Masters of the Universe: Revelation

[Dragonus45]

People who have the training, vocabulary and experience to accurately examine a work's technical merits always mean more to me than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy because (in part) female main character.

Ah, yes only the properly educated elites are allowed to express an opinion about things. The rest of the plebs can **** off to whatever it is they do in their boring pedestrian lives. How dare they dislike this thing, they must be sexist losers. Because calling them that lets me totally dismiss them as human beings and create a delightful bubble between me and any actual validity in their complaints about Teela.

[Lemmy]

Ah, yes only the properly educated elites are allowed to express an opinion about things. The rest of the plebs can **** off to whatever it is they do in their boring pedestrian lives. How dare they dislike this thing, they must be sexist losers. Because calling them that lets me totally dismiss them as human beings and create a delightful bubble between me and any actual validity in their complaints about Teela.

Of course, Dragonus.

All negative reviews are from toxic bigoted trolls on the internet. The fault is never with the product or its producers. So say our corporate ovelrords and the media they own. The only valid opinion of a product is the one defended by those who produced it and those who are paid to review it. Don't debate. Don't question. Consume product and then get excited for next product. If you don't like product, you're a bigot.

*sigh*... It's kinda depressing that people still insist on this "argument".

[Psyren]

Ah, yes only the properly educated elites are allowed to express an opinion about things.

Where did I say only critics can have an opinion? I'm talking about what I, personally, give greater weight to.

[Dragonus45]

Where did I say only critics can have an opinion? I'm talking about what I, personally, give greater weight to.

Yes of course, why would you pay attention to those unwashed masses who haven't been properly educated on the best ways feel about things. Clearly they have less value.

[DaOldeWolf]

Where did I say only critics can have an opinion? I'm talking about what I, personally, give greater weight to.

Simple. Its the impression you give (which is why I suggested to you earlier to try to address all points and avoid ambiguity). If you suspect that in every case that there is a divide between critics and audiences, that there is obviously tampering from the audiences side. And as such, audiences canot be trusted (for the possibility that its written in bad faith). Well, you are obviously going to give the impression that negative opinions from audiences are worthless (because they can be faken). Especially if you think that negative opinions on any of these films are just the result of tampering and not at all supported by audiences.

If anyone on this site wrote a negative review on rotten tomatoes, you have basically accused them of being part of a supposed radical movement for tampering a score by writing a fake review.

Edit: Also arguments like this one:

People who have the training, vocabulary and experience to accurately examine a work's technical merits always mean more to me than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy because (in part) female main character.

Really insulting.

DC Super hero girls, My little Pony FiM, Wonder Woman, Orange is the new black, Kill Bill, Alien, etc. There is like tons of old stuff and new stuff with female leads with great audiences scores. There is a huge FiM community here and there are lots of guys in it. Where is the "angry mob" for all of this?

[Divayth Fyr]

People who have the training, vocabulary and experience to accurately examine a work's technical merits always mean more to me than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy because (in part) female main character.

Can we drop that dumb argument?

"Absolutely superb acting, directing, scenery" do not a 30% show make in my eyes. Hence my distrust of the audience score, and coupled with a similar pattern in recent shows I have concluded that it's review-bombing at work resulting in such a low score.

And for some it does - so it would mean anyone who disagrees with your opinion is review-bombing if they dare to rate a show lower :P

My point exactly - 3/5 is 60%, not 30%.

And? A critic may give it 60% judging it only on how it stands as a show, but a fan of the originals can absolutely give it a lower score feeling it treated the property in a very bad way.

Except it's never equal, because psychology. It's well known and documented that unhappy people are more likely to post a bad review, than happy people are to post a good review - that's just how our brains work, the bad experience will be more motivating to the unhappy person to take action than the reverse to the reverse. That's the bias I'm referring to.

So, how do other shows/games/whatever manage to end up with scores two times higher than the new MotU (or more)?

[Callos_DeTerran]

People who have the training, vocabulary and experience to accurately examine a work's technical merits always mean more to me than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy because (in part) female main character.

See this? This is a bad faith argument. Teela is a beloved He-Man character. People are not angry because Teela is the main character, as has been said multiple times. People are mad because they were first told it was a Teela show. Then the show writer changed course and said it was He-Man (for a much longer stretch of time) despite leaks saying otherwise. Then people watched the show and found out that was a lie.

And then, a beloved character, Teela, does not behave like Teela. She doesn't look like Teela, act like Teela, and isn't likeable like Teela. She's turned into generic 'angry, 'strong' female lead'. So no, its not an 'in part', that only has upset a statistically irrelevant section of fans. People are mad because they were lied to about the premise of the show and, for many people, one of the most likeable characters was made into an unlikable grouch with little in common with who she used to be. And whoever 'Teela' is supposed to be sidelines He-Man.

And before you use the 'Its called Masters of the Universe, not He-man!' excuse again, the original show was also called Masters of the Universe and only the blind would claim that He-Man wasn't the main character (cause they literally could not see it).

Also that training doesn't mea crap, considering anybody can notice and enjoy technical merits and experts have long been known to be letting bias overtake integrity. And from some of the articles you linked to (like Polygon), you are listening to openly biased and untrustworthy critics. And I do need to state both of those, cause bias is fine so long as your readers are aware of it to take it into account while regarding your opinion. A RTS expert doing a review of a driving game is fine, so long as they're upfront 'this isn't my jam' but its not okay if they try to act like it is their jam when it isn't. Especially in access media where giving a bad review often means you lose out on early access copies so you can get a review out in time for it to be important, so there is a natural inclination to be forgiving because you WILL be punished otherwise.

