1 star – horrible
2 stars – not good; below average
3 stars – solid; average
4 stars – really good: above average
5 stars – exceptional; amazing

I wasn’t going to comment anymore, but since you’re asking directly, I’ll go ahead and answer.

Short answer: For FJ purposes, no I wasn’t serious.

That doesn’t mean I think it’s impossible to use a large point system, of course. IMDB uses one. You vote on 1-10 but it becomes 1.0 to 10.0 (essentially 10-100) when averaged out. There have been other sites I’ve been on that asked for movie ratings 0-100 straight up as well. Though at that point of course it becomes more like ranking and less like rating. For FJ’s use, of course, it would be overkill.

I do wonder if they change though if they are planning to go back through their previously rated films and re-rate them to give people a sense of what a 5 star vs a 4 star film would be. Or which movies would move from 2 star to 3 star. Because without doing so how can I easily see they preferred, say, something they gave 4 stars prior to changing over something they give 4 stars now? *shrug*

Anyway, as I said previously, I really don’t care if they keep 4 star or go 5 star or whatever numerical system they choose to rate films. I’m here for the discussion. I was just having a bit of fun with my overly defensive defense of the 4 star rating system.

Out of curiosity, were you serious when you said you use a 100 point method? How can that possibly be accurate? What is the difference between a 46 and 47 rating (other than simply saying 47 is better)?

I think that’s a bit much.

5 stars always rings so true to me very easily. Usually the minute I walk out of a movie I know what to give a film based on the five point scale. Trying to quantify on a four point scale just doesn’t work for me. I like to be more specific. But not 100 specific. That seems like overkill to me.

http://youtu.be/uZwUuh0b4Jc

:p

0- Absolute Shit
1- Shit
2- Weak
3- Mediocre
4- Good
5- Very Good
6- Excellent

Honestly, I can’t believe such an innocent statement/suggestion has brought up such passion on both sides. I never thought of the 4-star rating system to be something specifically “Film Junk”-y, especially since I always convert everyone’s 4-stars to 5-stars in my head ANYWAY, with most good films being 4/4 and an exceptionally good film a, uh, 5/4?

I’ve always been comfortable with a scale of five since I’m pretty passionate about rating movies on my Netflix account (back when they had the “friends” section and you could compare what your friends watched/rated) so the five-points has always stuck…