So I gotta say with all of my posts on Gutternaut, I’ve no shortage of material especially when it comes to adaptations. I like to highlight how with more material or streamlining, they can be better than the source material. Heck, I rate them in how well they do. Even if I prefer the ones that’re closer to the source material. You won’t see me doing comparisons with the Mask comics against the movies. Or the superhero origin stories for different reasons.
What I rate is how good I find the story to be and if I actually like it. Which when it comes to critics or audience reviews, those tend to flux. The original Hellraiser movie and its reboot for example are highly rated but time hasn’t been kind to either of them in reception. People still consider the original a classic but Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb have it at 70% while Metacritic has it at 56. The reboot is all but the original’s equal if slightly lower… I blame nostalgia.
So did I like them? I won’t be deleting my thoughts:
What? Okay yeah, I like them both for being able to stand on their respective merits. I come back to the Hellraiser franchise to learn more because I can’t get away from its themes on obsession and finding new experiences. Makes me wonder if the reboot puzzle box is now the LeMarchand Configuration like the novel.
Which brings me to why I go to aggregate reviews so often. But yeah, with how divisive these can get it’s hard to know what’s got merits and what doesn’t. I barely have any free time and often get distracted in those times. So I wanna feel like my time is well spent. It’s really easy to get caught up in the hype and other people’s words. Their preferences don’t often reflect mine and they don’t often think in hindsight. Most of them are spur of the moment kind of stuff.
On Metacritic for example, I usually go onto their reviews for video games. Video games are one of the few mediums where how good something is structured and an audience’s enjoyment go hand in hand. This piece by Comical Opinions goes into more depth on why that’s a big factor:
And those are just the objective reasons. But again what’s structurally well done and how people like it are very different things. The Last of Us Part II for example pushes itself to the limit when it comes to how empathy between a story and the people it’s told to. Personally I just can’t play that game because it deals with factionalism; something that I can’t go through again.
Thankfully what I want to point towards is where criticism is going and how telling good from bad is getting harder and harder.
The Trends That Bring Me Here
I have been on and off on Twitter, other newsletters, and aggregate reviews. A trend I see is criticizing the critics by calling them bigots of any kind for any or all reasons. This is something that’s becoming increasingly common. And most cases that bring these to light often ignore the more systemic problems surrounding why certain elements don’t work out.
For example a recent Young Justice comic series goes into toxic fandom. Critically speaking it is… divisive. But when I read a review, I feel like its writing rating should be lower. Critics say that while the writing follows a story structure well, they don’t like the characterizations. Personally I found it to be a problematic story not just for fans of the original Young Justice series but incorporating perceptions commonly found on Twitter threads; like how it changes a story or continuity for petty lampshading. It’s one of the reasons that in terms of audience ratings this tie-in mini series is rated so low.
But… most people don’t look at the systemic issues surrounding this. And no I don’t mean the stuff that involves labels. But white collar bureaucracy that ultimately affects the creatives. A video by Comics By Perch goes into how several new mini-series are ultimately marketing gimmicks to make up for money publishers owe to their licensors:
With that in mind, it seems the root reason this Young Justice event tie-in series is getting bad reception is because the writer didn’t want to do it. Unlike say the better received Justice Society: World War II movie she co-wrote. Why should Meghan Fitzmartin get the brunt of the criticism for her employer’s financial screw-ups.
This is what worries me about the state of criticism. A number of reviewers will try to be objective and just not review stuff they won’t like. That’s how things were back in Monkeys Fighting Robots. But it’s practically become mainstream with Rings of Power and a number of Disney Live-Action remakes to deflect criticism as bigotry. Where trying to include socially relevant topics in-series or marketing become shields to obscure problems behind locked doors?
But are negative critics just a bunch of clout chasing frat boy incels like She-Hulk suggests? Well let me compare it to the data at IMDb. The more you deflect your most vocal critics, the more you miss valuable data. Like in She-Hulk’s case, a TV-14 rated show not appealing to audiences under 18. Or behind the scenes problems that require out of the box thinking. The CGI problems are mainly because of show’s budget cutting for other projects. Unlike when some people try to use the owning body defense to cover up studio problems.
Disclaimers Inbound
I’d like to remind everyone this isn’t everything wrong with criticism, but it is where counter-critics have been trending in. But with how many times you need a first-person perspective on things, it can get exhausting. But in this day and age, will people be able to say what they do or not like without getting labeled? Because those labels cover up the real problems behind some controversies.