• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Red Letter Media - The Star Wars Awakens Review

Status
Not open for further replies.
Why is so much time spent on disproving some ring theory bullshit I have no reason to care about instead of talking about the movie? I'm 20 minutes in and I've never been so bored watching anything from RLM.
 
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";218838731]Why is so much time spent on disproving some ring theory bullshit I have no reason to care about instead of talking about the movie? I'm 20 minutes in and I've never been so bored watching anything from RLM.[/QUOTE]
Because there isn't much to say about TFA to fill out a Plinkett review.

As it stands, it's exactly what I expected it would be after they clearly liked it in the HitB review: admission that it's a well made movie that does a lot of retreading and then here's some minor nitpicking to pad out time.
 
I was ready to call this review a big wet fart, but, after that ending, I guess it'd be more accurate to say it just shit itself.
 
I enjoyed it, but I feel like they should have stuck to the smaller videos for Plinkett. RLM has changed a lot (in a good way), it feels weird trying to recreate old stuff. That whole thing about Rey having to kiss Finn gave me weird vibes too.
 
I liked it. I sorta thought he stretched with someone of the Force Awakens complaints. But I kind of expected that since TFA is an all around better made movie with less obvious shitty things compared to the prequels (which is probably why so much of the review revolves around destroying prequel apologists).

That ending was completely full of shit.
 
His idea for an alternate Episode VII is pretty stupid. Planet blows up -> dark side waves? Alright. It leaves no room for the new characters anyway. Leaving Luke Skywalker out of the fucking movie is the smartest, boldest choice JJ and Kasdan made on TFA.

As for the lifted images and setpieces from ANH, I think it has less to do with Kathleen Kennedy scheming ways to steal money from idiot fans (but there's a little bit of that) and more to do with the fact that JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan are incompetent storytellers. This movie's production was rushed, it was the product of a hundred different ideas from a ton of different collaborators, they were making changes up until the last minute and they could never find a good way to make a movie that lived up to the promise of the opening crawl. So they lifted the framework of a 40 year old movie and duct taped some shit together that sort of resembles a coherent plot - but not really.

And that's why you'll never read Rinzler's book explaining what a fucking mess this was. (I actually don't know why, this is totally uninformed speculation)
 
Just got to the TFA part and he's complaining about hollywood and Disney.

Not really his best effort.
 
There were a few funny moments but overall this felt like easily the weakest Plinkett review. The first half dragged a lot (the best moment was the making fun of YouTube channels), and the second half where he actually talked about TFA felt... really unfocused.

"Yeah it's a soft reboot, and that's disappointing, but I wanna know if they go forward with these plot threads and that would excuse it, anyway it could have been presented more clearly if they did it like this," feels like every forum and blog post the week the movie came out, and that's about as substantive as it gets. The sexless part isn't... inaccurate, it's true, but it was clearly stretching for material in a video that was already half filler. The "Diversity is great and racist boycotters are bad but doesn't this feel kinda corporate, kids don't care about diversity, not saying it's bad but, y'know" segment was really off; it felt like they didn't make any actual point.



-Sent from Blbber


edit: oh and the tiny new set meant that the skits felt really half baked and forced
 
Review seems to be really focusing on some of his weird specific hangups even if prequel apologists are silly.

But I guess with such an easy target like the prequels it was easier to talk about the variety of problems. I don't think the Plinket character works very well outside of total shitshows. Seems like this would have been a better Half in the Bag.

Edit: Oh wait they did do one for it. Must've missed that, off to watch that.
 
Didn't really enjoy this one. Some interesting points here and there but not worth a two hour video. And apart from the very first joke (Cutting from Lucas saying episode 7 would never happen to the episode 7 opening text crawl) nothing really made me laugh.
 
That was easily the worst Plinkett review I've ever seen. Dude literally made a 2-hour video with an hour of filler and no actual criticism other than "It copied ANH too much and there's not as much romance as ANH". Glad I wasted that time on some shit I already knew right after watching the movie itself.
 
This discussion on the lack of "sex" is so obviously tapdancing to fill time.

Disagree. First, I think this is now the longest review, so it's not like they needed to fill time. Also, it gets to the point that the new film is very sterile and lacking in its humanity, i.e. the sex and romance that was present in the original trilogy.

As for the review itself, I liked it. I'm glad it spent so much time hammering how stupid prequel apologists are, and I'm glad Mike took the opportunity to remind people how much those original star trek and prequel reviews changed internet reviewing (for better and certainly worse).

But in keeping with pointing out the negatives... Plinkett didn't do much this episode except sit in that chair in that really crappy room they obviously built in a corner of the studio. I miss the basement, and, to a degree, the serial killer stuff. The interstitial segments involving Plinkett weren't weird enough, and it's kind of like the Half in the Bag problem where the storyline barely exists, and care and thought isn't put into it like it was. That, and the inconsistency of Mike's voice, including his phony announcer voice.

All in all, "it was everything I hoped it would be". Better than the Titanic review. They addressed some complaints they've been getting in recent years regarding their humor and the changing times without being petulant or antagonistic.

I hope that now that the ice has thawed on Plinkett we get something a little more frequent. Like, I hope they do Rouge One when that comes out, and I hope they throw a curveball like they did with Baby's Day Out and Cop Dog (nothing stupidly obvious like Ishtar, Boyhood, or the new Ghostbusters movie).
 
I can see why it took so long, they obviously had nothing to really work with compared to the prequels, they actually liked Episode VII and already did a review of it proper where they said as such. So when you like something it's much harder to tear apart without mercy.

Can't help much like George in this case they had an overall plan but no real detail to work with and ended up with a mess.

Oh shit, it's just like the prequels, it's like poetry.....it rhymes.
 
This discussion on the lack of "sex" is so obviously tapdancing to fill time.

No, it's about the lack of passion in the whole movie. There was no passion in this movie, after I saw the movie I wrote in a forum it was the most soulless fan service imaginable and the lack of sex or passion is just another point he's trying to make.

He pretty much brings everything up about this movie I thought after I left the cinema. It's hard for Plinkett to even show the cynicism in making this movie. They were so playing it save that it lost all the soul even the prequels had. But it seemed to have worked for the people they wanted to get, so I guess it was a success.
 
That was kinda bad. Just the same stuff we've heard many times by now plus a weird and pointless diversity rant. Smacking down prequel love and excuses is fine but not for half of the video.
 
Review seems to be really focusing on some of his weird specific hangups.

But I guess with such an easy target like the prequels it was easier to talk about the variety of problems. I don't think the Plinket character works very well outside of total shitshows. Seems like this would have been a better Half in the Bag.

Edit: Oh wait they did do one for it. Must've missed that, off to watch that.
The Half in the Bag review was why it was clear this review wasn't going to have any fangs. They liked the movie. They had a few specific criticisms, but otherwise found it to be good. These were all things we knew going into the Plinkett review that were really going to take air out of it.

It honestly feels like this review only exists out of obligation at this point.
 
He put in an entire Simpsons segment (which was jarring) to say that the film was made with love and passion but that doesn't excuse any problems with structure, sooooo
 
Hmm yeah that wasn't so great as his other reviews. I guess it has a lot to do with the film being reviewed... A finely made movie, that ultimately feels like a safe, corporate retread of the original... Because that's what it is. There's not much to say about it.
 
Hmm yeah that wasn't so great as his other reviews. I guess it has a lot to do with the film being reviewed... A finely made movie, that ultimately feels like a safe, corporate retread of the original... Because that's what it is. There's not much to say about it.

This...plinkett reviews are best when the movies are absolute garbage...generations from star trek and last star trek movie come to mind also

I wish he would do a retrospective on star trek as a whole...its his true love

Perhaps when the new tv show turns out to be straight trash ;)
 
90% of the actual TFA stuff was already covered without the weird "jokes" and in half the time by a bijillion of those channels they referenced earlier in the video. Pllinkett should be reserved for more obscure stuff going forward.
 
This...plinkett reviews are best when the movies are absolute garbage...generations from star trek and last star trek movie come to mind also

I wish he would do a retrospective on star trek as a whole...its his true love

Perhaps when the new tv show turns out to be straight trash ;)
A Plinkett review of Star Trek Voyager would be ace
 
He put in an entire Simpsons segment (which was jarring) to say that the film was made with love and passion but that doesn't excuse any problems with structure, sooooo

I thought he would start going into how the structure has problems, but then he didn't. Disappointing.
 
He put in an entire Simpsons segment (which was jarring) to say that the film was made with love and passion but that doesn't excuse any problems with structure, sooooo

latest
 
I think anyone who saw the Episode 7 Half in the Bag should have expected them to not actually go in on the movie too much.

That doesn't mean they can't deconstruct the film and show what made it work. They were good at deconstructing the original trilogy to show why it succeeded where the prequels failed.
 
Man, I should have seen some of these reactions coming... we knew Mike liked TFA from the HitB review.

I still loved this one as an updated commentary on the state of the Star Wars/Disney franchise and the constant ripping on CinemaSins et al and the culture of sub par Plinkett style film-shitting, sans all the actual critical thought.
 
Uh

That was a really boring video lol

1. Just to get it out of the way, the use of 'tranny' wasn't awesome (and people will always say that it's acceptable because he's playing a character, but in that respect I ask why he softballed it with "a black" instead of using the n-word).

2. Ring theory stuff was interesting, but it dragged a lot.

3. Didn't laugh once, and that's the first time that's been the case. Not sure if the review was just not good in that respect or if I don't find Plinkett to be funny anymore.

4. A lot of weird complaints that felt like they were made because he didn't have that much to say that's worth saying.

5. In general, a lot of his "You could have just done it this way" schtick felt a lot weaker than the other prequel instances. I'd be much more interested in seeing a Belated Media video on FA, because his analyses always seem so much better.

Honestly, Plinkett feels like a dinosaur (no pun intended). I would have been really happy if they ended it with him being killed, because as a main character, a narrator for videos, he's really old hat, and he pretty much makes that point himself by pointing out how many imitators there exist nowadays. And as I noted with Belated Media, some people have kind of gotten on the train on prequel criticism and have done a better job IMO.

Is it ironic that Plinkett complains about The Force Awakens being fanservice in a video that only exists because of fanservice?

is it ironic that Plinkett makes fun of the commercialization of Star Wars in a video that only exists because it will get a lot of YouTube hits?
 
The ways in which TFA is bad is more subtle and nefarious rather than comically shit.

This "review" was always gonna be different from the prequels.
 
I still loved this one as an updated commentary on the state of the Star Wars/Disney franchise and the constant ripping on CinemaSins et al and the culture of sub par Plinkett style film-shitting, sans all the actual critical thought.
Yeah, that part was great, as was the takedown of prequel apologists.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom