Ditto for Twilight and every other brain-dead, crappy Hollywood franchise.
I really can't understand what's wrong with the Twilight series. They might not be the best movies in history, but I just can't see how they are "crappy".
You must not read or enjoy literature then, huh?
"Twilight" is generic chick lit garbage, except that even within that intellectually bankrupt genre, it is brain-dead and horrendously written. Meyer is so bad that she makes Danielle Steele (who is ostensibly quite a poor writer herself) seem like Margaret Mitchell by comparison.
Keep in mind that Stephanie Meyer is essentially an uneducated housewife who popped out a few kids as a teen, has no life or work experience, and wrote her series where Bella is an avatar for herself and the dreamy, hunky guy she wishes she had married.
Why am I discussing the books?
Well, because I haven't seen the films, but I doubt movies adapted from such an utterly shit source are any different.
You might claim victory here, since I am making an inference rather than speaking from experience, but I think it's amusing how you latched onto my throw-away comment here...
Warp wrote:
My bet is that they aren't crappy, but this just a combination of chick-flick + hype backlash.
Nonsense.
There are countless examples of "chick-flick + hype" film adaptations that are universally praised for their engaging characters, interesting story, or simply being entertaining pictures, such as "10 Things I Hate About You", "Love Story", and (even though I strongly disagree with its "chick lit" label) "Gone with the Wind".
The idea that "hype backlash" is the culprit is completely insane, considering the generally good critical response towards the Harry Potter film series. I watched the first two films in the series, and thought they were utter shit. So did most of my friends who either hadn't read the books or didn't like them.
So HP is immune to this, but Twilight isn't?
I'll tell you why people don't like Twilight; it's because the series is fucking garbage whose only fans are semi-literate, love-lorn women.
Keep in mind that Stephanie Meyer is essentially an uneducated housewife who popped out a few kids as a teen, has no life or work experience, and wrote her series where Bella is an avatar for herself and the dreamy, hunky guy she wishes she had married.
That's an ad-hominem if I ever saw one.
I still think that hype is a significant factor in people's attitudes. I'm pretty certain that if these movies were not popular, but just some obscure indie films, most people who would watch them would just shrug and say "rather average, not my style" rather than bashing it so hard.
It's the same as with eg. the Star Wars prequel trilogy: It's because of the hype and the expectations that people call them "utter shit". If they were completely independent movies with no previous history and subsequent expectations, the average person (who currently bashes the movies) would just think they are average.
Of course one could go to great detail in analyzing these movies and find all kinds of flaws in them and reasons why they suck so much. However, you can do this with any movie if you try hard enough, even those that are considered universal all-time masterpieces. Just cherry-pick the bad, exaggerate a bit here and there, and you can easily draw a picture where the movie is horrendous garbage.
Keep in mind that Stephanie Meyer is essentially an uneducated housewife who popped out a few kids as a teen, has no life or work experience, and wrote her series where Bella is an avatar for herself and the dreamy, hunky guy she wishes she had married.
That's an ad-hominem if I ever saw one.
No, it isn't; those are objective facts about her life which have a direct influence on the novel she wrote.
There's a difference between subjectively attacking an author's character ("she's an idiot!") and noting factual points (she was a high school drop-out and teen mom, she never worked, and was a housewife) and how it effected her writings.
Warp wrote:
I still think that hype is a significant factor in people's attitudes. I'm pretty certain that if these movies were not popular, but just some obscure indie films, most people who would watch them would just shrug and say "rather average, not my style" rather than bashing it so hard.
I highly doubt that, considering the shittiness of the source material. Again, typically the opposite occurs; a lousy film gets a pass because rabid fans of the adopted series like it anyways. (First two HP movies that I saw)
Personally, I'm amused by how desperately you're trying to rationalize this, though.
