Two Alternative and Highly Informative Reviews of "Cowboys & Aliens"

[Red Fighter 1073]

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I remember seeing the trailer for the first time, seeing all of the high-profile actors, seeing an interesting premise (albeit a little ridiculous sure, but at least it's different), thinking that it might be worth seeing, and then just being completely turned off by the incredibly bland "Cowboys and Aliens!" title.

Ehh I was willing to overlook the terrible title and ridiculous premise to check out the movie, but I'm not so sure now...

[Nique]

Originally Posted by Lumen

Harrison Ford looks perpetually woken up from a nap

TBH this is pretty much Harrison Ford's MO for every role since 1999

[Nikose Tyris]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

The proper protocol then is to crouch such statements in subjective wording like "I found it was entertaining yada yada" instead of making blanket objective statements that fly in the face of the movie's objective suckiness, hth.

The proper protocol is to remember that your opinion =/= everyone's opinion and that you should also be crouching such statements in subjective wording instead of blanketly assuming that everyone feels the same as you do. Regardless of holding the popular opinion or not, hth.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

The proper protocol then is to crouch such statements in subjective wording like "I found it was entertaining yada yada" instead of making blanket objective statements that fly in the face of the movie's objective suckiness, hth.

Are you an entirely different different Lumenskir than the one that was posting here before? Because that old Lumenskir believed wholeheartedly in the objective reality of his opinions.

To whit, the rejection of the subjective reality of one Marc 1.0 for that former Lumenskir's version.

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

Except none of this is true.

Cause I just really don't know what to think when you're giving Marc the runaround for not putting enough 'I think' and I founds' in his post when you're right there at the end of yours openly calling it objectively terrible.

objective suckiness

objective

suckiness

SUCKINESS AIN'T EVEN A GOSH DARNED WORD.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

WHy is it in every movie thread it descends into "Well I like it so there- this invalidates all your criticism and now I'm going to mock you for your criticism despite raising no points besides I liked it".

While everyone can like different movies and no one can take away from you the movies you like it is possible to list bad and good points about a movie even to get some measure of its quality on a general level, it is possible to analyse why you liked it and why you didn't and to present these points to others to help them decide whether they would like it too/to discuss what they liked didn't like about it. Just going on the attac of "Well I liked it so shut up" is not helpful and just shuts down debate and it happens in pretty much every thread.

[PCD]

I did come out of the movie enjoying it, but it really wasn't anything special. It didn't feel like it gave anything more than it promised: Cowboys and Aliens. And I think it did do just that, cowboys and aliens, well. The cowboys were cool. The aliens were... alieny. but It wasn't a fantastic movie. It had a couple plot holes here and there, but they didn't really bother me all THAT much...

The thing that really drove me insane was whatserface, Olivia somethingorother? The girl. When the fuck will the industry learn not to shoehorn in love interests into action movies? No one gives a shit, guys, cut that the fuck out. And seriously, making her a surviving alien from a previous race added absolutely NOTHING at all to the movie. If anything, it just made me more annoyed, for a wide variety of reasons.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

WHy is it in every movie thread it descends into "Well I like it so there- this invalidates all your criticism and now I'm going to mock you for your criticism despite raising no points besides I liked it".

While everyone can like different movies and no one can take away from you the movies you like it is possible to list bad and good points about a movie even to get some measure of its quality on a general level, it is possible to analyse why you liked it and why you didn't and to present these points to others to help them decide whether they would like it too/to discuss what they liked didn't like about it. Just going on the attac of "Well I liked it so shut up" is not helpful and just shuts down debate and it happens in pretty much every thread.

Except, what happened was:
"I didn't like it"
"I liked it"
"That isn't true"
"Uhm, Yes it is, I liked it"
"Well, you are still wrong because I didn't like it"


As for WHY? Because it entertained me. I enjoyed the action, enjoyed the story and the settings. I didn't find Craig's acting to be 'bored', he was playing a cool-headed outlaw of few words that carried himself like he wasn't afraid of or interested in petty, noisy thugs. Actually, none of them seemed to be phoning anything in, their characters just weren't super-rich fonts of award-winning material, but not every character and every movie has to be all the time.

making her a surviving alien from a previous race added absolutely NOTHING at all to the movie.

That sorta bugged me for a brief moment, but it was more of a "That was a little weird..but ok"

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

WHy is it in every movie thread it descends into "Well I like it so there- this invalidates all your criticism and now I'm going to mock you for your criticism despite raising no points besides I liked it".

