Posted in: Movies | Tagged: aliens, dc, dceu, justice league, Release the Snyder Cut!, rotten tomatoes

Op/Ed: Why Scientists' Attempt To Contact Aliens Could Help Justice League's Rotten Tomatoes Score

Published Fri, 17 Nov 2017 09:15:05 -0600

Last updated Wed, 14 Feb 2018 07:51:52 -0600

A new round of controversy over the existence of alien life and whether those aliens, if they exist, would want to help us or destroy us, had been kicked off by the organization METI (Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) International, which beamed a broadcast of scientific information in the general direction of star GJ 273, 12 light years away from Earth, in hopes of contacting and receiving a holla back from alien scientists that understand the message.

Reaction to the idea of attempting to make aliens aware of our existence is split amongst the scientific community, with some, including Professor Stephen Hawkings, believing it could be dangerous to broadcast our existence to aliens, who could consider as lowly to them as bacteria are to us, and potentially wipe us out. Others argue that aliens with the ability to travel to Earth and vaporize us with death rays likely already know of our existence, and would probably have already wiped us out if they were going to, probably right after we elected Donald Trump as president, when we deserved it most.

But leaving aside the uncertain future of the human race, we wonder how else potential contact might affect life on Earth. Specifically, we wonder how it might affect the Rotten Tomatoes score for Justice League, which is currently hovering at just 37% after starting around 48% yesterday. That's higher than the respective 26% and 27% scores for Suicide Squad and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but significantly lower than the 55% score of Man of Steel, a movie which featured a Jonathan Kent who encourages his son to let people die at risk of revealing himself and a Superman who snaps his enemies necks and then makes out with Lois Lane in the rubble of Metropolis. The threshold for a movie to be considered "fresh," or good, rather than "rotten," or bad, is 60%.

Besides Wonder Woman, objectively the only good DCEU movie with a 92% fresh score, human critics have a track record of panning DCEU films. If the early score for Justice League, which debuts in theaters today, is any indication, Justice League isn't carrying much good will forward from Wonder Woman. But opening up the Rotten Tomatoes score to reviews from critics on another planet could change that. Extraterrestrials wouldn't be subject to the same biases as human critics.

What if, on Z'lxnorr'rb, a grim and gritty planet orbiting GJ 273, critics have developed a taste for sexualizing Amazon costumes, Wonder Woman upskirt shots, flat characterization, and boring, generic superhero movie plots? What if, on Z'lxnorr'rb, a movie whose sole purpose appears to be advertising future spinoffs and sequels is actually exactly what the moviegoing audience is looking for? What if these aliens are able to teach us that our entire understanding of mathematics and how they relate to something being "fresh" or "rotten" is completely wrong, and that 37% is actually the highest Rotten Tomatoes score a movie can receive?

The possibilities are limitless for how contacting alien life could improve Justice League's Rotten Tomatoes score, which is why we here at Bleeding Cool support the decision to reach out to them 100% (or 37%, going by Z'lxnoorr'rbian math). Besides, if we're being perfectly honest, if the Earth is destroyed before Justice League 2 comes out, we probably won't be missing anything worthwhile anyway.

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