Wonder Woman 1984

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Well normally it would be a bad thing but under the current circumstances...

Yeah, pretty meaningless. We still haven't even had the opportunity to see or not see WW1984 in the theaters here in WA... and now the governor has extended the new lockdown again!

[CyberCubed]

Woof, the rotten tomato score dropped all the way to 61%. If there are any more negative reviews it will drop to 59% and be officially rotten...

[Shark_Blade]

Wonder Woman 1984's Release Highlights Major Rotten Tomatoes Flaws

https://screenrant.com/wonder-woman-...-drop-problem/

Wonder Woman 1984 had a big opening weekend hitting (relatively) big numbers at the box office, big streaming numbers, and even opened at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes - before suddenly dropping to 63% after release, exposing a major flaw with the Tomatometer. Rotten Tomatoes has had a number of fundamental issues for a long time, but Wonder Woman 1984's release highlights a few of them.

While the movie was overall positively reviewed, even after the drop, the sudden change of the score and loss of the "certified fresh" status certainly made waves. The movie has proven to be surprisingly more controversial than expected with some people loving Patty Jenkins' departure from the tone of the first film, while others find it drastically inferior to the original to the point they're unable to enjoy it at all.

Rotten Tomatoes is just a tool to aggregate and measure reviews, so it's not always at the center of a conversation over movie quality, but due to the drastic swing after the release of Wonder Woman 1984 it's getting a lot more discussion. Needless to say, there's a lot of confusion from consumers, but also some critics whose reviews weren't factored into the tally until after people had seen the movie are frustrated as well. It's easy enough to point to the split opinions on Wonder Woman 1984 as the cause of this swing, but there's actually a few more things at play in this scenario, orchestrating a situation where some of the biggest flaws of Rotten Tomatoes are on full display.

Rotten Tomatoes Has Always Been Broken

The release of Wonder Woman 1984 certainly highlights a specific flaw in Rotten Tomatoes, but before we get into the details, it's important to note this is not an issue unique to Wonder Woman 1984. Rotten Tomatoes has a number of major flaws and blind spots in its Tomatometer system, and Wonder Woman 1984 just happens to highlight a specific flaw people aren't normally aware of.

Rotten Tomatoes' numerical rating is not an average review score as the percent indicator may suggest, but it's a measurement of consensus. Every review, whether it's a middle of the road review, an extreme positive, or an extreme negative, is converted into a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, and the final percentage indicator only specifies what percent of reviewers gave it a positive score to any degree. As a result, the Tomatometer disproportionately benefits safe, middle-of-the-road movies and penalizes polarizing movies that have a lot of rave reviews but a handful of detractors.

As an example, if there's 100 reviews submitted to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie with 100 three-star (out of five) reviews is going to get 100%, whereas a movie that gets 80 ten-star reviews and 20 two-and-a-half-star reviews is going to be ranked significantly lower at 80%. The Tomatometer doesn't reveal any nuance, giving most people the impression that the middle-of-the-road safe movie is vastly superior to the polarizing movie with mostly rave reviews. This phenomenon was fully exposed with Joker's reviews.

It doesn't only hide nuance in the actual scoring, but it virtually erases the independent voices of the hundreds of review contributors for each movie, boiling there hundreds of words long reviews down to a simple thumbs up or thumbs down and a one-sentence pull-quote (assuming the reader even scrolls down to read it). The point of critics is to provide an explanation for their experience and give a unique perspective on an inherently subjective medium.

Rotten Tomatoes also has the unfortunate side effect of diminishing film analysis and discourse. Gone are the days of film fans pouring over Roger Ebert's thoughtful reviews, assessing the artistic intent, themes, and various creative decisions that go into crafting a movie in favor of a quick glance at the cold, opaque score of the Tomatometer, refocusing the idea of film critique into the most boring conversation possible: a simple evaluation of if a movie is good or bad.

How Warner Bros. Gamed Its Initial Review Scores

Wonder Woman 1984 Loses Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes
Outside of the inherent flaws and impact of the Tomatometer, the review aggregator's impact on word of mouth and box office resulted in studios making the review process a part of their marketing and release strategies. Social media embargoes typically lift before full-on review embargoes, resulting in some positive buzz from reviewers, but without the risk of a bad Tomatometer score too far ahead of release.

Warner Bros. has had a bad recent history with Rotten Tomatoes, particularly when it comes to their DC movies, seemingly reaching a crescendo with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. When the review embargo for Batman v Superman lifted, the initial score was so low it sent shockwaves through the film and fan communities, permanently shaping the discourse surrounding the movie before most people had even seen it.

