*Official* 3NS ROTS Reviews (Ebert's review, spoiler-free inside!)

RT just did a massive update, adding 33 reviews to bring the total to 116 reviews...and only lowering the rating a wee bit to 82%. I'm stunned it's still that high.

ROTS now officially has more fresh reviews than TPM, 95 vs. 88. And it's not too far from AOTC.

Either way, ROTS is now a bonafide, 100% certified, critical success!

 

At this point, with 120 reviews, it would be pretty difficult for the score to change much. Which means it is almost definitely going to end up with at least a score of 80, probably more like 82-83. Very cool, though I still think the tomatometer is a bogus system, it is still good to rate so highly on it!

 

Oh, this is hilarious. I was just watching Fox News and Billy O'Rielly had Richard Roeper on his show along with a woman from Time magazine. Get this: Bill O'Rielly says that even though he's not a Star Wars fan, ROTS was phenomenal. He believes that it will break all box office records. His only criticisms were that the acting was "terrible" and the "evil senator" plotline was a little too heavy handed (of course, this is because he claims that Lucas has a vendetta against Bush and himself). When Roeper said that ROTS would probably not put up "Titanic" numbers, O'Rielly said that all the stoners would see the movie ten times because of all the colors. I guess he's talking about me. I never thought I'd fit into one of O'Rielly's stereotypes...

 

Yeah I saw the O'reilly segment too. He always bashes entertaiment, so for him to say he liked it is a very good sign.

 

Sadly I was watching that O'Reily segment as well. It was a gushfest with Roper, O'Reily, and some lady. They really seemed to like it and they gave away some cool lines .

I don't understand his obsession with "stoned slackers" and why he identifies with them so much though. Hopefully I'll never see the show again haha.

 

TPM - 142 reviews, 88 fresh, 54 rotten, 62%
AOTC - 196 reviews, 127 fresh, 69 rotten, 65%

ROTS (currently) - 131 reviews, 109 fresh, 22 rotten, 83%

Amazing stuff.

 

Well I think the tomatometer is about done. 154 reviews put it at 83%. There are some more ones not included, the unoffical score is at 84%. So bottom line here is that there is no way it is dropping below 80%. Amazing, really.

Also, the IMDB score is at 8.2 right now, with about 2700 votes. I'm sure that will drop over time as a broader audience sees the film, but right now that score puts it in the top 100 rankings of all time for IMDB.

 

So this is wrapping up, huh? Kind of sad. I was addicted to this thread before seeing the movie!

As long as we're using RT as our lodestone, let's not forget the real measure that shows the unbelievable critical turnaround...

TPM, Cream of the Crop = 40%
AOTC, Cream of the Crop = 39%
ROTS, Cream of the Crop = 74%

 

I just wanted to bump this up, because I had talked about dreading to see the review that would be in my local newspaper. Guess what guys, they gave three and a half stars! I'm just overwhelmed...I can't wait to see this movie again.

 

What is so wonderful is that this it how it ends...with accolades and praise. This the last major impression we'll have of Star Wars for the rest of our lives, and it is all good. If this movie had been panned we'd be left having to adopt a defensive stance on the PT for the rest of our lives. But now we've been left with a masterpiece that is an undeniable critical success, and has been embraced (so far) by the fans. In 10 years and 20 years and 30 years we can remember this month with such a good feeling in our hearts.

 

"So this is how Star Wars dies, with thunderous applause."

 

So it turns out that RotS is actually the best reviewed Star Wars movie of all on its original release.

Tomatometer Ranking of Star Wars Series Based on Critical Reaction During Original Release Dates:
83% - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
79% - Star Wars
65% - Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
62% - Star wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
52% - The Empire Strikes Back
31% - Return of the Jedi

 

With the tomatometer wrapping up, I guess the only other interesting score to monitor is IMDB. Does anyone else know of sites where people rate movies? Sites that are of signifcant size, I mean?

Well, this film is currently rated at 8.4, which is quite high. It has almost 9000 votes so far. What is odd is that even though the score shows at 8.4, when you look at their Top 250 list it only shows at 8.0.

Well the 8.0 score has it at the #134 film of all time, whereas the 8.4 would put it at around 30-something.

 

The top 250 score only counts votes from regular voters. It's great to see it ranked that high after the less than spectacular scores for the first two prequels. It's currently very close to RotJ in the rankings. Personally, I think RotS is easily the better movie of the two, but with all the bashing the prequels have gotten it's quite impressive to have it up there with one of the originals.

 

TomatoMeter watch:

179 reviews
148 fresh
31 rotten

Percentage: 83%
Rating: 7.4

---

Cream of the Crop:

Percentage: 72%
Rating: 6.9

 

There's a fascinating article on rottentomato where they went back to old newspaper articles and scored the OT vs PT based on original reviews. The results might surprise you. ROTS is the most well received of any of the films, and the PT does much better than the OT.

Here's the link:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/news/comments/?entryid=197859

And here are the tomatometer scores:

ANH: 79
TESB: 52
ROTJ: 31
TPM: 62
AOTC: 65
ROTS: 83

 

I just saw a TV spot which specifically mentioned that 'Revenge of the Sith' is doing well critically, and mentioned about a half-dozen blurbs from some of the major critics. I am glad to see Lucasfilm using the reviews to their advantage. This movie should be recieving some pretty good word of mouth.



Mace Windy,
revenge of the wind!

 

About 27 new reviews have been added, and we've kept up the 83% rating.

RATING: FRESH READING: 83%

Reviews counted: 206
Fresh: 171 Rotten: 35
Average Rating: 7.4/10

 

[burns] ex-cellent. [/burns]

Or, "everything is proceeding exactly as I have foreseen!"

In your faces, all you haters.

