[GWE] A few personal truths...

[Loss]

When I start thinking about ranking wrestlers, I come up with a few truths that apply to the way I watch wrestling, and whether it's these or a different set of truths, I'd be interested in hearing both responses to mine and what yours may be.

 

(1) Flaws are only flaws if they have consequences.

If a wrestler missing a spot or being too giving or not selling long enough or any other claim we make has a detrimental impact on the overall quality of what I think of the match I've just watched when it's all over, then yes, that matters. If it's something that you could say "Well, good wrestling has this thing, and this thing was poorly executed here, so while I enjoyed the match a lot, that flaw was there", then that doesn't really matter to me. I think of wrestling as a build to a feeling at the end. If when I watch something, I think "that was great" when it's all over, then it was great. There is value in working backwards to figure out why it was great or how it could have been better, of course. But it's that gut feeling when the match is over that is the deciding factor for me. A review is an attempt to capture what led to that gut feeling.

 

(2) There is no objective criteria for what makes a wrestler or match great.

I've seen matches with great work on a technical level (meaning they did everything that on paper you'd hope they would do) be disappointing. I've seen matches where the work is full of flaws that I'd still call great. It's a hard thing to pinpoint, but I suppose it again goes to that feeling you have when it's all over being the best indicator. As far as wrestlers themselves, this was my hangup with BIGLAV but really, with any attempt to come up with a list of qualities that define greatness. I remember Lance Storm saying during the infamous DVDVR debate in 2000 that he has no problem with fans ranking matches because they're ranking the finished product. But he has a real problem with ranking wrestlers because you don't know how good or bad they are and how much they are contributing specifically as a spectator. And I don't entirely agree with that, but I think I'm closer to that than the opposite. I usually don't know who is calling spots, or who contributed the most ideas to the match layout. I don't know when I see a wrestler do something impressive if he's doing it on his own accord or if he's doing it because the other wrestler signaled to him that's what he should do. I don't expect this to be a popular take and I do understand the counter-argument, but this is why my list will for the most part just be a list of guys who I think had the most good matches over the longest period of time in the most settings. I disagree with Storm in the sense that if you watch enough of what a wrestler does, it's clear what they're contributing. But I do agree with him that I'm more interested in ranking the meals than ranking the chefs. That part isn't really news to anyone who has hammered that topic out with me before, but it's something I've been wanting to flesh out more for a while. I think it's only fair that we give wrestlers latitude in how they accomplish greatness, instead of taking an approach where we decide that greatness has to be achieved in a specific way by meeting a checklist of qualities.

 

(3) Crowd reaction matters a lot.

The whole idea behind working matches is to get them over with their audience. A match that can't do that has failed to accomplish its most basic goal. That doesn't mean a match that has a hot crowd is always great, or a match that has a dull crowd is always bad. Nor does it mean that the workers with the biggest crowd reactions are the best. This is the one area where I do think taking more of a micro approach has value to me. Hogan's matches were heated as hell, but Hogan could have done anything and they would have been heated. Crowds were already predisposed to react, so the ring work could be less than good and it wouldn't matter. The same is of course true with other guys that we think of as great like Flair or Bret or Austin -- crowds are predisposed to care and react in the desired way, and often will even if the work isn't up to par. Seeing an undercard match with little build or where the heat starts off as nothing special build to something really heated is a good way to see what a wrestler can do to connect with an audience. In the ideal situation, you have both factors at play -- predisposal and manipulation taking place in the in-ring action to create the biggest possible crowd responses. Matches that have the manipulation without the predisposal are great, but most great wrestlers have some predisposal working in their favor. Matches that have the predisposal without the manipulation are nothing special. Matches that have both predisposal and manipulation working in their favor are usually the classics.

[JerryvonKramer]

Sidenote:

 

Seeing an undercard match with little build or where the heat starts off as nothing special build to something really heated is a good way to see what a wrestler can do to connect with an audience.

For those that haven't been watching along on the Mystery Theatre stuff, Kelly and I watched an awesome opener between Rene Goulet and B. Brain Blair that knocked our socks off, turned out to be a great match coming in with zero expectation and zero heat. Would be a perfect example of this. Would recommend seeking that out. May 84 Cap Centre card.

[Loss]

I'll check it out!

[WingedEagle]

When I start thinking about ranking wrestlers, I come up with a few truths that apply to the way I watch wrestling, and whether it's these or a different set of truths, I'd be interested in hearing both responses to mine and what yours may be.

 

(1) Flaws are only flaws if they have consequences.

