Steel Sponge Posted October 1, 2019 Share Posted October 1, 2019 (edited) You don't need no education On the reviewer we've all outgrown The sarcastic, egotistical internet reviewer Critic, I just can't leave him alone Nostalgia Critic! The Wall was an all time low! All in all, it's just another sign to his downfall But all in all, could it be the worst of them all? This idea of mine has been in the back of my mind for a few months. After the disaster that was NC's review of "The Wall," now seems like a good time to get this project started. So yeah, I'm actually going to be doing this. Why? ...So you don't have to. This project is set to talk about the worst of the worst of Doug Walker, a.k.a. Nostalgia Critic's reviewing career. Although I had been religiously avoiding him for a while, this review will require for me to revisit some of NC's reviews as well as take a look at a good chunk of ones that I feel would benefit towards this project. After this project comes and goes, this will certainly be my swan song to the critic. So far, I can't tell you when I will be able to get my review written. However, I have thought of a best possible release day, which would be on November 30th this year, which is the 40th anniversary of, what else, Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album. So, until then...be on a lookout for this countdown. Edited August 9, 2020 by Steel Sponge 5 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebel the Wolfgirl Posted October 4, 2019 Share Posted October 4, 2019 Yeah, as a fan of the album and film, his review of "The Wall" was absolute crap. I'd give my thoughts, but I'm pretty sure everyone else has the same opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 For those who are wondering when this will start, I currently have plans to do this project in February of next year. This is because I will be pre-occupied with 10th anniversary stuff in January. On top of that, I still need time to finish what I need watch from the list of NC episodes I've organized towards making my bottom 20. Until then, expect another update for this project. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted February 10, 2020 Author Share Posted February 10, 2020 Sorry guys, this is not coming this month since I've still been sleeping on this, but I still plan on getting all that I need to get done for this project. Once I am close to finished skimming through the myriad of NC"s reviews that I've tasked myself to sit through, I will announce a legitimate release month or date for this review. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted June 21, 2020 Author Share Posted June 21, 2020 There is so much shame you are receiving A sinking ship channel on the horizon Your career’s only digging its own grave Your lips move but I can't stand what you're saying From what I observed, I was a griever I knew just what I needed to do Now I've got that feeling once again I can't explain, you would not understand The reviews made me feel how I am I have become CRITIC-ally numb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted July 30, 2020 Author Share Posted July 30, 2020 (edited) The review will be made into four separate parts. The first part will be available on my Wordpress blog (via link on my sig or through the link to the review provided on Discord) on that very day while I will post it to SBC a day later. Edited July 30, 2020 by Steel Sponge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted August 9, 2020 Author Share Posted August 9, 2020 (edited) TOP 20 WORST NOSTALGIA CRITIC VIDEOS (INTRO AND DISHONORABLE MENTIONS) You read the title. You know what you’re here for. I have a long introduction to give out, but I’ll try to condense some things. If you’re familiar with the Nostalgia Critic and the man behind the character, Doug Walker, you’re already familiar with the #ChangeTheChannel drama, as I am too. I saw Channel Awesome degrade into what’s left of it now before my eyes. I’ve seen the backlash in form of the Not So Awesome document. I’ve seen the backlash to the backlash. I’ve seen the backlash to CA’s response to the backlash made by the platform’s former content creators and former fans. I’ve seen the backlash to the backlash towards the backlash for CA’s original “apology,” and thereafter, the backlash to CA’s big non-apology. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back for how we viewed CA, and as well as the Nostalgia Critic, the character in which was mascotted for everything that was wrong with CA then and now. However, a lot of CA’s problems are linked the company’s founder: Mike Michaud. I could say more, but this is not the topic for the review. If you want to know more about the events leading up #ChangeTheChannel, I suggest digging into that history yourselves. So, if you were here expecting me to tear the Nostalgia Critic and its creator, Doug Walker, a new one, you’re not in the wrong place, but let me surprise you readers when I say it first thing that this review is NOT a smearing campaign towards Doug and NC. This is an assessment on the Nostalgia Critic in general, and as well as on Doug as a reviewer, based on my own experiences. Don’t go out of your way to harass Doug Walker because of this review, as we all should’ve learned not to when Brad Jones (a.k.a. Cinema Snob) and his family got harassed over his continued commitment to Channel Awesome during the whole shebang. Nostalgia Critic/Doug Walker and I go back as far as ten years. I first discovered the Nostalgia Critic series through word of mouth from some people I’ve known on an online forum I still use on the regular as of this writing. Upon watching a select few NC videos as part of my introduction to him, I’ll admit that I wasn’t all that impressed at first, but I’ve kept watching to see if I’ll find some sort of silver lining to his videos, and after a while, I saw his appeal and became a fan of NC not too long after. The appeal was very much similar to the appeal I’ve seen in James Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd videos, whereas the character is the exaggerated version of the person portraying what is truly the character. Most people kept watching AVGN for the rants and for some laughs, and we got the same sentiments from the Nostalgia Critic, the character in which was a wackier version of Doug Walker. However, unlike AVGN, even NC’s older videos didn’t age so gracefully, so most of us have been easily writing him off within time. So what happened? Like I said before, the 2018 Channel Awesome drama changed how most of us viewed the NC series and as well as Doug as a person. I’ll get to the latter later, but anyways, when the #ChangeTheChannel drama gave us more insight about Doug, our good memories of him and the Nostalgia Critic that we thought we knew have since turned into wounds of our past. The drama had led most of us to believe that the Nostalgia Critic videos were never really as good as we once thought they were back then…and after the disastrous video that was NC’s review of the film based on Pink Floyd’s The Wall album, the consensus that Doug Walker is an unfunny hack who can’t review his way out of a paper bag has only since then become solidified. On one hand, I can see why people hate NC so much nowadays, but one other hand, as I speak as a former fan of NC…he’s not actually THAT heinous as most others say he is. Now, don’t get the wrong idea: I have stopped liking NC, and it’s been years since I have. I’ve started losing interest in NC a good several years ago. It was back in the beginning of 2014, after one of Doug’s co-stars for the series, Rachel, left on her own terms. I just suddenly stopped midway into one of NC’s videos for Nic Cage month and didn’t bother trying to keep up with NC’s content afterwards, and only checking back and watching the recent NC videos occasionally. During that timeframe, it was the first time that I was getting the hint that NC was never really as funny and good of a review series as I thought it was since I first got into it. Perhaps it had to do with me looking back on a very cringe-inducing meta-fic with an overarching story during that same year; a piece of writing that inserted me a lot of my good online friends into the story a la the CA anniversary specials. The story surrounding that past writing of mine doesn’t end there. Come 2017 when I had to look back into all that I’ve written for it for a MST3K-style project and I’ve fully regretted everything about it ever since. That was when I fully realized the thought that Doug Walker was never actually that good of a reviewer, in extension to the NC videos never being as good as I thought there were. From there, I also realized that I was dead wrong for taking inspiration from NC and Doug (Mind you, I also made a review topic that was styled after NC back in 2012, and luckily I’ve abandoned it early on). So yeah, it didn’t take me so much time before I could see the Nostalgia Critic’s flaws. To my beliefs, it didn’t catch on for most people until they witnessed his Hocus Pocus review, or when the #ChangeTheChannel drama ignited. After reviewing my own bad writing, I decided I was better off ignoring Doug Walker and his content as I felt that taking inspiration from NC didn’t do me very good favors…and then the 2018 #ChangeTheChannel drama happened, making me focus back on Doug and NC again for a while. After the smoke was beginning to clear out, I stuck to ignoring Doug Walker and NC again… …Then in 2019, I discovered MisAnthro Pony’s anti-NC videos and they gave me the recurring thought that I should give NC a lashing of my own. That thought was left on a fence until I discovered the recent news about NC reviewing a film based on Pink Floyd’s The Wall and subsequently releasing an album of parody songs from the video (because I had just recently moved into a new home at the time NC’s The Wall review came out, I didn’t notice it right away). The video received massive backlash all across the board, and it was the one video from Doug/NC that opened up the minds of most others that Doug has completely lost his touch. Up to that point, NC, along with Doug Walker, have become mascots for bad media criticism on the internet, so much so to the point where another one of Doug’s biggest critics, Quinton Reviews, had the audacity to call him “the worst filmmaker ever” in a video detailing his retrospective look at the last big CA anniversary special: To Boldy Flee. I’ll be honest, this is where I feel like a line needs to be drawn somewhere. Look, I know where Doug Walker and NC’s current level of scrutiny is coming from, one-hundred percent. Back when Doug and his reviewing series were still well-liked, people have treated Doug like he was the messiah of online internet critics. Doug’s reputation as a person has also been made a deep cut when the Not So Awesome document revealed how badly he’s managed certain things behind the scenes (again, I’ll get to my thoughts on Doug as a person later). At the end of the day though, no matter how anyone feels about Doug or NC, I don’t think it’s really that deep. Doug Walker is just an amateur critic on the internet with a passion for film, TV and such. Oh, there’s no mistaking that Doug and his brother Rob have been so far up their own a’s when it comes to the quality of their content these days to make them come off as egomaniacs, but I don’t think Doug has the big enough ego to see himself as a highly skilled filmmaker. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made himself aware that people didn’t like certain videos of his or the anniversary specials. Of course, what’s left of NC’s/Doug’s fanbase may beg to differ on the argument that he’s not a good reviewer or comedian. For that, I say: good for them if they like him. However, there is no excusing the scum that exists in a community of people that still watch and enjoy Doug Walker’s content. If you try to change the mind of a NC fan, rest assured that they are aware of the #ChangeTheChannel drama, but they’ll also tell you that you should just get over whatever past mistakes Doug has made that became public because it’s been years since the drama occurred and it’s “in the past.” This is why I don’t tend to listen to the words coming from someone within the NC’s fanbase. How about Doug’s critics, though? I don’t know. It’s not like there exist people within Doug and NC’s hatedom that try so hard to change the minds of your typical NC fan when they’re better off being left alone- Oh hi, MisAnthro Pony, someone I’ve mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, who also happens to be one of Doug’s biggest critics if not the biggest! I doubt MisAnthro Pony will end up stumbling upon my NC review project, but if he does, he shouldn’t think that because I name-checked him, I would have nothing but praise to give him. I haven’t bothered to watch any of his NC commentaries in full, but I’ve bothered to see his replies to some of the comments left by NC fans on his videos, and considering how much his replies look like him trying to one-up NC fans every chance he gets, then I didn’t need to watch them all the way through to know that he can tend to take NC and Doug a little too personally. I get it, he’s dealt with inconsiderate NC fans before and tried to reason with them, but a line still needs to be drawn when you consider that he displays this similar behavior even towards pro-NC comments that aren’t picking a debate with him. To those who hate NC/Doug and hold a tight grudge against him, while continually giving them your attention, get over yourselves. There are more important things than spreading the word about how bad of a critic Doug is, and while I can at least agree that he is not a very good reviewer, I can think of worse reviewers than Doug to talk about, NC-adjacent or not… (i.e. Irate Gamer, TWIP, Lily Orchard, MovieBob, Gaming in the Clinton Years if you weren’t to see it as unintentional comedy, etc.) …as there are also bigger internet scumbags than Doug to talk about too (i.e. DarkSydePhil, Onision, Verlisify, Benthelooney, etc.). Of course, I shouldn’t be one to preach while I’m doing this grandiose review on Nostalgia Critic and his videos. Nonetheless, I will explain the purpose of this review after this whole preamble. To those who are fans of NC fans and also want people to leave Doug’s PR mistakes in the past, stop it with the kumbaya B.S.. I can move past Doug making one or more bad reviews, but I see no reason to change my views on Doug Walker as a person. As long as Doug has still made his mistakes and still has yet to hold himself accountable for them, I don’t owe him forgiveness for 1) not being competent enough to handle the situations of his former CA associates, 2) being partially responsible for getting Allison Pregler fired from CA due to being around during the Skype chat Michaud arranged for her without even telling her, 3) covering up Justin Carmical’s (a.k.a. JewWario) hidden behavior as a groomer and rapist before and after he committed suicide until the #ChangeTheChannel supporters figured it out that he was the one vaguely described in the Not So Awesome document after CA released its second response to the drama, 4) not having a realistic enough point of view on film production by expecting shooting for two overlong anniversary specials to go smoothly and be done in a matter of days to validate his experience as a filmmaker, 5) gossiping about the quality of Phelous’ special effects designs during To Boldly Flee’s editing process, behind his back, 6) reports of sexism on his part, which I’m not all too well-informed about, so I can’t go in-depth on this matter, but it’s still important to acknowledge this. There’s probably more about