Kickassia/Headscratchers

• Film Brain is out of character. This wouldn't bug me much - Rule of Funny and all that (plus it's flippin' adorable) - except that the Nostalgia Critic appeared in Bad Movie Beatdown: The Jazz Singer as a Bad Boss - and Film Brain was definitely not his lapdog in that skit. Can anyone else who remembers that make sense of the change?
  • Except it wasn't really the Critic there. That was Doug (I checked, both Ellis and Film Brain called him Doug) playing the Bad Boss version of himself who also happened to be sleeping with Ellis.
  • The way I see it, they're playing up Film Brain's scrappy status. By making him seem overeager and totally obsessed with NC, he seems like a lapdog or a hanger-on. At least, that's my opinion.
  • That's how I interpreted it too. Given that even FB himself make fun of how unpopular he is (used to be?) it seemed obvious that they were playing up that fact by having him be NC's lapdog.
  • It was stated by Rob Walker that FB's character is a reference to the Chuck Jones character "Chester" from the old Spike and Chester cartoons. Also stated directly from FB himself, when Doug handed him the script he said, "I'm sorry, dude." but FB was completely game for it. He loves over-the-top characters.
  • Pretty much everyone is out of character or at least exaggerated in some aspect. Except Insano.
  • According to FB, they already had Phelous as the Deadpan Snarker, so FB's Bad Movie Beatdown persona would be a bit redundant.
  • Can we really trust that any of these characters are who they act like when the camera is rolling? For all we know, this is the "real" Film Brain we're seeing, and if we saw him making a video during Kickassia he would've switched into Deadpan Snarker mode.
    • His commentary suggests there's a bit of truth in that - he says he's not nearly as snarky off camera and he likes being silly. He also admires Doug enough to be a bit shy around him. Kickassia!Film Brain may not be as far from Mathew's real personality as you might think.
  • One reviewer on RPG.net summarized it best: Doug is trying to encapsulate each reviewer's tone. Each character was a one-sentence synopsis of how they tackle reviews: Angry Joe is manic; Marz Gurl alternates between excited and pissed-off; Cinema Snob can't believe he's putting up with this crap; Linkara thinks everything is stupid; Spoony is slowly losing his mind; Phelous is sarcastically suffering through it; Jew Wario is trying to keep positive and helpful; Film Brain is spastic; and Nostalgia Chick is far more talented than she's letting on.
    • The only ones of those that sounds vaguely like it has a point is Phelous and Angry Joe. Seriously "Linkara thinks everything is stupid"? No? Seriously, he's an arch nemesis of Dr. Insano, of course he'd find that dumb. "Film Brain is spastic"? WTF?
    • Linkara has done maybe five reviews max where he doesn't end up completely hating the comic he reviewed, and spends most of the review ranting about how ridiculous and mind numbingly stupid what he's being forced to read actually is. So yes, channeling "everything is stupid" would be completely natural for his character in this.
    • Ahem... "SYMBOLISM!!!" If you've watched Film Brain's videos with regularity, you know that he can become spastic at times--and he certainly acts that way in the movie.
  • If Insano is allowed to not have a continuity, can't we just let the same be true for Film Brain?
  • In a way, it makes sense: as Film Brain is the youngest member on the site (both in reality and in-universe), it would make perfect sense for him to "try on" different personalities.
• JewWario's costume during the Episode 2 battle goes from the trenchcoat and baseball bat to a t-shirt and Wario hat once he falls in front of the train.
  • That's Yanki J. JewWario portrays him, but he's pretty much a different character.
    • In that case, where was JewWario during the first part of the battle, and where'd Yanki J go?
    • I just assumed the costume change is either A.) Split Personality or B.) Continuity error, since that does happen.
      • Actually, in one episode of Spinebreakers (a podast that JewWario's a part of), he mentioned that Doug wanted him to keep the Yanki J. costume for continuity's sake. But then, JewWario said that Yanki J. as a character would not act scared in front of a train. JewWario however would. So it still kind of makes sense.
      • Fridge Brilliance: As a WA*RI*ON, JewWario has the ability to channel the powers (and personalities) of each of his predecessors--including Yanki J. This especially makes sense as he is unaware of his powers at this point and, as such, doesn't have any control over them.
• Wait, why is Lee freaking out about finally being 3D? What about his 3D appearance in Goggles's Psychonauts review?
  • That was Little Miss Gamer and that was because of her incredible, untapped psychic powers.
  • I'm personally glad they did let him just be there and act. With the 2D versions of him and how he was handled in the Year One video, he might as well have not been there.
  • His appearance in Psychonauts wasnt himself, but merely his psychic manifestation inside a dream or whatever. Bottom line- it was a dream. Kickassia on the other hand, was reality.
• The death of Santa Christ (and the ensuing Clap Your Hands If You Believe) just felt like filler.
  • It may be leading to a My God, What Have I Done? or Heel Realization for the Critic. But I won't complain about it, since I've never really found Santa Christ funny to begin with.
    • Oh so very much seconded, throughout the whole scene I was hoping that they wouldn't fuck it up by reviving him. Anyway, they were obviously going for an Overly Long Gag, where all that effort to bring him back to life was entirely pointless, but Your Mileage May Vary on whether it was funny or not.
    • It was also a way for all the other contributors who weren't there to appear.
      • And for Rob to get some screen time.
  • And I felt that it was one of the funniest Anti Climaxes in the entire movie, so YMMV.
    • Yeah, apparently people confuse "Just Bugs Me" with "Complaining About Shows You Don't Like." Or at the very least the YMMV page.
    • The above two tropers speak the truth. Also Doug said it was supposed to be an anti-climax; that they would spend so long chanting only for nothing to happen at the end.
• Yeah, another characterization IJBM... Why isn't Linkara more concerned about his close friend turning into his Arch Enemy and his life being in danger? It's not Rule of Funny, since there's no joke being made about it, so...?
  • Most likely because Doug wrote the script and doesn't watch all of their stuff. Or that he didn't want to have more conflict and plot spent with Linkara than the others, or something that only fans who watch AT4W or TSE would get.
  • Keep in mind, he is the only person who calls it a stupid idea.
  • "We're going to die. A lot." would have been really fitting before one of the attacks.
  • He is concerned! Did you miss the fact that he is steadfastly against the idea at the end of Part 4 and how he rants about how stupid the plan is at the beginning part 5?
  • Personally, I was more concerned by that fact that, while trying to shut up Benzaie, Linkara tells Critic to "go ahead and kill [Insano]." Especially since it was established not a second earlier that Spoony is still in there!
    • Linkara has cloned (basically resurrected) Spoony before and has been shown to be able to alter the mind of the clone before letting it out into the world. Had N. Bison killed Insano, Linkara could've brought Spoony back without Insano in the poor guy's head. Benzaie probably doesn't have any knowledge of this, and therefore would be very against killing Spoony. So that actually makes sense to me.
    • In Rob's commentary, he said that line was added by Lewis in the interest of arch-enemy continuity. I think we just have to deal with the fact that Lewis knows his character better than we do, as well as the others, and all of them are crazy assholes.
    • What both of you said.
• Film Brain can't actually see Santa Christ lying on the ground until after he yells "SANTA CHRIST! NOOOOO!" He moves his head back and forth, never looking forward until he yells. It would've only taken one more second of footage to get him actually seeing SC before screaming.
  • According to the bloopers reel, it took at least a few takes to do that shot, since Film Brain's over-the-top performance kept causing everyone to burst out laughing. It's possible that by the time they got the take they used that they were all ready to move on and figured it was the best they'd get. In Film Brain's video of them meeting for the first time in the hotel room for briefing, they all were told they had four days to get about eighty pages of script filmed and thus were going to be doing things as quickly as possible, so this seems to be the case.
• Why does Rooney get to have two "I believe in Santa Christ!" cameos? Granted, it's difficult to tell that That Jewish Guy and Guy Lynor are the same person, and That Jewish Guy's cameo was hilarious, but Guy Lynor's spot could have been filled by someone else.
  • For that matter, why was Dominic included in the montage? Between the Nostalgia Critic and the brief cameos of Chester A. Bum, Dr. Smith and Ask That Guy, Doug already has more screen time than anyone else in the film; was it really necessary for all of his popular characters to make an appearance?
    • Yes, it is. It's his website. Other people may run it, but he's the reason it exists. Insano made a sizeable appearance, Yanki J storms Molossia, and Beary even gets a few lines. I've only watched some people's videos, but I don't think that many of the other contributors have multiple characters. Linkara does, but he had just come off their Crowning Moment of Awesome at the end of the Mechakara arc, and probably wouldn't have wanted to use them for minor cameos. And Benzaie kind of does, but they're all pretty obviously supposed to be him. And really, what's the big deal? Chester had one gag in the charge, Ask That Guy had one quick joke about how he was a pointless cameo, Dominic was on screen for all of two seconds, and Spider-Smith was a reference to recent events. It's not like Doug's other characters overshadowed everyone else.
  • In Doug's commentary, he says he was afraid that the fans would think the Jewish Guy was an asshole for not saying he believed in Santa Christ so he had his Guy Lynor character say it.
• Why does Chris Larios from Transmission Awesome walk away from Molossia with the others at the end? He appeared once at the beginning of Episode 3 and wasn't a part of the invasion at all.
  • But he was still there in the country as part of the press crew.
• After the Cinema Snob's banishment, he mentions as he's walking away that he'll be at the hotel if anybody needs him. However, when we see the rest of the TGWTG crew next, they've all gathered back at the hotel, yet Cinema Snob is nowhere to be seen. What's up with that?
  • I assumed he was in the lobby, or something.
  • Perhaps he was disarming the dynamite already.
  • I thought maybe he went to a different hotel, since he specified it as "The hotel down the street" instead of just saying "The hotel."
  • In one of the commentaries, (I believe the Phelous/Snob/Benzaie one) He points this out and says they should have cut to him chilling in a hot tub and leaving the rest of them to sort out their mess
  • Doug addressed this in his commentary, the rest of the cast were trying to keep their rebellion a secret from NC, which is why they went with Dr. Insano so if it failed N.Bison wouldn't realize they were behind it. Being seen with Snob raises questions they don't want to have to answer.
• I know Doug likes to be self-deprecating with the Nostalgia Critic, but geez. By the end bit with the dynamite I couldn't help but feel bad for the old curmudgeon. Let the poor man have a little dignity! Not really angry about it, but it does bug a bit.
  • Eh, Critic is pathetic, and a Jerkass Woobie through and through. You can see it with the crossovers, with the AVGN battle and other things. With this, it was just Break the Haughty after four episodes of maintaining power.
• Why do Spoony and Linkara's watches match up if they live in different time zones?
  • Mental adjustment? One of them can check multiple time zones on the same watch?
  • I figured that they're telling him what time it is where he is, which is what they thought he wanted to know. They're quite aware he lives in Chicago and it's not too hard to figure out what zone that is or do the minimal one-digit mental math.
  • Lewis and Doug actually live in the same time zone. Spoony's the only one who would have to make any adjustments.
    • That makes it even funnier. Linkara and Critic live in the same time zome, and yet Spoony has the more accurate watch.
• Why didn't the Nostalgia Chick just chloroform N. Bison when he started acting like a dick? She's done it before, it would get him out the way and she could make the others feel like she'd done it for them.
  • That's the joke.
    • Agreed. May as well ask why she didn't just shoot him when he turned around and saw her with the gun. It's not like it would have made a difference. But it's funnier to have her try increasingly blatant ways of getting rid of him, while he remains oblivious to her intentions no matter how obvious.
• I may have been the only person who noticed this, let alone was bothered by it, but here goes. In every single scene where Baugh's family appeared, it is very obvious that the scenes were all shot in a short space of time. Leaving out the fact that they're wearing the same clothing in each scene, look at the book Baugh's wife is reading -- she's on the same page in every shot, despite the scenes supposedly taking place over a span of several days. This could have been easily avoided if she'd turned to the middle of the book instead of having it open to the beginning each time. Considering the fact that these guys are usually pretty sharp about details like that, it really...well, just bugs me!
  • This troper was pretty sure that was intentional. It made the family seem very jaded.
• Loved the series, but I just have one nitpick: Where did Sage get a pregnant woman to do his smoking studies on?
  • Um, you're talking about Bennett the Sage. He manages to squick out Ask That Guy. You may not want to know the answer to that question.
  • Well, he was holding the clipboard upside down.

• So, how did Cinema Snob disarm the dynamite as he left? There didn't seem like enough time for him to disarm the dynamite as soon as he was banished like he said.
  • I think he said that he disarmed it before he came in to confront The Critic, which would give him ample time to find the TNT and disarm it. Though if I am wrong, there isn't a feasable way he could have done it, as he was presumably banished right after the trial.
  • He could have walked up into Kickassia at any time and disarmed it. Kickassia is run by a collection of incompetent morons, most of which want to current government tossed out and like the Snob.

• Forgive my squirrelly ignorance, but what's up with that kung fu pose thing that President Baugh does at the beginning? Is that a reference to a movie or something?
  • It's Tai Chi, a form of martial arts.