Doug Walker's "The Review Must Go On" Sucks, Too

in the past few months i've seen a lot of nostalgia critic critiques posted on this very website mostly lambasting him for his quality of content and rightly so a lot of the focus seems to be on his movie to bully flea which i can safely say is one of the worst movies i have ever seen it's overly long boring tedious unfunny awkward horribly directed and acted terribly written and full of itself and it demands every piece of criticism that it's received however people seem to forget that there was a spiritual sequel to tpf and even with a far shorter run time it's just as bad of course i'm talking about the review must go on which welcomed the nostalgia critic back into the landscape of online video in the most pretentious way possible we're breaking down what didn't work about this short film why it was made in the first place we're also going to look at what the nostalgia critic has been up to since then i'm not looking forward to any of this just in case you're not familiar with the bully flea or you need a quick refresher i'm gonna run through what happened in the movie in a hopefully quicker manner than the movie is able to relate any single piece of its plot all you need to know is that toboli flea was a movie that doug walker who is the man behind the nostalgia critic wrote and directed in 2012 which saw all the channel awesome producers band together not only to celebrate the third anniversary of the site but also fight back against a galaxy threatening plot hole basically the rest of the plot doesn't matter the three hour and 29 minute movie what three hours and 29 minutes that's two minutes longer than seven samurai and people actually like that movie throws five million references at you instead of actually writing its own plot or jokes or characters or anything [ __ ] original and then the nostalgia critic dies at the end that's all you need to know essentially doug decided he didn't want to do nostalgia critic anymore so he wrote a three and a half hour love letter to himself pretty cool stuff of course with his flagship show and main source of income ending doug needed something else to bring people to the site and also something that would cement himself as an artist who was much more than a guy who reviewed movies from his childhood enter demo reel if you've never seen or heard demo reel good for you i'm happy for you really i am your life is that much better than mine for not knowing what this disaster of a show is for this review i'd only ever seen maybe one episode and i'm not sure if i even saw it in its entirety so before i started this review i rewatched the dark knight episode and let's just say this show is not even slightly worth talking about think about every shitty spoof move you've ever seen epic movie date movie superhero movie basically demo rule is all of those but starring doug walker and on the internet the best thing about it is that it's free but seriously after watching the show i can't say that's much of an advantage demo reel is full of awful jokes awful directing awful writing and especially awful satire every joke is just a reference to a different better film that you would much rather be watching with maybe a word just changed from an actual line from those better movies what are we gonna do the only thing we can do who are you going to call ghostbusters who are you i guess the idea behind the show is okay and could work as it's about a filmmaker who remakes films but only far far worse but if you look back at the whole of doug walker's career and the quality of the recent nostalgia critic episodes the whole show feels far more on the nose than it was obviously intended demo reel was originally intended to be the hot new show for channel awesome the show that was supposed to be the reason people flocked to the site and then checked out the other producers much like the original ncu did it wasn't nobody watched demo reel nobody liked demo reel it was a hundred percent failure and channel awesome began to hurt because of it less and less people were visiting the site which meant that less people were watching the other producers and the other producers were especially hurt by this because most of the reviewers on the site were only employees with ca and name only their payment from the site was exposure and when nobody is coming to the site that payment doesn't really hit like it used to something had to be done the site could not and would not go on like this and thus behind the scenes the decision to bring back the nostalgia critic was made but in order to spice things up and hype up and hopefully bring back fans the decision was also made not to announce the nostalgia critic coming back in a short video or statement or just bringing back back unceremoniously no that wasn't enough for a character as lauded and beloved he thinks he's beloved as the nostalgia critic he needed more and more he gave himself in a 32-minute long return special entitled the review must go on yes to bring back the nostalgia critic an internet character who reviews movies from his childhood with a voice that sounds like a hyena with its balls stepped on what's with this idiot in numbers what for so many people died now how many kids he has i mean what the [ __ ] wrong with you doug walker and company made a 32 minute return special that acts as both a sequel to the boldly flee and as a finale for demo reel in lies the first major issue i have with the special is that it tries to do too much while also doing absolutely nothing while also beating