EFAP #2 is the second episode of the Every Frame A Pause podcast.
Important Events[]
- First time Patrick Willems is featured
- First appearance of Fortea on EFAP
Plot[]
The trio, this time with special guest Fortea, cover the very first seasonal EFAP villain: Patrick Willems, with many memes made along the way.[1]
Synopsis[]
On the Un-Mattering of Plot Holes[]
MauLer, Rags, Wolf, and Fortea gathered to take a look at Patrick Willems' video boldy titled "SHUT UP ABOUT PLOT HOLES." In preparation, they had watched A Quiet Place, a movie that left them less than impressed. The gang found it fitting that Patrick would be against caring about logical consistency in a movie's plot, since he is a fervent defender of The Last Jedi and The Last Jedi's greatest enemy is logic, making it imperative to discredit the very idea of logic itself. Patrick began by stating that plot holes used to be a super nerdy topic - this makes it bad - but for some reason the topic has become more mainstream. MauLer put forth that the reason plot hole talk is more prevalent is because plot holes themselves are more prevalent, and this is bolstered by many films today being reboots or sequels to well-written movies, so them being poorly written stings more. Wolf, ever ready with a list of films, read out a list of bad films that had come out that year. MauLer brought up that plot holes are far from the only thing people are criticizing, and they'd of course say that's not all that matters. When Patrick scoffed at someone who had made a list of plot holes in A Quiet Place, MauLer argued that it's hard not to bring up plot holes in a movie like that since its whole premise is built on the idea of rules not being broken.
Patrick proclaimed that nobody even knows what a plot hole is, prompting MauLer to ask the gang their definitions without looking it up. Wolf answered that a plot hole is when shit doesn't make any goddamn sense and is completely inconsistent with the story it's trying to tell, and Rags answered that it is a story being inconsistent with its own rules. MauLer gave the example of when a character knows something they don't have a reference for or doesn't know something they do have a reference for, summing it up as something happening when the rules of the universe have told you that they can't happen, a base contradiction. He added the caveat of a hypothetical movie being inconsistent in portraying sound in space, which would be an inconsistency but not a plot hole since it's just aesthetic, unless it affects the plot, which he contrasted with Finn not knowing about the hyperspace tracker then later saying he knows where it is because he has experience with it, which very much does affect the plot. Fortea kept it simple, defining it as an inconsistency within the plot line, hence the wording "plot hole." Regardless of definition, MauLer found it funny to tell people that they're already wrong because they don't know the definition of a word, then argue your point anyway. Patrick said that people's definitions vary (prompting MauLer to ask how people can not know the definition if their definitions vary) but the definition he uses (why not use something more universal like a dictionary definition?) is "a point in which a story breaks a previously established rule about its universe, basically when a story contradicts itself.”
Patrick also dropped the bombshell that plot holes don't actually matter, but before explaining why, he began by explaining what plot holes are not, starting with...
SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS OFFSCREEN
At the sight of this title card, MauLer pitched a hypothetical movie in which a character grows several feet between scenes, with the justification, "he could've had surgery between then to lengthen his legs." Rags similarly pitched a character in a wheelchair getting somewhere non-wheelchair accessible, with the justification that their legs could have healed and then broken again offscreen, the point being that whether an offscreen event is a plot hole or not, as the famed Bilbo Baggins once said, is about context.
Patrick explained the concept of montage, snidely commenting that it was conceived under the false assumption that audiences are "reasonably intelligent," arguing that if someone starts off in one location, then is in another location in the next scene, the audience can assume that they traveled there in between scenes, something that nobody would ever disagree with. He used this to answer his friend (whom he punched in the face with Hulk gloves for even asking) wondering aloud how a bankrupt Bruce Wayne got from an obscure prison in a far-off country to a city under lockdown by a militia in The Dark Knight Rises, as if that was the same as a man who can walk walking to a location that can be walked to. Patrick concluded that, ”If movies showed us every single second that happened during the span of the story, they would be forty hours long and (with title card accompaniment) REALLY F***ING BORING,” to which MauLer challenged Patrick to find one person who said they wanted to see Bruce Wayne take every single step back to Gotham.
