Correct.

Enjoyment is subjective. Quality is objective. Even iSm agrees that there's a lot to 'forgive' in a movie that he thoroughly enjoyed. Generally, I imagine that the inability to articulate why the perceived 'good' outweighed the 'bad' means that it's about enjoyment/taste. The quality is a separate issue.

For me, these threads become contentious when there is confusion between the two.

"I liked it!" and "It's good" aren't the same thing. Not by a long shot.

I agree with the underlying sentiment, but "good" is just as subjective as "I liked it."

There is no inherent quality. It's all in the eye of the beholder and judgmentalist.



And while I'll agree that big explosions are not what makes good science fiction, I think better explosions make that same science fiction better.


If I were displaying Star Trek as an historical artifact, I'd want the cheesy effects left in. For my own pleasure, I enjoy the cutaways to much cooler effects with the same cheesy set direction, acting, and production design.


You might be surprised to learn I don't object to all the special effects changes in the original Star Wars. I happen to think the Battle of Yavin effects are not only cooler looking, but more importantly make the sometimes confusing action more clear to an audience.

I don't watch Star Wars often. But sometimes I'll watch it as a 1977 piece of history with as close as I can come to that (the original sound mix is long gone from any home vid release), but other times I will switch discs right at the end and watch the much improved Battle of Yavin.

Really? Wow.

I don't think explosions make a movie good. I think they make a movie fun. But I like explosions and laser beams. I also don't think that the explosions are the only thing that made the movie fun.

But, on the same lines, the Land of the Lost previews look stupid. I don't think any amount of explosions will make that movie good, or fun.

It bugs me when people post things like I still don't get why anyone found this tedious and porly written movie to be fun because it devalues* their opinion.

*that's not the exact word, I can't think of the word. But I think it conveys what I am trying to say.

I agree with you, BTD.

There are plenty of things that I don't like that I know are "good". Everything Godard after the mid-1960s, for example.

Conversely, there are lots of bad things that I enjoy. McDonald's, most Italian horror movies, etc.

In this specific example, I think that Star Trek was a "bad" movie that I didn't like. I totally get that many of my friends here and elsewhere really liked the movie. I even accept the possibility that at some point, I'll grow to enjoy the movie, faults and all.

However, I think it's a poor argument that says, "You think it's bad, but I like it. It's purely subjective." The fact that someone can articulate the reasons why they think it's bad means that they're arguing quality, not taste.

Your point is well taken. I hope you see that my point is the same.

This may be just semantics, but what is "quality?"

If you're talking about quality writing, don't you just mean good writing?

Quality production design? How is that different from good production design?


I guess I'm just missing your personal definition of the word ... but for clarity, my definition of quality is something comprised of that which is good. Therefore if good is subjective, so is quality.

iSm, you're right about my interchangeable use of 'good' and 'quality'. I just disagree that quality is necessarily subjective.

Perhaps I'm contributing to the confusion by doing this, because I'm critical of the typical use of 'good' to mean 'enjoyment', which I completely agree is thoroughly subjective.

In reverse though, I see a lot of people take as personal criticism any obviously subjective point of view that isn't prefaced by some form of "in my opinion."

When I saw "raw tomatoes are gross" it really isn't necessary for me to say "in my opinion - and I'm perfectly aware that lots of people disagree and that my opinion is not necessarily any more valid than their - tomatoes are gross."

I get this on movie reviews all the time. "Well, that's just your opinion!!" Well, duh!

Yep, one of my pet peeves. Yes, of course it's my opinion, moron.