If a wrestler missing a spot or being too giving or not selling long enough or any other claim we make has a detrimental impact on the overall quality of what I think of the match I've just watched when it's all over, then yes, that matters. If it's something that you could say "Well, good wrestling has this thing, and this thing was poorly executed here, so while I enjoyed the match a lot, that flaw was there", then that doesn't really matter to me. I think of wrestling as a build to a feeling at the end. If when I watch something, I think "that was great" when it's all over, then it was great. There is value in working backwards to figure out why it was great or how it could have been better, of course. But it's that gut feeling when the match is over that is the deciding factor for me. A review is an attempt to capture what led to that gut feeling.

 

Curious if perhaps we're not exactly overrating these flaws but rather discussing them too much? Yesterday I watched Will Ospreay vs. Marty Scurll from last weekend's RPW show. Talking about it with a friend afterwards and right after saying it was amazing, the next things I brought up were (1) the general lack of selling throughout the match as they'd routinely move from spot to spot, (2) the limb work that really went nowhere yet was a part of the finish, and (3) how if they were to just slow it down and put a bit more emphasis on selling so as to tell more of a story it could've been a real classic.

 

After all of that I still thought Ospreay/Scurll was a ****1/2, amazing match. It just so happens that its "flaws" were some things I generally look for in a match and part of many of my favorite matches. Which makes their absence here standout and perhaps receive undue attention when thinking about or discussing the match. But the fact remains the spots were so incredible, were woven into the match so seamlessly and at such a pace with such smooth execution that they had me slapping the couch and enthralled the entire time. Its sometimes certainly easier to get caught up in what doesn't work when those are front-page talking points and may distort the fact that they may have had zero impact on the match whatsoever.

[supremebve]

(2) There is no objective criteria for what makes a wrestler or match great.

I've seen matches with great work on a technical level (meaning they did everything that on paper you'd hope they would do) be disappointing. I've seen matches where the work is full of flaws that I'd still call great. It's a hard thing to pinpoint, but I suppose it again goes to that feeling you have when it's all over being the best indicator. As far as wrestlers themselves, this was my hangup with BIGLAV but really, with any attempt to come up with a list of qualities that define greatness. I remember Lance Storm saying during the infamous DVDVR debate in 2000 that he has no problem with fans ranking matches because they're ranking the finished product. But he has a real problem with ranking wrestlers because you don't know how good or bad they are and how much they are contributing specifically as a spectator. And I don't entirely agree with that, but I think I'm closer to that than the opposite. I usually don't know who is calling spots, or who contributed the most ideas to the match layout. I don't know when I see a wrestler do something impressive if he's doing it on his own accord or if he's doing it because the other wrestler signaled to him that's what he should do. I don't expect this to be a popular take and I do understand the counter-argument, but this is why my list will for the most part just be a list of guys who I think had the most good matches over the longest period of time in the most settings. I disagree with Storm in the sense that if you watch enough of what a wrestler does, it's clear what they're contributing. But I do agree with him that I'm more interested in ranking the meals than ranking the chefs. That part isn't really news to anyone who has hammered that topic out with me before, but it's something I've been wanting to flesh out more for a while. I think it's only fair that we give wrestlers latitude in how they accomplish greatness, instead of taking an approach where we decide that greatness has to be achieved in a specific way by meeting a checklist of qualities.

 

I'd take this one step further. I took a criticism class in college and the thing I learned is that you can only judge things on what they are, not what you want them to be. We had to watch the movie "Invincible" which is the true story of a regular ass dude who tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles and somehow made the team. It was an overwhelmingly average movie, but that isn't what bothered me. I wrote my entire paper on how the movie portrayed the well known, to me at least, characters in the movie who clearly had nothing to do with the real people. I got my paper back and the professor basically told me to rewrite it, because whatever I wanted the movie to be is irrelevant to what the movie actually was. I try to bring that to any criticism I do for anything. Unless someone specifically asks me what I want to see, hear, feel, smell, or whatever I try to remove what I want from my criticism of it. If Cactus Jack and Vader put on a grappling exhibition full of chain wrestling and subtle limb selling, I'm going to judge it based on that. I'd find it ridiculous for them to do that, but I can only judge them on what they actually did not what I wanted them to do. Whether or not a match is successful should be based on whether or not Vader and Cactus Jack were able to put on a great match based on chain wrestling, not the fact that I'd rather see them brawl. I think 95% of my arguments about wrestlers and matches is based on people wishing a wrestler or a match was something else. What we want is irrelevant to what actually happens in a match, so judge what actually happens. If what they do doesn't work in the structure of the match go ahead and say it, but don't ask, "why didn't they work the match I wanted?"

[Dylan Waco]

I think this is a great thread and thank Loss for it and I say that as someone who strongly disagrees with some of the things he wrote in his post.

 

Since he brought it up, I will note that I'm on the opposite end of him and find matches infinitely more difficult to rank than wrestlers, and nearly impossible to due so by any objective criteria or standard.

