Cinematic offenders horrify students

Some movies inspire tears. Some win Oscars. And according to freshman Amy Zhang, some movies just drag on until they are “torturing [your] brain.”

The main problems students find with poorly made films are the characters and the plot. According to students, a movie cannot be good without a solid plot and well-cast characters. 

Freshman Hannah Leney believes that 2013 movie “Spring Breakers,” about four college girls on their spring break vacation, is the worst movie of all time.

“There is no plot,” Leney said. “There is no story line; I was extremely bored, and it was too long.”

Leney also believes the casting of the actors influenced the success of the movie. According to Leney, actress Selena Gomez, who played one of the four college girls involved in illegal activities, was “way too innocent for her part.” 

Other students often find that the worst movies are those that are based on books or television shows. According to sophomore Minda Lee, inadequate decisions on the director’s part ruined the highly anticipated 2010 film, “The Last Airbender,” based on the manga and television show. According to Lee, many of the main characters’ appearances did not match how they were described in the original story.

“The director said he changed the pronunciation of some names to sound more Asian, but the actors pronounced them all wrong,” Lee said. “The Fire Nation was supposed to be Japanese, but in the movie, they were Indian.”

 Specific holes in the plot also ruined what could have been a great movie, disappointing fans of the manga and show with high expectations.

“The dialogue and storyline [were] all unrealistic,” Lee said. “They left out a lot of really important and funny scenes, like the Earth Nation king.”

When Rick Riordan’s best seller “The Lightning Thief” was made into a movie in 2010, many fans of the novel were extremely disappointed. According to freshman Kelly Xiao, “The Lightning Thief” movie should never have been made. 

“The director tried to change the story and make it his own,” Xiao said. “He messed up really badly, and the result was terrible.”

Despite the plethora of terrible movies, many students agree that “The Twilight Saga” is and always will be the worst film series of all time. 

“There are no storylines, and the actors can't act,” sophomore Riddhi Sangam said. “They could have chosen much better actors, and they could have made it more realistic.”  

Zhang agreed that the disastrous plots made “The Twilight Saga” her least favorite series of movies. 

“I hated the movies because the plot lines were confusing, and they didn't catch my attention,” Zhang said. “It was impossible to understand the plot. I hope they never make movies as bad as ‘The Twilight Saga’ again.”