Response to RedLetterMedia's TPM Review (108 Page PDF)

[Jim Raynor]

Stuff like the corrison chase, obi-wan and anakin don't look terribly concerned when they're thousands of feet in the air, or when jumping out of the window/car.

Not this lame argument again. I dealt with it in all the other threads already.

The chase scene starts off from Obi-Wan's perspective. And he is freaking out at Anakin's recklessness. Anakin doesn't act scared because the entire point of the scene is that he's cocky, bold, and too sure of himself.

His big fall on the assassin's speeder was a deliberate act that was planned in advance, and which he had ample time to prepare himself for. Nobody whines about how Batman doesn't act scared whenever he jumped off of skyscrapers to glide with his cape. And when Anakin reached that speeder, he immediately lost control of the situation, straining himself just to hold on while he was flipped around and shot at.

Or stuff like when Grievous spins his 4 light sabers Obi-Wan doesn't react even though Grievous could've lunged at him during that motion and started trying to slice him up. Just MO of how it comes across.

Obi-Wan starts that scene off cocky as well. He had a good amount of distance between himself and Grievous when the spinning began. And oh yeah, he's a trained Jedi so I don't know how you expected him to "react" to that. What I saw, in the actual movie, was Obi-Wan stumbling back as he stared at Grievous, trying to concentrate.

[The Asiduo]

So, to conclude:

a) If you're critizing in light and funny style some movie, it is not a matter of opinion, and deserves an angry 108-page refutation.
b) If you're a professional critic, and you say these movies are mediocre are best, awful at worst, then it is just a matter of opinion.
c) A movie is sucessful if makes a lot of money.
d) Yeah, when we talk about the "tone" of the review is not about the feel, it's about the tone of voice of the guy talking. Right.

Yeah, an study on fanboy... oh, wait.

[Formless]

Oh, go buy a barbed wire butt plug and stick it up your ass, you legalistic prick. Just because Lucas is never going to actually sue Stoklasa doesn't mean we can't show that damage has been done to his image. This thread is ample evidence that people LIKE YOURSELF buy into the mythology Stoklasa presented, and came out of it with irrationally negative attitudes regarding Lucas's character. Even minor damage is still damage, and thus can be called a Bad Thing.

I'm so sure Lucas is really worried about how an internet review might have "damaged his image".
Never mind the fact that the stuff Stoklasa said about Lucas isn't exactly stuff that hasn't been said before by other people in the past.

I can't say I'm amazed you completely dodged the point by cutting out the meat of it.

Most of the things in this thread boil down to opinion, I haven't tried passing them as fact anymore than others in this thread. Just like others thinking because the prequels made money equates them as a success. I'll just say that I found the acting, dialogue more realistic and the characters more likable in the OT, and that is just "my opinion".

Bullshit. Again and again and again I have to tell you, simply stating something over and over and over until I lose patience with you doesn't make what you say true.

Calling someone immature is insulting.

I'm just going to let this one stand here for all to see. nygma619 officially does not know what an insult is in a thread where I explained what an insult is.

And since when was insulting people ever considered high brow or in between.

Since you started acting like it was? Like you have been this entire time? Or do you just have some pathological aversion to the seven words you can't say on television:


Edit: wrong youtube, this one is better. The very best one had some uptight dickskin flag it as offensive.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

I know what you mean by tone, you illiterate. I'm telling you that in neither his voice or his imagery does his tone change.

I want to do a test, I’m concerned about your inability to distinguish between the tone change in “neither his voice or his imagery” Please watch the first 20 seconds of the clip below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORWPCCzSgu0&t=3m49s

If you do not detect a tonal shift that signifies sarcasm in his voice there may be no hope and you’ll assume RLM really thought the child was cute flying the ship. Stuck in a world where:

neither his tone of voice nor his editing makes a clear distinction between when he is being serious and when he is being fucking comedic

You cannot have your cake and eat it too: you cannot say that he is being critical thus his arguments are good but he is also being joking so we can't take them literally. Either it doesn't matter that his arguments are made in a joking manner, or his review is worthless pandering trash cashing in on the popularity of PT bashing.

The issue is you don’t seem to understand what his arguments are because you take his jokes literally (and claim to not be able to comprehend his tone). Take for instance Raynor’s objection to RLM theorizing that the Trade Fed might be a government agency so he can make a joke about space taxes. If his criticism stopped there Raynor’s argument would be somewhat sound, but RLM goes on to say “the point is I’m still not sure what the doughnut ships were there to do.” He’s being dismissive of his own joke because the bigger point is that the audience doesn’t know why the TF is there or what their motivations are. Instead Raynor decided to focus on the literalness of the joke rather than the actual criticism that followed.

There is a difference between theoretically having all the control of both a director and a producer and actually exerting that control to the point of being an intimidating boss who micromangaes every aspect of production and throws anyone who challenges his creative vision on the street. One is what he indisputably has: the other is what your dork-god Stoklasa implies he uses when he speculates on what made these films bad, even though that proposal lacks either evidence or (un)common sense. Your link is as red as the herring its made of, and your reading comprehension skills are deplorable.

Ha. I love how you like to demand sources and then become dismissive of them immediately.

“And you know, it's like you have your audience with the king," Pollock said. "He will tell them when they can release their products, how they can advertise them, how much they can reveal. He controls how much they pay, what the royalty is. And he controls what kind of stores the merchandise goes into."

Boy that doesn’t sound like a guy who likes to manage everything; I wonder why RLM implied he had “total control”. Not to mention an earlier post were you dismissed Kurtz despite his history of challenging Lucas creatively and being a major part of the first two and most critically acclaimed Star Wars movies. Which RLM cites as a possible reason Lucas might part ways with people who challenge him. Or why he brought up the “what if” line you seemed to have missed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWKMgJs_Gs&t=7m30s

Yeah I agree with his opinion, if Lucas had the control he does today, we just might have had Luke Skywalker robot head and CPO Used car man. And they might have been just as good as Jar Jar.

Oh, go buy a barbed wire butt plug and stick it up your ass, you legalistic prick. Just because Lucas is never going to actually sue Stoklasa doesn't mean we can't show that damage has been done to his image. This thread is ample evidence that people LIKE YOURSELF buy into the mythology Stoklasa presented, and came out of it with irrationally negative attitudes regarding Lucas's character. Even minor damage is still damage, and thus can be called a Bad Thing. Furthermore, only in cases of Malicious slander do you have to establish malicious intent, whereas with damaging slander it only matters that the person is irresponsible with their words.

But of course, you are never going to admit that Stoklasa can do wrong, so I don't see why I should even bother at this point.

Just because you don’t like what RLM said about your hero doesn’t make it slander. The Supreme Court raised the bar on public-figure defamation, requiring that public figures prove not just negligence, but "actual malice". Good luck with that. Although for fun, prove to us damage was done. Sources Now Asshole

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Wow struck a nerve there. The only ones on this forum pretending they have giant fact dicks around are people like you. You think it was a success because it made a bagillion dollars, that’s your opinion. I’m of the opinion that it was a failure in film making.

So in other words, you can't name any way in which TPM was a "failure" other than the fact that you and Red Letter Retard didn't like it. You think your opinion is some kind of objective fact, which makes you a complete fucktard. I didn't like The Dark Knight -I thought it took itself way more seriously than any movie about a guy in a leotard fighting crime ought to. But in spite of my dislike for the movie, I would have to be a drooling imbecile to claim over and over that a movie that (a) sold millions and millions of tickets (b) was well-received by audiences and (c) got favorable reviews was somehow a "failure".

You’re right you would be an imbecile. Now please direct me to the overwhelming public criticism of The Dark Knight, any fan sites calling for the death of one of its main character like Jar Jar was? Did Patton Oswald do a comedy bit about wanting to travel back in time to stop Nolan from making it? Who again accused the dark knight of racist caricatures? Also I’d love to see the doc “The people vs Chistopher Nolan”.

Yep. Just me and RLM. No one else disliked TPM.

On a side note I actually agree with you on the dark knight

If that’s the case maybe you need “stats”

Episode VI - Return of the Jedi 76%*
Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back 88%
Episode IV - A New Hope 88%
Episode III - Revenge of the Sith 67%
Episode II - Attack of the Clones 40%
Episode I - The Phantom Menace 40%

*Rotten Tomatoes Top Critics Metric Unless 40% is now considered objectively successful.

Which is why I mentioned what the reviews were when the films were first released, asshole.

And now with perspective, critics respect the early films more and the prequels even less. Your point is moot. They are critical failures... except for 3... mildly successful.

What is it like in the alternate universe you live in? Do people dress up like Jar Jar and have midnight screens of TPM that aren’t filled with laughter and heckling?

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Why would they act concerned? They're Jedi. For them that's pretty much business as usual. As for Obi-Wan not reacting to Grievous showing off-Force Precog?

Yep, and no one judges film on its artistic merit or audience reaction beyound the economic one.

Why would they act concerned? They're Jedi. For them that's pretty much business as usual. As for Obi-Wan not reacting to Grievous showing off-Force Precog?

I don’t know, maybe because it would be more interesting and help the audience identify with the main characters.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Two more pages without any new arguments from the RLM-defenders. Dissecting the tonal shifts of Plinkett's monotone voice? That's what this thread has turned into?

Again, I went over the "comedy" excuse right near the start. If everything in the RLM review is just stupid comedy that doesn't really mean what it says, then don't use it as a logical dissection of the movie. Funny how people regarded it as such anyway...except for all the parts of that review which were pointed out as stupid. Which make up most of the review's running time. Which somehow don't have to be accounted for when alluding to its "main point" which is so profound and insightful, really.

Fuck I’ll just copy and paste it:
Well its only stupid if you don’t think it’s funny. Because his line right after that is “the point is I’m still not sure what the doughnut ships were there to do” (an important line you left out of your review). That’s the line people think is smart and correct, because we don’t know. At one point the TF even says “we should not have made this bargain” What bargain? For better or worse these are our main villains, but we have no idea their motivations beyond what the open crawl says about being greedy.

When people accuse you of missing the “main point” of the RLM review it’s because you seem to take so much of what RLM says as criticism of the in world logic as apposed to criticism of it as a film. When he talks about character you paraphrase it:

“He makes some fair points about the value of having likable, identifiable protagonists who the audience roots for, though he's very decompressed as he runs off a long list of movie heroes and shows numerous short clips from various movies. Mostly he shows a bunch of teenage and young adult Regular Joe characters taking crap from people early in their movies, before their adventures start. This takes up most of the next four minutes.”

