• The “tomato meter” is literally manipulated into irrelevance. There are outfits that specifically pay critics during a certain time period to either hold off with their review or change it to give a shitty feature a 100% during previews so they can market the hell out of it. The system was shoddy and broken before. At this point it’s just useless.

        • Honestly, I don’t really read reviews. I can usually sense based on the marketing campaign and the feel of the trailer whether a movie will be up my alley. I also work in film and have a huge group of super pretentious movie buffs around me at all times. I’m definitely an outlier in that group because I’m a pretty easy critic lol. And I know which friends of mine are too pretentious for their own good or ones who are more geared toward blockbusters than I am. And from there I work backwards to see what interests me. Or I just tag along and find out the hard way.

          I will say, though, I like letterboxd. You do have to start scrolling and see which people you’re going to discount and which ones that point out things that are important to you.

  • While many people actually just say the quiet part out loud, it’s too “woke,” others code it with the “bad writing, bad characters” claim. The writing of course being the “woke” parts, mainly, the characters being those of color, usually.

    This paranoid lunatic really believes that criticism of a show’s writing and characters is some kind of dogwhistle. The first series of Castlevania was decent, but very silly; it was a 6/10 at the absolute highest. Or, if I was a character from Castlevania, I would say “the first FUCKING series of Castlevania was DAMN decent, but very FUCKING silly and SHIT; it was a DAMN 6 out of BITCH 10 at the absolute FUCKING highest”. It’s not a particularly amazing series and this one is worse, as continuations are wont to be.

    Considering this is a Forbes article, my assumption is that this is a bought-and-paid-for PR statement. Why would you post anything from this corporate rag in the first place, OP?

      • Your reaction was so angry and so strong. It raises red flags man lol

        Oh, give me a break. This is obviously a reach on your part, because if your personality was so blandly milquetoast that you actually think this, you wouldn’t be the kind of person who uses histrionics like you just did. I don’t know what your angle is but at least be internally consistent.

    • I never finished the first show but I thought it was cool. At least a 7 for me. This Forbes review is specifically citing the reviews that complained about “modern day talking points” so I don’t doubt they’re at least partially correct. The show is probably mediocre to begin with but there’s also righties getting worked up over it. I guess I’ll have to watch it and see if it’s any good.

  • I finished Nocturne last night and it was…eh? Well it’s half a show isn’t it? It’s the same as the OG Netflix Castlevania S1, where they set all the pieces up for S2, so I’m willing to wait it out and see where it goes. The 53% does feel accurate to me as a score honestly, even though I’d personally put it at like ~60%.

    The highlight of the show for me was Richter and Maria’s interactions in episode 1, and I thought we would get more of that than we actually did. I don’t mind Annette, but like…I wish we got more RICHTER (and Maria, Tera, and Orlox by extension) and saved Annette’s story for later.

    It also just …weirdly felt too rushed and too slow simultaneously. 8 episodes was not enough for the story they wanted to tell, and I wish they just focused on the Belmont side for now.

    • It’s the weird scene arrangement. Had opera gone to hell at the end of the season, it would have been paced infinitely better and, moreover, it would have been much more poignant. Contrasting the incoming with the outgoing would have been interesting. As you said, I’ll forgive it if they can meaningfully expand on their story in the next season.

    • It’s a lose adaptation of next Alucard/Belmont saga:

      • Rondo of Blood.
      • Symphony of the night.
      • Bloodlines (just some enemies like Countess Bathory and Drolza).
      • I did enjoy it, nice production, some poor writing some times, but not 100% nor 50‰, to me it’s like 75% at least.
      • It’s not like source (games) has awesome writing, just a motivation to kill enemy every game.
      • I really hope when finishing this adaptation, they follow with next and final Alucard arc in the future (our present).