 How does one determine the quality of a film? Is it based on the performances, the story, the sound, the production? All the elements and flavors a critic would generally look to when determining whether or not a movie is in fact good. Or we could take a different approach according to some of the experts in the comments I've had over the years and say that a film's quality, a film's value is deemed by the box office revenue. This was recently brought up in the comments for my Space Jam 2 review where I wasn't a big fan of the movie to say the least. Could you imagine going to bat for Space Jam 2? Could you even imagine such a thing? Usually when nonsensical statements like that are made it's because people have their backs against the wall. They can't rely on genuinely good arguments as to why someone like me is in the wrong about my thoughts on a film. So they have to immediately go to preposterous lengths or they'll just attack the person themselves, which one of the people I'm referring to, I won't say it doesn't matter, there's been many over the years, but one of them started out in one direction and when I kind of disproved that idea then they went to the personal attacks. Then they went to the trying to discredit the critic because their initial basis didn't play out how they wanted it to. Anybody with even, I think, a top-level understanding of how to debate would know that the argument of a movie is good based on the box office? I shit, how do you not understand how completely stupid that is? In fact, I'll help discredit you right now, I have in fact with me a phone. Most people have them, they're not relatively new I guess in terms of the mobile space. Let's go through the top 20 in the box office earners, these are films that are probably making a billion dollars, right? In number one we have Avatar, we're just shy of three billion dollars, that's insanity, that's crazy. I like Avatar actually, I know a lot of people don't, but it's the number one movie in the world, so therefore it must be the number one movie ever created, right? That's the value we've put upon these types of things. We have Avengers Endgame, Fine, a good film, Titanic, a good film, none of these I would say are even in the top 50 movies of all time list, but again, they've made so much money that they must be according to the few people that have said this. Now let's just kind of glance, oh Star Wars, A Force Awakens, The Force Awakens. I know a lot of people don't like that film and they're wrong because it made a lot of money, so therefore it's good. This is fun, at number nine we have Furious 7, Fast in the Furious 7. It's at the nine spot of top grossing films of all time, Star Wars The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi is deemed one of the greatest films of all time because it made 1,332,698,830 dollars. Are you shitting me with this? I can't even pretend to defend this garbage trash hole of a movie and you're gonna have the audacity to go in the comments and say it's great because people saw it in theaters, because people paid money, newsflash, dipshit, people buy crappy things all the time, especially if that crappy thing is attached to a very prominent important franchise that's been around for eons. That's aggressive, not eons, but it's been around for a long time. It's been around for a long time and it was coming off the heels of A Force Awakens while yes, that is a very kind of 2.0 version of A New Hope, doesn't really do a lot of new things. It's still got people back into Star Wars, it had fun, it had the flavors we come to expect. So to arrogantly say The Last Jedi is a good movie because it made money, I can't begin to tell you how stupid you are for such a statement. Let's continue. Fuck my ass, we have Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom right after it. That movie is absolute shit. You have maybe, I'll give you a half hour, okay? I will give you a half hour of fun in Fallen Kingdom, but after that it goes so off the rails stupid, there's no possible way for me to justify it. I don't know how anybody could like this film outside of dinosaurs and for some that's just what it is. You have dinosaurs, I'm gonna like it sort of mentality. Just eking out in the top 20 is another Fast and the Furious movie, dear gods. The Fate of the Furious. The Fate of the Furious. Gee, no wonder, Fast and the Furious 7 is where Paul Walker died in real life, so people went out to see it even if they didn't care about the Fast and the Furious franchise. Fate of the Furious is right off of that. It's kind of like The Last Jedi thing, right? Shit. Iron Man 3 is at 20. Right below Iron Man 3 is Minions. Minions 21. Masterpiece. Cinematic equivalent of gold. A treasure. A Picasso painting in motion. Minions. Let me just list a couple off for you. Captain Marvel. That's at 26. Captain Marvel. People definitely saw that because of the pedigree of the film and not because it was wedged between two of the most massive Avengers movies ever. Right behind that is Transformers Dark of the Moon. Listen to the title. Dark of the Moon. Holy shit. Oh my god. And then we have at 30 the Lion King. Now this is confusing because if I scroll up a ways, quite a ways actually. At number 6 we also have the Lion King. So one of these is that ugly abortion that came out just a couple years back that basically shot-for-shot remade it but in this CG live action sort of a way with no charm or personality and even the visuals I thought were just miserable because it was like quasi-life-like but had no life to them. Yeah. Yeah. That made the top. That made the top 30 list. You better believe it Buster. And you know what's disgusting about this? I'm pretty sure the number 6 Lion King is the awful one. It's not the animated classic. It's the gross cash grab remake. Freakin' people. I'm done. I'm done. These aren't in the top 30 box office but imagine going to bat for the Twilight series. Those movies all made bank. Lots of money made there. How about 50 shades of gray? How about 50 shades of go fuck yourself? I already talked about Dark of the Moon being on the list but guess what? Most of those Transformers movies made a buttload of money. Apparently they're good. Your argument is shit. So I think I've established that this is a bad argument to make and that you shouldn't make it and you should feel bad if you ever say it. Hey, it made a lot of money. That means it's good. Well you know what? McDonald's makes a shit ton of money. I don't think that's good. And I eat there all the time because it's convenient. Because it's just a quick in and out experience from both an eating standpoint and a bathroom standpoint. You have probably dealt with something similar maybe not even online but in person where you say a movie's not good and then the person argues back with Okay, tell that to the 70 million grossed opening weekend. Clearly people are liking it because they're going to it and clearly that makes it good. When you discredit them by giving them some of the stats I just threw out like the Lion King remake was a cinematic darling or the Fast and the Furious movies are in the top 15 when you discredit them and they inevitably come back with your opinions crap or you know what you're just arrogant and you think your opinions better than everyone else then you know you've truly won the argument because that's where it inevitably always ends up for me when I even attempt to combat these trolls online. They come back with I can't stand sick arrogant people like you who think your opinions are better than everyone else's. I never once said that. But yeah, I do hold my opinion in a high regard because I value my own thoughts much like I think you would value yours. So if you had a web show or if you were doing a like a blog or an article or reviewing movies just for fun on like Letterbox, I would think you would be very high on your own opinion not necessarily better than anyone else's just something you can stand by. I've said many times over the years that if you like a movie good for you even if it's a movie I hate good for you. Why do I give a shit at the end of the day if you like something I don't? What I care about is you presenting some concrete reasoning behind it other than it made money or other than you suck. Give me reasons why it's good and I'll stand by you, you know? It's easy enough. That's more than fair I think. So the whole point to this rant is just to let you know you're not a lone friend. Take solace that in fact there's others like you out there that are being hit with the box office comment that are being hit with your arrogant or your stupid sort of retort when you inevitably push back against their claims and I really want you to relish in the understanding that you have won the argument when it gets down to it and winning arguments is really all that matters at the end of the day. It's really all that there is. There's no message here. Thanks for watching. Hope you liked the rant. There's plenty more on this channel about movies. If you want to hear me talk about non-movie related things that have absolutely no bearing on real life issues head on over to Adam Olinger on YouTube. I talk about not getting a straw in the drive through. I talk about getting dry banana bread. I talk about how much it sucks to get the stomach flu. Things like that, you know, just light stuff. Nothing serious that's gonna upset you I hope. If it does, you're probably that same guy in the comments of some of these videos that says the box office is the best way to judge the quality of a film. Don't subscribe if that's the case. Take care.