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Hollywood Producer Blames Rotten Tomatoes For Convincing People Not To See His Movie (vanityfair.com)
An anonymous reader shares a VanityFair report: These days, it takes less than 60 seconds to know what the general consensus on a new movie is -- thanks to Rotten Tomatoes, the review aggregator site that designates a number score to each film based on critical and user reviews. Although this may be convenient for moviegoers not necessarily interested in burning $15 on a critically subpar film, it is certainly not convenient for those Hollywood directors, producers, backers, and stars who toiled to make said critically subpar film. In fact, the site may be "the worst thing that we have in today's movie culture" -- at least according to Brett Ratner, the Rush Hour director/producer who recently threw the financial weight of his RatPac Entertainment behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Sure, the blockbuster made over $850 million worldwide in spite of negative reviews ... but just think of how much more it could have made had it not had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 27 percent! Last week, while speaking at the Sun Valley Film Festival, Ratner said, "The worst thing that we have in today's movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes. I think it's the destruction of our business."
Hollywood Producer Blames Rotten Tomatoes For Convincing People Not To See His Shitty Movie
If your business depends on tricking people into watching crappy movies, it deserves to die.
The problem isn't the review aggregators; it's the constant stream of bad movies.
The destruction of the business is more likely due to Hollywood's seeming inability to produce an original idea.
Their curated list of critics simply don't like the same movies I do. Therefore there is little to no correlation between my enjoyment of a film and its RT freshness. It's also setting expectations. People went into BvS expecting a terrible movie. If you look for a terrible movie, you will find it.
Perhaps there needs to be an End User License Agreement for movies that bars unfavorable reviews. **ducks**
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Producers of shitty movies don't like Public to know their movies are shit, prior to paying them
Is the operative term. If your business is crappy movies, then absolutely is rotten tomatoes ending you and rightfully so. Anyone making good movies has absolutely no problems with aggregated reviewing.
It could be the fact the movie sucked.
Batman: [suffocating Superman with his foot on his throat] You were never a god. You were never even a man!
Superman: [hardly breathing] You're letting them kill Martha...
Batman: What does that mean? Why did you say that name?
Superman: Find him... Save Martha...
Batman: Why did you say that name? Martha? Why did you say that name? WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME?
Lois Lane: [enters running] It's his mother's name! It's his mother's name.
...of your abusive business model, where you make shit films, charge too much for them, trick people into going with clever advertising, and then get laws passed that criminalize format-shifting because you're so afraid that a tiny bit of revenue will slip through your greedy fingers. Even Hollywood accounting can't win in a free market. Man, that really sucks. Your life is so hard.
I watched the movie in question online a few weeks ago, I got bored and skipped an hour in the middle, and honestly don't think I missed anything important. I can't possibly imagine having to wait though the ever so slow plot line in a movie theater with no other distractions available.
Seriously.
Was it the best thing I've ever seen? No... but I certainly didn't regret spending my money on it either. It was some 2 and a half hours or so of escapism, and I enjoyed it on that level.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
they should sue the movie theaters for having high pop and popcorn prices / not being byob as that makes people less likely to go to them.
If Hollywood was creating a stream of innovative, original movies that might only appeal to a percentage of the viewing audience, his argument might have some merit. But when the Hollywood model is sequel after sequel with the odd reboot thrown in so we can make more sequels, I want to know if a movie is crap.
I can remember CHiPs when it first screened on TV. Couldn't tell you any storylines, but I'm pretty certain it was nothing like the drek I'm seeing advertised now. I don't need to see a Rotten Tomatoes score to avoid that one, but I'll be interested to see how low it can go!
To me, Ratner complaining about Rotten Tomatoes warning me away from his film is kind of like the pregnancy test kit manufacturers complaining about Australia's TGA (Therapeutic Good Administration; kind of like the FDA) warning that stick pregnancy test kit's don't work (as happened recently). Instead of railing against web sites that inform consumers about the quality of his product, Ratner might be better served if he made a better product.
You know, kind of like how the free market generally works.
