TGWTG "Nostalgia Critic" / Doug Walker, Rob Walker, Mike Michaud, Mike Ellis, Holly Christine Brown, et al - The Incompetent Predator-Protecting Upper Management of Channel Awesome, Doug Still Not That Funny

[BlessedVeggie]

Way back I made an account here for the Alex Mauer thing, so I came back to see what you guys were saying about CA... Oh wow, what a ride. Never was a huge fan of Doug, but I did like Spoony a lot back in the day. Now it's ten years later, I have a decent CV somehow and these chuckle heads are so self-sabotaging that words utterly fail me.

Anyway...

It didn't see this posted here:

It's a podcast with Leon Thomas (Renegade Cut, a former CA contributor), Austin Yorski, and Johnny Maloney. According to TVTropes it replaced the Blistered Thumbs Podcast so I'm guessing Austin and Johnny are former BT ppl.

From 3:40 to around 27:27, Leon and co. give their views about the situation (unfortunately this was recorded before the Jew Wario thing blew up). Some of the things said:

-Leon wasn't at first terribly annoyed with CA, only participated in the Not So Awesome doc to
get the information out there and maybe get an apology or admission of wrong-doing. After the (first) nonpology, he doesn’t know quite to expect (but doubts an apology is coming). Lord knows what he's thinking now...

-CA neglected Blistered Thumbs. Only some people got paid, and only ridiculously low amounts. CA hates spending money in anything, web design, employees, you name it.

-They mention Lupa and Lindsey being interviewed by the Daily Dot and hint that more articles are coming.

-Since this is kinda old, the trio were expecting CA to survive this whole fiasco unless "something big happens." Well...

(Apparently Leon is friends with Diamanda and considers Lewis a good person, if you want to speculate in which clique he was.)

 

[MechanicalHugbox]

Way back I made an account here for the Alex Mauer thing, so I came back to see what you guys were saying about CA... Oh wow, what a ride. Never was a huge fan of Doug, but I did like Spoony a lot back in the day. Now it's ten years later, I have a decent CV somehow and these chuckle heads are so self-sabotaging that words utterly fail me.

Anyway...

It didn't see this posted here:

It's a podcast with Leon Thomas (Renegade Cut, a former CA contributor), Austin Yorski, and Johnny Maloney. According to TVTropes it replaced the Blistered Thumbs Podcast so I'm guessing Austin and Johnny are former BT ppl.

From 3:40 to around 27:27, Leon and co. give their views about the situation (unfortunately this was recorded before the Jew Wario thing blew up). Some of the things said:

-Leon wasn't at first terribly annoyed with CA, only participated in the Not So Awesome doc to
get the information out there and maybe get an apology or admission of wrong-doing. After the (first) nonpology, he doesn’t know quite to expect (but doubts an apology is coming). Lord knows what he's thinking now...

-CA neglected Blistered Thumbs. Only some people got paid, and only ridiculously low amounts. CA hates spending money in anything, web design, employees, you name it.

-They mention Lupa and Lindsey being interviewed by the Daily Dot and hint that more articles are coming.

-Since this is kinda old, the trio were expecting CA to survive this whole fiasco unless "something big happens." Well...

(Apparently Leon is friends with Diamanda and considers Lewis a good person, if you want to speculate in which clique he was.)

Iirc neither Lewis or Diamanda were in a clique, lewis just kinda floated around like an abandoned dead Muppet
(Though I seem to remember Lewis helping Lindsey with one of her post tgwtg videos so maybe he was at one point part of her clique)

 

[Hari Seldon]

New NC video

 

[BrunoMattei]

New NC video

He still doesn't address shit. So either he's being quiet or these videos are produced way ahead of time.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

A discussion of a movie that raped its source material hosted on a website that served as a host for...

edit: forgot the all important emoji.

 

[Rocketleaguer]

He still doesn't address shit. So either he's being quiet or these videos are produced way ahead of time.

You won't get any statement/announcement/whatever through their videos - they want to contain the controversy as much as possible and the least they want to do is give it a platform.

 

[RJ MacReady]

You won't get any statement/announcement/whatever through their videos - they want to contain the controversy as much as possible and the least they won't to do is give it a platform.

