15 hours ago, Endersai said:

The audience thought it had a right to expect certain things from Star Wars; that's the very core of taking something for granted.

You are correct an audience has certain expectations when they enter the theater. I don't go to see a Marvel movie expecting to see My Dinner with Andre. I expect to see lots and lots of fantastic action with some humor mixed in. When I go to see Star Wars I expect to see a space opera, not the mish mash and attempt at art we received.

8 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

While saying that there is a lot more voting going on then usual and guessing at why that is the case.

Company stands by its product: big whoop.

We have seen horrible movies upvoted (justice league, suicide squad) and good movies downvoted for a while now and to everyone with half a mind it is pretty obvious what is happening.

That the fan base is divided over this movie? Did you read the article?

I did. Did you? Really?

1 minute ago, TrainedMunkey said:

That the fan base is divided over this movie? Did you read the article?

Yes. They’re standing by the calculations of the submitted audience votes. I don’t think anyone has suggested that math is wrong. What has been suggested is the possibility that the voting system is being gamed, because it’s been gamed before to both boost and lower movies’ audience scores.

“Benson went on to reiterate that the idea of bots manipulating scores is just hearsay, but when pushed on why there is such a gap between the critics and audience scores forThe Last Jedi (39 points currently), she said she couldn’t answer it”

This is plainly just a company standing by their product in the face of scrutiny.

Plus there isn’t just a disparity between critics and moviegoers, there is even a disparity (a giant one) between actual moviegoers and those claiming they went to the movies. Actual interviews at the theaters gave the movie an A, while online “reviews” put it a C-?

The first is a testable claim the second an untestable one. I know which one I will believe one hundred out of one hundred times.

Hence the reason they have taken the measures they have to guarantee accuracy. Their website is based off their reputation for accuracy. They have been gamed in the past. It would be a terrible business decision not to take measures to make sure this doesn't happen again.

If they are seeing an upswing on comments, this would not be indicative of a bot.

From the passions and opinions expressed here it seems pretty clear to me that the fan base is divided on this movie.

Not in the least bit as much as the disgruntled would have us believe.

50 minutes ago, TrainedMunkey said:

“I said to Rian, ‘Jedi’s don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup. But if he made a mistake, he would try and right that wrong. So, right there we had a fundamental difference, but it’s not my story anymore. It’s somebody else’s story – and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.

“That’s the crux of my problem. Luke would never say that. I’m sorry. Well, in this version, see I’m talking about the George Lucas Star Wars. This is the next generation of Star Wars, so I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker. He’s not my Luke Skywalker, but I had to do what Rian wanted me to do because it serves the story well.” - Mark Hamil

Funny how one could interpret this interview one way or the other. To me, he just states that as an actor he has to act the way that serves the story, even if this does not match with his personal thoughts on the role. That's what actors get paid for ...

Whenever this interview comes up, I get the impression, that fans think of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker - he is not. Luke is just a person he impersonated. Otherwise he would be the Joker and the Trickster too ...
And, to be frank, he was not good enough as an actor in the OT to really be talking about "my Luke".

1 hour ago, Inquisitor Tremayne said:

I did notice on the second viewing that I think Luke is projecting the entire time Rey is on the island. When we first see Luke he is in his tan robes and he immediately goes off to his hut. He then is in his black robes for the entire time she is on the island and as soon as Rey leaves the very next scene we see Luke back in his tan robes. He also projects to the Resistance and Kylo a Luke in his black robes. Not entirely sure the significance there but noticeable...

There was a small scene bit near the beginning of that arc where Luke is shown laying the white robes aside.

Well my circles definitely are not the average Joe, most of my circles are super fans of Star Wars. They poll right down the middle. Does the public in general poll higher, I have no doubt. The exit polls show this. Rotten Tomatoes is an opt in poll site. By it's nature it's skewed, by not being random. If you are saying it's not valid, then yes none of their public ratings are valid. I was not debating validity but that the Rotten Tomato ratings were being bot controlled.

17 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

Funny how one could interpret this interview one way or the other. To me, he just states that as an actor he has to act the way that serves the story, even if this does not match with his personal thoughts on the role. That's what actors get paid for ...

Whenever this interview comes up, I get the impression, that fans think of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker - he is not. Luke is just a person he impersonated. Otherwise he would be the Joker and the Trickster too ...
And, to be frank, he was not good enough as an actor in the OT to really be talking about "my Luke".

