Speculation Mr. Plinkett's review of Episode VII

What @PiettsHat said.

And I was around in the 1980s--yes, I was dating in the 1980s--and I don't recall that behavior being any more acceptable than it is now.

I like the Han/Leia romance but I do see the double standard that she points out.

And this is the type of person whose judgments on film, or anything else, that I'm supposed to take seriously?

NO!

Now you can watch them and enjoy them.

People say disgusting stuff all the time then hide behind the claim that "it's a joke". When he says sexist stuff or stuff like people who like the prequels are stupid, it's half-joking, IMO. And if you tell me I'm stupid because I like something you don't, then you can bite me.

The romance between Mr. and Mrs. Plinkett was better written than that of Anaking and Padme.


I kid, I kid.
relax


Although the outcome was pretty similar, I guess.

You mean the one where people keep insisting on the tired "it's all a joke, he's just playing a character, you don't get it" excuse and then go on to say "by the way, his points are valid" like there's no dissonance there?

Alf Garnett (or Archie Bunker) doesn't exist to encourage you hate Jews, blacks, women, etc, he exists to make you laugh at how ridiculous bigots are and how awful bigotry is. Same goes for modern equivalents like Borat or Eric Cartman. If you're laughing with those characters you're missing the point. If you're ranting against those characters as if they were meant to be taken seriously, you're missing the point entirely.

It's entertainment mixing a film review with a profane comedic parody on fandom and obsession. Of course there's a dissonance, it's the foundation on which the entertainment is built.

Yeah, that one.

The dissonance cited is between the "Plinkett isn't meant to be taken seriously" ploy and the simultaneous taking of Plinkett seriously.

Pretty sure nobody has ever used Archie Bunker as an excuse for why black people shouldn't live next door, and expected to be taken seriously. Not in the past several decades anyway.

People have, however, used the RLM video's sexist stereotypes about Padme as a "reason" for why her relationship with Anakin wasn't realistic. And expected to be taken seriously.

I think that many of the issues people have with RLM (although I will only speak for myself here) is not to do with his subplot as a serial killer and psychopath, but rather with the points he makes and how he frames his arguments. I don't begrudge him the use of the psychopath set-up because I recognize that it's a gag meant to make the video more enjoyable for people -- that in and of itself isn't his critique of the PT.

However, @Luukeskywalker transcribed his dialogue on the PT for one of his threads and it is there that people took issue with his arguments about Padmé and Anakin. Basically, what I don't much like about his criticism is that he often uses stereotypes as the sole basis for why the relationship is "bad." He describes a gender stereotypes and then says how Anakin and Padmé fail to conform. And this is almost the entirety of his argument. To be perfectly honest, that simply doesn't work for me. I don't feel that he does a good job of analyzing context and the character set-ups. Instead, he seems to lazily rely on "well, women don't like X" and "men only think so and so" as the basis for his dissatisfaction with the PT.

For me, that isn't a good critique so much as it is reinforcement of gender stereotypes. He needs a bit more meat on the bone of his argument, in other words.

Nice straw man. Can I keep him?

People do laugh with Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker. People do take the RLM parodies too seriously.

Not sure how that's a straw man. Have you ever followed any of the discussion on these boards about the prequels or the A/P love story? People use the stereotypical arguments that PiettsHat mentioned all the time, and expect to be taken at face value, not in a humorous manner. You mentioned compared Plinkett with Archie Bunker, but people do not do the same with Archie Bunker's arguments; therefore the comparison is not the same.

But the way self concious way in which it's written purposefully demeans those arguments. RLM get to have their cake and eat it. It's very cleverly done.

One can identify the gender stereotypes (ARCHETYPES) in the OT and applaud how Lucas subverted the audience expectations of them (and acknowledge the tide of copycats to use the formula since). The characters in the PT are not as readily identifiable.

The love story falters because there's no chemistry and the motivations are not clear. We don't need to make sexist assumptions to acknowledge that concern, but the deplorable character of Plinkett feels he does. Then he demonstrates his lack of self awareness with the dead wife/kidnapped prostitute shtick.

By all means criticise those who laugh with those sentiments, but to criticise RLM for being sexist is inappropriate.

I'll let Naru do the logic and reason lectures.

