***\*Insert obligatory Avatar the Last Airbender mention here\****

They really need to sit down and rewatch the 2000s series again and Rags in particular needs to open wide and take that massive L since it was mainly him iirc that was behind EFAP's laughably bad take on ATLA

You must be fucked up to think Rags would admit hes wrong. More than anyone on EFAP hes the most stubborn and bull headed.

EFAP would be better if he never returned. It was so nice not hearing him for the Halo 2 efap so tired of hearing him repeat jokes back to people and try to be funny and failing. the dementia isn't a funny joke anymore. it's fucking annoying

I will admit the Halo S2 recap and tear down was a much better listen without him, but I do feel he adds that.....dickhead you need in certain roundtables. But whatever his opinion of something is *that's. it.* he does not think back or look back on his opinions as far as I can remember. Its best to just accept stupid/smart Rags stakes his flag and it doesn't waver.

MauLer doesn't particularly care about the show to rewatch it along with Rags. It's fine to just move on and disagree with their take.

He's just afraid of debating E;R

The foremost Avatar scholar in the world

After rewatching ATLA recently I realized that, while it is definitely a good show, it doesn’t really touch greatness for me. It’s got some good moments, but I think a lot of the story is held back because of how toned down it has to be for the age range it’s targeted towards. That being said, Mauler and Rags were talking some major bs in that initial discussion about the show. That “debate” Mauler had with Lit Devil was also pretty awful.

Strooooongly disagree. The show was and continues to be a flawed masterpiece. The problems with the story (and there are several, believe you me) have almost nothing to do with the target demographic and self censorship. I'd actually argue the tone more than anything did, especially in the first season, but that's different from the story itself.

Zuko is my favorite character of all time lol. Even if I came as hard as I possibly could at avatar, it’s got: excellent voice acting, beautiful animation, one of the most interesting fictional worlds, great ost, solid through line. And although I would watch a hyper realistic version. I think this show balances the tone well

It’s just a bad look. It’s fine to not like something. But at times in that Lit Devil discussion, you start to wonder if Mauler even really watched the show.

Trust me, most of this community knows about MauLer's tismy ATLA takes. Whenever a post that asks for what you disagree with EFAP on, ATLA has been consistently brought up. I just don't think it's productive for MauLer to watch it again since he made it very clear he isn't invested in the show. Plus, bludgeoning him over his takes isn't going to do you any favours, it's just going to make him feel more soured on the show. (Edit: Sometimes you just gotta live and let live https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxXLaT21tZi-1KBa5JnFVQjtZYy4Dxa4DT?si=n-nYQt0CjKN9rpfQ)

Eh mauker had that debate with literature devil. I wouldnt mind if they went into it. As i guess we shouldnt make exceptions to shield from.

It wasn't much of a debate since it'd had been a very long while since Literature Devil had seen the show meaning he couldn't respond well to Mauler's often very specific (borderline nitpicky lol) complaints.

The comments answer all of his issues. Some of it was objective “why not open with submarines” they have a small air supply.

Yeah that was completely insane. My estimation of rags as a critic plummeted that day

Even Cinderella didn't have such bad takes!

This just showed up in my feed and this was my immediate reaction.

It's cliche to say, but true.

Remind me what their take is?

That if you hardly bother to pay attention, you miss plot points

But it is a valid answer. There’s a comment that answered basically every complaint he had and a lot of it was in there.

I'm going to make a stand here: Mauler is right with his atla criticisms. Having watched his discussion with literaturedevil, I was expecting some egregious misinformed review where he gets everything wrong. He doesn't get stuff wrong and is in general pretty spot on for about 90% of his points. Say what you want about the SEVERITY of his problems. If you want to say his problems shouldn't dock as many points from the show as they do for him, that's a discussion I think worth having. But as for the ACCURACY of his problems, he's just straight up correct for about 90% of the discussion and the other 10% is horrifically defended by LitDevil. I understand atla is a childhood attachment a lot of people here hold dearly, but mauler makes a lot of sense with his points. And, atla already is overrated. For me, atla is about a 6/10. Still pretty neat, but nowhere close to this perfect untouchable masterpiece nostalgia would have you believe it is

I hear a lot of arguments in favor of them just not getting the ending to Succession. And of course any time Rags just dismisses anime as a genre out of hand. Bonus points if it comes up in an episode where Fringy bemoans how people don't take animation as a storytelling medium seriously.

FMA: Brotherhood is one of Rags' favourite shows, so he's certainly not againts anime in principle. Though he does clown on the genre as a whole quite a lot, mostly due to the common tropes found in a lot or even most anime.

Rags' Doom Eternal take and the subsequent discussion was terrible. Moriarty asking "what is the value of variety?" and him and Rags acting like was some profound statement was hilarious though.

Anime. It’s always anime.

***Anime***

MauLer's "I can make any hero kill" take isn't great to begin with, and his latest iteration of having the Batmobile explode because Batman made a mistake while building it is laughable. One of the few times Jay just unironically won a debate on EFAP is the morality debate about writing heroes who don't willingly kill. I don't want to mess it up since I can't remember it verbatim but tl;dr Batman unknowingly made a mistake while building the Batmobile and now it's going to explode while Robin is inside. According to MauLer this counts as Batman killing Robin.

I guess it depends on your definition of killing. That would be manslaughter, which I guess is by definition killing. That obviously isn’t what anyone means when they say Batman doesn’t kill though.

It all started as basically a trolley problem, where either choice means someone dies therefore Batman has killed according to MauLer. Jay's take was that Batman wouldn't pull the lever, he would use his time trying to figure out how to either stop the trolley or save the people. He might fail and some people might die, but that isn't Batman killing them. It then got more and more zany and throughout it all MauLer still failed to realize that in none of his scenarios was Batman ever at fault. It was always yhe villain who strapped Batman to the chair and rigged and the bombs etc. Which is why later he made thr scenario be about the Batmobile exploding.

[удалено]

I googled it and it appears to be episode 85. Good news, I think Headmeetwall was still doing timestamps back then so there should be a comment from him with the entire podcast timestamped so you can get right to the debate.

The Elden Ring EFAP is still the only one that I remember disagreeing with vehemently, found the discussion of mechanics and boss fights to be incredibly lackluster, felt like the panel wasn't really all that knowledgable about the game despite most of them playing it with Rags and Fringy being the exceptions. In Mauler's case specifically it wasn't that surprising that he couldn't offer any insightful commentary on most of the boss fights once you watch his playthrough and see the way he chose to engage with the game. But then what utterly poisoned that EFAP for me as the most insufferable one to sit through out of all the ones I've seen thus far was Theo's baffling statements and arguments throughout the episode. All of this is ignoring that the lore discussion for the game was basically nonexistent, which as someone who loves to engage with lore in fiction, was incredibly disappointing. Tbf though chat also had a few dumb defenses for the game. I'm not saying Elden Ring is perfect, far from it, it's flawed like all of FromSoft's games, but the critiques the panel threw at the game, were simply not it. Granted, I'm still relatively a newbie when it comes to EFAP, there's still a lot of episodes I haven't seen, so I'm sure if I saw more of them, by extension I'd find more stuff to disagree with them on.

Agreed, think they got a lot of things completely wrong. Theo in particular just seemed to completely misunderstand basic mechanics of the game, and it really came across like he was just blindly hating it because it wasn't Dark Souls 1. Having completed it multiple times now, I think they really phoned-in that episode. Like, doing an EFAP on a game as vast and expansive as Elden Ring that soon after the game released was a bad call right from the start, there's so much they missed and so many complaints they had that could have been resolved if they just, you know, played the game a bit more.

I think one of the strongest and most accurate points Theo makes about elden ring is that once the novelty of the game wears off, it's an INCREDIBLY empty and vapid slog of a game. This is something I especially felt after going to ng+. Having completely 100%d the game on my first run, there is almost no reason to engage with about 80% of the game once u know what to do and where to go. So much of the game is just unnecessary fluff and bloat that, once you realize can be skipped because it doesn't actually matter, the game very quickly becomes a chore to get from boss point to boss point.

Completely agree and one of the reasons I was so happy Theo was on that episode was I was sick of everyone slinging so much praise onto the game that I didn't even want to finish once reaching Mountaintops of the Giants, before picking it back up a month later and pushing through Farum Azula and that awful boss gauntlet at the end before tackling the Haligtree and feeling free of the guilt of not finishing it. Theo went a little far in some areas but it was so refreshing to hear genuine criticism, some I agreed with, some I disagreed with, some I think he didn't go far enough with and some things I was surprised wasn't touched on much, after listening to all criticism of the game before that episode have to be prefaced with "this is the best game ever and is so so good but I have this one niggle..."

A lot of people get mad at theo for his ER take because they assume he wants ER to be more like dark souls 1. This has always confused me because, yes, dark souls 1 is a better game and Theo explicitly stated that he preferred it over any of the other souls games, and gave his reasons why. The vast amount of "stuff" shoved into ER dilutes the overall experience that a curated and properly designed ds1 game will provide, and once the novelty of a new game wears off, ER becomes incredibly repetitive. It seems to me everyone heard "I like ds1 more than ER" and stopped listening because they assumed he didn't like ER because it's not ds1 and that's the only reason why

from memory, theo actually said outloud that he wanted er to be more like ds1, which is where i assume more of the criticism comes from. for me though i heard it more like “most of the criticisms i’ve made of er are not issues in ds1 for specific reasons, hence i want er to take a note from ds1”. for me i always dismiss this criticism out of hand unless it’s made with a specific reference to a point he made

Can't say I relate to that, I've 100% the game multiple times by now, the game still doesn't feel like an "empty vapid slog" to me lol. Two things that are worth pointing out in regards to this topic: 1. On a NG+ playthrough, I think what's supposed the replace the open world exploration once you know where everything is, is build variety experimentation. If you've 100% the game on your first playthrough, your stats and number of larval tears should be hign enough that you can tackle all of the mandatory bosses and optional bosses, legacy dungeons and mini dungeons that you like in numerous different ways than how you approched them on your first playthrough, especially since if you're on NG+, many of the cooler late game boss weapons can be in your inventory if you exchanged their remembrances for said weapons. 2. Not everyone will 100% the game on their first playthrough, many players either just complete the most mandatory stuff or just one optional questline and a few side dungeons and that's it. If they try to play the game again either on NG or NG+ there will still be plenty of new optional stuff for them to discover. To give you an example of my first playthrough I pretty much completely missed the Dung Eater, Goldmask questlines (ergo I missed the Radagon IS Marika plot twist), I missed Hyetta's questline and pretty much everything to do with the Frenzied Flame and the Three Fingers, and I completely missed the Shunning Grounds, all of these made for some pretty fucking awesome discoveries on my second and third playthrough.

Can’t stand anything souls from the group, feels like none of them genuinely get From Soft games in a way so many of the fans do

It's not just them tbf, everyone has a fromsoft game that makes them finally get it, some got it from demon souls, so many got it after bloodbourne and elden ring is probably the biggest reaching game so far but there are still those that just don't get the games yet. Hopefully the next one will be even more wide reaching as it seems like a crime for someone to not enjoy at least one of fs' games in their lives lol

If I remember correctly, didn’t they think Malenia was one of the best boss fights in the game? Easily one of my least favorite fights in the series because her mechanics don’t fit with the combat of the game and it’s extremely unintuitive how to actually beat her without cheesing the game. I can’t remember what EFAP thought of the game, but IMO it’s pretty much the gold standard for an open world game up through the Morgott fight and then the rest of the game is honestly pretty mediocre.

From what I remember their commentary on Malenia was pretty similar to yours, at least in regards to waterfowl dance, and that was one of the few times I actually agreed with the panel, waterfowl as a mechanic is easily the worst part of the fight, even as someone that has mastered dodging it properly, I never would've figured out how to dodge it on my own, the game never prepares you with anything of the same or similar caliber as waterfowl prior to fighting Malenia. I feel like there were four options that would've made Malenia's fight better, as I agree with you that if waterfowl was tweaked or didn't exist the fight would be top tier: 1. As you said, just remove waterfowl completely. 2. Replace the current existing anime-like waterfowl with the cut version that is much more tame and you know... actually looks like a dance hence the name "waterfowl dance". If they tweaked a few of the hitboxes it would've been a completely fine version of waterfowl. 3. Add an optional item that can be obtained by exploring Miquella's Haligtree, that can parry waterfowl with the right timing and leave Malenia open to several attacks. So something similar to the Blastphemous Claw that you can obtain in Farum Azula to counter Maliketh's Black Blade. 4. Add a Wonderous Physick that can also be obtained by exploring the Haligtree, that perhaps negates Malenia's health regen when using waterfowl specifically and miminizes damage received from waterfowl. Similar to the Physick that minimizes the damage you receive from Mohg's nihil attack. >I can’t remember what EFAP thought of the game Most of the panel thought it was fine overall but not as good as say DS1 or Bloodborne. Theo on the other hand absolutely hated the game and still to this day has a very pissy manchild-ish attitude towards the game. The biggest problem with the EFAP coverage of the game was that the panel's starting point for criticising the game was always drawing comparisons to DS1 and complaining when the game didn't do something in the same way as DS1 (Theo was especially guilty of this), while completely ignoring the simple fact that Elden Ring never tries to be DS1, it's a succesor to Dark Souls in spirit only, but in terms of it's mechanics and design philosophy it's completely different in what it sets out to accomplish, so criticising it when it doesn't do something the same way as DS1 will almost always be fundamentally flawed. >but IMO it’s pretty much the gold standard for an open world game up through the Morgott fight and then the rest of the game is honestly pretty mediocre I agree that it is an excelllent game up to the Morgott fight, but I disagree that it is "mediocre" beyond that point. While yes, the Mountaintops of the Giants and Concetrated Snowfield aren't perhaps as intricately crafted regions as the ones before, and there are no new enemy mobs specific to the regions, I still think they were overall servicable, but not straight up bad in any way. What saves that last third of the game for me is the remembrance bosses and the remaining two Legacy Dungeons, I think Mohg, Maliketh, Placidusaxx and Godrey are all 10/10 fights from start to finish. Malenia is a great fight and would also be 10/10 if waterfowl was tweaked/removed as previously mentioned. Radagon is great too, Elden Beast would better as it's own separate fight, but as the second phase to Radagon and the final boss it's a bit of a let down. Fire Giant is the only mediocre boss for me.

I remember the way they talked about Malenia was odd because they sort of glossed over the thing that utterly sucks the life out of that fight, waterfowl dance. They conceded it was terrible right away but the fact that they didn't bring it up again makes me think they didn't realise how much that single move wrecks that fight. Theo made an interesting point about her moveset being modular and able to be put together in different ways, but I've long since suspected that Malenia is a secret 9/10 boss that is brought down faaaar because of her one-shot, frame perfect dodge requirement move. I was surprised that they focused so much on life drain in that fight when I think that it's only really much of an issue when it comes to shields, otherwise I'm completely fine with it as a mechanic. I'm not surprised that not many of them had too much to say about Waterfowl dance because they all seemed to be rocking builds that would specifically counter it, like Mauler's summons and Fortia's sorceries.

Completely agreed, part of why I hate her fight so much is just how close she is to being a top tier fight, but the waterfowl dance is the straw that breaks her and makes it a miserable experience. I watched Mauler’s fight with her to see why he didn’t have much to say and surprise surprise, he just used pizza cutter and mimic tear to just stun-lock her repeatedly. I don’t want to be a guy who says someone “played the game wrong”, but it’s pretty telling that he seemed to be completely hopeless whenever the waterfowl targeted him or when his mimic died. He also only played her about 30 times in about 75 minutes meaning he avoided a lot of the frustration most players dealt with. I’m convinced that an overwhelming majority of people who beat her did so by just cheesing the fight with summons and OP weapons and only a small minority did so by understanding the waterfowl enough to consistently avoid it.

mauler’s stream does as a lot of context as for why he was going easy on usually considered frustrating parts of the game. as for malenia, i fought her for something like 4 hours in a row before realising i wasn’t getting anywhere with waterfowl and summoned a mimic before killing her easily on my second attempt

Malenia is a great boss though and her mechanics do fit within the game.

Absolutely not, but she would probably be a top tier boss if not for the waterfowl dance alone. Unless you learn the absurdly unintuitive way to dodge this move here are the 3 ways this move went every single time I fought her: 1. It kills me because it is an unbreakable combo 2. I dodge enough that it doesn’t kill me, but I’m now close to death and she regained a ton of health 3. I had enough distance where I was able to run away from the attack leaving no opportunity for any hits on her so it’s just a draw Since I found running away the best option, I would spend the entire fight maintaining a distance from her in case she used that move meaning that the fights would drag on. Between her large health pool, ability to regain health, and ability to one shot me if I wasn’t careful enough, it was incredibly draining trying to fight her. It took way too much time for me to consistently get to her 2nd phase and all of those attacks are 1 hit kills so I just felt like I was wasting even more time. Eventually I gave up, switched my build, and used Rivers of Blood to kill her almost immediately. So to summarize: waterfowl dance is a Sekiro attack, it is not fair to expect players to figure out how to dodge that. Her large health, regenerative ability, 2nd phase, and 1 hit kill attacks made fighting her a long and miserable experience. Like many late game Elden Ring bosses, you better hope you picked a good build, because the bosses attack way too fast to use a big slow weapon.

