Movie Studios Are Blaming Rotten Tomatoes For Killing Movies No One Wants To See (qz.com)

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch were never going to be critical darlings. Both movies led the domestic box office to its worst Memorial Day weekend showing in nearly 20 years. Quartz adds: In the fallout, are Hollywood producers blaming the writers? The actors? Themselves? (Of course not.) No, they are blaming Rotten Tomatoes. They say the movie-review site, which forces critics to assign either a rotten or fresh tomato to each title when submitting reviews, regardless of the nuances of their critiques, poisoned viewers against the films before they were released. "Insiders close to both films blame Rotten Tomatoes, with Pirates 5 and Baywatch respectively earning 32% and 19% Rotten. The critic aggregation site increasingly is slowing down the potential business of popcorn movies. Pirates 5 and Baywatch aren't built for critics but rather general audiences, and once upon a time these types of films -- a family adventure and a raunchy R-rated comedy -- were critic-proof. Many of those in the industry severely question how Rotten Tomatoes computes the its ratings, and the fact that these scores run on [the movie-ticket buying site] Fandango (which owns RT) is an even bigger problem," Deadline reported. [...] The site has a separate score that measures audience reception, which it displays next to the critic rating. And quite a few smell what The Rock is cooking -- 70% of Baywatch viewers on Rotten Tomatoes said they liked it. But the critic score is what many people look to when deciding whether to spend their hard-earned money at the cinema. Also read: Hollywood Producer Blames Rotten Tomatoes For Convincing People Not To See His Movie.

Comments

Translation:

[Anonymous Coward]

Waaaah, we can't trick people into paying money to see these movies anymore by showing deceiving trailers with all the good parts. Waaaahhh.

Re:Translation:

[Anubis IV]

More or less. Prior to Rotten Tomatoes, our options for determining whether a film was worth seeing in theaters were all hit-and-miss. Most of us relied heavily on the tone and nature of the film's marketing to make those decisions, putting the control predominately in the hands of the studios. Every time they marketed a dud as a stud in order to profit from the gap between when a movie was released and when word of mouth spread about how bad it was, they made it clear that they valued our money more than our satisfaction.

Rotten Tomatoes changed all of that by providing consistently credible scores from day one, which, for most of us, were a much better indicator for determining whether a movie was worth seeing in theaters. They're not perfect, but they're so much more reliable than what we had before that many of us have started checking Rotten Tomatoes before heading to the theaters for anything other than a sure thing. Naturally, the studios are displeased that they can't profit on that gap between the release date and when the public catches on to how bad the film actually is.

Couple that with cheap rentals like Redbox or iTunes (as opposed to the expensive days of Blockbuster), subscription streaming like Netflix, and the dropping prices of big-screen TVs, and it's no surprise that people are skipping the theater experience when the film will be just as good/bad in a few months/years at home. When talking about upcoming films, my wife and I have even started saying, "That's a 'wait for Redbox' one" or "Maybe if it shows up on Netflix streaming someday".

Re:Translation:

[Grishnakh]

Yep, this is Hollywood complaining yet again that they don't control all the information. I still remember when "Gigli" came out and flopped, and Hollywood was pissed off that moviegoers were using their phones to text all their friends about how bad the movie was, saying they shouldn't be allowed to do that because it "disrupts our carefully crafted marketing".

Re:Translation:

[MightyMartian]

Huh? I was watching Siskel & Ebert 30 years ago when looking for the good versus bad movies. Movie critics have been around almost as long as movie, and all Rotten Tomatoes did was bring a number of the better known or well-syndicated ones together to sort of give a statistical scoring.

Also as old as movie critics is studios blaming movie critics for their shitty movies bombing. It's a tired complaint. Anyone who seriously thought a Baywatch reboot or yet another Johnny Depp pirate film were going to be smash hits ought to be forced into early retirement.

Re:Translation:

[Grishnakh]

It is strange that the non-critic reviews are so much higher than the critic reviews. That, IMO, gives some legitimacy to the gripe.

If the watchers like the movie, then they have the wrong critics rating it; or the critics are being forced to rate it in a way that fails to express the critic's actual judgment.

No, it really doesn't give legitimacy to the gripe. Think about it: Fandango has both the Rotten Tomatoes score, and next to it the viewer score. Who's going to watch the movie after seeing the critic reviews are terrible? Only a select subset of people, likely ones either being forced into watching it by peer pressure, or more likely people who generally disagree with critics and have poor taste in movies.