I find humans being utterly reliant upon reviews for every fucking thing in their life completely pathetic. Can't even drink a cup of coffee or eat a pizza without asking a panel of five-star rated liars. Ever heard of product satisfaction being subjective?
Use your own brain for once and make your own judgements. Live a little. Good or bad, it is satisfying knowing at the end of the day the decisions you made were yours, and not made based on sponsored bullshit.
It's very simple. Stop remaking the same movies over and over. Come up with something NEW for once.
Corporatism != Free Market
If anything is contributing to the destruction of the movie business its the people involved in making the shitty movies not the people who smartly avoid them or assist others in doing so.
I don't watch very many movies anymore, too many of them are just remakes of older movies or are just not interesting subject wise. Why do producers think that everyone will want to watch their particular piece of drivel?
The irony is that the film industry relies on massive amounts of funding to essentially brainwash people into seeing their movie through advertisements, commercials, and other mediums of swaying the public mind. So he's tacitly saying it's ok for THEM to sway you, but honest, objective sources of independent review are horrible, terrible concepts that interrupt their ability to mind control you.
The plan to be successful with a crappy movie. Trick people into going to see it. The people who really want to see it will go anyway. You need to trick people with flashy previews and actor interviews to get the rest of the people to go and be disappointed with the experience. Then you need to complain about them not liking it, to trick more people into watching.
Or continue to make shit films and then whine that people have the means to discover if a film is shit before wasting their money and time watching it.
Dammit, where are my mod points when I need them?! +1
and other people can find out before giving you money, somehow that's wrong?
Yeah you and every scammer who releases shitty products and wants to make a ton of money anyway.
Maybe stop making tons of cheap shitty CG for everything and just hope to cash in.
Exactly this. There are amazing numbers of untapped novels out there that would make wonderful movies.
That the movie industry spends most of its effort ignoring this resource leaves me with absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for any whining I hear from them. Where's Neuromancer? Where's Tau Zero? Where's (any one of) the Bolo stories, or Galactic Odyssey? Pretty much anything Gene Wolfe ever wrote? Axis of Time series? Novik's Temeraire? I could on for days just in the areas of fantasy and SF. There are tons of untapped thrillers and etc. out there too; Lots of as-yet-to-be-mades (not to mention as-yet-to-be-made-wells) from Clancy, Clavell, etc.
And then, when they commit crimes against art like create utter crap like "Soylent Green" out of really good books like "Make Room, Make Room"... then I'm glad they're not digging up good novels as sources. Let 'em make more formula superhero movies like the (utterly terrible) Batman vs. Superman we're talking about here. Keeps me from tearing my hair out.
Honestly, if the movie industry died (which it shows no sign of, this buffoon's whining aside), I'd just read more books.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Hollywood is getting free feedback. Rotten tomatoes and such sites are casual comments. Netflix and Amazon prime streaming statistics are people paying money and actually watching stuff. Instead of using the feedback to improve the product, these guys are bellyaching about it.
It shows how much of their product is real and how much of it is smoke-and-mirrors. If your product is steak you can realistically gather and meet user expectations. So you would love feedback. If your product is sizzle, you would hate people who mess up the expectations.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Review sites may well destroy the tired old formulas, but this need not destroy the business. At worst it injects some risk back into the business again, as studios are forced to find new formulas to replace those now being rejected by moviegoers as played out, but is that such a bad thing? The last period of experimentation produced the original blockbusters that spawned these remakes and sequels, after all, and it was considered a golden age.
We adults were kids once, and some of us enjoyed reading comics. With a good superhero movie, we get to see some of that come to life. It can be done well, and has been; you can also get a real stinker. Like Superman vs. Batman.
You know, just because I'm 60 doesn't mean I'm dead. Yet.
Also, comics are an art form. Like most art, it doesn't speak to everyone. That's okay. Like most art, it can be done well, or poorly. Also okay. And conversions to movies... same. But when someone does such a conversion poorly, and then claims that the audience is at fault, as here, for sharing their opinion about it... well, that's just humor.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
All recent DC Comics universe movies are know to have had an awfully hectic production process. The producers, and generally the Fox production teams have turned the movies into horrible mess.