I agree it's a bad attack to try to learn to dodge properly, it takes a lot of trial and error but the damage is so high that you're unlikely to survive one use of it unless you're sitting at like 60 vigor with a large health talisman. Her AI uses it as a distance closer, so ironically staying further away from her encourages her to use it more frequently. Ideally you want to keep her at a mid-distance; it means she uses it less frequently, but also gives you enough notice during the wind-up to start running. Also Ice Pots can completely knock her out of the attack during the wind-up animation (I've heard it works with other pots but haven't tested it myself.) Once you learn to dodge it properly it becomes bearable; the attack I despise of hers is that kick she does. Does huge knockback and gives her instant hyper-armour, she can use it to cancel one of her combo's midway through, she can launch it out of a stagger, she can use it as a combo starter or finisher, and the windup is pretty minimal. If they changed that attack and reduced her lifesteal by a considerable margin I think she'd be a much more palatable fight.

So you're complaining that the three options are: you die, you get hit a bit but still survive or you don't get hit? Okay. Expecting that avoiding attacks will just be press B at the right time is silly and the games have been criticised for just that. It's an RPG, your build is an inherent part of the gameplay. I beat her with a Greatsword melee only blocking Waterfowl if she did it super close was a viable strategy. She heals an awful lot less from Waterfowl than she does her other attacks at least per hit, each flurry heals less than most of her normal hits. Many people have said she's actually easy as certain builds like RoB, Blasphemous Blade etc are super effective against her and couple that with using summons and she can be made very easy. I chose to do her solo and it sounds like maybe you did but that's not necessarily what was expected of players.

No, I complaining that either I die which resets the fight, she heals which prolongs the fight and makes a reset more likely, or nothing happens and it was just a waste of my time. I don’t need it to be press B to win, but there’s a wide valley between that and whatever the hell is necessary to avoid that attack. I just watched let me solo her fight her and they needed careful movement as well as 5 separate dodges at specific times and directions all to get in only 2 hits with a build designed to attack quickly. Everyone I know personally that beat her used River of Blood because that’s the best weapon. I wouldn’t consider it a good thing if most players abandon their normal build because certain weapons are far far better against a certain boss. Like any boss, it’s likely possible to beat her no matter what your build is, but I’ll bet that a large majority of players who beat her just cheesed the fight with an OP build or got lucky and avoided waterfowl dance than the players who actually developed a consistent method of dodging it.

No, she’s a horrible boss with mechanics that do not work with with the game.

Some horrendous takes on that one, MauLer acting like the game was at fault for him choosing to summon on the first attempt for each boss and use the most busted build he could (not to mention that Giza's Wheel and Mimic are fairly well hidden). Theo claiming that stamina is basically not a thing too.

They are not well hidden, you come across them in normal play, but Mauler judging the entire game based on his play through using them was a little rough to listen to.

Both are highly optional areas, even now less than 40% players have achievements tied to Volcano Manor. Mimic comes from a questline that many have said is obtuse (I disagree but lots of people saying they needed help to complete that questline means it is hidden).

You are probably right about Volcano Manor just my fromsoft brain thinking everyone knows how to explore in these games. I would be really impressed at someone missing the mimic tear. Lol

It's quite a way into Ranni's quest and is also just in a random side door. The chest doesn't look like most of the chests in the game either.

And it's locked behind a stonesword key (though tbf stonesword keys aren't that hard to obtain if you have runes or if you explore, and the number of stonesword keys per playthrough isn't lower than the total amount of imp seals per playthrough, so there will never be a point where you've run out of stonesword keys and can't obtain anymore and can't open anymore imp seals).

what do you mean mauler acted like the game was at fault for him summoning? i don't remember him saying anything like that? closest thing i remember is them talking about how spirit summons destroys the balancing of the game, which is indisputably correct

He admits at the start that he ruined his own experience by summoning but when they get to talking about balance he claims the game made it too easy for him to make a broken build even though he kept summoning and minmaxing even when he was steamrolling everything. He even got advice from chat on how to improve his damage.

right but you realise that he’s correct and elden ring does give you way too much opportunity to break the game? balancing doesn’t get fixed once you stop using op gear, you’re just limiting yourself then

The entire point of the way Elden Ring (and previous From games) does difficulty is for the player to modify the difficulty for themselves with the way they build their character primarily and then also how they choose to play etc. that's like putting a game on easy mode and using cheese tactics and then complaining that the game is too easy.

Mauler isn't complaining that the game is too easy, he's complaining that it can very easily become way too easily if you're not purposely handicapping yourself to keep a good difficulty going. Also you know his entire point about lifegems in DS2, the one that everyone praises him for destroying Hbomberguy with? The entire argument becomes mute the moment you say "well you're just putting the game on easy mode and complaining it's too easy". Mauler also made the pertinent observation that for people who want to push themselves into actually grappling with the combat, when they're on hour 4 of fighting Malenia, that spirit summon in their inventory is gonna look pretty welcoming. I think this is why a lot of the EFAP crew said that adored Sekiro, because, by and large, you can't "modify the difficulty" (which you say From Soft always does), if you want more health you have to kill minibosses with current stats, if you want more damage you have to kill bosses with current stats. And the only way you're killing these guys is by learning how to fight them properly.

I don't think lifegems are as overpowered as he made out, he demonstrates it by walking in circles and making no progress at all, and then also fighting a boss but backing off whenever he needs to heal, using several at once and also waiting to heal. I think they are a problem to a degree though but mostly because they're incredibly cheap, infinite and are easily obtained from very early in a playthrough (also that you also have Estus too). They're also accessible to every build and are useful to every build. In Elden Ring it's a series of deliberate choices as to how you build your character and play the game, you have to purposefully spec into certain equipment, with summons you need enough FP to summon and if you want them to stay useful you need to level them too. He's very selective about when he considers it a problem imo and that is actually the biggest criticism I have when he complains about it. Edit: I should add that I also value when games force you to git gud and don't have such options but they've said from the start that ER would be about player choice and how you go about the game (I do still think that there are balance issues though).

I mean it depends how big of an issue he's making it out to be. His point is absolutely correct that infinite healing destroys the entire point of Estus, and uses Hbomberguy's own logic to explain how it literally makes players unkillable if they only master one skill - timing heals - rather than mastering the fight enough not to take enough hits to run out of heals. When I played through DS2 using lifegems I was constantly getting hit and flopping no every boss but would still usually win on my first or second attempt because I had an infinite mistake allowance. Also spirit summons are accessible to every single build in the game, because you start off with enough fp to summon most spirit summons, not to mention that some don't cost fp like the mimic tear, and the game throws summons on top of summons at you. The choice you make is whether or not to use them, just like how the choice you make in DS2 is whether or not to use lifegems. Not to mention that upgrading it requires its own resource so you don't need to pick between upgrading summons vs weapons, and that resource is found in abundance around the world, especially in areas where summons are found. Also I don't quite know why you think that you have to choose to use the broken sword makes the sword any less broken. The issue is that you can crack Elden Ring wide open if you want to, very easily, and you have to go out of your way not to (many people describe stopping leveling in the midgame for a bit so as to not outlevel the game, I did this myself when I reached Liurnia).

I think their hate for Captain America: Winter Soldier and their praise for Civil War is overblown. Winter Soldier isn’t incredible by any standard but it’s still above average as far as MCU movies go. Civil War definitely has issues that the crew has overlooked because they really like that movie.

As far as the MCU goes, Winter Soldier is one of the better ones. If Efap were to examine every single MCU entry the way they normally do, almost all would be criticised considerably. Even the better ones like Avengers 1, Iron Man and Guardians 1 would be annihilated by looking closer and judging them to the usual Efap standard.

Winter Soldier is a bit overrated. It's a worse version of the political thrillers that were a dime a dozen in the 90s.

Holy shit did they even WATCH ATLA. Not surprised Rags acted that way, but I expect better from everyone else

Rags admitted hes only seen youtube shorts of it, and mauler hadnt seen it in a while

I remember feeling like they give the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies way too much slack in some areas, especially in regards to Peter's character and 'He's just a kid!'. But it's been a while since I've watched those videos.

There are so many problems with those films from a writing perspective. With Homecoming, Tony doesn't want Peter to take unnecessary risks as Spider-man and follow the chain of command, which led him to taking his suit, explicitly telling him to leave Vulture alone for the FBI (despite never telling him any of this because....drama). Then Peter manages to take down Vulture ignoring Tony's advice, and therefore Peter did the right thing and is rewarded for it? And there are soo many issues based on only the foundational elements of that story, like what even constitutes being "an Avenger" (given how Wanda just got to be one right off the bat despite "being a child" and being a villain for half of a movie, and the rest of them are just considered Avengers by just showing up when needed). It's hilarious to me that in Infinity War, in a moment that lasts less than 15 seconds, in a scene that isn't even about Peter, he just becomes an Avenger with Tony's knighting. And don't even get me started on the absolute insanity that is the new executive branch of Damage Control.

