No, the Matrix spent more time going "look how deep we are" than providing anything even remotely thoughtful.Requia said:
Which is exactly why it's pretentious.
Where's the line between "epic" and "pretentious"?
- Thread starter Vegosiux
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Which is exactly why it's pretentious.
Harry Potter being broken into two parts: 90 minute camping trip.FoolKiller said:
Twilight being broken into two parts: shameless cash grab following someone else's success.
There's nothing pretentious about the latter, though.
I think the Witcher II was dancing that line back and forth. At times the game was epic when you're fighting the giant... squid... thing or reinacting a haunted battleground. At other times it's pretentious with its over the top racism, sexism and sexual undertones.
But I loved it all the same.
But I loved it all the same.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a show that comes to mind when I think of something that's both epic and pretentious particularly in the soundtrack. There's a lot of heavy biblical language used and it can come off as pretentious but personally I find it to be delightfully hammy and 'epic.' It's my same attitude towards the Imperium of Man more or less.
I don't actually consider the two words to be closely related. Epic refers to the scope of a thing. An epic fantasy novel is simply a novel in the fantasy genre of incredible length. There is no presumption of quality related to this idea; an author might spend 700,000 words poorly after all. If something is pretentious, then it simply displayed an attempt to impress with virtues it does not possess.
That said, if an artist doesn't have a particularly good use for the epic format, one could call the move in that direction pretentious but it would have to be judged on a case by case basis. In short, there is no line between the two because the only relationship is the result of the incredibly open nature of the word pretentious.
That said, if an artist doesn't have a particularly good use for the epic format, one could call the move in that direction pretentious but it would have to be judged on a case by case basis. In short, there is no line between the two because the only relationship is the result of the incredibly open nature of the word pretentious.
Hmmm...I'd go one farther than that and say that the Matrix wasn't pretentious, it was a fairly ordinary hero story except the hero had to recognise his world isn't the real world. He then finds his love interest character, gets told a terrible secret he has to keep from everyone, decides to sacrifice his own life etc and there's wirework and slow mo.Zachary Amaranth said:
The next two, however, is about people blathering on at the hero about causality in really crap terms thinking it makes the writers look deep. Could have gotten away with it if it was just Hugo Weaving down that.
It's hard to place where the line between them is, because I agree with everyone else. They're unrelated.
In fact, I'd argue that trying to be 'epic' is a bit of an adrenaline thriller thing. Epic Mealtime! Watch how cool slicing up 50 bad dudes is! Etc
Which is exactly the sort of thing that artsy pretentious media abhors. If you made an action film that was deliberately not epic and was striving not to be epic, then you're in danger of becoming pretentious. It's very very hard to be epic and artsy/pretentious at the same time and when it is true it's not because the ideas are related but because the director was trying to have his cake and eat it.
Epic= Mass appeal, Pretentious=Minority appeal
In fact, I'd argue that trying to be 'epic' is a bit of an adrenaline thriller thing. Epic Mealtime! Watch how cool slicing up 50 bad dudes is! Etc
Which is exactly the sort of thing that artsy pretentious media abhors. If you made an action film that was deliberately not epic and was striving not to be epic, then you're in danger of becoming pretentious. It's very very hard to be epic and artsy/pretentious at the same time and when it is true it's not because the ideas are related but because the director was trying to have his cake and eat it.
Epic= Mass appeal, Pretentious=Minority appeal
Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive. Things can be epic AND pretentious at the same time.
@BrotherRool,
I wouldn't necessarily say that mass appeal vs. minority appeal is the differentiator. This would indicate that both terms are indeed on the same scale and you seem to agree that they're unrelated. I'd say that truly popular titles can still be entirely pretentious.
Something being pretentious just needs to indicate that it knows or thinks it is cool. This is an entirely subjective line for which every person likely has a different threshold. Something that is way over the top is an easy example of that and that's why the OP asked the question. The thing is, something over the top doesn't necesssarily cease to be epic as you mentioned. It can become so blatantly over the top that it's just silly, sure, but that's another line altogether.
@BrotherRool,
I wouldn't necessarily say that mass appeal vs. minority appeal is the differentiator. This would indicate that both terms are indeed on the same scale and you seem to agree that they're unrelated. I'd say that truly popular titles can still be entirely pretentious.
Something being pretentious just needs to indicate that it knows or thinks it is cool. This is an entirely subjective line for which every person likely has a different threshold. Something that is way over the top is an easy example of that and that's why the OP asked the question. The thing is, something over the top doesn't necesssarily cease to be epic as you mentioned. It can become so blatantly over the top that it's just silly, sure, but that's another line altogether.
I've heard of dear Esther being accused of being pretentious, despite it not thrusting a meaning down your throat. You largely piece it together yourself. Nobody could possibly describe that game as epic
I actually think MovieBob had a really good summary for what it means to be pretentious. From his Branded review:
"... a movie where the filmmakers are saying something incredibly obvious and simpleminded in the most obtuse, aloof, and yet heavyhanded way possible".
"... a movie where the filmmakers are saying something incredibly obvious and simpleminded in the most obtuse, aloof, and yet heavyhanded way possible".
Love this thread, used to work for Vail Resorts where we got a new CEO (he was about 14, his dad got him the job) who loved the word EPIC. Epic Pass, Epic Mix, Lindsey is Epic, on and on. He's still riding that thing so hard.
