As we discussed on Friday, Chris Pratt covers the latest issue of Men’s Fitness, and the interview was sort of terrible. In the quotes released from the interview, Pratt seems to be flirting with this idea that he, a white guy from a working class background, is underrepresented in the film industry. My first thought went to the show Rosanne, and how rare those kinds of depictions are, and I honestly do think there’s a point to be made about the scarcity of honest representations of working-class Americans in film. But that point was made poorly by Pratt because it came across as very “No one ever pays attention to white working class dudes!!! MY STRUGGLES.” Well, Pratt saw the outrage and he wants to correct himself:
That was actually a pretty stupid thing to say. I'll own that. There's a ton of movies about blue collar America. https://t.co/DclYfNsiv3
— chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) April 21, 2017
Something nice: at least he didn’t double-down. At least he owned that it was a stupid thing to say. That’s honestly sort of refreshing, even though ten bucks says he actually still feels like society has forgotten all about him, the mythical all-American white man from lower-middle-class background, the guy in a Make America Great Again hat, sitting in his starter mansion.
Meanwhile, this was another Pratt story going around last week, and I’m sorry I didn’t cover it. Remember Passengers and how the critics thought it was awful? It was the big Christmas release for Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence and it was supposed to be all “Two of America’s biggest movie stars fall in love in space!” But the reality was that the actual story was incredibly creepy and Pratt’s character can across like a stalker who doesn’t care about consent. Pratt was asked about the terrible reviews and this is what he said:
Asked if the reactions to the film surprised him, Pratt hesitates. “Yeah,” he says. “It did, it really did. I was really caught off guard by that. It was definitely a lesson.” Pratt goes on to say that he stands by the film. “I personally think the movie is very good, I’m very proud of it,” he says. “I’ll be curious to see if it holds up — the criticism and the movie.”
He adds, “I’m proud of how the movie turned out and it did just fine to make money back for the studio.” “Passengers” grossed almost $300 million worldwide on a budget of $110 million. It also received two Academy Award nominations for original score and production design. He adds, “But the critical score was disproportionately negative compared to the Cinemascore. It got the same rating on Rotten Tomatoes as ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop,’ maybe worse.” (As of this writing, “Paul Blart” sits at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, with “Passengers” at 31%. “Passengers” has a B CinemaScore.)
That said, Pratt doesn’t want to criticize the critics. “I never want to be in a situation where I’m blaming critics for not liking a movie,” he says. “So I’ll just stop talking. It is what it is and I’m proud of it.”
I didn’t see the movie so I can’t speak to whether the film will hold up over time. I don’t think it will? It didn’t seem like that kind of movie, the kind which people will want to watch over and over. As for Pratt’s very specific criticism of the Rotten Tomatoes score… why in the world is this the new talking point? Stop blaming Rotten Tomatoes for your awful movies!! RT is merely an aggregate site for reviews!
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Passengers was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Not only is Pratt’s character a murderer, but Jennifer Lawrence’s character is so badly written that it should be studied in film school on how not to write a female character ever.
As for his comments, I do like that he apologized. It’s hard to take his hot take seriously when so much media coverage is about white blue collar workers who voted for Trump. Sorry, but I don’t need more of their stories now.
Oooohhh damn, go in. I love your commentary. I didn’t see it, could you say more about Pratt’s character being a murderer (I know that basic plot line from discussions here, but I’d love to hear more about how it came off in the actual film), and JL’s being the worst female character in the history of ever? Your comment has me intrigued.
The plot revolves around a ship in space taking a large group of people to another planet because Earth now sucks and is super expensive. Ironically, this plot line was written before Trump was elected. Anyway, the ship malfunctions and Pratt’s character wakes up 90 years early. He is obviously upset because he is going to die on the ship, but then after a year of being alone(with the exception of a robot bartender who is a total rip off from The Shining) , he stumbles upon Jennifer Lawrence’s character sleeping in her pod and decides to wake her up so she can die with him. Of course, he doesn’t tell her he woke her up. He just lets her think it happened by accident.