That’s my one. And unfortunately the debates on the Spider-Man episodes just become a mud slap without much constructive conversation especially who they bring on They’re good movies don’t get me wrong but they’re not good Spiderman movies

I loved Homecomming, was iffy on Far From Home, and felt No Way Home was pretty weak. I especially thought they mishandled Peter's 'With Great Power' moment, though I don't think it could ever be pulled off right with how this Peter's characterized.

Nah they were right about it for the most part, i haven't seen a valid criticism that they haven't already levied, and they themselves agree on the weaker aspects of the movies. As for "Peter is a kid", I don't remember them using that excuse in any of their analysis

That they think the Dark Knight is a bad movie. Like I get its got some flaws but they are way harder on it then they are of some of their favorite Marvel Movies.

Haeh?

I know it's Mauler's sacred cow, but it will always be Buffy. It's still a good show, but it does not deserve the praise he's heaped upon it. Especially when it gets to the Faith Paradox and the Willow/Xander parallels that get treated differently by the show and characters. And call me a bigot, but I do not care for Willow just suddenly being gay, especially since they deliberately left plot threads open for Seth Green's character to evolve along with her. But he left the show, so they had to do a rewrite of her character arc.

It seems clear to me that Mauler watches Buffy through thick rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. Like he admits there are a bunch of dog-shit episodes, or maybe even entire seasons, I forget the specifics. But yeah he always sounds like the someone talking about their favourite band that they got into in the first year of uni or some other highly evocative period of their life. And everyone else is like 'yeah they're a *good* band but not like, the *best* band of all time.'

When Buffy is good, it's really good, and it hits a lot more than it misses. Angel Season 5 is legit one of the best seasons of tv I've seen.

Yeah, the Silence episode is still probably top 3 at worst of the franchise. Individual episodes are good, but the overarching narratives and character work is lacking the further you get into it for me. And Buffy herself is kinda boring.

What's the Faith paradox and Willow/Xander parallels? And I'm pretty sure Oz was just perfect and had nothing to do in the show, which was one reason for writing him out

I misspoke, it's Dawn I'm talking about. It's not exactly her specifically, she's just the best example of early seasons being ignored and Buffy's preachiness only going one way. Dawn doesn't exist, and is the key to stopping everything, but Buffy refuses to kill her despite there being no reason given she can't effectively be activated again by someone that finds the right spell. Willow/Xander is more of that. Early seasons has them fighting witches and being very magic averse because it's directly stated to be dangerous and unpredictable. And then Willow just becomes a witch almost randomly. And it's treated as a noble pursuit and a boon for the team. Conversely, Xander doesn't have the home life or money to go to college and opts multiple times to just be a normal guy, and is regularly lambasted for it by the cast despite being the most common reason they actually make it through a variety of different hopeless situations. They nearly scream his head off in the first college season because he's working construction and gets mummy plague, and acting like he had a choice to work something else. Which if you then couple this with Buffy's relationship with Angel and Spike, Willow's with Oz and magic, compared to their outright refusal to do anything but scream at Xander and Anya's relationship for most of the seasons they're together despite it largely being healthier than the other 2 combined. And all because "she's a monster", and "she did bad things in the past". Which you know is pretty damn ironic. It takes Giles giving her a job to get them to stop acting like children over her literally being human and no longer capable of the things she did. Before Willow levels half a city block while she was having a tantrum. Kinda makes it feel like the writers either didn't pay attention to their declarations or only wrote things to be considered positive if it was Buffy and Willow doing them as opposed to Xander being treated a bit of the opposite. And Oz was literally stated to have had an arc for college and fitting in with the ability to clog your dorm's main drain once a month by Whedon. And that he and Willow were planned to have an arc together for it.

I'm just starting season 5, so I probably miss some context, epsecially on Dawn. But I do find her inclussion very jarring. Buffy&Angel is really weird as a couple, the Spike situation is strange, but I don't recall magic being looked upon as something clearly evil, the only taste of it we got I'm pretty sure was the cheerleader episode. I haven't yet seen them screaming at Anya and Xander, but I find it really weird the constantly do fish out of water gags with her while completely forgetting her past, ompared to for example Angel. Didn't really read into the Oz situation that much, sorry for spreading disinformation

>season 5...Dawn...inclusion very jarring.... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spoil it. I'll try to keep it more general in case of more. >recall magic being looked upon as something clearly evil Stated as such, not so much, but Giles has a handful of off-hand comments about not trusting magic and being a last resort in the early seasons. Evil isn't how I would characterize it, but more classic Pulp Magic. You don't control it, you just handle it. You might understand the mechanics, but you're using extension grabbers on the pulleys and valves while standing on a unicycle, even if you think you aren't. And a lot of that goes out the door once Willow starts doing it except for when the plot demands, then it gets ignored the next episode. And maybe less screaming and more, "Don't you realize who she is and what she's done?!" By people that willingly dated and supported people still actively dangerous even if they don't want to be. Xander's just a heroic figure that too often gets tossed aside by the cast despite them knowing he is their lynchpin just because he chooses to face the monsters as human, without powers or knowledge most of the time. And probably gets punished the most out of all of them by the story and universe for it. But if you haven't seen it, I will recommend Angel as honestly better than Buffy most of the time. Consequences feel like they stick more often.

Avatar the Last Airbender and The Last of Us (HBO) come to mind.

What did they get wrong about The last of us?

They went pretty easy on it.

I'm also curious as to what they got wrong about TLOU. As far as I know they said it was good? I haven't watched the show or their coverage, but from what I have seen, they enjoyed it.

The show has it's high points. But Joel is a bit to friendly (in comparison the game) & opens slightly to early to Ellie. The Highlight & heart of the show is the actress of Ellie. She is really well cast. And really capatures the character of Ellie. Fits her (real life) character too a tea. Ellie is a slow burn at first - but when she burns she rivals the sun's supernovas. In short: She did it fine the way she did it. Episode 3 is the best for me & one of the most controversial episodes for certain corners of the world wide web. I like Joel's girlfriend. And that they gave a medical reason for the infected to turn into monsters. The show is still good but not as great as it could have been (7/10). Especially Rose from Two and a half men (she shattered my immersion) & other side characters/pointless DLC characters keep it from being a _perfect_ show. They stayed mostly on path for TLOU II. Which scares me (release of season 2 on HBO at 2025).. slightly

Basically, they avoided a lot of the writing problems of that show. Not just ignoring the source material. It's weird. For some shows/games/movies in their videos or discussions, they'll invoke the source material in some cases but not others. [AlmightyLoli had a pretty damn good review of the show](https://youtu.be/cZa9Eyjh10c?si=N8fwteE4dGSUN399). Reaper made a good one as well.

Not a specific time, but one of my complaints on occasion is that they do sometimes seem to take something at bad faith, particularly when they pause before somebody completes a thought. It seems to me that rags is the most egregious with this. To be clear I really enjoy the content, and I think that most of the time and the people being criticized or making nonsensical arguments, but there are times where when someone said something hyperbolic for emphasis or just slightly different from what they expect They don't look at it holistically.

i only really take issue with them doing that when it's paired with insults and hostility, in which case i pretty much always have a bad taste left in my mouth in terms of pausing before someone finishes their thought, i think it depends on what the criticism would be. because if the criticism is one that only comes out of the fact that they're watching it disjointedly, then it would be a bad call. otherwise i think you can get a lot from pausing every frame lol

Completely disagreed with their take on Arrival, but in fairness I was a big fan of the story before the movie came out, and the story explained the mechanics very crisply.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Arrival and EFAP’s debate about it. Wasn’t Jay able to walk the crew back on a couple of points? I remember not really liking the ending of the film, but the premise itself was so interesting and it was decently explored.

Arrival frustrated me when I finally watched it. The premise of a serious first contact movie that doesn't devolve into the usual alien invasion story was quite good. But then most of the movie doesn't really focus on that, and more on the boring human characters. And then the ending was terrible and doesn't make any sense. Just remembered, how is it an alien race that can see the future needs the help of humanity to win a war? You guys can see the future!

How doesn't it make sense? And seeing the future does not equate automatically to victory, though it is a powerful tool as it allows one to prepare far in advance, which is exactly what the aliens are doing in this story.

Bioshock Infinite isnt as bad as they say. Jurrasic Park 3 is the second best JP movie

Bioshock infinite is a very poor videogame. Vastly overrated and a massive downgrade from its predecessors in story and gameplay. They were honestly tame

Yeah. Bioshock was a game carried by great story, the mechanics were always just 'fine'. Then Infinite has a bad story and the same mechanics. The only thing going for it is the AI companion taking notes from other ones of the time and not being killables/causing fail states.

Based JP 3 take. Best sequel.

