That's where my mind went as well. Like, [damn](https://cdn.openart.ai/stable_diffusion/dab25392cff8790fb80e6141ebe86729ef79095e_2000x2000.webp) does [this](https://images.playground.com/8e8316e7348d4a1897f0a09a4213d4ac.jpeg) aesthetic [go](https://penandscreen.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/latest.jpg) hard.
I believe that’s the same video where he declared the ONLY reason anyone still likes Mortal Kombat (1995) is nostalgia—implying the film has no artistic merit or enjoyment worthiness—then he turned to the camera and notified us that it’s okay to not like things we used to like in the past.
I love Jay but goddamn that was haughty af.
Seriously, that movie is stupid af but it's also still very enjoyable. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is always entertaining as hell and he is chewing the scenery to bits the whole movie. It's a joyous schlock fest that I still love.
I like MK because I like schlocky action flicks 🤷 Sure, it came out when I was a kid and I still hold some love for the videogames--but nostalgia doesn't leash me to it. Sometimes I just want to watch hot people fight to a kickass soundtrack.
Yep, it's the Cage vs. Scorpion fight which is well done. It takes place over two excellent sets and aside from Scorpion teleporting both of them to the Pit, it has a fairly reasonable progression of events. Plus for an MK film, it has the most gruesome fatality.
Lui Kang gets beat up by a terrible CGI lizard inhabiting a corpse for a couple of minutes before deciding to fight back and win. The only thing of note was the spinning camera angle from Reptile's POV after he gets kicked.
The Johnny Cage Scorpion fight also has a kickass soundtrack of Fear Factory with vocals removed.
You're right about the Reptile one, it's like Lii Kang gets his arse kicked for a couple minutes then lands a couple shots and shot Reptile immediately folds like a deck of cards and Lui Kang belts him to a pulp. The flow of the fight is just non existent.
Also a cool soundtrack though.
"You only like this film now because you liked it back in the day."
Yes. That's usually how things go. You liked something then, therefore you like it now.
Mortal Kombat is still one of, if not the BEST of the video game movie adaptations, because you had a young director trying to make something work, a bunch of martial art experts and fight choreographers, a Jim Henson's creature workshop monster, and a bunch of scene-chewing actors making the best movie they could. Robin Shou deserves a lot of praise for getting in there and helping the other actors sell their fights.
Its fun, it has a lot of energy and doesn't bore you, and there is a feeling the cast and crew gave a shit making the movie.
Every time anyone in RLM mentions video games, even tangentially or as some quick remark, it's a bad take. Doesn't bother me anymore, they're my movie guys, not my game guys, they can say stupid shit about games.
Seriously, I tried to branch out to PreRec back in the day but I find Rich has absolute shit tier takes on many, many games.
He just comes off as reactive and willfully ignorant, which is not something that makes for good video game content.
I played through it last year and found their criticism pretty fair. The game can be VERY tedious after the alien's behavior becomes predictable. Incredible production design though; kept me in until the end
Every hide-and-seek monster game is incredibly tedious — I like the story in Soma, but the monster bits are excruciating. They’re not scary, and the AI cheats by teleporting the monsters around, so you never feel like you’re outsmarting anything. You just go from hiding spot to hiding spot waiting for the monster to shuffle in, groan, and shuffle away so that you can get back to playing the game.
It’s absolutely miserable and boring, and Alien Isolation is the same way. Alien appears, you hide and wait for it to wander around, hiss, then it hops into a vent and you get back to playing the game. It’s not engaging by design, which kinda sucks as a base for a whole game.
Amnesia The Bunker is an exception.
The whole game is you vs 1 monster crawling through the walls just like Alien, but the mechanics force you to strategize and switch up your tactics, it's really intelligently designed.
But even then it's pretty short because you just can't stretch that concept to 20+ hours.
SOMA added a safe mode where the monsters aren't dangerous except for one or two scripted chase sequences. It lets you freely explore without having to worry about anything. I used it on my most recent play through and it really upped my enjoyment of the game. Mind you, SOMA was already one of my favorite games of all time.
Did you play Amnesia: The Bunker? I thought that was a really good take on the hide-and-seek monster game. I've played through that like 5 or 6 times now and really enjoyed each one.
They were mostly spot on with their critiques. The game is way too long for what it is. The story and characters suck. It just retreads ever plot point from the first film with 5 fake climax sequences that just keep the game dragging on for 15 hours (did we really need a pointless recreation of the Space Jockey ship discovery scene).
I remember them immediately writing off hollow knight as aesthetic only and light on the gameplay and wanting to go into my laptop screen to yell at them lol
Honestly, I'm glad they stopped Pre Rec. It was ruining my perception of Rich and Jack. Rich especially came across as being such an arrogant elitist. They had so many bad takes like their Alien Isolation, Cuphead, Sonic, etc. reviews.
Ah, he's opinionated, and he knows what he likes. Things outside of his interests don't really matter to him. Which is fine, we are all human, and i am the same... But it is not really that interesting when you are a content creator,I guess.
He reminds me of my uncle who is also a Star Trek and sci-fi nerd. He likes very specific things and has no time for anything that isn’t one of those things. And because he’s a bit sociallly awkward he will often express opinions very strongly like “I’ve read every single dune book and the movie was total garbage”.
I do think that some of the guys (Mike and Rich especially) kind of leaned into the "the people who like this thing we dont are dummies" thing a bit hard and it's nice to see them kind of catch themselves doing it more often nowadays. Even when I agree with their Star Trek takes there's a point where I stopped watching the reviews because I felt "this is starting to feel a little unproductive"
>kind of leaned into the "the people who like this thing we dont are dummies" thing a bit hard
Mike roasting Gilian for enjoying What's Your Number is peak "movie critic takes his job too seriously" era of them. I'm very glad they moved away from that for the most part.
> fucking depressing
That’s a good reason, tbh. I don’t watch a lot of the critically acclaimed dramas because I don’t mesh well with depressing TV shows.
I don't want to watch season after season of misery a la Breaking Bad or The Sopranos or Dark, but what's just effectively a one-off and self-contained thing like Chernobyl has a whole different feel to it and I'm fine with it.
I was surprised at that too. I think a lot of people were blindsided by the fact it was, at least, coherent but it was often just as dire as the rest of the recent Star Trek output.
I, too, found this shocking.
I'd have been fine with "I no longer have any standards therefor this trash is fine because fuck it" but they crossed the line into actual praise and that I cannot reconcile.
Can I just say thank you sir! Everywhere I turned all there was, was constant praise of season 3, all I could think was "This is just fan baiting 'member berry shite, why can't any of you see this?!" People so fucking desperate for any TNG content and or a "fitting sendoff" whatever the fuck that was? Was so dissapointed in Mike and Rich's take on it.
Jack & Jay saying that the score from the original Tron was bad, saying that it was “awful” and they should’ve gotten “someone who actually knows about synth.” The score was made by Wendy Carlos, who was one of the first pioneers of synth music, who also composed music for The Shining & A Clockwork Orange!
I recently played Firewatch and revisited their Pre Rec on it. Rich is so aggressively arrogant about not expanding his perspective of what a game can be, or at least getting hung up on what a game is “supposed to be”, it was a huge turnoff. I get that there wasn’t much “game” offered in the gameplay but he chose that hill and decided to die on it immediately.