If you liked "Twilight", talk about what you enjoyed in the films. Instead, you're concocting some bullshit pseudo-philosophical theory on why people rated it lower than they otherwise would have. (With no real evidence to support it, and dozens of counterexamples)
This mirrors your argumentation in the "My Little Pony" topic; instead of talking about what you liked or didn't like about something, you're too busy concentrating on what the majority of people thought about it.
In other words, you don't seem to have an individual opinion of your own; you've given it up in order to worship the view of some nameless, faceless majority. Sad.
Warp wrote:
It's the same as with eg. the Star Wars prequel trilogy: It's because of the hype and the expectations that people call them "utter shit". If they were completely independent movies with no previous history and subsequent expectations, the average person (who currently bashes the movies) would just think they are average.
Where are you getting any of these bizarre and unsubstantiated claims from? How are you so intimately acquainted with the brain processes of the "average person"?
Personally, I thought the first Star Wars prequel was average, the second one was very bad, and the third was legitimately one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life, unrelated to any hype.
I'm not as big an expert as you are and thus hesitate to make any big claims, but on an anecdotal level, I believe "hype" tends to make people overvalue something's worth, not devalue yet.
Warp wrote:
However, you can do this with any movie if you try hard enough, even those that are considered universal all-time masterpieces.
Another wild, irrelevant claim without any evidence to back it up.
I contend there are plenty of movies which can not be picked apart. I've even seen some films that are "perfect"; they have no intrinsic flaws.
Sure, you can write something stupid and subjective about why "Wild Strawberries" sucks, but you can't write something trivial and accurate like this.
With regards to the Star Wars prequels, I very much recommend watching these reviews by Harry Plinkett that explain in very great detail what is wrong with them as movies per se, as well as Star Wars movies. Actually regardless of what you think of them or if you have even watched them, this is one of the most hysterically funny video reviews I've ever seen. The character is so well-done, the editing is excellent, and how he rags on the most inane things is very clever even if the language he uses is deliberately low-brow.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Geez IronSlayer, take a chill pill. Warp was just stating his opinions and offering one viewpoint, you don't need to attack him like a rabid dog.
Personally I think it's hard to deny that some movies/other things are more vehemently opposed because of their fans (Justin Bieber for example). No one is saying that this goes for every movie with a fanbase consisting of annoying screaming teen girls, but this phenomenon certainly exists.
I can definitely agree with Warp about the hype thing. Having watched the newer Terminator movies, for example, I felt that they might have been decent action movies but definitely not worthy of the Terminator name. This sort of left a bad taste in my mouth that wouldn't have been there if the original two movies hadn't been so awesome. I think it's often these sorts of feelings that lead to people labelling a bad sequel as "the worst movie ever", even though it's probably not.
I contend there are plenty of movies which can not be picked apart. I've even seen some films that are "perfect"; they have no intrinsic flaws.
Are Twilight or MLP good or bad? Well, first of all, it depends on your definition of good and bad and those depend on your underlying value system. There are no objectively superior value systems (from an agnostic/atheist perspective)*, therefore what's good and bad always has to be decided in relation to a subject or an audience and their (stereo-typical) value systems. For IronSlayer, the imagined audience seems to be some kind of intellectual elite, for Warp it seems to be the average crowd in movie theatres. Under those assumptions, you could argue that IronSlayer's approach is inappropriate given the genre of the movie, and Warp's approach would only make null-statements, as arguing over whether a movie is good from its fans' perspective can only lead to one result. You absolutely have to imagine a target audience though or the words "good" and "bad" will become entirely meaningless.
If you're just in for some "brain-dead" entertainment, something to stimulate your limbic system with, then Twilight is probably pretty good imo. (Depends on what happens to appeal most to your system though)
If you want to intellectually gain something, feed your cerebral cortex with valuable information, then it might obviously not be the best choice. (Depends on what you want to learn something about though)
With the first kinds of movies, you can learn something about yourself and/or the rest of the human race, with the second, something general about the world we're living in, maybe something philosophical. If all you've "learned" by watching movies of the first kind is either that they are awesome or that individuals who are able to enjoy them would have to be "brain-dead", then you did a pretty bad job at comprehending them imo.
