DC Fans Angry Over Rotten Tomatoes 'Justice League' Ratings (wired.com) 266
Rotten Tomatoes launched a new movie-review series called See It/Skip It last week -- but it just made some people hate the site even more. An anonymous reader quotes Wired:
Rotten Tomatoes, the review-aggregator-slash-Hollywood-agitator, had irked DC fans by withholding its Justice League score until Thursday night's See It/Skip It premiere -- even though a wave of reviews for the film had already been posted online. The move was ostensibly a ploy to get viewers to tune in for the show, yet others saw a greater villainy at work: Was Rotten Tomatoes, which is owned in part by Warner Bros., actually trying to shield the studio from an inevitably bad grade that could help kill its opening weekend?
The See It/Skip It pushback -- which involved a lot of Tweet-screaming -- was a reminder of just how controversial Justice League had become... With Justice League having earned a less-than-expected $96 million in its opening weekend, the lowest ever for a DCEU title, the movie will likely be seen as a Flash-point moment for DC movies as a whole. Considering how some DC obsessives have reacted to the films' bad reviews -- there have been death threats in the past -- the conspiracy theory is actually a somewhat measured response... But there's another reason for all the pre-release pressure on Justice League: With the exception of this summer's Wonder Woman, the previous DC entries have all earned disappointingly low scores on Rotten Tomatoes... For some fans, the low scores felt like a referendum not only on [director Zack] Snyder's work, but the DC Extended Universe franchise as a whole -- so much so, a few defenders even began to speculate as to whether Rotten Tomatoes was manipulating the DCEU data (or, at the very least, grading the reviews on a much steeper curve than the Marvel films). Such theories filled message boards and Quora discussions, and there was even a Change.org petition to shut the site down that collected more than 23,000 signatures... Dangling the [Justice League] verdict in front of fans, and putting off the inevitable, felt like a misuse of power.
"They just want to focus on the negative," one DC fan told the Chicago Tribune. Meanwhile, the film's director has endorsed a Change.org petition calling for the release of his original edit of the film.
Justice League cost nearly a third of a billion dollars to produce. On Thanksgiving Day, it earned less money than Disney-Pixar's film Coco.
The See It/Skip It pushback -- which involved a lot of Tweet-screaming -- was a reminder of just how controversial Justice League had become... With Justice League having earned a less-than-expected $96 million in its opening weekend, the lowest ever for a DCEU title, the movie will likely be seen as a Flash-point moment for DC movies as a whole. Considering how some DC obsessives have reacted to the films' bad reviews -- there have been death threats in the past -- the conspiracy theory is actually a somewhat measured response... But there's another reason for all the pre-release pressure on Justice League: With the exception of this summer's Wonder Woman, the previous DC entries have all earned disappointingly low scores on Rotten Tomatoes... For some fans, the low scores felt like a referendum not only on [director Zack] Snyder's work, but the DC Extended Universe franchise as a whole -- so much so, a few defenders even began to speculate as to whether Rotten Tomatoes was manipulating the DCEU data (or, at the very least, grading the reviews on a much steeper curve than the Marvel films). Such theories filled message boards and Quora discussions, and there was even a Change.org petition to shut the site down that collected more than 23,000 signatures... Dangling the [Justice League] verdict in front of fans, and putting off the inevitable, felt like a misuse of power.
"They just want to focus on the negative," one DC fan told the Chicago Tribune. Meanwhile, the film's director has endorsed a Change.org petition calling for the release of his original edit of the film.
Justice League cost nearly a third of a billion dollars to produce. On Thanksgiving Day, it earned less money than Disney-Pixar's film Coco.
Yeah... and?!! (Score:2)
DC fans are butthurt? What’s supposed to be the news here?
Re:Yeah... and?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Maybe the fact that DC movies in general are getting unexpectedly low ratings and box office results.
Unexpected how? I’ve seen both BvS and JL movies and thy were shit so the low ratings were entirely expected. As to the second half, BvS made nearly $900 million. How much more were you expecting it to make?
Re:Yeah... and?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Desler opined:
I’ve seen both BvS and JL movies and thy were shit so the low ratings were entirely expected. As to the second half, BvS made nearly $900 million. How much more were you expecting it to make?