"Absolutely superb acting, directing, scenery" do not a 30% show make in my eyes. Hence my distrust of the audience score, and coupled with a similar pattern in recent shows I have concluded that it's review-bombing at work resulting in such a low score.

Cool, what about other people where that doesn't matter to them? Or the ones where the negative elements overshadow the good ones? You could have the foremost flavorologists and cooks in the word prepare a dish for someone, but if the person doesn't like the dish then its wasted effort. And your pattern is suspect considering people are pointing to notedly poorly received movies an saying they were just review bombed. Did some of that happen? Yeah, and its obvious when it happens but it doesn't change the overall audience reaction either. As a fan of the Last Jedi, its NOT a great movie, its full of problems and its entirely a matter of if you can look past them to get enjoyment out of it. Terminator Dark Fate is a BAD movie that may have killed the Terminator franchise, full stop. Ghostbusters (2016) is a meh at best movie. Even if you discount the obvious 'one star-FAN RAGE' and '5 star-screw the brigaders!' reviews, they will STILL have low audience scores. Same for Captain Marvel.

And its just as obvious when the score is being manipulated in the opposite direction which happens a LOT but you're just breezing past that.

Except it's never equal, because psychology. It's well known and documented that unhappy people are more likely to post a bad review, than happy people are to post a good review - that's just how our brains work, the bad experience will be more motivating to the unhappy person to take action than the reverse to the reverse. That's the bias I'm referring to.

By this logic, its impossible for something to have good review scores because a majority of angry fans will be motivated to leave a review and not the happy ones. This is not the case.

But whatever, youv'e already blatantly said your mind is made up and you can't be convinced or told this is a bad show or it isn't being review bombed. And yeah, conversations don't need to 'convince' anyone of anything, but it should happen between people of an open mind too.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I think it's also worth noting that Rotten Tomato audience scores are not an average of the audience scores: they are the percentage of reviews of 3.5 or over. So if the majority of people thought "Meh, 3 stars", then yes, that would account for an audience score in the 20% range.

Which incidentally was about my thoughts. Good animation and a serviceable story let down by poor/baffling choreography in many of the action scenes and an inconsistent tone (see my last post for a breakdown of what rubbed me the wrong way for those), which together rob many of the story beats of their intended weight. Still an interesting enough set up that I'll most likely check out the next season. 3 stars.

[Psyren]

There is a huge FiM community here and there are lots of guys in it. Where is the "angry mob" for all of this?

I didn't mention any communities here, FiM or otherwise. In fact, I don't think this site is behind Netflix review-bombing at all.

See this? This is a bad faith argument.

And before you use the 'Its called Masters of the Universe, not He-man!' excuse again, the original show was also called Masters of the Universe and only the blind would claim that He-Man wasn't the main character (cause they literally could not see it).

This seems pretty unnecessary, not to mention ableist

[Callos_DeTerran]

This seems pretty unnecessary, not to mention ableist

The first part was very necessary. You are making the assumption that a part, and I'd wager a significant part, of the ire is because there is a female main character. Whither you meant it that way or not, that's insulting. Teela, the Teela that I and a lot of fans remember, is AWESOME. And would have smacked some sense into 'Teela' from the Masters of the Universe: Revelation show. Most reviewers I've seen have gone out of their way to say they'd be stoked for a proper Teela show. No mismanaged press, no twisting/subverting her character, just straight up a Teela show as she should be. When people thought that's what Revelations was going to be, fans were still cautiously optimistic that Revelations would be for them, it wasn't until the concrete leaks came out that they got angry.

And Psyren, I say this respectfully since you do not know me or what I've gone through in my life, I would never give direct insult to a disabled person about their disability even if I was livid with them. I've been disabled and it sucks but I wanted to make a clear point. The only people who would not call He-Man the main character of the original show were people who could literally not see/hear the show because there is no confusion he was the main character.

But you bringing that up, is another sign of what other people have mentioned entertainment 'press' throwing accusations at other people rather than directly refuting their points or even knowing what the person was talking about. Its the same thing as saying 'oh, people didn't like X movie cause it had a female lead, they must have been sexist'. Aside from just being plain ol' wrong it shuts down conversation and turns honest discussion into slinging insults. And I'm not equating you to some frankly upsetting press types. I'm pointing out that you did use the exact same tactic that 'journalists' and 'creators' use to deflect criticism without addressing it and its one of MANY things infuriating fandoms.

[Vahnavoi]

My point exactly - 3/5 is 60%, not 30%.

You're sort of forgetting my point, which was that for end users a 60% rating might as well be 30%. Case in point, hands up everyone who is not me who likes Man of Steel.

Ironically, I see the audience score has climbed above the ciritical score, which I hadn't expected given how much "fan outrage" I've seen towards the film.

EDIT: I'm going to do something unusual and give Psyren a helping hand here:

These are Rotten Tomatoes scores for Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

There was enough genuine fan outcry of these two to essentially bully the producers to release improved cuts of both. But what do you know, the audience score for both has still climbed above the (pathetic) critical scores!

Compare and contrast with Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel wasn't the best of movies, but I wouldn't rank it below Batman versus Superman - yet somehow, Batman versus Superman gets a higher audience score! Something odd is going on here.

[DaOldeWolf]

I didn't mention any communities here, FiM or otherwise. In fact, I don't think this site is behind Netflix review-bombing at all.

You seem to have missed my point. None of those shows were "review bombed". They all have great audience scores, in fact in some cases, bigger than the critics scores. I am pointing out how there are many popular shows and movies with female leads and no backlash of any kind. And I am even adding evidence that these kinds of shows can get huge followings and using the forum as evidence.

