The 82nd Academy Awards & STAR TREK

LOL. Lukewarm. Geez.

 

Not weird and not grad school; high school or college scales. Using a percentage scale makes it relate to something people are familiar with; otherwise they could have used stars, like usual. If it's weird, it's not my doing.

If the technical and artistic aspect of "Avatar" is unprecedented, then that part of it should be 100%. What's bringing it down into the 80th percentile must be the story. So the story must be weak to bring it down that far. It should rate in the 90's to not be considered lukewarm, IMO.

Edit: I just checked, and it's getting there. Eighty-nine percent at the moment.

The question is, why do people think 83% or 84% is not lukewarm for this movie?

 

I would love for Star Trek to win something like Best Picture. Watching the heads of the usual suspects explode when we add "Academy Award Winner" to critical, finacial and audience success would be priceless.

 

I don't think there's a single film from this decade with a wide range of critical reviews that has reached 100%. Nobody should expect 100% ever for a new release - there's always this one dissenting guy.

Yeah, that's exactly what is bringing it down. I've quoted from all three reviews at RT marked as negative when I wrote my earlier post, and the upshot is they had a problem with the story - but not with the visuals.

Of course, the impact here can be overstated. A significant majority of the critics so far are fine with the story, and some of the other critics who aren't do think there is a narrative drive and structure to this film that has its good points.

I wasn't expecting a critical reaction this positive, honestly, given the initial anti-hype the film got (the first trailer was aggressively panned on the internets, to the point I found myself initially completely baffled.) That's worthwhile keeping in mind - there was a lot of negative reaction and rumours that the film was a bloated disaster in the working. Whether or not the film's SFX were in doubt - and many alleged that to be the case - few would defend the idea the story was wonderfully original.

Now, nobody, positive reviews included, are calling it revolutionary as a story, but everybody so far, negative reviewers included, seem to think it achieves that as a SFX experience, so, yeah, SFX is a lock, and it also explains the rather sensible score for the film to whit.

Because lukewarm is in the 50-60% range I'd say. Even 70% is something I'd be calling positive. I had expected in the case of positive reviews for this to settle at 75%+. 80%+? We have a winner. My favourite film of the year was Moon, which got 89% in the end.

Edit: The Tomatometer is at 90% as of this time of writing. When I quoted the three negative reviews at the site, the balance was 18-3; the balance is now 26-3. Things seem to be turning out fairly okay for the new Cameron flick.

However, the Rotten Tomato community mark has slipped from 75% (when I first checked last night) to 73%, take that as you will.

 

This review is beyond gushing, obviously he really likes the movie. But if it really is as good as this review says it is. Avatar will win in certain categories.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2009/12/11/brandons-word-avatar-is-truly-indistinguishable-from-magic/

 

You won't find where I said that. I plainly said that part should be 100%; I was careful how I worded it.

My husband calls it "Dances With Wolves In Space." The trailer looked annoying, as far as the story goes. With the hype it's had, a percentile in the 80's would mean the story is quite bad. "Lukewarm" would be apt; we're planning on seeing it, so I hope it's better than that.

 

You see, that's a fundamental disconnect for me, right there. Sure, TPTB has been shilling the film very aggressively, but your husband hasn't been alone with that criticism (not even close.) Lots of people - apparently the majority of the internet - were annoyed by the first trailer, which is the bafflement I referred to - I felt like the only guy actually wowed by the thing. There were some concerns, as elucidated, that this film wouldn't be any good at all. Further, they were very unimpressed with the SFX - it was derided as if it were a videogame cutscene. The zeitgeist was sort of summed up by the Hitler video meme. Dances with Wolves, Ferngully, Smurfs, Thundercats, and World of Warcraft, rinse, repeat.

Simply put, it's not like people were sitting around awaiting the proverbial Second Coming and figured it didn't wash. One of the first cagey comments coming out from a reviewer I read is that the 'expected disaster did not materialise'; and a few of the reviewers refer to things that will rankle those set on pre-hating the film. So when the reviewers turn around and largely praising the movie, yeah, I do take notice. I may go to the movie and hate it anyway, but that doesn't negate the fact it got a four star review of Roger Ebert, does it?

No, 'the story is quite bad' would be 60%+ at most, (which hey, we may still get - let's see how this goes?) An interesting comment in the positive reviews is how impressed they are how the story works - that it's cliche-ridden is undeniable, but they're asserting that the character and love story elements and pacing, plotting (mostly) holds up, in spite of some flaws. Others find the flaws more noticeable - I.E. the negative reivews - even glaring, but even they seem to think highly of the SFX.