Stereotypes:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/George_Lucas'_Racism

Ya. Moral indignation aside I think the love story was completely lacking. Unrealistic. Dry. Like two people reading lines from a poorly written script while thinking "god I can't waite till this film is over so I can move onto a more stimulating role". This is due to three things, Lucas writing, Lucas directing and Haden's stale dry cardboard acting. There's no connection, no heartwarming progression or believable bonding. In fact it was kinda creepy to see him go from a child hanging out with her when she was a Queen to an adult in a relationship with the same woman (adult child really, as that's what the entire Vader character was, an adult child). < That's not the real issue though. The issue is many of us didn't connect with the character but even more didn't connect with the love story. Take the film Titanic, the Jack and Rose love story won people over en mass, as did the love story in Avatar. People connected with the characters, saw the relationships evolve, became emotionally invested in the story line and Cameron did that in one film. Lucas had three. He failed at the love story. Miserably.

Then we have the other aspect of Vader, the transition to the dark side. This was mostly centered around his relationship with his mother and Padme. The love story with Padme was unrealistic, dry and poorly written/acted out so thats a weak foundation already. He didn't seem to be too bothered by leaving his mom in TPM and then Lucas made the Jedi look like a bunch of authoritarian child abductors when he wrote in the part that Anakin would get in trouble if he liberated his mother after Jedi training but yet it's the loss of his mother and visions of Padme dying that set him on the path to the dark side. Two rather poorly written story lines.

The actual path to the dark side is then told in simplistic fashion, lacking nuance, told from a point of view of moral absolutism. Lucas must think people who live immoral lives are weak spoiled whiny children lacking the emotional maturity to make rational decisions. It was condescending, like it was some sort of propaganda or Sunday school bible lesson. Anakin was portrayed as being a weak whiny childman who looked more like an emasculated Eddie Haskel than Darth Vader. A great fictional story of "becoming", of personal transition, can be found in Jack London's novel Sea Wolf. If only Lucas could have tapped London's force ghost to help write the prequils. In the Sea Wolf the protagonist starts out as an intellectual, a "softy" who's ship sinks at sea and is picked up by another ship with a captain who represents the "dark side" if you will. A nihilist. The book is a masterpiece because it explains the complexity of the good vs evil fight we all fight within ourselves in a manner that's realist, accessible to the average reader and entertaining. It addresses extremely complex issues without many readers even noticing it's happening until they put the book down.

The Vader back story was the complete opposite. He goes from annoying kid to even larger annoying kid, to an older gullible kid who is, quite frankly, a total idiot who gets conned by Palpatine. One minute he has a light saber in Palpatines face then the next he's bowing to him and killing children with minimal back story into their relationship and the complexities between the light and dark side of human nature. It's like he has a total personality switch in mere minutes so not only was he annoying, whiny and gullible but he was also suffering from multiple or borderline personality disorder. Not the way I envisioned Darth Vader. Lucas has three films to highlight this transition from light to dark but chose to focus on the last half of ROTS to do it with a lame love story and Anakins mother as the foundation (breifly toutched on in AOTC when he killed the sand people). I suspect this, the simplistic moral absolutism, was all by design as the motivation for making the prequels was different than with the OT. The OT was done with passion for film making in mind- the PT was done first and foremost for profit and kids, as Lucas found out after Return Of The Jedi, are the cash cow so the love story was meant to be childish. The transition to the dark side was meant to be simplistic. Vader was meant to be a childman as that was the target audience, children. Should the story of the greatest villain to ever live be a story geared towards children? What they're trying to do by bringing in the writer of Toy Story 3 is give the new Star Wars films a family feel but with more complex themes that adults will understand, connect with, laugh at and such which is good for episode 7/8/9 but as far as the prequels Lucas tried to sell the story of "evil" to pre-school children who would buy toys. The entire formula for the prequels was destine to be lacking any validity in contemperary America especially with older fans who put Vader at icon status. I'll even go as far as to say they should be entirely remade or remade in one three hour film. Call it "The Rise of Vader". This is just a brief critique of the Vader story line not even taking into account other aspects of the film.

Sure it does. At very least, the idea that Pakistanis are more serious about their religion than Americans are is a generalization. America is a heavily majority-Christian country, and is awash in things that are prohibited by Christianity. Think of the difference between pork and porn. Pornography is a no-no under Christianity; yet if you sell porn in America, you can make a ton of money. Pork is a no-no under Islam; and if you open a restaurant that sells pork, you'll go broke.

