The news that the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes was making yet another attempt to dumb down its “ratings” and pander to the movies that filmgoers today are flocking to — quality, merit and artistic ambition be damned — coincides with a canny new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.”

I posted it earlier today. Check it out if you missed it. Pay attention to the graphics underneath Laurence Fishburne’s narrated lines about misunderstood genius, what it says about “critics.”

Every artistic endeavor has its infamous blunders by those who critique Tchaikovsky, Tennyson, Taylor Swift or Tarantino. The critics’ names are forgotten, but their misguided “hot takes” often live on.

Coppola was among those who got the crap kicked out of him by the premiere magazine movie critics of his early years, Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael. And by Rex Reed.

“The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” are among the masterpieces of the canon, and it’s worth remembering that there were those reviewing these films back then who blew it, despite having extra weeks to consider their thoughts (magazine deadlines) on great cinema.

Everybody who reviews for a living sticks their neck out when they dare to suggest the “hot” new “emperor” of their art form has no clothes. The jury may or may not be still out on M. Night, Tarantino or anybody who ever made a Marvel movie. But sometimes when reviewing you get it right and the mob is just wrong (The Russo Brothers, that Snyder hack). Sometimes fans are just surfing what’s popular at the moment. And sometimes you as a critic are just out of step.

That’s part of criticism. You set standards, hopefully pretty high, and try to stick to them and present reviews as a world view that uplifts the art form you’re writing about and the culture you’re living in. That line from the Laura Dern/Robert Duvall dramedy “Rambling Rose” comes to mind whenever I’m taking a stance that I sense will be against the grain.

“I am STANDING at Thermopylae!”

Nobody who has read their reviews would accuse Kael or Sarris of just baiting, trolling or talking through their asses. Rex Reed? Well, sure.

Readers read reviews most often, newspaper research used to tell us, to find a critic who agrees with their take on a particular movie. Most readers get around to reading reviews AFTER they’ve seen a movie.

Although there have been instances where fanbases flipped out about reviews BEFORE a beloved franchise installment was released, that last fact — that reviewing isn’t just consumer reporting, but the beginning of a conversation — seems to get lost in a lot of the complaining about “critics” these days.

Rotten Tomatoes, which has been stumbling about trying to stay in the game, has often lost track of this.

Rotten Tomatoes, in a strained effort to remain relevant at a time when audiences don’t always flock to great cinema, smart movies or films of high moral, aesthetic or historic ambition, has decided to add a ticket-buyer “Hot” meter to its famed “rotten” or “fresh” Tomato-Meter.

Film fans are pretty outspoken in their shared rage that critics “talk down” to them, as if every opinion has equal value. It’s a pity they’re not just as irked at being coddled, flattered for their still-forming, often uncultivated tastes. And no, all opinions are NOT created equal.

Is the shrinking theatrical audience in need of this sort of flattery? Have the medium’s butts-in-the-seats turned snowflakey? The dears? Because every other time the cinema has contracted — the pre-“Jaws” ’70s, most tellingly — criticism turned sharper and movies got more intellectually ambitious.

The cinema itself is always scrambling to remain solvent, part of the cultural conversation and relevant in a tide of streaming cinema, series, podcasts and Tik Tok/Youtubers. Team Rotten Tomatoes is likewise entitled to try a bit more “mission creep” in an effort to maintain online traffic. Others have failed before them.

But the more they water down their critic base with a lot of Jenny-Johnny-Jan-come latelies, the more Metacritic.com matters. Informed opinions are more important than ever, even in the cinema.

And since the Rotten Ones seem to have missed the obvious, let me point it out. There’s already a “HOT” meter form of cinematic popularity. It’s called the BOX OFFICE, children. You might have heard of it. Go to http://www.BoxOfficePro, http://www.boxofficemojo, etc. They already own that “hot” what’s selling tickets real estate.

No, “Hot” here doesn’t accurately measure popular offerings from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Shudder, Film Movement, Tubi or whoever else is streaming against the ticket buying classes. Rotten Tomatoes, teaming with the ticket sales Fandango website, didn’t take that into account?

That brings to mind a question RT didn’t consider in whatever brainstorming session produced this winner. What was the point? People who buy a ticket to a movie are inclined to buy a ticket to something they want to see. “Shocking” when they reassure us they spent their money on the Best Alien Movie Ever.

A movie review isn’t an edict. It’s an invitation to a debate. You have a different view? Collect your evidence, state your case. Pandering to myopic fans who think “Dragon Ball Broly” or “Halloween” or “Spider-verse” or “Alien IX” or “The Snyder Cut” of anything is a holy text isn’t doing them, the cinema or Rotten Tomatoes a damned bit of good.

The site and its ownership have thrown a lot of ideas against the wall to maintain traffic, almost all of them devalueing what it’s been good at, its whole reason for existing.

You’ve invited yourselves into and then avoided the conversation before, Rotten Tomatoes. Invite viewer comments. Spend a dime and have somebody monitor those so that there’s no legally actionable or petty personal criticism allowed. A parade of tantrum tossers raging about “critics” in general and reviewers of a specific movie, even by name, might give you more of a Reddit feel, and a Reddit on Steroids readership.

The further you get away from your core mission, aggregating reviews and showing readers a critical consensus on films TV, etc., the more dispensable you become.

Telling everybody what’s “Hot” due to ticket sales? That may be the lamest idea since you tried to create a TV show starring two socially-promoted youthful nobodies you ordained as your top of the Top Critics. How’d that work out?