Yep. And so was the 300 sequel. And every other Zach Snyder movie since 300.
The reason that 300 was such an artistic and box-office success, and every Zach Snyder movie since has been neither, is easy to explain:
300 was a panel-by-panel recreation of Frank Miller's graphic novel. The script (which Miller wrote) was great because it was written by a master storyteller, and because Miller, not Snyder, had editorial control of it. The visuals in the movie exactly re-created the visuals in the graphic novel. Put the two facts together, and you have your answer.
It's the exact same reason that Sin City was such a triumph - although Zach Snyder isn't fit to carry Robert Rodriguez's viewfinder - Frank Miller had creative control of the script, and was intimately involved in crafting the visuals, as well.
By contrast, nothing Snyder has done since then has had a master storyteller's guidance - leaving only his own meager talents as a visualist and utter vacuum as a scriptwriter to power his movies.
(FWIW - Frank Miller is a horrible human being: racist, sexist, reactionary, and mean-spirited. None of that in any way diminishes his talent as a storyteller, or his fist as an artist. Those are both genius level. In other news, Pablo Picasso was an asshole - and a genius. the Universe is unfair. Get a hat.)
(PPS - 300, in both its incarnations, was riddled with cultural, costuming, and historical errors. The Spartans, for instance, were pederasts, just as were all the Hellenic Greek citystate cultures. In the Spartan instance, pederastic relationships continuing until the junior partner was married - which was never permitted until a man reached his 25th birtday - were normal. In most other Greek citystates, continuing such a relationship after the junior partner's beard began to grow was considered prima facie evidence of homosexuality, and thus condemned as abnormal and immoral - in every other citystate except Thebes, that is. Miller's errors with regard to Persian culture, costume, and customs were even more egregious, purposefully racist, and deplorable. I'd certainly be outraged, if I were Persian. Again, though, none of that keeps the graphic novel and the movie from being superb pieces of visual and expositional entertainment, well worthy of the plaudits - and money - they earned. Perspecitve, people ... )
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See also: Lord Byron (Mad, Bad, Dangerous to know), Hunter S Thompson (Randomly shot at journalists, repeat drunken asshole, hotel trasher, etc) , Isaac Newton (Complete bastard of a man who went out of
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I opined:
Prompting sg_oneill to point out:
See also: Lord Byron (Mad, Bad, Dangerous to know), Hunter S Thompson (Randomly shot at journalists, repeat drunken asshole, hotel trasher, etc) , Isaac Newton (Complete bastard of a man who went out of his way to destroy other academics who he felt in competition, notably Leibnitz) , Steve Jobs (Chair throwing god of marketing and spotting good ideas),Thomas Edison (Similar deal to Newton), Bobby Fisher (Worlds greatest chess master, and also a guy who thought 9/11 was excellent. An epic cunt of a man) , and so on.
It would seem some folks just have so much stuff in their heads, they forget to stop and look at their own basic decency to other humans. Also, possibly autism.
Almost undoubtedly autism in the cases of Newton and Fisher. Also religious fanaticism in both. The others? Just standard-issue narcissism with a generous dollop of assholery, I suspect.
But your point is well-taken. I considered giving additional examples of the linkage between genius-level creativity and severe personality flaws, but my post was already getting awkwardly long - so I abstained.
I'm glad you took up the cudgels, though. It's a point well worth making ...
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300, in both its incarnations, was riddled with cultural, costuming, and historical errors.
Wasn't that intentional, to stress how the story was told by an unreliable narrator?
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The problem with these movies is not that they are stories about superheros.
The problem is that they are all flash and no depth. The plot lines are not only thin, but full of characters acting in ways that make zero sense given their motivations. That kind of artificial drama isn't just unfulfilling to watch, it is outright insulting to the fans.
The apparent target audience for these movies is a global audience of people that do not speak English, and hence need dialog that can very easily be translated t
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Haven't seen any of the latest batch. And this means more and more spoilers if I see the later ones anyway. Who cares if scores are high or low anyway, no one ever paid attention to reviews with action movies before.
Simply put, too many stupid superhero movies. I didn't grow up with Justice League, I don't care who's in them or not. I did not read every single comic ever produced by DC or Marvel, so it's completely unimportant if some obscure character from the 90's makes an appearance. Who has time or mo
Re:Yeah... and?!! (Score:4, Insightful)
They can't give spiderman or the fantastic four 'a rest'. If they do, the characters revert to Marvel.
