TomBadgerlock Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 I guess in that case True Blood is the best show on HBO...You're confusing public opinion with audience share. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 That list also has Firefly over The Sopranos, Dexter over Twin Peaks, and Oz over Deadwood. In no way, shape, or form are any of those series superior to the ones that they're sitting above. This is why one should not worry very much about public opinion, and certainly not as a measure of quality. Public opinion is biased to the new and generally has a low threshold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonstoned Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 I've only seen the first episode of The Sopranos so can't compare but Firefly deserves its rating. Some people overrate it because it got cancelled but many more underrate it because they say others overrate it because it got cancelled (if that makes sense). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 I adore Firefly, own the DVDs and so on, but its just not really in the same category. The rating is so high in part because Whedon's work is so beloved. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomBadgerlock Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 That list also has Firefly over The Sopranos, Dexter over Twin Peaks, and Oz over Deadwood. In no way, shape, or form are any of those series superior to the ones that they're sitting above. This is why one should not worry very much about public opinion, and certainly not as a measure of quality. Public opinion is biased to the new and generally has a low threshold.Well, I can't really comment on that. I haven't seen much of any of those but I'm surprised you're so willing to disregard it based on your observations of quality.I still maintain that there is a difference between the two types of public opinion we are addressing. One person, be it you or me or whoever's opinion of something can never be truly indicative of its objective quality, but I see no reason why everyone's opinion of its quality cannot. PatrickStormborn made the distinction between "enjoyable" and "good" in his dissection of the show and said the show fell into the former category. One could make that argument concerning films like Avatar. I liked Avatar but I wouldn't necessarily describe it as the "best" film of all time, and I'm sure that same reasoning applied to several people who took to IMDB.And whether you agree with the order of the rankings or not, I don't think anyone can disagree that when a list has The Wire, Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones in its top 5, the list has a high correlation with quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Where Boars Glow Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 That list also has Firefly over The Sopranos, Dexter over Twin Peaks, and Oz over Deadwood. In no way, shape, or form are any of those series superior to the ones that they're sitting above. This is why one should not worry very much about public opinion, and certainly not as a measure of quality. Public opinion is biased to the new and generally has a low threshold.I agree with your assessment. Although every show on your list here is of a high level of quality....maybe once you reach a certain level it is a matter of personal preference and degree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KleZ Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Well.. l think they are doing great changes in the story line.. the red wedding episode was good yea.. but changing Jeyne for Talisa just for "Oh god, they killed Robb pregnant wife!" just looks as an effort to keep the ratings up. I think the main difference between the GRRM and D&D - HBO is that GRRM is writing a book series and HBO D&D are making another TV show. A series needs the ratings to continue so.. there is the motivation for the changes. GRRM sold the rights too, lm not complaining lol.l started as a tv watcher, l saw season 1, 2 and some of season 3 before l started reading. I finished the books and yea season 1 as someone said before it was pretty close to the books but from season 2 and on well.. they started to change things. Some changes can be good yea, but if you start to change things here and there, sooner or later those changes will start to affect the consistency of the story. Now, they fixed things in this episode, Jon´s plot, Bran and rickon plot (finally..), and Daenerys well.. the damn city is Mereen not Yunkai, no storm ravens.. but ok.. l can deal with it.Lets hope they wont change things more.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boojam Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Strawman argument?http://www.imdb.com/chart/top?ref_=nb_mv_3_chttpSeems like Shawshank Redemption and the Godfather (of which I've seen neither) rank the highest. Avatar not even in the top 250, weirdly enough.Man I use IMDB all the time, never noticed that list.Well , heck, IMDB has a very busy page, pages... so I just don't see things.I am surprised there are some respectable films on that list, usually one sees the last comic book/video game film toping a 'people's award list'. Shawshank Redemption was a good movie, but how it is number one on that list is puzzling!As to earnings being a measure, that has taken a totally different twist these days. Some action 250 million dollar films fail horribly in the USA , yet, make 1 billion in world wide distribution.Article in the NY Times , not too long ago, of how this has scared film makers and critics, since one might go out and make just a piece of trash , have bomb here, and blow off the roof in say Asia.The only Best List I respect is the one done every 10 years by the British Film Institute , since 1952.2012 brought a shocker Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane at the #1 spot, but I did notice the BFI had a smaller sample of film critics and historians (maybe many don't like participating any more) , who the BFI allow only as the voters.I think Hitchcock was not in the top ten forever, but then there is no Kurosawa there , which even the editor of Sight and Sound is bumfuzzled about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kasrith Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 As an aside, this is what traffic looked like during and after the episode. Maxed out our 100mbps connection. The server did not meltdown, though -- the forum got throttled, but the wiki and website kept on serving pages like a champ.Looks like King's Landing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomBadgerlock Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Looks like King's Landing :bowdown: It does! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonstoned Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 Hahaha, good observation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Scabbard Of the Morning Posted June 6, 2013 Share Posted June 6, 2013 It seems to me Lord Frey ordering the disemboweling of Robs pregnant non-Frey queen is perfectly in accord with Lord Frey's character.But Robb bringing her to the wedding is not. Everyone I know who's not a book reader is saying "why was Robb so stupid to bring his pregnant wife there." And all I do is shake my head and say "well, you see..