Jesse Hassenger

Explaining very basic concepts about how box office numbers are interpreted is not moving goalposts or trolling.

Good news is, I’ve been a regular at Polygon for a couple of years now, which means, presumably, you’ve had no trouble avoiding me before and may be able to continue doing so in the future!

What about my responses fits the definition of trolling, apart from you disliking it?

You could not have less idea of how any aspect of digital publishing works (for better or worse). But, good attempt I guess?

100% agree.

Are you confusing a majority viewpoint with a grade on a test? That’s not how tests or movies work. Or, wait, "for a movie of this scale"? What does that mean? Bigger movies need to get a stronger majority of positive reviews for them to count?!

Absolute nonsense.

I treat "consensus" as a worse indicator because it has absolutely nothing quantifiable about it whatsoever!

All of the other indicators — box office, Rotten Tomatoes scores, number of DVDs sold, whatever — are deeply imperfect, to be sure. But there’s nothing remotely quantifiable about what you’re arguing. (I’m not even sure what you’re arguing. That technically, all movies get mixed reviews? Therefore the backlash to this one was in fact instantaneous?)

I’m using the tools available that aren’t just "well, everyone I know thinks it’s bad!"

You’re right; your way, where there is absolutely no difference between a
big hit movie and a flop, and both happen in an absolute vacuum, makes way more sense.

How many bad reviews, compared to good?

Fewer. Fewer bad reviews compared to good.

Friend, surely, surely, you have heard of the phenomenon where a movie opens very well, and then falls off really hard, attributed to poor word-of-mouth? While there can be lots of reasons for those hard drops (an unusually large percentage of interested viewers rushing out to see something as soon as possible; competition from other movies; etc.), it’s not at all uncommon to attribute a larger-than-average drop to middling-or-worse word of mouth. There have been plenty of movies that opened to as much as AOTC, and made far less money. This applies to movies I don’t like, too! I think it would be absolutely naive to argue that nobody likes the Transformers movies, even though I don’t. If people hated them, they would drop like a stone on subsequent weekends, and they generally don’t.

That’s not really what bland means.

I mean, I would argue that Rise of Skywalker was probably not as reviled by general audiences as it was by fans or some critics. It’s rare that you get a movie making $500 million in the U.S. and everyone hates it (even setting aside the extremely nebulous rhetorical concept of "everyone").

My point in bringing up Harry Potter is that box office totals are not assured. You can argue that AOTC opened to a huge amount on general Star Wars hype, and then collapsed because of poor word-of-mouth… but $300 million off an $80 million opening doesn’t really indicate that, though it was more frontloaded than Phantom Menace. You wanna talk bad faith? "This movie had an opening weekend multiplier of 3.75, but that doesn’t mean anyone liked it" is extremely bad faith!

"Back on my beat," as Carley Rae Jepsen says.

[Regina George voice]
So you agree…Attack of the Clones is popular.

(Also, how can something be bland and bitter?)

Like I said, mixed reviews! And $300 million domestic 20 years ago, which is roughly translated to $475 million domestic today. Certainly not universally beloved, but also not a universally reviled disaster. Hell, that second Harry Potter movie (probably the worst of the bunch, but hardly a reviled disaster) opened to more and made less!

Again, that shouldn’t make you like a movie you don’t like. You’re absolutely right that box office, reviews, etc., doesn’t change how you feel about this movie any more than it changes how I feel about it! I just mean that over time, things tend to get flattened out into a consensus that didn’t necessarily exist.

Internet commenters: Can’t live with ourselves, can’t live without ourselves.

I sort of agree with you EVEN THOUGH I deeply love Tatooine and there are prequel characters from Tatooine I would absolutely love to see again in the Boba Fett or Obi Wan shows. I think people keep coming back to it because it’s such an eclectic mix of characters, and the relative lawlessness of it makes it pretty fertile ground for telling stories that aren’t just about conflicts with the imperials or Jedi. That said, while I generally like the sequel trilogy, I found the planet designs/concepts really disappointing in most of them. Ach To is great, Canto Bight is pretty good, and actually TROS has some cool ones (Exegol, for all of its narrative dodginess as a concept, at least looks nothing like other SW planets), but the desert/snow/forest stuff is so tedious. But I would absolutely love it if the shows gave us some newer, more interesting planets. (And I say this as I look forward to the Obi Wan show, which kinda has to take place at least partially on Tatooine.)

"She hardly even recognized me, Jar-Jar" is honestly kind of poetic, seeing chronic oversharer Anakin attempting to confide in his barely-comprehending old buddy. Love it.

Thanks for reading, chum!

And just because Red Letter Media made a video doesn’t mean these movies got bad reviews in the actual years of 1999, 2002, and 2005. AOTC and ROTS both have positive Rotten Tomatoes ratings (and that’s with, presumably, a fair number of after-the-fact reviews added since release).
That doesn’t prove how good they are, of course, but it does give lie to the "kids liked them and no one else ever did" idea. 80% of film critics gave Revenge of the Sith a thumbs-up. 65% did the same for Attack of the Clones! Mixed reviews, sure, but tons of contemporaneous positive notices.

I’m 41 and I think it’s reasonably likely that I’ve seen a lot more movies than you have. And yet! I think the prequels are actual quality films that are worth watching. Such is the mystery of life!