main
side
curve
  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

ST Critics' reviews for Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Discussion in 'Sequel Trilogy' started by Darth Palpadious, Dec 12, 2017.

  1. Strongbow

    Strongbow Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Nov 6, 2014
    The only thing that the RT audience score represents that that some segment of the audience really disliked the movie. That's not news, though. I do believe it was gamed, and I base that conclusion on 2 things: 1) It's WAY out of synch with my experiences with my rather large group of friends. The film is not universally loved among them, but it is nowhere near 50/50. More 90/10. That, however, is just anecdotal, and I'm sure others will claim the opposite experience (after all, we self-select our friends). 2) The most compelling evidence is that the only surveys conducted with any rigor very much disagree with the RT score. That indicates to me something fishy is going on. At the LEAST we have review bombing, and I think it's likely that we have quite a few individuals entering multiple "reviews."

    You can choose to believe whatever you like. But there is absolutely no mathematical basis to choose the RT audience score over surveys conducted with much better methodologies. That's even considering the inaccuracies inherit in those methods.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2018
  2. Artoo-Dion

    Artoo-Dion Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 9, 2009
    It represents that people who visit Rotten Tomatoes (for whatever reason) have a 49% chance of scoring the film 3.5 or more stars, assuming no ballot stuffing was involved.
     
  3. DarthPhilosopher

    DarthPhilosopher Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2011
    Then it isn't objectively a stinker is it, and people who like it aren't trying to 'conform' reality.
     
    Satipo likes this.
  4. Hernalt

    Hernalt Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    I earned that. I recall saying people that countenanced SKB were physics-illiterate...
     
  5. eko32eko7

    eko32eko7 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2018
    Would you be willing to provide examples? I am very interested in reading more about this.
     
    MS1 and Glitterstimm like this.
  6. Ender_and_Bean

    Ender_and_Bean Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 19, 2002
    The Last Jedi was awarded with the top SciFi Golden Tomatoes award honor of 2017 via Rotten Tomatoes methodology for adjusted score.

    TLJ beat out both War of the Planet of the Apes and Bladerunner 2049 for excellence. Having seen and enjoyed all 3 I have to agree.

    https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-sci-fi-fantasy-movies-2017/

    Arrival won in 2016, beating out 10 Cloverfield Lane and Rogue One respectively.
    https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-sci-fifantasy-2016/

    Mad Max Fury Road won in 2015, beating out The Force Awakens and The Martian respectably.
    https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-sci-fifantasy-2015/
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2018
  7. Artoo-Dion

    Artoo-Dion Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 9, 2009
    I think that's pretty stiff competition, and any one of them is worthy, IMHO. FWIW, on Metacritic, BR2049 gets 81, War for the POTA gets 82 and TLJ gets 85.
     
  8. Ender_and_Bean

    Ender_and_Bean Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 19, 2002
    Beyond winning the best Sci-fi award for the first time of the new Star Wars films, TLJ also continued the ST streak of no Razzie award nominations after the PT were nominated regularly throughout with the most recent nominations announced.

    Nice to see the Razzies are as much a part of the past as Midichlorian count comparisons.

    In 2006 Christiensen won worst supporting actor for ROTS:
    http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000558/2006/1

    In 2004 AOTC was nominated for worst picture but Madonna’s Swept Away was deemed worst. Also that same year Hayden won again for worse supporting actor. Portman was nominated for worst but didn’t win. They were also voted worse on screen couple but Madonna won again. AOTC did win for worst screenplay.

    In 2000 The Phantom Menace had 6 Razzie nominations. You can read more here:
    http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000558/2000/1
     
    Ricardo Funes likes this.
  9. leopardhk47

    leopardhk47 Jedi Knight star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 23, 2016
    I have to heavily disagree with TLJ being awarded the best sci-fi movie of 2017. Blade Runner 2049 was the far superior movie in both special effects but also the plot and themes of the movies. BR2049 does a great job of acknowledging its predecessor while carving its own path that's a logical development from the first movie. Agent K and Luv are deeper characters than Rey and Kylo as well, imo. But the biggest thing that separates BR2049 from TLJ is how it treats its protagonist. Both K and Rey are revealed to be nobodies after the audience is teased with a special origin story. But unlike TLJ, BR2049 doubles down on K not being special and not having a destiny. His victory is a small and much more realistic one. He reunites a father with his daughter and gains a sense of self fulfillment by having a "soul".
     
  10. Ender_and_Bean

    Ender_and_Bean Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    May 19, 2002
    I agree that K’s arc was interesting but viewers wouldn’t have many reasons to care about Deckard in this film on screen without loving the earlier installment first. The lack of info on all that happened and lead him from the end of Bladerunner to where he’s at in this also felt glossed over for people who were interested in that.

    The biggest issue with BR2049 though is the antagonism. Leto is compelling as an actor and elevates an otherwise largely uninvolved villain whose motivations seem half-baked and whose efforts to stop our protagonists, considering the formidable resources he’s supposed to have, seem ridiculously small scale and barely menacing at all. I also didn’t feel it was sufficiently explained why procreation was so desired by him when he can churn out replicants as fast and at the quality he can. I suppose there was just the curiosity angle but it still felt half-baked to me and poorly explained from his perspective for motivation in comparison to the other form of creating replicants. The resistance movement also didn’t seem to go anywhere interesting in scope and it also wasn’t clear to me when he had Deckard in his possession that he didn’t just extract from his mind anything of value. He’d been off the grid so long that they could have done anything to him. His only plan was to present him with a copy of his old love and that was it? Just felt contrived.

    I still enjoyed it but it has some issues with its script.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2018
  11. The PiedPiper of Alderaan

    The PiedPiper of Alderaan Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 16, 2015
    We have been discussing TLJ critics from the media since december but they are mostly american-based or at least written in English. I thought it would be interesting to know what is the opinions of critics in other countries: germany, italy, brazil, japan, russia, sweden and so on (im not talking about fan reactions here). These are not counted on RT

    in my country, FRANCE, i gathered 94 reviews from varying sources -the 94; that i could find online or in the physical press-.

    Here's what i found: if there was a french tomatometer, TLJ would get a score of 82% and an average note of 7,5/10.

    It's actually not that bad for a blockbuster movie, since French critics tend to be way more harsher with blockbusters than their american counterparts. Looking closer i found that most of the critics found it very good or even excellent but there's still a minor yet significant part of them who felt disappointed in the movie. It gave me the feeling that those disappointed were critics who were quite tired of SW or simply saw all this as a cash machine

    Feel free to talk about the media reception in your country :)

    EDIT : oops why is there the title "contest" next to the thread? dont know how to change/remove it...
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2018
  12. Pro Scoundrel

    Pro Scoundrel New Films Expert At Modding Casual star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    THREAD MERGE.
     
  13. Bowen

    Bowen Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 1999
    With very few exceptions (Warcraft comes to mind lol) I don’t think any blockbuster movie rates below about 1.5 stars out of 4 and it has to try to go below 2.5. It’s just not reviewing movies on all fronts if you’re saying a movie as epic as The Last Knight was a really bad movie. It wasn’t. The music was fantastic, the final act was extremely entertaining, effects were top notch, and humor was very well developed from about the 50% mark on. A few extremely annoying characters, the fact that it’s a pretty silly story, and there’s nothing deeper going on certainly means it’s not a strictly “good” movie taken as a whole. But I think people are being overly emotional and not analytical when they’re rating $100M films lower than a C. The fact is you can buy a C movie, the same way you can buy a 50% win sports team. You can’t buy greatness because it requires special elements coming together just right.

    For me the only times I give 0-1 star ratings are all indie movies and they’re usually Oscar nominees. For every Hostiles or The Post that I love, there’s a 0 star Lady Bird or Phantom Thread. It’s quite simply because their level of technical craft is mediocre. There’s nothing in either movie I couldn’t get out of any of my top corporate cinematographers as the framing and camera decisions are basic at best. Nothing epic going on there. Lighting’s mundane. Music I didn’t even notice, they had nothing to impress me. Acting is only as good as the story and characters and I found both stories to be about as fun as watching paint dry. Worse than that I don’t think either deserves to be told at all, even to someone while drunk at a bar, let alone in the most expensive storytelling format. They’re anti-cinematic bores and to me that’s 0 Star material.

    If you can impress me with special effects, fantastic cinematography, good music, a fun sense of adventure or solid enough pacing, and basically entertain me then you get 2 stars or better. The last Pirates is a good example too, I already forget what that thing was about, it wasn’t good, but it was entertaining enough I walked out of the theater thinking meh, ok. At least I wasn’t angry and wanting to strangle the filmmaker like after Mother! The most critically acclaimed films in general are the ones I want to destroy every copy because they’re often SO horrible.

