Erm...all I can say is that it was a good film and that it was critically acclaimed. Although Ebert does not have the final say when it comes to films, and he has said some stupid things over the years, I do direct you to his review of it. He gives it 4 stars BTW...
I don't bother reading what the critics have to say (especially a single one of them) because (A) much of the time I think they are wrong and (B) who knows if they are really trustworthy, especially the big names and especially when it comes to big-budget films.
But as for Signs (SPOILER WARNING) - the whole premise is based on a bunch of technologically advanced aliens, to whom water is fatally toxic, who decide to take over a planet that is covered over 70% by water and whose atmosphere is loaded with the stuff. Yeah. That's what I call credibility out the window. It's the same problem that was faced by last year's War of the Worlds, another complete wreck of a movie that ended by some poorly contrived deus ex machine that we're all supposed to just buy. In fact, the two films are quite comparable - both directors do an excellent job of the finer details but are awful when it comes to wrapping up the package as a whole. Spielberg is notorious for it. The man can craft a scene like nobody else, but on the whole many of his movies are ruined because he sacrifices the forest so that he can take great pictures of the trees.
I agree with most of what you say, but the hypothetical nature of your last comment(dealing with Hitchcock) is too far of a stretch for me to accept. And besides, it is not as though everything the guy made was fantastic.
No, but he made his movies the way he wanted to. Nobody told him.
The industry is unquestionably bigger than it used to be, and there is much more money in it than there used to. But money does not necesarily imply that there is lack of talent(dedication), and commercialization does not mean that it is no longer 'art'.
No it doesn't mean that it is no longer art - but it does mean that studios who are forking over millions of dollars to produce a movie are typically going to have a say over the direction that the movie is going because they want to maximize their profit margins. The line of what is art and what isn't is a thin one, but once you cross into that regime where the studio begins to make changes to a movie based upon factors designed to sell more copies, you are no longer really making art. You are making a commercial product. Is it art, too? Maybe... but the "quality" of the "art" certainly usually suffers when business, as they say, is mixed with pleasure.
What films do you know had the 'artistic vision' cut out of them for the sake of money? Certainly I am cynical enough to believe that, but I would like to see a source(or better yet, sources)...
Oh, come on. The studios change things all the time prior to release because they want to maximize their audiences. Here are three examples (I don't necessarily claim these are great films - just that what the director wanted and the studio wanted differed and the studio won out).
1. The original Blade movie had a completely different ending, but the studio demanded it be changed because of viewer reaction during test screening indicated that viewers didn't like the ending (or, if I recall, they "lost interest" or something cryptic like that). Whether or not the change to a new ending made the movie better or not is immaterial. The fact that the studio demanded it be changed is evidence enough that the success of the movie takes precedence over what the "artist" wanted. In fact, the mere fact that they have test screenings at all is testament to this. Many movies are test-screened for this very purpose. That's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. But it does show that the artistic vision can be sacrificed to make the movie a more attractive product.
2. As I understand it, the original script of Aliens vs. Predator was supposed to be much more violent and much more true to the original movies' premise of "sci-fi horrow". But the studio responsible wanted to capture the teenage video-gaming audience and so they hacked up the script to make it more "children friendly" and to garner a PG13 rating. Actually this happens quite often. As a result, the movie was absolutely terrible, by the way. Not that it would have necessarily been good anyway, but how could a watered-down Aliens movie be attractive to anyone?
3. Each of the Lord of the Rings movies had a very large chunk removed prior to release because producers felt the movie would be too long to attract audiences to the theater. This is why there were "Special Extended" versions released on DVD. The extended versions are much better, by the way. Actually the Lord of the Rings movies are a good example of how different studios may demand different things. As I recall, when Jackson originally pitched the movie, the first studio he tried to sell it to wanted to make the whole trilogy in one movie, and wouldn't budge. So he took it elsewhere.
By the way, I had a conversation with someone on the RT about movies and art a long time ago. If you're interested, you can find it here:
http://www.forumplanet.com/StrategyPlan ... id=1103519
My "debate" with JollyJoker and others regarding art and commercialism, specifically in the context of the Terminator films, starts on page 6, although it begins as yet another argument about the Forge. THe movie stuff starts on the bottom of page 7.
"What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" - Richard P. Feynman
), but does anyone else have a proposed manner in which we might be able to look into this further?