After years of PR woes, struggling with pre-release leaks, bad press, and botched theatrical releases, WB's release strategy got a lot sharper with Wonder Woman 1984. The first wave of reviews came from international audiences, where the movie opened first, and critics are generally far more forgiving, especially when it comes to comic book blockbusters. In the United States, early screenings were limited and focused more on comic book friendly outlets, which happened to be a far more positive mix than the second wave of reviews.

As a result of this strategy, Wonder Woman 1984's Tomatometer score opened at 88% and stayed in that ballpark until the next wave of reviews hit. The negative shift of the second wave was significant enough to cause a steep drop in the Tomatometer score, and Wonder Woman 1984 stands at 63% as of this writing. Such a steep drop would normally be a major red flag, but since the second wave was so close to (or after) the movie's release in United States theaters and on HBO Max, many people wouldn't even know about the drop until after they saw the movie.

In the past, a drop in the Rotten Tomatoes score like this would have been a cloud over a DCEU movie's release, but because of the release logistics, many people saw the movie before the score change, making it became a moot point for most people who had already moved on to discussing the movie they'd already watched. The movie ended up marking a pandemic high box office opening and turning out big numbers for HBO Max.

It should also be noted that this approach isn't unique to Wonder Woman 1984, in fact, WB is really late to the game in many ways, as other studios have been using similar strategies for some time. But it's the addition of a simultaneous streaming release that really impacted reviews with Wonder Woman 1984. (Tbc>)

[Shark_Blade]

(..continued)

Streaming Makes Rotten Tomatoes Irrelevant

The fact that Wonder Woman 1984 was also released on HBO Max on the same day as it released in theaters in the U.S. also has a major impact on the Rotten Tomatoes score. The whole reason the Tomatometer is programmed the way it is is to make it easier for casual theatergoers to make purchasing decisions. Going to the theater can be a big, and expensive, ordeal for many, especially parents who need to arrange child care (or pay for tickets for the whole family) and many people don't want to risk that kind of expense to watch something they don't like.

Streaming, meanwhile, is an entirely different dynamic. If you're already subscribed to the right platform, in this case, HBO Max, there's no additional cost. You don't have to pay for snacks, you don't have to deal with other theater-goers, you can pause and rewind as needed, you can use subtitles, and etc. With the improved affordability of home theater technology, a lot of people can still see movies on a big screen with big sound in the comfort of home. With movies, especially big, popular movies like Wonder Woman 1984, only a button click away, audiences are less concerned with evaluating the Tomatometer beforehand and are willing to check a movie out and decide for themselves, which is even more significant of an issue with declining theater attendance.

This doesn't just make Rotten Tomatoes less relevant, but traditional reviews as well. As the access to content improves with streaming, people are less in need of spoiler-free reviews to read ahead of time and more interested in breakdowns and analysis after the fact. There was some consternation with certain circles of critics over the way WB handled reviews for Wonder Woman 1984, and it's understandable from one angle - many reviewers may feel their voice was invalidated since many readers had already seen the movie before their review was even posted; however, from another angle, this is just a product of the streaming landscape and will only become more of an issue over time, especially in 2021 where Warner Bros. has almost its entire theatrical slate getting a day one HBO Max release.

How Rotten Tomatoes Needs To Evolve To Stay Relevant

As more and more content leans into streaming, Rotten Tomatoes may continue to lose relevance, making it necessary to change its strategy to provide a more useful service to consumers. The most logical pivot in their case would be making the scoring more personalized, focusing on content discovery instead of simply content rating. Changes like allowing users to follow specific critics to get tailored scores will help Rotten Tomatoes get away from the opaque one-size-fits-all rating system in favor of one that helps users discover new movies and shows based on the ratings of their favorite critics or based on how other user ratings match their own.

Streaming is completely upending how we engage with movies, and the significance of reviews is only one small part. It also entirely removes box office performance from the conversation, meaning, ideally, the future of film discussion won't involve comparisons of box office hauls and review aggregator scores and will instead focus on actual discussion of the filmmaking.

With HBO Max releasing WB's 2021 slate on the same day as the theatrical release, the situation with Wonder Woman 1984's Rotten Tomatoes score likely won't be a one-time occurrence. Wonder Woman proves the model works, not just for reviews, but with big streaming numbers and a pandemic-high box office haul, resulting in a stock increase for movie theaters, the original doom and gloom surrounding WB's decision to go straight to HBO Max is fading as 2021 ushers in a new era of movie consumption. If theaters can survive, streaming can thrive, and consumers can engage with new content in the way they wish without review aggregators and arbitrary box office numbers dominating the conversation. Hopefully, it's all for the best.

