I can’t get Star Wars: The Last Jedi out of my head. It’s now been three weeks since I’ve seen the film during its opening weekend, and the disappointment has become more palpable by the day. The Force Awakens was awesome in my opinion, leading to extreme optimism for Star Wars as a Disney property, so it’s not like I’m just someone that wants to bash Disney. But it all came crashing down with The Last Jedi.
The best parts about the latest installment from the saga a long time ago in a galaxy far away were the new characters, such as the Porgs—especially their unfortunate moment with Chewbacca. The main purpose of them is probably to sell more toys and merchandise, if we’re being honest. I don’t want to spoil the movie for those that haven’t seen it—and I hope you’ll like it more than I did—but I was surprised to see the movie get such high ratings, and I want to talk about the disparity between critic reviews and user reviews.
Everyone has their own opinions on everything—whether it be movies television, athletes, teams, actors—but it’s odd to see one group of people have such a different opinion than another group of people. The critics have The Last Jedi at a 90% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, the user score is at a 50%. Something clearly isn’t right here.
I don’t mean to criticize movie critics, but they are normal people like everyone else. Sure, they have a way of putting their movie reviews into words and have a better perspective of film as a whole than most, but they aren’t supernatural beings with a higher state of awareness than us everyday folk. The disconnect shouldn’t be as is.
Take Justice League, for example. The latest DC superhero movie is the total opposite of The Last Jedi in terms of people’s opinions of it. The “Tomatometer” currently has it at a 40%, while the user reviews have it at a very solid 77%. I enjoyed the film, as I enjoyed Batman v. Superman, which has the same inconsistencies as Justice League. The critics hating the films while the everyday movie-goer loves it is mind-boggling.
In the days after the release of The Last Jedi, there was actually an investigation to ensure the user reviews weren’t fake. It’s almost as if they thought the people like myself, that genuinely did not like the film, weren’t really out there when we in fact make up the majority.
Many film critics might be too smart for their own good, and now they might have fallen victim to groupthink. Unless you believe some big companies like Disney have the movie reviewers in their pocket, it seems like the most logical explanation. The bottom line is the only person you need to trust when going to see a movie is yourself, and you can (and probably will) have a different opinion than today’s movie critics.
These film critics are bad news! Probably paid off and cannot be trusted!!
The Last Jedi was terrible. End of story.
It’s definitely gotten worse over the last decade in my opinion.