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

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

You'd have to prove that RLM was responsible for my opinion shift of Lucas for it to be evidence.

Actually, no. Because there are other people in this thread who have come out to defend this and other points who were evidently swayed by RLM's review. Furthermore, even if Stoklasa wasn't the first person to convince you that Lucas is a micromanaging control freak who gets rid of employees who challenge his creative vision, the fact that you use the same weak evidence as Plinkett does is evidence that Stoklasa helped cement that opinion at the every least; repeating slander is no better than inventing it yourself. You are defending Stoklasa's statements and doing so quite fervently, I might add. I mean, you are arguing with what? Five? Six people now? If Stoklasa wasn't convincing to you, you wouldn't be here, and neither would a lot of the people in this thread. Furthermore, I don't strictly need to prove damage in the first place, because this is not a court of law but rather a matter of the integrity of Stoklasa, which has already been demonstrated. I am doing so because frankly it shows that you don't have a leg to stand on even if we want to get pedantic about such things.

The integrity of a man that plays a character who fucks cats? Again opinion is not slander, no matter how many times you repeat that it is.
What does it matter how many people I'm arguing with, go to forum supportive of RLM and see how many people you can sway with your "proof"
You forgot the other citation from interviews with lucas that talks about him wanting intense control.
"Weak evidence" is opinion and I know how you guys hate that. However, there is a history and example of both, parting ways with someone who challenged him and of his control over his films. Your turn. that point to the opposite?

I never said he doesn't make earnest points. I said you can't detect tone or comprehend meaning so you don't know the difference. You wanted citations for proof that Lucas controls his franchise I provided you with a couple, but you either misread them or dismissed them because they didn't fit your point of view of Lucas.

And already you simplify the points to make your position look stronger than it is. I asked you how you expect us to determine his "true" meaning (which frankly rates right up there with the vague "bigger picture" everyone claims RLM had in mind when he demonstrably did not) and the answer you stand by is the retarded "Tone" bullshit. [/quote]

You have shown time and again you can't comprehend meaning from his tone. It's ok my kid is color blind, but I still love him.

I asked for evidence that he micromanages the franchise AND gets rid of people who challenge him, and you give evidence that he controls ONE area of business-- marketing, an area which doesn't relate to the movie itself-- and for the second all you give me the words of Gary Kurtz who has not worked with Lucas since before the last OT movie was done filming. This isn't me dismissing things that don't fit my preconceptions of Lucas-- I don't have any preconceptions of Lucas, you son of a bull's shit! I don't know the man! Hell, when it comes right down to it I found TPM to be boring above all else, and found AotC to be the worst Star Wars movie in hindsight. This is you being asked for evidence of very specific talking points (because bluntly that seems to be all they are to you), and you giving evidence that is about as strong as a wet noodle.

You'd need an encyclopedia full of sources to convince you of anything (and yet no citations from you) and I don't have that kind of time. No matter how many times you mention when Kurtz parted ways, it doesn't change the fact that is an example (the other could be lucas's ex wife) of someone who challenged Lucas and is now gone. Making it difficult to call slander when someone says "probably got rid of... a long time ago"

You don't know lucas so you don't have any preconceived notions of him? Really? You're a Star Wars fan, but you've managed to block out any thoughts towards Lucas. Interesting. I mean maybe that's possible, you're unable to comprehend meaning in a video's tone.

I try to address all parts of the argument, but there is only some many times you can drive in a circle with someone.

The feeling is more than mutual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc&t=0m33s

[Formless]

Again opinion is not slander, no matter how many times you repeat that it is.

And here we have your fundamental confusion. Apparently, you think that a seriously forwarded hypothesis for why the prequels failed *, based on theories about what was going on behind the scenes, is a matter of opinion. I suppose that theories about what was going on in the White House during the Bush administration that lead to the war in Iraq are a matter of opinion too?

* And before you try and claim that it too was a joke the fact that Plinkett/Stoklasa felt it necessary to deflect responsibility with statement "but I wasn't there" tells us that he was in fact either serious or aware of how it could be taken. It doesn't matter if he at other times plays up the cat molester persona, that disclaimer must be accounted for. The Nostalgia Critic plays a character that likes to shoot characters onscreen when sufficiently annoyed, and yet when he makes a joke about a character sounding like they "smoked a million Marlboros" and it turns out the character died of cancer he still has the balls to admit that was in poor taste, regardless of the fact he didn't even know and had no intention of offending the man. I do not see any reason Stoklasa, who puts more time and effort into his reviews, should be held to a lower standard than Doug Walker.

You forgot the other citation from interviews with lucas that talks about him wanting intense control

Probably because you presented that evidence to someone else. There are five or six people arguing with you alone, I'm sorry if its hard to keep track of everything that is said in the course of an equal number of pages. Besides, his well known desire to have creative control doesn't mean a hill of beans when its also known that he delegates responsibility to different departments of Lucasfilm, like the art department and ILM. He has to, it would take an inhuman amount of effort to micromanage such a large production. It also does not prove he is surrounded by yes men, a point you refuse to concede. Edit: hell, I can even think of a counter example of him taking total control of the production. The infamous Han VS Greedo shootout; Lucas has said that he preferred the original take, but added Greedo's lousy ass shot because he was advised it would sell the film better if Han was a little less morally gray.

"Weak evidence" is opinion and I know how you guys hate that. However, there is a history and example of both, parting ways with someone who challenged him and of his control over his films. Your turn. that point to the opposite?

You think evidence is a matter of opinion too? What the... fucking hell, this is not rocket science. People change over time, and there was a period of a decade at least between when Gary Kurtz worked with Lucas and TPM came out. Furthermore, if you will allow me to elaborate (I didn't think it would be necessary, but what the hey) that is only one example, and the example is suspicious due to the fact that we only have Gary Kurtz point of view on the matter... meaning its subject to Gary Kurtz interpretation and opinions on the matter, not an necessarily an objective assessment of the facts. I mean, in the link provided Kurtz whines about the Ewoks in RotJ and speculates that they are a symptom of what was going on creatively, but Lucas has claimed many times he would have gone with Wookies if the budget/effects had allowed. Excuse me if I don't take Kurtz's words at face value like you do.

You have shown time and again you can't comprehend meaning from his tone. It's ok my kid is color blind, but I still love him.

And yet you repeatedly ignore my question of how you expect people to interpret his words, when he does in fact speak in a monotone and put background gags underneath his serious points (something YOU pointed out, I might add). Just like people repeatedly fail to articulate what the "bigger picture" Plinkett/Stoklasa was trying to articulate suggests that there was no bigger picture, your failure to articulate your method of interpretation suggests you don't have one-- you just pull shit out of your ass and hope no one calls you out on it. Bullshit. I'm not taking that crap any longer. Either answer the question, or concede the point.

P.S. I love how you keep insinuating that I can't tell what people's tone is when I only said its Plinkett that I have issues with. You would think from reading your posts that I have aspergers or something, instead of being a fucking human being who needs social cues to tell what people mean. And yes, I realize that you say it in a mocking tone; I guess all that talk about how a joking tone and a serious point are incompatible was you being inconsistent and/or dishonest again.

[Darth Tedious]

So, if a movie makes a lot of money, that movie is successful... yeah. I must guess you guys think ID4 is a better movie than The Shawshank Redemption. Right, because ID4 made more money, which is "the only objective standard to judge".

You seem to suffer from a complete refusal to differentiate opinion from fact. Let me try and make it easy for you.

• Opinion: I think ID4 was a pretty ordinary movie.
• Fact: ID4 was a very successful movie.

Regardless of my thoughts/feelings on how good the movie was, I'd be an idiot to deny that it was a successful film. It also works if you do this:

• Opinion: I think ID4 TPM was a pretty ordinary movie.
• Fact: ID4 TPM was a very successful movie.

I never said my opinion was fact.

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

I've never seen a statement of such definitive fact. "what he feels went wrong" Feels, everyone knows when you use that word you're laying down a universal truth.

Take another look at what you said. You didn't say he's making a thesis on whether or not TPM failed. You didn't say he's making an essay on why he feels TPM failed.

Because he’s creating a hypothesis for why TPM failed...

A hypothesis on why TPM failed must assume that the movie was a failure.
Maybe you just made a very poor choice of words, but the fact that you have spent the last few pages attempting to argue that TPM was a failure suggests otherwise.

Things can be successful and people can think they aren't very good. Just like TPM

What the fuck? Were you just trolling Raynor, or were you actually conceding that TPM was successful?

So did it succeed in making more money than the 19 other movies in front of it? No i failed too. So by the objective standard of did it fail to make more money it did.

How is such a comparison an objective standard of failure? Remember that we are not discussing whether or not the movie failed to be the highest grossing movie of all time, but whether it was a failure overall.

Now if the question is did it make its money back...

