The Movie Thread

[TrippyHippy]

I don't know why you are getting so defensive here Trippy. You may be reading what I am saying, but I think you are being far from charitable in your reading of my words.

That's because I think you're being a bit disingenuous. Nobody is forcing you to engage with me in debate here. I'm just expressing my view, having seen a movie and seen the online negative reviews that emerged about a day or so later.

You haven't seen the movie, as you keep saying, but are immediately attributing my comments as attempting to influence you - "toxic" as you say - which is not the case. You can watch the movie and make up your own mind, but to go around seeking to engage with people about this subject matter and expressing your own counter views, you are largely just setting out your own stall for how you will find the movie when you see it. That's nobody else's fault. If you want to shut off all influences, don't engage. Till then, the best response is to say 'I've not seen it yet so I can't comment' rather than pontificate. If you end up watching the movie, and come out saying good or bad comments, I will judge you accordingly on your analysis by those comments alone.

And that is all I'm doing when I say that some of the reviews I have read online are offensively bad: illogical, unaware, foul mouthed, racist, misogynist, self-entitled and bigoted. I make no apologies for pointing that out, because they make no apologies for making those videos in the first place.

[TrippyHippy]

My dislike of the movie has nothing to do with politics and nothing to do with rejecting anything new. If the latter were true, we all would have rejected ESB because it had AT-ATS and Yoda. Rather, my dislike of the movie is based on two questions: Was it a good movie, and Was it a good Star Wars movie? On Rotten Tomatoes, the audience rating for TLJ is lower than The Phantom Menace. That may change as time goes on, but when you are hated more than Jar Jar there's probably a better reason than "the fans can't handle anything new."

As for politics, I agree with both sides. It's great to see female characters that matter for a change. On the other hand, it's a travesty that the male characters are Tools and Fools, or denied their agency as heroes.

And also on Rotten Tomatoes the professional critics are rating the movie with a 92% thumbs up. If you read the actual audience ratings you will see that many of the individual ratings are extreme - giving 1/2 stars vs 5 stars sort of thing. The result is a middling score in the 50s.

With regards to the politicised reviews, I'm not accusing you of having them, but they are there on some videos and some of them are truly disgusting the way they have tried to make that an agenda.

The reaction to change? Well, it is worth reminding that Empire Strikes back is 35+ years old now, so if people haven't now had a chance to adjust to it's revelations by now then they really do have issues - but it is actually a matter of historical record that some critics did slate ESB when it came out for things like the awkward romance between Han and Leia, the petulance of Luke Skywalker, the fact that Yoda was an annoying small green alien who looked nothing like what a 'great warrior' should look like, or the stupidity of the characters getting caught by Boba Fett or Darth Vader respectively, or Han getting frozen, Luke getting his hand cut off and finding out Vader was his father and the general downbeat of much of the movie. Since then, and after the final instalment of Return of the Jedi concluded the full arc, fans have come to appreciate it.

Was it a good movie/bad movie? Time will tell, and people can be their own judges, but it won't be fully settled till the full story is known in any case. In 35+ years from now, I'm willing to bet people will a lot more forgiving than certain fans are now in the heat of anger.

[Ratman_tf]

I can read what you are saying though - and this is precisely what you are doing. You are engaging in online chatter about a movie, expressing your thoughts about it, and then telling everybody that you won't allow anyone to influence your viewing of it. It's inevitable, bluntly.

With regards to the criticism of the movie, like I say I do differentiate between criticisms that highlight actual flaws and those which just amount an emotional inability to process anything new or unexpected. That was my point, in a nutshell.

And it's not just people who are liking the movie who are giving it a political subtext. The most angry criticism of this movie is coming from the Alt.Right, arguing it's been taken over by SJWs and feminists, and overrun with 'Asian bitches' and that 'Purple Haired cunt' who are making the male characters look like 'complete dicks'.

No, I'm not exaggerating.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/star-wars-last-jedi-backlash-alt-right-female-characters-1201910095/

You want to see politics in your movie reviews? There it is.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2017/12/20/rotten-tomatoes-confirms-its-55-last-jedi-audience-score-is-100-authentic/#4799c3c14231

Considering the scores of Bright and The Orville as well, I think there's a much simpler explanation. Professional critics are shit at their jobs.

[TrippyHippy]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2017/12/20/rotten-tomatoes-confirms-its-55-last-jedi-audience-score-is-100-authentic/#4799c3c14231

Considering the scores of Bright and The Orville as well, I think there's a much simpler explanation. Professional critics are shit at their jobs.

Until you agree with them, right? So if these same critics rated a movie you like highly thats fine, but of you disagree with them then they are shit (or at least 92% of them)? You take each critic as they come, but for all of them to be wrong? Nah - it's a bad explanation.

Anyway, in that article they don't offer any theory for the disparity between the ratings, but just clicking through the audience reviews it is obvious. Lots of people are voting to the extremes - as pointed out previously. The mean average, as a consequence ends up in the mid 50s.

[Ratman_tf]

Until you agree with them, right?

Me personally? Man, I hope not. I like that there are critics out there who don't like what I like. Differences make the world go round, and a critic may know more about Welsh documentaries (to pull an example out of my ass) than I do.

So if these same critics rated a movie you like highly thats fine, but of you disagree with them then they are shit (or at least 92% of them)? You take each critic as they come, but for all of them to be wrong? Nah - it's a bad explanation.

What struck me is the amount of the disparity for TLJ.



That gap is frikkin huge. It makes me consider the idea that movie critics nowadays are really out of touch with the audience.

[TrippyHippy]

Me personally? Man, I hope not. I like that there are critics out there who don't like what I like. Differences make the world go round, and a critic may know more about Welsh documentaries (to pull an example out of my ass) than I do.



What struck me is the amount of the disparity for TLJ.



That gap is frikkin huge. It makes me consider the idea that movie critics nowadays are really out of touch with the audience.

When the original trilogy came out, Rotten Tomatoes didn't exist. All those ratings are done 20 years + after the movies had long since entered into the romanticised memories of fans.

And in any case, again, the audience score for The Last Jedi is due to the extremes in which the ratings are being placed by the voters. It's difficult to get a high score when you have people going on and giving the movie a half point rating (the lowest possible), but it is equally balanced out by fans putting at a 5 (the max) - so the disparity is with some fans but not all. The Phantom Menace may be slightly higher overall, but most of the ratings are generally in the mediocre 50 something mark (including the professional critics). There was a greater consensus that the movie was mediocre, whereas The Last Jedi is getting more extreme emotions (in both directions).

You'll also note that these are generally the same professional critics for Rogue One and The Force Awakens, so when you are claiming they are shit at their jobs, it should be noted that they are being more consistent than the audience scores in the way they rate the films.

[Bedrockbrendan]

I am a bit wary of sites like Rotten Tomatoes, at least this early out of the gate, because people can spam reviews on them. At the same time, when a book or movie gets bad reviews, it is now becoming a PR move to turn that into some kind of angry fan thing (which isn't always). What I will say is I do think there is a big gap between what audiences consider to be a good movie and what critics often consider a good movie to be. The wider that gap gets, the less they are even speaking the same language about media. I do think that is an issue, but it is way bigger than one Star Wars movie.

[Bedrockbrendan]

That's because I think you're being a bit disingenuous. Nobody is forcing you to engage with me in debate here. I'm just expressing my view, having seen a movie and seen the online negative reviews that emerged about a day or so later.

You haven't seen the movie, as you keep saying, but are immediately attributing my comments as attempting to influence you - "toxic" as you say - which is not the case. You can watch the movie and make up your own mind, but to go around seeking to engage with people about this subject matter and expressing your own counter views, you are largely just setting out your own stall for how you will find the movie when you see it. That's nobody else's fault. If you want to shut off all influences, don't engage. Till then, the best response is to say 'I've not seen it yet so I can't comment' rather than pontificate. If you end up watching the movie, and come out saying good or bad comments, I will judge you accordingly on your analysis by those comments alone.

And that is all I'm doing when I say that some of the reviews I have read online are offensively bad: illogical, unaware, foul mouthed, racist, misogynist, self-entitled and bigoted. I make no apologies for pointing that out, because they make no apologies for making those videos in the first place.

I don't know why you think I am being disingenuous Trippy. I've been as honest as I can and I've been trying to be consistent here as well. I am just saying how I feel about the discussion surrounding the movie.

[TrippyHippy]

I don't know why you think I am being disingenuous Trippy. I've been as honest as I can and I've been trying to be consistent here as well. I am just saying how I feel about the discussion surrounding the movie.

Well, can we just leave it at this until you see the movie, then we can debate without concerns over spoilers and the like.

[Voros]

I am a bit wary of sites like Rotten Tomatoes, at least this early out of the gate, because people can spam reviews on them. At the same time, when a book or movie gets bad reviews, it is now becoming a PR move to turn that into some kind of angry fan thing (which isn't always). What I will say is I do think there is a big gap between what audiences consider to be a good movie and what critics often consider a good movie to be. The wider that gap gets, the less they are even speaking the same language about media. I do think that is an issue, but it is way bigger than one Star Wars movie.

Who pays attention to the audience ratings on RT? There's a reason the ratings on RT are taken more seriosuly than imdb for instance. I could care less what the lowest common denominator internet opinion on a film is. That's like using Youtube comments to arrive at an opinion.

And film critics have long recognized certain films as 'critic proof.' The terrible Transformer movies are a prime example. As a horror and genre fan one gets to know which critics are biased against genre films and those who aren't, if Kermode at the BBC or Turan at the LA Times give a horror film a good review it means something to me. But it is clear the internet 'backlash' against the new SW is in RL tiny in effect as the films are making more money than God.

[Ratman_tf]

And film critics have long recognized certain films as 'critic proof.' The terrible Transformer movies are a prime example.

[video=youtube;ObpcGNCU944]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObpcGNCU944[/youtube]

[TrippyHippy]

Rotten Tomatoes aren't the only movie polling site in any case:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2060[/ATTACH]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2527336/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt

[Ratman_tf]

Rotten Tomatoes aren't the only movie polling site in any case:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2060[/ATTACH]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2527336/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt

That's true.

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/star-wars-episode-viii---the-last-jedi

[TrippyHippy]

That's true.

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/star-wars-episode-viii---the-last-jedi

And even in the metacritic poll, you can see that the review writers are mostly polarised to the extremes. The big notable difference to the IMDB ratings though is numbers. The metacritic has attracted just under 5000 voters and reviews overall, whereas the IMDB has had 211,197 recorded votes. There is a sense of angry posters being more vocal and likely to write angry reviews than those that are just casually content with it. IMDB is a bigger, more well known site and so I'd suspect a lot of their more positive votes are just casual clicking on the rating icon without leaving any comments. A silent majority, if you will.

Same thing with things like youtube. If there are a few thousand youtube bloggers ranting about why they hated a movie, they can make a lot of noise. It doesn't mean they represent the majority of the overall audience though.

[Headless]

Rotten tomatoes is a more useful site.  It has 2 numbers, the thing to realize is they measure different things.  Exactly what those things are I couldn't say.  

As for then last Jedi.  Having seen it I would say that the audience score is getting drug down by something, and the critic score is inflated.  

Which is to say the levels of what ever the audience score measures is higher in that movie than the score would indicate.  And the level of what ever the critic score measures, which is different from the audience score, is lower than the score would indicate.  Something is confounding the indicators, possibly the same thing for both scores.  If I had to guess I would say it's selfawareness.  Or its own mass, the franchise is to heavy to get accurate readings.