I will even add that I have always been quite open to girl leaning shows (partially because I have an older sister and we always watched TV together). I saw She-ra, the original MLP and even Barbie. When either of these three properties gets new shows or movies (yeah, I have most watched the Barbie 3d movies and shows). I will quite easily consider myself a fan of the three franchises. Even to this day, I dont really care whether a lead is a male or a female. I will choose which new shows to watch depending on the premise.

And I really dont like this show. I think it has really high production values which I have defended on this very thread. But if it was He-man, the one that was a acting like a huge douche to his friends, I still wouldnt condone it or find it funny or interesting. Anyone acting like this, deserves a huge punch in the face followed by a "SHUT UP!" I, with absolutely certainty, think that if He-man was the one acting like this on the show, it would still get trashed but the difference is that no one would be defending it. That is just me bringing up characterization though there is more.

And the most insulting part is that having this negative opinion of the show seems to give the media and his creator the right to classify me as a sexist bigoted pig. Yeah, my dislike of a character´s lack of empathy is enough reason to put my opinion down.

[Lemmy]

Also, not all aspects of a media matter equally.

Production quality is very often not valued as much as a good story and good characters. To most people, how well-produced something is is not as important as how good is the story it's trying to tell and the characters it's trying to portray.

Case in point: Any modern AAA game can have great graphics and good music, with a cool CGI cinematic trailler... And yet, many AAA games are pretty bad because the gameplay, story and/or characters are mediocre/bad.

James Cameron's Avatar is super well-made and hyper successful... It's also rather dull.

[uncool]

My point exactly - 3/5 is 60%, not 30%.

Minor nitpick: if you don't have a 0-star rating, then 3/5 should probably be considered as corresponding to 50%, not 60%.

[Zalabim]

I happened to talk to a truck driver during work about this subject in general, and without having seen the show, he had understood the online outrage to be "they made Teela a lesbian." We spent more time on his complaints with The Last Jedi, like gravity in space bombs and Finn being subjected to Rose's subplot with the horses. I'm a sci-fi fanatic. I can explain the bombs (i ain't touching the bombers, just the bombs) a lot of different ways. But I also know enough about movies to know any scientific explanation is an afterthought. The primary motivation is to mirror some scene of aircraft bombers BUT IN SPACE, which is like an in-joke that most of the audience is out on. Insider fan-service is fine, but it has to be held up by something that plays well to those who don't get the reference.

Interesting. So, how would you rate the last season? Out of curiosity.

Bearing in mind that I wouldn't rate the earlier seasons as 10/10 either, I'd probably give the 8th season a 7 or a 6. It's not bad, but fatigue has set in and I was more invested in the bombastic action than the character-driven drama.

By this logic, every single product/company/service should have a low score and high scores should be scarce. And from everything I have seen, its usually the opposite that happens.

By this logic, its impossible for something to have good review scores because a majority of angry fans will be motivated to leave a review and not the happy ones. This is not the case.

The rate of reaction is unequal so all it would take to get a high score is a sufficiently unequal distribution of happy and unhappy viewers. If dissatisfied viewers leave negative reviews 5 times more often than satisfied viewers leave positive reviews, then positive average ratings come about when the material leaves less than 1/6 of the viewers dissatisfied. Once you start counting reviews from people who haven't seen it, it takes both a high rate of satisfied viewers and a huge percentage of people who hear about the show also viewing it.

Some hypothetical numbers to show how this gets thrown into disarray. Say only 70% of the viewers like the show, and then 10% of them leave a review. 30% of viewers dislike the show and 50% of them leave a review. The reviews will be be 7/22 positive [32%] and 15/22 negative [68%]. Now imagine only 25% of the people aware of the show actually watch it, and of the 75% that hear about the show and don't watch it, 1% of them leave a negative review too. Out of 100,000 people, it generates 1750 positive reviews and 3750+750 negative reviews. With a 1% response rate in this case, the "haven't watched it" reviews still make up 12% of the overall reviews. Whether positive or negative, any rate of non-watch reviews can do a real number on a show without a huge rate of viewership.

[DaOldeWolf]

Bearing in mind that I wouldn't rate the earlier seasons as 10/10 either, I'd probably give the 8th season a 7 or a 6. It's not bad, but fatigue has set in and I was more invested in the bombastic action than the character-driven drama.

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback

The rate of reaction is unequal so all it would take to get a high score is a sufficiently unequal distribution of happy and unhappy viewers. If dissatisfied viewers leave negative reviews 5 times more often than satisfied viewers leave positive reviews, then positive average ratings come about when the material leaves less than 1/6 of the viewers dissatisfied. Once you start counting reviews from people who haven't seen it, it takes both a high rate of satisfied viewers and a huge percentage of people who hear about the show also viewing it.

Some hypothetical numbers to show how this gets thrown into disarray. Say only 70% of the viewers like the show, and then 10% of them leave a review. 30% of viewers dislike the show and 50% of them leave a review. The reviews will be be 7/22 positive [32%] and 15/22 negative [68%]. Now imagine only 25% of the people aware of the show actually watch it, and of the 75% that hear about the show and don't watch it, 1% of them leave a negative review too. Out of 100,000 people, it generates 1750 positive reviews and 3750+750 negative reviews. With a 1% response rate in this case, the "haven't watched it" reviews still make up 12% of the overall reviews. Whether positive or negative, any rate of non-watch reviews can do a real number on a show without a huge rate of viewership.

I would say that if anything. Trying to measure viewership tendencies and opinions is even more complicated than that. There is stuff to consider like bias, societal pressure, decision fatigue, evaluation capabilities, quality fo the feedack, etc. Even how the feedback is input plays an important role on analyzing the feedback.