 

This year I did a top 50 Southern indie matches for the Cubed Circle Newsletter Yearbook, and also a top 10 MOTY ballot for Voices of Wrestling. The first was my idea, the second of course is something I've done for the last few years.

 

With the top 50 I felt compelled to include several matches that weren't necessarily great, but they were on a big show and meant something big to a promotion in a storyline sense. While one could argue that this is central to wrestling, in the case of at least two matches on the list a lot of what made the match had little to do with the performance of the people wrestling. But the matches were solid enough, and so significant to the promotions, that I couldn't imagine leaving them off. In some ways this is analogous to the Hogan effect Loss talked about above but with matches I feel like I need to give those bouts some sort of representation over say an extremely well worked opening tag that had no impact on anything. I would not feel that way at all if I was judging workers.

 

With the top 10 for VOW I ended up going with the matches that I thought were most memorable and defined the year the most to me. This meant a list that was almost entirely Southern indies and NXT women. But when I look back can I really say that I think AJ Styles v. Jimmy Rave or Slim J v. Fred Yehi was definitely better than something like Satomura v. Hojo or The Briscoes v. The Kingdom which both just missed the cut? God no. I have zero confidence in saying that, but I do have a lot of confidence in saying that I think Styles and Rave had better years than Jay Briscoes and Meiko Satomura, in large part because I have a much wider body of experience and evidence to draw from.

 

One other thing that I will note is that as I have gone through this process one thing that has become clear to me is that I really value consistency. Early on the mantra of some was "if you can be great when you want to be then you are great" and I never bought that. At least not for he purposes of doing a ranking like this. To me a lot of the "peak v longevity" debate obscures he fact that what some of us really look for is a guy who we can count on to have an engaging performance every time out. This doesn't mean 100 fun performances are better than 5 other worldly ones, but if you are prone to laziness, phoning it in, or falling flat, I'm less likely to rate you (or rate you highly) no matter how strong your best work is.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

(2) There is no objective criteria for what makes a wrestler or match great.

I've seen matches with great work on a technical level (meaning they did everything that on paper you'd hope they would do) be disappointing. I've seen matches where the work is full of flaws that I'd still call great. It's a hard thing to pinpoint, but I suppose it again goes to that feeling you have when it's all over being the best indicator. As far as wrestlers themselves, this was my hangup with BIGLAV but really, with any attempt to come up with a list of qualities that define greatness. I remember Lance Storm saying during the infamous DVDVR debate in 2000 that he has no problem with fans ranking matches because they're ranking the finished product. But he has a real problem with ranking wrestlers because you don't know how good or bad they are and how much they are contributing specifically as a spectator. And I don't entirely agree with that, but I think I'm closer to that than the opposite. I usually don't know who is calling spots, or who contributed the most ideas to the match layout. I don't know when I see a wrestler do something impressive if he's doing it on his own accord or if he's doing it because the other wrestler signaled to him that's what he should do. I don't expect this to be a popular take and I do understand the counter-argument, but this is why my list will for the most part just be a list of guys who I think had the most good matches over the longest period of time in the most settings. I disagree with Storm in the sense that if you watch enough of what a wrestler does, it's clear what they're contributing. But I do agree with him that I'm more interested in ranking the meals than ranking the chefs. That part isn't really news to anyone who has hammered that topic out with me before, but it's something I've been wanting to flesh out more for a while. I think it's only fair that we give wrestlers latitude in how they accomplish greatness, instead of taking an approach where we decide that greatness has to be achieved in a specific way by meeting a checklist of qualities.

 

I'd take this one step further. I took a criticism class in college and the thing I learned is that you can only judge things on what they are, not what you want them to be. We had to watch the movie "Invincible" which is the true story of a regular ass dude who tried out for the Philadelphia Eagles and somehow made the team. It was an overwhelmingly average movie, but that isn't what bothered me. I wrote my entire paper on how the movie portrayed the well known, to me at least, characters in the movie who clearly had nothing to do with the real people. I got my paper back and the professor basically told me to rewrite it, because whatever I wanted the movie to be is irrelevant to what the movie actually was. I try to bring that to any criticism I do for anything. Unless someone specifically asks me what I want to see, hear, feel, smell, or whatever I try to remove what I want from my criticism of it. If Cactus Jack and Vader put on a grappling exhibition full of chain wrestling and subtle limb selling, I'm going to judge it based on that. I'd find it ridiculous for them to do that, but I can only judge them on what they actually did not what I wanted them to do. Whether or not a match is successful should be based on whether or not Vader and Cactus Jack were able to put on a great match based on chain wrestling, not the fact that I'd rather see them brawl. I think 95% of my arguments about wrestlers and matches is based on people wishing a wrestler or a match was something else. What we want is irrelevant to what actually happens in a match, so judge what actually happens. If what they do doesn't work in the structure of the match go ahead and say it, but don't ask, "why didn't they work the match I wanted?"

