Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[David Jimerson]

My understanding of the reviewer scores is that if the review is even only 51% positive, it's counted as "fresh", and if it's only 49% positive, it's counted as "rotten". So theoretically the two could be reconciled; if every reviewer was giving it a 51-60% positive, and every audience member was giving it around a 56% positive, then ... everybody's saying the same thing, and the only differentiating factor is how the reviewer score is counted?

Could be, but my point is more about the (now) 51% viewer composite score itself. Some say it's so low because of bots and trolling. But I don't think there's any way to know how big of an impact that really has, especially as the score keeps getting lower and thousands of new ratings come along.

 

[filmguy123]

Could be, but my point is more about the (now) 51% viewer composite score itself. Some say it's so low because of bots and trolling. But I don't think there's any way to know how big of an impact that really has, especially as the score keeps getting lower and thousands of new ratings come along.

RT released an article saying they were confident in the authenticity of the score and monitor closely for abuse. The doubt cast on this sounds more like some damage control buzz based on one dude on reddit saying he was trying to spam negative review scores. I'm sure there's a few "abuse" scenarios with angry fan boys, but do they really account for anything substantial? Doubtful. And RT has publically stated they track IP and Bot behavior and have confidence in the score (of course they would say that to preserve their brand reliability, but still, just pointing this out...)

I'd have more doubt if the sentiment wasn't reflected on every message board and conversation I've had with friends and acquaintances in town. But I'm not seeing anything from the user RT score that hasn't mirrored my personal experiences and conversations.

Also, RT doesn't just work on positive/fresh - there's a point score in the subtext (only on desktop version) that shows the critic score is 8.1/10, and the user score is 3.1/5 (that is, 6.2/10).

Finally, the RT score is calculated based on this, per their site:

"A good review is denoted by a fresh red tomato. In order for a movie or TV show to receive an overall rating of Fresh, the reading on the Tomatometer for that movie must be at least 60%.
A bad review is denoted by a rotten green tomato splat (59% or less)."

 

[David Jimerson]

RT released an article saying they were confident in the authenticity of the score and monitor closely for abuse. The doubt cast on this sounds more like some damage control buzz based on one dude on reddit saying he was trying to spam negative review scores. I'm sure there's a few "abuse" scenarios with angry fan boys, but do they really account for anything substantial? Doubtful. And RT has publically stated they track IP and Bot behavior and have confidence in the score (of course they would say that to preserve their brand reliability, but still, just pointing this out...)

I'd have more doubt if the sentiment wasn't reflected on every message board and conversation I've had with friends and acquaintances in town. But I'm not seeing anything from the user RT score that hasn't mirrored my personal experiences and conversations.

Also, RT doesn't just work on positive/fresh - there's a point score in the subtext (only on desktop version) that shows the critic score is 8.1/10, and the user score is 3.1/5 (that is, 6.2/10).

Finally, the RT score is calculated based on this, per their site:

"A good review is denoted by a fresh red tomato. In order for a movie or TV show to receive an overall rating of Fresh, the reading on the Tomatometer for that movie must be at least 60%.
A bad review is denoted by a rotten green tomato splat (59% or less)."

The trolling/bots scenario does strike me as spin for damage control. There are 160K reviews in. That means close to half of them would have to be bogus.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Rey being a no one is both an interesting twist (and could be executed well), but also opens up a cynical view of marketing - how can Disney sell more toys, make more movies, etc. if it's all about the Skywalkers? The heroes, the force, the Jedi... if the series is to expand it can't be pigeon holed into Skywalker land. All fine and well... but what is bothersome, is the concern that THIS trilogy - Ep 1-9 - is suppose to fundamentally be about the Skywalkers. It's like they jumped the gun in killing everyone off, killing the past, force feeding us a new direction (not fresh ideas - a whole different take). Can't that fuller expansion wait for the next standalone trilogy? I am hoping that whatever they do, Ep 9 ties it together and the series actually feels cohesive.

I'm actually okay with the Rey is a nobody twist. Frankly it works better than the similar idea in the new Blade Runner. After all, Anakin was a no one as well, and until Empire came out we all assumed that Luke was too, like an interstellar Sergeant York.

 

[tmnt]

Had a couple friends that really loved this so I was excited to see it... ah... no way getting around it being bad. I didn't like The Force Awakens much because I thought it was a bit of a rehash and wasn't into some of the humour (Fins) but that movie is a modern day classic compared to this.

I thought a huge amount of the movie was filler and just didn't really connect with much of anything in the whole movie.