As for JLaw, she is so basic that it’s painful. Her name is Aurora(sure). She’s a writer(Of course she is). She says things like “Give me a view of the Chrysler Building and a cup of coffee and I can write all day!(Ugh). She’s in her 20s, restless and feel like she doesn’t belong(This is call being in your 20s). And she decides that she wants to go to Earth 2. Not to help colonize it, but so she can spend 90 years traveling there and then spend another 90 years traveling back to Earth(which will now be smoldering, expensive pile of sh*t where everyone she knows is dead) and write a story about it. Apparently, there is zero vetting process for how people get a ticket to Earth 2 because she should’ve never made the cut.
The story could’ve worked if they played up Pratt’s creep factor and made basic Aurora do something besides be basic. But no. After some turmoil, they fall in love and live happily ever after on the ship.
Mkay so: In Passengers, Chris Pratt’s character gets accidentally woken up with no way to go back to hypersleep, about 90 years before landing, so he’s understandably freaked out. Just when he’s about to commit suicide, he trips and falls right in front of JLaw’s pod, and is instantly in love/lust. After creepily looking her up in the ship’s computer, obsessively reading about her/watching videos and whatnot, he rationalizes it to himself that it wouldn’t be *that* bad for him to sabotage her pod and pretend that “whoopsie, how did that happen? well I reckon our only option is to spend the rest of our lives together!” Eventually, because duh, JLaw finds out, and that’s where “you murdered me!” comes in. Then there’s some sort of asteroid coming at the ship or whatever, ad they ave to work together, and she forgives him real quick, and when he finds a way to send just one of them back into hypersleep and offers it to her, she decides that she loves him now and wants to spend the rest of their lives together. The end. BARF.
Basically, this mofo makes a decision that effectively takes away the rest of this woman’s life bc he saw her sleeping and got horny, and the movie treats it like Meg Ryan finding out that Tom Hanks owns the bookstore in You’ve Got Mail. It’s gross and dumb and literally anyone should have known that before the script even got written. Ugh.
I didn’t see the movie and have no interest in seeing it. But you said an asteroid was coming towards the ship and they had to work together to stop it I guess. So if he had never woke her up wouldn’t everybody on the ship have died anyways. It seem that it took both of them to stop the asteroid. He couldn’t have stopped it by himself.Also if he had committed suicide then the other passengers would have died as well because there wouldn’t have been anyone awake to stop the asteroid from hitting the ship. That would be the end of the movie but I’m just saying didn’t the two of them save the other passengers lives by averting the asteroid.
@V4real Not sure what your point is or what it has to do with JLaw’s character’s agency, but yes, the ship would have been in trouble if hey hadn’t been able to avert the asteroid or whatever! Not a good enough excuse for Pratt’s character’s waking her up tbh
The ship malfunction has nothing to do with him waking her up. He did not know what was going to happen when broke open her pod. He woke her up because he stalked her and decided he wanted her. That’s it. The pending disaster was a weak plot point thrown in at the end to bring them together.
My point was that everyone would have died anyways if the events didn’t occur the way they did. End of movie. But like they say things happen for a reason. Had he not woken up and due to his selfish reason had he not woken her up, they would all have been dead. So due to his selfish act he actually saved lives.
So by your logic it is okay if you murder someone if they had died anyway?
@v4real so you haven’t seen the movie and Jenns and I have- you might have to take our word for it that the asteroid plot point is BS. It’s the textbook definition of a last minute, too little too late move by the writer to try and make a bland creepy story less bland and creepy, and frankly doesn’t have anything to do with Pratt’s character’s motivation. As Jenns already said, he had no idea at all that the asteroid was coming; Pratt woke JLaw up for his own gratification without regard for her life or wishes, and the movie ties to play it as a love story. Jezebel did an excellent article on the movie, as did many other places, that could explain even better than I could.
However, I suspect that you like playing Devil’s Advocate for the attention, so I won’t give you any more.
You are not wrong. I read the script for passengers long before it came out and the ONE thing I said should change was the premise of him “waking” her up. Well that’s the dumb plot they kept in basically stripping JLaw’s character of any agency. But it’s all good cause he was hot so they live happily ever after alone together to die. So cool. I watched it at a free screening cause I wasn’t giving that movie any of my money. They should’ve made it a psychological thriller that had Jlaw killing him in the end. Would’ve solved that plot problem.
And his comments about blue collar movies…well we all know white working class has been so forgotten in the last 8 years so…
If you don’t mind me asking,what do you do for a living that you saw the script? Do you work for a studio? That must be so cool! No worries if you’d rather not say, I totally understand
I don’t work for the industry but I know a few people that do. Sometimes I get to do cool things like premieres or screeners. Rarely do I get to see early scripts but sometimes it happens!
What’s interesting to consider is that all the producers had to do, in order to make it work as a thriller, was to see the narrative from the female point of view, which they were obviously completely incapable of.
Yeah Passengers was truly awful. My friend and I were outright laughing at the corny lines and stupidity towards the end – in moments that were supposed to be big dramatic scenes. It was just so bad…
the struggles and problems of blue collar people need to be taken more seriously. The issues why they voted for Trump need to be taken more seriously.
His last name is really fits him
My thought exactly. And I remembered that other Pratt, Spencer whose name fits him perfectly as well
I think the main problem with the JLaw movie was that its promotion was shit.
From what i had seen in the trailer I went to see a space thriller.
What I got was a space rom-com.
Chris Pratt, just like Charlie Hunnam, says some really dumb things in interviews. You have to side eye these guys. They definitely don’t come off very well in their comments and it makes them sound like douche bags.
Passengers wasn’t the great movie it could have been, but I feel like it had marketing problems and perception problems more than film problems.
It was meant to be creepy. We see the guy wake up and slowly unravel a bit due to being completely alone. Eventually he convinced himself it’s ok to wake the woman up. That he needs to wake this woman up. The horror of it was that this woman had been woken up and basically doomed to an empty life on the ship, but what does she do when she finds that out? If she kills the guy who woke her up or just stops speaking to him, she’s alone. Forever. All through the film the music and shots subtly underline the psychological horror aspect.
Now the film could have spent about 10 minutes more on that after the reveal and the ending could have been better handled (the script was better so I think some things might have been changed in post). But that aspect was there. The creepiness is very much acknowledged.
Unfortunately when people first heard Chris Pratt/JLaw, they thought love story in space. And in the last months of promotion the marketing leaned into that, whereas before they were playing up the thriller aspect more. I think if more people had gone into it expecting a thriller, they still would have walked out thinking it had room for improvement, but they would have seen the signs that the filmmaker wasn’t trying to make a rom-com in space and thus not taken issue with the creepiness they thought was unintentional.
I can see the bones of a thriller in the movie but in my opinion even if it had been sold to me as a one I would have walked out thinking it was romance, and a poorly done one at that. I mean problems of female characterization and pacing aside, the last minute redemption and happily-ever-after ending is what ultimately clinched the film for me as a an awful romance instead of psychological thriller.
Except if they truly went the creepy route she wouldn’t have ended up with him. That negates whatever creep factor they tried. to me they did not go the creep route…It was a straight up romance
I didn’t share the apparent horror at Passengers. I didn’t think the audience was being asked to applaud his actions. I didn’t admire his choice, but found it understandable in the (very unlikely) circumstances. It’s OTT to say he murdered the JLaw character.
He’s pretty active on social media, I bet he was feeling the heat. As for Passengers, he need to read the script, the creepiness is pretty obvious, hence the massive blowback.
Ps: Chris Pratt has a star on Hollywood Boolvard?!!! Lmao.
Ps: Chris Pratt has a star on Hollywood Boolvard?!!! Lmao.
It’s not surprising considering it’s something that’s bought, not awarded….oh are we still supposed to pretend it’s an “honour” and not something that’s gets paid for as part of publicity campaigns? Oops, sorry if I shattered anyone’s illusions! 😏
Stars on the Blvd have just become PR. Anyone and everyone has one. I can think of a few big names that don’t have them and should. It has become a way to promote a film.. NO NO NO.. Years from now people will walk and look at the name and wonder WTF is that? Undeserving IMO. Stars should be for ICONIC names.. Ones that will last.
He got his star on Friday, it was clearly a promotional thing for Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the director James Gunn was there.
Same as Scarjo: Its bought for promotion. It does not mean much anymore.
Those are bought now. So yea anyone can get one with a 30,000 donation I believe. Except Kim K because reality stars don’t get one lol
God! I’m naïve lol. I guess other celebrities are more subtil, like it made sense to see Amy Adams or Viola Davis getting their own, considering their age and longetivity in Hollywood.
It sucks doesn’t it @Rachel? It always seemed like kind of a neat thing. But while stars like Viola and Amy certainly deserve every honour, if they (or the paying studio) had not wanted to cough up the money? Sorry, no star! It’s just a PR gimmick basically.
“Now”? They’ve always been bought.
I do use Rotten Tomatoes, but I look at the fresh rating together with the average rating and cross check it with the Metacritic percentage. Then if I fancy the film I ignore everything and just watch it. I have seen some brilliantly reviewed films that I thought were rubbish – notably the Robert Redford film ‘All is Lost’ – but generally I do consider it a reasonable guide. My only complaint is that, as well as giving a score for the film, they also state whether it should be fresh or rotten and there seems to be a bit of playing with favorites at this point e.g. A 3/5 Matt Damon film is more likely to get a fresh than a 3/5 film with some other actors.
Yes, by all means-who will think of the plight of the blue collar white man???? Like, it’s almost like a movie with a blue collar man at its center didn’t JUST win an Academy Award or anything. It’s almost like #oscarssowhite never happened!
I’m glad he apologized, but he cashes in on the “bumbling goofball” persona way too often when he says something stupid.
Awww his son.
I love little kids that wear glasses.
Same here! My heart melts.
It might be cute but it’s not that much fun.
Well, it’s not much fun when you’re an adult either.
Even worse with optical hereditary issues, This is at all and any age.
Yes. I know that, I have them.
“As for Pratt’s very specific criticism of the Rotten Tomatoes score… why in the world is this the new talking point? Stop blaming Rotten Tomatoes for your awful movies!! RT is merely an aggregate site for reviews!”
I didn’t think he was blaming the reviews. He said “It is what it is.” I thought he was simply pointing out a fact – that the reviews were negative compared to whatever that other score is, which appears to be true by the statistic he cited.
Are there a crap ton of movies about white men of every economic class? Yes. But I would genuinely enjoy seeing more stories about blue collar families and other diverse groups, so in that context I didn’t actually disagree with him. In general, we see so few original stories being made anymore when it comes to non-indie movies, and when they are they usually feel like prestige sludge. Like Passengers! Which I have zero interest in watching because the premise is just so creepy and from every single report they didn’t treat it like it was.
I’m not really sure why all white working class people are being automatically associated with being Trumpsters in this article and in others. In my area of Pittsburgh, there’s a LOT of working class neighborhoods and many people there are undercover pretty liberal. The way some people here talk about working class people comes across a bit classist, honestly.
All that being said, I don’t agree with him that you never see those stories. “The Wire” did it years ago on TV and “Manchester by the Sea” and others just came out. They come out all the time, when th characters are white. POC working class stories, on the other hand are inarguably harder to come across. I really disliked “Fences” as a movie, but I appreciated the story it was telling.
Thank you for saying this about working class-trumpsters. It’s true that not everyone checks all the boxes we like to lump them in, and it’s especially true it can come off classist. Stereotyping people based on their income/neighborhood/education is wrong.
These types of “not all white people” arguments are too little too late in 2017. They ring false. Literally the majority of white people in America voted for Trump because they feel oppressed and “triggered” by the fact that hard work can pay off for peoole who aren’t white men. And Trumpists are the ones who use “working class” and “Christian” to mean white racists regardless of class. Trump is the face of white America now. It’s not fair to decent white people, of which there are many, but asking everyone to throw in a billion caveats for such folks every time we talk about the state of the USA is peak white fragility. If decent white folks want not to be considered Trumpists by the whole world plus American minorities they need to get their community together and create some kind of a sea change, not beg not to be included in the bad reputation while soaking up white privilege.
Speak that truth, Alexis. If you’re whining about this, you got it pretty good.
I feel like the expectation for celebrities in today’s world is that they will be well spoken and also well educated on social and political issues. A lot of people are using their fame to speak up and speak out, which is not a bad thing.
But there is a reason some other people are actors and not surgeons or scientists. I think Chris Pratt may be kind of a simple guy and not nessecarily all that bright. So he says stupid stuff that isn’t very well thought out. Once it was pointing out to him just how ignorant and dumb he sounded, he apologized for what he said and how he said it.
