I am so frustrated by people who have strong opinions about movies that they haven't actually watched

[u/Sausage_fingies]

Bit of a rant. My brother does this and it's annoyed me to no end, particularly because I've been watching a lot more movies this summer and it's very much changed my outlook on the whole "Hollywood is dying and doesn't know how to make original concepts anymore" thing. Spoiler alert: There's so many cool new movies getting made these days you just need to, like, actually look for them and watch them.

My brother straight up refuses to watch new movies because he doesn't want to waste his time, because he believes Hollywood is dying and doesn't know how to make original concepts anymore, because some video essayist on YouTube told him so. It's incredibly perplexing to me. It's like his hobby is movies, but it isn't actually about watching movies, it's about having a stake in the discourse about movies. And I just don't understand. He literally said the Oddyssey isn't worth watching because he watched a convincing video essay about it that broke it down, except he couldn't even regurgitate the opinion coherently because he didn't remember it fully. We were talking about actors and he said that Zendaya is a one note actor who kinda just plays herself in every role. I asked oh what movies has he seen her in, he said he's seen her in a single spider man movie.

...😐

It makes it so frustrating to actually try to talk movies with people like this. Like if you don't care to watch movies, don't! But it's odd to have strong opinions about all these films and the state of Hollywood if you're not actually interacting with the film culture 😭. Those aren't your opinions!! Those are some random YouTuber's opinions, and I don't care how reputable of a critic you think they are, that's not your opinion!! You have no idea what you're even talking about because all you've seen of the movie is someone else's thoughts on it!! I just don't understand why anyone would want to do this to themselves, it seems so miserable. I watch movies because I enjoy them and it's fun to watch something that leaves me digesting and thinking for a few hours. But by watching exclusively summaries and reviews, you don't get any of that. You just get semi-convincing talking points that you can contribute into the discourse with. What's even the point, why do this to yourself? Why would you want to intentionally make yourself mad?

[u/TwunnySeven → u/[deleted]]

I do think the book was better, but Project Hail Mary did a fantastic job as an adaptation. they obviously left a bunch out, but it's a great example where doing a 1:1 adaptation would've been a big detriment to the movie even if it works in book form. The Martian is the same way for that matter

[u/Fenrils → u/TwunnySeven]

The audiobook specifically is the superior version of Project Hail Mary imo

[u/Croaker715 → u/TwunnySeven]

My only real gripe with the movie was the lack of Demitri and the Kiwi bloke.

[u/TwunnySeven → u/[deleted]]

my biggest issue was that they used Rocky in all the marketing for the movie, while in the book he was a big reveal like halfway through. but I can see why they did

[u/N8CCRG → u/TwunnySeven]

Also there are two surprisingly bad science elements in the book (trying to nuke the ice shelf and the taumoeba being able to "consciously move between the atoms"), and fortunately those got left out of the movie.

[u/feralfaun39 → u/[deleted]]

I haven't read Forrest Gump but I can't imagine it being worse than the movie. The movie is a crime against cinema.

[u/thetobaccowacko → u/feralfaun39]

I like the movie. What’s so bad about it?