The Nostalgia Critic

"You used to have strong plentiful balls": Ma-ti - Battlefield Earth Review

Back in 2007, an episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd involved the titular character reviewing the movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. This was a change of pace to his regular videos as he would normally only review video games, however, I particularly loved this one video and wish he could have done more like this, or that someone would come around and be The Angry Video Game Nerd of movies. In a number of respects, this was The Nostalgia Critic (portrayed by Doug Walker). This is what first attracted me to the series when I first discovered it in 2009, and after watching a few episodes I was hooked. The series debuted on YouTube in 2007 before moving to Doug Walker's own site That Guy With the Glasses.com (later re-titled Channel Awesome), a website which showcased of people involved in the increasingly popular genre of satirical reviews.

That Guy With the Glasses wasn't entertainment being churned out by a corporation or by Hollywood executives, it was entertainment for the people by the people with no concern for financial gain but creating content purely out of passion which could be shared with a mass audience thanks to this thing known as the internet. I had my own aspirations to be on TGWTG, of course, nothing ever materialized, but to even be a follower of the site it felt like being part of something truly special and unique. All the great personalities the site had to offer; Spoony, Angry Joe, Todd in the Shadows, Linkara, Paw, Film Brain - the list goes on. Online videos like these have more heart, soul, and personality than contemporary Hollywood blockbusters or anything currently on TV.

But let's talk about The Nostalgia Critic. Doug Walker was a natural comedian, he made the art of reviewing while cracking jokes, pop culture references and comedic over reactions look easy. Surf Ninjas is my favourite NC review, I have watched a good 30 times; a masterpiece of sarcasm. I remember I used to stay up on Tuesday nights to see each new video as soon as it was uploaded and I considered Doug Walker to be one of my comedic influences.

Various ex-fans of The Nostalgia Critic have different dates as to when he went downhill, so I can't speak for everyone, but for me personally, 2011 was the beginning of the end. Right from the start of 2011, the cracks were showing. Sequel month was a lazy idea, just rehashing previous review source material, but I presumed this would just be a minor blip. Despite a few good videos over the following year, the quality had declined. Also while I absolutely adored the two year anniversary special Kickassia, the following anniversary special in 2011 Suburban Knights simply wasn't funny, not to mention it felt like a very anti-climatic follow up to Kickassia in which they made the special in cooperation with an actual micro-nation. Going from something as large-scale and ambitious as that to a special filmed is suburban neighborhood felt like a bummer. When Star Trek month rolled around in January 2012 I gave up. Now at this point, The Nostalgia Critic's video wasn't awful, but more so just really boring.

I was glad when Doug brought the series to an end in August 2012 and began a new project called Demo Reel. Perhaps Demo Reel had potential but what I have watched of it is seriously dull; although at least it was something different and showed Doug didn't want to be The Critic all his life. However, due to the failure of Demo Reel Doug revived The Nostalgia Critic. I haven't seen everything he has done since the series revival but what I have is unbelievably awful. For this review, I had to try and watch more recent videos of his which I hadn't seen, and doing so was the biggest chore, such a contrast to his older work which had such a natural progression and the best of which were consistently funny from beginning to end.

A rundown of the problems with The Nostalgia Critic beginning in 2011 and spiraling out of control in 2012:

Firstly he started going to way of MTV, he's become The Nostalgia Critic in name only. This problem began in October 2011 when he reviewed Exorcist II: The Heretic and Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2; two films totally outside of his territory as there's nothing nostalgic about them to the Critic's target audience. He once had cut off date of 2000 (aside from the odd exception), however now it's clear he's run out of nostalgic movies and TV shows from his time frame and now reviews whatever he wants. He was at his best reviewing stupid and nonsensical Movies and TV shows from the 80's and 90's; that was the kind of material that worked best with his brand of humor.

His jokes are now forced beyond belief, an example? In his Top 11 F-Ups Part 3, he makes a joke about how people get the titles of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith mixed up. Not only is this joke shoehorned in out of nowhere, it's creating a situation that doesn't even exist. However it's bad enough when a joke is unfunny and forced, it's even worse if it goes on for ages. I don't mind long jokes if they're done well as Doug himself has done so in the past such as the dream sequence in the Junior review. For an example of a joke which goes on for an eternity; the "Allen" gag in his Jurassic Park III review. I was in a state of disbelief and non-existent laughter at just how long it lasts. I could make a huge list of the individual jokes in his new videos and why each one doesn't work.