---
The nice thing about MCU is that every movie is self contained- even the Avengers. They are part of a larger universe but it's hyperlinked. You learn all you need to know about Captain America in the Avengers. If you want to know more, then he's got three movies you can watch. If you don't- then it's not necessary.
Re: Yeah... and?!! (Score:2)
Re:Yeah... and?!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's the fact that Warner repeatedly gave DC to directors who
a) wanted to put their own stamp on the characters- ignoring canon.
b) made DC movies distopic and unpleasant.
c) made DC characters known for avoiding killing into murderers (which for many people who were DC fans for decades meant we wouldn't see these abominations nor recommend them to our friends).
d) spent more time on special effects than on character development.
It took over a decade of hard work to destroy the DC movie franchise. And the DC television, comic book, and animated franchises show it is NOT the characters- well at least not the characters in the comic books. It IS the characters in the movie (except for wonder woman). And even as a guy, I could do without Snyders gratuitous butt shots of Wonderwoman unless he's planning on doing the same angles for superman and batman. It's howlingly sexist and pulls me right out of the movie and starts me thinking about the Hawkeye initiative everytime she spreads her legs and jumps away from us on screen.
The current DC movie universe is UNSAVABLE.
Junk it. Have an official press release from Warner saying "okay that went the wrong direction- we are starting over."
Start with LOW budget (about deadpool 1 size), "year one" movies- perhaps even using some of your existing popular TV versions of the characters.
Get good writers who are fans of DC. Put an executive producer over the series that likes the characters. Put directors over the films who like the characters but understand they have to maintain a consistent look and feel. Get editors who understand comic books and comic book color schemes. Write films that are character based and based on good comic book arcs. Not major Crisis of infinite earth arcs- just normal "day of the life" year long arcs where the world wasn't at stake. Save that for later.
Get GOOD actors who are not major stars for most of the parts. The current superman actor, Henry Cavill, is fine- but Ben Affleck (who has done a great job) is STILL BEN AFFLECK every time I look at him. You can't have too big of an actor in a superman film- it distracts. Well- I suppose there are a very few actors who can pull it off. LIke Gary Oldman who can be anybody without distracting you. I admit that particular issue is subtle.
But for god's sake, Supergirl's "Superman" portrayed by Tyler Hoechlin nailed the character of both Clark Kent and Superman with about 40 minutes of screen time. Make him your superman.
Then build up to larger movies from those movies.
As a DC fan for decades I want characters who are true to the comic books. But not slavishly. I understand small modifications have to be made to update them for 2017, or to fill in gaps left because not all characters are picked up.
The biggest problem for DC is that it is owned and controlled by movie people who are not comic book fans and they do not get comic books and they think 'superhero' instead of 'character'.
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Ironically, part of whats made the Marvel films work so well is they seem to be letting Directors actually put their *creative* stamp on the films, but making sure they are picking the right people to do that. And still, managing to get the canon more or less right, with a useful "Its a different universe" ruse to cover when it isnt.
I mean Thor Ragnarok had Taika Waititi's influence stamped all over it. And that made for a frigging fun film.
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Excellent analysis! Midnight's Edge's review basically says the same thing [youtube.com]
i.e.
Start making good STAND alone movies.
THEN after 5 to 10 years of good movies, start layer the "Cinematic Universe"
If the foundation is crap the extended universe hasn't got a snowball chance in hell to be financially success -- you've already burnt out the last goodwill of the fans.
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we are starting over
Oh fuck no. I don't think I can bear watching another actor cry at the death of Martha Wayne, arrive on earth, or get bitten by some radioactive spider.
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Why "unexpected?"
The "why" is the whole issue, and you have to establish that before you keep talking after making the wild claim.
"Oh, I'm a fan" doesn't predict high ratings, or even average ratings.
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Superhero movies are garbage? By that I assume you're not actually going to see them? That would explain why you consider the DC movie's low ratings as "unexpected".
