XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk   
      
   On 2017-08-23, Paul S  Person  wrote:   
   > On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 10:22:54 +0000 (UTC), Julian Bradfield   
   > wrote:   
   >>> In article <1oi1ncd6reihvfkf1fo5nahi66a7juc5sd@4ax.com>, Paul S  Person   
    wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>> ..   
   >>>> IOW, the /first/ criterion is: that the play/film be a /good/   
   >>>> play/film, that is, one that people actually /want/ to pay to see   
   >>>> (which implies that they do not feel the experience a waste of time or   
   >>>> money, among other things), as opposed to something they go to see   
   >>>> because everybody else is or because they read the book.   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Shakespeare, by and large, wrote /good/ plays.   
   >>>> PJ's movies, OTOH, are not good.   
   >>   
   >>Getting on for a hundred million people have paid to see PJ's films,   
   >>and at least in my anecdotal experience - even among a circle of   
   >>friends particularly predisposed to dislike them - a large majority   
   >>did not feel it a waste of time or money.   
   >>So why, in your own definition of "good", are they not "good"?   
   >   
   > And how many times did they pay to see them?   
   > Or even watch them for free?   
      
   That is of course impossible to measure except by commissioning a   
   poll, since cinemas don't ask their customers how many times they've   
   seen a film.   
      
   > When people /like/ something, they are willing to re-experience it.   
   > When they don't want to do it again, they do not think it worth doing.   
      
   The figures are murky, but tens of millions of copies of the dvd have   
   been sold - more than a million in the first week of release in the UK   
   alone, for FotR.   
      
   > I have seen many films that were worth watching once, but none of them   
   > were /good/ films, just watchable films. (I have also seen quite a few   
   > not-so-watchable and even the occasiional unwatchable film -- the kind   
   > that makes you want to demand your money and your time back).   
   >   
   > And here we are, splitting hairs again ...   
      
   I have only a handful of films I have or would see again, but I don't think   
   that makes the others not "good", just not so (good *and* to my taste)   
   that I want to see them again. But I'm not discussing what I mean by   
   "good".   
      
   For myself, I can't tell whether FotR (the only one I've seen) is a   
   good film, because I can't disentangle that question from its   
   perversion of Tolkien's thought.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)