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Red Letter Media |OT| of Movies, Murderers, and Pizza Rolls

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firehawk12

Subete no aware
Well, I guess since Mike refuses to go on these streams, we'll probably never really hear a direct response at this point.

Seems strange that no one else there bothered to watch it before hand though. I guess he didn't show it to anyone before he posted it?
 
B

BassForever

Member
firehawk12 said:
Well, I guess since Mike refuses to go on these streams, we'll probably never really hear a direct response at this point.

Seems strange that no one else there bothered to watch it before hand though. I guess he didn't show it to anyone before he posted it?
Click to expand...

I think thats why plinkett takes so damn long mike works on it by himself for himself
 
S

Sephzilla

Member
Honestly, I don't like Mike's idea for a 7th movie because, ironically, his idea lines up with part of what made the prequels stink - over explaining things. Do we really need an explanation on how Luke's trainees/academy came to be or why (going off of his idea) the Republic decided to build a Super Death Star? (Let alone why suddenly the Rebellion decided making a Death Star was a good thing). I honestly don't even care about how The First Order came to be, in fact I don't even think they needed an explanation or a new name - just keep calling them The Empire. The only interesting part of his idea was the story of how Kylo Ren fell to the dark side, however that story would ruin part of what made Kylo so interesting in the Episode 7 we got.
 
A

Affeinvasion

Member
Sephzilla said:
Honestly, I don't like Mike's idea for a 7th movie because, ironically, his idea lines up with part of what made the prequels stink - over explaining things. Do we really need an explanation on how Luke's trainees/academy came to be or why (going off of his idea) the Republic decided to build a Super Death Star? (Let alone why suddenly the Rebellion decided making a Death Star was a good thing). I honestly don't even care about how The First Order came to be, in fact I don't even think they needed an explanation or a new name - just keep calling them The Empire. The only interesting part of his idea was the story of how Kylo Ren fell to the dark side, however that story would ruin part of what made Kylo so interesting in the Episode 7 we got.
Click to expand...

Starkiller base is the biggest problem with the movie by far...and Mike's critiques of it are on point. I think it's fair to leave some things unexplained like Kylo's fall and Luke's reason to go into hiding (though dramatically those would have been far more interesting to see than what we got instead). However, it makes no logical sense whatsoever that the Empire maintains such a huge contingent, that the Republic's forces would be called the Resistance, and especially that the Empire's ragtag forces would be able to build another super weapon that dwarfs both of the earlier two death stars combined. How could the republic not know about them building it? How could a shattered Empire that's lost control of at least half of the galaxy be able to afford the starkiller base (let alone new Star Destroyers)? By jumping ahead 30 years while doing a soft reboot they didn't do a good enough job of connecting the dots. Nothing that's taking place in episode 7 makes any sense based on the ending of the original trilogy. It just has the same characters. It feels more like an alternate universe where the Rebels didn't actually win and the Emperor died of old age.
 
C

CloudyTuba

Member
Sephzilla said:
Honestly, I don't like Mike's idea for a 7th movie because, ironically, his idea lines up with part of what made the prequels stink - over explaining things. Do we really need an explanation on how Luke's trainees/academy came to be or why (going off of his idea) the Republic decided to build a Super Death Star? (Let alone why suddenly the Rebellion decided making a Death Star was a good thing). I honestly don't even care about how The First Order came to be, in fact I don't even think they needed an explanation or a new name - just keep calling them The Empire. The only interesting part of his idea was the story of how Kylo Ren fell to the dark side, however that story would ruin part of what made Kylo so interesting in the Episode 7 we got.
Click to expand...

I've noticed in a lot of his videos that Mike frequent proposes over-explaining things and has issues when things are not explained in great detail even though that's not realistic at all. It's actually a big writer's no-no to overexplain things but nerds constantly plead for it because that's what they're spending their evenings obsessing over.

I'm a nerd too, I love all those details. The entire reason I loved the book Bloodline was because it was a nerdgasm of backstory. They don't need the movie to be that way, though. It slows things down and leaves nothing to the imagination. The unexplained gets the imagination running, makes the world feel bigger, and leaves you craving more. Later when some explanations start trickling in you are much more satisfied.
I expect some of those answers will start rolling in a little more once Luke starts talking. If they didn't I'd be disappointed. However I also expect them to hold some back because overexplaining kills imagination dead.