[ecarden]

Some hypothetical numbers to show how this gets thrown into disarray. Say only 70% of the viewers like the show, and then 10% of them leave a review. 30% of viewers dislike the show and 50% of them leave a review. The reviews will be be 7/22 positive [32%] and 15/22 negative [68%]. Now imagine only 25% of the people aware of the show actually watch it, and of the 75% that hear about the show and don't watch it, 1% of them leave a negative review too. Out of 100,000 people, it generates 1750 positive reviews and 3750+750 negative reviews. With a 1% response rate in this case, the "haven't watched it" reviews still make up 12% of the overall reviews. Whether positive or negative, any rate of non-watch reviews can do a real number on a show without a huge rate of viewership.

Sure, but I have no way of knowing if that's the case in any individual instance, rather than the majority of reviews actually representing the majority of the audience. Critical dissonance is a thing, so is politically motivated opposition or support for a project. Attempting to tell the difference generally devolves very quickly into mind reading and accusations of bad faith on all sides.

I personally don't find that conversation interesting and it's a little distressing to watch the same pattern play out over and over here where the debate always shifts quickly to the meta-level of 'is dislike of this genuine, or representative, or whatever' rather than remaining focused on the object level debate about the actual show. Honestly, it might be best to set up a separate thread to try to come up with some standards on how to separate review-bombing from genuine disagreement (to the extent that's even possible/desirable).

[Callos_DeTerran]

You're sort of forgetting my point, which was that for end users a 60% rating might as well be 30%. Case in point, hands up everyone who is not me who likes Man of Steel.

*Raises hand!*

No really, I quite liked Man of Steel, that doesn't change your point just letting you know there are others out there!

Compare and contrast with Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel wasn't the best of movies, but I wouldn't rank it below Batman versus Superman - yet somehow, Batman versus Superman gets a higher audience score! Something odd is going on here.

Captain Marvel was average by all accounts, but I would rank it below Batman versus Superman on two points, and these are subjective.

1) I still watched Batman versus Superman. Whither advertising, concept, wanting to see a trainwreck or whatever else, I still wanted to and went out of my way to watch Batman vs. Superman. Nothing about Captain Marvel made me want to go and see it, not the backlash, not the concept, and not anything else. It just didn't seem interesting enough to see. To me, that means its worse than Batman vs. Superman. Does that mean BvS is a better movie (technical, written, acted, etc.)? Well..from what I heard, maybe but that's hearsay and ultimately probably not. BvS is a cluttered mess of a movie and watching a carwreck in motion (with some good spots in it) doesn't mean its good...but it still got me to seek it out and watch it.

2) BvS didn't machete the history of Superman and Batman in the way Captain Marvel did for the Captain Marvel character or turn something that had been built up for a long time as an important secret (Fury's eye and how he lost it) into a joke. That last bit especially got to me, but what the movie did to Monica and Mar-Vell is awful and Marvel should be ashamed of that, haha. Don't get me wrong, Lex Luthor was absolutely slaughtered and Doomsday was stupid, but the latter was always going to be a hard sell for Synder and no one expected that character in there so its two to one on important characters wasted. Plus, if nothing else, you still at least got to see Superman and Batman fighting on the big screen and like was mentioned about certain aspects overshadowing others, that alone IS enough to overshadow a lot of negative traits.

[lord_khaine]

Where did I say only critics can have an opinion? I'm talking about what I, personally, give greater weight to.

Kinda funny when we LITTERALLY have had people who work or worked with doing reviews mention how they are influenced by outside forces.
At least angry people on the internet isnt influenced by an outside agenda to sell a product.

Also notice you still havent touched the argument of how the average sentiment of this forum seems to mirror the review average.

I personally don't find that conversation interesting and it's a little distressing to watch the same pattern play out over and over here where the debate always shifts quickly to the meta-level of 'is dislike of this genuine, or representative, or whatever' rather than remaining focused on the object level debate about the actual show. Honestly, it might be best to set up a separate thread to try to come up with some standards on how to separate review-bombing from genuine disagreement (to the extent that's even possible/desirable).

I dont think there is anything to seperate. As far as i have observed, claims of review bombing is utter BS that happens when someone has made a crappy product.
And want to brush off well deserved critique.

At least i cant think of any case where it wasnt so.

Edit.

Captain Marvel was average by all accounts, but I would rank it below Batman versus Superman on two points, and these are subjective.

Yeah i think im with you on that. Captain Marvel were just kinda meh. I think it had a weak finish. And Carrol were kinda annoyingly patronising.
BvS. While doing its own to be annoying. Still have some AWESOME fight scenes. And managed to catch the essence of Superman in a single scene (where he saved Lex Luther from getting punched).

[Rynjin]

People who have the training, vocabulary and experience to accurately examine a work's technical merits always mean more to me than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy because (in part) female main character.

Your mistake is thinking that a critic is anything more than a fan with a larger platform. Do you really think IGN is full of journalism and film theory majors?

Allow me to disabuse you of that notion.

Here is a job posting for one of the sites under the same umbrella as IGN, Mashable. IGN is not currently hiring, though they were earlier in the year; the posting looked almost identical to this.

Note the criteria:

• Minimum three years of relevant experience writing at a publication or in a digital media environment.
• A passion for service journalism, with a demonstrated history of creating content that serves to inform audiences and provide guidance.
• Ability to write multiple reviews each week.
• Deep knowledge of consumer technology, gadgets, and lifestyle products.
• Strong communication, and collaboration skills.
• Understanding of Mashable's core coverage areas and voice.
• Based in New York.

