The Plinkett Awakens

This dude practically invented modern internet film criticism and now he's made a review for The Force Awakens. I'm about halfway through and thankfully so far it hasn't gone off the rails with any weird creepy side plots. It's the same style humor you'd expect from Red Letter Media.

Edit: Ok, there may or may not be some pizza-related creepiness.

No doubt these videos were highly influential but what I think sets these apart from your average comedic reviews is that these reviews are superbly detailed and analytical, dude knows how to pick apart a movie and pin point exactly where it went wrong... and do that playing a character like plinkett is damned admirable. Can't wait to finally watch this

@yesiamaduck: I agree. He does a masterful job of blending humor and deep analysis. Poor George Lucas, though. He's such a punching bag at this point.

I was a little bummed that he decided to include the same "here's what they SHOULD have done" that's pretty much everywhere.

@ltsmash: I don't enjoy it either but he has done it on his other SW Plinkett reviews so it's not a new thing.

Can't stress enough how much of a RLM fan I am. While I still have 20 minutes left to watch tonight, I found this to be the least interesting Plinkett review. The opening examination of Disney now owning the license is downright scary how true it is.

Agree that it is the least interesting, mostly because TFA was fine compared to the prequels and there probably weren't a lot of movie making flaws to point out. I'm surprised so much time was spent on that "Ring Theory" which I had actually never heard of before watching the review. Something about it must have bothered Mike enough to spend so much time dissecting it.

I also agree that Disney is terrifying.

In any case, I still greatly enjoyed watching it. Using the reviews to "check in" with the landscape surrounding Star Wars as a whole is a good idea.

To be fair, the ideas he put out sounded more thought out than what we got.

@toysoldier83 said:

And it doesn't help that he's super late to the party on this one.

Just finished it. I think it's their funniest review yet and has the best production quality/editing. I bet JJ is relieved he got off easy.

It`s probably because The Force Awakens is not a terrible movie (As a non star wars fan I found it a pretty mediocre), but this was probably the least interesting of the Star Wars plinkett reviews to me. I still enjoyed it a lot, but it didn`t have as much of the really detailed movie analysis most of his other reviews have. Still very funny thoughand it had some really interesting bits. Pretty much all the stuff about the culture around Star wars and internet criticism was really good.

The first half where he talks about the state of internet "criticism" and their tendency to overthink and nitpick the everloving shit out of everything was fascinating. I don't think they like Cinema Sins that much.

Plinkett reviews (and RLM reviews in general) always seem like a whole lot of thought was put into them and even if you disagree with their points you can see where they are coming from.

RLM has become my go-to movie site since Screened died. The original Plinkett reviews got me in, and halfway through the first I realized how excellent their analysis was.

They're great, so I'm looking forward to this despite thinking Force Awakens was a pretty decent setup for the new era.

A Plinkett review is their version of an Endurance Run, a rare event worth celebrating. Today is a good day.

As a huge fan of Redlettermedia, and a huge fan of the previous Plinkett reviews, I honestly didn't like this review. It had poor pacing and spent too much time on certain topics, like that ring theory nonsense. The Force Awakens section felt disjointed, and the few criticisms he brought up felt misplaced or nitpicky. I know The Force Awakens doesn't have the same issues as the prequels, but there have still been several very good, thoughtful articles written about how it's structure/characters/nostalgia bring the film down. Again, not that he has to be negative on the film, or agree with those criticisms, but it really didn't seem like he analyzed the film with the same depth as he usually does. Even if he came out positive, a more in-depth look into why perhaps this worked better than the prequels, or what it did different, would have been nice. The Star Trek review, which Mike also enjoyed, was a much more well rounded look at the film than this, so it's not like he needs bad films to make a Plinkett review work.

I always hoped that if they did Plinkett reviews, they would have waited until this current trilogy was finished. The time and hindsight granted would have led to a more interesting review, I think. This felt like it exists more out of an obligation than anything else.

I enjoyed this; good general review of the Internet as well. The montage of "Movies Suck" YT channels was pretty funny.