MauLer's friend Passion of the Nerd was in the Chat and attempting to steelman Patrick's points, asking if knowing how Bruce got back to Gotham would actually improve the movie, leading MauLer to raise the question of whether that would be a strict contradiction or simply a lack of information where there could actually be an explanation, and answered that it may not specifically be a plot hole, but it regardless lowers the stakes when Bruce can simply overcome great obstacles under the excuse of "he's got his methods," rather than being shown how he overcomes those obstacles.
WHEN A CHARACTER DOES SOMETHING YOU WOULDN'T DO
"Movies are for the most part about human beings, or at least characters that think and act like human beings, and you know what human beings are not? Logical. People are impulsive, they make choices based on emotion not everyone thinks exactly the same, but also people make mistakes”
MauLer once again took the title card as an opportunity to tell the anecdote of Just Write (or maybe HelloGreedo) tweeting out a few days after their debate that it's annoying people criticize Holdo for not doing what THEY would do, since Holdo is her own person with her own motivations. MauLer asked in response to that if Holdo valued people's lives, to which the answer would of course be yes, raising the question of why she then let Poe almost get everyone killed rather than pacify him. He also added that no one takes issue with a character like Homer SImpson acting stupid, because he is established to be a stupid man.
Patrick's video had his friend bring up the characters in A Quiet Place choosing not to live by the river and choosing to have children, for which Patrick once again punched him with Hulk gloves, explaining that human beings are not logical, and make decisions based on emotions, to which MauLer asked what emotion motivates someone to not protect themself from a monster, especially when they have been in this scenario for two years, and have acknowledged that the river is a safe place and are building a soundproof room for when the baby comes, meaning they know that these things are a good idea but chose not to do them for the past two years. Someone in Chat countered with the oft-cited "because then there'd be no movie," to which MauLer responded that it's the writers's job to get creative about these things - they could have had it so the protagonists start out living by the river but are required to leave for resources. Fortea offered that they could have just not put the waterfall in the movie in the first place, with Rags adding that the only thing the waterfall establishes is that louder sounds cover up softer sounds, which everyone already knows anyway.
Patrick cited the Vulcans from Star Trek, aliens who behave entirely logically and without emotion, drawing from that the message that to act logically is at odds with acting human, to which MauLer corrected that only being logical is not human, and humans are motivated by both logic and emotion. Patrick then argued that purely logical characters would lead to no conflict and no story once again calling such a thing "REALLY F***ING BORING," an odd claim given that he had just cited the Vulcans, fictional characters who do engage in conflict and do have stories. Rags likened Patrick's argument to an abuse of the Insanity Defense, excusing any bad action as being the result of temporary insanity.
A PLOT CONTRIVANCE
Patrick's friend scoffed at the convenience of the Death Star having a weakness in its exhaust port, and Patrick once again punched him with Hulk gloves. MauLer pushed back on the idea that it was even a contrivance by pointing out that the Rebels had the plans to the whole station, and with the blueprints to a given machine you can of course find weaknesses (a car can be taken out of commission by cutting one wire), and exploiting said weakness was far from easy since they lose every man but one and Luke has to use the Force to exploit it. Patrick agreed that some of these contrivances are valid complaints, calling Kirk happening to land on the same planet as a time-displaced Spock contrived and lazy, but they are still not plot holes, setting the bizarre standard that a plot contrivance can be a valid complaint, but a plot hole, which is a more severe example of a plot contrivance, can't be.
SOMETHING THAT IS EXPLAINED IN THE MOVIE
Patrick's friend asked how DJ knew the Resistance's plan in The Last Jedi, and Patrick once again punched him with Hulk gloves, before explaining that the film does show DJ overhearing the plan being discussed. MauLer told the anecdote about E;R having made that same point in his review, and conceding it was a mistake when MauLer DM'ed him about it. MauLer congratulated Patrick for correctly stating that being wrong is wrong. Patrick concluded his listing of alleged plot holes that are explained with, "But I guess if you're too busy live-tweeting about plot holes, you can miss some stuff," implying that there are legitimate ones to find. The gang raised the question of why it even matters if people are wrong about these being plot holes, since human beings aren't supposed to be logical anyway.
