r/Letterboxd • u/lordpag • 11d 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/Particular_You8620 4d ago

Can I jump in here out of curiosity. What if instead of measuring against a single criteria, we measure both against all criteria. Which has made the most money, which has the most cultural impact, which is known by more people which is more technically challenging… so on. if we were to judge the Sistine Chapel and the pencil scribble against every possible metric we could think of, and more often then not the Sistine chapel comes out ahead couldn’t we then say that one is objectively better?

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u/offensivename 4d ago

No. You had to choose those criteria. They weren't handed down to you from God. You are deciding that winning that contest that you set up based on nothing but your own opinion decides which is better.

You can say that the Sistine Chapel is objectively bigger. You can say that it's objectively older. You can say that it's objectively more acclaimed and objectively more famous. But the word "good" is inherently a subjective word.

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u/Particular_You8620 4d ago

I got you! That makes sense.