Epic can become pretentious as hell. But the cool ones are the ones that try to be so over-epic you can tell they're making fun of themselves. Like Cabin in the Woods, when Thor jumps the motorcycle. You know he's not going to make it, but you love the music and the stirring speech. Damn that was funny.
I go for that, so over-epic it's funny, and knows it's being self-deprecating.
Epic can become pretentious as hell. But the cool ones are the ones that try to be so over-epic you can tell they're making fun of themselves. Like Cabin in the Woods, when Thor jumps the motorcycle. You know he's not going to make it, but you love the music and the stirring speech. Damn that was funny.
I go for that, so over-epic it's funny, and knows it's being self-deprecating.
These are two different unrelated terms but I can provide you with examples for both.
God of War is epic. Scope is big. Fights are truly brutal. Writing keeps a consistent tone, not exactly deep but straightforward. Games are not a pain to look at since developers use their palette sparingly and responsively. Combat is adequate, brutal and quite technical at times. Bosses are a well desgined and challenging to fight to.
DmC is pretentious as it fumbles between epicness of GoW and Style of DMC and tries to hide its shallow interior with excessive color scheme and crude "social satire". Sad part is developer actually believes that they are offering best of both worlds when in reality, ıt just wears the skins with none of the class.
God of War is epic. Scope is big. Fights are truly brutal. Writing keeps a consistent tone, not exactly deep but straightforward. Games are not a pain to look at since developers use their palette sparingly and responsively. Combat is adequate, brutal and quite technical at times. Bosses are a well desgined and challenging to fight to.
DmC is pretentious as it fumbles between epicness of GoW and Style of DMC and tries to hide its shallow interior with excessive color scheme and crude "social satire". Sad part is developer actually believes that they are offering best of both worlds when in reality, ıt just wears the skins with none of the class.
I kind of disagree with you here. At least, if I'm understanding you correctly. Like, the game Lone Survivor has a story that no one gets until the end. Even then, you have to think and uncover the answers. That doesn't make it pretentious, it just means that the end provides context for everything, and it all has a meaning other than what you are led to believe throughout the game. That doesn't define pretentiousness, that's like a "bait and switch" or something.NightmareExpress said:
I've never really played MGS, so I can't provide an argument there. However, at your earlier comment about "going on a tangent, calling you the bad guy for killing a bunch of dudes." Again, that can be done right, in many ways. As an (aspiring/work in progress) game designer, it's odd to think that any game with a point is suddenly being "pretentious." That's probably an exaggeration of what you were saying, but a deep story with a hidden meaning does not equal pretentiousness. Symbolism is not pretentious either.
^fixed.uzo said:
On a relevant note: Someone call a cab, because I think the OP is drunk. Pretentious is basically a failure to deliver on a promise, whereas epic is simply a massive scale, spanning a long length of time, having multiple characters, etc. There really isn't a correlation.
whenever I look at the recent games blizzard brought out, I look at their designs and textures and think:
"whoever drew this had only one thing in mind, praying for it all day long. 'I want it to look epic I want it to look epic I want it to look epic'"
and that's all I really see in their art styles. it's not done in the shape of "how the world is supposed to look like in the eye of the artist" or some other remotely reasonable crap. No, to me, it looks like an outcry for attention, an embodiment of wishful thinking. It's not that I dislike blizzard - I enjoyed diabloIII and starcraftII to a certain degree, but every time I look on the artistic side I hear a voice in my head that says "look, look at me! an I not pretty? please tell me how pretty I am oh god please tell me I'm the most epic thing in the world you've ever seen! oh god please...pleeeeeaaassseee looook at meeeee I will die if you don-" *turns of computer*
*ahem*
apart from my obvious insanity I sadly draw the line pretty much right before the more or less recent blizzard games.
god damn lost vikings was nice : D
"whoever drew this had only one thing in mind, praying for it all day long. 'I want it to look epic I want it to look epic I want it to look epic'"
and that's all I really see in their art styles. it's not done in the shape of "how the world is supposed to look like in the eye of the artist" or some other remotely reasonable crap. No, to me, it looks like an outcry for attention, an embodiment of wishful thinking. It's not that I dislike blizzard - I enjoyed diabloIII and starcraftII to a certain degree, but every time I look on the artistic side I hear a voice in my head that says "look, look at me! an I not pretty? please tell me how pretty I am oh god please tell me I'm the most epic thing in the world you've ever seen! oh god please...pleeeeeaaassseee looook at meeeee I will die if you don-" *turns of computer*
*ahem*
apart from my obvious insanity I sadly draw the line pretty much right before the more or less recent blizzard games.
god damn lost vikings was nice : D
There's no line, because they're unrelated. Something can be very epic and still be very pretentious.
What makes something pretentious, by the way, is that it puts on the pretense of having depth and meaning without the actual depth and meaning. It mimics the surface qualities of things that do have those qualities (usually starting with being difficult to understand) without having the purpose and substance that defined them.
What makes something pretentious, by the way, is that it puts on the pretense of having depth and meaning without the actual depth and meaning. It mimics the surface qualities of things that do have those qualities (usually starting with being difficult to understand) without having the purpose and substance that defined them.
Pretentious and Epic aren't even on the same scale. Pretentious is when something seems to think it's of utmost importance with nothing substantial to back it up. Epic is when something is vastly large in scale, usually to the point where people appear to be ants. It's sometimes used figuratively to mean something's great, but even then it usually emphasizes the bigness of the greatness.