Also some really choice cuts from the Lucas/Charlie Rose interview. These guys really do editing & pacing jokes better than most. Pretty hilarious callback to the "it's like poetry, they rhyme" pulls from the other reviews.

Hopefully this review can be 10% as influential as the original three, and maybe engender a bit more balance from reviewers. RLM is good at laughing at and shitting on - but also laughing with and enjoying - the movies they critique. They also really go hard in the evidence and analysis department, so even when I disagree I can see "ok well that's not an idea pulled from nowhere, there is basis here". Good stuff.

It was good that they decided on doing a "Star Wars Awakens" review, rather than a "Force Awakens" review, as I don't think the old format would have fit analyzing the new movie by itself. And really the bigger more interesting story is the state of the Star Wars franchise as a whole these days.

I still have to see the movie though, guess I've been spoiled on all the major plot points now.

As someone who usually enjoys RLM's style of humor, I really enjoyed the first half of this review, with the comments on the current state of Star Wars and the takedown of various prequel apologists. For whatever reason I really love the ultra-sarcastic fake enthusiast voice Mike does when he's mocking listicles. The second half, where he's going after the movie itself, was a little more uneven for me, mostly because I think The Force Awakens is an alright movie and most of the arguments Plinkett does make are ones I've already heard. Didn't quite know why he spent 15 minutes discussing the lack of sexual tension in the film, but I guess it is something I hadn't thought of before. Just... didn't seem like it was worth a whole chunk of the review.

@arbitrarywater: The sexual tension bit played into his overall point that the movie seemed to lack heart and emotion because they wanted to play it "safe" with every facet of the production. There was a bit of a love triangle between Luke/Leia/Han in the original trilogy but perhaps they didn't do that with Finn and Rey because some people would complain it was sexist that the female hero needs to fall in love while others would object to an interracial couple so Disney took the "safe" route. Which plays into his further point about the internet overanalyzing and looking for things to either praise or condemn the movie that the filmmakers never even considered.

Some of the bits went on too long but I liked it better than the episode III review. I'm fine with half of the video really being about Star Wars in 2016, because Force Awaken's mediocrity is easy to spot, and honestly he lets the film off fairly easy.

Yeah, I was disappointed. It's such a bland, mediocre movie that could have been ripped apart pretty easily but he didn't do that.

Love Mike/RLM/Plinkett- I thought the dissection of the ring theory got way too granular but it redeemed itself when he (rightfully) calls Force Awakens out for being sexless and unoriginal.

I love how they tore into people defending the prequels. Sorry they were terrible, will always be terrible, and you are terrible if you believe they weren't terrible.

I'm sure people were upset that the RLM guys didn't really rip into Force Awakens as I'm sure a lot of people wanted but it's a competent film albeit a fan servicey play it safe kinda way. I did love how they brought up how asexual Force Awakens was.

Now if you excuse me I got to eat this salad and spray diarrhea on J.J. Abrams and George Lucas.

Fell asleep watching this last night, so I still need to go back and finish it. The Phantom Menace review is the stuff of legend.

Honestly, they could have skipped over the entire first section (or condensed it down to twenty minutes) and jumped straight into Episode 7. A lot of it is going over the same stuff from the first set of Plinkett reviews.

For anybody new to RLM, check out Best of the Worst. It's like the dark souls of watching hot garbage. Also, it's great.

I think the recent one suffers from the same thing that was brought up in the Revenge of the Sith video. He mentions that he almost struggled with the last video because he's already covered pretty much everything that makes the prequels fancy garbage bags. The Force Awakens is generally a very safe, but competently made movie, so that's why over half of the video is devoted to more of the "Star Wars is not the same anymore" analyzing. It still did a very good job with what it does.

Only thing I disagree with is his remark about how kids don't care much about diversity. I think it goes back to a previous saying of his "You probably didn't notice it, but your brain did". Inclusion and role models may not have a direct affect on a person's way of thinking, but it is affirming to see you represented in cool and interesting ways. This tumblr post by Scott Pilgrim's author Byran Lee O'Malley is a good example of how "white as default" has a pervasive subtle effect that isn't noticeable right away. I know RLM was focusing more on diversity for diversity sake, but when the only other black guy with character in Star Wars was Lando you start to wish for more. That's all, though. I like to think of Plinkett as a character and not representative of RLM as a whole.

