If you want a night and day comparison, the next film related project James produced after the AVGN movie was a fake movie trailer for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Game: The Movie. Unlike the AVGN movie, it was shot locally in the Philadelphia area, he worked more with people he was already close to, he kept it a secret until he was ready to release it, and the fans seemed more receptive of it. It was both true to the spirit of the AVGN, while also being its own original thing. I could also tell that James felt very passionate about that project in his behind the scenes video on it.
Thank you for reminding me about this. I totally remember when he released this AND the behind the scenes. I remember him being happy and passionate and it seemed like it relit a fire for him. I might have to make a video about this next.
I love Board James, I don't know if Dream Phone , Mr Bucket were longer and bigger budget maybe could have worked , heck could have made like horror anthology series
Maybe I'm psychoanalyzing the guy, but I feel like James was blinded by the aesthetics and trappings of film-making instead of its soul, and perhaps for understandable reasons. He grew up on a steady diet of Hollywood classics, so at least part of him probably thought that the only way to make "real" films is to actually go there and make big budget productions.
Any way you slice it, James endured a lot and LEARNED a lot. Beyond that, just imagine what *YOU* would have to do to keep up a channel (via Mike) while attempting to direct AND PERFORM in massively (assively?) complicated feature-length! Yes, he could have simplified, but why? Why, when you have $300k? Just the fact that the film was COMPLETED is a miracle. 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
@@Novastar.SaberCombat none of that means he’s above criticism dude. we’re not saying he didn’t go through hell to push this thing out, in fact quite the opposite - we’re saying his efforts were misplaced and would’ve bared much better fruit if he played to his strengths and limited the scope. Less is more, as they say.
He wanted to put in a kaiju scene among other things. I cant blame him for throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it. Its probably the biggest budget he will ever get to work with based on how little he seems to be pushing for his other movie ideas.
The first big mistake I think he did was have the viewer go outside of the nerds point of view. He was always talking to the viewer and it was never implied the nerd was famous either. They should’ve stayed him alone at the start and ended off with him meeting friends along the journey. Breaking the 4th wall the nerd had is what made it so weird in the first place. He runs his own production in the nerd room not a guy with a camera.
You know, you bring up a really good point here. Classic AVGN is one of those things that gives you a very specific feeling, and I don't mean nostalgia. There's something about the presence of the very limited perspective of the basement and few side characters that makes it seem kind of in its own place I guess. Even og reviews that stray from the basement are largely done in only one or two other locations, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one. I know you were mainly talking about the conversational quality of the nerd to the audience, but it got me thinking about this stuff lol. In my opinion, a lot of youtubers similar to and including James definitely diminished in quality as they gain more money to have film crews and professional sets. You lose a lot of the personality and charm of the idea when it's no longer a humble home movie made by one or two guys in their basement. Especially with AVGN, having professional production quality ironically feels like it cheapens the experience for me. Even on the perspective of effects, they go from shoddily made but creative ms paint tier effects to effects that are only passable by big budget standards, without a quarter of the personality of those humble goofy effects.
even still, they should have at least made the sidekick mike, or at least an actor playing mike, that’s obviously not mike, but that could be another “intentionally crappy b-movie” joke
@@TheSupaman98 By that same logic, why doesn't Doug Walker depict the Nostalgia Critic being swarmed by his fans? It's a character, and him talking to the camera isn't meant to be an in-universe thing; it's for the sake of entertainment.
If James wanted to be taken seriously, he could've spun his AVGN movie into a psychological horror film of a guy trapped in his childhood and lashing out at the world. I can't believe he genuinely thought Sony or Paramount would back a movie with absolute Z-grade trash and toilet humor.
That's basically what Board James was. But I honestly think he either should've kept the film to limited scope or do what Ashens did in The Proxy: be a comedic relief character that serves the plot instead of drives it. AVGN's cynicism and anti-social personality would probably be great in that role IMO.
Yeah but he wanted to retain the frat boy toilet humor spirit of the show. It wouldnt of worked in any way. Hollywood would of seen James as just another outsider wannabe trying to break through their iron curtain.
The budget skyrocketing like it did may have been the worse thing that could have happened to James. With an initial budget of only $75,000 they may have been looking to do something smaller that might have felt like an expanded episode. With the budget exploding like it did, though, it feels like they got in way over their heads and tried to go too big.
Honestly, good theory for the main problem. The 400% budget probably added huge pressure to deliver something worthwhile for the fans' money, despite the original script's scopelikely being pretty reserved. This then probably caused them to chase more extras, the useless shit like tanks and what not just to say they used the budget.
@@redacted2275 He didn't blame the fans, he is blaming Rolfe. Just to put an example to it: It's not the dead parents fault that their kids wasted their inheritance. Rolfe should have been far more reserved and spent it back home producing it.
@@birdsteak9267 He could have made multiple low budget films with that amount instead of splurging it all on one film. I don't who he hired in LA to run the production, but I wouldn't be surprised if he got taken advantage of.
James problem is he assumed his first major movie would be a huge success and he gave up his dreams when it failed. He doesn't have the will or patience anymore to keep going despite failures because he isn't interested in film making like before. He just wants to be a famous director.
@@struttux5156 The problem also is that he had absolutely no experience in directing movies. Finishing college and making some home/internet videos does not make you a movie director. He should've looked for a job in the movie making business, maybe as an assistant, slowly make his way up and have AVGN as his side gig and THEN make his debut. Or keep making documentaries, because Rocky Jumped a Park Bench and The Dragon in My Dreams were SO GOOD.
@@DarkButz His major mistake was to make the movie about AVGN. The movie should've been based on his horror script he pitched a few years ago. I don't think it would've been a masterpiece but it wouldn't have been embarassing at least.
I almost responded with "In my opinion things really changed around the time when he did that time-traveling Megaman episode." Then I Google and find out these two things released within a couple months of each other. Yeah that was definitely when things started taking a sharp downturn for the franchise.
I was more dissapointed that Mike and Bootsy wasn't involved in being some of the characters in the movie. Instead they went with Token characters for the film to appeal to Hollywood and not the people who were often there to help out James Rolfe in the original AVGN episodes.
I have honestly never seen it, and in fact when I found out that Mike was in essence the actual AVGN. I started watching him on Twitch, and I barely ever watch AVGN anymore. Mike is awesome and one of my favorite people in this weird industry, just look at how Popular James and Mike Mondays was, and how unpopular Neighbor nerds is by comparison.
Really the thing is the Bootsy thing I think was the actual bad break up, Kyle felt he wasn't paid enough but it's not clear if either party even established compensation. Mike and James split was more Mike. He wanted to do twitch and him and James are still pretty close.
I’m just sad that this failure seems to have crushed his dreams and then family responsibilities came in so he has ‘no time’ even if he wanted to make another movie. It really is tough with any job when you see it as a stepping stone but then realize it could be the endpoint. I’m rooting for James though.
James seems completely devoid of any passion now. It's gonna take a real kick in the ass for him to get his mojo back. I hope he does, at his height he was very VERY entertaining
The major mistake James made was that he made an AVGN film instead of just using fan support to fund a feature length original film. Additionally, I've always gotten the sense that Mike Matei was heavily involved in crafting the vision behind the nerd. It seems like James isn't as good at capturing the character's true essence without Mike being heavily involved. Even the recent episodes that are good (Doom, Earthbound) use Mike Matei gameplay footage and involve him in the creadits. Moreover, the inability of the film to reflect the original character on the big screen is what ultimately hurt its success. A good comparison, for example, is between the AVGN movie and Wayne's World. Both started as skit shows. Wayne's World, the film, however, was an adequate reflection of the humor of the skit into the length of a feature film. The AVGN movie tried and failed to do something similar.
Mike is the actual AVGN, I'm not even a fan of him but I watched his stream a few times and back when they were still doing J&MM, he is clearly the angry man-child that inspired the character. Raging as the TV and the completely random inappropriate humor just randomly thrown out.
@@DrewPicklesTheDark not really, I think Mike is the "gamer" side of AVGN since hebis the one doing most of the game plays you see old AVGN episodes. The nerd was true to his persona and Mike inspired him to keep going. Without Mike's direction or motivation, James just dont care anymore.
It makes no sense that the nerd has all these fans in the movie. In the world that AVGN exists in, he most definitely would have no fans at all. James Rolfe has a huge amount of fans, the nerd does not.
This movie would have worked better if it was just James, Mike, Bootsy and/or Kyle. And it's funny that Mike said he don't want to appear in AVGN movie because he don't know how to act. This guy is freaking hilarious playing as that annoying friend in the Board James series and also as the Joker/Bugs Bunny/Jason Voorhees with his 'acting' in AVGN episodes yet now he suddenly don't know how to act when the AVGN movie came around? I guess deep down Mike also know how hilariously bad the movie will be lol and don't want to associate himself with it.
My favorite thing about this entire shit show, was his interview with Joe Bob, and Joe stright up says "there is no more Hollywood, make your movie where ever you are. Boise, Idaho is Hollywood" and the look on Bimmy's face is priceless.
I fast forward the film after some 30-40 minutes. Nothing about it was clicking. And by not adding any of the lore of the characters it really made me feel like this was a different character or alteranate universe, so it really kill the attachment that could have made sit trought the whole film.
@@daniel79tjTbh the only good character that I also like is Cooper, pretty much rest of the new casts especially Mandi, General Onward and Zandor are tasteless.
I really enjoy how you clearly have a MASSIVE respect for James as a fellow film-maker while at the same time acknowledge the films failings with sincerity. that's good stuff man. It's odd to me how Hollywood James went. he's really a big fan of Indie stuff. I mean he's an admirer of Lloyd Kauffman and Troma which are famous for being low budget. James' even read some of his books and has done interviews with lloyd atleast twice. Thinking of all that, you'd think he'd know to stick to cheaper locations and be more efficient with the budget. Oh well, Maybe he just felt he owed his fans an "L.A. level" production.
Hey thank you! I’m glad that you can see my respect for James. I’ve been a fan since the beginning. But yeah, first feature films are where some of a filmmakers biggest lessons come from. My first feature film took 3 tries to make so I can relate to James big time. He definitely did NOT take a page from the Troma book of filmmaking that’s for sure.
@@ScottyDunn Not to sound rude, but you seem to have too much respect for Rolfe. The age of requiring big Hollywood producers to have your movie seen by large audiences ended way back in the 1970s when independent slasher/horror flicks became all the rage. Large studios didn't want to tarnish their reputation making such schlock, and the gap in the market was filled mostly by small-timers, for a while. Then home video exploded in the 1980s and paved the way for even more zero-budget cult classics to gain a huge fan base. Attributing even a microscopic amount of that progression to James couldn't be more bizarre.
In the youtube documentary on Silvester Stallone recutting Rocky IV (a documentary I know James has said he was a fan of), Sly says something about how the basic limitation of film is that it's like if Picasso needed 500 people to make a painting. I'm betting that line resonated with James. It must have been tough to discover that "full-scale" fim-making is so tied up with managing a giant team of people you barely know.
There are at least three major mistakes that he made during the making of this film. First off he should have used his resources and connections to make the movie in Jersey. James personally knew Lloyd Kaufman and could have more than likely distributed via Troma. Second was lack of familiar faces, and no, cameos don't count. Love him or hate him I think a NC appearance would have done well if they gave him a lengthy scene of fighting James. Sort of in lieu of Family Guy with Peter and the chicken. As for someone to be his sidekick in the film it should have went to Kyle. He was already an established and loved character from the show. Lastly I hate to say but James gave too much creative control to his wife. She was the smoking gun that really put this project in the grave. I wont even get into the ins and outs on that but it's pretty much well known and the only reason Cooper is in the film. Not to mention these are only a few things wrong with this film. Never mind the long run time, and too much crap in it. I mean Zombies, Aliens, government agents, giant robots? Fucking slow down man lol.
I agree with what you said and I would also add that he made a movie that was, frankly, not in the spirit of the show. It’s like he made the love letter movie to camp films with a AVGN mask on it. What audience was that supposed to be for?
