Bunuel wrote:
Film critic: As film studies show, the mythological films made these days focus excessively on superficial aspects such as dramatic sets visually enhanced by computer graphics. Since such aids were not used twenty years back when film directors did not indulge in any such gimmickry and concentrated solely on narrating the story through bare minimum props, it shows that the current directors seem to think that they can fool people by packaging their low-content films with visually fantastic elements.
Which of the following will be most useful in evaluating the claim made by the critic above?
A. Is there any difference between the demographics of the audience twenty years back and now?
B. Has the amount of money invested in film-production changed over the past twenty years?
C. Does international audience now form a significantly higher proportion of the audience for mythological films than it did twenty years back?
D. When compared to film directors twenty years back, do the current breed of directors have a wider access to international sci-fi films that contain heavy use of computer graphics?
E. Did film directors twenty years back have comparable access to computer graphics as do the current breed of film directors?
The critic is basically saying that modern-day mythological films are all about style over substance. They use fancy computer graphics to make things look cool, but the story itself is weak sauce. This is in contrast to films made 20 years ago, which relied on good old-fashioned storytelling to engage the audience.
To evaluate the critic's claim, we need to ask whether the playing field is level. One way to do this is to ask whether filmmakers from 20 years ago had access to the same fancy computer graphics that filmmakers today do. If they didn't, then it's not really fair to compare the two.
So, answer
choice E is the most useful in evaluating the claim because it asks whether the filmmakers from 20 years ago had access to the same technology as today's filmmakers. If they did have access to the same tools, then the critic's claim is weakened. If they didn't, then the critic's claim is stronger.