Other reviews are simply unpleasant, hateful and mean-spirited. In his review of Eight Crazy Nights, he had recurring gag throughout the video making fun of Happy Madison fans as lowest common denominator yokels. Regardless of how terrible Happy Madison films are, I did not start watching this guy's videos in the first place to see such mean-spirited gags such as this.

The other major source of increasing annoyance is the lack of research he does for his videos. In his Patch Adams review he clearly has no knowledge of film's subject matter, or in his Jurassic Park review, he criticizes the science present in the film and even has a sketch about it despite having no apparent knowledge of it. This brings me to what annoys me most of what the critic has now become. He's become a self-righteous know-it-all jerk, and not in an intentional self-aware funny way. His review of Patch Adams is just one huge snob fest, while in his reviews of generally well-liked films (Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Matrix), he parades like his opinion is fact even though his criticisms on these films are just stupid nitpicking. There was once a time when watching a Nostalgia Critic review was simply fun, now it's about having Doug Walker's self-righteous, poorly researched, incorrect or simply illogical statements shoved down your throat. The dividing line between Doug and his fictional creation is becoming increasingly blurred; in his Top 11 F-Ups Part 3 he makes a list entry related to videos he made speaking as himself and not the Critic.

Since Demo Reel failed the people Doug has hired to appear in that show are now regulars on the revived series of The Nostalgia Citric, and none of them of any charisma; it makes me miss the days of Ma-ti. His new videos also look too sterile and washed out; what happened to that warm inviting yellow background?

He's also stopped using creative title cards and instead now uses lazy photoshopped title cards; ironic considering in his Drew Struzan tribute he criticized movie studios for using lazy, uninspired photoshopped movie posters. Also, all these new title cards have an exaggerated facial expression from Doug which is increasingly obnoxious. I'm sure there are many other problems I could mention, but trying to watch his more recent videos for the sake of this review is excruciating with how bad they are.

Then there's his NC: Editorials. These annoy me for two reasons. Firstly it's the constant retreading of this mentality that you're simply blinded by nostalgia if you dislike some aspect of contemporary popular culture. Secondly, they're pretentious, giving an over important emphasis to questions no one was asking the answers to (Is It Right to Nitpick? Why Do We Love Stupid?), or questions which have obvious answers (Have we gone too deep into CGI?, Why Is Tom & Jerry Genius?).

I can't comment on the current state of other TGWTG contributors as I gave up on the site as a whole long ago (expect Todd In the Shadows who is the only one I still watch), but I know some of the longtime members such as The Nostalgia Chick, Oancitizen, Phealous, and Obscurus Lupa are no longer there.

When writing this review I was wondering if it was a mistake to undertake as I much prefer to write reviews of stuff I love instead of contributing to an internet full of negativity, but this show used to mean so much to me and bring me such joy, now it does the complete opposite. I have witnessed two things in my life degrade from being something I loved so dearly to becoming one of the worst pieces of so-called "entertainment" I have ever seen - The Simpsons and The Nostalgia Critic. It's hard to watch his old videos now without thinking about what a joke he is now. Congratulations Doug on destroying your own creation.

To be honest, The Nostalgia Critic as he currently stands deserves one star-- the additional three in my rating are for the entertainment value the series had back in the day, which, unfortunately, the passage of time and the addition of unpleasant hindsight have considerably eroded.

I watched the NC religiously as a teenager in the late 2000s. His reviews were unpretentious and packed with a joke a second. Humiliating as it might be to admit, I still recall his reviews of A TROLL IN CENTRAL PARK and THE TOM AND JERRY MOVIE fondly. These reviews were hardly profound or even that well-made, and many come off as quite dated today, but for the time, the NC was a lot of fun and an internet superstar. His angry critic schtick was copied by just about everybody between 2007 and 2010.

