What do people mean when they say a movie was good but too long?

[sandorski]

that's not the issue.

It's that the movie spent way too much time, with too much filler, presenting something that should have been done much quicker. Run time should be as long as it needs to be to match relevant content.

Yup.

 

[brianmanahan]

this thread is good, but a little too long

 

[mikeymikec]

this thread is good, but a little too long

more cowbell?

 

[Sonikku]

What do people mean when they say a movie was good but too long?

It means my butt hurts and I'm ready to go home now.

 

[Mixolydian]

That it was too long, but otherwise it was good.

But I don't go to movies because of the ADHD thing. Can't handle it for more than 30 mins or so.

 

[Adrenaline]

I liked Bad Boys 2. The last thirty minutes of that movie was not needed. It could have ended in the city before the sister was abducted.

The only thing the last thirty minutes had was explosions galore and gun fights.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I liked Bad Boys 2. The last thirty minutes of that movie was not needed. It could have ended in the city before the sister was abducted.

The only thing the last thirty minutes had was explosions galore and gun fights.

Them driving down the crack village was literally the best part of the entire movie.

 

[Dirigible]

So, according to you, this is going on in their head:

"Yes, this is good, I like it, please make it stop, this is enjoyable, please stop, I am liking this so it needs to stop."

That really doesn't make any sense. No, what they mean is that the movie would have been good if it were shorter. Most likely because they have no attention span anymo

I need some coffee. But first let me check Facebook on my phone.

I disagree. It wasn't that the movie wasn't good. The movie was good.

The movie would have been better if it hadn't been needlessly longer than it should have been. Unfortunately, the movie had scenes that added nothing to the film, and those scenes weakened the overall movie.

mmntech's description captures the idea:

Film is primarily a visual medium. The thing that makes good movies "too long" is when there's too much time spent on exposition and narrative. Show, don't tell. You want to engage the viewer in the story, not have them as a passive sponge.

Scenes in a movie have to be paced smoothly. Every scene has to progress the story and exposition should be used sparingly. Quiet scenes are good places to set exposition and to transition between drama scenes. You want to keep them sort and to the point. Show the audience character development.

A good example of this is the scene in Star Wars where Luke visits Obi-Wan's shack. It lasts only about five minutes but tells us everything we need to know about the film's universe.
-Luke's father was a Jedi Knight
-Obi-Wan is also a Jedi, and was friends with him
-Luke's father died in a war when Luke was very young.
-This war led to the evil Empire's rise to power
-Who the Jedi Knights were and why they disappeared

It provides a solid bridge between two unrelated action scenes as well.

Peter Jackson's King Kong is a great example of a good movie that's too long. Especially since we can compare it to the 1933 original. Jackson's version is a full 84 minutes longer than the original, despite both films telling the exact same story.

The 1933 film is sort and to the point. The opening boat scene gives you enough information to understand the universe of the film. Jack has a crush on Ann Darrow, and the island is rumoured to be evil. The Jackson film spends an hour (a full 2/3 of the original's length) on the same scene. Which drags out the story unnecessarily and could easily have been fixed in editing.

When your making a film, always ask yourself is a scene progresses a story. If it doesn't cut it. If it does, ask yourself if could be condensed without harming the story. Yes? Shorten it up. No? Leave it be.

I always assumed that movies are longer than they should be because of egos. Actors want their screen time and don't want any of it left on the editing room floor. The director wants the footage they shot to be in the movie. Yadda yadda yadda. I don't know if that's true though.

 

[Lonyo]

So, according to you, this is going on in their head:

"Yes, this is good, I like it, please make it stop, this is enjoyable, please stop, I am liking this so it needs to stop."

That really doesn't make any sense. No, what they mean is that the movie would have been good if it were shorter. Most likely because they have no attention span anymo

I need some coffee. But first let me check Facebook on my phone.

No. It's more like overall the movie was good, but it was unnecessarily long because of some scenes being irrelevant or too long that didn't stop it being good OVERALL, but meant it could have been even better.
If you go to a restaurant and eat a nice meal, but on one round of drinks the waiter takes 5 minutes longer than he should, that doesn't stop the overall meal being good, it just means there was a slight flaw and it could have been better executed.
Things can still be good without being perfect. You might complain other people lack attention spans, but you seem to lack basic comprehension and understanding.

 

[CZroe]

The movie was good but [it would be better if it were not] too long.

Saying it is too long is saying that it would be better if it were shorter. It isn't saying that it wasn't good. There is no conflict. The two opinions are not mutually exclusive. What idiot ever thought they were?

