Are review sites like RT ruining movies ?

Wedwood

Before the age of the internet, movie critics reviewed movies, usually in newspapers which you may or may not read and that was about it. You went to the movie and you made your own mind up whether or not you liked the movie without any other influence on you.

Nowadays, every movie gets a 'score' or 'rating, like those on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, which predispose the audience to liking or disliking a movie before they see it.

The Last Jedi is maybe the prime example of the inadequacy of these online review sites, where it appears a momentum was generated against the movie, despite almost universally good critical reviews.

With a few notable exceptions, there's really no such thing as a good movie or a bad one, just movies you personally like or dislike.

However, these online sites don't just let people give their opinions, they exert peer pressure to either dislike or like particular movies.

In the case of The last Jedi, its easier to say you dislike the movie, whereas if you say you like it, you're somehow pegged as offside with the accepted view and fair game by those who disliked the movie. I'd even go as far as saying it sometimes borders on bullying.

If I would like to launch a campaign, it would be to scrap/boycott those online review sites, the Mr Plinkett type videos and those '10 things wrong with' articles, so modern kids (and adults for that matter) don't have all this noise going on around them and let them just go and see the movie without having being told how they should react to it.

judeboy101

Anyone who doesn't like LoA shouldn't be allowed the pleasure of watching movies in the first place.

TheIrishGrover

I like reviews of films..... by decent, professional reviewers. I would never pay any attention to "reviews" on sites like Rotten Tomatoes. Agrigating their scores based on flavour-of-the-month inane and semi-articulate "influencers"? No thanks.

However I don't think movies are being ruined by sites like these: People have been predicting the dumbing-down of movies for decades. Sure, currently the summer blockbuster trend is currently for Superheroes but there are also smaller films that are getting a larger audience these days. Look at the buzz Three Billboards is getting. A few years ago that would be lucky to make it into our major screens at all.

Arghus

No. Bad movies have only themselves to blame.

Wedwood

Wedwood wrote: »

The Last Jedi is maybe the prime example of the inadequacy of these online review sites, where it appears a momentum was generated against the movie, despite almost universally good critical reviews.

I don't see your point - the movie got good reviews and it is reflected in a high score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Any percieved negative momentum would have existed in spite of good reviews whether they were online or in the Galway Advertiser.

Sad Professor

Online backlashes and pushbacks are often a reaction to positive/negative reviews in the mainstream (from critics and audiences). See Star Trek into Darkness and Batman v Superman. I don't even think it's about the movie most of the time. It's just about online sub-cultures (hardcore Trekkies, 4chan, etc) battling to control the narrative. In the past they wouldn't have had a chance but these days they can infiltrate the mainstream quite easily. Social media has become a trojan horse for a lot of this stuff.

buried

There still are good films being made but the greasy greedy money angle is ruining mainstream movies. No one willing to risk investing or backing anything original or forward pushing from the big studios. "What made money last year? What looks like the best selling video-game? What does the audience want?" Rinse - Repeat - Rubbish. Film making is an art. Art isn't supposed to be about what the audience 'wants', it's supposed to be what the audience 'needs'.

Greyfox

Wedwood wrote: »

With a few notable exceptions, there's really no such thing as a good movie or a bad one, just movies you personally like or dislike.

Absolute nonsense, the majority of the IMDB top 250 can be viewed as generally v good or excellent films that are worth a try while films getting 6/10 you can generally accept are rubbish. I don't have time to watch every film so I like having a convenient way of separating the quality and the rubbish so I always check IMDB and metacritic before watching a film.

Greyfox

Greyfox wrote: »

Absolute nonsense, the majority of the IMDB top 250 can be viewed as generally v good or excellent films that are worth a try while films getting 6/10 you can generally accept are rubbish. I don't have time to watch every film so I like having a convenient way of separating the quality and the rubbish so I always check IMDB and metacritic before watching a film.

There are 100's of outstanding films rated in the 6's on imdb especially ones from the 80's and early 90's. Just take Sydney Lumet alone who is a masterful director Q&A gets a 6.5, Family Business and Power are in the 5's. The Anderson Tapes 6.4.

For Imdb im more skeptical of the very high scores on modern films then seeing a film in the 6's or even mid 5's.

Slydice

Recently I've seen Rotten Tomatoe scores from Reviewers not stack up with fan scores on some superhero and scifi films/tv.

I saw an argument that said fans who like the film/series will be more likely to go on and watch it... and you know.. give it a good score.

So.. slowly getting to the place where it feels like some Reviewers are very non-Specific to a type of show and reviewing it from a wider audience point of view.

Now that's not a bad thing. You don't want people wasting their time with stuff they are not bothered about and will be disappointed by.

BUT.. it's missing the ability to tell specific fans stuff like: hey, you know what... you'll probably like this.

It's probably not just superhero and scifi... there's probably horror, romance, drama, feels etc type films suffering the same.

Maybe the sites could improve by including a break down of the reviews something like:
General: 23%
SciFi: 85%
Romance: 69%
Drama: 10%
Feels: 55%

Greyfox

Slydice wrote: »

BUT.. it's missing the ability to tell specific fans stuff like: hey, you know what... you'll probably like this.

The system is a very good at a glance guideline, and if someone wants more accuracy then can just read the user or critic reviews. Also the majority of 1/10 scores are given by gob*****s

david75

These sites only really came to wider notice when fan backlash against BvS and other DC releases and later, TLJ saw die hard fans who were butt hurt actively and in numbers coordinated giving them bad reviews.

Does anyone really use a site like RT to tell them how to think before theyve even seen a film? When the method is so easily manipulated and messed with and even before that started happening , when the critics score and the audience scores were always so vastly different, who do you believe?

Best off sticking to critics that you trust and have an established record, if you’re going to trust anything.

Aggregate sites are utterly flawed and suit the nonosecond long attention span of the sheeple that need to be told what to think and are incapable of thinking for themselves.

brianregan09

No only if you let it, Go in and watch something and make your own mind up don't be a sheep its pretty simple

ixoy

However, if you've got limited time and finances it can help - it's difficult to see all the films so you need to be selective. It can be a useful indicator if you it's worth seeing a movie you're ambivalent about. You get links to the reviews normally too so you can interpret yourself too by reading a sample from a cross section of sources as sometimes it's difficult to understand RT's understanding of "rotten".

dr.fuzzenstein

I think IMDb is the biggest culprit.
Just read the fan reviews of TLJ and it is baffling to see pages upon pages of 1 star reviews with the hatred literally jumping off the screen at you.
In my own very humble opinion, all 1 star reviews should he scrutinized and if they contain phrases like "suck" and "worst piece of sh*t ever", they should be canned.
It is definitely true that a lot of Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

geraardo

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I think IMDb is the biggest culprit.
Just read the fan reviews of TLJ and it is baffling to see pages upon pages of 1 star reviews with the hatred literally jumping off the screen at you.
In my own very humble opinion, all 1 star reviews should he scrutinized and if they contain phrases like "suck" and "worst piece of sh*t ever", they should be canned.
It is definitely true that a lot of Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

IMDB used to be much worse than it is now, thank god they got rid of their message boards that place was toxic, the amount of hate not just towards films but too each other was beyond belief.

I personally don't look at reviews anymore, people should make their own minds up about what they choose to see imo, not let someone else with an opinion decide for them.

If i like the director or an actor of a film or if its a genre i like that is due out i will watch it.

RocketRaccoon

Why can't people just take a movie and watch it and form their own opinion? I am fed up of people refusing to watch a movie and then slating it because of the words of some nobody on a movie review website.

geraardo

Looks like the IMDB message boards aren't dead after all , this from a thread on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/5v1hsb/the_imdb_message_boards_are_officially_dead_are/

Seems a site called http://www.moviechat.org/ saved them.

tigger123

Think I read somewhere that there was a campaign by certain neckbeard morons to purposefully downvote Citizen Kane, Shawshank etc in order to raise The Dark Knight in the top ten.

In theory, the ratings on RT and IMDB would be great if they were honestly used, but they're too open to being dishonestly used.

