Rotten Tomatoes: "The Prequels were better reviewed than the Classic Trilogy."

Extremely high. You don't get much stability until about 50 reviews. 100 would give you a lot of confidence. A handful of reviews tells you absolutely nothing. I am completing a Doctorate in Psychology and am an expert in statistics. I have seen my own results change time and time again once the sampling gets higher. I had 50 participants in a sample once and once I got another 20, my results lost significance. And that's with 70! So it isn't reasonable to conclude this unless you want to be wrong.

 

eird to because I loved attack of the clones

 

hawk???? Have you come back to us now at the turn of the tide?

About the samples, isn't it fair to make an assessment if you sample a large number of the most reknown reviews? I mean, who cares what smalltown USA newspapers says, unless you're from there. It should be the national\international reviews that factor in, and there weren't as many at the time of the OT as there are now in the Internet age.

 

Sifting through all this nonsense the only thought that comes to mind is why does anyone care so much? I find critics to be elitist idiots who only follow popular trends and than bash pop culture when they feel they become too big. Don?t ever mention razzies as an argument because everyone who has a functioning brain knows they are an illegitimate site who picks on things when they become popular or when something or someone is popular to bash. Seeing that someone can pay $30 and participate in the voting only shows me the majority of the razzie voters are self loathing fanboys. Awards mean nothing to me; I find all awards to be political nonsense. I first watched Star Wars in 1983 when I was 4, and I saw ROTJ in it?s theatrical run in 83 and I honestly don?t care how they were reviewed back than because I know I loved them and I still do more than ever to this day, I was not concerned about what anyone thought back when I was a kid back than!

 

Is the tide turning?

I think a proper random sample of at least 50 reviews gives you a good idea of the trend regardless of whether it is international or not. Just check out any new movie at RT. Sometimes it starts off at 100% then drops to the low teens. There is no way of knowing for sure what would happen with a larger sample. I mean, ideally, you'd survey everyone but 100 reviews is probably just enough to be confident.

The funny thing is that Go-Mer is still pulling this information up years later. I just can't believe how this issue is still around (and the fact that I am caught up in it all again!!).

 

Is the tide turning?

Well, the tides got to be turning somewhere!


I think a proper random sample of at least 50 reviews gives you a good idea of the trend regardless of whether it is international or not. Just check out any new movie at RT.

Right, but what I am saying is that there were more reviews on a nation\international level today than there were 25 to 30 years ago, much more. Media has grown an expanded in multiple ways since the late 70s. This allows more news and entertainment outlets, which also means more critics.

I'm not saying I think those number are necessarily accurate (the 79%,48%,33% numbers). Frankly I have no idea. ANH sounds close, but ROTJ sounds too low. What I am suggesting is that a sample of less than 50 from back then probably could gives us a descent feel. I think zombie's suggestion of using that filter on RT might give us a clearer picture.

But in either event, because of the loss of information (reviews that are no longer available) and the change in media since the OT days I don't think we can draw an accurate comparison from then to now. You might think it should be apples to apples, but really its like comparing apples to oranges. We can find some facts and figures that could give us a possible rough idea, but would they be accurate? I don't think it can be proven one way or the other.


The funny thing is that Go-Mer is still pulling this information up years later. I just can't believe how this issue is still around (and the fact that I am caught up in it all again!!).

To be fair, Go-Mer may have started this thread, but he did not start the debate. Latvian started it in another thread. Vort observed that the debate was off-topic in that thread, and so Go-Mer obliged our request to stay on topic by creating a new thread.

As long aa people have strong opinions are things like critical reviews, the issue will be around -- especially since it can be neither proven or disproven satisfactorally to end the debate.


Sifting through all this nonsense the only thought that comes to mind is why does anyone care so much?

I doubt anyone does, in the sense of swaying opinion about which series is really better than the other. However, it does make for an interesting discussion for historical reasons, if you ask me.

 

You can't use psychology stats as a parallel. Pyschology deals with the behavior of human beings--and there are some 6 billion human beings. So of course a sampling of 50 tells you nothing. Critics however, only number the hundreds, and we should really only be counting critics with a readership of say, a hundred thousand or so, because as they say everyone's a critic but only a comparatively narrow band of them actually get read. Out of the few hundred total reviews, the band of critics that largely comprise "the media" at large is only 100 to 150, so a sampling of 50 from that total is effectively almost 50% of the total subject.

 

I think we are talking about different things. Of course a sample of 50 people doesn't give you a representation of the 6 billion people in the population. Let's not go down that road because there are millions of factors to consider when trying to generalise to the total population.

What I am talking about is basic statistics and the nature of numbers. If you look at any new review at RottenTomatoes, a sample of 20 reviews rarely gives a picture of what the film actually gets when 100+ reviews are in the database. Once the reviews hit the 80-100 mark, the percentage starts to stablise. However, anything less than 50, it's anyone's guess. AOTC was sitting pretty at 100% in the early stages and then when the bulk came in, the score plummeted. The bulk number of reviews for the OT is not available so we have absolutely no way of knowing.

Now, I am not talking about generalising figures. I am talking about the stability of scores with low numbers. In this case, whether it is human behaviour or human's rating movies, we need more data to know. At this stage, I would only be confident in saying the reviews weren't 100% positive but anything more than that is pure speculation.