Of these, the relevant ones are "3 years of experience", "ability to write multiple reviews each week", and "based in New York". Everything else is fluff. Hell, the 3 years of experience are negotiable if your cover letter is good enough.

"Deep knowledge". No, all you need is research skills.

"Strong communication, etc.", yes obviously, it's a written media position. Don't write like a 3 year old and you're fine. Do you write like a 6th grader? That's actually a benefit to some of these places, I've had a couple of clients who shoot for a 6th grade reading level on their documentation; notably this includes doing repair documentation/write-ups for an extremely prominent aerospace engineering corporation.

These companies require no special training. All they care about is you're located conveniently for them (as I recall, IGN would be Los Angeles) and have high availability; they don't want a slacker. Other than that, it's pretty easy to get into writing if you're willing to put in the work. Breaking in the first time is hardest; after that, with a decent portfolio, you're qualified for pretty much any job out there.

This mystique around critics you have is something the industry has cultivated, but it's bull****. For product reviewing you at least need strong research skills. For media reviewing? You can say basically anything you want so long as it doesn't go hard against the affiliates.

[DaOldeWolf]

Captain Marvel was average by all accounts, but I would rank it below Batman versus Superman on two points, and these are subjective.

2) BvS didn't machete the history of Superman and Batman in the way Captain Marvel did for the Captain Marvel character or turn something that had been built up for a long time as an important secret (Fury's eye and how he lost it) into a joke. That last bit especially got to me, but what the movie did to Monica and Mar-Vell is awful and Marvel should be ashamed of that, haha. Don't get me wrong, Lex Luthor was absolutely slaughtered and Doomsday was stupid, but the latter was always going to be a hard sell for Synder and no one expected that character in there so its two to one on important characters wasted. Plus, if nothing else, you still at least got to see Superman and Batman fighting on the big screen and like was mentioned about certain aspects overshadowing others, that alone IS enough to overshadow a lot of negative traits.

Strangely enough, I find her character more tolerable than Teela´s even if its also kinda rude and arrogant. I agree that the movie is quite average. To be honest, I kinda expected a worse film at the time. Disney made a terrible PR job for Captain Marvel. Absolutely terrible job.

I know nothing about her in the comics but your comment certainly makes me curious.

[Thrudd]

I think a lesson we all can learn from this is that reviews and critical responses can't really be relied on in determining whether or not you will like a piece of media. Watch it yourself and make your own opinions, if it seems interesting to you.

Another lesson: disliking the creative choices in a story or show is not the same thing as the work being objectively bad.
It is possible to criticize technical and logical flaws without having a problem with a work's overall creative decisions.
It is also possible to dislike something for purely subjective reasons while acknowledging that it is objectively proficient or even good in some ways.

We should all be careful not to conflate the two. If we are attempting to provide a useful review or critique for the benefit of others, we should make a point to distinguish between elements that are more objective, such as the plot adhering to basic logic, consistency of characterizations, and dialogue that feels natural or appropriate- and subjective critiques like our preference for what sort of story we were hoping to see or how we think a character should have looked or acted. We should also be wary of conflating our feelings and assumptions about the creators of the works with the qualities of the work itself.

IE- I think "300" is objectively a pretty good film. It looks amazing, like the comic come to life. The action is great, the acting is good. It evokes strong emotion. But, knowing history, I simply cannot like the movie. It misrepresents so much, gets so much wrong about history, and really demonizes an actual group of people so completely, that it comes off as propaganda (which I think it is, in actuality). Do watch the film, if you want a cool comic book action fantasy with an ancient Greek theme. Don't watch the film if you want to learn anything about the actual historical event or the cultures that are supposedly represented, or if you are knowledgeable of that history and want to see a film about the Greco Persian wars.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Strangely enough, I find her character more tolerable than Teela´s even if its also kinda rude and arrogant. I agree that the movie is quite average. To be honest, I kinda expected a worse film at the time. Disney made a terrible PR job for Captain Marvel. Absolutely terrible job.

I know nothing about her in the comics but your comment certainly makes me curious.

I'll take your word for it, like I said, Captain Marvel didn't interest me enough to watch it myself so I took what I heard from several internet personalities that I trust and put together what seems like a fairly accurate picture by all accounts. You're right on Disney though, they did Captain Marvel absolutely no favors with marketing. A problem it ironically shares with Ghostbusters 2016, where the American trailer for it was honestly god awful, but I think it was the...European trailer made the movie look pretty cool.

And in short, both because this isn't the thread for it and I'm also not an expert on the topic...

Spoiler: Captain Marvel

Show

If you want more information, I got mine from YoungRippa59 on Youtube who is deep, DEEP into comic books from Marvel and DC, which means he occasionally does deep dives on how well a movie or TV series represents a given character.

Captain Mar-Vell - Mar-Vell was not what the movie presented. Like at all. Mar-Vell from the movie is more accurately the character Una, Captain Marvel's love interest rather than Mar-Vell himself. Which means yes, Mar-Vell was also gender flipped and never actually met Carol Danvers. Mar-Vell was famous for, among other things, being a key foe to Thanos and having one of the most famous deaths in Marvel when he died of terminal cancer. And the character ws so well respected/loved in universe and by fans that he was surrounded by Marvel's heroes on his deathbed and he encountered THANOS on the astral plan who encourage the man to fight and gave him one last battle rather than wasting away in a hospital bed. He was an underrated hero and would have been an easy way to link Carol Danvers to Thanos but instead...we get a Kree scientist that gets shot by Yon-Rogg and apparently had a hand in Carol getting her powers which, see above about Captain Marvel and Carol never actually meeting. Carol assumed his mantle. In the MCU, Captain Marvel isn't even a thing, Carol Danvers is the first and only Captain Marvel.