Before Patrick moved on, the gang took a break to read a comment that had been posted on his video, which thanked Patrick profusely for standing up against plot hole talk, and bemoaning the fact that MauLer had made a five-hour critique of The Last Jedi, accusing him of spending the whole video focusing only on plot holes and arguing any other way of viewing the film doesn't matter, something MauLer did not, in fact, do. This accusation became even more awkward given that later in his video, Patrick himself would indeed say that certain people are watching movies wrong, and the things they value in filmmaking don't matter. The commenter then proclaimed that there is no objective way to view a film, and went even further to say that is the reason why film has any value in the first place, somehow of the belief that something would have no value if you could determine its value. They then argued that if there was a way to judge art objectively, it would actually be the opposite of what MauLer thinks, since plot consistency is inconsequential, a conclusion they were somehow able to come to even though doing so is apparently impossible.
Now that Patrick was done debunking false plot holes, he was on to telling us why plot holes don't matter, raising the question of why he even needed to prove the previous things weren't plot holes. Patrick argued that every movie has plot holes, to which MauLer put forth that it wouldn't surprise him if In Bruges doesn't, since the plot is very simple and down-to-Earth. Willems cited the infamous eagles from The Lord of the Rings, which MauLer was willing to concede was a plot hole, but Wolf brought up someone in Chat bringing up Gandalf explaining that Saruman controls the skies through the Nazgûl and Fellbeasts, to which MauLer countered that while that does help there are still some questions left unanswered by that explanation that could have done with an extra line or two, but regardless Patrick pointing out one or a handful of films having plot holes wouldn't prove that all do. A few of the plot holes he cited were actually wrong (probably because Patrick was too busy focusing on plot holes to pay attention to the movies), namely questioning why the acid in Alien didn't keep eating through the lower floors, apparently under the belief that acid never neutralizes and that any acid spills would require the fire department to stop the acid from reaching the Earth's core. He brought up possible issues with Die Hard but waved them away on the grounds of John McClane being just an ordinary guy - McClane was an off-duty cop. He even tried to point out plot holes in his own video, citing the fact that he was wearing sunglasses indoors as a plot hole. Rags interjected to point out that people like Patrick are taking the same position they accuse MauLer of taking, pointing out a single plot hole and saying it would discredit a film, rather than having the more nuanced perspective of some films having both strengths and weaknesses to different degrees, and of saying that if you deem a film bad it can't be enjoyed. This became exacerbated by Patrick's infamous claim that people are actually watching movies wrong, something MauLer is regularly accused of believing despite having never said. In the same vein, Patrick and others will often switch between objective and subjective depending on what fits their argument at the time.
Patrick said that you can care about plot holes all you wan't, but don't say they're genuine flaws... because they're not. Movies are not about logic, despite Patrick having regularly used logic to defend various films, and thinking about these sorts of things disengages people from the film. MauLer argued that that doesn't actually counter the people who point these things out, because they did think about it and that's what caused them to disengage from the film - that is the issue they had, and if that flaw in logic didn't exist then they wouldn't have been disengaged from the film and would have enjoyed it more. MauLer asked if Patrick agrees that the issue exists, and agrees that noticing the issue will disengage you, then does he think people who noticed it and were disengaged as a result are just bad people? He also raised the question of what if Patrick pointing these issues out causes someone to notice it on next viewing and takes them out of the film. Not done running defense for The Last Jedi, Willems conceded that it would have made sense for Holdo to tell Poe she had a plan, but that doesn't matter because then there would be no conflict. Immediately after saying it doesn't matter if Holdo's plan makes sense, Patrick argues that her plan makes sense, because Holdo says he's reckless, he fucked up (by saving the entire fleet), and he was recently demoted (from Commander to Captain, which is still fairly high-ranking), prompting MauLer to ask why it is a good idea to let the reckless hothead who takes matters into his own hands believe that you have no plan. Patrick cited the bit from Community where Abed acts out a perfectly logical horror movie, using it to further drive home the point that behaving logically would lead to there being no story, but luckily MauLer is also a fan of Community, and had taken away from that skit that it was a parody of poor decision-making in horror movies, challenging Patrick to find the issues parodied in a well-written horror movie like Alien. Patrick brought up that Batman V Superman has plenty of plot holes, but those don't matter - the real problem is that the characters don't grow. MauLer cited character like the Joker, as well as plenty of other villains since often what makes someone a villain is that they don't learn from their wrongdoings, as well as more heroic characters like Jack Sparrow, Indiana Jones, and Walter Sobchak, whose appeal comes not from them developing but from them interacting with the world around them. Patrick then took a shot at Angry Joe by comparing him to insufferable know-it-all nerd character from The Simpsons for asking how the Supremacy isn't powerful enough to penetrate a ship's shields.
