I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
…Frink please don’t. You’re charting into dangerous territory.
Sorry, I keep forgetting I’m not a screenwriter no one’s heard of.
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
How?
Me explaining on this page (can’t we link to posts anymore?)
You can, but it’s more difficult. If you click on someone’s profile, you can then see their posts and link to those specific ones. Obviously it’s difficult to do so for anything not very recent.
I’d like you to link to post #21,235 of mine, please.
There’s something I find interesting about Rey. Due to the environment she grew up in, it just adds more to why she’s so great with the Force. When comparing to Luke’s beginnings, Luke has this impatient vibe and a little bratty. Now, hold your horses here, I actually find Luke relatable; being stuck with family and wanting to be somewhere away from home. So again, I have no issue with Luke here, just making this clear for what about I’m about to say.
Rey is basically a toughened up person by the time we meet her. She also exercises key Jedi traits, such as patience, something Luke struggled with for the first two films. Unlike Luke, Rey had no home to come to with someone that cared about her. She didn’t live on a farm where food tends to be plentiful. She instead spent so many years scavenging for a living in order to survive. She stayed on Jakku out of choice because she willingly wanted to wait for her parents to come back, even though day by day (and she literally counted those days as we see in the film), it was unlikely to ever happen.
This is why I’m not really all that disappointed that she had a more tuned relationship with the Force once she understood it IS real. She was able to calm her mind (something Yoda insisted Luke should do) when the time came and it was believable to me due to her upbringing. I’m not saying by any stretch that Luke had a rich and easy life, but in comparison, Luke was living in comfort on Tatooine vs the battle scarred graveyard planet of Jakku.
So essentially Rey was initially trained in the force at a young age…said training remained dormant…but her bare and meager existence upon a treacherous world allowed her implicit training in its usage during her intervening years awaiting the return of her family…?
It is a possibility…indeed a potentially plausible explanation…although I suspect it not to have been at all officially considered. Still, it bears pondering…
Excellent points and comparison, Tavor. I agree with all of it.
Considering the story was written by the same person responsible for showing the weaknesses of Luke in those same disciplines, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they were intentional character strengths for Rey. I suspect they were.
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You sure like throwing that word around, don’t you?
I’m back to share a few more thoughts on the movie!
About the main characters, I think they lack strong developments:
-Finn: we know from the beginning that he wants to leave the FO. He soon befriends a member of the resistence and then, until the 3rd part of the movie, does his best to escape the FO. After this, I honestly don’t remember why he decided to take part of the attack to the Starkiller Base. I guess they wanted him to finally face the FO, but a few more lines about his thoughts might’ve helped fleshing out his character more than all those explosions in the final battle.
-Rey: she is mostly fleshed out, with even a few insights on her past. Her knowledge of the Force, on the other hand, is completely out of control: she begins with having no idea of what the Force is, to using mind tricks, to moving objects and suddenly she’s able to take on a trained dark Jedi. Her supposedly being the one “awakening” is no excuse for this, because no one questions her skills at all in the movie, so to me they definitely feel like deus-ex-machinas with no character progression in the Force.
-Kylo Ren: in the beginning he seems to be a strong Force-user, in the end he’s just a guy with a lightsaber being defeated. Why is this, what happened in the middle? His decision to kill his father is a wasted opportunity, as it should’ve had a greater inpact on his development (also possibly moving the scene earlier in the movie), making him either regret his decision or making him more determined in his actions.
On the PT vs TFA comparison, I think that while the PT is definitely technically flawed, it still followed less the OT’s structure than TFA, while also at least trying to add a few new concepts (with some not being necessarily bad ideas in the SW universe). Also, as Jay said, some bits of the PT indeed feel more interesting, and I say more moving too, than anything happening in TFA, especially in ROTS:
I’d take any time Anakin’s “death” over Han’s death, Anakin’s inner conflict over Ren’s one, even “Order 66” over the destruction of that Republic’s planet in TFA (what’s its name?).
With that said, it’s not like I think the PT is better than TFA: they’re all terribly flawed one way or another, with TFA not being an exception.
The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
Not liking a film and film being a shit is the same thing.