Is his wife the reason he never has time? There's guys who have a full time job, wife and kids and still run a TH-cam channel. James works from home, how does he not have time to do more effort? Makes no sense. Unless his wife is more behind the scenes than we think and it does make sense she didn't want James having a relationship with the female actor, I never thought about that, but after watching this...wow, the relationship stuff was out onto 'cooper' and not james
@@robbieracer3294 I’ve brought this point up many times in other comment sections. Personally, I think any person could say they “don’t have time” to put forth their best work. When I had family problems a few years back, did I tell my clients “I don’t have time to give you good therapy. Here’s some half assed work”. No. You fucking nut up and keep at it. Or you retire or do a job that requires less from you. TH-cam is a creative field. If you phone it in, people will stop watching (which they were).
The 2 games were made way better, and the second had parts of the movie in it as a joke. I love the games, the movie was not that bad, but could've been way better. James is talented, hopefully he uses his connections to Kaufman to make a Horrormovie and release it via Troma. That is actually a great idea, but we didn't know in 2012 he had this connection.
The Game Chasers are the only TH-camrs who have made a movie that's actually good. It actually feels like a real movie as opposed to an overlong TH-cam video and works for both people who know and people who have never heard of them.
It's sad that the movie ended up being this way, because the episode on Polybius shows that the Nerd can do some pretty good horror/drama stuff. The way he was slowly driven to madness by forces outside his control was just so, so good. I think something like that could've easily worked for the movie.
The Board James series was basically what he should have done. The avgn with his actual buddies trapped in the worlds of the worst nintendo games and fighting to return to reality.
Surprised you didn't show that clip of Kevin Finn saying that they sent the script to Hollywood directors and producers that said, "This script is shit! It's going to suck!" and then James adds that some said they wanted to work on it while Kevin politely nods.
I've worked with James several times over the years and he's a truly sincere, talented, passionate artist. Thank you for making a video that doesn't aim to tear him down like so many others that I've seen.
I remember when the movie was announced. The immediate reaction was: Yeah, you could waste a year making a movie that’s definitely going to suck. Or… just keep making the regular damn episodes that we came to see!
It was guarenteed to suck. The movie could have been great. The problem is the movie he chose to make, sucked. It needed to be a genuine celebration of the AVGN legacy. That means Mike, Kyle, and Bootsie should have been in it. It should have been shot locally, paid homage to the worst games he reviewed, and stuck to what James genuinely loves - which is horror, spooks, atmosphere. It should have been like AVGN + The Evil Dead. Pushing his violence and practical FX gags to the limit while also being a send up to James doing reviews. And then it should have been the end of AVGN. James should have used it to start making Indie films at that point. Like he always wanted to. AVGN had been going for a nearly a decade at that point. Enough was enough.
i thought the movie was a good idea at first. i could go without a new AVGN episode for a year if it meant the movie was good and worth it. unfortunately it wasn't. it was possibly the worst thing the Nerd was ever in. i don't even see it as canon with the show. it was also the worst way possible for him to do E.T. a review he was hyping up forever and the actual E.T review portion of the movie is only like 12 minutes. ya hyped up that review for that?
@@evenhartwick4422 To be fair, what's there to say about ET? It's just a nice, basic little Atari game that everyone spits on for no apparent reason other than the reputation it somehow recieved.
