It all started with a tweet:

Samuel L. Jackson decided that even though The Avengers had already amassed $200 million internationally and was one day away from pleasing millions of fans in the United States (many of them already lined up for midnight shows), he needed to declare war on longtime New York Times film critic A.O. Scott for the sake of his ego.

Scott is one of a select few critics who didn’t like The Avengers, a position he defended with characteristic eloquence in his review. That review, by the way, did not include a single negative comment about Jackson, whose work Scott has praised in the past. Just read Scott’s reviews of Black Snake Moan and Coach Carter for proof.

Perhaps Jackson was still reeling from the time that Scott took a jab at his performance in Lakeview Terrace: “Mr. Jackson’s glowering, bellowing performance is so close to self-parody that I had to check the end credits to make sure I hadn’t been watching Dave Chappelle doing an extended version of his Comedy Central impersonation.”

Even if Scott has a bias against Jackson (he almost certainly does not), this type of comment is ridiculous. For a star who has been blessed with success the way Jackson has, to call out one of the nation’s best critics because he didn’t like The Avengers is nonsense. It’s OK for an actor to say “I don’t read reviews” or even “I don’t like critics,” but to single one out and say he deserves to be fired is excessive.

Because nearly everyone’s a film critic these days and took personal offense to Jackson’s comment, Twitter fought back, just as they did when Kevin Smith trashed the critical community upon their panning of Cop Out. But instead of apologizing gracefully about the tweet, Jackson doubled down and stuck to his guns, with responses like this:

There is no reason to blow all of this out of proportion–it’s just the silly Twitter flame war of the day–but it’s disconcerting when an actor shows so little respect for their critics. Let’s not forget that Jackson became the star he is today in part due to the glowing reviews that pointed audiences toward Goodfellas, Jurassic Park, Pulp Fiction, and Menace II Society, among other early career highlights.

Postscript (2:25 PT): I must include this sly, hysterical response-tweet from Scott, courtesy of his son: