TV/Movies Megathread

[The Larch]

In short, unless the reviews have changed or the article is based solely on earlier reviews (I admit I did not read all 19 pages), the article is misleading, because the evidence it cites is not correct.

I guess there might be some of this involved, I see that most of the outrage is from yesterday and monday, not today, so maybe they did a swift cleanup, or the reviews they mention are buried at the end of the line. Review bombing certainly exists, though. We'll see what happens once the movie opens and proper user reviews come in.

[Syt]

RT removed a lot of comments  I guess: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/27/rotten-tomatoes-captain-marvel-brie-larson-review-trolls

[Barrister]

QUoting right from Rottentomatoes:

What else are we doing? We are disabling the comment function prior to a movie's release date. Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership. We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action. Don't worry though, fans will still get to have their say: Once a movie is released, audiences can leave a user rating and comments as they always have.

[Malthus]

You are assuming your conclusions with this one, though. 

The thesis is: neckbeards are leaving negative comments because they hate women protagonists; the evidence alleged in your cited article is that "A disproportionate number of comments on the review page cite issues with a perception that Captain Marvel is "sexist" for a variety of reasons including but not limited to the gender of primary hero ...".

So I looked at the comments on the review page. Contrary to the article, the vast majority do not "...cite issues with a perception that Captain Marvel is "sexist" ...". Rather, they cite boredom with the trailer, actress looks dull, too many superhero movies, etc.

In short, unless the reviews have changed or the article is based solely on earlier reviews (I admit I did not read all 19 pages), the article is misleading, because the evidence it cites is not correct.

This story did blow up somewhat today - I've seen it reported in lots of places.

I would note that many of the comments that are up talk about other negative comments.  Assuming that all those articles are correct in the language that was used, it appears clear someone at RT cleaned up the reviews.

This is weird though, because if so, whoever cleaned up the site by removing such comments did leave *some* of them. 

Another possibility: the issue was blown way out of proportion and people started reacting to the story as it was reported, without bothering themselves with actually looking at the reviews ... but surely that could never happen. 

[Malthus]

RT removed a lot of comments  I guess: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/27/rotten-tomatoes-captain-marvel-brie-larson-review-trolls

Article says they stopped the ability to post comments prior to the movie's release.

[Malthus]

QUoting right from Rottentomatoes:

What else are we doing? We are disabling the comment function prior to a movie's release date. Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership. We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action. Don't worry though, fans will still get to have their say: Once a movie is released, audiences can leave a user rating and comments as they always have.

There is no reason to doubt trolling is a significant issue. The very fact that there are newspaper articles complaining about it makes it a significant issue!

This is true whether the specific claims in those articles are true or not. No company needs a feature of marginal utility (comments about a movie no one has actually seen) which has attracted lots of bad press.

More problematically, they removed the "want to see/don't what to see" feature at the same time. The stated reason is obvious bullshit (that people get confused between this score, and the score for "have seen and like/don't like"). The overall impression is that the site is under pressure from studios to avoid creating bad "buzz" prior to release, for any reason. "Review bombing" is one reason. So is genuine "this looks like trash".

As of February 25, we will no longer show the 'Want to See' percentage score for a movie during its pre-release period. Why you might ask?  We've found that the 'Want to See' percentage score is often times confused with the 'Audience Score' percentage number. (The 'Audience Score' percentage, for those who haven't been following, is the percentage of all users who have rated the movie or TV show positively – that is, given it a star rating of 3.5 or higher – and is only shown once the movie or TV show is released.)

[Oexmelin]

Another possibility: the issue was blown way out of proportion and people started reacting to the story as it was reported, without bothering themselves with actually looking at the reviews ... but surely that could never happen. 

I looked at the reviews about a week ago. I agreed with the article's conclusions. And while many reviews didn't mention explicitly SJW (though many did), it was easy to check where these "looks like garbage" comments came from, from other reviews/comments from the same user. And BB is right: the possibility of the issue being blown out of proportion does not explain why Captain Marvel and Black Panther (and SWLJ) were outliers in a general positive trend (assessed by numbers) concerning superhero movies.     

I don't think the reason to remove "Want to see it" is complete bullshit. In the articles quoted by Syt, the reporter clearly confuses it with "Audience Rating". They were not the only one. That being said, studios have been pushing against the "Want to see it" feature for a while.

[Zoupa]

This whole thing is so goddamn retarded. The trailer looks like any other comic movie trailer. The actress is gorgeous.

The reviews have been very positive and I intend to see it asap.

[Eddie Teach]

The actress is gorgeous.

She can sit on my cake anytime.

[Josephus]

American Gods. Season One.

WTF? out Twin Peaked Twin Peaks

[Malthus]

Another possibility: the issue was blown way out of proportion and people started reacting to the story as it was reported, without bothering themselves with actually looking at the reviews ... but surely that could never happen. 

I looked at the reviews about a week ago. I agreed with the article's conclusions. And while many reviews didn't mention explicitly SJW (though many did), it was easy to check where these "looks like garbage" comments came from, from other reviews/comments from the same user. And BB is right: the possibility of the issue being blown out of proportion does not explain why Captain Marvel and Black Panther (and SWLJ) were outliers in a general positive trend (assessed by numbers) concerning superhero movies.     

I don't think the reason to remove "Want to see it" is complete bullshit. In the articles quoted by Syt, the reporter clearly confuses it with "Audience Rating". They were not the only one. That being said, studios have been pushing against the "Want to see it" feature for a while.

I did not look at the reviews a week ago, that is true, though the reviews as they stand now do not confirm the article's conclusions;  but it is foolish to deny that issues are easily conflated - studios wishing to deflect any and all bad buzz prior to release because bad buzz can kill a marginal movie, online trolls using that fact to cause trouble, and the outrage against such manipulation. The removal of the "want to see" feature is a perfect example - the corporate powers-that-be are seizing the moment for removing a feature *they* don't like, because it hurts corporate profits, and blame it on the unenlightened faction of the audience.

Fact is, entertaining movies tend to be immune to such pressures - hence, no amount of online trolling was able to dent Black Panther's numbers.

On the other hand, iffy movies can be impacted - for example, audiences stayed away from the all-female Ghostbusters movie in droves.

What remains to be seen, is whether Captain Marvel is an entertaining or iffy superhero offering. If good, presumably it will go the way of Black Panther. It looks perfectly good to *me*.

[Malthus]

The reviews have been very positive and I intend to see it asap.

The social media buzz from those who have actually seen the movie has been very positive. So far, it looks like a keeper and not a dud. 

No actual formal reviews are out yet though, as apparently the review embargo doesn't drop until March 5. Often, that's a bad sign, though, to have the embargo so close to the release date (Black Panther got three weeks).

[FunkMonk]

If the original Alien came out today some idiots would review bomb it because a woman defeating the perfect life form would be "unrealistic SJW propaganda."

[Tamas]

If the original Alien came out today some idiots would review bomb it because a woman defeating the perfect life form would be "unrealistic SJW propaganda."

Yeah. Can you imagine what Kill Bill would get?

[Josephus]

If the original Alien came out today some idiots would review bomb it because a woman defeating the perfect life form would be "unrealistic SJW propaganda."

In her underwear no less.