I still cant wrap my head around the fact that he hates ID4 because he didn't know exactly where the aliens came from and exactly what their step by step plan was. That's entirely missing the point. He loved ID4-2, though, because that fucking mess overexplained every minute detail that nobody wanted to hear. Even Jay couldn't fathom what Mike was on about in that video.
 
P

plasmawave

Banned
Sephzilla said:
Honestly, I don't like Mike's idea for a 7th movie because, ironically, his idea lines up with part of what made the prequels stink - over explaining things. Do we really need an explanation on how Luke's trainees/academy came to be or why (going off of his idea) the Republic decided to build a Super Death Star? (Let alone why suddenly the Rebellion decided making a Death Star was a good thing). I honestly don't even care about how The First Order came to be, in fact I don't even think they needed an explanation or a new name - just keep calling them The Empire. The only interesting part of his idea was the story of how Kylo Ren fell to the dark side, however that story would ruin part of what made Kylo so interesting in the Episode 7 we got.
Click to expand...

Mike's suggestion to EP7 was better than the actual movie. Or at least something new and different and not a complete snooze fest.
 
S

Sephzilla

Member
plasmawave said:
Mike's suggestion to EP7 was better than the actual movie. Or at least something new and different and not a complete snooze fest.
Click to expand...

His idea sounds like it would be an entire movie about talking and debating though, up until Kylo Ren turns.

Affeinvasion said:
Starkiller base is the biggest problem with the movie by far...and Mike's critiques of it are on point. I think it's fair to leave some things unexplained like Kylo's fall and Luke's reason to go into hiding (though dramatically those would have been far more interesting to see than what we got instead). However, it makes no logical sense whatsoever that the Empire maintains such a huge contingent, that the Republic's forces would be called the Resistance, and especially that the Empire's ragtag forces would be able to build another super weapon that dwarfs both of the earlier two death stars combined. How could the republic not know about them building it? How could a shattered Empire that's lost control of at least half of the galaxy be able to afford the starkiller base (let alone new Star Destroyers)? By jumping ahead 30 years while doing a soft reboot they didn't do a good enough job of connecting the dots. Nothing that's taking place in episode 7 makes any sense based on the ending of the original trilogy. It just has the same characters. It feels more like an alternate universe where the Rebels didn't actually win and the Emperor died of old age.
Click to expand...

The opening crawl at least (vaguely) explains why it's called The Resistance. It's technically an armed force fighting The Empire The First Order that isn't officially authorized by The Republic. I do agree that Starkiller Base is the weakest part of the movie, at the very least because it's simply not explained. They could have at least had a throwaway line saying that Starkiller Base was something started but not finished by The Empire.
 
J

jett

D-Member
LOL at the WE'RE HACKS disclaimer. They should just delete this waste of time. They honestly seem rather clueless every time they attempt to cover the "industry."
 
C

CygnusXS

will gain confidence one day
This is the first time they've released a video where I thought "I don't want to watch that."

And I am watching it and it's bad, so I should listen to myself more.
 
J

jett

D-Member
Hahaha their forecasts are even more ridiculous, they make no sense. Mike originally thought Beauty and the Beast was a CGI movie, and somehow figured a modern animated Disney movie would only cost $75 million.
 
K

kewlmyc

Member
Did they sleep through Jungle Book and Maleficent's BO intake? How do they think Beauty and the Beast will make less than $500 worldwide?
 
G

GekigangerV

Member
kewlmyc said:
Did they sleep through Jungle Book and Maleficent's BO intake? How do they think Beauty and the Beast will make less than $500 worldwide?
Click to expand...

I don't think Jungle Book was a summer movie.

Buy the math in the video was still bad. That beauty and the beast production budget was laughable. Does he think they are making it like Space Cop?
 
D

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
A disappointing Star Wars review
This video that makes them look like the most armchair of armchair Hollywood producers
and the next BOTW is going to feature Max Landis

The downfall of RLM tbh
 
R

Rimon-hanit

Member
Who the fuck is the target audience for the last two videos, it certainly isn't their core audience they already regularly talk about those issues, they aren't being more thorough by spending 27m/~1h by naming examples, just repetitive.

Also that ring thing actually sounds like something a philosophy major will do as a joke, so I don't think it was wise spending so much time trying to counter it.

Still love the guys but I do think they need to get back on track.
 