I totally agree Hamil did his job. I just agree with his take on the Skywalker character more than I do Johnson's.

I will debate with you that his is take is invalid just because he is the actor that portrayed the character. His opinion on the subject carries much more weight than mine or yours. In my opinion Lucas perhaps is the only one that has more weight. All the research that I have done shows that Lucas is a terrible actor director. From what I can tell a bit Hamil is in Luke Skywalker.

26 minutes ago, TrainedMunkey said:

Hence the reason they have taken the measures they have to guarantee accuracy. Their website is based off their reputation for accuracy. They have been gamed in the past. It would be a terrible business decision not to take measures to make sure this doesn't happen again.

If they are seeing an upswing on comments, this would not be indicative of a bot.

From the passions and opinions expressed here it seems pretty clear to me that the fan base is divided on this movie.

Once again, no one has suggested that the audience is not divided. Merely the possibility that the divide is not as wide as a certain subset of the audience would have the general public believe, via use of technological means that have been successfully deployed upon RT multiple times in the past.

I once again refer to the audience score of Justice League to underline how large scale voting campaigns undermine the credibility of aggregators.

4 minutes ago, TrainedMunkey said:

All the research that I have done shows that Lucas is a terrible actor director.

IMHO Lucas is a terrible writer and director. Without a lot of really gifted people that stalled his hand, we would not have SW but a poor remake of a terrible Flash Gordon movie. Or worse.

5 minutes ago, TrainedMunkey said:

From what I can tell a bit Hamil is in Luke Skywalker.

As Lucas skills in writing are so poor, all of the actors had to make do with what they could come up with. Don't forget he killed the careers of Jake Lloyd and (mostly) that of Hayden Christensen.

10 minutes ago, TrainedMunkey said:

His opinion on the subject carries much more weight than mine or yours.

I give you that. But as an actor, his opinion doesn't have to matter to the director and/or writer.

2 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

IMHO Lucas is a terrible writer and director. Without a lot of really gifted people that stalled his hand, we would not have SW but a poor remake of a terrible Flash Gordon movie. Or worse.

As Lucas skills in writing are so poor, all of the actors had to make do with what they could come up with. Don't forget he killed the careers of Jake Lloyd and (mostly) that of Hayden Christensen.

I give you that. But as an actor, his opinion doesn't have to matter to the director and/or writer.

Yep, I have come to similar conclusions. Johnson obviously didn't listen to Hamil. Obviously Disney considered Johnson's opinion more weighty than Hamil's.

3 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

I once again refer to the audience score of Justice League to underline how large scale voting campaigns undermine the credibility of aggregators.

Justice League was really bad. Except perhaps the Lasso of Truth scene.

I wasn't debating that Rotten Tomatoes could be bias, just that they were being controlled by bots. Opt ins are biased when fandom is involved.

25 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

Don't forget he killed the careers of Jake Lloyd and (mostly) that of Hayden Christensen.

What killed Christensen's career is that he's not a good actor.

Plenty of “not so good actors” have a lot of work. Lucas did mess it up for Hayden.

33 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

What killed Christensen's career is that he's not a good actor.

He was young, he could have improved. But after SW, he was reduced to "the one that held a monologue about sand" in public opinion.

The only one from the OT cast that had a real career afterwards was Harrison Ford (and I don't think of him as being a good actor, either). If I look at the new cast, though, I see Daisy Riley in Murder on the Orient Express, John Boyega in The Circle, Pacific Rim 2 ... Seems they don't have to endure the same fate as Lucas' actors.

11 minutes ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Plenty of “not so good actors” have a lot of work. Lucas did mess it up for Hayden.

Except most of the other actors in the prequels continued to do just fine, regardless of acting ability, for example a LOT of people think Natalie Portman isn't a good actress, yet she's been doing just fine. And I personally think Sam Jackson doesn't act, he just keeps getting roles that let him be the Samuel F***ing Jackson that the pop culture has decided he is, and then he just does it in front of a camera. But hey, he's still doing fine too.

I think blaming Lucas that an average actor wasn't able to continue after a bad role is a bit unfair. I mean, I saw him in the other things he did, and he just wasn't that good.

2 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

He was young, he could have improved. But after SW, he was reduced to "the one that held a monologue about sand" in public opinion.

He basically repeated his Anakin performance in Shattered Glass. That was the problem, in my opinion. He didn't show additional range in his next projects.