@@TheSultan1470 i definitely agree with that point i mean its far from the worst game ever made, i mean as far as atari games go id even call it somewhat complex. but i still think he could have made a better more traditional review for it instead of basically making it the movies end credit scene. he was building up E.T. for like 10 years on his show
Honestly, I do think that the solution to modern cinemassacre is for James to make another movie, and maybe one that has nothing to do with AVGN. An independent horror film could not only revitalize his love of movies, but I think there would be surprising interest from crowd funding. People want to see James doing something he loves, and what better way to breathe life into an old passion than to throw blood, gore, and monster effects at it : ) It could be like a metaphorical massacre of cinema, for the viewers who have left the channel, and for James as a film maker. Because really, cinemassacre really needs something that is unique to them again. AVGN started the trend of retro video game person videos, and it did that and then it also grew in quality to become also the best retro video game person videos. That's why so many people enjoyed the older episodes. It was goofy, it was silly, but it was also passionate and engaging, and the channel as a whole doesn't have that anymore. Their podcasts are just a copy of other people's podcasts but worse. Their music is much the same, which feels bad to say because they are not pro musicians, but that's kinda the reality. That style of videogame music has been done, and it's been done to a technical level that it would honestly take complete emulsion into music theory and practice to even get to a level where people would listen to your music casually. I guess it's just sad to see that a channel that not only started a thing, but also took the time and effort to always go above and beyond, that channel has become a worse version of not only itself but other popular vid types as well. And rental reviews...oh rental reviews. That show is the poster child for something that has already been done and done much better. So I don't think, or maybe I hope, that James hasn't lost his love of moviemaking, just that he needed to take a break and to hit a big comeback project. It needs to be something that is him, because that's what people always appreciated about cinemassacre, and what better way to do that than a completely not tied-to anything else horror movie. He's got a great movie left in him, I know it : )
I always love how he made his character basically an A-List celebrity that literally everywhere he goes people want his autograph. It really goes to show his ego. His insistence on having to film it in LA. He definitely thought this was going to be his big break into Hollywood and he could maybe leave the AVGN character behind. I feel less sad for him and more sad for all of the backers that wanted a legitimate AVGN movie but got *this* instead...
I actually give him credit for this: James, a massive cinema-phile, just wanted the experience of making a big Hollywood movie as a personal bucket-list item. Like how Trekkies want to meet the actors behind their favorite characters, or how Rocky fans travel to Philly and run up "those" steps every day, or how car guys wanna restore or rebuild an old classic car, when they'd save lots of time and money just buying one? James just wanted the experience so he could say he DID it. He got his fans to pay for what was basically his Mecca, and he double-dipped it into a romantic getaway with his wife so she could share his dream with him. I don't think anyone cared whether or not the film was top-notch besides some seriously deluded, over-entitled, over-expectant juffalos that don't understand that it takes more than $325,000 dollars to make an MCU-quality film.
@@ericrhodes5174 It's a false way of looking at it. He wasn't making a feature film as a one and done "bucket list" item, his original ambition was to make movies. The AVGN was just a side project that took off unexpectedly. If the movie had been successful and James got a agent and other offers to make movies, I guarantee that AVGN would have been retired (except maybe for occasional specials) and he would have tried to be like Kevin Smith, a guy who has his fingers in all kinds of media----movies, writing comics and animation, hosting shows, etc----instead of just being a TH-cam creator.
>Give me your hard earned money you dweebs so I can fulfill my fantasy, dream and bucket list and my wife can have an LA and Hollywood escapade >HOW DARE YOU ask for a decent product, you entitled dweebs! The cognitive dissonance and lack of self awareness is beyond parody. Can’t make this stuff up!
2:20 even worse is when you read the part in his new book where he says they spent more than $100k in Paypal fees and taxes on this money. So many ways they could’ve avoided losing that much money.
There was no reason to shoot in LA. It’s too expensive, and hardly any film studio does it anymore. The only things that get shot in LA are medical dramas, police procedurals, porn, and TH-cam pranks.
You nailed it. 1 - We (indie film makers) were super inspired not by the fund raising, and the process of going from YT to full feature movie. 2 - He should have done a long episode (in the style of board-james), and with his budget he would simply don't need anymore to do YT for a year, so he could focus on a long low budget movie with no budget.
He's ironically guilty of the same mistakes he saw in video games like ninja turtles. He brought in new characters and left out og characters. It also seems like a huge vanity project. Should have shot locally with og chatacters and wittty banter with a more organic feel. This is 180° from what this film should have been.
Overal this a great analysis but I think you missed the point a bit on some of the writing decisions between James himself and the character of the Nerd (at least as james sees it). James loves his fans and is flatter when he meets them, but the nerd hates it. He hates what he does and he hates the games he plays. The awkward flirting on the gameboard isn't *james'* idea of erotic. It's the nerd's. The guy who shits on things, cuts VHS tapes in half with swords, and screams constantly obviously isn't going to be that good with women. I do 100% agree that the fundamental problem with this was that he didn't make it feel like the web series with the characters we know and love. I believe he did this because back during conception (in 2010) there was still a big disconnect between TV audience and Web audiences. He likely assumed that too many references to the web series would put off new fans, and didn't really think enough of his youtube views would translate into film views. It's easy to scoff at that now, but at the time we really had no idea how viable youtube would be as an actual career. All I could think while watching the nerd movie was "this isn't bad but it really just makes me want to go watch the episodes...." A perfect example of a webseries that made a movie that did cater to existing fans was Pure Pwnage. It used existing characters, catered to fans, and worked very well across the board. James' story is actually kind of sad because he arguably was the very first "game reviewer" that would spawn thousands of others including pewdiepie. And he made all the right decisions given what we knew at the time (try to push into hollywood because youtube isn't going to be a viable longterm career) and got screwed by that decision because YT surprised us all.
Thanks! And I see your point. Going to have to look up the Pure Pwnge webseries. James was navigating uncharted waters at the time and I have a lot or respect for how he’s paved the way for TH-cam’s and filmmakers alike.
I think another thing about the writing that should have been brought up was that James co-wrote the film with his friend and co-director Kevin Finn. With the AVGN series (at least back in the day), James wrote the scripts all on his own with maybe some things suggested by Mike Matei. Now we can't say for sure which questionable aspects of the script came from James or Kevin, but I did think it was worth pointing out this distinction between the series and the movie.
After reading his autobiography to completion, I think I can understand why he made decisions he made a lot better. However, I do still agree LA wasn't the place to do this. On my first viewing, I thought the movie was poor too. Though I think it got better for me the second time. I could see it more for what he was trying to accomplish and I feel ultimately did accomplish. He does break down how the budget was spent in a few spots too. He wasn't working with what the Indiegogo actually concluded with.
He forgot too many rules in Film-Making. 1: Keep the plot and story simple and streamlined. 2: Everything introduced into the story early on need to serve the plot later in the story 3: Human-Story, all genres need characters with adversities and challenges we can relate to. 4: Atmosphere. It being so overly bright isn't good and it won't look good with green screen either, add a filter, warm it up!
I have to agree, there is almost no location that needed to be shot in California. Atlanta is where they film all the Marvel films. (I live there, lol). And has huge production studios, etc. But none of that even seemed necessary for the AVGN film.
I think James would have benefited from some people around him guiding him during this time period. It reminds me of when musicians go solo and they have no one balancing them out creatively anymore. The result can sometimes be just too far in the wrong direction, completely missing what was special in the first place.
He kinda pulled a George Lucas... but without crafting a cool universe that would keep shining years later as the poor filmmaking decisions faded. You might think it's like poetry, but that shit does NOT rhyme :D
I saw this movie in a theater with James there for discussion when it had ended, and it was literally one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. One dude was sleeping in front of me.
Yeah, that's probably the biggest problem right there. He made a movie based on a character that became an internet sensation, rather than making a movie that felt like it came from James himself.
Exactly but I think he got a bit egotistical and thought making a movie on the nerd was gonna make him a name in Hollywood cause of how good his YT channel was doing at the time but YT isn’t Hollywood and that movie was horrible I never finished it.He should’ve done something horror based something different away from the vomit/shit humor and open mouth Muppet face shit but sadly that’s all he knows
I see a lot of myself in James. I feel that his quiet shy nature probably got the best of him and the people who helped him in the movie didn't do such a good job and he was too afraid to change things or too exhausted from putting so much effort in
It wasn't just the people helping him that weren't doing a good job, James himself gets a lot of the blame by default because it was his project that he was directing. The issue is that he just wasn't cut out for larger scale movie making.
My favourite background actor is definitely the guy in the orange beanie who just gets completely ignored by James when reaching out for a handshake, It seriously makes me laugh every time i see it😂 8:38
Thank you. I love Red Cow Arcade. I’d love to go chat with those guys on their show. I’ve been watching them for a while and went down a BoxMac rabbit hole on their other channel Red Cow Entertainment. Good dudes.