Yeah, I don't know why anyone expects Doug to let this bleed into Nostalgia Critic. It's clear this is too personally sensitive to him to joke about it in his content right now. If he's actually leaving Channel Awesome, we'll know in due time.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

A discussion of a movie that raped its source material hosted on a website that served as a host for...

edit: forgot the all important emoji.

Doug probably never read the source material, so he probably believes that this is what actually happens in the book. The fact is that the Starship Troopers film was originally another film, but they slapped on the Starship Troopers name for some reason.

 

[Slap47]

He still doesn't address shit. So either he's being quiet or these videos are produced way ahead of time.

The movie had commentary on fascism and was intentionally over the top and silly.

Very deep stuff.

Pretty sure the videos where he just summarizes the movie should be considered as phoned-in content.

 

[RumblyTumbly]

Hey sometimes completely disregarding the source material makes for a better movie.

Look at The Spy Who Loved Me. The only thing the book and the movie share is that title. The movie just slapped the title on, my guess is because it was the title to one of Fleming's novels, and it is vastly superior to the book. Actually Spy Who Loved Me might be the worst of the Bond books, so anything different is good.

Though this is interesting. I never read the Starship Troopers book, so how badly did they miss the mark in the film?

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

1. Doug was directly involved in the JewWario coverup himself and knows that if he quits Michaud will spill the dirt on him, which would be the final nail in his career
2. Doug is a disgusting greedy fuck who would rather condone protecting sexual predators than lose some income by potentially losing the Nostalgia Critic IP
3. Doug is legitimately exceptional and doesn't see why associating himself with Michaud makes it look like he fully supports these actions

I pick door number 3. Doug had to be retarded to make his tribute video knowing that this could one day come to light. What the fuck is wrong with him?

To be perfectly honest though, Michode and Rob Walker were the ones who fired JewWario anyway so I don't see why this should backsplash on them as hard as it is. I could understand if it came to light that they chose to keep him in spite of knowing what the did, but they didn't. What else could they do other than fire him? An expose video? The bad PR from this really is more Doug's fault than anyone else when you think about it.

 

[Red Hood]

Hey sometimes completely disregarding the source material makes for a better movie.

Look at The Spy Who Loved Me. The only thing the book and the movie share is that title. The movie just slapped the title on, my guess is because it was the title to one of Fleming's novels, and it is vastly superior to the book. Actually Spy Who Loved Me might be the worst of the Bond books, so anything different is good.

Though this is interesting. I never read the Starship Troopers book, so how badly did they miss the mark in the film?

The film hits a lot of the general beats of the book, although it misses the core technological conceit of the book- powered armor. The book had some more in depth considerations on why violence was sometimes the answer to a problem and argued in favor of service based citizenship.

It also features a non-white hero (Filipino-Argentine Juan "Johnny" Rico). The thing is, you could probably make a pretty good straight-faced adaptation of Starship Troopers.

All of this got pushed out to turn it into an over the top satire of fascism and propaganda. Which isn't to say Starship Troopers is a bad movie- far from it, I consider it to be underrated.

But I feel like Doug is gonna miss a lot of this (haven't watched his video yet) and just view it as an action movie with lots of gore and titties. RLM did a Re:View video on it not that long ago that took a pretty intelligent look at it. This is the second review in a row that Doug is basically pulling an "RLM did it already." The pool of old movies available isn't THAT limited.

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

But I feel like Doug is gonna miss a lot of this (haven't watched his video yet) and just view it as an action movie with lots of gore and titties. RLM did a Re:View video on it not that long ago that took a pretty intelligent look at it.

Once again, Doug is late to a movie review. One person does a movie, and Doug isn't too far behind.

 

[Dr. Kaufman]

Look at The Spy Who Loved Me. The only thing the book and the movie share is that title. The movie just slapped the title on, my guess is because it was the title to one of Fleming's novels, and it is vastly superior to the book. Actually Spy Who Loved Me might be the worst of the Bond books, so anything different is good.

The one thing that really annoyed me about the film is that they couldn't get the rights to Blofeld because Kevin McClory was a massive shithead. I feel bad for Curd Jurgens, not being able to develop Blofeld further, and instead being stuck with a totally forgettable Bond villain.

 

[Water-T]

The film hits a lot of the general beats of the book, although it misses the core technological conceit of the book- powered armor. The book had some more in depth considerations on why violence was sometimes the answer to a problem and argued in favor of service based citizenship.

It also features a non-white hero (Filipino-Argentine Juan "Johnny" Rico). The thing is, you could probably make a pretty good straight-faced adaptation of Starship Troopers.

All of this got pushed out to turn it into an over the top satire of fascism and propaganda. Which isn't to say Starship Troopers is a bad movie- far from it, I consider it to be underrated.

But I feel like Doug is gonna miss a lot of this (haven't watched his video yet) and just view it as an action movie with lots of gore and titties. RLM did a Re:View video on it not that long ago that took a pretty intelligent look at it.

I have to give director Paul Verhoeven a lot of credit. His films look like the usual EXPLOSIONS AND TITTIES! flicks on the surface, but they end up being clever commentary on various topics.

Robocop: explored what separates humans from machines, the loss of identity, privatization of the police, materialism, and police corruption.

Total Recall: exploitation of the lower class, and the role memories play in shaping our identities.

Showgirls: the exploitation of women, how society pits women against other, and how to have sex in a swimming pool while looking like you're having a seizure.

 

[Dr. Kaufman]

I have to give director Paul Verhoeven a lot of credit. His films look like the usual EXPLOSIONS AND TITTIES! flicks on the surface, but they end up being clever commentary on various topics.

Robocop: explored what separates humans from machines, the loss of identity, privatization of the police, materialism, and police corruption.

Total Recall: exploitation of the lower class, and the role memories play in shaping our identities.

Showgirls: the exploitation of women, how society pits women against other, and how to have sex in a swimming pool while looking like you're having a seizure.

Showgirls does not belong with those other two.

Surprisingly, it was Doug himself that brought those two movies up as clever commentary disguised as mindless action in his Demolition Man review, which is a great movie also, and one of Doug's best post-reboot reviews from what I remember.

 

[Doctor Stan]

Once again, Doug is late to a movie review. One person does a movie, and Doug isn't too far behind.

RLM actually talked about it over a year ago

I have to give director Paul Verhoeven a lot of credit. His films look like the usual EXPLOSIONS AND TITTIES! flicks on the surface, but they end up being clever commentary on various topics.

Robocop: explored what separates humans from machines, the loss of identity, privatization of the police, materialism, and police corruption.

Total Recall: exploitation of the lower class, and the role memories play in shaping our identities.

Showgirls: the exploitation of women, how society pits women against other, and how to have sex in a swimming pool while looking like you're having a seizure.

IIRC this wasn't even Starship Troopers to begin with, Verhoeven was making a completely unrelated movie that involved killing bugs, and the studio was like "Yo dawg, slap Starship Troopers on this bitch" and I've heard over the years from a couple people that read the book how much of an awful travesty the movie is when compared to the book

 

[MidUSA]

I never read the Starship Troopers book, so how badly did they miss the mark in the film?

They are both really good, but for different reasons.

People tend to shit on the movie for not following the movie, and while it's a criticism I can understand (especially if you liked the book, were exited to see a movie adaptation and got something totally different), I suspect a big portion of that is just people wanting to signal that they have read the book and are more sophisticated for prefering it, rather than any actual critisisms against the movie.

 

[Maradontia]

The movie had commentary on fascism and was intentionally over the top and silly.

Very deep stuff.

Pretty sure the videos where he just summarizes the movie should be considered as phoned-in content.

How many of his reviews does he not do that?

 

[Slap47]

How many of his reviews does he not do that?

There is nothing necessarily wrong with summarizing the movie but usually that should involve criticism throughout to justify it. Here he just summarized the movie.

In most of his videos he just summarizes movies and has a small criticism or analysis at the end that's as deep as a puddle. He usually only puts in effort and bucks the style to exploit popular trends or famous films, IE ghostbusters, chocolate factory.