Patrick ended by asking how this all happened. MauLer put forward that older films tended to have simpler plots but executed them well, while newer films often try to have more complex plots, which can be done well, but it's harder to pull off. Patrick, on the other hand, argues it was the internet, explaining that he looked up the usage of the phrase "plot hole" online and saw it used to only show up in film review sites, then became more mainstream. Patrick went on to tell of how Cracked.com posted an article on plot holes in 2008, then TVTropes made a plot hole page in 2009, then articles kept popping up in 2010, describing it like the spread of a disease. MauLer countered that that doesn't mean people didn't pick up on this stuff, just that they've only recently learned the term for it, and Rags compared Cracked.com's introduction of plot holes to how Isaac Newton invented gravity, since it didn't exist before he came up with a name for it. MauLer points out none of the articles shown say you should stop liking the movies just because they had plot holes in them, and even if they did that would make them no worse than Patrick, who has taken the stance that people are watching movies wrong. Patrick ended his story with 2012, the year things really took off, since that was when YouTube videos entered the fray, and millennials usually consume movie analysis on YouTube. Rags found it odd that the complaint about millennials is usually that they're stupid and thoughtless, but Patrick is complaining that millennials think about things too much. Patrick illustrated this argument with the CinemaSins logo accompanied by horror sound effects, prompting MauLer to ask if anyone actualy looks to CinemaSins as a serious source of film analysis. Patrick concluded that this was not really anybody's fault... except CinemaSins... but a natural progression of events that will keep happening as long as people keep uploading nitpicks for clips. MauLer found this ironic since an all caps-titled "PLOT HOLES DON'T MATTER" video filled with bold sweeping statements and dramatic retellings of events could easily be considered clickbait in its own right.
Before signing off, Patrick made sure to let us know that this video could not have been done without Sennheiser.
During their coverage MauLer and the gang learned that Adam of YourMovieSucks.org had left a lengthy comment on Willems' video, which they read out after finishing the video. YMS initially copy-pasted his comment from a reddit thread about the video, saying he felt Patrick's distinction between criticisms that matter and don't matter was fairly arbitrary and even contradictory, and it felt elitist to tell people that certain parts of their experience with a film weren't worth commenting on, especially since those things can take someone out of a movie just like anything else can. He later edited his comment to add on a bit more, stating he found it odd Patrick considered character actions not worth criticizing but character motivations to be worth it, since one impacts the other, and concluded by saying many creators put painstaking work into making their story as tight as possible and to dismiss that quality as unimportant can devalue that work. Adam was told that MauLer and Co were reading his comment on stream, and joined the Chat during the second half of it to say hello and lurk.
On Real, Traditional Critics[]
The gang next took a look at Patrick's video "We need to talk about Film Criticism," which had been released a few months before the one they'd just watched. Humorously enough, Patrick prefaced his main argument by saying "And I'm not coming here to tell you that you're wrong, unless you are actually wrong about indisputable facts," woefully unaware that he would indeed tell people that their opinions are wrong and advocate against caring about indisputable facts just a few months later. This is what confirmed that Patrick had evolved as a critic.
Patrick proclaimed that art criticism has been around since the 1600s, which struck MauLer and co as odd since it would presumably have been around for as long as art has. He started off by explaining that critics are not bought or bribed, since there is no benefit to giving competitors bad reviews as it doesn't hurt their box office yields, raising the question of why it matters if paying off critics is illogical, since as we all know, people do illogical things all the time. Patrick then immediately followed his claim that there is no logical reason to bribe reviewers by admitting that movie studios do want good reviews because it helps market the film. Rags also mentioned how he himself has been offered free stuff in exchange for positive reviews. He also argued that critics are individuals, so complaining about them as a collective isn't sensical, which would become ironic when he went on to complain about newer reviewers as a collective. He also denounced the idea that critics hate everything, which nobody believed in the first place anyway, especially since a common complaint about critics is that they rate bad things very highly. He clarified that he wasn't talking about video essayists, even specifying that he doesn't consider himself a film critic even if he critiques films.
Patrick recounted how he asked his followers on Twitter who their favorite film critics were and was surprised and concerned that his YouTube audience mostly cited YouTubers, with a lack of what he called "traditional" written reviewers. He proclaimed that criticism's purpose was to tell you not just what to see but how to see it, and that a critic should have an understanding of film history and bring it to their review. He added that most reviewers are straight white men, and their reviews are shallow, to which Rags and Wolf were relieved that as bisexual their reviews at least have something going for them. They also noted that Roger Ebert, as well as most "traditional" reviewers, were also straight white men, and therefore shouldn't be seen as an authority. Patrick made note to exempt Bob Chipman from this complaint on the grounds that he just writes traditional written reviews and turns them into videos, with Rags and MauLer (Wolf was fortunate enough to not know who he was at the time) finding it insane that Patrick would stand by MovieBob of all people.
Patrick let the audience know that of course he uses reviews to know what films he'll see, making it even odder that he earlier said that there was no reason to pay off film critics. Rags realized that Patrick contradicts himself as much as he does because he doesn't listen to himself, because he is a straight white man.
Patrick read out a quote from Roger Ebert saying critics should encourage critical thinking, which was strange given that humans aren't logical. He put forth that the difference between most YouTubers and the best traditional critics is that YouTubers tend to just regurgitate people's own opinions back to them, to which MauLer countered that he would defend even his least favorite YouTube critics against that accusation. He read another quote describing movies and TV as visual and aural art forms, and just critiquing the writing of it only does half the job, if even that, making it no better than a book report or a political op-ed, raising the question of whether that would make video essays better than traditional reviews, since they can incorporate visuals, and how someone like MovieBob doesn't just count as political op-eds about movies. Funnily enough, MauLer's friend sent him a quote from Roger Ebert complaining about none other than plot holes. YMS was lurking in chat, and similarly posted an Ebert quote about plot holes with a caption saying that Ebert watches movies wrong.
Patrick ended his video by recommending people watch "traditional reviewers," and then tacked on a section at the end where he calls CinemaSins garbage.
Trivia[]
- Patrick attempting to defend A Quiet Place was what made MauLer want to respond to his video in the first place
- Patrick's video could not have been done without Sennheiser
- This episode was recorded before EFAP was officially a podcast, and MauLer planned on uploading the stream on its own to his main channel as a standalone video
Quotes[]
- "Something controversial" - Fortea
- “All those plot holes that people care about, don’t actually matter” - Patrick Willems
- "Okay, some of these can be valid complaints" - Patrick, minutes later
- "Look here ya bean-headed fuck" - Wolf, to Patrick
- "Goddamn stupid... bean-headed-lookin ass, Nostalgia Critic ripoff" - Wolf
- "The chat on the stream, it's like off center, like there's a lot being cut off on the actual screen"
"That's just a nitpick" - Wolf and Rags, applying Patrick's teachings - "I saw one guy say he'd made a list of forty-one plot holes in that movie"
"Forty-one? That's weaksauce." - Patrick and MauLer - "Can you answer me a question?... because I'm really afraid to know the answer but I feel like I have to"
"'Why is he in an alley?'" "Well, that is a question. but-" "I assume that he walked there in between scenes" - Wolf and Rags - “No one seems to know what an actual plot hole is” - Patrick
- “People's definitions vary” - Patrick, minutes later
- "Movies tend to assume that the audience is reasonably intelligent... but I guess they're wrong" - Patrick
- "And you know what human beings are not? Logical. People are impulsive, they make choices based on emotion" "What exactly would the choice have been to not go to the river that was emotional?"