真実
John Doom said:
His decision to kill his father is a wasted opportunity, as it should’ve had a greater inpact on his development (also possibly moving the scene earlier in the movie), making him either regret his decision or making him more determined in his actions.
This is something that needs to be in episode VIII. It would no place at the end of TFA. Also you can tell by the look on his face after he kills Han that he’s not entirely pleased.
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
Not liking a film and film being a shit is the same thing.
Saying “A film is shit” and “I think this film is shit” or “In my opinion the film is shit” are completely different statements. The former is an objective statement while the latter two are subjective.
I’d take any time Anakin’s “death” over Han’s death, Anakin’s inner conflict over Ren’s one, even “Order 66” over the destruction of that Republic’s planet in TFA (what’s its name?).
With that said, it’s not like I think the PT is better than TFA: they’re all terribly flawed one way or another, with TFA not being an exception.
Anakin’s inner-conflict makes perfect sense. He disobeys Windu and goes to the chancellor’s chambers, but he doesn’t want to stop Windu until he makes it clear that he intends to murder the Chancellor in cold blood. He rightly tells Windu that he can’t kill him. What we see in that scene is an example of Palpatine manipulating the situation perfectly, so that Anakin can see the Jedi are not the selfless protectors of democracy that they claim to be, but are indeed power hungry and want to take over control of the Republic. This only works because Anakin is completely ignorant as to how politics works, as is made clear before this. It’s just an elaborate lie that only he would believe - of course if the chancellor dies the command of the republic returns to the Senate, and they can elect a new chancellor.
There a sophisticated complexity to it that Lucas did really well. Of course not everything in the PT was executed as well as that, but there are indeed examples of well thought through storytelling. I think Lucas should have used that, and only that, for Anakins turn to the dark side. When he sees for himself the Jedi try to attack and kill the chancellor - not all that nonsense about Padme dying in childbirth, which was much more poorly executed.
TFA has none of this sophistication. Ren’s “inner conflict” is really poorly executed, especially when compared to Anakin’s.
[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]
RU.08 said:
TFA has none of this sophistication. Ren’s “inner conflict” is really poorly executed, especially when compared to Anakin’s.
That’s because the prequels had 3 fucking movies to flesh that out and TFA is only one. I mean yes I agree with you but it’s unfair to judge what could be an ongoing storyline based on the first part of it.
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
Not liking a film and film being a shit is the same thing.
Saying “A film is shit” and “I think this film is shit” or “In my opinion the film is shit” are completely different statements. The former is an objective statement while the latter two are subjective.
Film is an art and therefore completely subjective in the first place. Therefore, all there examples you gave are the same. The first one just skips the obvious thing, which is that the film is subjective and only subjective measure can be given.
真実
I agree, the whole set up of the window/Windu scene is very sophisticated. Horribly framed, terribly directed. Even stalwart actor of the prequels Ian McDiarmid loses his mojo. But the situation is impressively sophisticated. Makes you wonder how it would played out in JJ’s hands.
This is the problem with Star Wars and Terminator and just about any film that is in a ‘franchise’ as opposed to a series of stories.
People are so nervous about screwing it up that they swerve from one form of less than satisfaction to another.
Lucas’ whimsy and energy (creative not physical, he barely moved the camera) worked in a team of people where he had to fight to keep his ideas and notions in the mix. Once he became the Emperor and anyone that might obstruct him was removed he had nothing to steer him on course.
With Disney they want to make a film for the ‘masses’ so everything is either a variation on or a call back to something that already worked and the audience might remember and feel included and happy with themselves for getting it.
That Vincent Ward’s Alien 3 ever got green lit after the money Aliens made is astonishing. That it was watered down and smashed into the unrecognisable mess that is the theatrical cut of Fincher’s film is less of a surprise.
At least TFA makes the same amount of narrative sense as ANH.
Lucas’ whimsy and energy (creative not physical, he barely moved the camera) worked in a team of people where he had to fight to keep his ideas and notions in the mix. Once he became the Emperor and anyone that might obstruct him was removed he had nothing to steer him on course.