Doug as a person that I should be made aware of, besides positives like his charitable contributions, but I’ll at least cap things off with this: The days of when the worst thing a CA staff member did was when some guy named ChadRocco of Familiar Faces badmouthed a particular season of a children’s show, specifically My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, are long gone (it was during the time the brony fandom was at its peak, so I can see why it happened). The days of when the worst thing to come from Doug Walker or his Nostalgia Critic series was either his attempt at a Let’s Play video, his Hocus Pocus “review,” making constant cheap jabs towards Pokemon (while making fun of how sensitive most of its fans can be towards hate for their favorite franchise), or something as miniscule as changing the color of the wall are long gone. As long as Doug still has done his fair share of PR issues while not holding himself accountable for his wrongdoings, then it’s most certainly not “in the past” to me. On a sadder note, I don’t expect Doug to come out to apologize for the things he did, as I heard from word of mouth that the fear of lawsuit from his former CA associates is preventing him from doing that. End of story. So, what is this big review for? This is my way of completely coming into terms with letting go of Doug Walker and the Nostalgia Critic for my own good. I started the previous decade getting into NC, and I’m going to start this decade with my personal swan song to Doug Walker and his review series, and I’m going to do it with style by way of not a top 10, not a top 11, but a top 20 list of the worst Nostalgia Critic videos that I’ve sat through. I’ve decided to do this project after hearing about how bad one of Doug’s recent reviews as Nostalgia Critic was, since last year in late September (try and “guess” which one I’m referring to). Forming this list was not a very easy task, I’d tell you. For my own research in finding what I believed were the worst NC reviews, there were no sources that I decided to rely on. Lists on the worst NC videos were scarce, and while TV Tropes has a Dethroning Moment of Suck page for NC, the page was barely helpful on giving me ideas on what reviews I should watch as DMOS pages are dedicated to recording the worst moments while not critiquing the episodes as a whole. I did get some ideas from MisAnthro Pony’s videos on NC on what I should skim through as well, but I can barely take any of his words as my own since I’m by no means as harsh of a critic towards Doug and his series like he is. The end result was a slow process in which I had to skim through a whopping 70 videos before I was all set on my top 20. Some of the videos were rewatches while the rest were videos that I have never seen prior. What made forming my list more difficult was due to that a good chunk of the NC videos I’ve seen for my research weren’t so bad at all, as most of them were either just okay or mediocre. There are a few specific ground rules I’ve laid for this project. First of all, it had to have the Nostalgia Critic name attached to it, so reviews from Doug outside of his character do not count. Second, the video in question has to resemble a review by some means, and it can’t be far away from one, this means editorials are not eligible while a couple certain videos, NC’s Let’s Play of Bart’s Nightmare and his “review” of Hocus Pocus, are also out of question for appearing on my list (although the former isn’t even bad enough to even be a dishonorable mention). Third, and this is very important, just because I don’t disagree with the Critic’s opinion doesn’t mean the review is bad and should be on my top 20. The biggest weakness of any online critic, despite their objections, is not being able to handle certain opinions, and disliking a NC video just because I disagree with the Critic’s views would be further establishing that belief that I have. My idea of a NC video that’s bad enough for my top 20 depends on a few factors: Doug’s critiquing quality, his comedic quality, his ability to balance both of those things towards making a coherent review, and his ability to provide social commentary. If Doug does poor in one or more of those qualities, then it’s a sure contender for my list. Fourth, no CA anniversary specials, as the infamous trilogy (Kickassia, Suburban Knights, To Boldly Flee) would make up most of the top 5, so that would be kinda cheating. There are other points and even some positives that I have to say of Nostalgia Critic that I’d like to address, but since my preamble is long enough as it is, I’ll save the rest of my general commentary on Doug/NC for the very end. Let’s start the review proper with a selection of dishonorable mentions that didn’t make the final cut… Surf Ninjas One of few other older NC videos you’ll be seeing me bring up. The review is mostly built around a single joke where the Critic likes a really bad movie. The novelty is already lost once you know the main point of this review, which is explained by your typical ‘it was all just a dream’ twist. Even while Doug, as his character, is pretending to like the film, he doesn’t try so much to make it seem convincing to make the twist turn out as surprising in hindsight. I also can’t forget to mention that this is the one NC video where Mike Michaud, the ever-so estranged founder of Channel Awesome, makes a cameo. Jack and Jill & The Emoji Movie I’m putting these two together because my sentiments towards them are very similar. First of all, these two films are easy targets that wouldn’t give the Critic very little interesting insight to bring to the table, as each of them have already been explored in-depth many times before by other entertainment critics. It doesn’t help that NC’s jokes fall so flat on each respective review. Remember the end of the Critic’s review for Foodfight!, whereas he’s devastated to discover that his review didn’t turn out to matter so much because the trend of hating on the film had already died by the time he got the chance to cover it? Regardless of that, the film was still fresh in the eyes of some viewers and so it was understandable for it to be covered by Doug at a not too later time, but he could’ve still taken the advice from that past episode. The hatewagon trends for The Emoji Movie (2017) and Jack and Jill (2011) became passé in a few months’ time, and they were both the subjects of an NC review in 2018. It’s not hard to see why Doug did episodes on them for his NC series, as his fans were pretty much clamoring for Nostalgia Critic reviews on both films. In the end, NC’s reviews for Jack and Jill and The Emoji Movie are just pointless. There’s absolutely nothing about his commentary on the two films that I would consider as news on how notoriously bad they are. The Animatrix I know what you’re all thinking. This is one of the worst reviews from the infamous Matrix Month in 2015? On a more surprising note, I think this is the second-worst review that the Critic did for Matrix Month. How I can explain this starts with one notable detail in the Critic’s review for the first Matrix film, where he outright says that he hates all of the Matrix films including the first one. Does that include The Animatrix as well? I can’t say for sure because all I got out of the Critic’s consensus for the anthology is that he thinks it’s better than the trilogy. Is it an actually great film in the Matrix series or is it not? Does it contradict his original feelings that there’s not one film in the series that he likes? He doesn’t clear that out, and for most of the review, Doug’s bias against the Matrix trilogy is going through his head, as he delivers typical criticisms like how some aspects of the anthology are pretentious, bloated, and don’t make sense (and while some segments try to tell coherent stories, the least I think anyone should expect The Animatrix to do, given its experimental nature, is make so much sense). So yeah, it’s a fairly nitpicky review, but less so than one of his other reviews for Matrix month, and the review itself is thankfully too short to be a considerable lock for one of NC’s worst videos. Ernest Saves Christmas I’ll admit. This is on the honorable mentions list for one major reason: the jokes. If you’re familiar with the controversy surrounding the video, you’ll know that Doug cut a joke from the review that pokes fun at people with autism. Most people on the autism spectrum are sensitive so people are going to find the joke and will find it offensive, and even though I’m autistic myself, I never found the joke to be offensive to me. While it’s not even one of the worst jokes from the review, it is still tasteless though. Anyways, one of the worst jokes from the review is where Doug, as the Critic character, actually slips in the n-word, to make a reference to a particular line said in the film Rush Hour. Sure, it wasn’t used in a derogatory fashion, but it was still uncomfortable to notice that Doug did indeed say the n-word in one of his reviews. Yet while the autism joke was cut, this joke wasn’t. Other than that, that one joke accompanied by a Crazy Taxi-styled skit (“Don’t forget to hit the Asians!”) didn’t age well either. The main point of this video’s placement as a dishonorable mention stems from the idea that Doug at times isn’t too careful or considerate about what jokes should go into his videos and what shouldn’t. Has the NC series done more risqué jokes much like the ones from this review that I’ve addressed, and after this very review? I’m not sure, but this isn’t clearly the first time that Doug’s humor was at a low point. As for the review…it is okay. One thing I’ll say about the review itself is that I wish the Critic did more on establishing why the film is a guilty pleasure to him. Christmas with the Kranks Here’s yet another Christmas review from the Nostalgia Critic that nearly made the list. This review had its critics, due to how the Critic character responded to the backlash towards the Hocus Pocus video, with Critic from the past representing those who despised it. The present Critic nonchalantly disagrees and addresses that the video does resemble a review if you paid more attention to it, among other things. No matter what stance anyone has on the so-called review to Hocus Pocus, this isn’t what makes the Christmas with the Kranks review a near-contender for my top 20 worst NC reviews list to me. Despite that I ruled out the Hocus Pocus video from being a possibility for my list, the review for Christmas with a Kranks barely resembles as one, and it’s overshadowed by a plot that takes up more than the review itself. In the process, the video feels more like Doug reviewing his own career as the Nostalgia Critic, and reviewing a film like Christmas with the Kranks was meant to establish the that this is his self-therapy session. For those who don’t know where I’m getting at, the character-driven plot in this video deals with NC having to review the film in his old style for the first half after “wishing” that he put little effort into the review. The present critic spends the first half regretting his old reviewing style and for the second half of the plot, the Critic from the past (a.k.a. Critic from 2007) travels to the present times and aspires to bring back the NC’s old, traditional style with a video of his own, after witnessing what his reviewing style would look like in 2015, with the Hocus Pocus video being the example, all while Critic continues his review of the film. However, the past Critic would only then be proven that his fans wouldn’t want to see the return to the old, basic NC formula like he thought and gets distraught by the amount of hate he receives from it. The above moment leads to the moment where the Critic delivers an actually solid speech about he, like most others, change, that it’s normal, and while people change for either better or worse, it’s the choices that we make now that define who we are now. On top of that, the Critic, who starts the review loathing his past reviewing style, also goes around to say that we shouldn’t regret our past, that in which implies that even our most shameful memories shaped up who we are now because of how important they are. In the midst of this whole message, the Critic points out that the main problem with Christmas with the Kranks is how it’s one of those type of films that don’t want to make us change our self-being. This is a very strong and believable message, as Doug speaks from his own experience through his character, while also using the past version of the Critic to establish the issue with those who want NC to keep its traditional style, right down to the remarks about the change of the wall’s color. Although the review has a good message to prevent it from being on my top 20, the major problem I have with the review still exists. Take note how I summarized the video as the Critic putting little effort into it, because that’s what I feel Doug has done for the review in general. Like I said before, it’s overshadowed by the character-driven plot that’s smacked right in there. Doug was better off giving the review and the plot their own separate segments, but that doesn’t happen, and we’re given a clunky video as a result. There are hardly any noteworthy moments I’ve got from the Critic’s analysis of the film besides its lack of morality, and it’s due to how much the review itself feels distracted by the Critic’s character plot. Looking back at the review, and its message, it doesn’t make matters for NC better when the quality for the series hasn’t very much improved afterwards, despite what the Critic said about learning to get better as part of his monologue. It shows in his later reviews, including the one that came just right after this one. Thus, Doug, inside and outside NC, has only since then proven his own self to be the same man, but with brand new mistakes. Of course, this is how I still view Doug and the NC series. It’s like the Critic said that it’s who we are now that define us. Disneycember 2015: The Good Dinosaur This is not a Nostalgia Critic review in-name, so this is just something extra. There are actually two versions of Doug reviewing this film. He did one in 2019 where he talks about it in his usual Disneycember formula, but in 2015, when this film came out, he does a review of it for Disneycember…in the style of his Sibling Rivalry subseries. It’s a review done by Doug and his brother Rob, in other words. I came across this since early 2016, after I saw the film myself. I decided to look into it while forming my year-end review for 2015 animation…and boy, even though it’s not eligible for my top 20, it is still worth mentioning because Doug’s first video review for The Good Dinosaur was so bad. This is the one video that made me realize how much more fairly I should’ve judged Doug Walker’s ability as a reviewer. Since this video is Doug and Rob talking about their thoughts on the film from the get-go, as I assume they usually do in Sibling Rivalry, this is a clear sign of how lazily done this review this when you’re not doing a good job at talking about a subject from the spot. The Walker brothers do not give themselves the time to piece all their thoughts together to make for a fair assessment of their own, so they come off as if they just returned from the movie theater after finishing watching the film. It doesn’t help that most of the review consists of them nitpicking certain aspects of the film that they disliked and going into off-topic tangents. You don’t have to like The Good Dinosaur. I can see the problems with it, too, but I do think it’s a far better Pixar film than most others think it’s not. Whatever excuse you have for not liking the film, may it be because of the Uncanny Valley comparisons between the character designs and the background designs, because you thought the story wasn’t strong enough by Pixar’s standards, because it’s a historic box office loss for the company, which is an overblown reasoning, whatever reason, it’s a much better excuse than some of the Walker brothers’ excuses for not liking the film. The nitpicks from the brothers include the confusing logic of dinosaurs farming and ranching, the idea of cowboy dinosaurs being ‘random,’ and ‘going full Lion King on the first third’ according to Rob, As for the stupidest takes, starting with Doug’s case, during the first third of the video, he claims that the film feels like every dinosaur film that you’ve ever seen. By ‘every dinosaur film,’ he actually means just Land Before Time, and so acknowledges that he had contradicted his point during the last third of the video. I get it strikes a familiar chord with Land Before Time, but even that has its clear differences from TGD if you looked at them both closely enough. Then there’s Rob, whose main reasoning for not liking the film is because it’s unnecessarily dark during some particular moments. Last time I checked, I thought even Doug’s brother would whore out the greatness that was any particular work of animation with dark or serious subject matter, mostly stuff he and Doug experienced from their childhood like Secret of NIMH and Watership Down. Doug has called Rob’s opinions of the film ‘entertaining’ so I don’t know if he tended to agree. I mean, FFS, he is the same guy who made a new series based on talking about dark and grim cartoons that most viewers probably already knew about beforehand. Going back on topic, another thing from the review that made my blood boil was their predictable lumping in the film with three other particular Pixar films in terms of its quality: Cars 2, Brave, and Monsters University. They often debate where it lands alongside those three films when they discuss if TGD is better or worse than any of the three. I get that Pixar used to have an impressive streak of fantastic animated films and because TGD came out after the acclaimed Inside Out, it tends to live in its shadow, but holding high expectations out of Pixar and expecting their next film to be a guaranteed classic just about every time is something I can’t stand in a community that talks about the studio. As I should say, TGD is by no means a perfect film. Not every Pixar film was mainly designed to be a masterpiece though. Despite that Rob goes on one of the Walkers’s off-topic tangents during the video about how Pixar making a dud film shouldn’t be treated like it’s the end for them one-thirds in, I can’t help but feel like he and Doug contradict that point when they talk about TGD because of the attitude they display, and I can’t help but familiarize it with the attitude of fans and critics alike who easily write off the film for not being on the same level as Pixar’s greats. Because Doug does give himself time to piece together his thoughts for his second review, the 2019 version is a major improvement over this and yes, I saw the whole 2015 video so I know that Doug at least has some positive things to say about TGD as well…but in the end, with his and Rob’s constant nitpicking, the review still molds itself into what may be one of the worst assessments I’ve ever seen that has Doug Walker’s named attached it, and it’s not limited to his work as the Nostalgia Critic Apologies if my rant on this is a little too long-winded. I could go on with my argument against Doug and Rob’s review of TGD, but it is best that I stop here. This review sucks, and so may be the rest of the Sibling Rivalry videos I never bothered seeing, and it’s a waste of nearly 33 minutes of anyone’s time. End of rant. Stick around for the second part of my review where I go over the first ten bad NC reviews on my list, which I will post soon. Edited August 9, 2020 by Steel Sponge 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted August 16, 2020 Author Share Posted August 16, 2020 (edited) TOP 20 WORST NOSTALGIA CRITIC VIDEOS (#20-#11) Spoiler Hey, you know I treaded through several NC videos to compile a list of twenty reviews that I would deem the worst of the worst? I hope you guys don’t mind that I start this grandiose review light…but let’s be real. Didn’t Doug do the same for Nickelodeon month all the way back in 2009? 20. Nicktoons The Critic’s review of Nicktoons, or the least the ones he’s familiar with, is a review where he talks about 90s cartoons on TV and that’s pretty much it. It’s a review where he talks about 90s cartoons on TV. Adventure ho. (Hey look, I made a NC reference!) Yep, my thoughts exactly: the Critic’s look back on Nicktoons is what I would call “certainly a Nostalgia Critic video,” because aside from one major segment, what else is there to talk about? Well, what else was there for NC to talk about over the course of the review? Not much, apparently. If you take away the Critic’s quip on Doug, and why the show gave him some trauma, his retrospective on Nicktoons is a very boring and worthless one at that. The only one particular show in the Nicktoons brand that I’ve seen the Critic shower some praise to is The Ren & Stimpy Show, going fairly in-depth with it, but then when he talks about shows like Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life, and Real Monsters!, he focuses on aspects he finds odd in retrospect, like he spends some time talking about the Rugrats episode that deals with toilet training, and then spends some time debating what kind of people the babies become grown up and talking about the weird opening close-ups for each episode. As for Rocko, he just acknowledges how weird the show was while making a joke about one scene quote unquote rips off a moment from Monty Python, forming it into a hypocritical joke where he says that people should stop taking jokes from classic comedians while a Daffy Duck clip plays with it. We don’t know his specific stances on Rugrats or Rocko, and something is up when you have little interesting things to say about Rocko’s Modern Life. The lack of interesting commentary for this review is what makes it quite a chore to sit through. When he decides to talk about Hey Arnold!, he admits it right away that he knows very little about it and he’s only judging it for its first episode as he’s stopped watching Nickelodeon at the time it came out, so the question here is if Doug didn’t have that much material to cover for Nicktoons in the review, then why didn’t he try broadening his research and experience, or why did he cover it anyway? Sure, this was while he was still shelling out new reviews once a week, but come on, this would’ve been a much more serviceable review if he gave himself more time to re-experience the Nicktoons he grew up with and find some more interesting things to say for the shows that aren’t Ren & Stimpy and Doug. I’ve seen and dealt with people boasting their nostalgia boners for 90s Nickelodeon and I’d rather hear from these kinds of people on why they connect to these shows rather than see the Nostalgia Critic talk a good length about a couple shows, and then some for the rest. That’s how pointless the review feels to me. I’ve been debating whether or not it deserves be on the same level as my dishonorable mentions or the rest of the list proper, but after looking back at this a few more times, I’d say its spot on my list is indeed deserved. Thankfully, we have something more interesting to talk about, which will be the topic of this next contender. Get hyped up, folks! Spoiler Greetings, it is I, Megatron of the Deceptacons. The person I know who is doing this review is on a short break and he had asked for me to fill in for him just so I could establish why this next review from the Nostalgia Critic did not work for him at all. Of course, I’m talking about Optimus Prime’s review of the 1980s Transformers cartoon. 19. Transformers Cartoon I have been informed by the reviewer that he wasn’t considering this as a lock for his top 20 worst Nostalgia Critic reviews, but it earns its spot on here due to not making any more space to bring it down to a dishonorable mentions tier. The reviewer also gave me some instructions on what things I should address about this review, so I will start by saying that a man named Doug Walker, whose portrayal of Optimus Prime with the Nostalgia Critic’s traits added to it, does not do a very good job at giving us anything about him to care about. His reviewing style as a different character, as the reviewer I’m covering for claims, falls very flat and makes for a review that is a chore to watch. He then went on to say that he finds it peculiar how Doug managed to make his Critic persona still something of personality and interest when he played as a different character in the We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story review while the Optimus Prime portrayal is dull and doesn’t have much to justify itself as anything more than a stand-in for the Critic character, besides talking about how great the Transformers cartoon was and how trash Michael Bay’s Transformers movies are despite its fans. This Optimus Prime character that this Doug person plays doesn’t have that much interesting material of his own for the cartoon that he talks about, which makes the reviewer and some others only care less about trying to see the appeal for the Transformers cartoon as so much more than an animated series that is shamelessly manufactured to sell its merchandise. On top of that, the reviewer I’m standing in for goes on to say that he also thinks Doug’s jokes for the review fall flat as well, with the worst example of the review’s jokes being a two minute monologue (Steel’s note: yes, two minutes straight, I’m not joshing.) from one of my associates, Soundwave, about wanting to make a romantic comedy film that inserts him along with a toaster as his love interest than continue serving me, followed by a punchline that was already destined to fall flat. The joke is that speeches like that is a pretentious cliché that Doug hates, but the joke in itself is pretentious if Doug expects for the joke to work so well, the reviewer then notes. I’ll continue to talk about this review of the Transformers Cartoon as myself as you should all already get the picture that I’m filling in for someone. I think it’s acceptable that Doug’s character for the reviews talks of the Transformers cartoon in a positive light, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that he didn’t have as many interesting things to say about the cartoon itself, that he didn’t have many interesting jokes to back up his commentary, and that he could’ve made the Optimus Prime portrayal more interesting. The reviewer I’ve been standing in for also told me to let you readers know that if you feel drained reading the commentary for this review as a different character, so he’s referring to me, then you just realized the main issue with the Nostalgia Critic video on the 80s Transformers cartoon. That’s my cue to step out of this review since even I didn’t want be dragged in to be reduced to this. Spoiler My name is Steel Sponge, and that is no lie. I’m not very good with rhyming so I’m just doing this for the intro…to this next NC review that I’m going to show. There’s not much for me to say except let it die. 18. The Lorax Doug and his critic character are collectively the most elitist when it comes to how Dr. Seuss’s works are adapted, which I’m pretty sure most of you may already know. The Nostalgia Critic review for The Lorax is certainly the most interesting when it comes to his reviews of the Dr. Seuss adaptations. I don’t mean that in a good way though. The NC review is pretentious and preachy for the message that the Critic tries to reach to us throughout, which is funny because Doug hates it when people get pretentious. While the Critic character does make some reasonable points on why Illumination’s The Lorax did not work for him at all, it’s his social commentary that brings the review down. The Lorax character in the film and in the original book preaches for the Once-ler and the rest of humanity to stop tearing down trees. It’s the point of his character, but does that mean I should excuse the Critic for doing the same thing, but speaking for the film industry to stop tarnishing the good name of Dr. Suess with a kind of vibe that makes you feel like he wants to be seen as the savior of his legacy? Well, the easy answer is no. When the Critic is not too busy trying to convince us how pointless these Dr. Seuss adaptations are and that no matter how much the film industry tries, people are always going to go back to the original picture books, he also provides social commentary on the culture of fans who have a crush on the young Once-ler (not before ranting about him being made into a guitar playing pretty boy that spouts pop culture references, of course), because of course, you can’t talk about Illumination’s The Lorax without bringing that up. Oh, and did I mention that this is the debut of the Hyper Fangirl character? That in turn becomes social commentary for people with crushes on fictional characters in general, with NC himself realizing that he too is part of that culture. The idea that you shouldn’t like people just because of their common ground is not a bad message to coincide with the NC’s main arguments against the film, but it could’ve been established better. Most of everything else that the NC points out is stuff you’ve heard before. The film’s anti-industry commentary and as well as its message on protecting Earth and the trees are ironic because the film itself manufactured by Hollywood, promoted with ads, and it’s bad because it’s a sellout move that goes against the book’s message, etcetera, and etcetera. As pretentious and preachy the Critic is with presenting his arguments against the film, I can’t help but find it hilarious at the same time too. Like, “Fad is just one letter away from fade” is one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines uttered by the character. It doesn’t prevent the review from being on my list, but it’s why I couldn’t bring it any lower. Also, would it have killed Doug to better the graphic designs for his series? If you thought his commentary didn’t make the review feel tacky, then the original graphical design quality in the background of higher-quality live-action footage would. Case in point: Spoiler I’m just going to skip right ahead to this next NC review on my list. Mentioning it by its name would usher back in my cringe-induced memories of it, It may be odd to believe that the review I’m referring to is Jurassic Park, but- no, no, no, wait! “I’M A MOTHERFUCKING T-REX!” *guitar riff* “I’M A MOTHERFUCKING T-REX!” IT’S ALL COMING BACK TO ME NOW, AAAAAAAA- 17. Jurassic Park NC’s Jurassic Park review is a good example of how just because something is a positive review doesn’t mean that the review itself is good. It’s not all very cringe-inducing. I’ll get to the awkward moments later while I start with the Critic’s analysis of the film. I appreciate the positive points that he makes that is outside of the whole T-Rex’s presence, but for the rest of the way, you can sense that he tries to find some things to complain about, may it be something as understandable as Jeff Goldblum’s acting quality, or something as peculiar as Spielberg’s quote unquote spotlight fetish. I know the point of addressing that flaw is that it’s a habit for Spielberg to use lighting effects of the like, but how does that bring down the film a bit is a question I’d ask. Other than, there was also one point where he questions a particular moment in the film where four