I like going on walks. Not very interesting or unique, but nonetheless, I like taking walks. Someone may ask why I like going on walks, and perhaps I'd be able to come up with a list of reasons. Maybe it's the exercise, maybe it's leaving the house, maybe it's seeing new faces. Is that really it? It's part the appeal, sure, but is that really all I like? Or is there something more, some deeply personal emotion imbedded in my brain that makes me appreciate a casual stroll? I could list 500 reasons I like walking, and yet I could never in a million years give someone the same experience I've had walking because that experience is entirely subjective. It's like describing color to the colorblind, or sound to the deaf. It's so personal to me that I don't feel I could ever truly explain why I like to walk. The value of walking is simply too abstract.
Perhaps that's the same with movies. If someone were to ask me what my favorite movie was, I'd tell them Blade Runner (my favorites list says otherwise but that's a discussion for another time). If I were to review Blade Runner, I could list objective, observable qualities that I like: drawn out shots of the city, certain colors used in certain scenes. But can I say something like "the movie is well-shot" objectively? You'd be damned to find anyone who tells you otherwise, but is there something intrinsic in humans that makes Blade Runner beautiful? Perhaps in your average person, sure, but there may be one soul out there who's brain just cannot fathom to look at the film. What makes our perspective more valid than their own, numbers?
That's all a bit long winded but my point is that, although there are objective qualities in movies, whether they are "good" or "bad" is entirely subjective because the concept of good and bad is entirely human. Without us, it vanishes. It becomes clear then that any review or rating that tries to be at all "objective" will fail, and will instead just find qualities that most people agree on as "good" or "bad".
This may seem like a game of semantics. If a film is meant to please, and it fails at doing certain things that the vast, vast majority of people look for in a movie, then why not call it "good" or "bad"? This is what I'd like to discuss, the idea of reviewing film. Now, I'm not really referring to most of the stuff on here, or at least the stuff that acts as more of a log of what someone's seen and what they think of it. The purpose of that is incredibly clear. What I'm really referring to is professional critics, who rate movies as either a recommendation or as a measure of somethings "quality" (i.e, giving it some objective value). How "objective" (in the sense that something "objective" is something widely agreed upon) should a review be, and how subjective should a review be? If a review is meant to recommend, then surely agreed upon objective qualities should be mentioned, but if every review comes up with the same objective score, how is a consumer to find a critic they relate to? What even is the distinction between subjective and objective? Does rating films numerically make sense, or does it remove too much context and make readers less likely to actually digest the review content? Is this the most long winded thread introduction in Movie Forums history? These are the questions I think would make for a good discussion.
Sorry for all the text, I thought without it my topic may seem a bit too vague. Hope you understand .
TL; DR What do you like and dislike about reviews, how objective can a review be, and how well do numeric ratings serve a review?
Perhaps that's the same with movies. If someone were to ask me what my favorite movie was, I'd tell them Blade Runner (my favorites list says otherwise but that's a discussion for another time). If I were to review Blade Runner, I could list objective, observable qualities that I like: drawn out shots of the city, certain colors used in certain scenes. But can I say something like "the movie is well-shot" objectively? You'd be damned to find anyone who tells you otherwise, but is there something intrinsic in humans that makes Blade Runner beautiful? Perhaps in your average person, sure, but there may be one soul out there who's brain just cannot fathom to look at the film. What makes our perspective more valid than their own, numbers?
That's all a bit long winded but my point is that, although there are objective qualities in movies, whether they are "good" or "bad" is entirely subjective because the concept of good and bad is entirely human. Without us, it vanishes. It becomes clear then that any review or rating that tries to be at all "objective" will fail, and will instead just find qualities that most people agree on as "good" or "bad".
This may seem like a game of semantics. If a film is meant to please, and it fails at doing certain things that the vast, vast majority of people look for in a movie, then why not call it "good" or "bad"? This is what I'd like to discuss, the idea of reviewing film. Now, I'm not really referring to most of the stuff on here, or at least the stuff that acts as more of a log of what someone's seen and what they think of it. The purpose of that is incredibly clear. What I'm really referring to is professional critics, who rate movies as either a recommendation or as a measure of somethings "quality" (i.e, giving it some objective value). How "objective" (in the sense that something "objective" is something widely agreed upon) should a review be, and how subjective should a review be? If a review is meant to recommend, then surely agreed upon objective qualities should be mentioned, but if every review comes up with the same objective score, how is a consumer to find a critic they relate to? What even is the distinction between subjective and objective? Does rating films numerically make sense, or does it remove too much context and make readers less likely to actually digest the review content? Is this the most long winded thread introduction in Movie Forums history? These are the questions I think would make for a good discussion.
Sorry for all the text, I thought without it my topic may seem a bit too vague. Hope you understand .
TL; DR What do you like and dislike about reviews, how objective can a review be, and how well do numeric ratings serve a review?