Captain Marvel and the press


The Folk Prophet
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I'm just fascinated at what's going on with Captain Marvel. For anyone unawares, here's the breakdown:

A lot of people thought Brie Larson looked "boring" in the trailers.

Brie Larson made some comments about how she doesn't care about "white dudes" reviews, claimed Disney and the director all wanted to make a feminist film, etc., etc.

And, of course, the "Her....o" thing, etc., feminist approaches in the trailers.

So there's been backlash, right? Specifically, the "Want to see" vote on Rotten Tomatoes dropped and dropped until it hit 26%. Additionally the projected opening amount has dropped from somewhere around 200 mil to 150 mil, then to 100 mil, then to 80 mil.

So Rotten Tomatoes, reacting, has now changed their pre-release voting. Now you can ONLY click 'I Want To See This' (no "I Don't Want..." option), and hence, no percentage. And they've disabled pre-release comments entirely. (https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/making-some-changes/)

So how does the press respond?

With headlines like this:

'Captain Marvel' was attacked by online trolls. Rotten Tomatoes took action. (https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/movies/captain-marvel-was-attacked-online-trolls-rotten-tomatoes-took-action-n976201)

Headline after headline is the same.

"Trolls".

That's right. Anyone who is concerned about what Disney and SJW messaging is doing to movies is a troll.

That's honest and fair reporting, right? <_<

I am absolutely flabbergasted at it.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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To be honest, the purpose of rotten tomatoes (and movie reviews in general), is to, well, review the movie.  So yeah, when a bunch of politics got involved and a bunch of folks decided to troll negative reviews, it sort of defeated the purpose. 

Or, to put it differently, I remember back 15 years or so ago, when the antis mounted an organized effort to swamp Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble with negative reviews of the Book of Mormon, using the comments section to post links to websites, cut and paste criticisms, etc.  Amazon.com and B&N responded to that (and a million other similar efforts) by finding ways to kill reviews that weren't really reviews.  Kind of like what RT is doing here.

All that said, I'm glad to see Larson's comments getting backlash.  Back in 1995, it was pretty lonely for me standing in the Disney Pocahontas ticket line, yelling about how Disney was doing a PC whitewashing of history to pander to cultural pressures.  (Her tribe owned slaves by the way - did you know that!  Did you know she married the dude?  Well, ya wouldn't have known that by WATCHING the DANG MOVIE!!!)

 

Edited by NeuroTypical
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You know what the hilarious hypocrisy is of the whole thing?  Even as Disney/Marvel makes 3rd wave feminist noises out of one side of their mouth, they're looking to hire a butt double (yes, you read that right) for either Captain Marvel or Black Widow in an upcoming film.

Nope, not sexualizing female characters here... 

Oh, wait....

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1 minute ago, NeuroTypical said:

To be honest, the purpose of rotten tomatoes (and movie reviews in general), is to, well, review the movie.  So yeah, when a bunch of politics got involved and a bunch of folks decided to troll negative reviews, it sort of defeated the purpose.

Kinda?  The thing is they'd added a section where you could post whether or not you were looking forward to seeing the film.  That was the section that tanked.  It wasn't the part where you review the film after having seen it.

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Just now, NeuroTypical said:

To be honest, the purpose of rotten tomatoes (and movie reviews in general), is to, well, review the movie. 

Who says?

They had a poll on who wants to see it. That, by virtue of it's existence, was part of their "purpose". And, frankly, useful and interesting information for anyone. If people are dumping on a movie for any given reason it's useful information.

And, of course, if it really was RT being true to their purpose...okay. But boloney. Their move was absolutely political. They are owned by Comcast who are owned by Warner Bros. They are a leftist org owned by a leftist org owned by a leftist org.

3 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

So yeah, when a bunch of politics got involved and a bunch of folks decided to troll negative reviews

It seems like you're buying into the dishonesty. Why is is trolling to honestly click "I don't want to see this"?

4 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Amazon.com and B&N responded to that (and a million other similar efforts) by finding ways to kill reviews that weren't really reviews.  Kind of like what RT is doing here.

That's not what RT did at all. No one "reviewed" Capt. Marvel. They stated their honest opinion that they weren't interested in seeing it.

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29 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

It seems like you're buying into the dishonesty. Why is is trolling to honestly click "I don't want to see this"?

I am assuming it is part of a targeted movement involving a small number of real humans, probably using bots and multiple fake accounts.  I think it's a safe assumption, based on how often it happens and how easy it is.  @anatess2would have to ask her kid for verification, I'm not seeing it yet in any of the news coverage.

Edited by NeuroTypical
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25 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I am assuming it is part of a targeted movement

Which isn't relevant to whether it's honest and legit...

25 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

possibly using bots and multiple fake accounts.

...which is relevant...and if so...that should be protected against. But the same could happen with a post release review and they're not getting rid of those. Of course it won't surprise me if they do. But that would be tragic because critic reviews are absolutely useless. Only audience reviews count for much any more. Whereas the fake accounts and bots thing should be protected against, what the actual audience thought of the movie is quite valuable.

Time will tell, but I won't be surprised if Captain Marvel does relatively poor. Yes, it'll still do well...because it's a Marvel movie and people will go see it no matter what. And, of course, it's set up to be so tied into Endgame that to get the complete story you have to see it...and, of course,...it won't be released for home viewing until after Endgame comes out. Very tricksy of Marvel.

That being said, I will not go and pay money to see Captain Marvel in theaters. That doesn't mean much because I tend to be on the extreme side of conservative and finicky about my politics. But...I've seen a fair amount of evidence that there may be a significant amount of others who may not go see it either.

But even if it does relatively poor-er than other Marvel films...they'll write it off under the typical blame-the-audience approach they took with Solo, A Wrinkle in Time, and Ghostbusters. They'll make excuses and keep plugging along in their leftist ways.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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I don't know much about it, but I have a grandson that I think really wants to see that movie.  He wants to see all those super hero movies. 

Bigger question for me...

How much language will be in it.

How much violence will be in it.

How much sexual content will be in it.

Movies in general these days have FAAAAR too much of all of the above.  I think if we knew what the Lord would want us to watch, vs. what most people do watch...they'd be ashamed of what they've been watching.

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3 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I don't know much about it, but I have a grandson that I think really wants to see that movie.  He wants to see all those super hero movies. 

Bigger question for me...

How much language will be in it.

How much violence will be in it.

How much sexual content will be in it.

Movies in general these days have FAAAAR too much of all of the above.  I think if we knew what the Lord would want us to watch, vs. what most people do watch...they'd be ashamed of what they've been watching.

If it's anything like the other Marvel films, sexual content will be at a minimum, language will be mild.  It's the violence that's the big thing with those.

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Just now, unixknight said:

If it's anything like the other Marvel films, sexual content will be at a minimum, language will be mild.  It's the violence that's the big thing with those.

Some of them have had several dirty jokes. Age of Ultron in particular.

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11 hours ago, unixknight said:

You know what the hilarious hypocrisy is of the whole thing?  Even as Disney/Marvel makes 3rd wave feminist noises out of one side of their mouth, they're looking to hire a butt double (yes, you read that right) for either Captain Marvel or Black Widow in an upcoming film.

Nope, not sexualizing female characters here... 

Oh, wait....

I find this upsetting.  The actress's own posteriors are already... well, nevermind.

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There is a big difference between one person posting one post or review about what they liked or disliked about a movie (Even if it is not very on topic) and one person spamming 1000 review(s) promoting their views or otherwise arranging for the spamming of a system (the first one is acceptable the second one is not)

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15 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

There is a big difference between one person posting one post or review about what they liked or disliked about a movie (Even if it is not very on topic) and one person spamming 1000 review(s) promoting their views or otherwise arranging for the spamming of a system (the first one is acceptable the second one is not)

And while the notion of "protect against the spammers" is nice in theory, it isn't easy.  Until very recently, we've not had effective methods for combating this kind of spamming, so the response has always been reactive ("remove it after it is found"). Automated and proactive methods (machine learning, pattern recognition, and AI) are becoming efficient enough now to take on these kinds of tasks, but they are still enormously expensive to build and maintain (Google and Amazon have spent untold millions trying to master these problems).

Unless you have a lot of money to throw at the problem, it's still a lot easier to limit the inputs.

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Guest Godless
15 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Who says?

They had a poll on who wants to see it. That, by virtue of it's existence, was part of their "purpose". And, frankly, useful and interesting information for anyone. If people are dumping on a movie for any given reason it's useful information.

It seems like you're buying into the dishonesty. Why is is trolling to honestly click "I don't want to see this"?

It seems to me that a simple "I don't want to see this" click would be easier and quicker to bot-troll than full post-viewing reveiws (actual reviews, not just numerical ratings). These days you always have to take user-generated reviews and ratings with a grain of salt, and not just in reference to movies. You have to be mindful of bots, people with an axe to grind (which you're going to see on both sides of the SJW fence), and companies using their own people to fluff their ratings. That's why, to me, written reviews are king. I have no faith in numerical or any other single-click rating system for any product or service. I care about what people are taking time to actually say about the product. At least with those you can usually tell who's being genuine, who's being an entitled prick, and who's trying to fluff their own product. 