Understandably, Walker wanted to move on to different projects. He was tired of screaming in front of a white wall, even with the addition of skits and special effects to shake things up in later episodes. However, Doug was taken down by his own ego and bad writing. His follow-up series DEMO REEL was a spectacular failure (I saw the pilot the day it was posted and that was enough for me), forcing him back into the NC role. Unfortunately, the new NC was little more than DEMO REEL 2.0-- at that point, the internet review show had outgrown the simpler style that made Walker famous and he himself was only treading water. The horrifying revelations of the Change the Channel documentation only further sealed Walker's fate as a disgraced has-been.

To watch current NC videos is like seeing SUNSET BLVD's Norma Desmond descending the stairs to perform her antiquated Salome before an audience of embarrassed cops and journalists. No one is there because they are entertained: they're watching a train wreck. While reviving the NC might have been a wise move from an economic standpoint, artistically, it's trapped Walker in an eternal adolescence.

On one hand, the Nostalgia Critic is one of the most important figures to me, at least in internet culture. His content introduced me to the world of critical culture, which is watching analysis on their takes on media. And I'm not going to pretend that N. C.'s old content were always bad. These episodes weren't either clever or deep compared to today's contemporaries. But these episodes, Batman and Robin, The Room, Dungeons and Dragons, the bizarre animated Titanic rip-offs, they had their charm and at least was entertaining. He was alongside AVGN as these forefathers of this emerging genre.

But on the other hand, the N. C. Is also the most outdated and ironic critic in all of YouTube. Since his revival and since his Jurassic world review, the N. C. was going to rely more on using live-action skits to evade copyright issues. In theory, this could possibly work if you have enough creativity, quality production, and, great acting and writing. But in execution, Doug Walker had none of them. The skits are, and continue to be, the worst aspect of his more modern episodes. These episodes are plagued with such puss-poor production that it makes The Incredible Bulk look like a James Cameron film, impressively bad and repetitive comedy that feels ripped off from Seizer and Friedberg, horrible pacing that causes all of the scenes to be unintentionally awkward and unbearably boring, sets that are either a lazy green screen or be set in this unbelievably dull office building, and even the music is this repetitive, stock "epic" tune that feels way too overused. But even then, most of the later episodes aren't consistently bad either, just extreme hit or extreme miss (though it's more the later). And these episodes just get worse and more dumber as the years go by.

But then comes the lingering elephant in the room: "Change the Channel," which, long story short, recontextualized him and his company, Channel Awesome. Gone was the perception of a flawed, yet passionate filmmaker who made a company so that others can accomplish their dreams, instead revealed Doug Walker as an inept, out-of-touch, and egotistical idiot. While there were far more insidious individuals who turned Channel Awesome into a toxic workplace of nepotism, sexual harassment, and gross mistreatment, it was Doug Walker who enabled this to happen. He is still complicit with their actions. And as such justifiably resulted in the largest exodus of creators from a YouTube company which brought the death knell for community-based YouTube Channels.

Watching the Nostalgia Critic turn into a parody of himself is genuinely sad. I truly did grew up in that golden age of YouTubers. He was the reason why I got into cinema and the arts, why I became obsessed with how movies get made and why I follow that weird genre of YouTube Critics like him, but more sophisticated, earnest, and actually funny. He's a trailblazer lost making his own trail in circles. He's the Nostalgia Critic, we remembered him because he doesn't anymore.

I didn't get into The Nostalgia Critic until fairly recently, as I have several friends from IMDb who are fans of his. As I have said, out of all the internet stars, The Nostalgia Critic is my favourite. No matter how random he can be, he is hilarious and pretty consistent. There are times where Doug overdoes it a tad with the shrieking and the rants, but there are many funny moments in his reviews I can't help chuckling.

My favourite reviews of his are:

Titanic:The Animated Movie- This is an instance when the review is a million times better than the film. The film itself is for me one of the worst animated movies ever, poorly animated and edited and a shameless rip off of films(infinitely better films too) from my childhood. When the rapping dog arrived on the scene, I knew I was asking for trouble. In fact the only redeeming quality was Holding Me. The review of course was absolutely brilliant, with some of the funniest moments I had seen in my life, so much so I almost died laughing.

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie- Man I cannot describe how awful this film was. Without a doubt for me this is one of the worst movies of the 80s, poorly written, horrible to look at with terrible acting and incoherent storytelling. Another instance of where the review is better than the film.

