Oscars 2022

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Right, but to do that is to effectively concede that you don't take science fiction seriously as a movie genre. It's just a fun time out at the theatre that you can walk out of thinking about how cool the giant robots and laser sword fights were. That's not how movie quality is generally looked at. Nothing wrong with good entertainment, but this is also an art medium, and science fiction is a totally valid way to express that artistic value.

well said.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Posting a Candace Owens video isn’t the worst take on this page. That’s how far this thread has fallen.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Right, but to do that is to effectively concede that you don't take science fiction seriously as a movie genre.

Artistic merit and entertainment aren’t totally discrete values. Science fiction can be serious or light, entertaining or dull. And opinions vary on all of those qualities. For example, you raised Heinlein as serious science fiction. I think his work is badly written schlock.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by FormerPresJamesTaylor

Children of Men is the perfect movie but Star Wars (OG trilogy, Empire specifically) are pretty f'n great too.

First of all, they're not that great. They're very entertaining movies, especially for kids, and as a result you have a combination of nostalgia for basically everyone who was under 25 when they came out until today remembering them fondly and overestimating their actual quality. They're neither particularly well written (aside from a few lines here and there) nor are they well acted. There are obviously plenty of visuals that were spectacular at the time, but while they hold up pretty well, they're obviously not up to par now. They're also more fantasy than sci fi - there's no real use of sci fi elements to make any particular point; it's just a fun and exciting romp through a fantastic world bearing little to no resemblance to our own.

I like Star Wars. I think everyone should show Star Wars to their kids, the way it was shown to me. I'll happily re-watch the original trilogy for fun, or with someone who hasn't seen them (if such people exist). But despite having some good qualities (I don't think they're BAD movies) they're simply not great examples of movie making and don't deserve to be compared favourably to films that are.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Artistic merit and entertainment aren’t totally discrete values. Science fiction can be serious or light, entertaining or dull. And opinions vary on all of those qualities.

To be good, it can't be dull or hard to sit through - no great film is hard to sit through, other than for reasons where it's part of the point, like Schindler's List - but it needs to be much more than just entertaining to be great.

For example, you raised Heinlein as serious science fiction. I think his work is badly written schlock.

To compare movies to literature, nothing Heinlein wrote would feature in the top 25 novels ever written, no. I wasn't suggesting it would. I was more making a point about people not knowing what science fiction is. It's about using the science fiction setting to make a point, either philosophically, or about the human experience, or anything else art can explore. People seem to think if they like shows with cool action sequences in futuristic settings they like sci fi. That's... not how this works. I'm basically capturing the New Trek vs. Old Trek debate - New Trek isn't really science fiction. TOS and TNG were.

That doesn't mean you can't make action-packed sci fi movies, obviously. I don't know if The Matrix makes a top 25 movies list based on its overall quality as a movie, but it's very entertaining, and it's absolutely pure science fiction.

[DFO]

So should Starship Troopers be on the list?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by DFO

So should Starship Troopers be on the list?

I considered it. It’s a hilarious and entertaining film, with real insights into fascism and war fever. As a movie I rank it higher than many on my list. But for whatever reason, I have trouble categorizing it as SF. But I included Robobcop, so it’s pretty arbitrary.

[Matata]

A New Hope has perfect structure, perfect pacing and is bursting at the seams with memorable characters, visuals, scenes, locations and iconography. All of it's flaws are peripheral to the objective of it being a fun action-adventure and I would argue that the flaws only add to the overall charm.



If you want to disqualify Star Wars as "space fantasy", there's a good argument for that, but it stands on its own as a great film.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Candace Owens is what you would get if you crossed Alex Jones with Ben Shapiro. #### all that

Except, she is like super cute. I can't imagine what a mutant hybrid of Alex Jones and Ben Shapiro would look like.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Matata

A New Hope has perfect structure, perfect pacing and is bursting at the seams with memorable characters, visuals, scenes, locations and iconography. All of it's flaws are peripheral to the objective of it being a fun action-adventure and I would argue that the flaws only add to the overall charm.
If you want to disqualify Star Wars as "space fantasy", there's a good argument for that, but it stands on its own as a great film.

No, I would definitely still count it as sci fi. I'm not particularly rigid about where those borders are and there are a lot of things about it that make it look like sci fi, but it doesn't even attempt to do what sci fi is traditionally supposed to do as a genre, so rated as an example of the genre, it's not great, and rated as a movie... I mean I agree with some of the things you just said, but those statements would also apply to a bunch of Marvel movies that I also don't consider great examples of movie making, no matter how entertaining they may be.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Don't even know who she is (I don't watch TV).

Googled. Conservative author eh. Hence the 'I'm not even going to watch the video before I pass judgement on it'. Nice.

