Angry Fans Berating Reviewers Cause Rotten Tomatoes to suspend fan comments on Dark Knight Rises

Michael Sellers Other Stuff

Angry fans berating critics for negative reviews have caused Rotten Tomatoes to shut down commenting on The Dark Knight Rises.  Whoa, is that right?  Yep.    It’s got an 86% critics rating as of this morning, and 93% audience rating, but if you don’t like a review and want to say so, you’ll have to wait.  Wow.  This is only tangentially related to John Carter …… but it shows fan empowerment (sort of) or at least fans having an effect on the narrative, so that’s why I’m linking to it.  Still scratching my head, though.

Dark Knight Comments Suspended on Rotten Tomatoes

By Randee Dawn, NBC News

RottenTomatoes.com has suspended user comments on a film for the first time following a fan uproar after two critics posted negative reviews of “The Dark Knight Rises” on Monday.

The review-aggregating site rates films by a percentile approval rating. As of Wednesday morning, “The Dark Knight Rises” stood with a 94% approval from critics and 96% “fresh” rating from the audience. But two reviews appear to have set fans off: Marshall Fine of Hollywood and Fine wrote that the film was “grandiose not grand,” and the Associated Press’ Christy Lemire said that the film “lacked the spark that gave 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight’ such vibrancy.”

Warner Bros.

“The Dark Knight Rises” is already stirring controversy, and very few people have even seen it.

The backlash overwhelmed the site, said Rotten Tomatoes editor-in-chief Matt Atchity, who told the AP that “it just got to be too much hate based on reactions to reviews of movies that people hadn’t even seen.”

Read the rest at MSNBC

 

6 comments

  • I haven’t read the negative comments at RT about TDKR, but the story does have a political twist. Rush Limbaugh has brought Batman into the world of conspiracy by claiming that the character “Bane” is a plot by the Hollywood elites to discredit Mitt Romney and to wreck his campaign for the presidency. His loyal followers are known to voice their opinions and do it in significant numbers.

    Here’s the story and a clip from his show.

    http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/07/17/limbaughs-dark-knight-risesromney-conspiracy-do/187171

  • Wow — I read about this elsewhere and am still amazed. I know that some of us awaiting JOHN CARTER took issue with those negative reviews we thought poorly done (IE we attacked the review but not the reviewer) but these Nolan-Batman diehards must have taken things to an entirely different level and used all manner of ad hominem attacks.

  • Bring the comments on….

    I love Khanada and MCR comments. I don’t care if its totally ubsurd/retarded. If we banish the oposite view then we can’t defend the aswome movie/point of view that we support.

  • I have no particular love for the Rotten Tomatoes website, which is to me an oversimplistic way of measurement (well, they probably owe their success to that, so who am I to judge!), but this is getting ridiculous. It’s very revealing on some of the internet population.

    I remember some comments when it was revealed that (at the time) Guillermo Del Toro was to make two movies out of The Hobbit. Without a single frame shot, some commenters were shouting (i.e. writing in caps) that THE HOBBIT JUST GOT RUINED!!!! 🙂

  • For me it showed the differences between us as fans, commenting and countering critics reviews multiple times a day without getting banned or freaking anyone out. We don’t threaten lives. We are civil, smart, positive, and enthusiastic without being maniacal. And we have MUCH more reason to get bend out of shape over badmouthing our movie than these fans do over a film that’s a shoe-in at the box office and hasn’t got the hate for it flooding the web like John Carter unfairly has.

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