Hundreds of movies have come out this year, only a handful of them are superhero films. You don't like them, don't see them, there's plenty of alternatives if you care to look. In the meantime here's a summary:
DC: Horrible directing, crap story telling, poor character development, uncharacteristic actions of the characters, some of it is just an
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"I hate you for not pretending I'm popular"
This is slashdot, half the users probably agree.
lolwut (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight, when Batman vs. Superman came out the conspiracy was that Rotten Tomatoes was colluding with Disney/Marvel to tank the movie but this year it’s that it was trying to hide bad reviews to not tank a DC movie? Seems Warner Bros. needs to work harder on being more consistent in their conspiracy plots...
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My wife loves action movies, whenever we watch a movie that is what she asks for.
At the end of Batman vs Superman, she told me she didn't like it. First superhero movie she's said that about. Even the ones with really weak plots like Transformers, she loved.
Anybody who suffered through that movie and can't figure out why lots of people would think it was a stinker, just wow. I can hardly even remember much of it, it was just weak clear through. I've seen unpopular movies that I really liked, but it is usual
Huh? (Score:2)
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The best I can say about I as that it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It was fun enough in a dispensable kind of way, but I just don't think they know what to do with these superheroes. Superman, in particular, is just wasted screen space. Honestly I think the first two Superman films, in particular the Richard Donner cut of the second one, just so overwhelm these films. The only one to come close is Wonderland, but Gil Gadot is doing the same wink to the audience that Christopher Reeve did, and tha
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You speak of the first two Superman movies, but are missing the real fist movies that had the winning formula, which is light action comedy. Thats the only way Superman works on screen.
Honestly he would be a much better villain on screen. Villains should be nearly all powerful, not the hero.
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It's not comedy so much as "not humorless dystopian nightmares".
Normal human beings joke during stressful times. Even soldiers in combat laugh occasionally.
DC movies were made by a director who appears to actively want to destroy the DC characters.
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Honestly he would be a much better villain on screen. Villains should be nearly all powerful, not the hero.
I disagree, I think. What needs to be done with Superman might make fans uncomfortable though. There are a great number of moral and ethical quandaries that go with being all powerful and virtually invincible and being inherently motivated to Do The Right Thing. One mans hero becomes another mans villain, and balancing the various shades of "what is right" is a lot harder than they make it with the w
Re: Huh? (Score:2)
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The best Superman film I've seen is an Animated one. "All Star Superman" (The names a pun on the fact hes literally powered by sunlight). They frigging nail him in that. He's the big blue boyscout, whos a bit TOO pure for this world, but he loves the place so much he'd give his life to save it, and for that the world loves him back. THATS superman.
Its interesting that with the Wonderwoman movie, they actually got her right, and in return, the audience and critics loved it, and loved her. Just do that for Su
We want the 4 hour version! (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile, the film's director has endorsed a Change.org petition calling for the release of his original edit of the film.
Oh here we go again. The simple fact is that Snyder is not a good director. If you can't tell a story in 2 hours, you're not a good story teller. Stop trying to cram 4 movies into a single one.
I do believe that Joss Whedon's reshoots did more harm than good, but if the film had been watchable to start with, then WB wouldn't have requested Whedon to do so.
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Haven't seen this film but the trailers were really off-putting. It looked more like a video game, with low quality CGI sets. Lots of fighting but no sign of a plot beyond "get the band together".
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I do believe that Joss Whedon's reshoots did more harm than good, but if the film had been watchable to start with, then WB wouldn't have requested Whedon to do so.
They brought Joss Whedon on because Zack Synder's daughter commited suicide, not because they wanted him replaced.
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These are not mutually exclusive options. Snyder left due to his daughter, *AND* WB was unsatisfied with the state of the film.
They had Whedon do reshoots and insert additional dialog. That's not something you do to a film you're happy with.
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If you can't tell a story in 2 hours because of arbitrary movie length limits or audience patience, you need to break the story into pieces and tell a piece in 2 hours. That doesn't make you a bad story-teller, it makes you a bad director. It seems like 90-180 minutes is what people can give to the theater, so you have to understand your medium a bit.
But in terms of story-telling, the sky is the limit, the story-teller should be graded then on his ability to hold interest for the duration required to tell t
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No, the point is, when you're making a movie the producers decide early on things like, how long is the movie going to be. You should be targeting a length before you start talking to the screenwriter about what sort of script you'd like them to write.
And if it is 1:30 then you only fit one movie in. If it is between 2:00 and 2:30, then you can cram the amount of storytelling of 2 shorter movies in. If it is 4 hours, you can fit a trilogy of storytelling in because you don't have to re-introduce anything.
If
I was given a great power (Score:2, Insightful)
Mutant...superhero...weird. It didn't matter what they called me. I was free at last to indulge in my fantasy of wearing women's nylons and yoga pants. 'Cause that's what people who get superpowers do - they wear gay clothes.
Seriously, I couldn't tell you who are DC heros and who are Marvel heros and who are off-brand heros. I can tell you that there are way too many stupid-ass superheros.
Really disappointed by the Justice League Movie (Score:5, Funny)
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This is really gonna hurt in the next movie because, from the after credits, we will be needing "Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom..."
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I don't even know if he's alive anymore but they could work it in in a news story in the background halfway through, with a talking head saying "Meanwhile..."
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Hmm... so adding yet more confusion.
Arrowverse already used the title 'Legion of Doom' in Legends of Tomorrow to describe Eobard Thawn's team-up with Malcolm Merlyn and Damien Darhk from Arrow, as well as Leonard Snart.
Rotten Tomatoes Has Benn Around Since 1998 (Score:5, Insightful)
It has only become an issue for Hollywood in more recent years. The problem is not Rotten Tomatoes, but the quality of films Hollywood is producing.
There is very little worth seeing. Half the films seem to be superhero films, which many people have no interest in. The other half are remakes, reboots or generally trash.
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You forgot the dozens of pointless sequels.
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Things weren't any better in the 80s and 90s. When you think about it, many of the "classics" from those eras are only remembered for being kinda bad in an enjoyable way. A lot of the good movies were commercial failures at the time.
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Also most fo the films were utter shite and completely forgettable. Being 20-30 years in the past means they've been thoroughly forgotten. I don't think it's much different from now.
Except now er have something of an overload of superhero movies. I used to like superhero movies in general but there have been too man and especially too many crappy ones recently. And I don't think Henry Cavill is a good superman.
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It's a little more than that.
Rotten Tomatoes has a problem with it's critics.
There are OFTEN movies and television shows which have a low critical rating combined with a 90%+ audience review.
And to be honest, the audience rating should be more prominent than the critical rating. On the main page, both should be displayed and the audience rating should be first.
If a critic likes a movie, I may like it. If a critic dislikes a movie, I may like it. There is literally *no* connection between critics taste
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It has only become an issue for a few studios cranking out expensive turds in more recent years.
FTFY. Hollywood on the whole doesn't seem to have a problem with review aggragators.
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I just don't understand people anymore (Score:3, Insightful)
People seem so damned intolerant of anything anymore. You have people who, if you don't agree with everything they espouse, no matter how unrealistic it may be, you are labeled a hater, a bigot, stupid, intolerant, whatever. Frankly, I'm sick of it.
Just two days ago, my wife and I were over at her mother's for Thanksgiving, and my wife's brother, the youngest in the family and still in university, trotted out this "Thanksgiving is white privilege bullshit". Universities... supposedly places where differing thoughts and opinions can swirl around, have become bastions of intolerance for any differing opinion or belief.
People are returning to the wild (Score:3, Insightful)
People are slowly reverting to their savage, primitive, tribal nature.
For centuries, if not millenia, people have fought and died to pull humanity out from the depth of barbarism and into the light of civilization. Slowly but surely, things like war, genocide, blodshed, slavery, human traficcing, sexual exploitation of women and children, linching, mob mentality and superstitions have been replaced with collaboration, gender equality, the state of law, justice, education, knowledge and science.
But in the la
Re:People are returning to the wild (Score:5, Insightful)
"May you live in interesting times". This surely is true from a sociologist/anthropologist point of vew, but this is certainly not the kind of world I feel confortable raising my children in.
But is there really a different time you'd want to raise your children in? I can't really think of any time in history better than now. A large part of the world are capitalist democracies that allow you to accumulate wealth for yourself rather than handing it all over to your lord, master, etc. Even if you're not born there, most of them are willing to let you move there and even become citizens.
There's far less war than previously and the odds of a Mongol horde or something similar destroying your village are so much less. If you're a woman, you'll probably not get carried off, die in childbirth, and if you can make it to that western world you're just as free to pursue your dreams as anyone else instead of being stuck as a house keeper or baby factory.
Knowledge is readily available to anyone with an internet connection which is rapidly expanding to almost everyone as smart phones become ubiquitous and are bringing computers to parts of the world that never got them before. There's so much knowledge available that the bigger problem is filtering it and picking the best stuff out. There's typically a youtube video showing you how to do just about anything you could care to learn, never mind access to manuals, etc. that might have been much harder to get your hands on previously.
I could probably go on for another five or six paragraphs about how good shit is now. Hell, you can lose limbs or have plenty of other terrible accidents that would have been a death sentence previously, but are entirely manageable today. People who are more interested in intellectual pursuits can find work in them whereas in the past, they were probably limited to manual labor unless they were born into the aristocracy. The internet has eliminated serious barriers to entry for artistic people in a similar manner. Just about everything is better today and there aren't too many things that you can't do if you aren't willing to work for it.
If things seem tough or difficult now, it's because they always are. There are always going to be extremists of some sort. In the 80's and 90's it was the religious right, now its the authoritarian left. It doesn't really matter, because in a few decades it will be something else. But the world is only going to get better if you stand up to the difficulties and work to change the world for the better or keep the evils from spreading. Your ancestors had to stand up to barbarian hordes, but you can't handle some idiots yelling at you about burning in hell or how you're causing microaggressions? Seriously?
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Considering the millions that have been murdered illegally so that America could get what it wants, never mind the economic and social damage caused by a psychopathic foreign policy. Remember: Capitalism is incompatible with socialism but is 100% compatible with fascism.
You're engaged in endless wars, experience mass shootings and terrorist attacks every other day, have antifa and BLM rioting in the streets, an orange faced (supposedly) billionaire reality star as a President, a privately owned federal ba
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"For centuries, if not millenia, people have fought and died to pull humanity out from the depth of barbarism and into the light of civilization."
Sounds like the opening line in a bad DC hero movie!
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Aquaman to the... rescue?
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Idiocy is differing.
Accurate data gets replicated more. Differing ideas swirling around will mostly look like total crap, until something new and interesting falls out the side.
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People seem so damned intolerant of anything anymore. You have people who, if you don't agree with everything they espouse, no matter how unrealistic it may be, you are labeled a hater, a bigot, stupid, intolerant, whatever. Frankly, I'm sick of it.
Just two days ago, my wife and I were over at her mother's for Thanksgiving, and my wife's brother, the youngest in the family and still in university, trotted out this "Thanksgiving is white privilege bullshit". Universities... supposedly places where differing thoughts and opinions can swirl around, have become bastions of intolerance for any differing opinion or belief.
"Thanksgiving is white privilege bullshit" sounds exactly like an opinion that might pop out from a place where differing thoughts and opinions can swirl around. You can't really learn anything if you only hear things you agree with, I'd actually be kind of curious to hear why he thought "Thanksgiving is white privilege".
You also need to distinguish criticism from discussion, if you make a dumb argument I'm going to push back. I'll agree there's some points of views that you rarely hear expressed on campus,
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"Can you expound on 'Thanksgiving is white privilege'", or does the student just repeat tired-old-arguments--or simply responds with profanity when challenged? Or violence? Universities are supposed to make you reason about your views, not just repeat talking points.
I have no idea what the student understood though I have no doubt he was simply repeating talking points. As far as I'm concerned the only way to be under 25 and right on a complex subject is by having the dumb luck to choose the right set of talking points. It's only later that those talking points turn into wisdom and nuanced views.
Oh, as for native americans...what they should be thinking is "I no longer have to worry about the tribe next door putting me through torture rituals if I get captured". Eastern tribes tended to be pretty violent; though not as bad as the meso-american ones. The "European Tribes" simply won the latest war and imposed a peace. People tend to be people, regardless of skin color...
Do you actually know any of the history of how first contact went for Native Americans? They're estimated to have lost 80-90% population through disease, starvation, and delibe
Re: I just don't understand people anymore (Score:2)
DC sucks (Score:5, Funny)
That's what happens when you praise Edison instead of Tesla.
