Another problem with the Plinkett reviews is that they made people forget about the suppression of the original versions and think that the prequels were fans’ only grevience with Lucas, so Disney felt a lot of pressure to make sequels that didn’t resemble the prequels and no pressure to release the original versions of the movies. I wish Plinkett reviwed the Special Editions in additon to the prequels.
I don’t think we can be sure that the popularity of these reviews led to the ‘play it safe’ nature of the TFA. Mr Plinkett did state in his Star Trek 2009 review that J.J. should direct them though. Disney probably just read the general mood of the fandom at that stage. To test this theory he needs to do a 70-minute video about the state of the Special Edition changes, and we know he’s not a fan because of that interview with Alexandre Philippe.
I rewatched the TPM review last night, and criticism of the SEs are right there, with mention of all the needless CG shit Lucas inserted to fill up the screen.
I refuse to dehumanize anyone. Your ethical/moral/political/religious views may be utterly repugnant to me, but I strive to hold Luke 23:34 close to my heart.
In his TPM review, Plinkett said, “I don’t care if it’s explained in a book because I can’t read”, yet when Episode VII was announced, some EU fans were hoping that it would begin where the EU timeline ended and argued that if anyone was confused by all the EU characters and Chewie being dead, they should read the EU books, and I was thinking, “but Plinkett can’t read”.
In his TPM review, Plinkett said, “I don’t care if it’s explained in a book because I can’t read”, yet when Episode VII was announced, some EU fans were hoping that it would begin where the EU timeline ended and argued that if anyone was confused by all the EU characters and Chewie being dead, they should read the EU books, and I was thinking, “but Plinkett can’t read”.
Well, I don’t know how to read either, so I understand Plinkett’s frustration. But I feel like the backstory for Episode 7 is basically equally as removed from where Episode 6 left off as the EU, such that it requires the same amount of backstory explanation as the EU anyway, so there’s really little difference.
I mean, what’s the difference between requiring background info about “Intergalactic bio-tech aliens ransack Galaxy, a moon falls on Chewie, Han & Leia have kids, etc.” vs. “New Empire led by new Palpatine rip-off appears, Han & Leia have evil son, Luke is depressing now, Han is a smuggler again, a ‘Resistance’ exists for some reason, etc.”
I mean the Episode 7 backstory basically requires the same amount of homework anyway in order to make sense of what’s presented in the movie, so it probably would have made little difference if Disney actually just kept the EU and dropped the audience off in the middle of it some time after the Yuzhaan Vong (too lazy to Google correct spelling) f’d up the entire galaxy.
i dont like them there are some jokes about rape and a lot of women sexualization in it i know there are in the movies but that is not excuse
idk
I rewatched them about a month ago. There’s some good jokes and I agree with some of their points. Before those videos I hadn’t really seen a long form review of a movie like that, so it was very new at the time. Also the first time I saw them I didn’t really understand why people hated the prequels so much, so seeing those reviews helped me understand the criticisms. I do enjoy a lot of Red Letter Media videos, although I think they can be too cynical sometimes.
All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph!
Some great criticism presented in mostly funny ways. They’ve aged poorly in places but still hold up as solid video essays beyond the extreme character. RLM have really built a solid brand in the years since. I enjoy their reviews and Best Of The Worst series.
Probably paved the way for a lot of youtubers and long form video content. At the same time I think Plinkett inspired a bunch of dreadful imposters who do the act without the self-awareness. That is unfortunate.
I thought the work put into the reviews and breakdowns of each film per video showed a true passion for the franchise, which is respectable. Very thorough analyses of the prequels, while still being really funny. And the Revenge of Nadine was the cherry on top. RLM is run by people with actual filmmaking experience, and as a result, the quality/craft of those videos were far higher than anything on youtube at the time. The only other reviews of the prequels I though were comparable were from Confused Matthew.
I was introduced to Star Wars in 1997 with the release of the special editions when I was 7 years old and then the prequels came out when I was 9, 12 and 15. Even at the time I didn’t love them like I loved the OT but really couldn’t explain it. Years later, the Plinkett reviews really helped me understand my own feelings towards the PT. I wasn’t nearly as harsh on them as RLM but it was hard to disagree with anything they said either. To this day, those reviews stand out as great video essays.
I thought the work put into the reviews and breakdowns of each film per video showed a true passion for the franchise, which is respectable. Very thorough analyses of the prequels, while still being really funny. And the Revenge of Nadine was the cherry on top. RLM is run by people with actual filmmaking experience, and as a result, the quality/craft of those videos were far higher than anything on youtube at the time. The only other reviews of the prequels I though were comparable were from Confused Matthew.
Yeah, a pity Confused Matthew and some of the other discerning PT review videos became overlooked when RLM videos came to everyone’s attention. The CM videos especially - they were out and available a full year before RLM (back in the day of 10 minute maximum length youtube videos!)
They and a few other videos around that time can be found here (as well as the general hype for the Prequels etc)…
Phil Tippett on the Special Editions: “They’re shit” + £2b for George to direct the Prequels
^ though unfortunately a number of other similar PT review videos are no longer available; either being taken down - or channels that no longer exist. There are also ~25 written reviews for each of the Prequel films from around the time of release in the above link.
A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…
Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
‘How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com - includes info on how to ask for a fan project and how to search for projects and threads on OT•com.
A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)
Take your time to look around this site before posting… Do NOT just lazily make yet another ‘link request’ post - or a new thread asking for projects.
I found some of them extremely funny - particularly the whole bit going over Anakin’s approach to romance.
It’s often forgotten that the Plinkett reviews were somewhat novel at the time, being among the first “long-form” reviews with an hour or more runtime. They came out at a time when Youtube videos had a length limit (I think maybe 10 minutes max or something), and so they were initially released in 10-minute segments. At the time the Phantom Menace review was released, I remember the length of the review being commented on frequently. Of course, nowadays there are tons of extremely lengthy movie reviews on Youtube.
Also, there is a lot of “lost context” going on with these reviews. The reviews themselves formed something of a meta-joke, playing around with the idea of an obsessive sci-fi nerd that would make such long reviews about a science fiction franchise. The fact that the obsessive sci-fi nerd is also an insane serial killer is for the sake of an absurdist exaggeration of the stereotypical basement nerd. (The meta-joke is probably more evident with the Star Trek reviews than with Star Wars.)
However, this meta-joke is now somewhat obscure, and likely lost on a 2023 audience, because the “obsessive sci-fi nerd” stereotype has mostly disappeared. Formerly nerdy stuff is mostly mainstream now, and being extremely enthusiastic about Star Wars is generally not correlated with “weird obsessive basement-dwelling nerd” anymore. So the whole Silence of the Lambs/serial killer schtick has lost a lot of social context, and probably comes off as inexplicable to many viewers.
You nailed it
It’s important to note that the main value of the Plinkett reviews was they were essentially a compendium of salient critiques about the Prequels. I don’t think Plinkett actually introduced a single original point of criticism. I don’t say that to disparage the reviews at all - rather, I say it to refute the oft-heard claim that widespread dislike of the Prequels resulted from the viral popularity of the RLM reviews, or that Prequel criticism could be reduced to parroting a list of Plinkett points.
A 1999 movie review of Phantom Menace articulates almost every main Plinkett point about TPM, a decade before Plinkett.
And multiple 2004 posts from this very website bring up the “no main character” criticism.
And anecdotally, most of Plinkett’s Prequel criticisms are things my friends and I talked about privately throughout the 2000s, before the Plinkett reviews. A lot of these criticisms are just obvious - especially the CGI stuff and the overall “feel” of these movies in comparison with the OT.
The main value of these reviews was that (1) they compiled all the most salient criticisms in a single video, (2) the criticisms attacked the fundamental problems with the Prequels, rather than the more common mainstream “Jar Jar is stupid” critiques, (3) they used a unique, comedic framing to express these criticisms, rather than the typical 2000s “rage critic” where the reviewer just screams and rants about how the movie sucks, and (4) they employed some really hilarious editing techniques, like cutting off a rambling point mid-sentence to move on to another segment.
Of course, regarding point (3), it seems a lot of people were put off by the “Buffalo Bill” serial killer voice. I personally found it pretty funny (I thought the comedic device of exaggerating the obsessive sci-fi nerd stereotype by merging it with a deranged, pizza-roll eating serial killer was brilliant at the time). But I’ve seen many people say the reviews were unwatchable due to the voice, which perhaps somewhat limited their audience appeal.
However, as I said, we’ve arrived at a point where these reviews need to be watched with some historical context in mind. Nowadays, Youtube is a career and countless movie reviews with 1-hour or more runtimes exist. But in 2008/2009, the idea that someone would actually make a 1-hour movie review about Star Wars or Star Trek would register as insanely anti-social to many. Only an extremely anti-social obsessive sci-fi nerd - a real-life incarnation of “Comic Book Guy” from the Simpsons - would ever do something as anti-social as that. The reviews therefore leaned into this by employing dark humor, making the narrator a deranged psychopath who watched Star Wars movies with his victims, and casually discussed Star Wars action figures while one of his victims was tied up in the background.
You nailed it again
It’s bizarre running into zoomers online who try to explain the prequels to you like you weren’t there when they came out, while in some cases they were barely even alive, or not alive yet at all. No no no, you don’t understand, everyone loved the prequels when they came out, but also they were underrated and secretly genius, and also The Clone Wars fixed them. It was a tiny minority of terrorists led by the hateful Plinkett that harassed Lucas, Ahmed Best, and Jake Lloyd, and conspired to create the sequel trilogy. (Obviously this is an exaggeration of what they think, but what they actually think is still loony.)
Part of a general trend where people think if they watched the most recent video essay or even a 30 second clip about something they’re an expert, and they have no concept that people physically experience things in the real world even if they’re not documented in a place where they see it. When I worked at a middle school recently a kid tried to explain 9/11 to me like I had never heard of it.