GLITCH Productions - From the guys that brought you the Super Mario 64 bloopers

[Lankybox Enjoyer]

Back when I regularly kept up with SMG4, I couldn’t help but notice that it started taking itself much more seriously and became less episodic when Kevin got involved.

I stopped watching SMG4 after the T-Pose virus saga. I enjoyed it at the time, but I found it weird that Super Mario Gmod animations that spammed shitpost audios and had an entire episode dedicated to Big Chungus started to take itself more seriously. When they started the OC spam I just lost interest. I was fine with the inkling because who cares, its just another character to throw into the mix. Now there are so many OCs that its just dumb. The original Mario characters were just joke characters. Mario was fat, Toad was annoying, and Bowser was the punching bag (or at least I'm pretty sure it was, I haven't watched a SMG4 video in a while). Why do you expect me to care about these new characters when the old ones were archetypes to tell dumb jokes.

On one hand, I think its dumb that SMG4 and Glitch took that path, but on the other, I completely understand it. The creation of all of those OCs allowed SMG4 to move on relatively unharmed after the Nintendo cease and desist (which can't be said about SML) and led to Meta Runner which legitimized Glitch past making videos of Luke and Kevin beating the shit out of each other while cosplaying as pokemon. I think that what is happening right now is that Glitch is overcompensating in seriousness which led them to force Murder Drones to be something that it wasn't intended to be and to take their Mario shitpost series way too seriously. It worked out for them, obviously, but I can't imagine this approach will work forever.

 

[Bob Barbas]

In all honesty however, my final conclusion regarding Murder Drones (Until we get new content anyway.) is the root of the issue in my personal opinion is that they couldn't decide on one thing over the other.
If the series had just decided from the onset to be serious or be a comedy things would've been a bit more coherent than this schizophrenic mixture of serious and comedy that it is now. Many of the jokes just don't land because there's no buildup or actual nuance behind them to make them humorous and the serious moments don't land because they're sandwiched between 50 unfunny jokes and memes.

I'll use Red Vs Blue as an example yet again. Earliest Red Vs Blue was peak because it knew what it was, a comedy series. The problem arose when they tried to do a deep and serious plot line with these characters that were originally conceptualized as vehicles for jokes and that's all they should have been imo.

Many of the characters in Murder Drones feel like comedy characters but are placed in this dark and serious storyline. The worst offender as I said previously, being Cyn who is the main villain for the time being. On one hand you have a fairly dark character that wants to kill and eat the galaxy because they can. They destroyed an entire planet and presumably caused the slaughter of trillions of people. Yet they sound like discount GLaDOS and comically speak like a computer, like deliberately declaring actions out loud and such and saying shit like "Get snuck upon."
Can you spot the issue?

Then you have the protagonist who is literally just an angsty goth girl stereotype do I need to explain further?
N is the lovable idiot. Not much else to explain there. A pretty reoccurring comedy archetype.
V is the funny psycho/casual criminal.
J is the egotistical boss.
Ect.

Now, I'm not saying humor cannot exist in serious things at all. But the thing is, it has to be used properly. If it's just a nonstop barrage of jokes all it's going to do is ruin the weight of any of the actually serious moments. Because if the characters barely take anything seriously, how are the viewers meant to? (Unless they're retarded of course which fortunately for them a fair amount of their audience seems to be.)

Tl;dr: They should have picked one genre or the other and stuck with it instead of trying to do both and creating a mess.

Personally I feel like they should've just stuck to being pure comedy because at least then you can just go balls to the wall and not care about consistency or the plot making sense because the whole thing is already a joke.
Either that, or just go the Devil May Cry route and have everything be over the top and ridiculous. The point is, keep the tone consistent.

Honestly I still don't get why they thought any of this was a good idea. Maybe they had the misguided idea that the humor would juxtapose and highlight the """"horror"""" further or something? Unfortunately, no, that's not how that works.

