| abstract | - RedLetterMedia is a channel on YouTube and a webzone featuring a number of shorts by a small creative team. The group's real claim to fame are the "Mr. Plinkett Reviews"; done by Mike Stoklasa, who plays Plinkett, the reviews tackle various sci-fi films in a manner akin to other video reviewers such as Sci Fi Debris or The Spoony Experiment. In these reviews, Harry S. Plinkett is an elderly man (he claims in one review to be 119 years old) with Deadpan Snarker and Serial Killer tendencies who's been in various marriages where his wives have died under suspicious circumstances (and he routinely kidnaps other women as well). To date, Plinkett has reviewed:
* All four Star Trek the Next Generation films
* Three Star Wars films: The Phantom Menace (the most famous review; it was re-released in 3D to "celebrate" the film's re-release in 3D), Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith
* Avatar (his shortest review to date at a mere 20 minutes)
* Baby's Day Out
* The 2009 Star Trek reboot (a positive review, at that)
* Cop Dog
* Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Plinkett also released a Riff Trax-style audio commentary for The Phantom Menace (for anyone who was willing to watch it again, anyway). Criticism of the Star Wars prequels can normally be written off as easy (as well as being a bit behind the times), but the Phantom Menace review was widely spread around the internet and was even tweeted about by celebrities such as Damon Lindelof and Simon Pegg. Plinkett's reviews, while often containing borderline dark and tasteless humor, offer many insightful explanations as to why the prequels pale in comparison to Lucas' original trilogy -- and these explanations don't involve Jar-Jar (he's barely mentioned throughout all three reviews). Some key critiques of the prequels include:
* How much exposition is given through dialog and talking heads when compared to simple visuals from the original works. (Note how long the discussion of events of extravagant battles that are never shown to the viewer in the establishing shots of Revenge of the Sith are.) Also the fact that despite this, core concepts like who the Trade Federation is and what the original dispute is about are never explained and so nothing really makes sense.
* The lack of anything resembling an empathetic everyman character for the audience to relate to (including the complete lack of a central protagonist in Phantom Menace). In the Phantom Menace review, Mr. Plinkett gave four separate people the task of describing four characters (Han Solo, C-3PO, Queen Amidala, and Qui-Gon Jinn) without mentioning their appearances or actions -- while they each were able to expound greatly on the first two, they all fumbled for words for the prequel characters.
* The extravagance and over-reliance on special effects and blue-screen filming to create a fantastic world in lieu of actual story. (At one point, Plinkett calls back to a much younger George Lucas, who once said special effects were a means to an end.)
* The "dissolution of tension" in nearly every scene that should be exciting, mainly because viewers either don't care about or don't understand what's at stake in the scene (e.g. the fight scene with Darth Maul), don't understand what's happening (due to poor storytelling and/or cluttered visuals), or can't project ourselves into the outlandish events that happen (e.g. the overly long light saber duel over an erupting volcano in Sith).
* Reusing imagery and concepts from the original trilogy without understanding why such scenes worked on their own in the first place. (In the Attack of the Clones review, Plinkett compares Leia's desperation at losing Han Solo to Boba Fett at the end of The Empire Strikes Back -- and the audience's emotional investment in those events -- to Amidala's weak retort at failing to capture Count Dooku.) While there are a few overly-nerdy jabs at continuity and nitpicking at illogical story elements, much of the commentary is given from a filmmaker's point of view, which made the reviews enlightening for numerous viewers. A number of Star Wars fans disliked the approach -- and one fan even wrote a 117-page rebuttal of the Phantom Menace review (which Plinkett scoffed at). The style of the Star Wars reviews (and the reviews which followed those) are similar in style to his earlier Star Trek movie reviews (though those reviews nitpicked even more, mostly about details and inconsistencies between the movies and the show). In addition to the Plinkett reviews, RLM also hosts "Half in the Bag", a traditional review series featuring Stoklasa and Jay Bauman discussing new releases. The show is more in the style of Siskel and Ebert, and while the two are supposed to be repairing Plinkett's VCR, they usually spend the whole time drinking beers and reviewing movies. The Plinkett character also appears, played by Rich Evans. ...now this is where it gets complex, my lovelies...
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