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1 hour ago, estradling75 said:

There is a big difference between one person posting one post or review about what they liked or disliked about a movie (Even if it is not very on topic) and one person spamming 1000 review(s) promoting their views or otherwise arranging for the spamming of a system (the first one is acceptable the second one is not)

I don't believe the second is what happened. If it did, sure...problem. But of course the exact same problem occurs in reverse. For example, Star Wars: Resistance -- 75% Audience Score. But with page after page after page of varied 1 and 2, and a rare 3 star reviews by legit responses. Then around page 7 of the reviews you get this:

image.thumb.png.9ddbb54b8ae39896d224794cc6c586be.png

Yeah. That looks legit.

(And the fact that it has a 92% critics rating?!? Nothing fishy here people. Move along.) <_<

This seems pretty cut and dry to me. You have clear examples of positive review data being falsified and no one does anything about it...no news articles...no uproar...no problem. But then people express disinterest in something (whatever the reason may be as to the why) that doesn't align with Hollywood's leftist narrative and, of course...TROLLS!

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51 minutes ago, Godless said:

It seems to me that a simple "I don't want to see this" click would be easier and quicker to bot-troll than full post-viewing reveiws (actual reviews, not just numerical ratings). These days you always have to take user-generated reviews and ratings with a grain of salt, and not just in reference to movies. You have to be mindful of bots, people with an axe to grind (which you're going to see on both sides of the SJW fence), and companies using their own people to fluff their ratings. That's why, to me, written reviews are king. I have no faith in numerical or any other single-click rating system for any product or service. I care about what people are taking time to actually say about the product. At least with those you can usually tell who's being genuine, who's being an entitled prick, and who's trying to fluff their own product. 

Agreed. And, fwiw, I had read a great many of the written responses as to why people were clicking they didn't want to see Captain Marvel, and they were clearly not bot generated, but people who, like me, are highly concerned with Disney's SJW agenda ruining their beloved franchises.

They were censored for not goose-stepping along with the leftist narrative. Plain and simple. And whereas RT, being privately owned, can censor anyone they want, the news media at large is supposed to be balanced, neutral, and reporting reality, not constantly shilling for the left.

Brie Larson is so concerned with the color of reviewer's skin, but she and her kind seems decidedly unconcerned with actual truth.

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16 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I am assuming it is part of a targeted movement involving a small number of real humans, probably using bots and multiple fake accounts.  I think it's a safe assumption, based on how often it happens and how easy it is.  @anatess2would have to ask her kid for verification, I'm not seeing it yet in any of the news coverage.

This is false.

Okay, these are the same people we are talking about here:  

Pewdepie (video gaming channel, started in Sweden, moved to the UK) is the most subscribed channel on Youtube for a long time and his subscribers are mostly GenY and GenZ.  He got so big that Disney offered him a contract to have a Pewdepie show on the Disney channel (same way Fred of Annoying Orange got into Disney).  In one of his FPS shooter game videos, Pew happened to do a Nazi salute when he shot up some enemy soldiers (being funny in Pew fashion) and the media went on attack mode.  These are all left-wing media like Vox who painted Pewdepie as a white supremacist Nazi anti-Semite which caused Disney to pull out of their contract.  This made his tens of millions of subscribers who knows this is all baseless attacks fight back.  So now you got all these mostly young people joined in this culture war against the media.  Pewdepie changed his channel to go beyond just gaming and go into culture commentary through the 2016 election cycle and he has made commentary against the media's baseless claims of racism, sexism, homophobia against Trump so that's how they got into socio-politics.  And so now you got tons of YouTube Channels dedicated to doing socio-political commentary all against the "leftist agenda".  And there's the dark web which is the equivalent of the old 80's nerd hackers that became a subject of several movies now engaged in this socio-political themes as well.

Now, video gaming people have a big cross-over with comicbook people.  So a lot of these Pewdepie subscribers have been expressing their disgust of the direction of comicbook culture, and that includes Captain Marvel.  Captain Marvel in the comicbook has been plagued with modern feminism so much so that they had to revamp the series multiple times the last few years because they couldn't make money off the comics.  These are the same people who are now plaguing the MCU's Captain Marvel because of Brie Larson.

So you're saying... these are mostly sub bots.  Well, I will give you several proofs that show these are not sub bots.  Video games, comics, and Star Wars have huge cross-over fans.  When Star Wars went into socio-political leftist defense after the release of The Last Jedi, the fans made their displeasure known far and wide on the internet.  Rian Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy, et.al., said they are trolled by a few alt-right Straight-White-Male and their bots.  They even blamed these trolls for Rose Tico leaving the social media platform.  Well, Solo TANKED in the box office.  So, these are not just bots after all.

Another proof - Pewdepie vs. T-Series subscriber war.  All in good fun, not much trolling involved.  Pewdepie was #1 subscribed channel in Youtube for the longest time until T-Series (India-pop/Bollywood channel based in India) knocked him off the spot.  Pewdepie - in Pew meme fashion - made a video making fun of T-Series and asking people to subscribe (quite brilliant marketing campaign if you think about it) to knock T-Series off the #1 spot.  And the game was on.  They both started at around 60M+ subscribers and now both are in the 86M+ subscribers in a head-to-head race.  Places like Socialblast run analysis on their subscriber counts to see if they can detect sub-bot patterns and YouTube itself runs purges on sub-bots and all the analysis have pointed to both Pewdepie and T-Series acquiring 20M+ subscribers in a short period of time.  T-Series is in India and if only 1/3 of the population of India subscribe to T-Series, nobody can beat them.  And India people really love their india-pop and bollywood.  So people like Elon Musk - joining in on the fun - offered to host Pew's Meme Review section and uploads it to their own channels to get those subscribers to subscribe to Pew.  20M+ real accounts.  Not bots.  These are the kind of numbers a subscriber drive can get out of the socio-political internet.

Last proof - 4chan is really all you need to show the power of internet communities.  4chan (also 8chan) runs periodic "social projects".  The Shia Lebauf capture the flag game was pretty popular... imagine an international community that can find and capture a flag streamed on video stuck in the middle of nowhere just by the kind of trees in the background and the contrail pattern in the sky and a car honking.  Bots can't do that.  4chan is littered with the same people who subscribe to Pewdepie, collect comics, and passionate about Star Wars.

So, Rotten Tomatoes... that's small potatoes for these people.  If Pewdepie vs T-Series don't even need bots to raise 20M+ subscribers, Rotten Tomatoes is like a kiddie pool compared.

People have been saying it, but they're not getting heard because normies still get their news from mainstream media... Conservatism is the new counter-culture.

Edited by anatess2
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29 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

So, Rotten Tomatoes... that's small potatoes for these people.  If Pewdepie vs T-Series don't even need bots to raise 20M+ subscribers, Rotten Tomatoes is like a kiddie pool compared.

Indeed..  That is what I meant by "arranging the spamming of"  (And yes I totally acknowledge it goes both ways)

Any site or group has a demographic (Rotten Tomatoes does, Third Hour does etc) Thus is polls or review done will represent that demographic.  The owners of the site will push and maybe even cater to a certain demographic.  Those polls or reviews will represent that demographic.  The personal value one gets from the poll or review will be directly related to how closely you match the demographic of the site in question.

Now should a internet group #disneyMustDie!!!!!  organize.  And start attacking #proDisney site well of course they are going to get shutdown.  If a group of #AllMormonAreHerticAndMustBeKilledWithFire started highjacking Thirdhour.org  you better believe we shut them down as hard as we can.  But we would let in #MormonsAreChristian  with open arms. Thus bias where we allow one group over another

The problem is not that sites have biases... the problem is thinking that sites don't.  If you don't like the biases of a certain site don't attack them in a vain attempt remake them in your own image...  Start your own site and compete 

 

Edited by estradling75
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2 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I figured Anatess could show up and correct me if I was wrong - sound like I assumed incorrectly.  

Don't get me wrong.  A lot of these young'uns... especially those running around in the dark web... are more than capable of running bot projects and even making money out of them.  A good example would be when someone wants to start a YouTube channel and wants it monetized, he has to meet certain criteria to be eligible for ads.  It's quite difficult to start a random YouTube channel, get it trending, or get it to pop on the first page of a search engine and attract enough interest to gain subscribers, views, and likes.  But you can achieve this easily by calling on your GenZ friends and their bots.

It's not so hard to get the anti-modern-feminists to downvote a very popular movie on Rotten Tomatoes.  It's harder to suppress them.  It's really the same cycle as the old days when the "Christians" (mainstream) tried to stop Rock and Roll (counter-culture).

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10 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

The problem is not that sites have biases... the problem is thinking that sites don't.  If you don't like the biases of a certain site don't attack them in a vain attempt remake them in your own image...  Start your own site and compete 

It's the press that's the real problem.

The move here is clearly motivated by 2 things. The first, as mentioned, is SJW politics and Hollywood trying to shove them down the populace's throats. But the second is the almighty dollar. When push comes to shove, this is really about money.

Manipulating reviews for money is not just a site prerogative. It is fraud.

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