That Guy With The Glasses.Com

[Shasonsil]

I'm so glad I'm not forced to watch his skits. I like Doug's reviews and the Sibling Revelry discussions, but his Nostalgia character has become unbearable.

[Johnny Boy]

Speaking of Dougs reviews, what did you guys think of him and Rob's review of the Good Dinosaur? Because Rob really didn't like it.

[Milo]

On 12/24/2015 at 0:48 AM, Dejimon11 said:

This really was his worst work yet. I'm not going to lie I prefer his older stuff much more then the stuff his does today. Back then he made it about the review. Yeah he would add jokes here and there random clips but the thing about them is that he was smart with those. People liked his stuff was because he gave his opinions about movies and tv shows well while still making us laugh.

Now they don't feel like reviews anymore they feel like he's making a show with the review coming second. I don't hate his cast but it just feels forced at this point. The skits are overstay their welcome, he takes too long to make his point and it's like everything he's doing is just to make the "reviews" last for over half and hour. 

This latest one just feels like a middle finger to everybody who prefers his older style and doesn't like his newer style. That is the one thing you should never do it just comes off petty and disrespectful. He really has lost his touch and it's really sad. The reason why I don't care for his current style is that I don't care when reviews add a storyline to their stuff. I don't watch a review for a story I watch it to hear their opinion that's not to say that reviewers who add a storyline is a bad thing it's just not my preference which is why I don't watch the Watcherofthe2000s but I digress. 

I don't think that all of his reviews ever since he came back have been terrible, I like his Pearl Harbor review, Turbo a Power Rangers movie was silly but fun and the last airbender review was genius. I understand where he was getting at towards the end of the review "In order to stay relevant you have change things" but the way he made it was just so childish. I mean for goodness sakes he starts off his review by "I don't want to put any effort into this review" which immediately bored me. There's a reason why he gets a lot of flack for his newer reviews and I think he was being plan ignorant about it instead of just acknowledging the both the positives and the negatives of his old and current styles he made it seem like his older styles weren't really good and his new style was the way to go. Ultimately this review is the same type of garbage the family guy and teen titans go staff would do and I hate both of them. I don't hate NC but I really have lost a lot of respect for Doug.

I have to agree with all of this. I wouldn't exactly say this is his worst review, but I would be more than happy to call it his worst (NC) video or his worst (NC) episode. I say this because the actual review of the movie itself is actually among of his better post-NC revival episodes. But it's painfully obstructed by by the subplot that accompanies it, which feels like an arrogantly misunderstood potshot at not just people who have been critical of the NC episodes since the revival, but also most of his audience as a whole. What makes it doubly frustrating is that what makes the actual review (and a handful of the post-NC revivals, to be fair) good is how it closer to the format of his original reviews and doesn't (heavily) utilize skits and sketches, which is almost undone entirely by how the subplot of the review feels like Doug refusing to actually take to heart the complaints about the new review format. Near the review's end NC tries to admit "we shouldn't be ashamed of our past", but the comparisons between both review formats, and the general tone of the review overall, tell a different story.

None of the positive qualities of the old review format or the reasons people actually like it are actually addressed, and largely pokes fun at it instead for half of the review. This is especially evident when he has a bunch of classic NC cutaway gags/memes show up en masse--even though that was done as a joke, this rarely happened in the old review format. Like Ryanthenumber1gamer said, its misleadingly painting people who want the old format as asking for wanting the reviews to be exactly like how he first started, as opposed to being similar to his reviews during his "classic" era. This is also in stark contrast to a scene where the old!NC looks at the newer reviews, upon which he promptly points out the good things (such as the reviews' higher production values) and bad things (reviews that are pure parody skits, like the Hocus Pocus review that was being shown). In comparison to how the old review format is portrayed, it's a much less biased view of the current reviews.

And that's to say nothing of the scene where the old!NC puts up a classic review of a new film, and it gets a low view count and negative comments right off the bat....that almost killed the entire review/video for me. I just wanted to call bullshit at that. It's also worth noting that these three high-rated comments of the review (YouTube) give off the same sentiment too:

"Oh wow look at that, if you actually look at the comments, all the top ones are actually intelligent. You may disagree with them, but they are all just people sharing their honest opinion mostly in a constructive manor. While there are plenty of cancerous YT comments, the ones that float to the top usually have something important to say that people care about. C'mon Doug, for a critic, you sure do have a major problem with people criticizing you. It's not always about change, many people complain based on quality. The skits are hit or miss and many people think so. The Hocus Pocus review was majorly misleading and IMO horrendously unfunny and poorly written. If you disagree, that's fine, but don't go trying to dismiss my opinion of your show with a "you hate it cause it's different'. Give your fans some more credit than that and actually be proud that they are as critical of you as you have been to films over the years. I respect you a lot as a creator, but your attitude hasn't been the best ever since Demo Reel flopped."

~PIEGUYRULEZ, 669 likes

"I like NC, and even still like some of the videos now. But I disagree with what some of the stuff NC says. Like, the thing about evolving to stay relevant. Some reviewers still make videos exactly like they did over 5 years ago (I.e Jeremy Jahns) and they're still just as, or even more relevant than they were when they started. And then what he said about how the clip less reviews get a lot of hits. It just sort of suggests he doesn't read what people say about the videos and just cares about the hits. And the last point I have to say is that he doesn't say anything good about his old reviews. All he says about them is they were lazy, repetitive, and 'if there's time an actual analysis of the movie'. That last point. He says it as if some of his older reviews didn't actually have an analysis of the movie, even though the whole videos WERE analysis. Just feels like he doesn't read the comments and made this video to defend the new videos."

~Tommy Carr, 206 likes

"Personally I can never stand Doug and Co's almost cynical view of the "comments section" maybe its because I'm not as popular, but I have NEVER ever, EVER had any sort of problem with the comments section.

Heck, when I DO have a problem, my solution? Confront them, talk to them,9 times outta 10 they end up apologizing and we reach a middle ground of understanding. Again this could very easily be a result of a smaller, more focused fan-base that as a result, is more accepting because there's at least the base consistency of what I put out in the world... or maybe its because any sort of top 10 or review I put up is framed with the explicit statement that its my opinion and should be take as such.

I don't know... not reading the comments has always seemed...blindly ignorant, because not everyone is gonna have fans who'll show up to a con-panel, pay for your merch or support you on Patreon - that stuff has to be earned and part of earning their fan loyalty, is acknowledging they exist and matter.

Some things work and some things fail, there will always be haters, but by ignoring ALL comments, you are encouraging those haters to fester and breed and... calling it a toxic atmosphere while putting no effort in attempting to change that... I dunno, I just never had this problem and I wanna think its because I don't ignore it... but other wise I did see the point of how the NC has tried to grow and change.... even if sometimes its a miss."

~SilverLeagueNetworks, 125 likes

[Failinhearts]

I like Nostalgia Critic's modern reviews. Heck, I even liked his Pixels review.

But the Star Wars review didn't make me laugh once. Not even a chuckle.

[Shasonsil]

On 12/31/2015 at 1:33 PM, Johnny Boy said:

Speaking of Dougs reviews, what did you guys think of him and Rob's review of the Good Dinosaur? Because Rob really didn't like it.

I usually agree with Rob more than I do with Doug, but this time I was just dumbfounded by his hate for this simple movie. It wasn't this great film by any stretch of the imagination but it sure wasn't as bad as he made it out to be. It was just simple, nothing god awful or insulting. (I guess my standards were just lower than usual because I knew about the production hell the film went through)

[Gabz Girl]

Okay. Wtf. this is getting ridiculous now.

It's like Doug just can't take criticism at all. Sorry, but I don't like fucking skits and BS storylines in reviews because it makes the videos drag on like everlasting toffee, especially yours. And they're not very funny either most of the time! Yep, still avoiding NC like the plague.

[Agie]

I'm in the majority that prefers the older ones. But that...Doug, you could have handled it better.

[AdventChild]

NC plants (*hint hint) his opinions on what happens in The Happening.

http://channelawesome.com/the-happening-nostalgia-critic/

[AdventChild]

Doug digs deep into Shyamalan's library for the top (un)intentional funny moments.

http://channelawesome.com/top-11-funniest-shyamalan-moments-nostalgia-critic/

Spoiler

Number 1 Lady in the Water is NC's review for next week.

 

[AdventChild]

NC wets himself in laughter (to over-the-top/forced degrees) as he reviews Lady in the Water.

http://channelawesome.com/lady-in-the-water-nostalgia-critic/

[AdventChild]

NC gets lost with Bowie balls getting thrown into his face in the Jim Henson production Labyrinth. 

http://channelawesome.com/labyrinth-nostalgia-critic/

Spoiler

The Kermit skit has to be the funniest skit thus far and liked Top 15 dick jokes

I remember Nostalgia Chick reviewing this way back during TGWTG's early years and I actually prefer her review slightly more than NC's which is still pretty good. Yet I think she pulled some better/clever jokes such as the 'Running' gag with Hoggle, the That's What She Said's, her reactions to Bowie's package and the Nella segments.

[Singapore Sling]

On 12/23/2015 at 3:21 PM, Ryannumber1gamer said:

golden age of NC videos

Not gonna spend any time in this thread, but my brief morbidly curious glance found the worst phrase in the English language.

[Milo]

21 hours ago, Singapore Sling said:

Not gonna spend any time in this thread, but my brief morbidly curious glance found the worst phrase in the English language.

Then why did you bother leaving a comment that looks like you're trying to instigate something? If you weren't planning to spend any time in the thread, you wouldn't be interested using terms such as "worst phrase in the English language" to describe that bit of Ryan's post about NC having a golden age.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

7 minutes ago, Inspector Gabe said:

Then why did you bother leaving a comment that looks like you're trying to instigate something? If you weren't planning to spend any time in the thread, you wouldn't be interested using terms such as "worst phrase in the English language" to describe that bit of Ryan's post about NC having a golden age.

And how is it "a worst phrase in the English language". Every show is going to have a golden period of episodes which people enjoy more. Nostalgia Critic, considering how long it's lasted is no exception. If you don't like the show, that's fine, but don't come in and start giving people shit for enjoying something you dislike, and don't do it to such a silly degree.

[Dr. Crusher]

I suppose I might as well add my own take on this.

So I used to watch the Nostalgia Critic during the 2009-2011-ish days. I didn't watch it super-religiously, it was just a little weekly something to look forward to. I never really paid much attention to the other guys on That Guy With The Glasses, but I didn't hold anything against them. Anyway, sometime in 2012 - which was when the Critic was originally retired anyway - was when I started to lose interest in the show. Not really because of anything to do with the show itself mind you, I was just starting to resonate much more with the style of other reviewers/comedy reviewers by that point, such as JonTron and SomeCallMeJohnny. But I still respected Doug and his work, I would occasionally go back to some of his videos, and I would still fondly remember something from this or that review.

That said, I've heard about (and occasionally discovered for myself) what's been happening since then, and not just regarding Doug, but with Channel Awesome in general. I know about what happened with Demo Reel. I know about the many questionable goings on behind the scenes. And while I've only seen bits and pieces of the Critic's new reviews (I've only seen a handful of them in full), I've seen enough to be able to tell that I wouldn't regard them as being all that great for the most part. The behind the scenes business at Channel Awesome in particular gets me the most. Obviously you'll keep in mind that there'll be a few disagreements and whatnot behind closed doors with these things - nothing goes along perfectly - but to learn about just how far this particular rabbit hole goes, and how bad things apparently are/were all this time... yeah, I won't lie, I have a bit of a tough time looking at the folks over there the same way nowadays, especially when a large number of them appear to be involved in one controversy after another.

As for what happened with Demo Reel, I'm reminded of Jon Peters' obsession with giant spiders. If you're not aware, producer Jon Peters was for whatever reason absolutely obsessed with having one of his films involve a giant spider of some sort, regardless of whether it made sense or even what genre the film was. He had previously attempted to try and get Superman to fight a giant spider for instance, to which he was effectively told "Nah mate, it's not happening, sorry." He finally got to use the giant spider idea for the 1999 Wild Wild West film, and then that film went on to not do very well (albeit for various reasons, not just that on it's own).

Anyway, what I mean by this comparison is that from what I'm gathering, Demo Reel is to Doug what the giant spider is to Jon Peters, albeit not necessarily in the exact same way. Now that Demo Reel came and flopped, he seems to be having a lot of trouble coming to terms with this, and so he's trying to incorporate Demo Reel into his reviews as much as he can, not realising that his audience are most likely only going to dislike Demo Reel even more because of this, rather them endear them to it.

(By the way, I'm guilty of being one of those people who generally never cared that much about the "storylines" that the guys on there did. I didn't hold a strong dislike towards them, but aside from the occasional exception, I felt they would often just slow things down for the most part.)

Now don't get me wrong, I am aware that Demo Reel was Doug's dream project, and I understand that to witness it doing as poorly as it did must be hard to deal with. If I were in his position, I'm sure I would have trouble dealing with it too. But this... this isn't the way to go about it, you know? He just seems to be very bitter and callous about the whole thing, something that doesn't hide itself very well in his more recent material, whether he knows it or not. And regardless of the quality of his sketches, I think that's the biggest problem that his new reviews are dealing with. After all, if he's not even bothering to hide his demeanour on what happened with Demo Reel, the increase in sketches and other things that the general audience aren't keen on are probably partially influenced by it.

I used to have a lot of respect for Doug, but now... maybe not so much. His debatable joke quality aside, I know he's more intelligent than this, so to see him... well, like this, only makes it all the more confusing and disappointing. Even outside of the Critic/Demo Reel business, him and the rest just seem to be... I don't know, falling apart I guess, including his morals and things that he originally stood for and believed in. It really is a massive shame.

[nintega137]

16 minutes ago, Dr. Crusher said:

I suppose I might as well add my own take on this.

So I used to watch the Nostalgia Critic during the 2009-2011-ish days. I didn't watch it super-religiously, it was just a little weekly something to look forward to. I never really paid much attention to the other guys on That Guy With The Glasses, but I didn't hold anything against them. Anyway, sometime in 2012 - which was when the Critic was originally retired anyway - was when I started to lose interest in the show. Not really because of anything to do with the show itself mind you, I was just starting to resonate much more with the style of other reviewers/comedy reviewers by that point, such as JonTron and SomeCallMeJohnny. But I still respected Doug and his work, I would occasionally go back to some of his videos, and I would still fondly remember something from this or that review.

That said, I've heard about (and occasionally discovered for myself) what's been happening since then, and not just regarding Doug, but with Channel Awesome in general. I know about what happened with Demo Reel. I know about the many questionable goings on behind the scenes. And while I've only seen bits and pieces of the Critic's new reviews (I've only seen a handful of them in full), I've seen enough to be able to tell that I wouldn't regard them as being all that great for the most part. The behind the scenes business at Channel Awesome in particular gets me the most. Obviously you'll keep in mind that there'll be a few disagreements and whatnot behind closed doors with these things - nothing goes along perfectly - but to learn about just how far this particular rabbit hole goes, and how bad things apparently are/were all this time... yeah, I won't lie, I have a bit of a tough time looking at the folks over there the same way nowadays, especially when a large number of them appear to be involved in one controversy after another.

As for what happened with Demo Reel, I'm reminded of Jon Peters' obsession with giant spiders. If you're not aware, producer Jon Peters was for whatever reason absolutely obsessed with having one of his films involve a giant spider of some sort, regardless of whether it made sense or even what genre the film was. He had previously attempted to try and get Superman to fight a giant spider for instance, to which he was effectively told "Nah mate, it's not happening, sorry." He finally got to use the giant spider idea for the 1999 Wild Wild West film, and then that film went on to not do very well (albeit for various reasons, not just that on it's own).

Anyway, what I mean by this comparison is that from what I'm gathering, Demo Reel is to Doug what the giant spider is to Jon Peters, albeit not necessarily in the exact same way. Now that Demo Reel came and flopped, he seems to be having a lot of trouble coming to terms with this, and so he's trying to incorporate Demo Reel into his reviews as much as he can, not realising that his audience are most likely only going to dislike Demo Reel even more because of this, rather them endear them to it.

(By the way, I'm guilty of being one of those people who generally never cared that much about the "storylines" that the guys on there did. I didn't hold a strong dislike towards them, but aside from the occasional exception, I felt they would often just slow things down for the most part.)

Now don't get me wrong, I am aware that Demo Reel was Doug's dream project, and I understand that to witness it doing as poorly as it did must be hard to deal with. If I were in his position, I'm sure I would have trouble dealing with it too. But this... this isn't the way to go about it, you know? He just seems to be very bitter and callous about the whole thing, something that doesn't hide itself very well in his more recent material, whether he knows it or not. And regardless of the quality of his sketches, I think that's the biggest problem that his new reviews are dealing with. After all, if he's not even bothering to hide his demeanour on what happened with Demo Reel, the increase in sketches and other things that the general audience aren't keen on are probably partially influenced by it.

I used to have a lot of respect for Doug, but now... maybe not so much. His debatable joke quality aside, I know he's more intelligent than this, so to see him... well, like this, only makes it all the more confusing and disappointing. Even outside of the Critic/Demo Reel business, him and the rest just seem to be... I don't know, falling apart I guess, including his morals and things that he originally stood for and believed in. It really is a massive shame.

I'm soo totally lost. Okay I sort of stopped paying attention to tgwtg/ca around that point and only came back recently, now what the hell happened?

With this demo reel thing and what's going on behind the scenes and what's so morally reprehensible? 

[Dr. Crusher]

25 minutes ago, nintega137 said:

I'm soo totally lost. Okay I sort of stopped paying attention to tgwtg/ca around that point and only came back recently, now what the hell happened?

With this demo reel thing and what's going on behind the scenes and what's so morally reprehensible? 

Sorry, I should have listed a few examples. It's mainly things like questionable competence and morals regarding site management, suspicious use of finances and funds and such, a lot of serious in-fighting between the people who run things, that sort of thing. This and more has all been coming out of the woodwork in recent years.

[Tara]

Can we get a link on some of that "suspicious use of finances and funds" part?  I've heard nothing about that.

EDIT- Did find a link about some of the mismanagement of Blistered Thumbs and Obscurus Lupa's post about why she left and the screencaps of the convos she had with the CEO of the company.  Wow.

[Dr. Crusher]

5 hours ago, Tara said:

Can we get a link on some of that "suspicious use of finances and funds" part?  I've heard nothing about that.

EDIT- Did find a link about some of the mismanagement of Blistered Thumbs and Obscurus Lupa's post about why she left and the screencaps of the convos she had with the CEO of the company.  Wow.

The most commonly known example is that there was an Indiegogo project back in 2013 that had promised things like new shows, improved equipment, and basically improved quality overall, and it had successfully received a fairly large amount of money to back it up, around ninety thousand dollars or close to that. Cut to 2015, and the only thing relating to the whole project that had been released by that point was the first episode of one of those new shows, that being the first episode of that Pop Quiz Hotshot I believe. And then because the production values of even that in itself ended up not having much to show for it, that only made everyone all the more curious as to what exactly the money had been going to if it had seemingly been wasted this badly. (I'm aware that at least one more episode of Pop Quiz Hotshot was released later on, but the general consensus seems to be that the quality and production values of that one weren't much better.)

I've seen plenty of sources about this, but the problem with trying to find a reliable one is that you can never be too sure as to how biased the person speaking may or may not be, as it can be all too easy to hear about something like this at face value and then go straight to the demonising extreme. Either way, it had been spreading pretty wildly among the community from what I've observed, and the aforementioned results (or lack thereof) of the project - combined with the fallout that the site and it's contributors (and CEO) have been going through in recent years - does seem to stack pretty high against them, unfortunately.

Having said that, if there's anyone on here who has better or more updated knowledge about all this, feel free to correct me on anything that I may be mistaken about.

[Tara]

3 hours ago, Dr. Crusher said:

The most commonly known example is that there was an Indiegogo project back in 2013 that had promised things like new shows, improved equipment, and basically improved quality overall, and it had successfully received a fairly large amount of money to back it up, around ninety thousand dollars or close to that. Cut to 2015, and the only thing relating to the whole project that had been released by that point was the first episode of one of those new shows, that being the first episode of that Pop Quiz Hotshot I believe. And then because the production values of even that in itself ended up not having much to show for it, that only made everyone all the more curious as to what exactly the money had been going to if it had seemingly been wasted this badly. (I'm aware that at least one more episode of Pop Quiz Hotshot was released later on, but the general consensus seems to be that the quality and production values of that one weren't much better.)

I've seen plenty of sources about this, but the problem with trying to find a reliable one is that you can never be too sure as to how biased the person speaking may or may not be, as it can be all too easy to hear about something like this at face value and then go straight to the demonising extreme. Either way, it had been spreading pretty wildly among the community from what I've observed, and the aforementioned results (or lack thereof) of the project - combined with the fallout that the site and it's contributors (and CEO) have been going through in recent years - does seem to stack pretty high against them, unfortunately.

Having said that, if there's anyone on here who has better or more updated knowledge about all this, feel free to correct me on anything that I may be mistaken about.

The sad thing is that I was aware of that kickstarter but completely forgot about it until now.  Yeah, that is pretty shady.  It reminds me of the controversy that happened with AVGN, where he advertised for a kickstarter for re-releasing Cheetah-Men (for some reason) and got a pretty large sum of money from it, but as of yet, no Cheetahmen.  Granted, I think James Rolfe himself was among those taken by surprise about it being such a scam, but he never even delivered an apology or investigated it.

One can only hope that there's more, sensible ordeals going on behind the scenes than just what we see on surface.  Though with Obscurus Lupa and a few others echoing her statements (and even going so far as to screencap conversations about the matter), it's hard to maintain good faith.

[Agie]

13 hours ago, Tara said:

The sad thing is that I was aware of that kickstarter but completely forgot about it until now.  Yeah, that is pretty shady.  It reminds me of the controversy that happened with AVGN, where he advertised for a kickstarter for re-releasing Cheetah-Men (for some reason) and got a pretty large sum of money from it, but as of yet, no Cheetahmen.  Granted, I think James Rolfe himself was among those taken by surprise about it being such a scam, but he never even delivered an apology or investigated it.

One can only hope that there's more, sensible ordeals going on behind the scenes than just what we see on surface.  Though with Obscurus Lupa and a few others echoing her statements (and even going so far as to screencap conversations about the matter), it's hard to maintain good faith.

As for James Rolfe and the Cheetahmen, I remember reading about his support for a fixed version of Cheetahmen II. While the results of that were released...it's considered even more broken than the original version, as though it wasn't broken enough as it was. The only true fix was that all levels could be played without glitches or hacking...I think.

Someone more informed of that is free to correct me, since it's likely I got stuff wrong, but whatever the case, seems it was a scam.

[Spin Attaxx]

So the flawed copyright system of YouTube hasn't been kind to people, and this vid is probably the best one discussing the whole mess.

 

[Failinhearts]

Testify, Critic. Testify.

Hopefully this'll wake Youtube up.

[Teoskaven]

How quaint seeing this charming inspiring message coming from the same people who turned their backs at Youtube in 2007-2008 and chose the easy route by staying on Blip and letting YT rotting in its flawed systems.

[Milo]

23 hours ago, Chosen Undeadskaven said:

How quaint seeing this charming inspiring message coming from the same people who turned their backs at Youtube in 2007-2008 and chose the easy route by staying on Blip and letting YT rotting in its flawed systems.

Kinda worth noting that his original YT account for TGWTG got shut down, which is why they had gone to blip in the first place.

If anything, it's more quaint pointing out that recently Disney shuttered Maker Studios, who owned blip. So the only major video site Doug can even release their material for now was the same one that sent them packing nearly a decade ago.