That Is, If You Believe The Reviews
More specifically, if you believe the aggregate score that Rotten Tomatoes offers because according to them, Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker is certifiably Rotten!
But What Does Rotten Tomatoes Know?
Well, nothing really. It’s all pretty arbitrarily and simplified. Here’s how it works:
As the reviews of a given film accumulate, the Rotten Tomatoes score measures the percentage that are more positive than negative, and assigns an overall fresh or rotten rating to the movie. Scores of over 60 percent are considered fresh, and scores of 59 percent and under are rotten.
It seems simple enough, but in reality it is a highly skew-able, hand-picked collection of studio friendly ‘film critics’ reviews and subsequently a rather worthless measure of a film’s quality.
You Dare Question The Almighty Tomato?
Yes, I do. And so should you.
Let’s look at all the Star Wars movie numbers.
Though not on that list, The Rise Of Skywalker currently sits at 52% which not only makes it officially rotten, it also makes it the worst-reviewed Star Wars film.
Ever.
The Phantom Menace is the second-worst sitting at 53%.
Attack of the Clones is somehow ranked better at 65%, as is Solo, which sits at 70%.
Revenge of the Sith has a surprisingly robust 80% but that may be a mercy ranking because the reviewers thought they were then free from reviewing any more Star Wars films.
If Only It Had Been True
Return Of The Jedi, arguably the weakest of the original trilogy got 82%, falling just under Rogue One‘s 83%.
The Last Jedi is 91% and The Force Awakens 93%, which equates it with A New Hope and just 1% point below arguably the best Star Wars movie and definitely one of the best sequels ever, The Empire Strikes Back.
Troubling facts emerge from these figures which support my earlier point about the skew-ability of this metric. At least one of these numbers is greatly fucked.
Consider This!
By the time Episode I came out fans were salivating for more Star Wars.
After feeding on the original trilogy for 25 years any new movie had nothing but goodwill toward it.
George Lucas said he was finally ready to continue the story and we had nothing but love for the man who was also eager to re-prove himself as a filmmaker.
Then it came out and we got what we got.
And though I don’t agree with the masses on this, the general consensus is that it stinks.
The masses may not always be right but they do make the facts harder to ignore. Though the RT score is not really a valid data source, it is fitting that The Rise of Skywalker is seen as the bigger failure because it also punctuates the failure of everything that is currently Star Wars.
A series in name only, because once the novelty wore off it became the cause of much ennui among the fiercely loyal fan base.
Valid complaints abounded, plot holes gaped and there was increasing suspicion that the franchise was rudderless.
Still, they pushed and prodded. They blamed the fans, the misogynists and the trolls for the bad reviews.
They referred to us as a vocal minority.
And as we swirled closer and closer toward the release date of The Rise Of Skywalker, marketing leaned heavily on the importance of seeing this movie because it represented the end of the Skywalker saga when in reality, it all ended a long time ago.
Some things are better left to rest.