Not sure I can go along with this.

 

I agree that you have to judge something on its own terms, but I'm not sure that I agree that it can be the only criteria when making a value judgement.

 

Transformers succeeds on its own terms. I don't like the terms.

 

See also: TNA circa 2005.

 

There has to be scope in criticism for decrying movements or directions in art that you don't want to see (or conversely those you do). I reckon your old prof would agree with me too.

[JerryvonKramer]

To elaborate on that, since true objectivity is impossible, the critic has to have values, he or she has to stand for something. And whatever that is becomes the benchmark of their criticism. This is true of virtually every great critic I can think of.

 

This thread springs to mind as relevant reading: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32173-beginners-guide-to-analyzing-wrestling/

[WingedEagle]

When I start thinking about ranking wrestlers, I come up with a few truths that apply to the way I watch wrestling, and whether it's these or a different set of truths, I'd be interested in hearing both responses to mine and what yours may be.

 

(1) Flaws are only flaws if they have consequences.

If a wrestler missing a spot or being too giving or not selling long enough or any other claim we make has a detrimental impact on the overall quality of what I think of the match I've just watched when it's all over, then yes, that matters. If it's something that you could say "Well, good wrestling has this thing, and this thing was poorly executed here, so while I enjoyed the match a lot, that flaw was there", then that doesn't really matter to me. I think of wrestling as a build to a feeling at the end. If when I watch something, I think "that was great" when it's all over, then it was great. There is value in working backwards to figure out why it was great or how it could have been better, of course. But it's that gut feeling when the match is over that is the deciding factor for me. A review is an attempt to capture what led to that gut feeling.

 

(2) There is no objective criteria for what makes a wrestler or match great.

I've seen matches with great work on a technical level (meaning they did everything that on paper you'd hope they would do) be disappointing. I've seen matches where the work is full of flaws that I'd still call great. It's a hard thing to pinpoint, but I suppose it again goes to that feeling you have when it's all over being the best indicator. As far as wrestlers themselves, this was my hangup with BIGLAV but really, with any attempt to come up with a list of qualities that define greatness. I remember Lance Storm saying during the infamous DVDVR debate in 2000 that he has no problem with fans ranking matches because they're ranking the finished product. But he has a real problem with ranking wrestlers because you don't know how good or bad they are and how much they are contributing specifically as a spectator. And I don't entirely agree with that, but I think I'm closer to that than the opposite. I usually don't know who is calling spots, or who contributed the most ideas to the match layout. I don't know when I see a wrestler do something impressive if he's doing it on his own accord or if he's doing it because the other wrestler signaled to him that's what he should do. I don't expect this to be a popular take and I do understand the counter-argument, but this is why my list will for the most part just be a list of guys who I think had the most good matches over the longest period of time in the most settings. I disagree with Storm in the sense that if you watch enough of what a wrestler does, it's clear what they're contributing. But I do agree with him that I'm more interested in ranking the meals than ranking the chefs. That part isn't really news to anyone who has hammered that topic out with me before, but it's something I've been wanting to flesh out more for a while. I think it's only fair that we give wrestlers latitude in how they accomplish greatness, instead of taking an approach where we decide that greatness has to be achieved in a specific way by meeting a checklist of qualities.

 

(3) Crowd reaction matters a lot.

The whole idea behind working matches is to get them over with their audience. A match that can't do that has failed to accomplish its most basic goal. That doesn't mean a match that has a hot crowd is always great, or a match that has a dull crowd is always bad. Nor does it mean that the workers with the biggest crowd reactions are the best. This is the one area where I do think taking more of a micro approach has value to me. Hogan's matches were heated as hell, but Hogan could have done anything and they would have been heated. Crowds were already predisposed to react, so the ring work could be less than good and it wouldn't matter. The same is of course true with other guys that we think of as great like Flair or Bret or Austin -- crowds are predisposed to care and react in the desired way, and often will even if the work isn't up to par. Seeing an undercard match with little build or where the heat starts off as nothing special build to something really heated is a good way to see what a wrestler can do to connect with an audience. In the ideal situation, you have both factors at play -- predisposal and manipulation taking place in the in-ring action to create the biggest possible crowd responses. Matches that have the manipulation without the predisposal are great, but most great wrestlers have some predisposal working in their favor. Matches that have the predisposal without the manipulation are nothing special. Matches that have both predisposal and manipulation working in their favor are usually the classics.

