Well That’s Embarrassing: Rotten Tomatoes Shuts Down ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Comments
Another sign that we live in a decadent era of excess and buffoonery? Legions of fanboys took up to the internet to vent their overwhelming wrath because a few audacious film critics opinionated that The Dark Knight Rises may not the best movie ever seen on the face of this Earth. HOW DARE THEY?
Subject of the brunt of the firestorm is Rotten Tomatoes-accredited critic Marshall Fine who had the bad luck of being the first one to give the much anticipated movie a “Rotten” rating. Within hours, hundreds of vitriolic comments were hurled at him and the traffic was such that his website crashed multiple times. And then came the death threats.
“I guess to me it crosses a line if someone shows up on my front step,” Fine told CriticWire. “Otherwise everyone’s entitled to their opinion. People have strong feelings about this stuff. Is it unfortunate that this is the way people express themselves? Well, yeah, I think it’s a measure of how powerless people feel in this society in general. Here’s their chance to get their rocks off at someone they don’t know.”
Rotten Tomatoes finally had enough on Wednesday morning and completely shut down the comment system for The Dark Knight Rises.”The job of policing the comments became more than my staff could handle for that film, so we stopped the comments altogether,” editor-in-chief Matt Atchity explained. “It just got to be too much hate based on reactions to reviews of movies that people hadn’t even seen.”
Not only is this a first but the website is looking to make wholesale change to the way discussion occurs by possibly moving to a Facebook-type system which would prevent anonymous comments. But let’s face it, this is akin to using bandaids on a gangrene-infested limb.
The bigger issue here is our society’s unhealthy obsession with making issues black and white. This manifests itself in the popularity of Rotten Tomatoes which assigns a completely meaningless “Rotten” or “Fresh” rating to every movie out there. If someone disagrees with the prevalent (preconceived) opinion, he must be a “troll” or a “douchebag”. Either way, he is wrong and his intelligence must be questioned.
And God forbid, 99% of these fanboys haven’t even seen the movie yet. The sheer devotion of thousands to something as trivial as a movie franchise is quite frankly pathetic.
What do you think of all this hoopla?
31 Comments
Maybe I should publish a negative review on there and watch our numbers skyrocket.
Ahaha nah, it’s usually just the first few ones though. We would have been late to the party.
wow…just wow.
It’s amazing to me to see how everyone gets up in arms about a film they haven’t seen. of course, those same people most likely wouldn’t recant on their comments if, after seeing it, felt it to be “rotten” as well.
I thought this was going to be an article about comments being shut down as a result of spoilers and read through this article rather gingerly at first. little did I know that it was more in reference to the likes of death threats.
wow…sad.
Yea, I guess that’s one of those trivial example of First World problems… Embarrassing really.
We really do live in a indecent time
Netizens will be netizens. Doesn’t matter where they come from. XD
Or how they do it
Just because some people don’t like it. Boo-hoo!
It’s pretty sad to see all these people got upset over a movie, I wonder if any of them has ever been kiss by a female, their mom or sisters doesn’t count. LOL. I’m assuming these were all boys or men of course.
A conspiracy theorist in me smells something fishy though, Rottentomatoes.com is own by Flixter and Warner Bros. owns Flixter. Maybe Warner doesn’t want any bad press about fanboys threatening critics over their film and decided to suspense the comments section?
Nah, I wouldn’t read anything into it although it seems like WB is overreacting a bit in regards to the Colorado shooting. I hear they want to delay and even edit Gangster Squad because of it.
It’s all just a bit suss really… the whole rotten tomatoes <- flixster <- WB thing.
lol I don’t really think it has anything to do with it, especially since the fanboys are flaming the few negative reviews.
Pathetic, that’s the key word here!
Exactly Pete, people who have waaaaaay too much time on their hands and nothing better to do than getting their panties in a wad over something this trivial.
the unrecognisable individual will always attack as part of a group… it’s nothing new, it’s just mod-mentality. The internet has provided us with a way of viewing this in a new light but let’s not blame the time we are living in… if anything this way is far less damaging and far easier just to brush off than, say, hooliganism or riots. “The bigger issue here is our society’s unhealthy obsession with making issues black and white.” – it’s a minority that do, so I hardly would consider it an issue. “This manifests itself in the popularity of Rotten Tomatoes which assigns a completely meaningless “Rotten” or “Fresh” rating to every movie out there.” – ‘meaningless’? well that’s subjective, and obviously isn’t ‘meaningless to some people, and belittling what people are reacting to would only exacerbate the situation.
Frankly I’m disgusted that he compared this, inevitably shit, movie to the superb Transformers films! … TROLL!
Yea I guess it’s the modern equivalent of people with pitchfork and torches
I do think a RT score is meaningless. What does a 51% score mean? Where is the room for middle ground when a movie is either “Rotten” or “Fresh”?
I didn’t even know RT had a comments section.
Yea, for each review, you can click on “comment” and usually, flame the critic for not agreeing with your own opinion
You nailed, Castor. There’s no toleration for non-conventional thinking. People can’t be left to disagree for whatever reason they’ve come up with.
Exactly. That’s the line that I think sums it up, too. One of the many things that bothers me with this whole situation is not even that the majority of these people likely to fail to read the reviews (which isn’t even worthy of addressing) but that many who DO read them fail to see how reviewers – the best reviewers – can shade in all sorts of directions at once. I haven’t read any Dark Knight reviews because I want to go in cold but consider A.O. Scott’s review of Spiderman – it doesn’t COMPLETELY condemn the review. At all. But people latch onto the “bad” things in it and decide he doesn’t like superhero movies, case closed. It’s maddening.
Totally agree with your point Nick. More often than not, they will latch on the grade rather than what is said in the review. It’s frustrating sometimes.
oh wow!!! I am speechless at how crazy it is.
To like or adore something too much is not an excuse to go hating other people who don’t feel the same.
And the weirdest part of all…they haven’t seen the movie yet. For all we know, the reviewer could be right. I know I am sure he is right because the best movie ever produced on earth would depend on someone’s taste of movie.
Have you seen The Dark Knight Rises yet Bovia? Just curious
“pathetic”, spot on! These people need to leave mom and dads basement.
I always thought that it was crazy how all of these fanboys go onto rotten tomatoes and make hateful and vulgar comments towards critics that don’t like their favorite movies. What makes it even worse is that these fanboys haven’t even seen these particular movies yet in most cases. I’ve had someone insult me on my site for not liking Battleship and not loving The Avengers as much as everyone else did, so I can understand how it is.
Ahah at least, they weren’t those super snobby Star Trek or Star Wars fanboys!!! These people are a handful, I tell you.
Just imagine if those commenters actually put their time into something, y’know, useful…
What a waste.
Nah it’s impossible to imagine. We would actually be able to accomplish things like interstellar travel, self-sustainable energy source and curing cancer lol
Honestly? This is a sad and pathetic state of affairs. Discussion should never be shut down like that, but it should also never NEED to be sheriffed as RT (rightly) did. I don’t think they had much choice. At some point discussion stops being “discussion” and just becomes abuse, and there’s nothing out there that says RT has to stand by and let abuse occur.
I like to (well, I don’t LIKE to, but) see this as a comment on the intelligence of the masses. I think if I come on here with a cooler opinion of the film than most everyone else (and I’m not sure that I will, but given my history with Nolan’s other Batman films it’s not unlikely), I’ll be able to have a fine discussion with people as to the whys and the whats of my reaction. That’s how it should be. But that’s not always how it is, especially when you’re dealing with something as “precious” as a comic book. It’s ridiculous.
And it’s something we should all do our best to prevent. Movies– all art in fact– need to be able to be interpreted and received and discussed freely, without fearing malicious response from wacky diehards. Whether it’s The Hobbit or Spider-Man or TDKR, it’s all fair game. That it’s come to this on TDKR is a sad comment on the state of fandom and discourse at large.
Yea that’s the problem. Some people just can’t be reasoned with and there is no possibility for discussion. And these folks tend to overwhelm the majority of reasonable comments because they are freaking trolls.
I’ts reached the point where if you just think a film is ok and don’t LOVE it someone is going to go all ape shit. Often times the comments and reviews on the films on RT/IMDB will have little to do with the actual film or legitimate criticism, and more to do with religious/cultural/politcal leanings, the reviews of that film Courageous being an excellent example.
The discussion forums on these sites are even worse, anonymity certainly does not promote civil discourse.
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