6 ms·

What can you say about a film reviewer that gives Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3.5 out of 4 stars? Useless. I don't get all this praise I'm reading

by KevinMS 14y ago

What can you say about a film reviewer that gives Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3.5 out of 4 stars? Useless. I don't get all this praise I'm reading here. Despite being witty, a national treasure, and whatever, he had one core job to do, and he was terrible at it.

tiredofcareer 14y ago
> What can you say about a film reviewer that gives Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3.5 out of 4 stars? That he enjoyed it and you didn't? Some people really love that film, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't. You should be just as willing to accept that others do. Your comment sucks.
- KevinMS 14y ago
  > That he enjoyed it and you didn't? This is what a film reviewer does? He liked it watching it, so it gets a high score? How about whether the readers of his review would like it? > Your comment sucks. This is HN, not reddit.
  - tiredofcareer 14y ago
    Yes, a film reviewer establishes the merit of a film based on his own subjective opinion (though he did review relatively, taking the movie's intended audience into account). What, do you think review isn't subjective? He enjoyed the film and found it deserving of merit, in his opinion. His biases showed on rare occasion, but on the whole his opinion was a fairly trustworthy bellwether. Your continued thwapping on his score of the film that you oh-so-despise betrays your obvious fault in that you only cared about his reviews when they weren't to your liking, because anybody who's read Ebert for any length of time knows that he hated the scoring and added it against his will. All of his scores must be taken in the context of the review, and he always said (nay, demanded) as much. In the context of the review, you know, the words he wrote describing his experience, we find this: [...] the characters in "The Phantom Menace" inhabit a plot that is little more complex than the stories I grew up on in science-fiction magazines. The whole series sometimes feel like a cover from Thrilling Wonder Stories, come to life. The dialogue is pretty flat and straightforward, although seasoned with a little quasi-classical formality, as if the characters had read but not retained "Julius Caesar." I wish the "Star Wars" characters spoke with more elegance and wit (as Gore Vidal's Greeks and Romans do), but dialogue isn't the point, anyway: These movies are about new things to look at. It's almost as if he understands the film's flaws or something! It's a completely different perspective when you consume his opinion as it's meant to be consumed. He spoke out very strongly, all his life, against people like you who walked away with the score as a conclusion (for good reason, obviously). I originally said all that and replaced it with "Your comment sucks.", because I knew you'd fight with me on this, even though it's entirely pointless. I am aware this is Hacker News, but thank you for the patronizing reminder. Your comment still sucks. Your followup sucks, too, particularly the "go back to Reddit" tone (the irony of a person describing Roger Ebert as "useless" on Hacker News, then pulling the Hacker News card to criticize my comment is not lost on me).
  - asveikau 14y ago
    Here I was thinking "your comment sucks" was a clever play on Ebert's "your movie sucks". It's funny some of the vitriol around here, on a discussion of an obituary. Can't some guy die in peace? (Aside, or back to the original topic, depending on perspective: In the last decade or so I'd been really impressed by some of Ebert's writing, post-cancer. It showed a lot of depth that you didn't get from the TV movie critic persona that he had in the 90s.)
    - tiredofcareer 14y ago
      > was a clever play on Ebert's "your movie sucks". It was, which fed my point when he missed it. I'm with you. That we're even having this discussion on Roger Ebert's obit just makes me hate people.
bcgraham 14y ago
Ebert rated movies by how well they succeeded at what was trying to be accomplished - by that measure, isn't his rating accurate? That movie did almost everything its makers were trying to accomplish.
- KevinMS 14y ago
  > That movie did almost everything its makers were trying to accomplish. No, its widely regarded as a disaster of a movie. See this review, which I believe Ebert said that he enjoyed watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI
xentronium 14y ago
I don't understand all the hate on the episode one. Except for Jar Jar Binks, the movie was quite entertaining, actually.
- acuozzo 14y ago
  http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/ http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episo...
sage_joch 14y ago
He was an incredible writer. Any critic who reviews as many movies as he did will get the occasional one wrong (see his rating for Fight Club for another example). As an aside, I recommend his review of The Wizard of Oz. I never really understood why the movie was considered great until I read that.
gensym 14y ago
One of the many reasons I value Ebert is that when I read his reviews, I can tell if a movie will be worth my time, regardless of his assessment of the film. I love some films he hated and I hate some films he loved, but I've never felt like a single review has led me to waste my time on a bad film, even though he personally enjoyed many bad films. The trick is to actually read his writing and ignore the stars. The stars are secondary, and he says as much - he only attaches them to reviews because the customers demand them. See, here's the thing: Ebert was great as a writer, not as a movie star-giving guy.

by KevinMS 14y ago

tiredofcareer 14y ago

> What can you say about a film reviewer that gives Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3.5 out of 4 stars? That he enjoyed it and you didn't? Some people really love that film, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that you don't. You should be just as willing to accept that others do. Your comment sucks.