shots of a gun miss a dinosaur when he could’ve already figured out that it’s because, as the story suggests, the genetically engineered dinosaurs are intelligent. When the Critic is not too busy looking for something in the film to pick apart, he goes on an excited tangent about the T-Rex, where he’s like “HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOU FUCKING GUYS, IT’S THE MOTHERFUCKING T-REX, THE MOST FUCKING BADASS THING IN THE FILM, OH MY FUCKING GOD!” And I’m just like, yes Nostalgia Critic. Indeed the T-Rex is the best thing about Jurassic Park. Everyone who has seen the film beforehand knows that. I’ve seen it mere months before this review came out, and I don’t need to be reminded so much about why the T-Rex in Jurassic Park is so amazing, which is what the Critic does. It’s over-exaggerated but I get why he does this, it’s part of the Critic’s character, and the series’ fans live to see his rants and raves. It’s annoying, simple as that, but it’s not as annoying as the music he plays over his segments that he dedicates to the T-Rex, and I tell you what, I’d be happy to never hear it again because I feel like I would burst a blood vessel every time I have to hear “I’M A MOTHAFUGGIN TEEEEEE REX doom doom doom I’M A MOTHAFUGGIN TEEEEE REX!” Venting over, let’s move on to the next review. Spoiler Over the course of the Critic’s current era since 2013, one very common complaint about the series revival is Doug’s bigger reliance on skits or sketches as part of his shift in his reviewing style. It’s so clear to see why. Within time, skits would become sketches and then sketches would turn into the review itself. There are some prime, infamous examples of the Nostalgia Critic’s clipless, reenacting style of reviewing, but let’s focus on a review that contains clips but also tries to balance its recurring sketch, with the keyword being ‘tries…’ 16. Balto NC’s review for Balto is one of those videos that tries to have the review and the comedy as equally focused, yet due to the review cutting back to the sketch quite a few several times, the review and the sketch feels sandwiched in together. I know the sketch resembles a mock-up of the live action segments from the film that’s being covered, but the comedy falls flat there nonetheless. Although it’s not as bad as that Lord of The Rings inspired skit between Rob and the Critic, which happens midway into the review, as it came out of nowhere. While the Critic tries to give us a clear idea on what he thinks of the film, he doesn’t actually give us his complete final thoughts on Balto, which makes the video feel rushed. As some of you may point out, there is actually a reason for the video feeling rushed, but it’s not so much of a good excuse. Doug Walker was sick by the time the script for the video was being written, so he left the rest up to his brother Rob. I know this because Doug, as his Critic character, addresses this near the end. So in other words, most of video was written by Rob. Now, see, that’s the problem. Because the script was mostly handled by him, he didn’t seem to give himself the time to let the Critic share his elaborate thoughts on Balto and just lets one of Tamara’s characters, Aunt Despair, speak for him on what he thought of the film in a nutshell. It was understandable that Rob had to fill in for the rest of writing the script due to Doug being sick, but the work he had done for it doesn’t do much to justify how rushed in it felt. Also, since Phil Collins voices two characters in the film, it’s certainly not a NC review without him making some cheap jabs at his work on Disney’s Tarzan, because he doesn’t like Phil Collins, do-ho-ho. Overall, the NC video on Balto isn’t terrible, but it has its problems once you realize them by the very end. I shouldn’t forget to re-acknowledge that it doesn’t do a good job in balancing the humor and the critiquing, but as you guys can already tell, he could only do a worse job at that and he did, more times than once. Spoiler When I went on a tangent about Doug’s Disneycember reviews for The Good Dinosaur, I went on about how bad the first one was in comparison to his newer one. With Doug having to continue pleasing what’s left of his fanbase and making sure he doesn’t run out of material for the Nostalgia Critic, it makes sense he would talk about some Disney films more than once. That doesn’t mean he should though. Chances are we’ll be given something as derivative as this… 15. The Lion King The first time Doug has made a review for the film was all the way back in 2011 for his first Disneycember. The Nostalgia Critic review was made and released as recent as 2019, just in time for the release of the new The Lion King movie’s theatrical release. When Doug’s review for The Lion King was first released, I remember some people feeling pretty livid about it, but it never bothered me so much. The NC review of the film didn’t try to add something new for Doug to say about it. Before I saw this, I was expecting the Critic’s commentary to be very derivate from Doug’s 2011 review, and what do you know, that’s exactly what I got out of this. The Critic adores the ever-loving hell out of Be Prepared, he despises Hakuna Matata, he finds the film to be overrated despite enjoying it himself, he has mixed feelings about the film’s message, I already know all this through Doug’s commentary on TLK outside of his character, so I sure as heck didn’t feel like I’ve seen any newer insight on TLK through the Critic’s review. In other words, it’s the same as his Disneycember review, but in the good ol’ fashioned exaggerated NC style, and stretched to nearly 30 minutes. It’s not a terrible review. Regardless, it’s still a waste of time. Spoiler The Nostalgia Critic’s review of Bart’s Nightmare, oh how the days of that flew by so quickly. Fans were so pissed by it that it led to Doug, as his Critic character, apologizing for it in his next NC video, addressing to us that it’s just a bad video at the end of the day, and that it happens to just about anyone, all while compromising his viewers a review on a good nostalgic video to make up for it. This type of damage control wasn’t a bad idea, but looking back on it, we still deserved better than this: 14. James and the Giant Peach This would be the very review that NC as damage control for the previous, infamous Let’s Play video, and it’s not very good damage control. The main gist of doing this review is the Critic trying to make up for the last video by doing a positive review on a film that most people like, and even though he’s not so much of a fan of James and the Giant Peach, he tries to keep the review positive while acknowledging the movie’s flaws. For one thing, I don’t see why the Critic could’ve settled on talking about a different film, or why he decided to create the façade that the liked JatGP when he didn’t. Perhaps this is because he wanted to establish that he was afraid of what his own fans would think after he let them down as the NC once. Up to that point, I could ask ‘who cares what anyone thinks about the Nostalgia Critic’s opinion?’ before I would have to remind myself that this was way back when the series was still very well-liked. On top of that, if NC truly didn’t like JatGP as much as anyone else, he could’ve taken the courage to make into a legit lukewarm review of the film and make things a little more interesting, but he decided to shy away from some if not most of his real thoughts and make for a payoff for having made a bad Let’s Play video not so very deserving. When the Critic does point out particular flaws from the film, some are understandable, but some are nitpicks, with his biggest one being not liking Randy Newman as a songwriter. He reminds us he doesn’t like Randy’s work for the film whenever he has to talk about a song he’s produced for it, even when one particular song was in the original book itself (the one musical segment where the insects sing about eating the giant peach), and while it was composed by Randy, it was still originally written by the author and yet the Critic slaps the blame on Randy for disliking the song. Talk about trying to make up for a bad review only to make another that’s only worse looking back. Let’s Play were never Doug’s forte, but film reviews are, therefore his lack of a good compromise with this review earns its spot on my list. Spoiler I’ve said it during my introduction to this project that there is one habit that I believe most online critics inherit, that being their unwillingness to handle certain opinions. There are more bad habits that an internet critic can pick up, however, and if you don’t believe me when I say that one of those unhealthy traits is calling anything a rip-off of something, then hear me out as I talk about a review where Doug, as his Critic character, displays that behavior. 13. Jupiter Ascending 2015 was not a good year to be Nostalgia Critic. It was also the year where Doug felt the need to give potshots to the Wachowskis with not just Matrix Month, but also by taking a dig at their recent output in Jupiter Ascending. One of the Critic’s main points on why Jupiter Ascending was a cinematic disaster was because it was a very dull film. His other major point he makes against it is that it’s unoriginal and feels like any other sci-fi film, which I would tend to agree with, but he backs this up by looking at particular moments at face value and accusing the film of borrowing or stealing ideas from sci-films…and as well as other films that are distant from the genre. Before anyone tries to argue with me about my stance on the Critic consistently slapping in the rip-off label on the film every chance he gets, then try explaining to me how exactly I should believe that Jupiter Ascending 1) copies He-Man and the Phantom Menace because Caine uses an energy shield, 2) copies Naboo from the Phantom Menace (again) and Rivendell from the Lord of the Rings because of a shot of Balem’s base, 3) copies Signs because of a scene where Katharine gets probed, 4) copies Superman Returns because of a scene where Jupiter and Caine are flying together, 5) copies The Empire Strikes Back and Ernest Saves Christmas (???!!!) because of the whole Caine and Stinger reunion scene, 6) copies Neon Genesis Evangelion because Caine controls a robot to save Jupiter from being married to Titus, 7) copies etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, (as you guys can already tell, he does this a lot in the review) just because the Critic points how very similar some particular moments are, all while not saying anything else to back up his claims? If you know me well, people calling anything a rip-off, especially when they provide little to nothing to back up their argument, is a personal pet peeve of mine. Excessive amounts of such reductive comparisons is a prime example of lazy criticism to me, and Nostalgia Critic’s constant pointing out of things that Jupiter Ascending borrowed or copied from other films is part of why I think it’s lazy criticism. Like, yeah…Good for you Critic that you realized that some particular scenes from a movie feel so similar to scenes from other movies. You want a cookie because you’re so smart for pointing all that out to us? For one reason, I can’t blame Doug for resorting to this kind of criticism. After all, when one of the main problems with Jupiter Ascending is because it’s a very boring film, what’s the point in talking about it when it doesn’t give you any more material to cover besides the film’s unoriginality? I guess a few more excuses to give the Wachowskis some more potshots are better than just one. So bottom line: if you’re going to point out that a film stole or borrowed something from another film, don’t just let us believe your statement by looking at it at face value. Elaborate on your point a lot more and I won’t have to complain. Oh, and did I mention that the review starts off with a sketch featuring the Wachowksis as portrayed by Doug and Tamara, and the one joke that the review starts off with deals with the whole bewilderment of one of the Wachowskis having transitioned (you know at the time, as this was before the other half had also transitioned)? I don’t see it as offensive to the transgender community, but it’s still an uncomfortable joke that we didn’t need, regardless of the fact that the next joke to follow is a cut-off of that very joke, with an apology for that off-topic moment. Hey Doug, here’s another piece of advice I don’t expect you to listen to: if a joke is not good, DON’T PUT IT IN THE FINAL PRODUCT. Spoiler While I’m still on the topic of Nostalgia Critic and the Wachowski films, the next review on my list is unquestionably the worst Matrix Month video: 12. The Matrix When I talked about points in time where the NC series had lost a lot of its fans, I didn’t bring up this review since I figured it wasn't a significant enough low for the series, but I am aware that some folks had decided to give up on NC after they saw The Matrix review. As the Critic’s review for this film was his first for 2015, it was a sign of a bad shape of things to come for the rest of Doug’s career as NC for the rest of that year. To point out the obvious, Doug Walker hates the Matrix films, including the first one. In this review, the Critic really wants to convince you that not only was The Matrix bad, you should feel bad for liking it. Yeah, remember what I said that an online critic’s greatest weakness is not being able to handle certain opinions despite their own belief that handling the opinion of others is one of their strengths? This is the kind of behavior that I feel the Critic displays throughout this review. I’ve haven’t seen The Matrix or the other films in the franchise to form my own opinion to dispute Doug’s own. Regardless, I can’t move past the B.S. that I’ve seen the Critic spew throughout the review. The Critic has an opinion that’s different from the majority? Good for him, but you know what isn’t good? I’ve already pointed it out before that he acts so hostile that people still love a particular film that he feels doesn’t deserve all the adoration that it gets, but over the course of the review, he tries all he could to make his views look stronger and the views of others weaker in comparison. Because of this attitude, the Critic’s analysis on The Matrix feels biased and nitpicky, spending most of his time during the review complaining about how bloated and nonsensical it is, on top of how pretentious and fake deep it is when, ironically enough, he’s being pretentious and shallow all the same with his review. It especially doesn’t help when he brings out a character for Matrix Month to act as a strawman for the movie’s fans, because you know I said about Doug having to make the Critic’s view look strong. With all that said, however, why is this no higher than #12? As strange it would be for me to say this to back myself up, I can’t help find it weird how the Critic is so hostile with his review for the first Matrix film, and when it comes to his reviews for the rest of the trilogy, he lays his ego to rest by providing a fairer assessment for each one, besides that he also does make a few good points as to why Reloaded and Revolutions didn’t work for him (Of course, he still uses the Agent Schmuck character to establish the franchise’s problems like making philosophical speeches despite that the Critic gave in to doing one for The Lorax review the year before). Also, the next eleven reviews just so happen to be worse… Spoiler Hey readers, I just wanted let you all know that you’ve just stumbled across the first clipless NC review on my list. Now let me reiterate that: This is the first clipless review on my top 20, and I’m just about at the halfway point with this countdown. 