YMMV / Mr. Plinkett Reviews

• Alternative Joke Interpretation: The "Kodak Printer Challenge" scene. Is the joke that Plinkett was really bad at the challenge and that's how he ended up wtih $-0.32 despite doing the challenge for 10 years, or is the joke that the challenge was useless from the beginning and he was not gonna save any money regardless if he did the challenge right or not?
• Awesome Art: The Star Trek: Picard review utilizes jaw-dropping storyboards and illustrations by friend of the show Freddie Williams III as B-Roll.
• Awesome Music: Say you don't nod your head to the hip-hop song at the end of his reviews.
  "I squeeze gats till my clips is empty..."
• Crosses the Line Twice: Pretty much every single thing Plinkett says that is not related to filmmaking falls directly under this category.
  • Plinkett destroying his TV while watching a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie deserves special mention. The specifics of that incident will give you nightmares.
  • Plinkett kidnapping and gassing a woman to death is not funny. Plinkett doing this to a Na'vi cosplayer because he thinks she needs special chemicals to breathe on her home planet is hilarious.
  • In The Force Awakens review, Mr. Plinkett tells a joke about having an illegitimate Vietnamese child that crosses the line several times, culminating in calling napalm birth control.
  • In the The Force Awakens review when he shoots projectile diarrhea on George Lucas and J. J. Abrams.
    Plinkett: I'm literally shitting on Star Wars!
• Genius Bonus: Plinkett referring to the Neimodians as "Shatnerians" seems like a throwaway jab at their William Shatner-like speech pattern and their final name being a nod to Leonard Nimoy (both being Star Trek actors), but in fact, the early scripts for The Phantom Menace did call them Shatnerians.
• Genre Turning Point: The Prequel Plinkett reviews are one of the, if not the reason why you see more video essays on Youtube.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Mike Stoklasa (who voices Plinkett) was invited to a Danish film festival, where the famous 70-minute The Phantom Menace review was shown in full (along with the Cop Dog review as a warm-up). This was his first convention appearance outside of North America. The showing was sold out, and mostly attended by those who had already seen the review; this is in contrast to showings at American conventions, where only a handful of people attend.
• Growing the Beard: Take a look at Mr. Plinkett's Star Trek: The Next Generation movie reviews, and you'll find that they weren't all the crisp, rapidfire, colorful comedic potpourri that we recognize today. The initial reviews contain less music, fewer outside sources, less visual humor, and fewer glimpses into Mr. Plinkett's life. As the reviews increased in size, they became more crisply coordinated and colorful; the Nemesis review was very near to the recognizable style of the present. It was the Phantom Menace review that firmly established Plinkett's style as a strangely beautiful arrangement of comedy, photo, and film that is efficiently delivered in a neat package of absurdity.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Plinkett joked that the Prequels should be similar to the original trilogy, because "I don't like things that are different". Now that The Force Awakens has been released, many, including some of Red Letter Media's fans, have complained that the film is too similar to the original trilogy. And to say nothing of the heavily divisive fan reception of The Last Jedi for being too different from the original films.
  • The joke in the Revenge of the Sith review about Lucas changing the original title of Return of the Jedi from Revenge of the Jedi to save money on packaging and ink funds became much less funny after it was revealed in Rinzlers book on the making of Jedi that Kenner had to destroy over $250,000 in toy packaging due to the change in the movies title. Same with the crack in the Attack of the Clones review about the Ewoks being the point where Lucas started getting toy centric when the book revealed the Ewok toy line flopped in sales.
  • In The Star Wars Awakens review, Plinkett snarkily referring to Luke, Han, and Leia as "three elderly people who are near death" ended up being not-so-funny when Carrie Fisher passed away less than three months after the video came out. All three of them are dead in-universe by the end of the sequel trilogy.