By the way, Batman VS Superman is surely not the worst of all. Sure it is bad, but not so bad. This movie is just an average failure.
Man of Steel was a total trainwreck. The worst is that it looks awful. Visually, Man of Steel is the worst high budget movie I have seen for years. It looks like utter crap. It feels like the director had no steering power over his own film to make it consistent. I had not seen so many lens flares in a video since I watched Babylon V. The colors are mostly awful, and for whatever reason, the time in the movie is almost always late afternoon, whether the scene is in the US or in the foreign country. As a photographer I know that the golden hours sure look good, but it should be used sparingly.
How can such high budget movies can be shot so badly?
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
Think of how much more Batman vs Superman could have made if it wasn't a disorganised clusterfuck complete with characters doing things that made no sense, a plot that simply made no sense, and fight scenes which seemed to go out of their way to ensure that to the viewers they made no sense.
It made $850million based on the name, and the expectations of the rabid fanbase, and I'm sad to count myself as part of it. It was garbage. Probably the first superhero film I won't be getting on Bluray.
Garbage in, garbage out..
Anything more that needs to be said?
For the first week or so the theatre only gets about 10% of the ticket sales. They need the high prices on the popcorn and drinks in order to pay for everything. When movies stay in the theatre longer then the percentage going to the studios drops as the weeks go by and the theatres can start to make money. The cheaters want successful movies with long runs because short run films don't make much for them.
.... thinks it is a great movie. Why is this a surprise? Why is the producer surprised that he, himself, thinks he produced a great movie. On the other hand, it may well be a great movie. But that does not mean it has to be a popular movie, or that people will want to spend money to see it.
I saw batman v superman, and it was a huge disappointment. No bullshit and no trolling, they seriously dropped the ball. They deserved the low reviews, and the people who chose not to see it due to the low reviews probably spent their time doing something more enjoyable instead.
Far from being the death of the industry, I think sites like Rotten Tomatoes are an excellent quality control measure.
I went to see the movie in question. We spent about $30 and close to 3 hours of our lives. It was tedious, way too long, and boring. It has been available on the cable for a few months, and I won't even bother to watch it again. So, the producer complains that Rotten Tomatoes told the truth about his "ground turkey" and it cost him a few million. Give us better and original entertainment, so that your Tomato score draws us to it, and stop crying over the money you didn't make.
...of your abusive business model, where you make shit films, charge too much for them, trick people into going with clever advertising, and then get laws passed that criminalize format-shifting because you're so afraid that a tiny bit of revenue will slip through your greedy fingers. Even Hollywood accounting can't win in a free market. Man, that really sucks. Your life is so hard.
While I agree with you overall, I disagree with you assessment of Hollywood accounting, it always wins. A film's purpose is not to make a net profit, it's to take the angel's money and make a profit for everyone except those investors. Hollywood accounting is a brilliant scheme to do just that.I mean, where else can you spend 60$Million, make 580$Million, and still be in the red so you don't have to payoff the people who gave you the money in the first place?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Here's an idea, you director and producer nitwits: PRODUCE BETTER MOVIES. Look at Logan, Deadpool, the Marvel films in general, classic good scifi like Aliens, Sunshine, the original ghost in the shell. While people might, on paper, appear to want dumbed down plotlines, that just doesn't pan out in the long run, as evidenced by review aggregation after the fact.
Most of my favorite movies have low scores, most movies I consider epic and mind blowing have mediocre scores. That website is horribly wrong about movies 99% of the time....
I take you at your word oh AC. In which case Rotten Tomatoes is functioning perfectly even for you! Just apply your own preference metric to the site. If low scores=great to you then it is telling you exactly what you want to know. Go out and see the low scoring movies! Problem solved!
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Also in other news, if people who make shitty things that they advertise and hype could prevent people from countering that advertising with reviews pointing out that it's a shitty product, they could fool more people.
Perhaps don't let a website do all your thinking for you. IDK about you, but I read reviews in an attempt to make an informed decision. You watch the trailers, talk about it with your friends, read the critics reviews, read the early user reviews, weigh it all, ignore everything up to this point, stream a camrip online, then after all that if you think it'll be worth it, buy a ticket.
Rather than looking for ways to improve, Brett has stooped to pointing fingers and blaming the messenger of bad news (RT). The people called you out on a bollocks film, Mr. Ratner - take it as the gift that it is - an outpouring of free feedback. The messenger is very efficient at collecting the voices of many to arrive at a thorough analysis. It's the sort of things businesses had to once pay big money to get and could use to their benefit without anyone else ever seeing it. Now that it's nearly instant and public, when things don't go well, everyone knows. On the flip side, if you have something that resonates with viewers - it can be a runaway hit and you didn't have to invest $100m to do it necessarily. This should be a key take-away for anyone wanting to make a brilliant film. Hollywood studios would be wise to adapt their business model to the new reality and embrace it unless they want to end up a failed bit of history. My hunch is that the person making the original comment is upset with having to deliver bad news to investors and answer to shareholders. He should be upset - the analysis shows it was a terrible movie. Impartial analysis doesn't easily lie.
Parmasean Cheese. It's what's for dinner.
I RTFA and it seems that his problem isn't just with the aggregation it's with the fact that the reviews of mere viewers are given credibility. He cites the decline of Movie Critics as the reason why these types of things aren't useful.
With a few exceptions official movie reviewers were easily bought and would give stunning sound bites for movies. Those would be plastered all over the advertising and say just what the studios wanted to hear. Since they can't buy off the viewers with anything but good movies of course they're not going to like aggregation.
As many comments have said - if 999 out of 1,000 reviews say your movie sucks then there's an excellent chance your movie sucks.
Brett Ratner is one of the biggest problems in Hollywood, not Rotten Tomatoes. Here's his directorial resume (I count one decent movie):
2014/I Hercules
2011 Tower Heist
2007 Rush Hour 3
2006 X-Men: The Last Stand
2004 After the Sunset
2002 Red Dragon
2001 Rush Hour 2
2000 The Family Man
1998 Rush Hour
1997 Money Talks
The ability to find out what people, in general, think of a movie before shelling out $20+ to see it will, in fact, destroy the current Hollywood business model. They need to completely alter how they approach the business.
They need to start making movies that don't suck throbbing purple donkey dick. Then, Rotten Tomatoes is, literally, the best thing that could possibly happen to them.
If your business depends on people not knowing what they're buying from you, you're a con artist.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Sure, the blockbuster made over $850 million worldwide in spite of negative reviews ... but just think of how much more it could have made had it not had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 27 percent!
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Right. The freer the market, the harder it is to win with Hollywood Accounting. It works as well as it does because it's not a free market. In a free market, you pull that trick once, people will never work with you again.
That distilling all the reviews down to a single number removed any actual useful commentary they had, and just encourages people to only watch movies that people have already watched. Which in turn encourages the industry to keep producing movies that are identical to the ones we have already watched. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was _ruining_ the industry, but I could buy the argument that it had a negative effect.
Any such validity is instantly negated, however, by the fact that we're talking about the guy who made "Bambi vs Godzilla 2: the DCification." Do you know what is destroying your industry sir? You. Personally. One movie at a time.
I shouldn't really say "the one good thing" because I didn't see the movie yet so I don't know if there's more I would like...
But what Batman Vs. Superman did set up was a lot of really great ongoing batman/superman at the diner scenes the end most How It Should Have Ended episodes.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As someone who is aware of super hero comics and once faithfully followed one of them and watched the cartoons, the whole idea of Batman vs. Superman was just ludicrous from the title alone.
Batman is basically a rich guy with fancy gadgets on his toolbelt. He's not a LOT different from anybody. He just has better gadgets.
Superman is a God, effectively.
This fight is over before it even starts so why the hell would I want to pay to see it? Well, I wouldn't and didn't and never needed to read the reviews. These characters used to be allies as well so the idea of having them fight each other sounds like something a four-year-old kid would come up with, bashing action figures in a sandbox. Whatever, man. Not gonna see this movie. Honey Boo Boo, which I have also never seen, sounds more interesting.
Sig for hire.
Well, why don't we? I always thought that it would be a good idea to keep track of every crappy thing that every corporation ever does (i.e., pharmaceutical companies raising medicine prices by 15x) so we know which ones are truly evil.
Filmmaker complains when social media borks film. But it's fine and dandy when it misleads tons of viewers into seeing a bad film.
FTFY.
I'd say the usefulness of aggregators lies in the extremes - if the aggregate score is 80-90%, that's a remarkably wide range of people saying it was good, so clearly it has a broad based appeal and you'll likely enjoy it too.
True though there are some genres of movies on Rotten Tomatoes that get consistently over-rated compared with their relative merits. Pixar movies and disney-esque animation in general tend to get higher reviews than they probably deserve in many cases. For example Wall-E was a very solid movie and I enjoyed it but it got a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. You'll never convince me that it was THAT good of a movie. I would have put it somewhere in the high 70s or low 80s. Maybe high 80s at best which is where the audience score was at 89% and even that is a bit high. Totally worth a theater ticket but not exactly best picture material. There are some that deserve ratings in the 90s but those should be much more rare than they are.
Fortunately I'm aware of this fact about RT so I can mentally adjust but it's kind of annoying and makes it harder to separate the good from the great and sometimes results in movies that should be skipped getting decent recommendations.
Similarly, if something is ranked at 10-20%, that's a remarkable consensus that it's bad.
Agreed. I've never seen a movie rated that low on Rotten Tomatoes that wasn't indeed a hot mess.
Just because taste is subjective doesn't mean we can't agree on an evaluation of a film.
Consensus says Batman V Superman was a shit film. That's a relevant fact.
Just because you are a snowflake doesn't render near-unanimous disdain isn't relevant.
Any way you define consensus, it's fairly known that the film was garbage.
I'm not saying Rotten Tomatoes is a good measure or that all critics hated BvS...that's not it at all.
I am rejecting the notion that consensus is irrelevant because everyone has a unique perspective and opinion.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Right. The freer the market, the harder it is to win with Hollywood Accounting. It works as well as it does because it's not a free market. In a free market, you pull that trick once, people will never work with you again.
While that may be true, a number of people who back films either:
a. Have some other way they are getting paid for their involvement so they don't care about the upfront costs since they will make money anyway. In addition, they don't have to share that money but profits would be shared so they have no good reason to want a profit
b. It's a way to get to hang around Hollywood types and that's the cost of entry...
The ones who get screwed are those who take a cut of the net profit because they don't understand the system; such as a writer who doesn't understand the system and gets a 10% of the net instead of .1% gross.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I would expect that RottenTomatoes has also *increased* the viewing of many movies as well. I know that I have often gone there and looked at the highest rated movies when looking for something to add to my Netflix DVD queue. I like looking at the critics vs reviewers rating as well. Many a good movie (to me) has been panned by critics. Likewise, many critically acclaimed movies don't always get good reviews.
It's just information though, the choice of what to watch is still mine.
And I knew Batman vs Superman was poorly rated.... and I still added it to my queue. I didn't make it through it though, shut it off after about 1/4 of the way in. Just terrible.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around 'Brett Ratner' and 'film festival'. Those two things don't go together and I feel like maybe there's a little tear in the space time continuum we should be more concerned about right now.
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I don't mean to downplay the actors, but a lot of the problem is the writing.
I suspect given the same script that Christopher Reeve would still be a better Superman than Henry Cavill, but Cavill's biggest problem was his scenes and dialog in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. Reeve would have been every bit as dumb with "save Martha!" and Cavill never got the chance to play the bumbling but adorable country boy with lines like, "Well gee, I don't know, Lois!" and "Golly!". Cavill never got to play off the transition from bumbling, awkward Clark in his disguise to Superman. All that is not his fault.
Likewise, the biggest thing that made Val Kilmer terrible as Batman was just the scenes and dialog as Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever. Keaton had much better writing in his two Batman films. Keaton and Christian Bale couldn't have done much with the stupidity Affleck had to deal with in Batman v Superman either.