Monica Rambeau - Monica was the actual first character to take Captain Marvel's place in Marvel but had an interesting and thoughtful take on the subject. Rather then being a direct inheritor of his mantle, she was a dock security worker and a loose cannon, approached by a South African scientist because he had been tricked into into constructing an extradimensional weapon worse than the atomic bomb. As a normal person she manages to destroy the device but in the process bombarded by the energy it put off to get her powers. She didn't know how to control them but still tried to dogood, but when people saw her...well..everyone was still in a bit of mourning over Captain Marvel so other people started wondering if she was Captain Marvel. When she found out, Monica explained she had personally been unaware that there was another Captain Marvel and wasn't trying to deceive people and went looking for a scientist to help control her powers. In the process she ends up giving a hard fight to Spiderman and people discover that there's no connection between Mar-Vell and Monica. It notable because she isn't...like Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) or many female versions of male heroes (Super Girl, the various female spiders, Batgirl/Batwoman, etc.) in that she had her own unique origin and power set. She was Captain Marvel because the public gave her the moniker and she tried to live up to Mar-Vell's legacy because of that. Hell, she joined the Avengers and was even its leader for a time! If anything, Carol Danvers should be looking up to and inspired by Monica Rambeau, not the other way around but that's again just inventing a connection that hadn't been there before and in the process ignoring a cool and pretty original hero for one that's a female version of Mar-Vell. Like legitimately, if you're a fan of Monica Rambeau from the comics, you're probably not very happy about what the movie did. Not only is the actual second Captain Marvel (a popular black superheroine at that) sidelined in favor of Carol Danvers who comic fans do NOT like very much, but she's made to look up to the version that people are bored and annoyed by for being shoved down their throats.

And obviously there's the reasonable defense of 'well this is the MCU's take on these characters', but Mar-Vell and Monica resemble their comic counterparts in name only, so it the MCU has not done right by those characters by any means.

Take it with a grain of salt, obviously. I'm no expert myself, I just listened to another entertaining one who has a deep love and passion for comic books. His video on the history of the Justice League and Darkseid is hella cool, considering it explains how Darkseid being the ultimate enemy of the Justice League is actually a pretty recent invention (Well..recent in comic book time).

[Anteros]

*Raises hand!*

No really, I quite liked Man of Steel, that doesn't change your point just letting you know there are others out there!

I have a hard time getting past the scene where he just watches Pa Kent die for no reason. Or the scene where Ma and Pa Kent suggest he should have let a school bus full of children die in order to keep his secret. Other than that it's fine.

[Dr.Samurai]

People who have the training, vocabulary and experience to accurately examine a work's technical merits always mean more to me than an angry mob whipped into a frenzy because (in part) female main character.

I would just say, respectfully, that many of the points you make cut in both directions.

There is no reason to make Teela the main character in a He-Man reboot except for the current socio-political zeitgeist. Which is to say, some people are going to get really excited because (in part) "female main character". This is as shallow and superficial as someone getting upset because "female main character".

To assume that people don't like the reboot because a woman is the main character is to assume that people like the reboot because a woman is the main character. Again, I reiterate, these types of assertions are meaningless. It is easy to write a synopsis that would excite and titillate the people that want to see a woman lead everywhere. It's not rocket science. So for all the profiling going on about critics of the reboots, please bear in mind that you can be profiled just as easily.

I'll add that the introduction of Man of Steel into the conversation is appropriate, because here we have a reboot with a strong male character that was not received well, and it goes back to... characterization. The whole point of Superman is his selflessness; the idea that if you raise someone with the right values, they can literally be a god and still have humility and put others before them. And in this movie we have Pa Kent telling Clark to let people die to keep his secret, and Ma Kent telling Clark he doesn't owe anyone a d*mn thing. Well, that's not going to sit well with some people, and it has nothing to do with male or female. Similarly, Teela being a total a-hole throughout the five episodes doesn't sit well with people, myself included.

[Cikomyr2]

I'll take your word for it, like I said, Captain Marvel didn't interest me enough to watch it myself so I took what I heard from several internet personalities that I trust and put together what seems like a fairly accurate picture by all accounts. You're right on Disney though, they did Captain Marvel absolutely no favors with marketing. A problem it ironically shares with Ghostbusters 2016, where the American trailer for it was honestly god awful, but I think it was the...European trailer made the movie look pretty cool.

And in short, both because this isn't the thread for it and I'm also not an expert on the topic...

Spoiler: Captain Marvel

Show

If you want more information, I got mine from YoungRippa59 on Youtube who is deep, DEEP into comic books from Marvel and DC, which means he occasionally does deep dives on how well a movie or TV series represents a given character.

Captain Mar-Vell - Mar-Vell was not what the movie presented. Like at all. Mar-Vell from the movie is more accurately the character Una, Captain Marvel's love interest rather than Mar-Vell himself. Which means yes, Mar-Vell was also gender flipped and never actually met Carol Danvers. Mar-Vell was famous for, among other things, being a key foe to Thanos and having one of the most famous deaths in Marvel when he died of terminal cancer. And the character ws so well respected/loved in universe and by fans that he was surrounded by Marvel's heroes on his deathbed and he encountered THANOS on the astral plan who encourage the man to fight and gave him one last battle rather than wasting away in a hospital bed. He was an underrated hero and would have been an easy way to link Carol Danvers to Thanos but instead...we get a Kree scientist that gets shot by Yon-Rogg and apparently had a hand in Carol getting her powers which, see above about Captain Marvel and Carol never actually meeting. Carol assumed his mantle. In the MCU, Captain Marvel isn't even a thing, Carol Danvers is the first and only Captain Marvel.