11. Deadpool 2 The Nostalgia Critic’s Deadpool 2 review, a.k.a. what in the nine hells did I just watch? So, the NC’s clipless reviews. You either tolerate them just fine or you really can’t stand them. The Critic’s Deadpool 2 falls under the aggravating-to-watch side of the clipless review scale because of how unnecessarily nonsensical it is when the review should be mainly focused on, you know, the review. The video’s sketches overtake the review itself and not only are they distracting, they’re also painfully unfunny to sit through. Even if the main point of this reviewing style was to analyze Deadpool’s blend of self-aware comedy with its serious and action-driven undertones, the Critic doesn’t seem to have a good grasp on Deadpool’s charm when he fails so miraculously to do self-aware humor right for the video as a whole. It really goes downhill when he even tries to get his portrayals of Rick and Morty involved (AND they look like this. Hope you guys don’t have trouble sleeping tonight). I could express my thoughts on this review by phoning it in and shoehorning in other fourth wall breaking characters into it, characters that the Critic hadn’t referenced like Pinkie Pie, the Samurai Pizza Cats, Wayne Campbell, and the entire cast of Chowder, just to establish my point on why the Critic was so all over the place with his DP2 video, but I know better than to go cheap like Doug and his crew did with their DP2 review, and of course, I’ve already made my point across with the two paragraphs above. Bottom line, the review is painful to watch for how embarrassing it is, but it barely misses the lower half of my top 20 because it’s just a bad comedic review at the end of the day, and for what it is, it’s interesting for how overconfident Doug must have felt with the process of making this video, thinking he knew full well what he was doing with the review and his corresponding sketches. There’s still half of the list left for me to talk about, so it’s going to get worse from there, just so you’re all warned. Edited September 22, 2020 by Steel Sponge 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted September 22, 2020 Author Share Posted September 22, 2020 (edited) TOP 20 WORST NOSTALGIA CRITIC VIDEOS (#10-#1) Spoiler Milestone celebrations – Channel Awesome is no stranger to them. Due to the production of To Boldly Flee, one of few of Channel Awesome’s anniversary special films, generating some PR disasters, milestone celebrations have very much been out of style for the Nostalgia Critic series for years. For so long we didn’t figure out why, but with this review only being made a year before the floodgates opened up, it didn’t take us long to figure out why even NC’s 10th anniversary didn’t matter much at all… 10. Norm of the North Apparently, this is meant to be the review that celebrates the Nostalgia Critic series being around for 10 years. No clips of the Critic’s old days are shown. There’s little to no acknowledgement about this milestone. No general retrospective being brought into this either. All we’ve got was Doug shaving his head and a typical review of a typically bad animated movie. The fact that this is just another generic NC-style review of a generic-bad animated film is even acknowledged in-universe. You know something is up when you know full well that you didn’t come up with something good to even silently celebrate this milestone. Likewise, some people were disappointed and felt that Doug had missed some good opportunities for the Nostalgia Critic’s 10th anniversary milestone, but some felt that it’s not really a big deal and if Doug didn’t want to do something grandiose for the 10th anniversary of his series, he doesn’t have to. Whatever the means, I think it’s understandable that this review didn’t feel like anything special. Doug has had his previous bad experiences with the one-two-three strikes with Channel’s Awesome anniversary specials to impoverish his need to do anniversary specials (except in the case of CA’s planned 10th anniversary celebration, but we all knew how and why its plans went up in smoke). With all that said, however, that doesn’t excuse this review from being terrible in its own right. Just as this very review is aware of, the Critic’s review of Norm of the North feels so pointless. How is his assessment on the film any less different from literally anyone else that beaten him in reviewing it before it stopped being trendy to hate it? If it has to do with the Critic slapping in his own brand of humor into his review, it doesn’t amount to much due to how painful some of the jokes are in this review, like the one skit with TR-9000, or the one skit surrounding a character named Bill that drags on for a little too long, just to poke fun at the friendship between Norm and the lemmings that’s already established out of nowhere. Oh yeah, and he goes in a too-long tangent about how one of the film’s characters, Mr. Greene, orchestrates the main plot all while Fur Elise plays in the background. It’s just a nitpick that I have, but it still adds up to the problems with the review. Overall, with the whole 10th anniversary milestone subtext, it feels very cheap, but without the subtext, it’s a just a prime example of how cheap the series has gotten. Spoiler Demo Reel. What a sad little web show. For reasons already clear, this ended up being an utter failure for both Doug and Channel Awesome as a whole. No tears were shed when this had to be cut short in order to revive the Nostalgia Critic, but for Doug Walker, its failure was a tragedy. Demo Reel was the very kind of series that Doug has been meaning to make even before creating the Nostalgia Critic character. This was meant to be his masterpiece, but he didn’t show the talents that he needed to prove that he had to make it as such. The whole concept surrounding Demo Reel is…weird, to say the least. It’s about a filmmaker making purposely low budget films alongside his cameraman and two actors. Some people also described each episode to be just one giant sketch in a nutshell. I’ve seen little of Demo Reel, so I can’t tell you how I feel about it, but I do know that Doug expected his audience to take most if not every part of Demo Reel seriously, and I would be too baffled to see the same intent that he had with it. Long story short, Demo Reel was a failure, and considering even the reactions of NC’s fans, former and loyal, it was a failure we all saw coming. That didn’t stop Doug from taking his influences from his failure over to the revived Nostalgia Critic series and likewise, most folks didn’t feel too good about NC’s shift in focus towards skits and sketches, making them feel forced to relive an era in Doug’s career that they never enjoyed within a format that they enjoy (or used to enjoy). As of a result, clipless reviews in general tend to be the most controversial reviews from NC. As you can already tell, my next entry is of the like, but what if I told you that it’s one of those that most people just put on a fence? 9. Suicide Squad I can see why this has been overlooked. Maybe it’s because the remaining members of NC’s fanbase at the time thought he was on-point with the clipless review format for this video. Or maybe it has to do with the sentiment that it was one of the first, if not the very first, NC review to be shown at a legit venue before its release on the internet. Yes, you heard right, this video was previewed at a theater house, and based on my own viewing experience, it does feel like that the Suicide Squad review in general was mostly phoned in so that it could be on time to give the show’s fans an exclusive preview before it goes online…if you could call it a review, I mean. Maybe it’s because most of us got so burned out by the continual poor quality of NC’s clipless reviews to the point where it’s not worth tearing them apart anymore. It’s peculiar that this NC video didn’t get as much scrutiny as any other clipless review because I think this is a strong display of almost everything people hated about the clipless review format, in extension to Demo Reel. Yeah, I don’t think his Hocus Pocus review, nor his Phantom of the Opera review were the clearest displays of Doug’s identity crisis between his Nostalgia Critic character and series and his failed Demo Reel series, the honor goes to the Critic’s video touching on Suicide Squad. I already know that I may have disappointed some by omitting Hocus Pocus from my list. For the most part, it was not a review. At the end of it though, you can’t take it all that seriously. As for the Critic’s video covering the 2004 Phantom of the Opera film, he at least tries to stay focused on the objective that it’s meant to be a review, on top of being a musical. The NC review for Suicide Squad is just all over the place. It’s so confused on whether or not it’s meant to be a review, a parody, or a full-on episode of Demo Reel, with the latter being so as to remind you that Doug is still bitter about having to let it go. The end result is a video that’s a chore to sit through, with mostly a bunch of cheap jokes, and with cheap or warranted shots at the film in-between. In short, it’s just another reason to hate the Critic’s clipless review format. Spoiler If anyone ever asked me about Ghostbusters in 2016, I would tell them that I’m not familiar with it and I don’t intend to, because I find its fans ironically terrifying. Those dark days are long gone now, and I’ve since developed the open mind to say that I wouldn’t forgo seeing anything Ghostbusters-related just because some of its fans are scummy. Talking about the 2016 Ghostbusters film, while it was still fresh, was a massive risk no matter what side you’re on. You couldn’t talk about it at all without being made aware of the controversy surrounding its mere existence. All while Ghostbusters fans were at war with themselves over this film, it would, of course, require little time for Doug to cave in to making a NC video on this film and address the controversy at large. However knowing Doug, I never felt confident that he was going to be able to create a message that wouldn’t come off as preachy and have the review itself be the main focus of the video. You already know what you’re expecting, so let’s go right into it… 8. Ghostbusters (2016) It’s another clipless review. To no one’s surprise, Doug does one more recollection on his thoughts on a film through a half-a’d sketch that isn’t the main of the focus of the video, so of course, that isn’t the main reason why I’m talking about it. Doing a review of this iteration of Ghostbusters, while it was still fresh, gave Doug the golden opportunity to turn it into one giant filibuster against the fandom’s hostility over this film. Is the message that the Critic character conveys any good, even when it’s all done on good intentions? Let me put it this way, first thing: establishing vital messages is not one of Doug Walker’s strongest points. The video was already destined to fall apart when Doug just had to reinforce the film’s controversy by creating one too many caricatures of the franchise’s toxic fans to act as straw people. How many straw characters does he bring into this video, you may ask? We got the three already-established straw characters, the “meninists” from the Max Max Fury Road review, making a return to portray the sexist fans. Then we got a couple of feminist characters to portray the fans that speak for social justice. Then we got a couple more characters to portray the type of fans who love Ghostbusters so much to the point of treating it like a religion because…yeah, I’m at a loss on this one. Why? Were five straw characters not enough? Anyways, that makes for a total of seven straw characters to represent the scummy side of the Ghostbusters fanbase, a perfect enough amount of unnecessary characters for Doug to be able to stereotype the whole drama surrounding the film. This is all in part of trying to spread a reasonable message that we all need to get over ourselves and be more civil so that we can all talk about Ghostbusters without guilt or causing drama. You’d think the next course of action would be for Doug to write in a group of characters to ricochet the obnoxious side of the Ghostbusters fandom and justify that good does exist within it, in extension to any other fandom. He does do that by adding in his local (Chicago) Ghostbusters division into the mix of characters, but we’re introduced to them by way of preachy dialogue (“Because a Ghostbuster doesn’t hate!” “A Ghostbuster doesn’t discriminate!” “Ghostbusters stand for peace and freedom!” “The freedom to think what you want to think!” Yes, this is all real.), something in which I’m aware is a trope that Doug himself hates. Doug as the Critic further establishes his message by letting the straw characters know that it’s not because of our hostile behavior, it’s the internet that’s making us a bunch of dumb-dumbs. Before you think that doesn’t sound a little too cheap, the Critic takes it another step further when he gives us the solution to the whole conflict by being the good ol’ savior that he tries to be by spraying the straw characters with Ecto Cooler, to wash away their negativity and bringing them back their complete happiness towards the Ghostbusters franchise. As I assume the Critic suggests, if we hold hands and think happy thoughts, we can forgive one another for being scumbags of ourselves. Yeah, because it’s not like that the best way to deal with hostile fans of the like is 1) be civil, 2) call them out for their behavior, 3) ignore them afterwards, and allow them to realize their imprudence by themselves and so that they could possibly improve afterwards, or 4) don’t deal with them at all. Don’t let one bad person or multiple ruin your experience with something. In other words, I can’t say that I’ve learned so much from this review compared to my personal experiences in dealing with scumbags on the internet. Spoiler If you folks made it this far into my countdown, then let me tell you that you have reached the “these are some of the worst reviews I’ve ever seen coming from the Nostalgia Critic” tier of this list. You’re welcome. …So how about that Sailor Moon review? 