N

NotLiquid

Member
Sephzilla said:
Honestly, I don't like Mike's idea for a 7th movie because, ironically, his idea lines up with part of what made the prequels stink - over explaining things. Do we really need an explanation on how Luke's trainees/academy came to be or why (going off of his idea) the Republic decided to build a Super Death Star? (Let alone why suddenly the Rebellion decided making a Death Star was a good thing). I honestly don't even care about how The First Order came to be, in fact I don't even think they needed an explanation or a new name - just keep calling them The Empire. The only interesting part of his idea was the story of how Kylo Ren fell to the dark side, however that story would ruin part of what made Kylo so interesting in the Episode 7 we got.
Click to expand...

The main issue I have with this line of thinking is that it only makes sense if you assume that we would eventually get the exact story/movie that The Force Awakens tried to be, and it only makes "less" sense now because after TFA it's only really the cliffnotes and twists that we need to explain the glaring question marks. The main reason The Force Awakens works is because it is a soft reboot and a beat-for-beat rework of A New Hope. The thing is, it didn't have to be that. Episode VII is a lot of things but the one thing that it's always going to be is a sequel. It could take any direction and do anything it wanted, and it wouldn't have to be weighed down by anything of it's past because everything would have been fresh and a brand new story that didn't need to set up anything. Unlike the prequels it wouldn't have to be forced to set up context for things we could already infer, and honestly, if Episode VII didn't exist and we did get the story proposed by Mike, I imagine it would make for a much more interesting and consistent movie, and not just JJ's Mystery Box shtick extended into a full feature length film.

Obviously I don't expect that proposed story to go into dumb details like the riveting tale of how Luke decided which bricks to use in the Jedi Academy construction but the concept as a whole is still an interesting one in a world where TFA didn't have to exist.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
This episode of half in the bag is terrible. This is amateur analysis of the highest order.

Oh my god, these predictions.....

Edit: No return to the Bridget Jones joke, no overarching HitB plot.... RLM has "jumped the Sharknado" as it were the last 12-18 months.
 
M

MetroidPrimeRib

Banned
Movie budgets are extremely nebulous to me. I'd even consider WarCraft a success. Its budget is massive but it was in production for nearly a decade (not sure if that's accounted for) and had massive success in one market.

Edit : lol Spider-Man fatigue. Spider-Man is the most popular hero worldwide, even higher then Bats and supes. It will do well domestic because it's part of MCU now and Asia loves Spiderman immensely. If it's a good movie it could hit 1b like the dark knight
 
B

BassForever

Member
Yeah I just stopped the video when they got to predictions. I didn't mind the budget talk even if it was wrong but the predictions are both bad and unfunny.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
nckillthegrimace said:
Is it really an exploit if you can just click the play button on the website and listen to the whole thing?
Click to expand...

There are browser extensions that allow you to save MP3s from a website onto your hard drive, apparently because people are lazy and it's too much hassle to click the "download MP3" button.

Bandcamp doesn't provide a download button, or rather, you have to pay money in order to see it. It's their way of nudging you into paying for the product, although they don't seem to really care, because they're leaving you a way to listen to the whole thing for free (which is usually the fierce anti-piracy battleground), and if you really want to put this stuff on your iPod (do kids still use iPods? I'm so out of touch), it's not exactly locked down very hard. I think that's the best way to do it, focus on encouraging people to pay and don't get too worked up over the people who won't pay.

Using a browser extension to download a file that was supposed to be hidden behind a paywall qualifies as "an exploit". Listening to the entire commentary track for free is usually the line in the sand drawn by most people, but Bandcamp is cool, so they moved that line over into more consumer-friendly territory. And it's a very poorly guarded line in the sand.
 
N

NotLiquid

Member
MetroidPrimeRib said:
Movie budgets are extremely nebulous to me. I'd even consider WarCraft a success. Its budget is massive but it was in production for nearly a decade (not sure if that's accounted for) and had massive success in one market.

Edit : lol Spider-Man fatigue. Spider-Man is the most popular hero worldwide, even higher then Bats and supes. It will do well domestic because it's part of MCU now and Asia loves Spiderman immensely. If it's a good movie it could hit 1b like the dark knight
Click to expand...

Spider-Man fatigue is very much a reasonable thing to account for since every Spider-Man movie since 3 has been on a continuous downtrend despite Amazing 2's heavy marketing. The question is whether or not Civil War and it's depiction of Spidey has made people more interested in seeing yet another reboot so soon. With super hero movies these days it's hard to predict whether there's as big of an "MCU" effect at play since Marvel isn't the only studio anymore that's pumping out high grossing continuity driven films, and viewers just kind of expect these movies to be part of something bigger by default.
 
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