The Mopologists Face a "Do Or Die" Moment as "Witnesses" Hits Theaters

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Doctor Scratch
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Re: The Mopologists Face a "Do Or Die" Moment as "Witnesses" Hits Theaters

Post by Doctor Scratch »

Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Sat Jun 05, 2021 3:55 am
Folks, you can’t make this stuff up. The proprietor of SeN is begging everyone to go over and post 5 star reviews on rottentomatoes.com. This is not a good look at all. I’m embarrassed for everyone involved in this project.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... -help.html
Yeah, I saw that, Stake President Chung. He's claiming that "trolls" are deliberately trying to drive down the Tomato-Meter rating:
I admit to being somewhat indignant about what I see as unprincipled people abusing the “Rotten Tomatoes” system. (Plainly, it's easily abused.) I regard this sort of behavior as an unethical attempt to strangle our film in its cradle. And the film simply doesn't deserve that. Nor do the many people who sacrificed time and/or money and/or energy to create it — notable among them Mark Goodman, James Jordan, and Russell Richins. I dislike injustice, and yet it seems obvious to me that that's what this is.
"strangle our film in its cradle"? Come on. Allegedly, it was a bunch of misogynistic trolls and haters that drove down the Tomato-Meter rating for The Last Jedi, and yet I didn't see Rian Johnson bellyaching like this. Plus, DCP said that he *expected* negative reviews. How influential does he think the Tomato-Meter rating actually is? Will there be more ticket sales in the Zion corridor if the meter is at 82% rather than 75%?

Well, he himself seemed to hesitantly define the success of the film on the basis of whether or not it made back its budget. I guess that's now in doubt? I briefly checked out some of the screenings in Utah for this evening, and it really didn't look very good, I'm afraid. I'm guess that DCP's main fan-base (i.e., people who attend the FAIR conference, and who read Book of Mormon Central, the Mormon Interpreter blog, etc.) bought group tickets and that was how they got the film to screen in 40 states, but it may be that this is going to be it for the movie's theatrical run. Maybe it will have a "second life" on DVD/Blu-ray and streaming?
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Doctor Scratch
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Re: The Mopologists Face a "Do Or Die" Moment as "Witnesses" Hits Theaters

Post by Doctor Scratch »

Wow: Dr. Peterson admitted that he gave a full 5-star review to his own movie. I wonder if he remembers delivering that fateful line, "Stupid books deserve to be ridiculed"? Does The Godmakers have a rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I wonder?
"If, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
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Gadianton
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Re: The Mopologists Face a "Do Or Die" Moment as "Witnesses" Hits Theaters

Post by Gadianton »

Incredible, in his infinite understanding of human nature, he publicly declares war on his anonymous detractor(s). Given the time cost of having to register a new account for each review, the one or two people up to no good who would've tired of it after a couple of days, but now they have a reason.

Does he really think a bunch of fake 5-star reviews are going to sell it any better? A film produced by a cult without a single professional review has an audience rating of 100%. That's not suspicious at all.
Witnesses is really quite good (as is overwhelmingly demonstrated by the genuine, legitimate reviews at Rotten Tomatoes)
I hate to break this to him, but those reviews are barely more legitimate. And ironically, DCP's own predictions about how the film would be rated testify to that.
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Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: The Mopologists Face a "Do Or Die" Moment as "Witnesses" Hits Theaters

Post by Everybody Wang Chung »

It looks like Witnesses was playing in 90 theaters as of last Thursday. Friday, the number of theaters showing Witnesses dropped to 67.

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Witne ... box-office
"I'm on paid sabbatical from BYU in exchange for my promise to use this time to finish two books."

Daniel C. Peterson, 2014
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