 

^^^^Pure Genius.

I do agree that the OT was not getting the overwhelmingly good reviews back then as it is now. It was a different time however. The PT opened in a hostile environment.

I will say that most people I know enjoyed all the Star Wars movies, and if they liked the originals better, they certainly dont HATE the PT. They admit that they have a fondness for the older ones because it was what they grew up with, not because they think the new ones are bad movies.

Also, almost every kid I've spoken to about Star wars(an elementary school 2nd grade class would come periodically to my highschool to do activities with us-Day of the Dead, Earth Day, etc), the ones that were into Star Wars, I would ask them what thier favorite one was and if they didnt say "all of them" they would say "Episode III" or "Episode II" or whatever. Its not like I went around asking a bunch of kids about Star Wars. That was just one example of many instances where I've heard little kids talking about Star Wars and they seem to like the new ones better, because they grew up with them.


I personally love all of them for different reasons and will say that overall, critics liked all the Star Wars movies. You look on Rotten Tomatoes even(although its not COMPLETELY reliable given the nostalgia trip many of the critics are on regarding the originals). But hey, 6 movies, and none of them are rotten, I'd say thats a job well done. Ya, but generally, critics are pretty unreliable for me because they are so cynical sometimes. In todays age, you can ENJOY a movie and be ENTERTAINED,(which is the entire point of movies in the first place) but still give it a bad review and hurt the movies rep. lets face it, most people skim reviews and look at the "star rating" and dont actually inquire into the review itself. So, if someone enjoys a movie, it should show that you enjoyed the movie. sheesh.

 

Wow. Initially we have critics telling us what qualifies as good and bad. Now, we also have posters on the internet telling us which critics qualify as being worthy of listening to and which do not and what percentage of what total qualifies and doesn't qualify as being accurate and whether the human condition can be included in any kind of study or only numbers and percentages.

Aren't we all capable of coming to our own conclusions and being comfortable with them? I know I'm capable and comfortable (comfortable, except for the discomfort I'm feeling from the effects of the hernia surgery I had last Tuesday ).

I was there in 1977, 1980 and 1983. I remember the positive reviews from critics. Really, it wasn't until the internet/explosion of media around the time of the STAR WARS Prequels that I noticed negative reviews for the STAR WARS movies (not just the STAR WARS Prequels).

The positive reviews are fun and great. I want everyone to enjoy these movies. I don't deny that negative reviews exist, but I don't care that they do.

For me, STAR WARS is what it is and I absolutely mean that in a positive way. I absolutely enjoy STAR WARS, each and every episode.

Negative reviews/comments and the amount of/percentage of absolutely determine/change nothing for me and have absolutely nothing to do with the fan of STAR WARS that I am.

I get Go-Mer-Tonic's point. And everyone else's. I've enjoyed and continue to enjoy this STAR WARS ride that is 30+ years long and continuing, regardless of whether this critic or that critic enjoyed/enjoys it or didn't/doesn't enjoy it and regardless of what percentage of critics enjoyed/enjoys it or didn't/doesn't enjoy it.

 

Me too. Ditto. Right on. Tell it like it is.

STAR WARS is/means whatever it is/means to each indivudual viewer.

In addition to my own personal responses, however, I find it interesting what the mainstream world, beyond and outside of my own mind, thinks about the films. To what degree has the "STAR WARS phenomenon" affected society and culture at large? To what elements does the public en masse gravitate, and what elements do they tend to reject as being flawed? Are their observations valid, in my opinion, or are they without merit? What insight into the artistic process can I glean from critical response to a work of art, regardless of whether I agree with the individual critic?

We do not live in a vacuum, after all, but in a community of people with thoughts and feelings different from our own. I value having some insight into others' minds, and reading critical review/intellectual analysis of a personally-cherished artwork is a good way of gleaning it.

 

So, rather than debate the points, let's hold hands and ignite a cigarette lighter in the air.

 

... singing "Koom-baya" to the tune of the Force theme.

 

Kids these days don't smoke as much as when Journey was popular, I believe the contemporary equivalent is the illuminated display of your cell phone.

 

I understand hawk's point. Having said that, heated debate is pointless, wrapping our emotions around it is pointless, but as an intellectual and historical excersize I find the debate interesting. However, I'm not sure how we can satisfactorially prove one perspective, though.

 

Yeah right.

 

Vortigern99, I agree with much of what you said in your 3/31 12:41pm post as it pertains to STAR WARS.

I especially agree with you agreeing with me.

That reminds me of a Chris Isaak concert that my wife and I attended with Natalie Merchant as the opening performer. At one point during Natalie Merchant's time on stage, she commented on seeing people in the audience talking on cell phones. That's not good.

 

It's a difficult comparison to make because of the film making environment that each trilogy was released in. Star Wars received high praise at the time of it's release, but much of this was due to it's revolutionary effects and the fact that it was providing something so different to what was dominant at the time. ESB similar, ROTJ not so well as it wasn't so much like Empire and had a younger tone to it.

It's very hard to be revolutionary in terms of effects these days and fantasy type films are coming out every five minutes, so there's less freshness there. Without those factors as an advantage, the PT got critiqued on acting, writing, pacing and all the other more standard critic stuff, so got a bit more of a critical hammering.

That's how my aging brain remembers it anyway!