Discounting an opinion because it disagrees is poor argument (Gaming)

by Kahzgul, Thursday, June 02, 2016, 01:00 (3100 days ago) @ Kermit

Seriously, a couple of us on these boards craft stories for a living. We're genuinely interested in the art of storytelling and spend lots of time thinking about it, doing it, and discussing it. You've got an opinion that I disagree with, but if I were to dismiss yours in the way that you're dismissing mine, I think you'd be insulted. I know I am.

If you've said your piece and have nothing left to add, that's one thing, but it sounds more like you're saying I'm a moron for disagreeing with you.

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I'll back up to a very broad stroke of where I'm coming from; the underlying premise of my approach to all art, film or otherwise:

I believe that the point of art, speaking is the most broad sense possible, is to illicit an emotional reaction in the audience. Mad max gave me no reaction. But it gave you something. That's great; it did it's job as far as you're concerned. For me, it lacked in what I need in a story. I'll grant that I lean far more heavily on character development and story arc than most modern blockbuster films are willing to attempt. But I think those things are important and I found them lacking in MMFR.

The reason I focus on Nuk (that's the side switcher, I take it) is not because I'm obsessed with him but because his story is the only one that makes a journey. He's the only character that learns something about himself, the only one who is in any sort of emotional way affected by the events of the film, and the only one who changes as the story progresses.

Not every story needs to follow the same path: One story may start with a seed, watch it grow, and end with a tree; while another story may start with a forest and then burn the whole thing down, but if you start with a tree and end with the exact same tree, why didn't you just take a picture. Mad Max: Fury Road gives me a picture of Furiosa, a picture of Max, a picture of the breeders, a picture of the Immortan, and a picture of the mother-bikers, but it gives me arc only for Nuk.

I hope this explains a bit about where I'm coming from and helps you see that disagreement is an inherent element of perspective. The tall man thinks the chair too small, and the short man thinks it too big, while the middle-sized man finds it flawless. They are all correct.