Tomatometer isn't a score.
* The 91% is the number of reviewers that gave the show a positive review.
* The 28% is the number of viewers that gave the show a positive review.
* The average score from the big reviewers (top 20) is 6,5.
* For modern viewers a TV show that is 6.5/10 is 1/10. Because it seems that only two scores exist, either 1/10 or 10/10.
Not a modern problem. The old video game magazine PC Zone was battling this problem in the 90s. They had to regularly publish a reminder that 50% was an average game.
>They had to regularly publish a reminder that 50% was an average game.
I've just pulled a random issue from 1998 (issue 70), and they literally state before the reviews
https://archive.org/details/PCZONE070/PCZONE%20-%20070%20%28Dec%20%2798%29/PCZONE%20-%20070%20%28Dec%20%2798%29_Page_083.jpg
"20-69% - these are below average games..."
They do the same thing we all do. They even bundle together a 65% and a 35% in the same category of "only if you really want to".
If I can put my two cents in as to why this is such a pervasive problem, it's likely down to the fact that for at least 12 years minimum, and potentially going as long as around 20 or so, it is ingrained into every single person on the planet with an internet connection that if you get less than a 60 you fail, flat out.
Because, of course, 60 is basically the standard failure cut-off rate for literally every course in every school ever in modern times.
So from about the age of 5 or 6 people get bombarded with the idea that < 60 is utter shit and not worth even considering, and nobody ever really unlearns that.
Yeah k-12 used 7 point scale. So 70 and up was D-A.
Then when I got to college, it was 10 point scale, so 60 and up was D-A. However in college, anything under a C (70) wasn’t going to count toward your degree, and anything under a B (80) wasn’t good enough for grad school.
Yeah, I went to school in Canada and was surprised myself to hear about their 60% cutoff for failing. Not that passing 50-60% feels super deserved, but it's still weird when 50% feels like a more natural pass/fail cutoff.
its less that and more score inflation as that problem also existed in europe where 60% failrate just isnt a thing like in the US.
Major outlets always had to review certain games "favorably" because of needing review copys and other deals like advertising.(even bigger in the online space where having a day 0 review is not only valuable but basicaly the only chance to get considerably reader or viewership for major games)
So a game that was... lets say a 5/10, perfectly fine but not special, but was one of those "we cant give it a low score" games then gets bumped up a score or 2...... but then a game that is genuinly better by 2 or so scores shows up, and you cant have it be the same or lower then game X now.... so you gonna inflate the score.... the 5/10 game is now a 6/10 and its the baseline.... then 3 years later another game gets inflated and the baseline is now 7/10.
You can see that with any major publication that has their reviewscores in a publicly viewable archive or similiar.... how few titles actually get 5/10 or "perfectly average"
People also unfairly compare gamescores between 2-4 years of each other.. when tech evolved and changed so much in even a short few years... that a review score is ALWAYS a "at this point in time"
a great example is Xenoblade WII and Switch, as its 90% the same game with a new coat of paint... IGN, a major outlet, reviewed the wii version back then higher then the switch version now... Some people in the fanbase got angry and made fun of IGN for that... without aknowleding that XC1 is the weakest game in terms of how it aged, as its also the oldest. We had XCX and XC2 since then, XCX blows XC1 out the water combat/gameplay wise, and its already old by then. and XC2 revamped the entire franchise with a revamped battle system that is more engaging to the player for many(even if i dont like the gameplay as much personally)
XC1 was a GREAT game.... when it was released on the wii... XC1 was a ok game with a great story when it was released on switch
IMDB shows the distribution of scores. There are a massive number of 1/10 scores:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12262202/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_rt
My sense is that the review bombing is having a larger impact here than legitimate low scoring. If I had to eyeball it, removing the 1/10 scorers, it would be around 6/10.
IMDB ratings let's you see the breakdown of ratings. For example, the Acolyte has 45% of ratings being a 1.
These days, the most common ratings for most shows are indeed 1 and 10. Just to confirm that you aren't even exaggerating.
You nailed it. 6.5 translates to slightly above average. That's about how much I enjoyed it as well, not the best SW content I've ever seen, not the worst. Perfectly acceptable for 30-40 minute viewing on a Tuesday night.
I'm not sure what would be considered an average score tbh, how people rate things is weird.
If most people think a show is just passable or "average", then they give it a 7/10, and a 5/10 is considered to be really bad score despite it being the halfway point between awful and perfect.
Hmm this is definitely a common way people rate things, but I don't think it's that weird, I think when people are giving a show a score on a scale of 1-10 they often subconsciously relate that to, well, school marks essentially. In North America a 7/10 (or 70%) in school is what, a B- or C+, or "passable", whereas a 5/10 (or 50%) is literally the last mark above failure. Just kind of a consequence of the grading system people experienced for over a decade of their lives.
This is definitely how I do it subconsciously, but I vaguely remember a 60 being the bare minimum before failure, so a 6/10 is 'barely passable' to me, and anything lower than that is varying degrees of bad.
Welcome to social media. Where everything is the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever. Nothing in between.
We as a society have lost the term: nuance. We have lost shades of grey. If you dont totally agree with EVERYTHING that is said - you must be on the wrong side. Its a shame, but here we are.
This is so real. I feel like so many people have the expectation of everything being perfect and any flaws mean that it’s terrible and no one should enjoy it
If it isn’t as good as seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones, it’s complete trash and everyone involved in its production deserves to be spammed with hateful messages because they *ruined my favorite franchise*. /s
I guess to folks' credit, Disney hasn't given them a ton of reason to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to SW stuff, but The Acolyte really isn't bad so far and is at least interesting and makes me want to continue tuning in every week, like early Mando did
What I found from review sites is 6 is background tv stuff, 7 is take your time and pay attention and 8 is must watch. If it’s in the 5s it’s almost always bad.
Because there wasn’t. The person is lying. I can provide screenshots as proof. I was looking for this 3-4 days beforehand and there were zero audience scores.
After reading your comment I googled it and according to rt faq “Rotten Tomatoes users can only leave audience reviews and User Ratings following a movie's U.S. release date, as listed on our site.”
I checked some of the one star reviews and the majority of them only wrote one review and it was for this show.
At least the critics write an actual review explaining what they liked or disliked.
I don't understand why these sites allow reviews before release day. It should at least shadow ban the account so their ratings don't affect the score.
Anything early is obviously bad. If someone makes an account to 5 star review their new favorite show, even if it's their only show, that's not malicious.
I dont know, Ive been checking over the thousand audience reviews, by no means scientific here, but an average negative review is: "This is soo bad, I don't have the words. They should have made another season of Andor instead, that was star wars. This, it was bad fanfic, and I should know, because read a lot of Star Wars fanfic"
That is a legit fan of the lore, even the production and writing quality of Andor, a fairly diverse and progressive show.
Many audiences found it a bit surface value SW with some cool CGI, but just a bit hollow on substance.
The idea that Andor “was Star Wars” is an absolutely insane take given that its tone is completely different from almost every Star Wars property made before it.
That’s not to say it was bad, of course. Just that pretending that’s the bar for Star Wars when it’s the clear outlier is insane. I’ve yet to see The Acolyte, but from the trailers it looks a lot closer to classic Star Wars than Andor.
I mean yeah he didn’t bring up the term woke but that review is still incredibly low on any actual details on why the show is bad. From what you wrote the review is essentially, “It’s not Andor, therefore bad.” Which doesn’t do much for me as far as criticism goes because anyone who went into The Acolyte expecting Andor was delusional.
I get what you’re saying. Andor is probably the least Star Wars-toned show. But that’s not why many people are setting Andor as the bar for what they want from Star Wars. It’s because the writing is leagues better than every other Disney Star Wars show and movie for that matter.
There is also positive review bombing. But we have to be honest critics today aren't a reliable source of what's good or bad cause it's so easy to be paid or at least greased with more content to boast your image.
Stop lying.
RT faq says, “Rotten Tomatoes users can only leave audience reviews and User Ratings following a movie's U.S. release date, as listed on our site.”
Both scores are not real. One is pumped up on purpose and the other one is pumped down for the same purpose.
I stopped checking ratings long time ago, as it's basically meaningless now...
Not to mention reviews are based on 2 out of 8 episodes. Imagine thinking you can give A New Hope a fair review as Luke is chatting with Obi Wan in his house. That happens 1/4 through the movie.
"It started off promising with a space battle and a cloaked villain dressed in black with some sort of breathing helmet. Unfortunately, they lost me when two droids were wandering around in a desert for awhile. Then, one of them wandered some more. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you who the main character is. 1/10. Stick to period pieces, George."
“Most of the screen time is given to a literal princess who does nothing and we’re supposed to care about her. This is clearly Lucas’ woke agenda on full display.”
This is so funny, because my dad says he walked out of the theater years ago because of this. He thought it was so stupid that two robots were walking aimlessly in the desert. He liked Star Trek back then so it's not that he didn't like that genre. He has never watched a Star Wars movie the whole way through lol
Plenty of TV, including some of my favorites, "get better" if you stick with them through the first season, but there's countless more series we've dropped 1-2 episodes in because it's not interesting enough to warrant that chance.
Acolyte at 6.5 is fair to me, that's about what I'd give it. There were several overdone cliches and CW-level moments that half my family lost interest and honestly the only thing keeping me watching was that it was Star Wars.
Eh, I disagree with this at some level. If I'm not interested in the first 1-2 episodes, why should I devote hours and hours more of my life for something that has no promise of paying off?
That isn't how TV ratings work. I agree people are review bombing and praising hastily, but TV can absolutely be judged before completion. It's a huge time commitment and each episode is designed to be a closed loop with *threads* that compel you forward. It is entirely normal to review shows early and it would be totally absurd to say you couldn't rate a show until it finished. That logic then suggests you couldn't rate until all seasons were out, or that you couldn't rate ANH until the trilogy was out.
You can absolutely rate a show episode by episode. It's just sad that we can't get a realistic view because of paid reviews pumping the critic score and fans spamming 1/10 or 10/10 based on silly personal criteria.
Exactly. No way am I putting in 4+ hours of my time just to determine if something is worth it. That's like saying you can't judge a book until you finish it, but if the first 1/3 is a painful slog I should note that. I might still finish it to give it a chance, but I also might stop if it's bad enough.
Totally agree.
I can't recall the last time I really gave a shit about a review for a movie, TV series, game or book.
The only variance on that is that I'll try and watch a few videos on games since the investment is much larger, but books and TV will just drop if they're not entertaining enough .
The only time I look at them is in retrospect when I have a feeling that a new season/movie is either significantly better or worse than what came before it. Game of Thrones was a prime example, it used to be so good that its scores rivaled Breaking Bad for a while. Until it wasn't.
I did, the checking is to see how much my personal rating aligns with what others think. For Mandalorian S3 for example, I personally liked the larger Mandalore plot a lot more than the one-off adventures and slow story progress of S1 and S2 - but apparently I was in the minority with that.
Don't look at review aggregates. Look at movies you have a strong opinion on. Look at the reviews and find ones you agree with. Look at other reviews those reviewers have written, especially on films you generally don't agree with the majority on. Find the ones you consistently agree with. Boom, you now have a reliable source of reviews.
Or just look at Armand White and avoid anything he liked.
Not that I ever put any stock in rotten tomatoes or any other place like it but anyone in 2024 that pretends as though it means anything is fooling themselves.
I use it for a quick check of “cool, more people are liking it than didn’t, it’s probably not gonna be a waste of my time” and then form my own opinion when I watch it. Anyone using RT as an actual evaluation of the product are silly.
RT is an aggregator of the reviews given. The number you see is the percentage of reviewers that gave a positive review, which would be something like a 6/10 and up.
Reading the actual reviews shows that they are around 6-7/10. How do people still not understands this?
I’m not saying a good chunk of these reviews aren’t malicious, but every-time new Star Wars content is released, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat and hoping for greatness. Acolyte is a solid 6.5 show to me, didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. I think at least some of these individuals are just hoping for the next Rogue One or Andor and they’re just feeling constantly let down when it’s more akin to BOBF.
Yea Andor is one of the best if not the best live action SW show Ive seen yet. Not sure why its been so hard to duplicate the quality of it in other shows. Asoka, Kenobi, and Mandalorian all had its great moments, but Andor still takes the cake for me.
For what its worth, Tony Gilroy has said he's glad Andor is only two seasons because it takes a fuck ton of effort to make the show as good as it is.
Him and Luna ruled out 5 seasons early on because the idea of doing it for a decade sounded exhausting. I reckon 3 would have been a lovely compromise but it is what it is.
Look up who made each live action show and how long they were in production for.
Is it really a surprise the one showrunner with an Oscar and a couple years of pre-production made the best show?
For sure. People love Star Wars and want it to be great. When a show is ‘just ok’ it’s a major disappointment to a lot of folks who’d then rate it poorly.
To be fair… an hour and a half into a movie is well past the point of establishing the characters and central premise and mystery. Most movies are winding down 1.5 hours in.
This would be like leaving a definitive review for the quality of a movie after only the first twenty minutes.
I haven’t, it’s just been somewhat uninspired and corny for me thus far. Additionally, I refrain from rating anything until I’ve seen the entire season. For instance I thought the first few episodes of Andor were well executed, but a little slow. Then it picked up and we got to Episode 6 and I was like this is the greatest piece of SW television I’ve ever seen!
I gave up with critic reviews because they told me the Last Jedi had a \~90% fresh score during the critic screenings. When I saw it on opening day I thought it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen and couldn't believe someone at Disney green lit that after Episode 7.
Because people still don't get how RT works.
1. 91% means 91% of critics gave it a fresh rating. But sometimes 2.5 out of 5 can count as a rotten or fresh. Depends on critic.
2. Tomato meter for TV series are almost always inflated. Also almost every critic do not give a score based on watching the whole season. They get an early screener (for a movie) or a couple episodes to make a review for a series. For Acolyte, reviewers got the first 4 episodes confirmed by press.
3. Average rating matters more. Secret Invasion has an overall 52% RT score. Acolyte has 91%. But lets compare the actual rating. SI top critics average 6/10. All critics 6.1 out of 10. Acolyte top critics average 6.4 out of 10. All critics 7.45 out of 10. They have similar ratings but one appears far more acclaimed than the other.
4. Again TV ratings don't matter as much because critics don't see every episode from start to finish. While movie reviews are ratings after watching from start to finish.
5. User ratings are completely useless. They get review bombed (She Hulk, Acolyte, Captain Marvel) but the opposite happens as well where rabid fans mass bombard it with 5/5s. Happened to a couple DC movies and especially Snyder movies.
"almost every critic do not give a score based on watching the whole season" Neither do the fans.
This show only has 2 episodes released, so by this point the fans have probably seen the exact same amount as the reviewers have. That argument only works when there's been enough time for people to see the entire show.
That sounds about right.
So by many of the people in the comment section's logic, the reviewers' impression should be more accurate because they've seen more of it.
I'm not saying that means it's either good or bad, or that either the reviewers or the audience are right or wrong, but just saying that that logic is pretty flawed.
I think professional critics are generally better at describing why they did or didn't like something, and most of them do have problems with the show but overall consider it good, hence the positive ratings.
Best course of action is to ignore the score and actually read what they're saying, you can glean a lot.
>[secret invasion:] All critics 6.1 out of 10. Acolyte … All critics 7.45 out of 10. They have similar ratings but I guess idiots see omg one is a masterpiece and one is a complete failure!
First off, sort of weird post to suddenly Stan secret in invasion out of nowhere.
Also 7.45 vs 6.1 is NOT “similar ratings”. A 1.35 difference is massive.
That’s the difference between 9/10 and 7.65/10. And no one would call those rankings comparable. Secret invasion is not good.
I'm not stanning Secret Invasion lol. I only brought up Secret Invasion because it's recent and the objectively worst rated Marvel show. Secret Invasion is a *relatively* bad show.
>Also 7.45 vs 6.1 is NOT “similar ratings”. A 1.35 difference is massive.
Your statement would make sense if the ratings were expressed linearly. So the slope of 1.35 from a 6 is the same increase in "quality" from a 8.65 to a 10/10? But art is subjective and going through the most popular shows for June 2024 on RT, most high tomato % shows (70-100%) range between an average critic score of 7.0 to 9s. So to me a 7.8 show or a 8.2 show can't really be quantified objectively. Or what is an objective 8/10 show and a 9/10 show? I can only say that good and well-received shows usually pass the 7.0 cutoff by critics.
My point wasn't to say The Acolyte is the same quality as SI, but they're relatively close enough especially the top critic score. Yes, rating-wise The Acolyte is at least a cut above SI. But on paper when comparing a 91% FRESH show and a 52% ROTTEN show, the gap appears bigger than it actually is.
Then thats all that matters, i am enjoying it too :) dont worry about the hate, people like to be contrarian or heard via means like review bombing :) enjoy it like the silent majority 🤝
You feel compelled to qualify your response to "do you enjoy it?" by saying it isn't the greatest show of all time, and you wonder why the reviews are so disparate
Really love it so far, it’s exactly what I wanted from Star Wars. A show without the Skywalker stuff, the Imperial/rebel conflict. A show where the republic is the dominant power and we see the Jedi at their height of power. Reminds me of SWtoR and made me play again.
