The RedLetterMedia thread

[idunnosomename]

Lots of mike saying ghoast content

[Mobbd]

You got that up so quickly! I spotted it was up after 7 minutes, came here to post it and there you were.

[Bad Ambassador]

Fantastic that the top comment underneath is "busting makes me feel nothing".

[QDRPHNC]

I know I watched the latest BOTW because I remember the first two videos very clearly, but I need to rewatch that Lyme Disease one. It was like a dream. Was it pro-Lyme Disease? Was it some conspiracy thing? My mind has wiped it.

[The Bumlord]

Lots of mike saying ghoast content

What's up with his accent lately? He never used to sound this Milwaukeean, I'm sure.

[Mister Six]

He's been saying "goost" for years. Although weirdly I didn't notice it in Ghostbusters.

[Goldentony]

there was a video they did recently where he says SCHOOL PHOTOS and I think it must have broke his accent regulator because it came out as SCHOOOOOWL PHOOOOOOODOOOOS THERE NOW

[Kelvin]

I know I watched the latest BOTW because I remember the first two videos very clearly, but I need to rewatch that Lyme Disease one. It was like a dream. Was it pro-Lyme Disease? Was it some conspiracy thing? My mind has wiped it.

It was arguing that victims of Lyme Disease were not being taken seriously by the government or medical professionals. But undermined by some extremely weird editing.

The RLM guys did have a theory that at least one of the mothers was using Lyme Disease as an excuse for all her son's problems, though.

[QDRPHNC]

Ah ok, maybe it was just the production of it that made me zone out.

[QDRPHNC]

Hey everyone! We've got a handful of videos that are already shot/produced and in various stages of editing. The next thing being released will probably be Mike and Rich finally talking about that ancient TV show Andor. Remember Star Wars???? They finally watched the recent new Star War. In addition to that, Colin was in town and we shot a re:View for Predator 2 as well as watched the latest Neil Breen film Cade: The Tortured Crossing! In addition to those, we have another animated Spitballs video coming as well. Just need to do sound mixing and some minor editing to that one. Lots to work on!

[Fambo Number Mive]

Looking forward in particular to the Predator 2  review. Its a fascinating film, really like the first part of it.

[Blumf]

Yep that all looks good, especially Predator 2

[Mobbd]

Especially Breeeeeeeeeeen!

[idunnosomename]

I guess i'll watch Andor since people say it's good, RLM are going to review it, and most importantly I have Disney+ for free for the first time since it was released.

But... just watched Rogue One finally and thought "I know what that is" was the least of its problems. The main problem is that it's simply a poor narrative and doesn't establish any reason to care about anything or anyone and just assumes you just know about Jedi and stuff from the other films. Final act is alright, but otherwise it's a poor pre-Disney YA novel on screen.

There's also clearly only one AT-ST in the film, something Rich Evans tried to gloss over by yelling AT-ATs!! in the Ghostbusters 6 video. we see you Rich Evans!!!

Funnily enough the last thing I watched when I had Disney+ free before was Predator 2, and thought it really wasn't very good on revisiting it. I mean it's alright. but it is quite weird how in the finale in the apartment block making the way to the spaceship you get the goofy sequence with the elderly tenant. not sure if that's good or bad.

[Mobbd]

There's also clearly only one AT-ST in the film, something Rich Evans tried to gloss over by yelling AT-ATs!! in the Ghostbusters 6 video. we see you Rich Evans!!!

Hee, I noticed that too!

I've had my fill of Star Wars. I liked the original trilogy as a kid (and even Phantom Menace as a teen, though I was obviously caught up in the hype) and I did a full chronological  watchthrough of the entire saga plus Rogue One and Solo when The Rise of Skywalker dropped on D+ in the pandemic (first time that was possible, I think).

That full watchthrough must have killed off my fondness of all things Warsy because it just makes me feel sick now. I couldn't get through Obi Wan. Episode 3 of that must have been my waffer-thin mint.

