This take doesn't explain why he NEVER bothered exploring that content. He's had years to watch/read those stories, before he was making content on Youtube and apparently never bothered.
I agree with the other people who say that he's just lazy. Or do you think he's lying to save face?
When it comes to the EU novels and comics, I really do think it's due to laziness. There's enough precedent in MauLer's consumption habits to conclude as much.
The KOTOR thing is weird, though. He definitely has some familiarity with other SW games (used footage from the OG Battlefront in the TLJ review, talked about The Force Unleashed on EFAP, played one of the Disney ones on stream), but somehow never touched KOTOR? The two most widely known and respected games in the franchise? The ones that have the most to offer from a writing perspective? Two games that are also pretty accessible and usually serve as a gateway/entry point to the wider EU for a lot of people? There's no clear answer for why he never played it, except for his general lack of curiosity towards most media (I do think if the remake had come out already he would probably have played that instead).
For sure. I mean instead of wasting time playing a stupid Suicide Squad game that everyone knows sucks he could go back and spend his time playing great games and expand his appreciation of something he claims to like.
That's one of the biggest gripes I have with MauLer, EFAP and most of the "modern movies suck" bros. Even if I concede that a lot of big productions coming out right now aren't particularly interesting, there's absolutely nothing stopping them from digging deeper into the yearly releases, or simply seeking out older works.
Every time they watch an obviously mediocre movie or show that just came out, and then waste hours discussing it on multiple streams or reviews, there was an active choice to dedicate their time to consuming bad things, rather than going after better media. Like, even if someone has already watched, read or played a huge amount of good and celebrated works, they most certainly still haven't consumed all good media ever released. There's
always something else to discover. But, of course, you have to put the effort to seek out better media, and that means expanding your horizons, trying out new things, engaging with different formats of storytelling, which they clearly don't do.
There are some reasons to watch bad movies. Some people just like scraping the bottom of the barrel to find some "So Bad, It's Good" material, because that sort of stuff can be fun in it's own right, but that's not really EFAP's approach. Watching bad media for the purposes of criticism is a valid excuse, but only to an extent. It's not worth it if you're dedicating all your time to this sort of stuff, and letting it basically become your only point of reference for what modern movies and shows are, while deliberately ignoring all the good stuff you could be watching instead. Maybe some media it's worth making hour-long reviews on, but only if it's a massive fuck up (The SW sequel trilogy is definitely something that you could spend hours discussing all of its problems, though I don't think MauLer's critiques are particularly good in this regard). You
don't need a 4-hour long breakdown for a subpar blockbuster such as Black Widow. This type of video is not something worth consuming. It's not something worth creating. And the fact that MauLer sees his own content as being just as "helpful" to other people as the genuinely well made YMS Kimba video (per his own word, in their Critical Drinker defense stream) just goes to show how incredibly arrogant he has become.