[Leo656]

So how much is WB paying you to shill this thing anyways?

[Andrew NDB]

Upon even further thought, I'm even more convinced the original ending was WW killing Max by snapping his neck. Geoff Johns is like the main writer on this (he even boasted about it on his fake little studio website) and guess what he also wrote? "Infinite Crisis," where Max got his neck snapped by WW. This is all Geoff's doing.

I bet that sent WB into a tiff. #1, did they really want to reinvite comparisons to Superman snapping Zod's neck in MoS? Especially when they want to sell WW lunchboxes and all? #2, at some point they definitely realized a cardboard thin Trump effigy wasn't a good idea (because half the country) so they added the son angle to give him depth and sympathy... which would then make WW making Max's son an orphan even more cruel.

[Sumac]

You could just put up a link, you know?

Or are you trying to annoy people with propaganda?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Upon even further thought, I'm even more convinced the original ending was WW killing Max by snapping his neck. Geoff Johns is like the main writer on this (he even boasted about it on his fake little studio website) and guess what he also wrote? "Infinite Crisis," where Max got his neck snapped by WW. This is all Geoff's doing.

I bet that sent WB into a tiff. #1, did they really want to reinvite comparisons to Superman snapping Zod's neck in MoS? Especially when they want to sell WW lunchboxes and all? #2, at some point they definitely realized a cardboard thin Trump effigy wasn't a good idea (because half the country) so they added the son angle to give him depth and sympathy... which would then make WW making Max's son an orphan even more cruel.

Nah, I doubt that part.

There was another interview with Gal recently where she addressed the fact that Diana doesn't use her sword and shield whatsoever in this film, because "Diana isn't a warrior anymore. She doesn't want to fight anyone because she believes all human beings are fundamentally good and therefore she can solve all of her conflicts diplomatically." I'm paraphrasing, but that's essentially it; she said there was a conscious choice by her and more specifically Jenkins to take the character in a more "pacifist" direction.

...Which entirely contradicts both BvS and Justice League, which take place years later, but eh, this movie's apparently got way bigger problems than just that.

I can imagine they tinkered SOME things with Max after the fact, but if you read a lot of what Jenkins has said in interviews there's absolutely no way that she, specifically, would have ever set out to have Diana killing Max be the movie's finale. Whether or not WB would "let" her do it is irrelevant, that's entirely not the movie she set out to make. She's all about "hopeful optimism" to a fault; she'd never, ever make a movie where it was that stuff for 99% of it until the end, where Diana just up and kills a guy. Zero chance.

That said, I can believe there was originally some different kind of ending, mostly on account of how Max just sort of disappears from the narrative before the end credits without any firm resolution as to what the hell happened to him.

If I find the article again that had the quotes from Gal about the new, "more pacifist" Wonder Woman, I'll post it. It's particularly entertaining by how the article's author completely skewers Gal's claim that "Diana understands that all people are inherently good." Like, "That's not even a little bit true." The guy also calls the movie "optimistic to the point of being naive", which sounds about right. It sounds like nothing but absolute fluff that doesn't even have a good story to hold it together.

I understand how such a bad movie can still do fairly well right now, though. It's the "feel-good" season, people are "trapped" in their houses and there's pretty much nothing else new to watch. Although I'm surprised so many people are actually paying to watch it, what with so many people openly promising to steal it.

Absolutely nobody "loves" it, though. Some people hate it, others tolerate it. But this was very clearly a misstep. Don't be surprised if Jenkins ends up being "too busy" with her Star Wars commitments to ever come back and do Wonder Woman 3. Pretty sure she's done after this. They'll still do a third, most likely, but I think Jenkins has used up all her goodwill. Between openly bragging about holding the studio up for more money and now this one's poor reception, WB would look rather foolish to give her a third swing. Better for everyone if they just let her bow out graciously and quietly replace her with someone else, that way both she and WB get to save face. If she does a third one and THAT one turns out bad, then they all look like idiots and the brand is tarnished irreparably.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Well of course it did. It launched on Christmas to home streaming and theaters. It was successful proportionate to the current events of things. People were looking for something to watch and everyone watched it at about the same time before word of mouth has spread.

I'd wager it would be successful even if released in a normal period of time. Plenty of generally accepted bad movies make lots of money especially if they are a sequel to a generally accepted great movie which Wonder Woman was.

As for my take on it...yeah it's bad in a very annoyingly weird way.

I must admit I'm in the camp that hijacking someone else's body without a good in-universe reason is a bad and that having sex with that is basically sexual assault.

What gets me is the whole thing is weirdly unnecessary. Like why can't Steve Trevor just come back to life without inhabiting someone else's body? I have this feeling that in an earlier version of this movie before the re-shoots the guy was supposed to be someone important. (I also kind of get the vibe the Dream Stone and the Kingdom Come armor also were intended to be teases for other DCEU projects before the re-shoots too)

The toll on Diana that her wish saps her power seems really arbitrary just on the face of it but also that it just doesn't just take them all away. She is still as powerful as she needs to be function as Wonder Woman. Divisive as it is it might have been a good idea to loosely adapt the Denny O'Neil run with a powerless Diana. At least we'd get some nice Emma Peel inspired outfits out of it as well as it being more believable she could fight crime in the past and not stand out so much. Speaking of which count me in the camp that doesn't understand why this movie is set in the 80s.

I don't want to pile on her anymore but I have to say Gal Gadot (like most of the Snyder-verse castings) was without question hired solely on her 'presence' which works well when selling action sequences and posing heroically looking like an actual goddess but falls short when she actually has to...y'know act. A Wonder Woman movie without as much action is fine with me but we need actual actors to carry it. It's probably why they were insistent on Pine returning.

Also I'm not a huge follower of Wonder Woman comics to know Cheetah's various origins and I know she's had multiple ones so it's not like I can get upset that it doesn't follow the comics..I just know I hated this one.

[Shark_Blade]

Originally Posted by Leo656

So how much is WB paying you to shill this thing anyways?

A tonne obvi.

Someone gotta remind the negative old geezers that in reality not everything is doom and gloom.

Originally Posted by Sumac

You could just put up a link, you know?

Or are you trying to annoy people with propaganda?

Or you could just scroll away.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I'm sure I'll eventually borrow it from the library or even Redbox it for a buck, but I am really not feeling this. Most of the reviews feel too spot on.

Maxwell Lord isn't my favorite villain by a long shot, but watching a Trump-lite character be the antagonist feels too cringe. What, we don't get enough Trump in our daily lives, whether we're bashing him or lauding him?

For fvck's sake.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Shark_Blade, it's not necessary to post the entire text of an article that you posted a link to. It's a waste of posts.

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

A tonne obvi.

Someone gotta remind the negative old geezers that in reality not everything is doom and gloom.

You need to be reminded that people are passionate on brands that they love and want to see them do better. You're not going to change opinions on a forum of all places so you're pretty much wasting your time.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Absolutely nobody "loves" it, though. Some people hate it, others tolerate it.

I've only seen a few ladies like on FB continue to say things like, "C'mon, it's really not that bad! We need a movie like this! It's very important for young girls to have ones like this out there and we have to support it." Mostly getting into ideology and the like. Really just outliers, though.

I think the only reason the leftist critics aren't blindly defending it in significant numbers (like they did with Birds of Prey or Captain Marvel) is because Wonder Woman "raping" the guy is completely indefensible to their way of thinking. Period. Like, they just can't get around that, even if they really want to. If it wasn't for that, they would probably all be saying it was Shakespeare. But because of the "rape," now it is "Wellll... yeah, the plot was pretty weak, and the bad guys weren't very sensible" whereas with something like Birds of Prey these same people were like, "Wow! Black Mask and the bad guys were amazing! What a great empowering movie!" and so on.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

A tonne obvi.

Someone gotta remind the negative old geezers that in reality not everything is doom and gloom.

Disliking mediocre movie =/= doom and gloom.

Originally Posted by Shark_Blade

Or you could just scroll away.

Quite hard to do, when you waste two long posts to post a big article.
For nothing.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

Maxwell Lord isn't my favorite villain by a long shot, but watching a Trump-lite character be the antagonist feels too cringe. What, we don't get enough Trump in our daily lives, whether we're bashing him or lauding him?

For fvck's sake.

To be fair Maxwell Lord didn't really remind me of Trump at all. He was just any other rich man who they tried to write as sympathetic by the end (whether it worked or not is up to the viewer), but not once did I ever think he reminded me of Trump. He never really talked over people and right from the beginning he's treated as the underdog compared to the older man who wanted to buy out his company or put him out of business.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

but not once did I ever think he reminded me of Trump.