Monica Rambeau - Monica was the actual first character to take Captain Marvel's place in Marvel but had an interesting and thoughtful take on the subject. Rather then being a direct inheritor of his mantle, she was a dock security worker and a loose cannon, approached by a South African scientist because he had been tricked into into constructing an extradimensional weapon worse than the atomic bomb. As a normal person she manages to destroy the device but in the process bombarded by the energy it put off to get her powers. She didn't know how to control them but still tried to dogood, but when people saw her...well..everyone was still in a bit of mourning over Captain Marvel so other people started wondering if she was Captain Marvel. When she found out, Monica explained she had personally been unaware that there was another Captain Marvel and wasn't trying to deceive people and went looking for a scientist to help control her powers. In the process she ends up giving a hard fight to Spiderman and people discover that there's no connection between Mar-Vell and Monica. It notable because she isn't...like Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) or many female versions of male heroes (Super Girl, the various female spiders, Batgirl/Batwoman, etc.) in that she had her own unique origin and power set. She was Captain Marvel because the public gave her the moniker and she tried to live up to Mar-Vell's legacy because of that. Hell, she joined the Avengers and was even its leader for a time! If anything, Carol Danvers should be looking up to and inspired by Monica Rambeau, not the other way around but that's again just inventing a connection that hadn't been there before and in the process ignoring a cool and pretty original hero for one that's a female version of Mar-Vell. Like legitimately, if you're a fan of Monica Rambeau from the comics, you're probably not very happy about what the movie did. Not only is the actual second Captain Marvel (a popular black superheroine at that) sidelined in favor of Carol Danvers who comic fans do NOT like very much, but she's made to look up to the version that people are bored and annoyed by for being shoved down their throats.

And obviously there's the reasonable defense of 'well this is the MCU's take on these characters', but Mar-Vell and Monica resemble their comic counterparts in name only, so it the MCU has not done right by those characters by any means.

Take it with a grain of salt, obviously. I'm no expert myself, I just listened to another entertaining one who has a deep love and passion for comic books. His video on the history of the Justice League and Darkseid is hella cool, considering it explains how Darkseid being the ultimate enemy of the Justice League is actually a pretty recent invention (Well..recent in comic book time).

These are all pretty great stories, and they clearly meant a lot to you. But rewritings of a character don't have to be slave to previous canon. There will be place for another reimagining of Mar-Vell closer to the original another time.

[Trafalgar]

You're sort of forgetting my point, which was that for end users a 60% rating might as well be 30%. Case in point, hands up everyone who is not me who likes Man of Steel.

Ironically, I see the audience score has climbed above the ciritical score, which I hadn't expected given how much "fan outrage" I've seen towards the film.

EDIT: I'm going to do something unusual and give Psyren a helping hand here:

These are Rotten Tomatoes scores for Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

There was enough genuine fan outcry of these two to essentially bully the producers to release improved cuts of both. But what do you know, the audience score for both has still climbed above the (pathetic) critical scores!

Compare and contrast with Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel wasn't the best of movies, but I wouldn't rank it below Batman versus Superman - yet somehow, Batman versus Superman gets a higher audience score! Something odd is going on here.

In Summary:
BVS (2016) - Critics 28%, Audience 63%
Captain Marvel (2019) - Critics 79%, Audience 45%

Why did critics like Captain Marvel better than the BVS? In general, if I could describe MCU movies in one word, it would be competent. They are not always great but they its rare that they are actually bad. They tend to play it very safe with decisions. I would describe Zach Snyder as much more experimental. His movies are more violent, they are definitely darker in tone and in the way they are shot. So I think generally critics are going to like a play it safe movie that's good but not great better than the dark, violent mess that is BVS.

Why does BVS have a better audience score than Captain Marvel? I think there are several reasons. First, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are waaaayyyy more popular characters than Captain Marvel ever was or ever will be. Second, Zach Snyder is much better about adding in cool bits of fan service like basing several scenes off of Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns". Third, several of the action scenes in BVS are way better than anything in Captain Marvel. Specifically, the collapse of Wayne Tower and the Warehouse Fight. It's what Zach Snyder is usually (but not always) pretty good at. I can't clearly remember any action scenes in Captain Marvel. I remember a CGI Carol easily defeating Ronin's army, but nothing stands out in my mind as being worth going back to watch again. Fourth, there are fanatical fans out there of the BVS director's cut. These are the people that pushed hard for the Justice League Snyder Cut. I know plenty of people who liked Captain Marvel but I don't know anyone who loved it. And for most people, you really have to love or hate a movie to log on to Rotten Tomatoes to post a review.

Could there be people out their using bots to manipulate a movies audience score? Sure. Do I think Disney, as the largest studio, uses it's immense influence to manipulate critics into giving a movie a better score than it deserves? Definitely. But there is nothing about either movies scores that particularly surprise me.

[Rynjin]

Fitting the entirety of Captain Marvel lore into the Marvel universe would have taken more time than a single movie allows and I would argue not be worth it. You have to introduce a bunch of **** just to make the character's motivations make sense, and ultimately Mar-Vell would still just be there to die and pass the mantle on to the more recognizable and well known character anyway.

The problem with Captain Marvel doesn't lie in the lack of backstory with Mar-Vell, but a lack of history in the MCU to begin with. Needing an entire movie to justify why a character wasn't there earlier in the series should have been a tell to Marvel that they should shelve the idea of bringing the Captain into the MCU until after Endgame had wrapped up, because ultimately the character served no real narrative purpose other than to feel like a Deus ex Machina for about 2 minutes of screentime and then get kicked to the curb like all the other side characters because she was completely irrelevant to the plot of the Avengers fighting Thanos.