That would be an objective standard. Any movie which makes a profit is successful, and their level of success can be measured by how profitable they were. Note: Using this method, movies are judged based on their own performance, not how they fared in comparison to other movies. An example of objective failure would be Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which lost over $90,000,000 at the box office. FF:TSW failed in its own right. Much as TPM succeeded in its own right (in spite of your claims to the contrary). Saying 'it failed because it didn't perform as well as the OT' is a subjective comparison, and highly skewed by the multiple re-releases of the OT.

Whether or not it was re-released is irrelevant to the number of dollars pulled in.

Bullshit. ANH made over $150,000,000 from its 1997 box office re-release. That is entirely relevant to the number of dollars pulled in, fuckwit.

I'm more than happy to put you in the same fact handcuffs you're all so ready to shackle posters with. Please feel free to show me with evidence that TPM made more money at the box office (adjusted for inflation) than Gone with the Wind.

Explain how the fuck a comparison against GWTW has any relevance to whether TPM succeeded or failed. Is that your new bar for success?

You're stating opinion that it was successful...

It is a fact that the movie was successful. It made a massive profit, both at the box office and in susequent VHS and DVD sales. You have still provided no objective evidence to prove the film's failure.

...because you compared it beat.

I 'compared it beat'? What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Again opinion is not slander, no matter how many times you repeat that it is.

And here we have your fundamental confusion. Apparently, you think that a seriously forwarded hypothesis for why the prequels failed *, based on theories about what was going on behind the scenes, is a matter of opinion. I suppose that theories about what was going on in the White House during the Bush administration that lead to the war in Iraq are a matter of opinion too?

Yes if someone had behind the scenes footage of the white house and a writer interpreted Colin Powells expression in the footage to be that of frustration when Bush walked in the room. Then they went on to explain that the Bush presidency had a bunch of crazy (a term Powell used to describe them) neocons running it and that's why it was such a cluster fuck.

That's all opinion based on relationships that Bush had with some of the people that worked under him.

Now my fingers are crossed, because I can only hope that someone turns this into a political debate because they miss the point again.

Probably because you presented that evidence to someone else.

You should check it out.

Besides, his well known desire to have creative control doesn't mean a hill of beans when its also known that he delegates responsibility to different departments of Lucasfilm, like the art department and ILM. He has to, it would take an inhuman amount of effort to micromanage such a large production.

Have you ever worked in film production? Do you know who those departments present their ideas too? The director. Do you know what he does next? He gives notes on what they should change. Do you know who has equal say to George Lucas on star wars films? No one.

It also does not prove he is surrounded by yes men, a point you refuse to concede.

It doesn’t but a hypothesis can be presented based on the fact that he parted ways with the one known person that challenged him. It’s an opinion one man has about why he thinks the prequels aren’t good. It was never presented as fact.

Edit: hell, I can even think of a counter example of him taking total control of the production. The infamous Han VS Greedo shootout; Lucas has said that he preferred the original take, but added Greedo's lousy ass shot because he was advised it would sell the film better if Han was a little less morally gray.

Source please. You have repeatedly ignored my request for sources.

"Weak evidence" is opinion and I know how you guys hate that. However, there is a history and example of both, parting ways with someone who challenged him and of his control over his films. Your turn. that point to the opposite?

You think evidence is a matter of opinion too? What the... fucking hell, this is not rocket science. People change over time, and there was a period of a decade at least between when Gary Kurtz worked with Lucas and TPM came out. Furthermore, if you will allow me to elaborate (I didn't think it would be necessary, but what the hey) that is only one example, and the example is suspicious due to the fact that we only have Gary Kurtz point of view on the matter... meaning its subject to Gary Kurtz interpretation and opinions on the matter, not an necessarily an objective assessment of the facts. I mean, in the link provided Kurtz whines about the Ewoks in RotJ and speculates that they are a symptom of what was going on creatively, but Lucas has claimed many times he would have gone with Wookies if the budget/effects had allowed. Excuse me if I don't take Kurtz's words at face value like you do.

[/quote]

Whether you take his word for it or not is irrelevant. It is an example that supports RLM argument that no one challenges Lucas anymore. You can disagree, but when you claim he's slandering someone based on an opinion you don't agree with you're just wrong. Know what you could do though? Provide evidence that Lucas doesn't over see the movies to the degree that RLM speculates? I might not agree with your assessment but we can discuss that when you have something.

You have shown time and again you can't comprehend meaning from his tone. It's ok my kid is color blind, but I still love him.

And yet you repeatedly ignore my question of how you expect people to interpret his words, when he does in fact speak in a monotone and put background gags underneath his serious points (something YOU pointed out, I might add). Just like people repeatedly fail to articulate what the "bigger picture" Plinkett/Stoklasa was trying to articulate suggests that there was no bigger picture, your failure to articulate your method of interpretation suggests you don't have one-- you just pull shit out of your ass and hope no one calls you out on it. Bullshit. I'm not taking that crap any longer. Either answer the question, or concede the point.

You just admitted you recognized sarcasm. If he speaks in such a monotone way as to make it indistinguishable you would not have recognized it as a cue that he isn’t serious. I don’t know what to tell you if you can’t tell his background gags from his more serious points and when he’s juxtaposing the two for comedic effect. Just like I don’t know what to tell my kid what green looks like.

As for the bigger picture… let me dig back in the posts… here it is:

The fast running is a big deal because it is symptomatic of so much that is wrong with TPM. A bad screenplay that could have easily been fixed. Is it as bad as RLM said, most likely not but his review is funny because it unleashed every nit picky piece of nerd rage people like me had at how utterly disappointing TPM was.

Pretty simple. As RLM says “biggest case of blue ball in cinema history”. Why did he feel that way? Well he explained by nitpicking a story that if maybe someone had taken the time to think about story over FX would have been better.

What its not about is the time code Anakin shows up at in the story or taking literally a thrown away line about space taxes.

P.S. I love how you keep insinuating that I can't tell what people's tone is when I only said its Plinkett that I have issues with. You would think from reading your posts that I have aspergers or something, instead of being a fucking human being who needs social cues to tell what people mean. And yes, I realize that you say it in a mocking tone; I guess all that talk about how a joking tone and a serious point are incompatible was you being inconsistent and/or dishonest again.

I’m only mocking because you responded like such a dick. I’m sure you don’t have aspergers but I don’t think you know much about editing or visual literacy. Its cool, if we all interpreted moving pictures the same way David Lynch wouldn’t be as interesting.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

A hypothesis on why TPM failed must assume that the movie was a failure.

It was, of storytelling, according to a man the plays a character that fucks cats.

Maybe you just made a very poor choice of words, but the fact that you have spent the last few pages attempting to argue that TPM was a failure suggests otherwise.

When you guys miss the point I like to see how far it can go. We were in the round about for a while… actually I think we might still be there.

Things can be successful and people can think they aren't very good. Just like TPM

What the fuck? Were you just trolling Raynor, or were you actually conceding that TPM was successful?

Of course TPM was successful it made a bigillian dollars (unless you compare it to 19 other films), but that doesn’t mean it was successful story telling.

So did it succeed in making more money than the 19 other movies in front of it? No i failed too. So by the objective standard of did it fail to make more money it did.

How is such a comparison an objective standard of failure? Remember that we are not discussing whether or not the movie failed to be the highest grossing movie of all time, but whether it was a failure overall.

Oh no… we were discussing

Do you have any objective measure at all by which to show the movie was a failure?

Any being the key word at all being the icing. Maybe a poor choice of words but you wanted to play the numbers game and I played by your rules. I mean if we’re going to go off into a semantic battle about what failure means and you want any proof I’ll find something.

I 'compared it beat'? What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?

Sorry that was my bad, had to take the kids to the feeding trough and didn’t want to keep you waiting. Hit submit a bit to quick. I meant because you compared it to only beating every other movie in history 21 and below.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

I was and always heve been talking about TPM as a story telling failure.

Have you now?

I think I forgot to answer this one, but yes. Here’s a trip down memory lane:

It's like lucas wanted to throw in political intrigue but realized he had no way of setting it up because the audience has no idea how their political system works. Yeah you get the point, Palpitine rises to power but it's done in poorly written and directed.

It's not the worst script ever but when you're making the most anticipated film in history taxes seems like an odd way to go.

If lucas had focused on anyone of the above elements as the main arc it would have been a vastly better movie.

The fast running is a big deal because it is symptomatic of so much that is wrong with TPM. A bad screenplay that could have easily been fixed. Is it as bad as RLM said, most likely not but he review is funny because it unleashed every nit picky piece of nerd rage people like me had at how utterly disappointing TPM was.

And either way is doesn't change the fact that the writing is terrible and you can't justify giving the jedi super speed.

If that's cool with you whatever. But do you really want to defend child anakin (be it the actor, the writing or just the fact that lucas made Vader a child) or Jar Jar binks? You don't think there was a better story Lucas could have told?

Knowing the tax route depute would add depth to the characters in TPM. Motivations would be clearer, we might know why the TF follows sidous beyond they are bad guys and the plot needs them too.