Some of the things I thought about while watching Twilight (I think it was part two or something): Why do young girls idealize those vampire/werewolf dudes so much? (There are some obvious answers, but also some less obvious ones) What would they have to feel while watching this? Why? Why then do teenage guys hate it so much? Why do some mothers like to watch it with their daughters? In this context, what's the purpose of this scene? What's the purpose of this character? What, if anything, can I learn from this for my life in general? etc?
I still can't say I've enjoyed it, but it wasn't totally uninteresting to me. For what it is (=considering the target audience, or for everybody who is curious about the hype), it seemed like a good movie to me. If you dislike the genre (chick-flick aimed at teens?), don't condemn the movie because of it. If you dislike a movie, don't condemn the people who've enjoyed it. That all seems pretty pointless to me.
Can there be bad genres? Every genre has its own target audience, appealing to their specific value systems and tastes. You can only say a genre is bad if you disagree with their preferences, therefore it can never be objectively bad. A movie can only be entirely bad if there is no audience there to enjoy it. But even that might sometimes magically create sub-genres of "movies that are so bad, they're good again".
As nothing can be objectively good, the ad popolum argument seems to be relevant to me in this case. It obviously seems to be good to some. Only if you agree on a specific definition of good beforehand, ad popolum becomes invalid. Perhaps you should state your definitions of "good" before continuing this discussion.
*) You could still argue over what's the best value system to adhere to now to ensure a bright future for mankind as a whole. But how does that bright future look like is a question that again entirely depends on your value system.
With regards to the Star Wars prequels, I very much recommend watching these reviews by Harry Plinkett that explain in very great detail what is wrong with them as movies per se, as well as Star Wars movies. Actually regardless of what you think of them or if you have even watched them, this is one of the most hysterically funny video reviews I've ever seen. The character is so well-done, the editing is excellent, and how he rags on the most inane things is very clever even if the language he uses is deliberately low-brow.
I mostly agree.
I enjoyed his review for the first two films a lot, but I would recommend steering clear of his review of the third one, which is even longer than the picture itself and becomes almost as boring by the end. At one point, running out of irrelevant things to criticize, he notes that in "Revenge of the Sith", the characters, while talking to one another, are in "static" poses; sitting down, or at most, casually walking.
Apparently, this is a bad thing. I guess "12 Angry Men" was an awful film, and Sidney Lumet doesn't know how to direct...
When a film is as putrid as "Revenge of the Sith", you don't need to imagine new weaknesses for the picture.
Kyrismys wrote:
I can definitely agree with Warp about the hype thing. Having watched the newer Terminator movies, for example, I felt that they might have been decent action movies but definitely not worthy of the Terminator name. This sort of left a bad taste in my mouth that wouldn't have been there if the original two movies hadn't been so awesome. I think it's often these sorts of feelings that lead to people labelling a bad sequel as "the worst movie ever", even though it's probably not.
I agree with you on that example (I felt Terminator 3 was an alright flick, haven't seen the fourth one), but it's very different than a series being adopted into films for the first time.
In the case of Terminator, it was the third sequel in a series which already had movies made for it. Thus, there were very high expectations about the quality of new movies, since there were already several much praised iterations already.
Another good example would be the fourth movie in the Indiana Jones series. It's an irrelevant point for newly adopted series like Twilight, though.
I agree with you about the hyperbole with "worst movie ever", but that exists with fan reaction to anything nowadays, not just adaptations of popular franchises.
Kyrismys wrote:
Care to give a few examples?
I've mentioned a few above now; "12 Angry Men" and "Wild Strawberries".
Kuwaga wrote:
For IronSlayer, the imagined audience seems to be some kind of intellectual elite,
Not at all. Where are you getting this from? It's certainly not something I've ever written.