"They're lazy." - Patrick, MauLer, and Fortea - “Remember that guy in your freshman dorm who tried to guess the endings of movies so he could prove that he was smarter than people who made them, now everyone is turning into that guy.” - Patrick, working out some long-dormant jealousy issues over an unnamed and likely more intelligent classmate
- "Stop this stream about this hack and go to Jared" - FoxDream in Chat
- “You can find plot holes or logic gaps in any movie, and if you want to, go right ahead. Just don’t tell me that those are genuine flaws and problems and reasons why movie is bad. Because they are not. None of these things actually matter”
- "Movies are not math" "What about Good Will Hunting?"
- Patrick and MauLer - "In Douglas Martin's obituary for Roger Ebert in the New York Times, he wrote, 'Not only did he advise moviegoers about what to see, but also how to think about what they saw.'" "If somebody wrote that about my obituary, I would Force Ghost Lightning them"
- Patrick and Rags - "As the famed Bilbo Baggins once said, 'It's about context.'" - MauLer
- "Killing the kids seems a little bit too far" - MauLer, on Anakin Skywalker
- "Feelings are always valid, because all that feelings require to be valid is that you felt them, and no one can prove that you didn't, so they're always valid. I say that from a logical perspective because what are you gonna do? Tell someone they don't feel the way they do? It's like yeah, how are you gonna prove that?" - MauLer
- "Oh thank god, someone's finally adressing this. I'm so sick of people pointing out that a film has plot holes and using that as proof that movies are objectively (spelled wrong) bad. MauLer made a five-hour long "critique" of The Last Jedi in which he basically nitpicked plotholes and said that was the objective way to view a film and if you defended it off any other basis then your opinion is subjective and doesn't matter. First, there is no objective way to view a film, that's why film has any value in the first place. Second, even if there was it would be precisely the opposite seeing as though plot holes and inconsistencies are less than inconsequential." - a comment on Patrick's video
- "But I guess if you're too busy live-tweeting about plot holes, you can miss some stuff" - Patrick, after missing some stuff when looking for plot holes
- "It's logically consistent that you'd take 2 hours to go 5 minutes into a video" - Konsaki in chat
- "It takes a second to say something retarded, and it can take an age to correct it" - Rags
- "Movies are not math" - Purple Bilbo Baggins
- "Again, if you think this is a plot hole, or you're annoyed because of the logic here... you're kinda watching movies wrong" - Patrick
- "Ha he's pretending to read!" - Rags, upon seeing Patrick holding a book
- "Motherfucker do you know how bitchy the Pope was about that damn Sistine Chapel?" - Rags
- "Your rock is gay" - Rags, quoting a caveman
- "I thought MauLer was a Black skull on wheels, that's why I agree unconditionally with him" - arash elahi in Chat
- "With a movie like Black Panther, a review by a 25-year-old white guy on YouTube is probably not going to have much to offer" - Patrick
- "What if I'm a 25-year-old white male, but I have a Master's Degree in Black Science"
"BLACK SCIENCE!"
"It's like Black Magic but it's even better"
- Fortea, MauLer, and Wolf - "So yeah YMS, not only are you white, but you're wrong about that too" - MauLer
- "You can't criticize Prometheus unless you've had a tentacle rape baby c-section" - Kyle R in Chat
- "He's a manly man who bleeds cum" - Wolf
- "bazinga" - YMS, in Chat
- "has this guy said anything that he later on hasn't contradicted?"
"Well he started off by saying hello, he's probably gonna say goodbye at the end"
"He just says hello again"
- TheApplzs in Chat, Rags, and Fortea - "This donation wouldn't be possible without Sennheiser" - Superchat
- "Don't subscribe to Patrick Willems" - Bilbo Baggins
- "This man clearly needs to take a hint from Jared and eat some yo-yos" - Superchat