I’m sure it still happens, but I remember when the IMDB scoring system used to be regularly abused by trolls who sought to destroy the perception of a movie before it came out. Now that Rotten Tomatoes is the rating system du jour, the toxicity has bled over to there, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Black Panther being the highest-profile targets. Well, since we can’t have a female-led superhero movie be any kind of success, they’ve now begun attacking Captain Marvel. This time, however, Rotten Tomatoes is doing something about it.
In an editorial piece written on the popular website, it was announced the “launch the first of several phases of updates that will refresh and modernize our Audience Rating System.” Included in that is the disabling of comments on a movie before its release date, and the “want to see” rating will no longer be a percentage but a score tallied up in real time…
“We are disabling the comment function prior to a movie’s release date. Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership. We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action. Don’t worry though, fans will still get to have their say: Once a movie is released, audiences can leave a user rating and comments as they always have.”
“We’re doing it to more accurately and authentically represent the voice of fans, while protecting our data and public forums from bad actors.”
This won’t be any good for those who just decide to wait until the movie hits theaters, but I think what’s more important is that folks with an axe to grind don’t dissuade others from buying a ticket. I know too many friends who look at a movie’s RT score, see that it’s low, and then just decide to wait and watch it at home. Like it or not, these trolls have an influence and I’m happy to see some steps are being taken to stop it. We’ll have to wait and see how effective it is.
