How We Review: The Paddington 2 Scale

As we start to review things, we thought it would be beneficial to explain our unique review scale. We at Rongo don’t really believe in scored reviews. This is because we find that when a review has a score attached to it, it brings with it to much baggage. People will look at the score but disregard the actual review itself. So for example, we might rate something a 7 out of 10 or a 3 out of five and someone might see that and decide that it isn’t worth their time but if they read the review they might actually find that despite the score, it is something they would enjoy. Reviews after all are just opinions and while they are meant to help someone decide whether a piece of entertainment is worthy of their time and money, they are still just an opinion and we think the readers should base their decision off of more than an arbitrary number.

All of us here have personal experience reading or watching reviews with final scores that would have made us dismiss something if not for the content of the review informing us that despite that score, it sounds right up our alley. We’ve also had the reverse happen where we’ve seen high scores but the content of the review showed us that what was reviewed wasn’t to our taste. After all, if you hate things with gratuitous nudity and violence and see a movie filled with it get a 9/10 and don’t bother to look at anything other than the score, you’ll go and waste 2hrs of your life. That’s why we don’t like scores, because these days the score has taken precedence over the review itself but the content of the review is most important, not the score. The reason why a reviewer gave something a 9/10 might be exactly why you would hate it and vice versa for low scores.

We also believe that scores make people compare things that really shouldn’t be compared. If a horror game is released to 7/10s and a fast paced action game is released to 9/10s, it’s far too common to see people only look at the scores, and compare them based on that alone when you really can’t compare them. The great Roger Ebert reviewed movies based on what they were, that’s why he gave both A Christmas Story and The Godfather 4 stars out of 4 because they were both perfect for the type of film they were, but it wouldn’t make sense to compare them. The Godfather is a 0 star Christmas movie and A Christmas Story is a 0 star gangster film. Too often these days do people try and compare things that shouldn’t be compared just because they both have numbers attached. A 7/10 horror game should be considered 7/10 compared to other horror games not compared to fast paced action games and maybe the reviews state that but when people just focus on the score, it gets lost.

So without numbered scores, we had to figure out a good way to review things. We considered just not having any sort of rating at all but then we figured that some sort of scale would be useful for people. So we had to think, what’s a scale we could use where people couldn’t skip past the actual review itself but still gave people an overall summation of quality based on the content of the review? What is a way we could quantify what really can’t be quantified? And most importantly, what is a rating scale that can’t be used in any sort of dumb online flame war between any number of dumb online groups who are always fighting over each other’s fandoms, console preferences, and their distaste of anything a critic says which they disagree with?

Naturally, we had to pick something that was universally agreed upon to be excellent and something that only the worst scum of the universe dislike. That’s why we settled on the Paddington 2 scale. Paddington 2 is the greatest film of all time. This is an indisputable scientific fact. No film is as good as Paddington 2 and frankly nothing in any form of media is as good. Every single piece of art has it’s detractors. Except for Paddington 2. It is the greatest piece of art ever created. So we decided that at the end of each review, regardless of what it’s for, whether it be for a film, a television show, a video game, etc. we will rate it based on how close in quality it is to Paddington 2. That’s it. You cannot convert this to a numbered rating because there is no proper scale, it’s just gut a feeling. You cannot use this to compare something you like with something you don’t because at the end of the day, almost nothing is as good as Paddington 2. And most importantly, you cannot skip the actual review and just rely on the rating because there is no set scale here. No two things will ever have the same rating. Even things that reach the same closeness to Paddington 2‘s quality will have different ratings so you’ll have to read the review to understand the rating.

That is how we will review things. Whenever there is a review on this website or on the Culture Popped podcast, we will always end our thoughts by rating it on the Paddington 2 Scale by stating how close or far in quality it is, to Paddington 2. This is the perfect rating system. You’re Welcome.