Removed:
- Broken Aesop:
- The film muddies the motivations and fate of Admiral Zhao. In the original, Zhao murdered the Moon Spirit for both tactical advantage (de-powering the other side) and his own ego (he wanted to be known to history as Zhao the Moon Slayer). In the movie, he is now trying for some vague idea of freeing Humans from the spirits' power, declaring that with his act, they are now the gods. He is the villain, so his already villainous act should now also look blatantly blasphemous. However, his final fate is also changed, from in the original series being dragged to his doom by the enraged Ocean Spirit to in the movie meeting his end by being caught and drowned in floating water by a team of Northern Waterbenders. So Zhao declares his contempt for the Spirits, and his fate is changed to be taken down by men. So was he blasphemous, a rebel, or something entirely different?
- The Central Theme of balance as in "Equality" has now been thoroughly broken by the combination racebending, Adaptational Wimp and Chickification altogether means that benders as a whole are now so pathetically weak enough to be Awesome, but Impractical against non-benders, the racial equality the franchise was praised for now falls into the typical status quo of centering on a White Male Lead when white people don't even exist in this universe as well as the loss of agency and power in women as Katara is no longer a badass calling out her brother on his sexism and Yue's Heroic Sacrifice isn't her choice as it was in the show.
- Also the theme of unity in the sense that everyone and everything's connected with the concept of nations being illusions is gone by the Dragon Spirit replacing Roku, negating the entire point of "The Avatar and The Fire Lord" as Aang no longer has a mentor from the Fire Nation and Zuko no longer has a spiritual connection to Aang as Roku's descendant, which was part of signature angst/spiritual turmoil.
This write-up seems to be all about how changes made to the original cartoon in the process of adaptation affected the aesops of the cartoon, but this is immaterial for this trope. This needs to be rewritten to show that aesops presented in the film itself are broken by other aspects of the film itself.
Brainiac0982
I wonder, would the fact that the avatar can't have a family fall under Adaptation Induced Plothole? I mean, since Zuko and Azula are descended from Avatar Roku, that kinda contradicts what that point.
Edited by Brainiac0982 Hide / Show Replies
That's only the case if they're still related to Roku in the movie's continuity. It also assumes the "no family" rule was as set in stone as Aang believed it to be, instead of him misunderstanding what it meant.
"You can't make Katara a bigger Chick than she was in the original show. It's not possible. She was the moody Team Mom with healing and water powers and a crush on the Hero. She's THE Chick. You don't get any more chickish than that."
Look at the trope description, please.
- "Chickification is about taking a character who was a genuine Action Girl at one point, and derailing her into a Distressed Damsel without any back-up for such a change."
Cartoon Katara of the first season:
"an effective fighter"
No, a terrible one.
"and a headstrong"
I'll give you this
"and capable leader when she needed to be."
...This is laughable. Katara didn't really have a single sequence in the entire show were she took on a real leader role. She made some nice speeches, but did jack as a leader. There's a reason that Sokka, despite being a rather bad leader initially, still was a better leader as early as in the seventh episode than Katara would be for the entire series.
"That's chickification. I'm putting the example back and adding that detail."
No, Katara did not get chickified. As such, I'm removing this trope.
Actually, Katara is an incredibly effective fighter in the series. She was a skilled bender, managing several times to win fights with little training or self-training throughout the first season. Although she does not become much of a leader until later seasons, she is definitely chickified in the movie. Example added back in.
For the record, I'm with Ktreva on this — Cartoon!Katara is certainly an Action Girl, whilst Film!Katara is anything but.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
Not trying to bash, legit thing I noticed, and it would go under Alternative Character interpretation:
Iroh pretty much tells Yue that the only way to save the moon and her people is to spirit-drown herself. Wise Spirtualist trying to find the best solution or crafty Xantos-Roulette master convincing the queen of a tribe to kill herself without any of the blame?
Hide / Show Replies
Edit: The above troper thought that Iroh wasn't involved in the original series, but a friend pointed out that it did happen, so I watched and realized my memory is fail BUT I stand firm that it plays out a bit differently in the movie, giving Iroh a bit more Manipulative Bastard to him.
I don't think Iroh is any worse than he was in the show at that particular moment. The only difference is he's not beating around the bush. Zhao killed the moon. Can't be subtle about your intentions there.
The difference is that in the original series, it was Yueh's idea to sacrifice herself for the moon. In the movie, the idea is Iroh's.
The difference is negligible. In the original, Iroh provides the first step and the implication is obvious. He just spells it out straight here.
It's not negligible. In the show, Yue displays her own quiet sort of strength in willingly sacrificing her life so that the Moon may live an restore balance. In the case of the film, Eeroh's coercion and speech comes off like he's directly egging her on and forcing her to do it, to an extent, which makes it seem like she didn't make the decision for herself.
Mrs Friendly, I'm gonna warn you this once:
Do NOT, and I mean do NOT, delete any counterpoints against your attempts to defend the Last Airbender on the Headscratchers page just because you're completely unable to respond to them.
I have one rule and one rule only: When we're debating this or that or what-have-you, you respect the other person's opinion enough that you don't go and try to claim victory in the debate by simply wiping out arguments that disprove your own.
If you do that again, I'm gonna report you to the mods.
Not trying to start an argument with a mod (I'm a good boy), but:
- Deleted It Is Pronounced Tro-PAY: that's not simply when something is pronounced differently from normal, it's "Someone tries to class up something by "pronouncing it poshly"."
Is that not Exactly what Shyamalan did, at the apparent suggestion of a linguist?
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I don't think he was trying to "class" it up - more like stay true to the actual cultures (fantastically) represented in the show. Kinda redundant and pointless considering everything else that he did with the movie, though.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
But he got it wrong. If he wanted to be authentic, he would've based the pronunciations on the Chinese versions of the characters' names given in Tales of Ba Sing Se. The show's pronunciation of Iroh is actually closer than the Eroh of the film, and while Aang isn't exactly like the Chinese character, which is Ang, the movie's Ong was just as far off.
Edited by NotVichyssoise
After looking into the actual trope Mighty Whitey I learned that it has little to do with the actual race of the person. The only reason it is named that way is because most American fiction focuses on white protagonists.
Mighty Whitey is actually about a person coming into contact with a foreign society and after a few minutes (relative to us) learns their way of life, becomes better at what they do and usually become their savior. The "Mighty" part of the Whitey is certainly cynical but it isn't any instance where a white person is supposedly better than a person of color.
That would void Sokka and Katara from the trope altogether (as neither prove themselves superior to another culture at their own skills), and assuming the movies are anything close to the series unless Aang is in the Avatar State he is never shown to be better at Waterbending than Pakku or Katara, superior to Toph in Earthbending and is far from matching Zuko in Firebending. (Even then there are a lot of questions concerning what Ringer's exact pedigree is)
Edited by KJMackley Hide / Show Replies
It's Mighty Whitey from a meta perspective - these are roles that pretty much called for Asians and Inuit (using this as a shorthand for those who can play Water Tribes IRL), and casting was supposed to have been focusing on new actors, yet somehow white people are better at being Asians and Inuits than actual Asians and Inuits. This is what law nerds call "suspect class."
From what I gather, the Too Dumb to Live Earthbenders is also a case of Mighty Whitey, as Aang and co become better at realizing what Earthbending can do than the people who Earthbend for their entire lives.
BTW, there is 99% reason to believe Ringer is white. If he really had Asian ancestry, then why were there no official statements to that effect made by Paramount or M Night?
And you missed the memo that EVERYONE in that movie is new to that genre!
It bugs me that a good 90% of the complaints I've heard about this movie(which I haven't seen and don't really plan to at this point) involve the color of the actors' skin.
1: Shyamalan himself is "brown." While he may or may not have had a say in casting(I also do not know much about movie production), it comes across to me as similar to having a white director for a movie about a bunch of black guys breaking up a KKK meeting. I'd think if he objected half as much as everyone else seems to, he'd have done something about it.
2: Of all the things to complain about, you choose this? Not the fact that EVERYONE in the trailers wears dull surprise? The horrible direction? Pebble Dance? Conspicuous and bad special effects? Completely absurd fridge logic?(why would a bunch of earthbenders suddenly forget they can earthbend? It makes sense in the series, because they couldn't earthbend metal. Surrounded by dirt, not so much.) The fact that Checkov's Guns which came back to major plot points in the series have been completely dropped or ignored? The fact that the movie apparently would have been better if George Lucas directed it?(The man can't write dialog, but at least he knows how to make his action scenes fun.)
Yeah, sometimes, real life Just Bugs Me.
Edited by Entity325
At this point, most people have quit complaining about the Race Lift, and both sides of the argument come together to unanimously agree, that forget the casting Unfortunate Implications, forget the pronunciation changes, forget the changes from the show.... IT'S JUST A BAD FUCKING MOVIE! Period.
Take the movie by itself; completely separate from the show, and it sucks. People would've been fine with all the pre-release controversy if they had delivered a great film. They didn't; and that's the current general consensus.
Tyler Durden is my bitch.
Just removing this paragraph...
The film is essentially Love It or Hate It, the Race Lift given to the main characters and the movie's (perceived) Darker and Edgier tone being the two major areas of contention. See the reviews page
for opinions about all that.
So much of the above controversy involves this particular bit of wording that it seems best just to remove it altogether and leave the summary as neutral as possible. As mentioned by someone else above, it's more or less a paragraph-long statement of Your Mileage May Vary, and that's true of anything.
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!" Hide / Show Replies
While it's true that Your Mileage May Vary means just about anything, "the Race Lift given to the main characters and the movie's (perceived) Darker And Edgier tone being the two major areas of contention" is specific to this film.
The Narm and Your Mileage May Vary entries must stay. There's no need to delete them.
The problem I have with that paragraph is that While the Race lift and the Darker and Edgier tone were the main criticisms of the movie before the release, the actual movie s flaws far beyond that. Also the movie being darker and edgier than the show is objective fact. The reason it was earlier stated as "perceived" was because all we had to go on were the trailers. Now that the whole movie's out, we see that it is in fact "Darker and Edgier" than the show.
It seems we have another edit war on our hands. Narm and YMMV are both gone, by way of admin. I think the page still leans too positive, and the underhanded references to the controversies strikes me as a bit... off-putting. Like, "oh! These chaps objected to racism. Isn't that slightly perplexing and amusing?"
I'm not digging the dismissal of the controversies and generally horrible reviews, but I'm fairly stumped on ways to fix it without creating more of the same euphemistic garbage or incurring moderator wrath.
Wouldn't it be better to have something like:
Narm: See examples on THIS (link to appropriate page) page.
Then to try to remove all reference to it in the visible page? It's not like everyone who comes here edits this website, and the WHOLE wiki is littered with pages containing "Crowning", "Narm", "YMMV", etc. Likewise, there should be YMMV at least on the subject of casting and darker-edgier-ness, even if it's assumed that we don't need to mention YMMV with the work itself. I'd add it myself, but then I'd probably be accused of being the guy who removed the admin notice, and I don't want that hassle.
Honestly, this whole situation reeks of a bad situation with the admin. I'm new here and am willing to assume this is an issue with one particular page, but when the administration (well, one member of it) and the general populace are at odds, isn't that a sign that the rules need to be examined? Isn't there some other admin we can talk to for moderating this issue?
C'est la vie.
Writing down a oouple of these here, in case I don't remember them by the end of the week:
- Butt-Monkey: Sokka, for what little time is focused on him, continues to be the plaything of the universe. Which really makes him losing Yue all the more poignant. He doesn't have any victories to balance out his defeats.
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: It probably wasn't supposed to be funny, but when Sokka rushes in and starts wailing on the Fire Nation guards at the internment camp.
- Drinking Game: Take a drink everytime someone exposits. Finish the bottle everyime somone exposits well.
- Idiot Ball
- Averted: Got to give credit where credit is due, this Zuko doesn't wander into the wasteland with Aang's body without a plan, and this Zhao recognizes that maybe killing the moon isn't the best idea.
- Moe Stare: Yue looks like she isn't staring at anything.
- Race Lift
- Except, oddly enough, Azula.
Couple more:
- Audience Participation:
Yue: What's this?Audience: Your hand!
- Special Effects Failure: Behold! The slowest floating boulder ever!
Show, Don't Tell: much of the dialong is talking about things that happen off screen, like Sokka and Yue's relationship among many, many others.
Edited by 0dd1
Azula is played by Summer Bashil, an Indian actress. Fits with the ethnic casting of the rest of the Fire Nation. I personally don't think any of the above suggestions count other than Special Effects Failure.
Flat "What": Iroh's reaction to Zhao's plan to kill the Moon Spirit.
Never trust anyone who uses "degenerate" as an insult.
Just saw this flick and I think the most sorely lacking trope for this page would have to be As You Know. About half of all the dialogue in the movie was already-known by whoever it was being delivered to.
So far:
Special Effects Failure: The slow-moving rock summoned by six Earth Benders, the lack of any actual bending during bending practice, and Sokka being drenched in water at the beginning of the movie yet not being wet.
Fridge Logic: The "Avatar test" as performed by Iroh, which would suggest all the elements would be reacting around him all the time, which they clearly weren't. Also, Zuko being able to heat his hands through the ice despite novice Fire Benders not being able to bend fire without a source.
I thought it had something with him having strong chi or whatever, laughably, that wasn't a bad addition to the movie (chi)
Memetic Mutation could use some additions. (Just scroll through http://forums.avatarspirit.net/index.php?topic=18781.0 and you'll see why.)
I might suggest Zhao's obsession with mentioning the hidden library every scene and a half, or the fabled "Pebble Dance," and I especially like the line "This pleases me."
Then there's the Ka-Tackle, and possibly "He's making fire out of nothing!" and Zhao's incessant need to explain to everyone his plan to kill the Moon Spirit using the information from a scroll he found in the hidden library.
Other than that, pretty much every line delivered by either Ozai or Zhao, and of course the scrolls which Zhao obtained from the spirit library, which he uses to find the Moon Spirit, so that he can kill it.
Edited by 151.204.11.94
The Zuko thing is hand-waved by Iroh with something like: "Remember, your chi can keep you warm."
Also:
- Bile Fascination: The reason people are still flocking to see the movie, contributing to its earnings which near $100 million already. One can only pray that fucking Paramount won't fucking greenlight a fucking sequel based on the fucking movie's so-called fucking profits.
- Continuity Nod: Hama is given a mention by Gran-Gran as the last waterbender who was taken away by the Fire Nation. Also "The Great Library", where Zhao says he got the info about the Ocean and Moon spirits, is clearly a reference to the episode "The Library" in which Won Shi Tong mentions that a Firebender once visited the place looking for information to help win the war. And Haru's name isn't actually mentioned, though it's pretty clear who he is.
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: The only time Sokka was actually Sokka was in the Earth Kingdom prison. After stumbling in his sheath and realizing his boomerang's missing; the "Everyone can start helping, now!" was a Hope Spot for who thought the movie could get better (it didn't. It got worse.)
- Fan Nickname: Pebble-Dance! Whee! Epic Fail! Might be Memetic Mutation, but defenitely deserves a mention.
- Feed Me: Aang's speech to the earthbenders, followed by Katara going "You don't have to be afraid!" Ugh.
- Groin Attack: Sokka to a random Fire Nation Mook.
- Moe Stare applies to Katara as well.
- One-Scene Wonder: Iroh's role has been shortened enough to qualify as this; getting only four scenes, and playing a crucial role in all of them.
- Show, Don't Tell is inverted, what with all the exposition.
- Special Effects Failure also has the spirit world, which looks extremely stupid.
- Too Dumb to Live / Idiot Ball: Katara breaking open the iceberg. It could just as easily have been a frozen dinosaur or something. The audience knows it isn't, but that doesn't count.
- Viewers Are Morons: Well, just in case people watching the movie can't read the opening, we'll spell it out for them with a voiceover, too!
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: Zuko pulling down his hood. "I AM PRINCE ZUKO, SON OF THE FIRELORD!"
- WTH, Costuming Department?: Katara can't even walk straight under the stupid water-tribe costume in the South Pole. The outfit's belt-like rope around the waist seems to be obstructing her right hand; which keeps going a bit too much to the side. Am I the only one who noticed this? Rathborne being a bit more muscly, manages better, although not by much.
- You Need to Get Laid: Iroh to Zuko.
Look, this is why the lock is in place, and why it's probably going to stay that way. This kind of utter negativity. You're not helping anything.
I haven't seen the film. I don't care if these tropes apply or not. It's the tone of the thing. This is an example of why Fast Eddie is cutting down on opinions.
We are not here to bash bad films, nor point out flaws in this way. We are fans of film, and we like film. What you have here isn't snark, it's bile, and baseless bile at that. "extremely stupid" is a bad way of pointing out Special Effects Failure- phrasing it with a concrete example (his hand passes through the church wall, the shadows point toward the light source, the night shot is clearly a day shot with the sky blacked out, many background characters move in absolute synchronicity, the boulder moves too slowly) makes it an actual trope example.
Now, I'm not white knighting for the film, I'm trying to explain to you why TV Tropes shouldn't have this kind of thing.
I haven't seen the film...Heh. Try watching it first. We'll see if you're still "neutral".
Also, this is a discussion page, not the main one. Tropes aren't being added, they're being (hello?) discussed. Hence the subjectiveness of the posts. Kinda throws your entire argument out the window, unless you're saying that discussion pages shouldn't have discussions either, and be kept completely neutral. Maybe in order to keep discussion pages completely neutral, we could have discussion pages for discussion pages. Of course, those would have to be kept completely neutral to live up to your standards, too, so, we should also have discussion pages for those discussion pages... (?)
And, by all means, keep the page locked. I'm only here for the Bile Fascination, and I still vote we should delete the entire thing.
Finally, don't you just love that every single argument defending the film starts with "I haven't seen it yet, but..."
Totally a coincidence, fellas.
Tyler Durden is my bitch.
Darkmane, Iroh telling Zuko to "use his chi" to maintain body heat was a very poor handwave and very much a holdover from the show when fire benders could still "create" fire. In the context of the movie it comes off as a break in that universe's laws because simply telling someone "use your chi" doesn't seem like a legitimate means to grant them a new power. Really poorly thought-out writing.
After the End: One of the changes from the animated series is that the setting is post-apocalyptic Earth. Though they don't go out of their way to point it out.
"I haven't seen the film. I don't care if these tropes apply or not. It's the tone of the thing. "
Sorry, but anyone who pulls the tone argument out reads as a troll. You don't like that other people have passionate opinions? Though luck dude. Try reading for substance next time.
And I haven't seen it yet, well, that's the entire problem. So you're trolling people who actually have seen the movie because you don't like their tone? Nice unsubstantiated rebuttal!
Don't be absurd, jblaze - this has absolutely nothing to do with the tone argument, and its ridiculous to say it is. This isn't someone's personal rant against a very real injustice, its a wiki with a general style, and as godawful as the movie seems to be a lot of the stuff up there is totally out of keeping with what this wiki is supposed to be. I was totally against the lock, but there needs to be a balance in this.
Also, the description of it are so vague that I assume they only make sense to someone who's actually seen the movie. Since I have no desire to pay money to support this... production, it would probably be nice to fix that.
As it stands the existing article is hardly neutral. Rather, it's biased in favor of the movie. The very fact that we can't even mention the critical reception to The Last Airbender smacks of people going out of their way to make sure the main page views the film in the best possible light.
Even Wikipedia offers reception sections on their film articles. Is stating the very factual reality of the movie's reception unnecessary? Is that really biased?
I didn't like the movie, and I don't like the enforced ban on negativity against the movie. However, making a point of railing against how awful it is at every turn is another matter. That, I think, is the kind of thing that leads to edit-locks to begin with.
I haven't seen the film and I don't intend to- I've been told that it's bad and I'm going to listen. Your passionate opinion does not overrule the need for solid facts. Also, cutting the "witticisms" like "stupid" and "Ugh" makes the piece read better. This wiki likes snark- after all, we have pages about Twilight, after all- but it does not need this much bile in one page. Especially about a bad movie that you didn't like.
68.36.etc., let the film have its run and close early. Then we will report on the action, once the dust has finally settled. Otherwise, constant updating is needed to keep up with emerging reviews. That's a generalisation- perhaps this film is the pure crap you claim it to be, perhaps there will never be a positive review, perhaps the director's commentary will not reveal that any Executive Meddling took place- but we should let everything pan out before we decide how we react. This one is still happening. Let it happen.
Just like to point out that factual statements on the existance of a sucky thing within a film is not bashing. There is absolutely no reason tvtropes shouldn't have this kind of thing. 8% RT rating out of 128 reviews is sufficiently low that you don't need to wait - it means that even if 128 more give 100% RT ratings, TLA would still have a rating of 54%.
I'm sorry, but all this talk of "let it have its run" and "no negativity" isn't being neutral - it's being a bias heavily in favor of the movie. It's quite obvious that this lock only happened because some fool who buys into the Golden Mean Fallacy somehow got himself a mod position.
Instead of redirecting to the Just Bugs Me Page for the cartoon, I gave the Live Action version its own. That alright with everyone?