Everyone has an opinion on everything these days.

dr.fuzzenstein

It is the same reason that democracy doesn't work, the majority of people are morons.
Give them any power on decisions and watch them fcuk it up.
Not that anything changes in the real world, it's just another example for me that humans are dumb. Donald Trump is proof of that.

dr.fuzzenstein

geraardo wrote: »

Looks like the IMDB message boards aren't dead after all , this from a thread on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/5v1hsb/the_imdb_message_boards_are_officially_dead_are/

Seems a site called http://www.moviechat.org/ saved them.

Oh God, I looked at moviechat.
Yes, it's all there, the hatred, the trolling, the utter moronic stupidity, it is the dregs of the internet.
I need to take a shower now...

S.M.B.

I'm forever surprised that people don't even understand exactly what a rotten tomatoes score actually is.

I think it's great and find it a great tool along with letterboxd.

I pay no attention to imdb scores.

briany

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I think IMDb is the biggest culprit.
Just read the fan reviews of TLJ and it is baffling to see pages upon pages of 1 star reviews with the hatred literally jumping off the screen at you.
In my own very humble opinion, all 1 star reviews should he scrutinized and if they contain phrases like "suck" and "worst piece of sh*t ever", they should be canned.
It is definitely true that a lot of Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

If you're talking about the entire history of TV and Film, I find IMDB to be excellent as a general indicator of quality. It's only on the newer releases where you get a lot of hyperbole, hysteria and apparent politicisation of the score. I think any reasonably intelligent person can filter out that noise, though.

I still find online review sites to be leagues better than one guy's opinion in your local paper, or what the trailer/back of the sleeve says.

dr.fuzzenstein

Good point briany, but just as you said, the newer releases are plagued by a lot of noise and the problem is that the signal to noise ratio is worsening the entire time.
Soon enough all new movies that are even the least bit popular will only be reviewed by 13 or 43 year old virgins and there will be nothing left but trolls and morons. So any normal or rational discussion or review of the new Star Wars or Marvel film will become completely impossible.
I could imagine that in the future the internet will be like radio, newspapers and TV in the 80's and 90's where content was strictly controlled and only qualified, properly educated people were allowed to contribute. There will be maybe one or the other small comments section, but it would have to be pre-approved content.
I believe that the freedom of the internet has brought out the worst in people, it's just inherent. People, under that nice exterior, are mean, horrible, hateful and vile.

donegal_man

IMDB for me is a research tool if I want to find out some details about a movie I vaguely remember from my long lost youth. RT on the other hand has a handful of both professional critics and genre fans who i find provide a reliable enough guide to what I'm likely to enjoy.

Wailin

Don't see what the problem is with the likes of IMDB to be honest. I always check out a films rating before wasting a wad of cash going to the cinema to watch some drivel like Justice League.

Pero_Bueno

Its a good point, I would also say fan forums and sites that discuss films like Star Wars or Star Trek - basically anything with a lot of backstory and lore - are negatively effecting new films in the related franchise.

These guys have thought of all the good theories, so the scriptwriters know this and of course can't use any - so all the good ideas are gone and they have to settle on something inferior just as it wasn't already discussed.

Smoke monster in Lost is a good example, some fantastic theories as to what that was - even some on here ! - what it ended up being though .... christ , I can't watch that show anymore.

pinkypinky

I don't pay any attention to IMDB scores and literally never look at Rotten Tomatoes. I do listen to Kermode & Mayo's podcast but I'm usually a couple of weeks behind.

I see a trailer or hear about a new film and decide for myself whether I'll see it. I'd hold off listening to Kermode's review until I saw a film most of the time.

murpho999

I only use IMDB for cast info, filmographies etc to settle arguments and never look at their movie ratings.

Rotten Tomatoes though I find more accurate, if it's got low critic score there then I find that it's generally a bad film.

I have tested this against films I have seen in the past before the internet and find the reviews fairly close to how I feel about the film.