I judge everything by what it aims to do and how successful it is in accomplishing it.
You don't have to be "intellectually elite" to realize that "Twilight" is garbage which utterly fails in presenting a love story that is borderline intelligent, reasonable, or entertaining.
As for MLP, I never said it was either good or bad. I wrote that it was okay. In its case, it has some small degree of humor and a certain amount of action, but not enough for me to call it the best Western childrens' cartoon I've ever seen or anything.
Kuwaga wrote:
If you're just in for some "brain-dead" entertainment, something to stimulate your limbic system with, then Twilight is probably pretty good imo.
This doesn't make much sense. If you want "brain-dead entertainment", why wouldn't you watch a comedy or a simple-minded action film instead?
Who goes to a sappy high school romance for that purpose?!
You can be a contrarian and tell me that some people do, but you're arguing about the "average fan", and they very clearly do not. That's not just anecdotal evidence either; box office statistics prove this point very convincingly, too.
Kuwaga wrote:
If you dislike the genre (chick-flick aimed at teens?), don't condemn the movie because of it.
Like I've mentioned several times before, there have been many good or at least decent "chick-flicks" aimed at teens.
Love Story. 10 Things I Hate About You. Sixteen Candles. Pretty in Pink. Breakfast Club, to a certain extent.
Yet, you keep making these strange assumptions about what I think completely independent of what I actually wrote. I think Twilight is probably a shitty film series because the books are really shitty, not because of some weird dislike of a broad film genre.
There's a difference between subjectively attacking an author's character ("she's an idiot!") and noting factual points (she was a high school drop-out and teen mom, she never worked, and was a housewife) and how it effected her writings.
"Noting facts and how it effected her writings" is subjective. You can't measure how someone's life affects someone's writings on an absolute scale. It will always be your opinion. Arguing that what kind of person she is affects her writing negatively is an ad hominem. You are not evaluating the writings on their own right, but arguing that they are bad because of what kind of person the author is.
Personally, I'm amused by how desperately you're trying to rationalize this, though.
Well, I'm amused that you are projecting, and don't even notice that.
This mirrors your argumentation in the "My Little Pony" topic; instead of talking about what you liked or didn't like about something, you're too busy concentrating on what the majority of people thought about it.
I actually find the peripheral fandom phenomenon more interesting than the show itself (although the show isn't half-bad), so it's natural that I discuss said phenomenon.
Btw, "too busy" for what? Just curious.
In other words, you don't seem to have an individual opinion of your own; you've given it up in order to worship the view of some nameless, faceless majority. Sad.
Can you please quote my opinion on MLP and the Twilight series? Because I myself don't remember having such an attitude. Perhaps I'm getting senile.
I'm not as big an expert as you are and thus hesitate to make any big claims, but on an anecdotal level, I believe "hype" tends to make people overvalue something's worth, not devalue yet.
The second word in the expression "hype backlash" isn't there just for decoration. It has a meaning.
"Noting facts and how it effected her writings" is subjective. You can't measure how someone's life affects someone's writings on an absolute scale.
Whoa boy. If you want to play the semantics game, then just about every post on this forum is "subjective". What's your point? It's an irrelevant quibble that leads nowhere.
You seem to have a problem with the fact that I note objective facts about Meyers's life (she was married and had kids in her teens, dropped out of high school, has no education, never worked, and was a housewife) and make very reasonable inferences from it.
Rather than presenting a counter-argument, you mislabel it as an ad hominem, and feel that this demonstrates something.
I would be surprised, but then again, when have you ever presented an intelligent argument about the actual topic itself, instead of what others think?
Warp wrote:
Arguing that what kind of person she is affects her writing negatively is an ad hominem.
I never wrote what "kind of person" she was. Maybe you should read my objection again.
I think it's very relevant, for instance, if someone who writes a book about piloting an aircraft ever piloted a plane themselves.