 

About 27 new reviews have been added, and we've kept up the 83% rating.

While I don't tend to put a great deal of weight into things such as the "tomatometer," I am nonetheless extremely pleased to see "Revenge of the Sith" greeted with such warm critical notices (generally speaking, that is) - it is certainly preferable to having a deluge of scornful, derisive, and negative ones instead.

In your faces, all you haters.

Inevitably, and for a variety of reasons, many people always were going to dislike "Sith." I'm not about to elaborate, but I am sure that some individuals were determined to hate this film at all costs, just as some were likewise determined to like it, regardless of its artistic merit, or lack thereof. What is refreshing, however, is the fact that the critics have generally admired this picture, with many of them going so far as to shower it with effusive praise (i.e. A.O. Scott, Richard Roeper, Michael Wilmington, Todd McCarthy, etc.), citing "Sith" as being one of the best films in the entire saga. For A.O. Scott to claim that he prefers "Sith" to "A New Hope" (and puts it alongside "The Empire Strikes Back" as the richest and most complex work in the series) is rather extraordinary, especially considering his distaste for Episodes I and II - those statements are more voluminous than anything put forth by the likes of Peter Travers ("Monster-In-Law" was a good film? [Mace_Windu]"I don't think so."[/Mace_Windu] - yes, I have seen it, and despite the presence of some talented individuals, it was terrible). Some of the positive reviews will help to lure "fringe" customers into the theaters, and help to boost ROTS' box-office return; the same could not be said for the previous two installments, whose critical reception, while moderately respectable, was far from overwhelmingly positive. Additionally, no longer can the assertion be made that critics in general hated Episode III - that notion is completely fallacious, and has been disproven quite significantly as of late. Sure, there are critics who vehemently disliked it, but this time they are in the minority. I am still trying to reconcile myself to the fact that Jonathan Rosenbaum of "The Chicago Reader" actually liked "Revenge of the Sith" - this is the same individual who wrote that "A New Hope" was "worthless." Amazing - I was certain that he would hate this installment, and yet I couldn't be happier that I was mistaken in this instance. Good stuff.

 

The turnaround you mention is one of the most amazing things. It's not just that the movie is getting praise, but from people who walked in with preconceived notions that it would suck.
That really says something about the movie.

 

The turnaround you mention is one of the most amazing things. It's not just that the movie is getting praise, but from people who walked in with preconceived notions that it would suck.
That really says something about the movie.

I suppose so, but now we must contend with bizarre conspiracy theories involving Lucasfilm bribing the film critical community in order to receive decent reviews (yes, amazingly, I have observed such a claim - on these boards, no less). Uh, huh. Anyway, I do feel as though ROTS is the best and most throroughly entertaining of the three prequel films, and also the most haunting and operatic of the "Star Wars" films, apart from "The Empire Strikes Back." But that is my opinion, for what it's worth - I do understand why some might have distaste for ROTS, as it does contain material that could be considered as being quite precarious, and as such it is in many ways a divisive picture. Since this film is getting decent critical notices, "prequel apologists" are accused of hypocritical tendencies for having suddenly become so fixated on the positive reviews that "Sith" has received, while having earlier scoffed at the film critics' lukewarm reactions to Episodes I and II; that in fact might be true in some cases, but I have usually attempted to indicate that regardless of what esteemed critics have to say about a particular film, what ultimately matters is your own opinion, how you felt about the movie. It is of course very pleasing to see some small amount of critical vindication for these pictures, I can't deny that, but if I had hated "Sith" while everyone around had enthusiastically endorsed it, would I be wrong, merely because my opinion was in the minority? No, because such things are subjective and thus cannot be categorized in an absolute manner.

I think you are right, though, Kiki-Gonn, in your mention of the fact that critics like Rosenbaum, who really disliked the "holy and flawless" ANH (it and ESB are curiously exonerated of any flaws or "clunky bits" by many an individual), actually enjoyed ROTS. No, he didn't love it, but he felt that it was a good film with an unusual amount of narrative and character complexity - in other words, it wasn't a routine action picture, and he felt that Anakin's tragic arc was rich in its underlying Shakespearean power. I was very delighted to see that Rosenbaum liked the film, and as I have previously indicated, even more astounded by A.O. Scott's assessment of its worth - I was almost certain that both of these individuals would pan the film (the fact that Rosenbaum slammed ANH is probably reason enough for many to consider him to be someone of dubious provenence - personally, I would say that it is his endorsement of all things Kiarostami, Theo Angelopoulos, Jia Zhang-Ke, and Hou Hsiao-Hsein that irks me - I'm kidding). You have others such as Ebert, Leonard Maltin, Ty Burr, and so forth, who found at least one of the previous episodes to be problematic, really liking this movie. Indeed, I happened to read a local critic who indicated that while he did not enjoy Episodes I and II, he felt that ROTS was so good that it has forced him to reconsider the previous installments. I imagine that it would take some level of humility to concede something such as that, and yet I do find it to be quite admirable.

I would hope that most who attend a film do so with a relatively open mind, and it would appear that many critics did just that. It is a rather obvious thing to state, but if you go into a movie planning to hate it, you are more than likely to do just that. It's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

Congrats RotS!
I'm sure the emotion over the end of Star Wars also has inflated the scores. Nevertheless, SW has been and continues to be well recieved critically and by the masses!

 

Sadly, the rating score on IMDB has dropped steadily by the day, and as of today it is no longer tracked on their Top 250 movies list. The score stands at 7.9 right now, still a respectable score.

The median score is still an amazing 9 out of 10.

 

The IMDB thing isn't too surprising. Unfortunately, those types of voting polls start with a gush of people giving it 10, then most people giving it's real score, and then a bunch of people backlashing and giving it 0.

So it goes. The 83% RT score is much more impressive to me.