So of course after you warn people that Baywatch is crap, the only people who still go to watch it (and use Fandango, where it just told them the critics thought it sucked) are not going to be representative of the population at large. And in fact, if you value critics' reviews rather than a bunch of morons, you're doing the right thing by avoiding the movie even though the viewer score is high. In short, there's nothing remarkable here. It's like wondering why fans of Transformers 5 (or whatever) like it even though all the critics say it's crap.

More interesting situations are when 1) the critics laud a movie, and the viewers say it's crap, and 2) the critics and viewers both laud a movie. In the latter case, the movie is likely extremely good all-around, whereas in the former case the movie is likely too intellectual for most audiences.

A movie that is supposed to be a brain-dead comedy should be rated by and for people who want to go see a brain-dead comedy

Most likely, the critics already take this into account and adjust their expectations, and are still very disappointed.

but I think the distillation of the rating down to a single number is a harmful oversimplification.

If you're going to have movies that, by your own admission, are "brain-dead", which obviously then must cater to "brain-dead" people, then a complicated rating system is not going to be very helpful.

Re: Translation:

[SuperKendall]

But S/E could only rate so many movies; I think the show was on about once a week if I remember right?

In the meantime if you wanted to see any other movie, you were mostly in the dark or relied on one or two reviews.

But the best aspect of RT is I can see divergence (if any) between movie critics and the people actually seeing the movie. That has been really valuable a number of times as sometimes my own feelings about a movie diverge from the RT critics average scores...

Re: Translation:

[Calydor]

Sometimes you just want 110 minutes of braindead popcorn munching rather than French film noir. A rating for "Good to watch once" is what I look for.

Re: Translation:

[nasch]

The idea that film critics only like artsy or foreign films is outdated if it ever had any validity at all. For example, here's Siskel & Ebert's very favorable review of Terminator 2: https://youtu.be/-Gy1rEs-r3g?t...

Re: Translation:

[meta-monkey]

And the market is showing that the RT scores are well calibrated. If it's got a low critic score and a decently high audience score, that's a "wait for Redbox." And that's exactly what's happening. I'll probably see Pirates of the Caribbean at some point, but I'm not sure not going to the theater for it. Guardians of the Galaxy 2, though, was well worth the price of admission.

Re:Translation:

[DuckDodgers]

You're overthinking this. The real reason I'm not watching Baywatch or Pirates of the Caribbean 5 is that I spent a lot of money to watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and I'm about to spend money to watch Wonder Woman this weekend and The Mummy next weekend.

If either of those films or even the King Arthur disaster had come out in January or February, the only popcorn junky cheesefest competition was XXX: The Return of Xander Cage. They would probably have done twice as well then versus what they'll get now. As it is, April to September is neck deep in silly adventure and action movies. I'm going to skip plenty of films I might otherwise watch just because I don't have the time and money to catch them all.

I don't even look at Rotten Tomatoes.

Re: Translation:

[MightyMartian]

For chrissakes, a quick review of Ebert's Top Films shows while he clearly loved Werner Herzog, he was also a big Spielberg fan. There's nothing artsy about Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark or Jaws, and yet both these films were among Ebert's favorite films ever made. For goodness sake, he even put Planes, Trains and Automobiles on that list (and justifiably so, it is an incredibly good film).

Re:Translation:

[brantondaveperson]

I hope you've seen It Follows. If not, do yourself a favor, don't read about it, just watch it.

It's never their fault, of course

[DontBeAMoran]

Never mind that all they're able to do is either come up with sequels or prequels, or movies with brain-dead characters and insipid stories filled with impossible computer-generated action scenes.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[DickBreath]

Let's not forget about impossible physics as part of the plot.

It's not only sequels and prequels, but poorly conceived remakes of ancient TV shows that were made in some earlier millennium. Or horrible remakes of classic sci fi (The Day The Earth Stood Still). Moves based on books that have no resemblance to the book the movie is supposedly based on.

Action movies with adolescent dialog.

New prequels of decades old movies, where the prequel isn't consistent with what it is a prequel to. Or changes the characters in the original movie -- or makes liars out of the heroes.

Movies stretched into categories they don't belong in, as a form of false advertising. Clue: if it has vampires, warewolves, or magic, it probably isn't Sci Fi.

The problem is that new movies rarely have anything new. There are a few good ones. But very few.

I wouldn't mind a really good remake of a classic movie. (Forbidden Planet anyone?) Or a good prequel.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[ranton]

Never mind that all they're able to do is either come up with sequels or prequels, or movies with brain-dead characters and insipid stories filled with impossible computer-generated action scenes.

None of that even prevents a movie from being great. There are plenty of great movies based on previous IP, and even great movies with little to no story.

I strongly disagree with the submitter's comment: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch were never going to be critical darlings." That is bullshit. The first Pirate of the Caribbean movie had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 79%, so obviously a good movie can be made with this subject matter. And 21 Jump Street had a score of 85%, so obviously a movie adaption of an 80's/90's TV show can be a great movie.

Either of these movies could have been great with a 70+ Rotten Tomato score. But they would have had to be good.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[pr0fessor]

I didn't even look at the rotten tomatoes rating and still wasn't interested in either of those movies because they have already been done to death.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[s1d3track3D]

The first Pirate of the Caribbean movie had a Rotten Tomatoes score of 79%

Yes but it was the first one and showed a little creativity and risk taking. By sequel 5 or whatever they are up to they are just milking the same idea for profit. I suppose it's possible for it to actually be good but it's not likely. They deserve to be spanked

Baywatch? How many times can you make a beach movie? You don't make a movie like this to compete with "My dinner with Andre"...

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[Grishnakh]

Moves based on books that have no resemblance to the book the movie is supposedly based on.

The rest of your post is spot-on but I have to object to this one. There's nothing wrong with making a movie that's inspired by some book, but veers off in a very different direction. In fact, movies which attempt to be extremely faithful to the book usually end up being terrible; it just isn't that easy to shift a story between two such totally different media and still make it come out good.

For evidence, I cite Stephen King's "The Shining". I never read the book, but I'm told it was good for a King novel. Stanley Kubrick made an adaptation of it around 1980 starring Jack Nicholson, and it's widely considered a masterpiece of horror, which I agree with. However, it diverges from the book's plot immensely. King hated the movie, probably mainly because of this. But it was a critical and fan success. Later on, King got involved with a miniseries adaptation starring Rebecca DeMornay and some forgettable guy. This version was extremely faithful to the book, yet fell fall, like pretty much all faithful adaptations of King novels do. King's books just don't usually translate well into movies, unless huge liberties are taken.

Another example of this is 1987's "The Running Man" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; it bore very little resemblance to the book, but was a fantastic and fun movie (though it's actually quite disturbing to watch now because it predicted an over-the-top dystopian future but was obviously not serious about it, whereas today it's mostly come true). Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" is probably another good example here.

Offhand, the only movies I can think of that were remotely faithful to the books and came out well were the Lord of the Rings movies, and even here they had to cut tons of material, such as the very important Scouring of the Shire at the end. Movies just aren't long enough to contain everything in a normal-length novel, which is why the Game of Thrones show uses 10 hour-long episodes to tell the story told by a single novel in the series (and here again they cut stuff out for length). I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if Peter Jackson had had the budget and approval to make two 3-hour movies for each LotR novel (6 3-hour movies total).

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[Notabadguy]

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if Peter Jackson had had the budget and approval to make two 3-hour movies for each LotR novel (6 3-hour movies total).

Seriously? After the mess of the Hobbit movies, you wonder what he'd have done?

Think love triangle between Gandalf and Galadrial, with Saruman has a spurned lover, and imagine a 30-minute long CGI rendered single combat between Legolas and Sauron.

Re:It's never their fault, of course

[eaglesrule]

The Martian, Interstellar, and The Arrival were all original movies that were intellectually satisfying. There's still some hope left.

Very little fault of Rotten Tomatoes

[parallel_prankster]

While I agree there are some good movies that have poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings which makes me wonder if I missed a movie because of RT reviews, I would still consider them to be a pretty good indicator of movie quality. The studios are just mad that RT tells me what I need to know about crappy movies before I spend my money on them!

Re:Very little fault of Rotten Tomatoes

[Freischutz]

While I agree there are some good movies that have poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings which makes me wonder if I missed a movie because of RT reviews, I would still consider them to be a pretty good indicator of movie quality. The studios are just mad that RT tells me what I need to know about crappy movies before I spend my money on them!

I never look at critic's scores, just whether the audience liked it. Critics have a tendency to be windbags...

Re:Very little fault of Rotten Tomatoes

[David_Hart]

While I agree there are some good movies that have poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings which makes me wonder if I missed a movie because of RT reviews, I would still consider them to be a pretty good indicator of movie quality. The studios are just mad that RT tells me what I need to know about crappy movies before I spend my money on them!

I never look at critic's scores, just whether the audience liked it. Critics have a tendency to be windbags...

That's what I used to use IMDB for. The audience ratings are broken down by gender and by age ranges. While I don't strictly go by these ratings, I do factor them into whether I see a movie in the theater, wait for the Blu-ray, or wait until it's on HBO/Netflix. That is, until IMDB killed the movie forums. Now I use RT.

translated:

[Anonymous Coward]

we cant make sub par unfunny comedies and lame predictable dramas any more because people tell other people they suck! Give writers more creative freedom and things may turn around.

Re:translated:

[DickBreath]

They can't give writers more creative freedom. Nor directors.

The problem is they are locked into a formula. If they're going to spend $500 Million to make a movie, then they have got to guarantee it will be a success and recoup the investment.

So they can't take risks. Can't be innovative. A movie must follow one of Hollywood's formulas for success. And this is the very thing making movies bad.

Here's another idea: How about a movie that doesn't cost $500 Million to make? Don't get a-list actors. Could there possibly be very good but unknown actors? Don't make the movie effects heavy. Do have a good story -- oh but that would require giving more creative freedom, which brings us back to the start.

Re:translated:

[PoopJuggler]

The problem is also that they can't pay-off an aggregator and buy a good review.

Re:translated:

[Aighearach]

Or, they could still hire a few A-list actors and just not go nuts on effects and executive producers. There is no excuse for it costing $500m now when it cost under $100m very recently.

They should save the expensive effects for the movies that need it, like superhero movies that in the past had to be animation. And you don't need more than a couple A-list actors to make a good superhero movie. They're so caught up in fighting for the top selling movie that they forget to aim for a high profit margin on multiple moderately successful movies for the same money.

It only takes a little bit of good special effects to make a great science fiction movie, because science fiction is mostly about making it possible to tell different stories than can be told in a contemporary setting. If anything they should hire better writers instead of focusing on "screen"writers who have the biggest resumes.

Sobs

[DarkOx]

Boo hoo, I can't compete in the market place with a terrible product by taking advantage of the customers inferior access to information about it.

Damn internet. Its so unfair

Re:Sobs

[DickBreath]

Dang Netflix! They can make a short one season TV series for 1/20 to 1/40 the cost of a major motion picture, yet it is more engaging than the movie. Each episode leaves you wanting to watch the next. It's just so unfair!

I didn't go, but not because of Rotten Tomatoes

[Quirkz]

I looked up movie times on Google. It had a sidebar with a metacritic score that seemed low. I followed that and saw actual reviews, which were also (in the aggregate) pretty bad. Are all of those equally at fault?

This is for Pirates 5, by the way. Part of the reason I looked is because Pirates 4 was already really disappointing compared to the first three, and Depp has been in a death spiral for years. That and the appearance of yet more dead/undead pirates (how many different ways is that even possible) in the previews had me seriously worried. If all of that hadn't already been hanging over the movie, I wouldn't have bothered to second-guess my impulse to just go down and watch it.

I'll still see it, by the way, just put it off until it's on Redbox.

Re:I didn't go, but not because of Rotten Tomatoes

[Whorhay]

I actually had the chance to go watch a movie this weekend, which I rarely get due to having kids that don't do well with baby sitters.

When I looked at what was available the two movies mentioned at the top were the two I considered. I ultimately decided to just stay home and watch some Netflix. I missed the fourth pirates movie because it hasn't hit Netflix yet, and so going to see the fifth one seemed silly, plus the wife would probably want to watch it as well. Baywatch looked funny as hell if possibly a smidgen too juvenile, but when I considered the cost and effort to go see it I just couldn't muster the necessary fucks.

I'll watch them both eventually I suppose when they make it to Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Make something worth watching

[RotateLeftByte]

and the problem will go away.

Simple really but Hollywood would rather make endless sequels and prequels.
Is it little wonder that I gave up on going to watch them years ago, there really was very little worth watching that wasn't full of bangs, explosions and car chases OR a stupid plotless romcom.
Where are films like "North by Northwest" these days?

Its the symptom, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Metareview sites such as Rotten Tomatoes have become so successful and influential because they've proven to be a reliable means for many people to avoid seeing shitty movies. Their methodology is of course imperfect and many movies fall through the cracks, but nonetheless I think Rotten Tomatoes wouldn't be successful if there wasn't a demand for it, and the reason that demand exists is that consumers are tired of the blatant abuses of movie producers phoning it in for easy cash outs and audiences carrying the burden.

