Hollywood Road

In fact, since ten days ago, Christian Franklin was keenly aware that "Dark City" might pose a threat to "The Shawshank Redemption", and subconsciously believed that the word-of-mouth trend of this film might be extremely strong, and it would not be like Previously, new releases saw their ratings plummet after their opening weekend.

Since he became the leader of the discussion group of the IMDB section of "Shawshank's Redemption", he has found that every time Murphy Stanton's new film is released, it always poses a threat to "Shawshank's Redemption". He once dominated the TOP250 list for a long time. If he and other "Shawshank Redemption" fans hadn't tirelessly scored low scores, it would be hard to say whether the ranking of "Man of Steel" would drop.

Even so, before "Dark City" was released, "Man of Steel" ranked fifth with a score of 8.9!

Although he likes the film "The Shawshank Redemption" very much, Christian Franklin is very clear that this film can get the first place in IMDB's TOP250, more because of the god-making movement of these movie fans, once it is If people surpass it, it will be difficult to regain the number one throne.

Therefore, as one of the initiators of this god-making movement, Christian Franklin has been paying attention to the TOP250 score changes on IMDB, and shortly after "Dark City" was released, he once again focused on Murphy Stanton movie of.

After observing these recent years, he can see very clearly that among the existing Hollywood directors, there are directors who are more capable than Murphy Stanton, but there are almost perfect directors like him who combine business and art. , but extremely rare, even if there are a few, the works directed and produced are not as good as Murphy Stanton.

On fan rating sites like IMDB, it is difficult for films that are too small to reach the top of the TOP250 list. The top ones are basically movies with a wider audience.

Popular movies can easily be made into ordinary popcorn. Ordinary popcorn may sell well, but they can't squeeze into the front row next to this one. So he focused on Murphy Stanton, because the other party's shots are always extraordinary. commercial film.

Since ten days ago, Christian Franklin has been mobilizing fans of "The Shawshank Redemption" to give "Dark City" a low score. Their tireless efforts, plus some other fans who don't like this movie, After a period of struggle, the score of this film was finally lowered from 9.9 to 9.7, which is not far from the 9.2 of "The Shawshank Redemption".

But Christian Franklin knows that it is not enough to let "The Shawshank Redemption" regain the first place in IMDB's 250 best films. The number of viewers who have been confused by Dark City is simply too small.

The scale of the operation must be expanded. Christian Franklin is very confident that as long as more people are called on to give "Dark City" a score, it will surely pull down this film just like "Man of Steel" was pulled down back then. .

Christian Franklin sat in front of the computer and thought for a few minutes, and quickly made a decision. He closed the IMDB webpage, opened his mailbox, and sent a group email, calling for the discussion group of "The Shawshank Redemption" he was in. The members continue to intensify their attacks and must pull "Dark City" from the number one position on the charts as soon as possible.

Sending emails was not enough. After sending the emails, Christian Franklin picked up the phone and made calls one after another. He was in touch with the leader missions of many fan organizations in "The Shawshank Redemption". God-making movement.

"Costa, be sure to mobilize the people around you to vote for "Dark City\

,"remember! You can only vote for one point! Be fast! "

"Alexandra, mobilize your friends..."

After all, IMDB is an open network platform. Fans can vote high or low scores for a film, and in order to be relatively fair, IMDB score changes and score statistics are all open. It is completely visible to the user.

In just two days, Justin, one of the deputy leaders of the IMDB Murphy-Stanton forum discussion group, noticed the unreasonable rating change of "Dark City". The rating actually dropped from 9.7 to 9.6, which is completely inconsistent with the normal law of steady decline!

He specifically found the statistics on the IMDB website and looked at it. Two days ago, the 1-point vote ratio of "Dark City" only accounted for 1.2%, but now it has risen to 2.6%. It is obvious that someone is Hands and feet.

Even a fool can see that there is a problem.

Someone is making trouble again? Justin instantly thought of "Man of Steel". Back then, Murphy's film was a big hit in word of mouth and box office. For a long time, it ranked first on IMDB's 250 Best Films list, but then it fell down inexplicably. Going down, at the beginning, including him and Daisy, they didn't understand what was going on. It wasn't until a long time later that they found out that some of them were playing tricks, using the old users who met the ratings to get low scores, and made "Steel and Steel" The score of "Body" was suppressed.

For this reason, he and the leaders of the discussion group such as Daisy observed for a long time, and locked the suspect target on "The Shawshank Redemption", because they are the biggest beneficiaries.

Could it be them again this time? The old revenge of the year has not been avenged, so they jumped out again?

Justin thought for a while, then picked up the phone and dialed Daisy's number. After a while, the connection was made, but there was a crackling sound like fried beans.

"What's the matter?" Daisy's voice seemed to be shouting, "I'm practicing guns at the club? If it's not urgent, we'll talk about it later!"

"Boss, it's urgent!" Justin hurriedly said, "It's very urgent! "Dark City" has been hacked again on IMDB!"

"what?"

From the sound coming from the receiver, Justin could probably guess that Daisy was looking for a quiet place. After a while, when he couldn't hear the crackling gunshots, Daisy's voice came again, "What exactly is going on?" Something? Tell me."

Justin stated his guess in a quick and concise manner.

There was silence for a while, and Daisy's voice sounded again, "Go and contact the person in charge of the fan organization you can reach, I'm going home now! Those bastards really thought we were easy to bully!"

In just over half an hour, on an online video software, Justin and Daisy called together the heads of many Murphy fan organizations, and had a lively discussion on this matter. participated.

CAA also immediately fed back the news to Murphy. Not only did Murphy not object, but he asked people to add fuel to the flames!

In the following screenings, if "Dark City" wants to maintain a certain degree of popularity, there must be enough topics.

A fan controversy surrounding IMDB erupted.

With the explosive start of "Dark City", the film's rating on IMDB remained high, and it stayed at an unbelievable 10 at the highest point. Murphy's fans almost turned into fanatical believers on the Internet. The reactions of fans like "Shawshank's Redemption" or "The Godfather" have regarded "Dark City" as a masterpiece while secretly belittling other works.

The fans of "The Shawshank Redemption" spent a lot of effort and finally won the first place in the TOP250. Naturally, they refused to give it up. They continued to use the previous method. Under the call of Christian Franklin, all those who have People with corresponding IMDB permissions went to give points to Dark City one after another, hoping to bring this film down as soon as possible.

After entering Hollywood for more than ten years, Murphy has also accumulated a large number of fans, and there are not a few die-hard fans like Daisy and Justin. Especially in large and medium cities across the United States, there are basically Murphy-Stanton Fan Associations. Under the tandem and mobilization of the heads of various associations, hundreds of thousands of fans rushed towards "The Shawshank Redemption" like a tide. They had only one goal, to lower the rating of this film and make it more popular. It can no longer pose a threat to "Dark City", and even pull it below the position of "Man of Steel".

Although the IMDB score is indeed a relatively fair way of scoring online, even if a simple score does not require professional trolls, there is still a lot of room for manipulation in the hands of ordinary movie fans.

There are many reasons that affect IMDB's TOP250 score, the first of which is of course the number of voters.

There is a very interesting phenomenon on IMDB. A movie that only has a dozen votes and does not seem to be very good will often have a super high score at first. Of course, this high score usually does not last long. People suspect that this is a propaganda method by the producer and distributor.

Therefore, the list has added the number of voters and the restriction that only the votes of active users can be included in the ranking, so as to ensure the fairness and pertinence of the Top250 ranking to the greatest extent.

In the face of films of the level of "The Godfather", "Dark City" and "Shawshank's Redemption", this restriction does not actually play a big role.

It is conceivable that when Murphy's hardcore fans are surrounded by ecstasy after watching a gorgeous and passionate movie like "Dark City", it is difficult to make a more sober and rational judgment on the quality of the movie. And most of the people who will vote on IMDB immediately after watching a movie are hardcore movie fans. It is not difficult to understand that the score of "Dark City" soared to 10 at the beginning.

On the other hand, there are also deeper "collective unconscious" factors at work. In the midst of fanatical praise or derogation, it is difficult for most people to stick to their own judgments. As far as "Dark City" is concerned, it is difficult for most people to say "no" to it under the oppression of A+ praise from the audience and the super high applause from IMDB.