Knowing either one of those reasons would help backstory, character motivations, general understanding of the republic government. My main point being with some simple rewrites all these could be fixed.

I’m saying what the Jedi should have done from a story telling perspective. I mentioned this to Bakusta but the fact that force speed is tucked away is the problem. In no other movie is it used. It's an abnormality that draws attention because of that very fact.

We don’t know the motivations behind the blockade, we don’t know palpatine’s plan to rise to power from it, everything just seems to happen on accident, leaving us with no tension or drama.

No… not ok. Destroy what’s left of them? Really? You’re going to defend that line as a nitpick? It’s the dumbest line in the movie, it makes the enemies seem incompetent and thus not threatening. And didn’t you spend like a page talking about how scared the Viceroy was of the Jedi… seems like awfully shitty writing for them to now be underestimating them.

If you don’t think it’s funny that’s fine, but for god’s sake back off the suspension of disbelief when someone is arguing storytelling not in universe logic.

So Just a little bit. But do you guys want to talk about what failure mean on an objective and subjective level some more?

[Darth Tedious]

A hypothesis on why TPM failed must assume that the movie was a failure.

It was, of storytelling, according to a man the plays a character that fucks cats.

And? You do realise that "PLINKETT TEH INTERNETZ GOD SAID SO!!!!1!!ONE!!shift+1" isn't proof of anything, right? Stokassa may feel it was a failure of storytelling, and so might you. It means nothing. Do you know why I haven't said whether I feel the movie was a storytelling success or not? Because my opinion isn't worth any more than yours.

Maybe you just made a very poor choice of words, but the fact that you have spent the last few pages attempting to argue that TPM was a failure suggests otherwise.

When you guys miss the point I like to see how far it can go. We were in the round about for a while… actually I think we might still be there.

Own your arguments, for fuck's sake. You actively claimed that the movie was a financial failure.

Of course TPM was successful it made a bigillian dollars (unless you compare it to 19 other films), but that doesn’t mean it was successful story telling.

And what would make it successful storytelling? Your approval? Plinkett's approval?

So did it succeed in making more money than the 19 other movies in front of it? No i failed too. So by the objective standard of did it fail to make more money it did.

How is such a comparison an objective standard of failure? Remember that we are not discussing whether or not the movie failed to be the highest grossing movie of all time, but whether it was a failure overall.

Oh no… we were discussing

Do you have any objective measure at all by which to show the movie was a failure?

Any being the key word at all being the icing. Maybe a poor choice of words but you wanted to play the numbers game and I played by your rules. I mean if we’re going to go off into a semantic battle about what failure means and you want any proof I’ll find something.

Objective was the key word, you fucking imbecile. Objective, meaning unbiased. I already explained how to objectively assess a movie's success or failure (which you ignored). Your assessment was far from objective. Lets look at your analysis of the facts. To summarise:

• TPM underperformed 19 other movies
• TPM outperformed every other movie in the history of film-making

Therefore, TPM was a failure.

Biased, much? No, not at all.

I meant because you compared it to only beating every other movie in history 21 and below.

How stupid of me to forget that only movies in the top 20 count! How biased of me!

I must clarify-
Is your only actual point in this discussion that you feel TPM was a storytelling failure?

[The Asiduo]

You seem to suffer from a complete refusal to differentiate opinion from fact. Let me try and make it easy for you.

• Opinion: I think ID4 was a pretty ordinary movie.
• Fact: ID4 was a very successful movie.

Regardless of my thoughts/feelings on how good the movie was, I'd be an idiot to deny that it was a successful film. It also works if you do this:

• Opinion: I think ID4 TPM was a pretty ordinary movie.
• Fact: ID4 TPM was a very successful movie.

All right. I can agree without doubt that TPM made a load of money. But, then again, why we are discussing that?. Aren't we arguing of the criticisms of Stoklasa and the plot?. I never recalled that Stoklasa suggested that "the movie didn't made money". It sure was a financial success, no one is arguing that. But, there is a difference between "financial success" and "critical success". What is critical success?. It's when a movie is acclaimed by critics for quality, and has potential of, eventually, becoming a "classic". Financial success and critical success aren't always correlated: for example a movie (such as TPM) can be financially successful, but mainly for factors external to the movie itself (in this case, hype).

Examples:
Gigli was both a financial and a critical failure.
ID4 was a financial success, but a critical failure.
Shawshank Redemption was a financial failure, but a critical success.
Inception was both a financial an critical success.

In these grounds, we could argue that TPM was a financial success, but a critical failure.

Now, of course, you could argue that "critical success is subjective because is based on opinions". I guess that's true in some degree, but in that case, you're making Raynor's essay (the theme of this topic) even more irrelevant, because he tried to argue there that "This is not just a matter of opinions".

If "financial success" is the only parameter to measure "success", then we could agree with Stoklasa that Lucas is a business man first, a filmaker second. Ironic, considering that Lucas began his carreer as an independent abstract filmmaker, and now is making commercial products mounting on the success of his earlier movies.

[Havok]

Can some please explain to me HOW, if TPM was not a 'critical' success, and the majority of people hate it, as has been argued, can TBS, or whatever channel it is, run it repeatedly for weeks on end? If it is so bad, why are people continuing to watch it?

Examples:
Gigli was both a financial and a critical failure.
ID4 was a financial success, but a critical failure.
Shawshank Redemption was a financial failure, but a critical success.
Inception was both a financial an critical success.

In these grounds, we could argue that TPM was a financial success, but a critical failure.

This is great if there is only 'failure' and 'success' when it comes to movies. Why do you think that there are 1-5 stars? More than 1 thumb? Because it isn't just one or the other.

TPM was certainly a financial success. But is it a critical failure? Does every critic think so? No. Do the people that continually watch it on TV think so? No. How about all the people that bought it on DVD?

Is it the fucking Godfather storywise? Not at all, but then again, neither was A New Hope. Neither was The Empire Strikes Back. Is it Gigli? Not at all. I would certainly argue it's a better story than ID4.

Then there is the argument that, so fucking what if it wasn't an achievement in story telling. It was never meant to be. Any more than ANH was supposed to be. It is a basic story that Lucas has always maintained was supposed to be put across through the visuals, sound effects and music. The story is far more than sufficient to carry TPM along those guidelines. Mostly, I see complaining from people that are all 'OMG Taxes?! That is so not Star Wars! Story sucks!' Or they just don't get what is happening.

[The Asiduo]

Can some please explain to me HOW, if TPM was not a 'critical' success, and the majority of people hate it, as has been argued, can TBS, or whatever channel it is, run it repeatedly for weeks on end? If it is so bad, why are people continuing to watch it?

Please, let's not discuss about "which movie is or isn't in that channel schedule", because if you, who was arguing about the "objective factors" to judge the movie, in these grounds, things become very subjective. In the channels scheduling, a lot of movies come and go, even box office bombs: depends on the channel, the country, etc.

This is great if there is only 'failure' and 'success' when it comes to movies. Why do you think that there are 1-5 stars? More than 1 thumb? Because it isn't just one or the other.

TPM was certainly a financial success. But is it a critical failure? Does every critic think so? No. Do the people that continually watch it on TV think so? No. How about all the people that bought it on DVD?

I don't know about the DVD sales of this movie. But, again, we're not talking about "sales level" but on "critical reaction" and "cultural reaction". I'll continue on that after the quotes.

Is it the fucking Godfather storywise? Not at all, but then again, neither was A New Hope. Neither was The Empire Strikes Back. Is it Gigli? Not at all. I would certainly argue it's a better story than ID4.

Then there is the argument that, so fucking what if it wasn't an achievement in story telling. It was never meant to be. Any more than ANH was supposed to be. It is a basic story that Lucas has always maintained was supposed to be put across through the visuals, sound effects and music. The story is far more than sufficient to carry TPM along those guidelines. Mostly, I see complaining from people that are all 'OMG Taxes?! That is so not Star Wars! Story sucks!' Or they just don't get what is happening.

Star Wars ANH was both a critical and financial success. The "critical success" comes from the factor that it was recognized as an homage to the "Space Adventure Short" of the 40s and 50s with good visuals, with both envolving and light storytelling, capturing the feel and motiffs of those movies: "The hero, the wise mentor, the rogue, the princess, the evil dude", etc. and, in a great visual style. Of course ANH isn't so "original" storytelling, but at least the story was recognizable, which is why, after 30 years, still is enjoyable, and is considered "a classic": it's not "the Godfather" but it's an achievement in his own merit.

The following movies got mixed reviews. For example, many critics complained that ESB had loss the light and tongue-in-cheek mood of the first movie, and took itself too seriously. And, of course ROJ was "mediocre at best" in critical terms. But, as the conclusion of the previous movie, was deemed acceptable, at least.