in the doug's eagle at the same time i guess that's three issues i have with this goddamn special but these three issues are so interconnected to each other to a point where it's impossible not to talk about one while you're talking about another it's not really one of those things like some movies where the film doesn't know what it wants to be so it tries to be everything at once think suicide squad or justice league which feel more like frankenstein monsters than actual films this short film's plot is pretty bare bones but at least you know what's happening basically just to give you a better idea of what actually happens doug has to decide if he's going to bring back the nostalgia critic or not an end demo reel he plays around in both the world of demo reel having weird [ __ ] happen to his character donny and in doug's own world where he has visions of the nc all around his ugly ass house seriously look at the goddamn walls i [ __ ] hate his house at the end doug decides to bring it back to the soldier critic essentially killing the demo real world having it be so that donny was actually the nostalgia critic the whole time just in the plot hole a holdover plot point from toboldi fleet i never said the story was award-winning i just said that it was clear what was happening to its benefit and it pains me to say this the review must go on does know what it is and what it's trying to achieve and it sets itself up to achieve its goals quite nicely having clear differences and purposes of its two worlds that of demo reel and that of doug's real world the only issue with this is that what it's trying to achieve is making doug walker's ego as big as possible as cringy as possible something that i notice when i rewatch a special it acts like you're a big fan of doug's work and like you've seen everything he's ever done all the nostalgia critic episodes of the anniversary movies and yes ammo reel which on paper isn't exactly a bad idea i mean the marvel cinematic universe relied on this tactic too it's not really that crazy or that terrible of an idea it's okay to assume your fans have followed your work and enjoyed all of it what isn't okay is acting like what you've made is god's gift to earth that everyone in the world has seen or should see multiple references are made in the beginning to events and characters of demo reel that just make you want to reach out to doug slap him in the face and say no one watch demo reel you never heard of a woman named rebecca stone who did a one-woman titanic beat a turkey to death and wears a shirt that says malkovich equals balls there are multiple references to nostalgia critic videos even in the demo reel section and constant highlight reels of the nostalgia critic that are meant to make you feel um nostalgic for doug's previous work but in reality only serve to make you go wow doug is a cool guy i wish i were doug let's talk about doug's ego and only his ego for just a little bit one of the major parts that only exacerbates the issue of doug's inflated ego throughout the short film are the constant calls throughout the special of the nostalgia critic to come back and when i say constant i mean insistently insane constant calls for the nostalgia critic to come back doug hears voices telling him to come back come back his friends start slipping up and saying things that sound like they want him to bring the critic back first things first all our hopes rest on the nostalgia critic people will love that [Music] what did you say i said all her hopes rest on nostalgia critics love that he makes a mention of all the emails he's gotten asking for the critic to come back yeah but i made a choice you know and it just felt like it was the right time to go your fans didn't seem to think so oh did they notice the ass number of emails asking the critic to come back didn't seem to tip me off comeback is written a million times in their script and on creepy whiteboards doug even envisions the massager critic as a real person in and outside the computer who was clamoring to bring back himself doug acts as if his absence is some sort of slight to the entire film world like something was missing when he left his role as the nostalgia critic but in reality he was a guy who reviewed old movies who didn't want to review movies anymore it's not that deep doug god something that was lost on me when i was younger but that now seems really apparent as i've grown older is the role the producers who cameo in this play in doug furthering his ego lincarra todd in the shadows brad jones aka cinema snob and lindsey ellis all show up to consult and listen to doug pontificate about whether he should bring back his most lucrative ip or not in this section i'm really only going to be talking about linkara and lindsay ellis's moments though as they're the only ones who have somewhat meaningful conversations with doug about the nostalgia critic as todd's appearance is mostly paid for albeit shitty laughs and brad jones is a scab lincaro's encounter with doug starts off fine enough they talk about whether or not doug should bring back the nostalgia critic the different routes he can go down etc but then when cara says something crucial that just really shows off how important doug thinks nostalgia critic is well that's why it's your choice bottom line if you feel there's still potential and you can keep it going for a long time bring them back but if you think you only have enough for once in a while just keep it once in a while and go out on top go out on top what is there to go out on exactly doug's reviews have essentially stayed the same over the years even when the demo realized nature of nassau critic 2.0 and he makes reviews of movies not actual movies so this line has me astounded ever since i heard it again but as astounding as this line is to me the interaction between lindsay ellis who i adore and doug who i really hate is even worse and has underlying implications that honestly make me wonder about the way doug viewed his fellow producers when they were still on the site the whole tone and context of this conversation which really only takes a minute or two in the run time but it feels like it lasts for at least 30 minutes just leaves a bad taste in my mouth one that gets worse and worse the more i think about it and the more i watch this scene feels like it's made specifically to make you think that lindsay ellis is an angry jealous person who doesn't want her friend to come back into the limelight and it just feels gross because you know lindsey ellis doesn't care to be there and you know doug walker thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread this whole interaction is just weird to me like first of all doug makes a shitty joke about taking a ton of tranquilizers which sadly doesn't seem to affect him are you chewing on something tranquilizers i take enough to kill a baby rhinoceros he begins asking lindsay questions and i have to say it's so obvious that she doesn't want to film it that i just respect her even more her acting is so dry and dejected well that's a great way to start off a conversation okay and what what that i can't help but think that she probably thought she was done filming stuff for doug anniversary movie or otherwise forever and that having to film for this special even with it being on her own time in her own apartment is a new kind of demoralizing also doug acts like because he left his set as the nostalgia critic the only person who can review nostalgic movies now is lindsay ellis and that she has final say on his return i mean i know it won't be entirely impartial seeing how nostalgic movies are now your domain and everybody comes to you for him but i trust you on this and i i want your honest opinion if you grew up watching the soldier critic and any others there's this running idea that if somebody reviews something another producer might have already covered it's worse than murder ferngally the last rainforest and boy have i got some words to say about hey what what was that that was me you plagiarist nostalgia chick what the hell do you want you can't make fun of fur going i was gonna make fun of that hey too bad chick i got dips it's the sheer idea that because somebody has already reviewed something that someone else might not have anything new to say which goes hand in hand with this idea that doug can't review nostalgic movies anymore because it's now lindsay's domain as if lindsay could only ever review nostalgic movies to me is just sheer lunacy doug just makes me so uncomfortable in everything he does and this only makes it worse i feel like that's the recurring feeling of this return special uncomfortability especially with the benefit of time and being a couple years removed from the not so awesome documents there's just so many things in here that make me question the behind the scenes aspects obviously i mentioned the cameos by the producers earlier and all the moments where it's obvious doug is inflating his own ego like a balloon on helium but there's moments in this that make me genuinely wonder what the [ __ ] happened that day on set like i wonder if the cast of demo reel knew they were coming back for the nostalgia critic before shooting this episode or if they were told after this might seem kind of random and not really worth talking about but seeing as the producers who participated into bowling fleet didn't receive scripts until extremely close to the shoot date which meant they didn't know the nostalgia critic was being ridden off until shooting which meant that they didn't know whether they sell at a job or not prior to shooting i think it's something to ponder over i would not put it past doug to announce that he's bringing his old show back which was a largely one-person affair and not tell his cast whether he was bringing them back or not until filming on the first nostalgia critic back comments now it might seem like i'm pro new cast and all i can say is i'm not for a variety of different reasons i'm not a fan of the new cast some of them not their fault some of them yeah it's their fault but the main reason i'm not a fan of the new cast being brought back to nostalgia critic 2.0 is that bringing back the cast essentially combines the nostalgia critic with demo reel creating an amorphous hybrid of incompetence and idiocracy and the seeds are laid here in this episode which really bogs down the whole thing it makes you ask was this necessary i [ __ ] you not the nc and doug which in this are two different people sit down at a kitchen table and discuss whether or not the nostalgia critic is allowed to review newer movies or not yes apparently in the world of the nostalgia critic you're not only not allowed to review movies somebody else has reviewed before or even allowed to review ultra movies you have to sit down and have a talk with yourself about the things you were allowed to review as well as your schedule some ground rules fair enough reviews every two weeks two weeks maybe every other week i can do a mini review or a film editorial but if we still want these jokes to still be fresh and funny i need more time on them and that's gonna be two weeks this all just feels like it could have happened in a two minute long announcement video maybe you could have had a short sketch or a funny joke or something but man acting like a movie critic returning to critiquing movies after he said he would no longer critique movies is deserving of an epic tale of one man's ego is obscene it's not like he's setting up the world of inception he's basically combining demo reel the show he'd much rather be wasting our time with with the nostalgia critic the show that he's been wasting our time with for seven years with reviews like this this this and of course most of all this i always remember the alice in wonderland episode as being the episode that the demo realization of the nostalgia critic began with but man rewatching these episodes made me realize that it started even earlier than that doug has been combining aspects of these shows together for years now which means he's been making shitty fan films that espoused nonsensical critiques of films for almost a third of my life and i remember and watch most of it existence is pain before i conclude this video i want to go through a list of the things that bothered me about it that just seemed too small and dumb and nitpicky to have their own section but maybe they're funny and interesting enough to at least mention in passing first of all the cinematography in this is just [ __ ] annoying the classic look up at doug like he's godshots are all here as expected and there's all these little movements that seem to serve no purpose and just the sheer wistful nature of them make me want to throw the camera on the ground and beat this [ __ ] like that scene from office space doug still really doesn't know how to light anything there's parts of this that look almost grainy and dated and shots that are so oversaturated in light that even a black and white filter make it hard to look at the screen bringing back the plot hole in this is just really stupid to me because there's no inkling at all throughout demo reel the plot hole is the reason why donnie is who he is in that show which makes it essentially a retcon of this which feels like something doug himself would criticize in the film yet he's just casually doing it here and relying on you to have set through his three and a half hour long movie as well as his six episode failed monstrosity per usual if doug over accident over squeals his voice i'm just going to show you a compilation of his terrible acting in this because god damn talking about it is going to make me a madman so are we doing this yeah i just need to get some coffee that's water so it is okay i'm with you a carmen san diego movie cool i like it this tastes like microwave baileys quit is that baileys it's yoohoo no wait if you go out there you could disappear just like everyone else i when did he grow the goatee he didn't have a goatee before everything's not determined it's an upside down world i guess you weren't out drinking with quinn then i think i'm gonna have myself committed [Applause] oh i see plant in the back and see if a real movie grows huh screw you this movie should be studied i mean just they thought this is how people would act this is how people would it's not that's not who anybody would act they would donate that kid in science i um got a bit of a question for you do you honestly want me to come back yes also doug's house is ugly as [ __ ] and i still can't get over it one last thing after watching this episode multiple times for this review it makes me wonder what's gonna happen when doug actually retires like i'm not talking about like retiring the show again for another new thing because i doubt that doug will do anything but this for the rest of his life talking more about what's gonna happen when doug is 60 or 70 years old and he just retires from working i mean i have no idea what the world will even be like then of course we might just have no movies at all and live in a fahrenheit 451 style world which would either make the nc obsolete or the most important man in the world like doug always wanted but let's just say that sometime in the future doug retires from public life and the nostalgia critic as a whole is there going to be another special will someone else in the cast take up the head and tie like the falcon and endgame taking the shield from an old captain america would like pick a new person to play the role and have a body morphing situation like doctor who i guess this is all sort of out of doug hands as he doesn't even seem to own his own [ __ ] character but i really started to think about what would happen to the nc after doug retires forever after watching this return special so many times my hope is that the soldier critic becomes something like the fred channel meaning it's nothing at all resembling the original series i mean they just have a million random children ask kooky movie questions in the street that old hacks told them to ask because they think it's the best way to make a buck i mean like anything is possible at this point in the long 12 year history of the nostalgia critic not much feels more like the beginning of the end for the series than the review must go on which is weird because if it feels like this video has kind of escaped any and all criticism at least from anything i've seen and trust me it deserves criticism it's uncomfortable unfunny amateur boring meandering unnecessary egotistical pretentious full of itself for me sad sad because i grew up on the nostalgia critic dad because i still have a soft spot in my heart for