Too many people think though that RT is a score than an actual percentage of good reviews.

mewso

Wedwood wrote: »

In the case of The last Jedi, its easier to say you dislike the movie, whereas if you say you like it, you're somehow pegged as offside with the accepted view and fair game by those who disliked the movie. I'd even go as far as saying it sometimes borders on bullying.

If I would like to launch a campaign, it would be to scrap/boycott those online review sites, the Mr Plinkett type videos and those '10 things wrong with' articles, so modern kids (and adults for that matter) don't have all this noise going on around them and let them just go and see the movie without having being told how they should react to it.

Interesting I seem to remember Star Trek fans being made fun of for having issues with Star Trek 2009 and I was very much under the impression that liking TLJ was the "accepted view". It works both ways is my point. What bearing any of that has on your thread I have no idea since opinions come after viewing.

Also does anyone watch 'Mr. Plinkett' type videos before watching movies? They are in depth analysis intended for viewing after not before watching. Hell Red Letter Media reviews in general are all spoiler reviews so not intended for viewing beforehand at all. Surely the same applies to "10 things wrong with", "Cinema Sins" and so on. They can't possibly work unless you have seen it. Not sure what the point is here at all.

Theboinkmaster

I find IMDB rating in general a good indicator, for example:

Original star wars trilogy:

Empire strikes back 8.8
A new hope 8.7
Return of the Jedi 8.3

Seems right to me, that's the order I'd put them in.

New films:

Force Awakens 8.0
Rogue one 7.8
Last Jedi 7.5

Seems OK to me, force awakens is a great film and probably graded higher than rogue one by new fans who don't realise it's a new hope re-boot. Personally I'd have Rogue One higher than it. But none are rated as high as original trilogy which I agree with.

Last jedi at 7.5 yup I'd agree with, even less to be honest, thought the film was complete muck.

Arghus

If you're a young male under the age of 25 then IMDB ratings will suit you down to the ground - anyone else can forget about it.

Wailin

Arghus wrote: »

If you're a young male under the age of 25 then IMDB ratings will suit you down to the ground - anyone else can forget about it.

Yeah? Show me a movie rated on imdb that you disagree with and what rating you'd give it.

Arghus

Wailin wrote: »

Yeah? Show me a movie rated on imdb that you disagree with and what rating you'd give it.

In the top ten top rated movies of all time alone on the site we've got The Dark Knight, The Return of The King and Fight Club. All good films but amongst the ten greatest of all time? I respectfully disagree.

Inception the fourteenth greatest movie ever? Nah. The Matrix at eighteen? Interstellar at thirty - that's laughable if you ask me.

IMDB ratings reflect the viewing preferences of those who rate films on the site and a lot of young fellas rate films on the site. There's a heavy bias towards stuff they love.

Wailin

Arghus wrote: »

In the top ten top rated movies of all time alone on the site we've got The Dark Knight, The Return of The King and Fight Club. All good films but amongst the ten greatest of all time? I respectfully disagree.

Inception the fourteenth greatest movie ever? Nah. The Matrix at eighteen? Interstellar at thirty - that's laughable if you ask me.

IMDB ratings reflect the viewing preferences of those who rate films on the site and a lot of young fellas rate films on the site. There's a heavy bias towards stuff they love.

I wouldn't bother my arse looking at the top 100. Sure what's the point? Classic older movies will hardly get a review because IMDB is relatively recent. In the last ten years I would probably agree with the critics score on imdb, I generally ignore the user score cos you'll always have fanboys for the superhero movies etc.

Sad Professor

I hate those terrible CinemaSins et al videos and the kind of smarmy, mean-spiriited and brain-dead criticism which they encourage. Pure junk. They claim it's all satire but if so they should probably tell their fans. And look up the meaning of satire.

Greyfox

Personally I find IMDB to be a lot more accurate than RT, the main thing is that you use some website or reviewer you trust, I think these days with everyone having the internet I reckon only idiots watch a film without checking at least 1 review

Greyfox

Greyfox wrote:

Personally I find IMDB to be a lot more accurate than RT, the main thing is that you use some website or reviewer you trust, I think these days with everyone having the internet I reckon only idiots watch a film without checking at least 1 review

If a film interests me I'll will try to go in as blind as possible, I won't read reviews of it or look at ratings. I think that basing what you watch on other peoples opinions is ridiculous. Plenty of great films have awful ratings while trash like Marvel get high rating.