Not really a valid point, since he was the “emperor” ever since ANH was finished. Even in ANH he had mostly free hands since studio didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the film. Of course he couldn’t directly fire people in ANH but he could in ESB and ROTJ. The way I see it, he had more sense and was a bit more open to outside input during OT. Still, judging from screenplay meetings transcripts from ESB and ROTJ, he pretty much rejected any suggestion he did not like. Perhaps in PT his team wasn’t giving him any suggestion at all.
真実
I’m back to share a few more thoughts on the movie!
About the main characters, I think they lack strong developments:
-Finn: we know from the beginning that he wants to leave the FO. He soon befriends a member of the resistence and then, until the 3rd part of the movie, does his best to escape the FO. After this, I honestly don’t remember why he decided to take part of the attack to the Starkiller Base. I guess they wanted him to finally face the FO, but a few more lines about his thoughts might’ve helped fleshing out his character more than all those explosions in the final battle.
He wanted to save Rey. He even lied to the Resistance, claiming knowledge of how to take the Base out, so they’d let him tag along. Which led to him admitting to Han he didn’t know what to do, which led to him suggesting “using the Force” to do it, which led to Han’s “That’s not how the Force works!” A great exchange.
-Rey: she is mostly fleshed out, with even a few insights on her past. Her knowledge of the Force, on the other hand, is completely out of control: she begins with having no idea of what the Force is, to using mind tricks, to moving objects and suddenly she’s able to take on a trained dark Jedi. Her supposedly being the one “awakening” is no excuse for this, because no one questions her skills at all in the movie, so to me they definitely feel like deus-ex-machinas with no character progression in the Force.
That’s fine but there’s been plenty of discussion in this thread of how and why her progression makes plenty of sense, you should read back through it.
-Kylo Ren: in the beginning he seems to be a strong Force-user, in the end he’s just a guy with a lightsaber being defeated. Why is this, what happened in the middle? His decision to kill his father is a wasted opportunity, as it should’ve had a greater inpact on his development (also possibly moving the scene earlier in the movie), making him either regret his decision or making him more determined in his actions.
Same as previous, plenty of discussion why this also makes sense.
On the PT vs TFA comparison, I think that while the PT is definitely technically flawed, it still followed less the OT’s structure than TFA, while also at least trying to add a few new concepts (with some not being necessarily bad ideas in the SW universe).
I’ve pointed out plenty of new things this movie introduced and risks it took. I completely disagree that nothing new was done here.
With that said, it’s not like I think the PT is better than TFA: they’re all terribly flawed one way or another, with TFA not being an exception.
Rating the PT + TFA in order of release, as you did in the rankings thread, is still crazy talk.
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
Not liking a film and film being a shit is the same thing.
Is English not your first language? (apologies to actual ESL members who understand how the English language works, and also to those who don’t, because I’m not terribly bright and could never speak a second language so my hat is off to all of you)
Not liking a film is subjective and is valid (even when it’s crazy, it’s still valid).
A film being shit is objective. There are shades of this, and in many cases it’s debatable, but there’s no way you can argue T2 being shit. You can say you hated it, you can say it didn’t work for you, but you can’t say it’s poorly made. This is like trying to claim the PT are good movies. They aren’t. There are interesting things about them, they have some good parts, but as movies they are shit. Liking or disliking them has nothing to do with it.
I’d take any time Anakin’s “death” over Han’s death, Anakin’s inner conflict over Ren’s one, even “Order 66” over the destruction of that Republic’s planet in TFA (what’s its name?).
With that said, it’s not like I think the PT is better than TFA: they’re all terribly flawed one way or another, with TFA not being an exception.Anakin’s inner-conflict makes perfect sense. He disobeys Windu and goes to the chancellor’s chambers, but he doesn’t want to stop Windu until he makes it clear that he intends to murder the Chancellor in cold blood. He rightly tells Windu that he can’t kill him. What we see in that scene is an example of Palpatine manipulating the situation perfectly, so that Anakin can see the Jedi are not the selfless protectors of democracy that they claim to be, but are indeed power hungry and want to take over control of the Republic. This only works because Anakin is completely ignorant as to how politics works, as is made clear before this. It’s just an elaborate lie that only he would believe - of course if the chancellor dies the command of the republic returns to the Senate, and they can elect a new chancellor.