Hide / Show Replies
Well, that explains it — I think I was reading the page's history as you cut it out. Good idea, but you might want to put something in the "edit reason" space next time.
Locked it. Nobody has anything to say about tropes related to the movie. We'll just wait a week or two, until the haters' attention spans have moved on to whatever the next thing is they want to bash.
Edited by FastEddie Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty Hide / Show Replies
I actually was just about to add an Adaptional Angst Upgrade to point out Movie!Aang is much more angsty then Cartoon!Aang. But fine.
I don't think the haters will give up on this page, though. As hugely hated as this film is, I seriously doubt that a page lock will make them give up on this. Way I see it, it's only a matter of time before this becomes a full-blown hatefest page like Garbage Pail Kids or something. Two reviews in it's favor aren't going to do much.
Other than the ones that were listed there, of course. And all the information that bashes the fans are acceptable, but Your Milage May Vary, with an obvious split on reaction to the film, is considered too negative and taken away.
Taking out the obvious negative opinions is fine, and waiting to include the more subjective tropes is also reasonable. But this No Negativity At All stance is completely ridiculous, especially considering the movie's negative reception.
Edited by AlexRose
What split reaction? By that do you mean...
1 people who seen the movie and know it's crap
2 people who hasn't and think the above and all the reveiws are haters and liars
This is like locking FATAL's page because you think everyone ever is just it's Hatedom, it's not.
"until the haters' attention spans have moved on to whatever the next thing is they want to bash."
The word of the day is "condescension".
"Wax on, wax off..." "But Mr. Miyagi, I don't see how this is helping me do Karate..." "Pubic hair is weakness, Daniel-san!"
The film is getting a negative reception. That is indisputable. Calling people who didn't like it, and wish to acknowledge this "haters" (as if that negates whatever they say) is just ridiculous. It's not like there's only an automatic Hatedom about it, like people are just blindly hating the film for being "different" or "not the show", they all have real complaints about the FILM itself, about acting, writing, pacing, etc. Dismissing those as blind hate ignores what they're actually saying.
Certainly its not in the spirit of this site to be overly negative in articles, but there's no need to be condescending and dismissive about it.
Edited by Ithilgore
I see the logic in locking the page, but I, personally, would have thrown it to the wolves and made sure it stayed self contained. I am not a website moderator, let alone this one, but putting a lock on it seems like while the casual outburst is contained, it's going to just bubble up rage until the most nasty ones are the ones that are left, and they then have two weeks worth of ammo to blast this page full of holes, and other parts of the wiki along with it, no wait required. You keep it unlocked, and you leave it for the people to rage a bit, and it reaches an equilibrium. It isn't pretty, but people don't have to go there if they don't want to. You can cut it both ways, and I still respect your decision, just thinking differently.
And Anon up two, Fast Eddie it the guy in charge. Make your own wiki if you don't like it, but peacekeeping is kind of his job.
Edited by moocow1452 My webzone.
There is no logic to locking this page the film is horrbile and should be stated as, but people the Fan Dumb who hasn't seen it refuse to belive this and Fast Eddie is just letting them have there way
moocow: He's not peacekeeping, he's trolling. He's riling people up and making trouble where it wouldn't otherwise exist. Frankly, after reading his post even I had a strong desire to add the film to every negative trope out there, just because of the nasty tone of Fast Eddie's post. I'm all for peacekeeping but that is not what Fast Eddie is doing here.
The fact of the matter is that keeping the tone neutral or even positive isn't making the page neutral, it's making the page negative. By suppressing the negatives, particularly the factual, you're telling the vast majority of people that their views don't matter. A truly neutral would acknowledge the negative as well as the positive in a manner that respects both points of view.
Thank you for making my point better than I could, 75.51.77.89.
Fast Eddie, You are the problem.
Calling him a troll really isn't going to make him agree with you. Other people on this discussion are doing a good job of stating their case while acting reasonable about it, and neither of you are helping your side.
Besides, this wasn't solely the decision of Fast Eddie.
Edited by BLOODPOUCH
...ok, read the definition of So Bad Its Horrible. Look at the criteria for the entries. A work has to fail to appeal to any- and all niches in order to qualify. On this very wiki, there are positive reviews. No matter how bad the movie may be, some people think that it is not bad, and that it is good. That alone says that you cannot add any entries of So Bad Its Horrible. And the mods themselves forbade it, perhaps for the aforementioned reason, perhaps they were just trying to avoid Natter, which is a pretty big issue.
In any case, you defy the mods, you piss them off. You defy the site admin, you call him a troll, then you're definitely not making your case very well. Read the Do Not Taunt Cthulhu page in your spare time.
Edited by Chubert Whatcha gonna do, little buckaroo? | i be pimpin' madoka fics
Funnily enough TLA is already in the Darth Wiki So Bad Its Horrible page for films. That one mentions fan reactions, the critical reactions, and common problems people state with the films.
I assume that's fine?
This has nothing to do with what anyone feels that this wiki is "supposed" to be. What this is happens to be like holding a steady job. You get introduced to the requirements of the job and the managers have to hold you to a certain standard that they set. You might see other people slacking off or doing a half-assed job and getting away with it, but it is still your choice whether you will follow to manager's instructions or not.
If the manager catches you disobeying policy, they have every right to deal out punishments that sometimes make everyone suffer, especially if you're not the only one doing it. You may think it is unfair and if you really want you can tell the manager to F-Off, but that may compromise your continued employment.
If you're good you can sometimes get away with the GIFT, but if people were actually trying to put in legitimate tropes instead of the very bland and obtusely defined tropes like So Bad Its Horrible, Wall Banger and others then there wouldn't be a problem now.
I really don't see a problem with calling somebody on it when they decide to troll. Even if they are the site admin. He decided to insult all of the people who disagree with him in the name of neutrality and that is trolling behavior.
Bloodpouch: You're saying that it wasn't solely Fast Eddie's decision to type "We'll just wait a week or two, until the haters' attention spans have moved on to whatever the next thing is they want to bash?" How do you figure that? Who put those words in his mouth if he's not solely responsible for them?
If, as Moocow said, peacekeeping is kind of Fast Eddie's job, and he's doing the exact opposite of his job (hint: He is), then as KJ Mackley said, the manager is within his rights to call you on it. Fast Eddie doesn't have a manager, apparently, but he does have customers that he answers to, and I do believe they are within their rights to step in and do it.
Chubert, there's no such thing as something EVERYONE hates. No opinion is held universally. Some think Jar Jar Binks is entertaining. Some think Homer Simpson getting raped by a panda is hilarious. Some people liked Jeph Loeb's Ultimatum. Some people think Lilah's miscarriage in Ctrl Alt Delete was well-handled and appropriate. Need I go on?
Actually, I was wrong, SBIH does qualify if there is a non-existent fanbase, therefore, adding TLA in SBIH/film is completely justified, until someone contests it with valid arguments. My bad. Regardless, it was an admin decision to ban SBIH in these articles, saying that you could just write a review.
I think you guys are having a massive misunderstanding. If Fast Eddie wanted everybody that disagreed with him to not be able to talk, then he would disable the reviews section. He would delete entries out of subjective pages that he disagreed with. He obviously cannot do this. However, what he can do is, in the name of preserving the main articles, which he would like to remain bile-free, and natter free as well. Experience has shown that hating on something in the main page is likely to produce natter. This very page proves it as well, as a quick page history check reveals that people- including you, 209 me being stupid, disregard,- were just defying the admins and starting edit wars.
^ Sorry about that. Still, there were edit wars.
Whatcha gonna do, little buckaroo? | i be pimpin' madoka fics
"Nobody has anything to say about tropes related to the movie."
Really? I mean, it was a pretty terrible movie. But I could understand having a ban on declaring it So Bad Its Horrible and things like that. But honestly, there's a ton of troupes in the movie that imply that it's bad, because those tropes are very poorly executed. I'd add Faux Action Girl for Katara, as well as boatloads of example of dialogue Narm, Cliché Storm, and Info Dump.
If you want to go into the casting, there's plenty of Dull Surprise and Bad "Bad Acting".
On offensive stereotypes, there's examples of Ethnic Menial Labor, But Not Too Foreign, Token Minority, Noble Savages, Politically Incorrect Villain, Chickification, Disposable Woman, God Save Us from the Queen!, and arguably, Moe.
At this point, letting the page stands as it is comes off biased because it casts people who dislike it and recognize the poorly executed troupes as "haters". And don't think that I didn't notice that the the people making noise about race issues were painted as bemusing, at best, and hysterical, at worst.
Hate to break it to y'all, but the page is never going to be objective, whether or not it is locked. I'm almost certain that there will be edit wars, regardless of when it is reopened because the original page — in light of what people have observed from the actual movie — is now factually inaccurate.
Plus, I don't get why people can't just be free to put in their own edits while others put in edits slanted the other direction. This doesn't seem to be a problem on other pages who have examples of poorly executed troupes right next to things like Crowning Music of Awesome. There are tons of bad troupes that really ought to be on this page, for the sake of accuracy. And unless there's people running around like loons deleting all the bad troupes if they like the movie, or deleting the good troupes if they dislike the movie, I really don't see what the problem is at all.
What I am picking up is the mod consensus that people who saw the movie and disliked it are hysterical and rather irrational. Par for the course I guess, because I see locking an entry as an attempt to preserve a factually inaccurate positive slant, communicate contempt to detractors, and prevent legitimate entries from being posted.
Maybe we could put a suggestion thread for tropes here so whichever ones fit can be added to the page by a Mod or something.
Or, alternately, I highly recommend that we delete the entire thing - movie, discussion, reviews and all - and pretend all of this never fucking happened in the first place.
Tyler Durden is my bitch.
...I'm really disappointed in T Vtropes, here. Saying this movie is "love it or hate it" is factually untrue. Here's what Love It or Hate It means, from our own page on the trope:
"Some, however, manage to achieve the result of intensely polarizing viewership, with the result that nobody thinks the show is average or "worth watching, if there's nothing else on". Half of the viewers laud the series as the greatest, most intelligent, engaging thing every to grace the small screen, and the other half condemning it as a horrible, worthless load of festering bollocks that clutters the airwaves with reeking lines of awfulness."
Not only does "love it or hate it" imply that the film is about equally loved and hated (of course it's not), but it also suggests that opinions on both extremes are much more common than apathetic reactions. This is not true. A survey of reviews on our review page, on RT, and pretty much anywhere else will show you that even if you confine yourself to positive reviews, the vast majority of them are along the lines of "well, it's got a lot of problems, but I kind of liked it anyway and it's really not as bad as everyone says" or "awful by adult standards, but kids are the target audience and they'll like it" or "sufficiently visually stunning that I don't care about the terrible story." "Love it" reactions are EXCEEDINGLY rare.
