High Expectations Ruin Movie Watching?

[zoa]

I was reading the jumper thread and some of the responses led me to discuss the issue of high expectations in the film industry. Now I don't just mean high expectations as in thinking "oh man this movie is going to be amazing!", but more than that, comparing it to your favourite movie, setting the bar to high, wanting perfection...etc.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people go into movies and they look to receive a story that you would get out of a novel. Unfortunately there is no way for a movie to give you that type of story, no way to fit so many details into the film. I'm not saying no movie will every provide a fulfilling story, because there are movies that do a great job with that, I'm just saying the expectations are not realistic for an industry (Hollywood mainly) which is for the most part for money.

Have you seen 300 or I Am Legend? Ever think about where things came from? How the hell people got to places? It leaves you with no answers, and the more you think about things, the more you ignore the entertainment factor of the movie. I mean, I know some will try to say that it's the intelligent thing to do, but I would say the person who walks into the theatre without expectations is the smart one. You paid money to watch the movie in a theatre, why would you not want to get entertainment out of it? Do you really pay money to go analyze everything? Now, I know for some people it's just the way their mind processes things, and it becomes incredibly hard to ignore these problems in a movie, but I still think it's because of these high expectations.

Anyways, I don't want to put all of my thoughts in this one post, I rather have a good discussion with people, so I'll leave you with these questions: What do you think of this? Do you think high expectations in general are leading to lack of entertainment in movies? If not, why are so many people not enjoying movies? Is it because of Hollywood's money making ways? What do you think?

[Sisyphus]

I find that people's expectations are often driven by trailers and marketing hype. In the trailers, they are almost always subjected to hyper-active scenes that are an editors collection of the best 60 seconds the movie has to offer. Then the marketing machine pitches in hyping the story, actors, director, craft services, etc and get people more excited. Quite often you are left with expectations that cannot be met, mostly which is not fault of your own.

I am often most satisfied with movies I knew nothing about. Children of Men is my most recent. I am blown away at how amazing this movie is and yet I heard nary a peep about it prior to hitting DVD.

Blame the industry.

[Zinmasterb]

Originally Posted by Sisyphus

I am often most satisfied with movies I knew nothing about. Children of Men is my most recent. I am blown away at how amazing this movie is and yet I heard nary a peep about it prior to hitting DVD.

A-fucking-men. Children of Men was one of my favorite movies ever.
Anyways sure I can get my expectations all lofty due to intelligent advertising, but then again that's why I go to see the movie in the first place, because I thought it looked kickass.

[Showtime]

Originally Posted by Sisyphus

I am often most satisfied with movies I knew nothing about. Children of Men is my most recent. I am blown away at how amazing this movie is and yet I heard nary a peep about it prior to hitting DVD.

Blame the industry.

I watched it a few days it a few days ago when I looked it up I was absolutely amazed it won no oscars and did pretty pitful at box office yet it was SUCH a good movie =P 4 star film for sure highly recommend it

[zoa]

Originally Posted by Sisyphus

I find that people's expectations are often driven by trailers and marketing hype. In the trailers, they are almost always subjected to hyper-active scenes that are an editors collection of the best 60 seconds the movie has to offer. Then the marketing machine pitches in hyping the story, actors, director, craft services, etc and get people more excited. Quite often you are left with expectations that cannot be met, mostly which is not fault of your own.

I am often most satisfied with movies I knew nothing about. Children of Men is my most recent. I am blown away at how amazing this movie is and yet I heard nary a peep about it prior to hitting DVD.

Blame the industry.

Oh I definitely agree that the industry takes a lot of the blame, but as humans we can choose to take things with a grain of salt. We learn a lot from experience yet so many people completely ignore the lessons they get from high expectations. I mean, how many times have you seen a trailer and thought "holy shit, this is going to be amazing", then the movie is crap. It seems the only time people connect the dots with this is for those ridiculous comedies like Meet the Spartans, or Epic Movie.

I'm not saying that everyone who doesn't like a movie has themselves to blame, just that if you walk in having high expectations and the reason you don't like the movie is because of them, then yes, it's your own fault.

Interesting that you mentioned Children of Men, primarily because I had the exact opposite experience you had. When I saw it I had high expectations, the story behind it was amazing, such a great concept, I thought that it had so much potential that there's no way they could screw it up. When I watched the movie, I was disappointed, I actually didn't like Children of Men, I thought it was a mediocre movie. When I actually think back to watching it, it was entertaining, the action scenes, the dramatic scenes, the movie had a lot to offer, but I ignored it.

