Awesome / Mr. Plinkett Reviews

• The review of The Phantom Menace was considered groundbreaking in part because of the use of the Plinkett character to provide actual film school-level analysis in an understandable and digestible way. Nowhere is this more evident than in his comparison of the opening scenes of The Phantom Menace and A New Hope — the former is chock full of exposition and boring dialogue, whereas the latter has no dialogue at all and manages to tell the viewer everything they need to know. Plinkett notes just how brilliant the latter scene is for accomplishing that and is angry that The Phantom Menace didn't even come close to living up to that example.^note Even Plinkett's contention that George Lucas probably didn't get the scene's brilliance and fought against it being in the movie goes to the point of how The Phantom Menace doesn't measure up. The film history nerds will point out that Plinkett was wrong; Lucas did know exactly how important that scene was and agonized over getting the special effects right. But this further goes to the brilliance of combining a silly character like Plinkett with the film school analysis; Plinkett the character just cannot fathom that the same director who gave us the shot in A New Hope would forget everything he knew for The Phantom Menace.
• The Attack of the Clones review provides an excellent deconstruction of Anakin and Padmé's "romance". It even gives useful and accurate dating advice.
• The Revenge of the Sith review:
  • Plinkett takes only a scant few seconds to dismiss the idea that True Art Is Angsty:
    Plinkett: I want to debunk a few myths about why [this film] is good, okay? Number one, "because it's dark" — no. (moves on to something else)
  • Plinkett compares the film to, of all things, Citizen Kane. He admits straight up it's not a fair comparison. And yet it works. The two films have remarkably similar plots, and were both made by stubborn directors with an Auteur License who eventually became "weird recluse(s)". But their executions were totally different; Plinkett contrasts Kane's clever acting, scripting, and camerawork with Sith's lazy blocking, stale shots, and wooden dialogue. Orson Welles manipulated his cinematography to allow the story to happen naturally, which made it one of the best films of all time; Lucas simply had his characters narrate his plot and expected the film to follow.
  • Mean as it is to say, Plinkett supplies convincing evidence that the prequels — and particularly Revenge of the Sith — were shot in such a way that George Lucas could direct the film without getting up from his chair. He notes the nearly identical blocking of the dialogue scenes — Shot/Reverse Shot, with characters sitting down or walking a short distance — and contrasts it with the much more varied and adventurous CGI shots. He has clips of Lucas describing his two-camera setup. And he singles out the scene where Anakin tells Mace Windu that he thinks Palpatine is the Sith lord they've been looking for all along; Windu reacts with urgency and rushes for two steps before slowing down, suggesting that if the actors were to run any further Lucas would have to get up from his chair so that the camera could follow them. It perfectly fits Plinkett's mantra of "you didn't notice it, but your brain did".
  • The ending is a clever, brilliantly edited, and frankly emotional juxtaposition — the final trench run from A New Hope interspersed with behind-the-scenes footage of George Lucas making the prequels. It shows Luke Skywalker, the character Lucas created once upon a time, shutting off his targeting computer and trusting the Force and his own abilities, only to show Lucas fall back on CGI and technical wizardry rather than write a story.
• The review of The Force Awakens:
  • Plinkett spends the first half of the review taking the entertainment industry to task for the film's existence. He blames Disney for seeking out a Cash-Cow Franchise. He blames George Lucas for knowing exactly who he was selling to but not caring because he got paid a shitload of money. He rails against Hollywood's obsession with merchandising. He decries the prevalence of the Soft Reboot as a cheap way to repeat the success of an existing franchise without pissing off the fanboys by deleting existing continuity. He even goes after Internet writers, calling them out on writing click-bait articles praising the prequels and making Lucas out to be some sort of misunderstood genius^note Even one writer who describes "circular storytelling", a style Plinkett kind of doesn't hate, gets shot down for saying Lucas actually did it with the prequels — all the "evidence" of it in the films is shoehorning or coincidence, as Plinkett doesn't believe that Lucas is a good enough writer to have thought that far ahead. It's only after all this when Plinkett gets around to actually reviewing the film itself.
  • Plinkett starts off his review proper by making fun of other critics — the kind who would just point out how unrealistic it is or attack the smallest of continuity errors. He decries that line of critique as silly and notes that the film is actually well made on a technical level.
  • Plinkett details his real problem with the film: missed opportunity. Disney was so scared of taking chances with the film that they completely rehashed A New Hope, just with different characters (whom we have less of an opportunity to get to know). Plinkett argues that this prevented Disney from showing plotlines that could have been interesting, like Kylo Ren's Face–Heel Turn and the rise of the First Order. He even comes up with a hypothetical storyline around that that's genuinely sad and compelling, including a tragic final encounter between Han and Luke and the Senate being the ones to build a superweapon (with Leia's unease about the whole thing being a more nuanced incorporation of contemporary social issues than the prequels ever did).
  • He wonders why the film has so little romance. The original trilogy oozed sexuality, and even the prequel trilogy had it (for all its faults) — but nothing in this film. He calls it a sign of creative sterility, in the sense that Disney was so afraid of getting the wrong reaction from its audience that it wouldn't allow any of the protagonists to fall in love with each other.
