Truly this must be trolling. I refuse to believe that people are actually equating hearsay with first-hand experience. If this is true, we are currently looking down toward the point where we imagined peak stupidity would be.

And as for "regurgitating other people's opinions", there is a slight difference between "I repeat these points someone else made, because based on my experiences of the topic at hand, I agree with them." and "I have no direct knowledge of the topic at hand other than what someone else has told me, and since I have no first hand knowledge, I can't be sure that I would agree with them". The second statement is not necessarily invalid, but it's a pretty poor substitute for first hand knowledge, and terrible for subjective judgement.

It's fine to read film reviews and decide that a film is probably not for you, but you can't make an informed critique about it. Sure, you can have an opinion, but it's not an informed opinion and you have nothing to contribute in a discussion of the film's qualities.

Also, it's kind of hilarious and sad that someone who refuses to spend 2-3 hours seeing a film they might not like spends a 2-3 times (or more) that amount of time trying to argue the points of said film.

46 minutes ago, Malashim said:

"For the purpose of further discussion" would depend on the actual point of discussion I tend to believe. I won't go into TlJ examples as there already was too much talking in circles in the other Thread, but some points for Movies like overall Story Arcs can be shortened to just a few words and you don't need to watch Avatar (the Pandora one) to develop a justifiable opinion about the potential Pocahontas rip off.

But you actually must have seen Avatar if you want to talk about the (at least I think) amazing visualization - although 3D was unnecessary.

That's actually a really good point. Though I would argue that hearing someone say "it's just a Pocahontas ripoff" or " Dances With Smurfs " is still insufficient to truly intelligently debate the particulars of that argument. All one could really say is "according to this review" and "based on what so-and-so-told me" to hit the salient points, it's still not quite the same as experiencing the narrative yourself and deciding how closely the points of commonality lie. And that's wholly separate from the debate of whether or not "story X has this many plot elements in common with story Y" is inherently a bad thing.

You can craft an intelligent argument in that fashion, but it's a lot more difficult in my experience.

1 hour ago, penpenpen said:

Truly this must be trolling. I refuse to believe that people are actually equating hearsay with first-hand experience. If this is true, we are currently looking down toward the point where we imagined peak stupidity would be.

"Two things are infinite, the galaxy and human stupidity. And I'm not entirely certain about the first one."
- Albert Einstein

I do know one thing. If your alleged opinion is valid or informed and is actually legitimate, there shouldn't be any need to call people stupid.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

I do know one thing. If your alleged opinion is valid or informed and is actually legitimate, there shouldn't be any need to call people stupid.

You're right. There shouldn't be. Yet here we are.

Hence the trolling theory.

Also, considering your usual tone, that must be a cosy glass house you've got there, seems to have a pot and a kettle and everything.

The God of Lock approaches........

So... Anybody played any Star Wars Roleplaying just lately?

8 hours ago, Malashim said:

I won't go into TlJ examples as there already was too much talking in circles in the other Thread, but some points for Movies like overall Story Arcs can be shortened to just a few words and you don't need to watch Avatar (the Pandora one) to develop a justifiable opinion about the potential Pocahontas rip off.

Though it is clearly a rip off of Frank Herbert's Pandora series !

Unless the planet Pandora with sentient telepathic plants fighting human invaders (that happens to be called Avata) is just coincidence!

You know, when making the first Dune movie, they realized that there are a LOT of points of commonality between Dune and Star Wars, and they actually considered suing George Lucas for plagarism.

And George Lucas actually considered (or actually did, I forget) sue Battlestar Galactica (original) for ripping him off. They're defense basically consisted of "we might have stolen from George, but George stole from EVERYONE," and Lucas had to admit they had a point.

Stealing from one person is plagarism. Stealing from everyone is research.

9 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I do know one thing. If your alleged opinion is valid or informed and is actually legitimate, there shouldn't be any need to call people stupid.

And there in lies the problem.

A number of folks who are not informed about a thing are gong around saying "this is the worst thing ever!" without having seen more than a few seconds of the trailers, if even that, and throwing their digital weight around like they know it everything about the film and why the people who like the direction Disney has taken the franchise are mindless sheep that need to be euthanized for the betterment of humanity (and that last bit is not hyberbole, but a direct statement from the admin of a Star Wars RPG group that turned insanely toxic).

It's very much akin to the parable of three blind men each touching one spot of an elephant for a few seconds, and then each claiming that they alone truly know what an elephant is.