 

[shortylickens]

It means my butt hurts and I'm ready to go home now.

 

[olds]

So one should judge the length of movies based on how comfy the seat is?

Obviously it can't mean anything else.

 

[ControlD]

I was ready for Titanic to be over after the nude scene. Unfortunately there was still something like two more hours to go. And no more boobies. Totally uncalled for.

 

[dullard]

No. It's more like overall the movie was good, but it was unnecessarily long because of some scenes being irrelevant or too long that didn't stop it being good OVERALL, but meant it could have been even better.
If you go to a restaurant and eat a nice meal, but on one round of drinks the waiter takes 5 minutes longer than he should, that doesn't stop the overall meal being good, it just means there was a slight flaw and it could have been better executed.
Things can still be good without being perfect. You might complain other people lack attention spans, but you seem to lack basic comprehension and understanding.

Your example isn't the best example. The meal, i.e. food, has almost nothing to do with the waiter's speed (unless the waiter was so slow that the meal got cold--now that would be a better example). Instead your example would be a restaurant's rating that is affected by the waiter's speed.

A much better example would be "The soup was good but it was too salty". Being too salty can make it terrible and even impossible to eat, depending on the degree of being too salty. It is no longer good if it is impossible to eat.

A slight flaw would not be what we are talking about. Slight might be one scene that just didn't go well (and in my opinion, that applies to almost all movies). One scene, in almost any case, wouldn't make a movie too long. Being too long requires many flaws. So now you are talking about multiple scenes, multiple problems, probably problems throughout. We are now far from perfect. That is no longer good.

Good is satisfactory in quality or quantity. If it was so long with multiple flaws that you have to call it out as being flawed, it probably wasn't satisfactory in quality. If these scenes were high quality, you wouldn't say they were so flawed. And certainly it isn't satisfactory in quantity.

 

[gdansk]

If a movie was good but too long that means there were numerous scenes I felt that detracted from the main story. These scenes could have been cut and the film would have been more focused and shorter.

It happens all the time. The director/editor have a favorite moral/trope/gimmick, that's forced into the story, and refuses to cut an otherwise pointless scene.

 

[yankeesfan]

When I asked the question in my OP I had a feeling that when people say "good but too long" they were oversimplifying their criticism of movies in a way that inadvertently disguises the point they're trying to express. Judging by the different ways that people are interpreting the "good but too long" statement, I would say that it is probably a confusing and lazy way of critiquing a movie.

I believe that we have to critique a movie in its entirety. We don't generally have the benefit of viewing a movie without the scenes that we believe caused the film to drag. Many of the exposition-rich talking scenes add context to the scenes that make the movie exciting. I think that separating and judging "good" and "bad" scenes is generally an exercise in futility because we cannot tangibly measure the interplay between the two sets of scenes. What may seem extraneous may actually be a necessary scene in a movie.

A movie is 120 minutes runtime, with scenes that are both slow and fast paced. That is the structure of a movie. But I critique movies as a whole, not a sum of its parts. I can tell you if I enjoyed a movie or not. I do not presume to be able to tell whether a scene is necessary or not. I believe that directors often do not have a handle on that sort of thing.

When I enjoy a good movie, I believe that it is the cumulation of my enjoyment for all of the scenes, because I cannot judge the necessity of each separate scene.

 

[DigDog]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072684/reference

 

[Red Squirrel]

They probably mean that they enjoyed the movie, but felt that the duration could have been less than what it was. Also why does Firefox think the word movie is a misspelling?

 

[Printer Bandit]

Gone with the Wind was fucking long.


ain't nobody got time to watch a 4 hour movie.

 

[norseamd]

Most movies are too long. There is a bunch of time spent on things that aren't needed and it just makes the movie worse. Edit that out and what is there will have greater impact.

You need to see the International Blu Ray version of Red Cliff one of these days.

 

[bryanl]

They say, "Lawrence of Arabia proves a movie can be slow but still be exciting."

 

[Blanky]

It means they thought it was good, but too long.

yep

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

yep

Keeping it simple, right?

 

[BurnItDwn]

It means they had to go to the bathroom in the middle.

 

[KeithTalent]

that's not the issue.

It's that the movie spent way too much time, with too much filler, presenting something that should have been done much quicker. Run time should be as long as it needs to be to match relevant content.

Yep. There are some amazing 3+ hour films which never felt long to me, but there are 90 minute films which did.

KT