Controversial Opinions (For Everything Other Than DC Comics)

[Kirby101]

All the talk of 2001 I just want to throw this out there. That movie bored the Hell out of me and I cant sit through it again. it ranks up there as Reeve Superman 1 as one of my most boring yet for some reason really hyped movies.

Not some reason. The vast majority of those who saw these movies found them anything but boring. With 2001 being among the best best Scifi movies ever made.
You don't like them? Okay, every movie is not for everyone, but understand you are in a small minority, and I find it sad you didn't enjoy these two wonderful movies.

[Starter Set]

Never managed to get past the first half hour of 2001. Boring is an understatement.

I can enjoy slow and calm if done properly, but in that movie it's nothing but copyright free classical music and some images of space.

Yeah...no...

[Kirby101]

[godisawesome]

All the talk of 2001 I just want to throw this out there. That movie bored the Hell out of me and I cant sit through it again. it ranks up there as Reeve Superman 1 as one of my most boring yet for some reason really hyped movies.

Not some reason. The vast majority of those who saw these movies found them anything but boring. With 2001 being among the best best Scifi movies ever made.
You don't like them? Okay, every movie is not for everyone, but understand you are in a small minority, and I find it sad you didn't enjoy these two wonderful movies.

I think the most accurate way to look at both movies is that they reflect different types of films within their genres.

2001 is more of an intellectual sci-fi film, even to the extent of aiming for a “beyond your comprehension” revelation in the end, and with a very stripped-down cast and a lot of scenes shot to showcase high-concept plausible progressions of human technology. No, it’s not meant to make you focus on the characters as it’s main attraction (thus why HAL is the most quoted character), and the spectacle is presented in a more intellectual manner than in other spectacles. But it is the epitome of what it is.

Superman: The Movie has a different case, as it can be argued that it’s more a product of its time for a comic book film, so it’s perceived weaknesses are more about the stylings of the genre in the later 70’s and early 80’s. It’s a pioneer of the genre,a nod for decades was the benchmark, and still shows why Richard Dinner was considered a great director at the height of its powers… but comic from the late 70’s and early 80’s still weren’t really required to be “smart,” Superman Comics weren’t really that big on true dramatic potential, and the characterizations were still much more archetypal than 3-Dimensional.

2001 is basically it’s era’s version of The Martian, but with different strengths and weaknesses, while Superman: The Movie sees modern audiences compare and contrast with modern comic sensibilities, and suffers from that (thus, the “war” in the Superman fandom about which type of Superman is the best, often pitting a mix of nostalgia and consistency of the past against dynamism and depth from the present.)

[Zelena]

And that man of vision is . . . Arthur C. Clarke! Right? That's where you were going (I thought), I was was waiting for that mike drop!

I read the book before I saw the movie--so to me it's Clarke--a true visionary. The movie was a collaboration that needed to involve many minds to accomplish the new feats of movie making. It was a blockbuster for its time. Not by current standards, but back then it had broad appeal and hit many demographics. I grant you, because of its large budget (for the time) it didn't make its money back right away. But money isn't everything. It was huge in the pop culture and became a touchstone.

Actually, I was thinking about Stanley Kubrick. The scenario was co-written by him and Clarke but, where a novelist has just his blank page in front of him, to do his work, a film maker must make his/her movie with a lot of people and they all must get the idea of what is expected from them.

Starwars (the first!) was made in shambolic conditions and, still, it had a success… The idea of the movie matured during a long time in the head of Georges Lucas.

I value a bit more film directors than writers: they work under much more pressure. No wonder a lot of them are a bit crazy…

A little digression: 2001 reminds me a lot about the novel “Icehenge” by Kim Stanley Robinson… Something about menhirs too but the subject feels more about memory and manipulations. Space in movies seems to serve a lot as a mirror to humanity.

[Jim Kelly]

I get why people born after a certain year can see older movies as boring, because the pacing in older movies was different. And if you're not used to that style, it can seem plodding. Likewise with foreign movies which often have an even slower pace. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization. But our attention span has gotten shorter and we have less patience with just letting something play out over a longer period.

[babyblob]

I get why people born after a certain year can see older movies as boring, because the pacing in older movies was different. And if you're not used to that style, it can seem plodding. Likewise with foreign movies which often have an even slower pace. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization. But our attention span has gotten shorter and we have less patience with just letting something play out over a longer period.

I agree with you on that. Most people want the fast cars, and the fireball explosions every couple minutes.

I dont find most older movies boring. 12 Angry Men, key Largo, El Dorado my 3 favorite movies. I love the old serials from the 40s and 50s. Not just the super hero ones but Dick Tracy as Well. And there are a slew of older movies I love. Its just like with anything. Some good some bad from every generation.

I do love the double standards of some fans though. How they get annoyed when people say older movies are boring because we have to look at them from the time they were made but then refusing to use the standard of when movies were made to cancel movies because they are racist by todays standards.

