"Clone Wars"- Hated by Many, Loved by Me!

I'm used to being the only person to seemingly like most everything that comes out now. I've mentioned on numerous occasions how jaded the younger generations are nowadays.

It's no surprise to me then, that such useless critic sites such as "Rotten Tomatoes" (or as I refer to it- "Waste of Bandwidth") give the new Star Wars movie a lowly 18 rating.

I don't give ratings, nor presume that my opinions on any entertainment product have any relevance to another person- I simply am giving my opinion on the item in question as a source of entertainment and interest, rather than attempting to claim expertise over others and/or stop them from participating in an entertainment source that they might enjoy quite a bit.

The new Star Wars- Clone Wars movie, as you may or may not know, is simply a big screen showing of some episodes from the upcoming television show edited into movie format. The good news in my world is that this movie was great! Why? Let me break down my reasons...

1.) Action from beginning to end. Not an exaggeration- the longest scene with no action in it lasts perhaps 30 seconds. You go from war to more war to lightsaber battle to more war to more lightsaber battles to yet more war.

2.) No "cheesy" dialogue. While I don't agree this was true of Episodes 1-3, the plot (which seems kind of stupid at first glance, Anakin and a Padawan need to rescue Jabba the Hutt's kidnapped son) makes total sense and is actually exciting. The banter between Anakin and Asohka is great and the story is well constructed.

3.) The voice acting is superb. Mace, 3P0 and Count Dooku are all voiced by the actual actors, but if you can convince me that Obi Wan is not a clone of Ewan McGregor (pun intended) kudos to you.

4.) The action sequences are classic Star Wars. Epic, hairy and fun. Typical Star Wars fare- lots of action with humor thrown in.

5.) Asohka is a great character and her banter with Anakin is outstanding- she's a great role model for younger female Jedi-wishfuls in the audience.

6.) None of the things people hated about Episodes 1-3 are present in this movie- and therefore are unlikely to appear in the TV series when it makes its way to TV soon.

7.) The animation style is very, very cool.


Yet despite me obtaining these beliefs after viewing the show, others are having the exact opposite opinions. Frankly, I can't speak on their behalf, but in my opinion (again) on the matter, what is occurring is two-fold.

Part one of the issue is that people (particularly younger ones), find out what is "the word" on things- The Matrix was awesome, until "The Word" came out that the two sequels were bad. Upon leaving the theater for "Revenge of the Sith", I heard no less than 12 people gushing about how amazing the movie was... two days later, "The Word" came down that "it sucked", and therefore the opinions changed. It's just not a fun place to be in, when you're in the minority- so it's a safer choice to follow the crowd and rip on things that you enjoy than it is to stand on your own and speak up against the majority.

Part two of the problem, specific to Star Wars, is that people aren't using their brains when it comes to the recent movies. What is it Star Wars fans want? They want repeats of 4-6. They complain that Anakin and Padme had wooden dialogue, and the story was sappy, and so on, so forth.

Yet, the time the movies occur in is different. Padme is a former queen and eventual senator- she's not a "lowly" Princess from a casual world- she's been bred to be a formal statesman, and therefore would speak in such a clipped and proper fashion. She's not going to be as loose and free as the fiery Leia is years later. Same for Anakin- this is the era of Jedi's still. Anakin is raised in the caste-system of the Jedi, very formal and etiquette based. He's not going to speak or act like Luke- who is nothing more than an adolescent farmer. It would make no sense!

Therefore, much of the complaints of poor dialogue and/or acting really don't add up- we know from other movies that Natalie Portman and Hayden Christiensen are great actors... We know Lucas is a great director. How can you take three great people and create something subpar? I don't believe you really can... I think it becomes an issue where the audience is longing for the past, and unwilling to set aside their stubbornness and move into the future.

So, I personally loved this new Clone Wars movie- and look forward to the TV series when it hits the airwaves. Obviously others aren't going to follow, so it looks like what would have been another quality television show will end up cancelled early- but of course, this is the price that is paid when living in a society of jaded young things who aren't going to find entertainment that will ever please them.

This Post Sucks!

"Most of the younger people I knew didn't seem to have a handle on things; they hadn't found their place, they didn't understand how the world works, they didn't understand how to treat other people, and they didn't know how to stop thinking about themselves."
~Kristin Hersh

It sucks.

What, you ask? Nearly every entertainment product that is released nowadays. Mind you, this is far from my own opinion- rather, this attitude seems to seep throughout our entire culture in today's world. And this attitude is growing stronger by the day.

I can't truly recall the last entertainment product- movie, TV show, computer game, video game or any other imaginable creative production- where I've heard a vast majority shower the new release with overwhelming praise. Even "Dark Knight" started an online war of words. Obviously, you're always going to have to ignore the 0.01 % that deliberately take the opposite side of every issue as some form of attention whoring. But setting that aside, ultimately there should be something out there that everyone agrees is great, right?

Does this just come down to personal preference? Is it that what is great to one person is terrible to another, and therefore a consensus within society is not feasible? Will there always be a large group of people standing outside the theatre after a movie saying, "That was boring. That director doesn't know what he's doing. They should have taken out the car chase scene and put in more of the monkey. I easily could have done it better."

I think that is the case. People will always differ on entertainment, as it is art, and art is subjective. However, I submit that there is a growing trend, particularly in the younger generations- the under 30 crowd, with exceptions (there are always exceptions)- who are adopting an attitude only best described as jaded.

As I roam the internet, I find source after source of people making highly vicious attacks on creators of our entertainment. And yet, at the core of these arguments is nothing whatsoever but personal opinions! There are no facts provided to back up the reasoning of the attacks or why the entertainment products being attacked "suck" so much.

