Did TPM give birth to the now-common bashing movement?

I agree the internet is a positive thing for films. Filmakers today are much more careful pleasing fans. I read an article about how Ang Lee changed the Hulk's pants due to stuff he read from fans on the net. He was scared it would hurt the movie.

Peter Singer is paying close attention to what fans want to see for the X-Men films. The article was pointing out how much power the audience has in selling the film. The net allows us to communicate worries about films. It is bad publicity if the makers don't listen. Heck, even Lucas cut down Jar Jar considerably due to fan backlash. Thank the bashing movement for that one.

 

Let's cut through the B.S.! Why not call this topic: BASHERS: WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Here's my analogy...

Ever gone into a restaurant and had a great dinner? Let's say it's the only Mexican place in the area, so you can't get it anywhere else.
So you decide to go into that SAME restaurant REPEATEDLY, each time, you have a great dining experience.

One day you go to that same restaurant and your dinner is completely ruined due to bad service and poor preparation of the meal!
But you decide that was just an isolated event and due to the unique appeal of it, you go into that restaurant AGAIN and NOW you have the SAME poor experience REPEATEDLY?

You remember how great that first meal was and how subsequent meals were so you don't tolerate the poor experiences!

It makes you mad that the only Mexican place in town has gone to pot, but you still want Mexican food and they are the only ones to offer it!
So you vent, you vent to people that you know, you vent to the restaurant management/owners, but still people continue to go to the restaurant, they rave about it, and you feel they are getting an experience that is not as good as they COULD have, like the one you used to have before.

This is were bashing comes from... that's why I'm here.

Well, SW is the "only" Mexican place in the movie saga game...
I can't get some SW elements in The Matrix or LOTR, they don't have the SW characters, aliens, lightsabers, Jedi, or space battles.
I can enjoy those franchises for what they offer, but they can't offer what SW has.
Even though I'm not 100% satisfied with the PT or current Clone Wars EU, LFL has a monopoly on SW so I can get it anywhere else. I don't like that, especially when I know that LFL is capable of better based on past experience!

I can quit buying comics & books, watching CW cartoons, and collecting SW trinkets, but that wouldn't stop my displeasure with the current state of SW. I know that my not contributing to "fandom" won't make a difference to LFL, someone will buy their stuff and rave about it.
I would still express my displeasure to friends about SW even if I wasn't into it anymore, this isn't about the Internet or anything else, it's about being satisfied as a consumer and as a fan. If that makes me a "basher", so be it.

Some of you seem to take bashing SW personally, but our opinions should have no bearing on what YOU perceive are accomplishments with SW and LFL.
I will admit, I don't like that people get offended when the discussion has TWO sides.
I don't like the "a fan must LOVE everything EVEN if it's crap" mentality and I don't like the extremist Basher views either, why not speak up if you don't agree?
I due think it's ironic that Bashers are considered "2ND class" when they express a differing viewpoint, but when some "fanboy" fills their every post with raves, that makes them superior. Sometimes, it seems if ONE person says something to the contrary, they must be convinced they are wrong or exiled for not being in agreement...

Tell me... how much more value does "THAT'S GREAT!" have over "THAT SUCKS!"? Why does that have more value? Is it because YOU agree with that opinion?

 

I agree with your restaurant analogy. I would also add that I don't keep coming back to slop. The PT has often been a mixed bag for me. If it truly were the worst thing ever then I wouldn't bother. Because there are some good elements, I can't give up on it fully like Luke with Vader. And I still have some sick hope that EpIII will blow me away!

 

I think it's also worth bearing in mind that the labels 'Basher' and 'Gusher' are misleading at times, I've often found myself arguing how great elements of the OT are against so called 'gushers' who are bashing it. In other words - some gushers do plenty of bashing too. It's a Looking Glass World round here sometimes.

The terms basher and gusher are only used in reference to the PT, they're labels and I guess we're stuck with them, I don't mind , except - some people only see the term 'basher' in a negative light and I have noticed a tendency in certain places to treat bashers as unwanted. If that continues we may have to re-think these labels. I don't mind being called a 'basher' but I'm not happy to be treated as 2nd class round here.

g

 

My favorite Star Wars fan label terminology at the moment is "Lucasian Apologists", followed closely by "Kurtzian Witnesses" and "Kershinetics".

Me, I'm more of a orthodox "Johnstontonian" or a rigid "McQuarryist".

 

Regardless, BASHING goes at least as far back as 1776, and can possibly be traced back much further, to the earliest beginnings of recorded history.

My personal favorite basher is Thomas Jefferson, who some call the Founding Father of the Bashing Movement.

[image=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/images/jefferson.jpg]

When in the course of a space fantasy prequel trilogy it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto been subjugated by the lazy efforts of an out-of-touch millionaire, and to assume among the powers of the earth the equal and independant station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to change fan loyalties to The Matrix or Lord of the Rings sagas....

 

Okay, again we're moving away from the question Adam asked. Back on topic, folks.

 

I shan't spoil it for you, but suffice to say that a report cropped up about Peter Jackson's ROTK movie, and it made people angry. So angry.
And this is Peter Jackson and LOTR we're talking about. The franchise that could do no wrong,-

Oh that spoiler? I never saw why it's a big deal, but anyway, I just wanted to go back to this initial post to point something out - TTT started the LOTR basher movement. I hear as much criticism of it from those who loved FOTR as I hear criticism of TPM.

 

But Stryphe, how can you forget all those people that hated FOTR?



This topic is interesting because it seeks to find the origins of negative criticism - which, in the long run, is easy. There's been negative criticism since humanity has had something to critique. The internet has only amplified the ability to do this on the individual level.

 

R2-12point:
Totally agree. Except for the TPM and AOTC drafts remark. Won't get into that. But I agree it all comes down to is how you feel about a movie and nothing else. Personal taste. That is how I ususlly do things. Movies in my collection may not end up in someone elses but that is fine. Different strokes for different folks. But weaker or not, I just love the movies that are out not. Just love them. SW PT, LOTR, Matrix, X-men, and so on.

 

Episode One gave birth to the now-common bashing because it lacked the essential elements that made the Original Trilogy great.

 

Well can I ask a question then:

When did criticism become 'bashing'?

I'd never heard this term 'bashing' before i came here in March. Was it a term originated here at TF.n? Had it been used on other forums previously?
Presumably there weren't any bashers before TPM.

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I don't know where the term "basher" originated from. However, it's obvious that it is associated with those that don't think highly of Episode One.

Go-Mer back in the days listed (I believe) five different types of Bashers: "Don't Get It;" "Jaded Adults;" and so on (I can't remember the others.)

It's been over four years since the release of Episode One, and the lines are still drawn.

To each his/her own.

 

I guess it's time for me to say something.

First of all, thanks to everyone who responded. This thread has been a lot more civil than I was predicting, and I think many good points have been raised.


In more or less the order of answers:

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R2-12point
Personally, I don't think movies have gotten weaker. I just think there are an awful lot more movies these days, both good AND bad, but the ratio of good to bad movies remains. There are more crappy movies, yes, but there's still the good ones out there, if you know where to look
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Regarding all points raised about the Internet:
I totally agree that the Internet has helped give rise. No one would dare stand up in, say, a film class discussion group and say "Lucas, with a dollar sign, raped my childhood, and Peter Jackson is a hack who can (expletives, expletives, expletives)". People let their emotions run free on the Internet and do not mind speaking frankly, and, sometimes, on uncivil terms.
The Internet was really getting popular around the time of TPM.

However, many people have brought up "Batman and Robin".
The Internet was around for that, oh yes.
And I think that, not TPM, is where bashing began. Heck, I consider myself a B+R basher, although I don't hang out on Batman boards or anything.
Unlike prior disappointing sequels (Jaws 2 etc.), I definitely knew that people were getting really mad about B+R, not just saying "well that sucked" and moving on.
And with the Internet in place, people were free to write foul-mouthed rants about Joel Schumacher.

jabba_the_nut made a good post about this on the first page, using the Halloween movies as an example. I've never seen a Halloween-series movie, but I know there's many sequels, and from what I hear they're not all well-loved.

