Welcome to the Asylum! My newest endeavour to discuss the things that I enjoy. Here you will find posts about comics, films, games and anything else that catches my interest. Yet what is the Asylum?
Many people believe that we have become a generation of critics. I personally don't believe this generation, or the next generation are any more critical than the previous ones. We merely have the larger platform to be standing on. Our audiences are simply more wide spread thanks to the internet. It is no different from my father sitting in the pub with his friends, discussing the Texas Chainsaw Massacare in the Autumn of 1974.
What I do fear, is that we have become a generation of cynics. Now, anyone who knows me knows well that I am incredibly cynical of most of anything. I find it very difficult to believe that anything will turn out well. I think this is because I have been so disappointed in the past, that if I maintain a cynical approach to anything, I won't be so upset when it turns out poorly. On the other hand I become much more happily surprised when it goes well.
A great example is Man of Steel (The 2013 Zack Snyder film). I was completely in two-halves about that film when it was first announced, and the more information we got about it as it was approaching release the more polarised I became. By the time the film was released you might as well have called me Harvey Dent. In my opinion Zack Snyder is not a bad director, usually. There is plenty to nit-pick at with his films, that is for certain, but otherwise I don't dislike him. Yet when I heard he would be directing a Superman movie, I instantly envisioned the action scenes to be similar to 300 or Watchmen. Slow motion to fast motion to slow motion. Which made me groan, I didn't think that would work for Superman.
Then came the announcement/rumours/interviews that Nolan, Goyer and Snyder were taking cues from the Dark Knight trilogy. A "realistic" approach to Superman. That I will admit, made me rant to my friends and family at great length. I also wasn't the only one concerned by a "realistic" approach to an alien with near-god like powers.
Then the film came out. It's nearly three hours long and out of all of that, there were only two moments that I really didn't like. Granted the film isn't perfect, but it was a lot better than I ever truly expected it to be. Which is a real shame, because I should have realised that Snyder would have had some good ideas to begin with. None of the silly slow motion play. The "realism" isn't about him but about us, and how we would react. It all worked out well, I enjoyed the film. I went to see it again, which is rare for me. Man of Steel wound up being one of my favourite films in recent years, yet before hand I wasn't even sure it would be watchable.
Yet that's the big difference between criticism and cynicism (at least that's how I feel). When I'm being critical, I'm waiting to see the whole picture, looking at it carefully and being as honest and fair as possible. When I'm being cynical I'm not really waiting for the picture, and the response is always negative.
Arguably the only person this is the person being that cynical. Yet cynicism can be contagious. Would my friends have been as prepared for the worst when it came to Man of Steel, if I hadn't ranted about my own concerns. Would they have even had those concerns if I had kept my mouth shut?
I hope that with practice, I will can become less cynical. Yet you will always find both criticism and cynicism among these pages, I am sure.
The internet is an asylum. A mad house of cynics spreading preemptive disappointment. A sanctuary for critics simply trying to explain the world. And I have just checked myself in.
Welcome to the Asylum!
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