As for cultural topics, which this is, I don't see the issue with getting takes from every end of the spectrum. It was one of the more thought provoking ones I thought.

She's basically another Alex Jones and one of the worst people on the planet. Clearly paid by conservative powers (including possibly Russia as she was posting pro-Putin things recently) to push their interests and racist agenda through a black front woman. She started out with liberal viewpoints but now completely sold out and posts misinformation as an influencer so that white people can say "hey a black woman said that".

You can pass judgement on her based on her tweet history alone as someone that she is a complete shill/sell out and is unreliable in any opinion.

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

Dune is incredible
Star Wars is fantastic
Candace Owens sucks
Will Smith is crazy

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Matata

A New Hope has perfect structure, perfect pacing and is bursting at the seams with memorable characters, visuals, scenes, locations and iconography. All of it's flaws are peripheral to the objective of it being a fun action-adventure and I would argue that the flaws only add to the overall charm.

If you want to disqualify Star Wars as "space fantasy", there's a good argument for that, but it stands on its own as a great film.

Star Wars is space opera/space fantasy but there is nothing wrong with that. It's basically space wizards.

Dune also falls into that category despite what people say about it. If anything it is closer to a historical operatic tragedy or epic than any hard sci-fi.

What I hope this Dune will accomplish is showing Star Wars what Anakin's arc really should have looked like.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by FormerPresJamesTaylor

Dune is incredible
Star Wars is fantastic
Candace Owens sucks
Will Smith is crazy

Hmm, I never did see Star Wars

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by DFO

So should Starship Troopers be on the list?

Its funny, because I've always had that debate. Is Starship Troopers Science Fiction. It looks like it, acts like it. But at its heart its more societal satire wrapped in in a sci fi shell. In that it does a brilliant job. But because of that, I've kept it out of my Science Fiction lists. The second movie tried to be more mainstream science fiction, but was awful. The Third movie, was just a big lie.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by DFO

So should Starship Troopers be on the list?

Robocop should be at least.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

See, there, for example, I don't understand how anyone could possibly justify Wrath of Khan as being a better example of movie making than Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Terminator being a better movie than Moon. Let's be serious.

It's like comparing schlocky 50s westerns to Unforgiven.

Ranking movies is stupid anyway. It's like "Starting with Apples and Oranges, rank the top fruits 1-100"

They are all different in their own way and have their own qualities. Unforgiven is reactionary film to the heroic traditional Western but it wouldn't have existed without those traditional John Ford westerns that are landmarks in their own way.

How do you fairly compare Fritz Lang's Metropolis, made over a century ago to a modern science fiction film like BR2049? They have their own qualities and impact on the genre contemporaneous to when they were made.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Ranking movies is stupid anyway. It's like "Starting with Apples and Oranges, rank the top fruits 1-100"

I mean you say that, but papayas are pure garbage tier.

They are all different in their own way and have their own qualities. Unforgiven is reactionary film to the heroic traditional Western but it wouldn't have existed without those traditional John Ford westerns that are landmarks in their own way.

You can appreciate a movie for being a landmark - Star Wars is certainly that - without thinking it's great on its own merits. If you want a list of the most culturally important sci fi films, it's probably #1. But that's a separate standard.

How do you fairly compare Fritz Lang's Metropolis, made over a century ago to a modern science fiction film like BR2049? They have their own qualities and impact on the genre contemporaneous to when they were made.

Just under a century ago. I have never seen the whole thing, just bits of it. I gather it's a fairly simple class warfare story, and given the limitations of the medium at the time I cannot imagine it's particularly great. I absolutely think you can compare the two - they're both using a medium to tell a story with a thematic purpose. One just has shackles the other doesn't that contribute to it not being able to realize its vision as effectively. That's not something that's disappeared; a film student can be brilliant and have a great concept for a sci fi movie, but if there's no budget, it's going to be worse than it could be.

[Boblobla]

Every one of these movie argument threads makes me realize I am a troglodyte who is easily entertained.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Dune and can't wait for part 2 but I have also seen and enjoyed both pacific rim movies...

[FlamesAddiction]

I am sure a lot of people with young children are in the dark when it comes to recent films like I am, but I can confirm that Encanto was really good and worthy of the Oscars it won.

[Harry Lime]

I watched Encanto with a friend that is really into Disney type movies, and I really like animation in general, but we were both underwhelmed by Encanto. It was fine. Just fine. Animation borrowed a lot from the rythyms of anime, the story was cookiecutter, the messaging a little inconsistent (honestly there were some bad messages in there), but the songs were decent with one standout. It's the only song that I can even hum the chorus to and remember, though. Pretty meh.

I find that for the Oscars, popularity means more than content when it comes to animation. Which is weird, because for live action they go out of their way to avoid popluarism.