Insist on a neutrality policy for T Vtropes if you like. But this is the kind of fake "neutrality" demanded by creationists who want schools to "teach the controversy" over evolution. There's a clear scientific consensus on evolution, and there's a clear critical consensus on this movie, which is that it blows. Yes, there are a small minority of viewers who liked it. There might even be one or two people who actually did unreservedly love it, and nobody can tell them they're objectively wrong. But claiming that this is just a controversial, polarizing film rather than an almost universally hated film isn't neutrality, it's lying. And having people who are willing to acknowledge that dismissed as "haters" really does not add to T Vtropes' credibility as an unbiased information source.
We are not here to pass judgment on works.
Furthermore, we can do what we are here to do without passing judgment on works.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
At the same time, several works have had our judgement passed onto them: Garbage Pail Kids, for example. Not that I'm justifying doing it here, but maybe the same should be done about that.
Edited by SalFishFin
Fixed Garbage Pail Kids. Any others we should de-editorialize?
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
I'm not sure if Fast Eddie's last post was aimed at mine right before it or not; if it was a reply to me, I'm confused, since the entire point of my post was that acknowledging critical consensus is not at all the same thing as passing judgment on works. Passing judgment would be saying "this is a terrible movie." However, saying "so far the vast majority of critics have hated this movie, and the fan reaction is only slightly better" isn't any kind of judgment, it's objectively true. And saying "the film is essentially love it or hate it" is objectively false.
It is isn't important to what we do to take any notice of critical opinion on the piece. Good, bad, or indifferent.
What we know about the reception of any work is that someone thought about it enough to list the tropes it uses. Nothing else matters.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Then how come so many trope pages will mention "critically acclaimed" if it's considered good, or, in the cases of things like Twilight or FATAL "absolutely horrific"? It would probably require a major rewrite of every page about a work to remove people's receptions of it, and in many cases that would very much HURT the page (take the NGE page, for example). To say "most people don't like it" isn't unimportant. There are tropes devoted to WHY people don't like this movie (Adaptation Decay, for example, would be immensely fitting).
Are we still "a buttload more informal" if we're having discussions as to what is and isn't important to what we do?
It's a good thing "Fast Eddie" also ordered the removal of all trope examples from Small Name, Big Ego, because he is rapidly becoming a shining example of it.
At the very least, if we're going to start culling mention of how a film was critically received...which seems a bad idea on its face...the line about it being Love It or Hate It should be cut under those guidelines. It stands out like a sore thumb on the page for how blatantly untrue it is and makes the thing incorrectly skew towards the positive.
If anything, the movie seems likely to help reunite a once Broken Base; where once there were defenders of the film and detractors of the film, now the Avatar fanbase can mostly come together that their beloved TV series has been horribly, horribly butchered.
^ Ya. Doubly so, speaking as one of those who'd been defending the film prior to its release.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
Echoing what others have said, the film isn't Love It or Hate It. It simply isn't. Find someone who actually, flatout loved it. Anyone. Difficult, I would think.
The people who don't hate it tend to say "yeah there was a lot of bad stuff, but it's not as bad as everyone says, and I enjoyed it anyway". That's not loving something, that's "kinda lking" at best, and Guilty Pleasure or So Bad, It's Good at worst.
This overly forced neutrality is extremely out of place and sticks out like a sore thumb. At least state that the reaction has been either hate or So Okay, It's Average.
arguing with Fast Eddie, especially calling him an asshole, will get you banned. There is a spot for ragging on the movie. The review page. Y'know, the link at the top of the page that says it has 20-something reviews? He just wants the place organized. Thtropes is about tropes. Thus, the articles should be about tropes. The review page is about reviews.
We shouldn't be calling Fast Eddie an asshole or anything else, but in this case he's going overboard. Rather than being 'neutral', the page now skews towards the positive by suggesting that there are some people who love it and some who hate it, when in reality most people hate it and there are a handful of people who think it isn't that awful.
So Hate It And Dont Completely Dislike It? It certainly isn't Love It or Hate It, and that line should be removed.
Whatever the case, if TV Tropes policy is now officially to weed out any non-neutral statements about the quality of a movie outside of Darth Wiki or review pages, I can only say that's a lot of weeding to do to prove a point. Should we start doing the same to beloved series? The Godfather contains mention in one of its tropes that its considered one of the greatest films of all time. Should that go next?
It's frustrating to be prohibited from even being able to mention the general response to a film, even when the avalanche of negative publicity is one of the most well-known things about said film. This movie is hovering at 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. At this point, it's like a Uwe Boll film or a Battlefield Earth and one cannot paint an honest portrait of it without mentioning how it is widely considered to be excruciatingly bad.
I agree with the above. Look, it would be one thing if this wiki had a consistent practice of avoiding mentioning critical and popular reception of things...but it doesn't. That may be the idea, but it isn't normally enforced. There are entire CATEGORIES that wouldn't exist if reception of the film was irrelevant - and I don't just mean pages marked subjective, or on the side wikis. (Not going to list them as I don't want to be responsible for mass deletions, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out.) Even the Garbage Pail Kids page right after Fast Eddie fixed it contained references to the film's quality and reception, under Guilty Pleasure - "Because some people actually like this film, and it has a little bit of a cult following despite (or because) its badness."
I would guess that pages on this site that make no reference to reception or quality are probably a minority, honestly. And picking a movie that genuinely does have nearly unanimous critical and popular opinion to enforce the neutrality policy seems just seems petty and biased.
Were you just forced to avoid mentioning pages by name so that they wouldn't be deleted?
I think we just hit Godwin's Law. Make of that what you will.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
I think some people don't know what "editorialize" means. If you're going to say "this movie sucked" with nothing to back it up but your own opinion, fine, remove it. If you're going to say "this movie has a single-digit rating on rottentomatoes," that's a statement of fact. Not an editorial, and not allowing that to be put on this site is quite stupid.
Honestly, tvtropes is supposed to be "buttloads less formal" than wikipedia. Wikipedia has a section on critical reception.
Even if you don't want to specifically mention Rotten Tomatoes," a statement like "critical reception of the film has been generally negative" is still a fact.
OK. Why, exactly, are we not allowed to point out critics dislike it as a general rule? Since when is there some kind of rule about this? I've seen it a million times on this wiki- given that the point of these pages is to inform about more than just the work itself but also stuff like context... I don't get it.
It wasn't me going OMG THE FILM'S CRAP!!!, I was just pointing out that wow, critics have been blasting it pretty harshly.
Hide / Show Replies
Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment. See the topic at the beginning of this page.
Negative reviews only represent one side of the spectrum. Unless you can conjure up some positive reviews to balance out the issue and not favor one side or the other, you're better off not mentioning them at all. Alternatively, you could just leave one of your own.
There is a difference between acknowledging that some people view the movie in a harsh light and using specific examples of that hatred in order to support a particular point. Such a method is more suited to an argumentative essay or a review of your own, not a wiki page designed to let people know which tropes are employed by a work. There are plenty of places for you to express your opinion (and those of the reviewers) without turning the main article into a breeding ground for arguments. Put it there instead.
Reviews, by their very nature as opinion-driven pieces, are going to attract both agreement and disagreement. Linking to them in the main article invites too much conflict. The main article is not the place to discuss the quality of a work, because no opinion is truly universal. That's why the forums and review feature exist.
OK, I haven't seen this film and don't intend to. It's not a 'point'. All it is is me saying 'this is what critics say: here's where you can see for yourself'. Rotten Tomatoes collects a variety of reviews, good and bad. The reviews themselves skew badly from critics, hence the skew; I'm not picking and choosing. 9% may be a pretty damn low score, but it does also mean there are a few *good* reviews there.
TV Tropes is not unbiased. It's not there to BE unbiased. And I still don't even see why saying 'critics are biased against it' is bias itself.
We can't just... not put anything that people might be :| about. I doubt pointing people to a well known review collection will incite anything major.
It already has. Look at the page history and you'll see what I mean.
I wouldn't really call that major, but I suppose YMMV.
It's very frustrating to not be able to actually talk about a work because people might have their feelings hurt, however.
Also, that all seems to be about people not citing 'warmly reviewed', etc.? Could we just put 'and here's what the critics think' or something instead, then?
Edited by Ayries
You can talk about it. Just not in the main article. There's too much risk of somebody taking it the wrong way and trying to start an argument. That's what we're trying to avoid. The only reason the current disclaimer is in there is because if it wasn't there, someone would come along and add it anyway.
I don't believe we should be overtly negative about this movie, but considering the overall reception, this caution is unwarranted and a little extreme. The censorship is rather obvious, and if anything, I recieved the impression that this article is skewed against dissenting fans (I.E Citing a specific unjustified complaint of one fan, while failing to mention some of the more legitimate critisisms). Why are we restricted from posting solid, unbiased facts (Critical reception was mainly negative, that is undeniable) solely because of the misbehaviors of a few select fans? Why can't they discuss their disagreements in the talk page, like we currently are, and behave themselves?
Good lord, it's been ONE DAY. Everyone here is talking like it's been months since the movie came out, and the page is locked and life is soooo unfair. It's been a day. A single freakin' day. Are your fingers so itching to bash this movie that the effort of holding back for at least the opening weekend to pass is too much to bear? Rottentomatoes is not reliable at this point. Scores can and do change wildly in the first week or so as more and more critics start reviewing it. It was at 6% yesterday, it's at 9% today - that's a 33% increase in less than 24 hours. I doubt it's going to break 50% when the smoke clears, but maybe you can at least let the opening weekend play out before leaping in with a triumphant, barely-concealed "ha HA, stupid movie sucks and the critics agree, yeah!"
I personally don't care: I don't watch the series and I have no plans to see the movie. Which is precisely why it bugs me to see people so irrationally invested in this need to start the bashing right now, at this very second. Again, the movie has been out for less than a day. Why is it so essential to add "Rottentomatoes says 9%" at this very moment, except to satisfy your own schadenfreude?
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
Kindly cite all the overreactions and hysteria you’re referring to. Otherwise, I’m assuming you’re employing the “slippery slope” argument and vastly exaggerating our concerns and mentality regarding this issue. Although the exact score will vary, it’s safe to assume that the general response is negative. Perhaps we shouldn’t cite the specific scores at this point, but we are certainly justified in stating the general reaction. And regarding your last paragraph, you certainly care enough to write a response regarding this issue. Why are you so scathing about our own desire to update a page regarding a subject we care at least mildly about, which is pretty much the entire point of a Wiki-style format?
Something like mentioning critical reception was mostly negative, while fan reception varied, is not suitable?