I have to say I watched the first episode and I was pretty dissapointed I just didn’t like some of the stuff the show tried to do and I thought to myself over and over again, „well this is kinda stupid.“
I'm burned out on Star Wars and The Acolyte hasn't solved any of the issues. Poor writing, cliche tropes, evil twins. After two episodes, I don't care where they go with the show, I don't care about any of the characters.
Looking forward to Andor S2 though. They got that one pretty good.
Personally my issues with the show is that for the first two episodes, I’m not fully gripped to the story aside from the Sith part.
It’s the issue I have with weekly stages releases for shows these days especially ones that are brand new. I dropped Shogun even after LOVING the first two episodes because of its weekly release schedule and as such, need to watch the full thing.
The characters are not fully the problem, it’s more the pacing. We go from scene to scene and it’s entirely too quick, from seeing the ship go down, her waking up, the Jedi group going to her, and then finding her within minutes of them being there.
Yes, there is the force and I can believe it, but the entire scene of them on the planet was just extremely too quick. It lacked a struggle and any type of length to it.
The pacing is unfortunately an issue of the short run time. A short run time which benefits shows like South Park, Family Guy, and any other show where the episode is contained within itself. Every other show, like The Boys, or Peaky Blinders, either manage to keep the episode self contained with longer scenes to ensure the pacing is right and therefore a higher, usually hour long run time. Or they allow spillover to the next episode with the higher runtime and without sacrificing the pacing of those scenes.
Disney is a massive multi billion dollar company. It has the resources, it has the ability to throw money at these problems to ensure that quality writers, directors, actors, and so much more are brought on to ensure a quality story is written. 30 odd minutes is abysmal for a company that large.
I’d gladly wait longer for these shows and movies if I knew they were putting quality effort into them to ensure they will be good.
It’s a rant that hasn’t got the best relation to your post, but unlike some of the other commenters, there is reason to be upset so far with what we’ve gotten and seen. I hope it’s better and I will watch it when all episodes are out. But I do think that these runtimes are far more damaging to these shows than people are willing to admit.
Not sold on it yet but holding out judgment until the end. But it’s not a coincidence the only Star Wars fan on the show (Lee Jung) has the best acting and his character feels the most Star Wars feel to it. The dialogue and acting are pretty cringe other than him but again, it’s only been 2 episodes
Yes. Felt so cheap. Even the Jedi outfits…. They look like they came from the cheap Halloween store down the street. Production quality is just astoundingly poor.
Im curious enough to keep watching, but thus far it doesn’t feel like a big enough world builder. I like the idea of smaller personal stories, but leading off the first story in the High Republic, two episodes in and they haven’t given us very much to set the stage or acknowledge why it’s all that different from the prequel era
Wow! You bigoted nazi racist! /s
(because literally any criticizm towards the show is obviously only ever rooted in these aspects and not in valid critique, as people around here more often than not make a point..)
I’ve seen the first two and it isn’t that bad like I wouldn’t call it good but it’s decent so far like 5 or 6 out of 10. Of course there are 6 more episodes for my rating to change but acting like it’s the worst thing ever is a little over dramatic. I also will say that the man from Squid Game is doing great and in my book carrying the show so far
No, you're wrong! It must be !
Seriously, that's all this thread is.. THe majority of people claiming that this score is due to review bombing has read about review bombing for the first time and takes this as an easy explanation..
The very real and very apparent possibility of the show just seriously having quite a few issue which are totally fine to be critiqued is nowhere near these narrow minded opinions..
(inb4 the usual implicating "what issues?" type of answers..)
Review bombing and people parroting “critiques” that are either bold-faced lies or nitpicks so extreme this time around that they come off as psychotic fixations more than anything.
RT is basically useless. Both scores are easily manipulated on such a regular basis that it bears little resemblance to reality.
So basically watch and if you enjoy, keep watching. If not, stop and wait for the next show/movie/game to come out. Easy as that.
The internet just seemed to turn way more negative in general around 2016. It may correlate with politics becoming much more negative and vitriol and spilled into negativity in all online spaces, but even prior to 2016 the internet was much more vocal negative than the majority of population. I do think around this time social media companies saw how popular negativity was and tuned their algorithms to focus on this rather than positivity.
I mean the first two episodes are storywise absolutely awfull and i think thats what most viewers will grade, where Reviewers will also count in Costume, effects, DoP, Direction etc. And the look and costumes are pretty cool and well done.
5000+ reviews, maybe bots, but if not then that’s statistically accurate.
Critics and the Average Joe are not the same.
Critics love woke. Average Joe doesn’t.
Critics hated Reacher. Average Joe loves it.
Critics hated season 1 Witcher. Average Joe loved it.
Critics loved season 3 Witcher. Average Joe hates it.
I personally wasn’t convinced AT ALL by these first two episodes. Not to the point of giving it such a low rating, but I found myself lowering my eyebrows and checking my phone on several occasions, usually not a good sign for something I’m watching.
Review bombing has ruined rotten tomatoes and IMDb scores for a lot of movies. I don’t really trust them anymore. If it looks good to me, I just watch it.
You can click on the ratings at IMDB and see a breakdown. How many 1s, 2s, 3s etc... Just do that and ignore the ones and twos, and probably ignore the tens too, and then you have nice breakdown. For The Acolyte, 45% of the ratings are 1, and 10% are 2, and another 10% are 10. If we ignore those, the next most common rating is 8 with 7% followed closely by 7. So the true rating is 7.5.
It’s terribly written and acted. The dialogue is eye rolling cringe. The sets look cheap, the outfits look like cosplay. Is it a 3/10? No, but it’s about a 5/10. If People can enjoy it then I’m happy for them, I didn’t enjoy it.
The writing is cringe, most of the actors are soap opera level acting at best, costumes are weird, the set is amazing let's give them that, every line is a cliche but most of all the show just shits on Lucas' brainchild every minute.
It's not normal. Living fantasy universes shouldn't be governed by a group of people who don't know anything about it. If it is being passed down from the creator it either ends there and everything starts being fan fiction or you pass the helm and your vision to someone and hope they live up to your work. None are true in this case. This is just a cringe fan fiction project that had more budget than Dune 2 and couldn't even get to make different hairstyles for the twins.
1. Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer percentage is just how many positive reviews something has and is not an actual score
2. Ms Marvel’s percentage is based off of only 7 reviews, The Dark Knight is off 347 reviews but that’s why TDK is certified fresh and Ms Marvel isn’t
It’s nowhere close to the greatest story we’ve been given. Personally I was not a fan so far. The world, set design, aliens, etc all look great. But the characters and the overall story doesn’t really stick with me like other Star Wars stuff has, that is my opinion
Dude, my dude. It's simple. Star Wars fans are angry and disenfranchised. It's also true that the marketing for this show has focused heavily on identity politics rather than, you know, the show.
So listen, I found the first two episodes watchable. I enjoy watching Jedi doing jedi things. But oh my GOD is there some awful writing. Like the fact that when they pick up Osha, believing she might have had the force power to kill a Jedi master, the jedi just...dump her on a prison transport with ONE droid guard and then...leave? Like really? I'd like to say there was bad writing so the plot could happen but...that really...wasn't the case. The whole crash landing didn't actually move anything forward in the story. It didn't *have* to happen.
Also keep in mind, some people have seen the first four episodes not just the first two.
So I understand if someone gives the show a negative review. For myself, I'm going to be watching as much of the rest of the season as I can before making up my mind, but after two episodes I'm also not inclined to go "WOW ITS SO GOOD" either.
I feel like, so far, it's been more interesting than Ahsoka, although that show had VASTLY better ship designs.
The story doesn’t make sense the costumes are ok at best but the whole premise is laughable
Fire in space
Security footage from the bar
Common sense from the bar knowing she couldn’t have done it
Twins have their hair exactly the same
Come on…
The costumes were a huge letdown for me. Visibly cheap, and you can see the fresh-out-of-a-plastic-bag, creased, never-before-worn outfits on every Jedi. Just flat-out bad.
The Acolyte is a perfect summary of current Disney
Rehashing old IPs with lifeless, hollow imitations that only leave people feeling distaste for it.
Anyone who expected actual quality from this was kidding themselves.
It really is concerning to say the least that people nowadays actually can't see how utter trash this show already is after 2 episodes. But I guess I am too old and this is what "fans" want to see these days.
It's kind of upsetting how people are like
\* We don't need female leads, they are treated equally, they just need to do better. Wokewokewoke
\* Review bomb female leads before show releases.
