Take Two translates the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that affect our lives. Produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from October 2012 – June 2021. Hosted by A Martinez.
The force was predictably strong at the weekend box office for "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." Its opening yielded the highest box office numbers in 2017 and the second highest opening of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0CbN8sfihY
While the film received glowing reviews from critics, with a Cinemascore rating of A, its Rotten Tomatoes audience score currently stands at 56 percent. Vanity Fair's Rebecca Keegan blames the trolls.
"This is kind of a fascinating phenomenon with the way people rate movies online. Cinemascore is normal exit polling. When you walk out of a theater they ask you what you thought of it and they find out some demographic information."
It's a very scientific approach, which isn't the case for Rotten Tomatoes, Keegan says.
"The folks who vote on places like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB are oftentimes people who are really passionate about a movie and in the case of 'The Last Jedi,' they've been registering really strong negative opinions."
This phenomenon is similar to what the 'Ghostbusters' reboot experienced last year. With 'The Last Jedi,' fans reacted negatively to writer-director Rian Johnson's injection of humor. During this week's On the Lot, Keegan shared insights from her interview with Rian Johnson and also provided more details about Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox.