The Last Jedi: Official Review and Opinions Thread ** SPOILERS ** — Page 250

Perhaps among fans alone… whoever they are. Judging something through aggregators, ratings sites, video reviews all that stuff is inevitably a flawed idea. Because even in the modern digital age they’re used by a niche part of the audience to begin with. Time will tell when people are less emotional I guess, just things slowed down after TFA. Like everything else. I’m actually anxious after so much debate to see it on Blu-ray. Then again I just watched Justice League and it was a truly bad film, it’s probably all going to be fine.

Mocata said:

Perhaps among fans alone… whoever they are. Judging something through aggregators, ratings sites, video reviews all that stuff is inevitably a flawed idea. Because even in the modern digital age they’re used by a niche part of the audience to begin with. Time will tell when people are less emotional I guess, just things slowed down after TFA. Like everything else. I’m actually anxious after so much debate to see it on Blu-ray. Then again I just watched Justice League and it was a truly bad film, it’s probably all going to be fine.

I think the fact, that there’s going to be at least one Star Wars film every year, is going to change the way people view these films. Before you only had one film every three years at best, and zero for more than a decade at worst. Expectations were understandably enormous, as the next film had to be awesome. In the future there’s going to be a Star Wars movie for everyone, as there will be dozens to choose from.

oojason said:

adywan said:

You only have to look around places like facebook to see how the RT audience scores have been manipulated. Campaigns were started before the film even come out to give it negative reviews. Not just star wars pages either. 99% of the time, RT was the place they aimed for. After the film came out it got even worse. The amount of posts i had to delete on my page where people had posted links to these type of campaigns was astounding. They even added getting people to upvote the prequels on RT to make TLJ score look even worse. Just check out the ROTS reviews and see just how many new ones have suddenly appeared since TLJ.

There’s a real dark side to the Star Wars fandom and it came out in force after TLJ. The amount of the so called reviews and the negative comments/ attacks on social media that point their hatred for it towards the fact that there is more diversity, more women taking the lead roles, Disney is pandering to the SJW’s etc is disgusting.

On here too, unfortunately. There is a list of 15/20 or so new troll/wum banned accounts who came on here spreading hate and/or prejudice (often with making incorrect factual claims re the film - to the point you start to question if they actually watched it or not) - and that’s before getting into content with the ‘political’ aspects of SJWs, diversity, ‘true’ fans, & insights into Kathleen Kennedy’s secret feminist agenda, and other derogatory terms used for characters or people behind the camera.

And that’s all before addressing the film itself.

Thankfully most people on here likely never saw them (the troll/wum account content) - it was quite a busy time for the mods (probably like yourself on your twitter/facebook platforms) - deleting them was the right thing to do, of course - yet looking back at the thread apart from a few remnant troll posts - it’s like it never happened; they don’t exist.

Though of course, they do exist - and they’ll likely be back for Episode IX - maybe even for Solo…
 

Away from here, the rise of click-bait videos - with use of repeated key words to attract the hits/views - regardless of the content therein (videos / interviews / words taken out of context etc)… has upped the ante to new levels. Even those few who get called out enough to ‘apologise’ for their ‘inaccuracies’ seemingly do a short retraction/apology and then carry on as before, regardless (a bit like how UK papers print retractions and apologies in a 1 inch column - despite having done a multi-page spread spreading the ‘story’ previously).

To be fair the monopoly Disney now has on the entertainment industry makes it very hard to find objective reporting from any side of the spectrum. It sort of makes me miss the old days with those clumpsy making off videos of Lucas creating the PT, where all the strengths and weaknesses are out in the open, and no one is trying to seriously control or manipulate the stream of information. There are just too many agendas these days.

Jay said:

TV’s Frink said:

What circles would one travel in where “apologist” is considered a positive? Probably circles I couldn’t understand, right?

I think the point is that it’s not supposed to be positive or negative. At some point, someone misused it, that connotation worked its way into the popular culture, and now being an apologist in internet circles means you defend things that you know deep down don’t have a good defense.

The word “literally” is another great example of something that people misused to the point that it lost its meaning.

But Jay, he literally said in his circles it’s either neutral or positive.

Gothamknight said:

TV’s Frink said:
I’m sorry, I thought I was allowed to like a movie without “apologizing” for it.

