TROS Tomatometer

Honestly that comes across as quite a bit condescending and pretentious.
I accept that a properly (and formally) educated movie critic is able to judge a movie better from the technical side of things - camera work, sound, lighting etc. Other than that though, cinema is a form of art and as all forms of art, it's not only about how well it is executed technically - a lot of its value (I'd even argue most of it) comes from how it speaks to people and how it makes them feel. So if it reaches a lot of people and makes them happy (even if it's only because of special effects or silly jokes - although I think you're being extremely harsh here), then a movie already has value and fulfills its function - and as much as I'm concerned it's worth by far more than anything else.

 

After TLJ I rarely trust critics anymore. To be honest I'd rather hear from the toxic bros on YouTube first

 

And yet it's true. People have different tastes and just as there are people who like only "good movies" (often niche ones with limited release or from countries like Hungary or Bhutan) - there are also people who like "bad movies" for some reason. I'm not saying they shouldn't enjoy what they find fun. I'm only saying that such people exist and thus they can also give high scores to movies some other people would describe as crappy.

 

My point is, how (and more importantly who) can decide that a movie is objectively good or bad? The technical aspects are possible to be judged objectively, that's where things like technical excellence, production value, script and acting quality and the likes come into play - mostly things based on measurements that are technical in nature (although even then there's a lot of room for individual preferences).

What you seem to suggest is that people have different tastes but some of those tastes are superior to others because you assume it's possible to objectively determine what is a good and what is a bad movie. And that's where I completely disagree with you.

 

Case and point, Logan. Technically amazing. Loved by critics and fans alike. I personally will never see it again. But does that make my taste bad for not liking it? Not at all.
I also like Seven Samurai, The Seventh Seal, Casablanca, The Phantom Menace, and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Extended Edition. Inception, Twelve Angry Men (the black and white version), and Pacific Rim are all in my top 5 favorite movies of all time. Yet there are people who will decry (most of) these movies as bad, boring, terrible or otherwise. And there's room for both of our opinions.

 

There are some films that are universally agreed upon as good movies like The Godfather, Alien, and The Shining just name a few. Why is that? I have never met a person who said that Alien was a bad movie, not once in my life. There is a craft to these things, you either know how to do it or you don't. Most bad movies are just bad, it's not a matter of taste. They are poorly crafted films. I think people that loves poorly made movies just don't understand the craft of filmmaking to be honest. When I was 14 i was upset that Twister wasn't nominated for an Academy Award. pretty sad. I didn't know the craft of film. To this day I know many people who love everything they see. More power to them.

 

All I know it's that if you thought TLJ was good, nothing you tell me after is of value to me. This is why I can't go with RT anymore. The fan ratings are what I value more now

 

The GOON HAS SPOKEN

 

This.

Sadly, the professional criticism works like this.
I see this point. Without already seen TROS, from what I have read, it seems a coherent continuation to episode VII (What TLJ should have been?) that's why critics seems to criticize episode 9, cause they liked TLJ. Maybe TLJ also tossed so much of previous one and critics didn't see like this.

 

What's the point of being on a forum if you can't tolerate other people's opinion? Also, the fan rating system can be trolled by haters and likers alike. So, you just have to go see the film for yourself and decide.

 

It was always like that since someone invented "art". I'd say that a person who is going in his free time to art gallery has probably more refined taste than a guy sitting in dirty T-shirt in front of a TV watching football all the time and having literally no interest in anything besides football. Maybe it doesn't sound good, but we both know such people exist. If someone asked me "which one has the more refined taste?" - my answer would be obvious. Sometimes it's quite easy to pick which option is "good" and which option is "bad". It's not so easy when it comes to movies however.

What if there's a movie with perfect acting, awesome costumes, beautiful camerawork, but every 10 minutes we get jokes based on farts, feces or belching or with absolutely stupid story? Or a movie filmed with crappy camera and with bad sound, yet with absolutely amazing story and acting?

To me the story is the most important. So - script has the biggest "weight". Then acting - because a movie sucks if good screenplay/dialogues are delivered by unskilled actors or in a strange way. Then "the world" - costumes, sets, makeup etc. Then - camerawork and sound. Then music. And special effects in the end.

So if script is bad - no good acting or makeup will fix it for me. But good script can save the movie even if camerawork or sound are bad.

Where does TROS fit here? Unfortunately it fails at script level. I'm totally not convinced by the Palpatine story (introduced suddenly only because Rian killed Snoke and JJ decided he needs a "big villain to be defeated"). I'm not convinced by pacing (way too fast). I'm not convinced by "game-like fetch quests". I'm not convinved by

Spoiler

Rey's lineage (really? REALLY, JJ?)

and ending (I don't know how far can I go with explaining since not everyone saw it and wouldn't like spoilers here). And I'm not alone - a lot of critics points at it too. That's why for me the movie can't be saved by its CGI or music or anything else - overall it's bad. And I can accept the fact that someone else enjoyed it, but I won't agree if he'll say it's good. Good because "there was chemistry between Rey and Kylo". Or "the battle looked awesome". Or "duels were amazing, the best in the entire saga". Ok - these are good elements of the overall broken movie. Broken engine of the Rolls Royce. It still looks pretty, but it won't go anywhere. If its engine is broken - the whole car won't do what it is suppoused to do and it won't take you anywhere even though some local girls will get wet just by looking at it.