Or, to make it something more relevant to you specifically, a person that saw the existence of your threads of NPC and Ship artwork but never actually looked at them started going around posting that you were just a filthy art thief stealing the hard work of other people without providing proper credit to the original artists and passing their work off as your own.

Now, both of us know that's not the case, as you don't edit the artwork to exclude the artist's signature, and where possible you link the image so that it'll go to the artist's website, and you've never once claimed "hey, I did this!"

So in this instance, the hypothetical person that was (falsely and incorrectly) calling you an art thief (which as I've noted you're not) does indeed have a stupid opinion built upon willful ignorance and it should be treated and dismissed as such.

With regards to TLJ, I get informed criticism of the film (I enjoyed, but I freely admit it has flaws and there are things I'd have handled differently in RJ's position). But sadly, it seems too many of the folks that disliked the film aren't interested in a discussion of the films merits and flaws, and instead just want to rail against the film for the sake of railing against the film because it didn't play out to their fanboy fantasies (and in my experience, it's been entirely men that have this attitude). Which isn't too unlike how the prequels were treated upon release, though these days the prequels don't are beginning to be treated as good films in and of themselves. Which probably means a decade or so from now, TLJ will also wind up being lauded as one of the better Star Wars films, not unlike how ESB got bashed upon release (due to how much it shook things up) but has since become the darling of the franchise.

Edit: Huh, seems the last two paragraphs of this got chopped when I first tried to edit the post.

7 hours ago, AceSolo5 said:

So... Anybody played any Star Wars Roleplaying just lately?

No ****.

Whoa!

Someone thought he could find 25 minutes of material that was 'good' from TLJ? What's worse is that some of you sat through THAT.

Ugh!

I had a younger friend of mine recommend TLJ as a bad Star Wars movie but still a good movie. I can't even give him that much after having seen it. (Yes we're still talking to each other).

I know that if I were to do a YouTube video on everything "Great" about TLJ, I think I'd roll maybe 10 seconds of the SFX credits and call it done.

Those poor poor dedicated artists spent so much time and effort making pretty pictures that in context sucked my creative soul dry.

7 hours ago, ErikModi said:

Stealing from one person is plagarism. Stealing from everyone is research.

And when I was going to Film School we called it "Homage."

I like Pie too!

So informed equates to first-hand experience only, and anything other has no right to even mention what they think by doing research outside of first-hand experience?

The only people who can discuss the horridness of Landmines are the ones that put them to use and the ones that survived the explosion of one?!

That sounds like the point from some extreme left feminists towards men that they need to shut up because they are no woman and thus can't bring anything useful to the table...

I'm not defending the people who just continue to rage about single points and try to push their views onto others - the point that I'm against this sort of behavior is the reason I'm against the demonization of even thinking about mentioning an opinion if you have no first-hand experience, because this is equally close-minded and doesn't help any side. Sure first-hand opinions have the theoretical potential to be a lot more useful for further and deeper digging discussions, but that doesn't make every first-hand opinion superior to any relying on research.

Even if someone has seen the Movie it is possible to state invalid points about it as well as people are able to state valid points by looking at the different sources of "documentation" around the Movie.

P.S. Calling people either a troll or stupid is also a quite aggressive way (and insulting) to add nothing useful to any discussion...

6 minutes ago, Malashim said:

I like Pie too!

So informed equates to first-hand experience only, and anything other has no right to even mention what they think by doing research outside of first-hand experience?

The only people who can discuss the horridness of Landmines are the ones that put them to use and the ones that survived the explosion of one?!

That sounds like the point from some extreme left feminists towards men that they need to shut up because they are no woman and thus can't bring anything useful to the table...

I'm not defending the people who just continue to rage about single points and try to push their views onto others - the point that I'm against this sort of behavior is the reason I'm against the demonization of even thinking about mentioning an opinion if you have no first-hand experience, because this is equally close-minded and doesn't help any side. Sure first-hand opinions have the theoretical potential to be a lot more useful for further and deeper digging discussions, but that doesn't make every first-hand opinion superior to any relying on research.

Even if someone has seen the Movie it is possible to state invalid points about it as well as people are able to state valid points by looking at the different sources of "documentation" around the Movie.

P.S. Calling people either a troll or stupid is also a quite aggressive way (and insulting) to add nothing useful to any discussion...

You're comparing apples to boulders. First off, nobody is demonizing anything. and there is a big difference between art, which is purely subjective , and things which are objectively good or bad.

59 minutes ago, Malashim said:

I like Pie too!

So informed equates to first-hand experience only, and anything other has no right to even mention what they think by doing research outside of first-hand experience?

The only people who can discuss the horridness of Landmines are the ones that put them to use and the ones that survived the explosion of one?!

I was actually expecting someone to bring up a rebuttal of this type the first time I posted my opinion. That's a strawman argument. Everyone has been injured, you can state for fairly certain that being injured is not fun (excepting some edge cases that really aren't appropriate for discussion on a PG forum). So really, you're only positing degrees of injury. You've probably slammed your shin hard into a coffee table, trailer hitch, or something at some point, and you know how much that hurts, how much that minor injury causes pain and temporary debilitation, so it's not really a stretch at all to imagine how having your leg blown off would create a more painful and debilitating injury. You've still experienced injury, if not to the same degree as someone else. So it is with art. A passing glance at a painting might give you an idea of what it is and what it's trying to convey, but looking at it for an hour, soaking in every single detail and how each contributes to its whole provides a whole different insight. Both are qualified to discuss the real and perceived merits and flaws of the painting, though the one with the longer study obviously has more to talk about. Compare that to someone who read a description of the painting that simply said "it's orange." What can this third person contribute to the discussion besides the presence or absence of orangosity?

Reading reviews and listening to other people talk is not experiencing the art for yourself. Even, I daresay, watching a YouTube video with carefully chosen clips talked over by a narrator is not experiencing the art for yourself. It's the difference between reading the Cliff Notes to a book and actually reading the book. The Cliff Notes can tell you what the themes, motivations, characters, and plot points are, but they can't point out all the tiny, subtle ways in which those things may be reinforced, which some readers will pick up on and others will not, which may grant a whole separate and unique takeaway tailored to each individual reader and colored by their experiences and outlook. It can't give you those little flashes of insight and brilliance you when experiencing the work for yourself that elevates "I like this" to "I freaking LOVE this!"

58 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

First off, nobody is demonizing anything

When looking at the actual topic some people demonize the Movie and the people who actually like it. While the what I would call "more reasonable side" has tendencies creeping in to do the same as soon as they read "I haven't seen it myself, but...". It's already bad enough if one side is showing such behavior. Even if it was actually stated to be bad wording "you lost your right to whine if you haven't watched it yourself" statements are a direction the "reasonable side" should always try to avoid as well as calling people either trolls or stupid because their opinions differ.

I'll stop to ride that dead horse now as this discussion is also starting to go in circles.

Have a nice day/night, everyone!

I wouldn't characterize myself on "the reasonable side." I'm trying, I really am, but I freely admit that I love the movie, and it's really hard to be reasonable when someone takes something you love and trashes it with misinformed, shortsighted, and just plain "not-what-I-personally-wanted-to-see" rantings. On that point, I empathize wholeheartedly with longtime Star Wars fans who hate the sequel films and especially The Last Jedi . Honestly, with all sincerity, it really sucks that you feel these filmmakers are destroying everything you ever loved about Star Wars . And you are absolutely entitled to feel that way. Just because I like the "affectionate deconstruction" of Star Wars that TLJ was doesn't mean everyone does, or should. If the movie had ended with bad-part-of- Legends -inspired Luke snapping his fingers and imploding all the First Order's walkers and spaceships, I would feel offended and annoyed and probably be ranting that the film "ruined Star Wars " myself.

But it didn't, and I loved what they did with the film. I'm passionate about my love of Star Wars and my love of TLJ, and yeah, I'm certainly a bit over-aggressive in dismissing arguments against I feel don't have any real value, because I personally can't comprehend how someone has that takeaway. And while intellectually I support taking in information about the film and deciding not to see it, emotionally I'm a bit hurt that someone wouldn't at least make the attempt to try and understand the film before hating on it. But when someone who hasn't even tried to understand the film before hating on it starts hating on other people who did take the time to try and understand the film and liked it. . . yeah, I can't sit still for that.

So I'm sorry if people disagree with my assertions. I'm sorry if people feel I offended them. These are just my opinions, and I've argued why I hold them to the best of my ability. If you're not convinced, great. Good for you. You have your opinion and I have no right to tell you it's wrong. And if I do jump down your throat, just yank me out, give me a good shake, and say "Bad Erik," and I'll try and do better.

6 minutes ago, ErikModi said:

I'm trying, I really am

That alone makes you part of the "reasonable side" when it comes to the Internet!

3 hours ago, Malashim said:

That alone makes you part of the "reasonable side" when it comes to the Internet!

