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Transcendence WTF? 18% Rotten Tomatoes.
This was supposed to be the first decent movie of 2014. We all knew Robocop, Hercules, I Frankenstein, and Pompeii were going to be schlock, but who would have thought this project, with its A-list cast & production team would drop the ball.
Has anyone seen it? What was its sin? I was going to see it, but scathing reviews turned me off.
2014 hopes now down to just Godzilla and Interstellar. 
Oh wait, today is one of the days where we're taking Rotten Tomatoes reviews on blind faith??
Shit, my schedule must've gotten mixed up, according to mine today we're supposed to be Damning them for not being blind fools incapable to see the obvious greatness of that thing we all love. And then NEXT week using Rotten Tomatoes as the ultimate bible for what a movies worth without ever seeing it.
Sorry, sorry, my bad.
Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2014-04-26 14:08:44)
Oh wait, today is one of the days where we're taking Rotten Tomatoes reviews on blind faith??
Shit, my schedule must've gotten mixed up, according to mine today we're supposed to be Damning them for not being able to see the obvious greatness of that thing we all love. And then NEXT week using Rotten Tomatoes as the ultimate bible for what a movies worth without ever seeing it.
Sorry, sorry, my bad.
One shouldn't take any opinion on faith. But Rotten Tomatoes isn't an opinion, it's an aggregate of all opinions that usually gives a reasonably reliable forewarning of a movie's worth. The more opinions that are aggregated, the better.
Movies with <20% RT scores tend to suck, and movies >80% tend to be okay. Yes, there's probably the odd exception, but overall, it's ONE factor that contributes to a decision to spend one's $20. If I was sitting on the fence, a very high or very low score can tip it one way or the other.
Over the last 3-4 years, I've noticed that big-name A-list projects tend to get over-generous RT scores, so I tend to take 10-20% off a Martin Scorsese or Ridley Scott production.
For mediocre movies that cluster in the middle 40-60% range, you have to use other factors to decide. But if a score is universally very high or very low, that's pretty reliable in my experience.
I don't think there's a hard equation to determining RT's accuracy. Dallas Buyers Club is a monstrous piece of hell garbage which somehow was very well received.
But 18% for a high-concept sci-fi movie by a first-time director? I think we can safely assume that this is a pretty accurate score.
Has anyone seen it? What was its sin? I was going to see it, but scathing reviews turned me off.
Transcendence was just generally disappointing. Somehow I thought Pfister would be a better director. Thematically it's not saying anything near as deep or original as it seems to think it is. Even if you see it and like it, there's other movies in theaters now that you'd probably like way better. The 18% on RT doesn't surprise me.
I enjoy RT for what it is. It gives you a very rough idea of what a movie's critical reception has been. IOW, 18% doesn't mean a movie is absolutely shit. It means the group of critics whose reviews have been aggregated thought, on average, that the movie wasn't very good. (I always make sure to scroll down to see how many reviews have been aggregated and who those reviewers are. Sometimes with newer movies, indies, or certain documentaries there isn't many reviews at all. So a movie will have 99% or something, but you drill down and see that's based only on one review by Peter Travers and two reviews by rhesus monkeys.)
I've found quite a few mistakes on Rotten Tomatoes: reviews that were said to be "fresh" that were actually pretty unambiguously negative, and vice-versa; so I usually end up reading a few of the reviews to see if they actually line up with what RT said of them, which, of course, completely defeats the point of having the aggregate score. In fact, reading some of the Transcendence reviews shows that a lot more of the reviewers were on the fence about the movie than that 18% score implies.
From what I understand, the Tomatometer percentage is simply "what percent of reviews are above a 50% grade for the film." In this case, 18% of the reviews offer the film a 50%-worthiness-or-higher rating. It's "percentage of critics who seemed to like the movie," not "quality of the movie."
As opposed to something that would look at the worthiness-rating each critic gives the movie itself, and displaying an aggregate of that.
For instance, if these data were plugged into the Tomatometer:
9/10 stars
8/10 stars
3/10 stars
4/10 stars
8/10 stars
2/10 stars
4/10 stars
4/10 stars
3/10 stars
it would display 30% Fresh, because only three are above 5/10 stars.
But if you did a mean-average of those ratings, the film actually has an aggregate 4.5 stars, or 45%. That's half-again higher than the Tomatometer.
What happens most of the time is that movies with mixed-but-mostly-positive reviews get really high RT scores. Usually there's not too much dissonance, but occasionally you get a movie like Captain America 2 with an 89%, even though the average score is only 7.5.
The Rotten Tomatoes community is the worst thing about it. It rivals IMDb for Worst Online Movie Community.
From what I understand, the Tomatometer percentage is simply "what percent of reviews are above a 50% grade for the film." In this case, 18% of the reviews offer the film a 50%-worthiness-or-higher rating. It's "percentage of critics who seemed to like the movie," not "quality of the movie."
I don't think it's often used that way, though, and the site lists a lot of text reviews that don't apply any sort of numerical rating system and/or are ambiguous.
