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Al Gore’s New Movie Exposes the Big Flaw in Online Movie Ratings
- wnevets 9y agoClimate change conspiracy theorist really hate the truth.
- helicon 9y agoBegs the question why does the IMDb voting system allow reviews before the movie's release date?
- some-guy 9y agoI suspect that Al Gore's name had the biggest impact on the polarization of the score. He's been a polarizing figure (for whatever reason) for a very long time. Not to mention it's a "sequel". I'm not attacking the man in any way, but I do wonder if furthering the polarization of the issue using his name (which he cannot reconcile with the public at this point) does the movement a disservice. I place more blame on us as a species than Al Gore himself, but here we are.
- mikeash 9y agoI doubt that leaving his name off of it would really change much. The people giving it the lowest possible score are reacting to what they see as political propaganda pushing the hoax of climate change. That Al Gore is involved certainly doesn't help, but they'd still hate it even if he had nothing to do with it.
- maxxxxx 9y agoWithout Al Gore's name nobody would have noticed. There are a lot of people who throw a fit when they just hear that name. Now imagine if Hillary Clinton did a documentary. That would probably be the most rated movie ever.
- WalterSear 9y agoAnd, in all probability, the most controversially received.
- maxxxxx 9y agoAnd the least watched too. People would be excited or horrified just by the name and rate accordingly without watching.
- Brakenshire 9y agoAt some point a significant proportion of the people who have been ridiculing climate change (or to a large extent just going along with a political movement which incidently ridicules it) will shift their beliefs to accept moderate action to tackle climate change, and it's important they can do that without being forced to admit they are actually changing their minds. That means leaving open, for people who previously dismissed it, the narrative of "I don't believe in climate alarmism pushed by radical leftists, but I do believe in following the science, and now that the evidence is in, I support reasonable action". I think it is true that a figure like Al Gore acts as an anchor to make those sorts of changes more difficult.
- exclusiv 9y agoGreat points and I think you're spot on. I'm personally a skeptic of the claims made by the AGW side and the alarmism pushed out by so many. The proposed AGW solutions are not feasible worldwide either which is what would be necessary to solve the problem they outline. I'm saying this not to get into a discussion about it at this time but to lay out why I would STILL support the agenda: essentially there are several great secondary benefits from doing what they recommend. This is the biggest failure of the AGW side - they have terrible positioning and think you're stupid if you question science. If you tell people they're stupid (even if they are) they aren't changing their minds. This is how you push the AGW agenda. "Let's say we're wrong. Here are the benefits of doing what we're suggesting and making some changes & investments": - Better air quality - It's good for national security - we no longer need to send large sums of money to hostile countries, many of which support terrorist organizations and other groups which are Anti-American / Anti-Western values. - Cheaper energy That's hard for anyone to argue, assuming the legislation is sensible.
- akhilcacharya 9y agoIt's interesting that the original did not see anywhere close to the same polarization.
- JamesBarney 9y agoWhy do you think Al Gore caused the polarization of climate change and not that the polarization of Climate Change caused Al Gore to be a more polarizing figure? Except for being a climate change activist he is a pretty bland public figure. It's not like he's Ann Coulter or Michael Moore.
- eregorn 9y agoHe still gets a lot of flak from that "invented the internet" comment. Probably one of the few comments in politics that makes critics of it even more angry if they don't take it literally.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> He still gets a lot of flak from that "invented the internet" comment. He never claimed to have invented the internet. He did claim to have taken the initiative in creating it in the context of a broader claim about taking the initiative to advance various important economic, environmental, and educational advances through policy and legislation. http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
- eregorn 9y agoWell yeh, that's what I was getting at hence the "don't take it literally" part. I've seen people still don't like what he said even after knowing it was not literal. Some people just don't want to see the internet as something not only invented by the government, but was not the total wild west they romanticized it as.
- excitom 9y agoIsn't it interesting that such a minor (and misconstrued) comment could have such a lasting effect on the man's career while the guy now in power spews far more outrageous falsehoods daily and it just doesn't seem to matter.
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- lcfcjs2 9y agoThis doesn't make much sense really. Climate Change is what caused the polarization, not the fact that Al Gore made the film.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago> Al Gore's name had the biggest impact on the polarization of the score. He's been a polarizing figure (for whatever reason) for a very long time. That statement seems to imply that polarization is caused by and originates with Al Gore.