  • In the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review, Plinkett compares the movie to making a Fast and the Furious movie in 2038 with the same actors, which is no longer possible due to Paul Walker's death, making it darker than intended.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Mr. Plinkett's Picard review ends with him solemnly noting how much Star Trek means to a lot of people, noting how the passion often manifests in the form of dedicated recreations of the various locations and sets in both physical and digital form. Much later, Super VHS, a fan game tribute to RedLetterMedia itself was unleashed onto the internet and caught the attention of the gang, and its main level design is a mostly accurate recreation of the RLM studio floor. Thus, Mike has ended up on the receiving end of the adoration he spoke highly of.
  @FurnaxIkki: You know, this feels really heartwarming. I remember in the Picard review, Plinkett talked about how much Star Trek meant to people, and that people made recreations of the sets IRL or in some sort of simulator. And here we have some dedicated fan who spent who knows how long to make a celebration of what RLM has done and what they mean to them.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Plinkett's bitterness about using tie-in material to explain away aspects of the Prequels plots became somewhat vindicated in hindsight after Disney chucked away all the tie-in material of The Phantom Menace (along with every other tie-in to the movies sans The Clone Wars) into the non-canon Legends continuity around 2014, meaning anything from those tie-ins that did explain the backstory of the prequels is irrelevant to the movies canon now.
  • Plinkett joked that J. J. Abrams should have directed the Star Wars prequels. Abrams directed the first film in a new Star Wars trilogy, The Force Awakens, and went on to direct The Rise of Skywalker...much to the crew's horror.
  • Early in the Revenge of the Sith review, Plinkett makes it clear that Han Solo not being in the film is one of its good qualities, and that he was glad he didn't have to sit through any scenes of a kid Han Solo being shoehorned into the plot. It was revealed around the time the review was posted that George Lucas did plan to have a young Han Solo cameo in Revenge of the Sith, but the idea was scrapped. It gets even more hilarious with Disney's confirmation that 2018's Star Wars film is, in fact, an origins movie about a young Han Solo.
  • Mr. Plinkett also claims he was happy that the Millennium Falcon not appearing in Revenge of the Sith saved it from being ruined. Then it was discovered that the Falcon makes a very brief, easy to miss cameo appearance in it...
  • In the backstory of The Thrawn Trilogy, Timothy Zahn wrote that the original backstory of the Clone Wars (prior to being retconned by the prequels) was that they were a group of monsters the republic was fighting a brutal war against. Come Mr. Plinkett's review of Revenge of the Sith, and Plinkett, despite his hatred of relying on supplemental tie-in material, unintentionally suggests that the prequels should have used the exact same story—that the Clone Wars should have made the Clones be the villains of the whole prequel trilogy instead of just conveniently disposable soldiers of the republic.
  • In the Revenge of the Sith review, he pokes fun at how Vader's appearance in the film (more specifically, in his iconic armor) was heavily hyped in the trailers, commercials and tie-in products, even though he only has a couple minutes of screentime in the movie. Come The Force Awakens, and Luke Skywalker barely gets 30 seconds of screentime and no dialogue, even though Mark Hamill gets second billing on the poster.
  • At one point in the Attack of the Clones review, he discusses the silliness of how every Jedi is shown using a lightsaber, even when it doesn't make sense for them to be combative. He specifically notes that the pudgy, awkward Dexter Jettster would no doubt fare poorly in a duel. Not long afterward, Star Wars: The Clone Wars featured a member of Dex's race as a Jedi Master.
  • Discussing the character of Mace Windu, Plinkett suggests Forest Whitaker among a group of actors who would have been better suited to play the role of an older, serious black Jedi dispensing wisdom than Samuel L. Jackson. Come Rogue One, Forest Whitaker now is playing an older black warrior figure in a Star Wars movie dispensing wisdom (albeit not a Jedi).
  • Plinkett's complaints about how powers like Force Telekinesis were overused in the prequels became this in light of a scene early in The Last Jedi where Luke, while initially training Rey, gets annoyed at her notion that the Force is something to lift rocks with.
  • At one point in the Star Trek: The Star Trek review, he says that Chris Pine is there to appeal to female audience members and to Sulu. This is a reference to Sulu's original actor being gay in real life. Come Star Trek Beyond, the Sulu of this universe is revealed to be canonically gay.
  • For his The Force Awakens review, Stoklasa made a montage of allegedly homosexual characters set to the tune of "YMCA". Lando Calrissian was labeled "Not gay at all." Two years later, during the marketing push for Solo, a story broke that screenwriter Jon Kasdan considered Lando pansexual. Given that, in their Half in the Bag review, Stoklasa called this same story "clickbait" and "fake news", the moment is just as funny as a rebuttal as it is unintentional irony.
  • "Palpatine's behind it all" has become this after the trailer for The Rise of Skywalker features Palpatine's laugh, with the implication that he will play a prominent role in the film.
  • In the review for Cop Dog, Plinkett thinks the film was originally supposed to be directed by Todd Solondz. Five years after that episode was released, Todd Solondz released the dog film, Wiener-Dog.
  • In the Titanic (1997) review, while listing the child stars who grew up to be talentless hacks, he includes Macaulay Culkin and shows a very unflattering picture of the man. Culkin would later become a common guest on other RLM shows such as Best of the Worst and re:View.
  • In the Titanic review, Mike (as Plinkett) criticizes the IQ of the average moviegoer by saying "the brilliant, complex, and challenging falls to the wayside". One of the movies he cites is Eraserhead. Much later, a clear divide would emerge between Mike & Rich vs. Jay & Josh over their love of weird, artsy, arguably pretentious cult films like Eraserhead, culminating in a mock trivia battle over David Lynch movies where Mike constantly berates them for how weird their favorite films are.
• Memetic Mutation: "What's wrong with your FAAAACE?!" Catchphrase has even been referenced in Atop the Fourth Wall and The Spoony Experiment among others.
  • "[Insert work here] was the most disappointing thing since my son" seems to be making this headway as well.
  • Haters of Star Wars prequel fans often link them to the famous reviews in response to them expressing their appreciation for them, often stating "you need to watch the Mr. Plinkett reviews." This goes for just about anything he has reviewed, especially Indiana Jones 4.
  • "It's so dense, every single image has so much going on" has entered into the lexicon of many viewers as a description for overly busy frames in films beyond the Star Wars prequels.
  • Some of George Lucas' behind-the-scenes comments while making the prequels has also been propelled into meme status thanks to their use in the reviews, must prominently:
    • "It's like poetry. They sort of, they rhyme."
    • "Jar Jar's the key to all this, if we get Jar Jar working. 'Cause he's a funnier character than we've ever had in the movies..." Often Jar Jar's name will be substituted with other characters depending on the franchise being discussed, but Youtube comments on RLM videos will often use Rich Evans as well.
    • "It's stylistically designed to be that way, and you can't undo that, but we can diminish the effects of it."
    • "I may have gone too far in a few places."
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Many fans of the Star Wars reviews act like they are enlightened from watching them and attack fans of the prequels for not having seen them or liking the prequels despite Mike Stoklasa being very clear that, while he does not like the prequels in the slightest, he is only expressing his opinion and it's okay for people to like the prequels.
  • There are also many fans and even some reviewers that miss the fact that Plinkett’s jerkass and ax-crazy persona is supposed to be Comedic Sociopathy and is not meant to be taken seriously. As such, there have been many who emulated his behavior, but without any trace of irony, sadly resulting in genuine toxic behavior and excessively harsh unfounded criticism.
• Older Than They Think: It is sometimes believed (mainly by younger viewers) that the Star Wars prequels were not widely hated until Mr. Plinkett's reviews panning them went viral and single-handedly soured their reputation. While the reviews did give rise to new talking points against the prequels and have many fans who give them the Reviews Are the Gospel treatment, this is a very inaccurate assessment. Hatred for the prequels was already mainstream long before the reviews were uploaded, to the point where they were frequently mocked in pop culture and actors such as Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best got harassed over their portrayal of their characters to harsh levels from day one.
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • The Prequel reviews attracted a lot of attention when they were released for being incredibly concise and well-put together reviews addressing the flaws of the films in a way detractors felt addressed their grievances; which was exemplified by the number of media outlets and some celebrities approving them. Now that internet review shows have become more common and with more sophistication, they can feel a little same-y, which can be seen in how the two reviews of the Disney Star Wars films met resistance from fans of the original reviews for not being as stand out and failed to grab the level of media attention the prequel reviews did.