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JW00 said I remember Batman Returns causing a huge rift in the fanbase as well.
Y'know, for the longest time I thought I was the only one who was very disappointed with Batman Returns. It is only with the possibility of a new Batman movie that I hear other people voicing the same opinion.
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People who think Jar Jar's role was reduced in Episode II due to fan outcry:
Personally, I'm not buying it. Now, this is being discussed in another thread, so we need not go into it here, but Lucas has made it pretty clear what he thinks of catering to fan desires in his movies.
The "gift to the fans" in Episode II, I think, was Fett presence, not Jar Jar reduction.


hawk: it's BRYAN Singer.
But that's not what worries me.
I agree the internet is a positive thing for films. Filmakers today are much more careful pleasing fans.
Granted, you brought up the Hulk and X-Men. Those, like SW, are a pre-existing franchise with certain 'rules' in place.
But I hope that it doesn't become commonplace for directors of all kinds of movies to try and cater to the audience.
I would hate to think that Steven Spielberg or someone of that ilk, while directing a movie, suddenly wonders, "I feel confident in this decision, but what will my fans think? Maybe I should be a little more conservative in my decision".
Now, personally, I think the Hulk movie was problematic enough with or without the color of the guys' pants, so maybe Ang Lee should have worried less about fan whim and more about bigger issues.
And oddly enough, I think one of Bryan Singer's best decisions with the X-Men movies has been in NOT giving the fans "what they want". If Joe Comicbookfanboy had had his way with the X-Men movie, Wolverine WOULD be wearing yellow spandex, and I'm not sure it would have translated well to the screen.



We now move into an area of posts wherein we must "define" "bashing".
On this board, basher/gusher is used as a sort of joke title for people who hate/love the films.
Now, I guess I fall into the gusher category, but I don't love everything about the SW films.
And hawk, while labeled a basher, has stated above there are things he likes about the PT.
A few people on this board (on both sides) get so wrap

 

"What the F--- is the internet?!" Jay: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

(1) I didn't know fanboys like ourselves could influence movie scripts. I thought film critics did that.

(2) Was there a Batman and Robin flick? I don't remember California's current governor putting that on his qualifications for the job. Where there gushers for this flick?

(3) Difference in opinion makes the world go round. "Your focus determines your reality," eh Gomer?

 

Another point is that the "now common" bashing movement is really only common on the internet and in certain media. Yes, there are sometimes snide little comments made by talentless hacks in the media toward the prequels, but the average moviegoer sees them as spectacular effects movies with ok acting and dialogue-just the same way as they saw the OT or the way they see the LOTR series. The Matrix hurt itself by taking itself too seriously.

Now I myself am a huge Batman fan, and of course I didn't care for Batman & Robin-or any of the Batman films for that matter, but I choose not to troll Batman movie message boards because I don't like to hear whining, so I'd find it hypocritical to do it myself. Some people just flat out like to bash things and hear them bashed. You don't see bashers-of anything-talk much about what they actually like in the world, unless it's being done in the context of bashing something else. It's a movement and a value system based in the negative.

 

adam-
I totally agree that the Internet has helped give rise. No one would dare stand up in, say, a film class discussion group and say "Lucas, with a dollar sign, raped my childhood, and Peter Jackson is a hack who can (expletives, expletives, expletives)". People let their emotions run free on the Internet and do not mind speaking frankly, and, sometimes, on uncivil terms.

Well this isn't a classroom. And I'm glad people speak frankly. But there are rules here, and if people are being uncivil the Mods can (should) do something about it.

People who think Jar Jar's role was reduced in Episode II due to fan outcry:
Personally, I'm not buying it. Now, this is being discussed in another thread, so we need not go into it here,

Well I think even George Lucas heard the howls of derision over JJ, and I do believe that he was cut due to that. and for that alone I thank every 'basher' who ever bashed!
(Where is it being discussed?)

We now move into an area of posts wherein we must "define" "bashing".
On this board, basher/gusher is used as a sort of joke title for people who hate/love the films.