Some movies are great, others are bad. It doesnt matter when they are made.

[achilles]

I miss first gen I-Pods. For that matter, the others as well. It just isn't anywhere near as easy to add and manage my stuff on my phone. I also miss the earlier versions of I Tunes. They just worked better back then. The last dedicated mp3 player I had that was great was an old Microsoft player of some sort; don't recall exactly, it was a while ago.

[The Darknight Detective]

I get why people born after a certain year can see older movies as boring, because the pacing in older movies was different. And if you're not used to that style, it can seem plodding. Likewise with foreign movies which often have an even slower pace. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization. But our attention span has gotten shorter and we have less patience with just letting something play out over a longer period.

Heh. I sometimes feel the newer movies and network TV shows (especially the latter, since there is double the commercial time than pre-1990) are too fast.

[CSTowle]

I get why people born after a certain year can see older movies as boring, because the pacing in older movies was different. And if you're not used to that style, it can seem plodding. Likewise with foreign movies which often have an even slower pace. Of course, this is a sweeping generalization. But our attention span has gotten shorter and we have less patience with just letting something play out over a longer period.

I feel the same way about comics, if it takes me more than 5 minutes to read one I'm shocked (outside of Knights of the Dinner Table). As to "2001", I'll say that while it was before my time I can still see the level of quality involved in shooting it. Especially when comparing it to other movies of its era. To think it was made before we'd landed on the moon is hard to wrap my head around, and I get why conspiracy theorists often say he was the one who faked the moon landing. It's a weird compliment for this movie.

Also the whole HAL AI before AI story was pretty great, even if yes the pacing wasn't like a Fast & Furious sequel. I loved the monotone protesting when Dave is walking with determination to fix the HAL problem. "No. Please. Stop. Just what do you think you are doing?" Not something I'll rewatch more than every 5-8 years or so, but definitely worth watching at least once.

[ed2962]

I agree with you on that. Most people want the fast cars, and the fireball explosions every couple minutes.

I dont find most older movies boring. 12 Angry Men, key Largo, El Dorado my 3 favorite movies. I love the old serials from the 40s and 50s. Not just the super hero ones but Dick Tracy as Well. And there are a slew of older movies I love. Its just like with anything. Some good some bad from every generation.

I do love the double standards of some fans though. How they get annoyed when people say older movies are boring because we have to look at them from the time they were made but then refusing to use the standard of when movies were made to cancel movies because they are racist by todays standards.

Some movies are great, others are bad. It doesnt matter when they are made.

I actually think a lot of modern popcorn movies are too long. Sometimes I find myself thinking, "They were able to explain Exciting Man's origin in 5 minutes on a cartoon from the 90's...Why does this live action thing have to be 2 and half hours long?"

[Kirby101]

Why does Bendis take 8 issues to tell an origin that Stan and Jack or Steve did in half an issue?

[Gray Lensman]

Why does Bendis take 8 issues to tell an origin that Stan and Jack or Steve did in half an issue?

This isn't a controversial opinion at all.

But my opinion as to why is that not only is Bendis the King of Decompression (saves on his store of ideas, I suppose, to stretch each one out to the max), but text in comics has dropped immensely. I almost never see thought bubbles anymore, and narrator text seems to be even more rare.

And you claim of 8 issues may actually be too low - by the end of his X-Men run I think he took 11 issues for what could have been a one-shot with The Eternal....I mean The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier. It was an event tie in that continued past the end of the following event, and ended with a magic reset button (meaning none of the events of the story actually happened).

[ed2962]

This isn't a controversial opinion at all.

But my opinion as to why is that not only is Bendis the King of Decompression (saves on his store of ideas, I suppose, to stretch each one out to the max), but text in comics has dropped immensely. I almost never see thought bubbles anymore, and narrator text seems to be even more rare.

And you claim of 8 issues may actually be too low - by the end of his X-Men run I think he took 11 issues for what could have been a one-shot with The Eternal....I mean The Last Will and Testament of Charles Xavier. It was an event tie in that continued past the end of the following event, and ended with a magic reset button (meaning none of the events of the story actually happened).

Bendis has used decompression well to explore things like character and mood ( Ult Spidey, DD, Powers), but there's also times where he's just riffing and wasting space. It's frustrating because he's talented and sometimes it's real obvious when he's just phoning it in.

[Gray Lensman]

Bendis has used decompression well to explore things like character and mood ( Ult Spidey, DD, Powers), but there's also times where he's just riffing and wasting space. It's frustrating because he's talented and sometimes it's real obvious when he's just phoning it in.

True, Battle of the Atom had one of the best opening issues I have ever read - only to fizzle out completely by the end. Of course, other stories made some of the stuff he was building towards impossible, making the phone in tendencies more likely to happen as time went on.