    I have little tolerance for films about small people. I like small films but it should be like Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, a bizarre true story in many ways but about a really revolutionary guy and while it’s certainly “indie” I can’t see it boring anyone. It’s risque. But some of these movies I literally cannot believe anyone thinks it’s acceptable to make movies about such boring mundane ordinary people. You spend millions on a movie it better be about someone special I think. Or someone ordinary DOING something special, of course. But ordinary people doing ordinary things is almost a guaranteed 0 star rating for me as I think it’s unworthy not just for cinema but novels or comics or TV or any medium of storytelling.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2018
    Ricardo Funes likes this.
  14. Ricardo Funes

    Ricardo Funes Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2015
    @Bowen what about the current year Academy nominations? I always find at least 1 or 2 Oscar-bait movies in that list.

    I agree with you on films about regular people doing regular stuff. I wonder why those films even exist. If it is regular, then why film it at all?

    Not sure why critics seems to love this kind of "regular stuff" movies.

    In other news, RT top critics score is currently at 96%. We will never know how close TLJ has come from a nomination, but this score is amazing.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2018
    Bowen likes this.
  15. Bowen

    Bowen Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 6, 1999
    I guess the mature, tolerant version of Bowen (he gets shoved aside typically ha ha j/k) should just throw up my hands and say, well, to each his own, glad someone enjoys those movies. And I am tolerant of movies of all types, that's fine, but the idea that Lady Bird is a BETTER movie than The Last Jedi is so remarkably laughable that I can't even honestly address the point seriously without just laughing too hard. But the more argumentative version of me says look, I've taken many film classes, I've studied film from the start of the medium and I mean the start, 1890s short films, and in all countries that were making significant contributions to international cinema, and I simply protest the existence of movies about ordinary people doing ordinary things as I think it violates a fundamental rule of storytelling. You will find that about 99% of movies conform to this rule, and the 1% that don't to me are just flat-out bad movies. If they're showing what is ordinary, and what is average, they're by definition showing things people already understand and know about.

    It's like compare these two, just for instance:

    A) McDonalds employee goes to work, hates his job, wishes he got paid more, goes home to watch Netflix. He finds himself in a series of mundane events like bad dates, friends who are unmotivated, a nagging mom who wants him to go back to school, and whatever other typical thing you can imagine happening. The end. THIS MOVIE WINS OSCARS!

    B) A McDonalds employee goes to work, hates his job, but in a split-second decision he stops an armed robbery and becomes a local hero. Inspired by his selfless actions, the owner promises to pay for the employee to go back to college, which he accepts, and takes night courses while working at McDonalds to pursue an education in accounting. He ends up meeting a girl at college, he eventually graduates from school at the top of his class, where he's hired by a major New York accounting firm and is soon doing the books on a Fortune 500 company, where he discovers an irregularity that leads him back into the spotlight in a big scandal. This movie opens in May - August and makes good money but critics ignore it at the end of the year, "too mainstream," too much happens, doesn't really reflect the "human condition" (lol laughable critic language).

    I mean, really, which would you rather watch?! I don't get it. By the way I came up with Option B in about 5 seconds and it's still a better concept for a movie than Lady Bird was. You can't just make a movie about nothing happening and expect me to award you points for knowing how a camera works or putting some lights up. BIG DEAL. Do moviegoers not realize how easy that is?! I can throw a quarter in Los Angeles and it'll land on someone who owns a 4K cinema camera and knows how to use it. It's not 1945, it's really not that hard to pick up anymore. You get no points for doing the basics of filmmaking correctly as it's expected from any release including straight-to-Netflix, straight-to-digital, etc. There are thousands of skilled cinematographers and there are very few jobs for them each year. One of my good friends has shot about a dozen feature films and on a few occasions he has had to work day jobs, pretty horrible day jobs, just to pay the bills because work is so hard to find regularly. This guy is a rockstar, too, he's an incredible cinematographer.