There a sophisticated complexity to it that Lucas did really well. Of course not everything in the PT was executed as well as that, but there are indeed examples of well thought through storytelling. I think Lucas should have used that, and only that, for Anakins turn to the dark side. When he sees for himself the Jedi try to attack and kill the chancellor - not all that nonsense about Padme dying in childbirth, which was much more poorly executed.
TFA has none of this sophistication. Ren’s “inner conflict” is really poorly executed, especially when compared to Anakin’s.
I disagree with your assessment of TFA, but more importantly, you are missing something in your analysis of ROTS. It has sophisticated ideas, but it was executed terribly. The ideas probably work in the novel (I never read it) but they don’t work as filmed. The dialogue is terrible and Hayden is not good.
Lucas’ whimsy and energy (creative not physical, he barely moved the camera) worked in a team of people where he had to fight to keep his ideas and notions in the mix. Once he became the Emperor and anyone that might obstruct him was removed he had nothing to steer him on course.
Not really a valid point, since he was the “emperor” ever since ANH was finished. Even in ANH he had mostly free hands since studio didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the film. Of course he couldn’t directly fire people in ANH but he could in ESB and ROTJ. The way I see it, he had more sense and was a bit more open to outside input during OT. Still, judging from screenplay meetings transcripts from ESB and ROTJ, he pretty much rejected any suggestion he did not like. Perhaps in PT his team wasn’t giving him any suggestion at all.
He was emperor for ESB but he had a director who could stand up to him. Not the case in ROTJ, and you can see the prequel mentality creeping into ROTJ if you are paying attention. Burping alien outside Jabba’s palace, anyone?
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
Not liking a film and film being a shit is the same thing.
Is English not your first language? (apologies to actual ESL members who understand how the English language works, and also to those who don’t, because I’m not terribly bright and could never speak a second language so my hat is off to all of you)
Not liking a film is subjective and is valid (even when it’s crazy, it’s still valid).
A film being shit is objective. There are shades of this, and in many cases it’s debatable, but there’s no way you can argue T2 being shit. You can say you hated it, you can say it didn’t work for you, but you can’t say it’s poorly made. This is like trying to claim the PT are good movies. They aren’t. There are interesting things about them, they have some good parts, but as movies they are shit. Liking or disliking them has nothing to do with it.
See the my reply to Lord Haseo a few posts back…
真実
Lucas’ whimsy and energy (creative not physical, he barely moved the camera) worked in a team of people where he had to fight to keep his ideas and notions in the mix. Once he became the Emperor and anyone that might obstruct him was removed he had nothing to steer him on course.
Not really a valid point, since he was the “emperor” ever since ANH was finished. Even in ANH he had mostly free hands since studio didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the film. Of course he couldn’t directly fire people in ANH but he could in ESB and ROTJ. The way I see it, he had more sense and was a bit more open to outside input during OT. Still, judging from screenplay meetings transcripts from ESB and ROTJ, he pretty much rejected any suggestion he did not like. Perhaps in PT his team wasn’t giving him any suggestion at all.
It is valid. Lucas sank all his cash into ESB and when it went over budget he had to go cap in hand to Fox, something he desperately wanted to avoid doing. If he didn’t make his money back and make enough to repay Fox and still make enough profit to reinvest in his other projects his success with the first film would have been flushed away. So not quite Emperor at this point.
This and he almost had a physical and mental breakdown making the first film meant he needed to surround himself with people who could help him make the second film go as smoothly as it could. Don’t get me wrong I concede he still ghost directed much of the thing, almost totally rewrote the screenplay and was still not satisfied with the film most people love to bits.
Come ROTJ he was able to call all the shots. He didn’t need any more loans from Fox and he could get rid of whom so ever he pleased. This all while his marriage to Marcia was on it’s last embers and Marcia had made friends on the OT. Friends that were largely removed from his circle.
This is the period where script by maquette started to seep in. You see some of it when George is picking out characters for Jabba’s court (which is still okay as that’s not really going to influence the plot direction). But then you had the villains of the PT being created by the art department doing design concepts.
Instead of writing a character and deciding what the character looked like he was getting people to design action figures and allocating plot to the eventual toy product.
From ROTJ onwards story and film craft began to take second place to filling the screen with things that may be purchased as small colourful plastic collectables. That’s why the PT is so ‘dense’.
The acting in TFA is sometimes better than ROTJ but it’s story is even more a reconstruction of what was proven to work the first time, which is why I prefer ROTJ because it still has a spark of something unexpected and narratively interesting.
The PT has interesting plot points (some of which go nowhere like the mystery elements of AOTC) but unlike TFA the acting, directing and characters are bland and poorly constructed and rendered (human and digital cartoon).
This is what happens when telling a story is a secondary consideration to making cash. I’ve got no problem with people making cash from a well told story but I don’t generally speaking enjoy adverts.
TV’s Frink said:
He wanted to save Rey. He even lied to the Resistance, claiming knowledge of how to take the Base out, so they’d let him tag along. Which led to him admitting to Han he didn’t know what to do, which led to him suggesting “using the Force” to do it, which led to Han’s “That’s not how the Force works!” A great exchange.
Right, I guess that was the point. As I said, I honestly don’t remember that scene, it didn’t impress me much, I guess 😄
That’s fine but there’s been plenty of discussion in this thread of how and why her progression makes plenty of sense, you should read back through it.
Don’t worry, I assure you I read every single post in this thread before my last post, but I still don’t agree with what has been said on these subjects.
I’ve pointed out plenty of new things this movie introduced and risks it took. I completely disagree that nothing new was done here.
I never said that nothing new was done, just that the PT did more than TFA did. Anyway, I read your opininons on that, and:
-having a “strong female lead” (as it’s said nowdays) and a “black second lead” is not considered a risk anymore at all, it’s actually convinient in a way, because it is supposed to “widen the demographic” (or at least that’s what the studios think);
-I agree that Han getting killed might’ve been risky, but I actually haven’t heard anyone saying they didn’t like the movie because of this;
-I assure you no one bothered with Luke not saying a thing. I think that scene could’ve been handled better, but that’s my opinion;
-Ren is not complex at all, not in this movie. I’m fine with him being flawed compared to Vader, that’s an interesting concept, but it wasn’t actually put in good use in the movie;
-“The force used in new and interesting ways” what!? 😄 If you mean Ren freezing laser bolts, it’s just what Vader did in TESB, just a lot less subtle and “more kick-ass”.
Rating the PT + TFA in order of release, as you did in the rankings thread, is still crazy talk.
😄 I think I’ve been misunderstood here (I guess I’ll have to edit my post in the other thread…) What I meant is not something like “TPM > AOTC > TFA”, but more like “TPM = AOTC = TFA”. As I said, I don’t think TFA is like the PT, but that when considering the pros and cons, they’re more or less at the same level. But fine, it’s “crazy talk” (“from a certain point of view” 😄 )
The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201
Lucas’ whimsy and energy (creative not physical, he barely moved the camera) worked in a team of people where he had to fight to keep his ideas and notions in the mix. Once he became the Emperor and anyone that might obstruct him was removed he had nothing to steer him on course.
Not really a valid point, since he was the “emperor” ever since ANH was finished. Even in ANH he had mostly free hands since studio didn’t seem to be particularly interested in the film. Of course he couldn’t directly fire people in ANH but he could in ESB and ROTJ. The way I see it, he had more sense and was a bit more open to outside input during OT. Still, judging from screenplay meetings transcripts from ESB and ROTJ, he pretty much rejected any suggestion he did not like. Perhaps in PT his team wasn’t giving him any suggestion at all.
It is valid. Lucas sank all his cash into ESB and when it went over budget he had to go cap in hand to Fox, something he desperately wanted to avoid doing. If he didn’t make his money back and make enough to repay Fox and still make enough profit to reinvest in his other projects his success with the first film would have been flushed away. So not quite Emperor at this point.
This and he almost had a physical and mental breakdown making the first film meant he needed to surround himself with people who could help him make the second film go as smoothly as it could. Don’t get me wrong I concede he still ghost directed much of the thing, almost totally rewrote the screenplay and was still not satisfied with the film most people love to bits.