- Isamu 9y agoThis is a worthwhile analysis - interesting to see the graphs and breakdown along different angles. But I don't see the "big flaw" exposed. You've democratized movie rating and got an accurate reflection of the polarized feelings on the topic. Are you arguing people should be "objective"? Are they objective about any movie? People voting before really seeing the movie - a problem yes, but the outcome wouldn't change much. And it is an implementation problem, not a problem with online rating per se.
- favorited 9y agoThe "big flaw" is that a film that people either love or hate is indistinguishable from a film that everyone thinks is OK.
- Isamu 9y agoSo on Amazon page we see the distribution in addition to the average score. People clearly either love it or hate it. https://www.amazon.com/Inconvenient-Truth-Al-Gore/dp/B00AB0SHRW https://www.amazon.com/Inconvenient-Truth-Al-Gore/dp/B00AB0S... Plus it skews toward the positive, since we would expect a verified buyer is more likely to be someone that already approves. On the other hand, films that everyone thinks are OK are still indistinguishable from a film I may either love or hate. This is not a flaw, but inherent in the idea of ratings itself. I don't see bimodal distributions as a problem, but hiding them might be.
- jcfrei 9y agoThe following explanation is probably implied but I still want to mention it: When a movie (or any form of media really) discusses such a polarizing issue like climate change doesn't the rating always lose its meaning? When a film, book, etc. treats a polarizing issue, most people probably abuse ratings as a (binary) vote on whether or not they agree with the narrative. And not whether it's a good movie based on film theory (ie. characters, visuals, story arc, etc.). Does this issue have a name? We see it on HN too, where people use up- and downvotes for agreeing/disagreeing, rather than separating informative, from non-informative comments.
- trgv 9y agoAnother thing to keep in mind here is that these kinds of review systems will often result in high amounts of polarization regardless of whether the topic is controversial. My feeling is that people often vote based on how they want the current average to change rather than based on how much they liked the movie. E.G. Sometimes I'll watch a movie, I'll think it's an 8/10 but then see it has 4/10 on imdb, so I'll give it a 10. Presumably this may affect another person's vote. Maybe someone saw the film, hated it, wondered why the review was so high, and gave it a 0 to bring the average down. IMDB recognizes this and uses a "secret formula" (http://www.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?ratingsexplanation http://www.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?ratingsexplanation) as a result.
- amrrs 9y agoMost of the times it'd be the opposite of what you have said because the moment people see 4/10 for a movie they liked, self-doubt clouds hence people are more likely to give it a lower rating in the same range rather than 10 thinking about Mean static to improve the rating.
- euyyn 9y ago> Sometimes I'll watch a movie, I'll think it's an 8/10 but then see it has 4/10 on imdb, so I'll give it a 10. Do you really do this?
- kevlar1818 9y ago+1 I agree with you. :P
- jpfed 9y agoSee also Zoe Quinn's "Crash Override"- totally polarized reviews, with notable difference between verified purchasers and not. https://www.amazon.com/Crash-Override-Gamergate-Destroyed-Against/product-reviews/1610398084/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_paging_btm_1?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=avp_only_reviews&pageNumber=1 https://www.amazon.com/Crash-Override-Gamergate-Destroyed-Ag...
- favorited 9y agoSomeone writes a book about how anonymous people on the internet tried to ruin her career by spreading fake stories. People don't like that, so they post fake reviews in an attempt to ruin the book's sales. ...making the author's point for her.
- eregorn 9y agoInterestingly, the 1 star reviewers are claiming the book was leaked and that they did in fact read it. It does seem like they still didn't read it though despite having access to it. They're universally a sentence long and are either vague or GG talking points that don't really have to do with the book.
- bluetwo 9y agoI'm curious if there was an organized campaign to give the movie low votes or if it was simply an army of similarly minded trolls.
- jmcdiesel 9y agoMore evidence supporting the claim that, as a society, we have completely lost the capability to have a conversation on anything. Everything is polarizing and everyone feels the need to pick (and defend) a side.
- thrill 9y agoWell, in reference to the subject of this particular movie, one "side" of the "conversation" is frequently in the news as wanting to put nonbelievers of their view of the issue in prison. That might tend to create some animosity.
