Reviewers that don't pay attention

[Sleepwalker]

See that in game reviews, too. Most recent one was comparing Skyrim to the latest Zelda. Look, you may be a giant Zelda fan, but when your 'epic' rating comes down to slamming Skyrim because it is not linear... jeez, read the box next time.

[firecat88]

Oh, the weird reviews I've seen. I've seen people complain about movie-musicals having too much singing, I've seen complaints about a lack of realism in animated movies that feature talking animals, and most-recently I saw a huge rant about the fact that the Sailor Moon manga revamp uses the Japanese names instead of the NA dub names (which, in the descriptions for the books, it openly states that, yes, the reprint would have everything in its non-dub state and would be more a direct-as-possible translation of the original than anything).

[HYHYBT]

Oh, the weird reviews I've seen. I've seen people complain about movie-musicals having too much singing, I've seen complaints about a lack of realism in animated movies that feature talking animals...

Those both *can* be legitimate complaints. How much of a musical ought to be just singing? It's arguable. And realism can be relative.

[Ginger Tea]

iir Evita was nothing but singing, it was grating to hear them sing talk every line of dialogue, I didn't mind the full on song and dance aspect when it showed up, but god damn "English mother fucker do you speak it!?"

[AdminAssistant]

Typically when a musical is completely (or almost completely) sung, many of the songs will be turned into spoken dialogue for the movie or eliminated. RENT and Sweeney Todd spring to mind. This is slightly more realistic for the film audience, but creates a new problem. Speak the words to a song. Does that sound natural? It was really problematic for RENT, when you've got people who had been doing that musical for over 10 years. Hearing Anthony Rapp try to speak the words, "December 24th, 9 pm, Eastern Standard Time, from here on in I shoot without a script" was just so awkward and clumsy. (Of course, RENT is one of the worst stage-to-film adaptations that's been done in recent history, so there's that.)

[firecat88]

Those both *can* be legitimate complaints. How much of a musical ought to be just singing? It's arguable. And realism can be relative.

As for the musicals, the complaint (sorry for not being clearer. It's a bad habit of mine, apparently O.o) was more along the lines of 'What's with all the singing? And why does everyone know the words? This is stupid.'

As to the second one...I'm sorry, but when it's an animated Disney movie featuring a mostly-animal cast (the movie was, if memory serves, Brother Bear), the last thing I'm expecting from it is a great amount of realism.

[HYHYBT]

Well, yes... I see what you mean.

And yeah, that's different on the musicals. There can be too much singing, but you have to expect some of what makes it fit the category at all! But that goes back to not giving a fair review to a genre you hate.

[MrsEclipse]

There are different degrees of realism. When we have a talking animal cast, we can suspend our disbelief that the animals talk, think, and behave like people with animal mannerisms.

It's a little harder to believe that there's a world where everything is exactly like ours, except the dogs are a little smarter, and also the dog catcher can spend $100,000 dollars on a Dog-Catching Cannon that he's legally allowed to drive like a tank around the neighborhood without a permit, when we have no reason to believe his position is anything other than government funded.

Another thing is in reactions; we're more likely to believe that, say, a dog will sniff a strange rock curiously and realize it doesn't come from Earth, and then figure out that there are also aliens in this movie, too. That's okay. However, if the dog sniffs the rock once, then says there are aliens, everyone believes him based on one sniff, the aliens show up and the talking dog immediately trusts the aliens for no adequately explored reason but it's okay because the aliens are good guys, and also there's oxygen on the moon but no one knows because "the astronauts never tried to breath so they didn't know... lol stupid humans..."

If you don't analyze the movie deeply you won't know exactly what's wrong, but for most people it translates into a feeling that the movie had a lack of realism.

[Ginger Tea]

As for the musicals, the complaint (sorry for not being clearer. It's a bad habit of mine, apparently O.o) was more along the lines of 'What's with all the singing? And why does everyone know the words? This is stupid.'

The male lead of Enchanted asked something similar, saying it doesn't happen in real life, then EVERYONE burst into the song the female lead started to sing.

RHPS had a good ballance of singing/acting and to an extent "Sweet Transvestite" barring repatition, works just as well as spoken dialogue.

RE the line fron rent, never seeing the movie or stage production, I can't comment fully, but written down, the line kinda works, perhaps it was just the delivery, that or some lines work best on paper, but should never be spoken, lest the meaning become skewed (no I don't mean paraphrased, still uttered as verbatum).

[jackfaire]

The male lead of Enchanted asked something similar, saying it doesn't happen in real life, then EVERYONE burst into the song the female lead started to sing.

Yeah but that was part of the story. The blurring of reality and Disney Princess land.

Like how she got angry when pre Jasmine Disney princesses rarely if ever get angry.

[AdminAssistant]

RE the line fron rent, never seeing the movie or stage production, I can't comment fully, but written down, the line kinda works, perhaps it was just the delivery, that or some lines work best on paper, but should never be spoken, lest the meaning become skewed (no I don't mean paraphrased, still uttered as verbatum).

It was that they asked someone who had been singing that line for well over 10 years to suddenly speak it and make it sound like natural spoken dialogue. He couldn't do it. That was just an example, there are plenty others. As I said, it's a terrible adaptation of the musical. (Yeah, let's just cut the parts where the protagonist struggles with watching his friends die so that we can have more time for Rosario Dawson to shiver.)

[Kheldarson]

I remember that line in the movie. It was so stilted, like he was trying to deliver a bad poem. >.<

And that was one of the most quoted lines of my group of friends. We'd just do the musical off that line.