A couple months back I was asked by someone what it was that I saw in Neon Genesis Evangelion. They had watched the first few episodes, had gotten bored of it, and sought out to see why it’s something that is so critically acclaimed despite its numerous obvious flaws.
Before you click off thinking I’m going on another completely nonsensical rant about Evangelion, don’t. I promise I’m going somewhere with this anecdote, and I won’t even bring up Evangelion again. And I admit, the concept for this video was inspired by a question someone asked me about Evangelion, but we’re going to be going through much more in depth about the psychology of liking things, and how certain circumstances and biases might affect your perception of the media we consume.
Are you still with me? Good, because we’ve got a lot to talk about. Welcome to my unhinged rant about the Chinese film industry, and, more importantly, figuring out the complex psychology of enjoying things.
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The Wandering Earth 2 is a 2023 prequel to the 2019 Chinese blockbuster, The Wandering Earth. Directed by Frant Gwo, it’s an adaptation of the book of the same name written by Liu Cixin. Without going into too much detail, it’s an amazing film and a space epic for the ages.
But it’s not a film without its problems. Despite being a thrilling ride throughout, Wandering Earth 2 has problems with pacing and lack of real focus. The story jumps from character to character, so that when it comes down to it, the audience may find the primary objective of the characters hard to understand because there are so many plot points and character arcs to follow.
What’s interesting is that I never found these problems to hinder the spectacle and the thrill of the film. Despite the issues being pretty obvious, it felt like I never was doubting the realism or the weirdness of situations, even when I had picked apart every small mistake and unrealistic plot point watching Avatar 2. It wasn’t that I wasn’t noticing them, it was almost like I didn’t care.
Daryl Talks Games did an interesting video about this with a game called Inscryption, where he references something called the Magic Circle. Take, for example, a game of chess. Despite how ridiculous two people placing meaningless pieces on tiles may seem, a magic circle is “a place where people are willing to accept the temporary rules of the circle despite how absurd they might be. They’re the reason why DND works, why you probably play monopoly wrong but still have fun, and why videogames can be immersive.”
While Daryl was talking about video games, which are somewhat different from the world of actual films, I feel that the magic circle example rings especially true. Generally speaking, a film’s goal is to get you immersed into the world it builds, or its own magic circle. Essentially what I’m saying is that there are always going to be people who do not connect with a piece of media, but the more people who connect the better. It’s this general consensus that is the “objective” foundation of whether a film or game is “good” or “bad”.
Except that’s not really an objective take either. Because we’re so prone to biases, moods, and situations throughout a mere day, so many things can factor what immerses us into a game. This rings true especially for viewing films, as we are not interacting with the film itself but instead watching through a camera lens. It’s because of this concept that immersing ourselves into a magic circle is harder for films or even video game cutscenes, because we don’t feel as much of an obligation to enjoy something in comparison to enabling other people’s enjoyment.
In high school statistics you learn about mean median and mode to describe data sets, but you also understand those are never one hundred percent accurate for every situation. Mean is generally the most used due to its versatility, but it also is held down by outliers. And for a general consensus of immersion in a film, this holds true as well. While you can gain a fair impression of understanding whether a film or game is good or not, that assumption might not end up being your final assessment of the media.
We’re never going to be able to rid ourselves 100% of making our own opinions. Obviously there’s a meme going around where you shouldn’t listen to critic reviews and instead form your own opinion, but a true 100% opinion will never come to fruition.
What I’m essentially saying is that someone liking something you perhaps dislike might not be because that someone has bad taste, but more likely due to the fact that you may have missed something. And while that isn’t a bad thing, it’s also something that you shouldn’t think less of others for, or, more importantly, think less of yourself for. Enjoyment or connection with media should be something we all strive for, but also isn’t necessary for survival, and definitely is not necessary for talking down to someone. It’s a fleeting moment, a mood, and because of our human nature and the number of circumstances we find ourselves in everyday, can vary within the time.
This probably is getting really existential and I can’t help but feel I’m missing something, but the general gist is here. Hopefully it’s not too overbearing and at the very least I can offer some genuine insight into human psychology. Thanks for reading.
