Hope you didn't plan to sleep tonight. Or ever.
Well, it's been a week of writing "academic things" and now it comes time to write about things that are important. Like Mr Plinkett.
I watched the AotC review. I had to watch the first part the day after I watched the rest because apparently some people at the cartoon network are ironically hypocritical. The review is pretty funny, and has a good number of smart things to say about AotC. Again, though, the scary violence against women, not so much the funny. That's it in summation. If you want a long version, jump.
So the new Mr. Plinkett review essentially succeeds at its goal. It delivers a fairly intelligent analysis of Attack of the Clones, and does so with humour. Unfortunately I think the review suffers slightly from the previous review. Not that that review was so perfect this couldn't live up or anything, but more because Mr. Plinkett has already explained why these new Star Wars movies lack the heart of the originals. So in this new version he has to come up with a bunch more reasons to explore why no one but kids really like these flicks.
The points he raises in the review are sound: the romance is presented rather than developed or even shown, lightsabers do not a real jedi make, and the plot doesn't make a lick of sense. This review lacks a moment like the one in first though, where he jumps between lightsaber scenes from Phantom Menace and the original trilogy, and addresses how the original trilogy used lightsaber battles as physical manifestations of the inner conflict that existed in primary characters and how the new one's are just big action set pieces. Yes I realize this is too nerdy to handle, and I know those first scenes were also actual set pieces, but Mr Plinkett is right, those scenes in the first trilogy are emotionally charged, but in Phantom Meance, the lightsaber dual is a highly choreographed dance number. And this difference is the in-a-nutshell problem between the new and old movies. Hollow action scenes disconnected from any sort of emotional connection to the characters.
Mr. Plinkett has already addressed this and so it's hard to go back over without being repetitive, and there isn't an equivalent revelation in this review, which sort of makes it suffer. There's the bit about Yoda and his lightsaber, which I totally agree with, but its sort of a cannon/spirit of the world sort of criticism not a problem with the film on its own.
It's also not as funny. It's not unfunny, just not as funny. I'm not going to describe any examples or anything because it's not that big of a deal: it's just not as funny.
Review of the review done. NOW!, let's talk about the shit with the prostitute. Knock this creepy women violence crap the fuck off! It is not funny, and it is disturbing. The pseudo-firsthand depiction of the torture and murder of women is unsettling, and it makes me want to turn the review off. Now, I didn't say shit about the use of women stereotypes when you talked about what women look for in men because it's a comedic trope, but the shots of you abusing women are painfully unfunny. And I'll explain why they aren't funny, because I need to position myself as someone who finds many terrible terrible things funny. These scenes are not funny because they are graphic and because they seem like you are trying to hard to be edgy. It all just comes off as a little sadistic and sick. There. I'm done with that topic.
Who am I addressing in that paragraph? Anyways, the review's good, but suffers from the critical thoroughness of the original.
Oh, and the whole time I watched it I couldn't stop thinking about one of my favourite things in the world.
Full of green penis... wait, that's terrible.
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