Well we knew Mr. Plinkett wouldn't let this movie pass without a review. This one clocks in at 58 minutes, so make sure you've got the time.
Probably the single best dismantling of TLJ yet. And many of the same talking points brushed away by those who just label it manbabies and toxic fandom.
Nope. 1. One is a group of entitled and crying man children, who are under the delusion that their fee-fees over a Star Wars movie should be a higher priority to other people. The other is a group of ‘critics’ (or more accurately:entertainers) who have admitted several times now that they don’t really want to annually review Star Wars, but the demand and easy money is too high to ignore. So in these cases, they’re just getting paid and making themselves dance the monkey dance. And occasionally venting with videos that completely take the piss out of the toxic manchildren that have such a hold on their fanbase, comfortable knowing that Dunning-Kruger means said man-children are too stupid to ever pick up on it. Just like they were too stupid to pick up that their was a reason RLM made their 9-hour-ranting, super-nitpicky, vitriolic critic a psychopathic serial killer. 2. People dismiss actual, professional, career critics all the time. Most of them know that at the end of the day, they’re just making personal recommendations to readers. Which is how stuff like Night of the Living Dead ends up a financial success and eventual classic despite Roger Ebert slamming it, or Dirty Harry becoming an icon despite Kael absolutely eviscerating it. Who the fuck are the man children, to demand any higher regard from us (and Hollywood) than the actual experts do? 3. I may have already answered my own question in Point 1, but...didn’t RLM already review this months ago?
OK, here's the thing: when I saw the original Plinkett video on TPM way back when, I took it as a *parody* of nitpicky, long form video essay criticism by barely coherent, ill informed man-children...albeit a massively belaboured and at times, genuinely uncomfortable parody (I could certainly live without the abducted women in his basement skit.) As such it rather lost any appeal to me on any kind of level. So with all that in mind I find it very confusing to see a certain type of fan hold this act up as if it's the last word and glorious truth about all that is wrong with modern Star Wars. The mind boggles.
What’s kinda funny, is that they’re die-hards probably honestly wouldn’t like it if their recommendations had been/are implemented in the movies. For eg. One that’s always stood out to me, is they complain in AOTC that a lightsaber just isn’t a practical weapon for most of the alien Jedi shown. George should have thought about this shit harder! Symptom of lack of attention to detail, blah blah. Except...Obi-Wan described the lightsaber being ‘the Jedi’s weapon’ waaaaay back in ANH. Meaning if Lucas wanted to address their ‘issue’, he’d have to: (1) Cut out our most of the aliens, and make the Jedi basically a human only + Yoda club. (2) Retcon ANH. Now, me personally? I don’t care about lightsabers, besides finding idea of making them ‘practical’ absolutely laughable on its face. But I also wouldn’t have particularly strong feelings about Lucas making either of those decisions. But the ‘Prequels are The Worst and totally deserve more than 9-fucking-hours of criticism!’ crowd probably would. Especially with the second one. And yes...even though it’s not really my point, I’m grimly aware that I’ve found myself nitpicking the nitpicking. Fuck.
I was wondering when someone was going to post this. I was figuring it would be someone else suggesting it was another show of the fact that Kennedy would be out and that Kevin Feige is the best producer evah! But nah, this has both parody and some of what they believe as truth in it is.
I don't. I just think the videos are funny (mostly) and they do make some good points. The critical analysis can be overshadowed by the creepy, over-the-top antics of Mr. Plinkett and I understand why this is off-putting for some people, but the juxtaposition of those two elements is what makes the videos work so well IMO. Look, I get it. There's a sizable part of the Star Wars community that is extremely toxic and has a irrational hatred of this movie. Many videos like this one have been put online and much of the criticism comes down to alt-right nonsense. If you're tired and sickened by all this and can't derive enjoyment from over-the-top critical reviews of this movie I totally get it, but this video isn't one of those. Red Letter Media has been doing this type of comedy long before The Last Jedi became a rallying call for the alt-right. I can separate out the toxic elements of the community and enjoy the video for what it is: a funny analysis of a very ambitious, yet flawed movie. Nothing more and nothing less.