I tend to move in circles where “apologist” is a technical term with either a neutral or positive context

So I’d just like to know what circles this would be the case in, because I’m highly skeptical that’s the case.

DrDre said:
I think the fact, that there’s going to be at least one Star Wars film every year, is going to change the way people view these films. Before you only had one film every three years at best, and zero for more than a decade at worst. Expectations were understandably enormous, as the next film had to be awesome. In the future there’s going to be a Star Wars movie for everyone, as there will be dozens to choose from.

The 19 month gap between Solo this May and EP IX in December next year will actually seem like quite a long one in contrast!

It will be interesting to see whether the ‘event’ aspect of a Star Wars movie does decline with more releases. The assumption is that it will, but then again media exposure and the general pace of life has accelerated an awful amount in the past decade that maybe even year long waits will seem like a long time.

The James Bond model of releasing a movie roughly every couple of years has still yielded high BO returns and buzz. The Marvel Universe model has successfully sustained an even faster release schedule.

I know some people see one SW film they don’t like and then say “that’s it - Im boycotting and quitting SW fandom, won’t watch any more” but I think time’s have changed and you have to accept that the upcoming films will each have different directors and different approaches. Like Bond and Marvel some will be fantastic and some will be ‘lesser’.

Yeah, but I think that that’s exactly what some fans don’t want. I became a Star Wars fan around 2007, and one of the things I always thought was special about Star Wars was that it was over. 6 movies and that’s it. The Clone Wars TV series and the EU were a treat, but the big thing was done. And I thought it was gorgeous, from AotC to TESB. And I loved the fact that it was over, and it was going to be there forever as a complete story. Much like The Beatles broke up and that was it. The Anthology albuns and documentary are treats. But the big thing is done. It ended in 1969 much like SW ended in 2005 (or so I thought).

So I for example am not fond at all of the idea of MCUing or 007ing the SWU.

Jay said:

DominicCobb said:

All my argument has ever been is

A) Audience scores are always fallible, in general
B) There are many factors that point to RT audience scores in particular being biased towards negative
and C) That the RT audience score for the movie is only 3% points below even.

Put those altogether, and it is down right absurd to imagine that the RT audience score is proof that the majority of the audience disliked the movie.

The fact that I like the movie has nothing to do with it. If you had simply said that a significant portion of the audience didn’t like the movie, I wouldn’t have said anything, because that is obvious. What isn’t as obvious is the veracity of the RT audience score, so you treating it as gospel legitimately gave me a laugh.

I’ve made this more than abundantly clear in each of my posts, but I guess somehow it is still confusing to you, so I apologize. Hope it’s clear now.

I didn’t say it was gospel. I used it as an example.

I’m not confused by your rash argument, but thanks for clarifying anyway.

Sure man

adywan said:

You only have to look around places like facebook to see how the RT audience scores have been manipulated. Campaigns were started before the film even come out to give it negative reviews. Not just star wars pages either. 99% of the time, RT was the place they aimed for. After the film came out it got even worse. The amount of posts i had to delete on my page where people had posted links to these type of campaigns was astounding. They even added getting people to upvote the prequels on RT to make TLJ score look even worse. Just check out the ROTS reviews and see just how many new ones have suddenly appeared since TLJ.

There’s a real dark side to the Star Wars fandom and it came out in force after TLJ. The amount of the so called reviews and the negative comments/ attacks on social media that point their hatred for it towards the fact that there is more diversity, more women taking the lead roles, Disney is pandering to the SJW’s etc is disgusting.

Woah ady, slow down with your rash argument.

TV’s Frink said:

Jay said:

TV’s Frink said:

What circles would one travel in where “apologist” is considered a positive? Probably circles I couldn’t understand, right?

I think the point is that it’s not supposed to be positive or negative. At some point, someone misused it, that connotation worked its way into the popular culture, and now being an apologist in internet circles means you defend things that you know deep down don’t have a good defense.

The word “literally” is another great example of something that people misused to the point that it lost its meaning.

But Jay, he literally said in his circles it’s either neutral or positive.

Gothamknight said:

TV’s Frink said:
I’m sorry, I thought I was allowed to like a movie without “apologizing” for it.

I tend to move in circles where “apologist” is a technical term with either a neutral or positive context

So I’d just like to know what circles this would be the case in, because I’m highly skeptical that’s the case.

Well, I grew up in and still attend Southern Baptist church. I have friends who are Methodist, Presbyterian, non-denominational, Episcopalian, etc. And apologetics/apologists are generally considered a good thing by all those groups. It’s not about defending “something you really know isn’t true” or “good” or what-have-you. It’s about educating yourself on your faith so that when it is attacked or just politely questioned you are able to explain what you believe and why you believe it. Yes it can be described as “defending” your faith but that is meant in a more courtroom sense of “defense” (i.e. logical discourse about what you think is true) and not the more negative connotation that “defending” a belief often carries with it in common usage.

When calling someone an “apologist” as an insult, the word itself is neither positive or negative. The insult comes from the insinuation that they are wasting time trying to logically explain why something is good, enjoyable, what-have-you when it is quite clearly not.

DrDre said:

joefavs said:

Quick show of hands, who here actually has a Rotten Tomatoes account? I’m genuinely curious about how many people are active on the site, because neither I nor anyone in my social circle has ever reviewed anything there. I suspect that active RT users may be too niche a group to really be representative of audiences overall.

FWIW, Letterboxed (which is the only place I personally ever rate anything) has TLJ with an average score of 3.7 out of 5 stars, with 4 stars being the most popular response by almost twice as much as any of the other responses (I gave it a 4.5).

The 3.7/5 score is in perfect agreement with the 7.4/10 score on imdb. The amazon score is now at 3.5/5 stars.

I have a rotten tomatoes account and I have rated a few movies, but I certainly don’t rate everything I see and I don’t take the time to write an actual review.

I am just fascinated by rotten tomatoes scores. It’s like following sports in a way. The ratings don’t inform my opinion, I make up my own mind regarding what I like and don’t like, but it’s extremely interesting to see how those scores go. I like seeing movies I’m fond of do well. It’s the same with box office numbers.

moviefreakedmind said:

TLJ made almost a billion less than TFA did

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=roguevforce.htm

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

TLJ made almost a billion less than TFA did

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=roguevforce.htm

700 million can be considered almost a billion.

So can 990 million, but 290 million is a lot of money. When you hear “almost one billion” are you honestly going to claim you’re more likely to assume 700 than 990?

Or we can all admit it was hyperbole (like every other post here) and move on.

moviefreakedmind said:

TV’s Frink said:

moviefreakedmind said:

TLJ made almost a billion less than TFA did

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?id=roguevforce.htm

I was going by Wikipedia where TFA has approximately 2.1 billion and TLJ has approximately 1.35 billion.

Lol.

TV’s Frink said:

Or we can all admit it was hyperbole (like every other post here) and move on.

Oh, I’m sure it was.

Matt.F said:

Jay said:

Please read the 10 or so posts regarding the word “apologist” and how it’s only a negative term if you don’t understand the meaning of the word.

Lol, I hope this is a joke!

"An apologist is a person who argues in favor of something unpopular. … Apologists tend to be seen in a negative light, as defensive people who make excuses. The word apologist comes from the Greek word apologia, meaning speaking in defense. “an enthusiastic apologist for fascism in the 1920s”

From merriam-webster.com:

“One who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something.”

From collinsdictionary.com:

“An apologist is a person who writes or speaks in defence of a belief, a cause, or a person’s life.”

From dictionary.com:

“A person who makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, etc.”

From thefreedictionary.com:

“A person who argues in defense or justification of something, such as a doctrine, policy, or institution.”

From macmillandictionary.com:

“Someone who defends something such as a belief.”

And just to show I’m not being selective in the sources I’m quoting from:

From en.oxforddictionaries.com:

“A person who offers an argument in defence of something controversial.” (Not that “controversial” automatically equals “negative”.)

From dictionary.cambridge.org:

“A person who supports a particular belief or political system, especially an unpopular one, and speaks or writes in defence of it.”

From vocabulary.com (Your source, I believe):

“An apologist is a person who argues in favor of something unpopular.”

That’s eight definitions from eight separate sources. Four are neutral; one is ambiguous; one has a negative slant, but isn’t wholly negative; only one is outright negative.

Thanks chyron.

TV’s Frink said:

Thanks chyron.

http://replygif.net/i/822.gif

That’s not the part that was hyperbolic, which is why I didn’t reference that part.