For instance, the main Avatar: The Last Airbender contains some gushing, postive stuff in its description about parts of the show (mainly the finales). It's kept "anonymous", not attributed to critics or anyone, but something about the reception of the film ought to be somewhere in this article.
Maybe not now, after the movie has been out for a few months and the dust has settled, perhaps.
Precisely. Just because you perceive an opinion to be widely held does not make it so. The very fact that we're disagreeing on this demonstrates that not everyone thinks this movie sucks. What's happening is that people have been predicting this movie's downfall since it was announced, and now they're pouncing on it before it's even gotten a chance to prove itself.
Why is it so very important that your opinion goes here? There are other places for it, places where people go looking for opinions and expect to find them. The main article is a place for facts. The site's rules say as much, and we should do our best to follow that. And no, simply acknowleding that people perceive the movie negatively will not help matters any. It's simply too soon to come to a conclusion about what the widely held fan opinion is.
And even then, what does that matter? If people want to read those reviews, they'll seek them out on their own. Linking to them here only serves as a way of saying "See? I told you it was gonna suck!" It's not necessary, especially because we have a review section of our own. If you want to let us know what you think, put it there.
Those are not remotely hysterical, like you imply with sentences such as "Are your fingers so itching to bash this movie that the effort of holding back for at least the opening weekend to pass is too much to bear?". At best, they are frustrated about not being able to edit a Wiki due to a disputable reason.
I understand that this is a relatively recent topic, and holding off on the more subjective tropes is a reasonable action. But unforunately, even the less subjective yet negative information (Reception was generally negative) is being barred from editing, when it shouldn't. That restriction gives the article a positive bias, which is hardly better from the negative bias that it attempts to avoid.
@Beef I understand that personal opinions do not belong on the main page. However, I am not agruing that my opinion, and all negative opinions, be represented and allowed to shape the article. Wht I am arguing is that barring negative information, regardless of objectivity, for the purpose that it'll encourage more opinionated negative information is a fallacy.
Regarding your second and third paragraph, I could ask you, in turn, why you find it so important to keep the quality of this sole internet page and argue your viewpoints to some random guy on the internet, which will have absolutely no impact on your life outside the internet. Arguing our motivations behind our reasoning here is absurd and irrelevant to this discussion.
Edited by AlexRose
Hysterical is your word, not mine. As for what I said, well, if someone really finds the inability to post information about negative reviews on this page (something that isn't even the norm on this wiki's movie pages) just one day after the film's release to be "very frustrating"...
Also...
That restriction gives the article a positive bias.That's actually part of the wiki's original tone, and the big challenge for the admins has been trying to keep people from sneaking negativity past the rules. The site's supposed to just be about describing the tropes, not about issuing warnings to people that the work in question sucks. Besides, so far as I can tell, this is the only part of the main text that even addresses the reception...
The film is either warmly received or violently hated. The Race Lift given to the main characters and the movie's (perceived) Darker and Edgier tone being the two major areas of contention. See the reviews page for opinions about all that.
I agree that maybe the Ruined Forever pothole should be changed to something more neutral like Adaptation Decay, but really, that's the only part of the main text that has a tone either way. Most of it just flatly tells the movie's story, which is what the movie pages should generally do.
Now that I look at it, maybe that paragraph should just go...
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
Hysteria is what was implied with your quote. If you'd like, I could rename it to "overeaction". The point is;
"I don't believe we should be overtly negative about this movie, but considering the overall reception, this caution is unwarranted and a little extreme"
is not even remotely the same as
"...fingers so itching to bash this movie that the effort of holding back for at least the opening weekend to pass is too much to bear".
To your next post, that's precisely what we're arguing about; whether to aknowledge there is a general, negative consensus or to keep it neutral.
Edited by AlexRose
Except that that's not what I quoted or was responding to, except for the "unwarranted and a little extreme" (and more to the point "this is the new Sonichu" and the censorship griping and the "very frustrated" post). I'm going to say this again in really big letters. THE MOVIE CAME OUT YESTERDAY. All this language is ridiculously over the top. It has been a day. Anyone who's that frustrated by the inability to immediately log in and add that RT score is trying to edit for the wrong reasons anyway. Again, this is not the place for issuing public warnings about a movie's quality.
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
No, in your original post, you implied that we wanted to vent our negative opinions, and the reason for our frustration was because we couldn't do that.
"Are your fingers so itching to bash this movie that the effort of holding back for at least the opening weekend to pass is too much to bear?"
You said that in your original post.
In my post proceeding that, I ask exactly where people said or implied that was the case.
You then cite five mild posts responding to the censorship and issues arising from that.
I point out that those do not show the desires you implied people had in your original post. In my previous post, I compared the tone of a response to your hypothetical tone/action to demonstrate this discrepensy.
I feel we are on completely different pages here. Where are you in this argument?
EDIT: So wait, you were talking about the language being over the top, while I was arguing that your language regarding the language being over the top was over the top?
Well, I feel adknowledging the fact that reception was clearly negative is not over the top and is silly to leave out, regardless of the timeframe, but at this point I think we'll have to agree to disagree and move on.
Edited by AlexRose
Brit, you make some good points and I agree with a lot of them. I don't think it's too early to stamp this one with So Bad Its Horrible just yet, and calling it "Realy bad" is just kinda immature.
However, I do think (and I believe from your comments above that you at least partially do as well) that once the dust has settled then we can and should something about the critical reception of the film, whether it be So Cool Its Awesome to Your Mileage May Vary to So Bad Its Horrible. While it's true that there are very few references to Rotten Tomatos on other film pages, most of them do describe the perceived quality of the film by the general public, especially if they are films intended to be blockbusters and have come out in the last few years (in the age of widespread internet reviews and review aggregator sites). When RT is mentioned it's usually because the score is either obscenely high or ludicrously low. As you said, a bit too early for this one.
I do take issue with the phrase "the film is either warmly received or violently hated." It's basically a more wordy and less eloquent version of Love It or Hate It (which has been deleted in the past when it was added to the page) and is rather misleading, implying that there is both a sizable "love it" group and "hate it" group for this movie. If Your Mileage May Vary gets deleted, I don't see why this one should stay.
EDIT: I understand why we try to keep too many opinions off the main page. To prevent flamewars and all. And that's a good reason. However, the critical consensus of a work isn't an opinion. A phrase like "the film received generally positive/negative/mixed reviews" is fact (assuming its true). But again, could be a bit too early. Let the dust settle first.
Edited by NotVichyssoise
There is something ironic about Hot Soup talking about Rotten Tomoatoes, but that could just be my imagination.
Regarding your second and third paragraph, I could ask you, in turn, why you find it so important to keep the quality of this sole internet page and argue your viewpoints to some random guy on the internet, which will have absolutely no impact on your life outside the internet. Arguing our motivations behind our reasoning here is absurd and irrelevant to this discussion.
Why do you? You're not even debating the original point anymore. You're just arguing semantics.
This has gone on long enough. There is an admin note in the article telling people to take their opinions elsewhere. I think we should do that before the page gets locked.
Just because the wording didn't swear or call names doesn't make it mild. Censorship is a strong accusation. The Sonichu page was a huge debacle, to even make the comparison speaks volumes. To feel very frustrated over a day-long inability to add one specific edit is a surprisingly strong reaction. And the only reason I can see for such a thing is that people want to vent their negative opinions (or more specifically, want to experience the "I told so you" validation). Because, otherwise, where is this collective impetus to post that score coming from, and why does it exist on this page and virtually no other movie page on TV Tropes?
As for me, I'm in this for an emotional reason too. I like the positive tone TV Tropes used to have, and I hate seeing it slowly giving way to negativity. Frankly, if I want to go read about how horrible any particular work is, there's the entire rest of the internet, in scathing technicolor vitriol. What makes TV Tropes different is how accepting and positive it generally is. Most of the works pages I've seen, including some really bad ones, don't offer any comment about the reception at all, at least not in the main text. So why cite it on this one, and why the urgency and sense of unfairness in not being able to do so?
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
Well, I became interested in this discussion after seeing what appeared to be this page being protected from any kind of negativity, compared to, say, Jonah Hex, a film that seems to get mentioned quite a bit in The Last Airbender reviews. But as Brit pointed out, might be a bit too early.
Edited by NotVichyssoise
Yep, I totally agree about Your Mileage May Vary (we all have opinions about everything, and they vary :)). The best thing might be to chop that paragraph and let the main text just talk about the movie in production and story terms. The only downside would be that, without some kind of concession to the reader's feelings, its absence might spark an even bigger "do critical reactions belong in the main page" debate.
And once the dust has settled, a comment about its reception wouldn't be too out of tone with the wiki. It's just adding it in right now, and the sense of urgency behind it, that I disagree with. Time will tell if the movie ends up rising from the critical ashes, or becoming a critically lambasted but nonetheless popular movie, or a just plain bad movie (it's Shyamalan, so I'm not optimistic - but you never know).
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
Why do you? You're not even debating the original point anymore. You're just arguing semantics.
You were discussing the sematics before me, questioning why I was arguing. My response to you was that discussing motives (which is a sub-set of sematics) and that wasn't a good idea. That was the entire point of the post you just quoted; to display that arguing sematics was pointless. You then berate me for discussing sematics. I think you misunderstood my post.
Well, I'm pretty much finished with this argument. At this point, we're discussing how much negativity should be allowed and when, based on the suppose reaction of fans from a few quotes. I think they don't demonstrate the desire to be overtly-negative, you think they do. That's fine, and let's leave it at that for now. I'll agree that waiting for a little while is fine, if not a bit cautious in some of the more objective edits (Crictical reception has, and will very likely remain negative).
Edited by AlexRose
On a unrelated note, I suddenly find myself extremely amused by the page quote.
Heh. Now for someone to just remove Katara's half of the quote...
"And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
I was just thinking that; I thought it was the quote for that exact reason at first.
OK, so why is the (mostly negative) TV Tropes review page allowed to be linked but not RT, exactly, if we want to keep any critical reaction off the page for fear of bias/flamewars?
Another point about waiting at least a few weeks, if not months, is if the film ends up being a box office success and starting the franchise. Certainly reception is negative so far, but that hasn't stopped films before.
Something small and simply stating a fact in a few months time like "While the film was not received well critically, it was a financial success. Fan reaction has varied". There are PLENTY of film articles on here that mention their negative (or positive) receptions.
If it ends up bombing, well, just remove that middle section. I don't think anyone can deny critic's reviews so far are very negative (8% on RT is not exactly common), and its not biased to just mention (if when its finished in theaters the critical reception has remained as negative) that fact. What if it ends up winning a bunch of Razzies, for instace? It's not impossible with that score, we all know the Razzies aren't really about awarding the worst films of the year, but rather the blockbuster films that simply got a negative reaction. I imagine Jonah Hex (So Bad Its Horrible reviews being mentioned that, more obscure, article) will have any Razzies it potentially wins mentioned.
I'm just kinda rambling here, so I'll just close and say that this ban on mentioning critic and fan reactions in detail is good for now, but eventually, after the film has finished its run in theaters (maybe as far as waiting for its reception on DVD/Blu Ray to be seen), it is going to warrant a mention.
There are now 128 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Only 10 are positive at 8%. That's even lower than the 9% already stated and I don't think there'll be a sudden reversal of the reception. The DVD realease might add deleted scenes that change this but at best we can add What Could Have Been. I think that we can now at least say that critical reception was bad.
The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.
The Last Airbender should have its Narm mentioned... People love the Narm so much they are already on the Film Narm page!
Edited by KathTeaChin Hide / Show Replies
"Narm" gets cited everywhere these days, so that isn't saying much. Anyway, the page is locked. (Although, personally, I will grant you Yue's sacrifice...)
Bully in the Alley
On the Magic Ais Magic A entry, it mentions that the original series didn't portray firebending inconsistently, but it neglects that they implied the source for fire was breath. Is this nitpicking or could that entry be longer? Probably the former, since it's covered in Elemental Baggage.
Edited by CleverPun "The only way to truly waste an idea is to shove it where it doesn't belong." Hide / Show Replies
I don't know the specifics of firebending in the show, but it was something like using chi to create a chemical reaction in the body by using breath as the reactant and the sun as the source.
It probably counts as [wmg], but I really like this person's explanation of the "science" behind the bending in the show.
This is just a note to any would-be contributors, since I can't go into too much detail on the main page.
Please keep examples neutral. It doesn't matter what side of the debate you're on, whether you think Shyamalan should be shot or if you think he's the best thing to happen to Avatar ever. If you're going to add an example on this page, be sure not to taint it with any personal opinions or emotionally charged sentiments. That has the unfortunate side effect of creating flamebait, which leads to Natter and, in extreme cases, an Edit War. If you are looking for a place to voice your displeasure, we have forums for that.
Also important is the fact that the movie has not yet been released. Pay close attention to the bold-faced note at the bottom of the introduction. Examples should be added based on actual press releases, not speculation gleaned from trailers or just something you heard. This ensures that examples remain factual instead of predicting how much the movie is going to suck/rock. Once the movie comes out, you may add as many of those other examples as you want, provided it doesn't qualify as Complaining About Shows You Dont Like.
This is not just addressed to the people who don't like how the movie is shaping up to be, either. Keeping the examples neutral means that no matter what you personally think the movie's going to be like, your opinion doesn't belong here. We have other places for it. This is supposed to be a place where people can come and learn a few interesting things about the movie that they might not have noticed on their own, not a forum for you to express your views. Because we already have one of those, using it for that purpose would be totally redundant.
Oh, and if you see anybody complaining about or justifying the movie to the point where it takes away from the neutrality of the example, either delete the offending lines or edit them so that they remain neutral. Don't add fuel to the fire, please.
Thank you.
Hide / Show Replies
It got a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, so the levee gonna break real soon on the negativity, hereabouts.
The movie was frakkin' horrible, and I haven't met anyone else who liked it. I think treating this movie as being So Bad Its Horrible and removing all the stuff blasting the people who hated it for "whining about inconsequential things" is pretty called for.
No it isn't. The main page is not a discussion board. The idea is to avoid conflict so that people reading the page don't get swept up in a strong bias that not everybody agrees with. The Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment exists so that people don't get into an Edit War over things like this. Just because a group is vocal does not mean that it is a majority. Some people, like me, are actively avoiding the argument because we don't want our opinion swayed by complainers like you. I for one am excited for the movie, and will probably enjoy it regardless of what you say. That doesn't mean I get to say that on the main page.
We have many other places for you to express your opinion on the work without breaking the neutrality of the main page. You can write a review, or talk to people on the forums. But the main article is supposed to be a place where people can read up on the movie to see what tropes it uses, not how good or bad it is. If you keep this up, we're going to have to get the admins involved to keep this from erupting into a Flame War. And I don't think anybody wants that.
So you haven't seen the film.
You haven't seen the film, and you're complaining about people complaining about the quality of the film. A vocal minority that includes 94% of RT-covered critics. All that I'm saying is, it is being received in such a negative way that it will be portrayed in an awful light.
Edited by MatthewTheRaven
We've got articles that aren't afraid to say whether something is crap. Mostly from stuff reviewed by the Nostalgia Critic, but still.
But tor now, I think it might be best if we come to a compromise. The movie has barely been out for two days. I say we wait a week at most to see if anyone actually liked the film, then act accordingly.
It doesn't matter that I haven't seen the film. The rules of this wiki are what I and others are trying to enforce here. Read the pages that I linked to. The behavior that's been going on is in flagrant violation of the rules regarding neutrality. Regardless of what you think about the movie, the main article is not the place for it. As I already mentioned, you can write a review or Take It To The Forums.
Trying to excuse it under the blanket of acknowledging that people perceive it negatively is 1. disguising your agenda while still advancing it, and 2. completely unnecessary, since the main article already acknowledges that people might have differing opinions on the work:
- The film is either warmly received or violently hated. The Race Lift given to the main characters and the movie's (perceived) Darker and Edgier tone being the two major areas of contention. See the reviews page for opinions about all that.
It doesn't need to be discussed any further than that. So please, save everyone the trouble of deleting it and make sure your example is neutral before you add it.
No, I don't have an agenda, and I did read the pages you linked to, and they don't really come into play here. I just wanted you to know that, despite what you think Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment means, negative tropes will pop up on this trope entry, simply because this wiki is loaded with so many critical "tropes" that they accumulate around a widely hated film such as this one.
This has happened around every disliked film on this wiki, from Battlefield Earth to Good Luck Chuck. This is an historical fact on this wiki. The main article is almost always the place for these negative opinions, despite the placement of weasel terms like YMMV. While you can spend time policing the page, a few months down the line it will crystallize into a generally negative trope page.
Oddly enough, without the allowance of this natural tendency, we'll have the double standard pointed out in beeftony's entry above - the "warmly received" term points the the positive and pro-film trope And The Fandom Rejoiced (not that the fandom actually is rejoicing at this point), while "or violently hated" links to Ruined FOREVER, which is slanted against people who dislike the film. The article actually has a quite unwarranted positive bias.
Edited by MatthewTheRaven
I know balance is important, but... Warmly received by who? A very large number of Film pages will mention the general consensus regarding a film, ranging from "So Cool It's Awesome" to "So Bad It's Good" to "Your Mileage May Vary" and even "So Bad It's Horrible." This isn't my opinion, or your opinion, or some other troper's opinion. It's the general consensus of the critics and general populace.
And none of the other Film pages say to keep all opinions to the reviews page. It just looks like an attempt to censor all negative opinions.
All of that is something we're trying to fix. We don't want those other opinions either. One way to fix it is to keep ahead of the movie's page when it is released.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
What happened to "We encourage opinions"? Besides, the critical reception of a film, whether it received good or bad reviews from the public, isn't even an opinion. It's a fact. Even The Other Wiki, with its far more stringent objectivity and neutrality standards, doesn't shy away from that.
And saying that "the film is either warmly received or violently hated" is just plain misleading.
Who said we encourage opinions? We are not about opinions at all, except in places like Reviews, where opinions are tolerated.
And even we have some warm reviews.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Who said? Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment says.
And the fact that a few warm reviews exist does not change the fact that overwhelming majority of critics and fandom have a negative opinion regarding the quality of the work. Or is someone going to have to edit the line "the film is either warmly received or violently hated" into Street Fighter The Legend Of Chun Li and Dragonball Evolution as well (positive reviews do exist for those)? And The Dark Knight Saga (negative reviews do exist for that)?
Edited by NotVichyssoise
Not anymore, it doesn't. That line shouldn't have been in there.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Playing devil's advocate, Dragonball Evolution was pretty well-liked in Asia.
"Not anymore, it doesn't. That line shouldn't have been in there. "
Awesome. Changing policies, not because they don't work, or they're causing issues, but because you don't like them. So are we just removing all the So X, it's Y tropes?
Because honestly it's going to be really hard to be neutral to the stuff that's filed under So bad, it's horrible (Though your reaction to Sonichu really shows you don't care).
But whatever, I can't change your mind and you won't do it. I, for one, welcome our new Wikipedia overlords. Blessed be the boring, droning, pointless neutral gods
I have a top hat. Your Argument is invalid.
I cut this section from It's Pronounced "Tro-PAY" (which, incidently, is not really the best trope to describe what is going on. We currently don't have a Useful Notes on romanization and the like). If you're okay with the changes, you're okay with the changes. If you don't like the changes, you don't like the changes. Shyamalan did not say his version is more accurate or superior, he only said the new pronounciation reflects a different dialect and accent. And as well, the link to 4chan goes to a comment post of someone who is clearly biased against the film and goes by the name anonymous/mrade.
- Shyamalan claims he's trying to get them pronounced as they actually would be in East-Asian cultures, so he's at least got that on his side.
- Except that he Did Not Do The Research; the names are only romanized differently from the standard, and the show's pronunciations are valid for the hanzi chosen to represent their names. See here at The Other Wiki for the full list and here for specifics.
- Except that he Did Not Do The Research; the names are only romanized differently from the standard, and the show's pronunciations are valid for the hanzi chosen to represent their names. See here
- Shyamalan claims he's trying to get them pronounced as they actually would be in East-Asian cultures, so he's at least got that on his side.
How does a source of information being biased against the movie make it invalid? Information is information. "The changes were made at the suggestion of a linguist" makes it sound like the "objective opinion" is that they're for the better, while as that post shows, the pronunciation changes actually remove authenticity. At least one pronunciation change is straight-up wrong; there's no dialect that would pronounce "ài" (the first syllable of Iroh's name) as "ee".
That page only represents the chinese pronounciations, whereas many of the names and words in the series are from Persian, Hindi and Sansrkit, where Iroh is spoken with an "ee" sound. Likewise, "Avatar" (a sanskrit word) is spoken as "Uhv-thar" and not "Aah-va-taaar" as in the show. Most of these in the show were completely Acceptable Breaks from Reality; in the movie it would be a different matter. I mean, in the show you have characters saying lines like "Ladies, I rocked'ja!", "You're kidding, right?" and "You been workin' out?" or "That was so awesome!" Imagine any one of those lines coming from, say, Frodo Baggins. You can see how ridiculous it will be. The trope, assuming it even applies, is justified.
