Doug Walker (TGWTG, Nostalgia Critic, Bum Reviews, and other projects)

Eh, I don't know. Maybe my threshold for edgy jokes is a bit lower but the jokes in the video seemed mostly mild to me, it was very much a filler video. The claims it was Doug's worst are a bit overblown, IMO.

I'd say The Wall, his movies, and Sailor Moon are the worst. The Bill Cosby ranking just mostly feels like a throwback to the early Internet when rape jokes were considered funny.

His James and the Giant Peach review was also pretty bad, primarily because it was clear he never read the original book.

I'm also not fond of any of his Stephen King adaptation reviews, aside from his review on the Shining remake.

To be fair, should he have had to have read the book? He was reviewing the film, and adaptations should be enjoyable regardless of whether you've read the book. It can be interesting to see the perspective of people who are new to the story (if you've read the book, you might automatically fill things in the adaptation left out, and conversely you're more likely to dislike it if it changes something). As long as he didn't pretend he'd read the book (I'ts been ages since I've seen the review), I don't really think there's anything wrong.

Edited by king15 on Apr 8th 2024 at 6:04:51 PM

There was a book?

-ducks as things are thrown-

I haven't watched his review since it first uploaded, but it was mainly him criticising certain things in the story, and treating it as if the filmmakers are at fault, when really the things he criticized are from the actual book.

One such example is him complaining about the quality of one of the songs ("This Fantastic Peach"), and citing it as another example of why Randy Newman sucks. Except... that song is from the book!

Edited by Brandon on Apr 8th 2024 at 11:32:48 AM

In regards to criticising aspects of the story, as long as he didn't blame the makers of the film, I don't think that's a problem because, ultimately, it's still issues with the story regardless of whether they originate from the film or not.

But blaming the composer for something that is from the book, yeah he should have at least looked that one up. And if the rest of the criticisms are him acting like the film made them up (instead of just saying, this part of the story makes no sense and then moving up), then fair enough, I can understand why you dislike that review based on that.

Having rewatched his James review, I guess there aren't that many moments where he complained about something in the film that originated from the book (incidentally, I completely forgot that the mechanical shark isn't in the book, it was just a regular shark).

It's still weird though hearing him complain about bizarre artistic choices in a film that's based off a Roald Dahl book, as his books pretty much ran on bizarreness. It's like watching an adaptation of a Hans Christian Andersen story, and then complaining that it has a downer ending.

I will say, I'm surprised he didn't touch much on James' aunts showing up in NYC at the end of the film, as I do remember that being something fans of the book disliked (in the original book they got run over by the peach and killed).

Expecting Wish (2023) again?

Never give up, never surrender.

Edited by Weirdguy149 on Apr 10th 2024 at 6:10:39 AM

Now that I found out Doug has his own Rotten Tomatoes account, maybe he can be the only critic to give Problem Child a positive review?

Stray observations:

• "Ugh, why can't you have a genius mind of someone who thought Morbius was okay?"
• "As someone who's now been on the other side of that table, I can vouch: we remember every single solitary detail of we filmed and if we say we don't, it's because we personally hate you."
• "That ain't what you said."
• 7:18: It's interesting that Tim Allen looks in that shot like William Shatner (combined with Martin Short).
• "Now I've just got to convince people that Pizzagate was real and—" "Yeah, we gotta go."
• "A *perfect* cartoon, I don't know."

Oh gotta watch this later. Love me some Galaxy Quest love.

Doug Walker has a complicated relationship with paratext, and has many a time taken pride on not researching source material or outside influences when reviewing a movie. And while yes most movies should stand on their own, this also gets him into trouble with works that use a lot of shorthand or make allusion to real world events (one of the many flaws with his take on The Wall).

But he's not consistent with this view and does bring in the paratext from time to time, like his review of A.I. and Spielberg's desire to have it follow the vision of a late friend.