2/5

 

[Scott F]

Anyone remember what the immediate reaction to the prequels was like vs looking back at them 5 or 10 years down the road? For instance I remember way back when seeing the Aint It Cool News guy on some talk show telling the host Phantom Menance was the the greatest movie he'd ever seen. I read much later that he confessed that he feels in retrospect that all the star treatment/wining and dining he'd gotten from the bigwigs associated with the movie might have influenced his opinion and that the film was maybe not so good.

I remember straight-up lying to myself when I saw the Phantom Menace. "This is good...it's a setup movie." Literally forcing myself to like what was a terrible film. (I thought they did a great job with the trailer, building up the hype...what a letdown)

I'm going with my gut this time around: I thought The Last Jedi was awful! We will see if history is kind or unkind to this latest installment.

 

[David Jimerson]

I just saw on Rotten Tomatoes that the audience score is below 50% now.

There are people who want to believe that it's all rigging and pranking, but it's consistent with the general reaction I've seen out there.

As an aside, when there's been a major split between the critics' score and the audience score on RT, I've always found the audience score to reflect the movie better.

 

[Batutta]

I saw this again in 2D. I think I enjoyed it a bit more. There's a lot of good stuff in it, which is sunk by the not so good. On a technical level, it's superb filmmaking. The issues people have with it are almost entirely plot and story related. Wether or not the RT score is legitimate, what's true is that people who hate this movie, HAAAAAATE this movie. The primary reason for this intense hatred, I believe, is that the movie basically takes a giant dump all over people's reverence for the history of the franchise, and the the questions posed by the first movie. Anything fans were invested in got torn up and discarded. Want to know what Rey's all about? She's a nobody. What's the story with this Snoke guy? He's just some generic evil dude, easily fooled and killed. Want to see Luke being a Jedi? He wants nothing to do with that and thinks Jedis are all bullish*t. It even does this within its own plot. Want to see Finn and Rose pull of a scheme to escape the First Order? Yeah, that was all a waste of time. Want to see Finn sacrifice himself for the greater good. Yeah, we're not doing that. Want to see an epic duel between Luke and Kylo Ren? Fooled you, Luke's not really there. It continually sets up expectations and thwarts them. Critics love this kind of stuff. They see so many movies, anything that surprises them is welcome. Fans hate it. I'm okay with it. I can accept the film for what it wanted to be. My issues with it are in the areas where it didn't execute its own ideas that well.

 

[combatentropy]

anything that surprises them is welcome

Yes, a disappointment is a kind of surprise. But it's not the kind of plot twist you want to use over and over.

Think about some of your favorites. Like in the movie [SPOILER, REDACTED] when it turned out that [SPOILER, REDACTED] was really a [SPOILER, REDACTED]. Did it lower the movie, or elevate the plot to a new level? Did it poke fun at the main characters, or give them greater importance? Did it toss away questions into random dead ends, or did it answer questions that you didn't know you had, little idiosyncrasies that bothered you along the way, now connected in one satisfying revelation.

Furthermore, writing satisfying twists is hard. Writing disappointing twists is lazy. A good twist must be unusual while remaining true to the past events. A disappointment is just a negation of past events: "It was nothing." If you keep answering, "it was nothing, it was nothing" to all build-ups, then the audience eventually catches on. If Rian Johnson makes another Star Wars movie, and does another "Meh, it was nothing after all" plot twist, fans won't be surprised.

 

[Mitch Gross]

I'll state my basic complaint again, which is that they forgot that Star Wars is essentially a fairy tale. It plays in the classical realm of mythology but with its own particular twist. Even the prequels, as arch as they were, remembered this. So that is what what really crapped upon and pissed so many off. I would argue that the one truly satisfying surprise - Luke's tricking Kylo in their final battle - was actually very much in line with such mythological storytelling. Pretty much everything else weakened the film horribly. That and the fact that it was pointlessly long with so many needless subplots. Look at how simple the stories were in the original trilogy. No one complains that they're out of date because of this.

 

[filmguy123]

Did it poke fun at the main characters, or give them greater importance? Did it toss away questions into random dead ends, or did it answer questions that you didn't know you had, little idiosyncrasies that bothered you along the way, now connected in one satisfying revelation.

Furthermore, writing satisfying twists is hard. Writing disappointing twists is lazy.

Well said! I was surprised by many things in the film, but never in the positive, wind-knocked-out-of-you, satisfying twist sort of way.