This may go with time or a wider release. Maybe in retrospect everyone will pan the story; to draw comparisons from a good ten years ago if Avatar isn't The Phantom Menace, maybe it's The Matrix, a film well liked at the time for raising the SFX bar and both commerically and critically popular, but who is scarcely spoken of positively anymore. Or Cameron's own Titanic; which rode its critical and commerical acclaim right into the Oscars and the annals of derision for its overblown event-heavy melodrama.

I really have no intent to set this movie pre-emptively as something special, but reporting on what I see, I can safely observe the reviews are good and the SFX supposedly are too.

 

This is a fundamental disconnect; the technical and artistic aspects of the movie are unprecedented. In order for it to get 60%, there would have to be no story at all.

 

That's what I thought too, but I really enjoyed "Dances with Wolves" so I am sure I will like this movie too.

 

The people who panned the movie so far gave the rave comments I provided earlier. Remember, panned. They agree the film is a significant technical achievement.

They just don't think it's a good movie. Fair enough. The other positive reviews I've read say it's a good movie, and they speak positively as to the film's narrative - not uncritically so, mind, not at all, but they do appear to be of the opinion the narrative works.

Also, Phantom Menace currently sits at 64%, and there's an eye-popping visual movie that had a story, just not a terribly good or well-designed one.

 

It looks to me like this is a matter of expectations. You expected it to do poorly, so the 80th percentile looked good to you. But it's lukewarm for a movie that started at 100%.

 

Started at 100 percent? What are you talking about? The Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic score after 1 review? The movie is scoring an 89 at Metacritic right now*. That's the highest score of a movie currently in wide release on the site (and second only to one movie in the much more praised selection of films in limited release).

*Based on six reviews.

There's no objective way to read that score as 'lukewarm' defined in any standard way. Reviewers aren't in the habit of praising films with excellent effects and a terrible story. Don't you remember how they responded to, say, the Star Wars prequels or Star Trek: Nemesis?

Now, was the movie very expensive? Yes. Perhaps the most expensive movie ever made (Hollywood will never release precise enough figures to make this determination). Certainly the advertising (which has been very widespread) must have cost a fortune. And certainly the visual effects are groundbreaking. But not one (nor all three) of those aspects will guarantee a good review. If you don't believe me, just look at the (very) negative reviews of 2001: A Space Odyssey** on Metacritic. They are few among many, but take note that all three praise the groundbreaking visual effects. And all three give bad scores anyway (60, 40, 10).

**Not to compare the two based on content. Lord, no.

 

One thing is for sure the Tech in Star Trek is much better

 

Because it's 91% now, and Titanic, one of the most successful movies of all time, and also a Cameron movie, got 82%?

 

And an Academy Award winner for Best Picture.

Avatar is at 91% (33 reviews), with 100% from Top Critics (only 6 reviews).

 

Yes, I said so hours ago, for those who just arrived. It's at 88% at rottentomatoes at the moment.

The argument was whether a score in the 80th percentile was lukewarm for this movie, and the answer is yes. The same for Titanic; it was not an unmitigated critical success.

A score below 70% for any movie would be a critical failure; it can make money and have fans, but it is a critical failure. I don't know why anyone would quote a movie with 65% as evidence. Lots of them are critical failures.

 

That was my point. The Phantom Menace is not a film with, as you said, 'no story', even if we elastically include that to mean a completely nonsensical one; it's just a poor story badly told - which also featured effects that were at the time deemed exceptional.

There are also films that were widely criticised with fans that mostly got a pass from critics, like Indiana Jones and Superman Returns. They sit in the 70% scale. (Not to say Avatar will not also be bashed and aggressively - indeed if the film is any kind of success I'm betting on it.) More controversial perhaps is the Revenge of the Sith score at 80%, and yeah, maybe Avatar is like that movie - we'll see.

If Avatar truly was a film most critics felt poorly told its story, they'd be going down more harshly on it. Taking the various critics out so far at their word, some positive reviews have cited problems with the story but these reviewers also all seem to like it overall. One of the negative reviewers I read also had some positive things to say about how narratively-driven the film is.

Simply put this is a very good write-up for this movie and it seems honestly patently absurd to characterise this as lukewarm. This is the sort of reaction you'd want very much for your blockbuster super-epic moneymaking machine. Roger Ebert seems convinced the film will make a mint, and well, we'll also see how that goes. I might seem ridiculous or gullible in a week (feel free to mock me then), but I'm mostly just trying to make sense of the information in a rather clean and logical fashion.

 

The lack of story in Phantom Menace is the reason it has a failing critical review; a "completely nonsensical one" is a lack of story.

If someone wants to make an argument how a rating in the 80th percentiles is as good as a rating in the 90th percentiles, then they should do so. Until they successfully do, the 80th percentiles are lukewarm.

 

LOL

 

Hardware? Ha! The Oscars are a complete joke.

They have absolutely no bearing on whether a film is good or not, and are just about fleeting popularity, and how much Hollywood loves itself.