The Red Letter Media Star Wars Reviews Outtakes And My Belated Force Awakens Review [Extended Dance Cut Edition]

So earlier this year I re-watched the Red Letter Media Mr. Plinkett Star Wars reviews of Episode I, Episode II, and Episode III and enjoyed them yet again. This might be the first case where the video reviews of a movie series are actually more entertaining and re-watchable than the actual movies.

Anyway the occasion was that Mrs. Maetenloch had announced that she wanted to go see The Force Awakens in the theater based on the positive reviews of it from her friends and coworkers.

[Now to put this in context you have to understand that she had never seen any of the Star Wars movies before in her life and was perfectly content in this state. To suddenly want to go see this kind of movie was....uncharacteristic. Now by cultural osmosis she did have a vague idea of the SW story - the Darth robot guy was bad, the Yoda was good, there were spaceships and laser swords, but after that it got real fuzzy real quick. I had tried to get her to watch the original one years before but it was late and I think she was already asleep before the droids got captured by the jawas.]

"Sure!" I said, "but to really understand and appreciate it you should watch the original trilogy first." She agreed and so over the next two weekends we ended up re-watching the original movies. She liked the original one even though it wasn't her usual cup of tea. But she really enjoyed TESB and got into the characters at that point. She also liked ROTJ (I had warned her about the stupid ewok crap beforehand).

So having brought her up to speed to circa 1983 we finally went off to see The Force Awakens in the theater.

And long story short I thought it was enjoyable despite all the Mary Sue-ism, some unexplained plot details, and other little annoyances. Mainly I was just relieved that it didn't suck. But she really liked it. For her it was a continuation of the original series except with a 33 year fast forward - seeing the older Han and Leia was like seeing old friends from the previous weekend again. Anyway she was jazzed about it and the coming sequel, and finally asked the question I knew was coming: Hey why don't we watch the prequels now?

No, I mansplained. You really don't want to - you'll just be disappointed. Because they suck. There's nothing to be learned from them - except as a cautionary tale. Are they really that bad, she asked. Yes, I answered, and frustratingly so because they didn't have to be. Here let this YouTube video explain. I think she got the point about 15 minutes into Plinkett and has never asked about them again.

So...all this is to explain how it is that I came upon these outtakes from the Plinkett reviews. Yeah they're a bit old but they're entertaining in their own right and it looks like the RLM guys had almost as much fun making the reviews as we had from watching them. It's also a reminder of how much you can do with modern equipment and a low budget but a lot of creativity.

Star Wars: Episode II Review Outtakes

Episode III Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes – Star Wars: Episode III Review Teaser Trailer


Episode 1 Review Interview Outtakes

"Paradox, paradigm, parallax --- it's like poetry... It rhymes."