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonstoned Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 But Robb bringing her to the wedding is not. Everyone I know who's not a book reader is saying "why was Robb so stupid to bring his pregnant wife there." And all I do is shake my head and say "well, you see..."And for him to start snogging and caressing her in front of the family he pissed off by marrying her. It fits in with the character of the show's take on Robb though who is a muppet in love and makes silly decisions based on his heart. The way Walder Frey said they hadn't given his wife a wedding gift and the first act of the RW was to kill Talisa made it look like the event was directed foremost against her with the coup on the North and Riverlands coming afterwards, although everything was so brutal that it didn't really matter.What gets me more is people talking about Robb's starkpidity in coming to the Twins and trusting the Freys not to kill him. Every time this has come up I've had to explain about guest right which they just forgot to go through in the show. Hopefully the story of the Rat Cook this week will show why he had no reason to think he was in danger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khal Porno Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Just FYI, as far as box office goes, relating to public opinion - Avatar is not even close to the most popular film of all time. For one thing you have to account for inflation of ticket prices, and for another the international market today is NOTHING like the international market from even fifteen years ago. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people pay money to see films they end up disliking. So there is really no way to quantify what is the most popular film of all time.It's definitely not Avatar though, you can rest easy.Also, Game of Thrones rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Oh, yes. Gone with the Wind would be the greatest film ever made if you adjust for inflation.Followed by Star Wars, The Sound of Music, and E.T....Popularity and popular opinion is invariably a matter of entertainment value, and not necessarily actual artistic quality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castel Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 I think it's a leap to say that it's massive mainly because of the fact that she was pregnant. There are quite a few people who questioned the purpose of that happening and think it was only there to give more shock value to the scene.It's somehow always shock value when violence doesn't fall within the bounds of what's acceptable for some reason. Not sure if this is a sympathetic viewpoint."Oh, you can kill all these people but if you kill this one pregnant woman then you're automatically going to be accused of pulling my heartstrings" ?? Nothing really needs to be on the show tbh. All of it is a deliberate choice to pull certain emotions from people. Mission accomplished.I can see the argument about it not being polite even though that has to be weighed against the need to end her storyline but really, I'm not particularly sure why this should get more hate (the horse scene seems another that gets bad reactions). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sausagekingchi Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Are some people really trying to argue that public opinion determines the quality of anything? That makes my head spin. What is popular with the public MAY coincide with something of high quality, but in no way does it determine or even factor into deciding if it is a high quality product. The very idea is so flawed it's almost laughable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alia of the knife Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 A great piece of fiction, inner monologue with insightful if flawed POV's. Great Houses with much detail and their own history and backstory with many historical and cultural references, but still with the elusive ability to properly capture the balance of the Classic tragedy."Dune" anyone?I do hope that Martin fares better than Herbert. :bawl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honourable Ser Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 I happen to really like Dexter. Especially seasons 2, 4 & 7. Some nice little twists, well acted, well shot and thoroughly entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted June 7, 2013 Share Posted June 7, 2013 Avatar is by a very large margin the highest grossing film in history, which is why it's unquestionably the greatest film ever made... according to the paying public, in any case.Is box office a truly valid way of measuring popularity though? The overwhelming majority of people watching a film do so only once, and haven't seen it before. Box office to me is a measure of the success of the marketing and to some degree the prior form of the people involved and perhaps genre. Reviews have no bearing (Revenge of the Fallen is one of the worst-reviewed big-budget movies in history and made tons). If 90% of the people who saw Avatar in the cinema thought it was shit, or walked out halfway through, the box office take does not reflect that at all.That list also has Firefly over The Sopranos, Dexter over Twin Peaks, and Oz over Deadwood. In no way, shape, or form are any of those series superior to the ones that they're sitting above. This is why one should not worry very much about public opinion, and certainly not as a measure of quality. Public opinion is biased to the new and generally has a low threshold.The list is surprisingly good. The ordering isn't what I'd agree with, but I think general the list is decent (well, the first 20 places or so anyway). As for those specific cases, I can see the argument that Firefly is stronger than The Sopranos as a cohesive whole, but only because the former is 14 episodes and the latter is 80-odd, and of course in an 80-episode series you're going to have a few clunkers whilst Firefly had none. Twin Peaks's first season is amazing but the second is weak, though personally I'd still rank it higher than Dexter (though I've only seen a few eps of the latter). Oz over Deadwood? Both are very highly-regarded HBO shows. I've only seen a few eps of Oz and it seems to be a strong series. Deadwood's first season is sublime brilliance but the second was a fair bit weaker, and by all accounts the third season is weaker still, whilst Oz's reputation is much more consistent, so I can see why that might be the case.Top Gear being better than the new(er) BSG is just some kind of sick joke, though :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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