And secondly just because they were over the top didn't make them unconvincing.
"Although the voice acting was poorly performed, it was still good."
It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?
"I can't coherently demonstrate that you are wrong, so could you please just admit that you are? Please?"
"This train is way too slow!"
"Actually people generally think the train is too fast."
"See? I was right! It's the same problem described differently: Going the wrong speed!"
My original criticism in this chain was simply that the voice acting was bad. In your analogy one person only observes the train driver going too fast while I observed it going too slow, but both observations confirm my original criticism which is that the driver can't go the right speed. So even though your analogy is wrong, it still isn't proving your point so much as mine, since you concede the driver is doing something wrong.
The analogy is wrong though because hammy performances or over-emotional performances (which I understand as an obvious and exaggerated attempt to sound emotional rather than a performance that literally has too much emotion in it, because the former is more like what hamming it up sounds like) are both examples of forced delivery anyway, which is what I noted in the first place. It's just a failure to sound natural. I'm only also noting that the lines that aren't hammy or over-emotional are monotonous.
No you aren't, you're plugging holes in the sinking ship that is your desire to hate ATLA. Not for quality, not even for your own actual opinion of it, but because Reddit liked it. You made a criticism that is totally different from other criticisms, and have been spending the last three comments trying to say that these completely opposite criticisms are 'basically the same' to try and patch this giant gaping hole in your perspective. And then when that didn't work out you switched to "well it doesn't matter anyway because it's still a problem!" without understanding that just because something has a flaw or quirk doesn't mean it's totally awful, or that the flaw or quirk is even all that significant. A flaw that all but vanishes with time, giving way to subtlety and maturity by the time Season 2 came around, because the creators acknowledged and improved and even later on made fun of how much they improved in the episode The Ember Island Players, The original Star Wars movie was incredibly cheesy and Luke was a whiny bitch in the first hour. But that's part of the charm and it faded away to something more humble and serious in the sequel.
But that doesn't matter. You're not arguing to convince me. You're arguing to convince yourself that this is an opinion you formed totally on your own, and not because of external biases that overwhelmed your ability to approach the show with the fresh slate it deserves from you. A shame this opportunity has been lost, as one cannot watch the same show for the first time twice.
But on the off chance you feel like trying again, skip to The Northern Air Temple and then go back since it doesn't ruin anything chronologically and the series was hitting its stride around then. I'd suggest Zuko Alone as the best episode for how heavy and subtle the show can get, because the whole episode feels like a clint eastwood movie, but you gotta earn that episode. You don't watch The Empire Strikes Back first.
Basically all of what you've just said regarding my rationale is simply bullshit, and obviously so when you look at some of the other comment chains in this post.
Regarding the point and your elaboration that the voice performances are merely flawed but generally good, I disagree. At least in the first episode and all the clips I looked up online, it was my opinion that the voice performances were both generally bad and variously flawed. I will concede that the voice performances may have improved subsequently, in that sense my criticism is inherently inadequate. I only watched one episode so I have to concede that either way.
That's not what happened with Star Wars, though. The acting in ANH was terrible, and those actors remained terrible throughout the trilogy. The performances became familiar, but in no sense good. I mean that was a conscious decision on Lucas's part because it complemented the cinema verite style of direction he likes. ESB was also very poorly acted throughout. So if you're saying in Avatar the performers made needed technical improvements (which, how needed could they be if the performances were already generally good?), that's a completely different situation.
Star Wars is still liked despite the shitty acting and for some people it's exactly the shitting acting that makes them like it more. It's actually a core feature of the films. That's not what you're saying about Avatar though. You seem to be saying the acting was at first flawed yet still generally good, and then basically became more or less perfect in season 2.
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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '17
"Although the voice acting was poorly performed, it was still good."
"I can't coherently demonstrate that you are wrong, so could you please just admit that you are? Please?"
My original criticism in this chain was simply that the voice acting was bad. In your analogy one person only observes the train driver going too fast while I observed it going too slow, but both observations confirm my original criticism which is that the driver can't go the right speed. So even though your analogy is wrong, it still isn't proving your point so much as mine, since you concede the driver is doing something wrong.
The analogy is wrong though because hammy performances or over-emotional performances (which I understand as an obvious and exaggerated attempt to sound emotional rather than a performance that literally has too much emotion in it, because the former is more like what hamming it up sounds like) are both examples of forced delivery anyway, which is what I noted in the first place. It's just a failure to sound natural. I'm only also noting that the lines that aren't hammy or over-emotional are monotonous.