Come ROTJ he was able to call all the shots. He didn’t need any more loans from Fox and he could get rid of whom so ever he pleased.
Well he was still essentially calling all the shots in ESB. By the time he got the loan (and deal with Fox), creatively the most important part was already done with him having absolute power. Even after that he still seemed to be in complete control, considering he fired Kurtz (producer) in the middle of principal photography.
真実
I hate Terminator 2 so there you go 😄
It is a shit film
You might not like it, but it absolutely and unequivocally is not a shit film.
Not liking a film and film being a shit is the same thing.
Is English not your first language? (apologies to actual ESL members who understand how the English language works, and also to those who don’t, because I’m not terribly bright and could never speak a second language so my hat is off to all of you)
Not liking a film is subjective and is valid (even when it’s crazy, it’s still valid).
A film being shit is objective. There are shades of this, and in many cases it’s debatable, but there’s no way you can argue T2 being shit. You can say you hated it, you can say it didn’t work for you, but you can’t say it’s poorly made. This is like trying to claim the PT are good movies. They aren’t. There are interesting things about them, they have some good parts, but as movies they are shit. Liking or disliking them has nothing to do with it.
See the my reply to Lord Haseo a few posts back…
My response applies to that as well.
Do you think the PT is shit? Do you think the room is shit? Do you think there is a single movie, book, song, or any other creative endeavor that can be assigned objective merit or lack therof?
Honestly I don’t care how you answer, because a good 87% of what you post is nonsense, and I’m sure your response to this will be no different.
I never said that nothing new was done, just that the PT did more than TFA did.
On the PT vs TFA comparison, I think that while the PT is definitely technically flawed, it still followed less the OT’s structure than TFA, while also at least trying to add a few new concepts
Then perhaps I didn’t understand what you were trying to get at there.
-having a “strong female lead” (as it’s said nowdays) and a “black second lead” is not considered a risk anymore at all, it’s actually convinient in a way, because it is supposed to “widen the demographic” (or at least that’s what the studios think);
Those aren’t the entirety of what I said, you ignored the stuff about Rey being in a single non-sexualized outfit and being sweaty, Finn being a rogue stormtrooper, etc. And have we had a movie recently with both? Did you see any of the online nonsense about a black stormtrooper?
-I assure you no one bothered with Luke not saying a thing.
Absolutely false. I’ve seen plenty of complaints about this.
-“The force used in new and interesting ways” what!? 😄 If you mean Ren freezing laser bolts, it’s just what Vader did in TESB, just a lot less subtle and with more special effects.
Did Vader use the force to torture and extract information? Did Vader freeze someone entirely?
“TPM = AOTC = TFA”
Yes, that’s still crazy talk. If you said “I didn’t enjoy TFA” or even “I hated it” that’s fair. Saying it’s equal to the PT is ignoring how bad the PT truly is.
imperialscum said:
Well he was still essentially calling all the shots in ESB. By the time he got the loan (and deal with Fox), creatively the most important part was already done with him having absolute power. Even after that he still seemed to be in complete control, considering he fired Kurtz (producer) in the middle of principal photography.
Kurtz went once most of his work was done and he had already contributed ideas that were to lead into ROTJ (albeit in a contractual obligation album realisation rather the four more sequel episodes sense that was on the cards at that point).
At no time during the production of ESB was Lucas actually secure and reports from that time paint a picture of a very worried and almost paranoid person.
He is less paranoid during the making of ROTJ but just drained by his private life and trying to run a very big company.
Come the PT anyone saying no to Lucas would probably end up in the trash compactor.
My response applies to that as well.
Do you think the PT is shit? Do you think the room is shit? Do you think there is a single movie, book, song, or any other creative endeavor that can be assigned objective merit or lack therof?
If it is an art then objective merit can not be assigned to its content. There are some objective measures that can be applied to art in non-content-wise way, such as profit when it comes to selling the art where you can objectively say “this film was more successfully than that” based on the profit measure. But we are talking about content here.
So if one says “this film is bad” it is naturally a shorter version of “in my opinion, this film is bad.” or “I think this film is bad”.
真実