KevinMS 14y ago
> That he enjoyed it and you didn't? This is what a film reviewer does? He liked it watching it, so it gets a high score? How about whether the readers of his review would like it? > Your comment sucks. This is HN, not reddit.
- tiredofcareer 14y ago
  Yes, a film reviewer establishes the merit of a film based on his own subjective opinion (though he did review relatively, taking the movie's intended audience into account). What, do you think review isn't subjective? He enjoyed the film and found it deserving of merit, in his opinion. His biases showed on rare occasion, but on the whole his opinion was a fairly trustworthy bellwether. Your continued thwapping on his score of the film that you oh-so-despise betrays your obvious fault in that you only cared about his reviews when they weren't to your liking, because anybody who's read Ebert for any length of time knows that he hated the scoring and added it against his will. All of his scores must be taken in the context of the review, and he always said (nay, demanded) as much. In the context of the review, you know, the words he wrote describing his experience, we find this: [...] the characters in "The Phantom Menace" inhabit a plot that is little more complex than the stories I grew up on in science-fiction magazines. The whole series sometimes feel like a cover from Thrilling Wonder Stories, come to life. The dialogue is pretty flat and straightforward, although seasoned with a little quasi-classical formality, as if the characters had read but not retained "Julius Caesar." I wish the "Star Wars" characters spoke with more elegance and wit (as Gore Vidal's Greeks and Romans do), but dialogue isn't the point, anyway: These movies are about new things to look at. It's almost as if he understands the film's flaws or something! It's a completely different perspective when you consume his opinion as it's meant to be consumed. He spoke out very strongly, all his life, against people like you who walked away with the score as a conclusion (for good reason, obviously). I originally said all that and replaced it with "Your comment sucks.", because I knew you'd fight with me on this, even though it's entirely pointless. I am aware this is Hacker News, but thank you for the patronizing reminder. Your comment still sucks. Your followup sucks, too, particularly the "go back to Reddit" tone (the irony of a person describing Roger Ebert as "useless" on Hacker News, then pulling the Hacker News card to criticize my comment is not lost on me).
- asveikau 14y ago
  Here I was thinking "your comment sucks" was a clever play on Ebert's "your movie sucks". It's funny some of the vitriol around here, on a discussion of an obituary. Can't some guy die in peace? (Aside, or back to the original topic, depending on perspective: In the last decade or so I'd been really impressed by some of Ebert's writing, post-cancer. It showed a lot of depth that you didn't get from the TV movie critic persona that he had in the 90s.)
  - tiredofcareer 14y ago
    > was a clever play on Ebert's "your movie sucks". It was, which fed my point when he missed it. I'm with you. That we're even having this discussion on Roger Ebert's obit just makes me hate people.

bcgraham 14y ago

Ebert rated movies by how well they succeeded at what was trying to be accomplished - by that measure, isn't his rating accurate? That movie did almost everything its makers were trying to accomplish.

KevinMS 14y ago
> That movie did almost everything its makers were trying to accomplish. No, its widely regarded as a disaster of a movie. See this review, which I believe Ebert said that he enjoyed watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKtZmQgxrI

xentronium 14y ago

I don't understand all the hate on the episode one. Except for Jar Jar Binks, the movie was quite entertaining, actually.

acuozzo 14y ago
http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/ http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episo...

sage_joch 14y ago

He was an incredible writer. Any critic who reviews as many movies as he did will get the occasional one wrong (see his rating for Fight Club for another example). As an aside, I recommend his review of The Wizard of Oz. I never really understood why the movie was considered great until I read that.

gensym 14y ago

One of the many reasons I value Ebert is that when I read his reviews, I can tell if a movie will be worth my time, regardless of his assessment of the film. I love some films he hated and I hate some films he loved, but I've never felt like a single review has led me to waste my time on a bad film, even though he personally enjoyed many bad films. The trick is to actually read his writing and ignore the stars. The stars are secondary, and he says as much - he only attaches them to reviews because the customers demand them. See, here's the thing: Ebert was great as a writer, not as a movie star-giving guy.