Well that's what I too thought a few months ago, that it was a lighthearted term. But just recently I'm not so sure that everyone sees it that way.

A few people on this board (on both sides) get so wrapped up in the basher/gusher terminology that they don't understand what I meant by 'bashing' in my first post.
I have nothing against criticism. Neither does Go-Mer as his previous posts say. It's unbridled hatred and negativity that confuse me, and that I think hurt fandom.

Er.... hang on, Adam. It looks very much like you're saying that what you mean by 'Bashing' is: "unbridled hatred and negativity." I hope not. But then what did you mean by 'bashing' in your first post?

And note that I use LOTR in my example. This is to drive home a point in my initial post. It's NOT just Star Wars. TokyoXtreme wrote in his Thomas Jefferson post about fans now being loyal to Matrix and LOTR, but I think he missed my point. They have their 'bashers' too. It's everywhere.

So bashers are everywhere, what's wrong with that?

(1) People believe the Internet played a huge part in the growth of the basher movement.

Not sure what you mean by "movement".

(3) There is a difference between criticism and outright bashing. There is a difference between enjoyment and outright gushing.

Sometimes people try and elucidate what they're feeling and sometimes they feell like a rant, agreed. But sometimes a rant can have that raw honesty to it which a long-winded drawn out theory is missing. But I agree with you, it'd be nice if people thought about what they were saying abit more.

This is a difference which many TFNers may have missed the boat on due to our desire to label ourselves.

Yeah, well the title of this thread aint helping any either :"...now Common Bashing movement."

g

 

Adam,

You may be right about the ratio of good films to bad films. In fact, I'm pretty sure you are. But I'm so cracked I think there's even been a change in how worthwhile "bad" movies are. For example, I'm partial to horror and I'd take the horribly acted, T&A laden Drive-In trash B flicks of the sixties and seventies anytime over the slick, sanitized B movies of today (the Forsaken, the Faculty, Freddy vs. Whoever).

And lots of good films around? Perhaps; I tend to find critics are inflating modern movies like nuts. What used to be three stars now gets four, two stars gets three, and films that are so horrible and cynical they ought to buries with embarassed red faces, like Charlies Angels and Tomb Raider and whatever, now regularly get a smirking, reluctant two stars or more.

And really great, truly seminal films? I can't name more than two or three I'd nominate from the nineties. And I mean just nominate. (And please nobody say 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Shindler's List', because I haven't figured out a way to simulate vomit with the symbols and characters available on a message board). Everything's moved to the middle. And in the middle it's hard to get anything risk-taking or ground-breaking through. It's even spread to the indie scene, which at least was vibrant enough in the eighties to give birth to the Coens, Spike Lee, and John Sayles, but that now tends to crank out self-important stylists.

But, as I've admitted, I'm cracked.

By the way, the idea of Internet fans influencing filmmakers being a good thing is painful to me. Hollywood already does enough already to pander to that demographic. But then I have no doubt that Jar Jar getting snubbed from Clones was fan-catering; the Fetts, too.

Still, bashers can get pretty snarky. I can't stand seeing Lucas's name spelled with a dollar sign. I know he's a hard-as-nails business man, and lord nows he's been neglectful with the prequels, but I see nothing wrong with his putting his products out there, if people are willing to keep buy 'em. And no matter what folks say, I can't imagine money being his prime motivator for making the prequels (or for that matter the occasionally terrible ideas he's put in them). It's not like he didn't have the kabillions, or Gates-like, he's intent on ever expanding. Quite the opposite.

And, oh yeah, all those reviews I read before I bought 'Knight Of The Old Republic' about the game's cutscenes being better than the prequels were pretty darn prissy. Whoah, boys. Relax for one minute.

Ultimately, I come here because I find the prequels still old-fashioned, still pleasantly naive, still valuable to me, despite their major flaws. I wouldn't argue for or agaisnt any other films but them (except perhaps the forthcoming crap Indiana Jones sequel, as Raiders is an all-time favorite of mine and couldn't even be properly revisted during its heyday). The deficiencies in the prequels are mistifying and heartbreaking to me--mistifying and heartbreaking still to this day, more than year after I walked out of Clones four minutes before the final credits--so I keep coming around.