The reason he goes on for four minutes about character is to show what the universal character traits/arcs are for a hero in this type of movie. By glancing it over and focusing on things like “Anakin shows up 32 minutes not 45 minutes” of course people are going to accuse you of missing the main point. He uses those four minutes to set up how none of the characters in PM fit with the classic archetype for this kind of movie.

You stated that Qui-gon was the protagonist. What was his arc then? How did he grow from the start of the film to the end? How is he in any way like the characters Plinkett references in those 4 minutes?

Let's cut the crap, okay? Anyone with a brain knows that "comedy" is still used to make genuine points. People have explained this simple truth already in this thread. When people mock Sarah Palin as stupid and Charlie Sheen as a drugged out egomaniac, they really do mean that Palin is stupid and Sheen is a drugged out egomaniac.

Someone should sue those people for Slander.

[Formless]

I know what you mean by tone, you illiterate. I'm telling you that in neither his voice or his imagery does his tone change.

I want to do a test, I’m concerned about your inability to distinguish between the tone change in “neither his voice or his imagery” Please watch the first 20 seconds of the clip below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORWPCCzSgu0&t=3m49s

If you do not detect a tonal shift that signifies sarcasm in his voice there may be no hope and you’ll assume RLM really thought the child was cute flying the ship. Stuck in a world where:

Oh, yeah, I bet sarcasm is never used to make a serious point-- oh, wait, look what I just did there.

The issue is you don’t seem to understand what his arguments are because you take his jokes literally (and claim to not be able to comprehend his tone). Take for instance Raynor’s objection to RLM theorizing that the Trade Fed might be a government agency so he can make a joke about space taxes. If his criticism stopped there Raynor’s argument would be somewhat sound, but RLM goes on to say “the point is I’m still not sure what the doughnut ships were there to do.” He’s being dismissive of his own joke because the bigger point is that the audience doesn’t know why the TF is there or what their motivations are. Instead Raynor decided to focus on the literalness of the joke rather than the actual criticism that followed.

So what do you propose Plinkett/Stoklasa meant, and how did you come to that conclusion? More mind reading? At least taking his words literally shows us Stoklasa was paying no attention whatsoever when he says he does not understand what the ships were doing there. Also, if you weren't a lying sack of shit, you would have mentioned that Raynor deals with the stupidity about "what are the Trade Federation doing at Naboo anyway? What is their motivation anyway?" rather extensively throughout the section you are complaining about. Here is his summary:

Again, I will repeat things for Plinkett and the slow-learners out there: They are the Trade Federation with a trade franchise, and there are taxes on trade routes. Put two and two together. Alternately, it doesn't even matter who was getting taxed.

You are either lying when you claim to have read Raynor's critique, or intentionally misrepresenting Raynor to further your agenda, i.e. lying through your teeth.

Ha. I love how you like to demand sources and then become dismissive of them immediately.

“And you know, it's like you have your audience with the king," Pollock said. "He will tell them when they can release their products, how they can advertise them, how much they can reveal. He controls how much they pay, what the royalty is. And he controls what kind of stores the merchandise goes into."

Boy that doesn’t sound like a guy who likes to manage everything; I wonder why RLM implied he had “total control”.

That may be evidence that he had control over the merchandising of the Original Trilogy. Now you misrepresent your source, my argument, or both.

Not to mention an earlier post were you dismissed Kurtz despite his history of challenging Lucas creatively and being a major part of the first two and most critically acclaimed Star Wars movies. Which RLM cites as a possible reason Lucas might part ways with people who challenge him. Or why he brought up the “what if” line you seemed to have missed.

Ye, Appeal to the Authority of a man who hasn't worked with Lucas in years when the claims are about the Prequel Trilogy. I mean, its not like I didn't already address why Gary Kurtz's words are not sufficient evidence for the claims, but why let a little thing like facts get in the way of your campaign against sanity?

Just because you don’t like what RLM said about your hero doesn’t make it slander.

No, you are right, The fact that Stoklasa put forth a hypothesis that rests on unfounded assumptions about Lucas's character with no regard for honesty, responsibility, or common sense does. All of which has been evidenced already in Raynor's PDF. Once more, stop being a legalistic prick. This is about the integrity of the review and its writer, not whether or not anyone should sue anyone. Either address the point, or get out.

P.S. mocking someone for asking for evidence on this of all forums is not helping your cause.

Edit: added the P.S.

[Elfdart]

I like that you live in a universe where nothing has ever been considered a critical failure because criticism is subject. Do tell, what is “every objective standard?”

The only truly objective standard is box office take, since it's the only one that can be measured with any degree of accuracy. Exit-polling of viewers would be another, but scores are not readily available. Overall critical consensus is another, but that is too easily skewed -especially nowadays when just about anyone can publish reviews online. By the way, who gets to decide which critics to include? For example, Roger Ebert claims that Armond White is not really a critic even though White is published in several outlets including the New York Press. Oscars are also a poor indicator since only a select few can vote and many vote for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they liked the picture: James Garner said he usually didn't watch any of them, but voted anyway.

Here’s the thing, TPM financial “success” is also subjective. You might think it’s a success because it made its money back, but it’s 20th on the all time list (adjusted for inflation) so to someone else it may be deemed a failure (19 times over).

Or one could point out that compared to the original trilogy, (which RLM does) it failed since it did not gross more than any of those films.

By that standard, every movie released since the early 80s has been a failure except for Titanic and Avatar.

Pretty subjective, to just assume it succeeded when you’ve failed to set up what the parameters are for success. Nevermind the fact that the post I responded too claimed it was also a critical success as if that were objectively the case.

It was a critical success, asshole. A "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes means that most of the critics surveyed liked it. Audiences liked the movie well enough to keep it playing in theaters for months after it was released. You and Heathcliff claim the movie was a failure -prove it you lying fuckhead!

As for cultural success I would define it as how the film is treated by the public. Is it a running punchline? Can a 70 minute review making fun of the movie become successful? Were it’s character considered semi racist caricatures? Those types of things.

You really are a total fuckwit aren't you? You could get a "yes" answer by asking all those questions about Gone With the Wind, Lord of the Rings, Dances With Wolves, Ben-Hur and countless other films. They must all be failures, too.

That of course is subjective, but if you spend your time on this board you might come to believe that TPM is regarded as a good film, since it was an “objective” success.

Most people who saw it liked it. You and Heathcliff are in the minority.

[Formless]

But Elfdart! Don't you understand? Plinkett can say no wrong-- can do no wrong! We must worship Plinkett for his words are Truth! WORSHIP TEH INTERNET GOD!!!

Man, its really funny when Stoklasa's peer, The Nostalgia Critic, can make not one but two videos acknowledging the mistakes that invariably crop up in his reviews, apologize quite sincerely about making a smokers joke about an actor who died of lung cancer (Mako), and who also plays a fictional character, yet somehow we must hold Plinkett/Stoklasa to a different standard when his reviews are not only longer, but pay more attention to details than the NC ever could. Really, that says something about the mentality of the RLM fanbase.

[Darth Tedious]

I like that you live in a universe where nothing has ever been considered a critical failure because criticism is subject.

Stick your strawman up your arse. I never claimed that a movie can't be a critical failure. I pointed out that criticism is subjective, after you had claimed criticism as an objective measure of a film's success.

Do tell, what is “every objective standard?”

I wasn't the one who said the movie had succeeded by every objective standard. Way back on page 20, you made the claim that the movie was a failure.

Because he’s creating a hypothesis for why TPM failed, why the originals worked and what he feels went wrong.

To which Elfdart replied:

In what way did the movie fail? Because Heathcliff didn't like it?
*snip
Red Letter Moron and his little cockgoblins (yes, this includes you) try to pass off their opinions as fact -such as the claim that TPM "failed". By every objective standard the movie was successful:

The only movie that has earned more at the domestic box office since TPM was Avatar.

The movie did well with audiences and critics, earning overall favorable reviews -better than TESB and ROTJ did when they were first released.

Feel free to show by what standard The Phantom Menace "failed".

You made an attempt at a dismissive reply:

You think it was a success because it made a bagillion dollars, that’s your opinion. I’m of the opinion that it was a failure in film making.

The movie really did make a lot of money. That is a fact, not an opinion.
You claimed that the movie was a failure, and you have failed to show any objective evidence to back up that claim. The best you have done was your statistics based on critical reviews, which are again- opinions. Do you have any objective measure at all by which to show the movie was a failure?
To be realistic, the only objective way to measure a film's success is financial performance. It is quantifiable and measurable, and isn't based on opinions. Of course, you could claim otherwise:

Here’s the thing, TPM financial “success” is also subjective. You might think it’s a success because it made its money back, but it’s 20th on the all time list (adjusted for inflation) so to someone else it may be deemed a failure (19 times over).

The amount of money the movie made is a fact. It is objective. Your analysis is subjective, and shows the level of bias you have. TPM was outperformed by only 19 other movies (out of every movie ever made in the history of film). So how many films did it outperform? 1? 3? A dozen? No. Thousands. It beat every other movie ever made in the history of film. This is truly the worst grasp at a straw I have ever seen.
You're actually stooping so low as to say it was a failure because it wasn't the highest grossing film of all time?

[Vympel]

Well its apparent some people can't tell the difference between "I didn't like the film" and "this film was a failure."

Even Simon Pegg, who pimped the original review, has perspective - just watch Season 2 of Spaced. The character he plays rants about TPM on several occasions (18 months after the movie comes out) but the show's script repeatedly notes that its his expectations that were let down - especially obvious as he's making children cry with his rants about how much he dislikes the film ...

[Havok]

And really, that is what this is all about. The Phantom Menace wasn't Star Wars.
16 years of anticipation. 22 years of nostalgia. Kids with old memories of something they loved that had grown into adults, were let down.

Why is it that everyone that rags on TPM is at least in their early 30s or older? Where is all the hatred from the kids that were 4-11 when TPM came out? Maybe I'm just missing it.

[Darth Tedious]

Why is it that everyone that rags on TPM is at least in their early 30s or older? Where is all the hatred from the kids that were 4-11 when TPM came out? Maybe I'm just missing it.

Have you read some of the arguments being put forward? I figured we were dealing with 11 year-olds, at best...

[Loup Garou]

And really, that is what this is all about. The Phantom Menace wasn't Star Wars.
16 years of anticipation. 22 years of nostalgia. Kids with old memories of something they loved that had grown into adults, were let down.

Why is it that everyone that rags on TPM is at least in their early 30s or older? Where is all the hatred from the kids that were 4-11 when TPM came out? Maybe I'm just missing it.

I was 16 when it came out and I thought it was off; the acting was bland and uninteresting, obi-wan was there for no apparent reason (and seemed like he was kind of a tool to be honest), JAR JAR, anakin is aparently a child prodigy mechanic and the whole pod race segment didn't click for me.

Oh yeah: I thought the gungans throwing paintballs was bad too. Wookies get crossbows at least.

And battle droids were basicly helpless.

On the up side I thought the dual with darth mal was neat and the appointment of palpatine was an interesting nod to the OT.

Like, I didn't want to kill george or what not and I figured the movie derserved a 3/5 rating, but I had expected that with almost 2 decades to prepare for the TPM and hone his craft lucas was going to have an absolute grandstanding spectacle in that theatre and I was stoked.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Oh, yeah, I bet sarcasm is never used to make a serious point-- oh, wait, look what I just did there.

Oh good so you admit you can detect tone. One small step.

So what do you propose Plinkett/Stoklasa meant, and how did you come to that conclusion? More mind reading?

Yep. I read the part of his mind that said “the point is” followed by his point.

At least taking his words literally shows us Stoklasa was paying no attention whatsoever when he says he does not understand what the ships were doing there. Also, if you weren't a lying sack of shit, you would have mentioned that Raynor deals with the stupidity about "what are the Trade Federation doing at Naboo anyway? What is their motivation anyway?" rather extensively throughout the section you are complaining about. Here is his summary:

Again, I will repeat things for Plinkett and the slow-learners out there: They are the Trade Federation with a trade franchise, and there are taxes on trade routes. Put two and two together. Alternately, it doesn't even matter who was getting taxed.

Oh I read his summary and all the posts in this thread talking about the TF. And no one knows who they are, if they’re for or against the taxes, what they’re blockading, or what deal they made with the hologram they obey.

I didn’t feel it necessary to summarize the countless back and forth posts about the TF that led nowhere except back too “it doesn’t matter, they’re evil, and greedy, says so in the crawl!” A good story usually multidimensional characters with clear motivation.

You are either lying when you claim to have read Raynor's critique, or intentionally misrepresenting Raynor to further your agenda, i.e. lying through your teeth.

Wow agenda? I thought we were talking about a space movie… what exactly do you think my agenda is? It’s almost like you want to know my motivation, as if that information would help you understand more about me. If only you asked the same of the characters in TPM.

Ha. I love how you like to demand sources and then become dismissive of them immediately.

“And you know, it's like you have your audience with the king," Pollock said. "He will tell them when they can release their products, how they can advertise them, how much they can reveal. He controls how much they pay, what the royalty is. And he controls what kind of stores the merchandise goes into."

Boy that doesn’t sound like a guy who likes to manage everything; I wonder why RLM implied he had “total control”.

That may be evidence that he had control over the merchandising of the Original Trilogy. Now you misrepresent your source, my argument, or both.

Can you read? Maybe you clicked on the wrong link, because that article was clearly referencing the marking of the Phantom Menace. Here I’ll help you, because it seems you have trouble understand words, sounds, visuals and anything that conveys information.

“So when Lucas announced he would create three new "Star Wars" movies, the biggest names in Corporate America gave him some $3 billion to be part of it.”

See the word “new” and “three”? I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume they’re talking about the prequels. Not that it matters if it's the PT or OT because the point is Lucas controls all aspects of his franchise.

Ye, Appeal to the Authority of a man who hasn't worked with Lucas in years when the claims are about the Prequel Trilogy. I mean, its not like I didn't already address why Gary Kurtz's words are not sufficient evidence for the claims, but why let a little thing like facts get in the way of your campaign against sanity?

Yeah, how could a prior history of cutting out an executive producer who challenged lucas be relevant at all? It happened so long ago… it’s not like RLM said “Lucas probably got rid of the people who challenged him a long time ago”

Or are those facts getting in the way of your conspiracy agenda?

Just because you don’t like what RLM said about your hero doesn’t make it slander.

No, you are right, The fact that Stoklasa put forth a hypothesis that rests on unfounded assumptions about Lucas's character with no regard for honesty, responsibility, or common sense does. All of which has been evidenced already in Raynor's PDF. Once more, stop being a legalistic prick. This is about the integrity of the review and its writer, not whether or not anyone should sue anyone. Either address the point, or get out.

So you don’t have any sources? I figured not. Because RLM interpretation of the behind the scenes footage isn’t slander its opinion, commentary on a public figure.

P.S. mocking someone for asking for evidence on this of all forums is not helping your cause.

I wasn’t just mocking. I was asking for evidence of slander. You seem to enjoy demanding it from anyone that disagrees with you, so let me know when you can cite something other than Raynor’s rebuttal.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

By that standard, every movie released since the early 80s has been a failure except for Titanic and Avatar.

Yeah I know! You’ve spun us into a semantic nightmare about what qualifies as failing. But shit why not keep it going. While critical reviews are subjective the quantitative data on the percentage of positive to negative is objective. Whether or not you agree with who is counted as a critic the fact is all movies are counted from the same pool of critics.

It was a critical success, asshole. A "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes means that most of the critics surveyed liked it. Audiences liked the movie well enough to keep it playing in theaters for months after it was released. You and Heathcliff claim the movie was a failure -prove it you lying fuckhead!

40% is fresh? Since when?

You really are a total fuckwit aren't you? You could get a "yes" answer by asking all those questions about Gone With the Wind, Lord of the Rings, Dances With Wolves, Ben-Hur and countless other films. They must all be failures, too.

Really you could ask all of those same questions and get a yes from all of those movies. Could you please point me to the viral 70 minutes reviews, please? Let me know where the Patton Oswald stand up routine is about how he wanted to go back in time and beat David O. Selznick to death with a shovel before he could make Gone with the Wind. The sites calling for the death of Gollum because he was shitty shitty character? The Spaced episode about how he was so utterly disappointed with Ben-hur? That last one is ridiculous... Spaced wasn't on in the 50s, so the Father Knows Best episode will do.

That of course is subjective, but if you spend your time on this board you might come to believe that TPM is regarded as a good film, since it was an “objective” success.

Most people who saw it liked it. You and Heathcliff are in the minority.

Since money is the only "objective" standard for success, than I guess people like the RLM review, seeing as he now takes in ad revenue on his videos. I guess you guys are in the minority on its acceptance as quality analysis.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

I like that you live in a universe where nothing has ever been considered a critical failure because criticism is subject.

Stick your strawman up your arse. I never claimed that a movie can't be a critical failure. I pointed out that criticism is subjective, after you had claimed criticism as an objective measure of a film's success.

Do tell, what is “every objective standard?”

I wasn't the one who said the movie had succeeded by every objective standard. Way back on page 20, you made the claim that the movie was a failure.

Because he’s creating a hypothesis for why TPM failed, why the originals worked and what he feels went wrong.

To which Elfdart replied:

In what way did the movie fail? Because Heathcliff didn't like it?
*snip
Red Letter Moron and his little cockgoblins (yes, this includes you) try to pass off their opinions as fact -such as the claim that TPM "failed". By every objective standard the movie was successful:

The only movie that has earned more at the domestic box office since TPM was Avatar.

The movie did well with audiences and critics, earning overall favorable reviews -better than TESB and ROTJ did when they were first released.

Feel free to show by what standard The Phantom Menace "failed".

You made an attempt at a dismissive reply:

You think it was a success because it made a bagillion dollars, that’s your opinion. I’m of the opinion that it was a failure in film making.

The movie really did make a lot of money. That is a fact, not an opinion.
You claimed that the movie was a failure, and you have failed to show any objective evidence to back up that claim. The best you have done was your statistics based on critical reviews, which are again- opinions. Do you have any objective measure at all by which to show the movie was a failure?

He never asked for an objective measure of failure. He said:

Feel free to show by what standard The Phantom Menace "failed".

So I cited the critics. But that apparently wasn’t enough because you pretended there’s no such thing as a critical failure because it’s subjective. Although as I said above. While critical reviews are subjective the quantitative data on the percentage of positive to negative is objective. Whether or not you agree with who is counted as a top critic the fact is all movies are counted from the same pool of critics.

To be realistic, the only objective way to measure a film's success is financial performance. It is quantifiable and measurable, and isn't based on opinions. Of course, you could claim otherwise:

Here’s the thing, TPM financial “success” is also subjective. You might think it’s a success because it made its money back, but it’s 20th on the all time list (adjusted for inflation) so to someone else it may be deemed a failure (19 times over).

The amount of money the movie made is a fact. It is objective. Your analysis is subjective, and shows the level of bias you have. TPM was outperformed by only 19 other movies (out of every movie ever made in the history of film). So how many films did it outperform? 1? 3? A dozen? No. Thousands. It beat every other movie ever made in the history of film. This is truly the worst grasp at a straw I have ever seen.
You're actually stooping so low as to say it was a failure because it wasn't the highest grossing film of all time?

I don’t think it was a boxoffice failure, the data does. If you compare it strictly by the numbers it under preformed the entire original trilogy. You only like numbers when they prove your point, you demand stats then take a subjective stance on what success is. It’s almost like the use of the words success and failure are subjective in this case.

But whatever. I’m tired of being in the semantic maze with you guys. I was and have always been, talking about TPM as a story telling failure.

[Jim Raynor]

The only truly objective standard is box office take, since it's the only one that can be measured with any degree of accuracy. Exit-polling of viewers would be another, but scores are not readily available.

Audience polling results aren't consistently and widely reported (at least compared to now), but there are a couple stats out there. According to Anticipation: The Real Life Story of Star Wars, Episode I - The Phantom Menace (that's quite a title ) a Variety poll of audiences showed that 94% of them liked TPM. There were a few other polling stats provided as well, also favorable. It's a pretty good nonfiction book, that really refutes some of the revisionist history perpetrated about this movie.

Episode II's Cinemascore was an A-, which is pretty strong. I dont' know if this is confirmed, but according to a forum post by Jonathan L. Bowen (the author of Anticipation) that I've seen, Episode I's CinemaScore was A- as well.

As for cultural success I would define it as how the film is treated by the public. Is it a running punchline? Can a 70 minute review making fun of the movie become successful? Were it’s character considered semi racist caricatures? Those types of things.

You really are a total fuckwit aren't you? You could get a "yes" answer by asking all those questions about Gone With the Wind, Lord of the Rings, Dances With Wolves, Ben-Hur and countless other films. They must all be failures, too.

Nevermind that his statements were hardly as good as he thought they sounded. Running punchline? Maybe to the online nerd niche, but obviously not the majority of the population who paid money to see TPM and its sequels and spinoffs.