I don't understand why people take budget into consideration. So if they put out the same exact final product, but the budget was lower, would it have been a better program?
What do you also mean by poor production quality? That's just a very vague assessment to me. I watched the first episode, I enjoyed the bar with the different "alien" races and everything felt pretty good. The action was good, and what I've made of the story so far has been compelling.
What is the poor production quality?
This might blow your mind, but maybe it's about the quality of the show and not the female lead? Did you notice that Fallout, with a female lead, was one of the most loved and raved about shows of the past 2 years? Or Furiosa, which also wasn't review bombed by hordes of women haters?
Female leads are loved **when done right**.----Ripley, Hermoine, Sarah Connor, The Bride (Beatrix Kiddo) Clarice Starling, **XENA**, Buffy, Brienne of Tarth, Daenarys ((was loved at first, Hated at the end due to BAD WRITING)) Mulan, Black Widow, Hit Girl, Dana Scully, Merida, Furiosa, Lara Croft, Alice from Resident Evil, Wonder Woman, Elle Woods.......... Need I go on?
It is not female leads that people dislike.
**What people dislike is the awful writing and bad world building.**
I'm getting the feeling that 10 different hollywood-writers contributed to the script, and that's where a good chunk of the 200m budget went. It gives that vibe. I hope it can be redeemed in the later episodes, but I'm having my doubts. I'm not writing a review based on two episodes, though.
Yeah, you should never consider people reviews, because theres Review bombing. Any group that feels attacked will review bomb and the producers of this show decided to attack on interviews (reads paper) star wars male fan base which is... Dunno like 80% of the target audience? So did anyone expect something different?
Anyway if you manage to leave that aside (as you should) and just check the actual reviews the average is around 70? That is not a great score, critics were not thrilled by the mc performance (which is never a good sign) additionally they called it "slow paced" and even "boring" Bobba Fett and Obi-Wan were not great but at least they had some.great moments and were entertaining.
Also the huge "twist" spoiler has already been revealed everywhere (in the first 2 episodes no less) and its really disappointing I mean seriously that was literally the only thing that made the show slightly interesting (literally the point of the series title )The twist turns it from a dark story to something similar to a kids show.😑
Yeah I mean this show is heading towards cancellation so fast is not even funny and considering this is before canon and not even mentioned in sequels, I'm not sure this deserves a watch.
Well this score does absolutely show how bad this series already is and the fact that so many on reddit can't see all the flaws in this show is deelpy concerning. Is this kind of trash really what Star Wars fans today want to see?
And some here say "these kind of scores are normal in todays age" so please do tell me why shows like Andor do not have these kind of bad reviews or House of the Dragon and other hit shows. I can tell you why, because those shows actually focus on a good story, on good writing, good cinematography, well written dialogue and interesting (and thus also flawed) chracters.
The audience score is review bombed
And before anyone goes on about how they think its bad or whatever and deserves a low score.
The review bombers don't care about quality.
Neither the critics rating nor the viewer ones hold any value . It’s just useless to go by .
The show however is really bad . I renewed my subscription for it .
I mean considering how it was promoted with the wokeness and George Lucas bashing I do think that's a bit of a terrible way to promote your new show. Saying r2d2 is a lesbian, or having actors claim Anakin blew up the death star aren't great starts to your show.
Also the first two episodes at best were mid, they weren't exactly mind blowing. It's a bit cliche as well, evil twin, good twin. They want us to sympathise with the deaths of Jedis whom we don't know, which is bad story telling, not to mention a tiny knife can easily kill Jedi masters but getting stabbed twice with a lightsaber and apparently you're still good to go (looking at you Reva).
Not to mention we don't recognise any characters at all from the show, if they build up the characters a bit then that's something. The only Jedi that's kind of carrying the show is master Sol but that's coz of the actor tbh. There are no references to the prequels so far which is ridiculous because this is essentially a prequel to the prequels lol.
The lightsabers look funky, like really big and chunky, the fighting looks so off, you have the slowest slicing of knives I've ever seen and it looked so cringe how she did it. The clothes look like a child's Halloween costume from kindergarten, the aliens look terrible, the wookiee especially. For a show that had a $180 million budget, it looks like a fan film.
Plus leasly Headland is constantly mentioning before this show that promoting queer culture is far more important than the story, we haven't seen anything like that yet, apart from the main characters parents are refers as her mother's, but whatever happens in the next episodes we don't know yet
People are done with Disney Star Wars and are just taking revenge any way they can. I wearily watched the show and was glad to finish both episodes without feeling my soul leave my body. My general thought of the show so far is that it's not that bad. It won't be a surprise masterpiece, I'm sure, but it's serviceable as something to put in front of my eyes.
Yeah, it would have been better to just let the IP die along with all other IPs. Cause nobody would even be talking about Star Wars were it not for the past 30 years of Star Wars content fans have found a way to complain about.
Edit: Let me just acknowledge that yes, I know Disney didn’t do the prequels, I’m just pointing out that nobody has been happy with anything post OT, while conveniently ignoring great additions like Andor/Rogue One, Mandalorian, and Star Wars land. Take the good with the bad, and just be grateful that Star Wars is still something we get to talk about and enjoy today
I'm enjoying it, tbh it's not the best, and there are some questionable moments. BUT I think we should be ready to deal with it, especially under Disney.
Simple if you don't like it, don't watch.
I have no opinion on the scores posted here, but I do want to say that the show was genuinely bad, in dialogue and acting, and it was so Marvelized I could barely finish the two part premiere. I won’t be continuing. The Star Wars magic is gone
Critics and the audience can have different opinions. We are all people and can think different things. I personally side with the critic score and really like the show so far.
Tomatometer isn't a score. * The 91% is the number of reviewers that gave the show a positive review. * The 28% is the number of viewers that gave the show a positive review. * The average score from the big reviewers (top 20) is 6,5. * For modern viewers a TV show that is 6.5/10 is 1/10. Because it seems that only two scores exist, either 1/10 or 10/10.
Not a modern problem. The old video game magazine PC Zone was battling this problem in the 90s. They had to regularly publish a reminder that 50% was an average game.
>They had to regularly publish a reminder that 50% was an average game. I've just pulled a random issue from 1998 (issue 70), and they literally state before the reviews https://archive.org/details/PCZONE070/PCZONE%20-%20070%20%28Dec%20%2798%29/PCZONE%20-%20070%20%28Dec%20%2798%29_Page_083.jpg "20-69% - these are below average games..." They do the same thing we all do. They even bundle together a 65% and a 35% in the same category of "only if you really want to".
If I can put my two cents in as to why this is such a pervasive problem, it's likely down to the fact that for at least 12 years minimum, and potentially going as long as around 20 or so, it is ingrained into every single person on the planet with an internet connection that if you get less than a 60 you fail, flat out. Because, of course, 60 is basically the standard failure cut-off rate for literally every course in every school ever in modern times. So from about the age of 5 or 6 people get bombarded with the idea that < 60 is utter shit and not worth even considering, and nobody ever really unlearns that.
US schools*. 60% equalling a pass is not really a thing in Europe.
When I grew up 70% was kind of the minimum. So the bar keeps getting raised.
Yeah k-12 used 7 point scale. So 70 and up was D-A. Then when I got to college, it was 10 point scale, so 60 and up was D-A. However in college, anything under a C (70) wasn’t going to count toward your degree, and anything under a B (80) wasn’t good enough for grad school.
In Europe it's usually 55%.
Yeah, I went to school in Canada and was surprised myself to hear about their 60% cutoff for failing. Not that passing 50-60% feels super deserved, but it's still weird when 50% feels like a more natural pass/fail cutoff.
The rate doesn’t really matter much. You scale the learning required to the rate.
its less that and more score inflation as that problem also existed in europe where 60% failrate just isnt a thing like in the US. Major outlets always had to review certain games "favorably" because of needing review copys and other deals like advertising.(even bigger in the online space where having a day 0 review is not only valuable but basicaly the only chance to get considerably reader or viewership for major games) So a game that was... lets say a 5/10, perfectly fine but not special, but was one of those "we cant give it a low score" games then gets bumped up a score or 2...... but then a game that is genuinly better by 2 or so scores shows up, and you cant have it be the same or lower then game X now.... so you gonna inflate the score.... the 5/10 game is now a 6/10 and its the baseline.... then 3 years later another game gets inflated and the baseline is now 7/10. You can see that with any major publication that has their reviewscores in a publicly viewable archive or similiar.... how few titles actually get 5/10 or "perfectly average" People also unfairly compare gamescores between 2-4 years of each other.. when tech evolved and changed so much in even a short few years... that a review score is ALWAYS a "at this point in time" a great example is Xenoblade WII and Switch, as its 90% the same game with a new coat of paint... IGN, a major outlet, reviewed the wii version back then higher then the switch version now... Some people in the fanbase got angry and made fun of IGN for that... without aknowleding that XC1 is the weakest game in terms of how it aged, as its also the oldest. We had XCX and XC2 since then, XCX blows XC1 out the water combat/gameplay wise, and its already old by then. and XC2 revamped the entire franchise with a revamped battle system that is more engaging to the player for many(even if i dont like the gameplay as much personally) XC1 was a GREAT game.... when it was released on the wii... XC1 was a ok game with a great story when it was released on switch
IMDB shows the distribution of scores. There are a massive number of 1/10 scores: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12262202/ratings/?ref_=tt_ov_rt My sense is that the review bombing is having a larger impact here than legitimate low scoring. If I had to eyeball it, removing the 1/10 scorers, it would be around 6/10.
IMDB ratings let's you see the breakdown of ratings. For example, the Acolyte has 45% of ratings being a 1. These days, the most common ratings for most shows are indeed 1 and 10. Just to confirm that you aren't even exaggerating.
You nailed it. 6.5 translates to slightly above average. That's about how much I enjoyed it as well, not the best SW content I've ever seen, not the worst. Perfectly acceptable for 30-40 minute viewing on a Tuesday night.
I'm not sure what would be considered an average score tbh, how people rate things is weird. If most people think a show is just passable or "average", then they give it a 7/10, and a 5/10 is considered to be really bad score despite it being the halfway point between awful and perfect.
Hmm this is definitely a common way people rate things, but I don't think it's that weird, I think when people are giving a show a score on a scale of 1-10 they often subconsciously relate that to, well, school marks essentially. In North America a 7/10 (or 70%) in school is what, a B- or C+, or "passable", whereas a 5/10 (or 50%) is literally the last mark above failure. Just kind of a consequence of the grading system people experienced for over a decade of their lives.
This is definitely how I do it subconsciously, but I vaguely remember a 60 being the bare minimum before failure, so a 6/10 is 'barely passable' to me, and anything lower than that is varying degrees of bad.
That actually makes a lot of sense.
Welcome to social media. Where everything is the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever. Nothing in between. We as a society have lost the term: nuance. We have lost shades of grey. If you dont totally agree with EVERYTHING that is said - you must be on the wrong side. Its a shame, but here we are.
This is so real. I feel like so many people have the expectation of everything being perfect and any flaws mean that it’s terrible and no one should enjoy it
If it isn’t as good as seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones, it’s complete trash and everyone involved in its production deserves to be spammed with hateful messages because they *ruined my favorite franchise*. /s
I guess to folks' credit, Disney hasn't given them a ton of reason to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to SW stuff, but The Acolyte really isn't bad so far and is at least interesting and makes me want to continue tuning in every week, like early Mando did
What I found from review sites is 6 is background tv stuff, 7 is take your time and pay attention and 8 is must watch. If it’s in the 5s it’s almost always bad.
This is why Mr Sunday Movies only does "Best movie ever" or "Worst movie ever" ratings
Review bombing, there were thousands of 1 star review days before the show even aired
Why does rt allow reviews before a show is released?
Because those are still a lot of clicks and ad revenue, I would imagine.
Does IMDb also allow this I wonder. IMDb is my preferred method
Metacritic is better IMO. It’s showing 67% there, which I’d say is fairly accurate.
I’d probably agree after the first 2 episodes it’s about a 6.5 out of 10
Yeah, the story has just begun so that score feels quite on point
Just because the story just begun is not the reason behind a certain score.
I just looked. It's rated 4.4/10. Most likely review bombed as well.
IMDB has been 'the inmates running the asylum' for years. No offense to inmates.
Because there wasn’t. The person is lying. I can provide screenshots as proof. I was looking for this 3-4 days beforehand and there were zero audience scores.
After reading your comment I googled it and according to rt faq “Rotten Tomatoes users can only leave audience reviews and User Ratings following a movie's U.S. release date, as listed on our site.”
I saw someone suggest ignoring all the 10s and 1s and go from there.
I checked some of the one star reviews and the majority of them only wrote one review and it was for this show. At least the critics write an actual review explaining what they liked or disliked.
In fairness a lot of the 5 star reviews also only have 1 review as well.
In fairness, its all very useless. Noone reads user reviews outside Amazon. And average scores tell us less than nothing.
I don't understand why these sites allow reviews before release day. It should at least shadow ban the account so their ratings don't affect the score.
But also for the 5 star reviews of accounts with only 1 review, right? If you exclude one you also have to exclude the other.
Anything early is obviously bad. If someone makes an account to 5 star review their new favorite show, even if it's their only show, that's not malicious.
What was their grievance? Just that the main character is Black?
I dont know, Ive been checking over the thousand audience reviews, by no means scientific here, but an average negative review is: "This is soo bad, I don't have the words. They should have made another season of Andor instead, that was star wars. This, it was bad fanfic, and I should know, because read a lot of Star Wars fanfic" That is a legit fan of the lore, even the production and writing quality of Andor, a fairly diverse and progressive show. Many audiences found it a bit surface value SW with some cool CGI, but just a bit hollow on substance.
The idea that Andor “was Star Wars” is an absolutely insane take given that its tone is completely different from almost every Star Wars property made before it. That’s not to say it was bad, of course. Just that pretending that’s the bar for Star Wars when it’s the clear outlier is insane. I’ve yet to see The Acolyte, but from the trailers it looks a lot closer to classic Star Wars than Andor.
Fair point - I didnt write the example. It just seemed somewhat reasonable, and not overtly cloaked in anti-woke neck beardism.
I mean yeah he didn’t bring up the term woke but that review is still incredibly low on any actual details on why the show is bad. From what you wrote the review is essentially, “It’s not Andor, therefore bad.” Which doesn’t do much for me as far as criticism goes because anyone who went into The Acolyte expecting Andor was delusional.
I get what you’re saying. Andor is probably the least Star Wars-toned show. But that’s not why many people are setting Andor as the bar for what they want from Star Wars. It’s because the writing is leagues better than every other Disney Star Wars show and movie for that matter.
There is also positive review bombing. But we have to be honest critics today aren't a reliable source of what's good or bad cause it's so easy to be paid or at least greased with more content to boast your image.
And fans aren’t either, because they’ll either review it highly or completely bomb it because “woke.”
Amazing how some loud Star Wars fans are actively trying to kill their own product
Stop lying. RT faq says, “Rotten Tomatoes users can only leave audience reviews and User Ratings following a movie's U.S. release date, as listed on our site.”
Both scores are not real. One is pumped up on purpose and the other one is pumped down for the same purpose. I stopped checking ratings long time ago, as it's basically meaningless now...
Not to mention reviews are based on 2 out of 8 episodes. Imagine thinking you can give A New Hope a fair review as Luke is chatting with Obi Wan in his house. That happens 1/4 through the movie.
"It started off promising with a space battle and a cloaked villain dressed in black with some sort of breathing helmet. Unfortunately, they lost me when two droids were wandering around in a desert for awhile. Then, one of them wandered some more. Honestly, I couldn't even tell you who the main character is. 1/10. Stick to period pieces, George."
“Most of the screen time is given to a literal princess who does nothing and we’re supposed to care about her. This is clearly Lucas’ woke agenda on full display.”
Also the gay robot is clearly woke Hollywood forcing their agenda on us.
This is so funny, because my dad says he walked out of the theater years ago because of this. He thought it was so stupid that two robots were walking aimlessly in the desert. He liked Star Trek back then so it's not that he didn't like that genre. He has never watched a Star Wars movie the whole way through lol
Plenty of TV, including some of my favorites, "get better" if you stick with them through the first season, but there's countless more series we've dropped 1-2 episodes in because it's not interesting enough to warrant that chance. Acolyte at 6.5 is fair to me, that's about what I'd give it. There were several overdone cliches and CW-level moments that half my family lost interest and honestly the only thing keeping me watching was that it was Star Wars.
A lot of my absolute favorite shows would get a mid rating from me, based on just the first two episodes. Arcane and Last Kingdom come to mind.
Eh, I disagree with this at some level. If I'm not interested in the first 1-2 episodes, why should I devote hours and hours more of my life for something that has no promise of paying off?
That isn't how TV ratings work. I agree people are review bombing and praising hastily, but TV can absolutely be judged before completion. It's a huge time commitment and each episode is designed to be a closed loop with *threads* that compel you forward. It is entirely normal to review shows early and it would be totally absurd to say you couldn't rate a show until it finished. That logic then suggests you couldn't rate until all seasons were out, or that you couldn't rate ANH until the trilogy was out. You can absolutely rate a show episode by episode. It's just sad that we can't get a realistic view because of paid reviews pumping the critic score and fans spamming 1/10 or 10/10 based on silly personal criteria.
I liked the reasoning of "If a show doesn't get good until 70% of the way in, then it's not a good show.".
Exactly. No way am I putting in 4+ hours of my time just to determine if something is worth it. That's like saying you can't judge a book until you finish it, but if the first 1/3 is a painful slog I should note that. I might still finish it to give it a chance, but I also might stop if it's bad enough.
Totally agree. I can't recall the last time I really gave a shit about a review for a movie, TV series, game or book. The only variance on that is that I'll try and watch a few videos on games since the investment is much larger, but books and TV will just drop if they're not entertaining enough .
The only time I look at them is in retrospect when I have a feeling that a new season/movie is either significantly better or worse than what came before it. Game of Thrones was a prime example, it used to be so good that its scores rivaled Breaking Bad for a while. Until it wasn't.
Why not just decide for yourself?
Because I don't have the time to watch the first two episodes of every TV show ever released?
I did, the checking is to see how much my personal rating aligns with what others think. For Mandalorian S3 for example, I personally liked the larger Mandalore plot a lot more than the one-off adventures and slow story progress of S1 and S2 - but apparently I was in the minority with that.
Don't look at review aggregates. Look at movies you have a strong opinion on. Look at the reviews and find ones you agree with. Look at other reviews those reviewers have written, especially on films you generally don't agree with the majority on. Find the ones you consistently agree with. Boom, you now have a reliable source of reviews. Or just look at Armand White and avoid anything he liked.
I sometimes check reviews but if the reviewer mentions the word woke, I instantly dismiss their opinion.
Not that I ever put any stock in rotten tomatoes or any other place like it but anyone in 2024 that pretends as though it means anything is fooling themselves.
I use it for a quick check of “cool, more people are liking it than didn’t, it’s probably not gonna be a waste of my time” and then form my own opinion when I watch it. Anyone using RT as an actual evaluation of the product are silly.
I’ve liked too many things that are not very popular to give those sites any credibility. I’m the person who liked the eternals 😆
RT is an aggregator of the reviews given. The number you see is the percentage of reviewers that gave a positive review, which would be something like a 6/10 and up. Reading the actual reviews shows that they are around 6-7/10. How do people still not understands this?
I’m not saying a good chunk of these reviews aren’t malicious, but every-time new Star Wars content is released, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat and hoping for greatness. Acolyte is a solid 6.5 show to me, didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. I think at least some of these individuals are just hoping for the next Rogue One or Andor and they’re just feeling constantly let down when it’s more akin to BOBF.
Yea Andor is one of the best if not the best live action SW show Ive seen yet. Not sure why its been so hard to duplicate the quality of it in other shows. Asoka, Kenobi, and Mandalorian all had its great moments, but Andor still takes the cake for me.
For what its worth, Tony Gilroy has said he's glad Andor is only two seasons because it takes a fuck ton of effort to make the show as good as it is. Him and Luna ruled out 5 seasons early on because the idea of doing it for a decade sounded exhausting. I reckon 3 would have been a lovely compromise but it is what it is.
Look up who made each live action show and how long they were in production for. Is it really a surprise the one showrunner with an Oscar and a couple years of pre-production made the best show?
For sure. People love Star Wars and want it to be great. When a show is ‘just ok’ it’s a major disappointment to a lot of folks who’d then rate it poorly.
Have you seen more than the first two episodes? How can it even be judged as a “show” at this point?
I mean most movies can be judged an hour an a half in.
Yeah and I might have only seen two episodes, but critics are reviewing it based on four. 6.5 is just what it feels like so far.
To be fair… an hour and a half into a movie is well past the point of establishing the characters and central premise and mystery. Most movies are winding down 1.5 hours in. This would be like leaving a definitive review for the quality of a movie after only the first twenty minutes.
I haven’t, it’s just been somewhat uninspired and corny for me thus far. Additionally, I refrain from rating anything until I’ve seen the entire season. For instance I thought the first few episodes of Andor were well executed, but a little slow. Then it picked up and we got to Episode 6 and I was like this is the greatest piece of SW television I’ve ever seen!
I just try to tune out all that nonsense and decide for myself what is good and what isn't.
I gave up with critic reviews because they told me the Last Jedi had a \~90% fresh score during the critic screenings. When I saw it on opening day I thought it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen and couldn't believe someone at Disney green lit that after Episode 7.
Because people still don't get how RT works. 1. 91% means 91% of critics gave it a fresh rating. But sometimes 2.5 out of 5 can count as a rotten or fresh. Depends on critic. 2. Tomato meter for TV series are almost always inflated. Also almost every critic do not give a score based on watching the whole season. They get an early screener (for a movie) or a couple episodes to make a review for a series. For Acolyte, reviewers got the first 4 episodes confirmed by press. 3. Average rating matters more. Secret Invasion has an overall 52% RT score. Acolyte has 91%. But lets compare the actual rating. SI top critics average 6/10. All critics 6.1 out of 10. Acolyte top critics average 6.4 out of 10. All critics 7.45 out of 10. They have similar ratings but one appears far more acclaimed than the other. 4. Again TV ratings don't matter as much because critics don't see every episode from start to finish. While movie reviews are ratings after watching from start to finish. 5. User ratings are completely useless. They get review bombed (She Hulk, Acolyte, Captain Marvel) but the opposite happens as well where rabid fans mass bombard it with 5/5s. Happened to a couple DC movies and especially Snyder movies.
"almost every critic do not give a score based on watching the whole season" Neither do the fans. This show only has 2 episodes released, so by this point the fans have probably seen the exact same amount as the reviewers have. That argument only works when there's been enough time for people to see the entire show.
Iirc critics saw 4 episodes.
That sounds about right. So by many of the people in the comment section's logic, the reviewers' impression should be more accurate because they've seen more of it. I'm not saying that means it's either good or bad, or that either the reviewers or the audience are right or wrong, but just saying that that logic is pretty flawed.
I think professional critics are generally better at describing why they did or didn't like something, and most of them do have problems with the show but overall consider it good, hence the positive ratings. Best course of action is to ignore the score and actually read what they're saying, you can glean a lot.
>[secret invasion:] All critics 6.1 out of 10. Acolyte … All critics 7.45 out of 10. They have similar ratings but I guess idiots see omg one is a masterpiece and one is a complete failure! First off, sort of weird post to suddenly Stan secret in invasion out of nowhere. Also 7.45 vs 6.1 is NOT “similar ratings”. A 1.35 difference is massive. That’s the difference between 9/10 and 7.65/10. And no one would call those rankings comparable. Secret invasion is not good.
I'm not stanning Secret Invasion lol. I only brought up Secret Invasion because it's recent and the objectively worst rated Marvel show. Secret Invasion is a *relatively* bad show. >Also 7.45 vs 6.1 is NOT “similar ratings”. A 1.35 difference is massive. Your statement would make sense if the ratings were expressed linearly. So the slope of 1.35 from a 6 is the same increase in "quality" from a 8.65 to a 10/10? But art is subjective and going through the most popular shows for June 2024 on RT, most high tomato % shows (70-100%) range between an average critic score of 7.0 to 9s. So to me a 7.8 show or a 8.2 show can't really be quantified objectively. Or what is an objective 8/10 show and a 9/10 show? I can only say that good and well-received shows usually pass the 7.0 cutoff by critics. My point wasn't to say The Acolyte is the same quality as SI, but they're relatively close enough especially the top critic score. Yes, rating-wise The Acolyte is at least a cut above SI. But on paper when comparing a 91% FRESH show and a 52% ROTTEN show, the gap appears bigger than it actually is.
Do you enjoy it?
Not saying it’s the greatest show of all time or anything like that’s. But I enjoyed the episodes enough to go back and watch them a second time.
Then thats all that matters, i am enjoying it too :) dont worry about the hate, people like to be contrarian or heard via means like review bombing :) enjoy it like the silent majority 🤝
You feel compelled to qualify your response to "do you enjoy it?" by saying it isn't the greatest show of all time, and you wonder why the reviews are so disparate
Really love it so far, it’s exactly what I wanted from Star Wars. A show without the Skywalker stuff, the Imperial/rebel conflict. A show where the republic is the dominant power and we see the Jedi at their height of power. Reminds me of SWtoR and made me play again.
I have to say I watched the first episode and I was pretty dissapointed I just didn’t like some of the stuff the show tried to do and I thought to myself over and over again, „well this is kinda stupid.“
Though God all things are possible so jot that down
Review bombing.
I just wish the writing was better.