And while we're at it, while I think Leto was especially bad in Suicide Squad (probably the worst super-powered movie I've ever seen), even Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Cesar Romero, or for that matter Denzel Washington, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, or Tom Hanks would not have made that Joker good. The story, scenes, and dialog for the role were just as unbelievable pointless, boring, and stupid as the rest of the movie.
He basically argues that it's not fair because people don't understand what goes into making these things.
As if the fact of effort being expended ENTITLES him to monetary earnings somehow.
A lot of people don't understand what goes into building a house either.
But if the thing's drafty, you have holes in the walls you can drive a forklift through, the house is settling crooked, you have mold in various areas, using electricity in the home starts fires, BUT THE CARPETING IS TOP FUCKING NOTCH, people are going to call bullshit and not patronize your home building business or buy your latest built home.
Are you going to bitch about a review site where your former customers outline all the shit you did wrong in THEIR homes?
And Rotten Tomatoes is nothing more than a dispassionate aggregation of the general public's response to your film. It's not as if the site has it out for you.
But no. Ratner just wants a bigger payday. Because Ratner thinks that he was dealing with a bigger bunch of IP on a bigger budget. Therefore his overall renumeration should be N+1 of whatever he ACTUALLY gets.
Fuck him and the dolly rig he rode in on.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
...to always get it wrong.
I nearly always find they give ridiculously high scores to all the most undeserving utterly fomulaic Hollywood dross, and am frequently pleasantly surprised by the entertainment value of movies they give the very lowest scores to.
I didn't see any of the reviews or even know people thought it was bad until well after I saw Batman vs. Superman and saw for myself what a pile of garbage it is.
A whining movie producer is just pathetic.
This is not what RT does. we do not even really have a name for what RT does, since their is no situation where their particular data analysis makes much sense. The closest thing might be a gauge of the inverse of how controversial a movie is. Really average crowd pleasures do well, and not much else. RT has loads (literally tens of thousands) of movies with 99-100% ratings. Most of them other sites label as 60%-75%. They are decent movies, that pretty much everyone likes, but no one really loves. They also have hosts of movies with 10-30% ratings that routinely get 80%+ on other sites, and have huge cult followings. They did not have a big advertising budget or were simply the wrong genre.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are both horrible. Sometimes it seems like professional critics love boring movies that are plotless and meander all over the place and end without closure. The user reviews that exceed two or three sentences tend to be more useful, but then you run the risk of spoilers. If there was a movie review site that relied solely on audience EKG readings it would be far more useful.
I've tried http://movielens.org/ which seems like it should work but it still seems to miss the mark. I can't be the only one who is fed up with some of the insane reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Why isn't there a better site?
Sure, the Super Hero block busters are fun, they are like roller coasters. Not much intellectual stimulation, no real plot to speak of, no real story either. I hesitate to call them "movies," I think "blockbuster" is perfect.
Don't get me wrong, I like "blockbusters" sometimes, but there are so many really really good films being produced that have to go to netflix or amazon because there is no screen space at the theaters. "Beauty and the Beast?" are you f*&^&*king kidding me? Sure, its good to see Hermione with a day job, but its on every damned screen in the theaters.
We need to differentiate between "big" movies and all the others. The "big" movies need to cost more. The other movies should cost less. Then there will be openings for better "movies."
If anything, more people should be aware of Rotten Tomatoes or we need more streamlined widespread movie reviews websites so that directors stop spending so much money on such garbage movies....
No matter how much directors and Hollywood complains about critics and stuff like piracy, there has never been a time when they had such a wide and accepting market in history.
You make a crap movie that borrows characters from another medium which fans hated, and you are still able to turn a profit... it's ridiculous.
There are so many comics based, recycled franchises, shitty sequels, westernalized stuff, retelling and unoriginal content that I don't even know what an original story is anymore. Just search for "movies 2017".
Most of the good movies I watch these days never got a chance to shine because of all that crap that Hollywood keeps spewing. And yet, some people involved still have the nerve to complain.
Chris, know what else would make a superb movie from Laumer? The Long Twilight. That book is awesome fun.
