Paul W.S. Anderson Mass Hysteria Hating

[Ash]

Ok, I've been to pretty much every site that has reviewed Alien Vs. Predator and to many other message boards and I cannot believe the hating going on.

On every board there's nothing but hateful and angry messages about him.
I mean not just a few...but HUNDREDS.

This is a strange phenomenon going on here for a director that really isn't all that bad.

It seems that a lot of people read OTHER PEOPLES' OPINIONS of him and then, like mindless followers, they decide to hate him as well with no real basis for doing so...they do it because others are doing it. (at least that's how I see it)
Don't believe me?  Go to the IMDB message boards and have a look.
Any reasons they give fall far short of making serious sense and are clones of what other people have said.
When you think about it, it really is a kind of mass hysteria hating going on here.
Many people are joining the angry mob, their opinions and personal beliefs are set aside in order to fit in.
It's almost like a flash mob kind of thing.

I just don't get it.
Aliens Vs. Predator was not bad at all...Seriously it wasn't!

What do you make of this?



Post Edited (08-16-04 00:45)

[daveblackeye15]

Remeber among his enemies are people that play video games, he directed Mortal Kombat (which I like BTW.Good B-movie in my opinon) and Resident Evil (which I don't like). Resident Evil and MK are very well known games which have gained many many followers, I guess a lot of people didn't think he did justice to the games with his movies and thus they attack him. Last I remember I thought Event Horizon was okay but I saw that a when I was 13 so I wasn't so experinced with movies back then, and I don't know how I'd treat it today.

[Pepak]

I didn't see AVP yet and won't for quite some time, but given Anderson's previous track record on games-turned-movies (bad Mortal Kombat and awful Resident Evil) I expect the worst. My expectations aren't helped any by the fact that even AVP-games were horrible failures as far as their potential for greatness went.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

AvP 2 was a pretty good game IMO - much better than the film - anyway:

I think that it's rather patronising to assume that people have:

"read OTHER PEOPLES' OPINIONS of him and then, like mindless followers, they decide to hate him as well with no real basis for doing so...they do it because others are doing it."

He's managed to p**s off a considerable number of people with his game cum films - so is it any wonder people dislike him? Isn't it perhaps more logical to assume that there is a valid reason to not like him - him being a bad director/writer/maker of games into films and that is why people are "hysterical".

How about Hitler - do we all hate him because of mass hysteria, having read and mindlessly followed the opinion of other? No. A flippant example but I think it's valid.

[Genetic Mishap]

I came to dislike him on my own accord. My reasons are thus (I don't know if these are "clones" of all the mad hatas or not)

 * The pretentious movie quality geek in me finds his lack of creativity, direction and all the handling of characters, plot, etc. bad. Not so bad it's good, just bad.

*The fun-for-fun's-sake movie lover in me finds the said laughable attempts pretentious. If he were to embrace campinness, instead of taking himself too seriously like I think he does, he'd be a lot more enjoyable. Like the guy who did Freddy vs. Jason...

*This lack of talent is inversly proportional to how much positive attention he gets (at least in my eyes, anyway).

[Andrew]

He gets the job done, but with no finesse.  I've began comparing his directing style to killing rabbits by hitting them with bricks.  Every one of his films short circuits for me.  don't really hate them, but they are not something to go back and watch again for any period of time.

[Dunners]

well I fall into the video game fan catagory. he ruined resident Evil and the seqeul. I started playing Resident evil when I was 16 (8 years ago lol) and really got into the  game a lot.  It had zombies, monsters it was gory AND it actually had a good story....terrible voice acting though, lol. but it was so much fun, hell I still have a copy of the original PS game to this day.

Well wayyyy back in 1999 when George Romero was dismissed from the movie project( Georges script wasnt too hot, I read it and know why) the movie was in limbo. This was before I got into film so I didnt really know much about movies, but when in late 2000 they said that the director or Mortal Kombat was going to write and direct Resident Evil I was excited...Then I found out what he was doing.

He was doing a 'prequel' witha bunch of made up characters and all that other crap. At first I was depressed but figured, 'hey its a prequel, he'll get to the real story next movie. Besides it might be fun". Boy was I wrong. As casting ensued as well as more of the story onlien I found myself hating what was being put out. Then I saw the trailer... I was mad. It didnt look anything like the game, it looked like it was shot in someone basement.

Then I SAW this movie, I literally was glaring at the movie screen for the entire duration. Everything was wrong, unscary zombies, pathetic action scenes, one dimensional characters, and I didnt care about what was going on at ALL.

I was mad, p**sed off ect. I'd been waiting like 5 years for this movie and they hired a dumbf**k to write and direct it. As I read all kinds of fan reviews of people saying they loved the game and the movie was great I got even madder. I couldnt understand why people liked this s**t...or why 2 weeks before it was released the studio greenlit the sequel.

So I spent about  6 months mad that not only did this a***ole get rich off bastardizing something I cherished, but he did it by mainly stealing bits and pieces from other movies. So pretty much then I said f**k it and am now a year away from graduating with an AA in film.

Course when I found out Fox hired this talentless hack to write/direct AvP I knew it was gonna be s**t. All he does is come up with a semi interesting movie idea, steal bits and pieces from better movies, have p**s poor fighting scenes that usually involve the matrix and expect to collection millions from it. And the sad part is hes gotten away with it.

I see this pathetic bastard as an example of everything thats wrong with Hollywood. And I hope he crashes and burns HARD.

[Jim H]

" any by the fact that even AVP-games were horrible failures as far as their potential for greatness went."

Which ones have you played?  From memory I can think of 7.

Anyway, people go overboard in their hate of Anderson, I believe, because he doesn't deliever on beloved franchises as well as people think he should.  I don't think he is a bad director, just a competent one (Event Horizon, I would say, shows he could be a very good or even great director if he really tried).  Most of his movies are very watchable, just not that great on repeat viewings.

[Haze]

Visually, I think he is a find director. He has an eye for the job, but as has been said by a plethora of movie geeks, he lacks the common sense needed to control aspects. Every one of his movies has script and substance problems (I like Mortal Kombat and thought Resident Evil was decent). He makes films that have entertainment value, but relies too heavily on one or two sense instead of the entire picture.

After a few more years, I think he will be a terrific asset to cinema.

[Brother Ragnarok]

To everyone who I stood against, to everyone I told "just give him a chance, Event Horizon was cool," to everyone who saw the light before I did - I'm sorry I told you to not hate Paul Anderson.  But don't just hate him, hate 20th Century Fox, too.  Now continue as you were.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

Maybe people lack the sarcastic artistry necessary to really cut down a movie, so their opinions are rather blunt, but what do you expect in reaction to a movie that's advertised as having two monsters tearing each other apart?

[trekgeezer]

I rate this guy in the same category as Peter Hyams (2010, Outland, The Sixth Day, Time Cop, End of Days,  A Sound of Thunder). They are workman directors, by that I mean neither of these guys is terribly imaginative, but they probably turn out product on time and within budget and their pictures make money. That is the number one thing the studio cares about ,  the film making money.

I really can't work up hate for someone in the movie business. Making a film from source material like a book or video game is probably the hardest kind to do, especially if the source is really popular.  The movie has to please fans of the source and have appeal to people who know nothing about  it.

I think Soldier and Event Horizon are movies of  Anderson's that a lot  ot people say were alright. Since these weren't made from a popular source, maybe he needs to stick to original material .

[Prophet Tenebrae]

I'll die still wanting the however many (it seemed like an eternity) minutes of my life I wasted seeing Soldier.

I think that Anderson is just the typical Hollywood "drone" director. He just does what's popular and turns the crank, 2-3 years later out comes a banal piece of celluloid, in comes the money - everybody wins (in Hollywood). To me, that's the antithesis of creativity.

[Fearless Freep]

For some reason, "Soldier" reminds me of "Omega Doom"..


I kinda actually emjoy them both, though

[Evan3]

I have to take Ash's side on this.
I have never played the Resident Evil games, but I felt that # 1 was competent and the previews for # 2 are good.
I felt that AvP was a great tribute to both series, having aliens kick butt, predators kick butt and MAIN HUMAN CHARACTERS actually died, not something you see. He is not great, but certainly better than most of his class.

Brian Singer of the X Men is an awful director screenwriter. If you really want to be upset, hate him. RE and MK are video games with a *very* limited story line.  X Men has been a compelling ongoing saga since the '60s for some time. However, he makes Cyclops, and in the first film, Storm, complete morons. He repeatedly clashes with Hugh Jackman and has constantly tried to have him fired. He ignores fans pleas for Gambit. It seems as though he has never read an X Men comic in his life and just made a movie for the hell of it. See  also: Catwoman.

Also compare him to the director of Van Helsing/Mummy seris. While I will give him props on a fun and inventive first Mummy, everything since has ranged from below decent (Helsing) to awful (mummy returns). He made one hit and recycles his own FX.


However the best of the new horror directors is a toss up between Guillermo Del Toro (Blade sagas and Hellboy) or Ronny Yu (Chucky and Freddy Vs. Jason)