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SeekingBlood  1yr ago (text post)   2414 thread views

I feel that people often praise movies that call out or subvert expectations of their genre solely because they do that, even if execution of the subversion itself is not good.

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I don't think No Country For Old Men subverts expectations. Maybe if your prior is "A movie has a hero's journey and then rising action and a conclusion etc etc" But the movie from the title to the ending narration "No country for old men" is about the fundamental chaos of the world and how people try to impose order on that chaos (Bell, Moss, Chigurh [moral codes, laws, randomness]) while ultimately futile. Moss dying unheroically and Chigurh being seriously wounded in a car accident fit that very closely.

Broadly speaking people evaluate things whether they enjoy them, not whether they are strictly good (I do think most people would agree with this distinction). Humans are very good at recognizing patterns and also novelty gives us enjoyment (Drugs, the McRib, twist endings). Historically a majority of the development of art/media practices are in response (anything there's a post- or 'critique' in the title is a good hint) to popular ways of doing things.

The medium is the message - the same goes for trope subversion. A bad (acting/writing/pacing) movie can be more enjoyable than a good (same 3 criteria) one for those reasons, but they are being evaluated for different things.

I'm unconvinced by your hypotheticals because they are non-falsifiable. Maybe Breaking Bad would in fact be better if Walter died in season 2. The reason you don't expect changes to these shows to be net-positive is because they're already evaluated very highly, so a change is more likely to revert it to the mean. Ask yourself the same question about the 50 bad tv shows or movies that come out every year. Would the Aladdin remake be better if the Genie's magic failed and Aladdin and Jasmine had to live in obscurity under Jafar's rule? Maybe, who knows.

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