7. Sailor Moon NC: “Oh, no need. I’ve covered this before.”Heather: “But I can cover it – correctly.” This quote from the Toonami review back in 2019 should remind you how infamous NC’s review of Sailor Moon in 2013 was, and yes, it is only #7 on my list. People were so dissatisfied by the review to the point where Doug swore off doing anime-related reviews for his series, unless with a friend or multiple, those familiar with the art form. I never hated this review when I first saw it, but looking back, it’s aged very badly. One particular MisAnthro Pony hated it so much that he tore it and Doug apart for 50 minutes. Unlike his commentary, however, mine is going to be a lot more condensed to give you a clear idea of why this review didn’t work at all in a nutshell. The Critic makes it clear a lot of the time that Sailor Moon is not the kind of show for him, yet he tries to analyze and take a look at it to give his own self the answer on why Sailor Moon has garnered its mass appeal. The answer: “ANIME IS WEIRD AND CREEPY, JAPAN IS WEIRD AND CREEPY!” It’s something along the lines of that. That is the review in a nutshell. Oh, he does say relevant things about the show. However, a good chunk of this review is spent going on a tangent about the perceived sexualization of 14-year old anime characters in extension to other forms of sexualization by the media, and on Japanese sex and consent laws. It really gets off-topic when Doug has the gall to do a skit where his younger self has a talking penis….ew. Doug has a tendency to go on tangents while as his Critic character and this is definitely one of the most unnecessary tangents he’s gone on. Even while the Critic tries to make the point that Sailor Moon is not for him, that doesn’t excuse his inability to try and understand its appeal and charm. I’ve seen genuine Sailor Moon fans argue some of the points that Critic makes from his experience in having watched a few episodes of the anime. Critic’s lack of understanding is made clearer when he discusses the show’s appeal by categorizing some, if not all of its fans, as creepy because he finds how a group of 14 year old Sailor Scout wearing what he perceives as skimpy clothing to be unsettling to him while it’s not unsettling to others, and it especially doesn’t help make matters better when the Critic had to bring up the old fact that he had put Sailor Moon on his top 11 animated women list because “I didn’t know!” he says. In actuality, it’s because Doug was shooting for popular opinions while forming the list along with its video. Whether or not it was damage control, it was still not a good idea to dig it back up, or even go on that whole tangent in the first place. Long analysis short, this review is just uncomfortable to sit through due to Doug making it uncomfortable. Other than a few cheap jokes towards the anime, this is all you need to know about why this review is controversial. Spoiler This next one is yet another clipless review, so it doesn’t need much of an introduction. Then again, what better way could I announce this next entry than to introduce it as the start of darkness that is the infamous clipless review format?: 6. Jurassic World There’s also no better way for me to start expressing my thoughts on this review than to go from the very beginning. Do you want to know when the review itself starts? Of course you don’t want to know, but I just thought I’d tell you when the Critic does start getting to the point after having to explain how and why he decided to review Jurassic World while it’s still in theaters. Three and a half minutes, but the next few minutes are spend on the Critic going on a tangent about how fake the dinosaurs look in the film, so the review doesn’t feel like it actually starts until the six minute mark, and mind you, the video is 21 minutes long including credits. (Also, over the course of the dinosaurs looking fake rant, he does so over footage of his own reenactment and therefore letting his own shoddy interpretation of how bad the effects look convincing his audience that. Hypocritical much?) As some of you may point out, Doug does have his own excuse for doing a NC review on the film while it still doesn’t have a home video release. Of course he does, but man is it a petty excuse. Doug goes along with this format in retaliation against YouTube’s broken copyright system, which is understandable, but instead he accuses the big name entertainment industry, telling us, as what I suppose is his Ask That Guy character, that they see reviews on the internet of their copyrighted work as a threat against them. He goes on to say that even positive reviews of his films get taken down which he feels makes these companies look “incredibly desperate and unprofessional,” for doing so, because you know, when companies issue copyright claims on even videos that fall under Fair Use, it’s TOTALLY not because of protecting their IPs or so, it’s because they are just very petty, just like Doug for doing a clipless review on the recent Jurassic Park film out of spite, but why complain about the latter? This poor, poor, soul got his videos taken down by the big, bad bullies of the entertainment industry that, as he assumes, doesn’t care about the critic’s freedom of speech. With all fairness, it is a thing when companies take advantage of YouTube’s copyright system to get certain videos taken down regardless if they fall under Fair Use, but Doug shouldn’t act like that this is the first time something like this has happened because he’s seen this happen to him several times before then. So that’s enough of how Doug discusses the legal B.S. that convinced him to do a clipless review of Jurassic World. The review itself is just as what you’d expect from it: cheap jokes with cheap visualizations of his viewpoint on the film. It’s not until the climax that things really start to take a turn for the worst...and I think you all know what this is leading up to… “I’M A MOTHERFUCKING T-REX!” *guitar riff* “I’M A MOTHERFUCKING T-REX!” IT’S THE FREAKING I’M A MOTHERFUGGING TEEEEEE REX SONG THAT’S ANNOYED ME TO NO END, OF COURSE IT’S BACK, AND OF COURSE THE CRITIC GOES ON A SMALL TANGENT ABOUT HOW AMAZING THE FREAKING T-REX IS! I KNOW! WE ALL KNOW, CRITIC! PLEASE, DON’T MAKE ME HAVE TO LISTEN TO THAT GOD FORSAKEN SONG AGAIN! …Wow, I just had my own Nostalgia Critic moment right there. Sorry, I won’t do that again. So, where was I, Critic praising the T-Rex up the wazoo again? Oh yeah, that. So imagine the Critic’s overblown bit from the review of the first Jurassic Park film, but with the reenactment of the film in place of the clips, and the voice of Honest Trailers dragged in the midst of it, because hey, if you’re falling short on your talents, you might as well bring some better talent with you. Bottom line, this review sucks. I’m moving on to the bottom five of this list. Spoiler We have reached the elite five in atrocious NC reviews. Not all of these are seen as notoriously bad, though. Regardless, they all exhibit the worst of the worst in Doug’s career as the Nostalgia Critic from my perspective. There’s no better way to trek through the bottom of the barrel than to talk about what I believe is the first real red flag warning of the Nostalgia Critic’s decline. 5. Eight Crazy Nights Even looking back to when I saw first saw this after it had come out, I never liked this review. In fact, this may be the first NC video that I’ve come to dislike, and my thoughts on it would only sour the more that I revisit it. The Critic’s review of Eight Crazy Nights goes to show that even a review of a bad film, let alone one from an easy target like Happy Madison Productions, can be bad in itself. Judging by the fact that this is a review of a Happy Madison film alone, you’d think this is where the Critic is usually on-point with his commentary and his comedy. Heck, Seth Kearsley, the director of the film himself, has gone out to say that he enjoyed the Critic’s review. Still, I beg to differ. Oh, but the Critic does make some reasonable points against the film, a typical fan of him would argue. That is true though, he does have relevant things to say against the film. What about the humor, though? What kind of jokes does he have to tell over the course of this review? Let’s highlight some of the most “noteworthy” moments, shall we? Most of the Critic’s complaints towards Eight Crazy Nights are towards Mr. Whitey, and that he can’t stand his voice at all. Understandable, but again, what are some of the jokes he decides to make of his annoyance over Adam Sandler’s performance of the character? We get a skit that drags on for too long that turns into an unnecessary bit where the Critic says he would crucify Mel Blanc’s dead body to prove how much of an insult one person’s good voice acting is to Sandler’s own on Mr. Whitey, just in case you didn’t know he was actually being sarcastic the whole time during that skit. Then there’s the moment where the Critic decides to mute the film due to his low tolerance of Whitey and then he takes it a step further by dubbing in his preferred dialogue over the muted scene by way of the Awesome Claus skit, which is just another pretentious potshot at Happy Madison and the film itself. Also, do you know the old saying that goes “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen?” The one moment with Critic muting the film exemplifies those words of wisdom for me. And if you think those jokes are bad, wait until you hear these next ones where the Critic has the gall to generalize Happy Madison’s audience as a bunch of idiots who will laugh at any immature joke because they remind them of something that was risqué when they were very little, and that certain jokes like a simple Abbott & Costello joke is too “COMPLEX” for them to understand. As expected, Doug takes it another step further with his potshots at the Happy Madison audience by killing off their exaggerated portrayals mid-review (they’re back for the end, shown to be laughing at the immature jokes in heaven, but that doesn’t amount to much), and as well as one moment where the Critic character says “It’s funny because they shouldn’t live.” Okay…I know not every joke that Doug makes for his reviews have be taken so seriously, but that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t feel like he can be a little too overconfident when it comes to the jokes that he writes, and that I shouldn’t feel his jokes against the Happy Madison audience can be insulting. Even if the portrayals are exaggerated, that doesn’t excuse these jokes from being very unfunny. The Critic’s brand of humor throughout this review is indicative of his very low tolerance towards Happy Madison and Adam Sandler in general. The jokes I acknowledged in the previous paragraph doesn’t even exhibit the worst of the Critic’s attitude. The part where I feel the review jumps the shark is where the Critic shows a picture of Adam Sandler roasting on a menorah, which he then clarifies is for him. Come on Critic, what crime did Sandler commit to warrant that, because he made one bad Hanukkah film? Hey, look Nostalgia Critic fans! The Critic did a personal attack on Adam Sandler, now laugh! You see what I did there? If the Critic can make potshots at one specific audience for their sense of humor that others could find hilarious, then I can play that game too towards his own audience. If you actually find that tasteless, then that’s the point of the joke that I just made. Bottom line, this review is a shining example of the Critic going too far with his jokes and critiques. He may have good reasons to hate the film, but he still could’ve done without indirectly bashing Sandler, Happy Madison, and their audience. After all, he would do a top 11 Adam Sandler films video years later. Oh the hypocrisy. Spoiler …Okay, I lied about this list having 20 of the worst NC videos. There are actually 23 of his reviews on my list. This is the part where I point out that this next entry is a four-way tie… 4. Every post-revival Star Wars film review EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. It’s one thing to make one bad video review on Star Wars film since Disney’s acquisition of the franchise, and it must be very impressive of Doug to do that three more times as the Nostalgia Critic. Not all of these reviews are say…Eight Crazy Nights levels of bad, but because of this whole streak, I just felt the need to put them all together in one placement, as they have a few things in common. 1) They’re all clipless reviews that were released after the respective film has been in theaters for like only one week, so you can conclude that each review was filmed and written in little time. 2) They each have a guest commentator, and they each couldn’t do enough to help save the review. 3) The footage for each review of the film is a reenactment based on Doug’s viewpoint, and most of the time you see them played out, they make the films look pretty bad without the subtext and/or context one viewer could use from a respective film to understand where the Critic is getting at, and 4) They are each piled high with unfunny jokes. I do have something different to say for each one, so I am also going to talk about them individually, listing them from bad to worse: Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker: This is one of the Critic’s newest videos and yet in comparison to the other three bad apples of the bunch, this is pretty tame for what is, but then again, that’s because after three bad attempts to do a NC-style review of Disney’s Star Wars films, I feel unfazed by how predictably bad it is. At the same time, the commentary is improved as well, and that’s due to how disappointing Rise of Skywalker turned out to be for most fans, so even while there are some moments where the Critic nitpicks, I don’t mind it so much. The video is still a half-baked mess, so don’t get the wrong idea. This review does have a guest on board, a Mandalorian played by Malcolm, but he feels like that he’s just…there. Of course, that would be one of the consequences of the whole Channel Awesome drama back in 2018 where Doug no longer has the amount of friends he once had to drag in someone to do the review with him, and certainly Brad Jones wasn’t in the mood in having to do his Han Solo stint again. Also the special, non-co-reviewer guest for this review is named Eric Butts. It’s not an important detail about the review. I just thought I’d mention that. Whatever crime this review commits, it’s being the most boring and predictable of them. It’s just something you would slap a “you tried” sticker on. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: It’s very much so an improvement over the review for The Force Awakens, but it’s still got its own fair share of mistakes, other than repeating the same ones made in any other clipless review. In a nutshell, this review is pretty much Doug and company cherry picking certain aspects of the film over footage of a poorly done reenactment of those certain moments for less than 20 minutes, and capping it off with something like, “yea it’s alright.” Instead of Brad Jones doing the review with him, Doug gets Chris Stuckmann on board, who likewise wastes his talents the same as Doug does. This review avoids being lower than the next two for at least one joke from Chris that actually got a chuckle from me. (It's from 2:36 to 2:41 in the video. I could show that clip, but YTCropper isn't cooperating with me) Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi: impressed by neither Brad Jones nor Chris Stuckmann’s contributions the reviews they co-starred in? Well, along with the Critic, this review co-stars them both, and it suffers from the same problems as the first and second reviews: unfunny jokes, constant cherry picking, and a “yea, it’s alright” consensus to end the review. One thing that’s different though and confuses me is, while dissecting the subplot with Finn and Rose, where they add a MacGuffin counter without telling or showing us what most of the MacGuffins are. On top of that, it doesn’t have much of a reason to exist since it’s barely even a recurring gag for the review. If the one pet peeve Doug, Brad, and Chris have with the film is the constant shifts to Finn and Rose’s whole sidequest filler, then why didn’t they make a counter for that? There’s nothing much else that I need to say, so let’s move on to… Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens: I’ve saved the worst for last. It’s the first review and yet the other three reviews that came after it couldn’t top it in terms of poor quality. Without the credits, post-credits material, any of the jokes, and the skits lampooning of the Star Wars Holiday Special, I’ve estimated that the review itself is less than 14 minutes long. The video is 21 minutes. That’s all you need to know about how lazy this feels. It especially doesn’t help that the Critic is jerking around for most of the review, having to condone to the whole clipless review format, him cherry picking certain aspects of the film, and plastering the reenactment with his own spins on some of the most infamous moments from the Star Wars Holiday Special, not just by poking fun at them, but also by reinforcing what made them so hard to watch. You know something is up