He doesn’t seem like a thoughtful guy.
Though regarding his comments on Passengers: IMO he was in a lose-lose situation. Even if he eventually realized that the script was creepy, he can’t say so publicly or else he’d be criticized for biting the hand that feeds him a la Katherine Heigel.
At least he either recognises how dumb he sounded or alternatively he listens to his PR people when they tell him how to handle situations like this.
Also, he doesn’t bite the hand that feeds and start complaining about how he was tricked into a movie or misled about the plot like some actors / actresses.
My guess is the PR people. At least he did not say he was “taken out of context.”
That entire film was so hard to believe that I could almost overlook the creepy stalker storyline and J-Law’s idiot character.
First and foremost, are you telling me that a ship taking passengers on a 120-year (or whatever the total time was) journey through space didn’t have some sort of emergency procedure in place on the off chance one of those passengers woke up partway through? No crew member they could wake up, who was trained to fix problems with the pods, put the passenger back to sleep, and then put herself back to sleep too? I mean, COME ON. That bugged me so much.
Also, Pratt’s character wakes up on a ship that wasn’t supposed to support conscious human beings for another 90 years, but somehow, he has no trouble accessing food. Not to mention all the food he and J-Law would’ve eaten in the 50 or so years they spent together on the ship before anyone else woke up… how was there enough for the rest of the passengers to eat during the last four months of their journey??? It made no sense.
And don’t get me started on The Shining robot bartender. NOBODY SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWAKE. Why was he active? Am I supposed to believe that once the ship detected activity, it started functioning accordingly? Because, if so, why wasn’t the crew activated as well???
So many questions. Don’t see this movie, unless you want to feel like throwing things at your screen. 😉
I don’t like him or Jlaw enough to go see the movie, but I am looking forward to Cinema Sins to do this movie. Sounds like there’s lots of material to work with.
The trailer made it look like a lousy film. Even had it looked wonderful, the revelations about Pratt’s treatment of animals made it a no go for me.
I agree. His careless – maybe heartless – attitude towards his pets means he (and Anna Faroe) gets the permanent side-eye from me. Not surprised he said something else douchey.
At least he didn’t give the typical response of “I’m sorry if I offended anyone.” In regards to Passengers….it wasn’t awful but it wasn’t good either. It was okay but something that in a year or so people will forget about. It’s not going to be some cult classic if that’s what he’s hinting at.
These stars mean squat. It’s a shame bc at one time they really did mean something. Old names that were deserving get removed for new lesser names that most of us side eye
The bar is so low here, lol. All he literally did was just tweet, “That was pretty dumb, I’ll own that,” and he’s being lauded for being self-aware, as if this isn’t basically just the equivalent of someone shrugging their shoulders and dismissing the issue and saying what people want to hear because they couldn’t care less, but are also tired of arguing and having to hear about it.
When people like Chris Pratt, or by extension, anyone in the white male Hollywood contingent, talk about “blue collar” struggles, you can bet that the focus of their issue isn’t stuff like income inequality, the ugliness of opioid addiction, the sheer relentless nature of generational poverty and the systems that are created to purposefully keep people poor for the benefit of others, or anything like that. And you can bet that they don’t associate the image of a “blue collar” worker with anyone who is a person of colour, least of all the people who work in blue collar professions who are black, latino, or otherwise not the typical white male American, whose stories ARE in fact widely underrepresented in Hollywood. The only thing people like Chris Pratt really miss is the fact that they and stories about them are not the center of attention any more.
I agree large and by all.
Give him cudos for owning his comments. That doesn’t happen that often nowadays.
And seriously a stupid comment shouldn’t result in Pratt getting roasted. The whole comment was more hilarious than anything serious. There are racists and chauvinists and pedophiles and homophobes out there and they deserve a really bad roasting. In comparison to them Chris Pratt looks like a mildly amusing case of … (fill the gap).
Nice to see Pratt taking some time out from shooting animals or dumping pets, to whine.
Pratt just wants to steal Chris Evans’ “Dumbest Marvel Chris” title
Chris Evans is far from dumb. You may not like what he says, but he’s far from dumb.
He IS dumb, his PR team is extra smart tho.