RLM's review is "successful?" If the RLM is "successful" it's not because it's actually good (as I have shown in my response). And the standard for "success" when it comes to internet memes is negligible in the grand scheme of things. In more than a year on YouTube, the RLM review has just low single-digit million views, and there's got to be numerous repeat clickers (I must have clicked more than a dozen times while responding to it). As I've pointed out before, each part of the RLM review had less views than previous ones, until by the end it retained only about a third of its initial viewers. This is so miniscule compared to the total population. Internet geeks have a tendency to inflate their own importance.

Racist? I'm not going to even entertain that idiocy.

[Jim Raynor]

So, to conclude:

a) If you're critizing in light and funny style some movie, it is not a matter of opinion, and deserves an angry 108-page refutation.

"Light" and funny? This wasn't some casual joke. The guy meticulously put together a near movie-length video review of TPM, spending most of that time nitpicking things that would never even come to mind while actually watching the movie. He tried. He put in an effort to portray Lucas as an utter idiot.

And again, nobody cares for this verbal twisting to portray Stoklasa as some poor widdle victim here. The purpose of my response was to show how illogical and sloppy his review was - aimed at the people who think it's insightful and intelligent commentary. I already acknowledged his use of comedy, which is irrelevant. Because again, even if it's "comedy" that doesn't change the fact

-He was talking BS.
-Comedy can be used to express genuine thoughts anyway.
that he was talking BS the whole time. In fact, it makes his review even more BS.

Are you ready to equate the RLM to Freddy Got Fingered? If so, then stop putting it up on a pedestal. It's stupid comedy, you like stupid comedy. Do you have a problem saying that?

[Jim Raynor]

Fuck I’ll just copy and paste it:
Well its only stupid if you don’t think it’s funny. Because his line right after that is “the point is I’m still not sure what the doughnut ships were there to do” (an important line you left out of your review).

That’s the line people think is smart and correct, because we don’t know.

Wait, THAT'S your "important line" that I "left out" of my review? My response that thoroughly quoted through pretty much every one of his points?

You seem desperate, because that trite little line says nothing. Ooh, he says in a very simple sentence that he doesn't get this movie's plot - well in line with all his numerous (and stupid, but that's besides the point) explanations about how he didn't get this movie's plot. Which I dealt with in my response.

Don't you guys just love how these RLM-defenders keep picking insignificant little parts of the review and ascribing intelligence and profound meaning to them? Like how there's some mythical "main point" out there that I supposedly avoided...which they can't articulate better than Stoklasa not liking the movie?

At one point the TF even says “we should not have made this bargain” What bargain? For better or worse these are our main villains, but we have no idea their motivations beyond what the open crawl says about being greedy.

The "bargain" was obvious, and there's no story there that demanded to be told. The Trade Feds are greedy and are looking out for their own profits. Which is a pretty basic motivation that works for everybody in real life. Nobody in the audience about the minutia of a deal that wasn't shown to be complicated in any way.

When people accuse you of missing the “main point” of the RLM review it’s because you seem to take so much of what RLM says as criticism of the in world logic as apposed to criticism of it as a film. When he talks about character you paraphrase it:

“He makes some fair points about the value of having likable, identifiable protagonists who the audience roots for, though he's very decompressed as he runs off a long list of movie heroes and shows numerous short clips from various movies. Mostly he shows a bunch of teenage and young adult Regular Joe characters taking crap from people early in their movies, before their adventures start. This takes up most of the next four minutes.”

The reason he goes on for four minutes about character is to show what the universal character traits/arcs are for a hero in this type of movie.

What the hell? I agreed with him and gave him a pass on that part of the review, as fair subjective opinion. Yet that's somehow "missing his point."

And yes, your idol was decompressed. I didn't need to see redundant and repetitive movie clips, or the names of numerous directors rattled off.

By glancing it over and focusing on things like “Anakin shows up 32 minutes not 45 minutes” of course people are going to accuse you of missing the main point.

Fact checking and calling him on his misstatements is missing the main point now...when the "main point" boils down to him not liking the movie. Which I let him off on, because there's nothing much to really say about it.

EDIT: And again, this whole "main point" stuff is lame. If his main point is that he just didn't like the movie, then there's nothing to talk about and there's no reason to put weight in his words. Especially when he spends the vast majority of the review talking nonsense which goes far beyond his supposed "main point."

You stated that Qui-gon was the protagonist. What was his arc then? How did he grow from the start of the film to the end? How is he in any way like the characters Plinkett references in those 4 minutes?

Why does Plinkett get to dictate how movie protagonists ought to be handled? I've seen numerous movies where the hero is just a man with a job or a cause to fight for, and he does it without having to be dumped on by everyone as a self-insert character for troubled geeky teenagers.

Let's cut the crap, okay? Anyone with a brain knows that "comedy" is still used to make genuine points. People have explained this simple truth already in this thread. When people mock Sarah Palin as stupid and Charlie Sheen as a drugged out egomaniac, they really do mean that Palin is stupid and Sheen is a drugged out egomaniac.

Someone should sue those people for Slander.

Are you for real?

[Jim Raynor]

Oh I read his summary and all the posts in this thread talking about the TF. And no one knows who they are,

They have a trade business and they govern territory, just like Naboo which has Senate representation.

if they’re for or against the taxes,

The explicitly greedy Trade Federation with a trade franchise has a problem related to taxes on trade routes. It's not that hard.

what they’re blockading,

Naboo. It's not that hard.

or what deal they made with the hologram they obey.