According to Warp, this is irrelevant and indeed an "ad hominem" attack.
By the way, I merely wrote the stuff about her background as the underlying reason for the writing being such garbage; however, I also noted why the writing ITSELF is garbage.
One would think that being a fan of Twilight, you would enjoy discussing it, but apparently not.
Warp wrote:
Well, I'm amused that you are projecting, and don't even notice that.
Much like the term "ad hominem", you seem unfamiliar with what "projecting" actually means.
In this case, I was writing about Transformers and made a throw-away remark that it was similar to other brain-dead Hollywood franchises, "like Twilight, for instance".
You turned that throw-away sentence clause into a huge post about how maligned and misjudged Twilight was.
I'm confused; at what point was any "projecting" going on here, either from me or you? Do you honestly know what it means?
Warp wrote:
Btw, "too busy" for what? Just curious.
You raised some weird objection to what I wrote about the nature of MLP, but without ever actually discussing anything about the series itself, let alone a specific episode. You were "too busy" telling me about what you think other people thought.
Warp wrote:
The second word in the expression "hype backlash" isn't there just for decoration. It has a meaning.
"Hype backlash" is hardly an actual term with a fixed definition, but the way you use it is particularly inane.
Even if there is a segment of the population that looks upon a movie or book less favorably because of the hoopla surrounding it, it's not an explanation for why a huge mass of people hate something.
If it was, then any series that ever attained popularity, be it Indiana Jones or The Godfather, would soon be widely hated and reviled, right?
One would think that being a fan of Twilight, you would enjoy discussing it, but apparently not.
I asked you to quote me showing the attitude of "worshiping the majority view", and "being a fan", but you failed to answer that challenge. Here, let me help you:
Warp wrote:
I really can't understand what's wrong with the Twilight series. They might not be the best movies in history, but I just can't see how they are "crappy".
That's everything I have said about my opinion on the Twilight movies. Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound like something a fanatic fanboy who worships the brainless masses would write. And if you review what I have written about MLP, it's only slightly more positive. I still expect you to give quotations where I say otherwise if you keep making these claims.
Warp wrote:
Well, I'm amused that you are projecting, and don't even notice that.
Much like the term "ad hominem", you seem unfamiliar with what "projecting" actually means.
In this case, I was writing about Transformers and made a throw-away remark that it was similar to other brain-dead Hollywood franchises, "like Twilight, for instance".
Perhaps if you hadn't ignored what I was responding to, and deliberately cut it out in your quote above, you would have understood that I was saying that your claim "I'm amused by how desperately you're trying to rationalize this" is psychological projection. You are accusing me of doing something that you yourself are furiously engaging in.
You turned that throw-away sentence clause into a huge post about how maligned and misjudged Twilight was.
Ok, it has become clear that you are either trolling, or there's something wrong with you. The post you are referring to, the one I made as a response to your "throw-away sentence about twilight" was two paragraphs long, one of them quite short, the other medium-sized. If you consider this "a huge post" then you are either deliberately trying to troll, or you have some kind of problem.
Hey guys,
Very excited to see this thread was bumped! IronSlayer and Warp might want to take their discussion to some sort of "shitty debates that need to go away" thread though.
Team Edward or Team Jacob?
Hey guys,
Very excited to see this thread was bumped! IronSlayer and Warp might want to take their discussion to some sort of "shitty debates that need to go away" thread though.
Heh, fair enough. I was getting sick of the whole thing, too; I hate having to waste my life typing shit about something stupid like Twilight, especially with someone who seems to like arguing for its own sake.
So, in an effort to re-focus the discussion, here's an entertaining documentary I stumbled upon recently;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhbcDzbGSU
(Film itself starts like 7:30 in)
It's about the history of text adventure games. Strangely enough, it's an interesting topic (unlike the games themselves!) and gets a number of things correct that most documentaries, especially American ones, woefully fail at. For instance, they will pose a question and show 5 different responses from 5 different people, in some cases mutually exclusive, contradictory ones. They have enough faith that the audience will make up their mind on the issue instead of being spoon-fed a view.