So I haven't seen Andor or Ashoka or anything else they've done since Obi Wan. It's hard to believe but I've really had enough. It's just so one-note and so dull and I'm really done with it. Obviously they should be doing "stories set in the Star Wars galaxy" without lots of Jedi/Sith lore weighing it down (which is what Mike and Rich will say in their review, I'm certain) and they've sort-of been doing that. But I just don't care. Maybe in 20 years when I've forgotten about Star Wars a bit.

[QDRPHNC]

Personally I thought Rogue One was the only worthwhile post-original trilogy entry. Not perfect, but it at least tried to do some interesting things.

[Mobbd]

Personally I thought Rogue One was the only worthwhile post-original trilogy entry. Not perfect, but it at least tried to do some interesting things.

Yes, I agree. It felt like an old script pre- The Stupid Age in which we currently live (which I think maybe it was?).

Or maybe it just felt good because it was so early in the big Star Wars blow-up and it wasn't just another episode in the mainline family saga?

[QDRPHNC]

Felt closer in spirit to the OT certainly — that's why I thought it was particularly unfair that RLM singled it out as the "remember AT ATs?" movie, when episodes 7, 8 and 9 were far worse for that kind of thing.

[Ruben Remus]

I feel that Rogue One and some of the other nu-Star Wars stuff has highlighted that the original trilogy is a bit of a rorschach test that appeals to different people for different reasons. For me the spirit of those movies was wrapped up in the romantic fantasy-adventure tone of it all and the mix of fairy-tale melodrama with engaging characters infused with warmth and humour. The sci-fi militarism and the space-ship aesthetics and the imperial court intrigue stuff always just felt like background set-dressing for the above, so watching a Star Wars film that stripped everything back to those aspects just felt strange and alienating to me. Beyond that I thought the script and characterisation were incredibly weak and, to be honest, I found the cgi resurrection of Peter Cushing quite ghoulish. But overall I just didn't feel like I belonged to the constituency that the film was made for, and I reckon that's how the RLM lads felt too.

I think that Disney Star Wars has become a sort of microcosm of the larger media world - what was once a single definable monocultural experience that contained variety and contradictions now increasingly broken up into lots of smaller channels appealing to more and more niche markets. At this point I'm not sure we're ever going to see another Force Awakens that aims to broadly appeal to "Star Wars fans" en masse. I think it's just going to be "here's your western Star Wars, here's your samurai star wars, here's your palace intrigue star wars" etc. for the rest of the life of the franchise.

[Mobbd]

I feel that Rogue One and some of the other nu-Star Wars stuff has highlighted that the original trilogy is a bit of a rorschach test that appeals to different people for different reasons.

Such a good point.

A big part of the appeal to me was the plucky resourcefulness of it. There's a distinct feeling in the OT that plenty of shed boffins were involved. It's like someone said "what have we got?" and the answer was "some theatre lovies, the Henson workshop, and and some boffins." I know that's a grotesque exaggeration but there was real inventiveness and originality in the OT: that was the exciting thing and it can't be recaptured.

Force Awakens and Mandalorian did a great job of simulating the magic imho. I won't knock it. But really the creative energy isn't there. And rightly so - there's new things to make and concoct.

[idunnosomename]

Difference is that the new characters and the way the actors played them in the New Trilogy had charisma and promise, even if they fucked them all up making it up as they went along and trying to outpace the theories on r/StarWars.

Rogue One was boring. I did not give a shit about anyone. When the protagonist's father died in her arms in the rain at the climax of the second act, there's a big swelling music cue and I just thought "lol who gives a shit??? who could possibly care about this???"

You know at the beginning of the 1977 we get to know Luke on his farm? It doesn't just start with stormtroopers killing his parents?? No time for that! We have to go to about five planets!!

RLM's criticism wasn't so much it has fan-service, but that there's nothing under it. The action and effects were well-directed but it's very hollow indeed. Past the shouty meme intro I generally agreed with them on everything except that using Darth Vader like they did at the end was actually quite good and a pay off to having him in it. That he's angry and vindictive enough to do the captain's job of doing it himself pays off well from what we know of him from the prequels AND what's established about him from the scene in his lava castle (strangling people like a mad cunt).

