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Interstellar- The divergence of critics and audience is completely baffling to me

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kittoo

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
What exactly happened here?

This movie sits at Number 21 (was at 12 at one point) in Top 250 at IMDB, with a rating of 8.8 after more than 457000 votes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816692/?

Thats no easy feat. Its in the company of movies such as Silence of the lambs, Seven Samurai, Matrix, Se7en etc. In short, in company of absolute masterpieces, according to the viewers. Barring one person, who just couldnt understand even the basic science behind the movie, everyone who I know has loved it. I personally loved it too. And thats coming from a person who didnt like Inception that much.

Yet, when I see the reviews, its sitting at 72% at rottentomatoes and 74 at Metacritic. That means 28% percent of critics thought that it was flat out bad movie. Even out of those who are praising it, its not like every critic is giving it a 10 out of 10. I am not expecting it to be in many Top 10 lists by critics either. And its not nominated for the bigger categories of academy awards either. How can this be? Did a lot of critics not understand it at all, confused by the science? Or is it something else?
And was it so hard to see that this movie, despite a few shortcomings, was the one of the very few actually intelligent Sci-fi movies that have come in the last decade or so? That it was incredibly ambitious, and succeeded for that most part?
I found the movie absolutely engrossing, enchanting, intelligent and edge of the seat stuff. I am finding it very hard to see why critics didnt like it all that much.
I know opinions diverge. There are a lot of movies which I love but critics/other people dont. But this movie is one example where the audience seem to absolutely adore it but the critics dont, and I wanna know why.

Edit: Forgot to mention that 'Gravity' another Sci-fi movie but one much less ambitious and pedestrian (still a decent movie overall) was loved so much more by critics and academy. Completely baffling.
 
I had no idea it was so well received. People were laughing out loud in the theater when I saw it (and not at bits meant to be funny).
 
Nolan love is a little bit outsized on the Internet. I liked it for the most part--but anecdotally I don't hear people mentioning it around me much one way or the other.
 
Its when critics thought they could be smart and criticze some of the scientific elements in the film without knowing anything about the science they were criticizing
 
Joe Shlabotnik said:
Nolan love is a little bit outsized on the Internet. I liked it for the most part--but anecdotally I don't hear people mentioning it around me much one way or the other.
Click to expand...

By no means I love Nolan though. I didnt like Inception all that much, and thought Batman Begins was better than The Dark Knight. Still, loved Interstellar to pieces.
 
It's a great film. Watched it twice in the cinema. And I like Nolan. TDK is one of my favourites.

But I know that some critics think that all people in his films are pretty bland. And I think that this is in most cases somehow true.
 
Atraveller said:
A lot of people think the movie have a lot of plot holes, but in fact they just don't understand the science behind it.
Click to expand...

I might be one of those people. The planet was so near to the black hole that time itself was distorted and it created huge waves but they were able to land, walk around nonchalantly and then lift-off without any issues. I don't understand the science behind that. Again when he flies into the black hole wouldn't the forces acting on his ship and body crush him instantly, rather than letting him pass the event horizon? Isn't the event horizon where the gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape? But it isn't enough to crush his ship?
 
It's a solid blockbuster but it is by no means a great movie. Hokey (exposition filled as usual) script, uneven pacing, and way too derivative of 2001. It's certainly not Nolan's worst movie (ahem, Dark Knight Rises) but it's not up there with Memento or The Dark Knight either.
 
Atraveller said:
A lot of people think the movie have a lot of plot holes, but in fact they just don't understand the science behind it.
Click to expand...

This is also my understanding after reading a lot of reviews, both by users and critics. I remember one professional critic using 'black hole' in place of 'wormhole'. I mean come on!
 
When you ask the twenty top critics, they'll typically rate a movie objectively, I imagine.

When you ask 800 critics, 600 of them will be unpaid or paid garbage, have almost no traffic, and will find they get way more hits when they (1) slam a popular movie or (2) promote an unknown movie.

That's why the critics were soft on this IMO. There was no comeback or underdog story to be had and Nolan had a huge target painted on his back with how overhyped TDKR was.
 
