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The 'splosion-nerdstuff continuum
Every time a technically accomplished but plot-disadvantaged action movie comes out (Star Trek reboot, Avatar, SW7), we hear the argument which goes, in essence, "This movie is about splosions and splosions are good and if you expect more than splosions from a movie you write Voldemort/Optimus Prime slash fiction in your mom's basement." Not that I'm biased on the subject or anything.
Either side of the argument can be taken to obviously wrong extremes. On the one hand, SW7 could be ninety minutes of three-second cuts of things moving fast, shooting lasers and blowing up, with no plot or context even in the very limited sense of which vehicle is causing which other vehicle to explode. And they aren't even Star Wars vehicles. If you would settle for that, you are likely some sort of moron.
On the other, the movie could have a beautiful, original plot, be well acted and directed with cleverly executed action scenes and sparkling dialogue, but there's some d-bag somewhere on the internet pointing out that Jakku's economy really couldn't work unless one assumes a completely unfeasible price for scrap parts from weather-damaged obsolete starships, or else a collapse of the broader galactic economy which would make large-scale military campaigns problematic, etc.
But there are positions in between. You could insist on having some kind of plot and characters, but be okay with both being stupid or unoriginal as long as it's free of basic logic errors like characters being two places at once or inexplicably coming back from the dead. Or you could be substantially more demanding and ask that all the characters' actions make logical sense in in-story terms (Why the hell are they trusting Finn? And haven't they learned by now to stop building giant doomsday weapons with catastrophic weakpoints?).
Where do you stand? No poll since there are basically an infinite number of midpoints on the continuum and it'd take forever to enumerate a representative sample.
Either side of the argument can be taken to obviously wrong extremes. On the one hand, SW7 could be ninety minutes of three-second cuts of things moving fast, shooting lasers and blowing up, with no plot or context even in the very limited sense of which vehicle is causing which other vehicle to explode. And they aren't even Star Wars vehicles. If you would settle for that, you are likely some sort of moron.
On the other, the movie could have a beautiful, original plot, be well acted and directed with cleverly executed action scenes and sparkling dialogue, but there's some d-bag somewhere on the internet pointing out that Jakku's economy really couldn't work unless one assumes a completely unfeasible price for scrap parts from weather-damaged obsolete starships, or else a collapse of the broader galactic economy which would make large-scale military campaigns problematic, etc.
But there are positions in between. You could insist on having some kind of plot and characters, but be okay with both being stupid or unoriginal as long as it's free of basic logic errors like characters being two places at once or inexplicably coming back from the dead. Or you could be substantially more demanding and ask that all the characters' actions make logical sense in in-story terms (Why the hell are they trusting Finn? And haven't they learned by now to stop building giant doomsday weapons with catastrophic weakpoints?).
Where do you stand? No poll since there are basically an infinite number of midpoints on the continuum and it'd take forever to enumerate a representative sample.
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