While everyone can like different movies and no one can take away from you the movies you like it is possible to list bad and good points about a movie even to get some measure of its quality on a general level, it is possible to analyse why you liked it and why you didn't and to present these points to others to help them decide whether they would like it too/to discuss what they liked didn't like about it. Just going on the attac of "Well I liked it so shut up" is not helpful and just shuts down debate and it happens in pretty much every thread.

What else could happen when you're talking about subjective viewpoints?

"Oh wow you're so right the scene transitioning was bad! I guess my enjoyment was fake!"

[Lumenskir]

It had a couple plot holes here and there, but they didn't really bother me all THAT much...

I think the movie's greatest flaw, beyond the languid pace and characters that can't fill in the non-action blanks, was the fact that because it was written, re-written, and co-written by approximately more people than there are molecules in the universe there are filmic equivalents of those areas in games where the developers had to dummy out a section but left in all of the dialog references, and then gave us plenty of time to stew with all of the unanswered questions.

Like, the upside down steam boat. Sure, as a one time visual it looks cool, but it has absolutely no point or reason to be in the movie (it's function as a place to stay the night could have easily been done by a ghost town or something). But, since one writer thought it looked cool and no one at any point seemed to edit anything away, we have an upside down ship that just raises way too many questions*: We only see the aliens using those single person jalopies, so are we supposed to assume they got like thirty of them to lasso the ship and drag it inward? And why? For the miniscule amount of gold on board relative to the mine? For more captives? If it was for captives, why not stop capturing more people there since they would have gotten, conservatively, 100-200 people? And why the fuck do they need to capture people anyway? To 'study' us in the event that they want to invade? I don't want to besmirch my own people, but it's pretty obvious that we die instantly if you shoot us with the hand cannon every one of them wears, right?

And so on and so on. There just seems to be way too many unfollowed idea threads that just end up being distracting.

*To be honest, I am perfectly fine with questions or ideas that don't get raised, but I usually prefer them to come in the middle of a movie that's moving along so fast I can't keep track/don't care because there are more interesting things happening to take my mind off the questions.

And seriously, making her a surviving alien from a previous race added absolutely NOTHING at all to the movie. If anything, it just made me more annoyed, for a wide variety of reasons.

I think they wanted her to be the exposition fairy, but failed to realize that everything she could offer would have been better done by just having Daniel Craig remember everything earlier.

Although I guess her being an alien was the only way we could find out the invaders had bad eyesight in the daylight...except for the final fight where they fought in broad daylight and had absolutely no problem seeing everything. So yeah, she added nothing.

Except, what happened was:
"I didn't like it"
"I liked it"
"That isn't true"
"Uhm, Yes it is, I liked it"
"Well, you are still wrong because I didn't like it"

Nah. I gave two alternative and highly informative reviews. You said the movie was entertaining (not that you 'liked it' or thought it was entertaining). I said the movie was not entertaining, and provided examples and explanations. You then changed it to saying that you were subjectively entertained, and I said that it was objectively sucky.

SUCKINESS AIN'T EVEN A GOSH DARNED WORD.

Ok, I'll fall on this sword. The movie was instead objectively atrocious, in that it had aspects of an objective atrocity. Like, Pol Pot taking a dump on the Baby Jesus's eyes level of atrocity.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Originally Posted by Lumenskir

Nah. I gave two alternative and highly informative reviews. You said the movie was entertaining (not that you 'liked it' or thought it was entertaining). I said the movie was not entertaining, and provided examples and explanations. You then changed it to saying that you were subjectively entertained, and I said that it was objectively sucky.

From my perspective the thing is you're pouncing on Marc's post when it could just be a case of neglecting to properly format with "I thought"s "I think" and "I found"s and if you just read between the lines and act as though it's a subjective viewpoint it still makes perfect sense, and it makes sense to do that anyway because we're talking about a totally subjective thing. But you're out and out being objective with the subjective like its nobodies business even as you criticize him for it.

Ok, I'll fall on this sword. The movie was instead objectively atrocious, in that it had aspects of an objective atrocity. Like, Pol Pot taking a dump on the Baby Jesus's eyes level of atrocity.

No. It isn't and it didn't.
It had qualities you subjectively didn't like, but there's no objectivity in that. Nor anymore validity in your viewpoint than his.


Edit: This is all the more hilarious because you didn't put any "I think" "I thought" or "I believe"s in your first post either. Taken literally your first post makes the statement that you can scientifically prove that the movie is only a third as entertaining as an image of a cowboy and a flying saucer and that the temperature must be 108 degrees Fahrenheit for it to be worth watching.

Edit2: I've begun work on a formula to objectively prove Monty Python's Life of Brian is the best Monty Python movie. Progress is slow.