Someone who loves or hates a movie strongly (people who feel passionately) are more likely to want to vote in the first place. There is an innate selection bias at work, and then a second selection bias in that a critic usually sees most major movies, whereas average people will only see ones they are already interested in. Even if critics and IMDB members had identical opinions, we would expect score variance because of this. But of course critics and random internet denizens are not identical populations. And IMDB users aren't an identical population to "the public" as a whole.

Atraveller said:
A lot of people think the movie have a lot of plot holes, but in fact they just don't understand the science behind it.
Click to expand...

You mean other than the small issue of the plot of the film bootstrapping itself into existence for no conceivable reason?
 
User reviews are pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It's a small sub-set of a sub-set of movie watchers.
 
It was a pretty good movie. A lot of the big emotional scenes are the type of stuff that general audiences will remember.

72% isn't bad on RT.
 
It's a bad movie with a terribly uninteresting script that refuses to end. I can only assume people like it because it's pretty, loud and makes them feel dumb and smart at the same time.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
Someone who loves or hates a movie strongly (people who feel passionately) are more likely to want to vote in the first place. There is an innate selection bias at work, and then a second selection bias in that a critic usually sees most major movies, whereas average people will only see ones they are already interested in. Even if critics and IMDB members had identical opinions, we would expect score variance because of this. But of course critics and random internet denizens are not identical populations. And IMDB users aren't an identical population to "the public" as a whole.
Click to expand...

I think this implies critics are more objective, but the smaller sample size and the more absurd incentives they're under tell me to trust the wisdom of the reviewer crowd no more than any other

I use RT all the time but I still assume most reviewers in their mix make below the poverty line, are incented to be provocative, and care as much about the inside baseball of the movie as its own merits.
 
I thought it was a pre-chewed sort of film. All the thinking had been done for me and I was finished with it by the time the credits rolled. A good snack, but nothing I would bother with again.

I could see why some critics would be harsher than I would be. I approve of some people setting the bar high.

Juice said:
I think this implies critics are more objective, but the smaller sample size and the more absurd incentives they're under tell me to trust the wisdom of the reviewer crowd no more than any other

I use RT all the time but I still assume most reviewers in their mix make below the poverty line, are incented to be provocative, and care as much about the inside baseball of the movie as its own merits.
Click to expand...

It doesn't imply that the critics are more objective, it just means that if you take a cross section of people like critics to express their opinions (whether they felt strongly enough to write an article on the film or not, it's their job), you'll get a different result than if you look only at the people motivated to vote.
 
Do you have any idea how many crazy Batman/Nolan fans are out there voting on IMDB?

It's crazy. Dark Knight is the 4th best movie of all time at IMDB... Inception is 14th best movie of all time... etc

Absolutely scary how fucking insane these people are.
 
Also IMDB user scores are kind of crap. Look at the top 250. Shawshank at number one, Fight Club and Inception near the top of a list that presumably spans ALL great movies? Forest Gump being on there at all, let alone being all the way up at 13? People get cuaght up in the hype of more recent movies and then vote for them specifically because they are fresh in their mind and they paid money for them. Hell, Kingsmen is on that list, and I haven't seen it yet but I can imagine there are 250 movies that are much better than it.
 
Juice said:
I think this implies critics are more objective, but the smaller sample size and the more absurd incentives they're under tell me to trust the wisdom of the reviewer crowd no more than any other

I use RT all the time but I still assume most reviewers in their mix make below the poverty line, are incented to be provocative, and care as much about the inside baseball of the movie as its own merits.
Click to expand...

He's not saying that critics are more objective, he's saying that volunteer Internet movie polls are inherently self-selective.
 
isnt 72-74% a pretty good score considering how fickle sci-fi fans and critics are?
Interstellar is a fucking amazing movie that I enjoyed watching and will watch again many times, and thats all that matters.
 
Its imdb rating is ludicrous, as is the rating for most of Nolan's movies. Imdb is filled with fanboys, mayne.
 
Joe Shlabotnik said:
Nolan love is a little bit outsized on the Internet. I liked it for the most part--but anecdotally I don't hear people mentioning it around me much one way or the other.
Click to expand...

I think this might be it

I dont see anybody ever mentioning this movie

I passed it when it was in theaters, and really dont think about it. And i like movies a lot.
 