Greyfox

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I think that basing what you watch on other peoples opinions is ridiculous. Plenty of great films have awful ratings while trash like Marvel get high rating.

I think it's the only way of making sure you don't get stuck watching garbage. with reviews what your really doing is getting opinions and deciding wheter or not you value that opinion or not and from the review only then can you get a with sense of if it's for you or not. you can usually tell if the user review if written by an idiot. In fairness Marvel have produced some top quality films in recent times incl guardians of the galaxy and Logan, they have a good understanding of what works particularly how the use humour.

Greyfox

Greyfox wrote:

I think it's the only way of making sure you don't get stuck watching garbage. with reviews what your really doing is getting opinions and deciding wheter or not you value that opinion or not and from the review only then can you get a with sense of if it's for you or not. you can usually tell if the user review if written by an idiot. In fairness Marvel have produced some top quality films in recent times incl guardians of the galaxy and Logan, they have a good understanding of what works particularly how the use humour.

I found Guardians to be meh and they had nothing to do with Logan. Now that Disney and Marvel has Logan after the Fox acquisition expect a return to kid friendly Wolverine. A trailer is the best indicator as to a film, plenty of great films get slates by critics and audience and some trash gets celebrated. I'd rather make up my own mind

briany

geraardo wrote: »

IMDB used to be much worse than it is now, thank god they got rid of their message boards that place was toxic, the amount of hate not just towards films but too each other was beyond belief.

Sure, if you only cared about new movies that were coming out. But, IMDB had a board for every single movie and TV show, virtually, in the history of either. And most of these boards were empty, but many more had normal people having reasonable discussions, because nobody's going on the Wings board or the Dr. Katz board to have a go. No-one's pushing their alt-right views on the Driving Miss Daisy board. They were medium-to-low traffic spaces that attracted no trolling or only the very odd one (in both senses of the word) and it's they that are the real loss. You can discuss the new stuff anywhere, but I'll be damned if I can find a decent active forum about Miracle Mile.

Greyfox

[Deleted User] wrote: »

A trailer is the best indicator as to a film

I don't know how anybody can think this as trailers can be misleading, it's very easy for a poor film to look good in a trailer for example a comedy where the only funny bits are in the trailer or a film that had a good initial plot which falls to pieces a half an hour in

david75

Stupidity like this. Same crap with The Last Jedi. Why even bother?

Group Of DC Fans Attempting to Sabotage 'Black Panther's Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score

http://comicbook.com/marvel/2018/02/01/black-panther-dc-fans-rotten-tomatoes-sabotage-campaign/

dr.fuzzenstein

Last night I watched Bram Stoker's Dracula on Netflix. It is one of my favourite movies.
One can certainly say it has an unforgettable style, a great cast (despite dodgy accents from Keanu and Winona ), stunning visuals and anyone not moved by Gary Oldman's performance should check their pulse.
Of course not everyone will like it, but what grinds my gears is the fact that the positive reviewers will alway try to portray a balanced view of a movie and highlighting it's good and bad points, giving scores between 7 and 9 and sometimes 10 for the movie.
The negative reviewers have no such interests. All they want to do is piss on it. So you get pages and pages of ranting, foam at the mouth 1 star reviews. And they are all solid 1 star. None of them will try to find anything positive, they wouldn't give it 3-5 points for the good points, it's pretty much 1 star solid. And (as illustrated by the above post) it seems that there are armies of trolls, morons and halfwits out there whose goal is to find movies and bring them down. I am just appalled by the sheer nastiness of it all. This to me proves once again that the internet has brought out all the worst in humanity with wall to wall spamming, trolling and a tidal wave of bot-comments to derail any open debate.
Sadly this does have the effect that the score of a movie invariably suffers. It also has the effect (as seen in the demise of IMDB's discussion boards) that having any kind of open forum will be completely impossible in the future, because I'm pretty sure that any such platform will become completely unusable due to mountains of spam and hate flooding it until it is shut down.