  • He also chides the filmmakers for their obsession with diversity — not for diversity in itself, which Plinkett acknowledges is a good thing, but for how they went about doing it. He notes that the film's target audience consists largely of little kids who won't care about diversity (or rather, they'll like seeing people who look like them on screen, but aren't going to give the filmmakers kudos for making it happen). He also noted that the film didn't seem as diverse as it could have been, as if the filmmakers were scared of going too far with it; their female protagonist is still a posh white British-accented woman, and in keeping with his observation about sexuality, the likely main pairings would either be an interracial couple or an interracial gay couple.
• In the Avatar review, Plinkett takes James Cameron out to the woodshed over his alarmingly straight use of Beauty Equals Goodness. He derides Cameron's simple-mindedness, and to make his point, he shows a clip from The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, considered one of the worst movies of all time, to show that even the makers of that film had a better sense of reality than Cameron.
• His Ghostbusters (2016) review:
  • Most of the criticism of the film disparaged the cast, suggesting they were chosen solely to achieve a Gender Flip and otherwise weren't talented enough to carry the film. Plinkett thinks otherwise; he believes the cast did have genuine comic talent and had shown it in other projects, and nothing they did could have salvaged the film. He instead directs the bulk of his criticism toward director Paul Feig and Sony Pictures.
  • He shows his attunement to the film's Product Placement. He highlights how audacious it was in this particular film, with its plugs even in the background of the climactic final battle. He goes into how many ads accompanied the DVD release. He even notes one scene where there isn't product placement where you'd expect it as a glaring example of product placement — the characters are all eating Papa John's pizza, but they're drinking soda from generic cups, because Sony Pictures has a deal with Coca-Cola, but Papa John's only serves Pepsi products, and that creates a conflict of corporate interests.
    Plinkett: Aren't movies magical, kids?
  • He complains about the widespread Filling the Silence and how it prevents the film from ever letting anything breathe, whether it's humor or horror. To illustrate his point, Plinkett displays a scene of the Ghostbusters walking down a creepy tunnel and constantly spouting dialogue, then shows his own recut of the exact same scene with no dialogue, only ambient music — and you can see how it's much scarier and more atmospheric.^note There's even a brief shot of Holtzmann pushing a cart down the tunnel with a little grin and a maniacal look in her eyes, which contrasts well with the other characters' trepidation and tells you more about her than most of her dialogue ever could — except you wouldn't have noticed it with the other characters talking. And then he further illustrates this point with an "unrelated" scene from the original Ghostbusters that does exactly what Plinkett suggests — no dialogue, just setting and ambient music.
  • He does something pretty ballsy, especially on the Internet: assigning a big share of the blame on Bill Murray. His argument is that Murray is a major reason why the film exists, as his resistance and indecision prevented a third Ghostbusters film from being made while Harold Ramis was still alive, meaning that this reboot had to be done instead.
• From the The Last Jedi review:
  • Plinkett compares the film to National Lampoon's Vacation. And it's a brilliant comparison — he reveals that The Last Jedi is structured less like a Star Wars film and more like a comedy of errors, in which the characters only get into a sticky situation because of a string of stupid decisions they made earlier.
  • He calls out Holdo's iron-fisted leadership style, finding it quite unbecoming of a heroic rebellion which is supposed to represent democratic and egalitarian ideals and thinking that it falls more in line with the strict, authoritarian, and hierarchical First Order. He then compares Holdo's style of command to that of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, showing clip after clip of Picard consulting with his crew and seeking their input before making a decision, and even allowing them the space to interject and volunteer their opinions.
• From the Star Trek: Picard review:
  • Plinkett comes up with several different plot ideas for a more episodic, character-driven version of the show. Occasional jokes aside, many of them sound like something the old Star Trek would have done. They're all accompanied by lovely storyboards provided by the comic book artist Freddie Williams II, a sometimes-guest on Best of the Worst — one must commend how much work Freddie put into what is essentially a joke.
  • Much like he did with Revenge of the Sith, Plinkett decries the notion that the series is better just because it's Darker and Edgier. He points out that it's even worse with Star Trek because it was historically such an optimistic series, and while making it darker and edgier might make it more realistic, it also clashes tonally. He points out the myriad plot holes, uncharismatic characters, and moments of unnecessary cruelty, and how they blunt the effectiveness of the show's intended acts of optimism. And he notes that there does exist a darker and edgier Star Trek in the form of Deep Space Nine, which was handled much better.
  • Much like he did with Bill Murray's approach to Ghostbusters, Plinkett shows a lot of chutzpah and lays a lot of blame on Patrick Stewart. He opines that Picard appears to be Stewart's Vanity Project and criticises the level of influence the producers and other actors gave Stewart, likening them to fanboys awestruck at Stewart's presence.
    Plinkett: If [actors] have the clout, they'll make a show about how they're a tortured Space Jesus who is selfless and worshipped for saving the galaxy.

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