What about TPM?. Well, the critical reaction deemed it: "Mediocre at best, bad at worst". Of course this movie isn't "Gigli" or "Manos the Hands of Fate", but, the main impression among critics is that the movie was inferior in terms of storytelling and characters compared with the OT. Perhaps it was just a matter of everyone buying into the hype: I guess, but the critiques of this movie can be summarized as: "Eye candy, dull story, dull characters". That's it. Star Wars ANH was: "Eye candy, unoriginal, but recognizable story, unorginal, but recognizable characters". George Lucas himself said once: "visual effects are not a substitute for a good story". All the complains about "space taxes" are not because: "this movie is so complex", rather are in the idea of: "What is this?, a space adventure or a politics movie?", and, IMHO, is neither: is just a mix up of plot devices without much cohesion or good characters.

[seanrobertson]

Weak analogy. That film isn't trying to make dozens of reasoned criticisms against another media, is it?

It was just a comment on: "Length doesn't imply seriousness"

This reminds me of a Paul Reiser comedy routine from the '80s. He tells his buddy, "Hey, I'm 'just saying' you're fat." Somehow the "just saying" bit meant his buddy shouldn't get pissed off at the observation

No, length needn't imply "seriousness" as such. I've seen Youtube videos in which people, clearly drunk, high or both, prattled on aimlessly about nothing for hours on end. (There was a time when Youtube videos weren't strictly limited to a dozen minutes or whatever it is now.)

But in Stoklasa's case, I'd say the sheer amount of time he spent criticizing TPM means the man's dead-serious (hahaha) about his distaste for the flick and the reasons he cited to that end.

All right, but again: that's the general tone of "Plinkett Reviews" is "comedy". So, you shouldn't take everything literally. I'll give an example after the next quote.

Okay.

Example of "angry nitpicking on nitpicks" in Raynor's review.

Plinkett suggests: "Why the jedis won't fight all the robots and steal a ship"
Raynor comment: "can you believe this!..."

Perhaps Plinkett comment was somewhat silly (then again, the battledroids in any point of the movie seems like real threats for the jedis, and even Raynor admits it when Plinkett mentions it), but why Raynor makes a great fuss about it?. He goes one page rambling about the issue. On this simple comment. Is he addressing some crucial plot point here?. Nope, it sounds almost like a casual comment, and it's on line with the criticism of "the robots aren't a credible threat". So, I wouldn't focus so much on points such as these, and instead focus on the main point which is: "The villains are dull and doesn't feel like a threat". That should be the focus of discussion, not nitpicking on "he suggested to fight a zillion of robots, he's dumb".

It seems like a casual comment, you say. Tell me, dear sir, what makes you think his suggestion that the Jedi just whip a ton of droids and steal a ship is any more "casual" than when he suggested ... well, anything else?

The fact is, whether it was an off-the-cuff critique of the film or not, Jim was correct to call Mike on it. Yeah, the B1 droids are a joke (especially in the later prequels). But taking on a hangarful of those things would've been suicide. No matter how whimsical you might pretend Stoklasa's idea, it was poor.

I honestly don't see how the comedic nature of Stoklasa's review shields him from criticism here. Yeah, yeah. He pretends to be a senile old man, but the man behind that facade is anything but. That he says things like he's got kumquats in his mouth does NOT change the fact that he's saying the movie sucks that much harder because Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan didn't take a [much more] aggressive course of action.

And, of course, later:

Plinkett says: "Qui Gonn is acting stupid here"
Raynor comment: "But he suggested to fight a zillion of battledroids, so his opinion isn't valid"

Yeah, this is really some intellectual stuff. And comments such as these go on for 108-pages.

Whoa, wait a minute. What's this all about? I haven't memorized Stoklasa's review or Jim's document. What's this in reference to? And surely, you've got more than just two examples to show me. Two examples are nothing in light of Stoklasa's long-assed review or Jim's counter-argument file.

And again, I'm not saying that Stoklasa didn't have any point in his review. His intent was mainly to "express his opinion", as he himself has said it. But, I think, it would have been more constructive to identify his main points and discuss them, instead of some angry rambling of 108 pages.

As opposed to over an hour of sometimes coherent, sometimes not rambling about Menace's flaws on Youtube?

I'd say Jim did his best to identify and address Mike's "key shit," as one of my former newspaper colleagues liked to say. But then, as I said, Mike ranted and raised hell about all sorts of silly minutiae, so I find it rather odd to blast a review of his review for addressing said minutiae, including the very example you cited.

[Formless]

This post isn't going to be in order, because there area few things that need to be seen by those who would argue with this particular troll:

And yet you repeatedly ignore my question of how you expect people to interpret his words, when he does in fact speak in a monotone and put background gags underneath his serious points (something YOU pointed out, I might add).

You just admitted you recognized sarcasm. If he speaks in such a monotone way as to make it indistinguishable you would not have recognized it as a cue that he isn’t serious. I don’t know what to tell you if you can’t tell his background gags from his more serious points and when he’s juxtaposing the two for comedic effect. Just like I don’t know what to tell my kid what green looks like.

Motherfucker, I am not asking again. Tell me how you expect us to interpret his words at any given moment, what you think he means, or concede. This is not a request. This is a demand. Show us you don't just pull shit out of your ass.

(FYI, I can tell he was being sarcastic because sarcasm makes use of verbal irony, but he did not change his tone at any point. That does not mean I can tell when he's being serious and when, according to you, he isn't)

It doesn’t but a hypothesis can be presented based on the fact that he parted ways with the one known person that challenged him. It’s an opinion one man has about why he thinks the prequels aren’t good. It was never presented as fact.

Now you are flat out lying.

No matter how many times you mention when Kurtz parted ways, it doesn't change the fact that is an example (the other could be lucas's ex wife) of someone who challenged Lucas and is now gone. Making it difficult to call slander when someone says "probably got rid of... a long time ago"

You say that Stoklasa wasn't being serious and shouldn't be taken seriously... then you took his hypothesis as serious and factual... now you are denying that it was ever presented as factual... someone sure is having a hard time keeping his story straight.

Yes if someone had behind the scenes footage of the white house and a writer interpreted Colin Powells expression in the footage to be that of frustration when Bush walked in the room. Then they went on to explain that the Bush presidency had a bunch of crazy (a term Powell used to describe them) neocons running it and that's why it was such a cluster fuck.

That's all opinion based on relationships that Bush had with some of the people that worked under him.

I am utterly amazed. You really do think evidence is a matter of opinion. That's... I can't think of anything else to say. What else is there to say? You are a fucking sophist.

Have you ever worked in film production? Do you know who those departments present their ideas too? The director. Do you know what he does next? He gives notes on what they should change. Do you know who has equal say to George Lucas on star wars films? No one.

Red herring. You were asked to establish that he does in fact micromanage rather than give those employees leeway to do their jobs as necessary. That George Lucas has ultimate say was never in question here. But then, none of this is surprising anymore since you've practically established that you are a sophistic fuck who thinks everything is a matter of opinion.

Edit: hell, I can even think of a counter example of him taking total control of the production. The infamous Han VS Greedo shootout; Lucas has said that he preferred the original take, but added Greedo's lousy ass shot because he was advised it would sell the film better if Han was a little less morally gray.

Source please. You have repeatedly ignored my request for sources.

Because until now the burden of proof was on you. However, in accordance with the challenge:

For starters, Lucas has been seen wearing the Han Shot First T-shirt on the set of Indy 4. Second of all, though its behind a paywall there is this by the Toronto Sun:

In the original movie released in 1977, Solo fires a lethal ray gun blast at an unsuspecting Greedo, in the celebrated Cantina scene. For the film's 1997 re-release, [George Lucas] manipulated it so that Greedo fires first and Solo second, making the exchange an act of self-defence by Solo rather than murder. Lucas said he wanted Solo to look like more of a good guy.

Lastly, there is the fact that the scene got tweaked a third time so that Han shoots first and Greedo second in the DVD release of the special editions. I think its clear what Lucas really wanted, but bowed to the pressure to make the character look less Machiavellian.

Whether you take his word for it or not is irrelevant. It is an example that supports RLM argument that no one challenges Lucas anymore. You can disagree, but when you claim he's slandering someone based on an opinion you don't agree with you're just wrong. Know what you could do though? Provide evidence that Lucas doesn't over see the movies to the degree that RLM speculates? I might not agree with your assessment but we can discuss that when you have something.

So now, after saying that Gary Kurtz's words are fact, denying that they were ever presented as fact, you are now back to them being fact again... someone sure is having a hard time keeping his story straight.

The fast running is a big deal because it is symptomatic of so much that is wrong with TPM. A bad screenplay that could have easily been fixed. Is it as bad as RLM said, most likely not but his review is funny because it unleashed every nit picky piece of nerd rage people like me had at how utterly disappointing TPM was.

And all his suggestions are fucking stupid.

• "Fight them all!"
• "Steal from watto! No, even better, make that assault him with the force, then steal from Watto!"
• "The trade fed should totally announce they started an illegal war, because... um... it benefits Darth Sidious!"
• "have the Trade Fed do more things that are competent, even though the movie goes out of its way to show the opposite"
• "Qui Gon should just be Yoda, a do-nothing who meditates and says vacuous spiritualbabble, in spite of the obvious father figure role he was written as!"
• "They should just charter a ship from some low-life and trust the life of a high ranking political figure to the same. Or maybe buy a totally new ship with unknown maintenance problems. All using money no one on this planet will accept because its not a Republic world."
• "Why not just ignore the Gungans who have a fighting military force right there waiting to be used."
• "the characters shouldn't look in the throne room I previously described as the most secure place in the entire palace."

That was all of his suggestions on how to fix the film in all seventy minutes of run time. The majority of the review was nitpicks, whining, and asking questions that were either answered in the movie or which even an eight year old could have figured out from what we saw. Somehow, I really don't think that fixing the movie was Stoklasa's main point.

And you know what's ironic? Some of those suggestions were so stupid, that if I had to make a list of things in the RLM review most likely to have been pure jokes that weren't intended to be taken literally, they would be at the top of it. Particularly the "just start fighting all of them" line.

Pretty simple. As RLM says “biggest case of blue ball in cinema history”.

I take it he's never heard of Highlander 2?

I’m only mocking because you responded like such a dick.

Get used to it, because I ain't taking crap from a shitstain who thinks they can figure out how "visually literate" someone is using Red Letter Maniac as their standard.

[The Asiduo]

This reminds me of a Paul Reiser comedy routine from the '80s. He tells his buddy, "Hey, I'm 'just saying' you're fat." Somehow the "just saying" bit meant his buddy shouldn't get pissed off at the observation

No, length needn't imply "seriousness" as such. I've seen Youtube videos in which people, clearly drunk, high or both, prattled on aimlessly about nothing for hours on end. (There was a time when Youtube videos weren't strictly limited to a dozen minutes or whatever it is now.)

But in Stoklasa's case, I'd say the sheer amount of time he spent criticizing TPM means the man's dead-serious (hahaha) about his distaste for the flick and the reasons he cited to that end.

Well, in this point I guess there is no way to get an agreement. If you guys want to believe that Stoklasa took this thing so seriously just because the thing is 70-minute long, ok. But the fact remains that he himself said he didn't took a lot time making it, it was for comedy purposes and he only wanted to get his opinions on the internet in a funny and different way.

It seems like a casual comment, you say. Tell me, dear sir, what makes you think his suggestion that the Jedi just whip a ton of droids and steal a ship is any more "casual" than when he suggested ... well, anything else?

The fact is, whether it was an off-the-cuff critique of the film or not, Jim was correct to call Mike on it. Yeah, the B1 droids are a joke (especially in the later prequels). But taking on a hangarful of those things would've been suicide. No matter how whimsical you might pretend Stoklasa's idea, it was poor.

I honestly don't see how the comedic nature of Stoklasa's review shields him from criticism here. Yeah, yeah. He pretends to be a senile old man, but the man behind that facade is anything but. That he says things like he's got kumquats in his mouth does NOT change the fact that he's saying the movie sucks that much harder because Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan didn't take a [much more] aggressive course of action.

It's all a thing about context: In any point I thought he's suggesting anything serious with these silly comments, other that highlighting points in the movie he thinks doesn't make sense. In this particular case, he just made this comment: "Why won't the jedis fight all the droids and then hijack a ship: it doesn't sound as such a bad idea considering that later, they attempt to go through a blockade with just one ship". In my opinion, he is just jokingly suggesting a stupid action, based on the idea of stupid things attempted later in the movie, and on line with the idea of "the villians are not feel as a threat": if you think he is not funny, well, that's fine, but Raynor instead of just say: "What a stupid idea", ignoring the comment (as he ignored Stoklasa's comment about Anakin going inside a ship with the shields up), he goes on rambling for one page long on this casual comment, and then, he just can't leave it there, he keeps insisting on the issue every time he can.

Whoa, wait a minute. What's this all about? I haven't memorized Stoklasa's review or Jim's document. What's this in reference to? And surely, you've got more than just two examples to show me. Two examples are nothing in light of Stoklasa's long-assed review or Jim's counter-argument file.

Come on. I already erased his essay from my computer, but, I suggest you open Raynor's comment, find the thing about "fighting robots", read the one page long rambling, and then casually browse the following pages, and you'll find in many places references to: "Yeah, but he suggested fighting a zillion of droids so...", or something like that. The fact he keeps and keeps insisting on that issue is almost creepy.

As opposed to over an hour of sometimes coherent, sometimes not rambling about Menace's flaws on Youtube?

I'd say Jim did his best to identify and address Mike's "key shit," as one of my former newspaper colleagues liked to say. But then, as I said, Mike ranted and raised hell about all sorts of silly minutiae, so I find it rather odd to blast a review of his review for addressing said minutiae, including the very example you cited.

The thing is: comedy purposes vs angry refutation. That's my point. Stoklasa's review was made for laughs mainly, and as a "serious" critique second. In further reviews he got more serious "plot points" to add in his review (such as his comparison of RTS with Citizen Kane), but even there, he mix comedy with his comments. Raynor's review was made as an angry refutation first, with some "comedy reliefs" rather which felt odd in midst of pages and pages of angry rambling.

And, I think that "nitpicking" can be fun, but nitpicking on nitpicks, is not as fun: just an opinion. Stoklasa's style of review is nitpicky, no one would argue that (it's a thing of watching his Star Trek TNGs reviews), but it was made that way to add a comedy tone to his reviews. If you don't find that funny, it's just fine, matter of taste. But don't pretend he's trying to do something more serious than just a internet review to get some cheap laughs and get his ideas on the internet.

[Darth Tedious]

All right. I can agree without doubt that TPM made a load of money. But, then again, why we are discussing that?. *snip* I never recalled that Stoklasa suggested that "the movie didn't made money". It sure was a financial success, no one is arguing that.

(I will address the snipped sentence at the end of my post) emersonlakeandbalmer had actually argued that the movie was a financial failure, but seems to have since retracted that statement.

Financial success and critical success aren't always correlated: for example a movie (such as TPM) can be financially successful, but mainly for factors external to the movie itself (in this case, hype).

Hype isn't always correlated with financial success. I already cited the spectacular financial failure of Final Fantasy. It had the hype of one of the largest selling game franchises in history to create excitement for it. More to the point, hype can only account for early box office success. TPM ran in cinemas until February 2000. It would have closed much earlier if people had stopped going to see it. Hype also cannot account for DVD sales, particularly if everyone hated the movie upon its theatrical release.

If "financial success" is the only parameter to measure "success", then we could agree with Stoklasa that Lucas is a business man first, a filmaker second.

Finacial success is not the only parameter by which to measure success, but it is the only truly objective one.

Getting away from the finacial side of things...

All the complains about "space taxes" are not because: "this movie is so complex", rather are in the idea of: "What is this?, a space adventure or a politics movie?"...

Don't forget that aside from the Skywalker family drama, most of the story of the OT was political. It was the story of a guerilla insurgency (the Rebel Alliance) trying to overthrow the government (the Empire). If you ignore the Skywalker family drama and focus on the political side of the story, the entire six-film saga details the rise and fall of Palpatine's Galactic Empire.

To the snipped point...

Aren't we arguing of the criticisms of Stoklasa and the plot?.

That was the main point of this thread. Truthfully, Raynor is correct in saying that many of the -nitpicks/comedic points/call them what you will- that Stoklasa makes are invalid. In Stoklasa's defence, you (and many others) have pointed out that he made his -nitpicks/jokes/whatevers- as comedy and that they shouldn't be taken seriously as genuine critiques. I'm actually inclined to agree that this is probably the case.
The most reasonable conclusion which can be drawn from both sides of this discussion is that Red Letter Media's review should not be taken seriously. Whether it's because Stoklasa is a comedian who is not making serious points, or because he's a genuine critic who is full of shit makes little difference. Both sides of the debate end in the same conclusion.

[Jim Raynor]

The annoying back and forth that's been going on about what constitutes success and failure keeps falling back to this idea that the only objective way to determine success is by monetary means. If RLM is now making money based on the success of his videos by the standards laid down in the previous posts, it's a success. Negligible for sure, because really success is subjective despite what some of the members of this forum think.

You're damn right it's negligible compared to the movie. As I pointed out before, in more than a year on YouTube, part 1 of the RLM Episode I review has under 3 million viewers. If we assume that the average viewer only clicked that video 4 or 5 times (I myself clicked it far more, nor are all clickers even genuine viewers who sit through the thing), it played to a total audience of a few hundred thousand people. A fraction of 1% of the population of American population.

Didn't stop some people here from using its status as an internet meme as some kind of proof of its massive success or TPM's "cultural" failure or whatever.

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

Mesa tinks dats da smertist dings yousa say all day!

[/quote]

Ooh, you're just joking here! LOLZ! Great way to cover your ass while you talk trash to someone else!

[Jim Raynor]

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?

I have to pick insignificant parts, because the whole thing is insignificant.

