Looks like the Disney PR team is out in full force hitting up all the “pretend” #fakenews Hollyood trade sites over the reception of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
It’s no secret that if you disagree with Disney or give them bad PR, they seemingly(?) retaliate and won’t give you exclusives, just ask the LA Times.
The latest is regarding fan reception to Star Wars: The Last Jedi at Rotten Tomatoes, which lists the movie as the worst of all the Star Wars movies in terms of audience rating.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi has a dismal audience rating of 56% with over 104,000 people voicing their opinions, which means 44% of the fans didn’t like it, and the number is less than any of the George Lucas Episode I-III movies.
They argue that the CinemaScore for the movie is an “A” and offer up some mumbo jumbo from other sites no one has ever heard of supporting the “positive” response.
The article even goes on to suggest people created fake bots to spam and artificially inflate the negative audience response at Rotten Tomatoes.
Obviously there is no way I can verify those claims, but a quick check of the numbers at Rotten Tomatoes sees that while 104,000 people responded to the audience rating for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, more than double that number responded for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (224,235).
Interestingly enough, the number of fans responding to the audience rating for Star Wars: Rogue One (96,856) is closer to Star Wars: The Last Jedi. So just who is using bots??
I’ll also add that Reddit is flooded with fans who did not like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and this is the first movie that I can recall where family and friends of mine have texted me or responded in social media about how disappointed and unhappy they are with it. I’m also receiving e-mails thanking me for my lone(?) and honest review of the movie.
It’s also being argued that since Star Wars: The Last Jedi did so well in its opening weekend (over $450 million worldwide), that the box office numbers are proof the movie is good. I would respond that argument is ripe with fallacy as Michael Bay’s Transformers movies have performed huge at the box office and both Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman opened really big. What will be telling is whether or not Star Wars: The Last Jedi has legs. It’s my opinion the movie does not and has no value in subsequent viewings.
The “zombie” mentality must also be considered, which is when fans are simply loyal to a brand, follow the horde, and can’t think for themselves. This is something Marvel Comics counts on, but at a much smaller scale than Star Wars. While the Marvel Comics fans have finally started to realize something is rotten in the state of Denmark (Marvel has named a new EIC and is changing the direction of their comics), Star Wars and Disney are a whole different matter due to the size and scope involved.
Fans are eager to “please” Disney, Star Wars and the actors involved with the movies. It’s just a fact of our time that fans want to be involved and feel close to their favorite brands, and social media only significantly amplifies this notion, and of course the various corporations count on this mindset. Simply go on any Facebook, Twitter or social media page for proof. Now of course that is not necessarily a bad thing, but what makes it bad is when said corporations (or creators) take this type of thinking for granted and don’t put out the best possible product they could have, which in my opinion is the case with Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Let us also not forget audience reaction to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which saw fans leaving theaters (similar to Cinemascore) gushing about it:
