MovieChat Forums > The Phantom Menace Review (2009) Discussion > I Don't Get What All the Fuss is About

I Don't Get What All the Fuss is About

posted 11 years ago by TheFilmFreak1
35 replies | jump to latest

I've watched part one of the review and, although I think some very valid criticisms are made about the film, I am at a loss as to why people think it is so funny. It's not funny. It's just some psychotic old guy mumbling about 'The Phantom Menace'. If the intent was to create a character that keeps the audience invested in the review, then that intent did not come through as the character warranted about as much emotional investment as 'The Phantom Menace' did in it's narrative. If you must insist on creating a grotesque to carry the review, make a grotesque with something that resembles a personality. This is why the Nostalgia Critic, the Cinema Snob, the Angry Video Game Nerd, and Oancitizen are so enjoyable; because they've created interesting characters.

Perhaps what irritates me is that the Nostalgia Critic said he wouldn't review this film because of the comprehensive nature of this review. Indeed, as I said before, some very intelligent observations are made here. I just wish they were made by someone more interesting.

P.S. - Let it be known, though, that I would probably give this review a far more positive appraisal if it were not for the hype surrounding it. Being an Internet Reviewer myself I know how hard it is to make these videos work (and I certainly do not think that my reviews are any better than this one), but I just don't get the hype.

[–] perrrob 11 years ago

The review is better than the original film itself. Too bad you didn't enjoy it as much as I did.

[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

That's not saying much. Castration is better than 'The Phantom Menace'.

[–] rick-deckard45 11 years ago

the nostalgia critic is not even remotely enjoyable.

baby can you dig your man?
he's a righteous man.

[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

He's not to everyone's taste, but I just don't understand how someone could consider Plinkett hilarious whilst considering the Nostalgia Critic grating. I'm not necessarily referring to you, as you have only said that you dislike the Critic (and not that you like Plinkett), but it seems to be a common opinion. The Nostalgia Critic has better comedic timing, wittier jokes, and a voice that isn't utterly incomprehensible. The only advantage Plinkett has is that his reviews are more comprehensive; but even that works to their detriment as the criticisms start to come off as contrived and petty. Look at any film hard enough and you'll find a surprisingly large amount of flaws in the first five minutes alone.

Yes, the little moments in a film do count and deserve to be criticised if they are really terrible, but The Phantom Menace just does not have that many truly terrible 'little moments'. It's problems relate more to characters and dialogue, not to the excusable idiocy of action movie logic that audiences are far more forgiving of in the original Star Wars trilogy. It does have one or two REALLY awful little moments, but not to the extent of films like 'Garbage Pail Kids' and 'The Room'. I'd go so far as to say that the Plinkett review of 'The Phantom Menace' came off as vented fan disillusionment at times. It made some excellent points, but I feel that it derives too much of it's humour from assumed contempt of the prequel trilogy and extreme adoration for the original trilogy. Personally, I don't know what the Hell bothers the Star Wars fandom so much. The dialogue was stupid in the original films too, and the acting was never brilliant either (apart from James Earl Jones and Ian McDiarmid's performances).

The Nostalgia Critic, though, appeals to people with all kinds of tastes in film, primarily due to the show's more reasonable assumption that people will hate universally panned films like 'Batman and Robin' and 'Battlefield Earth'. It unites us all in a shared contempt of material that can be more empirically proven to be awful.

Look, I don't mean to make out it's wrong to like Plinkett and dislike the Critic. I just want to understand HOW you could like the former and not like the latter.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

As my older self, I see nothing objectionable in my original comment, unless of course having a different opinion is constitutionally 'twatty' behaviour in your eyes?

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

Are you and Harry there so insecure that you have to call people with different opinions twats?

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

It also means it is impossible for anybody to have an intelligent debate with you.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

Right. There are certain things no mature individual would do. One of them is to quote somebody's use of the word "you" as referring to themselves when they would have said "I". You are either a troll or an idiot.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

Sure. This is a link to part one of my 'Day the Earth Stood Still' review. You can find the rest for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n0qUDEJ66U

So when can I expect your obviously unbiased comments?

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

I must apologise. I didn't give you enough credit. You wrote a very fair and reasonable summary of my work. The sound is quite terrible. However, I don't exactly know how to improve it. Somebody recommended I use Audacity to enhance the sound, which I did for 'Day the Earth Stood Still' and '6 Best, and Worst, Films of 2012', but I then received complaints that my efforts were distorting the audio more than enhancing it. If you know of any software I could use, please give me a shout.

Thanks for the Swayze compliment. Ironically, that joke was a last minute replacement for a longer comedy routine I would have done on the phone. In retrospective, I'm glad I chose to ditch it.

Block quote:

Sometimes your scenes go on for too long, and require the movie being reviewed to explain itself to your audience. Reviews such as yours generally rely on viewers being aware of the exposition of the film and your skills dissecting it are why they're at your channel, utilise your time better.

I think I know what you mean. Could you expand upon this point, though?

I do have a history for my character, but I've been reluctant to include details because the reviews are long as they are. I think Moonraker will reveal a bit more about the character.

I'll try with the accent too, but yeah, sound is the biggest problem.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

I felt your review was aimed at educating the viewer as to the events and whilst this might help some of your viewers today's ADHD generation aren't likely to watch a 'boring old' movie review unless they've got a personal interest in the subject at hand. Try to respect your audience enough to not have the film 'played' for them as much. It will cut down on time which either allows you to have more fun reviewing, or indeed just shorten the length of your reviews (Which are fine, I like that length, just have more reviewing going on is my point).

I understand what you mean. I think I'm gradually figuring out ways to solve this content/pacing problem, but it'll be a slow process. I think the key to success here is just to have faith that the viewer can keep track of more condensed plot information. The Nostalgia Critic has pacing perfected, so I should probably look more closely at his videos.

I think I know what to do with the sound, but first I must ask: what points of the review were harder to hear? The commentary over clips or the audio for actual shots of me?

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

Claiming someone is projecting only really works when the original criticism towards you was not supported by evidence of your own errors.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

Right, so the reason you've been quite unpleasant to me this whole time is because you thought I was a shameless self-promoter, using Red Letter Media as a tool to increase viewership of my stuff. That is not "what it is". The reason I mentioned my reviews in the first place was really overcompensation; in other words, I was trying to anticipate future comments. When I wrote the original post, I believe my account was called 'SIngli6' as well. From experience, I have learned to try and mention my reviews in arguments about reviews early on before someone uses them as a weapon against me. You may wonder who would bother to look up my reviews for the purposes of arguments, but believe me, you would be surprised. Foolish as it may seem to you, but I thought mentioning the difficulties I was encountering as a reviewer would make my criticisms more valid, especially as I went out of my way to identify reviewers who I said were a trillion times better than me.

And personally I resent the fact you think that Red Letter Media is so sacrosanct that criticism towards it must be a geared at creating controversy slightly offensive. Yes, I will admit mentioning my reviews so early was discrediting, but I sincerely did not intend to advertise them. I just wanted to get an intelligent conversation going about the merits of Red Letter Media.

Additionally, though I agree 100% with your complaint about the sound in my reviews, isn't Plinkett rather difficult to hear himself?

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

I think this whole argument was just a case of poor communication. Luckily, we were both intelligent enough human beings to recognise that.

And yes, I'm not fond of 'subscribe whores', which is why I have often liked the Nostalgia Critic. Whenever he asks for subscriptions or stuff like that, he always does it outside of his ordinary videos. Same for Oancitizen, AVGN and, although he does have his moments, Cinema Snob. For my money, I think you should generally avoid asking for that kind of stuff. People are naturally attracted to something when they feel the artist doesn't really care if people watch their stuff or not.

Also, I do intend to humourously address the issue of the audio in an upcoming video. This will give an 'in-universe' explanation for any changes in quality.

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

If you're interested, I've finally gotten around to posting a new video. I'd like to hear what you think of the audio. This is my first time dubbing a video.

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[–] TheFilmFreak1 11 years ago

Thanks a bunch. What's Vegas, though (other than the city)?

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[–] MovieMaster95 11 years ago

I used to love watch Nostalgia Critic's reviews. Each week another hilarious riffing of a bad movie. Unfortunately, like the AVGN he began to run out of material until it became tired. I'm not a fan of his recent work and Doug hasn't been able to make me laugh out loud since around 2011. But when Doug reference Red Letter Media in his video of 'Movies I'll never review', I instantly went to check out the Phantom Menace Plinkett review. And I've been a fan of RLM ever since. For me, they're the most consistently funny website on the whole internet. I started with the Plinkett reviews, then I moved onto their 'Half in the Bag' videos. I just love they're cynical, dark, absurd and often over-the-top sense of humour and they're discussions on movies are so much fun to listen to. But I can understand that it may not be everyone's cup of tea. If you don't find a senile psychopath, jerking off to the Olsen Twins movies funny, then these guys' videos are probably not for you.

As for Doug Walker's recent reviews, I personally find them quite dull with many of the joke falling flat. I can see the effort put into them, but if the materials not good enough to begin with, it's just not going to work. As for the rest of thatguywiththeglasses, the only one I watch over than Doug is Phelous just because I enjoy his highly sarcastic and self aware attitude. And the less said about AVGN's recent work the better.

WINGED FREAK...Terrorizes?....Wait till they get a load of me...

[–] Wman1996 10 years ago

I can understand why people would find Plinkett annoying but I think he is hilarious. Just all the analogies he makes are great as well as his critical points.

If I told you cretins, your feeble brains would fail to comprehend it. - The Shredder

[–] mrdjx 10 years ago

To really witness Plinkett at his best, You really need to go beyond the first part of the review. His personality is a meta-joke on the length of the reviews. He's not just some psychotic guy. He's a serial wife murderer who has kept many prostitutes and cheerleaders locked his basement. But he's fond of cats, pizza rolls, and can give a near superhuman deconstruction of Star Wars. That makes him terrifying.

Another point of focus is Plinkett's points are actually coming from a filmmakers perspective. NC and AVGN make videos to entertain, and quite often they do. But what makes Plinkett's reviews so special is his points don't just apply to Star Wars, and provide excellent points for anyone wanting to learn filmmaking.

[–] mojorecords 8 years ago

The deadpan humor is the entire point. Did you not catch the psychotic things he was saying? Even the editing, which often cuts abruptly, is done on purpose for comedic effect. It's possible that you just don't like Mike's sense of humor as much as other people do, and that's fine, everyone's taste is different.

Me, while I like some AVGN reviews quite a bit, and have enjoyed a Nostalgia Critic video or two, get tired of the high-energy characters that people tend to use on Youtube, so it's much easier for me to sit there listening to Plinkett expertly dissect movies for three hours than listen to twenty minutes of those other guys. Part of the hype, too, is the depth of the reviews that touch on every single piece of the puzzle that contributes to the movies being so bad. Heck, he even points out stuff that works, and gives examples of how ideas could be tweaked or changed to actually make them work.

The detail that he goes into over every aspect of the movies is what made them great for me. The humor is an added bonus. The other guys, they go for humor first.