This was supposed to be a comeback? I repeat: The RLM defenders seem to pick meaningless little parts of the review, and ascribe more intelligence and meaning to them than there actually is.

If you're just going to cop out by saying that "the whole thing is insignificant," that's not helping your case.

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.

What are those profits? Money? Control of the planet? Ending the trade taxes? If it's so obvious why don't we know? Really nobody in the audience cared? Is that why you had to write a 108 rebuttal to an internet video because all of his nitpicks were so obvious?

What does the opening crawl say? Oh yeah, the taxation of trade routes is in dispute.

And no, it doesn't seem like most people cared about this minutia. I didn't care. The 94% of the audience that voiced their approval of the movie in the Variety poll didn't care.

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.

No one said you didn't agree with this part. I said you glossed it over.

I "glossed it over" because he was decompressed. He used up 4 minutes repeating a basic subjective point that could've been explained in 4 sentences.

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.

I "focused" on Anakin showing up 32 minutes in, rather than the erroneous (possible lie) of 45 minutes that Stoklasa claimed? Funny, because I remember just briefly stating the error and moving on to everything else. Give me a break.

Yes. it misses the point, because this is about character and looking for the the main one in TPM. Not the exact time the kid shows up. If you had made a joke about at least I could forgive it, but you wrote it with such seriousness, but I guess that makes it funny as well.

And even his points about who was the "main character" of the movie were erroneous, exaggerated, and possibly dishonest. Such as saying that Qui-Gon couldn't be described with a single word (except "stern" ) or claiming that Anakin was running around with no concept of what was going on in the movie.

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."

There's no reason to debate the logic of a fictional place either, but this board sure seems to love doing that.

Another lame attempted comeback. I see no effort to even refute my statement that this supposed main point, vague and subjective at best, doesn't really say much. Or that this supposed "main point" is not what the vast majority of the review spends its time on.

I mean wow, nitpicking over when Watto read the list of parts stored in R2, then stupidly confusing a "readout" with a picture? Whining about the practical value of a child's gift to his mother as if most gifts that kids give to their moms are practical? Such a focus on this "main point"...whatever it's supposed to be now.

Good point and one that RLM made as well, in the part you agreed with but missed the point of. He points out in an action adventure movie of this type a character who has an arc works best. So can you tell us what Qui-Gon's arc was?

It's his OPINION that having a pathetic down on his luck protaganist being picked on by others makes an action adventure movie better. I really don't care to see that or think of it as a requirement or standard for movies. But I didn't concern myself with this opinion anyway, and as I explained quite thoroughly, the way he criticized Qui-Gon was completely wrong and exaggerated. If not outright stupid and ignorant of the entire SW saga's themes, such as his suggestion that Qui-Gon just sit around doing nothing for most of the movie.

[Jim Raynor]

Example of "angry nitpicking on nitpicks" in Raynor's review.

Plinkett suggests: "Why the jedis won't fight all the robots and steal a ship"
Raynor comment: "can you believe this!..."

Perhaps Plinkett comment was somewhat silly (then again, the battledroids in any point of the movie seems like real threats for the jedis, and even Raynor admits it when Plinkett mentions it),

Stop reaching to try to defend his dumb statements. There is absolutely no logical progression from "beat down on a squad of battledroids" to "fight an entire hangar full of hundreds, if not thousands of battledroids." Just a minute after running from a mere two droidekas.

but why Raynor makes a great fuss about it?. He goes one page rambling about the issue. On this simple comment. Is he addressing some crucial plot point here?. Nope, it sounds almost like a casual comment, and it's on line with the criticism of "the robots aren't a credible threat". So, I wouldn't focus so much on points such as these, and instead focus on the main point which is: "The villains are dull and doesn't feel like a threat". That should be the focus of discussion, not nitpicking on "he suggested to fight a zillion of robots, he's dumb".

So now you're psychic, and you knew what was in my head while I was writing my response. You just basically made up this whole thing about me being "angry" and making a "great fuss" about Stoklasa's argument that the Jedi should "just start fighting all of them." I believe I even turned that into a basis for a joke about Rambo...

And no, it was not some "casual comment." Stoklasa stayed on that subject, and went on for a while explaining why he thought the Jedi's tactics were stupid, how his own suggested plans were better, and how the Jedi should stick together.

And, of course, later:

Plinkett says: "Qui Gonn is acting stupid here"
Raynor comment: "But he suggested to fight a zillion of battledroids, so his opinion isn't valid"

Yeah, this is really some intellectual stuff. And comments such as these go on for 108-pages.

Love the made-up quotes. Mind pointing out a specific part of the review, instead of this generalized strawman? If Stoklasa said something stupid, I explained how it was stupid.

And again, I'm not saying that Stoklasa didn't have any point in his review. His intent was mainly to "express his opinion", as he himself has said it. But, I think, it would have been more constructive to identify his main points and discuss them, instead of some angry rambling of 108 pages.

This guy doesn't think that it was "constructive" for me to thoroughly and directly quote Stoklasa's points and respond to each of them...while writing a response to Stoklasa's points. More of this tiresome "main point" nonsense that's somehow insightful and intelligent and awesome while having nothing to do with the vast majority of the RLM review.

[Jim Raynor]

The most reasonable conclusion which can be drawn from both sides of this discussion is that Red Letter Media's review should not be taken seriously. Whether it's because Stoklasa is a comedian who is not making serious points, or because he's a genuine critic who is full of shit makes little difference. Both sides of the debate end in the same conclusion.

That's it right there in a nutshell. The defense that the RLM fans have fallen back to (because they can't defend the review's quality on logical grounds) is that it was just meaningless comedy. Which doesn't defend the logic of it at all. Which means everyone should stop treating it as intelligent commentary, which was what I said right in the introduction of my response.

[Jim Raynor]

All the complains about "space taxes" are not because: "this movie is so complex", rather are in the idea of: "What is this?, a space adventure or a politics movie?"...

An argument that falls flat given that the movie itself treated the taxes as a mere MacGuffin, and had practically moved beyond them by the end of the opening crawl. The people complaining about the taxes the most are the same ones demanding a detailed explanation of them.

[Elfdart]

All the complains about "space taxes" are not because: "this movie is so complex", rather are in the idea of: "What is this?, a space adventure or a politics movie?"...

An argument that falls flat given that the movie itself treated the taxes as a mere MacGuffin, and had practically moved beyond them by the end of the opening crawl. The people complaining about the taxes the most are the same ones demanding a detailed explanation of them.

It's the same with the midichlorians: they're mentioned maybe three or four times -about the same number of times that moisture vaporators are mentioned. Yet Heathcliff and his groupies act as though these rather insignificant Maguffins, script artifacts and plot devices are the focus of the entire movie.

[The Asiduo]

Stop reaching to try to defend his dumb statements. There is absolutely no logical progression from "beat down on a squad of battledroids" to "fight an entire hangar full of hundreds, if not thousands of battledroids." Just a minute after running from a mere two droidekas.

Again, let's recall. Plinkett said something like:

"Why won't the jedis fight al the droids and then stole a ship?. It doesn't sound as a bad idea, considering later in the movie they'll run through the blockade with just one ship".

Is a stupid suggestion?. Yes. But again, can't you see the contrast of his sugestion with the actual plot of the movie?. He's suggesting a stupid action comparing it with stupid actions later in the movie: the main idea, I guess, is: "Jedis in the movie are making stupid things and threats don't feel credible". That's why he jokingly suggested to "fight the entire army of robots": he's comparing stupid ideas with stupid things in the movie. It's not so deep.

And, again, I think it's hard to take seriously a blockade if any small ship with a shield generator can pass through.

So now you're psychic, and you knew what was in my head while I was writing my response. You just basically made up this whole thing about me being "angry" and making a "great fuss" about Stoklasa's argument that the Jedi should "just start fighting all of them." I believe I even turned that into a basis for a joke about Rambo...

And no, it was not some "casual comment." Stoklasa stayed on that subject, and went on for a while explaining why he thought the Jedi's tactics were stupid, how his own suggested plans were better, and how the Jedi should stick together.

Nope. Stoklasa made that comment, and never brought the issue back again. You're one who keeps bringing again and again the point in your essay.

Love the made-up quotes. Mind pointing out a specific part of the review, instead of this generalized strawman? If Stoklasa said something stupid, I explained how it was stupid.

Well, I downloaded again the essay, just to give you a few examples:

In page 53, Plinkett complains about: "The idea of going through the blockade seems reckless and stupid, and Qui Gonn could have got everyone killed"
And then, your answer: "He's showing confidence. And, plus, Stoklasa suggested to fight an entire army of droids..."

Page 59, again: Plinkett complains on "Qui Gonn actions are questionable".
Your answer: "He suggested to fight all his robots, his opinion doesn't matter"

Ad nauseam. And this is supossed to be some kind of intellectual and serious refutation?, it sound like kids stuff: "Yeah, but you're ugly".