- city41 9y agoCan you give some examples? I have never heard of this.
- kbutler 9y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=climate+change+deniers+%28death+penalty%2Cjail%29 https://www.google.com/search?q=climate+change+deniers+%28de... Death penalty, tried for crimes against humanity, jail, fines for disagreeing... I don't think any of these are mainstream ideas yet, but there was failed bill in the California legislature to have the AG sue those who "spread disinformation" on climate change. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/calif-bill-prosecutes-climate-change-skeptics/ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/2/calif-bill-pr... Can't reply to responder below - but I am not your research assistant. The parent asked a question, I showed where they could find answers. The google search above links to a professor speculating on death penalty for skeptics, and others speculating on trying them for crimes against humanity. For spokesmen, Al Gore didn't mention jail, but said we should "punish" and politicians should "pay the price" for differing perceptions (and note that even climate change advocates who are not extremists get branded as "deniers"). http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/chi-sxsw-al-gore-penny-pritzker-bsi-20150313-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/chi-sxsw-al-... """ Former Vice President Al Gore on Friday called on SXSW attendees to punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should pay a price for rejecting “accepted science.” ... we need to put a price on denial in politics """
- tim333 9y agoI'm not sure the ratings are that broken in this case. Googling it I get: 78% Rotten Tomatoes 5.5/10 IMDb 3/5 The Guardian above the fold, which is enough to guess it's quite good but not amazing. It's kind of obvious IMDB will be polarized if you look or just use common sense.
- acd 9y agoFilter bubbles ie when you consume content by your previous content to provide confirmation bias on your already existing ideas. Filter bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble Confirmation bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias On rating systems including how the IMDB rating system works https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/6418/rating-system-taking-account-of-number-of-votes https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/6418/rating-system...
- baron816 9y agoI wish someone would create a more personalized algorithm for movies. Use the movie critics' reviews, and compare the other movies they liked to the other movies you liked. Even bad movies get a few good reviews, and there are people out there who would still enjoy those generally poorly received movies. Why not show me the reviews of people who liked a lot of the same movies I liked?
- simulate 9y agoThis is why YouTube went from a 5 star rating system to a thumbs up / thumbs down system back in 2009. See: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html https://youtube.googleblog.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-r...
- maldusiecle 9y agoA good context to this piece would be the recent NYTimes article ("Attacked by Rotten Tomatoes") that claims Rotten Tomatoes is damaging sales for films. Everyone is to blame except for the studios, who are producing bad movies that no one wants: endless sequels, remakes, and adaptations of successes in other media. If An Inconvenient Sequel really were controversial, that would be all the more reason for its success. Controversy sells. In fact, it's the least-risky kind of film to make: a sequel to a widely-lauded, successful film (An Inconvenient Truth has 93% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). Hollywood execs can cry me a river.
- yahna 9y agoIt actually has an okay rotten tomatoes score. You see this kind of voting on anything where people get angry at it. Look at games that have their audience scores drop massively because they make something some portion of their audience decides is just absolutely awful despite the fact that they still play it (e.g. Playerunknown Battlegrounds is massively popular but has a mediocre score because they pissed off some people with some DLC thing). I do agree though, all the complaining about rotten tomatoes is misplaced.
- dagw 9y agowho are producing bad movies that no one wants: endless sequels, remakes, and adaptations of successes in other media. How do you square that belief with the fact that 8 of 10 top grossing movies so far this year (and 7 out of 10 for last year) is a sequel, remake or adaptation? Obviously someone seems to want them
- corysama 9y agoEverybody hates sequels when they sit down and think about it. But, when they don't... When it's "Eh... Let's go see a movie. What's playing?" They are faced with two investment choices: One selection of high-risk, unknown, unproven, original movies Vs. another selection of low-risk, familiar, proven productions --some of which are well-known to be liked by their group and others are well-understood to be skippable. The "Eh... Let's go to a movie" scenario makes up a far larger portion of the total revenue than the carefully researched, highly anticipating planners. It should be no surprise that they spend so much on sequels and adaptations.
- redm 9y agoIn general, I find 1-10 rating systems too much, it's just too much granularity when the measure is purely subjective anyway. I like 1-5 better, but the descriptions are the best, "Hated, Didn't Like, No Opinion, Liked, Loved". At the end of the day, if your sample is big enough, I think the new Netflix approach is really the best, liked or didn't like, and then you can draw from that what you want based on demographics, etc.
