I know I know, Matt Patt. Cringe aside, I was very surprised he would make a video on this subject, so I gave it a watch and thought his take was interesting.
tl,dw: movie critics like movies that take risks and attempt to push the boundaries, while audiences like movies that are fun and nostalgic. The movie industry profits from this dynamic because it creates an us-versus-them dichotomy between audiences and critics, making audiences easier to market to.
Motte and bailey. Classic postmodernism, classic Critical Theory. They pull the same bullshit with “muh adaptation”. These are just plausibility exercises. It all cuts exactly one way. Everything is merely an excuse to inject leftist politics and culture into entertainment.
Postmodernism/Critical Theory should challenge every grand narrative and question every idea. In reality, these are just Marxist weapons targeting western civilization. No Critical Theorist or postmodernist is challenging leftist political dogma. No, those challenges are reserved exclusively for any institution or idea that stands in the way of Marxism.
Adaptation and translation are two more examples. These people claim that they must make changes to media in order to adapt it to a different medium or translate it to a new language. On paper, these assertions make sense. In reality, they are just thinly veiled pretext for leftists to seize control of popular media so that it can be retrofitted to promote leftism.
If critics legitimately wanted to be challenged, they would venture outside of their political and cultural bubbles to experience media that disagrees with their worldview. Instead, they reliably fawn over any product that ticks their ideological boxes while trashing every “problematic” property regardless of how creative it may or may not be.