when Doug doesn’t have a grasp on what makes a good parody for one of his reviews, and when his renditions of those moments make you feel like wanting to go back to the Star Wars Holiday Special because at the very least, it was interesting bad. Yeah, imagine doing something more embarrassing than the Holiday Special to the point where you feel like going back to it. This is all you need to know about how little focused the review itself feels compared to the quasi-Demo Reel style parts of the video. I’ll give Brad Jones some credit for having his character say more relevant things about the film than the Critic. Regardless of that, the damage was already done, making for a video that ends up being the ultimate culmination of everything that went wrong with the NC series in 2015. You know what’s funny about my whole experience with these reviews? As of this writing, I still haven’t watched an entire Star Wars film in my life, yet I was still able to look in all the B.S. that made each of them a pain to watch. This entry was a big one wasn’t it? That is because I had to talk about four different reviews. I assure you folks that the next three entries have shorter commentary, but keep in mind, they are still worse. Spoiler Since before the start of my review, I’ve pointed out that a critic’s biggest weakness could be how they handle certain opinions despite the belief that being able to handle any kind of opinion is a critic’s strength. It’s quite common when a critic has an opinion that is different from the majority. It can be a challenge to express your differing opinion and why you go along with it. As long as you let folks know that you understand that they have their opinions and you have yours, you’re on the right track. If you don’t take the liberties needed in expressing your honest, yet controversial opinion of something, it can lead to your review being controversial…or in the case of Doug Walker, controversial to anyone who isn’t a NC fan. Give yourself a cookie if you guessed right on what this intro is leading up to… 3. The Jungle Book (2016) Let me say it first thing that this isn’t about the Critic finding this iteration of The Jungle Book inferior to the older and animated one by Disney. This is the Critic bringing it down for being inferior to the original book. Based on the idea of Doug, as his Critic character, validating himself as an expert on The Jungle Book by expressing his passion for the original book, this setup should do wonders. But of course, this is the Nostalgia Critic we’re talking about, so the way he discusses why he really hates this version and how it’s inferior to the source material is only going to turn out feeling pretentious in the long run. The main reason as to why this review is so bad is due to Doug’s stubbornness in general. For having such an outrageous opinion compared to those of the vast majority, you’d think Doug, as his Critic character, would devote some of his time within the review to try and see why it works for them while it doesn’t work for him at all. Instead, Doug has too little of a grasp to give himself some understanding as to why it has its 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes and questions himself numerous times why people liked this so much, which he should be able to figure out himself, as he speaks as the fan of the OG book. On top of that, he asks some pretty dumb questions about the film that he also should be able to know the answers to. Why is Shere Khan always covered in dirt or mud? Well gee, Doug, why do you think wild animals dirty themselves up for? Why does Shere Khan want to kill Mowgli in this version of the film and why didn’t he kill him at the watering hole, which even he acknowledges is a dumb question unless you try to think about it? Critic…you read the original book. You saw the Disney animated film. You can figure out the answer yourself. You’re just choosing not to think about what that is, even if the answer is just about the same as in the book or in the original Disney version. Why do people like the 2016 film’s version of Kaa over what he assumes is the forgettable 1967 version of the character? Um, last time I checked, Kaa is a memorable character no matter the portrayal, and whatever the means as to why people have a preference towards the 2016 film’s Kaa, it’s not because she’s the “GROWN-UP VERSION” of the character. Oh, and speaking of the whole “grown-up version” label that the Critic just loves to attach to all over this adaptation, they make up for what is without a doubt his dumbest moments throughout the entire review, as the film’s perceived reputation of being the more adult version of The Jungle Book is his primary excuse for hating it, albeit a very stupid excuse. It doesn’t make any matters better when he consistently calls the original Disney animated adaptation the kid version of The Jungle Book. At this point, I beg to ask Doug if 2016’s The Jungle Book is too adult for him and 1967’s The Jungle Book is too childish for him, then what is the original book to him? It’s a very well-written children’s book, right? Wrong. It’s more than just a good book written for its intended audience. It’s a good book that appeals to anyone. Despite the Critic’s objections, the same can be said for the book’s adaptations. Neither version was ever meant to appeal more to either the adults or the kids. The Jungle Book as a whole stands out for its universal appeal. Even the 2016 adaptation is as beloved because its audience sees themselves connecting with its story, and continuing to do so for years to come, whether it’s experiencing the story for the first time, or re-experiencing it as an adult after having grown up reading the original book or watching the 1967 Disney animated film as a kid. Doug, regardless of the fact that the original book by Rudyard Kipling was targeted to children, you still enjoy it as an adult, because you know writing for its demographic was never the authorial intent, right? By categorizing the 2016 live-action/CG version of The Jungle Book as pandering to adults and the 1967 animated version as pandering to children, you’re not criticizing the myth that animation is an art form that’s only enjoyed by kids; you’re reinforcing that belief, which is something I know full well you don’t intend to do. While I’m still at it on how invalid Doug’s arguments against the two adaptations of The Jungle Book are, let’s use his relationship towards The Secret of NIMH, the one animated film he praises up the wazoo, as an analogy. Now, please don’t get the wrong idea, The Secret of NIMH is also one of my all-time favorite animated films. There’s one clear reason why I bring it up. The film is best known for its dark subject matter and its themes, which Doug loves the film for because it gives him the impression that Don Bluth intended to write for more than just the film’s intended demographic – children. For those who didn’t know, the film is based on a Newbery Award winning children’s book with a different name. As someone who had also read the original book, I can confirm that it does have its adult themes, but it’s not quite super-imposed on them as the Don Bluth film. Now, does that mean that the film should be seen as the “grown-up version” of the story? Of course not! Doug would beg to differ as well. Anyone can enjoy the book like how anyone can enjoy the Don Bluth film and if Doug can see that, then I don’t understand why he can’t see 1967’s or 2016’s The Jungle Book as more than just for what he believes they only appeal to respectively. Long rant short: Doug, if you have a problem with what you perceive as whatever adaptation of The Jungle Book only gratifying one particular age group, that’s not a ‘them’ problem, that is a ‘you’ problem. Also, if the live-action/CG adaptation of The Jungle Book is too grown-up for you, even though you are an adult yourself, then here’s some advice: grow up. Spoiler Of course, let’s not pretend that the previous entry on my list is the first time that Doug has shown his inability to comprehend why some people see a certain piece of work differently than he does… 2. Man of Steel Okay, so this isn’t really the worst display of the Critic not being able to understand the opinions of others. The way he handled this review is still very bad, and makes for a very pointless review in the end. It doesn’t win the award for being the worst review Doug has ever done as the Critic, but it does win the award for being the biggest waste of time from any NC review. So, how pointless is this review, you ask? You don’t have to watch the entire video to know where the Critic and guest reviewer Angry Joe are getting at. Man of Steel is a very polarizing film. There are people who loved it, and then there are people who hated it. The Critic hates it while Joe enjoyed it, end of story, and you’ll realize this whole sum-up of the review not by the end, but after four minutes into the unnecessarily-long video. Now, before any of you go and pull out the 49-minute long video on YouTube and try to tell me that it can’t be that bad in terms of length, then let me remind you all of the length for the original, uncut review on the Channel Awesome website: with the credits, the post-credits, and so forth, the video is 70 MINUTES LONG. The cut-down runtime in the video uploaded to YouTube is Doug’s way of condensing it and removing any unneeded filler like he should’ve done. It’s a review so unnecessarily long to the point where Doug, outside of his character, apologized for its length within the video and affirmed that he won’t end up doing something like that again. You know how bad it is when you have Doug addressing one of its problems, and this isn’t the only thing that Doug apologizes for that’s from the review. I’ve only seen the review once, and it’s not the slightly condensed version of it, so of course, I am going to be talking about the original, lengthy version of the video. Aside from the fact that Doug had to address that the review wasn’t meant to be as long as it was, there are certain aspects of the video that still show that it is a matter of fact. While I have seen this video just once and I don’t intend to rewatch it another time, I could’ve sworn that the Critic and Joe had like a ten minute spiel about a scene where Superman breaks Zod’s neck, discussing how and why Superman killing is such a major taboo to the franchise. When it’s not too busy simply just being a waste of time, the review also falls apart due to how the Critic analyzes what makes the film so bad to him compared to how Joe analyzes what makes the film good to him. I have seen the film myself, so I would at least be able to pick either side. If you were to ask me about my personal feelings of Man of Steel, I would tell you that I’m just ambivalent towards it. It has its fair share of flaws, as well as a fair amount of good to back it up. Joe doesn’t do a good job justifying why he enjoyed Man of Steel, but I couldn’t help but be on his side, for at the very least, he is trying like the Critic. Then it makes more sense when it comes to the realization that Doug had confessed to and apologizing for writing the review as one-sided and straw due to not allowing Joe to give his own strong enough argument towards liking the film. This gives me the impression that Joe was made to be a strawman to the Critic’s own views on the film so as to make the Critic look strong…and yeah, it’s definitely not a good impression. NC and Joe would do another review together later on. Say what you will about the Batman v. Superman being a clipless review, at least it didn’t treat Joe’s character like a strawman. It was more than just because he shared the same general opinion as the Critic, Doug was aware of the mistake he made for the previous NC review he did with him, and so allowed for him to have as much of an argument against the film that he needed. And if you think that the review doesn’t get any more straw than that, Doug adds in a character, his own caricature of Zod, to represent those who are very hostile towards those who enjoyed Man of Steel, which feels so pointless if the Critic was going to preach the message anyways that hey, if Joe likes the film, then good for him, and if you liked the film, then good for you too, and if you hated the film, good for you but don’t go around attacking people just because of their differing opinions. This review didn’t need another character to get in the way of the review, yet that’s what happened. Despite being the most pointless of the NC’s reviews that I’ve seen, it’s not close to the standards of the very worst that Doug has ever had to offer as the Nostalgia Critic… Spoiler If you had read up until this point, you can congratulate yourself for getting this far. If you skimmed all the way up to this point, then that’s fine. Before I reveal my #1, here is a recap of my list: We started off with a review of a subject that the Critic was familiar with, but wasn’t nostalgic enough for to provide enough interesting material (“Nicktoons”), then there came a review plagued by an uninteresting guest with uninteresting commentary on a beloved animated 80s cartoon (“Transformers Cartoon”), the Critic tried preaching to us why a film was so terrible despite objecting to talking about things in a pretentious matter (“The Lorax”), he got too excited towards an easily beloved character (“Jurassic Park”), he left his brother in-charge of most of the script to a review that was torn between focusing on a recurring skit or the topic at large (“Balto”), he repeated commentary from one his older, non-NC reviews to keep his series relevant (“The Lion King”), he tried to do damage control for his infamous Let’s Play video only to give us something that’s no better (“James and the Giant Peach”), he accused a film of ripping off literally anything (“Jupiter Ascending”), he preached to us that we should stop pretending that a certain film is a masterpiece that he doesn’t think it is (“The Matrix”), he failed to comprehend what makes a good and funny parody through his own review of one (“Deadpool 2”), he repeated his history of disappointing milestone celebrations with a review that vaguely resembled one (“Norm of the North”), he got himself torn between making a coherent NC review or a full-fledged Demo Reel episode, (“Suicide Squad”), he tried to calm a storm with the powers of Ecto-Cooler (“Ghostbusters (2016)”), he got too ahead himself in the weird parts of Japan’s culture and standards to make a competent review of a popular anime (“Sailor Moon”), he decided to go cheap to best those mean ol’ people in the entertainment industry taking down his reviews on YouTube (“Jurassic World”), he took things too personally with his review of a Happy Madison film (“Eight Crazy Nights”), he unleashed a streak of four bad reviews that would even make Jar Jar Binks want to say to the Critic “mesa want you to shut up,” (all of his Disney’s Star Wars film reviews), he got piss-poor with people liking a film that he feels is too grown-up for his standards (“The Jungle Book (2016)”), and he churned out an overlong video review for a film with a former Channel Awesome associate in which his point is already made clear within just a few minutes into it (“Man of Steel”). So, what review could be worse than all those? Well…it’s…it’s… …I mean, if everyone else treated it like the worst thing ever, I might as well, too. To be fair, what else would it have been? 1. The Wall I know, it’s too predictable of a choice, but can you blame me? It’s been a year since this review came out now, and most people still haven’t gotten over how bad this review was. Even if more years would come and go, I could imagine folks continuing to treat this as