Everything else aside, not even when he literally... built a giant wall in the movie? To keep out people?

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Galactus

I'd wager it would be successful even if released in a normal period of time. Plenty of generally accepted bad movies make lots of money especially if they are a sequel to a generally accepted great movie which Wonder Woman was.

Well I think a part of gauging "success" nowadays is to take a look at the fandom. For example, these kinds of movies have a built-in-audience that will buy tickets on day one no matter what - comic book fans.

But given that you have that built-in, addicted audience who pretty much guarantees a certain amount of up front profit, the real measure becomes what happens with a film nowadays:

A) with word of mouth and repeat viewings
B) how "normies" embrace it

So yeah, sure under normal conditions this flick would've made more money. I agree. And to you point, Iron Man 3 was a truly terrible movie on many levels and that made a billion simply on the high from the first Avengers flick and the fact that it was Iron Man.

The point is that all of the negative elements of fandom actually feed Hollywood no matter what they produce, unfortunately. Those negative elements are perfect for movie markets - addiction, FOMO, need to fit-in, virtue signaling. All of those aspects feed profits for Hollywood who doesn't care how or why the money comes in.

[Papenbrook]

Apparently, Patty Jenkins had been pursuing the Wonder Woman debut film since 2004.

Wow, ... just wow.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by IMJ

Well I think a part of gauging "success" nowadays is to take a look at the fandom. For example, these kinds of movies have a built-in-audience that will buy tickets on day one no matter what - comic book fans.

But given that you have that built-in, addicted audience who pretty much guarantees a certain amount of up front profit, the real measure becomes what happens with a film nowadays:

A) with word of mouth and repeat viewings
B) how "normies" embrace it

So yeah, sure under normal conditions this flick would've made more money. I agree. And to you point, Iron Man 3 was a truly terrible movie on many levels and that made a billion simply on the high from the first Avengers flick and the fact that it was Iron Man.

The point is that all of the negative elements of fandom actually feed Hollywood no matter what they produce, unfortunately. Those negative elements are perfect for movie markets - addiction, FOMO, need to fit-in, virtue signaling. All of those aspects feed profits for Hollywood who doesn't care how or why the money comes in.

Reminded me, I was dating someone at the time of IM3 and she got to see it before I did. I asked her if the Mandarin was bad-ass and if he used the ten rings and whatnot. Not wanting to spoil the 'big reveal' she was like 'um.... yeah.... he was in the movie....'

Granted like most people she has never seen or heard of the legit Mandarin and even then she had her doubts. I at least had the Iron Man cartoons where he was like, the main villain, to know what he was about.

After I saw the movie with her and we got to the 'twist' she then even asked me if that's how it was in the comics and I was like 'no, this wasn't like it at all'.

Iron Man 3 at its core wasn't too bad, I see the message was Tony's personal aftermath after Avengers that would haunt him until Infinity War/End Game, and also Tony Stark proving he can be a hero and save the day without the armor. That not anyone can put it on and be Iron Man. He IS Iron Man. And also stuff like these panic attacks here, the creation of Ultron, all that was his increased paranoia cause while everyone else was content to stop an alien invasion and call it a day, Tony knew it was just the beginning and they were gonna come back someday, which they did.

BUT.....movie still needed more Iron Man and also the real Mandarin. In an odd way it reminded me of Dark Knight Rises where Batman, as Batman was barely in the movie either, but even that was still better than Iron Man 3. At least we could make fun of Bane's voice.

I also say maybe no kid.... but I did like how Tony was a smart-ass to him, and it was a nice touch to see him at his funeral later on. It's just.... idk.... the movie wasn't THAT terrible, it just really REALLY needed more Iron Man and the real Mandarin. I didn't mind the minions with the heat powers but the final bad guy was lame.

It just didn't strike as much as a cord with people cause normies didn't know who Mandarin was. The best example I could think of would be if some new Batman movie had the Joker in it and when Batman finally caught to him he was revealed to just some drunk actor paid to portray a 'Joker' character by evil business man # 12 and have that dude be the real bad guy. That would have pissed off everyone cause everyone, comic fans and normies alike, know who the Joker is.

[Leo656]

Or it'd be like if they put "Max Lord" in a movie and have him be entirely one-dimensional and thoroughly un-"Max Lord-like" as much as possible, thus satisfying absolutely no one, either "normies" or comic book fans.

That'd be a real bonehead move.