It's not arbitrary.
Yes, the film tells you lots of stuff about a character through many clues: visual, spoken, etc. The point of the test is then can the audience take those clues, and then interpret them to somebody ignorant of the source.
Which seems like a highly arbitrary means of assessing the quality of the film in question. Can you, of the top of your head, jumble together a word-salad of attributes for each major character in the story? No? Then it's obviously a bad film, QED.
That's just a little bit too black-and-white for my tastes.
If the person performing the test just describes the visual information - then you're just repeating the movie.
Let me put it this way: If an interpreter is taking a sentence in one language, then translating it into a different language, it's kind of missing the point for you to go, "Well why don't they just repeat the sentence in the original language?"
Where did I say that one was to
only describe visual information? I explicitly criticized the "Plinkett" test in my previous post for relying solely on spoken description in defiance of the fact that cinema is a mixed medium.
I'm a highly literal robot and even I think you're reaching new heights of autism here. You do know what a "test" means, correct? And that tests aren't typically the end goal, but a process applied?
As stated previously, the process is flawed, although that is probably rather secondary to the apparent end goal of creating a misleadingly negative impression of the Prequels' level of characterization vs. the Original Trilogy.
I doubt those were real hookers too.
I don't think he got a cat pregnant, either, but neither of those incidents occurred onscreen, and in such a way as to give the impression to the casual viewer that what he was seeing could plausibly be real rather than an acted-out scene from Mike's script.
The "Plinkett Test" doesn't forbid the use of occupation or appearance since it's supposedly irrelevant to the character, part of the reason is to see if the character can be distiguished by only his personality without referencing his visual appearance or profession. This is also why references to concrete actions are to be avoided.
You mean it
does, don't you? The screencap that
@Flexo posted was pretty explicit about that.
When I tell you "This character is a bit naive and a dreamer. This character wants to be part of something bigger and wants to be a hero that does the right thing. This character has to face many threats and slowly becomes a much wiser and mighty person." You will know I am not talking about Han Solo. You will know I am not talking about Leia.
Similarly: "This character is a bit of a smarmy person with rogueish charm, who's out for him/herself, only wants to make some money with an easy job and then leave, but is dragged into the fray and eventually chooses the side of the heroes" you know who I am talking about, too, and I only described their actions in the broadest terms possible and did not hint at their occupation at all.
I know that you're talking about Luke and Han, respectively, because this discussion is implicitly-to-explicitly concerned with
Star Wars. However, the naive, dreamy hero and the selfish rogue with a heart of gold are pretty widely-distributed archetypes in fiction and as such not hugely useful in describing specific characters without additional detail or context.
I do not need to explain who these people are by telling you one is a dirtfarmer and the other is a pilot, cause it's not part of their personality. The fact that you can make educated guesses about their personality based on their profession is irrelevant, since it's just guesswork and could be completely off, if that character goes against the grain of his occupation.
Point in case: "The person is a Stormtrooper."
Wow. Much detail such description.
By the same token, there's no real need to omit the character's occupation. It's not going to add or detract anything if you say "this character is a soldier who (blah-blah-blah)."
You can go into great detail about the personality of Han Solo, Luke, Leia, Obi Wan in the OT. You can't really say the same about the PT characters, cause they are poorly written and very subdued. For instance, what kind of personality does Amidala have, aside being into kiddy diddling? Qui Gonn and PT Obi-Wan are pretty underwhelming too. Seems to me, their personalities can be summed up with single word descriptions ("calm" and "rookie" respectively) cause they are so basic and boring and have nothing much else to offer.
A dishonest reviewer could as easily boil Luke ("eager"), Han ("roguish") and Leia ("spunky") down to a singular character tic and it would be just as fair and valid an assessment.
Let's try the reverse instead.
Character 1: This character is wise and experienced. He evinces maturity and compassion, understanding that life is often too complicated to write into a set of neat rules, which puts him at odds with his ostensible allies and holds him back from achieving more influence and power, but he does not value such things. Instead, this maverick marches to the tune of his own drummer, and goes out of his way to help the down-trodden and weak, although he's not above a little trickery if he believes that the cause is sufficiently important. Strong and brave, yet supportive and trusting, he radiates an idealized paternal authority to the younger characters who journey with him, and his premature death will have earth-shaking consequences for the entire world.
Character 2: This character is teetering on the verge of maturity, but is held back by his doubts and fears. Despite possessing great physical courage, to the point of being almost completely fearless, he finds the prospect of thinking for himself extremely intimidating, and when faced with a problem usually reverts to parroting authority figures rather than trying to apply his knowledge and experience contextually to the situation at hand. Despite this somewhat robotic approach to life, he's neither stupid nor dull, but instead delights in an impish sense of humor, and often shrugs off trouble with a wry grin and a sarcastic quip, but his by-the-book attitude and a tendency to try and dispassionately prioritize things leaves him vulnerable to coming off as stern and unsympathetic. This inability to "think outside the box," and stop trying to judge an unpredictable, complicated universe through the medium of a simplistic, received formula will eventually and inevitably shape him into the unwitting catalyst for a vast tragedy.
Character 3: This character is isolated and sad. She possesses great warmth, kindness and compassion for others, both those she feels responsibility for and also complete strangers, but the duties that she upholds and the stresses that she therefore endures constrain her freedom to act according to her instincts and force her to mask her true nature behind an elaborate dance of deception. Consequently, she has become skeptical and cunning, concocting ruses to allow her to move freely and observe without being observed. Growing more and more dissatisfied with her inability to act for the greater good through her public persona, she eventually drops the act altogether and rallies allies to her side through her personal courage and humility, resulting in a great victory for her cause. Unbeknownst to her, however, her sincerity, earnestness and purity of intent ironically serve to enable a far greater evil than the one that she stood up to oppose in the first place.