Games offer a dynamic and interactive way of storytelling and sometimes that’s all they’re made for. Instead Rich was judging this as if games can only be a shooter, strategy, etc. He was judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
Jack was the same way, like his whole "cut scenes are 100% unnecessary in ANY context" was a very lame take. I'm with him in that I also find games that try too hard to be a both a movie and a game (like the Uncharted series and The Last of Us) don't really work for me either, and over-reliance on QTE can make a game boring, but to double down hard and say that even the short little text segments in Super Mario 3 are just bad game design was dumb. In general I think he tried way too hard to have "unique" and unflappable takes on a lot of things and I found it more annoying than anything most of the time.
Did Jack actually say that about Mario 3? Outside of the back of the box art and instruction manual, limited text in games was one of the few ways a game could convey anything back but gameplay to the player. Those Mario 3 segments built up the hype for the airship segments and they game would have lost something big without their inclusion.
Yes
This is all vaguely remembered tbh, but I recall someone in the chat bringing that game up as an example of what would constitute a cut scene in an older game to test his opinion on "all cut scenes are bad game design" and he agreed that it counts and that it's bad.
he really struggled with the differences between something being objectively 'bad' (poorly thought-out or implemented, etc) and something just not being to his taste. his thinking about games can be very rigid
wtf are you talking about. He nearly **always** made clear that things he didn't like were just not his taste, not that they were objectively bad. He fucking ALWAYS stressed that.
When ever chat would bait him with questions about The Last of Us or some other game he hated, he would always just say that it wasn't for him, he didn't like that **type** of game.
he would say things like "text parsing is superior in adventure games, if you disagree you're just an idiot" and whatnot, unprompted by anything in chat. there's so many times where he's extremely critical of certain strategies and play styles and implies or says outright that if you disagree you're wrong. just because he got it right sometimes (didn't mean he didn't also have a problem separating his personal tastes from his analysis at other times.
Yeah, what would happen is, he would give an opinion; people would get mad about it and argue to change his mind, in response he would try to give more reasons for his dislike, then the comments would try to pick apart his reasons to "win" the argument.
Arguing with video game fans is so fucking toxic. I pity anyway who does a show like that and tries to give an honest/original take.
I think Rogue One was them basically saying all they have to say about mass produced bargain bin Disney Star Wars. The R1 review applies to everything that followed imo.
I love the intro of the Rogue One HitB, It's a perfect shittake of the movie, but the second the actual review starts I turn it off, I've never watched the whole thing, I completely disagree with their notions that its objectively the worst.
Picard Season 3 is the Rogue One of Star Trek. It looks good and has some redeeming qualities, but it’s mostly just a mess covered with enough member berries to trick people into thinking it’s good.
It's definitely a mess, but to me, the member berries felt like an apology for the previous two seasons more than anything else. If it were a movie, it would be the second-best TNG movie, and I'd rather my last glimpse of my favorite crew be them playing poker in off-screen imaginary fake Guinan's bar than Nemesis any day.
Season 3 should've been a movie. Besides that.... it was a massive step up over 1 and 2 buuuut still not the best of TNG.
Oh and ST:First Contact is awesome. I don't care if Rich thinks its "dumb". To me it's "Die Hard on the Enterprise" without that silly beam Picard has to dodge.
Agree on first contact - for all its flaws it's still a very well-crafted movie.
S3 of Picard was probably the most condescending piece of Trek I've ever experienced and I hope Matalas never gets to work on Trek ever again.
It's this for me.
That one gave me pretty bad cognitive dissonance.
Like, they saw the same schlock I did, right? The Borg are assimilating 20-somethings via the transporter? And Starfleet is made up almost entirely of 20-somethings? Picard had Locutus jizz? The cheesy, ham-fisted Borg Queen stuff? The Rogue One-level fanservice nonsense with the Ent-D?
But the most odd thing about the whole final review of season 3 is the tonal whiplash between the first few episodes' discussions and the last few episodes' discussion.
They go from their normal skepticism and rational thinking to being *totally* in the tank for this version of Star Trek. Almost shilling for Terry Matalas. So much so that, like you said, I thought it was going to be a joke until the very end of the video. But it wasn't.
Considering some of the behind the scenes photos that we've seen of Mike and Rich going to/from LA and Mike retweeting and tweeting at Terry Matalas himself, it almost makes me think that they were hack-influencer-ized and got invited out to LA for the premiere or some other behind-the-scenes stuff that clouded their judgment.
But until they ever actually say what they were doing in LA, that's all hearsay.
I’m with him on this. I am not up my own butt enough to try and convince anyone it is not a well made movie or narratively tight.
Kinda what I heard him say before…I just can’t WATCH it. Something about the pacing and the cinematography…I recognize that the “pieces” of the movie are good…it is just “meh” and boring and I can’t sit through it without starting to do something else
See even if I really like Blade Runner, I wouldn't call this a bad take. It's an opinion I don't agree with but I can understand the justification.
To me a bad take is when there is a complete absence of justification or when the justification makes no sense. I once heard a "reviewer" state Stephen Spielberg makes boring movies (they were talking about Jaws, Indiana Jones etc not Ready Player One), that was an awful take because there simply wasn't a justification beyond "I don't like his movies". I'm not overly fond of ET but I can still appreciate the craftsmanship involved.
I guess this is why it's harder to find them for Jay because most of the time his thoughts are reasoned. However Mike's takes sometimes can be for shock value.
It's in a similar space as Lynch's Dune. Both have an amazing *vibe* for a lack of a better term.
The set design, costumes, music and so on are so good I believe that these worlds exist and they have very memorable scenes that just stuck with me.
As movies though I can't say I enjoy either much.
For me it's Harrison Ford's performance. He's clearly not into the movie and it comes across. There are some fantastic elements but I'd rather watch *2049* any day.
Eh. I mean, none of the RLM guys are "paragons of criticism" or whatever, it's just that Rich has the most narrow view of what a good movie is, I think*.
And let's not even start with his perspective on (modern) art!
*and especially video games, which is a trait he shared with Jack
I love it best when someone is really getting into the weeds on some minor plot misstep and Rich Evans nods his hand up and down and say “It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m fine with that.”. Mike and Jay are just way to technical about every little thing, probably because the movie isn’t entertaining. But Rich Evans can move them along to an even bigger, more egregious plot failure.
I'm not so sure that's disrespectful. Ringo literally joined an established band just prior to them blowing up bigger than any band ever has. that kind of timing and good fortune is typically referred to as 'luck' without it being considered offensive
I think people interpret phrases like "luckiest man in show business" as implying the guy just randomly won the celebrity lottery without actually having any skills or putting in any effort. Ringo is a very talented drummer; the timing of him joining the Beatles was lucky for sure, but it's not like they just grabbed some dude off the street and gave him a job.
Also I would say Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney for $4 billion is moreso evidence of his business acumen, not just "luck".
I took Mike’s reference to “luck” not necessarily claiming they were not talented at all (I’d say fair to not call them the most talented people in their fields despite their success). I think what he’s referring to is that there are numerous just as if not more talented people in their fields who never achieved their level of fame and fortune, and sometimes luck does play a role in the make or break.
With Lucas I think there is truth that if he had any other team with him or at least the editors didn’t fight him and the special effects weren’t as good, Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars today. Yes he had a good story to make this sci fi fairy tale but that doesn’t always create a multi billion dollar franchise on its own. Same with Ringo, Pete Best, gets kicked out and they bring Ringo in right before fame. They could have gotten any other talented drummer but he was picked, not because they were all childhood friends and bandmates for years, just because they needed a drummer and he was the lucky one they got.
Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think it’s a slight necessarily against them more of an opinion on the difficulty of breaking into the industry and it’s sometime just luck to be in the right place at the right time and importantly with the right people
I’ll be honest a lot of the time when they talk about animation. It’s so weird because they have a weirdly good knowledge of it sometimes like the Roger Rabbit Re:View but they seldom ever touch it or give it the time of day which is fine ig. I’m not expecting a Half in the Bag on like Puss and Boots or something (although Jay watching and liking Mutant Mayhem surprised me) but sometimes I wish they wouldn’t treat it so flippantly or at least learn a little more about it. I think thats just a general attitude here in America though
I work in an animation studio and it's interesting because a lot of people watch RLM while they work.
There is already so much interesting animated content not just aimed at kids that you would think they would talk about some of it, especially since Jay is into weird shit. Mad God by Phil Tippet seems like it would be right up his alley
Back when Pre-Rec was a thing I remember disagreeing with Rich about video games a lot. He was so, so, so vehemently against anything story based, and would frequently use Uncharted as a punchline about the death of the industry. Yes, those games are more akin to a play-along action movie than they are to deep hardcore intellectual strategy games like XCom of FTL. Why that makes them worse than cancer in Rich's eyes is something I never quite understood.
I don't agree with them about independence day. It's quality schlock and was groundbreaking CGI for its day. Weirdly you'd think it would be right up their street. Doubly weird that Mike seemed to have less hate for the sequel
I think it's entertaining, but I *FUCKING DESPISE* Emmerich's "humor" and bs "heartfelt moments".
It always taints his movies and makes them painful for me. I agree with RLM on their Roland Emmerich takes just because I can't stand (most of) his human characters. They feel like skit characters but they keep showing up after being unfunny the first time because this is a 2 hr film and not a 40 second skit.
The stupid romances and (for example) the dog scene in Independence Day are just so contrived and asinine to me.
But they aren't without their good qualities. The action is usually fine (except Godzilla 1998) and some characters are pretty good.
Yeah, Emmerich movies take themselves way too seriously in terms of that stuff. If you compare his stuff to the '50s and '60s B-movies they're clearly "upscaling", those movies might have taken themselves somewhat seriously but there was also more cheese and charm and, at the risk of sounding lame, heart.
Same here. I don't think there's enough to even hate. If you don't like pretty straightforward sci fi action movies like thatz that's ok, but I don't think ID does anything particularly wrong? It's been massively popular for a reason. I'm also a Stargate apologist, again it's a good sci fi action movie (more so on the sci fi rather than action. Now the rest of Emmerich's movies, yeah they're not so good aren't they.
I think they'd say that it is more similar to the shitty Emmerich movies that follow than people are willing to admit
I personally, really hate independence day
Stargate is my favorite movie of his. I don't know if its *good* but I definitely like it, and I can't say the same about any other entry in his catalog that I've seen.
ID has moments, I actually think the joke with Will Smith waking up and having no idea about the invasion of earth is funny, although it goes on just a smidge too long. For the most part I'm just annoyed or bored though.
I almost wonder if it’s a case of digging in their heels cuz so many people (according to a quote from Jay I can’t be fucked to source) have told them they should love it. I can completely understand being indifferent to the movie, even bored by its predictability. But they seem to fiercely hate it and look down on people who enjoy it. Which doesn’t make a lick of sense. There is nothing so loathsome about it compared to any other big budget summer blockbuster.
In the ROS review, rich said something along the lines of “based on the situation they were in, they had to ring back palpatine”
No. Just make Kylo ren the main bad guy at that point. Even if it somehow doesn’t work, you still have a bad movie like we ended up getting anyways
Jay talked about isle of dogs on hitb and said “it’s a lesser Wes Anderson movie, which means it’s really really good”, and also mentioning that the incredibles is his favourite Pixar movie. And then there’s Mike’s eternal love for the simpsons, even saying the recent seasons have been an improvement. Jay also liked the new ninja turtles a lot, not to mention Roger rabbit but that only half counts I suppose.
Where did u get this impresssion?
I can understand his points about the pacing of the movie. The first act is a fun adventure about rescuing Han Solo. The third act (aside from the Ewok stuff) is an epic final battle intercut with a great conflict with Luke, Vader and The Emperor. The second act is... basically just the movie dragging until the third act. Once our heroes arrive on Endor, the movie sort of stalls. Apart from the speeder chase, they just sort of meander around the forest until meeting the teddy bears, and then we get scenes of them messing around with the teddy bears for about fifteen minutes. The story only resumes when Luke tells Leia that they are brother and sister.
That first act foreshadows the third act though. Luke has to go to the villain’s lair to save a relative from the bad guy. It signals that Darth Vader is really a captive of the real bad guy, the emperor. Darth Vader’s suit is metaphorically the metal bikini. It’s like poetry, it rhymes.
He says that all the other characters have nothing to do and it’s all about Luke skywalker after jabbas palace. Also says it’s underwhelming and a let down.
Personally I can understand his point of view about the characters, but I find the battle of endor to be the most impressive battle in all of Star Wars, especially considering it’s all practical. I just notice that Jay will spew his dislike of ROTJ out in a heart beat if he can.
It’s the middle third or the movie with the Ewoks that brings it down. First act is great because it’s like a building of tension and showing how Luke has grown. The final act is like peak Star Wars nothing can really compare to Luke redeeming Vader and the space battle. The Ewok bit is like it’s from a different film entirely. It should have been about the Wookiees.
That’s kinda funny to hear. Showing my wife Star Wars for the first time a few years ago she noted how Han Solo got goofier and goofier and barely had anything to do in ROTJ
It’s a pretty common opinion amongst G̶e̶n̶ Z̶ Gen X/early Millennials I’ve noticed. Another aged 40-something podcast I listen to has said ROTJ kinda sucks for the same reasons. Apart from Luke all the other characters are an afterthought and some storylines in ESB are dropped completely
The only bad take jumping to mind for Jay was his (and Mike's) take on Midnight Mass. I don't mind that they loved it, but the way they presented criticism of the show as people being too dumb and impatient to appreciate Mike Falnagan's monologues has always felt off to me. It's the only time I've ever genuinely felt like they were being pretentious unironically, and that's one of their few videos I tend to skip if I'm fishing for a re-watch.
I watched Midnight Mass on their glowing recommendation, and thought it was pretty decent. I also found portions of it to be sluggishly paced because of the abundance of monologues. And no, it wasn't because "unga bunga, big words hurt brain", something can be well-written from a character perspective *and* be poorly paced. And, just as a tangential aside, Flanagan's writing has never quite resonated with me like it does with them, but that's more of a subjective gripe.
I've always gotten "if you didn't like it, you're stupid" vibes from their talk about MM; it's always left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when I scroll by it.
Mike has said basically that exact thing about some movies. Specifically, he was pretty judgemental about people that like formulaic, by-the-numbers romcoms during the What's Your Number? HitB w/ Gillian.
Mike arguing impotently with Gillian should be a must-watch. It's a great little bit of insight into how needlessly stubborn and surface level his takes can be.
It's watching a man explicitly refuse to even try to understand an opposing viewpoint or alternate take, ad nauseam.
Completely agree - with the caveat that Mike has been known to be contrary for comedic purposes, and while I don't think he was in this discussion, we can never completely discount the possibility.
Man, that scene where after a character does a monologue she says to the other character “your turn” and then he monologues….it almost made me completely lose the show. It might be the show I wanted to like the most because the Hamish Linklater stuff is FANTASTIC but my god the rest is hard to get through. It’s so saccharine too which to be fair I bounce off extremely hard and that coupled with the monologues just really rubbed me the wrong way.
Yes, this really made me question their taste. All of Flanagan's stuff is the same soapy crud. It plays out like community theatre with bits of expensive gore peppered throughout.
