‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Scoring Lower With Audiences On Rotten Tomatoes

All year long, film culture has been paying way too much attention to Rotten Tomatoes scores. In the end, any site that leads to a reduction of a film to binary terms such as Fresh and Rotten, is adding nothing to the conversation around movies. At best, it’s a guide, helping audiences to see what the general critical response to a picture might be. Yet, in an era where Twitter arguments demand that you choose a side, Rotten Tomatoes is just one arsenal in the hands of people looking to defend or critique a picture.

This a long way of saying that the Rotten Tomatoes score for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi“ (as of the time of publication) for critics has landed at 93%, with the audience score way down at 58%. Uh oh! What does this mean?? Well, of the many people who saw the movie last night, and the fraction of those who decided to log their score on Rotten Tomatoes, nearly half didn’t like the movie. And/or, a bunch of people are just trolling Rotten Tomatoes. Or maybe those who didn’t like the movie voiced their discontent more loudly online than those who liked it. Who knows?

But here’s the good thing: you can still enjoy or anticipate a movie, even if the Rotten Tomatoes score doesn’t sync with your taste! I’m sure Disney might be looking at the score, but in the end, the company will probably sleep just fine as nearly a half billion dollars roll into the box office for ‘The Last Jedi’ this weekend. That said, audience scores for blockbusters usually aren’t this low.

For what it’s worth, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” audience scores were lower than critics (93% versus 88%), while it was higher for “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (84% versus 87%). And then there’s “Justice League“, which landed at 40% for critics and 80% for audiences. Clearly, numbers mean nothing.