 

[BigJoey41X]

oh damn didn't know we had a thread for GLITCH until now, pretty cool since I want more places where we can discuss their shows other than the usual avenues

never watched their 2 earlier shows, looks boring as shit

Digital Circus is decent so far, the writing is competent, most of the jokes land, the art style is very endearing, but honestly the "creepy" moments don't hit at all, also yes I know a tranny was behind this show but I don't care, unlike most of the ppl on this site, I don't have a seething hatred of them, anyway for a first attempt? impressive work so far, I would have done worse

Murder Drones was sadly a disappointment for me, the premise was interesting, not-vampire robots that kill other robots in some dead snowy planet, along with gorgeous visuals?, sounds like a big yes to me, however the show starts fucking falling apart from the opening minutes, all the way to the newest episode, where everyone HAS to be some super quirky MCU-tier quipper or something funny happens, it absolutely ruins ALL of the moments it attempts to be tense or serious, I also don't like how were already using endgame plots like some lovecraft thing wants to eat the whole universe already, and I dont even care if they win or lose at this point because of how obnoxious the characters are.

what a shame, it could have been good

also jesus dude, i get that murder drones disappointed you, it did that to me too, but damn you have been sperging about it as far back as february, impressive

keep going though, its very entertaining and I like seeing someone go off in a kiwi thread about random shit

More rambling ahead:

i'm also concerned with how the plot is going so far, we have one more episode before the season is done, and still, none of the characters have any idea how to deal with this god eater thing, the aforementioned god eater is also doing something in the planet's core, how the fuck can anybody get this to a satisfying conclusion with your final half hour of runtime?, I can't think of a way out of this myself other than doing a cop-out with a cliffhanger, and push the actual ending to season 2

 

[Bob Barbas]

also jesus dude, i get that murder drones disappointed you, it did that to me too, but damn you have been sperging about it as far back as february, impressive
keep going though, its very entertaining and I like seeing someone go off in a kiwi thread about random shit

I think about pulling this trigger 3 times a day.

Murder Drones was sadly a disappointment for me, the premise was interesting, not-vampire robots that kill other robots in some dead snowy planet, along with gorgeous visuals?

Part of why I sperged about it so much because I really wanted to like it and wanted to see it succeed but goddamn, the writing is shit. Which makes it even more painful because everything else is decent, especially for an indie project. But fuck dude. Liam Vickers cannot write his way out of a wet paper bag apparently.
It's a special kind of frustration born from being so close but yet so far.

I can't think of a way out of this myself other than doing a cop-out with a cliffhanger, and push the actual ending to season 2

That's what I think is going to happen honestly. But I could end up being wrong with how much this show loves to rush. The tard team could very well defeat Cthulhu through bullshit means in the next episode.

 

[BigJoey41X]

Part of why I sperged about it so much because I really wanted to like it and wanted to see it succeed but goddamn, the writing is shit. Which makes it even more painful because everything else is decent, especially for an indie project. But fuck dude. Liam Vickers cannot write his way out of a wet paper bag apparently.
It's a special kind of frustration.

even the fandom kind of low-key agrees that the writing is all over the place, which is probably why most the discussions are about the characters, and not the plot itself

however, in /co/, a lot of the MD fans there defend the show's story and tone, something about it just tickles their type of autism lol, their counter argument for the lighting-pace is a lot of the finer details are hidden in freeze-frame moments, i never really lost the plot, i can get whats happening in each episode even in first time watches, but apparently many other people didn't, they excused the poorly-placed comedy as just "his style of humor" apparently

 

[Dynamite Bean]

I like how almost everyone universally agrees that the characters are the highlight and should of just been a character driven plot
it's just a shame that it's mostly uzi and N who get the most spotlight while everyone else feels like a background character despite their importance, so many shows have shown you can have no plot or a bad one but as long as the characters are entertaining and compelling you can get away with almost anything

 

[BigJoey41X]

I like how almost everyone universally agrees that the characters are the highlight and should of just been a character driven plot
it's just a shame that it's mostly uzi and N who get the most spotlight while everyone else feels like a background character despite their importance, so many shows have shown you can have no plot or a bad one but as long as the characters are entertaining and compelling you can get away with almost anything

ironically, fan interpretations of the characters i have seen from fanfics and other works, have greater depth than the canon and are portrayed like actual people, and not just props for comedy, which is amazing considering its usually the fans that flanderize the characters

 

[Bob Barbas]

ironically, fan interpretations of the characters i have seen from fanfics and other works, have greater depth than the canon and are portrayed like actual people, and not just props for comedy, which is amazing considering its usually the fans that flanderize the characters

I mean, there's not really much to fuck up considering the show almost never takes any time to actually give us insight into any of the characters beyond their very basic traits. So does it really count?

 

[Metallic Blood]

Part of why I sperged about it so much because I really wanted to like it and wanted to see it succeed but goddamn, the writing is shit. Which makes it even more painful because everything else is decent, especially for an indie project. But fuck dude. Liam Vickers cannot write his way out of a wet paper bag apparently.
It's a special kind of frustration born from being so close but yet so far.

Success isn't even the word I'd use, I'd double it down and say that Murder Drones probably could've been a cultural phenomenon if the writing was just ok (and the animation was just a tiny bit better). I'm speaking of a franchise that would be talked all over the internet and would kickstart the renaiscensse of indie animated series. Basically what if RWBY was actually good.

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Maybe someone else will do it, or TADC becomes a 10/10 in the span of 6 more episodes. That could happen right?

I like how almost everyone universally agrees that the characters are the highlight and should of just been a character driven plot
it's just a shame that it's mostly uzi and N who get the most spotlight while everyone else feels like a background character despite their importance, so many shows have shown you can have no plot or a bad one but as long as the characters are entertaining and compelling you can get away with almost anything

On the bright side, if they did do it, there could be a big chance that the Murder Drones fandom would become a "OC Donut Steel" apocalypse that plagues the Friday Night Funkin' or Sonic series (is FnF really a series if it's just one game)...

But unlike Murder Drones, those franchises are actually good.

 

[Bob Barbas]

I will say I find it hilarious how due to how painfully obvious it is now that Cyn was very poorly impersonating Tessa many felt it was TOO obvious and thought it had to be a red herring.

I still don't get the point of any of it though. Especially when it's been established that Cyn can remotely control any drone infected with the solver including Disassembly Drones since Cyn took control of J's core after her body was destroyed. Why it didn't just directly control N or V and kill Uzi immediately is anyone's guess.
Don't think about it too hard. (And before anyone brings it up, I'm talking about before Episode 5 when Uzi reprograms them. I'm not that dense.)

 

[Punished Brent]

One of my relatives lets her 6 year old watch this digital circus shit. Should I be concerned?

 

[invisibult plus+]

One of my relatives lets her 6 year old watch this digital circus shit. Should I be concerned?

Yes.

 

[Pliskin_72]

Someone pointed me to the existence of this thread, I have to disclose first that I am an unabashed Murder Drones fan, so much that I made an account here just to give my two cents.

I have read back the entire thread, a very large portion of it is criticizing MD, for its poor writing, rushed pacing, tonal dissonance, and (subjectively) bad humor, you know I would

Hear me out, I think the criticisms levied against the show ultimately isn't valid, you know why?, because this show is more or less just a giant meme fest disguising itself as a "Lovecraftian Horror Story", that's why everyone just seems to joke around in the most unusual times, why people just don't give a shit about other people dying, and why the tone goes all over the place, its not really meant to be a show you are supposed to get immersed, to believe that its characters are supposed to act realistic and sensible, and that there are emotional stakes within it's universe.

When I first encountered this show out of the blue, I was very turned off at tonal dissonance as well, I thought it was a glaring mistake on the writer's part, like how was anyone supposed to take the narrative seriously? , but over time, I started looking into more of Liam Vicker's past work, then I had an epiphany:

Spoiler

It was NEVER EVER meant to be serious, at all.

A rather common theme in his work, outside of spoopy monster girls, is how much goofy shit is present, no matter the context or time, it always took priority over what's going on in the scene itself, this is simply how his writing mind ticks, to mix horror elements with something funny, because that's what he exactly likes

So, I went back and rewatched all 7 current released episodes, with a new mindset, rewiring my brain to be more like his, and to not care about the characters. lore, or whatever shit you usually mind in a show, and it honestly became much more enjoyable to watch, playing along with the inherent wackiness, most likely because it's how this thing was supposed to be viewed from the start, I suggest you all should try giving Murder Drones another chance, through a much more carefree perspective, If it changed someone like me, who used to hate the show into liking it, maybe you all could at least find it entertaining.

TL;DR: I watched Murder Drones like I would watch Family Guy, and the results were shockingly good

 

[BigJoey41X]

Oh , and one more thing to add, what the fuck was the purpose of setting up that largely unimportant subplot of J having a confrontation with Lizzy, Thad, and Khan?, like I guess they needed SOMETHING to do, but why?, why force this at all when the main plot is essentially all that matters at this point?

 

[Bob Barbas]

Hear me out, I think the criticisms levied against the show ultimately isn't valid

TL;DR: I watched Murder Drones like I would watch Family Guy, and the results were shockingly good

Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.

If he meant for the show to be a complete dumpster fire then sure he succeeded. Doesn't make it any less of a dumpster fire.

Hear me out, I think the criticisms levied against the show ultimately isn't valid, you know why?, because this show is more or less just a giant meme fest disguising itself as a "Lovecraftian Horror Story", that's why everyone just seems to joke around in the most unusual times, why people just don't give a shit about other people dying, and why the tone goes all over the place, its not really meant to be a show you are supposed to get immersed, to believe that its characters are supposed to act realistic and sensible, and that there are emotional stakes within it's universe.

I really don't buy that considering it's really obvious he's trying to create some kind of universe through all of these retarded little details he hides in single frames and shit. Why go to all the effort then if it's all supposed to be a joke?

Frankly, I'm just convinced Liam doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and just doesn't care. Which, even if is the case doesn't make it any less shit. It just means he doesn't care about improving at all.

Also if we're intentionally not meant to care about the characters or any of that why did they make that entire dramatic scene where V sacrifices herself for the others with dramatic ass music and everything? I'm not really understanding how that was meant to be ironic or taken as a joke.
I think Liam just has a case of the zoomer writing.

Oh , and one more thing to add, what the fuck was the purpose of setting up that largely unimportant subplot of J having a confrontation with Lizzy, Thad, and Khan?, like I guess they needed SOMETHING to do, but why?, why force this at all when the main plot is essentially all that matters at this point?

Hell if I know, we'll find out whatever in the next episode most likely. Apparently a lot of people were worried about Thad since he vanishes after the beginning of Episode 4. I was seeing a lot of jokes about him getting lost in the woods and dying or something. And since we know Liam rewrites every episode like 50 times he probably inserted that for the "Thad fans." just to let them know he isn't actually dead, or something. I don't know I'm just talking out of my ass. I don't even know what the point of bringing J back was considering she's played pretty much 0 role in the plot since coming back.

 

[Dynamite Bean]

Ah the classic "it's meant to be bad on purpose" kind of energy cope
a show that's bad on purpose is still bad regardless and the countless amount of rewrites that has happened I feel disproves everything you've said
you could maybe have an argument if it actually didn't take itself seriously but it very much does and that's the issue, it wants to be a comedy but it also wants to be a serious show where we're suppose to care about the characters, story, and lore
it's okay to enjoy a flawed show, I initially enjoyed MD despite it's flaws but after finding better things there's no reason for me to try to defend this show when so many other things do it a million times better
like I said, there are shows with 4-5 episodes that wrap up character development, story, and all that perfectly fine mixed with elements of comedy and seriousness that don't heavily clash, there is no excuse for MD

 

[Sprate Header]

MrBeast, the most subscribed to YT channel, and his team (alongside LazarBeam) paid a visit to GLITCH:

 

[Bob Barbas]

MrBeast, the most subscribed to YT channel, and his team (alongside LazarBeam) paid a visit to GLITCH:
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Damn, beat me to it. I was just about to post this.
Think it means anything? Are we going to see a fucking Mr. Beast cameo or something? I would not be surprised.

 

[Sprate Header]

Damn, beat me to it. I was just about to post this.
Think it means anything? Are we going to see a fucking Mr. Beast cameo or something? I would not be surprised.

Something along those lines, I'd imagine. Maybe sharing notes on marketing to younger audiences? Idk, it just wouldn't be for a big future project or something, as they'd probably have kept the visit relatively quiet if that were the case.

 

[Bob Barbas]

So apparently they had an art contest for a banner for their Discord server I think?

Yeah that's it. Still no news of substance.