When the community average rating of the new Ariel, the Little Mermaid live-action movie was released on Moviepilot at theatrical release, it was an amazingly low 0.7. This number comes from a high number of 0.0 ratings that were given by a bot wave.
Not only us, but also websites like IMDb have been affected by a strikingly high number of negative Arielle ratings affected. Behind it is so-called Review bombingwhich, among other things, has now moved the largest film database on the web to make a change.
Lord of the Rings & Ariel: Review bombing is a sad trend
With review bombing, multiple accounts or a mass of bot accounts are created in order to overwhelm a film or series with as many negative reviews as possible and to make it look as bad as possible. Racially motivated motives are often behind it.
Before Arielle, for example, the Lord of the Rings series, which relies on a diverse cast, was also affected by review bombing. Amazon already took the step here that ratings were only activated after 72 hours and an examination by the provider.
The IMDb changed the rating system after Arielle incident
According to Fortune, the IMDb recorded around 13,000 1-star ratings out of over 33,000 overall ratings for the new version of Arielle. The website then published a message on the IMDb page for the Disney film stating that the Database rating system changed from now on is:
Our scoring mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To ensure the reliability of our rating system, an alternative weighting calculation was used.
At Moviepilot, too, we are already thinking about technical steps to counteract review bombing in the future.
Ariel the Little Mermaid: Is Disney’s Remake a Success?
In the new edition of the FILMSTARTS podcast on the screen, moderator Sebastian talks to his guests Annemarie and Björn about the new film adaptation of Arielle, the mermaid. They not only discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the remake, but also indulge in nostalgic memories of the Disney classic – because it means a lot to Sebastian, as he tells his two colleagues, who are audibly moved by the story.
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The screen love is the weekly cinema and film podcast of our colleagues from FILMSTARTS
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