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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
I believe the reviewer decides whether the review is Fresh or Rotten.
Also, who wrote that review?
Peace is the only battle worth waging.I find RT convenient. If I already know I'm interested in a movie, and the reviews are bad, I'll read some and see if they indicate I wouldn't like it.
If I have no set preferences and just want to go watch something, RT helps me avoid the stuff that's widely considered terrible and narrow my options down to the decent stuff.
If I'm skeptical or indifferent about a movie and RT says it's great, I'll read some reviews and see if they indicate the movie suits my tastes.
I wouldn't have gone to see Thor Ragnarok if the RT reviews hadn't been so good; I found it entertaining. I would have gone to see The Dark Tower if the reviews hadn't been so overwhelmingly bad; I'm satisfied with not having seen it.
But the difference between a 95% fresh movie that succeeded in being broadly inoffensive and a 70% movie that's good but more controversial is something you need to read reviews in order to know.
edited 7th Feb '18 2:30:32 PM by Galadriel
RT is mostly OK, but I personally find Metacritic’s algorithm to be more useful & informative (the score is based on average ratings rather than a simple good/bad dichotomy).
In other news, I don’t usually use the forums to advertise things like this, but I thought this
was important to share.
RT is generally useful for films that heavily lean one direction or another. Like, there is functionally little difference between a film with 49% freshness and one with 61% freshness. Both of those mean you have a fair chance of liking the film.
But when you see something like 96% Fresh or 4% Fresh, you've got a pretty strong idea of what people think about that movie.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It doesn't help that people also tend to have trouble understanding a ten-point scale due to being conditioned by the education system.
The RT score is not a grade. It is not an objective measure of quality. It's just a general aggregate of how many people liked the movie. Like, having a 50/50 odds of liking a film means it's worth at least giving it a shot.
But a lot of people see 56% and go, "56%? That's an F! This movie must suuuuuck!"
edited 7th Feb '18 3:25:10 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Don't have an issue with that since our education system doesn't use percentage.
Anyway, I think that the extremes are very helpful. Avoiding a low percentage movie is usually a good thing, and while a middling score doesn't make much of a difference (if I was interested beforehand I will most likely still watch it, and if not, it won't change my mind), a high score is an indicator to at least consider a movie.
That so many people apparently don't get how it works is really on them. It has been explained often enough by various people.
I don't mind it being there, it has its place, but I do think discussions like the one that's been going on for the previous few pages kind of show that people put more stock in it than is really warranted. It's not that movies with high scores don't deserve them— they're up there because they're both good and broadly appealing. But if enough people treat the percentage as a letter grade and a shortcut over reading actual reviews, that hurts movies that are maybe more niche.
edited 8th Feb '18 4:48:46 AM by Unsung
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It is kind of fun to see who is the first breaking from the flock in a situation like this. Though in this case what spawned the discussion wasn't really the score, it was the odd review. I mean, it is really rare that someone complains that a movie is too complex. And the idea that Superheroes are heroes because they punch people is, well, pretty nonsensical. Jessica is a Superhero, and while she is strong, she is mostly a hero because she cares, and she rarely goes around punching people. (not to mention that a lot of heroes rather shoot than punch anyway).
Has been known to happen. There was this guy who gave Ladybird a negative score specifically because he felt the movie didn't deserve 100%.
edited 7th Feb '18 4:10:33 PM by Swanpride
It's funny how that happens. I had never heard the word "po-faced" until a few months ago, when I suddenly read it in like three different places at once, with publishing dates decades apart.
But yeah, I don't know quite who that guy thinks he's writing to with a review like that. As for my comment, it wasn't just the review itself, it was the several pages beforehand waiting to see who that first bad review would be— that's kind of what I mean about putting too much stock in the number that appears on RottenTomatoes.
edited 8th Feb '18 4:47:56 AM by Unsung

I could have sworn that 60% and above was their criteria for "Fresh".