    I have a mean theory about this recent preponderance of mundane, extremely boring "slice of life" movies, though. I think it's rampant narcissism in society and the "me" generation at work. Think about it, back 60 years ago, most people knew their lives weren't that special, but they were happy to have good friends, good family, a nice job, and be healthy. That was ok, not everyone is a rock star. People understood that the vast majority of people lead pretty ordinary lives (and there's nothing wrong with that), so when they went to the movies they wanted to see something special about a stud cowboy or a detective investigating murders or something that makes them laugh, whatever. Now days, everyone is the star of their own movie. You can be a star now for the stupidest reasons, like the "Cash Me Outside" girl or Honey Boo Boo or Paris Hilton. We're all special snowflakes because just look at our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, EVERYONE is so important! Look at what interesting things I'm doing, surely I'm worthy of a movie! So then when people see a movie about someone just like them (i.e. most people), they're like "WOW OMG that was so relatable because that's just basically like my life up there on the big screen! About time they made a movie about me. Makes me feel so warm and fuzzy."

    I've seen tons of middle aged women commend Lady Bird on the Facebook page, "Wow that's so true, oh my god what a crazy movie, the filmmakers SO got it! MY teenage daughter was rebellious too, and sometimes I wasn't a perfect parent, but I loved her, and I hope she appreciates it one day." Dude, really? Everyone's teenage daughter was rebellious. My girlfriend was a nightmare for her poor mom, my sister was even worse, I don't know that I honestly know any girls who weren't rebellious and didn't have complicated relationships with their moms (that might actually be the concept worthy of a movie! lol). That's completely normal. Making a movie about it doesn't capture some special thing we weren't already aware of, and it's not like I'm going to give it a pass for being "so realistic" for "how things actually are." By that logic I could make a movie about someone getting ready for work and as long as I portray it accurately, I guess it's a masterpiece of cinema for delving into the nuances of a topic that's not covered in mainstream cinema. Well, gee, yeah, because we all have had to get ready for work or school at some point and understand what it's like -- it's not that exciting. Neither was Lady Bird.
     
    {Quantum/MIDI} and Ricardo Funes like this.
  16. Martoto77

    Martoto77 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 6, 2016
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
    Ricardo Funes likes this.
  17. ewoksimon

    ewoksimon Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 26, 2009
    It's all preferential. You can't compare Star Wars to Lady Bird or to Phantom Thread because those films are aiming for different things, both thematically and aesthetically. None of them is objectively superior to the others.
     
  18. oncafar

    oncafar Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 10, 2017
    It's sort of a critic review

     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2018
  19. Jason79

    Jason79 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2012
    Critics bah! The same guys that told me i'm supposed to love the godfather right? Well i thought it sucked. Bored the hell outta me.
    Wanna know a movie they hated that i loved? Weekend at bernies 2. Be honest now. There has to be a bad movie you enjoyed despite what critics said. admit it!
     
  20. bluealien1

    bluealien1 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 14, 2015
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2018
  21. Ahsoka's Tano

    Ahsoka's Tano Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2014
    So you were bored with The Godfather but loved Weekend at Bernie's 2. I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic. You're doing a good job either way.
     
    2Cleva likes this.
  22. Oissan

    Oissan Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Mar 9, 2001
    Critics won't soften their reviews one bit. The possibility of not getting premium access to stuff from Disney is not anywhere close as big a threat for a critic than being caught handing out better ratings to garner favors. The former is unfortunate for a critic, the latter ruins the critic's career, because it undermines his/her credibility.

    The whole thing is more about exclusive stories and premium access anyway. Disney - like any big company - will grant that kind of access to those who it deems give it the positive image it wants to have. Critics won't get barred from reviewing any of the movies, because not only is that impossible, but even attempting it already comes with the price of critics affected by this being more inclined to be negative. But no one can really force a company to give you preferential treatment just because you are a journalist. If you are more negative than others, you are likely getting not as nice a treatment as those who are more positive. Which is kind of expected.
     
  23. lawton

    lawton Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 12, 2015
    TLJ reviews as far as the fans go seems to have evolved some. It seems more of the hard core type fans have came around to accept it some while the average joe fan has soured on it quite a bit.
     
  24. PymParticles

    PymParticles Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 1, 2014
    I would argue there's a difference between liking/disliking a movie and a movie being bad/good. For instance, I do not particularly like the film Mud, but I'm able to admit that it's a very well made movie. On the other hand, I love Jason X because it's stupid and ridiculous, for the very same reasons I consider it to be a freaking terrible film.
     
  25. Darth Chiznuk

    Darth Chiznuk Superninja of Future Films star 8 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2012
    There's nothing subjective about The Godfather. You either love it or you're wrong.