All Ratings Are Silly
This is the way that most critics and reviewers have worked for a long time and will use for a lot longer. It is also the method which I will keep using for the end of my reviews. But still I am aware that the system of the star rating and even all ratings are really a silly thing to do.
There are those (some of my friends included) that rate movies out of ten and even go deeper with rating like seven point three. They say that they take those ratings seriously and I believe them. But for me I just cant rate like that and even if I was forced to rate like that I wouldn't take it seriously. I use the four star rating and I like that rating system because I can both rate and read rating of that scale and know what each rating means. I know the difference between a three star movie and a three and a half star movie.
The way I approach the four star rating system goes like this. Three stars is a good movie, if its a comedy then I laughed the right amount and got a kick out of it its worth the price of the ticket and I enjoyed myself. Three and a half stars means that the movie was very good, say an action movie that was actually clever and with good action that I was invested in and it is probably one of the best movies out right now. Four stars means that I think the movie succeeds on every level and it will be a classic for all time. It is the two and a half star rating that's a little tricky, it means that I wouldn't send my best friend to see the movie and there are probably better movies out there, it means for every good thing I can name I can name a bad thing. It means that if there's nothing better available then its worth at least one watch, that rating is tricky for those little awkward movies that aren't bad but dont really have a lot of good things going for them.
My friends have pointed out that three stars out of four equals seventy-five percent. That's true but I honestly dont look at it like that, I see the four star rating system as a more abstract system for my favorable feeling for the product.
Other ratings, like say out of a hundred percent are just as hard for me to take seriously. However I excuse the websites that use that rating system because they either, have an entire staff to calculate and work out the overall rating or like IMDB or Rotten-tomatoes they average out there rating from a huge inbox of other ratings.
Ratings should be relative and not absolute. What I'm rating is important to take into the equation. For example, I gave the direct to DVD animated superhero movie Planet Hulk four stars out of four. Now that doesn't mean its on league with Casablanca or The Godfather, that means in the standard that I hold for direct to DVD animated superhero movies it succeeds on all the levels that I expect of it, as well of course that I had an amazing time watching it.
What I am rating is also essential, rating a movie is actually pretty easy. A movie is around ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes (give or take). The movie ticket is affordable as is the DVD, should you choose to take my advice and go for it. This also includes graphic novels. However TV shows, books and a comic book series are a total different ball game. Books are not as expensive as movies, they may be even cheaper, but an average book is around two hundred and twenty pages and it takes longer to read that than it does to watch a movie. TV shows could even be five seasons long with ten episodes to them, that could add up to two hundred hours that I am expecting my audience to sit through (assuming that I recommend it). Same for a long running comic book series, comic books in bulk are expensive and forty issues will take up a fair share of space across your shelf. So ratings must be relevant to your product.
Most critics prefer to have a rating number that's even, this is so that there is a clear line where the product becomes good or bad. Some of my friends question me when I tell them that I rate with the four star rating, I want to know where the five star rating came from. The four stars was the original method of rating and I have no idea where the extra star came from. Frankly I would prefer it if there was either a four star or a six star rating so that there would still be an even number rating system.
It was Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert that used the thumbs up thumbs down rating system for their show Siskel & Ebert. Now that rating system itself has itself been criticized for being too digital, or black and white. There's truth to that but in the end isn't that what all ratings are about, whether the product is worth your time or not, there are variables and you can be more accurate and say its mostly worth your time or its top notch.
Speaking of Siskel & Ebert here is a fascinating look on how they themselves view the art of film criticism. These are the masters, listen closely.
Top lists are also a broken form of ratings. Whenever you number a list, from one to ten, then immediately almost everything else that didn't make the cut, or even the other names on the list are diminished because of the number one winner. Another way to handle a top ten list is by simply having ten slots to fill and have the winners in alphabetical order.
In the ends ratings are silly because they can never speak for the entire readership that one reviewer might have or no mater now polarized one view might seem there will always be one person that hates it or another that loves it. I feel that there is something primal to the rating system, something in our brains that just makes us want to be told whether something is very good or bad.
Either way rating aren't going away anytime soon and I dont intend to stop using them myself. But even when I read a rating or when I myself use a rating, I'll still know deep down that there quit silly.
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