#plinkett reviews

[fuckthatroomupgood]

ok so i love best of the worst and half in the bag and all that but guys the plinkett prequel reviews quite literally changed my fuckin lexicon. i think or say "you didn't notice, but your brain did" multiple times a week. when my husband and i clean up we automatically go "where's my bin, my plastic bin". half-awake on sunday mornings trying to find the cat so we can snuggle her? "where's my cat, its time for breakfast". "you fuck that room up good charlie" "post an email on this webzone" "whats wrong with your faaaaaaaace" i do not think i have gone more than 3 days without making a plinkettism since i first watched them. like. i think it is a testament to their writing that I continue to use their words so often

[notgays]

so i have often wondered why da fuck the rlm gang buy Baby Binks from Baby's Day Out etc and i somehow???? never saw or even realised there was a plinkett review for it????? i thought it was some weird in joke. i feel insane rn

[frostytherobot]

I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I just… can’t.

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

may da schwartz be wicha

Ok. I admit it. I'm not a big Star Wars fan. Sure, I loved it as a kid. Had all the toys, yoda-yoda-yoda.

The last Star War I watched was the one with the obnoxious kid racing in the pods.

Now, I'll only watch a Star War with the Rifftrax audio on. It's superior to the Plinkett reviews. In fact, everything Rifftrax does is superior to the Plinkett reviews. MST3K and Rifftrax really will teach you how not to make a movie.

Anyway, so, yeah, I haven't seen any of the "new" Star Wars. But I do see that many people don't like them.

And my question is, have they ever seen Return of the Jedi? I mean, have they ever really seen it? Sorry. It's awful.

From Chewie's Tarzan yell to Humpty Dumpty Darth's face reveal, it stinks! Don't even get me started about the Teddy Kaczynski Bears!

I'm sure I'll get some hate for this, but just remember, it's only my opinion, so I could be completely wrong. It does happen.

To the Star Wars fans, I'm glad you've found something you love in this miserable old world.

Keep on space truckin'

Hardware Wars | 1977

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

The way this shows fails so hard to use The Power of Love in it reminds me of this quote from Mr. Plinkett's review of Revenge of the Sith: "This film is filled with hate, revenge, choking, murder, betrayal, sadness, more murder, more choking, worrying, more murder, death, and so on. Hey anyone still wanna use the excuse that these movies are made for little children? I offer it now as the time for you to bring that up."

Huey Lewis watching Miraculous Ladybug and seeing how little the writers understand the power of love:

[atopfourthwall]

Tbh you lament what people say about you and bemoan "harrassment and bullying". Yet you told RLM to "eat a bag of dicks" unprompted. You said Oneyplays "Are assholes, fuck them!". You'll constantly lecture your own fans, angrily yelling at them for asking when new Power Rangers are out, or for giving you simple, solid advice like below. You say youve calmed down in reviews yet still yell at the comic creators over minor stuff. The comments you complain about getting seem tame in comparison.

Okay, first of all I did not tell RLM to "eat a big of dicks" unprompted. What I said was "Eat a dick, jackass" while talking about the Plinkett Reviews in regards to how parts of them have not aged well, in particular the line that I felt was a bit racist - "Black people don't like Star Wars" (to be clear - I don't think anyone at RLM is racist [AFAIK]. The remark itself feels like it is, though, but that's also emblematic of edgier, wince-inducing internet humor from the time - we're all guilty of awful jokes like this to some degree, myself included). Now I ended up removing this line from the Star Wars Prequel reviews compilation because I realized it was needlessly inflammatory towards them and some perceived it as me attempting to star a beef with them… when of course I don't want to start a beef with ANYONE, much less someone much, MUCH more popular than me.

And no, I did not say Oneyplays "Are assholes, fuck them" (unless I said this on Twitter a long while ago). I'm assuming this is in reference to a part of the Fallout: New Vegas streams. Someone in the superchats asked a question relating to them and my other guests didn't know who they are. I proceeded to spend all of 40 seconds calmly explaining (though admittedly with a bit of light irritation) "They're other streamers, one of whom apparently does a GREAT impression of me. They're also responsible for popularizing calling me Lightbringer, soooo… screw 'em." That was it. But apparently "screw 'em" was TOO MUCH for a lot of people, because I got flooded with hate from that - videos made about how I was "TRIGGERED!" and "HAD A MELTDOWN!" Because that was one of the first public times I ever talked about how I wasn't okay with the nickname. We'll circle back around to this in a minute.

"You'll constantly lecture your own fans, angrily yelling at them for asking when new Power Rangers are out-" Aaand right there you prove that you don't actually watch my stuff. You're just repeating the same garbage from people who ALSO don't watch my stuff, but assume I have not changed at all, that I am the same person forever whose opinions don't change, whose attitude doesn't change, never gets better, etc.

Because I haven't been angry at people asking when the next History of Power Rangers is out in ALMOST TEN YEARS.

And the reason I know that number in particular is because I started my Patreon in 2014. The question annoyed me so much because I didn't have an answer for them and it seemed like they didn't care about anything else I did. But then I started my Patreon and one of the Milestone goals was actual release dates for HOPR. And thus since then I've been able to answer when new ones are coming out.

You want to know how NOT angry I am about the question I am now? I put it on t-shirts.

You can buy them at https://atop-the-fourth-wall.creator-spring.com/listing/when-is-hopr?product=2 and https://atop-the-fourth-wall.creator-spring.com/listing/when-is-hopr-03?product=2 (I was going to post pictures of them but Tumblr keeps breaking when I try). There's a third one, but I don't think I put that one back up because it was intended for Shark Robot where colors are limited and it didn't do very well.

But this is a thing that's brought up by people who hate me - my irritation at the question as if it was still something that bothered me because, again, they cannot conceive that maybe I've changed. No, I am cringe forever and there is nothing I can say or do that will satisfy them.

But no, I "lecture people constantly" evidently. People say I'm obsessed about this topic, about the bullying, that I just talk about it soooo much and I can't move on from it and it haunts my every waking moment and that such "simple, solid advice" like "Be okay with being bullied" is met with unreasonable hostility and my mind fixated on it constantly.

Unless of course you actually look at what I post, what I reblog, what I tweet about and then you discover "Oh, he actually only talks about it when people bring it up to him. He only made that thread because he said the harassment is starting to rise up again and that was days and days ago and hasn't said anything about it since. In fact, on this very Tumblr he's only bringing it up again because somebody ELSE is bringing it up, allowing him a chance to further break down why asshole behavior is still asshole behavior.

So let's bring this back to the "screw 'em" thing. You'll notice that in none of these longer rambling statements I've made have I brought them up. Sure, in that 40 seconds during the stream I did… but that was in the middle of the first wave of it where it really WAS affecting me psychologically hard… and I have not talked about them on stream since then. I don't talk about them in these threads. I don't tell my fans to harass them. I don't make up some nickname for them or mock them or do anything other than maybe some frustration at them during the thread a few years ago (and I am explicitly telling my fans not do so - if you want to be an asshole to them, you can fuck off from my fans). Because I don't WANT to talk about them. They can do whatever the hell they want on their streams. They can call me Lightbringer there, make weird memes about me. It's THEIR space to do with as they please.

The problem is entirely that their fans come to MY space to be assholes. To repeat those memes, to bully me and call me the name. Some do it innocently, thinking I'm okay with it (which, again - is who that thread was directed towards)… but there are others who are being assholes about it. And I'm going to call them assholes about it and block them. And I'm still not going to talk about Oney because I don't want to - they're not the ones who are spamming Lightbringer in my chat or comments or trying to find some way of sneaking it into the comments past my comment filters to try to get a gotcha on me. Hell, I've gotten some people who have said they discovered me and love my stuff now BECAUSE Oney talked about me.

And I'd really like to know which recent review you saw where I was specifically attacking creators in the manner you seem to think I did. Because being angry at a plot point or a narrative decision is not the same thing as attacking a creator. I'll freely tell you about the ones I HAVE specifically called out for shittiness - the racist, the homophobic, the sexual harassers, the transphobic, the one that spread misinformation, or just the greedy assholes. But just looking at the list of the last 50+ episodes I've done that maybe… once or twice? And even despite ALL those horrible things, I STILL tell my fans to leave them alone - to not start fights with them, to not send my videos to them, etc. Because I don't want my fans to be bullies, either.

I will end this with one final thing: "The comments you complain about getting seem tame in comparison." Yeah, well, that's because you're you and I'm me. Something that seems innocuous to one person may be deeply triggering for someone else. Something that seems like an innocent joke might actually be really fucking with someone mentally, as it was for me. And that's why I've tried to tell people "Hey, please don't do that." Maybe I do it aggressively. But sometimes that's the only way people will listen. If people are still doing it even after I've expressed how much it harms me - telling me that I should just "get over it" or "let them do it and respond with a laugh" even though I keep saying it DOES affect me, then those people are assholes and I don't see why I should give them the time of day.