The utterly egregious fan service was "you'll be dead" guy and walrus guy, and R2-D2 and C-3PO, which was simply distracting and only served to make the galaxy feel smaller. They also should not have tried to re-create Peter Cushing and young Carrie Fisher. Show them from the back and write around them. Dont shove it in our face.

it does the Star Wars bit, but not the "A story". Felt constantly like a fan-film or comic book treading round the original work. occasionally doing kinda stupid things like having a deep-space battleship with the handbrake on over a city because if they used anything else WE WOULDNT KNOW WHAT IT IS!! which was more like a kid playing with toys.

[greenman]

Difference is that the new characters and the way the actors played them in the New Trilogy had charisma and promise, even if they fucked them all up making it up as they went along and trying to outpace the theories on r/StarWars.

Rogue One was boring. I did not give a shit about anyone. When the protagonist's father died in her arms in the rain at the climax of the second act, there's a big swelling music cue and I just thought "lol who gives a shit??? who could possibly care about this???"

You know at the beginning of the 1977 we get to know Luke on his farm? It doesn't just start with stormtroopers killing his parents?? No time for that! We have to go to about five planets!!

RLM's criticism wasn't so much it has fan-service, but that there's nothing under it. The action and effects were well-directed but it's very hollow indeed. Past the shouty meme intro I generally agreed with them on everything except that using Darth Vader like they did at the end was actually quite good and a pay off to having him in it. That he's angry and vindictive enough to do the captain's job of doing it himself pays off well from what we know of him from the prequels AND what's established about him from the scene in his lava castle (strangling people like a mad cunt).

The utterly egregious fan service was "you'll be dead" guy and walrus guy, and R2-D2 and C-3PO, which was simply distracting and only served to make the galaxy feel smaller. They also should not have tried to re-create Peter Cushing and young Carrie Fisher. Show them from the back and write around them. Dont shove it in our face.

it does the Star Wars bit, but not the "A story". Felt constantly like a fan-film or comic book treading round the original work. occasionally doing kinda stupid things like having a deep-space battleship with the handbrake on over a city because if they used anything else WE WOULDNT KNOW WHAT IT IS!! which was more like a kid playing with toys.

Honestly I felt the new characters in the sequels got shit pretty quickly, Finn became a Rob Schneider level sidekick within 20 mins and Rey was mostly just doing guppy fish impressions at whatever nostalgia was being waved in front of us at that moment. The nostalgia was I'd say a  vastly larger part of Force Awakens and really the whole film was depending on it for its appeal, any kind of personal drama around Rey and Finn quickly having been forgotten. You literally have the galaxy compressed down so that Abrams can do a bit of cheap writting with the Republic being destroyed visible in the sky.

Personally I think RLM got a bit defensive , I don't think you can really blame them for what the anti prequels culture became(chancers like Chris Stuckman selling blockbuster 101 to the lowest common denominator) but they had became almost figureheads for it and Force Awakens was really the fulfilment of that culture. Rogue One on the other hand seemed like the reverse, a film which did actually take its setting seriously which seemed to be viewed as the "problem" with the prequels and the Matrix sequels.

Force Awakens looks quite like the originals due to recycling so much from them but honestly it feels very little like them to me in tone, perhaps the Ewok sections of Return of the Jedi but even those I think had rather more adult wit to them. Rogue One is a bit more self serious perhaps but not too far off of the tone of the originals. The plots a bit messier than those films but I think it does a good job of setting up its characters and giving them some kind of arc rather than just havign stuff happen to them.

[Ruben Remus]

They also should not have tried to re-create Peter Cushing and young Carrie Fisher. Show them from the back and write around them. Dont shove it in our face.

Or even just re-cast the characters in question. It's allowed! Get Charles Dance or someone in to play Tarkin. Who cares. It's a film.

[idunnosomename]

Also was drawn to watch Rogue One because
Gareth Edwards was recently on Corridor and had some interesting insights into the effects.

Fascinating here is that Tarkin doesn't really look like Peter Cushing. He looks like Peter Cushing in a specifically lit set in Elstree Studios in 1976. Although they had a cast of Cushing's head from Top Secret! (not mentioned here but I think they have before) they had to tweak the data they had on his likeness to make it look like Tarkin. I liked his voice, they should've just put makeup on the actor and people would have bought it. Its called acting

[checkoutgirl]

Or even just re-cast the characters in question. It's allowed! Get Charles Dance or someone in to play Tarkin. Who cares. It's a film.