@Darth kRud : OK. You didn't like the story. That's fine. What does this have to do with RLM's review?

@Narutakikun : How does that point lead to the idea that it's OK to make generalizations that "all women like assertive men who drive fancy cars?" You really don't see a difference between assessing one's market for a product and coming up with stereotypes of an entire gender just to be an ass?

Yeah, well... yeah. The irony of someone who stridently defends the Star Wars prequels complaining about how unacceptable stereotyping is... well, yeah.

Ah. Otherwise known as the "hey look over there!", "They did it first!" or "They're doing it too!" argument.

It worked in third grade...maybe. When I hear third graders doing it, my response is that I don't care who did what first or who is doing what at the same time. I'm not sure why adults think it's a valid argument.

I don't agree. Simply because if this were the case -- if RLM truly utilized these stereotypes solely to demean those arguments -- then we wouldn't see him sarcastically say that George Lucas deserves an award for understanding women. And he has to present something substantive in the place of the stereotypes he demeans in order for his argument to hold water. Lacking this, the stereotypes are the only argument he has.

I am not criticizing RLM for being sexist -- I am criticizing his arguments for being lazy and lacking depth, which is an entirely separate thing. I've seen good arguments against the Anakin-Padmé romance (from users such as Samuel_Vimes) and while I don't agree with them (largely because they are based very much on subjective measures), I still feel they're much more worthy of consideration than RLM's points.

I also think that RLM looks at the characters through a very narrow lens. I can identify with many of the problems Anakin and Padmé face (such as fear of the loss of loved ones, in particular) but, at the same time, I'm more concerned with being able to understand their characters and finding them interesting than I am in identifying with them. I feel that, contrary to RLM's opinion, I can very well see (based on the context of the films) why Anakin and Padmé make the choices they do, even if I wouldn't necessarily make the same choices.

I wouldn't say there's "no chemistry" between Anakin and Padmé either -- largely because I see theirs as an emotional (rather than merely sexual) relationship. They both strike me as people who have easy access to sex, but not to love, to be honest.

"Just to be an ass"? I doubt that. Or if so, only in the sense that Lenny Bruce, Andy Kaufman, or Sam Kinison were "asses". That's the act; that's the persona - and that's what performers do.

Anyhow, as I see it you've taken a Joe-Pesci-in-Goodfellas-Am-I-a-clown-to-you? level of excessive offense over an offhand remark that doesn't have anywhere near the meaning you've imputed to it. But it's obvious that neither of us are going to change the others' mind about this. So, that's that about that.

The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones also worked in third grade. What I'm pointing out is you're attacking Redlettermedia for exploiting stereotypes because you don't like the negative review of the films. If exploiting stereotypes was the be all end all deal breaker for you you would have tuned out of the prequels at The Phantom Menace when Jar Jar was introduced. And this post, where you said this: "@Darth kRud : OK. You didn't like the story. That's fine. What does this have to do with RLM's review?". I wrote that brief critique of the film because in a prior post you criticized me for re-posting a review from the internet. My "prophecy" (Star Wars jab) concerning this being a Sisyphean debate is coming to fruition. Are you the chosen one? Fractionalized spiderwebbing into infinity. It has been foreseen. But seriously, why didn't you watch the last half of ROTS? I'm curious. You can tell me, I'll tread softly. Like Yeats.

I did watch it. Once. As you said. At all points after that, when I put in the ROTS DVD, I watch up to the ruminations scene and either leave the room or turn it off.

People seem to think Plinkett is being serious about 100% of what he says. Rapper Eminem stated on an interview that he dislikes cussing, and he does not allow his kids to cuss. But guess what? That's what millions like to listen to, and that's what sells rap these days. Was Will Smith as successful as Eminem as a rapper? Are ANY of the PT reviewers who sing praise the prequel as successful as Plinkett? If you don't like his reviews, don't watch them and don't post in a thread about his reviews.

We're making progress, as Freud would say. Now, "how did that make you feel"? No, but seriously, why? Too sad? Too violent? Too "dark"? Why did you like TPM but not the last half of ROTS? I think it was too simplistic switch to the dark side but I suspect you think it was too dark or evil or not child friendly or...well? Other than the sexism in RedLetterMedia's critique of the film what do you not agree with? Heck lemme know what you think of what I wrote a few posts back..... I won't get offended. I promise