Quest for Camelot- I have to admit this was funny. I don't hate this film as much as some do in fact while it has a lot of problems(ie. the mismatched singing voices) it does have its interest points such as the song The Prayer, Devon and Cornwall and the fact the excellent and underrated Gary Oldman does a voice. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed the review, the Ogre's butt comment especially was hilarious!

Batman and Robin- I especially liked this review for the Bat Nipples comment, that was funny. And I do have to admit this is a movie I don't like, in fact I consider this the worst of the Batman movies. Nice costumes and sets, but a bad script and ridiculous overacting(Arnold Schwarznegger I am looking at you) really bring the film down.

Troll in Central Park- Another great review with nice observations that even I didn't think of, and I have to say the film itself I consider one of Bluth's weaker efforts. I actually like Don Bluth, The Secret of NIMH, Anastasia, American Tail and Land Before Time especially are wonderful, but this film while having some sweet moments, nice incidental music and a very good voice cast is forgettable, mostly to do with the lacklustre plot and uneven animation quality.

Is there a review I didn't like so much? I have still yet to see more of Nostalgia Critic's work, but I agree with another reviewer about Last Action Hero. That film is very underrated, it isn't perfect, but it was smart and fun, and I felt that Doug missed the point of the film plus it wasn't as funny as his other reviews I feel.

I also enjoy his lists-: Top 11 Scariest Moments, Top 11 Saddest Moments, Top 11 Villains and Top 11 Villain Songs. In regard to the latter, I personally don't think any villain song list is complete without the mention of Hellfire from the underrated Hunchback of Notre Dame. That is a brilliant song, operatic, haunting, intense and goosebumps inducing and brings a demonic side to Frollo's character, and to think he wasn't complex enough already.

Overall, if you haven't seen any of Doug's reviews I suggest you do so. Whether you agree with him or not is something else, but he is so entertaining often I am past caring. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Like a lot of people I became familiar with The Nostalgia Critic and his portrayer/creator Doug Walker in the summer of 2007 on YouTube. At the time, he didn't have anywhere the budget he has today and because of YouTube guidelines his videos had to try to be less than ten minutes. His content then was very to the point, had legitimate and researched criticism, and above all else was actually funny. Not to say he had a perfect thing going on, he did make a few trivial mistakes with his early videos, but for the most part it a harmless string of YouTube videos.

He grew in popularity which led to various others trying to mimic his style of review, getting his own website where he'd not only create content but others as well( many of who became internet stars in their own right) becoming a guest at conventions, and being able to reach out and get people like Mara Wilson("Matilda") and legendary animator Don Bluth("Secret of NIMH") to appear on his content. However, the popularity only went to Walker's head and the content did not get better, it became worse with age.

As time went, the videos became longer than they needed to be, became pretentious( see his woeful editorials, vlogs, and sibling rivalry videos with his brother) more material was not researched better( or at all) and a lot of the humor became mean spirited and condescending to the viewer. The nice and reasonable personality Walker usually portrayed off-screen with fans appeared more and more like a facade than genuine with how eerily similar his views and general attitude of them were to that of his character - Not the night and day difference he used to display when he first started out making videos. Like a lot of the shows and film franchises Walker usually rants on about as "not doing anything new" and "trying too hard to be trendy with today" he too has ironically fallen victim to this and the majority of his newest content is just unwatchable. Furthermore, Walker seems to really think that he is a legitimate film critic and that his character qualifies as such, not quite as the purpose of creating the character was originally just to riff on things for laughs. How fame can really conquer rational thinking...

Walker made a good call ending the character some years ago and decidedly wanting to create newer programs for his social media, but made the mistake of waiting too late in the game to announce it and thus created a backlash from his fan-base so out of worry he brought the character back, but it was never the same - He started making reviews of films that had just came out recently( contradictory to the word "nostalgic"), did more and more crossovers, had skits that ran longer and didn't go anywhere, and the style of humor was unsettling in a similar sense to contemporary Family Guy.

I would only recommend his much earlier content, nothing he's done in recent years. How the mighty have fallen...Ironically, many Nostalgia Critic imitators are proving to do it better than he has in recent years, go figure.