Well the cinematography is already horrible. No tracking shots, no establishing shots, no atmosphere; just constant exposition dumps. When it's not static shots using an unmanned tripod, it's a shaky cam operated by hand. Pretty much everything I was expecting and just like every other Channel Awesome movie, the opening credits are the only good part because they were the only things not made by the people starring in the film.
Oh that bar scene at 5:35 is so fake. It's obviously just somebody's basement dressed like a bar. It's especially obvious when there's only two other people in the background, it's also especially obvious when you can plainly see the dining room furniture & entertainment center in the background.
You know what would've made a big difference in this movie? If he weren't using his default, shitty fucking flipcam and actually got something with DSLR. That would actually make the movie almost cinematic.
By the way, what's a lapel mic? What's a boom mic? What's reverberation? What's background static? What's sound treatment? These are many questions that went unasked in the making of this movie.
Did Linkara do any research into film making at all before filming this travesty? He's confessed in the past to almost never watching TV or movies so it's not like he can just
assume that he can mimic a real film by means of having watched a bunch of them.
Almost everything is filmed as one static shot with with only rarely any cuts or changes to perspective, which makes the film feel like it's moving at a snail's pace. One does not shoot a feature length film like it's a soap opera. Take for example the nightmare sequence at 8:16, there are plenty of jump cuts to the somehow better filmed fights from his show and his reactions. It's the same shot every time it cuts back to him; a film maker worth his salt would be changing perspectives, doing close ups and other things that would build suspense but no, he took one long shot of him reacting & used only that one take. In fact, that's something even Doug Walker, in spite of his horrible ideas, would've gotten right.
I've seen short films made by middle schoolers with more general filming competence. He has ties with James Rolfe, right? Why didn't he get that guy to help direct? James could've brought his professional equipment to film. He could've helped build sets properly. Why get a bunch of useless chucklefucks that can't do anything but mug before the camera?
The only useful reviewer in this movie is Nash & that's only because he's leagues and bounds more educated at generally everything than Lewis is, up and including to film making, which is ironic because they could've used Nash's DSLR camera & gotten a 1080p resolution, like a real movie. I wonder why they didn't.
Is Lewis really so prideful in his own shit that he wouldn't allow other people to use their personal equipment to greatly enhance his own movie or would they not risk the manchild breaking it like a roid-raged chimp over a counter top?
Speaking again of making cuts in your film, notice that you never see anything than dead shots of the actors themselves? You never see the camera take focus of an object the character is reaching for; Lewis is such a camera hog that he's willing to shitify his own movie by reaching offscreen for shit instead of taking the time to turn the fucking tripod toward something that isn't him.
9:14
What the fuck is with that background? If you're gonna use CGI, blur it out, fucktard, that way I can't tell that it was fabricated by a machine and it also has the benefit of giving focus to the actor.
Good God, at 9:39, why is Spoony so fucking blurry & distorted in that green screen shot? He's like, the only person ever affiliated with Channel Awesome to be at all worth a fucking shit at using chroma key compositing. Here is yet another person with not only a higher education but also with better equipment than Lewis & I know for a fact that they are a Jobs & Wozniak type of duo.
Also, look at that typo at the top right, "recorded 4 months
eariler"? What? This is really a movie you're expected to pay money for?
Great sound effects by the way, Lewis. It's especially believable that Spoony is at a press conference when there's audibly
no crowd making noise, even when there's "cameras" flashing in the background, all two of them... in the same pose... am I supposed to be impressed by this?
10:36: really Lewis? You couldn't even bother to use
transparent fishing line to operate your fucking puppet? You used that gaudy, orange fucking string? Do you know
anything about film making? Describe to me what "suspension of disbelief" is supposed to be & then promptly discard that description because it is
obviously fucking wrong.
12:45: Is
that Nash's DSLR camera? If you had access to
that then why didn't you
use it you imbecile? I know what the footage for that camera looks like & you definitely never used it for this movie. Also, I don't know what good that camera mounted mic would do you since you always shoot at a distance away from the camera and aren't likely using that audio anyway.
12:50: Why does he dress up in that ridiculously unfitting costume, anyway? He looks like shit while wearing it. It's not vintage, it's autistic, you fedora tipping dumbass.
13:33: Why is the camera shaking during these close ups which are set at dutch angles? Don't tell me someone is holding the camera by hand for a shot suited
only for a tripod.
Good God, it's like everything that comes naturally to a film maker is being done ass-backwards in this movie.
Also, look at the lighting for this bar, what kind of bar is this where there are no lights save for the fucking neon light mounted on the wall in the background? Bars are typically lit with soft, warmth focused bulbs either suspended from the ceiling or mounted on support beams but the lighting in this shot consists of purple & green; this looks like a drug den you would find in Cyberpunk 2077.
17:22: Wow, that CGI is fake as Hell, I haven't seen CGI that fake since the Phantom Menace. Compare & contrast with, like,
these three film students.
17:40: Is that supposed to be the fucking
spaceship interior?! It's just another person's fucking basement, only with some big, bulky mixing board staged in front of a couch made in the 1980s.
It also doesn't help that this acting is fake as Hell. Who are these people? Linkara could've literally gone to a performance art college & gotten someone better. Then again, I don't think an actor of any notable caliber could pull of that dialog.
"Look, I'm just sayin' that the universe is a strange, strange place."
"Better strange than boring."
Jesus fuck.
God, this audio sounds terrible, listen to that distorted background echo at 18:47. What pirated malware did they use for mixing the audio? It's almost to the point where it would've been better if they didn't attempt to treat the audio at all.
21:25: "You will laugh, you will cry, you will poop your pants." because Lewis refuses to let the actors use real adult words like "shit". This was a selling point in the trailer, by the way.
21:56: Oh boy, Cybermats. Isn't that a Doctor Who IP? In a non-parody, non-educational & non-critical film sold for profit? That's considered copyright infringement last I checked. You done committed an punishable crime, bro.
22:25: That screaming is so fucking fake & hilariously bad. Especially the way it's layered together. It would've literally been better if it were a silent shot.
27:02: Look at the framerate on that rotating planet, that's just God awful.
27:20: Wow, look at that set, it's terrible. It's so fucking cramped, notice that the control console is set up against the wall & the monitor is the size of an airplane window. I don't think I've ever seen a set shittier than this & Lewis has had access to the Starship Enterprise set at one time.
Look how horrid the lighting is, not only is it muddying dark but it's a clear gradient from the end of the set to the back wall. What the fuck did they use for stage lamps? 40 watt incandescent bulbs?
By the way, since this is supposed to be a spaceship, that means the lighting should come from overhead, not from a "wall".
31:35: If the spaceship has its own artificial gravity, why would the crew feel any momentum from the ship tilting?
Why is there a chair at the center of the room when the control panels are set against the walls? Why aren't there chairs set up at the control panels? The set from Power Rangers made better sense than this. At least then, it was obviously designed with a crew in mind and not some idiot's half backed concept of what this would look like.
32:10: Why are there any sound effects in fucking
space where
sound cannot travel due to the lack of
oxygen? You couldn't get crowd sound effects for a press conference but you actually took the time to add sound effects in a scene that has no place for it? Does Lewis know
anything about space travel or even space itself?
Only the first act and already every decision made was massively incompetent.