2 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

The only one from the OT cast that had a real career afterwards was Harrison Ford (and I don't think of him as being a good actor, either). If I look at the new cast, though, I see Daisy Riley in Murder on the Orient Express, John Boyega in The Circle, Pacific Rim 2 ... Seems they don't have to endure the same fate as Lucas' actors.

Fisher had a real career, though not in acting.

2 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

He was young, he could have improved. But after SW, he was reduced to "the one that held a monologue about sand" in public opinion.

Then it's public opinion's fault, not Lucas. I mean, honestly the most likely culprit is the rabid, and irrational fan base, that can't let **** go when it comes to Star Wars, likely boycotting anything he did, "Because Sand". I mean really. 20+ years and people still bit*h about that sand line? Get over it people.

But the reality is, having seen his other stuff, is that he really isn't that good. He can't hold a commanding lead performance, and he's not really charismatic enough for a good support role either.

1 minute ago, KungFuFerret said:

I mean, honestly the most likely culprit is the rabid, and irrational fan base, that can't let **** go when it comes to Star Wars,

Does that remind of something recently going on?

2 minutes ago, Sunrider said:

Does that remind of something recently going on?

You're gonna have to be more specific when it comes to Star Wars, and things people won't let go There's too many things to choose from for me to know what you are referencing aside from possibly a general Last Jedi reference.

2 hours ago, DanteRotterdam said:

Company stands by its product: big whoop.

Exactly. Fandango has a TON riding on the fact that a Certified Fresh rating gets attached to loads of movies. If they were to come out and say that their metric is subject to gaming, that would undercut a great deal of faith in their product. Now I'm not saying that they are wrong or lieing, just that they have a vested interest in presenting the best possible face to their score systems.

Clearly the fan base is divided on the subject (anecdotal evidence, 100% of my friends and family loved it), so I'm inclined to believe them - but yeah, there's clearly a conflict of interest for fandango here.

2 hours ago, TrainedMunkey said:

I don't go to see a Marvel movie expecting to see My Dinner with Andre.

The thing is - the marvel movies are all over the map as far as tone goes. WWII boys adventure movies, cold war spy movies, Heist movies, big ol' Save The World movies.

There's as much disparity in tone between Iron Man 1 and Doctor Strange and Spiderman as there was between New Hope and E8. It's just that you've lived with the one for 45 years and other for 10.

2 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Clearly the fan base is divided on the subject (anecdotal evidence, 100% of my friends and family loved it)

https://deadline.com/2017/12/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rotten-tomatoes-metacritic-imdb-users-cinemascore-posttrak-1202228837/

Is it, though? Divided implies a roughly equal amount of people who liked and disliked the movie, but polls conducted with some care towards being accurate and not open to manipulation show that the negative voices are a tiny minority. They're loud, but they're very few in number.

This idea that the movie is controversial or that is has the fans divided seems to be a narrative that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

4 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Clearly the fan base is divided on the subject (anecdotal evidence, 100% of my friends and family loved it), so I'm inclined to believe them - but yeah, there's clearly a conflict of interest for fandango here.

Eh, I'd say you only have to look at the responses on this site alone to see it is true the fan base is divided.

Personally I thought it was ok. It had some bits that made me go WTF?, some parts that seemed to drag, and it had 2 climaxes when I felt it should only have had one. But it felt like a Star Wars movie in it's atmosphere and tone, but definitely going for less of the pulp serial feel of high action, and more.....something else. Not really sure what, but a different flavor of Star Wars for sure, in a lot of ways.

For me, I think most of my criticisms are about the structure of it, not so much the story choices, though there were a few. Several times, I was pulled out of the narrative, and found myself analyzing a directorial choice, and it diminished the experience for me a bit. If I had to give it a rating, I'd give it a 7/10. A fun ride with flaws, didn't really stick with me after viewing, and I don't really have a desire to see it again.

Based on the small sample of my friends (and to an extent my head), I can certainly believe in a divide. I suspect it is far wider among fans than among moviegoers, as the biggest issues have been with characterisation and star wars feel, rather than quality of movie. And of course fans are more likely to post on review sites.

I'm looking forward to seeing the movie again, personally. I enjoyed the process of being constantly surprised by twists, but I am not certain that I enjoyed the actual movie. From those who have commented after a second viewing, it sounds like I might enjoy it more. It sounds like it is far more tightly written and edited than I could catch from one watching.