Hopefully this lengthy response (I really am a windbag) helps people understand or it clears up some bullshit. And if it's still not good enough for you, then nothing less than complete capitulation to being called Lightbringer is the only thing that will satisfy you… well, fuck off.

[blortch]

You've probably answered a question like that before but what would you say was your favorite episode of each of the rlm "shows" (for lack of a better word) if you had to pick one from each? Interpret "favorite" however you want

I actually haven't gotten an ask of this sort before! The closest I can think of was when I ranked the Halloween BOTW sets. I know you prob meant like HITB, BOTW and Re:View but like I'm gonna go a bit more extensive and include other small series they have. I'm gonna leave out anything Spitballs bc idc and anything Plinkett-related bc in the 100 years I've been watching them I skimmed through like the first part of the phantom menace review and Nothing Else.

Going to start with Re:View bc it's fuckin' easy. It's Obviously the FWWM Re:View. It's what got me into Twin Peaks, and it means a lot to me. In hindsight Jay's kinda off with some of his takes (nothing Bad, just a different perspective as a massive Donnie Darko fan and projecting too much of that dynamic into the movie):

BOTW-wise this might be a super normie pick but like it's a good BOTW for a reason. Best of the Worst: Wheel of the Worst #16. Jackpots guy followed by Surviving Edged Weapons was too great. You can kinda see that They themselves Knew this was going to be a BOTW Classic because when Mike tells Jay to talk about the tape he's Legitimately Nervous over Talking about it. ("Oh man...this is a lot of pressure...I don't know if I can do this..."):

For HITB...I'm sorry but this one's going to be a complete cop-out, (but hey at least I didn't choose the Death Cure HITB...) it's Half in the Bag Episode 138: 2017 Movie Catch-up (part 2 of 2). When I think of what I want from them review-wise it's honestly like... pointed discussions about a movie or show and this delivers exactly that. Whenever they go a little too deep they often dig themselves into a grave of either caring about something too small and inane or something they think is funny but isn't at all (cough Mike's tangents cough) so honestly letting them talk for only a few minutes tops about a movie is the absolute sweet spot. The reviews where the entire discussion is good are rare imo:

Of __ and __ Talk About I wanna say... probably Rich and Jay talk about the Boys? Just because it's the only show/movie I gave a fuck about among this series? I don't get what Rich sees in Garth Ennis' work specifically bc he's kind of a suckass but the show itself was interesting to find out more about regardless through them:

Of Nerd Crew I have to go for The Nerd Crew: Episode 2, the bit with the nerd box+geek crate was fucking hilarious. Not to mention the ending where Rich knocks over the cameras... I imagine Mike prepared the Nerd Box and Jay the Geek Crate? Just because Mike seemed to comment a lot more on the nerd box' contents (Rich said too that the knock-off Rey figure inside it was his doing) and seemed bewildered by the geek crate while Jay laughed nervously at everything Rich took out of it. Jay's such an asshole for making poor Rich gag uncontrollably with those sliced up sausages if so 😭:

ig by now they've put together enough Mini Docs to have a playlist for them so I'll pick one out of those too - I have to go for We Finally Watched Nukie: The VHS Grading Video just because the fact that it lead up for years from them collecting all those Nukies to joking about donating to charity in their trivia video, their tape destructions etc...And the entire video is just legitimately well-put together:

Talking about Trivia...of those videos I like the first one (Star Trek Trivia Showdown: Mike vs Jay (Episode 1 of 2,873)) the best just because it tortured Jay specifically. That's it that's the entire reason I shan't pretend otherwise. He was flustered throughout its entirety and also seemed smitten by the suggestion in the patreon bts of it to be compensated with a Twin Peaks trivia after:

From the Dudebros I have to go for Dudebros Episode 3 - The Dinner Surprise, ig out of all of them it was on the meatier (no pun intended) side (unlike Too Glose for Comfort) and the choices in this one are the most bizarre out of all I think...I'd like to have been a fly on the wall as they decided that Nate should cum in his pants over watching Tommy and Ronnie eat:

I'm not gonna name a season from the Grabowskis I think it would be too cheap for me to not pick a specific episode so I'll go for the third season episode where Honey gets chosen as the Face of the company Wings and Things and Cliff thinks she's gonna leave him. The whole ep makes me think that they cared a lot about the show at some point, or at least enough to make a cute little pigeon trap prop:

Out of their horrible, horrible 48 hour film projects (Das Foot, The Great Space Jam, the Western Ore Musical) I'm gonna have to go for The Western Ore Musical... just bc it was like... something as opposed to Nothing... Das Foot is very Jay I think and respectively The Great Space Jam is very Mike which makes them both super embarrassing and unwatchable:

ty for the ask! t'was fun to put together B]

[furryprovocateur]

i think one of my least favorite things that the internet has proliferated is the nitpick-y "no suspension of disbelief" type of critique of stories. no one wants to admit it but the plinkett review of star wars really was the catalyst that caused this to turn away from "annoying nerd shit that the simpsons made fun of" to monetizable yourmoviesucks type content that causes people to think it's genuinely a plot hole when a character doesn't state how they get their coffee in a sci-fi setting

[silvermoon424]

I noticed that you are a fan of Red Letter Media. I’m curious about what you like about them. A lot of people my age don’t like them because of those Plinkett reviews of the SW prequels and for a time, I dismissed them due to being part of that fandom. Now that I don’t really care much about SW and personally think there’s better stuff included anime, I am watching those reviews and find myself agreeing with them more and more. What got you into liking RLM and how have they affected your view of movies.

I got into RLM in 2014 (so a full decade ago now) because the Plinkett reviews were mentioned on a blog I loved that posted "sporkings" aka mocking reviews of the Twilight books. I thought the video was really insightful and funny, so I proceeded to watch the rest of the Plinkett reviews and their other videos. I was totally hooked within a few days.

I like their reviews a lot (including all the Plinkett ones and Half in the Bag), but what I REALLY love is their Best of The Worst series. That's what really made me fall in love with the channel. They basically just sit around and watch shitty B movies. BOTW are my ultimate comfort videos; I've seen each one at least 4 or 5 times. Idk why, but there's something so cozy and fun about these midwestern dudes getting together and roasting bad movies.

Also, I do want to point out that Red Letter Media and their Plinkett reviews in general basically created modern Youtube reviews/video essays as we know them. It's really hard to overstate their influence on the medium. I'm continually shocked that they only have 1 million subs, because they're such a huge influence on Youtube as a whole to this day (they're even called "your favorite Youtuber's favorite Youtubers" because of how popular and highly regarded they are within the content creator sphere).

[frumfrumfroo]

I'm still reeling from the fact that they decided to include the kiss during a reshoot. What didn't they include during a reshoot? That theory that Rey's parentage was changed during reshoots sounds pretty believable to me now, if they're willing to alter Ben Solo's final moments.

Actual trainwreck is a trainwreck.

Now I want to complain about something: I like watching Red Letter Media. I like when they talk about niche films, they're in their element there. But I was watching their old Infinity War review, and I cannot believe that they think the 'subversions' of that film worked better than The Last Jedi. Like, the Marvel films are soulless, if they didn't have Marvel branding, nobody would be talking about them. It's the greatest stunt ever pulled in Hollywood. Sure, they've gone off Marvel now, so this doesn't reflect their current stance as much, but lollllllllll

Endgame is incoherent, if a few steps ahead of TROS on the basis that it's a technically complete film.

Anyway. Star Wars is not fitting for the superhero genre, but they're sure trying.

I've blocked it out now, but for months after it came out we kept learning new depths of what a shitshow it was. All of the most insane leaks were accurate. At this point I would believe almost anything about their level of incompetence pinching out this turd. It's absolutely fucking embarrassing.

Yeah, I like RLM but sometimes they really don't Get It. The Plinkett reviews of the prequels raised some great points and were generally fairly quality criticism, but they also missed a lot and sometimes focussed on things that aren't valid arguments. Their review of TFA I found much less well constructed and more shallow. I don't remember which video it's in, but their discussion of the climax of RotJ shows some serious holes in their understanding of the themes of SW and Luke's character arc. And that's exactly where not getting what TLJ was doing will come in.

Nothing about the narrative shape or character arcs of TLJ should have been surprising to anyone who understands the structure of SW or the literary tropes it was consciously modelled on. The only thing about the main plot which is/was genuinely 'subversive' in concept or shocking was Snope's death.

I've seen them have some dumb takes, mostly in their blockbuster reviews, but it seems to usually come from not bothering to understand a context they're not familiar with or not always recognising when a film is trying to do something different than what they expected. Like the MCU films were mediocre at best from the beginning so it makes sense to judge them as forgettable formulaic entertainment, but there are more interesting conversations to have and it doesn't mean all blockbusters should be judged the same way.

Yep. I spent a lot of time talking about this both before and after tros. So fucking depressing.