Re:DC sucks (Score:5, Funny)
> Re:DC sucks
> > That's what happens when you praise Edison instead of Tesla.
You should have posted as AC.
Is it really important on opening night? (Score:2)
Re: Is it really important on opening night? (Score:2)
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I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person on earth who considers opening night for a movie to be a pretty substantial outing. While not a black tie affair I still need to
Re: Is it really important on opening night? (Score:2)
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No, he's explaining to you the logical errors you're making by ridiculing them.
You're talking about yourself, and it isn't about you. If you want to talk about yourself, make your opinion also about yourself and leave those other out of it. If your opinion is about others, talk about them, not yourself. And that will require first thinking about things from their perspective, which implies having listened carefully and having understood and believed them about their views.
For example, you don't even seem to
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I can't be the only person who doesn't read newspapers.
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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What the hell are you talking about? No one is petitioning the US government. It’s a petition to Warner Bros. Also, I’m failing to understand how an Egyptian DC fan making a useless change.org petition means that the US is a laughingstock. Care to explain that logic?
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No. Crazy idiots like this are around in every country. What makes America a laughing stock is that with the head of the current administration I'm not certain the government will actually ignore it.
Movie Critics are Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, I just have to say: First world problems on this one...
Second of all, people have to realize that critic reviews have, almost since the time of Shakespeare, been overly critical of media that is primarily audience targeted and for lack of a better term fun to experience. Critics want edgy, ground breaking artistic media because for the most part they watch way too many movies and are burnt out and cynical. The rest of us who watch maybe 25 movies a year are for the most part just looking for a good time. The best barometer I have found to figure out if I will enjoy a movie or not is the Amazon reviews score and reading the top positive and top negative. There is always the risk of a spoiler, but it is a far better barometer because normal people are giving their impressions. As traditional media and newspapers die, so too should the movie critic industry. It is an antiquated system that is neither useful nor necessary in the modern era.
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How do you explain that the Marvel films as a rule get better reviews despite being a better time than the average recent DC film?
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First of all, I just have to say: First world problems on this one...
Awww, people said words you didn't think were as important as world peace, poor baby.
Did you ever bother to toss "spending time complaining about vapid bullshit" onto your Problem-O-Meter to see if whining that insignificant problems are insignificant is more, or less, insignificant than your target?
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First of all, I just have to say: First world problems on this one...
Second of all, people have to realize that critic reviews have, almost since the time of Shakespeare, been overly critical of media that is primarily audience targeted and for lack of a better term fun to experience. Critics want edgy, ground breaking artistic media because for the most part they watch way too many movies and are burnt out and cynical. The rest of us who watch maybe 25 movies a year are for the most part just looking for a good time. The best barometer I have found to figure out if I will enjoy a movie or not is the Amazon reviews score and reading the top positive and top negative. There is always the risk of a spoiler, but it is a far better barometer because normal people are giving their impressions. As traditional media and newspapers die, so too should the movie critic industry. It is an antiquated system that is neither useful nor necessary in the modern era.
Critics offer two services, one they offer intelligent analysis of art and contribute to the public conversation around art, second, they help people decide what art to seek out.
Roger Ebert was a great example of the first one, he could identity themes and influences a viewer with less experience would miss, and his analysis could add some layers and really enhance the enjoyment of a movie.
But as for the second part, a good reviewer can also let you understand what kind of film a movie is and how it succeed
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Second of all, people have to realize that critic reviews have, almost since the time of Shakespeare, been overly critical of media that is primarily audience targeted and for lack of a better term fun to experience.
Irrelevant in this case. One thing the general audiences and critics can both agree on is that DC have been crapping out and endless stream of turds. The reviews between the audience and the critics are split up and they show some interesting trends in the comic book industry: the audience has favourable bias as well as centre bias. In truly awesome movies they don't rate as high as critics, in truly unwatchable turds they rarely go below the 50% mark while the critics seem to bottom out around the 25% mark
Hollywood is living denial (Score:2)
Nearly $333M to produce? That's a huge investment from an industry that is filled with people who can't shut their mouths and stop making statements that alienate as much as 50% of the population. With such large outlays, you need to appeal to as much of the population as a whole unless you have a minority of the population with deep pockets who will enthusiastically replace the majority (see Apple).