So - I'm saying that TROS is a bad movie and fully deserves current "rotten" (58%) score and I'm ready to defend my opinion, acknowledging that someone else may have a different opinion and his own arguments. But since I share this opinion and not that someone's - I think that my arguments are "stronger" (I would share that other opinion otherwise).

 

We should clarify terms. The real audience score will come from ComScore/PostTrak and Cinemascore on Friday and Saturday. Those are real numbers that can be trusted. Critics are typically aligned with audiences, but there are plenty of exceptions. Lion King is the best example of this year. Critics hated it and audiences loved it.

Metacritic/IMDb polls are not a useful way to measure what the audience thinks.

A bit of advise... you shouldn't base your opinion on what other people think. This is the first Disney saga film that critics didn't like. Audiences liked the first two saga films as well (despite what someone on YouTube said). If TROS of has an A score on Cinemascore it will likely be fine with fans.

 

Another nail on the head. Casual fans liked TFA, casual fans liked TLJ, and they'll most likely like TROS.

It's us hardcore/emotionally invested fans that make the big noises!

 

Good point. Probably because it's a good story overall and well made (some said the animals looked odd, but overall I think it's quite beautifully made movie) - but also a shameless attempt to grab as much $$$ as Disney can by giving us the same story all over again. If someone went to the cinema just to relax, took kids or because of childhood nostalgia - then he'll enjoy it and rate it as "good". But when someone think why it was made instead of something new and unique - then I'm not surprised by bad reviews. That's why I would give it 5/10. 10 for story and technical aspects, 1 for literally "upgrading graphics".

 

I think what I've learned from five pages of this thread is that everyone has their own unique way of saying: "All ratings are absolutely worthless...


... untill they happen to line up with my own opinion."

 

It's a good post in terms of explaining which factors are the most important for you when judging a movie. It is not an objective and universally accepted formula of how everyone does (or should do) it though.

When it comes to your criticism of TROS, I agree with you on some points and disagree on others. As you said, it's hard to go deeper into discussing it without heavy spoilers, but for example pacing mostly worked for me and I also liked the overall structure of the movie (and didn't mind game-like "fetch quests" leading to the "final boss" at all). I didn't like a few things in the script but those were mostly minor and weren't a dealbreaker for me. The ending could have been better but I thought most character arcs were done pretty well and it delivered closure. I wished for more information regarding Palpatine and his introduction was too abrupt (though understandable given how the previous two movies went) but overall I liked him being in the movie and thought it was a satisfying ending to the saga. Acting ranged from good to great, dialogues were decent, camerawork, music and sounds were good, the humour and emotional moments didn't feel forced. Visually it was stunning but that's nothing new.

What I'm saying is that TROS is not a great movie and it has it flaws but it's nowhere near being awful. As someone who didn't really enjoy the sequels trilogy, I thought it was a great damage control and an enjoyable movie overall. There will certainly be those who share your opinion as well as those who share mine - so it just illustrates that different things work for different people. As for critics - and as someone else mentioned earlier in this thread - 58% rating still means that 58% of the critics rated the movie positively so if anything it also shows that there's no general consensus...which makes sense to me as the way I see it, it's neither a masterpiece nor a failure.

 

While Palpatine was probably the worst element of TROS. He's completely unnecessary. Nothing in TFA or TLJ prepared us for that and demanded specifically him to be the villain in TROS. But what's even worse - it makes the ending of the OT pointless. Just as I can somehow accept the existence of the empire (under its new name - "First Order") - we "knew" Palpatine was dead. Defeated. And TROS robbed us of it. Made ROTJ pointless. Ok, Vader had a change of heart, but nothing more. He didn't even kill Palpatine at all. It's like making a Return of the King sequel in which Sauron suddenly is again the lord of Mordor and a new band of heroes (new ones, because old ones had to be killed in order to focus more on new characters) has to defeat him. Suddenly the whole story of Frodo, Aragorn, Boromir and others - becomes pointless. Their suffering, their sacrifice - in vain. Absolutely perfect story ruined only by bringing back Sauron as main villain, nothing more. Just because someone wanted to earn $$$ with new movie and merchandise.
Maybe it's nice to see him again for some people, but if we think about its impact on the whole saga - then bringing him back was a terrible idea.

 

Also looks to me that most of the negatives on RT are mild negatives. Also most of the positive arent saying TROS is a masterpiece.

If you look at the avg rating

TROS is 6.27 while % is 59%
New Jumanji is 5.97 while % is 68%
Frozen 2 is 6.57 while % is 77%
Bombshell is 6.65 while % is 64%
Lion King is 6.01 while % is 53%

TLJ is 8.09 while % is 91%
SOLO is 6.42 while % is 70%
RO is 7.48 while % is 83%
TFA is 8.27 while % is 93%