And guess what? There's a simple reason there are no facts.

Pretend you've landed in an airport and are disembarking from a plane. Have you ever heard anyone on the way out ripping into the pilot for how he flew the plane? Not complaining about a bumpy ride, or bad flight attendant service, but that he should have gone up to 30,000 feet for the first hour, then changed direction to catch the jet stream? Or, consider this: you're in the hospital, and you pass by a group of patients standing around yelling at a brain surgeon. How could he have made that incision the way he did? Why didn't he use a different approach to his tumor removal method? Or perhaps complaining about his choice of stitching when closing up his last surgery?

It sounds ridiculous, no? Of course it does! Yet- have you ever heard someone tell you exactly how the local professional basketball team's coach should have handled the substitutions for the game last night? What trades must be made for the team to make the playoffs? How the team's all-star player isn't trying anymore, and should just drive to the hoop each time down the court, which will guarantee victory every game? Of course you've seen this- repeatedly, and in regards to countless topics.

Here's the most common thing I'm sure you've seen, if you're an online gamer- legions of message board posters telling game developers (in extremely petty and vicious language) how uncaring they are for not playing their product, and for deliberately trying to ruin the game for the players. Or complaining for all to hear that the company that makes the game is only out for money, and they simply do not care about the players' experiences. And my personal favorite- have you ever seen a post on a game's forum telling the developers how that person could, in a matter of weeks, reprogram the game into perfect balance and make everything "fun" again?

The difference in these situations is obvious, but almost never considered. The reason no one gives a brain surgeon or airline pilot grief on their jobs is simple- the average person has no experience in performing these actions. You don't casually fly a plane around as a kid, or slice open someone's skull just to see what you can do. (I'm really hoping you don't, at least.) Yet almost every single person has picked up a basketball in their lives. Many have seen basketball on television, and learned the rules (somewhat) by which the players play. There are countless young adults who are fluent in multiple computer programs and languages- they know how to create programs or scripts, sometimes quite impressively.

This is the crux of the matter. When people have personal experiences to draw from, it is easier to judge the performance of another based on your perception of how things should be done. However, there's a fundamental flaw in this that most don't take into account.

Let's take computer game development, in particular, World of Warcraft. Massively Multiplayer Game Services (MMGSs) are highly complex, detailed programs of massive scope and scale. There are countless aspects in development of the product that you would require a short novel describing all of the individual tasks required to create and provide the service. Yet, if you grab any one of the majority of the players who've played the game, they will give you a list of faults with the product and how they would fix them. Most will complain about how nothing is ever done to fix the flaws within the product, and anger is expressed when something is altered that makes the experience more difficult for their character to succeed than before. Almost every thread on the forum concerning the game will have countless complaints on how poor the service is run, and how to fix these errors. Many of these threads even have information where the poster claims to have multiple years of experience in developing computer games, or other similar products, and therefore how qualified they are to point out how to fix the problems.

That is the flaw that people don't understand, and why none of these suggestions are factually based. You see, unless you have worked on the exact entertainment product being discussed, any criticism on your part is simply your opinion on the matter. Only the people who have been part of the development of a product have most of, or all, of the information necessary to make factual commentary on the matter. You could be the world's best brain surgeon, but you would never criticize another brain surgeon off-the-cuff because they killed a patient. Instead, you would have to familiarize yourself with all aspects of the case- everything to which a person uninvolved is fully unaware.

You see, you can't truly tell Blizzard how to factually "fix" World of Warcraft... because you don't know how World of Warcraft works. You might think you do, but you don't. You haven't been in the meetings. You haven't manipulated the engine. You don't know Blizzard's policy of handling art changes and the procedures involved in adjusting the timeframe of the project. That is, unless you work for Blizzard, and work on World of Warcraft. You see, without having all of the information, you don't have enough information. And without enough information, you're simply guessing.

That's why all criticism beyond the creators of entertainment products is pure opinion only. However, since people are familiar with aspects of the entertainment product, they feel like "experts". They are using their personal knowledge of programming, as if they are now on even ground with the developers. They are using their understanding of how to make a movie, to judge the latest sequel to hit the movie theaters.

So where does this new jaded attitude come from? This belief where "that sucks" is so often repeated? It's coming from familiarity. As the world continues to get more technologically advanced, the younger generations are growing up with personal video cameras, and learning computer programming languages. The younger gens are tech-savy, and are using this experience to judge the world around them. They've seen it all before, and the more they see the same thing, the more jaded they become. Unfortunately, no one has ever stopped to tell them that casual knowledge and experience are not replacements for professional knowledge and experience on the actual development of a product.

Experience is not interchangeable. It is unique.

There is every right for the gamers and movie watchers of the world to speak up and voice their opinions on why they dislike their entertainment sources. However, there is no reason to hide behind the bravado of internet anonymity, insulting and attacking the people creating these artworks.

So when you're on your favorite game's message board, and the uber-programmer with all the answers is telling everyone including the developers how to fix the product in three easy steps of programming, call them on it. They don't know, they aren't the developer. If you're chit-chatting with your local team's sports fans and someone's calling out the coach for how poorly he substituted during the game, call them on it. They don't know, they aren't the coach.

Remind these people that they're only providing their own opinions, and their own personal experience has no factual relevance in regards to judging the entertainment. Ideally, if we can all start reminding each other that other people are giving their all in the production of these sources of enjoyment for us, we can begin to agree more readily that most things don't "suck". In fact, we might all begin to calm down and see that everything around us is really pretty great.

Or, do I just suck for writing this?