Re:Its the symptom, stupid

[Archangel Michael]

I'll rent a shitty movie, or worse, wait to see it on TV, which makes it shittier by slicing and dicing to fit with the commercials and the 3 hour time slot. And most of the time, it is not worth it even then.

Great movies don't always stand the test of time, good movies usually do, and rarely do bad movies last forever. Most movies are forgettable. And people have figured that out. It isn't worth $50 date night for a bad movie, bad popcorn and flat soda.

Take Dumb and Dumber .....

[kfh227]

Distributers should stop distributing crap movies. God, stop focusing on special effects and tits and focus on story. It's not hard. Here's a shitty story but hilarious movie: Dumb and Dumber No one thinks it is an Oscar contender but you know what, it's 66% on rotten tomatoes. And you know what. If it were not funny it would probably be 10%. What movie at my local theater has me most excited? They play classic movies on weekends and I might go see The Holy Grail. Why? it's funny. Stop giving us Snakes on a Plane and other utter crap and start giving us good movies.

Re:Take Dumb and Dumber .....

[yodleboy]

"God, stop focusing on special effects and focus on story."

fixed that for you...

It takes a wonder woman...

[__aaclcg7560]

Wonder Woman has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. What studio is going to complain about that?

http://www.thewrap.com/wonder-woman-has-a-higher-rotten-tomatoes-score-than-any-other-dc-or-marvel-movie-so-far/

Re:It takes a wonder woman...

[SuiteSisterMary]

You know, I was thinking something like this just the other night. If WW does well, people will complain that it's just because of the gender angle. If WW does poorly....people will complain it's just because of the gender angle.

Re:It takes a wonder woman...

[TimothyHollins]

Judging by the moderation on my apparently controversial question I'd say you have it correct.

People who start the comment in the subject box ar

[Anonymous Coward]

e retards.

There is some merit here

[chispito]

Review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic are incredibly useful... yet also promote groupthink and over simplify the value of a film. I've really enjoyed some films that most critics panned, and I've really disliked films that most critics adored. By distilling the value of a film down to a fresh/rotten percentage (much like Siskel and Ebert's thumbs up or down system of yore) it encourages people to stop there and not read the reviews to find out what does or doesn't appeal to the reviewers.

Now, applying this logic to the apparent failure of yet another 'Pirates' movie seems like a major stretch. As for Baywatch, I don't know.

Of course they are...

[evolutionary]

They gotta blame somebody. Not that I always agree with rotten tomatoes, but 80% of the time I do. and if not Rotten Tomatoes, I look in local magazines ("Now" magazine is a popular free website/publication). Also Rotten Tomatoes is a metasite compiling results of other reviews so, the movie producers can blame movie reviewers in general. Of course that is the review's JOB. It feels little like Trump blaming the media for making him look bad with "fake news". (A lot of is is actually true..)

One small problem

[Daetrin]

I'm entirely unsympathetic to movie studios' distress over the idea that consumers are using the tools available to make informed choices. However if Rotten Tomatoes is able to sink movies with bad reviews why are Michael Bay's Transformers movies still a thing that exists?

Tastes change

[H3lldr0p]

and if you don't change with them then maybe you're the one wrong. This has Skinner meme written all over it.

I have an idea

[kfh227]

Here's what you can do Hollywood. Start treating your high budgets for what they are when done correctly. Start making moving pictures .... ART! You know what, people will appreciate a well shot film with a good story whether it be a comedy, horror or drama movie. When you focus on the business risks and all that other crap you forget that you are artists. What you have become are dollar whores. I have very little respect for Hollywood in general and mostly respect movies that are shot with Art in mind. Start thinking about why some directors have a cult following like Ridley Scott, Stanley Kubrick, The Coen Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, etc. Think about those classics from the 80s. They were innocent family movies that a FAMILY COULD GO TO! Who on earth is going to take their 13 year old to go see Baywatch? You are a bunch of idiots.

Fixed that for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie goers Are Blaming Rotten Studios For Making Movies No One Wants To See

Same as last one

[bill_mcgonigle]

32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The previous Pirates movie also got 32% and grossed over a billion dollars.

http://screenrant.com/worst-re...

Re:You sure it's rotten tomatos?

[Archangel Michael]

The problem with Toxic Feminism is that it views as toxic anything masculine, unless it is a woman with balls the size of Bayonne. The problem I have with this, is that it doesn't ever embrace the true strengths of women as virtuous on their own merit. The unreal expectation that a woman can bear the part of a man, with exceptional strength, skill and agility is part of the problem, short of the superhero genre.

