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Suicide Squad Fans Petition To Shut Down Rotten Tomatoes Over Negative Reviews (variety.com)
The much-anticipated movie Suicide Squad has largely failed to impress film critics and normal people alike. People are leaving the theaters disappointed, with a firm belief that DC Universe has let them down again. Vanity Fair goes as far as saying, "Suicide Squad isn't even the good kind of bad," adding that "I'd have to imagine that most fans of Harley Quinn -- male, female, gay, straight -- will be disappointed." The ratings are super low at IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes as well. Amid these reviews, the fans of the film have launched a Change.org petition with the intent of shutting down film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Variety adds: Abdullah Coldwater, the DC Comics fan who drafted the petition, accused the site of giving "unjust bad reviews" that "affects people's opinion even if it's a really great [movie]." He added, "Critics always give The DC Extended Universe movies unjust bad reviews." The petition has received over 13,000 signatures as of this post. "Suicide Squad," which stars Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie and is one of the most highly-anticipated movies of the summer, currently has an approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes of 34 percent. In comparison recent critical disgrace "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" settled at 27 percent on 344 critiques, whereas Marvel's "Captain America: Civil War" garnered a laudatory 90 percent with 320 critics chiming in.
Wah!
Do these idiots even remotely understand how Rotten Tomatoes works? All they do is aggregate critics' reviews. They don't review the movie themselves.
The site owners? The police?
I have an idea, how about we instead make a change.org petition to have The DC Extended Universe movies be better written? That would solve TWO problems!
From what I understand Deadpool was created without input from studio executives, Suicide Squad was just the opposite and was actually recut to try and copy Deadpool humor. Maybe getting rid of the committees that make so many bad movies will bring us more entertainment.
I thought groupthink was limited to /. and reddit but I see it is alive and well in new areas now:
Uh, No, "this movie sucks" is an opinion. You don't have to like it, or even agree with it, but trying to censor opinions you don't disagree just because it hurts your bottom line is just plain stupid. We already have the legal right to "voice" our opinion as long as it isn't slander nor libel.
As they say, Everyone is a critic.
Which ironically has this gem:
Harrison's Postulate: "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Its 'certified fresh' at 73%, with an average rating of 6.4/10, with an audience rating of 58%. Seems pretty fair to me, and suggests it is a fair but nothing special movie.
For comparison, the Daredevil TV series is 86% fresh, with 95% audience approval; Deadpool is 84% with 91%. Jessica Jones TV series got 93% and 90%. Antman got 81% and 86%. Gaurdians of the Galaxy got 91% and 92%.
I've seen all of these and they were all pretty good. I think the ratings are pretty fair.
So NO, I don't think there is a bias against Marvel's extended universe at all. I think Suicide Squad is likely to be a pretty weak movie.
"... which stars Will Smith"
And yet people are shocked at the bad reviews. At this point if you see Will Smith in a film, you should proceed carefully.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
My understanding (from a couple of people I know who were involved with the movie) was that the first pass (ie at the end of filming in July of 201) of the movie was disappointing, but serviceable (ie make its money back in the theatres and turn a profit on streaming and DVDs). Test audiences' biggest problem was that they didn't know many of the various minor villains (ie Killer Croc, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang) and were confused by Harley Quinn because in the cartoons, she has a definite costume and doesn't use a baseball bat.
Then the trailer was created which made it seem like a *much* different movie than it actually was. The trailer, (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...) generated a lot of buzz due to the energy the characters gave off which wasn't in the original film. The Warner suits realized that there was a disconnect between the trailer and reality, so early last fall, they ordered a script update with reshoots so that the movie would better match the trailer.
The script changes were complete and new filming was finishing up in Vancouver when Deadpool came out and did not affect the final version of the film. It may have confirmed the Warner suits' that they were on the right track, but Deadpool didn't force the decision one way or another. I was told in December that Warner had managed to turn a fair movie that avid comic book readers will like into a "shitty" one that wouldn't work for anybody with the script and filming changes.
The DC Universe movie problems go a lot deeper than trying to copy Deadpool or Avengers movies - it basically comes from a lack of central planning that Marvel/Disney/Sony have in spades as well as difficulty in listening to the casual movie goer.
One of the friends, who's a PA on Suicide Squad, said that fanboys know the characters and that's who DC/Warner tends to listen to rather than somebody off the street who has heard of Batman and Superman but can't name anybody in their rogue's gallery other than The Joker and Lex Luthor and needs an introductory movie for them and the universe, the same way Marvel does.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Yeah, I misread the original summary, and made a follow up post to look at DC titles.
" I will say Batman vs Superman was a lot better than critics gave it credit for."
Rotten tomatoes tends to agree with you. There is a big disconnect between critics and audiences on that one... 27% to 65%. However, I think the critics are "right" in the sense that if you try to look at that movie with a critical eye that it's as dumb as a bag of hammers. But it's a 'fan service' movie. So the audiences that went to see, by and large, got what they wanted and were happy with it.
How do you do a movie about insane criminals and keep it PG-13?
Easy. Just stuff in all the violence you can manage, but don't show any nipples.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
It's explained here, and on Wikipedia:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com...
Long story short, it gets the seal if it goes over 75% and has a minimum number of reviews from top critics, and keeps it unless it then falls below 70%. So there is a dead band to stop it toggling on and off rapidly if it's just on the limit, which is kinda important if companies are going to use it in the marketing.
No conspiracy, that's just how it has always worked. That's why the AC was modded down, he's just repeating a Reddit conspiracy theory that is easily disproven with 10 seconds of research.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC