• Movies are losing realism with the characters
    28 replies, posted
I think what makes a movie good is making it believable. I saw "Jaws" the other day and noticed all the people are different sizes, really fat, mildly fat, tall, short, etc. And now when you watch any movie these days everyone's perfectly skinny with hard abs and same height. Even the main character of Jaws isn't a looker but it was the character that made him. You find a good movie it's because the character did his role without worrying about appearance. We have the actors that are just automatically awesome because they have what a perfect smile in every movie with perfect skin instead of their character being developed. Not only is the main actor some perfect person ut ever person in the street he walks is skinny, maybe a fatty or two but never anything in between. They choose completely perfect people and completely unique people only when they should have every kind of person. Perfect example is Megan Fox. She is the worst actress yet she is in some top grossing films. Why? Because she looks good and can talk but doesn't have a personality, doesn't make her character. TL;DR: I complain about this because I just don't feel the setting of the movie when characters are unrealistically perfect. What makes me even more pissed is when like a fat ass is married to the hottest girl ever just to give the movie some more eye candy when THE character needs to be more than just eye candy.
Jaws was Spielberg's movie. Of course he will pay attention to details, unlike directors of these days. I think it's the small details that make the movie believable.
It truly is. Small details is what I love in movies.
i instantly thought of the kid in tron, he's good looking, he hacks everything, but can't find a girlfriend?
Does a movie have to be believable? most people go and watch movies to see something new and exciting, if they want realism they go outside their house and witness the biggest horror movie in their lives
One thing they also do in horror movies is that they don't tell you enough about the protagonist and it kind of alienates his purpose
It's funny because Video games are going in the opposite direction. At the end of the day "money is the defining factor of movies", Michael Bay for example is an avid fan of this motto, and unfortunately James Cameron seems to be joining it too. I can also say Games fall into this as well, however realism is a money making factor for games so I guess that's why it is doing so well. Even if the characters are built like tanks and can bench press lorry's.
This is only true for shitty films, however. Most of the films that can be considered good have realistic characters.
Lots of actors aren't as fit as they look, they just never take off their shirts
Uh.. this happens in every form of media.
This is really only true in most action movies.
start watching good movies?
[QUOTE=Mabus;30042212]It's funny because Video games are going in the opposite direction. At the end of the day "money is the defining factor of movies", Michael Bay for example is an avid fan of this motto, and unfortunately James Cameron seems to be joining it too. I can also say Games fall into this as well, however realism is a money making factor for games so I guess that's why it is doing so well. Even if the characters are built like tanks and can bench press lorry's.[/QUOTE] What you're thinking of is photorealism, not realism. ArmA: II would be an example of a realistic game, yet it's still quite a niche game. The Call of Duty series, for example, would be striving to have photorealism, IE: the game looks realistic. Realistic =/= photorealistic.
Have you been watching Transformers 2, actually I didn't see it, but I heard the school the guy goes to is full of super hot girls. Most main stream block busters have characters which are full of wholes and very much two dimensional. Like you said, most movies are just made to make cash, so they rehash the same story. It gets worse when Directors are stuck into telling the same stories over an over. As much as I enjoy Spielberg, I think he's next movie might be about aliens. (He loves 'em aliens) In film school we used to talk about the movies after watching them, and the teacher told us, you guys catch on the little stuff. And it's true, something as simple as someone getting shot by a shotgun and having no blood will draw you out of a movie more then the giant robot you can excuse for sake of the movie. All that being said, you should check out some foreign movies, they got some really nice stuff.
I don't care. Now pan the camera around while I stare off in the distance.
Clearly the original poster of this thread didn't take into consideration that that's sometimes how the characters are written.
Protip, watch a decent movie
[QUOTE=Dr.C;30047395]Lots of actors aren't as fit as they look, they just never take off their shirts[/QUOTE] I'm like that. I actually look pretty slim, but take off my shirt off, eww.
Fightclub. Theres a Fat guy with Bitch Tits in it.
Another issue I have concerning realism is when people are in foreign countries and everyone speaks English. To be honest, the new Karate Kid made a very realistic interpretation on why everyone spoke English around the protagonist.
[QUOTE=Mr. Bleak;30055213]Another issue I have concerning realism is when people are in foreign countries and everyone speaks English. To be honest, the new Karate Kid made a very realistic interpretation on why everyone spoke English around the protagonist.[/QUOTE] [img]http://getmovielink.com/images/covers/tf.org-free-2008-Valkyrie.jpg[/img] They don't even try to put on a german accent...
[QUOTE=Mr. Bleak;30055213]Another issue I have concerning realism is when people are in foreign countries and everyone speaks English. [/QUOTE] It kind of annoys me too, but at the same time, I would rather have that than have to watch a whole movie in subtitles when the target audience is primarily English-speaking.
[QUOTE=Grimezy15;30055359][img]http://getmovielink.com/images/covers/tf.org-free-2008-Valkyrie.jpg[/img] They don't even try to put on a german accent...[/QUOTE]I'm no expert but not everyone in Germany has a stereotypical german accent. I knew 6 German foreign exchange students and all of them could easily have been mistaken as American purely by the accents.
[QUOTE=Grimezy15;30055359][img]http://getmovielink.com/images/covers/tf.org-free-2008-Valkyrie.jpg[/img] They don't even try to put on a german accent...[/QUOTE] I don't see why an accent is necessary, they already destroy the realism by speaking English...
What bothered me about Valkyrie wasn't that fact that they spoke english, but that they spoke it with english accents
[QUOTE=Mr. Bleak;30055213]Another issue I have concerning realism is when people are in foreign countries and everyone speaks English.[/QUOTE] I'm currently watching an Anime that is very good, but it has some very confusing aspects related to this. It takes place in Germany. Even though all the speech is Japanese the characters all still refer to their conversations as being in German. In one of the episodes the main character meets a British couple that can't understand German and has Japanese conversations with each-other in "English". To top it off, the whole series is subtitled in English :v:
[QUOTE=Grimezy15;30055359][img]http://getmovielink.com/images/covers/tf.org-free-2008-Valkyrie.jpg[/img] They don't even try to put on a german accent...[/QUOTE] I hate when they do that in movies. Either speak the language your character is actually supposed to, or speak proper English.
[QUOTE=Simski;30058496]I'm currently watching an Anime that is very good, but it has some very confusing aspects related to this. It takes place in Germany. Even though all the speech is Japanese the characters all still refer to their conversations as being in German. In one of the episodes the main character meets a British couple that can't understand German and has Japanese conversations with each-other in "English". To top it off, the whole series is subtitled in English :v:[/QUOTE] Sounds a bit like the "Going to Japan" episodes of Black Lagoon. They've been speaking Japanese the whole series, but when they go to Japan for a business deal, everyone suddenly switches to heavily-accented English except the characters who are actually Japanese. And the subtitles are still in English, and the moment they leave Japan, everyone switches back to perfect Japanese. It was a bizarre experience to say the least.
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