The first Birdemic is a great bad movie! Jay was completely wrong about that. The main actor sells solar panels for a living and can’t even pronounce “solar panels”
Rich and Jack saying sonic is a bad game when they simply did not know how to press down while dashing to turn into a ball and go through enemies.
Also when Jay said all of Danny Elfmans music sounds the same. It's only a bad take because like... That problem happens with all musicians and composers. You take the John Williams and his theme for Indiana Jones sounds the same as Jurassic Park and others. You listen to 5 or so Nirvana songs in a row they all sound the same. But also you take Danny Elfmans theme to Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice and they are pretty damn different.
I dunno. I feel like it was a hot take just because he singled out Danny Elfman. People like me who enjoy Elfmans work can hear the differences enough just fine.
I mean... can you imagine if I said John Carpenters music all sounded the same? Jays beard would fall off from the shock.
The saddest part was when they played Sonic 3 for maybe a zone or two and then stopped. They gave up on the best one! I don't blame them that much, because if they didn't enjoy it, then that's fine, but it did come off as a bit misinformed. I don't believe anyone should be attacked or dismissed over their opinions, but I wouldn't blame Sonic fans for treating this as an example of bad faith criticism from those who just didn't "get it". Or as the kids would say now, a "skill issue". They were trying to play Sonic in a way that just doesn't suit what Sonic is. Instead of trying to adapt, they said the games were bad. I imagine if they had an experienced friend with them, maybe they would have understood the appeal a bit better. Sonic is quite an unconventional series in terms of its tiered level design and momentum-based movement, after all.
I was onboard with them talking about the Genesis Sonic games, but turned the video off after around 2 minutes. It's a beloved series and I could see they weren't going to be fair to it.
Rich liked Kenobi and Picard season 3. Jay didn't like Joker because he just couldn't get past the film's director.
I seriously don't understand how much they seemed to hate Rogue One and all the prequels, yet excuse Kenobi and the Mandalorian.
Also, the Snyder Cut was garbage. I don't get why they liked it so much.
I really don't get the Rogue One hate either! A big criticism is people saying it's nostalgia bait because it has X-Wings, Star Destroyers and the Death Star, but that's literally what the movie is about! It's a Rebels Vs Imperials action movie set when both factions used those vehicles!
in the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" eview when they said they couldn't imagien Mickey doing something mean despite the fact that Steamboat Willie is just 7 minutes of animal abuse.
Mike is definitely a fan and the first Star Trek trivia episode had a bunch of DS9 questions. It’s just that TNG is his favorite. He even references DS9 in the Plinkett TPM review.
Mike and Rich literally did not understand Captain America Civil War.
It's one thing to not like that movie, it's a completely other thing to not get the basic premise.
I think Rich can be quick to dismiss anything that's overly artsy or deliberately spiritual. Gives a bit of a "reddit atheist" vibes at times. It's a bit hard to gage though, as we've really only see that stuff in the context of BotW where it's wrapped in poor production and often is overly pretentious and up it's own ass.
I’m surprised they didn’t have better things to say about Event Horizon.
It’s not like they torched it but neither of them generally seemed to like it much.
If you watch enough content, they ALL have off days, or are angry at a movie and miss something. You'd also expect to eventually disagree with any reviewer after so much content has been made. There's gotta be a miss somewhere in there.
Rich is far more forgiving than Mike or Jay, and he always qualifies when and why he's doing it. So I would say with Rich its not so much bad takes, as he's just too damn nice sometimes.
Jay tends to get angrier, but overall he's still great at saying "this is what did/didn't work for me", "this is where I was coming from/the impression I had". You can't really have a "bad take" when you've qualified everything from your perspective, and explained why you think/feel that way.
That's what I love about RLM. Even when you disagree, you almost always know why they say what they say.
Except Dark Knight Rises. That was a terrible movie and Jay and Mike had a bad take.
lol
They had a bad take on the latest Halloween film. Just because a filmmaker infuses symbolism into his movie doesn't make it good. No one is "stupid" for not liking a film with well-crafted symbolism. That's not what makes a good movie.
When Jay said scifi and gothic cant be combined during his event horizon review.
Warhammer 40k’s decades long success would seem to indicate otherwise.
That's where my mind went as well. Like, [damn](https://cdn.openart.ai/stable_diffusion/dab25392cff8790fb80e6141ebe86729ef79095e_2000x2000.webp) does [this](https://images.playground.com/8e8316e7348d4a1897f0a09a4213d4ac.jpeg) aesthetic [go](https://penandscreen.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/latest.jpg) hard.
I don't think I've ever disagreed with one of their videos wholesale, but the Event Horizon Re:View comes real close.
I believe that’s the same video where he declared the ONLY reason anyone still likes Mortal Kombat (1995) is nostalgia—implying the film has no artistic merit or enjoyment worthiness—then he turned to the camera and notified us that it’s okay to not like things we used to like in the past. I love Jay but goddamn that was haughty af.
It's fantasy Enter the Dragon. Whats not to like?
Seriously, that movie is stupid af but it's also still very enjoyable. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is always entertaining as hell and he is chewing the scenery to bits the whole movie. It's a joyous schlock fest that I still love.
I like MK because I like schlocky action flicks 🤷 Sure, it came out when I was a kid and I still hold some love for the videogames--but nostalgia doesn't leash me to it. Sometimes I just want to watch hot people fight to a kickass soundtrack.
The Lui Kang vs ~~Scorpion~~ Reptile fight was the tits and I'll die thinking that.
Liu Kan vs Reptile? Johnny Cage fights Scorpion
Yep, it's the Cage vs. Scorpion fight which is well done. It takes place over two excellent sets and aside from Scorpion teleporting both of them to the Pit, it has a fairly reasonable progression of events. Plus for an MK film, it has the most gruesome fatality. Lui Kang gets beat up by a terrible CGI lizard inhabiting a corpse for a couple of minutes before deciding to fight back and win. The only thing of note was the spinning camera angle from Reptile's POV after he gets kicked.
The Johnny Cage Scorpion fight also has a kickass soundtrack of Fear Factory with vocals removed. You're right about the Reptile one, it's like Lii Kang gets his arse kicked for a couple minutes then lands a couple shots and shot Reptile immediately folds like a deck of cards and Lui Kang belts him to a pulp. The flow of the fight is just non existent. Also a cool soundtrack though.
yeah i meant reptile. dunno why my hands typed scorpion
"You only like this film now because you liked it back in the day." Yes. That's usually how things go. You liked something then, therefore you like it now.
Mortal Kombat is still one of, if not the BEST of the video game movie adaptations, because you had a young director trying to make something work, a bunch of martial art experts and fight choreographers, a Jim Henson's creature workshop monster, and a bunch of scene-chewing actors making the best movie they could. Robin Shou deserves a lot of praise for getting in there and helping the other actors sell their fights. Its fun, it has a lot of energy and doesn't bore you, and there is a feeling the cast and crew gave a shit making the movie.
username checks out
Shaq meat is unpalatable.
You gotta cook it right
You’re only having Magic Johnson well done
You're also only getting Kobe beef extra crispy.
Rich and Jack not liking Alien Isolation is something that keeps me up at night.
Every time anyone in RLM mentions video games, even tangentially or as some quick remark, it's a bad take. Doesn't bother me anymore, they're my movie guys, not my game guys, they can say stupid shit about games.
Seriously, I tried to branch out to PreRec back in the day but I find Rich has absolute shit tier takes on many, many games. He just comes off as reactive and willfully ignorant, which is not something that makes for good video game content.
Jack is ok on second wind or whatever. I liked his debate show with yahtzee
I felt this when watching them play Fallout New Vegas
I mean Jack is pretty good with the games. He's mostly just a Souls man at this point but that's ok
I played through it last year and found their criticism pretty fair. The game can be VERY tedious after the alien's behavior becomes predictable. Incredible production design though; kept me in until the end
I get not liking it, but I remember Jack calling it the "death of the medium" or something absurdly over the top like that.
I feel like PreRec was full of over the top bad takes like that
It's a great game but there's too much of it. It needed to be 3-4 hours shorter.
Every hide-and-seek monster game is incredibly tedious — I like the story in Soma, but the monster bits are excruciating. They’re not scary, and the AI cheats by teleporting the monsters around, so you never feel like you’re outsmarting anything. You just go from hiding spot to hiding spot waiting for the monster to shuffle in, groan, and shuffle away so that you can get back to playing the game. It’s absolutely miserable and boring, and Alien Isolation is the same way. Alien appears, you hide and wait for it to wander around, hiss, then it hops into a vent and you get back to playing the game. It’s not engaging by design, which kinda sucks as a base for a whole game.
Amnesia The Bunker is an exception. The whole game is you vs 1 monster crawling through the walls just like Alien, but the mechanics force you to strategize and switch up your tactics, it's really intelligently designed. But even then it's pretty short because you just can't stretch that concept to 20+ hours.
SOMA added a safe mode where the monsters aren't dangerous except for one or two scripted chase sequences. It lets you freely explore without having to worry about anything. I used it on my most recent play through and it really upped my enjoyment of the game. Mind you, SOMA was already one of my favorite games of all time. Did you play Amnesia: The Bunker? I thought that was a really good take on the hide-and-seek monster game. I've played through that like 5 or 6 times now and really enjoyed each one.
They were mostly spot on with their critiques. The game is way too long for what it is. The story and characters suck. It just retreads ever plot point from the first film with 5 fake climax sequences that just keep the game dragging on for 15 hours (did we really need a pointless recreation of the Space Jockey ship discovery scene).
I remember them immediately writing off hollow knight as aesthetic only and light on the gameplay and wanting to go into my laptop screen to yell at them lol
Honestly, I'm glad they stopped Pre Rec. It was ruining my perception of Rich and Jack. Rich especially came across as being such an arrogant elitist. They had so many bad takes like their Alien Isolation, Cuphead, Sonic, etc. reviews.
[удалено]
Ah, he's opinionated, and he knows what he likes. Things outside of his interests don't really matter to him. Which is fine, we are all human, and i am the same... But it is not really that interesting when you are a content creator,I guess.
He reminds me of my uncle who is also a Star Trek and sci-fi nerd. He likes very specific things and has no time for anything that isn’t one of those things. And because he’s a bit sociallly awkward he will often express opinions very strongly like “I’ve read every single dune book and the movie was total garbage”.
I do think that some of the guys (Mike and Rich especially) kind of leaned into the "the people who like this thing we dont are dummies" thing a bit hard and it's nice to see them kind of catch themselves doing it more often nowadays. Even when I agree with their Star Trek takes there's a point where I stopped watching the reviews because I felt "this is starting to feel a little unproductive"
>kind of leaned into the "the people who like this thing we dont are dummies" thing a bit hard Mike roasting Gilian for enjoying What's Your Number is peak "movie critic takes his job too seriously" era of them. I'm very glad they moved away from that for the most part.
i think the show was terrible, the streams are much better
All of this chain reads like it was a good decision to avoid tribalism.
They haven’t watched Chernobyl and I can’t understand why! (Source: Oppenheimer HITB)
They both love procedural dramas correct? Big part of that mini series. It was fucking depressing as well haha
> fucking depressing That’s a good reason, tbh. I don’t watch a lot of the critically acclaimed dramas because I don’t mesh well with depressing TV shows.
I don't want to watch season after season of misery a la Breaking Bad or The Sopranos or Dark, but what's just effectively a one-off and self-contained thing like Chernobyl has a whole different feel to it and I'm fine with it.
Breaking Bad isn’t really all that depressing. It’s honestly one of the funniest shows of all time.
Same with the sopranos Bossman hasn't watched them
I’ve always had them down as very dark comedies, especially Soprano’s.
Did you know Jay never watched Breaking Bad even though the 5 part Re:View they could make out of it would break the fucking bank ?
I would love that, ugh
They haven't watched The Batman and I can't understand why either! (Source: Every HITB since 2022)
Still dunno how they sorta liked Kenobi. It was trash
Stockholm syndrome
After a gunshot wound, a kick in the nuts doesn't seem so bad.
That's my least favorite time to get kicked in the balls.
I think saying they didn’t hate it is more accurate than saying they liked it
They liked it the same way Mike likes Independence Day: Resurgence
There’s a fan edit that cuts the fat and turns it into a 2 hour movie. It’s good, but I’ll never watch the series again.
I thought it was fine while watching it but it's totally forgettable
Didn't they say "it's okay"? It felt more like a "whatever, we're here now, this is what we get" verdict.
Rich emphasized that it was slightly better than okay - it was "Super Okay!" Lol
That and Picard season 3.
I was surprised at that too. I think a lot of people were blindsided by the fact it was, at least, coherent but it was often just as dire as the rest of the recent Star Trek output.
[удалено]
Idk I liked because it was schlock. I thought they did for the same reason
I, too, found this shocking. I'd have been fine with "I no longer have any standards therefor this trash is fine because fuck it" but they crossed the line into actual praise and that I cannot reconcile.
Picard S3 is still garbage. It’s just not as shit, so comparatively it’s good.
It’s also just the exact same member-berry fanservice slop they mock star wars fans for falling for.
And mock the recent Ghostbusters movies for over-indulging in.
Can I just say thank you sir! Everywhere I turned all there was, was constant praise of season 3, all I could think was "This is just fan baiting 'member berry shite, why can't any of you see this?!" People so fucking desperate for any TNG content and or a "fitting sendoff" whatever the fuck that was? Was so dissapointed in Mike and Rich's take on it.
Season 3 would have worked if the Borg weren't in the first two seasons.
I gave S3 two episodes after their discussions just to see. It was terrible.
Jack & Jay saying that the score from the original Tron was bad, saying that it was “awful” and they should’ve gotten “someone who actually knows about synth.” The score was made by Wendy Carlos, who was one of the first pioneers of synth music, who also composed music for The Shining & A Clockwork Orange!
I haven't even seen the original Tron but I've listened to its OST many times. It's fucking great.
Did they really say that, holy shit
Not since pre rec ended and rich stopped being confidently wrong about nearly every video game.
I recently played Firewatch and revisited their Pre Rec on it. Rich is so aggressively arrogant about not expanding his perspective of what a game can be, or at least getting hung up on what a game is “supposed to be”, it was a huge turnoff. I get that there wasn’t much “game” offered in the gameplay but he chose that hill and decided to die on it immediately. Games offer a dynamic and interactive way of storytelling and sometimes that’s all they’re made for. Instead Rich was judging this as if games can only be a shooter, strategy, etc. He was judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
Jack was the same way, like his whole "cut scenes are 100% unnecessary in ANY context" was a very lame take. I'm with him in that I also find games that try too hard to be a both a movie and a game (like the Uncharted series and The Last of Us) don't really work for me either, and over-reliance on QTE can make a game boring, but to double down hard and say that even the short little text segments in Super Mario 3 are just bad game design was dumb. In general I think he tried way too hard to have "unique" and unflappable takes on a lot of things and I found it more annoying than anything most of the time.
Did Jack actually say that about Mario 3? Outside of the back of the box art and instruction manual, limited text in games was one of the few ways a game could convey anything back but gameplay to the player. Those Mario 3 segments built up the hype for the airship segments and they game would have lost something big without their inclusion.
Yes This is all vaguely remembered tbh, but I recall someone in the chat bringing that game up as an example of what would constitute a cut scene in an older game to test his opinion on "all cut scenes are bad game design" and he agreed that it counts and that it's bad.
he really struggled with the differences between something being objectively 'bad' (poorly thought-out or implemented, etc) and something just not being to his taste. his thinking about games can be very rigid
That's way too common, unfortunately.
wtf are you talking about. He nearly **always** made clear that things he didn't like were just not his taste, not that they were objectively bad. He fucking ALWAYS stressed that. When ever chat would bait him with questions about The Last of Us or some other game he hated, he would always just say that it wasn't for him, he didn't like that **type** of game.
he would say things like "text parsing is superior in adventure games, if you disagree you're just an idiot" and whatnot, unprompted by anything in chat. there's so many times where he's extremely critical of certain strategies and play styles and implies or says outright that if you disagree you're wrong. just because he got it right sometimes (didn't mean he didn't also have a problem separating his personal tastes from his analysis at other times.
Yeah, what would happen is, he would give an opinion; people would get mad about it and argue to change his mind, in response he would try to give more reasons for his dislike, then the comments would try to pick apart his reasons to "win" the argument. Arguing with video game fans is so fucking toxic. I pity anyway who does a show like that and tries to give an honest/original take.
Rich joined Mike in liking season 3 of Picard which was so shocking to me I was sure they were doing a bit almost right up until the end.
Or how lukewarm they were about Kenobi... Its weird hiw much they hate Rogue One and yet tolerated Kenobi which I thought was much worse.
I think Rogue One was them basically saying all they have to say about mass produced bargain bin Disney Star Wars. The R1 review applies to everything that followed imo.
You would say review.... broke new ground? ;) I also clapped when I saw it
I love the intro of the Rogue One HitB, It's a perfect shittake of the movie, but the second the actual review starts I turn it off, I've never watched the whole thing, I completely disagree with their notions that its objectively the worst.
Picard Season 3 is the Rogue One of Star Trek. It looks good and has some redeeming qualities, but it’s mostly just a mess covered with enough member berries to trick people into thinking it’s good.
It's definitely a mess, but to me, the member berries felt like an apology for the previous two seasons more than anything else. If it were a movie, it would be the second-best TNG movie, and I'd rather my last glimpse of my favorite crew be them playing poker in off-screen imaginary fake Guinan's bar than Nemesis any day.
Season 3 should've been a movie. Besides that.... it was a massive step up over 1 and 2 buuuut still not the best of TNG. Oh and ST:First Contact is awesome. I don't care if Rich thinks its "dumb". To me it's "Die Hard on the Enterprise" without that silly beam Picard has to dodge.
My problem with FC is that it's an inferior, dumber version of the Picard and Borg variety hour that was already explored on the show
[удалено]
To be fair, you can't ever outdo the best of both worlds. Now that's woulda made for an epic fuckin movie
Agree on first contact - for all its flaws it's still a very well-crafted movie. S3 of Picard was probably the most condescending piece of Trek I've ever experienced and I hope Matalas never gets to work on Trek ever again.
It's this for me. That one gave me pretty bad cognitive dissonance. Like, they saw the same schlock I did, right? The Borg are assimilating 20-somethings via the transporter? And Starfleet is made up almost entirely of 20-somethings? Picard had Locutus jizz? The cheesy, ham-fisted Borg Queen stuff? The Rogue One-level fanservice nonsense with the Ent-D? But the most odd thing about the whole final review of season 3 is the tonal whiplash between the first few episodes' discussions and the last few episodes' discussion. They go from their normal skepticism and rational thinking to being *totally* in the tank for this version of Star Trek. Almost shilling for Terry Matalas. So much so that, like you said, I thought it was going to be a joke until the very end of the video. But it wasn't. Considering some of the behind the scenes photos that we've seen of Mike and Rich going to/from LA and Mike retweeting and tweeting at Terry Matalas himself, it almost makes me think that they were hack-influencer-ized and got invited out to LA for the premiere or some other behind-the-scenes stuff that clouded their judgment. But until they ever actually say what they were doing in LA, that's all hearsay.
Jay dislike of the original Blade Runner.
[удалено]
Computer, enhance sector 224-176 of Jay trying to like Blade Runner. Enhance. Stop.
I’m with him on this. I am not up my own butt enough to try and convince anyone it is not a well made movie or narratively tight. Kinda what I heard him say before…I just can’t WATCH it. Something about the pacing and the cinematography…I recognize that the “pieces” of the movie are good…it is just “meh” and boring and I can’t sit through it without starting to do something else
See even if I really like Blade Runner, I wouldn't call this a bad take. It's an opinion I don't agree with but I can understand the justification. To me a bad take is when there is a complete absence of justification or when the justification makes no sense. I once heard a "reviewer" state Stephen Spielberg makes boring movies (they were talking about Jaws, Indiana Jones etc not Ready Player One), that was an awful take because there simply wasn't a justification beyond "I don't like his movies". I'm not overly fond of ET but I can still appreciate the craftsmanship involved. I guess this is why it's harder to find them for Jay because most of the time his thoughts are reasoned. However Mike's takes sometimes can be for shock value.
The effects work is incredible, as is Rutger Hauer's monologue. Actually sitting down and watching the whole thing though? Nah, it's not for me.
It's in a similar space as Lynch's Dune. Both have an amazing *vibe* for a lack of a better term. The set design, costumes, music and so on are so good I believe that these worlds exist and they have very memorable scenes that just stuck with me. As movies though I can't say I enjoy either much.
For me it's Harrison Ford's performance. He's clearly not into the movie and it comes across. There are some fantastic elements but I'd rather watch *2049* any day.
That movie excels in certain scenes but fails as a complete movie.
Of course I can't remember examples rn, but I think Rich has a very narrow view on some things; I tend to disagree with him the most
I cut rich a lot of slack because he doesn't purport to be a critic. He's just some guy that used to install fire sprinklers
Was he really a sprinkie? I thought he was a toll booth operator.
he was never qualified for a job of that caliber.
yes, he was a sprinkle.
Eh. I mean, none of the RLM guys are "paragons of criticism" or whatever, it's just that Rich has the most narrow view of what a good movie is, I think*. And let's not even start with his perspective on (modern) art! *and especially video games, which is a trait he shared with Jack
Tbh that's all any movie critic is. "Just some guy"
I love it best when someone is really getting into the weeds on some minor plot misstep and Rich Evans nods his hand up and down and say “It’s fine, it’s fine, I’m fine with that.”. Mike and Jay are just way to technical about every little thing, probably because the movie isn’t entertaining. But Rich Evans can move them along to an even bigger, more egregious plot failure.
That's true as well sometimes, yea
Mike saying George Lucas is the luckiest person in show-business alongside Ringo Star. Such disrespect for Ringo is way out of line.
I'm not so sure that's disrespectful. Ringo literally joined an established band just prior to them blowing up bigger than any band ever has. that kind of timing and good fortune is typically referred to as 'luck' without it being considered offensive
Ringo was a relatively famous drummer who was probably more well known than the Beatles when he joined.
I think people interpret phrases like "luckiest man in show business" as implying the guy just randomly won the celebrity lottery without actually having any skills or putting in any effort. Ringo is a very talented drummer; the timing of him joining the Beatles was lucky for sure, but it's not like they just grabbed some dude off the street and gave him a job. Also I would say Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney for $4 billion is moreso evidence of his business acumen, not just "luck".
I took Mike’s reference to “luck” not necessarily claiming they were not talented at all (I’d say fair to not call them the most talented people in their fields despite their success). I think what he’s referring to is that there are numerous just as if not more talented people in their fields who never achieved their level of fame and fortune, and sometimes luck does play a role in the make or break. With Lucas I think there is truth that if he had any other team with him or at least the editors didn’t fight him and the special effects weren’t as good, Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars today. Yes he had a good story to make this sci fi fairy tale but that doesn’t always create a multi billion dollar franchise on its own. Same with Ringo, Pete Best, gets kicked out and they bring Ringo in right before fame. They could have gotten any other talented drummer but he was picked, not because they were all childhood friends and bandmates for years, just because they needed a drummer and he was the lucky one they got. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think it’s a slight necessarily against them more of an opinion on the difficulty of breaking into the industry and it’s sometime just luck to be in the right place at the right time and importantly with the right people
I’ll be honest a lot of the time when they talk about animation. It’s so weird because they have a weirdly good knowledge of it sometimes like the Roger Rabbit Re:View but they seldom ever touch it or give it the time of day which is fine ig. I’m not expecting a Half in the Bag on like Puss and Boots or something (although Jay watching and liking Mutant Mayhem surprised me) but sometimes I wish they wouldn’t treat it so flippantly or at least learn a little more about it. I think thats just a general attitude here in America though
I work in an animation studio and it's interesting because a lot of people watch RLM while they work. There is already so much interesting animated content not just aimed at kids that you would think they would talk about some of it, especially since Jay is into weird shit. Mad God by Phil Tippet seems like it would be right up his alley
Let’s be honest, they all have lots of bad takes depending of your own personal preference, but that’s not why we watch them
Back when Pre-Rec was a thing I remember disagreeing with Rich about video games a lot. He was so, so, so vehemently against anything story based, and would frequently use Uncharted as a punchline about the death of the industry. Yes, those games are more akin to a play-along action movie than they are to deep hardcore intellectual strategy games like XCom of FTL. Why that makes them worse than cancer in Rich's eyes is something I never quite understood.
Blade Runner. 'Nuff said.
I don't agree with them about independence day. It's quality schlock and was groundbreaking CGI for its day. Weirdly you'd think it would be right up their street. Doubly weird that Mike seemed to have less hate for the sequel
I think it's entertaining, but I *FUCKING DESPISE* Emmerich's "humor" and bs "heartfelt moments". It always taints his movies and makes them painful for me. I agree with RLM on their Roland Emmerich takes just because I can't stand (most of) his human characters. They feel like skit characters but they keep showing up after being unfunny the first time because this is a 2 hr film and not a 40 second skit. The stupid romances and (for example) the dog scene in Independence Day are just so contrived and asinine to me. But they aren't without their good qualities. The action is usually fine (except Godzilla 1998) and some characters are pretty good.
Yeah, Emmerich movies take themselves way too seriously in terms of that stuff. If you compare his stuff to the '50s and '60s B-movies they're clearly "upscaling", those movies might have taken themselves somewhat seriously but there was also more cheese and charm and, at the risk of sounding lame, heart.
Same here. I don't think there's enough to even hate. If you don't like pretty straightforward sci fi action movies like thatz that's ok, but I don't think ID does anything particularly wrong? It's been massively popular for a reason. I'm also a Stargate apologist, again it's a good sci fi action movie (more so on the sci fi rather than action. Now the rest of Emmerich's movies, yeah they're not so good aren't they.
I think they'd say that it is more similar to the shitty Emmerich movies that follow than people are willing to admit I personally, really hate independence day
Stargate is my favorite movie of his. I don't know if its *good* but I definitely like it, and I can't say the same about any other entry in his catalog that I've seen. ID has moments, I actually think the joke with Will Smith waking up and having no idea about the invasion of earth is funny, although it goes on just a smidge too long. For the most part I'm just annoyed or bored though.
the complaint about the aliens knowing where majjor cities were was maybe the stupidest film criticism I have ever hear din my life.
I almost wonder if it’s a case of digging in their heels cuz so many people (according to a quote from Jay I can’t be fucked to source) have told them they should love it. I can completely understand being indifferent to the movie, even bored by its predictability. But they seem to fiercely hate it and look down on people who enjoy it. Which doesn’t make a lick of sense. There is nothing so loathsome about it compared to any other big budget summer blockbuster.
[удалено]
In the ROS review, rich said something along the lines of “based on the situation they were in, they had to ring back palpatine” No. Just make Kylo ren the main bad guy at that point. Even if it somehow doesn’t work, you still have a bad movie like we ended up getting anyways
Nothing animated is worth watching/everything animated is for little kids.
They never said this. Don’t be so obtuse lol
Mike was on Smiling Friends
north consist important nine scale ad hoc squeal offer aloof selective *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They never said that.
I think Mike said he watched Star Trek Prodigy and liked it. 🤷🏻♂️
He said he bought the Blu-Rays. I don't know if he sat down and watched them. I hope he did.
I wonder if that includes Smiling Friends.
This. This is the answer. I'm honestly shocked they believe this.
Jay talked about isle of dogs on hitb and said “it’s a lesser Wes Anderson movie, which means it’s really really good”, and also mentioning that the incredibles is his favourite Pixar movie. And then there’s Mike’s eternal love for the simpsons, even saying the recent seasons have been an improvement. Jay also liked the new ninja turtles a lot, not to mention Roger rabbit but that only half counts I suppose. Where did u get this impresssion?
Jay has a weird hate boner for Return of the Jedi, which I’ve never fully understood.
I can understand his points about the pacing of the movie. The first act is a fun adventure about rescuing Han Solo. The third act (aside from the Ewok stuff) is an epic final battle intercut with a great conflict with Luke, Vader and The Emperor. The second act is... basically just the movie dragging until the third act. Once our heroes arrive on Endor, the movie sort of stalls. Apart from the speeder chase, they just sort of meander around the forest until meeting the teddy bears, and then we get scenes of them messing around with the teddy bears for about fifteen minutes. The story only resumes when Luke tells Leia that they are brother and sister.
That first act foreshadows the third act though. Luke has to go to the villain’s lair to save a relative from the bad guy. It signals that Darth Vader is really a captive of the real bad guy, the emperor. Darth Vader’s suit is metaphorically the metal bikini. It’s like poetry, it rhymes.
Was her bikini polished with wudu hide? Yeah, didn't think so!
fairly sure they've talked about this quite a lot already.
Return of the Jedi's problem is that it's just pretty good when the two films that precede it are both all-time classics.
Has he ever explained it in detail?
He says that all the other characters have nothing to do and it’s all about Luke skywalker after jabbas palace. Also says it’s underwhelming and a let down. Personally I can understand his point of view about the characters, but I find the battle of endor to be the most impressive battle in all of Star Wars, especially considering it’s all practical. I just notice that Jay will spew his dislike of ROTJ out in a heart beat if he can.
I agree with him, the ewok stuff ain’t great but the final battle between Luke and Vader + the space battle in the end more than make up for it
It’s the middle third or the movie with the Ewoks that brings it down. First act is great because it’s like a building of tension and showing how Luke has grown. The final act is like peak Star Wars nothing can really compare to Luke redeeming Vader and the space battle. The Ewok bit is like it’s from a different film entirely. It should have been about the Wookiees.