 

"The Basher movement..." that's a good one. Sounds like political party, like the abolotionist movement.

When I arrived here, "basher" wasn't a lighthearted term. The term "basher" was equated with "trolling."


Personally, I liked "Full Throttle" as it was one of the best campy films since "Starship Troopers." Additionally, I didn't think The Matrix series took itself to seriously.

I don't think most bashers bash for the sake of bashing. They just may not be able to articulate their thoughts to appease "gushers," but to do so would somewhat contridict the art of being a basher, no?

Personally, I thought Episode One was fundamentally flawed, not by suspect acting or visual images, but rather lacking in the very elements that was engrained into the original trilogy which made it the modern myth.

 

gez --

The impact of fan criticism on AOTC is being discussed in a thread in the TPM forum by hawk, I think, called "Lucas took our criticisms of TPM to heart". Poke around.


Er.... hang on, Adam. It looks very much like you're saying that what you mean by 'Bashing' is: "unbridled hatred and negativity." I hope not. But then what did you mean by 'bashing' in your first post?
I mean the "Luca$ raped my childhood, the Wachowskis suck and should die, Peter Jackson is a hack" type of person. NOT people who share intelligent criticisms of the film.
You, for instance, happen to dislike the prequels (or at least elements of them), but you do not camp out on AICN and pollute the talkbacks with expletives.
We at TFN, as I think you have noticed, tend to lump productive posters who criticize the film into the same group as militant trolls who we genuinely believe just post to piss people off, and I don't think that is fair to YOU.
Just like I don't like people assuming that because I enjoy TPM, I would enjoy Episode III if all it was was two hours of Lucas swimming in his money bin.


Not sure what you mean by [basher] "movement".
The desire of people to post loudly and negatively, and sometimes not constructively, and often repetitively, about films. The "Luca$ raped my childhood" type.
I wish I could link to that LOTR spoiler report I mention in my first post, because you might be able to see what I'm talking about more clearly when outside a SW context. Just this extraordinarily vicious burst of hatred over a movie.


Clear as mud?



Rick McCallum loves you!

 

I think that thread was locked Adam (I think).

Sith_Sensei_Prime,

First TrueJedi and now you have returned? They're all coming out of the woodwork! Next I'll turn around and Ghang will be posting here!

 

lol. nice to see you too hawk. i've been checking in time to time and noticed you haven't lost your touch, but never felt compelled to post anything.

mostly, i have been checking in to see if anyone has changed their opinions either way.

 

Haven't you heard? After an intense grilling session with Go-Mer, I now love TPM. TPM is good viewing. Love that Jar Jar.

 

hahahahaha, hawk!
i guess gomer finally got tired of showing you the door and finally shoved you through it.

The forum has always maintain a balance of those who loved Episode One w/heavy on the Binks and those who didn't.

There has been a lot of good hollywood crap out there to discuss, but for many, Episode One is their favorite as shown by certain members of this forum.

Do you think if there is a birth of bashers there should be a christening? tis the season.

 

((Me : "But then what did you mean by 'bashing' in your first post?"

Adam :I mean the "Luca$ raped my childhood, the Wachowskis suck and should die, Peter Jackson is a hack" type of person. NOT people who share intelligent criticisms of the film.
You, for instance, happen to dislike the prequels (or at least elements of them), but you do not camp out on AICN and pollute the talkbacks with expletives.
We at TFN, as I think you have noticed, tend to lump productive posters who criticize the film into the same group as militant trolls who we genuinely believe just post to piss people off, and I don't think that is fair to YOU.))


Adam, I'm not trying to catch you out, but my problem is that you're talking about bashers as "militant trolls" , and I'm considered a 'basher', which is okay, but I'm not a militant troll.
Which you've said. Good.
But my point is: your thread is about 'Bashers' and you're talking about militant trolls, so the problem is that some may think you're making them synonymous.

I think I can see what you're talking about, but you've got 'bashers' there in the title of the thread. If I'm going to accept the term basher it's only on the basis that it's a lighthearted, loose term, and is NOT something bad.


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