There are rare exceptions, where a strong woman character fits the script, the genre and doesn't go overboard with the Machismo Woman character. I think the original Alien movie makes a great example. But the whole movie wasn't about a bad ass woman going to town, it was about a normal woman going to town. The power of two "mother" figures out to protect their "young". Classic play missed by the feminists, and douchebag men equally, because they are overtly looking at things completely wrong.

There are lots of other strong characters built around women, and it is sad to see them play second fiddle to Wolverine movies. Not that those were unwatchable, but Black Widow (Avengers) probably needs her own movie, where we can see her full skillset, not just her badass fighting techniques.

But we get Wonderwoman so .... there is that.

I never trust Rotten Tomatoes

[liquid_schwartz]

Ever since I wasted a couple hours of my life watching Manchester By The Sea. That movie was terrible and I was hoping the whole time that the ending would redeem it and make it worthwhile based on the super high rating that it had on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead it had the weakest ending I think I've ever seen.

Movie tax

[OrangeTide]

We should all pay a special movie tax to the government, even if we don't see any films. Then redistribute that money to Hollywood, even if they make bad films. Because we as a society should bend over backwards to support failing business models that cannot adapt to change.

Cons: we pay an unnecessary tax.
Pros: we don't have to actually waste our time watching the bad films.

Rotten Tomatoes Is Losing Its Touch on Reality

[Notabadguy]

I've been an avid user of RottenTomatoes since its inception - and I'd like to think that I've saved a lot of money over the years as my wife and I are both avid movie-goers - we use it to dodge some real turds.

But over the last couple of years, I'm increasingly starting to feel like RottenTomatoes is losing its relevance. It used to be that audience reviews were within a few percentage points of critic reviews. Now...its like critics go out of their way to dislike anything that isn't an indie-film documentary, and don't write reviews that align with anything the movie-going public might think.

Baywatch is a prime example. 17% critic review, 70% audience review. What kind of bullshit is that? What value is a critic, or an aggregate site like RottenTomatoes if the work they are doing doesn't reflect what a movie-goer might think of the film?

Re:RT critics scores are not perfect or unbiased

[OrangeTide]

There is a lot of mob politics in anonymous rating systems. Consumers are often unqualified to evaluate the artistic merits of a piece, or to provide unbiased feedback or reviews. Judging something subjective, such as film, is pretty difficult to do fairly and in a way that provides value.

Review systems that ask individuals to rate something based on how they personally liked it, then averaging thousands of those together gives you one easy metric that has almost zero value.

If we were to rate fruit, I might rate a watermelon as 1 stars, while another would give it a 5 stars. Does that means watermelons are 3.0 on average? That doesn't seem right to me. There is certainly some interesting things you can do with the statistics to work out if something is very polarizing (are the reviews consistent or is there a big spread). And I think I'd rather have the mode and median rather than mean when it comes to reviews. It's be nice to know that half the people gave something >4 or that most people gave it a 1.

In the end much of what we appreciate in films is subjective and a more nuanced review that isn't boiled down into a single metric. Instead we should seek out well written reviewers that evaluates a film and compares it to others of the same genre. This may provide potential viewers with a better idea if the film is of interest to them. If we eliminate the business model of presenting to a more niche interest, then the only business will be to make films that blandly appeal to everyone and score highest on average with a simple one dimensional rating. I think I would stop going to theaters if every film was the same, wouldn't you?

Two issues, critics and Rotten Tomatoes

[gurps_npc]

They are not the same thing.

Movie Critics as a whole tend to ignore/poorly rate certain types of movies (comedies, action) while excessively praising certain other types. (Documentaries, drama). This is a separate issue than Rotten Tomatoes. I would agree that the movie critics need to fix how they grade movies. Among other things, they should be forced to bell curve, WITHIN categories. That is they should rate action movies only in comparison to other action movies, and give the best one of the year a 5 star rating, even if they did not like it as much as the documentary about how horrible murder is.

Rotten Tomatoes is another, separate issue. It is a great informational site, and they are complaining about it being GOOD at it's job, rather than bad it's job. They are in no way to blame for the scores the critics give and should not be blamed if movies do poorly because no one wants to see a piece of crap.

Re:Who in their right mind?

[WrongMonkey]

Here are the actual highest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes for the last few years: https://www.rottentomatoes.com...

So many pretentious art movies! Like Mad Max:Fury Road, Star Wars: Episode VII, and The Lego Movie.