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Red Letter Media - The Star Wars Awakens Review

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First hour of the video was criticizing the Star Wars universe as he was disapproving Disney's common behavior for churning out so many super hero movies under a brand (Marvel). Points out that Star Wars will get a similar overdoing treatment since it works. People buy this stuff.

It also comments on how Disney's influence of persuading movie sites by paying them to hype TFA by downplaying the sequels was a stupid strategy. Argues money can't change ratings of shitty movies. They will always suck.

What was distracting was the back and forth narration during the Comic Sans section and mocking "millennial" views in different voices while jump cutting to random scenes. Most distracting one was the Simpsons segment on Ned Flanders's house. I kinda tuned out there.

Then he finally gets to the movie and nit picks tiny things like no sand foot prints where Rey rides down a sand mountain after junking an old rebel ship. He seemed annoyed that the movie didn't clearly elaborate character motivations although admits TFA did better than what the prequels tried to do. He cynically thinks these vague details is all one elaborate grand plan to spin off these characters into an array of backlog movies like the Marvel characters.

He crutches on lack of sexual tension as one reason. I can kinda see that viewpoint although I think it's too cliche as Hollywood has always put that factor in its movies. I don't thinks it's absolutely wrong to abstain from it. Remember, in the past, he did say these movies are for kids and criticized Lucas for showing that Anakin body burning scene in RotS. Sex is still considered a taboo subject in American culture. I guess he was annoyed that there was no girl gets the guy or someone reference where as the other movies did. (But wouldn't that be poetry?)

I enjoyed the short segment on mocking clickbait journalism.
 
It's pertinent to some of the criticisms/points they brought up. It's more diverse and it contains less romance because of it's target audience. They got at this by wondering if a "protagonist gets the girl" story would be off-putting to today's young people.

There's also rarely any sort of "protagonist gets the guy" when the protagonist is female.
 
okay so when we say millennial who exactly are we talking about? because I think I qualify even though I was an adult when the prequels came out.

braless carrie fisher aside there wasn't any sex appeal in a new hope and tfa was a remake of that.
 
okay so when we say millennial who exactly are we talking about? because I think I qualify even though I was an adult when the prequels came out.

braless carrie fisher aside there wasn't any sex appeal in a new hope and tfa was a remake of that.

His weirdo complaint was more than sex appeal, it was also about sexual interest, which he touched upon with Luke and Han butting heads a bit over Leia.

How would you say it is handled differently, as you said then romance/sexual tension done in the past?

Same-sex relationships, poly relationships, and a lot less "shame" over being romantic. It also doesn't do much with romantic tension, which I think is something an old man like Mike Stoklaska expects in media.
 
okay so when we say millennial who exactly are we talking about? because I think I qualify even though I was an adult when the prequels came out.

braless carrie fisher aside there wasn't any sex appeal in a new hope and tfa was a remake of that.

Millennial technically includes anyone born 1990 onward. I assume most don't think of it in that regard, however.

Edit: Seems some even think of it as even earlier in birth year. Like as early as the late 70s. Though most commonly I've heard it defined as 1990 onward.
 
I liked that Finn and Rey didn't fall in love, yet you could tell that it was left open for the future. Not every movie needs a romance.
 
I liked that Finn and Rey didn't fall in love, yet you could tell that it was left open for the future. Not every movie needs a romance.

The funny thing to me is that he complains about this different element that exists between OT and NT after complaining about how TFA uses elements from the OT.
 
I legit fell asleep 30 minutes in.

Finished the rest and I can say it's crap.

Stopped watching about an hour in, none of his criticism was funny or clever, it was like I was reading poorly throughout Youtube comments.

It felt like Mike trying to convince himself that he didn't like the movie when we already know he loved i t, so, what's the point? It was like he felt obliged to make a TFA review not because he had something to say but because his fans wanted it.
 
I've seen different definitions of millennial that say being born as early as 1980 is considered millennial.

Yea, I just made an edit to indicate that. Hehe. But that was after your post.
The most common I've heard is 90' onward but it seems some even count the late 70s/early 80s.
 
Their quality has gone down hill since their Episode 1 review. These guys know their audience, and their audience members are in grade 8. Can't stand their humour, and their "insights" are pedantic at best.

A hard fucking thumbs down.
 
Millennial technically includes anyone born 1990 onward. I assume most don't think of it in that regard, however.
It's actually 1980-1982.

The word millennial is becoming increasingly outdated as a synonym for "silly young person", with the oldest ones in their 30s.
 
s for Rey flying the Falcon, she's familiar with wartime tech from a lifetime of scavenging it, has worked on that ship before (hence why she knows it's garbage), isn't that great at flying it at first, and only succeeds due to her connection with the Force. And that last part is not any kind of bad thing, unless you think Luke hitting the exhaust port is an equally bad cop-out.

Luke owned and operated a fully armed fighter that was similar to an X-Wing and practiced air-to-ground assault as a hobby. I'm sure that's not news to you.
 
Interracial romance between the leads would have led to a small riot.

Despite all the smoke-blowerry of diversity, that's still one taboo Hollywood is still uncomfortable with.
 
First hour of the video was criticizing the Star Wars universe as he was disapproving Disney's common behavior for churning out so many super hero movies under a brand (Marvel). Points out that Star Wars will get a similar overdoing treatment since it works. People buy this stuff.

It also comments on how Disney's influence of persuading movie sites by paying them to hype TFA by downplaying the sequels was a stupid strategy. Argues money can't change ratings of shitty movies. They will always suck.

What was distracting was the back and forth narration during the Comic Sans section and mocking "millennial" views in different voices while jump cutting to random scenes. Most distracting one was the Simpsons segment on Ned Flanders's house. I kinda tuned out there.

Then he finally gets to the movie and nit picks tiny things like no sand foot prints where Rey rides down a sand mountain after junking an old rebel ship. He seemed annoyed that the movie didn't clearly elaborate character motivations although admits TFA did better than what the prequels tried to do. He cynically thinks these vague details is all one elaborate grand plan to spin off these characters into an array of backlog movies like the Marvel characters.

He crutches on lack of sexual tension as one reason. I can kinda see that viewpoint although I think it's too cliche as Hollywood has always put that factor in its movies. I don't thinks it's absolutely wrong to abstain from it. Remember, in the past, he did say these movies are for kids and criticized Lucas for showing that Anakin body burning scene in RotS. Sex is still considered a taboo subject in American culture. I guess he was annoyed that there was no girl gets the guy or someone reference where as the other movies did. (But wouldn't that be poetry?)

I enjoyed the short segment on mocking clickbait journalism.

Dude the sand thing was a joke. He was making fun of people for finding plot holes in movies where they don't matter.
 
Interracial romance between the leads would have led to a small riot.

Despite all the smoke-blowerry of diversity, that's still one taboo Hollywood is still uncomfortable with.

That statement is a testament to tfas pandering to focus groups. No balls. Hollywood is a disgrace.
 
Haven't seen or read about this review yet. Does Mike criticize the movie a lot? Seems surprising, considering that he loved it during the initial Half in the Bag review. Plus, the Plinkett reviews always seem to focus on disappointing or widely hated films, and The Force Awakens doesn't seem to really fit into these categories.
 
Haven't seen or read about this review yet. Does Mike criticize the movie a lot? Seems surprising, considering that he loved it during the initial Half in the Bag review. Plus, the Plinkett reviews always seem to focus on disappointing or widely hated films, and The Force Awakens doesn't seem to really fit into these categories.

A majority of the review isn't even about TFA
 
Interracial romance between the leads would have led to a small riot.

Despite all the smoke-blowerry of diversity, that's still one taboo Hollywood is still uncomfortable with.

I'd say the Chinese audience has more to do with it than Hollywood itself
 
Haven't seen or read about this review yet. Does Mike criticize the movie a lot? Seems surprising, considering that he loved it during the initial Half in the Bag review. Plus, the Plinkett reviews always seem to focus on disappointing or widely hated films, and The Force Awakens doesn't seem to really fit into these categories.
He doesn't and blatantly stretches what he could complain out to pad for time after doing an hour of filler discussion about something else.
 
Dude the sand thing was a joke. He was making fun of people for finding plot holes in movies where they don't matter.

Yeah. I'm just summarizing what I remembered about the video. Nit picking is relatively small as the Half in the Bag video, they seemed overall positive about the movie.

Some posters don't want to watch the whole thing.
 
The review was good and entertaining. Mike kind of relied on old, familiar territory a bit. I liked some of the new jokes and unexpected juxtapositions; if there were more of those, I might have more interest in watching the video again later.

Almost kind of how I feel about the Force Awakens itself: fun, but not a lot of fresh ideas to really enjoy repeats as much as the first viewing.
 
Interracial romance between the leads would have led to a small riot.

Despite all the smoke-blowerry of diversity, that's still one taboo Hollywood is still uncomfortable with.
I genuinely don't think that was at play here, especially considering Abram's Star Trek films had a interracial couple in it. I think it's more likely they didn't want her to be involved with anyone romantically to further drive her home as a strong female lead.
 
I genuinely don't think that was at play here, especially considering Abram's Star Trek films had a interracial couple in it. I think it's more likely they didn't want her to be involved with anyone romantically to further drive her home as a strong female lead.

You talking about Spock and Uhura? Come on, man. You know the reverse is gonna cause way more of an outcry that a studio would want to avoid.
 
I'm just saying one has to generally be critical. Not all studies are created equal. In more ways than one, to be perfectly frank.

Okay, but "just being critical" in absence of any supporting evidence for your counter-thesis is useless. That's just projecting your own confirmation bias.
 
Should've cut half an hour of dissing other critics but the critique was on point. If you wanna see the review, skip the first hour.

I genuinely don't think that was at play here, especially considering Abram's Star Trek films had a interracial couple in it. I think it's more likely they didn't want her to be involved with anyone romantically to further drive her home as a strong female lead.

How sexist to think that a woman is owned by a man if she chooses to be romantically involved /s
 
Seriously, Rey is the only major female character in Star Wars who isn't defined in large part on romance

That is literally a positive for anyone who is legitimately bothered by sameyness
 
Then he finally gets to the movie and nit picks tiny things like no sand foot prints where Rey rides down a sand mountain after junking an old rebel ship. He seemed annoyed that the movie didn't clearly elaborate character motivations although admits TFA did better than what the prequels tried to do. He cynically thinks these vague details is all one elaborate grand plan to spin off these characters into an array of backlog movies like the Marvel characters.

I think you missed the point of that part.
 
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