#dileas-caraid

[dedalvs]

I keep seeing these crazy negative reviews for Bright, and I just wanted to make sure you heard from some fans what they thought. I was incredibly excited for the movie when I first heard about it, before I even knew you were going to be involved. And now that I've seen it, I'm even more happy about it. Bright was a fantastic movie, there were certainly places it could be improved, but the movie was awesome and I can't wait for more in the same universe. Truly fantastic, thanks!

Thank you! I enjoyed it too, and enjoyed working on it. It’s not the best picture of 2017, but it was never intended to be. I think it pretty much hit the mark it was aiming for (maybe not a bullseye, but close to that second ring), and based on what I’ve seen, 8 or 9 out of every 10 people think so too. That’s pretty good!

One of the things that’s really different about Bright vis-à-vis its critical response is so many people have Netflix, so watching Bright costs nothing but time. A movie ticket, on the other hand, costs $18. If something’s getting insanely negative reviews, you may be wary about spending $18 on it. If you can watch that same thing at home for free, though (or for no extra cost), and turn it off twenty minutes in without having wasted anything but twenty minutes…? The average person is more likely to (a) watch it, and (b) not react to it as negatively. That’s not a bad way to experience something.

Part of the absolutely absurd blowback The Last Jedi is getting from a small but vocal corner of the internet is due in large part to expectations and investment. First, the legacy of Star Wars, and the ownership fans feel over it, cause fans to have a certain level of expectation for a Star Wars movie. Certain of those expectations are fine (i.e. we expect a big budget, the kind of sound effects and sets we’re used to seeing, the screen wipes, scrolling text at the beginning, John Williams, etc.), but those are actually fairly easy to meet (every single Star Wars film, including the two recent ones, the originals, and the prequels all look and sound like Star Wars films). The sense of entitlement invested fans have, though, cause them to expect things beyond that, though—and it’s not simply quality. They expect a very specific set of things to happen when it comes to plot. Much of what’s happening with The Last Jedi sounds like “We think this is a bad film!”, but what it actually amounts to is “Some of the specific things I required to happen in this film didn’t happen in this film!” And that’s just silly. Might as well not even make a new film, in that case.

So, the legacy of Star Wars is part of it, but I think the cost factor is not insignificant. If you pay for something, you feel like you should get your money’s worth—that you basically own part of it, and it should work the way you think it should. It’s true of juicers, vacuum cleaners, pots, and lamps—why not art?

Of course, this answers itself (or it should). Art is brought to life by an artist, and lived by the audience. If the audience demands too much of the artist, they may as well be doing it themselves—and they do now (cf. fan fiction. Why don’t all the haters go write some Last Jedi fan fiction—and then see what it’s like to have that received by an audience?). Even so, I think a lot of the demands are lessened when there are fewer expectations. I’ve never had sympathy for those who say, “The trailer looked like X, but the movie was Y, and therefore I hate it.” They may as well have said, “I ate a bad tangerine while I was watching the movie, therefore I hate the movie.” It may be true, but the opinion has absolutely no value beyond the individual—and I mean no value literally (neither positive nor negative). It’s nothing. It can mean nothing to anyone beyond the one who expressed the opinion, and may as well not be stated.

Anyway, trying to get back to the point, we’ve listened to critics in the past because we want to get a good sense of if we’re going to get a good return on investment. Unless you’re wealthy, going to the movie theater is not something to be done lightly anymore. If the risk is low, the outside criticism is less valuable. Like, say my life were different, and I had never seen Labyrinth. It gets a 68% on Rotten Tomatoes—not terrible, but not great. If I see that score, but then see it (a) has David Bowie, (b) is a Jim Henson film, and © is a fantasy film from the 80s, I think there’s a good chance I’ll like it. Would I pay $18-$25 to see it literally once? Maybe not. But if it was on a streaming service I already subscribed to? Yes, sign me up for that! ZERO hesitation. And you know what? I would’ve been rewarded with a movie I value more highly than most movies I have seen in my life. The score would mean (and does mean) absolutely nothing to me.

Let me tell you about another movie I saw in the theater back in 2005. It’s called MirrorMask. I knew nothing about it going in (had heard nothing), but my wife @thisallegra heard it was by Neil Gaiman, and she’s a fan, so we went. We saw it, and I loved it. Great film! I enjoyed it all the way through. It wasn’t perfect, but it was unique enough, visually interesting, and had some good performances—including a starring role by someone whom I would later meet and work with, Stephanie Leonidas. MirrorMask has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 54%. Against a $4 million budget, it earned $867,000 in a limited theatrical release. There were some positive reviews, but there were more negative reviews, and the negative reviews were more negative than the positive reviews were positive, if that makes sense. Almost no one saw it; it wasn’t in theaters for long at all; it made virtually no impact at all on popular culture. Yet I am telling you, if you have a chance to see this film, and you like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal and Neil Gaiman—or any combination thereof—you will like this film. If instead of being made for theaters it had been made for Netflix, it would be a hit. It would find its audience.

And Jebus H. Crispin, don’t get me started on D.E.B.S… (38%? You flippin’ kidding me?!)

Anyway, in short, thank you! I’m glad you like it, but you also need not worry that those who worked on the film are hearing the critics, but not the fans. We definitely are! And in all honesty, I wish some of the films that I absolutely adored in the past that were hammered by the critics and didn’t get a big box office could have gotten the kind of release that Bright did. There’s zero box office, but people are giving it a shot—and while not everyone is loving it, it’s finding its audience. What more could an artist ask for?

[x-i-l-verify]

Do it! (Finishing Worm is totally worth the time investment)

Nnnng, okay, okay, I’ve started it again. The length is just so daunting, though! X_X But you’re not the first person who’s told me that even though it’s longer than the Harry Potter series combined, it’s worth it, so I’ll definitely give it my best shot. :’D

[transliterations]

dileas-caraid answered your question “why do people care about the oxford comma so much?”

It resolves a common bit of ambiguity. It can also introduce ambiguity (appearing like an appositive phrase), but this is easily avoided and not as common or as jarring as the common error seen in lists.

nicely put! yeah, i get the grammatical whatsits, it’s people’s love for the grammatical whatsits i’m wondering about, i suppose? i mean, professional contexts aside, how jarring - ambiguous? - is the common error, really? i doubt that it comes off as incredibly wrong most of the time - like, hilarious examples aside, i’m pretty sure most people would just skim over it and not really notice it, you know?