 

I'm essentially completely on board with #2 as its basically my approach as well. If someone wants to point to some interviews or records where Flair says that Terry Taylor actually laid out their series of matches and carried him the whole way then I'll rethink who's responsible for those occasions, but otherwise its a huge feather in Flair's cap. One of the most interesting parts of this project has been seeing certain folks flesh out why they appreciate a given wrestler for reasons other than being a part of great matches. Can't say they've influenced what I think of a given wrestler or match, but they've certainly given me some different things to think about when watching, even if at the end of the day I liked and appreciate the same things I did at the beginning of the day.

 

#3 I struggle with a bit. A rabid, hot crowd will always make me rate something higher than if that crowd weren't there. But why? Watched a Horsemen 6-man against Magnum, Billy Jack Haynes & Sam Houston yesterday that was just terrific. Billy Jack got to look like a superpower freak press slamming everyone, while we got a nice, long run of Magnum as face in peril with the Horsemen using every heel trick in the book to great success. Yet most of the way the crowd reaction was really just polite, at best, until the close. Don't quite know what their problem was -- morning taping after a long bender the night before? Fight in the crowd? Point is this match was terrific even if the crowd didn't care. Opinions are like assholes, and on this occasion the crowd at this taping had the wrong one.

 

But I still wish I could pinpoint when & why a crowd's reaction does or doesn't matter to me beyond simply saying they got it right or wrong.

[JerryvonKramer]

Crusher, Dick the Bruiser, Chief Jay Strongbow, all got wildly estatic crowd reactions beyond the dreams of most modern workers and beyond the point that most of the NWA babyfaces in the 80s were over.

 

This is one reason why the crowd can't affect things too much for me.

[andrew79]

When you judge actions according to their intentions you start walking down a very dark path.

[WingedEagle]

[soup23]

I would say my truths are that:

 

1. CROWD REACTION means little to me. Sure, most of my highest rank matches in my top 100 have good heat, but it isn't something I pay a whole lot of attention to unless the crowd is really rabid like 5/25/92. Was the crowd hot for 1/20/97? Certainly, but it isn't something I can pick out certain reaction to if I recollect that match now. I find a lot of enjoyment in watching a really good IWA-MS match in front of 40 people or a BattlARTS match that sounds like it is being housed in a museum than most matches with great heat.

 

2. CARD PLACEMENT AND SHOW IMPORTANCE MATTER TREMENDOUSLY: No selling, doing too much, etc can be detrimental in the wrong spot and those same moves can be forgiveable in the right mindset for me. A random PWG match that is going on third is not the time to throw out every move in your arsenal. The final Okada vs. Tanashashi match in front of the Tokyo Dome in your biggest show of the year? That is much more forgivable in my view.

 

I still really struggle with the notion that wrestlers are easier to rank vs. matches but that is just a different viewpoint.

[Loss]

The word "reaction" is key. Crowd involvement is different than crowd "reaction" to wrestling that reaches out and engages them.

[supremebve]

Not sure I can go along with this.

 

I agree that you have to judge something on its own terms, but I'm not sure that I agree that it can be the only criteria when making a value judgement.

 

Transformers succeeds on its own terms. I don't like the terms.

 

See also: TNA circa 2005.

 

There has to be scope in criticism for decrying movements or directions in art that you don't want to see (or conversely those you do). I reckon your old prof would agree with me too.

 

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match.

[JerryvonKramer]

Okay, I think we are on a closer page than it might appear.

 

I guess what I was saying though is that there is a criteria -- a set of values -- behind the criticisms. Just using the Transforms case, and the criticisms you made:

 

- that a story should be told coherently

- that attempts at humour should be funny and not feel forced

- that camera angles should aim for clarity rather than obscuring the action

 

As I said before, critical theory most often comes about in post-hoc fashion. I.e. The reaction comes first, then you ask why, then you work backwards again from the why to the general principles.

 

If another case comes along to complicate it, let's say a David Lynch film which doesn't tell "a coherent story" but isn't the poorer for it, then you have to look at adjusting the general principle again to allow for it.

 

Loss says: "well, do away with the general principle".

 

I say: you have to think harder about why you are making the exception for Lynch but not for Transformers.

 

I say that because I think it's impossible to make criticisms without implicit criteria.

[Matt D]

 

Not sure I can go along with this.

 

I agree that you have to judge something on its own terms, but I'm not sure that I agree that it can be the only criteria when making a value judgement.

 

Transformers succeeds on its own terms. I don't like the terms.

 

See also: TNA circa 2005.

 

There has to be scope in criticism for decrying movements or directions in art that you don't want to see (or conversely those you do). I reckon your old prof would agree with me too.

 

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match.

 

What if you go in looking for Avengers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars? Or even Independence Day or the animated Transformers: The Movie from the 80s?

