Changing tastes

I've been reading about this movie for eons and finally was in the right mood to sit and watch it...like my experiences with other notorious "mega-flops" from the same general era ("Meteor" "At Long Last Love") I find it hard to believe how much vitriol was spewed over this film which seems to me at the worst to be dated, trite, overlong and fairly unmemorable...but I'm wondering why all the hate?

Is it because times and tastes have changed that it seems less repellent now? Is it because at the time it was released it cost so much and expectations were too high? Is it that if you watched it at the time of its release the things it was trying to steal from other, better musical movies was more obvious?

Roger Ebert was rankled that there were no memorable tunes...umm...I'm considering drinking a pint of Vodka to try and get those "world is a circle" and "living together" and "things I won't miss" songs out of my head...no, they're not "musical theater"-type songs but that's why I liked them, actually.

Is it that this movie didn't meet the expectations of the crowd it was marketed to? I've been reading that lots of people my age saw it when they were kids and, naturally, had no preconceptions against it (and were a less sophisticated audience of course) and remember it well.

And as to the charges of racism...did nobody notice there was a whole cast of Asian kids employed in the dance chorus without any fanfare? It was so unremarkable I didn't even think about it until I started reading about the racism (which is certainly in the movie but more a symptom of Hollywoodism and the times than a direct insult...the movie is a fantasy and no more time is given to the "culture" behind Shangri-La than is given to storm troopers in the original Star Wars).

This movie is overlong, it's dumb, poorly conceived and full of ideas that are riddled with dust and mold (and maybe even offensive today) but the same could be said for a lot of films that are considered classics("Breakfast At Tiffany's" comes to mind). At the least I'd watch it 15 times in a row before I'd submit to another viewing of "Mama Mia," "Nine" or "Moulin Rouge" or the like. It's possible I went into the thing ready to defend an underdog, but that didn't make me like "Mame" or some other notorious "bad" movies; it wasn't a chore to sit through at all, fairly entertaining really.

Curious to hear if anyone has an interesting perspective on why a film so lambasted once again turns out to be not nearly as terrible as it was promoted to be...