I suppose the way it should be with that is, for most films, they should be able to stand on their own without referring to a source material. This does not include sequels (I never get when there's criticism of sequels that require you to have watched the original, unless it's a cinematic universe, because...obviously you'll need to have seen the original. It's a sequel.). I do agree though that, for something works, like The Wall, which are made partly with the idea that you'd understand various outer contexts, then you should probably consider outside material. Then again, if he did a video that was a normal review and framed it as: 'I don't know much about the context of this film, so here's what my thoughts are of it as a piece of art in a vacuum', that would be fine because he's laying his cards on the table.

When reviewing something you don't know the context of, maybe you should watch the work, write down your initial thoughts (so you can convey the actual experience of watching it as a piece of art in a vacuum), and then look at the context to help you understand what things in it meant and why things you liked/disliked were like that. That context wouldn't necessarily invalidate any criticisms, just change them to things like: "I understand why this was done, but for XYZ felt it didn't work", or "Understanding the context makes the film more enjoyable, but there should be more explanation within the film itself" instead of just "This thing is bad because I don't understand it and just assume it is about x when it clearly isn't". I should say, I haven't watched Doug's Wall review and know basically nothing about the film or Pink Floyd, though I do know the general criticisms of that review, so this isn't a specific defence or attack on Doug, just general thoughts.

Typically, when I see a movie for the first, I immediately look up trivia, or background on the film, especially if it's a film that came from another source. I just find that kind of information fascinating.

While I understand most people probably don't do that (many find that sort of thing boring, or that it takes something away from the film), I can't fathom why someone like Doug Walker (who does often seem interested in what goes into a film's making) wouldn't want to look up that info after watching something.

Granted, I think he has gotten better about researching info for reviews within the past several years (strange to think that NC has been around so long that "past several years" is still pretty recent), and there's been a couple instances of him admitting he is not familiar with the source material (an example being his review for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian). It's just one of those things that sets his current reviews from the ones he did back during his first several years on Youtube.

Third wish is the charm.

In his 4/10 Q@A, he says that the reason he stopped doing drawn thumbnails (with Marobot, whom I mentioned earlier) is that he just thinks that having the user's actual face on the thumbnail is more marketable.

Yeah, he's mentioned that several times. That's generally a trend on YT, most video producers have been moving on from hand-drawn thumbnails.

Anyway, stray observations:

• Sadly, the short intro *is* the actual new intro for this year. I get it was probably difficult to shoot footage for something more elaborate with Fard living in LA now and CA not having a studio at the moment, but it's still too minimalist IMO.
• "I'm lazily conceived!"
• "Well..yeah, girl!"
• "It's pretty bad, Joe!"
• "Please...get that off screen."
• "Yeah, get it? It's... Batman, I don't care anymore."
• "Oh, I can think of the whimsical world he's referencing."

And if the ending to the video is any indication, one of the upcoming reviews will be Madame Web.

that made me laugh.

Edited by Motyka5 on Apr 17th 2024 at 5:30:23 AM

Yeah sadly that's how YT works nowadays, and hasn't marobot stopped for a long while now?

I remember hearing that Marobot kind of vanished from the internet. I recall Linkara once tried to contact him when he wanted some new interior shots for Comicron-1 (since Marobot was the one who made the original model for the ship and some early exterior shots), but couldn't get in contact with him and had to commission someone else to do them.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Apr 17th 2024 at 8:53:45 AM

I'm from the same country as MaroBot and I know he used to work for one of the biggest local YT sketch comedy channels as a digital artist.

Wasn't he in Deviantart? Did he vanish there?

He's still there, and huh, he actually posted his last piece not that long ago.

Edited by Motyka5 on Apr 18th 2024 at 12:40:55 PM

In other news, it turns out John "Isaac" Franklin saw the Children of the Corn review and loved it.

Holy crap! The Nostalgia Critic's review of "Alone In The Dark" has a jaw-dropping 65 quotes on the IMDb, the most of any episode of any show ever!

He needs to call Guinness World Records!