- deanCommie 9y agoI'm surprised the article makes no reference to the worst of this phenomenon: 2016's The Promise: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4776998/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4776998/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt * 52.9% 10/10 * 42.6% 1/10 For a total of 95.5% polarizing votes! Interesting that The Ottoman Lieutenant is top of the 538's list and it deals with exactly the same subject matter. Turks really need to grow up and stop being such babies about their history. Face it, don't go spamming down the ratings for movies that dare talk about your history.
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago> men hate the film way more than women do The "climate change is bullshit" narrative is engineered to appeal (among many other things) to this whole mythology of rugged individualism. If you "believe in that global warming stuff" it must be because you're a weakling - as opposed to the strong manly individuals who choose to reject it. It's gut instinct politics. I've a hunch (heh) that gut instinct politics correlates with falsehood (and perhaps specifically with engineered, purposeful falsehood) more strongly than intuition would guess. E.g. the whole rise of the National Socialist Party in Germany in the 1930s was entirely predicated on a backwards, anti-intellectual, think-with-your-guts ideology.
- DougN7 9y agoGreat comment. Despite my fears/concerns about Trump and seeing the similarities to Hitler, your comment is the first one that hit me with a "crap! it _could_ happen here too!" realization.
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoOnly after I posted that comment did I realize that I was pushing the discussion in this unfortunate direction. First off, this dead horse has been beaten until it's just a greasy smear on the asphalt. Secondly, there are similarities and there are differences. Could the same thing happen again the same way? Likely not. Could things go to hell in a handbasket in ways that are somewhat similar, and yet different enough to account for the passage of time, economic and geopolitical differences, etc? Maybe, but there are certain pre-requisites that need to be satisfied first, and it's not clear that that's the case yet, or ever. The use of demagoguery in politics has not started with Hitler and will not end with Trump. Ancient Greeks and Romans did it occasionally. McCarthy and Huey Long did it too. The examples go on and on, and every such figure has different skills and characters and attributes. One thing to keep in mind is that Hitler was really, really freaking good at it; he's set a very high bar, if that's the right word for it. He makes the others in this category look like amateurs in comparison. Also, the socio-economic conditions in Germany in early 20th century were pretty spectacularly bad. I'm not saying that everything is just sunshine-and-bunnies now in the world, but there's nothing going on like the triple whammy of global great depression, hyperinflation, and national humiliation after losing a great war, that helped the ascension of Nazism to political hegemony. Time will tell, as always. --- P.S.: For a history of the rise and fall of Nazism in Germany, along with plenty of details about social, political and economic conditions that accompanied those events, see the Third Reich trilogy by Richard Evans. Link to the first volume: https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Third-Reich-Richard-Evans/dp/0143034693/ https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Third-Reich-Richard-Evans/dp/0...
- dmix 9y agoI found the fact "The Emoji Movie" getting 74% 1-star reviews in their ranked chart to be a more interesting fact. Climate change and Al Gore being controversial and highly politicized is nothing new. South Park has been satirizing Gore's hyperbolic approach for years. An approach which tends to draw tribalistic audiences who have opinions formed well before hearing the arguments. But the fact Hollywood spent $50 million on such a disaster as T.J. Miller's big feature film is what is somewhat shocking. Especially given it had some big names like Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation behind it. You'd think with the data-driven cookie-cutter focused-grouped-to-death process that is the modern film industry would be able to avoid producing one of the worst rated films in the history of online film reviews. I thought modern Hollywood was extra careful? Or are those resources only limited to hedging their financial performance rather than producing enjoyable content?
- minimaxir 9y agoThe primary KPI of any movie by a major studio is box office revenue. Making the movie good is a correlation but not causation. (Especially for children's movies.) Case in point, the Emoji Movie made way more than its budget. ($150M)
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- RickJWag 9y agoGore's response to critics: "You don't have to get snippy about this!"
- suckerburg 9y agoI would like to point out that there are times when critics pay more attention to the hype surrounding the movie when it fits their agenda, "XX" the horror anthology film directed by women directors for example was hated by the audience because it's bad. Check out the "I Hate Everything" review for the film.