it was going for in the looks department it completely nailed. 2. One of the most important characters in the movie was very well done, in both design and characterization. Maybe a bit too manic, but that's a relatively small quibble in the larger context of just how well they did with him.
So yeah, very much an enjoyable two hours, but not as good as it should have been due to a few flawed adaptation decisions.
I skipped over most of your comment after the first line; I have the book requested from the library (#400 in line! Fortunately, they have about 150 copies). I've enjoyed Weir's other books (and the Matt Damon in peril adaptation).
Should I take this as a cautionary tale? Is Project Hail Mary a departure from "the good stuff" in Weir's previous work, or is it more like a case of a poor film adaptation in your book?
The book is excellent - about as good as his previous work in my opinion. It's definitely a case of the adaptation falling short, so look forward to and enjoy the read!
Thanks! I'm looking forward to it.
Ugh yes the adaptation made me feel meh, as it missed so many key beats that adds weight to learning amount Grace's journey. Everything else you said was spot on too.
Such an interesting premise ruined by fourth-grade humor. I don't mind having some dry humor moments, but it was the entire freakin' thing.
I would never put the book as a comedy. Was the movie supposed to be funny?
It certainly tried, with trash tier "school of Marvel" jokes and timing
The movie isn’t funny, having some light hearted scenes doesn’t make a movie a comedy.
Director Dennis Villeneuve. I don't like emo and the guy is playing only that card.
Director Dennis Villeneuve. I don't like emo and the guy is playing only that card.
Grand Theft Auto before-and-after San Andreas
Avatar the last airbender.
Literally the only thing interesting is the serial reincarnation of the Avatar, the disability representation in Toph, and that weird demigod of misfortune people call the cabbage merchant.
Literally everything else sucks. The graphics are meh, the lore is forgettable, the magic system is somehow both overly complicated and restrictive, the characters are cringy and uncomfortable, Aang's pacifism is infuriating, and the plot even more so.
Personally, the James Cameron movie is far superior. Not because of its characters or story. God no. But its worldbuilding is far superior. Eywa and the neural queues the Na'vi and the other local flora and fauna have has been a genuine inspiration to so many of my world building projects its crazy.
The visuals are crazy impressive too for the time period, and those floating mountains are just gorgeous.
Really, ATLA sucks in comparison, and I hate it when people slander the true Avatar just to push up their own cringy mess.
Dune.
It's Y/A trash that had the benefit of coming out a long time ago and so being ensconced in scifi culture.
I'll give that it is interesting for its world, its one unique aspect, but the actual plot - chosen-one special boy's dad dies and so he immediately becomes the married leader of a group of locals and stages an insurrection against the antagonist in revenge - is so worn out you can barely turn the pages.
But I'm sure back when it came out, all the adolescents were drooling over the piles of teenage wish fulfillment.
Y/A wasn’t even a genre when it was written
And there is so much to that series of books in terms of complex topics that are dealt with in subtle ways that I don't understand how they think it is Y/A.
To be clear, I only read the first book because I was not interested in reading more (read: actively annoyed that nothing interesting happened).
As for YA, that's easy. It falls over the tropes (which, to be fair, it could have been early/first in). This post had been a favorite of mine for years, the "Protagonist" section is 2 for 3. Where it does somewhat lean out of the genre is its world, which is not just thinly-veiled school or the like.
As for what we actually see in the first book, though, we get an often-told YA story that happens to occur in an exceptionally well-thought out world.
Frank Herbert wrote the second book because, just like you, the entire point of the first book flew over a lot of people heads.
Ah. Shame I left it already wanting my time back for the first book
Oh, I have no doubt there's some Seinfeld is Unfunny effect going on.
But unfortunately I read it in ~2020 after three decades of reading books, so every plot beat was played out for me beforehand by decades of imitators who iterated on it. Unfortunately, being first doesn't make me care about your plot.
This makes me think about The Belgariad. It seemed like a tired rehash of old tropes at first...but those tropes weren't so tired when the author wrote it. I enjoyed it quite a bit more with that in mind.
Huh, that's a new one to me. Given its age I could definitely see it being full of tools used later by other authors. Yeah, the Seinfeld is Unfunny effect is no joke.
Dune has an examination of the chosen one trope. You can pull a lot of meaning out it, but it certainly does more than unabashedly say it's a good thing.
Regarding the Fremen, idea of a chosen one in-universe only exists because it was seeded as a self-serving belief by a foreign religious group messing with their culture. It isn't a "real" prophecy, but one seeded so that it can be potentially "fulfilled" by someone in the know in-universe. The fremen follow Paul into war with fanatic zeal. This examines how damaging religious influence is.