I loved his speculation on where they'll go with Rei's story. There's a definite mystery there that can go almost anywhere and his theory about Rei being a reincarnated Vader would be really interesting if done right. I'd also love to see the movies distance themselves from the old story more which is why I think there were so many callbacks to the original trilogy. They got the mess of establishing that it is the Star Wars universe they know out of the way to make room for some new stories.

Sounds like some dangerous garbage.

RLM might as well made it cool to hate things on the internet. Love that dumb part where they just made up dumb youtube channels and there critiques. Also there not shy to critique the diversity for diversity sake card and i respect that. Yes those first Star Wars movies where full off white people, but it kinda makes sense when a Nazi look a like regime ( The Empire ) is controlling the galaxy.

As a huge RLM fan, a lot of the stuff in this review was old hat. For a newcomer, though, I think it's nicely self-contained. I wish they had split it into two parts i.e. The present state of Star Wars/Internet Culture and the actual Force Awakens critiques. That way they could've gone more in depth into both and give our poor attention spans a break. I'm gonna rematch it today to see if there's any good points I missed.

I know Red Letter Media got big because of their Phantom Menace review but I think Plinkett and Star Wars is just done. There is really nothing new to say unless for some ungodly reason Episode 8 is a tire fire which I highly doubt. The Star Wars movies at this point only deserve a Half in the Bag review at most and at the least more videos of George Lucas reviewing salads.

As for Plinkett I really loved the Avatar, Baby's Day Out, and Titanic reviews and would love to hear an in-depth review of Dances with Wolves and Forrest Gump. Maybe a look at the later Alien sequels or where Mad Max 3: Beyond the ThunderDome went wrong would be nice.

I'm going to call Star Trek Beyond as being the next Plinkett video. Even if it's not a full-blown review, Mike seemed to like it enough that I can see him wanting to do more about it.

https://youtu.be/D_7Pz85XJ7Q

This review was pretty funny but felt very tame in the criticism. Very short on specifics when it actually get around to appraising the movie

People have brought up the Star Trek 2009 review before, and that was a way better analysis than this one! Gags were second to none in this, though

Yeah, it's pretty great. Entertaining but also extremely well-argued and analytical. They're also really great at mocking all of the fan-inticed hype that surrounds entertainment these days.

This is also an excellent video.

That darth vader suit is one of their best videos.

I also really love this one. I really want to see Mike's version of humpty dumpty.

I watched it last night. I don't know why he spends half the review criticizing a fan made theory. The second half of the video is pretty good though and pointed out some things that I hadn't noticed, like the higher than average amount of comedy and the high degree of fan service nodding to the past films.

As other have said, Plinkett is really insightful when talking about what it means now that Disney owns Star Wars and how safe Ep VII was.

@giantstalker: I think the main point I got out of it was that he thought they could/should have gone a few different ways with it, but understands why a big corporation like Disney would play to the middle as much as possible. He still thinks it was a good movie to introduce a new generation to Star Wars while still appealing to the longtime fans and make them forget about the prequels....but if Episode 8 is just a rehash of Empire like Star Trek: Into Darkness was just Wrath of Khan again, then there will be a big problem.

The Plinkett reviews are always super longwinded and the pacing is completely awful, which is a shame because Mike and Jay can be clever and have interesting analysis when they're not making awful bigoted or disgusting jokes about people. Their recent Re-view stuff has been their best stuff because its exactly what theyre good at while the Plinkett reviews have been stuck several years in the past with their approach and formatting (why does he spend 5 minutes listing the "plot similarities" of the 6 films? what does this add except making it unwatchable?) and especially the completely offputting jokes.

The interesting part is that RLM brought up what I noticed too - the white-washing of Ep.1 -3. It seems like after Plinkett made his first videos that people, i won't even say ist was just millennials, thought they needed to defend the bastions of Star Wars. For the past three years, I have been seeing more and more articles like RLM showed that said what amounted to, 'No those movies were good' or 'Ep 1 to Ep 3 had SOMETHING of merit.'