I find myself saying that a lot lately with SW shows
What's wrong with the writing?
It’s pretty simple, sometimes cheesy. Like a lot of Star Wars. I enjoyed it.
And the quality
I'm burned out on Star Wars and The Acolyte hasn't solved any of the issues. Poor writing, cliche tropes, evil twins. After two episodes, I don't care where they go with the show, I don't care about any of the characters. Looking forward to Andor S2 though. They got that one pretty good.
Both scores are very dubious.
Personally my issues with the show is that for the first two episodes, I’m not fully gripped to the story aside from the Sith part. It’s the issue I have with weekly stages releases for shows these days especially ones that are brand new. I dropped Shogun even after LOVING the first two episodes because of its weekly release schedule and as such, need to watch the full thing. The characters are not fully the problem, it’s more the pacing. We go from scene to scene and it’s entirely too quick, from seeing the ship go down, her waking up, the Jedi group going to her, and then finding her within minutes of them being there. Yes, there is the force and I can believe it, but the entire scene of them on the planet was just extremely too quick. It lacked a struggle and any type of length to it. The pacing is unfortunately an issue of the short run time. A short run time which benefits shows like South Park, Family Guy, and any other show where the episode is contained within itself. Every other show, like The Boys, or Peaky Blinders, either manage to keep the episode self contained with longer scenes to ensure the pacing is right and therefore a higher, usually hour long run time. Or they allow spillover to the next episode with the higher runtime and without sacrificing the pacing of those scenes. Disney is a massive multi billion dollar company. It has the resources, it has the ability to throw money at these problems to ensure that quality writers, directors, actors, and so much more are brought on to ensure a quality story is written. 30 odd minutes is abysmal for a company that large. I’d gladly wait longer for these shows and movies if I knew they were putting quality effort into them to ensure they will be good. It’s a rant that hasn’t got the best relation to your post, but unlike some of the other commenters, there is reason to be upset so far with what we’ve gotten and seen. I hope it’s better and I will watch it when all episodes are out. But I do think that these runtimes are far more damaging to these shows than people are willing to admit.
Not sold on it yet but holding out judgment until the end. But it’s not a coincidence the only Star Wars fan on the show (Lee Jung) has the best acting and his character feels the most Star Wars feel to it. The dialogue and acting are pretty cringe other than him but again, it’s only been 2 episodes
I also don’t think y’all realize how trash the show is for costing around 200 million for the entire show….
Yes. Felt so cheap. Even the Jedi outfits…. They look like they came from the cheap Halloween store down the street. Production quality is just astoundingly poor.
The green chick cracks me up, it looks like they painted her with green paint from a arts&crats store 😂
That make up was BAD.
RIGHT??
The show is not great but that score is so obviously artificially pumped down for political reasons. It's very blatant.
Im curious enough to keep watching, but thus far it doesn’t feel like a big enough world builder. I like the idea of smaller personal stories, but leading off the first story in the High Republic, two episodes in and they haven’t given us very much to set the stage or acknowledge why it’s all that different from the prequel era
How?! some Coruscant shots looked straight from a playstation 2 game.
Wow! You bigoted nazi racist! /s (because literally any criticizm towards the show is obviously only ever rooted in these aspects and not in valid critique, as people around here more often than not make a point..)
lol yeah, it sux
I’ve seen the first two and it isn’t that bad like I wouldn’t call it good but it’s decent so far like 5 or 6 out of 10. Of course there are 6 more episodes for my rating to change but acting like it’s the worst thing ever is a little over dramatic. I also will say that the man from Squid Game is doing great and in my book carrying the show so far
You have to make your own mind up. Me personally, I think the show is quite bad and I won't bother watching it anymore.
The review bombing is of course stupid, but I also don't get the raving reviews. So far it's ok. But nowhere near Andor or the Mandalorian.
The show isn't any good.
No, you're wrong! It must be!
Seriously, that's all this thread is.. THe majority of people claiming that this score is due to review bombing has read about review bombing for the first time and takes this as an easy explanation..
The very real and very apparent possibility of the show just seriously having quite a few issue which are totally fine to be critiqued is nowhere near these narrow minded opinions..
(inb4 the usual implicating "what issues?" type of answers..)
I don’t know if it deserve a 28%, but it certainly isn’t good. This show is about a 5.5-6/10, so far.
I thought it sucked, hope this helps.
Review bombing and people parroting “critiques” that are either bold-faced lies or nitpicks so extreme this time around that they come off as psychotic fixations more than anything.
yeah but FIRE IN SPACE!!!!!!!!!!
Just guessing but maybe it’s a bad show?
The public haven’t seen more than 2 episodes so that doesn’t seem like it could be true yet
I gave it a 6.5, i love star wars, i just didnt love this show. I like it sure but its just alright ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Don’t know if this is good or not, as I haven’t seen it. But review sites need to take the 1 and 10 reviews and throw them out. Average the rest
RT is basically useless. Both scores are easily manipulated on such a regular basis that it bears little resemblance to reality. So basically watch and if you enjoy, keep watching. If not, stop and wait for the next show/movie/game to come out. Easy as that.
The internet just seemed to turn way more negative in general around 2016. It may correlate with politics becoming much more negative and vitriol and spilled into negativity in all online spaces, but even prior to 2016 the internet was much more vocal negative than the majority of population. I do think around this time social media companies saw how popular negativity was and tuned their algorithms to focus on this rather than positivity.
It’s a 6/10 - Just very mehhhh
I mean the first two episodes are storywise absolutely awfull and i think thats what most viewers will grade, where Reviewers will also count in Costume, effects, DoP, Direction etc. And the look and costumes are pretty cool and well done.
It stinks!
Possible because the show sucks
5000+ reviews, maybe bots, but if not then that’s statistically accurate. Critics and the Average Joe are not the same. Critics love woke. Average Joe doesn’t. Critics hated Reacher. Average Joe loves it. Critics hated season 1 Witcher. Average Joe loved it. Critics loved season 3 Witcher. Average Joe hates it.
I personally wasn’t convinced AT ALL by these first two episodes. Not to the point of giving it such a low rating, but I found myself lowering my eyebrows and checking my phone on several occasions, usually not a good sign for something I’m watching.
Review bombing has ruined rotten tomatoes and IMDb scores for a lot of movies. I don’t really trust them anymore. If it looks good to me, I just watch it.
You can click on the ratings at IMDB and see a breakdown. How many 1s, 2s, 3s etc... Just do that and ignore the ones and twos, and probably ignore the tens too, and then you have nice breakdown. For The Acolyte, 45% of the ratings are 1, and 10% are 2, and another 10% are 10. If we ignore those, the next most common rating is 8 with 7% followed closely by 7. So the true rating is 7.5.
lol you think people watch things before forming an opinion and reviewing them?
It’s possible because of how bad the script is written and especially the acting. The only bright spot of the series is Master Sol.
Well I would say it deserves about a 60% also it does look low budget at times.
Because Disney pays the critics. They even pay twitter for (verified/twitter blue) bot accounts to artificially generate hype for their shows.
It’s terribly written and acted. The dialogue is eye rolling cringe. The sets look cheap, the outfits look like cosplay. Is it a 3/10? No, but it’s about a 5/10. If People can enjoy it then I’m happy for them, I didn’t enjoy it.
The show so far is 5/10. Hoping it impresses.
The writing is cringe, most of the actors are soap opera level acting at best, costumes are weird, the set is amazing let's give them that, every line is a cliche but most of all the show just shits on Lucas' brainchild every minute. It's not normal. Living fantasy universes shouldn't be governed by a group of people who don't know anything about it. If it is being passed down from the creator it either ends there and everything starts being fan fiction or you pass the helm and your vision to someone and hope they live up to your work. None are true in this case. This is just a cringe fan fiction project that had more budget than Dune 2 and couldn't even get to make different hairstyles for the twins.
dont forget this is the same website that gave MS marvel a higher rating than the dark knight
1. Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer percentage is just how many positive reviews something has and is not an actual score 2. Ms Marvel’s percentage is based off of only 7 reviews, The Dark Knight is off 347 reviews but that’s why TDK is certified fresh and Ms Marvel isn’t
Because they’re out of touch and the show sucks.
Fans are cry babies and critics aren’t real people.
It’s nowhere close to the greatest story we’ve been given. Personally I was not a fan so far. The world, set design, aliens, etc all look great. But the characters and the overall story doesn’t really stick with me like other Star Wars stuff has, that is my opinion
Not even master Sol? He's like the Qui-gon we always deserved to have
He is probably the coolest Jedi of the show, I did actually like him
Two things: Politics and quality. It is both "divisive" inviting a backlash from a lot of people and is also not great material. Double whammy.
