MarcWielage
20014
428
17
Jul 16, 2026 1:26 AM
MarcWielage
20014
428
17
YuffieK
In space, no one can hear you complaining about the audio
lifeisadadjoke
But NOT loud enough to drown out the non-stop MURPHs. At least it wasn't as bad as The Dark Knight Rises...arguably one of the shittiest movies ever made (an insult after the first two were so good).
Starbolt81
https://imgur.com/Q80Xlm4.gif
Timmy79
He's made some great movies. That was most certainly not one of them, aside from the deafening sound
Howlingowl
Felt the same way about Oppenheimer. The dialogue was so low it should have had mandatory subtitles.
DianNaoChong
It's a selling point that iMax made quieter cameras for this so it shouldn't be bad anymore. Apparently he's adamant about no adr
Darklinkinfinite
Doesn’t he also mix for high-end theater audio systems? So unless you’re paying $30 a ticket to watch it in a state of the art theater then you’re also gonna have a worse time, audio-wise
makesense
The only movie it really kind of got in the way was Tenet.
Munchman347
Movies, videos and computer games that play soaring music during character's speeches annoy everyone. Why does it still happen? Is the dialog so pathetic that the producers had to mask it in shame?...
notmyrealface
I did not know this was a thing for people. I never had an issue.
VodkaReindeer
Dunkirk veterans seeing Dunkirk by Nolan said it wasn't that loud IRL.
gumshoe99
Muuuuuuuuuurph!
netutoring
So many modern trends in film seem to stray from at least what I think should be the basics of filmmaking. Can you see the action? Can you understand what is being said? Old school films weren't always 'realistic', but they made sure things were coherent.
BigFatFailureTurtle
Agreed. I find a great metric for action movies is "can I tell what's happening, or is it simply high paced heart pumping nonsense?"
As an example, you can make a badly thrown punch "exciting" with a dozen camera cuts and the right music. But that will never be as interesting to watch as a Jackie Chan stunt sequence where I can follow what's happening and am impressed by it.
Compare a professional chef's signature dish versus a donut. Both are delicious, but only one is quality.
mohavewolfpup
Jump scares in horror films are pure garbage and why I don't watch pretty much 99% of them. Manipulative schlock that insults the audience
Pelican3
The Odyssey was so LOUD my ears were ringing when I left the theater.
Filanwizard
One of the things I learned when taking classes on radio is that when people are talking you do still have music going but you pull it back to just barely audible. The audience does absolutely still hear it but the talking is the primary, however any breaks in the talking like if a character is thinking on a reply there is also not complete silence.
Filanwizard
that said in some plots total dead silence is appropriate.
Melbuf
i had no issues hearing what was said in that movie in the theater
lildude52ca
what am i missing here?
Arenlor
Due to multiple situations, including better dubbing and tiny microphones and the mix of various layers of audio, it has become difficult to discern speech in modern movies and TV shows. For movies this is most prevalent in home releases as they only mix it for theaters that have more speakers than home setups do, often in the dozens. The director apparently requested a mix that even in theaters has the music louder than the dialogue, drowning it out.
bamblebimble
But it doesnt though? I didnt have any problems both times I watched it.
apLundell
He does it on purpose. Nolan says it's more realistic to not boost the dialog, even when it's competing with music and sound effects. ... which, yeah, I guess if you were onboard a rocketship and a full orchestra was playing, it really would be hard to hear people speaking.
shameofslate
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!
PigsWeGetWhatPigsDeserve
Nolan is just sh*t at making movies.
CallMeCourierSix
Agreed. Unfortunately, the Nolan simps are out in force and downvoting.
PigsWeGetWhatPigsDeserve
They always are. For the record, I appreciate how he approaches the process of moviemaking, but he just can’t properly tell a story even if his life depended on it.
Maulbert
Nolan is an amazing director, but his sound mixes are always shitty.
MorkandGork
iiiiiiiiiiis hee????????
Alozar
Nah I'm with you, his head is up his own ass. One of the most overrated directors around.
vintagebroad
The sound is so loud in theaters now we take ear plugs
hellsgunslinger
I stopped going to theaters years ago cuse I got tired of having blown out war drums from how loud they played everything. Gettin old sucks I guess
Keenwa
Buy loops brother? Rekindle your love of the cinema.
azimir
I've only seen a few movies in theaters in the last decade. I always bring earplugs. Even with them in, I get all of the audio required and I don't leave unable to hear anything. WTF is wrong with the theaters and movies anymore? Don't they know we can hear, or do they assume we're all almost deaf and feel like they need to finish the job?
Grumptious
It's hilarious how Nolan and his defenders say you have to see his movies in the theater to appreciate the sound and even theaters are like "The shitty sound is not our fault." Also, fuck Christopher Nolan and his elitist, out of touch attitude about movie sound mixing.
SavageDrums
Christopher Nolan is wildly overrated. Dunkirk could have been a great movie if it was directed by someone who appreciated linear time.
GabbyJayYay
discorage
Out of touch is right. All of his movies are in DTS-HD Master Audio. His reasoning is "everyone has a 5.1/7.1 system, not everyone has an Atmos/DTS:X system" or some such bullshit. Does he not realize how these formats work? They'll literally omit the spatial audio metadata and use their lossless TrueHD/DTS-HD cores if there are no spatial audio speakers connected to your receiver.
beauchette
I wouldn't be so violent about it ^^, it's his prerogative as a director, whether we like it or not. I don't like this movie in its entirety, that would be weird, I but I globally really liked watching it.
Grumptious
I get really frustrated with pretentious arrogance. Sure, it's his prerogative to make movies how he wants, including the sound, but to show the movie enthusiast so much disdain by making dialog so hard to understand with normal hardware is frankly disgusting. He's allowed to make the movies he wants. I'm allowed to call him an egotistical prick.
RetrogradeLlama
He does for film what Spector did for music with his horrific "wall of sound".
mohavewolfpup
Curious how the wall of sound is bad?
LaughAtMemeInjectReason
When you cover a show/movie with music, you leave little emotional range for the actors to come through. In most media, music is there to augment and direct the emotional state of the plot. If your music is taking up 90% of the space, you're having it support 90% of the other content, effectively saying "this other content needed it", for one, and squashing down any sensory impact you could have on the viewer.
LaughAtMemeInjectReason
Example of bad soundtracking: Any of the recent CBS Star Treks. Literally *every scene* in Strange new worlds (up to mid-season 3--I couldn't tell you past that; I just gave up after the body swap episode) has this subtle, guiding soundtracking of some kind. It doesn't give you a moment to breathe, and the characters feel flat behind it as a result. The frickin' calliope music during that body swap episode didn't feel unnecessarily silly at all times and shoehorned in... no....
LaughAtMemeInjectReason
Example of good soundtracking: Brooklyn 99. Despite being a comedy, it has some real moments interlaced throughout the series. The soundtracking comes to a near-if-not-total hault for these real, honest moments and it just works 2000% better. You slip just briefly out of your smiles and fall gently into these "oh no what's actually wrong" moments inside of YOU, and not just inside your ears. The actors in B99 do what the music is supposed to, and provide that emotion for you.
astrangehop
Uh, I can't really but "If I fill up every available space with complexity, you can't tell it's not good" is a thing. It's kind of a goal where the end result is incalculable. A spahetti dinner is a Myriad of flavors with perfect texture, but so are doritos? But one is unsatisfying. I don't know how to explain. It's EASY to make things overwhelming, that doesn't mean that they are good.
LaughAtMemeInjectReason
"If everything's that spicy, none of it really is." -- You need the ebbs to make the flows pop.