[txttletale]

some of the humour aged like dogshit but it annoys me when people lump in the RLM plinkett reviews with cinemasins or the nostalgia critic. like those were actually genuinely good and insightful pieces of film criticism

[bauman-jay]

Actually kind of pleased that Mike basically confirmed no more Plinkett reviews. Let The old man die

[fantasyinvader]

I think if you just look at what happened to Edelgard, she really is a tragic character. Like, a legit tragic villain.

It all comes down to, well, you remember how the Plinkett reviews of the Prequels used to be a big thing? One of the criticisms was that Anakin wasn't seduced to the dark side, he became evil because he was tricked. And, well, look at Edelgard's story. She was taken away from her family due to an Insurrection that may or may not have been the work of TWSITD, she lives for three years in hiding only for her uncle to be pod-personed, she is then taken home only to be experimented on. She watches her siblings go insane and later be killed, all while her father watches helplessly. She feels a connection to that father because of it, and her father tells her what is supposedly Fodlan's true history.

But Hubert reveals that her father was a puppet of the group that consists of Kronya and Solon, led by Edelgard's uncle. This version of history comes from the Agarthans. Likewise, in Verdant Wind it's said that TWSITD manipulated Edelgard into starting the war. This would align with not only that, but it would also indicate that Edelgard's ideals, the thing she says she started a war in service of, comes from the Agarthans as well. After all, they were informed by the history she was fed. But per the devs, one of the themes of Flower is having a different set of beliefs, but they also said that the worldbuilding was done in support of Silver Snow. It could also be said that with her claims that she prayed to the Goddess, the Agarthans turned Edelgard against her former beliefs as for all we know Edelgard's mother could have been devout like the real Arundel was. Not to mention, ther's also her being given the pressures of being heir to an empire in severe decline.

Edelgard was gaslit, plain and simple. Her views don't reflect actual history or the reality of Fodlan. What's more, she's depicted as deliberately averting her eyes from the things she doesn't want to see, be they the Agarthan influence in the Imperial or the victims her war is causing. The Japanese version of Edge of Dawn, Girl from Hresvelg, also makes it out that Edelgard was reconsidering her path in White Clouds only to then go forward with it. That version would indicate that Edelgard made the decision to do so, but then you look at her history with the experiments, the trauma she suffered and being fed propaganda to lead her to starting a war. A war she feels is the right thing to do because of that propaganda, which would indicate that Edelgard's moral center was realigned by the Agarthans as well, hence why she's the one who believes it's her right to force her beliefs onto the people, make them fight for her and spill as much blood as needed for that glorious future she dreams of.

Now, this isn't an excuse. For decades, people have been trying to argue that being brainwashed should be a legal defense by way of diminished responsibility. This has been rejected both by scientists as well as the US legal system, as there is debate over brainwashing being a real thing and how this would effect the concept of free will in a proceeding. You're basically saying "Edelgard wasn't acting in her right mind, she was made to act like this by the Agarthans therefore they're the ones responsible for her actions." The fact that the game was written with Edelgard as a villain to be stopped ultimately says that, well, she can't go unpunished for her actions (and her victory is meant to be a bad thing, because she's making a world based on the beliefs the hidden villains gave her).

The game still wants you to feel bad for fighting her, it doesn't want her to be written off as just another bad guy. She's an anti-villain who is among the victims of the Agarthans. Flower's reveals are just a means to explain how the cute girl we are initially introduced to is another red emperor under the surface. So it's not like Houses is completely heartless towards her. Her situation is complex, she was still free to act but her understanding of right and wrong was warped on her. For her to not go down this path would be akin to her being evil in her own mind, and her close-mindedness rejected any notion that she was wrong in contrast to Claude. And she is the face of the game to top it off, showing that Houses doesn't have some golden ending where everyone lives. The player has no choice but to either stop her, or help the villains who did this to her achieve the goal they had when they did this all to her. And if Hubert's dad was a Slither himself, they chose her for this when she was only four years old. Of course it's not going to feel good fighting another victim, but the game still treats it as something that needs to be done even if it's a gut punch.

Treehouse not getting the memo is not something I hold against the game, just those assholes.

[doublydaring]

no matter how down bad i get you will never catch me saying a mr. plinkett review was funny

[sputnikodin]

there was a time in college when i was just watching the plinkett reviews (the original star trek wars prequel ones) on loop like whenever i wanted background noise or was doing any kind of rote task. i was shifting reorganizing and shifting again dozens of shelves of books as a project at work with my phone propped up on a shelf and my earbuds in watching/listening to the plinkett reviews for the fifth time