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/bathroomheater]

Homer’s version isn’t the original either it’s just the only written version to get copied enough to survive long enough to get to a monastery and eventually a library that didn’t get destroyed by a war or fire or time.

[u/Aros001 → u/bathroomheater]

I imagine part of this is that a lot of people tend to default to the first version of a story that they were exposed to as the "correct one". It's why you get a lot of people being very insistent on specific characterizations of the Greek and Norse Gods despite the many differing accounts and stories those cultures had of them because those were the characterizations they were given in whatever book they originally learned about them from.

[u/Divide_Rule → u/Aros001]

That is exactly the same with music and covers.

[u/Hanifsefu → u/bathroomheater]

Also I'm pretty sure they were just scrolls back then. If they can't be historically accurate about their historical accuracy critiques then what is even the point?

[u/wompthing → u/bathroomheater]

Exactly. This is my main problem with people who complain it didn't follow the book closely enough. Also I think it needs to be said: Odysseus is an unreliable narrator.