Moral Panic said:
I might be one of those people. The planet was so near to the black hole that time itself was distorted and it created huge waves but they were able to land, walk around nonchalantly and then lift-off without any issues. I don't understand the science behind that. Again when he flies into the black hole wouldn't the forces acting on his ship and body crush him instantly, rather than letting him pass the event horizon? Isn't the event horizon where the gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape? But it isn't enough to crush his ship?
Click to expand...
I would to like to answer you but I'm too tired to do it, you can start by reading our spoiler thread or Kip's book about the movie.

ThoseDeafMutes said:
You mean other than the small issue of the plot of the film bootstrapping itself into existence for no conceivable reason?
Click to expand...
Because it is. Asking about this is like asking "why did the a piece of the sun fell from the sky in Tangled?"
 
While I didn't hate it, I don't think it was a particularly brilliant film. It was actually kind of dumb. It was pretty and the score was awesome tho.
 
This is such a pointless thing to be bothered by. There is no "divergence" at all. 8.8 imdb rating vs 74 metacritic? That tells me it's a film that most people generally enjoyed. Where's the divergence? Do you really think that a bunch of people who click on a rating on imdb without having to give any further insight giving it a whole point more than the total professional review average has any deeper meaning? It doesn't. It's a scifi flick that was entertaining, had strong marketing, made a lot of money, got good reviews, and people enjoyed it. End of story. There's no divergence unless you're such a fanboy that you feel slighted that critics didn't like it EVEN MORE or that it wasn't nominated for BEST PICTURE or whatever. Lol.
 
imdb_shit.png
 
jett said:
Its imdb rating is ludicrous, as is the rating for most of Nolan's movies. Imdb is filled with fanboys, mayne.
Click to expand...

You ain't wrong

Memento - 8.5
Batman Begins - 8.3
The Prestige - 8.5
The Dark Knight - 9.0
Inception - 8.8
The Dark Knight Rises - 8.5
Interstellar - 8.8
 
Boyhood has a 98%, that should make you realize how much of a joke critics are.

I find movie critics think they're smarter than they actually are and try to outsmart their readers.
 
any list with Shawshank Redemption at the top is self-discrediting.

but yes, IMDB is particularly terrible thanks to fanboys driving up the ratings for directors they like.

I mean, I love Fincher. But Silence of the Lambs, the Matrix, Seven? Those are your examples of masterpieces?
 
Just the usual critics hate on Nolan, nothing much to do with it. The movie was again a mainstream masterpiece.
 
ThoseDeafMutes said:
You ain't wrong

Memento - 8.5 - #42
Batman Begins - 8.3 - #108
The Prestige - 8.5 - #52
The Dark Knight - 9.0 - #4
Inception - 8.8 - #14
The Dark Knight Rises - 8.5 - #59
Interstellar - 8.8 - #21
Click to expand...

Added IMDB rankings.

The Dark Knight Rises is better than the following per IMDB users:

  • American Beauty
  • Wall-E
  • Aliens
  • Citizen Kane
  • Oldboy
  • Toy Story 3
  • A Clock Work Orange
  • Taxi Driver

I encourage those of you who take the IMDB list seriously to seek the nearest psychiatrist.
 
jtb said:
any list with Shawshank Redemption at the top is self-discrediting.

but yes, IMDB is particularly terrible thanks to fanboys driving up the ratings for directors they like.

I mean, I love Fincher. But Silence of the Lambs, the Matrix, Seven? Those are your examples of masterpieces?
Click to expand...

Honestly, it makes a lot of sense. If I were to think of popular movies which are actually well made, and represent the classics of the generation where the majority of dedicated hardcore internet users grew up in, those would be it. :)
 
jtb said:
any list with Shawshank Redemption at the top is self-discrediting.

but yes, IMDB is particularly terrible thanks to fanboys driving up the ratings for directors they like.

I mean, I love Fincher. But Silence of the Lambs, the Matrix, Seven? Those are your examples of masterpieces?
Click to expand...

What does Fincher has to do with the Matrix?
 
Generally these types of divergences indicate a core audience who particularly loves a film/director/whatever, but that the movie has limited appeal outside that audience.

In gaming, you can see this effect when you talk about a game with limited but intense appeal to a specific demographic.
 
Well if there was a discussion to see how different people are on Gaming side vs OT a "someone doesn't share my opinion thread" is a great litmus test.
 
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