Helixninja333
Bad audio design like this is like a porn that focuses on the plot. Your plot might be awesome and might work if it was mixed well, but that's not why were here.
JaceTiger
Depends on exactly how good the plot is.
I started playing Fate/Stay Night because it's an eroge. Then I got so into the plot and forgot it was a hentai game, then got surprised by the "kind of reaching" reasoning for having it in there in the first place.
valen00
Congrats, you have discovered the musical. AKA, we are here for this somewhat unusual thing. It's totally fine to like musicals btw. Just don't sell your musical as something it isn't.
Alsenoth
I am just now learning that it started out that way. Wow. I never got into the series much, but a friend showed me 5 or 6 episodes. Seemed cool, but seemed like a LOT to get into. Would never have guessed it started as an eroge.
JaceTiger
Oh, it spun off into its own thing and they dropped the hentai after the fate series really got a huge fan base. Btw Tsukihime is in the same universe as the original Fate games. Kept the fan service, though
Then they started branching off into other universes so they didn't have to worry about plot holes, lol
For example, you can watch Apocrypha or Grand Order animes and know nothing of Fate/Stay Night.
etherealAffairs
In the uncensored version there are...4(?) adult scenes so you could probably say the Witcher 3 is also an eroge but nobody ever does that since they're both 80+ hour games.
JaceTiger
There's like 9 scenes, I believe. It's like 2 in the Saber route, 3 in Rin's, and 3 in Sakura's, plus a bonus harem scene
etherealAffairs
Okay, I know there's less than 3 in ubw. Pretty sure there's 1 but it's not worth arguing about.
KnottedAndLocked
At least it wasn't Tenet.
bryanvangelder
Got so fed up with it i ripped and re-eq'dthe movie myself
FPAlpha
I don't mind complicated subjects in a movie like Inception or Interstellar.
Tenet was not one of these and to this day i don't understand the movie in full and have no desire to go watch it a second time. Even reading an online explanation didn't help.
So far the only Nolan failure in my book because he makes great movies in general, especially when he writes the story himself instead of adapting something ( which he also does very well, see the Batman movies and Oppenheimer)
ConsumerOfStories
*.teneT t'nsaw ti tsael tA
deetatron
*audio on
thean
He! I actually posted this three days before the comment I replied to.
InfocalypseRising
Was it that confusing? I've heard a lot of people say it's impossible to follow, but they're the same people who think Inception is really complicated which it kind of isn't
binaryhellstorm
It was confusing because you're watching a movie where you can't hear any of the dialogue due to a bad mix.
rhalm
It's pretty hard to follow when you can't hear the dialogue.
dirtcreature
If you u want to sit back and be led by the nose in an adventure movie, then tenet is not going to give you that. If you want to hear what the characters are saying, I'd recommend headphones.
linkdk59
I loved the film, saw it at home. Yes the dialogues are sometimes hidden behind the score in a couple moments. But I certainly followed the whole plot with no issue.
ThinkThisOut
Nope, just not a good movie
Kwyjor
It's astonishing to see so much time, money, and craft invested into something only for it to come out feeling utterly hollow.
Selfawerewolf
"hard to follow" and "hard to hear the dialogue" are very different arguments you're smashing together here. Also weird you're suggesting you know two different movie opinions from the same group of people. Did you ask them all or something?
InfocalypseRising
Some of us have these things called "friends" with whom we occasionally hold "conversations"
DirigibleOtter
One of Nolan's strengths as a filmmaker is making obtuse plots meticulously easy to follow without dumbing them down - amnesia in Memento, dream logic and parallel action in Inception, time travel in Tenet, different time rates in Inception and Dunkirk. One of his weaknesses is that he seems to have decided that 'audible dialogue' detracts from his purdy pikchurs.
servingmytimeinusersub
I liked tenet. I think he got the idea from "bearing an hourglass" by piers Anthony. It was about a man taking over the office of "time". He had to live backward through time to be able to control the outcome of things.
KnottedAndLocked
The audio mixing was terrible in Tenet.
rhalm
No no, it was the "artist's intention", so it was not flawed and absolutely perfect because it's how Nolan wanted you to experience it!
Yasashii93
Yeah, every time I hear people say they were confused by Inception I’m like “bruh…”
But Tenet was genuinely super convoluted. In order to fully follow it you’d have to pause frequently to stitch things together in your head.
vilikke
It wasn't convoluted, just extremely inconsistent and borderline stupid in its complete disregard of its own physics
JokenPo0079
Nolan is one of the main "I can't understand what anyone is saying, because it's just blaring music all the time" kinds of filmmakers
NM156
We went from shaky cam to shaky headphones!
RagnartheCat
Tenet was ridiculous in this regard.
MechKelly
They're making subtitles more and more necessary.
CrimsonLobo
The whole speech by Kenneth Branagh on the boat in Tenet... I haven't a fucking clue what he said. I assume it was supposed to be important.
cosonfused
Which makes J.J. Abrams his opposite with his "i can't see what's happening because everything is lenseflares" style.
BarnegatLight
If they mix it for theatres and you don't have the right speaker setup at home, then music/sound effects can overwhelm speech. I've changed my tv to force mono sound only. Yes, it's only mono sound, but it subdues the sound effects and lets me actually hear people speak.
apLundell
I used to believe that. But I can now tell you even with a full 7-speaker,2-sub audio setup that sounds amazing on all other modern films, Nolan films still have muddled dialog. He's been asked about it on interviews. He thinks it's "realistic" for dialog to be hard to hear.
BarnegatLight
Maybe someone should tell him to get his hearing checked, lol!
TI99Kitty
Cinemark IS a movie theater, and they're saying the sound is meant to be mixed to favor the BGM over the dialogue.
Even in theaters, you're not meant to hear/understand the dialogue.
OGBriGuy
Maybe this is why I've been going back to 80s/90s cinema so much over newer content.
You don't need subtitles turned on to understand every single word in anything from ALIENS to Days of Thunder, you can just hear the fkin dialogue.
jdoeimgur
Add Matthew Mcconaughey's mumbling, perfect combo
pandemicpolemic
I see people saying that about Inception but I don’t recall having an issue.
I’ve probably seen it 10+ times because ummm my brain chemicals lock on to certain movies (not necessarily great ones) to watch and rewatch and.. during times of stress and anxiety.
So maybe the noise in my brain canceled out the music and hearing the dialogue wasn’t a problem?
MrAcurite
> I’ve probably seen it 10+ times because ummm my brain chemicals lock on to certain movies
How do you feel about trains, foods with weird textures, and the extended lore of videogames and/or children's TV shows?
pandemicpolemic
You know what, none of those do it for me but it’d be nice if they did
technofiend
If we could somehow collect all of them along with the "I'll make every scene so dark you'll think your monitor is broken" director and eject them into the sun, I'd really appreciate it
Kennleth
I call it lazy cinematography, the scenes are dark so they can hide their mistakes better.
5WattBulb
This is a double edged sword though because we get other movies that are extremely well lit (so we can see whats going on) but casts an unrealistic view of the actual events. Like Titanic. The reality is the actual night would have been almost pitch black, but watching the movie we'd never understand how people couldnt see the ship breaking apart. But if it was filmed as realistic as possible, theres no movie because we wouldnt be able to see anything happening
BrickForAnOre
Never even thought of that, that must’ve made it so much more terrifying
frozenlake247
Probably even more than you’re thinking…
Imagine waking to grinding carried through metal of the ship.
Knowing thousands of people below decks trapped/locked in the dark as the waters rise. Being one of those trapped people trying to find light.
The panic and trampling in the dark.
People that weren’t trapped but could feel the cold water rising and couldn’t stay ahead of it in the dark cluttered passages.
People that made it to the deck only to realize there weren’t nearly enough boats.
frozenlake247
Feeling decks that should be absolutely level starting to tilt in the dark as the sound of shrieking metal begins to drown out the screaming people around you.
Hearing the shrieks & impacts of people falling and bones breaking.
Hearing snatches of conversation as desperate people make fatal/fateful decisions of all kinds.
The dim lanterns showing the few people that MIGHT survive as they disappear into darkness over the side.
People desperately diving over in hopes of making it onto a boat.
jakedafish
You can have dark lighting without it being so dark that you can’t see anything. They’ve done it for years until directors and corpos got lazy as shit.
JBloodthorn
And the ones who think Mexico is piss yellow.
jalondon628
Taylor Sheridan. Every fucking time.
haki23
That'd be a funny establishing shot, yellow Mexican street, heat coming off the road.
Voice says "Why do you wear those god damned things?"
Man takes off yellow-tinted sun glasses, glares at the speaker, and color becomes normal for the rest of the movie
ghostofGracchusBabeuf
At the same time the soundtrack, once as loud as the THX logo, goes down to something not so unpleasant because the same character takes off his headphones
FetteredJuvenescence
If they mixed it that way for theaters with their surround systems and it's just hard to parse the speech on crappy home systems without a center channel and surround speakers... that's kind of fine, for me. If they designed it so that it's hard to understand the speech even in the theaters? Like, wtf man?
FussyZeus
As someone who’s put a lot of time and money into a home theater audio system, it’s not even mixed for me anymore. Like the range is so wide between whispering talking and BLARING ORCHESTRA that I still end up using subtitles for most movies. It’s annoying as all hell
Like I get shitty tv speakers will never match an auditorium. Fine, fair enough. But a publicly distributed movie should sound good on a soundbar with a subwoofer at the bare fucking minimum.
nero4ty2
I’ve been using at least a 5.1 setup for almost 30 years, for at least the last decade my center has been on max to just try to hear anything, still need to adjust volume a dozen times during a movie, just rewatched the matrix recently, mix was great, didn’t have to change the volume at all
itsokimaussie
I've found that vlc can be tweaked extensively to help manage poorly mixed songs tracks. I watch all my media using vlc on my media pc.
GimcrackGewgaw
What tweaks are you using? I have been pondering a 5.1 setup. What holds me back is knowing I still won't be able to understand anything the characters say after spending the money...
ForlornHopeful
I have zero patience for trying to compensate for crappy sound mixing and tend to just not watch. I consume media primarily for entertainment, not the artistic merits
AtmaDarkwolf
Old vs New Logitic 5.1 system, both are basically identical, one just the newer version of the old. Both work fine but wanted upgrade (which sadly was not) - tested both but new one is obnoxious with the 'music and effects drown out ALL dialog' even with extensive VLC filters and dialog clarity boosts. It isn't JUST the audio file that is the problem, but new speaker systems specifically designed to augment this trait. And I STILL cannot figure out why they do it.
OGBriGuy
I have an aging Sony STR-DG1000 (110w x 7ch @ 8ohm) in a mid-size media room and the center channel lives at +3.5db, with surrounds at ~+6db. Meanwhile, the subwoofers are -2.5db. I've found this to be the best for my space, as everything feels balanced while still audible (even interstellar).
I have a much newer setup in my living room and no amount of tweaking can produce anything close to what my dinosaur of a Sony can, in terms of center channel clarity and overall balance.
AtmaDarkwolf
Ya. Old system was similar (except i had to reduce db level of rear and sub cuz they were a little heavy, so like -5db on sub, -3-ish on rears) and I never have issues with voices and such. switch to the new z906 setup is abysmal compared. I actually needed to get an external sound card that had specific voice clarity option FOR the z906 to hear some stuff. even old tv series have the music and 'action' hyper loud and the voices are repressed. Swap speakers and test, no issues. Really annoying.