The hate on this seems to be classic Fan Dumb; everybody was bitching about not having Asian actors, but apparently everyone wants American Accents for all the characters.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
I had a teacher in college who spent the first 2 1/2 class periods explaining his credentials (Masters degree in the subject, college professor at two different universities spanning 25 years, etc). I talked with him in a one-on-one conversation and he told me that having information on the subject was not enough. His students should trust his experience and credentials, and then the information becomes valuable.
Assuming someone even has the credentials, if they have an agenda they can warp and misrepresent that information however they want. The poster on 4chan did not claim any credentials, very clearly had an agenda, and even if the details of what he claims are accurate he is saying that because it isn't sticking to a specific Chinese dialect it is Ruined Forever. I know very little about Chinese, but I am more prone to accept simple statements said in a neutral tone than someone who breaks out the Chinese symbols and replies to criticism with bad language, bold font and three exclamation points.
Shyamalan said that when they were starting up production they had some questions on pronounciations. They consulted a linguist who gave them some other options to go by, apparently all are based on Asian accents (according to other forum posters who have said so in a neutral tone). Claiming Did Not Do The Research is innaccurate, they only did an alternative form of research. If you'd like we could make it "Shyamalan said the changes were make at the suggestion of a linguist."
And I am more prone to accept rebuttals from someone who doesn't pull out the tone argument to discredit an opposing opinion.
To Darkmane, are you implying that Asians can't have American Accents? Not to mention that it isn't so much the accent changing the pronunciation as the spelling being more Americanized. It doesn't matter how "Iroh" is pronounced in Persian, Sanskrit, or Hindu, it matters how 艾洛 (Aì Lùo) is pronounced, because that's how the creators chose to write his name.
I was under the impression that while the names were written in Chinese for the "Tales of Ba Sing Se" episode the names and their pronounciation were taken from several different cultures, done with an American Accent anyway. Just a glance on Wikipedia I see that Katara is also known as a traditional Indian sword.
And don't get me wrong, I feel that they should have kept with the show's pronunciation regardless of "phonetic accuracy" or "ignoring Chinese characters." But the only evidence that can convince me to hate the changes is that Shyamalan was absolutely wrong with what he claimed; that Avatar isn't pronounced Uh-vatar in Sanskrit, that Iroh isn't pronounced Eh-Row in Japanese, etc.
See KJ's post above. (Random piece of Trivia: The original word "katara" is spoken with a unique pronunciation - you can approximate it as "Katd'hara" - using a sound that doesn't even exist in the English language. You can see Shyamalan's predicament.)
And yeah, Hyatt, you completely missed the point there. I said using similar lines from the series (see examples in my previous post) would be a Wall Banger of a Narm-storm, not that Asians can't have American Accents (for the record, I myself have one, having regularly had conversations in English with my US-born cousin since I was little, and hence picking up her accent); I was just pointing out the inherent stupidity of the fans who were complaining about not hiring Asian actors first, and now complaining about the characters not having American Accents. Unpleasable Fanbase? I think so.
Also, let me turn this around and ask you this: Are you saying that all Asians have American Accents? Since the pronunciation will be (like in the show) the same for all the characters in the story? Or are you implying that all the background characters should have Asian accents, and only the heroes should speak American? Do I even have to go into the Unfortunate Implications here?
And as for this:
It doesn't matter how "Iroh" is pronounced in Persian, Sanskrit, or Hindu, Buddy, Hindu is a term used to describe someone who follows Hinduism. The language that you're presumably referring to, is called Hindi. Look it up. And put down the Idiot Ball before posting, please.
Let's be nice, Darkmane. It's one thing to argue someone's opinion or information but it's something else entirely when there are insults directed toward the person. When that happens it ceases to be about the original topic and becomes a matter of honor to prove yourself correct. That's why everything has spiraled into the Internet Backdraft, I'm tired of the Racebenders calling me racist and I'm sure they're tired of being called whiney Fan Dumb.
Darkmane, what exactly is logically inconsistent with wanting Asian actors and wanting them to speak with American accents? It's not like such people don't exist, and it's how the characters in the original series were portrayed.
As for that Hindi/Hindu thing, nice try with the "introduce a completely irrelevant piece of information that someone is wrong about to discredit his/her otherwise correct statements about the topic at hand." Still doesn't take away from the fact that the way Iroh is pronounced in other languages is irrelevant to how it ought to be pronounced based on, among other things, the internal rules of that universe.
what exactly is logically inconsistent with wanting Asian actors and wanting them to speak with American accents?Narm. Wall Banger. Unfortunate Implications (Ever see American Actors speaking with Asian Accents?). I said this twice before; read the previous posts before posting questions, please.
His/her otherwise correct statements about the topic at hand.Could you please point these out? Also, when someone claims knowledge in linguistic pronunciations enough to accuse a director of Did Not Do The Research, and then goes ahead and shows he/she doesn't even know the name of the language they're talking about, then I'd say that's pretty relevant to the topic at hand.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
Um, what? I am Asian and have a Texan accent on account of growing up in Texas. Explain the "narm" "wall banger" or "unfortunate implications" thereof.
Hyatt's comments about Chinese pronunciations are correct. Yours about how they're pronounced in other languages are irrelevant because the source of the pronunciations, whether in-verse or meta, is Chinese, and so Chinese pronunciations are what you go by. It's like making a biopic about me and saying it's fine to pronounce my first name "Quan" with a hard "k" instead of a "ch" sound because that's how it's pronounced in English. Factually true, but irrelevant to the correct way of doing it. Similarly, "it's Hindi not Hindu" is factually true, but irrelevant to the point that how it's pronounced in Hindi doesn't matter.
<Headdesk>
Read the above posts. These have all been addressed here, with examples.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
That I am continuing to ask indicates your debate-fu is not as strong as you think it is.
Yeah, I'm sorry Darkmane, but you didn't really support your point very well. (Coming from someone who doesn't care about either side of this debate.)
So, people want Asian actors because it's more true to the show, but they want the names pronounced the way they were on the show because it's more true to the show. No racial implications there at all.
Yeah, that one's called They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. This is a highly subjective trope, and it's usually pretty useless to try to convert those on the other side to yours.
P.S: The fact that the movie itself sucks ass has nothing to do with this. Attribute that to some bad, bad, baaaaaaaaaad directing, Katara turning into a Faux Action Girl, some of the most horrible acting I've ever seen (Is it just me, or is Dev Patel really the shittiest actor on the face of the planet? Maybe I'm biased 'cause Zuko was my favourite character in the show and Patel turned him into full-on emo-boy The Scrappy) and a million other fucking reasons that I'm frankly too pissed off about to get into; and I forthwith do not give a shit what kind of ridicule this movie is targeted with.
And where the fuck was Jet?
Tyler Durden is my bitch.
Darkmane, all those things you mentioned are They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. It is a subjective trope. Doesn't mean there aren't objective components to it.
Bad Writing, Acting and Directing are subtropes of They Changed It, Now It Sucks!? I think I missed that memo...
Please do not drag me back into this conversation; I'm dropping the movie from my watchlist 'cause every time I think about it, my PC is in some very real danger of getting bashed in or thrown across the room.
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
you missed the memo that "bad writing, acting, and directing that resulted in sucky changes from the original source" counts as "they changed it now it sucks"?
Kinda redundant when you start with "Bad acting" then follow it up with "that's what caused the changes from the series so it doesn't count." So the bad execution by itself, changes or not, doesn't make a sucky movie in your opinion, huh? Well, that's...wow. That Dungeons and Dragons movie sure must've had a sweep at the Academy Awards in the land where you come from. Did Jeremy Irons win best actor? Uwe Boll got Best Director, right?
Also, who gives a shit? One teensy little pebble flying around after a five-minute dance by multiple earthbenders.... I could fucking piss harder than that. How in the world do you throw $150 mil down the drain and manage to come up with something so goddamn horrible?
Why do I keep coming back here? It's like a fucking train wreck. You can't turn away....and then it gets inside your brain, and then comes the slow descent into oblivion....
Stop the madness! For the love of God, STOP THE MADNESS!!!
Edited by Darkmane Tyler Durden is my bitch.
Idiot Ball is inaccurate.
- Just like in the animated series. In the final battle in the Northern Water Tribe, Aang goes into the Avatar State, giving him crazy power. You'd think he would sink the ship with Avatar-State-enhanced waterbending, right? No. He just uses a large tidal wave to scare the Fire Nation off.
That's the complete opposite of what happened in the animated series. In the show, Aang gets Grand Theft Me'd by the Ocean Spirit, and does sink some ships. And actively kills Zhao by dragging him underwater.
Hide / Show Replies
I think whoever posted that was trying to say "Just like in the animated series. In the final battle in the Northern Water Tribe, Aang goes into the Avatar State, giving him crazy power," but unlike in the series,...
Yeah, a bit poorly worded.
But even then it doesn't make sense. What he does in the book 1 finale isn't technically the Avatar State.
Didn't his eyes go all glowy, thus signifying the Avatar State, before the big fish takes him over?
Ehh... I'm not going to overthink it...
Just because his eyes glowed doesn't mean he was going into the Avatar State - in that same episode, his eyes and arrows glowed when he was going into the Spirit World. I took it to mean that they glow whenever Aang does something that involves the use of his Avatar powers - accessing the Avatar State, entering the Spirit World, "merging" with the Ocean Spirit, etc...
So yeah, Comrade X is right, that entry is inaccurate.
I haven't watched the movie, so I don't know if it was changed from the series, but Sokka is supposed to be 15, not 17.
Hide / Show Replies
You have a point. He is 15 in the series and I don't believe they mention his age in the movie (I've only seen it once though so I'm not sure).
Listen to yourselves. You split from Wikipedia because you were sick of how they insisted upon controlling every single edit with an iron fist. Now you've become the very thing you tried to disassociate yourselves from. TV Tropes is not SUPPOSED to be objective. It is not SUPPOSED to be professional. It is where people can find out about new things, learn new things about the things they love, and become aware of themes and ideas that span across all forms of media. The overwhelming, but not unanimous, opinion towards this movie by both professional critics and die-hard fans of the almost universally-loved animated series it s based upon, is that it is an awful, awful movie. To not acknowledge that, and to not further elaborate upon on the main page of the film by discussing the variety of tropes that play a part in the movie's failure, is a disservice to everything you have worked for. Belief or disbelief rests with you
Hide / Show Replies
TV Tropes didn't split from Wikipedia, and that's not why it was founded. Ironically, what it was founded on, in large part, was the rule of no Complaining About Shows You Dont Like.
Edited by BritBllt "And for the first time in weeks, I felt the boredom go away!"