See, but I think there is a lack of "reasonable" to me. Someone professes they're angered by opinions that aren't valid and shouldn't be listened to/read.................................... so why did you go there and read/watch them?........................ People can say whatever they want in a free society, if what they say/write makes you angry and it's something completely avoidable, that's a self inflicted wound in my opinion sooooooooo "you abdicate your right to whine about it."

It's like all the BS around Rose and the racist stuff. I have to assume there is racist stuff because I see it being said which is good enough for me in my 'no direct experience' opinion. The reason I don't know is I don't bother going anywhere with that sort of crap going on. I can't do anything about what people say, but I actually don't listen/read things I don't want to, as opposed to saying it and then doing so anyway.

27 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

See, but I think there is a lack of "reasonable" to me. Someone professes they're angered by opinions that aren't valid and shouldn't be listened to/read.................................... so why did you go there and read/watch them?........................ People can say whatever they want in a free society, if what they say/write makes you angry and it's something completely avoidable, that's a self inflicted wound in my opinion sooooooooo "you abdicate your right to whine about it."

It's like all the BS around Rose and the racist stuff. I have to assume there is racist stuff because I see it being said which is good enough for me in my 'no direct experience' opinion. The reason I don't know is I don't bother going anywhere with that sort of crap going on. I can't do anything about what people say, but I actually don't listen/read things I don't want to, as opposed to saying it and then doing so anyway.

Regarding “Rose and the racist stuff,” though...Kelly Marie Tran wasn’t “going (somewhere) with that sort of crap going on.” People (using the term “people” loosely) made a point of going to her social media outlets and spouting vitriol, hatred, and racism at her. Because she played a fictional character that they didn’t like. So, respectfully, I must call BS on calling that sort of situation BS.

35 minutes ago, Nytwyng said:

Regarding “Rose and the racist stuff,” though...Kelly Marie Tran wasn’t “going (somewhere) with that sort of crap going on.” People (using the term “people” loosely) made a point of going to her social media outlets and spouting vitriol, hatred, and racism at her. Because she played a fictional character that they didn’t like. So, respectfully, I must call BS on calling that sort of situation BS.

I'm saying racism is BS in general, so pump the self righteous brakes. I wasn't speaking to her unless the OP is her. It wasn't done to the OP. Given those facts my point still applies.

2 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I'm saying racism is BS in general, so pump the self righteous brakes.

It appears that you were also saying, "Stop visiting outlets with material that bugs you and it won't bug you," in relation to "Rose and the racist stuff." She wasn't. She was subjected to abhorrent treatment in her own online "home." So the suggestion to not listen to/read things one doesn't want to doesn't always fit.

1 minute ago, Nytwyng said:

It appears that you were also saying, "Stop visiting outlets with material that bugs you and it won't bug you," in relation to "Rose and the racist stuff." She wasn't. She was subjected to abhorrent treatment in her own online "home." So the suggestion to not listen to/read things one doesn't want to doesn't always fit.

Your assumption was incorrect.

I wont get into details or anything, we all know where this eventually lead...well I've left before the eventual blockade of the thread.

But ill explain something to the few who are still wondering why would someone (in this case; me) use peoples opinion/facts against a movie that they never saw. (Previous comments here directed at my behavior from the last post)

First, i care about star wars....because it was part of my universe when I was a kid or a teenager...not to the crazy extend....I haven't seen star wars as many time as other movies...but it's the games, the imagination that comes with it.....it is the glimpse of the universe that M Lucas has shown us (and no we don't need lightsabers to have a good story)

Second, I've seen TFA, and I've hated it in all aspects....no need to debate, I've seen the movie

Conclusion, im going to inform myself from those who seen the next movie in the sequel because if i knew what TFA turned out to be, i would have chosen not to see the movie...I wishes that I never saw TFA...

So I've asked people around about Rogue One, then I've read reviews and they've all seen fine to me...most people gave insight that I've liked and finally decided to see the movie and then buy the blu ray

Did the same toward TLJ, I've informed myself in the same way I did about Rogue One....the conclusion is I'm not going to make the same mistake twice... I would have love that they would have made what I would consider great movies but we all have our own opinion

So this hate that i have toward TLJ really all starts from TFA

I guess im not alone to have the same feeling

I'm going to say something, but to understand to a second degree, it is not perfect but here it is:

Whoever feels the same way as the majority will lead to favor democracy and the light side of the force

Whoever feels different, the outcast, will lead to favor dictatorship and the dark side of the force