Unpopular Opinion Thread

[godjacob]

Draugur from Skyrim live up to that description just fine.

What about zombie ghost sharks?

That's the Asylum's job to popularize.

Nah you need to mix a shark in this for it to be a true Asylum IP.

[Maverick Centigrade]

Got shot multiple times in the stomach with a shotgun and survived, got his arm severed by his own smart disc, and still kept on going like a champ.

The City Hunter was an absolute badass.

Still died to an in-universe unremarkable officer, and even got killed with its own weapon. Just saying Predators have taken worse.

An officer who snuck into and solo'd an entire gang batallion that was slaughtering other, more heavily armed officers prior to his arrival? An officer who the City Hunter specifically recognized as greater than his fellow peers, so as to why he was so interested in him? The same officer who chased the Predator across the city itself relentlessly to the point he went out of his way to combat his fear of heights and climb down a building after him via pipeline? The same officer who saw through the flaws in an elite government's plan to capture said Predator and everyone died because they didn't listen to him? The same officer who was smart enough to wield the Predator's smart disc—the same highly advanced weapon that cut effortlessly through several dead cows and a man—against him in a fair one-on-one "swordfight"? The same officer who was awarded an 18th century pistol by an Elder Predator as recognition of his prowess?

That "unremarkable" officer?

Also, the City Hunter dying to his own Smart Disc is not a showcase of his weakness. That weapon was already established to be one of the Predator's most lethal weapons. The fact that Harrigan took the Predator out using his own advanced weapon and not anything of human invention is a testament to his ingenuity—the one thing that the franchise constantly establishes is your greatest weapon against a Predator.

This just about sums it up. Perfectly said. Harrigan was no push over and a worthy opponent.

[Mac Daddy MM]

Draugur from Skyrim live up to that description just fine.

What about zombie ghost sharks?

That's the Asylum's job to popularize.

Be an amazing movie...

Mega Shark vs. 5-Headed Shark vs. Zombie Ghost Shark

[Voyager]

What about zombie ghost sharks?

That's the Asylum's job to popularize.

Be an amazing movie...

Mega Shark vs. 5-Headed Shark vs. Zombie Ghost Shark

Don’t forget Mecha-Shark and Space-Shark.

[LegendZilla]

Zombies are just a perpetually popular type of antagonistic force you can base a setting around. Want to make a post-apocalyptic scenario scarier? Add zombies. They are quite flexible in how you work with them so naturally creators find it a breeze to make stories around them.

That brings up another unpopular opinion. Just because a fictional character and/or entity is flexible does not actually mean its good per say. It just means that they're easy to work with, making them susceptible to oversaturation. The more something gets oversaturated, the more tired people get.

With certain things that may seem harder to work with, what it takes is outside-the-box thinking to succeed.

[Jetty_Jags]

The thematic dilution in the 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein really inhibits my ability to enjoy it. Its of my personal philosophy that source material should serve the adaptation and not the other way around, and yet despite this, I can't help but look at this film as needlessly reductive. This is not to say the film isn't largely successful in many regards, the monster is still quite sympathetic even if in a different manor than the novel, and I also understand the significance it holds in both cinema and horror history. However, I just see so much lost potential in reducing the novel's themes and characters to what are effectively caricatures. Perhaps my complaint is anachronistic, I'm not as well versed in early film productions as I would like to be, and it may very well be the case that a more authentic adaptation of the material was beyond the scope of what was considered "possible" for the time. That being said, I find the works from classical German expressionist movement (which obviously inspired this picture), to be just as atmospheric and tonally effectual, if not more so.

[LegendZilla]

The thematic dilution in the 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein really inhibits my ability to enjoy it. Its of my personal philosophy that source material should serve the adaptation and not the other way around, and yet despite this, I can't help but look at this film as needlessly reductive. This is not to say the film isn't largely successful in many regards, the monster is still quite sympathetic even if in a different manor than the novel, and I also understand the significance it holds in both cinema and horror history. However, I just see so much lost potential in reducing the novel's themes and characters to what are effectively caricatures. Perhaps my complaint is anachronistic, I'm not as well versed in early film productions as I would like to be, and it may very well be the case that a more authentic adaptation of the material was beyond the scope of what was considered "possible" for the time. That being said, I find the works from classical German expressionist movement (which obviously inspired this picture), to be just as atmospheric and tonally effectual, if not more so.