 

There are good spotfests and bad spotfests, good garbage matches and bad garbage matches, etc. Good summer blockbusters and bad ones. And there are common elements between good spotfests and good garbage matches and good lucha title matches even if there are differences too just like there are commonalities between a good blockbuster and the Godfather.

 

EDIT: I will admit that sometimes you could find something that's good that doesn't have those common elements, but I think it's very exceptional and well worth examining when it does.

[supremebve]

 

 

Not sure I can go along with this.

 

I agree that you have to judge something on its own terms, but I'm not sure that I agree that it can be the only criteria when making a value judgement.

 

Transformers succeeds on its own terms. I don't like the terms.

 

See also: TNA circa 2005.

 

There has to be scope in criticism for decrying movements or directions in art that you don't want to see (or conversely those you do). I reckon your old prof would agree with me too.

 

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match.

 

What if you go in looking for Avengers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars? Or even Independence Day or the animated Transformers: The Movie from the 80s?

 

There are good spotfests and bad spotfests, good garbage matches and bad garbage matches, etc. Good summer blockbusters and bad ones. And there are common elements between good spotfests and good garbage matches and good lucha title matches even if there are differences too just like there are commonalities between a good blockbuster and the Godfather.

 

EDIT: I will admit that sometimes you could find something that's good that doesn't have those common elements, but I think it's very exceptional and well worth examining when it does.

 

You are kind of saying the same thing I'm saying. Transformers isn't good at being a big, dumb, summer blockbuster, but the last few Fast and the Furious movies are great at it. You can watch a Fast and Furious movie and understand why they are doing every single ridiculous thing that they are doing. You can see all of the absurd car stunts. You can believe that all of those outrageous characters love each other and would go on international crime sprees to help their "family." The jokes are funny, and you end up rooting for the heroes despite the fact that they have to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. What I'm saying is that Transformers isn't bad because the Fast and Furious movies exist. Transformers is bad all by itself. There really isn't a reason to bring up any other movie when discussing why it is bad.

[Jingus]

Any movie that made tons and tons of money has, by definition, succeeded on SOME terms. In Transformers' case, they're just terms that make me completely depressed about the easily-amused viewing habits of our generation.

 

And supremebve, your professor was absolutely full of shit. He's basically saying that no film which is adapted from true events should ever be watched by people who are familiar with said events. Criticizing the deliberate storytelling choices which are made in any film (in this case, actively choosing to ignore or change the historical facts) is always fair game.

[Matt D]

 

 

 

Not sure I can go along with this.

 

I agree that you have to judge something on its own terms, but I'm not sure that I agree that it can be the only criteria when making a value judgement.

 

Transformers succeeds on its own terms. I don't like the terms.

 

See also: TNA circa 2005.

 

There has to be scope in criticism for decrying movements or directions in art that you don't want to see (or conversely those you do). I reckon your old prof would agree with me too.

 

Transformers does not succeed on its own terms. It is a poorly written movie more interested in showing off its poorly filmed CGI fight scenes than telling a coherent story. There are plenty of flaws to point to with that movie without going into what you want from a Transformers movie. You can point to the forced attempts at humor, the fact that the fight scenes are filmed at an angle so close that you can't really tell what is going on, or countless other flaws that occur in that movie. If you go into that movie hoping for it to be The Godfather, you will have a bunch of criticisms that don't really have anything to do with that particular movie. I'm not saying not to criticize a match that isn't good, I'm saying that you should criticize that match based on what is good or not good in that match.

 

What if you go in looking for Avengers or Indiana Jones or Star Wars? Or even Independence Day or the animated Transformers: The Movie from the 80s?

 

There are good spotfests and bad spotfests, good garbage matches and bad garbage matches, etc. Good summer blockbusters and bad ones. And there are common elements between good spotfests and good garbage matches and good lucha title matches even if there are differences too just like there are commonalities between a good blockbuster and the Godfather.

 

EDIT: I will admit that sometimes you could find something that's good that doesn't have those common elements, but I think it's very exceptional and well worth examining when it does.

 

You are kind of saying the same thing I'm saying. Transformers isn't good at being a big, dumb, summer blockbuster, but the last few Fast and the Furious movies are great at it. You can watch a Fast and Furious movie and understand why they are doing every single ridiculous thing that they are doing. You can see all of the absurd car stunts. You can believe that all of those outrageous characters love each other and would go on international crime sprees to help their "family." The jokes are funny, and you end up rooting for the heroes despite the fact that they have to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. What I'm saying is that Transformers isn't bad because the Fast and Furious movies exist. Transformers is bad all by itself. There really isn't a reason to bring up any other movie when discussing why it is bad.

 

Ah see, I disagree there a bit. Blockbusters, by their nature, have certain hurdles they have to overcome. You bring up the other movies to show that other movies HAVE managed to overcome those hurdles. The movie COULD have been better. We have proof of that.

