Beware Your Expectations

A friend and I have both seen the Karate Kid movie remake with Jackie Chan in it. We saw it at different times and not together. We had different expectations going into the movie, which greatly affected our opinions of it.

My friend watched it with friends and family. He expected it to be a simple retelling of a classic story with some interesting new twists thrown in. That is what he saw. He laughed. He cried. He felt proud. All in all, a good time was had.

I watched the movie with a friend who expected it to be terrible. I hoped it would be good, but was trepidatious. I was looking at the movie with a critical eye, and the more issues I took with it, the more I found the movie to be silly, stupid, or downright awful.

In discussing this movie with my friend, we were both surprised to find the opinions of the other. For as much as we think the same and have similar tastes, this is a significant divergence. And the one thing we can seem to find is that we walked into the movies with very different expectations, which made us treat the movie differently, and ultimately shaped our opinions for it.

So, beware of your expectations. Whatever you go in expecting, you will almost surely find.