I have difficulty enjoying the film myself, primarily from its apathy towards the source material. The filmmakers back in 1931 and decided to be different just for the sake of it. They didn't audiences would give a shit about the original story due to being over 100 years old at the time. That's total BS, because people then (and today) would've still cared very much about The Bible and Shakespeare despite how old those stories are.

[Spuro]

I saw Frankenstein for the first time back to back with Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, and I think that really helped to shape my extremely positive reception towards Frankenstein. I had been disappointed in how static and ‘stagey’ Dracula felt, and here comes Frankenstein out of nowhere, made in the same year, which just felt like such a colossal improvement over Dracula in every single way.

I prefer Bride and Son of Frankenstein at the end of the day, though.

[Terasawa]

The filmmakers back in 1931 and decided to be different just for the sake of it. They didn't audiences would give a shit about the original story due to being over 100 years old at the time.

What's your source for your claim of the filmmakers' "apathy?"

[eabaker]

The filmmakers back in 1931 and decided to be different just for the sake of it. They didn't audiences would give a shit about the original story due to being over 100 years old at the time.

What's your source for your claim of the filmmakers' "apathy?"

Or being "different for the sake of it"?

[Terasawa]

That's total BS, because people then (and today) would've still cared very much about The Bible and Shakespeare despite how old those stories are.

I can't believe I missed this earlier:

There's a very specific reason why some people remain interested in the Bible despite its age -- a reason for the interest that sets it apart from Frankenstein or Shakespeare.

[eabaker]

They didn't audiences would give a shit about the original story due to being over 100 years old at the time.

Please cite a source on this.

[eabaker]

The thematic dilution in the 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein really inhibits my ability to enjoy it. Its of my personal philosophy that source material should serve the adaptation and not the other way around, and yet despite this, I can't help but look at this film as needlessly reductive. This is not to say the film isn't largely successful in many regards, the monster is still quite sympathetic even if in a different manor than the novel, and I also understand the significance it holds in both cinema and horror history. However, I just see so much lost potential in reducing the novel's themes and characters to what are effectively caricatures. Perhaps my complaint is anachronistic, I'm not as well versed in early film productions as I would like to be, and it may very well be the case that a more authentic adaptation of the material was beyond the scope of what was considered "possible" for the time. That being said, I find the works from classical German expressionist movement (which obviously inspired this picture), to be just as atmospheric and tonally effectual, if not more so.

I wanted to reply to this last night, but I was pretty wiped (and stoned) and wanted some time to get my thoughts together.

First off, I totally get where you're coming from. I adore the movie, but it's not flawless by any means, and I certainly recognize how familiarity with the novel could leave a person feeling like the movie falls well short. Personally, while I appreciate the novel and obviously love the concepts and themes it tackles, I've never been entirely enamored of the execution.

Frankenstein the novel was a product of the Romantic era, and as such its composition reflects the literary practices of its time, obviously. Narrative film, for reasons both practical and historical, really emerged as a Modernist medium, and has largely stayed that way. Faithfully adapting literature that pre-date the Modernist movement has always proved challenging for filmmakers, because the narrative practices were so very different.

Frankenstein the movie also needs to be understood as a work of the early sound era. It certainly overcomes the kind of staginess that plagued Dracula, embracing as you rightly point out elements of the German Expressionist cinema, which had been able to develop in the silent era, without the technical complications brought about by early sound recording requirements.

I would argue that even today, we couldn't really create a film adaptation of Frankenstein that is faithful to both the narrative structure and the themes of the novel without radically violating cinematic storytelling conventions. It might be more achievable as a streaming series. But in 1931, it would have been far outside both the practical and the aesthetic norms of cinema, even if it had been produced by a major studio - and these days, a lot of people don't realize that Universal was not a major studio during Hollywood's golden age, but was rather one of the "Little Three" (along with United Artists and Colombia). Universal afforded its directors a reasonable amount of freedom at the time - especially star director James Whale, who basically took the project away from Robert Florey.

Basically, narrative and aesthetic conventions, technology, and budget all stood in the way of Universal producing a "faithful" adaptation of Franknestein in 1931 (at least they came a lot closer than the Edison version a couple of decades earlier).

I'll also say that, taken on its own terms, I think the movie works fantastically well... for somewhere over half of its runtime (and ignoring the incredibly bland performance of John Boles). Everything that happens in and around Frankenstein's lab is of course visually masterful, the performances are broad and theatrical in a way that entirely suits the melodramatic nature of the story, and both Karloff's performance and Whale's direction create incredible sympathy for the monster.

But then, as the second act comes to its conclusion, the movie suddenly skips about ten narrative points to get to, "It's in the house!" (How? Why? What?) From there, everything just rushes superficially to its fairly empty resolution.

I think Whale did much better work adapting The Old Dark House and The Invisible Man, both more contemporary literary works that inherently lent themselves to cinematic adaptation. And, on revisiting Franknestein later for The Bride of Frankenstein, Whale was largely unmoored from the original text - free to draw from it, but not expected to adhere to the original plot structure in any way. That freedom to deviate and explore, coupled with improved technology and resources, allowed Whale the artist to emerge more completely, and make a work that better lives up to the impact and potential of the novel.

Odds are, none of that will make you enjoy the movie any more than you already do - nor should it, really, since your subjective response to any work shouldn't be beholden to outside factors. But I wanted to offer what defense I could of a movie that, while flawed, I still believe contains greatness.

[Spuro]

That's total BS, because people then (and today) would've still cared very much about The Bible and Shakespeare despite how old those stories are.

I can't believe I missed this earlier:

There's a very specific reason why some people remain interested in the Bible despite its age -- a reason for the interest that sets it apart from Frankenstein or Shakespeare.

Lies. Frankenstein is my religion.

Now I know what it’s like to BE God.

Added in 7 minutes 6 seconds:

I would argue that even today, we couldn't really create a film adaptation of Frankenstein that is faithful to both the narrative structure and the themes of the novel without radically violating cinematic storytelling conventions. It might be more achievable as a streaming series.

There was a mini-series in the mid-2000s that tried to make a faithful adaption of the novel. I’ve never seen it myself, though. It used to be on Youtube, but it was taken down before I could get around to watching it.

[Terasawa]

Whale's Frankenstein is also adapted from the 1927 Peggy Webling stage production, although I don't know how closely the final film (or the earlier drafts of the screenplay) hewed to the play. The numerous writing credits help explain why the film is so different from its ostensible source:

"Based upon the composition by John L. Balderston. From the novel by Mrs. Percy B. Shelley. Adapted from the play by Peggy Webling. Screen Play: Garrett Fort ... Francis Edwards Faragoh."

[LegendZilla]

^I think the best way to adapt Mary Shelly's novel would be as a mini-series.

[Jetty_Jags]

massive snip

Thank you for this, I was somewhat hopping a member here would provide an in-depth response to my post, and this explains exactly the perspective I was interested in hearing from. I'll definitely keep this in mind as I revisit the film in the future, and while my overall thoughts may not change (but perhaps they will), this will definitely help me appreciate the work better.

[godjacob]

Spider-Man 3 was a bad movie when it came out and it is still a bad movie now. Memes and No Way Home do not change this fact.

[Legion1979]

That's not an unpopular opinion. Spider Man 3 suuuuucked.

[godjacob]

That's not an unpopular opinion. Spider Man 3 suuuuucked.

Oh you'd be surprised. The entire Spider-Man trilogy has gotten a resurgence including Spider-Man 3, especially in the last couple years thanks to Into the Spider-Verse and No Way Home popularizing the meme culture behind them (3 especially).