Like, one of the reviewers employs a traffic signal gimmick: red, don't see it, green, definitely see it, yellow, caution. He gave Transcendence a mixed green and yellow score, but was also pretty hard on the movie in his text review. RT interpreted this as "rotten."
I didn't know that this is how Metacritic does it. (They give certain publications/critics more weight than others and grade on a curve.)
EDIT: Transcendence is at 42 on Metacritic based on 44 reviews. (Highest is Richard Roeper, who gave it four stars and is due for a new set of eyeglasses.)
Last edited by Rob (2014-04-27 05:32:24)
Teague wrote:From what I understand, the Tomatometer percentage is simply "what percent of reviews are above a 50% grade for the film." In this case, 18% of the reviews offer the film a 50%-worthiness-or-higher rating. It's "percentage of critics who seemed to like the movie," not "quality of the movie."
I don't think it's often used that way, though, and the site lists a lot of text reviews that don't apply any sort of numerical rating system and/or are ambiguous.
Like, one of the reviewers employs a traffic signal gimmick: red, don't see it, green, definitely see it, yellow, caution. He gave Transcendence a mixed green and yellow score, but was also pretty hard on the movie in his text review. RT interpreted this as "rotten."
Well, RT doesn't interpret. The critics upload their reviews themselves, and they give them numerical scores that correspond to their personal rating system.
+1
Cotterpin Doozer wrote:Teague wrote:From what I understand, the Tomatometer percentage is simply "what percent of reviews are above a 50% grade for the film." In this case, 18% of the reviews offer the film a 50%-worthiness-or-higher rating. It's "percentage of critics who seemed to like the movie," not "quality of the movie."
I don't think it's often used that way, though, and the site lists a lot of text reviews that don't apply any sort of numerical rating system and/or are ambiguous.
Like, one of the reviewers employs a traffic signal gimmick: red, don't see it, green, definitely see it, yellow, caution. He gave Transcendence a mixed green and yellow score, but was also pretty hard on the movie in his text review. RT interpreted this as "rotten."
Well, RT doesn't interpret. The critics upload their reviews themselves, and they give them numerical scores that correspond to their personal rating system.
Oh okay, thanks. 
I guess I can just chalk any confusion in a review up to human error, either on my part when reading it or the reviewers when they uploaded it to the site.
http://www.deadline.com/2014/04/alcons- … -happened/
Look forward to more sequels and reboots as a result of this
I'd rather a good sequel/reboot than a shitty "original" film.
I'd rather a good sequel/reboot than a shitty "original" film.
Another 15 Marvel sequels coming up... Iron Man 6, Thor 4, Captain America 5, Avengers 7, Whatever 3
And if they're genuinely good, who cares? Most of them will probably suck, but that's not because they're based on an existing property. They'll suck for plenty of other reasons.
Doctor Submarine wrote:I'd rather a good sequel/reboot than a shitty "original" film.
Another 15 Marvel sequels coming up... Iron Man 6, Thor 4, Captain America 5, Avengers 7, Whatever 3
Just think by the laws of probability at least one of them HAS to be good 
And if they're genuinely good, who cares? Most of them will probably suck, but that's not because they're based on an existing property. They'll suck for plenty of other reasons.
Ya, only problem is none of them will be "genuinely good". Lets be honest here, it's a stupid fucking genre targeted at 12 year old boys. They reach for "mildly diverting but meaningless" and that's as high as they're gonna hit. Even something like Dark Knight, which strives for a certain degree of legitimacy and partially gets there, is held back by its comic-book elements and would work better as a pure crime-drama. We've gotten to the point where acclaimed directors and writers are forced to try to smuggle in bits of their themes and personality into these superhero frameworks because it's the only way they can get a movie funded anymore.
I'm not too torn up about Transcendence, because it's apparently garbage, and on top of that blatantly misrepresents my field of study, but I'd rather they make 5 of those and hit 1 out of the park than 5 marvel movies, 3 of which are mildly decent but utterly forgettable.
Last edited by bullet3 (2014-04-28 16:49:33)
Ya, only problem is none of them will be "genuinely good". Lets be honest here, it's a stupid fucking genre targeted at 12 year old boys. They reach for "mildly diverting but meaningless" and that's as high as they're gonna hit.
This. Also, anything based on a well-known property is already hamstrung, story-wise. No matter how "entertaining" your Batman movie is - and Nolan certainly achieved that much - it's still just the Batman story again. Parents killed, dresses like a bat, fights crime, YES WE'VE HEARD THIS ONE ALREADY.
One thing any original movie has going for it is the freedom to tell whatever story it wants. Which doesn't guarantee a great result (see thread topic as an example), but I believe it improves the odds.
One thing any original movie has going for it is the freedom to tell whatever story it wants. Which doesn't guarantee a great result (see thread topic as an example), but I believe it improves the odds.
Oh, agreed. Mind you, it was different back in the day when studios felt free to change everything about the story they were adapting, including the title
Johnny Depp, sell me this movie...
The 'sales pitch' starts at 8m:20s.
This must be the lamest effort since Bruce Willis' soporific Die Hard 5 effort.
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