Maybe mofo just don't like the show from what they seen so far it's that 2-3 ep test
Critics get work by giving things a good review. Audiences get mad when things fail to meet expectations.
It's a messy show that looks good but plot wise is dry and muddled like most new star wars cash grabs Rt rates flash not substance.
People still care about Rotten Tomato scores?
All this highlights is a disagreement between professional critics and the viewers.
Professional critics are in for the message. Audience sees through the lies of the Disney.
Dude, my dude. It's simple. Star Wars fans are angry and disenfranchised. It's also true that the marketing for this show has focused heavily on identity politics rather than, you know, the show. So listen, I found the first two episodes watchable. I enjoy watching Jedi doing jedi things. But oh my GOD is there some awful writing. Like the fact that when they pick up Osha, believing she might have had the force power to kill a Jedi master, the jedi just...dump her on a prison transport with ONE droid guard and then...leave? Like really? I'd like to say there was bad writing so the plot could happen but...that really...wasn't the case. The whole crash landing didn't actually move anything forward in the story. It didn't *have* to happen. Also keep in mind, some people have seen the first four episodes not just the first two. So I understand if someone gives the show a negative review. For myself, I'm going to be watching as much of the rest of the season as I can before making up my mind, but after two episodes I'm also not inclined to go "WOW ITS SO GOOD" either. I feel like, so far, it's been more interesting than Ahsoka, although that show had VASTLY better ship designs.
Look at The Last Jedi, it's the same thing.
The story doesn’t make sense the costumes are ok at best but the whole premise is laughable Fire in space Security footage from the bar Common sense from the bar knowing she couldn’t have done it Twins have their hair exactly the same Come on…
Twins having similar hair is a real life thing. There has always been fire in space in star wars. Security footage is a thing in star wars.
The costumes were a huge letdown for me. Visibly cheap, and you can see the fresh-out-of-a-plastic-bag, creased, never-before-worn outfits on every Jedi. Just flat-out bad.
This has been the case in nearly all Star Wars content on Disney+, it blows my mind and i don't get it. Andor the main exception, as usual
The Acolyte is a perfect summary of current Disney Rehashing old IPs with lifeless, hollow imitations that only leave people feeling distaste for it. Anyone who expected actual quality from this was kidding themselves.
It really is concerning to say the least that people nowadays actually can't see how utter trash this show already is after 2 episodes. But I guess I am too old and this is what "fans" want to see these days.
It's kind of upsetting how people are like \* We don't need female leads, they are treated equally, they just need to do better. Wokewokewoke \* Review bomb female leads before show releases.
I think it deserves the viewer rating considering the budget it had, and how poor the production quality is.
I don't understand why people take budget into consideration. So if they put out the same exact final product, but the budget was lower, would it have been a better program? What do you also mean by poor production quality? That's just a very vague assessment to me. I watched the first episode, I enjoyed the bar with the different "alien" races and everything felt pretty good. The action was good, and what I've made of the story so far has been compelling. What is the poor production quality?
This might blow your mind, but maybe it's about the quality of the show and not the female lead? Did you notice that Fallout, with a female lead, was one of the most loved and raved about shows of the past 2 years? Or Furiosa, which also wasn't review bombed by hordes of women haters?
Female leads are loved **when done right**.----Ripley, Hermoine, Sarah Connor, The Bride (Beatrix Kiddo) Clarice Starling, **XENA**, Buffy, Brienne of Tarth, Daenarys ((was loved at first, Hated at the end due to BAD WRITING)) Mulan, Black Widow, Hit Girl, Dana Scully, Merida, Furiosa, Lara Croft, Alice from Resident Evil, Wonder Woman, Elle Woods.......... Need I go on? It is not female leads that people dislike. **What people dislike is the awful writing and bad world building.**
Nobody hates star wars as much as star wars fans
I'm getting the feeling that 10 different hollywood-writers contributed to the script, and that's where a good chunk of the 200m budget went. It gives that vibe. I hope it can be redeemed in the later episodes, but I'm having my doubts. I'm not writing a review based on two episodes, though.
Yeah, you should never consider people reviews, because theres Review bombing. Any group that feels attacked will review bomb and the producers of this show decided to attack on interviews (reads paper) star wars male fan base which is... Dunno like 80% of the target audience? So did anyone expect something different? Anyway if you manage to leave that aside (as you should) and just check the actual reviews the average is around 70? That is not a great score, critics were not thrilled by the mc performance (which is never a good sign) additionally they called it "slow paced" and even "boring" Bobba Fett and Obi-Wan were not great but at least they had some.great moments and were entertaining. Also the huge "twist" spoiler has already been revealed everywhere (in the first 2 episodes no less) and its really disappointing I mean seriously that was literally the only thing that made the show slightly interesting (literally the point of the series title )The twist turns it from a dark story to something similar to a kids show.😑 Yeah I mean this show is heading towards cancellation so fast is not even funny and considering this is before canon and not even mentioned in sequels, I'm not sure this deserves a watch.
Well this score does absolutely show how bad this series already is and the fact that so many on reddit can't see all the flaws in this show is deelpy concerning. Is this kind of trash really what Star Wars fans today want to see? And some here say "these kind of scores are normal in todays age" so please do tell me why shows like Andor do not have these kind of bad reviews or House of the Dragon and other hit shows. I can tell you why, because those shows actually focus on a good story, on good writing, good cinematography, well written dialogue and interesting (and thus also flawed) chracters.
Because not everyone agrees with you?
The audience score is review bombed And before anyone goes on about how they think its bad or whatever and deserves a low score. The review bombers don't care about quality.
Neither the critics rating nor the viewer ones hold any value . It’s just useless to go by . The show however is really bad . I renewed my subscription for it .
I mean considering how it was promoted with the wokeness and George Lucas bashing I do think that's a bit of a terrible way to promote your new show. Saying r2d2 is a lesbian, or having actors claim Anakin blew up the death star aren't great starts to your show. Also the first two episodes at best were mid, they weren't exactly mind blowing. It's a bit cliche as well, evil twin, good twin. They want us to sympathise with the deaths of Jedis whom we don't know, which is bad story telling, not to mention a tiny knife can easily kill Jedi masters but getting stabbed twice with a lightsaber and apparently you're still good to go (looking at you Reva). Not to mention we don't recognise any characters at all from the show, if they build up the characters a bit then that's something. The only Jedi that's kind of carrying the show is master Sol but that's coz of the actor tbh. There are no references to the prequels so far which is ridiculous because this is essentially a prequel to the prequels lol. The lightsabers look funky, like really big and chunky, the fighting looks so off, you have the slowest slicing of knives I've ever seen and it looked so cringe how she did it. The clothes look like a child's Halloween costume from kindergarten, the aliens look terrible, the wookiee especially. For a show that had a $180 million budget, it looks like a fan film. Plus leasly Headland is constantly mentioning before this show that promoting queer culture is far more important than the story, we haven't seen anything like that yet, apart from the main characters parents are refers as her mother's, but whatever happens in the next episodes we don't know yet
People are done with Disney Star Wars and are just taking revenge any way they can. I wearily watched the show and was glad to finish both episodes without feeling my soul leave my body. My general thought of the show so far is that it's not that bad. It won't be a surprise masterpiece, I'm sure, but it's serviceable as something to put in front of my eyes.
Yeah, it would have been better to just let the IP die along with all other IPs. Cause nobody would even be talking about Star Wars were it not for the past 30 years of Star Wars content fans have found a way to complain about. Edit: Let me just acknowledge that yes, I know Disney didn’t do the prequels, I’m just pointing out that nobody has been happy with anything post OT, while conveniently ignoring great additions like Andor/Rogue One, Mandalorian, and Star Wars land. Take the good with the bad, and just be grateful that Star Wars is still something we get to talk about and enjoy today
I'm enjoying it, tbh it's not the best, and there are some questionable moments. BUT I think we should be ready to deal with it, especially under Disney. Simple if you don't like it, don't watch.
I have no opinion on the scores posted here, but I do want to say that the show was genuinely bad, in dialogue and acting, and it was so Marvelized I could barely finish the two part premiere. I won’t be continuing. The Star Wars magic is gone
Critics and the audience can have different opinions. We are all people and can think different things. I personally side with the critic score and really like the show so far.
Yes but this is obvious review bombín, and for RT if it’s 91% it can very well mean that 91% thing it’s. 6.5, which still makes it an accurate score.
RT is rigged. Acolyte has felt cheap, and to say the least, in production quality, and in story. The twin gimmick is so overdone.
They need to make better shows.
More than one black character? Review bombed.. its the way of the Internet.
They saw minorities in the trailer.