Dude, give it up: It was just a silly comment to highlight a problem in the movie: The villains doesn't feel dangerous and the threats (such as the blockade) are not credible. That's it. It was not so serious or literal.

[Havok]

Can some please explain to me HOW, if TPM was not a 'critical' success, and the majority of people hate it, as has been argued, can TBS, or whatever channel it is, run it repeatedly for weeks on end? If it is so bad, why are people continuing to watch it?

Please, let's not discuss about "which movie is or isn't in that channel schedule", because if you, who was arguing about the "objective factors" to judge the movie, in these grounds, things become very subjective. In the channels scheduling, a lot of movies come and go, even box office bombs: depends on the channel, the country, etc.

I'm sorry? Ratings are not objective? They are hard numbers by which ALL television stations judge what to put on. And yes a lot of movies do come and go. Yet the 'failure' PT Star Wars movies are repeatedly shown. Sometimes over and over for an entire weekend. When was the last Battlefield: Earth repeat showing you caught?

This is great if there is only 'failure' and 'success' when it comes to movies. Why do you think that there are 1-5 stars? More than 1 thumb? Because it isn't just one or the other.

TPM was certainly a financial success. But is it a critical failure? Does every critic think so? No. Do the people that continually watch it on TV think so? No. How about all the people that bought it on DVD?

I don't know about the DVD sales of this movie. But, again, we're not talking about "sales level" but on "critical reaction" and "cultural reaction". I'll continue on that after the quotes.

DVD sales are probably a better indicator of the movies success as far as being liked than anything. The hype of the initial release is gone. They cost more than an actual ticket and it usually indicates a desire to continue to rewatch the movie over an over.

Is it the fucking Godfather storywise? Not at all, but then again, neither was A New Hope. Neither was The Empire Strikes Back. Is it Gigli? Not at all. I would certainly argue it's a better story than ID4.

Then there is the argument that, so fucking what if it wasn't an achievement in story telling. It was never meant to be. Any more than ANH was supposed to be. It is a basic story that Lucas has always maintained was supposed to be put across through the visuals, sound effects and music. The story is far more than sufficient to carry TPM along those guidelines. Mostly, I see complaining from people that are all 'OMG Taxes?! That is so not Star Wars! Story sucks!' Or they just don't get what is happening.

Star Wars ANH was both a critical and financial success. The "critical success" comes from the factor that it was recognized as an homage to the "Space Adventure Short" of the 40s and 50s with good visuals, with both envolving and light storytelling, capturing the feel and motiffs of those movies: "The hero, the wise mentor, the rogue, the princess, the evil dude", etc. and, in a great visual style. Of course ANH isn't so "original" storytelling, but at least the story was recognizable, which is why, after 30 years, still is enjoyable, and is considered "a classic": it's not "the Godfather" but it's an achievement in his own merit.

Actually, if I remember correctly, Star Wars was not a 'critical' success when it was first released and was either panned or over-looked by most reviewers. I could be misremembering, but I am pretty sure.

The following movies got mixed reviews. For example, many critics complained that ESB had loss the light and tongue-in-cheek mood of the first movie, and took itself too seriously. And, of course ROJ was "mediocre at best" in critical terms. But, as the conclusion of the previous movie, was deemed acceptable, at least.

Yeah, and TESB is recognized as the strongest of all six movies almost universally. Pointing out that critics didn't recognize that initially, doesn't do much to back up the whole 'critical' success angle.

What about TPM?. Well, the critical reaction deemed it: "Mediocre at best, bad at worst". Of course this movie isn't "Gigli" or "Manos the Hands of Fate", but, the main impression among critics is that the movie was inferior in terms of storytelling and characters compared with the OT. Perhaps it was just a matter of everyone buying into the hype: I guess, but the critiques of this movie can be summarized as: "Eye candy, dull story, dull characters". That's it. Star Wars ANH was: "Eye candy, unoriginal, but recognizable story, unorginal, but recognizable characters". George Lucas himself said once: "visual effects are not a substitute for a good story". All the complains about "space taxes" are not because: "this movie is so complex", rather are in the idea of: "What is this?, a space adventure or a politics movie?", and, IMHO, is neither: is just a mix up of plot devices without much cohesion or good characters.

ANH is just eye candy as well. It was just eye candy no one had seen yet.
Honestly, and I don't know how old you are, but nobody had seen anything like Star Wars when it came out. NOTHING like it. It literally amazed audiences and it blew EVERYONE away. You HAD to go see it. But even then, no one claimed it as a storytelling triumph. Not even close. It was an event, but it was a visual one. TPM is the same thing. It was a visual and musical event. The problem, was it was nothing new. It was still Star Wars, it wasn't Star Wars.

[Freefall]

• "Fight them all!"
• "Steal from watto! No, even better, make that assault him with the force, then steal from Watto!"
• "The trade fed should totally announce they started an illegal war, because... um... it benefits Darth Sidious!"
• "have the Trade Fed do more things that are competent, even though the movie goes out of its way to show the opposite"
• "Qui Gon should just be Yoda, a do-nothing who meditates and says vacuous spiritualbabble, in spite of the obvious father figure role he was written as!"
• "They should just charter a ship from some low-life and trust the life of a high ranking political figure to the same. Or maybe buy a totally new ship with unknown maintenance problems. All using money no one on this planet will accept because its not a Republic world."
• "Why not just ignore the Gungans who have a fighting military force right there waiting to be used."
• "the characters shouldn't look in the throne room I previously described as the most secure place in the entire palace."

...

And you know what's ironic? Some of those suggestions were so stupid, that if I had to make a list of things in the RLM review most likely to have been pure jokes that weren't intended to be taken literally, they would be at the top of it. Particularly the "just start fighting all of them" line.

Uh, if they're too stupid to take them literally, then why are you taking them literally? The non-literal interpretation of the first point on your list (it's commentary on the generally useless and non-threatening nature of their enemies and situations) has been mentioned more than once. Why does that seem so much less likely to have been the actual intent of the comment to you? Especially when you consider RLM complains at many times about there being "no tension" in various scenes, and the suggested "Rambo tactics" would be basically guaranteed to suck any tension out of the scene.

The "steal from Watto" point was actually after he brought up the possibility of someone saying, "the ends justify the means" in relation to attempting to mind-trick Watto into accepting useless currency. RLM was actually morally critical of even what Qui Gon did do in the movies.

What RLM actually suggested about Qui Gon was that his character should not have existed at all, and his important traits should have simply been incorporated into Obi Wan. He's not even the first person to suggest Qui Gon and Obi Wan should have just been rolled into a single character. Having Qui Gon sit around "being wise" was only if, for some reason, it were absolutely necessary to include him in the movie.

So basically, he's just suggesting that Obi Wan be a more important and fleshed out character.

I take it he's never heard of Highlander 2?

Come on now, Highlander never got even remotely as big as Star Wars, and its sequel wasn't evenly remotely as anticipated as the prequels were. Granted, it's certainly a worse movie than TPM (and it is rather amazing they managed to make even worse movies with End Game and The Source), but the only people who cared about Highlander 2 existing at all were Highlander fans; everyone was interested when Star Wars came out.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

And? You do realise that "PLINKETT TEH INTERNETZ GOD SAID SO!!!!1!!ONE!!shift+1" isn't proof of anything, right? Stokassa may feel it was a failure of storytelling, and so might you. It means nothing. Do you know why I haven't said whether I feel the movie was a storytelling success or not? Because my opinion isn't worth any more than yours.

No one said it was proof. But when RLM defenders bring it up so many of you claim we’re using it as fact. Because just like your assessment of Plinketts review, you miss the point. If you think it’s a well written movie I would actually love to hear why even if it’s meaningless, because at the end of the day we’re all just arguing over space wizards.

Own your arguments, for fuck's sake. You actively claimed that the movie was a financial failure.

Compared to 19 other films. I said if that’s your measure for success that’s fine its your opinion, doesn’t make it a success in ever facet.

And what would make it successful storytelling? Your approval? Plinkett's approval?

Nope. But feel free to explain why if you think it was a success of storytelling. RLM goes to great lengths to cite why he felt the other films worked. They pulled upon the universal themes found in Campbell’s monomyth. He then goes on to show how Phantom Menace misses the mark. He’s set the height of the bar next to the original trilogy and TPM didn’t even come close. Is it his opinion? Of course, it’s a movie review after all.

Objective was the key word, you fucking imbecile. Objective, meaning unbiased. I already explained how to objectively assess a movie's success or failure (which you ignored). Your assessment was far from objective. Lets look at your analysis of the facts. To summarise:

Correct it is the key word. TPM objectively failed to make more money than 19 other films. Since when do you get to decided how we're going to objectively asses a movie’s success or failure? Pretty biased of you.

How stupid of me to forget that only movies in the top 20 count! How biased of me!

Exactly! If you don’t like the results, then don’t use words like any objective measure.

I must clarify-
Is your only actual point in this discussion that you feel TPM was a storytelling failure?