I am so glad Mike Stoklasa took the time to talk about Ring Theory before getting into Epidise 7 itself. While I'm not saying he is some sort of genius of film criticism, I think that only DEMONSTRATES you don't have to be a genius to poke holes all through how Ep. 1, 2, 3, and 5 were made. Mike blows away most other arguments about the least movies being good, by showing exactly why Ep 1-3 were terrible movies/stories and why Ep. 7 was only tolerable.

I hope in 25 years, that only Ep 4-6 and 7-?? are remembered and considered movie canon. Why? Because I think Disney should take another crack at the early part of the story. Make one or two movies that are just Obi Wan, Amidala and Yoda....and Anakin.

To each his own. I like Plinketts Star Wars reviews for all the reasons you dont. And i havent watched any of their other content, i simply dont care about it. Im probably a terrible person, so dont tell my wife and kid.

That is kinda the entire point of those reviews. It's okay that Plinkett isn't for you. I personally can't stand the video game stuff but love everything else.

I'm almost 45 minutes into this and he's STILL not to The Force Awakens. At this point he's just complaining about the prequels more AND Internet Culture...which is FINE, and worth pointing out, but the Prequel Trilogy Reviews were SO completely focused down that it stands out.

Not saying I dislike this review, but I'm not sure if HALF of it isn't about the new movie, it shouldn't really be under this header...

@monkeyking1969: You want a reboot of the prequels? What are you a masochist? (thats fine if you are, I've learnt to enjoy terrible things too)

I didnt watch his other reviews because I felt like the prequels were low hanging fruit for film critics to hammer away at. (and I couldnt stand his voice but i've gotten used to it now) But this was alright, even if it was basically stating the obvious and didnt really offer any insight that I found new or interesting. Making fun of rampant rationalization of things we enjoy is always fun. Even if it does just kind of feel like trolling.

Well, I want then to OBLITERATE the Prequels by replacing them as if they never existed. So, yeah, we should all be for that!

@undeadpool:

I had the same thought as you about the complaints towards internet and fan reaction. After finishing the video I almost wish that the video was split into two parts. The first dissecting the Disney accusation, and the removal of Lucas. Then a second video talking about The Force Awakens.

Yup, they know their stuff. Almost always on point and Plinkett is just super funny and creepy.

I agree with everyone else in the thread that the half hour spent criticising a fan theory was pointless.

For some great videos about Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and geek fandom in general, check out Jenny Nicholson's YouTube channel. Some recent videos about fan theories:

• If Rey is a Skywalker
• 5 Dumbest Episode VIII Theories
• Snoke Isn't Mace Windu Ya Crazies

I mean it still made a VERY weird veering into "Hey, what's up with all the minorities? It's cool that they're there, but all these kids in these commercials didn't seem to care, so why should WE?!" that...I mean I LOVE RLM, but sometimes they make very, very stupid/pointless points and this seems to have gotten wrapped up in it.

I'd agree, but I think this video is less of a review of The Force Awakens and more of an overview/critique of the current state of Star Wars as a whole. There's plenty there to talk about. For the movies themselves, I think the kind of long form thing RLM has done in the past wouldn't work unless they're, as you said, a tire fire, which is likely not going to be the case.

The problem with this review is that if you've watched the Half in the Bag review that's them actually reviewing TFA their opinions were from ok to loved it. I'm pretty sure they did this video just for doing it because people expected them to. So that's why they spent a good chunk going with the whole overview as opposed to an hour and a half of destruction like the prequels.

I found this element a bit sketchy too. I understand how it comes up given the way Mike approaches TFA- its diversity can partly be explained via the same somewhat cynical calculus of focus-tested unrisky corporate filmmaking- but it's not remotely what I would consider one of the movie's problems. I guess I just attribute it to Mike's suspicion of Disney's motives generally, but yeah, not the high point of the review.

Yeah, TFA didn't make for a very entertaining Plinkett review. But don't worry, guys, there's always the Avatar film universe. I'm sure that will be ripe for Plinketting.