It has superhumans, aliens and alien artifacts, AI constructs, alien empires, broadcast power, several quite different levels of plotting, alternate history, near-future tech, military aspects of various ages, a love story, revenge, reconciliation... and it's all reasonably doable, movie-wise.
Any Laumer fan who hasn't read it... I highly recommend it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I have learned to basically trust Rottentomatoes on most genres of movies. I do find it to be fairly accurate within reason, except when it comes to comedies. Peoples' comedic senses are so different that it may be impossible to put a fair score on them. Some cheaply made comedies with nobodies for actors I personally just find hilarious. While on the other hand, I find most comedies with a 90+ rating to be overly safe and/or politically correct and I actually avoid them usually. Anyone else feel this way? Just curious.
Also, if it weren't for Rottentomatoes, I'd definitely watch a hell of a lot less movies, because it makes discovery so much easier.
Posted by yintercept - "...science...[is] the study of the 'divine creation.' "
Sounds like the same logic that killed game demos. They can't show off how bad their games are, now can they?
At least Let's Plays are still legal, so I can see a game before I buy it. If not for YouTube, I would have far, far less than 100+ games in my Steam library.
Well, yeah, he's whining, and maybe his film is a piece of shit, *but*... I actually do think RT is not a power for good, in the same way as other aggregate sites like Metacritic. The question comes down to what a review is supposed to be. It's perfectly understandable that what"everybody" thinks about a movie or game can inform you about this weekend's plans, but let's be clear - these sites are sampling the Internet, which is, as we all know, 99% bullshit. I happen to like the older model of someone who is paid to review media and acquires a history and knowledge about the medium. Sure, they are susceptible to bribery subtle or otherwise, but the vast majority of the web reviews that skew the samples are by a bunch of high functioning idiots with as much insight into film as that noisy twat at Starbucks playing Final Cut Pro tutorials at full volume on his airbook. I learn who to trust through their history of reviews, but when RT tells me 52% and that is tainted with reviews by those wankers, well it's about as trustworthy as political polls predicting Hilary by a landslide.
I just go to TorrentFreak and check "Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent." There's your Must-to-Avoid in a nutshell.
...of your abusive business model, where you make shit films, charge too much for them, trick people into going with clever advertising, and then get laws passed that criminalize format-shifting because you're so afraid that a tiny bit of revenue will slip through your greedy fingers. Even Hollywood accounting can't win in a free market. Man, that really sucks. Your life is so hard.
He should cry more.
His tears are delicious!
Rotten Tomatoes Blames Hollywood Producer For Convincing People Not To See His Movie
Movie producers blame everybody else these days for their movies not making enough dosh, but the people who make these subpar movies. The whole philosophy of making movies for *everybody* is what's wrong with the movies in the first place. It waters them down. It makes them bland and dull. Blame yourself for a change, Mr. producer.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
It is just bizarre that studios would put so much money into the making and marketing of these movies without ensuring that they follow basic fundamentals of narratives / characterization in cinema. Zack Snyder is definitely obsessed with visuals over storytelling.
Somewhere in the writing process they forgot to make the protagonist likable. This analysis (one of the best that I've watched) points out how we don't connect with the heroes because they don't have believable motivations and they do not make any choices that show them to be interesting heroes.
Another analysis by the same reviewer pointed out how those movies are lacking in compelling villains.
Thanks for posting this. The first video is good. The second is outstanding. I think the overview of Raiders of the Lost Ark in the beginning as a contrast to Batman v Superman is stellar.
:)
I'll watch the third now.
If Rotten Tomatoes didn't exist, some other site that does exactly the same thing would exist in its stead. And everyone on there would be slating your movie too. Just own up and say you wish people wouldn't share their opinions with each other.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I said the same thing about the Star Wars prequels, particularly for the older Anakin Skywalker. I didn`t think the actor deserved all the flack he got. Sure, I didn`t think he did a fantastic job, however you could have taken a much better and more accomplished actor, and unless they really went off script, would still have to read the same stupid lines... No matter how good the delivery if the writing sucks, it sucks.
This web comic (while a older one) is my favorite description of how that fight would go, even given Bats detective smarts and preparation time with gadgets etc...
http://biggercheese.com/index....