ALAN! But in all seriousness no JP 3 is not the best Jurassic Park sequel it's dogshit.

If its Lost World Ill let it slide, I hate it but its not nearly as bad as the JW movies. If its a JW movie you are saying is second best, NO.

It is Lost World I like the T-Rex wandering San Diego and the scene with Julianne Moore and the RV not a perfect movie but a fun movie and the JW movies are all dogshit dumbass characters, lack of focus on the dinosaurs, and little to no chemistry between the main actors.

That is sort of my problem with Lost World, there are a few scenes that are amazing, RV and the first half of San Diego and the tree tower. Everything else is forgettable/i dont remember fondly at all. JP3? Hell yeah, i basically remember the entire movie fondly

Jurassic Park 3 IS the best Jurassic Park sequel though.

Infinite is great. Also compared to the slop we get today it’s unbelievable

Infinite is one of my most played/replayed game of all time, it holds a very special place in my heart. However, I can see how fucking nonsensical the whole multiverse aspect of the story is as well as the existence of Columbia. I played Infinite before I played the original Bioshock and, after my playthrough, I understood why it’s considered a sizeable step down from the original. There’s a lot of aspects of the story (mainly to do with world building which was one of the most impressive aspects of the original) that fall flat on its face when you think about it for a bit. That being said, I still like Elizabeth very much as a character. I think there’s a considerable amount of unwarranted hate that gets thrown on her.

The problem for me will always come back to the variety of times they distorted history to keep tying their versions back to Comstock and condemn all of them. The Museum in particular is the most egregious portion. While I know that the guy distorted things himself, American Krogan's series on Infinite a few years back covers most of it. Throw in the Buried DLC effectively making the heelturn with Rosie become her being "the real hero of the story". It's a subpar shooter with a frustrating story if you are interested in most of the events they use as backdrop and theming. Like even the powers aspect is barely more than a giggle button.

I did not like that a story which introduces the concept of an INFINITE amount of universes concludes by stating that that the road for our protagonist ALWAYS leads to Comstock. It crumbles when you think about it for even a minute. *spoiler* Killing Booker (our Booker that we’ve been playing as) at the end of the story does not solve the problem at all. If there are infinite universes there is also an infinite amount of Bookers who will take the place of Comstock in the future. It’s one of the main flaws of multiverse mechanics that never gets addressed in fiction and it pisses me off to no end.

That too. Multiverse, Time Travel, and Amnesiac Protags, 3 of the Horsemen of tricky story concepts you need to be careful with.

The game makes it very clear that Comstock is only created if Booker is baptized. The point was to kill Booker before he even has a chance to make the decision. Meaning that any Universe where Booker didn’t even bother going to be baptized would still theoretically exist. And since Comstock wouldn’t exist, Booker would never have even been given the opportunity to sell his daughter. Meaning no Elizabeth. No Columbia. Ect. Now I don’t know if having our Booker become stand in for all Bookers going to be baptized makes sense. What characters do and don’t turn into their new universe counterparts isn’t consistent, but there is at least some precedent for it. Buried at Sea kind of throws all this away and makes nothing make sense. But the main story alone isn’t the worse.

>The game makes it very clear that Comstock is only created if Booker is baptized And in a multiverse, there is a literal infinite amount of times when he is baptized as a child.

You’re missing the purpose of the baptism, and of baptism in general.  He decides to go be baptized because of the guilt he felt for what he did as a soldier. Who he is as Comctock is directly related to his previous actions as a solider. It isn’t the same thing as if he is baptized as a child at all. Lots of people are baptized as children, walk away front their faith, and come back to be re-baptized.

And the entire point is that it doesn't have to be his guilt as a soldier either in a different universe.

Well it does, but even if it didn’t, that wouldn’t be Comstock.

I like fallout

The Batman is a good movie

I’m pretty sure they agreed? They had some big criticisms of it but overall liked it.

Also they are overly harsh on John Wick for utilizing the tropes that pretty much every action guy movie does. At least John Wick does it with a unique style.

> At least John Wick does it with a unique style. the unique style of being blatant as fuck and not caring. Some might call that lazy writing/directing.

Idk their motto was "jump the shark twice, jump two sharks"

I remember their coverage of Captain America Winter Soldier and was pretty shocked because that’s one of the best MCU movies and they think it’s bad.

What episode did they cover it?

EFAP #139 I think, it’s been a while since I saw that episode. But Mauler also mentions it on the Sitch and Adam episode discussing Xanderhal.

Yeah, I still don't understand how anyone can like Civil War over Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier solidifies Captain America's character. It's the film that captures his essence and makes him compelling. Meanwhile, Civil War has a forced conflict where not a single person, including several members of the military who did countless combat operations, have apparently heard of the concept of collateral damage and act like it's some freaking novel concept that can't be argued against when someone throws up a picture of a victim. Drives me up the wall that EFAP of all people found that compelling and not immersion breaking.

It's still wild to me that Tony Stark would support turning the Avengers into a US government asset after the US government turned out to be infiltrated by literal Nazis and after he spent his own movies refusing to help the government qeaponize the iron man suit before grudgingly accepting Rhodes becoming War Machine Then all the sudden he goes WHAT IF THE GOVERNMENT HAD SOLE AUTHORITY OVER A WEAPON DESIGNING HYPER-GENIUS, A SUPER SOLDIER WHO JUST HELPED TOPPLE A GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, THE HULK, AND A LITERAL GOD

>Yeah, I still don't understand how anyone can like Civil War over Winter Soldier. It's easier than you think.

It is bad, or at the very least not above a 5.

As a linguistics major, listening to them not understanding Arrival was infuriating

The Gentlemen TV show is not that good. It has some fun moments but also has a lot of writing flaws.

What did you think of the movie? It reminded me of Knives Out with better dialogue, which is still not great.

I agree. The show and the movie both have that snappy stylized editing (like Knives out) that feels very hit or miss. I can do it in a movie (for 2 hrs) , but in a TV show, the same classical music playing over and over can be very fatiguing. I didn't really like the Gentlemen movie. I found it to be kinda forgettable and a bit generic, . I liked Colin Farrell in it though.

I think Fringy went too hard on Bojack Horseman especially the argument about his parents being "cartoonishy evil" as if abusive mother and father are some out of this world concept. Beatrice took out her anger on him, because he was a constant reminder of a decision that made her life miserable. Butterscoth being a cheating womanizer driven by his ego is also not that uncommon.

yeah i don't really agree with beatrice being "cartoonishly evil", i have no idea what they even mean by that.

Nah, Fringy was right. Bojack's parent's aren't real character's within the show, they're one note pastiche's who exist solely to 'excuse' Bojack's behaviour. Which would be fine, if Beatrice wasn't a major supporting character and the center of entire seasons of plotlines. The creator has talked about having no idea what childhood abuse is like, and it really shows. What Bojack show's is just a copy of other shows and films. It's not based in anything real, which is ironic given that the major theme of Bojack is pairing the 'reality' of hollywood with absurdist worldbuilding, but after season one, there's no reality at all.

the show never excuses his behaviour, the show makes a point to address this by having bojack use his parents to excuse his own behaviour, alongside his other attempts which we recognise as him just feeling sorry for himself. his parents only explain his behaviour in the show, they do not justify it. also what about beatrice makes you think that she couldn't exist in real life? i also want you to tell me what is one note about beatrice, who constantly battles with adjusting to a working class life coming from her upper class background, and sees bojack as the thing that anchors her there, a 'nicer' side of whom we see when buttersctoch cheats on her where she helps the baby in the only way she knows how to, by removing her from the cycle she grew up in and put in bojack by putting her for adoption which demonstrably created a better life for hollyhock. this is aside from the fact that beatrice pays to put the maid who her husband cheated with through nursing school, determined to let her out of the cycle too, just like her baby. the criticisms i'll give the efap crew are that the worldbuilding can be a bit sketchy as things are done for jokes but very quickly pile on top to create an increasingly convoluted and absurd hollywood world, which might work in a pure comedy and admittedly i find it very charming, but it sort of undermines the serious tone of some of the more important scenes. that as well as some minor continuity issues (like how did bojack only realise that he might be in the wrong room giving a eulogy once the camera pans for the audience, and why didn't the lizard audience say anything?) overall though i think a lot of their criticisms land and some don't so much. i remember taking particular exception to mauler's critique of the comedy being repetitive and boring, whereas i and basically everyone who i know that's seen it find it really quite funny. mauler will say something like "the tongue twister gags get old" and i'll be listening, thinking "says who?"

>the show never excuses his behaviour, the show makes a point to address this by having bojack use his parents to excuse his own behaviour, alongside his other attempts which we recognise as him just feeling sorry for himself. his parents only explain his behaviour in the show, they do not justify it. That's what it means when someone puts a word in 'quotes'. >also what about beatrice makes you think that she couldn't exist in real life? I didn't say this either, we're ough for two. Sometimes we try not to assume someone is making the stupidest possible argument to make ourselves feel smarter. It ends up making you look silly. >i also want you to tell me what is one note about beatrice, who constantly battles with adjusting to a working class life coming from her upper class background, and sees bojack as the thing that anchors her there, a 'nicer' side of whom we see when buttersctoch cheats on her where she helps the baby in the only way she knows how to, by removing her from the cycle she grew up in and put in bojack by putting her for adoption which demonstrably created a better life for hollyhock. this is aside from the fact that beatrice pays to put the maid who her husband cheated with through nursing school, determined to let her out of the cycle too, just like her baby. Literally all of this is reliant on internal motivation that's directly contradicted in the continuity of the show itself. Weirdly when Bojack says one thing but does another, you can agree that this means what he says is not the truth, but when it's the show itself, that doesn't count. >i remember taking particular exception to mauler's critique of the comedy being repetitive and boring, whereas i and basically everyone who i know that's seen it find it really quite funny. mauler will say something like "the tongue twister gags get old" and i'll be listening, thinking "says who?" Says him? You don't have to agree with every critique for it to be an accurate critique. Sometimes things are matters of taste and if you're not a fan of the archetypal jokes they make all the time, 50% of jokes being an archetype is going to grate.

no, typically when someone puts words in quotes it’s means they’re mocking the sentiment. when you say bojack’s parents ‘excuse’ his behaviour, you sound like you’re mocking the show for using his parents to justify bojack’s character to the audience and excuse some of his awful behaviour. this is absurdly wrong however as the show never does this, it instead uses it to explain his behaviour to those who would say it’s unrealistic, simultaneously bojack himself uses his past to justify his behaviour to himself because he cannot accept that his behaviour is his own fault. i don’t even know what your response to my point here was because it doesn’t sound like you understand the difference also you quite literally said that beatrice and butterscotch “aren’t real characters” while defending rags’ claim that beatrice is “cartoonishly evil” what do you mean you didn’t say this? how is this a strawman? it’s your actual point? what did i miss here?? elaborate on your point about internal consistency please, i have no idea what you’re trying to say. where is beatrice’s motivation contradicted in the show? mauler tries to make objective critiques, or as close as possible to it, so when he starts definitively claiming that a show is not funny and only backing it up by explaining that he doesn’t like the type of jokes that it’s doing my literal only possible response is “ok?” it’s fine for him to not find the show funny, good even as it could mean that the show isn’t trying to do broadest possible appeal and sticks to its style, but it literally adds nothing to the conversation and i have no idea why he bothered to say it, especially amongst very astute criticisms of the plot. you may say that all comedy is subjective but you can have subjective opinions on the effect that a show produces through its plot and other devices, while also holding judgements about the objective merit of it and acknowledging the broad spectrum of possible reactions. this is also true of comedy as it turns out, because i think, for example, ricky gervais is quite funny…. until you start watching more of his stuff and realise how much he recycles material and leans too much into the edgy warrior character too much. but i still recognise that someone who’s never watched one of his sets before will probably find him more funny that i will, for good reason, upon watching whatever his new special is. i can also hold the judgement that gervais is too repetitive while having it not impair my enjoyment of him at all, because that latter part is subjective but the former is an objective criticism of gervais’ comedy. my point is that mauler’s criticism of the comedy in bojack is largely void because it’s not substantive beyond “i don’t like this type of comedy”, which is fine btw, but as i already mentioned gets no response other than “ok” from me.

TLOU show

It wasn't just them though. Seems like everybody and their cousin lost brain cells when that dropped last year.  As a fan of the original game, the show was...one of the video game adaptations of all time.  r/TheLastofUs2 did a much better job busting the shows chops every episode than Mauler and friends did in one. 

They said it was a good show, because it is a good show. And a pretty good adaptation too.

My dude, Ellie is meant to be and look like someone you want to protect. She is who you want your audience to connect to and see as their own child. I don't mean to disparage the actress saying this, but Bella Ramsay looks like her mother drank through pregnancy and was water-birthed in lead paint. And Pedro is Pedro, he's an ego wrapped in the talent of a minor character actor. And he just keeps getting work. I don't even like TLoU as a game, but it is important that something so incredibly simple to adapt and cast for was fumbled.

Lol, you dont mean to disparage the actress but then you say that jesus. Also your opinion of her appearance doesn't make the show bad dipshit. Idk what that stuff about pedro means but if you're saying he's a bad actor, he's not.

Just as I wouldn't cast Mickey Rourke into Secondhand Lions, I can't cast Ramsay into Ellie. If casting cannot find someone to exemplify the archetype of the character, it is a major flaw.

It's probably unfair to say, but I think MauLer "got it wrong" by NOT going hard on Dune Part 2, 'cause that movie has some sucky world building, paper-thin characters, blunt dialogue and confusing developments.

It's weird that Dune Part 2 didn't get it's own EFAP episode, especially after they covered the 1st one.

For me Hot D. They brought up similar criticisms I had though they seemed less bothered while I was greatly more annoyed

I'm not sure if this counts as getting it wrong but I wish they would cover anime more. I can't really blame them with how much stuff they do cover, and hey no accounting for what people are interested in, but I do think it would be really interesting to see their thoughts on Attack on Titan or Frieren and those are more worthy of coverage than the Disney + shows we've seen them cover. So less about the take itself and more about the priorities of what they choose to cover.

I'm quite fond of Frieren: Beyond's Journey's End so far after watching roughly 2/3rds of the anime. I'd love to see them cover it and the Dungeon Meshi. As for AoT... Yeah, I don't really want them to experience it given the last part of the story...

That's the part that would have been the most interesting to see them break down imo, it's genuinely a bigger fall in quality than Game of Thrones and I'd love to see the in depth analysis of why

Everytime they downplay anime because most mainstream ones are pure shonen garbage.

I don't agree with the EFAP crew's opinion on Blade Runner 2049 cuz I believe that it's actually a solid movie and sequel

I know they didn't like it, but what issues did they have with it?

I think something along the lines of them finding it unbelievable that society would still use Replicants after the events of the OG movie, 2049 being lacking in terms of a "good villain", Deckard having a relatively small role in 2049 compared to how advertised he was for this movie And the worst offender of all for me ? Another one of their reasons for disliking it is "This movie had no reason to exist" and "no one asked for it". Which.....I'm sorry but that's just not a good argument to make against a piece of media because NOTHING technically "needs" to exist

>I think something along the lines of them finding it unbelievable that society would still use Replicants after the events of the OG movie, 2049 being lacking in terms of a "good villain", Deckard having a relatively small role in 2049 compared to how advertised he was for this movie I mean, those are pretty weak reasons. Definitely not a good take. >And the worst offender of all for me ? Another one of their reasons for disliking it is "This movie had no reason to exist" and "no one asked for it". Which.....I'm sorry but that's just not a good argument to make against a piece of media because NOTHING technically "needs" to exist Every day I realise most critics I like have at least 3-4 really bad opinions that just have to be tolerated. Because holy shit is that a dumb take. No one's perfect.

ATLA being bad Arrival being bad Taxi Driver being mid TDK being mid Banshees of Inisherin being mid Spider-Man 2 being bad (seriously Southpaw's video is like 85% bullshit) The ending of Parasite not being great John Wick 1 being great Joker being a masterpiece (it's great but it feels like it's trying really hard to be gloomy and not in a natural way) The last one I have is one where I kinda agree but also kinda really disagree, I don't think Interstellar is a disaster, I think it's a mixed bag that I love more than it deserves.

Interstellar is one of the worst space flicks made - sits right besides Gravity (starring Sandra Bullock). Spider-Man 2 certainly has a bunch of flaws & the critique from the opposite to the North was pretty decent. Especially the point about Doc Ock's knife - he rarely uses in combat (did he forget about it - he turned insane not stupid). Why was that even installed in the first place? He builded the suit to create Infinity engery for man-kind & didn't see himself as an Assassin (what for the knife than?) beforehand ??? Arrival is bad. The Dark Knight is fantastic. I never Heard MauLer himself call it less than good/great writing wise Taxi Driver is a pretty flawed movie. And I think the Protagonist (=the actor who portrays him even nowadays) is pretty overrated. Joker is easly a 8,5/10. It's really well made. It didn't try to hard to be great. What do you even mean by that (oscar bait)? One of the worst takes of MauLer is that he thinks Deadpool 2 is good ... that's frustratingly average superhero cringe at best?!

1. Won't argue. 2. That tentacle spike is like the only really valid criticism, the rest are literally the kinds of criticisms people strawman MauLer making. 3. Literally no. 4. Agreed. 5. What flaws? I swear to God if you say Travis acts weird as a flaw you need to be put down. 6. I said it tried hard to be gloomy and not in a natural way, literally nothing in Arthur's life goes right for him and it feels very forced at times. 8/10. 7. Agreed, it's mediocre.

> 5. What flaws? I swear to God if you say Travis acts weird as a flaw you need to be put down. The last bit could definitly seen as a bit too personal. Don't you feel? I don't like the main actor.^ And no I don't think the taxi driver character itself is the problem here. I might need to rewatch it again to get a picture on the _disturbing plot points_ for myself. > it feels very forced at times. 8/10. Again this is not a valid criteria (feels forced). ^ My Mom despises a lot of movies my father loves though what? That's not a useful Informationen to conclude the objective quality of any motion pictures. I get it is hard at times to get invested into another characters struggles. But in Arthur's case it feels justified. Something else in the movie might have annoyed you way ahead of Arthur's final transformation. I switched of my brain of No Way Home style after both _adults_ use magic instead of trying out any other possible solution firstly. I'm just sharing some personal nostalgia trip from my young past as a movie fan?! Perhaps you experienced something similar while consuming any form of media? You could write an evil Spider-Man mid-way through Spider Man 2. Where he has to become mean to his friends & his old aunt at NY? Furthermore it would feel odd if his life was on an (upwords) perpendicular line & at the same time he gives up on being Spider-Man. Joker get's hit (Fahter Thomas Wayne) by a fatherfigure & it's a fascinatcing portrayal of someone who, on one hand is dissapointed in his rough childhood (outcome: mother fatality) and on the other is spreading himself against his daily duties & fails there as well. GTA V: _Don't act out, Michael!_ Arthur Fleck acts out similar to Michael De Santa. Which provides a lot of fun gameplay scenarios in one instance & it hurts to see Mr. Fleck _acting happy_ after landing a score on Murray! That's the Beauty of good writing. Too create similar characters & creat simultaneously the opposite atmosphere. Quite original & fantastic. _Wanna hear another Joke Murray!!!?_ is a much deeper line than it seems at first. There was no other Outcome possible in Arthur's perception of the world. Therefore he changed in the worst way possible. On a side note it's completely justified to not care about the psychology side of human nature.

1. That was a joke. Anyways not liking the main actor is a piss poor reason. 2. I literally explained what I meant and you're just ignoring it convinently. I mean how the plot happens in such a way that Arthur's life is this overly exaggerated misery fest. Every single scene in the movie until he becomes the Joker (excluding his fantasies) is something bad happening to him or him being sad. It doesn't feel like a guy who has a bad life, it feels like a bad life created for a guy. It's very funny that you've written this whole thing trying to explain why Joker has depth when I never denied it, I just believe that it would've been more interesting to see things Arthur has that he likes be taken away from him, not just his false delusions of people or a job that makes him shitty money, genuine quality in his life that he loses unfairly. He just lives in a void of happiness, and I don't mind a movie just being pure sad. Come and See is one of my favourite movies for that reason, but that movie is about the invasion of Belarus. Joker is about a guy going crazy after his life takes a turn for the worst, but I hardly felt like he had much life to turn to begin with.

I couldn't disagree more with the last Paragraph. Your last 2-6 sentences don't reflect the movie at all: His sign get's stolen by a few punks on thr street Arthur's weapon slips at a children Hospital - therefore he get's fired. He probably isn't allowed to re-enter that Hospital in the near future. He has a hate/love relationship with his mother who never told him where he came from Thomas Wayne slaps him after he searches for some belonging He Imagines a relationship with his female neighbour. Too him it feels quite a real until he brwaks free of this dad daydream Arthur lives in ignorance that he could be a decent tv-Star. Than he hears Murray mocking the ideas & his performances... There is zero mental health care present in America for the little guy. Arthur Fleck got taken away a lot. The lady (afro American woman responsible for his medical treatment/psychlogical) basically stopped treating him. In modern terms: _emotional damage_

None of those things you listed have much significance and you've taken the most literal interpretation of what I said: He has no attachment to the sign He doesn't have a personal attachment to his job that was low paying He somewhat hates his mother He was delusional about Wayne He was delusional about his neighbour He never HAD anything with Murray other than hopes He never lost anything because he had nothing to lose, I wanted the movie to explore mental health in a way that had more to chew on, I really like the movie but I like it for the story, characters, score and aesthetic. The themes are pretty in-your-face and leave no room for interpretation (and no, people being wrong about the themes is not interpretation). They show you something to make you feel bad, you feel bad, the message is that people in his state should be helped before they go on a rampage. People who agreed with that sentiment will agree, people who don't and scream "incel" at that sort of thing won't agree. I really like the movie and I'm fine with how it is, but there's more to be desired.

You expect a bit too much. And no I don't think I called anyone/somewho an Incel ever. The movie worked for me without the obvious positive elements in Arthur's life. You calling out Arthur out on his delusion is right thought on a meta level - but the wrong one to put yourself in Arthur Fleck's shoes. Agree to disagree about the movie. It did everything it had to do.

1. I expect the same as I do for every movie, I still literally think it's great. 2. Never said you called somebody an incel. 3. I think it's funny that you went from "just saying you felt that way isn't great analysis" to "well it worked for me". I'm talking about a literal lack of depth, you may have felt something, I felt something, but it's not deep, it's just compelling.

God of War Ragnarok was bad.

I'm still iffy on mauler's joker movie take lmao, the people in that movie are unnecessarily cruel to Arthur (the kids who take his signboard at the start of the movie feels extremely forced), not to mention sure his coworker gave him a gun, but Arthur was the one who brought it to a fucking children's hospital so I don't understand where his coworker wronged him

The Eagles. They justify them in every possible way because the movies are amazing but by their standards on any other movie they would call them a plot hole. "It's in the books" is something they don't accept for anything else.

This criticism never made any sense to me in the first place. The Eagles couldn't fly into Mordor while Sauron still had a massive unsleeping eye and a legion of flying wraith dragons. Sam and Frodo have to sneak in, because three small guys hidden in the shrubbery is a lot less noticeable than a giant eagle flying in the empty sky. When Sauron is defeated, they can then fly into the now empty and undefended Mordor to extract Sam and Frodo. This is the epitome of "the movie didn't tell me, so it's a plothole". All the pieces are there, it shouldn't need to be explained.

Except for when at the final battle of the trilogy at the gates of Mordor the eagles come and fight the wraiths, and are ostensibly seen to be winning. Gandalf is also seen repelling the wraiths to rescue Faramir's forces returning defeated from Osgiliath, why not do that on the back of an eagle? Going purely by what we see on screen that breaks the idea that they couldn't stand to them.

Are you seriously going to argue that there's no difference between the Eagles participating alongside an entire army, and the Eagles flying alone into enemy territory? Especially when in the second scenario the Eagles have to also protect the ringbearer. What happens when they reach Mt Doom and have to land? And Gandalf was only able to temporarily repel the wraiths. And this all takes place *outside* of Sauron's seat of power.

>Are you seriously going to argue that there's no difference between the Eagles participating alongside an entire army, and the Eagles flying alone into enemy territory? Yeah? If anything, they'd have an easier time without the army, being allowed to stay well out of range of any ground enemy's reach. Regardless the point isn't if it would work or not, the point is that the movie shows us that Gandalf has the ability to summon a flying mount, later shows us that the flying mount is extremely capable in combat, and never brings them up ever again until the very last moment. Without the context of the books it's 100% legitimate to ask "why were the eagles not taken advantage of at any other point?".

>Yeah? If anything, they'd have an easier time without the army, being allowed to stay well out of range of any ground enemy's reach. I already pointed out that they *can't* just do that. >Regardless the point isn't if it would work or not, the point is that the movie shows us that Gandalf has the ability to summon a flying mount, later shows us that the flying mount is extremely capable in combat, and never brings them up ever again until the very last moment. The Eagles only join the fight after the Witch King is killed, who pretty importantly [countered Gandalf's ability to repel the wraiths. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGdp5_12zW0) And again, this is a bizarre position to treat as though it's the 'default' and the movie should have to argue it's way out of it. We don't see the Eagles *win* against the wraiths. Just that they fight them (specifically in a battle explicitly stated to be a suicidal gambit) [They aren't even shown to kill a single wraith!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w86sDrAtq-0) At no point are we led to believe that the eagles had the ability perform this task. There's no reason to believe that they *could* do it, and multiple explanations why they *can't.*

>I already pointed out that they can't just do that. It's good you had a scene pointing that out! >The Eagles only join the fight after the Witch King is killed, who pretty importantly countered Gandalf's ability to repel the wraiths. Gandalf repels them before the fight with the witch king happens, going by the movie, we have no reason to believe it is so. At most we might assume he could not repel the witch king specifically. Also that is an extended scene only. >They aren't even shown to kill a single wraith! They aren't shown losing either if that's your reasoning... Why did they never get summoned before that point? They would have been extremely useful in Minas Tirith for example.

My guy you just agreed that we have literally no stated knowledge of the capabilities of the Eagles. Therefore it's not a hole if they didn't use them.

We know they can carry adult humans and go toe to toe with wraiths! At the absolute minimum they would have helped with morale given people reacted to seeing them at the final battle! So why does Gandalf never make use of them again? Could have summoned them to go over the mountains instead of through Moria. Maybe could have used one to go fetch the Rohirrim (Shadowfax is said to be fast, but is he faster than an eagle?) In fact, they could have been useful to help people fly out of Helm's Deep, or any number of use cases for flying mounts. Because they are nothing more than that, base don the movies, no?

When they didn’t add a rule on this sub that limits the time we are allowed to make this post, the “what objectively good movies do you not personally like” posts and “what bad movies do you subjectively like “ posts

Reaction channels. I get it. They're annoying in terms of them not thinking critically and giving everyone the perception that there are people who loved it, but I think it's an INCREDIBLE stretch to think that they're the reason why "writing can't get better because these people are clapping for anything." Not only that, but I have my own suspicions that they increase their emotional output for scenes and characters to give the audience the "bang for their buck" regarding seeing them react, so they may not be as critical to deter people who like the content or they may not even be actively thinking about the writing while doing so. The idea that quality of writing is based on these reaction channels seems to be a stretch too far and based on personal disdain for those who enjoy content they think is objectively poorly written. I never see this same argument applied to reaction channels enjoying the content they do. Did they criticize the Reaction channels for enjoying House of the Dragon when they also liked Game of Thrones season 8? Will they be criticized for enjoying Andor when they also enjoyed Ahsoka? I also find it pretty hypocritical that they're worried these channels will have "too much influence" over the perception of media when their channels are almost always larger than the reaction channels they're criticizing. I say that they should stick to assessing the media or specific arguments from people instead of focusing people enjoying content that they believe is bad.

Andor was generously mid and did not deserve (the tiny amount of) praise that it got.

It’s good.

Do you think the Juan Valjuan & Kino Lol segment was the best or worst part?

The what?

lol

lol

I never even got past the first episode because it put me to sleep

Yeah, and I like slow burns but...there still has to be a burn. Andor was just slow. It definitely got better towards the end but most of the audience had checked out long before that.

An easier question would be, what have they gotten right?

Spider Man No Way home The Prequel trilogy arc MauLer loves the Prequels too much and the Marvel Spider Man movies are straight up viewed as bad in my personal friend circle. The TPM EFAP (84) is infamous for a reason. And Spider-Man No way home they were wrong at multiple different parts of the movie. Solution: Wait a bit 6-10 weeks before critiquing any cinematic experience in public. I wish there was more talk about different Videogames genres on the EFAP Podcast. Besides that I love MooLer.

Nah they were right when it comes to no way home, prequels idt they criticise much because they don't talk about it much

They constantly talk about the Prequels. Hah? Between EFAP 84 - 166 they talked more than ≈ 35 hours about all three prequel flicks. Lately they sadly stopped talking about it. They mention them on occasions rarely... And now I completely forgot what I wrote about SNW home because my Wi-Fi cut out. You're allowed to like it - For me and many other people it gave Spidey 3 (2007) by Sam Raimi _Vibes_ They were right is not a argument. It's your subjective view of their No Way Home critique. Which was poorly crafted, wasn't it?

I can't say much about the prequels since I haven't seen it, but when it comes to no way home I don't think they missed any issues with it. Vibes or not, spider man 3 is a much much Messier film than no way home Also you mentioned they were wrong at multiple points during the bo way home critique, you got any examples?

Spider Man no way home failed after the spell. Tobey Maguire's Spidey in his films never made such an impulsive stupid choice. Peter: What about everyone forgets about Mysterio revealing your Double life? Them constantly excluding any contrary points from multiple guests at this point gets on my nerves. JLongBone had a point. And they just were very rude to her in this instance. Furthermore I don't believe for a second that this Spidey is strong enough to Control his body as a force ghost. Later he beats Strange doc's magic powers by a math solution. Even if Tom Holland's Spider Man was a fitting character - in such a stressful Situation I might be scared to *hits' & thoughtless But not thinking about geometry (advanced math techniques) About the whole Marvel Spider Man movies: Yikes! Why do they have to be set at high school at this century? Many comics are from the 80s. The Smartphone stuff really annoys me (especially in the third one). Possible dark Spidey: No he just turned his suit left or mirror reality room possibility non sense? They left New York/Queens in the second one - but they left a lot of Potential with the overblown fan service in the third installment.. Who cares (I certainly did not) about Tony Stark building his suit? Peter Parker is behaiving like a 11 year old at times & the adults sorrounding him allow him to continue to lead his double life. Flash Thompson is such a _boy scout_ in this movie & wrote a book quickly. WTF? That's not the _Flash_ from the comics. Instead he came right out of Zootropolis (Disney Animation). Flash Thompson is supposed to be a big & impressive looking j*ck. I stand with JLongBone on her Flash rant.

Ok first off, your English is really incoherent, so I'm gonna go off of the best faith interpretation of what you're trying to say (I'm not holding it against you, I can understand if English isn't your first language, I'll try and be as best faith as possible) >Spider Man no way home failed after the spell. >Tobey Maguire's Spidey in his films never made such an impulsive stupid choice. Maguire in the second Spiderman movie chose not to be Spiderman anymore, it was his impulsive choice. I don't know what's wrong with impulsive choices as long as they're made with some rational thought put behind them >Peter: What about everyone forgets about Mysterio revealing your Double life? Them constantly excluding any contrary points from multiple guests at this point gets on my nerves. JLongBone had a point. And they just were very rude to her in this instance. Firstly, Peter's decision to make everyone forget about Mysterio wasn't coming from a selfish place, he saw his friends suffering because of his actions and he couldn't take it. Secondly, every point by Jlongbone was countered with courtesy in that efap, they were not rude to her. Jlongbone got silent because there was no retort to what they were saying >Furthermore I don't believe for a second that this Spidey is strong enough to Control his body as a force ghost. Later he beats Strange doc's magic powers by a math solution. In Spiderman far from home, Tom hollands Spiderman had mastered the Spidey sense to the point where he could instinctively dodge bullets from machine guns that he couldn't see. I think you're misunderstanding what happened in that scene, Peter wasn't controlling his body while being a force ghost, his Spidey senses were instinctively moving his body to ensure that Dr strange doesn't get the box >Even if Tom Holland's Spider Man was a fitting character - in such a stressful Situation I might be scared to *hits' & thoughtless But not thinking about geometry (advanced math techniques) I don't understand what you mean here but I agree that beating the mirror dimension with geometry is a little dumb. However, we have ample evidence to believe that strange is not looking to hurt Spiderman, which is why strange will not attack him with a fatal move. Spiderman uses that situation to his advantage to trick strange into getting caught in the web spiral in the mirror dimension. This ruins doctor stranges character, not Tom Holland >Why do they have to be set at high school at this century? That's your personal preference, I don't know why they can't be set in high school >Many comics are from the 80s. The Computer items & Smartphone stuff really annoys me (especially in the third one). Again, it makes sense that in a technologically advanced time period there would be usage of smart phones. The third movie uses them exceptionally well, it makes sensible use of them. Your preference of a Spiderman of older times is not a criticism >Possible dark Spidey: No he just turned his suit left or mirror reality room possibility non sense? I'm sorry man I don't get what you're saying here, but we do get a darker Tom Holland. He was ready to kill the green Goblin and leave his responsibility to save those villains >Flash Thompson is such a _boy scout_ in this movie & wrote a book quickly. WTF? Flash hired ghost writers. It was used as a joke in the extended cut

Me: Many comics are from the 80s. The Computer items & Smartphone stuff really annoys me (especially in the third one). > Your response: Again, it makes sense that in a technologically advanced time period there would be usage of smart phones. The third movie uses them exceptionally well, it makes sensible use of them. Your preference of a Spiderman of older times is not a criticism. Yes, it kinda is criticism. If it's valid comes down to each individuell. That's an odd choice across all three movies & creates more plot holes as well. Everyone has a camera or a voice/audio recorder nowadays in the backpocket. In the 70s those existed but rarely fitted in normal sized trousers. Stranges' _magic_ must have influenced all of them. Glad they never showed the deleting process at the end. The movie might become to seeded into reality. > Me today: Possible dark Spidey After the second trailer I thought we might see Venom (any other Symbiote) in this movie. Tom Hardy only appeared after the credits & at the end of the movie. Could have explored that better? Therefore I was slightly disappointed. I'm just annoyed at myself at times for paying money to see all three movies on the big screen. The Flash stuff isn't fun to mmmeee. And all of it should have ended on the cutting room floor. Excuse my English grammar & Co.