Soon you'll have the dead actor's estate lobbying to have their dead relative cast in films, if it isn't happening already. Somebody from Peter Cushing's family must have got a few bob and there are agents who specialise in intellectual properties of the previously alive.

[idunnosomename]

Cushing didnt have any children with his wife who died in 1971. His estate was passed to his secretary Joyce Broughton and her husband Bernard who he lived with for the last 12 years of his life.

Interesting it wasnt the most valuable of estates after debts!
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Taxman+gets+his+teeth+into+Peter+Cushing.-a061162394

So it was rather straightforward for Disney to acquire permission for his likeness.

Also Cushing loved playing Tarkin and was sad he couldn't play him again because he was blown to smithereens inside an exploding planet. He enjoyed pleasing his fans by being in things they enjoyed him in rather than strutting "legit" roles. so of all actors, he's one of the easier to argue he'd be up for it. Unlike Alec Guinness who'd tell you to fuck off from beyond the grave.

[Bad Ambassador]

[Blumf]

Rich looking as bad as The King.

Andor sounds like something I'd like, but I just can't be arsed.

[Kelvin]

Mike's description for that video:

Does it happen? Why yes it done! Hello, and welcome to yet another internet™ YouTube™ video about Star War™. My name is Krebs Gorlon official spokesperson for Red Letter Media™. The clowns known as Rich Evans and Mike Stoklasan famously known for having zero association with P. Diddy (formerly Puff Man). Today Mike and Rich decide to finally make a minimal effort to catch up on the world of a Star War. A world they has decided to shrug off years ago after a clone of Emperor Palpatine was used as a desperate attempt to make cheap cash from a brain-dead audience of clowns and sh*theads. Mike and Rich both loathed Rogue One: A Star War Story. Ever more they loathed the love for its' bland characters like Gem Klebstone, Korla Blargbon, Phib McP-Diddy, and especially Cassian And/or. They saw Rogue One as a bad sign. A "remember this" orgy of pointless action scenes and a film awash in Star War c*m. Star Wars porn essentially. Not much to admire about the writing. A dumb man's science fiction film. So when a series about Cassian Andor, a character destined to die after a Grand Moff Tarkin with a cartoon face laser blasts a planet, they had no interest. Thankfully, whoever is writing/producing/green-lighting the Star War have made a bold and smart course correction to appeal to people who have IQ's above 8 (at least on this series). Mike and Rich both very much enjoyed Andor. They discuss the show and the inner workings of what makes a Star War work and what doesn't. What should be done and what shouldn't. Now, keep in mind Mike and Rich aren't super up to date on a Star War. They'll most certainly get some names wrong. Some places wrong. Shows, characters, settings, events, canon, history, places, people, names, dates, races, planets, movies, books, shows, actors, times, technology, witers, death stars, darth vaders, and star war, but begast you must know how they doesn't do then on purpose. The house is on a hill, but alas it's not haunted. They try their best despite not caring one bit or nothing like that. They watch shows meant for others not wanting to know more about the Star War. These kind of material can be overwhelming for them as their brains and body are constantly fighting off deadly infection. It can also be incredibly dumb and debilitating. These characters with laser swords always fighting others. Always sad people selling junk or cutting up fish meat. Always a bad ship in space. Always a fighting. Why? But people love this crap. They dress up in the costumes like zombie. Say the names and remember things they know. Cry at the trailers. Cry at seeing a thing they remember on a screen. Fill up their drawers with junk when they see a Jedi or a Darth Something. They see a de-aged Anakin Skywanker and ask about why he ate a Jar Jar Binks for dinner when he became a Darth Vader? They LOVE it without question and Kennedy and Dave F. drool at their masses. The actors  and creators go on stage and smile and drool for that sweet sweet cash. They want to say how much they love being a Jedi or a whatnot. They say they love the fans and that the Star War is a family or a community or whatever, but all these ghouls really love is the checks.

[convulsivespace]

Until right now, I genuinely thought this show was about Endor/ewoks for the last whoever many years since I first heard people talking about it.