I will leave you with this gem of a review by an utter troll and moron called nico_jones
Need I even say it's a 1 star review...

I must be missing something here, as this is easily one of the most shockingly terrible, tear-my-eyes-out-so-I-don't-have-to-see-it, train wreck mess of an excuse for a film that I have ever had the severe misfortune to bear witness to. I am sitting here in my living room literally unable to come to terms with how execrable this 'film'was.

How anyone can think this is good is quite beyond me. A few points: -The look of the film is not 'grandiose' or 'lush', it is crap. The effects are crap, the sets are crap. It's just a royal glut of crapness from start to finish.

-Every cast member excerpt Gary Oldman turns in a career-worst performance par excellence.

-Calling it 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' is an exercise bordering on the farcical. This film should be called 'Francis Ford Coppola's unashamed molestation of Dracula, aided and abetted by the most staggeringly inept fake English accents ever committed to celluloid'.

Keanu Reeves' English accent is (deep breath) worse, yes WORSE than Dick Van Dyke's horrific cockney aberration from Mary Poppins. This in itself is quite an achievement and almost makes the film worth watching. Actually, no it doesn't.

To sum up, by all that you hold dear do not watch this film. Spend two hours removing your skin with a power-sander then have a salt bath. It will be a less painful experience. I bid you good day.

TL/DR:
This is why we can't have nice things

david75

LIstening to w podcast yesterday and one of the guest hosts was actually a content editor at RT and she said she got the job back in 2012 simply by having her own movie podcast and leaving reviews for. Everything. All over the place and apparently this is actually a thing still where every dope with a keyboard thinks he’s the new Siskel / Ebert and all trying to make a name for themselves.
The zeitgeist now happens to be ‘everything is sh!t so attack it before everyone else does’ to get out in front of the baying crowd before it happens. You actually get followers and build s base this way.

Literally everything is upside down these days.

HandsomeBob

I think it's social media in general and not just RT. People hate to be a lone voice and social media cranks up that fear no end as one dissenting comment can open you up to a ton of abuse. So people toe the line for fear of being ostracized.

I see it in work all the time where people repeat the same tired criticisms of a film and it becomes obvious that they either haven't watched the film and are repeating those witty/withering opinions they read online, or will merely describe a film as alright in spite of betraying themselves by speaking enthusiastically about a film.

tigger123

Online discussion is mostly text based, so the only way to draw attention and stand out from the crowd is to dial up the vitriol and be completely OTT

Bowlardo

I think the imdb top 250 is pretty on point. RT is a bit meh to be honest. I generally watch a film before forming my own opinion .

One thing for certain was that the last jedi was dreadful. The kids enjoyed it so that is the main thing but there is certainly a decline in the standard of movie making in recent years you only have to looks back of the history nominations for best movies to see a steady decline.

tigger123

Bowlardo wrote: »

I think the imdb top 250 is pretty on point. RT is a bit meh to be honest. I generally watch a film before forming my own opinion .

One thing for certain was that the last jedi was dreadful. The kids enjoyed it so that is the main thing but there is certainly a decline in the standard of movie making in recent years you only have to looks back of the history nominations for best movies to see a steady decline.

Does that not point to a problem with the Oscar nominations process though, rather than the quality of films? Shakespeare in Love won 7 Oscars.

s7ryf3925pivug

Review sites are useful. You dont have to use them. Personally I'm good enough at recogbising when I might like an unpopular film or dislike a popular ones. Unpopular films I liked include Pandorum, Monsters, The Devil's Rejects.

There are plenty of great films I would never have heard of without review sites. For example Kynodontas and The Hunt.

pixelburp

It's worth pointing out, if it hasn't already, that these aggregator sites are even poisoning the workplace now: specifically in the video-game industry, it's now not uncommon that employees' contracts be directly linked to the eventual Metacritic score of the final release. Maybe since the bad publicity it generated it has been abandoned by HR depts, but many professional artists, programmers etc. have lost out on vital bonuses and baseline payouts because the game they were working on had an 84% average score instead of a 85%.