those early videos i watched and those early jokes all of these jokes all of his reviews played instrumental parts of my childhood as well as a spark of an interest in older movies and film in general but ever since the nostalgia critic was killed off and doug brought him back it's kind of felt like the end is a benigh and i think we're finally starting to see that feeling come true let's just run down what's happened since this video has come out the new cast was added to the nostalgia critic which effectively combined demo reel with the nc and created a product that simply didn't have the heart the original did the not so awesome documents came out revealing a pattern of abuse and incompetence from the likes of doug and rob walker as well as channel awesome ceo mike machad the owner of the nostalgia critic ip all the producers that were so vital to the site departed leaving ca with the soldier critic and brad jones as the only two producers with somewhat well-known names probably surprisingly most controversially and eye-opening lee at least the quality of his videos of all doug walker released his review of the wall received widespread criticism from the youtube community personalities and consumers alike the wall really felt like a turning point or made a steep last reaching break for hitting the stop sign in front of you and the way people viewed the nostalgia critic and consumed his content i think this really was the last time the nostalgia critic had everybody's eyes on him and it wasn't for good that video was universally hated and i think the reason why it has so many views in particular is because word got around about just how awful it was and i think it led to some people who were still watching him just become completely fed up with him leading to their exits as fans and that feeling is reflected in channel awesome's views lately as well look i'm not gonna act like i get a ton of views on here and then i know what it takes to get as many views as possible my last video maybe has 60 at the time of this recording i don't mean to sound like an arch fiend here i'm just simply pointing out the fact that even a few years ago nostalgia critic videos got well over a couple million views and in 2020 at least when i check in every now and then they struggle to get a couple hundred thousand and it might not be fair to do this but i have to compare him to his contemporary james rolfe aka the angry video game nerd avgn videos still do obscenely well and even his random videos or videos that aren't the avgn do pretty well the one i watched before all this which was the unexpected deaths and film video had well over 150 000 reviews when i watched it and compare that to the videos that ca posts some of which are regular entries like tomorrow just screamed and the difference in popularity and engagement is alarming of course every nostalgia critic is sponsored at the wazoo so plenty of companies feel as if he's pop clear enough to stake their name on still but just from a mere fans perspective it's obvious who the more likable more consistently successful and engaging personality channel is i really don't want to be making this video i really don't want to be here hating on doug i i don't want to hate doug i loved his videos when i was younger the not so awesome documents came out i didn't want the things about doug to be true but as the years have gone by it's become more and more obvious that those claims about doug are staked in a lot of truth in 12 years doug has not grown as a filmmaker reviewer and seemingly even worse as a person and because of that i simply cannot sit through his content anymore i said earlier i check in and every now and then but i do not last longer than five minutes the majority of the time and if i do it's because i'm mesmerized by the sheer lunacy of what's happening on the screen before me like nostalgia doug and his character are deeply rooted in the past and i'm sure for a lot of kids my age but instead of being something worth remembering now the nostalgia critic feels more and more like a memory lost and forgotten in the past and maybe that's where he belongs i am droopy and i wrote this because i'm insane i'm gonna go watch red letter media melvin melvin brother of the joker melvin melvin brother of the joker melvin melvin brother of the joker i'm cool

Channel: droowpy

Views: 32,910

Rating: 4.5870037 out of 5

Keywords: Nostalgia Critic, Channel Awesome, Doug Walker, Rob Walker, Mike Michaud, Todd in the Shadows, The Review Must Go On, To Boldly Flee, Kickassia, Suburban Knights, Linkara, Lindsay Ellis, Nostalgia Chick, Demo Reel, Justice League, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Alice in Wonderland, Pink Floyd's The Wall, Nostalgia Critic's The Wall, Quinton Reviews, RalphTheMovieMaker, Fahrenheit 451, return special, Doctor Who, Avengers:Endgame, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Captain America

Id: T72bPwHnPxQ

Length: 23min 42sec (1422 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/FerraristDX]

Has there ever been such a fall from grace like Doug Walker's? Seriously, I can't watch his Nostalgia Critic reviews anymore and I won't even deny there were funny. But I just can't watch.

[u/throwyrworkaway]

That dude is a permanent cringe factory that never closes, never shuts down.

[u/DiedJustified]

Who the hell still watches this guy?

[u/Adrian_1827]

Doug walker in general is ass

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/Kendrick-Lamar-Odom]

God this guy sucks. So does his content.

[u/jamesquinlan897]

Great video