It didn't help that I doubt anybody was excited to see more Captain Marvel at the time. General audiences wouldn't have a single damn clue who she was (and so would not care), and may even have her confused with other characters (like Ms Marvel) entirely with cursory comics knowledge and osmosis from the cartoons. Comics audiences (including myself) wanted to see no more of Captain Marvel after Civil War 2, where she was a straight up tyrant who was Minority Reporting people into jail, and ****ed with my boys Iron Fist and Luke Cage. This was my first and only exposure to the character as a comics reader: as a villain. That and a review Linkara did of that time she got pregnant with an alien baby or some ****, it was dumb.

[Callos_DeTerran]

I have a hard time getting past the scene where he just watches Pa Kent die for no reason. Or the scene where Ma and Pa Kent suggest he should have let a school bus full of children die in order to keep his secret. Other than that it's fine.

Yeah no, that scene is pretty dumb with Pa Kent willing to just stand there and die with not letting Clark reveal himself. Pa Kent's death is really important for showing there's some people Superman just can't save but that interpretation of it was bad. And I get why people don't like the pa kent about the bus of children scene but people never bring up the key point that I kind of like about it. When Clark demands if he should have just let them die, Pa Kent doesn't have an answer because the correct answer is 'no, save them' but he wants to protect his son too. To me its a pretty key moment for Clark to realize he's going to have to make hard decisions in short amounts of time, and he's got to trust himself to know what the right thing to do is.

These are all pretty great stories, and they clearly meant a lot to you. But rewritings of a character don't have to be slave to previous canon. There will be place for another reimagining of Mar-Vell closer to the original another time.

You aren't wrong, but lets also be perfectly honest. For as much as Mar-Vell is the more well liked version of Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers is the more well known version because Marvel is trying to push her hard despite the lack of interest in her. And unless a character/group really takes off (ala Guardians) the chance of a minor haracter like that getting another reimagining, let alone several is very slim. Mar-Vell and Monica have what is likely to be their defining characterization to the non-comic reading masses and its people who don't even resemble who they really are. For more on that, see the rest of my response below.

Fitting the entirety of Captain Marvel lore into the Marvel universe would have taken more time than a single movie allows and I would argue not be worth it. You have to introduce a bunch of **** just to make the character's motivations make sense, and ultimately Mar-Vell would still just be there to die and pass the mantle on to the more recognizable and well known character anyway.

The problem with Captain Marvel doesn't lie in the lack of backstory with Mar-Vell, but a lack of history in the MCU to begin with. Needing an entire movie to justify why a character wasn't there earlier in the series should have been a tell to Marvel that they should shelve the idea of bringing the Captain into the MCU until after Endgame had wrapped up, because ultimately the character served no real narrative purpose other than to feel like a Deus ex Machina for about 2 minutes of screentime and then get kicked to the curb like all the other side characters because she was completely irrelevant to the plot of the Avengers fighting Thanos.

Again, you're not wrong but that also wasn't my point. I wasn't bringing up the real stories of those characters because I think fitting all of that lore into a single movie would have been a good idea, I was bringing them to point how how badly the Captain Marvel movie got them wrong. And in a way that doesn't just offend fans of those characters but actively subtracts from the world of the MCU. They could have alluded and hinted at the history between Mar-Vell and Thanos without actually going into the nitty gritty details of it, comic fans would be able to point and go 'wait, I know what they're referring to!' and casual fans would hopefully be curious and intrigued about what was being talked about. Its a situation where 'less is more' could have easily applied. And by changing Monica you just flat out excise a huge chunk of the Captain Marvel lore in general, its just gone. Now, assuming Monica makes any other kind of appearance, they'll have to come up with an entirely new backstory for her because her original one just doesn't exist anymore. Same with Mar-Vell, he was so thoroughly changed that you can't use any material he was in for the MCU's Mar-Vell, they are quite literally not the same characters anymore. And in Monica's cause, there's very real, but subtle, unfortunate implications in the changes they made which is only kind of surprising for a movie that's trying to be as progressive as Captain Marvel is.

And that's what I meant by Captain Marvel is technically a 'better' movie but has committed sins that turned me off more than what BvS did and that's why I said I view BvS as the better movie. Despite the Joker masquerading around as Lex Luthor (on of my favorite comic book villains and one of the most famous ones period) and the awful looking Doomsday that was denied his pivotal story but no one thought Doomsday would be in the movie in the first place. Mar-Vell and Monica might not be central to Captain Marvel, but they are utterly unrecognizable as who the characters actually are and Captain Marvel the movie and MCU character are worse off for it.

[Thrudd]

Do people forget that Marr Vell was killed off in the early 80s and never really got resurrected? He's only appeared a couple times since, once as an evil alternate Universe version and in flashbacks. I am skeptical that a lot of comics fans right now are really attached to Mar Vell's relatively short run in the late 60's and 70's. He certainly wasn't a part of Infinity War, that was published in the 90s.
Carol, was always a B or C tier character until after 2000, when she became a more important member of the Avengers, and it was well after the MCU had started that they gave her a solo title and the title of Captain Marvel. That the film was more loose in adapting her origins is understandable. The film has been loose with almost everyone's origins, and the MCU is better for it. I mean, most of the GotG characters are almost unrecognizable from the version that was first introduced in '08. Not saying Captain Marvel was a perfect film, I hated Fury's eye scratch moment, too, but I definitely see people being disproportionately critical of it.