25 Sep 2010
I'm a Netflix addict. I joined in January of 2004 and since then I've rented about 430 movies (so I get through a little more than 1 movie a week). With Netflix's "Watch Instantly" streaming, I've watched a bunch more movies and TV shows that way as well.
And, every time I watch something on Netflix (or in the theater or online or on TV or ... wherever), I rate it using Netflix's scale. Everything gets 1 to 5 stars. Over those same 6.5 years, I've rated 1780 tv shows and movies (yeah, I realize I'm a freak).
But one thing has always bugged me: five stars isn't granular enough. The scale, as it Netflix has it, is basically:
1 star = hated it
2 stars = really didn't like it
3 stars = liked it
4 stars = really liked it
5 stars = loved it
I'm mostly ok with the ends of the spectrum. I don't need a lot of gradations between "hated it" and "really didn't like it"--if I hate something, I'll probably never watch it again. If I "really didn't like it", I'll probably never watch it again, but maybe I'd watch a scene I liked if it popped up on HBO. Likewise, with the high end: five stars is for something that's perfect (or almost perfect); 4 stars for something that is really, really good, but maybe not the greatest ever.
It's in the 3 star range that things get tricky. There are loads and loads of movies that I've given 3 stars because I didn't dislike them enough to be 2 stars, but they weren't good enough to be 4 stars. So, what I end up with a big huge bucket of movies in the 3 star range. Except not all 3 star movies are created equal.
For instance, just recently I watched Green Zone and The Goods. Green Zone is a pretty good action movie, a bit of a message, but gets pretty heavy-handed towards the end. It's a good, solid movie. If I had half-stars, it's probably a 3.5 star movie. I liked it, would watch it again, but it's not a "great" movie. The Goods had its moments, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again. I'd like to give it 2.5 stars. Sadly, Netflix doesn't let me do this. They both get 3 stars, and people thing I'm insane for rating Bridget Jones' Diary the same as Boy Eats Girl or Shutter Island the same as Semi-Pro.
I threw my ratings into Excel (thanks to a nify script to extract ratings from Netflix's site), and what you see is a pretty typical bell curve.
It's a little biased towards the high side of the chart, which is to be expected: I don't go out of my way to rent movies I don't like. But, the peak in the middle is a little high, and the left side a little low, since I don't have a way to differentiate between movies that are ok (the aforementioned "Goods") and that are pretty good (Green Zone, etc.).
With half-star ratings, I'm pretty certain what you would see is the middle peak brought down significantly, and a bit more gradual rise -- a lot more of those 3 star movies become 2.5 star movies, some become 3.5 stars (and likewise, some of the 2s become 2.5s and some of the 4s become 3.5s). As I mentioned, there'd be many fewer movies moving between 1 and 1.5 and 5 and 4.5--there's already a filter there: I have to really like or really hate something for it to get 1 or 5 stars).
Why do I care? Well, I don't really. I do think it'd be nice if I could be a bit more accurate. From Netflix's perspective, I'm not sure they care: five options makes it easier for your everyday Netflix person to rate movies without thinking about it. It probably also makes the suggestion engine a bit easier, since people have to make a decision (it's like a survey: you get better results when you make people make a choice).
Mostly, I only wanted to explain why I rate crappy movies the same as good movies. I don't have a choice. (Also, I have weird taste in movies.)