Re: Fightin' words (was Re: MOVIE: "What Women Want")

From: Jason Joel Thompson (jasonjthompson@home.com)
Date: Tue Dec 19 2000 - 23:54:52 MST


----- Original Message -----
From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience@pobox.com>

> _Terminator 2_ is the eternal, living testament to the right way to make
> movies.

I have no doubt that others would agree. Sigh....

> T2 was a
> movie about the value of human life.

Get real.

> And that T2 was so vastly superior
> to T1

T2 was a far more commercial offering, that much is true. It did away with
the gritty atmosphere of the original, and bought itself some shiny effects
to replace it.

 demonstrates, once and for all, that sex and style and sudden
> violence are as nothing compared to the awesome power of story.

The *awesome* power of story? T2 is your evidence of the "awesome power of
story" (?!)

??!?!?!??

??!!

Your contention that this movie is *the* definitive work of both
story-telling and film-making (as opposed to being an entertaining
spectacle, and basically mind-numbing escapism) is VERY hard to take
seriously.

I'm not making near this big a claim for the merits of TESB. We -are- just
talking about the best sci-fi action movie, right?

In any case, you can't convince someone that they didn't like a particular
movie-- this is a pretty subjective area. We CAN discuss what goes into
good storytelling, what makes for good cinema... we CAN discuss the quality
of the art direction or mis en scene... we CAN discuss directorial decisions
and the relative merits of American vs. English acting methods or script
development, or plot construction, or issues of theme, pacing, editing, POV
vs OTS, etc, etc, and its a discussion to which I am not averse...

...however, this is probably not the best place to have it.

So, I'll just say-- uh...Eliezer, your taste is WRONG.

Buh-bye.

;)

--
   ::jason.joel.thompson::
   ::founder::
    www.wildghost.com


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