the worst review they’ve ever seen. It is notorious due to it being the ultimate culmination of everything people find wrong with the Nostalgia Critic in general. To give you guys a little history of the material, The Wall is a 1982 musical film adapted from the 1979 album of the same name by Pink Floyd. It’s a concept album, or a rock opera in other words, that tells the story of a rock singer named Pink who lives in self-isolation by constructing a metaphorical wall to push himself away from society due to his trauma from the events and the people that wronged him. It takes research on the album to understand the story that the original album is trying to tell. Because I want to compare my knowledge towards the album to Doug’s lack thereof over the course of the video, I decided to listen to the whole album and do some research on it before watching the NC video covering the film. Let’s talk about the video itself. What could I say about it that everyone else hasn’t? Well, let’s go back to the whole “culmination of everything people find wrong with the Nostalgia Critic” sentence so I can try to explain it for myself everything that went wrong with the Critic’s review of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Let’s start by acknowledging the other musical reviews from the series – his reviews of Moulin’ Rogue, Les Miserables, and Phantom of the Opera to name. The Critic’s review of Moulin’ Rogue is seen to be one of his best, and from what I can gather, he thought that he, Brentalfloss, and Lindsay Ellis (as the Nostalgia Chick) did so much of a good job with the review that he thought that he could do little to no wrong with any other review of musical films. The way I see it, Doug does have to risk being pretentious with reviews of the like. Comparing his other musical reviews to his video on The Wall, however, the latter is pretentious in a very contemptuous fashion. According to Doug, this video is meant to be a tribute to the album and/or the film. In what sense of the word is this considered a tribute though? From what I’ve seen, the Critic spends most of his time cherry picking certain aspects of the film through songs. Speaking of which, the vast majority of these parody versions of the album’s songs, albeit with too-good instrumental renditions done by none other than Rob Scallon, are dreadful to listen to. You can tell Doug is trying to do a good impersonation of Roger Waters’s eccentric vocal range and that he has the lack of self-awareness to see otherwise that he’s no Roger Waters and he shouldn’t be trying to be him due to his big ego. It’s worse when he lets his other cast members try to do impressions of other parts of The Wall’s vocal work, such as the choir of British children in the segment parodying “Another Brick in the Wall.” Considering that the songs in this review are parodies, it’s not without its jokes, and they’re not very good ones and only exemplify Doug’s lack of understanding of the material that he’s talking about. He criticizes the film for being too long during the “Bring the Runtime Down” number (the song parodying “Bring the Boys Back Home,” where Pink flashes back to his memories of the war that this father died in, alongside begging for the soldiers to be brought back home) when the film’s length is just due to the album’s own length. He calls “Goodbye Blue Sky” an Oscar bait song, which makes little sense, but then again, what does make sense in this so-called review? He suggests that “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” is about the need for people to rebel against the education system as a whole and to be victimized by teachers when the song is condemnation against the British education system at the time of the album’s release. When Doug isn’t too busy criticizing the messages that he feels The Wall isn’t good at conveying, later into the review we get a segment where the Critic condemns cancel culture during the song that parodies “Waiting for the Worms,” which has absolutely nothing to do with what the Critic is reviewing, but I guess it’s so that he’d let us know how woke he is. …Wait, what did he say in his response to the song criticizing the brutal British education system back then, what was it again? LOL, so school sucks Grow a pair of balls Oh yeah, that. The video does transition into a far more interesting segment that features characters from Sam Fennah’s Satellite City in their gorgeously-animated look, yet I can’t help but feel that their presence acts as a façade from Doug’s lack of good talent that was put into this video. Then of course, there’s special guest Corey Taylor’s presence within the review, whereas he spends most of it partaking in the Critic’s weird acid trip until near the end where he’s given more of a role by way of the Critic trying to tell him the deeper meaning of the film and by the end where Corey acknowledges that this whole bit didn’t feel like a review at all because the Critic never talked about how he felt about the film until he does just so due to that reminder. Then the review ends with Corey Taylor doing a metal rendition of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme to cap off the disaster that was the review and to cap off his wasted celebrity cameo. If there’s one definite example of a review being ruined all across the board due to Doug Walker’s giant ego, this Nostalgia Critic video on The Wall is just that. As a review of a film, it barely resembles a coherent one. As a parody, it’s a very unfunny one. As a musical, it’s poorly done. As a passion project, it barely feels like there was any passion put into this. As a tribute to the film or the album, it feels more like an insult to The Wall. As a video in general, it is hard to watch. As a noteworthy moment within Doug’s infamous history, inside and outside of the Nostalgia Critic, it is, all in all, just another brick in the wall that is his reputation from being one of the most respected internet critics at one point to one of the most reviled since the aftermath of Channel Awesome's 2018 fallout and since after this "review." So there you have it, the most unsurprising yet also understandable #1 placement in a list of what I deem to be the 20 worst Nostalgia Critic reviews, with a video that absolutely destroys Doug’s reputation as a reviewer due to him just flat out embarrassing himself. What a way to go out. That should finally wrap up my commentary on the list proper, but I can’t finish a project that is this grandiose without somewhat of a eulogy to act as my final send off to Doug Walker and the Nostalgia Critic, so stick around for that. Edited October 30, 2020 by The Patient 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Jenkins Posted September 25, 2020 Share Posted September 25, 2020 I’ll hand it to Doug for one thing, the skit in the Ghostbusters 2016 review culminating in a real nice nod to Ghostbusters II’s climax (with the ecto-cooler substituting for the pink goo and the Statue of Liberty) felt pretty damn poetic considering that film was the running butt of the joke whenever it got brought up. Popular opinion be damned, I love the second movie, flaws and all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted September 26, 2020 Author Share Posted September 26, 2020 21 hours ago, Old Man Jenkins said: I’ll hand it to Doug for one thing, the skit in the Ghostbusters 2016 review culminating in a real nice nod to Ghostbusters II’s climax (with the ecto-cooler substituting for the pink goo and the Statue of Liberty) felt pretty damn poetic considering that film was the running butt of the joke whenever it got brought up. Popular opinion be damned, I love the second movie, flaws and all. Now I know exactly why that scene is made the way it is. Typical of me to not pick that up since I've been sleeping on the Ghostbusters franchise. Still though, for someone who hates tropes on being poetic and such, Doug doesn't seem to mind having to use them for his own series for reviews like GB 2016 and The Lorax. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Sponge Posted October 8, 2020 Author Share Posted October 8, 2020 (edited) TOP 20 WORST NOSTALGIA CRITIC VIDEOS (FINAL THOUGHTS) This has been an in-depth look at the worst of the Nostalgia Critic over the course of Doug's career. A review this grand isn't complete without pouring out some extra, final commentary to wrap it all up. In other words, I will finish this review as whole with, not an eulogy, but a proper sendoff to Doug and his Nostalgia Critic series before moving past both entirely. Over the course of this critique on the Nostalgia Critic, and as well as on Doug Walker, either as a reviewer, or a comedian, or a internet personality, I have broken down Doug for the kind of person that he is now: an internet critic devoid of talent in his craft who still boards the sinking ship of an internet platform that is Channel Awesome, and due to his reluctance in atoning for his past mistakes, as described as part of the platform's controversial history that we discovered since 2018, out of fear of litigation, has nothing much to look forward to after NC is officially done. After everything that I've said that finely summed up why the NC series isn't good and never was as great as most of us once thought it was to begin with, I yet cannot bring myself to say that I hate the Nostalgia Critic. Sure, I don't like Doug Walker as a person and I dislike what his series has become in recent years. What I mean is despite all of Doug's flaws as a critic, as an entertainer, and even as a filmmaker, there's no denying that he has still played an important role in building up the internet reviewing community, even if you really want to deny it. This is a factor as to why I still have some ounce of respect to the NC series even after the whole Channel Awesome fallout. For someone who may now be one of the most hated critics on the internet, there's also no denying that the Nostalgia Critic series' former fans, including myself, saw something in him before coming to our ultimate realization that the series wasn't that good even since those long gone days. Somehow, we found his jokes to be funny. Somehow, we found Doug's antics as the Critic to be entertaining. Somehow, we thought of him as a respectful reviewer. Somehow, we saw legit talent in him. It's amusing that former fans like myself feel pretty much the opposite now. Doug's style of reviewing and comedy don't mean so much to us anymore, and the guy who we once respected turns out to be not so much of a pleasant kind of person. Even after Doug Walker's fall from grace within the public eye, and in the world of internet critics, I also can't deny that some good came out of the Nostalgia Critic. This is where I restate what I said about how vital Doug was in making the internet reviewing community grow. Of course, James Rolfe a.k.a. The Angry Video Game Nerd, may be the catalyst in constructing a world of internet critics with personality, but it was the Critic who I felt solidified this impact. Granted, when Channel Awesome was starting to grow, most of its contributors were already established to follow in the Critic's footsteps, as did the rest of any other smaller critic when they decided to take influence from Doug. Most of us regret taking influence from him, but the sheer amount of influence from the Critic that rubbed off on us is still fairly impressive. While we all still have our regrets in taking influence from him, that's not to say that something good came out of the NC for folks after phasing out from the series. You can say that I learned some things that I shouldn't do as a reviewer through evaluating as many bad NC reviews that I could find and then watch. In addition, while several former content creators from CA couldn't match their old success, some have managed to overcome their old style, developed a distinctive personality, and have continued to be successful in their own right. You know what kind of people I'm talking about, right? Names like Lindsay Ellis, Linkara, Angry Joe, Todd in the Shadows, Larry Bundy Jr., and Chris Stuckmann are still well-known in the world of internet reviewers past their respective careers on CA. On top of that, I feel like most others that managed to make a name out of themselves without CA have done so by phasing out of NC. In other words, Doug walked (no pun intended), so we all could run. As I may have already considered, I do not think Doug Walker is a great reviewer. However, I do not think he is one of the worst critics like some others would say, rather I think he feels very...well, lost. The internet has long moved past the Nostalgia Critic style of review content. Doug stills seems to be caught in the past that is his inability to cope with the failure of what was meant to be his masterpiece (Demo Reel). More-so, despite changing things around for his series since at least 2015, Doug hasn't really done much innovation for the NC ever since. This all gives me the impression that Doug these days doesn't have a plan on what to do with his career after the Nostalgia Critic, nor does he have a plan to evolve as a critic, as an entertainer, or even as a person, which brings me to this particular concern I have with him... I would like to see Doug improve with his work, but I have a feeling that he wouldn't really be able to redeem himself, aside from the fact that the #ChangeTheChannel debacle ruined his self-credibility and his video on The Wall destroyed his reputation as a critic. For the most part, as long as he's still keeping the estranged CA CEO Mike Michaud company, he's very much never going to be redeemed for his past wrongdoings that I addressed before. He could simply leave CA on his own terms and give himself the freedom to do whatever he wants, but of course, since Doug isn't willing to give up the Critic, and while Mike still holds the rights to his show, Doug's future isn't looking bright due to continuing to be bound to CA. No matter how I feel about Doug and the Nostalgia Critic now, there remains a recurring thought I have of him where I feel like he can do better because he has done better. For reasons, I've considered myself as a former fan of the NC series. I saw some talent in him before and I do believe he still has some in him but he just isn't able to show it. Again, I would like to see Doug improve himself, but it would take a lot in order for him to do so. This is all that I think he should do: 1) deflate his own ego and bring himself down to earth, 2) face the courage to admit to and apologize for his wrongs, 3) put more effort into his series if he chooses to continue NC; stop piling himself with other needless projects like Dark Toons and such, and at least try to innovate NC more, and 4) own up to his failures and turn around those past experiences towards learning to improve his own craft and to improve himself as a content creator. There's no telling when the Nostalgia Critic series will end. However, after this whole long piece, my time with Doug and NC has ended. No matter what new content from Doug comes my way in the near future, I won't bother. Even for a hypothetical NC episode of say...the first theatrical SpongeBob movie, I will miss it for the world. If I hear from Doug that he has been improving himself as a person and as reviewer, perhaps I will change my mind, but I don't expect it to happen anytime soon, so I know it's best to just move on from Doug Walker and his series. And so that was the Nostalgia Critic. I remembered him so I won't have to keep doing so for as long as he continues to stick around. Edited October 8, 2020 by Steel Sponge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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