They invade Naboo and he makes sure that they get away with it. It's not that hard.

[Jim Raynor]

I focused on "real world logic" and ignore that Stoklasa was reviewing a movie...

Is that why he nitpicked and whined over
a) How Qui-Gon knew the name of a poison gas.

b) Why Palpatine should've stupidly ordered the Trade Federation to confess their crimes, which would've ended the movie right there.

c) Suggested tactics he thought the Jedi should've used, which were 1,000% dumber than anything in the movie

d) Pretends to be observant and dissect the movie's visuals all the way down to whether momentary laser blasts hit the Royal Starship, even as he stupidly showed clips with the Royal Starship being hit.

e) The practical value a humanoid droid given as a gift to Anakin's mother (I guess he's never seen children's arts and crafts)

f) How R2-D2's computer readout of ship parts wasn't used (it actually was), stupidly equating a picture to a readout

etc, etc. Oh yeah, such a focus on the art of filmmaking there. You don't get to claim that I'm picking on him and totally missing the point by arguing the logic of his words, when he spent the vast majority of his time attempting and failing to argue the logic of this movie plot.

[Havok]

Could you please point me to the viral 70 minutes reviews, please? Let me know where the Patton Oswald stand up routine is about how he wanted to go back in time and beat David O. Selznick to death with a shovel before he could make Gone with the Wind. The sites calling for the death of Gollum because he was shitty shitty character? The Spaced episode about how he was so utterly disappointed with Ben-hur? That last one is ridiculous... Spaced wasn't on in the 50s, so the Father Knows Best episode will do.

Ahhh here it is. I knew I would find it.

See guys this is really the crux of the argument. People have gone out of their way to criticize TPM so therefor EVERYONE MUST HATE IT! By this logic all the fan sites dedicated to Twilight mean that it is THE BEST MOVIE EVER AND EVERYONE LOVES IT!! Because where oh where are all the fans raving about The Godfather. It must not be good at all.

The thing you fail to realize is that there are two types of people that have even seen this review: Rather hardcore fans of Star Wars that dislike/hate the prequels, and rather hardcore fans of Star Wars that like/love the prequels. However the general public watched and liked the prequels as the numbers point to. You can not argue that it was a success and that it was well received by the majority of viewers. Mostly because you have no evidence to do so.

And on top of that, even given that most people are apt to quote metacritic and rotten tomatoes, they mean pretty much nothing.

[The Asiduo]

So, to conclude:

a) If you're critizing in light and funny style some movie, it is not a matter of opinion, and deserves an angry 108-page refutation.

"Light" and funny? This wasn't some casual joke. The guy meticulously put together a near movie-length video review of TPM, spending most of that time nitpicking things that would never even come to mind while actually watching the movie. He tried. He put in an effort to portray Lucas as an utter idiot.

And again, nobody cares for this verbal twisting to portray Stoklasa as some poor widdle victim here. The purpose of my response was to show how illogical and sloppy his review was - aimed at the people who think it's insightful and intelligent commentary. I already acknowledged his use of comedy, which is irrelevant. Because again, even if it's "comedy" that doesn't change the fact

-He was talking BS.
-Comedy can be used to express genuine thoughts anyway.
that he was talking BS the whole time. In fact, it makes his review even more BS.

Are you ready to equate the RLM to Freddy Got Fingered? If so, then stop putting it up on a pedestal. It's stupid comedy, you like stupid comedy. Do you have a problem saying that?

So, once again, I'll quote Stoklasa himself about the purposes and methods on his reviews.

I just happened to not like the 3 prequels and I’m explaining why in a fun and different way; in terms of traditional movie reviews -it’s as simple as that. I don’t hate people that like the prequels; you can like whatever you want. I’m also doing my reviews in the character of a crotchety old man. I think people calling my reviews anti-Star Wars “propaganda” is taking it a bit too far. I have no greater goal other than to just get my opinion out there. So far though, just one person I can think of posted that he would punch me in the gut if he ever met me, but other than that nothing major as far as Star Wars fan rage goes. I think most people are pretty rational and understand the Plinkett reviews for what they are, even people that liked the films.

...

That’s kind of the one misconception is that I take a ton of time meticulously researching everything, reading things on the film, cross checking facts, etc. That’s not really the case and, in fact, I avoid reading or watching any prior reviews on the movie altogether. I just like watching the film myself and using that as the only basis for what I, as an audience member, am expected to understand. That and to make sure my ideas are my own and that something that someone else noticed doesn’t seep into my brain. I’ve also never read a Star Wars book or even played a Star Wars video game.

So, this is the situation. This guy made these videos as a "creative" and "funny" way of get his opinions "out there". He didn't took a lot of time analyzing every aspect or details of the movies, and, in my opinion, in the interviews, he seems amused for all this phenomenon, both of the fame and the hatred of fanboys such as you.

No, Stoklasa is not a victim. I guess he just thinks that taking this thing to "personal level", calling names and writing 108 pages refutations implying that "he's an asshole for not realizing how great character Qui-Gonn is", or "he was talking slandering bulshit", is taking this stuff too seriously. He just made a review of a movie with cheap jokes and comments. So?. The victims are, I think, the poor dudes, as yourself, who thinks Stoklasa was engaging in some kind of "intellectual" debate about TPM. Yeah right.