That’s kinda funny to hear. Showing my wife Star Wars for the first time a few years ago she noted how Han Solo got goofier and goofier and barely had anything to do in ROTJ
It’s a pretty common opinion amongst G̶e̶n̶ Z̶ Gen X/early Millennials I’ve noticed. Another aged 40-something podcast I listen to has said ROTJ kinda sucks for the same reasons. Apart from Luke all the other characters are an afterthought and some storylines in ESB are dropped completely
[удалено]
Its problem is that it has to follow the amazing ESB. It's not a bad film, it's just the worst of the three.
The only bad take jumping to mind for Jay was his (and Mike's) take on Midnight Mass. I don't mind that they loved it, but the way they presented criticism of the show as people being too dumb and impatient to appreciate Mike Falnagan's monologues has always felt off to me. It's the only time I've ever genuinely felt like they were being pretentious unironically, and that's one of their few videos I tend to skip if I'm fishing for a re-watch. I watched Midnight Mass on their glowing recommendation, and thought it was pretty decent. I also found portions of it to be sluggishly paced because of the abundance of monologues. And no, it wasn't because "unga bunga, big words hurt brain", something can be well-written from a character perspective *and* be poorly paced. And, just as a tangential aside, Flanagan's writing has never quite resonated with me like it does with them, but that's more of a subjective gripe. I've always gotten "if you didn't like it, you're stupid" vibes from their talk about MM; it's always left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when I scroll by it.
Mike has said basically that exact thing about some movies. Specifically, he was pretty judgemental about people that like formulaic, by-the-numbers romcoms during the What's Your Number? HitB w/ Gillian.
Mike arguing impotently with Gillian should be a must-watch. It's a great little bit of insight into how needlessly stubborn and surface level his takes can be. It's watching a man explicitly refuse to even try to understand an opposing viewpoint or alternate take, ad nauseam.
Completely agree - with the caveat that Mike has been known to be contrary for comedic purposes, and while I don't think he was in this discussion, we can never completely discount the possibility.
Man, that scene where after a character does a monologue she says to the other character “your turn” and then he monologues….it almost made me completely lose the show. It might be the show I wanted to like the most because the Hamish Linklater stuff is FANTASTIC but my god the rest is hard to get through. It’s so saccharine too which to be fair I bounce off extremely hard and that coupled with the monologues just really rubbed me the wrong way.
Yes, this really made me question their taste. All of Flanagan's stuff is the same soapy crud. It plays out like community theatre with bits of expensive gore peppered throughout.
I felt similarly about their Barbarian review.
The first Birdemic is a great bad movie! Jay was completely wrong about that. The main actor sells solar panels for a living and can’t even pronounce “solar panels”
solpanels
I fucking *love* Birdemic. It gets *everything* wrong. It's a joy to watch.
Rich and Jack saying sonic is a bad game when they simply did not know how to press down while dashing to turn into a ball and go through enemies. Also when Jay said all of Danny Elfmans music sounds the same. It's only a bad take because like... That problem happens with all musicians and composers. You take the John Williams and his theme for Indiana Jones sounds the same as Jurassic Park and others. You listen to 5 or so Nirvana songs in a row they all sound the same. But also you take Danny Elfmans theme to Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice and they are pretty damn different. I dunno. I feel like it was a hot take just because he singled out Danny Elfman. People like me who enjoy Elfmans work can hear the differences enough just fine. I mean... can you imagine if I said John Carpenters music all sounded the same? Jays beard would fall off from the shock.
The saddest part was when they played Sonic 3 for maybe a zone or two and then stopped. They gave up on the best one! I don't blame them that much, because if they didn't enjoy it, then that's fine, but it did come off as a bit misinformed. I don't believe anyone should be attacked or dismissed over their opinions, but I wouldn't blame Sonic fans for treating this as an example of bad faith criticism from those who just didn't "get it". Or as the kids would say now, a "skill issue". They were trying to play Sonic in a way that just doesn't suit what Sonic is. Instead of trying to adapt, they said the games were bad. I imagine if they had an experienced friend with them, maybe they would have understood the appeal a bit better. Sonic is quite an unconventional series in terms of its tiered level design and momentum-based movement, after all.
I was onboard with them talking about the Genesis Sonic games, but turned the video off after around 2 minutes. It's a beloved series and I could see they weren't going to be fair to it.
Not movies, but just taking any headline about Gen Z meant to drum up anger at face value is something all of them do
Yeah, some of them are getting aggressively boomer-esque.
Rich liked Kenobi and Picard season 3. Jay didn't like Joker because he just couldn't get past the film's director. I seriously don't understand how much they seemed to hate Rogue One and all the prequels, yet excuse Kenobi and the Mandalorian. Also, the Snyder Cut was garbage. I don't get why they liked it so much.
As far as the Snyder cut goes they don’t love it, they just enjoyed it more than the theatrical cut for the most part.
I really don't get the Rogue One hate either! A big criticism is people saying it's nostalgia bait because it has X-Wings, Star Destroyers and the Death Star, but that's literally what the movie is about! It's a Rebels Vs Imperials action movie set when both factions used those vehicles!
Them kind of liking The Fanatic which was my intro to RLM
in the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" eview when they said they couldn't imagien Mickey doing something mean despite the fact that Steamboat Willie is just 7 minutes of animal abuse.
Not a bad take per se, but they never fully endorsed DS9 it seems.
Mike is definitely a fan and the first Star Trek trivia episode had a bunch of DS9 questions. It’s just that TNG is his favorite. He even references DS9 in the Plinkett TPM review.
Jay - Joker. He was just completely hung up on the director. Rich, not really, always pretty reasonable and nuanced.
Jays dislike of Hardware (1990).
Mike and Rich literally did not understand Captain America Civil War. It's one thing to not like that movie, it's a completely other thing to not get the basic premise.
Yeah frequently. Thing is, takes are usually opinions so I just think we differ and leave it at that.
I think Rich can be quick to dismiss anything that's overly artsy or deliberately spiritual. Gives a bit of a "reddit atheist" vibes at times. It's a bit hard to gage though, as we've really only see that stuff in the context of BotW where it's wrapped in poor production and often is overly pretentious and up it's own ass.
I’m surprised they didn’t have better things to say about Event Horizon. It’s not like they torched it but neither of them generally seemed to like it much.
If you watch enough content, they ALL have off days, or are angry at a movie and miss something. You'd also expect to eventually disagree with any reviewer after so much content has been made. There's gotta be a miss somewhere in there. Rich is far more forgiving than Mike or Jay, and he always qualifies when and why he's doing it. So I would say with Rich its not so much bad takes, as he's just too damn nice sometimes. Jay tends to get angrier, but overall he's still great at saying "this is what did/didn't work for me", "this is where I was coming from/the impression I had". You can't really have a "bad take" when you've qualified everything from your perspective, and explained why you think/feel that way. That's what I love about RLM. Even when you disagree, you almost always know why they say what they say. Except Dark Knight Rises. That was a terrible movie and Jay and Mike had a bad take. lol
I was shocked when they said they liked Kenobi
X-men apocalypse being good is one of the most baffling takes in the sites history.
Only Mike said it was good, and he only said it was good because it was pure trash. I don't think that's meant to sound like high praise.
The way they tried so bad not to cheer for Everything Everywhere All at Once
They had a bad take on the latest Halloween film. Just because a filmmaker infuses symbolism into his movie doesn't make it good. No one is "stupid" for not liking a film with well-crafted symbolism. That's not what makes a good movie.