With regards to the Star Wars prequels, I very much recommend watching these reviews by Harry Plinkett that explain in very great detail what is wrong with them as movies per se, as well as Star Wars movies. Actually regardless of what you think of them or if you have even watched them, this is one of the most hysterically funny video reviews I've ever seen. The character is so well-done, the editing is excellent, and how he rags on the most inane things is very clever even if the language he uses is deliberately low-brow.
I'll go ahead and recommend Death Note, which is probably the only anime that I'd recommend to a general audience. It's an anime about morals, justice, power and strategic thinking, has 37 episodes and a very fast-moving plot. It starts out really good with the first ~10 episodes, then changes for the worse, but in the end I think it manages to catch up again. As with all anime, I'd recommend watching the original Japanese dub with English subtitles. I guess it should be alright to post [URL=http://www.watchanimeon.com/anime/death-note/page/2/]this link[/URL] here?
I somewhat enjoyed Death Note, but there were two major problems that irritated me a lot about it, both of which are also shared with Code Geass which is pretty similar in the way it presents the story.
First is constantly spelling out every little thought, intention, motivation... well, everything really. It dumbs the storytelling down immensely. I know not everybody has the patience or intelligence to follow a good detective story, but you don't have to kill the intrigue outright by constantly explaining everything without giving viewer a slightest chance to come up an explanation on their own. Arthur Conan Doyle knew how to work with this problem; he solved it brilliantly by introducing Watson, a character with intelligence considerably lower than Holmes's but pretty close to the more observant half of the presumed reader/watcher audience. So when Holmes would deduce something really tricky he would usually ask Watson for his own analysis first so that we, the audience, would first be able to compare our thoughts on the matter with those of our equal, instead of being constantly spoon-fed with logical chains so delightfully obscure they feel completely detached from reality... like it happens in both DN and CG all the damn time.
My second gripe with DN is writers taking so much drugs coming up with dramatic problems and even more dramatic, almost deus ex machina-ish solutions, it breaks suspension of disbelief in half around episode 17. You think you got me now, huh? But I have foreseen you having foreseen me having foreseen how you thought I thought you thought I would act, so I'll do something different and possibly completely unrelated! *groan* Do the characters read the script in advance, like the Joker in The Dark Knight? Why do they always rely on something completely unrealistic, so that it always feels like they just know it's going to work despite the odds, just because the authors want that? Or introduce new characters at an arbitrary point in the story just to hold everything together? Meh.
That being said, if you're up for watching it, I would at least recommend grabbing fansubs by Subbers in the Rye. By far the best release you can find.
So what are the cleverer, more coherent story-driven anime shows/movies, anyway? I mean those that have strongly written, engaging story above all, and not just cool characters or unusual storytelling. Given it's mostly a commercial industry that caters mostly to the inane side of the spectrum—that's where the money is—who are easy to please with the cheapest tricks (not necessarily a bad thing if done tastefully, mind you), one has to dig pretty deeply to find gems unconventional not only in style, but also in essence. People often mention Monster and Legend of the Galactic Heroes as some of the best examples, but sadly I haven't gotten around to either of them yet; hopefully I will soon. Off the top of my head I would name Satoshi Kon, and Katsuhiro Otomo as the major brains behind anime screenplays (well, this guy to a large extent, too, but he's virtually unknown). I can't say everything they have made is genius, but it's still ranging from well above average to exceptionally good.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
I've yet to see an anime that fares better at storytelling than its manga counterpart. I thought the Death Note manga was brilliant... Not sure about the anime, haven't seen it.
I somewhat enjoyed Death Note, but there were two major problems that irritated me a lot about it, both of which are also shared with Code Geass which is pretty similar in the way it presents the story.
Well, Code Geass was just utter garbage and a wonderful example of modern anime shittiness. Meanwhile, Death Note was legitimately thrilling and amazing.
moozooh wrote:
First is constantly spelling out every little thought, intention, motivation... well, everything really. It dumbs the storytelling down immensely. I know not everybody has the patience or intelligence to follow a good detective story, but you don't have to kill the intrigue outright by constantly explaining everything without giving viewer a slightest chance to come up an explanation on their own. Arthur Conan Doyle knew how to work with this problem; he solved it brilliantly by introducing Watson, a character with intelligence considerably lower than Holmes's but pretty close to the more observant half of the presumed reader/watcher audience. So when Holmes would deduce something really tricky he would usually ask Watson for his own analysis first so that we, the audience, would first be able to compare our thoughts on the matter with those of our equal, instead of being constantly spoon-fed with logical chains so delightfully obscure they feel completely detached from reality
You're probably right, but in all honesty, I never noticed this about "Death Note". I guess it didn't feel as intrusive for me, although I generally hate being spoon-fed information by a detective work, be it book or video.
moozooh wrote:
... like it happens in both DN and CG all the damn time.
The difference being that in CG there are about a hundred plot holes per episode; none of that shit makes sense to begin with.
My second gripe with DN is writers taking so much drugs coming up with dramatic problems and even more dramatic, almost deus ex machina-ish solutions, it breaks suspension of disbelief in half around episode 17. You think you got me now, huh? But I have foreseen you having foreseen me having foreseen how you thought I thought you thought I would act, so I'll do something different and possibly completely unrelated! *groan* Do the characters read the script in advance, like the Joker in The Dark Knight? Why do they always rely on something completely unrealistic, so that it always feels like they just know it's going to work despite the odds, just because the authors want that? Or introduce new characters at an arbitrary point in the story just to hold everything together? Meh.
The second half of the show, after the death of one of the principal characters, is certainly weaker. No one would argue with that.
Really though, "Death Note" is a pure entertainment vehicle, and in that sense, it's outstanding; even Sherlock Holmes, which you mentioned, and I absolutely adored as a kid, has a large number of plot holes and inconsistencies if you scrutinize it hard enough.
Off the top of my head I would name Satoshi Kon, and Katsuhiro Otomo as the major brains behind anime screenplays (well, this guy to a large extent, too, but he's virtually unknown). I can't say everything they have made is genius, but it's still ranging from well above average to exceptionally good.
Good recommendations, but if one is looking for intelligence, they are much better off sticking with seinen manga, as FODA also noted.
Joined: 6/25/2007
Posts: 732
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
FODA wrote:
I've yet to see an anime that fares better at storytelling than its manga counterpart. I thought the Death Note manga was brilliant... Not sure about the anime, haven't seen it.
I've yet to see an anime that fares better at storytelling than its manga counterpart. I thought the Death Note manga was brilliant... Not sure about the anime, haven't seen it.
The FLCL anime is far better than the manga.
Yes, but both manga came out after the anime.
The anime was first released in April of 2000 while the twomanga were released in June of 2000 and May of 2007, respectively.
moozooh's post about the only exceptions being manga coming out after the anime is still plenty valid.
Mh, I agree with your critique on Death Note. It's very guilty of using many plot devices that challenged my supression of disbelief. You do indeed get the impression that the characters read the script, then somehow justify how they could come to their conclusions anyway, but it'd still be a bit unrealistic to arrive at them so quickly in the end. Basically, they seem to be gifted with super-natural intuition. It really doesn't make that great of a detective story, I think Detective Conan might be the better alternative in this case.
What makes Death Note so unique and interesting is the moral dilemma the main protagonists finds himself in and the lack of a definite answer of how he should have acted, along with the impact his acquired powers have on his personality. That and his obsession with making his one big dream come true, while almost completely neglecting everything else.
CodeGeass wasn't too bad either, but much less interesting to me, personally. I've only watched some few episodes.