*watching video* You know, it’s a bit hard to ignore the ‘toxic community’ when they’re obviously still pretty mad about the worst of their own community turning on them for liking TFA and disliking R1. I could preserve meat with just a faction of that self-induced salt. Urgh. Yesterday I have a dude lecturing me about how ‘these actions are important on a thematic and character development level, and YOUR MEAN FOR LIGHTLY RIBBING IT’ and now I have a bunch of dudes harping about how the hero is dumb for rejecting Kylo and not cold-bloodedly playing the long game. I am apparently not allowed to frigging win. (Also: I see the somewhat lacking in self- reflection hard-on for Kylo has continued unabated.) And ‘no one mourns Han outside deleted scenes.’ Was my theatre the only one that contained a super special cut that had Luke learning the news an playing with Han’s things in the Falcon whilst clearly feeling guilty, Luke and Leia having their moment with his dice, Rey crying whilst yelling at Kylo about it, Snoke outright saying that Kylo is torn up over it...? I’m also reminded of the director of the last two M:I commenting that reinserting deleted scenes are like eggshells in the omelette. Some might prefer them or find it interesting, but they’re usually removed for the film’s benefit. Which is obvious if you’ve ever seen ‘extended cuts’, that themselves don’t even contain half the actual deleted content because they want to keep the movie watchable. The movie is already too long, and Phasma is a bit part! I like Christie too, but like Boba before her she doesn’t need an extra five minutes! She is, funnily enough considering some of their other complaints, just an obstacle for Finn. His past that he needs to stop running from, and overcome. You know...like fucking Boba was to fucking Han.
So could I... and, for the record, violence towards women hasn't been a prominent feature of a Plinkett review in years. Indeed, the most distasteful gag I can recall offhand since the Clones review was a cat rape joke, which was gross and unnecessary Anyhow, I found the review itself hilarious and insightful. They absolutely nail the incompetent handling of tone, in that the Rebe - Resistance gets utterly decimated, yet just about everyone is creepily cheerful as the movie concludes. Huh? I don't remember a single R1 mention in this Plinkett review.
I didn’t say that they did? Mans I’m not getting notifications for responses. Again. A big ‘yay’ for the internet.
The first time I saw a Plinkett video, his schtick really turned me off. After a while I realized it was just a cheap schtick like everyone ELSE seems to need to concoct in order to get hits on Youtube. Strip that away and you have a guy who is able to dismantle movies extremely well. The reason why this review took so long is he turned this into a 1-hour War and Peace epic. Other than his vocal mannerisms, it was almost all meat with very few punch-line autobiographical detours about how much of a Crumb-like sad-sack his character is. And the best part about this video was when he compared TLJ to Star Trek, which I would presume, is a soft-belly of the Last Jedi apologists on this forum, or it should be. I loved the point he had to make about the importance of collaboration and how TLJ seems to emphasize top-down leadership, how Holdo pulling rank on Poe and demanding dumb loyalty is actually more akin to the Empire's approach. Then he goes on to show a whole collage of all of the input from the TNG crew to Picard drawn from probably every season. That took a lot of work on his part. The film is dismantled with very little beating of the anti-SJW drum. The film provides more than enough ammunition for this, which is what gets lost in the ideological debates. I challenge those here who think the movie is so great to produce a video essay as substantive as Plinkett's. But no, that's too much work. So here's to Plinkett. This was one for the ages.
No. Most of their channel isn’t in-character. Plinkett was like most of the ‘character’ criticism on YouTube in the early 2000’s. It was both a distraction from the OTT nitpickiness, and a justification for it. Because 9 hours of just lecturing on any topic is traditionally seen as boring, and the fact only a crazy person would act like this was part of the ‘joke.’ Then ‘50-hour live-streaming and jibbering about nothing’ came along, and by pure coincidence the ‘character’ critics started to die off a bit. Their habit of using the persona to dodge criticism (‘I’m not racist, the character is racist!) didn’t help. Why? Sure! Just so long as you comp me nearly years wages for the production time, or give me monthly payments until the end of Youtube to equal RLM’s advertising money that made it worth all their effort. Because yes, otherwise it is too much work...to avoid becoming friendless, homeless and starving to death on the streets of Sydney. Because someone said ‘I dare you’ like a five year old during a discussion of Star Wars other internet commenters discussing Star Wars. And I can’t die in frickin Sydney. I’d reach Hell, and not even notice that I’d left yet!
If you took all of the time you've invested so far (and are likely to invest in the future) attempting to beat-back TLJ haters and put it all into a video you could do it. Of course, if the extent of your defense of TLJ is to insult and namecall its critics, then you won't be able to fill an hour's runtime. Other than a spate of positive professional print reviews, I've seen very few if any amateur videos lavishing it with praise. There's a lot of counter-attacks of the haters, but these are all ad homs. They're not defending the movie content itself. At some point the apologists should pick up the gauntlet otherwise they really have no reason to feel they have the high-ground.
58 minutes. I am somewhat disappointed at the short running length. The review also seems restrained and not as in depth as the others. I guess part of that is because the more glaring problems with the movie have been discussed to death already and wouldn't be anything new here. Maybe he just doesn't need to put the time into it anymore with his video already getting over 800,000 views he has got name recognition much like Star Wars. We'll watch no matter what the quality.
Another neckbeard rant about this movie. JFC I hope Episode 9 gives each and every one of them a full on heart attack.