Well to me and a lot of other people. But correct from the beginning of our discussion I thought I made that clear, but I’m tending to notice some posters on this thread miss the point much too often. You and elfdart (I think, elfdart...you’re all blending together at this point) offered the failure challenge and I excepted. Elfdart’s challenge being:

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

To which I provided the top critics score, whether he agrees with the critics doesn’t matter it’s a standard by which it failed. You offered:

Do you have any objective measure at all by which to show the movie was a failure?

To which I provided the above measure. Now that we’re out of the maze, if you want we can discuss storytelling and if you think RLM argument is valid.

[emersonlakeandbalmer]

Motherfucker, I am not asking again.

Haha. Good because I’m tired of answering it.

Tell me how you expect us to interpret his words at any given moment, what you think he means, or concede. This is not a request. This is a demand. Show us you don't just pull shit out of your ass.

(FYI, I can tell he was being sarcastic because sarcasm makes use of verbal irony, but he did not change his tone at any point. That does not mean I can tell when he's being serious and when, according to you, he isn't)

So this seems to be a pattern with you. You ask a question, somebody responds and then you demand more “evidence” because you either misinterpret, ignore or plain just didn’t understand. Since I’m aware of your condition I’ll humor you one more time. I mean I could go on forever really, but I understand you are ”not asking again”.

I’ll use a normal font size if that’s alright, I don’t want you to get distracted and focus on one element and miss the whole idea. I may bold or italicize some words, those are visual cues… I’m going to let you guess what they mean.

FYI, I can tell he was being sarcastic because sarcasm makes use of verbal irony, but he did not change his tone at any point.

Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes.

So if there’s verbal irony than you have just displayed to me that you do in fact recognize at least some amount of tone. However, I’m guessing from your word choice that you still think of tone in this sense

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning.

This makes your argument slightly stronger, since plinketts range is limited. However, it’s not robotic. You can still detect inflection. I’m not in the mood to go down that road with you because it doesn’t matter.

The tone I was speaking of is the literary one.

Elements of tone include diction, or word choice; syntax, the grammatical arrangement of words in a text for effect; imagery, or vivid appeals to the senses; details, facts that are included or omitted; extended metaphor, language that compares seemingly unrelated things throughout the composition.
If you can’t recognize these things in his review than either you’re not paying attention or you can’t interpret tone.

It doesn’t but a hypothesis can be presented based on the fact that he parted ways with the one known person that challenged him. It’s an opinion one man has about why he thinks the prequels aren’t good. It was never presented as fact.

Now you are flat out lying.

The hypothesis is not presented as fact, because it’s a hypothesis. If you keep calling me a liar I may have to sue you for libel.

No matter how many times you mention when Kurtz parted ways, it doesn't change the fact that is an example (the other could be lucas's ex wife) of someone who challenged Lucas and is now gone. Making it difficult to call slander when someone says "probably got rid of... a long time ago"

You say that Stoklasa wasn't being serious and shouldn't be taken seriously... then you took his hypothesis as serious and factual... now you are denying that it was ever presented as factual... someone sure is having a hard time keeping his story straight.

Actually someone is having a hard time with words and understanding anything presented to him (I’ll let you guess who). I’ll try to make it as simple as possible.

Kurtz used to work with Lucas = fact
Kurtz was/is critical of the direction lucas took the films = fact
Kurtz no longer works for lucas = fact
RLM hypothesis that this is one of the reasons the prequels suck = Opinion based on the above facts

Do you want me to make it a comic strip so you understand? I could put it in a big font if that would make you feel better.

I am utterly amazed. You really do think evidence is a matter of opinion. That's... I can't think of anything else to say. What else is there to say? You are a fucking sophist.

You weren’t asking if I thought evidence was a matter of opinion. You asked if I thought theories about what was going on in the white house is also a matter of opinion.

I suppose that theories about what was going on in the White House during the Bush administration that lead to the war in Iraq are a matter of opinion too?

I’m used to this by now, but maybe you don’t understand the words you’re using.

the·o·ry
1. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.
2. contemplation or speculation.
3. guess or conjecture.

So when you ask if I think a theory can come down to a matter of opinion, the answer is going to be yes because a theory is conjecture.

You were asked to establish that he does in fact micromanage rather than give those employees leeway to do their jobs as necessary.

Nope again. I was asked to give evidence that he has total control over his films. I’ve given repeated citations of how far his control reaches. I simply pointed out that those departments all answer to Lucas.

I like your Toronto sun citation though, especially the part that says

Lucas said he wanted Solo to look like more of a good guy.

Really, Lucas said he wanted… interesting, as far as I can tell nothing is in that quote about how he didn’t want to add it. This mysterious person who challenged him to change the film must really have cranked his arm. So much so that George would take the fall and tell the Toronto Sun that he wanted Solo to look like more of a good guy. If you could find the article where:

Lucas has said that he preferred the original take, but added Greedo's lousy ass shot because he was advised it would sell the film better if Han was a little less morally gray.

Then you’d have completed the challenge.

The picture of him in the Han shirt proves nothing. He could just have a good sense of humor about himself and the scene. If you want to make a case for Lucas not having control over his movies based on this picture that’s fine, it’s your opinion but really that’s pretty weak and you shouldn’t expect many people to take it serious.

So now, after saying that Gary Kurtz's words are fact, denying that they were ever presented as fact, you are now back to them being fact again...

It depends on which words you’re talking about that Kurtz said. I don’t remember quoting Kurtz. What I said is that RLM theory on lucas not being challenged are opinion based on what Kurtz has said in the past about Lucas. Are you suggesting that Kurtz is a lair? Now who’s slandering?

someone sure is having a hard time keeping his story straight.

You sure are.

And all his suggestions are fucking stupid.
• "Fight them all!"

Already pointed out he was using this as a comparison to the dangerousness of the blockade run. He wasn’t suggesting this as a better storytelling measure. There you go taking things literally again.

• "Steal from watto! No, even better, make that assault him with the force, then steal from Watto!"

His point was the apparent gray moral code of the Qui-Gon. It’s ok to give Watto worthless credits with a mind trick, but not to just steal the part. Again not an actual storytelling suggestion.

• "The trade fed should totally announce they started an illegal war, because... um... it benefits Darth Sidious!"

Point once again being that since we don’t know motivation, if Palpatine’s end goal was a vote of no confidence why not find the quickest route there. I mean the TF does everything the hologram tells them to do anyway so why not. But, again not a real storytelling suggestion just pointing out that we don’t know motivation or have any idea what Palpatine’s plan is because it was needlessly mysterious.

• "have the Trade Fed do more things that are competent, even though the movie goes out of its way to show the opposite"

Wait the movie goes out of its way to show their competence? Which part? The one where they let the jedi out of the deadly gas room? The failure to properly guard the princess? Constantly being fooled during the war?

• "Qui Gon should just be Yoda, a do-nothing who meditates and says vacuous spiritualbabble, in spite of the obvious father figure role he was written as!"

So many points missed in one list. RLM was talking about how Obi-Wan should have been the main character and if Qui-Gon HAD to be in the movie he should have played his “father figure” role more like Yoda. This one is to be taken literally (congratulations you found one!) but you missed the point because you ignored the section before when he suggests the movie would be better with Obi-Wan as the main character. This is also clearly opinion and we all know how you guys don’t like debating subjective things.

• "They should just charter a ship from some low-life and trust the life of a high ranking political figure to the same. Or maybe buy a totally new ship with unknown maintenance problems. All using money no one on this planet will accept because its not a Republic world."

I don’t even know where to begin on this one. 1. Chartering a ship from a lowlife (like Han “maybe lucas wanted me to shoot first” solo) isn’t very dangerous, she is after all protected by a Jedi, a Padawan and the captain of her guard. Also, THIS is dangerous but you’re cool with the blockade run? 2. Would this new ship have a hyperdrive that works? In that case it’s already better than the one they have. 3. RLM suggested that they sell their ship to acquire this ship. No republic credits needed.
These also weren’t storytelling suggestions they are meant to display Qui-Gon terrible leadership (so not only are the enemies idiots but so are the heroes!), also none of these things happen because Lucas wanted a podrace but couldn’t think of a well written way to get us there.

• "Why not just ignore the Gungans who have a fighting military force right there waiting to be used."

Again not a legitimate story suggestion. RLM is pointing out that this once again destroys all tension because we realize our enemy is an idiot who falls for a diversion so easily.

• "the characters shouldn't look in the throne room I previously described as the most secure place in the entire palace."

If it’s the most secure area then the Viceroy should have secured it or not been in it, but they’re idiots so they didn’t do either. The point again being that these bad guys are the least intimidating characters ever.

That was all of his suggestions on how to fix the film in all seventy minutes of run time.

If you had addressed the points of each of those suggestions we might have something, to talk about but as usual you miss the mark each step of the way.

Get used to it, because I ain't taking crap from a shitstain who thinks they can figure out how "visually literate" someone is using Red Letter Maniac as their standard.

Maniac… I see what you did there. Very clever. Are you a writer?