In olden times it used to be a place of gathering known as the "living room".

https://youtu.be/iwuTEV2G1HU?t=42m14s

The side by side shots during the ring theory part really drive home just how weightless, cheap and ugly the CGI in the prequels looks compared to the practical effects in the originals.

Also, even if the Ring Theory stuff is completely right and it was a deliberate thing that doesn't mean it's particularly clever or complex or excuses anything. It's the kind of gimmick an undergraduate film student would come up with.

Ring theory is a gimmick RLM invented to pad the shit out of this review.

I really hope that's true.

Ringu Theory is 100% bullshit because it doesn't account for anything in the Star Wars Holiday Special despite that being just as canon as the rest

stupid dance scene in Jabba's palace = stupid dance scene on Lumpy's holo-chessboard

Han and Leia's tearful "I love you" "I know" = Itchy cranking one out to space softcore in his living room

CIRCLES WITHIN CIRCLES

But do we need the back story? I thought that was the point of the opening crawl? That was the big problem with this movie, the first order was fine, Leia commanding the resistance was fine, Han being a smuggler again is fine, but why??? He's a thought; The First Order is a stand in for North Korea, isolated and militaristic, get that out of the way with the crawl. Han is a smuggler who is just bringing in basic goods and information (no stupid monsters). And Leia is head of some kind of back-ops unit of the New Republic trying to get info on The First Order. Was that so hard and most of that is in the movie? Granted a lot in the original movies revolves around coincidence but it doesn't have to be so dumb.

Summary: Less bad than the prequels, but not as good as when everyone went to see it in the theaters when it first came out. Repeated viewings in the home haven't really held up as well as I was hoping.

It saved star wars simply by virtue of being semi-competent and avoiding total mediocrity.

I still can't get over how people loved Abrams' Star Trek reboot. It was exactly the same movie as Transformers.

A Star Trek movie where the 2nd act finale hinges on Kirk successfully punking Spock with a yo mama joke.

Maybe the deal with the "Star Trek" movie was that it succeeded at the fundamentals, and provided a few nods to nostalgia without getting overindulgent. Not a revolutionary experience, just well-done for what it wanted to accomplish.

There is a notion that the emotional heart of a great many movies is: how is the main character screwing up his own life, and how does he correct that problem in the course of the action of the movie? In the case of the "Star Trek" movie, I'd say Kirk was screwing up his life by thinking only of himself, and he corrected that by learning to use his Zap Branniganian talents to help others. At least that's what it was for me: whatever else was going on with time-travel and Romulan mining vessels, it's that Kirk made the leap from "selfish jerk" to "I have to get the ship and its crew to safety".

It's a very good, very enjoyable movie that does everything very well but does little that is truly spectacular. It addresses virtually all of the criticisms of the prequels but does not offer much that's truly ground-breaking.

A lot of it comes down to expectations. Watch it, enjoy it, and don't think about the hype or meta-meaning of its existence.

Someone made a Star Wars thing! Oh goodie!
What could be more poetv than that?!?

That guy didn't like the dig on out of work philosophy majors!

This is the case.

If you don't like RLM you're not one of us.

I'm so happy to disagree with you about whether an infinity of SW shit belongs on this site or not just because ___ made it.

Any other shit you feel always bats 1.000 on belonging here, other than SW and RLM?

"I'm so happy to disagree with you about whether an infinity of SW shit belongs on this site or not just because ___ made it."

Like I said, either you like RLM or you're a gigantic fuckwad. I give very few shits about star wars, and it's kind of sad how hard you're trying to seem cooler than anyone who doesn't hate it as much as you.

"Any other shit you feel always bats 1.000 on belonging here, other than SW and RLM?"

Saying "SW and RLM" in that same sentence is nonsensical, as I do not think "SW" (why don't you just type out star wars you dipshit) "bats 1000".

I don't think RLM "bats 1000", and I don't care enough about baseball to figure out what the equivalent of "mostly good" is in batting averages.

One-starring something because HURFF IT MENTIONS "SW" is pathetic, full stop.

Fuck, as soon as this retarded ring theory crap ends I will post a timestamp so you can skip it. I really could not care less about nerd crap, I want my favorite nerds to talk about the movie, not other nerd crap.

30 minutes so far and I am not even looking at the screen anymore, just listening.

32:00

But it still isn't the Force Awakens review, it's just the end to the nerd fanservice. I will tell you when that review starts. It is NOT at 45:00.

52:00!

As I told Spaceman Africa, it's poetry. TFA, while not exactly "bad", is a little on the dull side. Like Plinkett says, is a soft reboot, a remake of ANH done in that blandly-exciting modern-Hollywood style: big on thrills, short on story, lots of pleasant fluff and not much lasting substance.

So clearly, RLM need a padding-filled review to accurately capture the tone and feel of TFA. There really isn't THAT MUCH you can say about Episode VII!

Also, I liked the Millennial retconning of the Prequel Trilogy. As a Millennial myself, and a longtime fan of Darth Maul and Yoda lightsaber-fights, do you think there's any way I can cash in on this growing trend?

Homie, this is the one time you should have spent typing sixteen paragraphs of nonsense before you talked about TFA, just to be in line with the tone of this review.

Once the TFA review starts, it's amazing, but it's less than an hour of this video and questionably worth having to sit through the leadup.

"As a Millennial myself"

What? You're not a millennial.

Can this site just acknowledge the fucking overboard SW phenomena and attached bullshit, and be done with it?

RLM is funny. What they do is funny and usually surprisingly intelligent. I don't see what's wrong with enjoying it. This isn't some gimmick screamy youtuber "YOUR MOVIE IS THE SUCKS, BRO" trying to desperately validate their existence. These guys are content producers who work in film. As far as I'm concerned that gives them a leg up.

as in most of it was just stuff retold from older plinkett reviews or half in the bag, i didn't really get anything new out of this

Mildly disappointing review about a mildly disappointing movie.

Not bad. Not great. Kinda "eh?"

OH MY GOD, IT'S LIKE POETRY

Plinkett is a genius!

Yeah, this wasn't as good as 99% of Half in the Bags.

also the section on diversity was pretty weak. mike was pretty oblivious in assuming kids don't care about that stuff

He's literally reading Star Wars clickbait and offering up toothless, vague retorts. What is happening. I'm so bored.

Well okay, by the end it heated up again. Glad he talked about the weird sexlessness of the movie--that's something all the Disney/Marvel/whatever movies have in common, and it's seeming like our pop culture has regressed back in the 1950s or some crap. I'd like to see more talk about this trend in general.

Anyway, pizza phone sex alone was worth the whole review. Jesus.