cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/23769430

All of this would be one thing if Rotten Tomatoes were merely an innocent relic from Web 1.0 being preyed upon by Hollywood sharks. But the site has come a long way from its founding, in 1998, by UC Berkeley grads, one of whom wanted a place to catalogue reviews of Jackie Chan movies. Rotten Tomatoes outlasted the dot-com bubble and was passed from one buyer to another, most recently in 2016. That year, Warner Bros. sold most of it to Fandango, which shares a parent company with Universal Pictures. If it sounds like a conflict of interest for a movie-review aggregator to be owned by two companies that make movies and another that sells tickets to them, it probably is.

If you found this of interest, check out the related article: Online Reviews Are Being Bought and Paid For. Get Used to It

Archive link: https://archive.ph/lyddW

All of this would be one thing if Rotten Tomatoes were merely an innocent relic from Web 1.0 being preyed upon by Hollywood sharks. But the site has come a long way from its founding, in 1998, by UC Berkeley grads, one of whom wanted a place to catalogue reviews of Jackie Chan movies. Rotten Tomatoes outlasted the dot-com bubble and was passed from one buyer to another, most recently in 2016. That year, Warner Bros. sold most of it to Fandango, which shares a parent company with Universal Pictures. If it sounds like a conflict of interest for a movie-review aggregator to be owned by two companies that make movies and another that sells tickets to them, it probably is.

If you found this of interest, check out the related article: Online Reviews Are Being Bought and Paid For. Get Used to It

Archive link: https://archive.ph/lyddW

Leaving aside bias towards the American market and critics, this latest criticism of Rotten Tomatoes influence comes from this September 6th piece from Vulture. The report provides new evidence of PR firms paying critics and persuading them to keep negative reviews off of Rotten Tomatoes tracking.

The Bunker 15 employee replied that of course journalists are free to write whatever they like but that “super nice ones (and there are more critics like this than I expected)” often agreed not to publish bad reviews on their usual websites but to instead quarantine them on “a smaller blog that RT never sees. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.” If done right, the trick would help ensure that Rotten Tomatoes logged positive reviews but not negative ones.

Collider has its own overview and retrospective on previous examples of corruption in reviewing, headlined “Rotten Tomatoes has always been mouldy at its core.’ It notes the inherent vulnerability of RT as it is owned by NBC Universal and Warner Brothers. Collider summarizes the recent criticism and analysis of RT as follows.

THE BIG PICTURE

Rotten Tomatoes' binary system oversimplifies complex works of art and diminishes the role of nuanced film critics.

The recent controversy surrounding Rotten Tomatoes reveals the site's susceptibility to manipulation by PR companies.

The dominance of Rotten Tomatoes in film discourse has led to a diminished appreciation for the human element and individuality in film criticism.

[ comments | sourced from HackerNews ]

HN Discussion

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

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Thanks, MovieSnob LinkMonkey™! Have a banana! And thanks to @[email protected] for his indirect link to this link here…you can have a banana too if you'd like.

An interesting read, this linked article, which confirms what we've suspected (knew?) for some time now. Don't tell me you believe Amazon product reviews too…?

From the linked article…

…in February, the Tomatometer score for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania debuted at 79 percent…after more critics had weighed in, its rating sank into the 40s. Quantumania had the best opening weekend of any movie in the Ant-Man series, at $106 million. In its second weekend, with its rottenness more firmly established, the film’s grosses slid 69 percent, the steepest drop-off in Marvel history.

“The studios didn’t invent Rotten Tomatoes, and most of them don’t like it,” says the filmmaker Paul Schrader. “But the system is broken. Audiences are dumber. Normal people don’t go through reviews like they used to. Rotten Tomatoes is something the studios can game. So they do.”

…Quentin Tarantino…admitted that he no longer reads critics’ work. “I’m told, ‘Manohla Dargis, she’s excellent.’ But when I ask what are the three movies she loved and the three she hated in the last few years, no one can answer me. Because they don’t care!”

Bonus MovieSnob LinkMonkey™ link: Scorsese's article on Rotten Tomatoes, and box office obsession. Spoiler Alert: Scorsese talks about the film mother! and may reveal a little too much for those who haven't yet seen it.

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The original was posted on /r/twobestfriendsplay by /u/Konradleijon on 2023-09-07 03:31:20.

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The original was posted on /r/redlettermedia by /u/proofofmyexistence on 2023-09-06 21:19:41.

The internet has been screaming about this for years.