 

The match could have been better, quite probably if they had done A, B, or C, because they did A, B, or C, in this match, which had a similar context/theme/etc. that was better. That doesn't mean that you think the match could have been better if it had a completely different context, if it was a spotfest instead of a garbage match, etc, just that you think it could have been better if it did these things that other great garbage matches did instead.

[supremebve]

Any movie that made tons and tons of money has, by definition, succeeded on SOME terms. In Transformers' case, they're just terms that make me completely depressed about the easily-amused viewing habits of our generation.

 

And supremebve, your professor was absolutely full of shit. He's basically saying that no film which is adapted from true events should ever be watched by people who are familiar with said events. Criticizing the deliberate storytelling choices which are made in any film (in this case, actively choosing to ignore or change the historical facts) is always fair game.

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant.

 

Matt, so in your opinion the only way a movie can be bad is if there is a good movie you can compare it to? There is a value in being groundbreaking, but there are plenty of things that are groundbreaking but not necessarily good. If Transformers was the first movie ever made, it would still be a bad piece of art. It would still have all the same issues whether or not other movies exist. Comparing it to other things makes it easier to see those flaws, but those flaws exist with or without those other movies.

[Matt D]

 

Any movie that made tons and tons of money has, by definition, succeeded on SOME terms. In Transformers' case, they're just terms that make me completely depressed about the easily-amused viewing habits of our generation.

 

And supremebve, your professor was absolutely full of shit. He's basically saying that no film which is adapted from true events should ever be watched by people who are familiar with said events. Criticizing the deliberate storytelling choices which are made in any film (in this case, actively choosing to ignore or change the historical facts) is always fair game.

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant.

 

Matt, so in your opinion the only way a movie can be bad is if there is a good movie you can compare it to? There is a value in being groundbreaking, but there are plenty of things that are groundbreaking but not necessarily good. If Transformers was the first movie ever made, it would still be a bad piece of art. It would still have all the same issues whether or not other movies exist. Comparing it to other things makes it easier to see those flaws, but those flaws exist with or without those other movies.

 

No, I just think the use of comparisons is a good way to categorize, analyze, evaluate, and understand something.

 

Most learning works best when it builds off of what we've already learned. There's a term for that, but I can't remember it right now (which may or may not be ironic).

[Jingus]

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant.

Nah, I still say she's full of shit. She's acting like anyone who has prior knowledge of the subject should be penalized or handicapped for knowing that stuff. If you're well aware that William Wallace died long years before Isabella Of France ever stepped foot on English soil (as many people would be perfectly aware), then it seriously harms their ability to take Braveheart seriously. And that's directly the fault of the filmmakers who decided to tell a story which they knew was simply not true.

 

Like, if someone happens to make a movie which is set in your hometown and then they proceed to completely fuck up the geography and have characters teleporting from one side of town to the other, that's not your fault for knowing that Alpha Street is nowhere near Omega Avenue when the protagonist steps from one to the other in the blink of an edit. That's on the filmmakers for assuming everyone in their audience is completely ignorant, especially since everyone who was on the set knows that those two streets don't touch. Or if a character whips out a revolver with a silencer on it and the gunshots proceed to make that cat-sneeze "thewp" sound effect, it's on the filmmakers for assuming that the audience knows so little about guns that they aren't aware that this is impossible (especially since on set they would've heard the loud BANG that the gun still makes).

 

No film exists in a vacuum. Every viewer brings their own baggage. And if something in the film is so factually inaccurate that it sets off a viewer's bullshit alarm, that's the film's fault, not the audience's. Choosing to ignore (or follow) the real facts of any situation is a voluntary creative choice on the part of the artists, and EVERY creative choice should be fair game for criticism.

[supremebve]

 

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant.

Nah, I still say she's full of shit. She's acting like anyone who has prior knowledge of the subject should be penalized or handicapped for knowing that stuff. If you're well aware that William Wallace died long years before Isabella Of France ever stepped foot on English soil (as many people would be perfectly aware), then it seriously harms their ability to take Braveheart seriously. And that's directly the fault of the filmmakers who decided to tell a story which they knew was simply not true.

 

Like, if someone happens to make a movie which is set in your hometown and then they proceed to completely fuck up the geography and have characters teleporting from one side of town to the other, that's not your fault for knowing that Alpha Street is nowhere near Omega Avenue when the protagonist steps from one to the other in the blink of an edit. That's on the filmmakers for assuming everyone in their audience is completely ignorant, especially since everyone who was on the set knows that those two streets don't touch. Or if a character whips out a revolver with a silencer on it and the gunshots proceed to make that cat-sneeze "thewp" sound effect, it's on the filmmakers for assuming that the audience knows so little about guns that they aren't aware that this is impossible (especially since on set they would've heard the loud BANG that the gun still makes).