  • The Prequel Reviews also heralded a massive sea-change in the way video reviews are approached, ushering in the era of the Video Essay. Prior to their spike in recognition, such reviews were conducted in the "guy on a couch in front of a camera" style popularized and codified by The Angry Video Game Nerd and Channel Awesome, typically ten to fifteen minutes in length and were usually a plot summary punctuated with wry observations with little concern for in-depth analysis. After Plinkett, video reviews became hour-long affairs focused on critical analysis coming from a persona that was rarely, if ever, on screen and featuring character-driven humor as a break from the more academic segments. The concept may seem a bit pedestrian now, but in the early 2010's there was quite literally nothing else like them.
• Retroactive Recognition: The "other people" who Plinkett asks to describe characters from Star Wars in terms of characterization are all instantly recognizable nowadays as Jay, Rich and Jack. At the time, though, absolutely nobody would've recognized them, and even today, it's jarring seeing Jack with hair.
• Reviews Are the Gospel: Possibly due to their media coverage and approval from celebrities such as Patton Oswalt, Simon Pegg and Damon Lindelof, some of the reviews, particularly the Star Wars ones, have been treated seriously by some fans to the point of attacking Star Wars fans that do like the prequels and/or disagree with the reviews.
• Squick:
  • Plinkett takes his cat to a Mitre Saw, and then hacks the remains into Ludicrous Gibs during his Cop Dog review.
  • His suggestion in the Alternate DVD Commentary that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan should have a threesome with the "what's-wrong-with-your-face chick".
  • Plinkett breaking his TV by masturbating to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.
  • Plinkett burning his Phantom Menace tape in the oven, dumping it in the toilet, and pissing on it. The urine starts foaming in the bowl.
  • The end of The Force Awakens review features Plinkett spraying George Lucas and J. J. Abrams in the face with explosive diarrhea.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The ending montage of the Revenge of the Sith review juxtaposing Luke's decision to trust in his own abilities and the Force rather than fancy targeting computers in A New Hope with George Lucas' increased reliance on CGI and technical wizardry while filming the prequels. A brilliant piece of editing that shows that technology may have evolved, but not necessarily for the better and showing just why the prequels lacked the heart of the original trilogy.
  • The Star Trek: Picard review comes off as the most personal of the bunch thus far. It starts off as the standard Plinkett fare, but devolves into Mike clearly being hurt that this was what Star Trek had become as decades of an optimistic look into humanity's future has turned into a foul-mouthed, mean-spirited, violent, alcoholic, nihilistic shitshow. It goes as far as to imply that the show and its production had come close to making Patrick Stewart a Broken Pedestal for Mike/Plinkett due to the writers kowtowing to him for ideas.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Played for Laughs "Cuz I don't like things that are different".
  • Sadly, played straight with the comments for the Revenge of Nadine video, which were particularly brutal towards Rich Evans as Mr. Plinkett for not "sounding right" (despite Evans being the one who originated the character in the first place).
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Jocelyn Ridgely always portrays all of her (generally outlandish) characters this way, though in this case it's actually done deliberately, for comic effect.
• Tough Act to Follow: The later Star Wars reviews haven't grasped the level of media attention or acceptance the way the prequel reviews did, to the point some zealous RLM fans got angry over Plinkett giving The Force Awakens a positive review instead of eviscerating it while his thoughts on Rogue One completely shattered the base.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: Because these reviews go into great detail regarding the technical and structural flaws in a film, they actually serve as a decent crash course for the layman to understand screenwriting and filmmaking in general. It's part of what initially set them apart from other online video reviews.
• Win Back the Crowd: After the tepid response to the Force Awakens review and the backlash to the Rogue One review, the Ghostbusters (2016) review seems to be a deliberate return to the very technical analysis style of earlier reviews. Going after a target the main audience already dislikes didn't hurt.

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