As more and more fan reviews filter in, the Rotten Tomatoes fan score is still remaining at 86%, right there with both The Force Awakens and Rogue One, which is pretty high. Obviously, this movie will only further the critic vs fan debate of all this, which was really pervasive through all of TLJ, but in the opposite way. Obviously, there is intrinsically going to be a difference between how critics, many times non-fans look at a particular movie and a fan, or the general movie going audience is going to look at things. This has always been there and is a good perspective to have as we analyze movies. However, one thing people also need to consider is how many of those critics all live in Los Angeles (its kind of crazy), all go to the same critic screenings of the movie, and all somewhat know each other to some extent in a community type of way. Therefore, there is inevitably going to be some level of bubbled group-think going on between all of them whether they realize it or want to admit it or not. We've all been there. In those scenarios, its not exactly cool to be too different than your peers, especially when any community you are in has a tendency to jump down your throat about a differing opinion. It just is what it is. Surely in our current political environment, we might at least know a little bit what group think looks like right? Keep in mind, there is such thing as fan group-think as well, so maybe we shouldn't get too high on our horses either. Regardless, when looking at numbers such as Rotten Tomatoes for these types of things, people do need to recognize all facets that can feed into those figures.