 

No film exists in a vacuum. Every viewer brings their own baggage. And if something in the film is so factually inaccurate that it sets off a viewer's bullshit alarm, that's the film's fault, not the audience's. Choosing to ignore the real facts of any situation is a voluntary creative choice on the part of the artists, and EVERY creative choice should be fair game for criticism.

 

So every movie based in and around Washington D.C. should have an extended traffic scene? Or is it OK for an FBI agent to go from Quantico to Langley like it's right around the corner? I know that isn't real, but I also know it doesn't make any real difference in the movie. So if a movie is perfect in every way except that the characters aren't true to their real life counterparts, you think you should judge the movie negatively because of it? For clarity my paper was based on this exact notion, and I fully understand why I had to rewrite it. In Invincible the main character went to Eagles camp and his coach Dick Vermeil was a hard ass. Dick Vermeil is essentially the least hard ass football coach of all time, and it took me out of the movie. Here's the thing, if Vermeil would have been the loving, blubbering, sensitive coach that he was in real life, that movie wouldn't have been any better than what it was. It was something I noticed, but wouldn't have really improved the movie in any meaningful way. It still would have been an overwhelmingly average movie. It is 100% irrelevant to the quality of the movie. The fact that it they wrote the coach as a hard ass when I know he wasn't has more to do with me than the movie. I wasn't supposed to be writing about me, I was supposed to be writing about the movie. Bringing up something that really doesn't matter to anyone but me is not what I was assigned to do.

[Childs]

 

 

 

That isn't what she was saying at all. Whether or not the events in the movie coincide with the real life events has little to do with whether or not it is a good movie. If the Godfather was based on a true story, but changed real life events to tell a better story would The Godfather turn into a bad movie? No, it would be just as good as it is now, the real life events are irrelevant.

Nah, I still say she's full of shit. She's acting like anyone who has prior knowledge of the subject should be penalized or handicapped for knowing that stuff. If you're well aware that William Wallace died long years before Isabella Of France ever stepped foot on English soil (as many people would be perfectly aware), then it seriously harms their ability to take Braveheart seriously. And that's directly the fault of the filmmakers who decided to tell a story which they knew was simply not true.

 

Like, if someone happens to make a movie which is set in your hometown and then they proceed to completely fuck up the geography and have characters teleporting from one side of town to the other, that's not your fault for knowing that Alpha Street is nowhere near Omega Avenue when the protagonist steps from one to the other in the blink of an edit. That's on the filmmakers for assuming everyone in their audience is completely ignorant, especially since everyone who was on the set knows that those two streets don't touch. Or if a character whips out a revolver with a silencer on it and the gunshots proceed to make that cat-sneeze "thewp" sound effect, it's on the filmmakers for assuming that the audience knows so little about guns that they aren't aware that this is impossible (especially since on set they would've heard the loud BANG that the gun still makes).

 

No film exists in a vacuum. Every viewer brings their own baggage. And if something in the film is so factually inaccurate that it sets off a viewer's bullshit alarm, that's the film's fault, not the audience's. Choosing to ignore the real facts of any situation is a voluntary creative choice on the part of the artists, and EVERY creative choice should be fair game for criticism.

So every movie based in and around Washington D.C. should have an extended traffic scene? Or is it OK for an FBI agent to go from Quantico to Langley like it's right around the corner? I know that isn't real, but I also know it doesn't make any real difference in the movie. So if a movie is perfect in every way except that the characters aren't true to their real life counterparts, you think you should judge the movie negatively because of it? For clarity my paper was based on this exact notion, and I fully understand why I had to rewrite it. In Invincible the main character went to Eagles camp and his coach Dick Vermeil was a hard ass. Dick Vermeil is essentially the least hard ass football coach of all time, and it took me out of the movie. Here's the thing, if Vermeil would have been the loving, blubbering, sensitive coach that he was in real life, that movie wouldn't have been any better than what it was. It was something I noticed, but wouldn't have really improved the movie in any meaningful way. It still would have been an overwhelmingly average movie. It is 100% irrelevant to the quality of the movie. The fact that it they wrote the coach as a hard ass when I know he wasn't has more to do with me than the movie. I wasn't supposed to be writing about me, I was supposed to be writing about the movie. Bringing up something that really doesn't matter to anyone but me is not what I was assigned to do.

So, what? You're supposed to pretend you're some kind of weird objectivity alien everytime you watch anything? I've increasingly come to think that's nonsense. Sure, it's valuable to understand what art is going for and what it achieves on its own terms. But why deny your own point of view as part of the critical process? As long as you understand and acknowledge what you're bringing to it, why not embrace your honest reaction to what the artist has presented?