It's like this for me, have you ever seen the movie I Robot? That was a great movie, great acting, great concept, flowing story, I mean, I really enjoyed I Robot, even with high expectations. Now, awhile ago I watched Crank, the story was pretty bad, Jason Statham was alright in it, but he's done much better, the ending was stupid, I mean, the movie was not close to as well done as I Robot, yet I got the same entertainment factor out of the two movies because I never gave a crap about Crank, I just picked it off a list to watch.

Also, good point Zin, we do go see movies because they look great, but what if they did give you "great" entertainment if you kept your expectations in check?

[Lethos]

Originally Posted by zoa

I was reading the jumper thread and some of the responses led me to discuss the issue of high expectations in the film industry. Now I don't just mean high expectations as in thinking "oh man this movie is going to be amazing!", but more than that, comparing it to your favourite movie, setting the bar to high, wanting perfection...etc.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people go into movies and they look to receive a story that you would get out of a novel. Unfortunately there is no way for a movie to give you that type of story, no way to fit so many details into the film. I'm not saying no movie will every provide a fulfilling story, because there are movies that do a great job with that, I'm just saying the expectations are not realistic for an industry (Hollywood mainly) which is for the most part for money.

Have you seen 300 or I Am Legend? Ever think about where things came from? How the hell people got to places? It leaves you with no answers, and the more you think about things, the more you ignore the entertainment factor of the movie. I mean, I know some will try to say that it's the intelligent thing to do, but I would say the person who walks into the theatre without expectations is the smart one. You paid money to watch the movie in a theatre, why would you not want to get entertainment out of it? Do you really pay money to go analyze everything? Now, I know for some people it's just the way their mind processes things, and it becomes incredibly hard to ignore these problems in a movie, but I still think it's because of these high expectations.

Anyways, I don't want to put all of my thoughts in this one post, I rather have a good discussion with people, so I'll leave you with these questions: What do you think of this? Do you think high expectations in general are leading to lack of entertainment in movies? If not, why are so many people not enjoying movies? Is it because of Hollywood's money making ways? What do you think?

Great topic for discussion. I understand your position on "analyzing movies" rather than accept any entertainment value it may contain and can only speak about it personally. My family has on time accused me of analyzing a movie (or tv show) instead of enjoying it but I find this extremely difficult if:

1) The media has a predictable story/punchline. It drives my family nuts when I say whats going to happen next and it does even though its my first time watching, but if I can do this then how can it ever be entertaining?
2) Effects/plot/characters are so far removed from reality that the show becomes meaningless. eg) guy fires a bullet and it goes through 10 feet of concrete and kills 10 men. Guy falls 30 feet through the sunroof of his car and drives away (a la shoot em up)
3) Show wastes too much time on a love interest angle to meet the criteria to be marketable to a mixed audience. Killer wastes 100 men but softens up with the touch of a woman - give me a break. I thought Sin City was going to start like this and I almost stood up and cheered when he took her out in the first scene.

Personally I fee there should be a lot more scrutiny of shows. Call me a pessimist but 80% of the shows made these days are so bad they should be aired on FOX instead of being in movie theatres.

[Ishkar]

I would consider myself a film buff. I have 300+ DVDs, and have IMDB bookmarked. And I have always been critical of actors that have more fame than talent ie. Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, etc.

That being said I have thoroughly enjoyed many movies that a lot of people said we're crap. I-robot, I am legend, jumper, etc. I believe you that most people don't know how to enjoy movies anymore. When I go into a movie I forget everything I know about the comic/book/history and just enjoy the movie. Granted I still see the problems with acting and story flow, but I can avoid the "fanboi" tantrums.

Part of it they bring on themselves with the ads like Sisyphus was saying. They hype up mediocre to get more people to come see them. And lately people have started becoming wise to that and are skipping over-hyped movies see: Semi-Pro.

I have also noticed a dumbing down of movies lately like Lethos was saying. The plots are getting too predictable, and when something is not predictable marketing decides to show off the twist and gives it away. And far to often movies feel that they need to add a love interest. Why do they do this? I don't know but if you look at jumper, that movie would have been much better had they not added the girl.

In conclusion I would have to say that the problem with movies lately is that the writing is getting worse, advertisers are getting more obnoxious, and audiences are getting too anal.

[Nighteyes]

Originally Posted by Ishkar

In conclusion I would have to say that the problem with movies lately is that the writing is getting worse, advertisers are getting more obnoxious, and audiences are getting too anal.

I would have to agree with this, but want to add that one of the reasons audiences are "anal" is because they have inflated expectations from the previews which tend to show the best parts of the movies and so when the rest of the movie doesn't live up to that standard, they are let down and pissed off. Which isn't the fault of the typical movie go-er, but the fault of the people who put together the trailers.