I'll state my basic complaint again, which is that they forgot that Star Wars is essentially a fairy tale.

This was always one of my favorite statements in your review, and one of the key points that made The Last Jedi feel wrong. The whole Canto Bright "it's really the rich who are bad" grey area of "no sides" and DJ as "don't join" etc. is a good example of how by attempting to insert deeper philosophical questions on the nature of good and evil and moral gray, it made TLJ lose some of what makes Star Wars feel so unique and simple in a fairy tale sense: the inherent struggle between good and evil. It's hard to pinpoint, because these were subtle themes through the OT and Rogue One as well, but somehow in the process TLJ pulling on them seemed to inform every character and conflict in a way that made this feel, at least on some levels (and in between all the hollywood effects), more like an art house exploration of Star Wars than a true fairy tale.

Maybe this is a setup for Episode IX (intentionally, or unintentionally as JJ moves to helm), but turning into Star Wars into a nihilistic assessment of "what is good? what is evil? it's all for nought!" is a bit of a slap in the face to the intent of the original trilogy. I do not know RJ's intent when he wrote this, but I hope for Ep.9 it's taken in context as a middle dark chapter, and the final episode acts as a sort of rebuke to the ideas projected in 8, where they bring it back to this clear resolve to "still believe in good and evil" after this mental/moral struggle in the middle chapter.

Still, Rogue One wrestled with these themes but it still ultimately felt like a fairy tale, if only because it resolved with such a clear cut distincition between good/evil despite exploring themes of some of the Rebel's inner struggles and parallels to terrorist cells. TLJ somehow did this is a way that undercut the entire tone of the film, in my 2 cents.

BTW I'm all for the philosophical questions, or the intellectual concept of "beyond good & evil" but it certainly doesn't feel very SW, at least not when explored or emphasized in such a forward facing way.

 

[combatentropy]

The ultimate retcon would be in Episode IX for Rey to wake up on the island: it was all a Force-imposed nightmare by Snoke.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

The trolling/bots scenario does strike me as spin for damage control. There are 160K reviews in. That means close to half of them would have to be bogus.

In a single month it has over twice as many reviews as The Force Awakens, and TFA has two years worth of reviews. In fact The Last Jedi has more reviews than any other movie on Rotten Tomatoes. There is certainly something fishy going on.

 

[KyleProhaska]

It bothered me on the second viewing but less so than the first. The things that DID bother me however, are going to stick for the long haul. Just one of those things. On the plus side, there will be a lot more Star Wars movies in the future...so there's a chance for more MEH, more BAD, and more GREAT. Just how it goes. I'm glad we don't have to hang so much emotion on one movie being great anymore.

 

[Josh Bass]

IS that a good thing? What if it turns into the Marvel Cinematic universe where there are 7000 movies and 95% of them are just ok?

 

[Batutta]

IS that a good thing? What if it turns into the Marvel Cinematic universe where there are 7000 movies and 95% of them are just ok?

That's exactly what's happening. A Star Wars movie isn't a special experience anymore. When the original movies came out, they were unique, unmatched by almost anything else out there in terms of visual effects, sound design, action and excitement. You went to see something you've never seen before. That coupled with engaging characters and stories made them special moviegoing experiences. Now, every major summer movie is an overwhelming visual and auditory phantasmagoria. Special effects and stunts rarely impress, because anything is possible with CGI. The only progress is in subtle refinements. A Star Wars film is just another movie in the glut of entertainment. Great stories and characters is the only thing that will distinguish Star Wars films from here on out.

 

[KyleProhaska]

IS that a good thing? What if it turns into the Marvel Cinematic universe where there are 7000 movies and 95% of them are just ok?

Totally understand. Wasn't trying to make the situation sound like a good thing, just glad that since it's here, it means maybe we'll get another GREAT SW movie now and then.

 

[Josh Bass]

Kinda sad that it will likely ONLY be now and then. . .like you guys said these films used to be a HUGE deal whenever one would come out.

 

[Scott F]

Furthermore, writing satisfying twists is hard. Writing disappointing twists is lazy. A good twist must be unusual while remaining true to the past events. A disappointment is just a negation of past events

Spoiler:

Not for nothing, but in Rogue One when the Death Star appeared on the skyline in Scarif, that just knocked me out of my socks. Brilliant storytelling and plot. I knew the story couldn't end well,but I totally didn't see that coming.

NOTHING in TLJ had any emotional impact for me such as that.

 

[David Jimerson]

The worrying thing is that they have no plan.