The Kwisatz Haderach angle is another "prophecy" except it is being actively worked to be fulfilled in-universe using non-mystical means. Paul realizes how terrible it is to be this type of chosen one and rather than fulfill it he abandons it, and not in the cool "rebel taking down the system" way, but in the "overwhelmed by the weight of it", way. He becomes broken and all for nothing since his son just completes the path he was on anyway, and it leads to a lot of (nessesary?) evil at his command.
I find it amusing that most of the commentors in here cant tell you why they dont like something they just simply chose to not like it and are carrying that forward. There are a few who recoil at cringe comedy but the majority of responses are unbacked opinions.
Opinions regarding preferences don't need to be backed by anything. I don't like the color puce but couldn't say "why"
I think that it's reasonable to like or dislike something without them needing to analyze further for that opinion to be valid. I think it's fine for someone to say that they don't like the taste of, say, strawberry ice cream without being obligated to break it down further. I mean, people form opinions without trying to psychologically analyze themselves.
And I don't think that people generally "choose to not like something" either. People don't say to themselves anything like "I think I'll dislike the flavor of strawberry ice cream."
I can not and will not explain precisely why eating dog shit is nasty, but the flies seem to love it.
Its nasty tho
I feel that is generally the type of thing on any option based social media thread
Username checks out.
Disliking something doesn't inherently exclude it from a category. Rap is a genre of music, what else could it possibly be? So are country and metal, even if many dislike them.
Hip hop comes from the projects in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City, where it coalesced from several different art forms developed in defiance of rampant poverty and oppression.
Those people couldn't afford 'real' instruments and didn't have the musical education to take advantage of them anyway. Turntables became instruments in their hands because there were no other options. Rap itself draws a pretty straight line from poetry- infuse some more emotion and performance, and you get rap.
As the movement grew in popularity, the hip hop and rap genres were effectively stolen around the turn of the century by producers to sell to white people instead of allowing it to thrive in the black communities that created them in the first place. The lyrics changed from being about surviving and thriving in spite of The Man to focusing on exploiting women and doing drugs, in ignorance of the short but rich history behind the genre.
(I'm lounging in bed writing this on my phone, so no direct sources sorry. We talked about this in one of my high school classes eons ago, I might be able to dig up those files later if there's interest.)
In that sense, it's not all that different from the newer corporatized country that you spoke about, or even rock and roll. If you're going to mad about rap lyrics, be mad at the cultural theft and exploitation rather than discounting it wholesale just because you dislike the sound.
shit only racists say
I don't think I'd call rap not music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music
I think that it meets that bar.
I don't like it myself, either, but there are plenty of genres of music that I don't like.
Like, because it originated from black artists? I mean...I've heard people make similar statements before, but jazz also originated with black artists, and I haven't heard people object to white people listening to jazz.
Maybe they did and it was just before my time. I remember a World War II Danish Nazi poster complaining about the jitterbug, which also originated with black artists, but that seemed to take issue with the music rather than who was listening to it.
searches
Hmm. Though it sounds like there was some friction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitterbug
EDIT: The WW2 poster referencing jitterbug that I was remembering:
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/1774f384-00b9-4f24-8dcf-880f0cb0d58d.jpeg)
I think it's important to parse country music. There's Nashville country music and then there's county music. Actual country music is great. Nashville country music is not.
Would you be so kind as to share a few of those artists?
See, I caught my ex listening to country yesterday, and I know she’s just doing it because her new gf is into country, and it sounded like your aforementioned Nashville schlock. I figure if she’s going to force herself to listen to country to impress her gf, least I can do is suggest some real country artists.
I am here for you! There is so much good country music, what they play on the radio is mostly shit. But like with every other sort of music, what's good is good.
Jason Isbell
Hayes Carll
Tyler Childers
Joshua Ray Walker
Charlie Crockett
Sturgill Simpson
The gay cowboy with the deep voice - Orville Peck
And a few I heard on the Saving Country Music top 25 this year and liked:
Charlie Marie, Mack Geiger, Sam Platts
If they are ladies into ladies - Kacey Musgraves, Waxahatchee, the supergroup album The Highwomen, and all of the members, Charlie Marie has such a voice.
AFA radio guys, Alan Jackson, Allison Krause, Lyle Lovett are good.
ETA - since this whole conversation came from some racist rant - there is a straight line from country to R&B and you can hear it in Charley Crockett's music, Leon Bridges, Carolina Chocolate Drops. Music is all related. You can always find a path from one style to any other style but almost all those paths were laid down by black people first, at least here in the US.
Johnny Cash for sure but a modern example is Sera Cahoone. Give her Couch Song a listen.
Another great is Lucero. Fucking amazing country rock! The album Nobody's Darlings is one of my absolute favorites.
Neko Case is always amazing.
Ben Nichols, the lead singer of Lucero, has an album based on Blood Meridian call The Last Pale Light in the West that is absolutely phenomenal as well.
Hell yeah, its always in my playlists. Really captures each of the characters in Blood Meridian very well