Is It Fair to Dislike a Movie Without Seeing It?

[BRV]

I was just about to post in Ohiofan1's thread, entitled "Why do people despise Juno so much?", listing why I despise the movie. However, I've never actually seen the movie, and have only based my opinion on the trailer, TV ads and the reviews from critics and friends. I feel as if I had formed enough of an opinion based on that movie based on those three factors, and thus I despise the movie, though I've never really seen it.

However, I feel that if I were to acknowledge that I've never actually seen the movie, it would thus invalidate my opinion. I mean, can a person truly form a belief after seeing a two-minute trailer, a handful of 30-second commercials and reading a few reviews in the newspaper?

So it got me to thinking, can a person truly despise a movie without ever seeing it? Or does one need to actually sit through the entire movie before they can form a valid opinion?

For the sake of comparison to the world of music, I guess this would be like listening to an artist's songs on the radio, and forming an opinion that you dislike them, but only to have people tell you, "Well you need to listen to the entire album" or "You need to see them live".

[waluigi]

Not liking a movie based on the trailer is fair.

They made the trailer to give you a reason to spend your money on this. If you see no reason in that trailer, whose fault is that?

But it's not always the best way to go, because some flicks have bad trailers but can surprise you, just like movies with good trailers can end up s***ty.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

No, it's not fair.

I can be annoyed by a movie's hype, or have no interest in seeing it, but I can't judge a movie's merits until I've watched the whole thing.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Toy Story movie, but I'm not gonna say I already like it- there's the odd chance I might find it the suckiest suck of all sucks. On the flipside, I haven't seen the Hangover, and the clips I saw didn't leave a good impression with me, but I can't say if it's good or bad either way yet.

[HMARK Center]

It really isn't fair.

Putting a caveat in that "I only saw a trailer, so I'm just going by what I've seen" is ok, as long as you acknowledge that you don't have a complete knowledge of what you're discussing.

That doesn't mean you have to sit through every single movie before you discuss it, because it's fair to look at a commercial or trailer and say "This is the vibe it gave off to me", but it's not fair to say something's good or bad without having more knowledge than that, no.

[AriadosMan]

Liking/disliking a movie is sort of like liking/disliking a book based on cover art.
I've seen some good movies with sucky trailers (Ratatouille) and some terrible movies with excellent trailers (the Russell Crowe version of Robin Hood).

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

I allow myself to diss or praise a movie I haven't seen myself if I've seen reviews of it, or enough clips to give me a good idea of the content. Otherwise, I try not to pay too much attention to what I hear about it (though of course, this will influence wether or not I'll be motivated to watch them) until I actually watch it.




Similarly, I usually try not to judge a video game I haven't played myself unless I've seen enough gameplay footage, preferably a Let's Play. The only exception is when an idea ir idiotic to begin with (MK vs DC, anyone? Then again, the gameplay footage and the horrible CGI screenshots I've seen seem to confirm my fears).

[Ultimo Chocula]

The trailer thing is fair, if the trailer looks bad I'm not going to see the movie. If those are the best parts of the flick, I'm not interested. The popularity thing is only fair if it's totally overblown. For example, I hated Borat for the longest time because everybody was constantly talking about it like it was the best thing ever, never shutting up about it, and the things they talked about weren't funny. Nothing kills enthusiasm faster than the fan base that takes it too far (anime kids, take note of that last comment).

It's only not fair to hate a movie BECAUSE it's popular. That's just trying way to hard to be different and those people aren't worth talking to in the first place.

[Red Impact]

You can have no interest in seeing a movie and express such, but I think it's really impossible to despise most things if you haven't experienced them, media included.

[DiBiase is Good]

I normally just say "I think it looks crap. It doesn't appeal to me one bit".

Although in some cases I'm hypocritical with it. As in, I don't need to see Epic Movie to know it's s***.

I get more annoyed when people go on about how certain films or actors were robbed at the Oscars but then admit they haven't seen the winning film/performance. Like when Pan's Labyrinth was beaten to the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar I saw someone post (can't remember if it was here or not) "Pan's Labyrinth was robbed. Although I haven't seen The Lives of Others".

[HMARK Center]

Jun 17, 2010 16:49:51 GMT -5 Red Impact said:

You can have no interest in seeing a movie and express such, but I think it's really impossible to despise most things if you haven't experienced them, media included.

Right. I saw the trailer for "Get Him to the Greek" a month or so ago and decided that it didn't look very good to me, but I have no real way of knowing that unless I see it. Oh well.

[ohiofan1]

No because when you see a movie trailer like this for example, the chances are likely that it is going to be bad.

[hotshotalex]

I went to see the Karate Kid remake recently expecting to hate it and make snarky comments to my friends through out the whole thing.

But surprisingly it was a really good movie.

So I would say no.

[Johnny Flamingo]

No, I also don't think it's fair to say "That movie sucks, I walked out after 10 minutes".

I think to form a credible opinion of a movie you have to have at least watched the whole thing.

Point in case, my favorite horror movie is "In the Mouth of Madness". The first few minutes of the movie aren't that good, but the movie really gains momentum after the first 10 minutes and ends up being a very good movie.

[Square]

Jun 17, 2010 17:09:51 GMT -5 ohiofan1 said:

No because when you see a movie trailer like this for example, the chances are likely that it is going to be bad.

THEY STOLE OUR GIMMICK! HOW DARE THEY USE SMURF AS A SWEAR WORD! Someone get a lawyer here pronto, set up the TTSlight

[Deleted]

For me (and I know this sounds cheap) but you have all right to say a movie LOOKS dumb based on whatever. There are plenty of movies that I think look dumb ("Despicable Me" a.k.a. "Corn Pops; The Movie" for example). Only if I have seen the movie do I officially say that it's dumb and that I don't like it.

[Yami Daimao]

I knew just by reading the details before any trailers came out, that Dragonball: Evolution was going to suck major donkey d***.

And I was 100% right.

[The poster with no name]

Jun 17, 2010 17:09:51 GMT -5 ohiofan1 said:

No because when you see a movie trailer like this for example, the chances are likely that it is going to be bad.

.....................................I lmao at that.

[Orange]

Jun 17, 2010 17:47:04 GMT -5 @geneyussrevolution said:

For me (and I know this sounds cheap) but you have all right to say a movie LOOKS dumb based on whatever. There are plenty of movies that I think look dumb ("Despicable Me" a.k.a. "Corn Pops; The Movie" for example). Only if I have seen the movie do I officially say that it's dumb and that I don't like it.

Corn Pops The Movie, awesome But yeah I agree with you, for instance I think the Twilight series looks dumb, and I really don't have any desire to see it. However, I don't go out of my way to insult the series, based off of the simple fact that I have not seen any of them yet.

[Grendel]

You know, it's not fair to judge all movies based on their trailers, as some surprise you. But as other posters have said, there are some movies you just know are going to be utter crap without having to watch them. We all have our instincts on what we like and don't like, so we know what we're not going to like.

But then nowadays there are so many movie trailers that mislead the public on what kind of movie it's going to be.

[Jay Peas 42]

See my sig.