It's especially ironic since right-of-center audiences that Hollywood loves to mock are precisely the sort of
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You derped all over yourself with your politics. Time to change your shirt!
Newsflash: No, choosing your favorite political team doesn't make you artistically superior to all those ignorant hippies.
Of all the stupid fucking shit people say, this is just about the stupidest in awhile.
Wack Snyder (Score:2)
DC Fan (Score:2)
DCU should have started pre-Crisis (Score:2)
Basically follow the Marvel model, of introducing characters in their own worlds (which in the original pre-Crisis books, there was some intermingling (ie the Flash's Cosmic Treadmill)), develop the characters and their rogue's gallery. Right now, they're throwing everybody together and basically letting God sort it out - "Suicide Squad" was an excellent example of this; Margo Robbie had the stand out performance and made the movie watchable at the expense of putting all the other characters in the shadows
Part of the problem (Score:3)
I feel part of the problem with DCU is their hackneyed approach to telling the individual stories. Superman got a movie, Wonderwoman got a movie, but what about Cyborg or Aquaman? Batman can be forgiven given his screen time already, and frankly I don't need to watch another hour of cutscenes describing in painstakingly detail just how Bruce Wayne became Batman ( BvS, looking at you ).
Aquaman especially; if anything, Justice League introduced a version of Aquaman I'd like to know more about, but instead they just throw him out there ruining a perfectly good story telling chance. Cyborg too; unless you knew the backstory, I get the impression a lot of folks will be lost.
Between Justice League and BvS, DCU is ignoring the supporting stories and going right to the climax. If there's a reason MCU is doing better, it's that right there; they know how to build a story.
I'm sure this will work out well... (Score:2)
Bitching about poor ratings isba good way to get more poor ratings.
Same as bitching about downvoting gets you more downvotes.
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Same as bitching about downvoting gets you more downvotes.
Except I often get upvotes when I bitch about downvotes, even when I am outright inviting people to downmod my comments in order to drain their modpoints.
Big special effects; dinky plot (Score:3)
The story sucked. The special effects were outstanding, especially in 3D.
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so typical hollywood tripe then. warner-brothers should try something radical like making a quality movie.
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The story sucked. The special effects were outstanding, especially in 3D.
This is the DC formula.
DC Takes itself too seriously (Score:2)
In general the DC movies are dark and serious while the MCU movies are fun and lighthearted.
The DC approach works really well with a character who is dark and serious like Batman, if usually fails with anything else.
As for the allegation in the story, that WB screwed with the timing to shield the movies opening, it's probably a coincidence, but it is plausible even as a one-off scheme since it could mean the difference of millions of dollars.
Realistically WB only has two reasons to be interested in Rotten T
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I agree... Marvel movies seem more hopeful. Yeah the world may be in peril, again, but it seems like a world worth saving. DC is stuck in the same dystopian storytelling that led to Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner and all those damn zombie apocalypse movies. It's hard to see WHY anyone would want to save those worlds sometimes. Audiences don't want to be depressed every time they go see a movie. Dystopian series have passed their sell buy date.
More censorship could have fixed this (Score:2)
That only the more positive reviews got shown as search results?
Imagine an internet without negative reviews.
screw the fans (Score:2)
fans of anythig. It's just entertainment. Nad if you are so emotionally attached to yor sport team or a movie, you are just a brainless imbecile.
Thank Warner Brothers instead of blaming RT (Score:3)
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it just seemed that the culture always veered into comic books and super heros.
Naw, it was just the people you knew.
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Haven't you ever seen a movie with Scottish characters?
If you want to tell the difference, you have to taste it.
Re: DC Sucks (Score:2, Informative)
Nobody can defeat Jean gray as Phoenix. That's why professor Xavier tried to block it out of her memory for all those years. ;)
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Not even Chuck Norris?
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Typical of snotty rich Americans who cannot conceive of anyone else except themselves
Actually we're kind of pissed about these movies being stupified to fit into other, esp Asian, markets. It seems almost impossible to make a thoughtful movie that doesn't make a certain government and it's censors uncomfortable.
I definitely wish we were more bigoted and simply let the cards fall where they may.