Influences: Spoony Experiment

It took me a long time to be able to understand that sometimes a movie, video game, or television program is just flat-out bad.  I saw Masters of the Universe with a group of friends in the theater in 1987 for a birthday party, and even at seven years old, we knew something was off.  Our usually rowdy group was quiet when the film ended, and I could hear other kids picking the specific parts that were cool and awesome, but nobody said "that movie was great."  It was like a friend had died, and nobody wanted to say it out loud, so you'd just go "Hey, remember that time he threw rocks at a bee hive and then ran seven blocks home with an angry swarm behind him?"




Even as late as the mid-2000s, I still had trouble being willing to say "I think that was terrible."  I would assume I wasn't the target audience, or perhaps it simply wasn't my style.  I sat through Eddie Murphy's remake of The Nutty Professor and figured it was my tastes that were off, because many other people liked it.  The Dungeons and Dragons movie found me trying to focus on the good points, and my friends and I seemed to be stuck in that same "something just died, don't talk about it" mentality.

Now, there were some exceptions.  I got to screen Wing Commander for the theater I worked at before it came out, and I emerged from that empty theater demanding money back for a ticket I didn't have to pay for.  I also did see the third Neverending Story movie when it first came out, and I actually got angry at that film.  Keep in mind, I tried to find excuses for the second one, and only later could acknowledge that it, too, was terrible.

But the third one, man.  That's a rant for another day.

A major influence in my knowing films were bad was reading reviews by Roger Ebert, but I'm going to devote a lengthier column to how he and his contemporaries have influenced me.  Instead, I'm going to focus on the other person who taught me that, not only can I declare a movie is terrible, but I'm also allowed to hate movies other people love.

We're looking at The Spoony Experiment.

I first encountered Noah Antwiler in the pages of the comic book Knights of the Dinner Table where he posted regular reviews of nerdy movies, frequently ripping them to shreds.  There was a rather large outcry from the fan base and, for reasons I didn't really agree with, the article was pulled from the book.  It was some time later I actually managed to get around to his site and found that he was now posting video reviews and articles, and I quickly spent time catching up.

First of all, the whole business of him angering fans of the comic.  Personally, I find anybody willing to say "I'll stop buying a magazine or comic book because I think a guy being mean to media on one page to be outrageous" is simply ridiculous, and I think anybody who gets offended that sharply really needs to re-examine the priorities in their life.

It's just a book, people.  There are regular articles in Knights of the Dinner Table I've never bothered to read and probably will never go back to read simply because they doesn't interest me.  What interests me are the comics and stories that are told, with some of the other details catching my interest on the side.

Anyway, not to get too far off track, it was reading Spoony lambaste popular nerd-culture films that I realized that he was doing something that I, inwardly, had been doing for years without really admitting it was okay to do: nitpicking.  Furthermore, it was okay to nitpick and call out someone because a detail was off.

Behold the face of your destroyer.

Now, it might appear I just presented two opposing arguments: don't give up or get too upset on something just because of one thing being something you don't like, and it's okay to get upset at the details on a work.  It's a bit more complicated than that.  Here's the difference:  Noah didn't quit watching movies because there was something showing up in several that upset him.  If the overall movie was bad, he'd strip off everything shiny from it and draw all the flaws to peoples attention, but if there were just a few details that were bad, I can remember a few articles that would do more than criticize, they would provide examples how it could be improved.

Many of the people who wrote in to KoDT didn't offer much more than "if you want to improve the magazine, get rid of Noah" or "fine, you're keeping Noah, then enjoy not having my money any more."  Those aren't constructive.  Comments like that don't do anything more than act divisive.  Where Noah differed from those comic fans was in that Noah might see a movie like Superman Returns, declare how bad it is and call for every copy to be burned in a bonfire...but I bet he'll still see the new Superman movie when it comes out.  The magazine fans would not only boycott all future Superman movies, they'd probably boycott everything the studio put out.

I'll admit, there are many things I disagree with Spoony on.  For instance, I love his video articles where he dismantles Final Fantasy VIII and calls it out for being horrible from start to finish...but I still have a special spot in my heart for it if only because it was the first CG game I had played with graphics that nice and wasn't full of full-motion video moments with bad actors (and Tia Carrere).  It was also the first Final Fantasy game I was willing to play since Mystic Quest, so that tells you how long that had been.

Spoony introduced me to Reb Brown (I am now the proud owner of The Firing Line, and I know where to get a copy of Howling II: Stirba Werewolf Bitch Your Sister Is A Werewolf.  I once saw a copy of Cage for sale, but failed to pick it up), to the ridiculousness of SWAT 4 and Phantasmagoria 2, and a bunch of movies I had never heard of.  For that, I owe him.

...for Phantasmagoria 2, I might owe him a punch to the kidney, but it's still owing him.

I mentioned before in my Nostalgia Critic article what I learned from him.  What Doug taught me about appreciating films, Noah taught me first about looking at pop culture and being a nerd overall.  I learned I didn't have to excuse a movie for being bad just because I didn't want to admit I wasted my money on seeing it.  I learned that I didn't have to support something just because I was a fan of the genre, and that sometimes it isn't just "nerd rage" that makes fans rail against something, it's because sometimes it just isn't very good.  I also learned that, if I don't have the eye of a professional critic like Roger Ebert, or a full understanding of what makes one movie Oscar-worthy and what makes another not, I can still look at it with my eyes and bring my own knowledge and understanding to what is presented.

I also learned that sometimes doing the thing you love will have people get really angry at you, but you have to keep on doing it despite the fact that people don't like it.  I know he's hit rough spots through the years, but I've never seen him simply go "you know what, this makes me happy, but it isn't worth it anymore."

So, to Noah, should you ever read this, I say thank you.  I haven't always agreed with you, and there have been times I've wandered off and had to come back and catch up, but I've always respected what you do and respected you for doing it.  It might not mean much from a faceless voice on th- ...er, a voiceless parag- ....it may not mean much from a faceless blogger typing unspoken words into the tubes that make up the interwebs, but I hope it reminds you that people do enjoy what you do and want you to continue.