Wow. That anon is about as wrong as you can get. We are most definitely not a reaction in any way to Wikipedia, have never been about bashing anything, and have always valued well-written observations about fiction. You could call those values "professional" very easily.
We're not about negativity and bile. That's one reason we're fun to read.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
"Belief or disbelief rests with you" THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU
We really don't need any We Are Not Wikipedia griping in this thread.
The page states that the Darker and Edgier tone is "perceived." Seeing as how the film is out, I think it wise to change that.
Also you can't have well-written observations if you lock the goddamn page.
Also if you aren't about negativity or bile than why does this website have a hard-on for TGWTG. Their whole GIMMICK is being negative, and yet you constantly put them in "Crowning Moment of Funny"
Face it, the movie sucks, and most edits to this page are going to be ones that talk about how bad it is by discussing the poor execution of good tropes and the excessive use of bad tropes.
My understanding is that the primary reasoning is a) the movie hasn't been out for very long, and b) the reviews page has at least 2 positive reviews, or reviews that don't regard it as a piece of crap. Which are pretty tenuous reasons at best.
What in the world is "TGWTG"?
Anyway. The "crowning" things are for people's opinions. The main articles are not. It is simple. Still, we get a rush of new handles and anons showing up when a film releases, all hot to put their opinions in the main article.
At the anon who said "Negative reviews can be pretty freaking fun to read":
Sure. That's one reason we have a Reviews section. You can access it for this film by clicking the "Reviews" link at the top of the page.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
In the interest of honesty, I should mention that I am 68.53.117.178. I decided to log in to continue the conversation.
When I said that negative reviews can be quite fun to read, I should have elaborated. I also meant to refer to negative articles. There's quite a few of them, and not just from the stuff reviewed by TGWTG. Off the top of my head, there's the Hottie and the Nottie and the Setzer and Friedburg pages. They've got Wall bangers and the like, and no one seems to care.
But it's not just the pages for crappy media. There's also subjective tropes used without shame one pages for beloved stories. They've got CMOA, CMOH, CMOF, you name it. Like, say, the page for the cartoon that inspired this movie!
Where exactly does subjectivity end and troping begin?
Fixed that Seltzer And Friedberg problem. Wallbangers are clearly marked as different from the real tropes, as are the crowning things. There is a whole section in Darth Wiki for negativity.
The real articles —not the subjectives (clearly marked) and not the ones in those sub-wikis — are for what we are really about.
The sub-wikis are all the accommodation subjectivity is going to get.
Edited by FastEddie Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Huh. Well, as long as all the work that went into that page gets properly moved, I can't find a problem with it.
I still think this whole business of locking the page to keep a positive bias is stupid, and I don't see it lasting, but I'm not willing to get into a huge argument about it. Mostly because the argument amounts to "we want to talk crap about a widely-reviled movie that's so widely reviled talking crap about it anywhere else is pretty easy. E Xcept we want to talk about it WITH TROPES!"
Edited by TheOtherSteve
Er, you just gutted that Seltzer And Friedberg article. That's a lot of work removed. Was that just to prove a point?
I don't see why removing all of the tropes mentioned in that article is the right thing to do. Yeah, they're negative, but why don't you just remove the negativity from the entries and make them more neutral instead of wiping all of them away? This is a site about tropes, isn't it? And most sizable filmmaker's pages have tropes found in their work listed.
In regards to the Unfortunate Implications. Is this a case of making all the bad guys dark skinned? I do not think so.
Zuko is not a villain. He is an anti-Villain at best complete with a very understandbale Freudian Excuse which they are keeping in the story. He even has his own manga. Iroh is definitly not a villain. The Fire Nation (for the most part) are not evil. The whole point of the series was that the Fire Nation was just as capable of goodness as the others. In the next movie, we'll also have Long Feng and the Dai Li playing the part of the villain. In the cartoon as well... it is only when the Gaang reaches the Fire Nation that they become more sympathetic towards them. They movies aren't going to reflect that until they get there. They are not going to cut that aspect out because that would be really stupid and I doubt Mike and Bryan would approve.
The casting is now more ethnically diverse. The cultures are now taken from all over the world, not just Asia. Is this a bad thing? Having an entire world comprised of Asians and Inuit people doesn’t make sense. As for Katara and Sokka... their Gran Gran was from the Northern Water Tribe. In the movie the Northern Water Tribe is being portrayed as Caucasian... so it is perfectly plausible for them to be light-skinned. (Yes, it is possible to be light skinned when you have only one Caucasian parent.)
(And seriously person who keeps deleting my post... why? All you have to do is politely disagree underneath. Your millage may vary, remember?)
Edited by Keshia Hide / Show Replies
We don't encourage discussion in the article. Please keep the opinion-based stuff to the discussion page.
Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
They specifically tailored their 'diversity' so that the predominantly-villainous nation was the dark skinned one (and yes, Zuko is a villain in the first book . A redeemed one in the end, but a villain.) and heroes are white.
Incidentally, most of the water tribe ISN'T white AFAIK. Just our heroes. Didn't they cast all the extras as Asian? Ah, so BG characters, they can be Asian, just not the main guys. Right.
Intent or not, it makes people think of the crappy history of whitewashing Hollywood have. It makes people think of something they'd really rather not. It makes people think of racism. It showcases the institutionalised bigotry that still exists. And most people, especially people of colour, don't want to go to a movie that takes all-too-rare heroic and non-stereotypical roles from Po C and gives them to white people because oh, who cares if it combatted stereotypes, his ~vision was so much more IMPORTANT!
Seriously. Whatever M. Night intended, he contributed to the lack of Po C in leading, heroic roles, he took roles away from minorities, he pretty much said he'd take CULTURE but oh, not the PEOPLE. That is incredibly dehumanising.
More white heroes is not diversity. It's just plain stupid. He had a brilliant opportunity here and he blew it because he didn't consider it important enough.
Think about it this way: it's not just this film, it's the whole industry. It's the cultural context the film is made in, a pretty racist one at times. You're watching this film in a context that tends to remove Asian people from view and prominance, so of course people will react badly when a film very specifically does so.
The bottom line is: a lot of Po C were offended. So clearly, he's touched a nerve. He's offended his audience. If something offends someone... maybe, just maybe, it's offensive.
Edited by Ayries
I—no.
ETA: * Taking away representation from a minority that's already under represented is not diversity. If MNS really wanted to present everyone, he could have made a much better effort, like making the Fire Nation white (WHAT A TWEEST!). Instead he cut out Inuit tribes, possible the LEAST represented race in Hollywood ever.
The show is set in an Asian Fantasy counterpart, the same way Lord of the Rings was a Medieval European Fantasy counterpart. Controlling elements magically doesn't make sense. Flying Bisons and giant swollen eyes don't make sense. It's an Alternate Universe. You can get away with all kinds of non-sense in an Alternate Universe.
Why do you think Joss Whedon got so much shit for his Invisible Asians on Firefly? He packed his 'verse full of Asian culture but then the only Asian character to get a speaking line was a whore. It's like Ayries said, it's extremely dehumanising for us. They're taking the culture and history and praising it, but only with the condition that it doesn't have non-white people along with it.
The Fire Nation is not presented to us as the good guys the same way that the Gaang are presented as the good guys; they're quite clearly the antagonists lead by a Complete Monster Big Bad. It's about what's right there on the screen, not about what they're capable of in-show or the subtle reading between the lines. (And frankly, MNS has about as much subtlety as a brick to the face). Heel–Face Turn or not, Zuko is not someone we're supposed to relate to and emphasize with.
Count the Asians that have had a main role as an important, non-stereotyped, well-developed protagonist in all history TV and movies. It was one of the few chances where an Asian actor/actress could play the hero for once, but apparently not even in a film that's crammed with their own culture can they get that role.
This film was an opportunity to launch Asian stars, to give Asian-American kids heroes to relate to; to let them have an idol they can recognise, and celebrate their own culture that had been subject to exoticism, white-washing and exploitation by Hollywood. And it failed to give every. Single. Opportunity.
Instead, our heroes are not only pristinely-white-skinned, they also have to help coloured folks, like the Too Dumb to Live Earthbenders. That's not diversity, that's the same shit Hollywood has been pulling over and over again.
Also, Shyamalan had stated in interviews that he had complete control and final say over the casting, so you can be pretty damn sure he did it deliberately.
Edited by stardust_rain
I suspect that, had the SWT been cast entirely as whites the backlas would be at least somewhat less. However making the background characters asian while Sokka and Katara ended up white was the worst of both worlds (even with Kanna as an expartate from the NWT), they still would have been 3/4 whatever the local ethnicity was).
Is there an actual source for that James Cameron threatened to sue stuff in the Writing Around Trademarks section? All that's said in most sources is they changed to avoid confusion, there's never been mention of actual threats of lawsuit, and definitely not from Cameron himself (surely it would be Fox who did that?).
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I always heard it as them being *afraid* he'd sue, not him threatening it.
So should that section be cleaned up? Simply mentioning it was changed to avoid confusion is enough, surely?
I don't think random bashing of James Cameron's knowledge of law (based on what appears to be complete speculation) is too relevant.
Does anyone think we should add some of the stuff here to the series character sheet? I'm asking because I really want to put "punching the fish" there for Zhao.
Really? I suppose I could be very out of touch with the zeitgeist (full disclosure: I've only seen a few episodes of the original show and have never seen this adaptation), but I'd think the vast majority of the general public would still think of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, or Signs first when they hear the name M. Night Shyamalan. Heck, I think the average person would probably remember the more-or-less universally panned The Happening before thinking of this movie.
The original series wasn't the M*A*S*H finale in 1983; no show after the turn of the millennium has been. Avatar: The Last Airbender was a very popular show, but I'd be willing to bet that more people than not have never even heard of it, at least in overall terms—MAYBE you could get a majority if you limited it to one very specific age cohort just in North America. Shyamalan was (and, I believe, still is) extremely well known for his original properties, both the ones generally considered good and the ones generally considered terrible, but people pay much less attention to who the director is when it comes to adapted works.
I suppose this trope might apply to some superfans of the original series, but even among them I doubt that would be a majority, and so the cited trope would not apply. Is this trope even supposed to go on the main page of a work? It seems more like an inherently YMMV thing.
I mean, I know it's now been more than two decades since The Sixth Sense came out, but I think people still make "I see dead people" references and that, by contrast, this adaptation has largely fallen into obscurity, so I don't see how the following could possibly apply here:
In most cases, authors that create a great work and several lesser-known works can still be associated with all of them. However, if the work is popular enough, it overshadows all other aspects of their career. In extreme cases, the work becomes synonymous with the author's name.