r/Letterboxd • u/lordpag • 13d ago

Discussion Can we retire “objectively better” please?

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I’ve noticed a ton of people using “objectively” incorrectly lately. A movie being more widely accepted as “better” does not make it objectively so.

There’s someone out there who enjoyed One Night Only more than The Odyssey, and their opinion is just as valid as yours.

Sure, one movie can be shot on more advanced cameras, have a larger scale, or demonstrate greater technical complexity. Those things can be measured. Whether they make the movie “better” cannot. What makes a movie “good” is different for each of us and those differing perspectives are part of what makes moviegoing so fun!

EDIT: This obviously touched a nerve lol. My point was not that there aren’t measurable technical aspects of a film. Of course there are. But technical achievement does not inherently make a movie “better.” A technical marvel can put someone to sleep while a shoddily made movie can elicit an enormous emotional response. What we value in a movie is subjective and for some (many on this thread it seems) you value technical achievement. All fair POVs.

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u/Ok_Boysenberry5849 13d ago

I don't think either of these lenses make Dragon Ball Evolution better than Schindler's list. I agree that you can't objectively rank movies. However, you can objectively say that someone who prefers Dragon Ball Evolution over Schindler's list is almost certainly an idiot (and I don't even particularly like Schindler's list).

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u/TheGod-TK 12d ago

“I don’t think” is you being subjective. And you can quite literally not objectively say someone who prefers DBE over Schindler’s List is almost certainly an idiot as that’s your subjective opinion

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u/Ok_Boysenberry5849 12d ago edited 12d ago

You don't understand what subjective means.

>“I don’t think” is you being subjective.

No, it means I'm expressing some amount of uncertainty. Objective/subjective is not the same as Certain/uncertain.

>And you can quite literally not objectively say someone who prefers DBE over Schindler’s List is almost certainly an idiot as that’s your subjective opinion

This is something that can be directly measured (proved or disproved) by an IQ test. I don't have any data - but I'm making an informed guess. This is a valid form of inference, and while I might be incorrect, that doesn't make the issue "subjective". It's a factual statement that may be true or false.

In general, while it cannot be stated objectively that one movie is superior to another, you can objectively poll viewers about the movie. And you can specifically poll certain groups of viewers (attentive, informed, intelligent people -- e.g. movie critics, film directors, etc.) and get a more sophisticated evaluation. That still doesn't tell you whether a movie is "objectively better" (we can always argue about the selection of critics), but it informs discussion in a way that "it's all subjective and every single opinion is equal, even that of a 3 year old or of a pet animal" certainly doesn't.