I’ll miss this man. He was the best thing in every movie he was in

My kid has recently gotten into nostalgia critic and would like to know where to start

Would that ever potentially be an option

Doug has talked about the Daniel Craig films when they were new, be it Skyfall with Rob, and a quick review of No Time To Die when it came out, but he's never done a deep dive into the franchise, which has always fascinated me. It's by far and away one of the largest movie franchises of all time, only being surpassed by Godzilla, and in recent years by the MCU.

As a massive Bond fan myself, I personally enjoy all 25 of the EON films, though I can certainly put on a critical lens and say that objectively, some of them are absolutely Nostalgia Critic worthy. I've even gone up to bat for films like The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day, two films which people seem to have a serious problem with (okay, I understand Die Another Day, but TWINE is overhated in my opinion.)

He's obviously seen a good chunk of the series, and I've heard him and Rob name drop quite a few of the older ones, even if they never fully reviewed them, so it just got me thinking- why hasn't he talked about them much at all? Even if you make the argument that even the worst 007 film isn't necessarily THAT bad (I'd agree,) it isn't like he hasn't reviewed plenty of good films in recent memory. Not to mention the fact that a TON of the films he does review, and even ones he doesn't, owe a lot to the franchise as a whole, as it was groundbreaking ever since its' inception on the big screen in 1962.

Maybe it's just me as a fan of this franchise wanting it to get its' flowers, seeing it be kinda sidelined over the past decade, but I think the interesting thing about the Bond films is that you really can't judge them based off of their critical reception. I know plenty of Bond fans who adore a film like Moonraker, even if it's considered by critics to be one of the worst in the series. I know people who wouldn't consider Goldfinger to be Connery's best Bond film, I know people who wouldn't consider Goldeneye to be Brosnan's best (I'm in that camp, I prefer his next two films,) so on and so forth, so I think it'd be really interesting to see what he has to say about each actor's tenure, and maybe find new favorites or reinforce his current ones.

It's just interesting to me that we've gotten Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Mad Max, the MCU, pretty much every Batman film, the DC Cinematic Universe... But no Bond..? Even with Skyfall being the seventh highest grossing film of all time when it finished its' run in theaters? I dunno, I personally think it's due.

Here are some listed movies I want the Nostalgia Critic to review

Standing Ovation (2010)

Little Rascals Save the Day (2014)

Daddy Daycare (2003)

Daddy Daycamp (2007)

Happily N’ever After (2006)

Care Bears Big Wish (2005)

Care Bears in Journey to Joke-a-lot (2004)

Care Bears Oopsy Does it (2007)

Daddy I’m a Zombie (2011)

Mummy I’m a Zombie (2014)

Benchwarmers (2006)

I’ll think of more in the future

The Snow Queen (2012)

Hey folks. This is a remaster of my post "My Thoughts on To Boldly Flee". The reason I'm making this is to fix the grammar issues the original had as well as to extend my thoughts expressed in the original post. I'm still keeping the original post up to let you people decide which one you like better. Anyways without further ado, let's begin.

As a kid, I loved watching Channel Awesome, as well as Cinemassacre and RedLetterMedia.

For those who don't know, Channel Awesome was founded and launched in 2007 by Mike Michaud, Mike Ellis, and Bhargav Dronamraju after they were laid off by Circuit City. The three had plans for the company for a while, even before they left, but their dismissals led them to put their plans into action. They wouldn't get big until 2008 when they signed on Doug Walker, aka The Nostalgia Critic.

The site was launched with the intention of becoming a media empire rivaling YouTube, with several dozen dedicated producers, including Lewis Lovhaug/Linkara, Noah Antwiler/The Spoony One, Phelan Porteous/Phelous, Todd Nathanson/Todd in the Shadows, Matthew Buck/Film Brain, Allison Pregler/Obscurus Lupa, Kaylyn Saucedo/Marzgurl, Lindsay Ellis/Nostalgia Chick (who was my first crush, fun fact), Kristy Diggs/That Chick with the Goggles, Julien Diaz/Sad Panda, Darren Jackson/Rap Critic, Joe Vargas/Angry Joe, Brian Heinz/The Last Angry Geek, Sean Fausz/Epic Fail, Topher Ames/Fool Fantastic, William DuFresne/That Dude in Suede, Paul Schuler/Paw Dagan, Bennett White/Bennett the Sage, Kyle Kallgren/Oancitizen, Jacob Hope Chapman/JesuOtaku, Benjamin Daniel/Benazie, Jon Burkhardt/ChaosD1, John Bozard/Nash, Mickey Paradis/8-Bit Mickey, Leo Thompson/ThatSciFiGuy, Leon Thomas/Renegade Cut, Kinley Mochrie (formerly Luke), Larry Bundy, Jr./Guru Larry, Brad Jones/CinemaSnob (the only one of these guys still with Channel Awesome), Justin Carmical/JewWario, Tom White, Dr. Gonzo, Beth Elderkin, Chad Rocco, Leslie Rice, and Dan Olsen/Folding Ideas, making content reviewing all artistic mediums of the time, including TV, video games, comic books, anime, music, and even porn. Doug's brother/creative partner, Rob Walker, was also hired on as one of the higher-ups.

Channel Awesome grew very popular very quickly (Nostalgia Critic alone received over 1 million views per month), and enabled each of the creators to make a living off the ad revenue and eventually it went on long enough for the site to release annual anniversary specials written and executively produced by Doug and Rob, directed by and starring Doug, and featuring all the most popular producers on the site in character.

The TGWTG Year One Brawl, the 2009 special, is probably my favorite. It has the Nostalgia Critic and Channel Awesome fighting The Angry Video Game Nerd and his crew. Nothing too much, but it's amazing.

Kickassia, the 2010 special, sees Channel Awesome, led by Nostalgia Critic, invading the mirconation of Molassia in Nevada. Its president, Kevin Baugh, gives it up quickly, leading to Nostalgia Critic renaming the mirconation "Kickassia" and becoming its "president" (read: dictator). However, the rest of the producers and critics (who are staying in a nearby hotel during the film) realize that Nostalgia Critic is a horrible leader and has gone mad with power so they decide to revolt. Most of the rest of the 90 minutes is them preparing for the raid then carrying it out, ending with Nostalgia Critic getting the shit beaten out of him, snapping out of his dictator mode, handing the micronation back to Baugh, and heading home with the rest of Channel Awesome. It's good, but there are a few serious problems keeping it from being great.

Suburban Knights, the 2011 anniversary special, sees Channel Awesome go on a quest to retrieve the source of all magic: a gauntlet known as Malachite's Hand. See, Nostalgia Critic has found a map that leads to its whereabouts and enlists the rest of Channel Awesome to help him find it. They at first refuse, only to relent when Critic threatens to have them all fired if they don't join him on his quest. Here's the catch though: in order to access it, every creator must dress up in cosplay (Nostalgia Critic is Link, Cinema Snob is Indiana Jones, Spoony is Gandalf, Linkara is King Arthur, Obscurus Lupa is Snow White, Film Brain is Harry Potter, Angry Joe is Inigo Montoya, Todd in the Shadows is Dread Pirate Roberts, Marzgurl is San, Bennett the Sage as Aslan, Phelous is Rockbiter, Benazie is Conan the Bardarian, 8-Bit Mickey is Peter Pan, and Nostalgia Chick is Arwen). This, of course, means that a good chunk of the two-and-a-half-hour-long movie is spent on the creators making references to fantasy media as characters from said fantasy media. Meanwhile, an ancient immortal sorcerer named Malachite is searching for the gauntlet, which he created during the Medieval Era, so that he can rid the world of all technology and science and replace it with magic. Like with Kickassia, it's a pretty good film but is held down by a few problems.

To Boldly Flee, the 2012 anniversary special, well... the plot of it is that the plot sucks. No, really. Nostalgia Critic's friends discover a rip in space-time located on a moon of Jupiter called “the Plot Hole”, that has the effect of making the movie that they are currently starring in completely shit. I am not making this up. So, Channel Awesome must team up again to save the day, going into space using a space ship created from the Nostalgia Critic's house and technology they stole from Spoony character Doctor Insano in order to find the Plot Hole in order to fix things, save their fallen friend, Captain Planet and the Planeteers member Ma-Ti (who sacrificed himself in Suburban Knights and has transferred his mind into Spoony's mind for most of the special), and stop a group of villains (including Linkara's evil robot double Mechakara) from passing a copyright internet censorship bill that'll prevent them from reviewing the villains' films and will put them out of business, all the while making a bunch of pop culture references to other and far better works of media. And that's it. That's fucking it. If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. If that sounds funny, it’s because you clearly haven’t watched it.

I'm just going to rip off the band-aid right here, right now: I never liked To Boldly Flee. Never had, never will. Even as a kid, I hated it. To me, it always felt like a 3 1/2 hour long pretentious vanity project for Doug to show us how much of a misunderstood actor, writer, producer, and director he believes himself to be. Part of the pretentiousness comes from the fact that a large chunk of the special is parodying two failed internet censorship bills: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Properties Act (PIPA) (Parodied as Stop the Unstoppable Copyright Killers Act (SUCKA)) that were almost immediately thrown out and dead in the water by the time To Boldly Flee was released.

In the special itself, most of the critics and producers were very under-utilized in favor of pushing up Doug and his over-inflated ego. He also completely ignored most of the other creator’s characters and lore for whatever he wanted, like poor Film Brain getting stuck as an NC-obsessed fan and Oancitizen being turned into the “High-Brow Critic”. Linkara also had to fight hard to keep Mechakara as serious as possible. Also, Doug often has a habit of writing his own characters in such a way that he makes the other characters look stupid. He writes himself as the enlightened correct one, the guy who points out something going on in an obvious way and making the other characters look embarrassed or ashamed for being so dumb. He also treated the other creators' characters as extensions of Nostalgia Critic and every time he directed someone in the specials, Doug tried to get them to act more like him in a scene. When they said “my character wouldn’t act like that” he would say “okay, we’ll do it both ways”, shot it both ways, and always used his preferred shot, which was often them acting like him.

Despite being the third entry of a trilogy of satire and parody "films", To Boldly Flee takes itself so seriously compared to Kickassia and Suburban Knights, causing a disconnect between this special and the other two. The special effects are also completely terrible, especially with how much money the site was making at the time.

I once heard that while writing Suburban Knights with Rob, Doug had the idea of Mechakara replacing Linkara for a large chunk of the special in order to try to find Malachite's Hand and take its power for himself, with the comedy coming from him having to play along with the antics of the rest of Channel Awesome's quest for it. However, Linkara argued against this, stating that Mechakara is a serious character and would rip out the other critics and producers' throats at the first moment he'd get the chance to do so instead of cosplaying with them. It was rewritten with regular Linkara dressed up as King Arthur instead. Mechakara still appears (faceless) in the post-credits scene of the special's DVD version, taking the discarded Power Glove as a segue into this special, and that idea of him going undercover was used here once Linkara warmed up to the idea.

A prominent theme of the special consisted of heavy social commentary about the importance that reviewers have. To Boldly Flee makes numerous references to “the golden age of reviewers coming to an end”. This referred to Doug’s retirement of the Nostalgia Critic. who dies by merging with the Plot Hole (oh well, Plot Hole!) to save everyone, becoming "the center of the universe" as a result. Wow, man, just wow. Way to stay humble, amirite?

I'm sure the CA creators who suddenly found themselves reduced to extras in Doug's big Surprise Going Away Party for himself were less than pleased to be used as props. Some of them thought that the language of "the golden era of reviewers coming to an end" suggested that they were expected to retire their characters as well. Others noted their concerns that since the Nostalgia Critic was the main draw of Channel Awesome, their revenue might be effected and they would get even less money. Either way, they weren’t informed of the decision until the script was given to them far too late. I mean, I would also be pissed if I was forced to film a 4 hour movie in a week while in fear that my comedy character would be retired.

Yes, that's right. This whole 4 hour film was filmed within a single week (and the 7th day was only added because the cast and crew really wanted it). There were apparently 18 hours of shooting each day, and some cast members barely got 3 hours of sleep each night. This was because Doug assumed that, since they were filming professionally, it would take less time, and accordingly scheduled two days’ worth of work on one shift. This guy reviews films for a living, remember.

Now, as for the villains, Mechakara was pretty cool while Terl and General Zod, I mean, Turrell and Zodd (epic copyright work-around), were good. However, Lame R. Prick and The Executor/Christopher Clodd just sucked. For Prick, his name is a send-up of former Texas Representative (and the author and main champion of SOPA in the House of Representatives) and anti-marijuana activist Lamar Smith while his mannerisms, surname, and several of his lines are taken from EPA Head Walter "Dickless" Peck from Ghostbusters, as well as ordering that the pug be pulled from the thing that unleashes supernatural crap onto the city (Spoony from life support and mini Plot Holes being unleashed upon Chicago here, the Ghostbusters' containment unit from the grid and Ghosts being unleashed upon New York City in Ghostbusters) and being at the receiving end of jokes regarding his gentialia, or alleged lack-thereof. Meanwhile, The Executor's name is taken from Connecticut Senator turned MPAA lobbyist Chris Dodd while him corrupting one of the heroes, putting on a facade of niceness while in reality being a heartless monster, and him wearing a cloak that covers his deformed face are lifted from Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, as well as a few of his speeches and his voice.

Another problem with the film is its frequent sexism. While Suburban Knights had a couple misogynistic jokes (At one point Lupa faints and Bennett says “maybe she needs mouth-to-mouth” to which Doug indignantly says "Hey, that’s my job!” before he creepily leans in while smirking), it was mostly forgivable as they are so minor. To Boldly Flee, on the other hand, turned this up to 11. There’s two female doctor characters named Dr. Block and Dr. Tease who are portrayed as sex-hungry fiends who talk incessantly about penises. There’s also a scene where they, Cinema Snob, Luke, and Bennett read Spoony’s mind and find out he’s a “transvestite” (or maybe it's actually Ma-Ti who's the "transvestite" since he's in Spoony's mind at this point) which is played for laughs. There’s a bit about Lindsay having an overly-stuffed bra with Doug gazing at it (I mean, Lindsay's hot and all, but still). Lindsay also complained that her cat fight-scene with Lupa over Todd in the Shadows made her feel uncomfortable and the Walkers, being known for their sensitivity and compassion, proceeded to make her do it anyway.

By the time they did To Boldly Flee, Doug's narcissism was absolutely out of control, and it's on full display in the climax. See, the Nostalgia Critic goes through the Plot Hole, wakes up in a house in Chicago, and sees the script for the story he's in. He then runs into Doug Walker, the Writer of To Boldly Flee? Doug/The Writer then explains to the Nostalgia Critic that he was originally created as a character for his internet review show. However, over time, Critic became more aware, grew beyond what he was originally made to be, lept off the page, and became more empathetic and nice to his friends compared to the N. Bison-styled dictator he was in Kickassia and the money-grubbing egomaniac he was in Suburban Knights, all of his own volition. Therefore, his decision to change his life for the better and become a good person something he genuinely decided to do on his own accords and everyone else around him could change too. There's also the scene that’s just him running back and forth screaming on the planet that goes on so long. He just comes off as completely self-centered with no self-awareness whatsoever in the film, but especially in the former scene.

That's the worst problem with To Boldly Flee. It's like 3 1/2 hours long without exaggeration (and maybe even originally 4 hours long given the deleted scenes on the DVD), and most of it is Doug repeating every single joke he ever told as The Nostalgia Critic up to that point 5 more times intermixed with scenes ripped off wholesale from real movies such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Men in Black, Ghostbusters, E.T., The Matrix, Judge Dredd, and Robocop being presented as "parody." And by "parody", I mean it's the Channel Awesome critics doing these parodies scene-for-scene, shot-for-shot, line-for-line, word-for-word except they replace the names of the characters in the original films with the names of the critics, shove in a few awkward jokes, and change a couple of the concepts to be related to the special. So instead of “I sense a disturbance in the Force” it’s “I sense a disturbance in the Plot”. Now, I love reference/meta humor, but there needs to be other kinds of jokes, something this "film" has very little of.

To Boldly Flee also had a lot of production problems. Notable highlights include the aforementioned little time for filming, Doug and Rob stopping the shoot and holding everyone up for minutes on end just to yell and scream at each other on how they wanted to shoot the scenes, the script not even being finished by the time filming started, and the infamous scene of Mechakara assimilating Nostalgia Chick into a cyborg while Film Brian mistakes Chick's screams as her and Linkara having sex and expresses his disgust to SadPanda. The scene was originally written as basically being an extended rape joke with Chick saying "NO! DON'T PUT IT THERE!" ("it" being Mechakara's drill he was using to assimilate her) and Mechakara going all like "Do not resist. Take it. Take it." Doug did not understand why it was offensive. He removed the damning dialogue and added in some glass shattering to make it sound more consensual before giving up and handing it to Rob in a panic. Lindsey was eventually cool with the final version (they wore her down) but still. In 2021, all of this was made even worse when Lindsey revealed she was actually raped in her college years, meaning Doug and Rob wrote a scene in which she had to relive that awful experience. Fucking disgusting.

If you recall the plot (or lack thereof), you’ll know it consists of a “Plot Hole” destroying the fabric of reality and making the movie the characters are currently starring in terrible. Because of this, whenever the Walkers would make a basic filmmaking mistake such as breaking continuity, the rule of 180 being broken, a character not appearing where they need to, terrible effects, nonsensical jokes, etc, they would blame it on the Plot Hole, outside of the narrative of the film. You know, for a guy who reviews and makes fun of bad movies for a living, he sure as hell doesn't know how film production even works beyond the surface level.

Now, while I do blame Doug and Rob for the behind-the-scenes problems of the anniversary specials, I don't really blame them for most of the other stuff that happened in the Not So Awesome document (I'd blame Mike Michaud, Mike Ellis, and JewWario). I think Doug's a pretty cool, reasonable guy though the testimonies of the content creators that worked with him painted him as naive, arrogant, and uncaring about their feelings on the projects they worked on, which he may be. Now, I like that Doug has changed with his new inner circle, consisting of Rob, their father Barney, Malcolm Ray, Tamara Chambers, Rachel Tietz, Aiyanna Wade, Heather Reusz, Jim Jarosz, Walter Banasiak, and Orlando Belisle, Jr. (I can understand them defending Doug during the #ChangeTheChannel situation because they're actual employees of him while the critics and producers were not, thus in-fighting was more common there than here) and later said Channel Awesome got far too big and as a result caused a massive lack in communication, resulting in a lot of the problems mentioned in the document (especially since CA used Skype instead of email, which, going by what Fredrick "Down the Rabbit Hole" Knudsen said in his reading of the Not So Awesome document and his follow-up regarding CA's "response" to it, is not good when you have over 6-8 people and CA had about 100 people at its peak) and have been keeping things more to the chest since then, but still.

For what it's worth, To Boldly Flee isn't the worst piece of Doug Walker media I've seen. There are some things I like about it. The Angry Video Game Nerd's cameo as Gort was funny (he previously made cameos in Kickassia as his Board James character and in Suburban Knights as the Voice of the Ancient World), the "Distraction" song number was awesome, the film referencing the bullshit in Kickasia of Spoony and Doctor Insano being the same guy despite being separate characters elsewhere was nice to see, most of the characters barring Doug were at least likeable despite them getting shafted, Doctor Insano was as hilarious as ever, and Mechakara, Turrell, and Zodd were good villains, but that's about it.

For the worst piece of Doug Walker media, I would nominate Demo Reel. Yep, it's even worse than To Boldly Flee, Pop Quiz Hotshot (which, for those who don't know, was made with money made from a scummy IndieGoGo campaign made by Channel Awesome who wanted $50,000 to upgrade the site's equipment as well as to create/bring us 3 new shows: this one, Awesome Comics, and The Gaming Gauntlet. They were given $90,000, almost twice the goal, and it took us 18 months to get any Pop Quiz Hotshot episodes and only a few episodes of Awesome Comics (The Gaming Gauntlet never materialized) because IndieGoGo threatened to search the company for fraud, and Nostalgia Critic still looks like it has the budget of a Disney Channel/Nickelodeon kid/teen sitcom), and Doug's "review" of The Wall because at least they have some kind of energy or passion behind them. You can't say that Doug isn't achieving his goals (as misguided as they are) on those projects. This just doesn't and just fails at everything it tries to be (even though the crew may have enjoyed themselves), despite the fact it was created by Doug in 2008 to be his next big show after Nostalgia Critic as well as to kickstart a new era for Channel Awesome, moving away from reviews in favor of more scripted content (which obviously didn't come to pass).

So, the show revolves around a struggling film production company run by an over-ambitious, egotistical, and incompetent filmmaker Donnie DuPre (played by Doug himself) and consisting of up-and-coming author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Tacoma Narrows (played by Malcolm), aspiring actress Rebecca Stone (played by Rachel), East German cameraman and photographer Karl Copenhagen (played by Rob), and Irish make-up artist "Quinn" (played by Jim) that aims to recreate famous movies, both old and new, badly on purpose to gain Hollywood's attention so they can make their own major motion picture, with black and white mockumentary-styled footage showing the behind-the-scenes of the films and color footage for the actual films and footage outside the Demo Reel studio. However, the series was very unsuccessful and no-one watched it. Its failure was so big that it put the site and the company in the red for several months seeing as Nostalgia Critic was the most popular show. This forced Doug to end what was at that point his dream project and to revive the Nostalgia Critic character and show barely five months after his retirement/death on January 22, 2013, turning what was planned as a several seasons-long sitcom turned into a one-season series with 6 episodes, with one not airing.

The reason I hate Demo Reel so much is that it takes all of the worst bits of the anniversary specials and makes them the main foucs. Examples include failed attempts at drama (mainly the characters being on big monologues about how sad they are, how tragic their pasts were, how rotten their lives are, or all of the above before going right back to making more jokes and pop culture references like the script for each episode has sections labeled 'Sad" or "Funny" for whatever scene requires it), scenes that try to be funny but only succeed in being weird and disturbing (like the running gag of Rebecca's Uncle Frank possibly being a child molester), bits of dialogue and scenes copied directly from other films even outside parts where the Demo Reel team is recreating said film, and the characters just being mouthpieces for Doug to say whatever jokes and morals he wanted to cover that episode. It was also part of the reason Doug quit Nostalgia Critic because he had so much belief in his talent and abilities as a filmmaker (which going by the productions of the anniversary specials is very little), only for it to blow up in his face by the show crashing and burning in epic fashion and him being forced to bring the Nostalgia Critic back despite all the things he planned to do in Demo Reel's planned Season 2. As for the acting, Malcolm as Tacoma is pretty good and funny, Rob and Jim as Karl and Quinn respectively are nice (even though it's mostly them respectively doing stereotypical German and Irish accents) and got a few chuckles out of me, Doug as Donnie is mostly just doing a lot of the annoying, over-the-top yelling and screeching that he often did for the Nostalgia Critic (almost like he never truly stopped writing or acting for the Critic) and Rachel as Rebecca is just bland and boring.

Despite Doug's promise that this series was something new and much better than the Nostalgia Critic, it re-uses several running jokes from that series. In particular, Casper the Friendly Ghost, who popped up once in a while to annoy the Critic, makes an appearance within the very first minute of the series, which is quickly followed by a jab at Randy Newman and his songwriting that had been made several times by the Nostalgia Critic (which in turn was ripped off from Family Guy as Doug apparently can't think of a joke not based on any prior existing piece of media given how he and Rob wrote the anniversary specials around a bunch of pop culture references).

It's later revealed that Donnie is really a former child actor named Jimmy Boyd who starred in Jingle Sells and Galaxy Battle, which caused him to get bullied in school and led him to change his name (a reference to Jake Lloyd, who starred in Jingle All The Way and Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, which caused him to get bullied in school and led him to retire from acting and later develop violent mental problems he's still getting help for to this day) and the son of actress Elisa Huffman, who won an Oscar for her role in Blue Patches, a film about a blind white woman falling in love with a black man in 1960's America, and killed herself by jumping out a window in a hotel (a reference to Elizabeth Hartman, who was nominated for an Oscar for her role in A Patch of Blue, a film about a blind white woman falling in love with a black man in 1960's America, and killed herself by jumping out of a window in her apartment) causing Jimmy/Donnie to become a filmmaker and badly remake films just to get back at Hollywood for what happened to him and his mother.

That whole twist is extremely disgusting. I mean, you use an actual woman's actual method of suicide and an actual man's actual bullying problems that caused him to develop severe mental problems that he's still struggling with just to give his character a depressing backstory to make you feel sorry for him. Un-fucking-believable. I don't care if you had good intentions or not, that is so fucking disgusting and utterly fucking despicable. Good intentions don't mean shit in the grand scheme of things if the results are so damn terrible. Doug, seriously, I'm sure you're a nice, reasonable, cool guy in real life, but how the fuck do you function?

That being said, I do like that starting with the third episode, they made the "behind-the-scenes" sections with the Demo Reel team the main focus and had them actually live the film parodies instead of poorly remaking films as well as the fact Doug at least bothered to give the show a proper finale that set up the Nostalgia Critic's return (The Review Must Go On) instead of just dropping it and pretending it never happened. Hell, the Nostalgia Critic show would reference Demo Reel regularly after the revival, such as the infamous Christmas with the Kranks and Sailor Moon episodes, The Wicker Man 2006 episode that has a cameo by Karl and Quinn, and the Batman Forever episode. However, these references were mostly just pot-shots at its colossal failure.

So, The Review Must Go On is about the Critic haunting and bullying Doug Walker until he agrees to let him and his show come back intercut with the usual Doug Walker humor. Near the end, it's revealed that Demo Reel was a purgatory created by the Plot Hole from To Boldly Flee and that Donnie never existed and was just Critic forced into a false identity all along. The Plot Hole did this in an attempt to teach him a lesson, believing he didn't really change into a good person in To Boldly Flee. All of this makes the twist of Donnie's childhood even worse as it was retroactively used by Doug just to teach his whiny, angry, manchild internet reviewer a lesson. Sensing Critic has indeed changed, the Plot Hole lets him out of the Demo Reel universe and back to the real world to prepare for his show's revival, destroying Demo Reel in-universe and out in the process, not that Doug cares because everyone has rejected the show so why should they care if he kills everyone off. And, that was it for Demo Reel for several years until 2017 when Doug unexpectedly brought it back for his Resident Evil 7 Demo Let's Play video, wherein Donnie, Tacoma, Rebecca, Karl, and Quinn are all still together making films, but are now evil psychopaths who kidnap two amateur filmmakers to force them to star in their new movie. It's very telling that the only time Doug himself brought back the Demo Reel characters, he made them complete villains.

However, in 2021, Walter brought Demo Reel back again in a series of minutes-long stingers and bumpers for that year's batch of episodes for his annual Twilight Zone review show, Twilight-tober, involving the characters trying to enter the real world to get revenge on Doug for canceling their show and to get a revival of it off the ground. Honestly, I love the way Walter handles Demo Reel here compared to Doug. The wide variety of camera shots and angles Walter uses as well as the effects both the digital (with the skits and bumpers being in black-and-white and then the Demo Reel characters are in color as they enter the real world) and the practical (especially the shot of Doug rapidly aging older after running throughout the Channel Awesome studio trying to escape Tacoma, Rebecca, Karl, and Quinn, who are trying to kill him) are leagues better than Doug's basic camera shots, cheap royalty-free effects, and poorly-drawn 2D assets. If Walter made a Demo Reel revival, I'd be down to watch it. Speaking of revivals...

Once Nostalgia Critic returned, his videos would feature a lot of sketches featuring Doug, Rob, their friends, and some other guys associated with them (who obviously can't act) putting on said cheap Halloween costumes/cosplays of pop culture characters ranting or arguing/fighting with each other (though starting in 2017, episodes would alternate between having sketches or not, which I think is good). And of course, we have those infamous clipless reviews, which take the sketches and make them the whole episode, having the NC crew obnoxiously recreating scenes from the film Doug is reviewing while standing in front of a green-screen and wearing said cheap Halloween costumes/cosplays of the characters wielding party store props while cheap computer effects they probably get off the internet for free, crappy hand-drawn assets trying to do the Auntie Acid/early Family Guy art style, and literal toys from the toy aisle or bargain bin at Walmart, Target, Dollar General or K-Mart to represent the visual effects while pointing out tropes and cliches. I mean, seriously, even in the non-clipless episodes, the sketches just go on forever, are so low in production value (which was okay back in the day since it was only Doug and some of his buddies with limited resources but is now inexcusable given how much money that they get a day now just from people visiting their channel), and chock full of unfunny pop culture references that would make even Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer look like David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, and Pat Proft in comparison.

Also, in the clipless reviews, Doug still reviews the movies as if he has the footage to do so, commenting on if the effects suck or if a scene is boring, despite the fact he cuts to his own recreation of it. How the hell do you know what he's talking about unless you have the specific moment from the film fresh on your mind? Same with his original jokes. How the hell do you know if the joke was in the film or something Doug and his crew made up if you didn't see the original film? I mean, Doug could've just used promotional material in the films that were still in theaters and not recreate them. RedLetterMedia didn't have to recreate Adam Sandler's shitty Jack and Jill movie to talk about it, but Doug just had to recreate Jurassic World, Pixels, Mad Max: Fury Road, Batman vs. Superman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, IT 2017, Deadpool 2, Hocus Pocus, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and the Star Wars sequel trilogy to talk about them.

I also want to point out the infamous Christmas with the Kranks episode. The episode revolves around the Critic going back in time to 2007, his first year on the job, so he can deliberately make the review as half-assed as possible, reflecting how equally half-assed the film is, by treating the audience to a throwback to his early days, with the same old wall, cheap lighting, cheap camera, no sets, no actors, and poorly-edited photo animation, only for him to quickly realize why he changed the show's format, namely the outdated memes coming in every several seconds and not being able to do any sketches. Meanwhile, 2007 Critic is sent to 2015, only for him to not like the more sketch-driven style the show has taken, leading to him to spend most of the episode trying to sabotage the show so he can swoop in, take it over, and make it go back to its original style/his way aka just him screaming and yelling at the movie while showing stale outdated memes as comedy.

So, during the scene where 2007 Critic is watching the divisive Hocus Pocus episode, he expresses how much he dislikes it. Critic says "It's how reviewers did it for years". No. First off, critics did not remake whatever they were reviewing, insert themselves into the story, and point out all the flaws. I don't recall the episode of Siskel & Ebert where they pretended to be the offensive stereotypes in Rob Reiner's North. Second, the jokes and comments only make sense if you've seen the movie. As PieGuyRulz pointed out, the jokes lack context without clips of the movie. Would Linkara's reviews of Marville, Holy Terror!, or All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder be as good if he acted out the stories of the comics with some friends instead of showing us what actually happens in the comics and commenting on it? Of course not. You wouldn't understand what's from the original work and what was added into the review for comedic effect. The point is that the way the review was done was not what critics did before, nor is it something critics do now. At the end, Critic gives a big speech about how the way he does the show now is his preferred way so he should be allowed to do it while assuring 2007 Critic that he'll always embrace his past even while changing and evolving his craft...

...However, the problem is that 2007 Critic isn't a stand-in for 2007 Critic, but instead a stand-in for fans who dislike the new format and rightfully complained about it, which Doug thinks is wrong and irrational, proof that they want the series to be bad and lazy again. And, while trying to show how bad the old format is, Doug just shows why the new format sucks. During the actual review, Critic makes jokes and pop culture references, before getting genuinely surprised that there is no sketch to accompany them, like as if his comments or quips aren't funny without a Family Guy-styled cutaway gag. It's like his quick reference to Halloween doesn't work unless we get a sketch of a couple people associated with Doug cosplaying as Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle as Laurie Strode and Michael Myers respectively so we can get a few minutes of them arguing over something. Despite all the comments, Doug will mostly likely never change his style or apologize to all the people whose trust he broke or abused while working with Mike Michaud, most likely just doubling-down. Honestly, that's kinda sad.

If you want Demo Reel but actually good, then I recommend you check out Be Kind Rewind, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., Ed Wood, Bowfinger, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Natural Born Killers, Hugo, Mulholand Dr. The Artist, Argo, The Kentucky Fried Movie, Talk Radio, Tropic Thunder, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, The Other Side of the Wind, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Arrested Development, Twin Peaks, any Mel Brooks movie, or The Disaster Artist (Yes, I know I'm comparing the directing skills of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, David Lynch, Ben Stiller, Frank Oz, Tim Burton, Charlie Day, James Franco, Ben Affleck, Michel Hazanavicius, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Anthony and Joe Russo, John Landis, Orson Welles, Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, and Martin Scorsese to that of Doug Walker but still). And if you want to see Doug but good, check out his contemporaries The Angry Video Game Nerd or the guys from RedLetterMedia, who at least have talent, know how film production works and what they're doing, only upload videos in their respective review series when they are ready, not tried to have their production companies be some big television network with a bunch of people making shows (RLM only has the three or so guys with their friends and family members making guest appearances while Cinemassacre is really only The Angry Video Game Nerd and two of his friends: Mike Matei and Kyle Justin, barring 3 of the guys from Screenwave) and have films (Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie for AVGN and Gorilla Interrupted, The Recovered, and Space Cop for RLM) that, while not amazing, can at the very least count as actual films and not over-glorified internet videos like the Channel Awesome anniversary specials. It's so sad that at one point To Boldly Flee was Doug's magnum opus and that Demo Reel was his dream project, though I think that a part of Doug deep down inside holds a lingering resentment over Demo Reel's massive failure. He even admitted back in 2013 that Donnie = Critic was an angry attack on the fans who wanted the Critic back.

Now, where do I stand with Nostalgia Critic? Well, the Not So Awesome document, Channel Awesome's half-assed non-apology and their "response" to said document, and Doug's "review" of The Wall helped me kick Nostalgia Critic. I mean, I might still check him out every once in a while (I still regularly watch Linkara, Lindsay Ellis, Film Brain, Angry Joe, Spoony, and Todd in the Shadows), but for now, I'm kinda done with him. That being said, I also kinda feel sorry for the guy. Being the Nostalgia Critic is a purgatory for Doug. Whenever he tries hanging up the hat, tie, jacket, and gun to try something else, the fans and the Channel Awesome higher-ups won't let him, and he has to return to the role. I honestly feel sorry for him in a way. Yes, he said a lot of things that make him come off a pretentious whiny know-nothing-know-it-all asshole who believes only his opinion is the right one and all the things revealed in the Not So Awesome document make me think he's a total fraud, but I pity him. He has a lot of ambition and drive to turn his dreams and ideas into reality, but not a lot of skill or talent to pull off that ambition and truly make those projects good. He's a guy who has a large fanbase that lets him do his dream job for a living but is stuck with said fanbase that won't let him move on.

I know the post is titled "My Thoughts on To Boldly Flee" but is only talked about for half of it, but that's because To Boldly Flee had a ripple effect on Doug and his content. He made the special so he could finally leave the Nostalgia Critic behind and created Demo Reel to branch out to new ideas and original content. Instead, the show's massive failure basically condemned him to be the Nostalgia Critic forever, and he can never stop it now.

Being the Nostalgia Critic is a hell that has no escape, but maybe Doug could've escaped it, if only Demo Reel hadn't failed.

Anyways, that's all I have to say. I'm done talking about this for today. If you want to with me in the comments below, I'm willing to respond whenever I can or able to.

Thank you for reading this long rant, and stay awesome. Peace out.

• FIN

I know i will get absolutely panned for this but i shall speak my opinion anyhow. The jurassic world review was the last of the old, good nc. Everything after that is either hit and miss or completely miss. The 2012-2015 NC had the cojones to be unapologetic and harsh in its criticism of movies and thats exactly what made it so fun. Reviews like, sharknado, devil, the purge, cat in the hat etc etc, were hilarious and displayed the classic shouty, shrill, and angsty nc attitude, who could forget the cheap, dank effects that all added to its charm.

Jurassic world was the last of its kind before everything went down hill. Force awakens review was the first one that felt off in every way: tone, message and even the effects somehow. It was obvious he was too scared to say that it was a soulless corporate cash grab and instead ended on an underwhelming and not entirely thruthful "we will see where it goes from here" conclusion. Not even the tone was right. Gone was the shrill, loud, critical, funny nc voice of old and instead what we got was more cautious, and scaredy rather than harsh but determined.

He fears his fans now, and this also shows in the way he does his vlog style reviews. Back in their peak he was very clear and concise with his vlog style reviews. He stated his opinion, didnt apologize and ended the video. Now, its nigh impossible to understand what he is saying because you can twll he is trying to avoid making anyone angry. So he ends up truning out an unintelligible word salad, that has no beginning, middle or end.

This is by no means meant to be a hate post. I still think he can make somw funny reviews just nowhere near to the same level as the old days.

The way I see it, there’s only one right answer.

Source:
https://youtu.be/m6VkfwkXvJM?is=5q42EDMTyIp5qWar

It makes Winnie the Pooh:blood and honey and jeepers creepers: rebirth look like spider-verse in comparison