The movie world would be a better place if we all stopped obsessing over Rotten Tomatoes. However, the reduction of movies to a numerical score eliminates the need for any complex thought about the medium, which serves the purposes of certain corners of the internet quite nicely. As a particular segment of fans continue to wring their hands over “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” they’ve pointed their fingers at the 53% Audience Score for the film (versus 92% Tomatometer score) as proof that people don’t like the movie. But is that accurate?
This week, a hilariously named group, Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys claimed responsibility for the Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score for ‘The Last Jedi,’ saying they “rigged” the score using bots, in a bit to turn fans against Disney. Their grievance is misogynistic in nature, as they feel male characters in “Star Wars” and in society, have taken a step backward, and they’re fighting for their place in the world or something.
“I’m sick and tired of men being portrayed as idiots. There was a time we ruled society and I want to see that again. That is why I voted for Donald Trump,” one of the group’s members told Huffington Post.
Rotten Tomatoes has responded to reports that their alchemical scoring system was tampered with, denying that anything or anybody fudged the numbers.
“For ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ we have seen an uptick in people posting written user reviews, as fans are very passionate about this movie and the franchise,” a rep told Variety. “The authenticity of our critic and user scores is very important to Rotten Tomatoes and as a course of regular business, we have a team of security, network, social and database experts who closely monitor our platforms.”
While I would like to think Rotten Tomatoes has an army of highly trained coders closely watching how each user review is logged, I’m guessing it’s probably just a few IT guys hoping the servers don’t crash. At any rate, who cares about the score? Leslie Knope, as always, has the only real response to this we’ll ever need….