When I first heard of an AVGN movie, this is what I had envisioned: Kyle hasn’t come up to play the theme for so long, the Nerd gets worried and goes behind the couch. He finds that it’s actually a portal to hell, and that Kyle has been dragged to the bottom layer of hell and the Nerd has to save him in a parody of Dante’s Inferno where Mike is Virgil. As the Nerd goes down the layers of hell he is pleased that now he gets to watch characters he’s hated like Fred Fuchs play shitty games. He finally reaches the final circle of hell and sees that Satan is actually Super Mecha Death Christ and the Nerd has to fight him and Satanic Mario maybe with a cameo by Keith and Shit Pickle and win. They find out Kyle is actually an Angel and frees the Nerd of his eternal torment and ascends to heaven where he’s still in his basement but has all the Rolling Rock and good games he could ever want and the Nerd happily notes that the Angry Video Game Nerd is over… and ends with a show montage as everyone sings a cover of the theme song in an over the top Broadway style… basically just a 90 minute high production value episode of the nerd. Is this idea a bit cringe? Maybe, but much better than his fucking movie turned out to be.
I was thinking something like there's a serial killer on the loose that kills people in the style of old video games and the police need the Nerd's intimate knowledge of these old games to solve the case.
if you read his book or listened to it. it is an eye opener. it's really more about him being expelled from college, and how he is a very socially awkward introvert in reality. instantly seeing the fans swarming like zombies is probably his take on not being able to feel comfortable with the amount of fame, fans, attention and the situations it brings. his acting in the movie is like how he is in the new modern nerd episodes, the handlers him and mike went to seem to struggle to write for him, and waste a lot of money on furniture. the new way of producing scripts and acting was also a part of James' decision, clearly it's not as genuine, robotic and not as impactful, as this new style is for producing mass nerd content. he goes into this mode in the movie it's so strange. as you said, James can be a really good actor when done right, seems like a lack of certainty in his actions, or so much nervousness it ruined the coming across of genuine and belief in how you act. the weird faces also a sign of this. it's so weird, he felt a need to film in hollywood, rather than close by and make fake sets of real places in the world, he could of cheaply just filmed at irl. i'm sure he's reflected upon this. regardless i love James, and Cinemassacre as they've been a great part of my entertainment and joy and so for many other people. i hope there's a new change, and old rekindling with Kyle, Mike and Bootsy. they really seem to have an insane huge positive effect on James and also a driving force for what made them so successful than others. losing these people really did change Cinemassacre for the worst. someways i hope James reads these comments, but i doubt it.
Yep, I read the book long after making this video. I wish he would’ve talk more about his TH-cam days with the nerd and how he was feeling and how he did behind the scenes stuff with that. I liked the movie details he gave but I’m even more interested in the early TH-cam days.
@@ScottyDunn yeah haha ikr, might also be worth to check out what Red Cow Arcade has to say, they're a little over mean, but have some decent points. anyways, good video Scotty, take care big guy
Great breakdown of this epic failure. Truly a sad sad story. I wish James the best and hope comes back from this but its not looking promising. IMO James could do a second movie and crowdsource the script and also a lot of the work from his fans. It would be 10 times cheaper and align himself back with his fans. We can only hope.
He refused to review or watch the Ghostbusters movie, will always respect that. As he said if you know you're not going to enjoy something then why waste your time or money? And those who watch stuff that is garbage just to complain about it are kind of sad. The Nerd was a comical character and through his insulting and hating the games there was still some fondness for them and it provided entertainment. Watching people say how bad something is like any of the Star Trek after about 2000 is not entertaining, it's sad that they're even watching it. Somethings you don't need to watch to know they're bad. Like the AVGN movie, nothing about it seemed right and I think I was still a fan back then, when was it made? 10 years ago!!! Wow I'm old.
The trick is to always try to keep it simple and focus more on keeping it streamlined. In order to relate the characters with the audience, you need to humanize the plot, to have a human-story and then inject comedic moments in between the human-moments, like Dumb and Dumber, their dumb as rocks but they are human and they face adversities which is relatable. Even South park the movie had a human element going for it.
The biggest problem with the avgn character and series is that you can't really make it last 1hour+10 minutes without major pacing issues or make the script super convoluted. The Movie should have started with him reviewing ET like every other episode, but halfway through the review, he snaps and leaves the basement. Credits roll as he drives to New Mexico. Written and directed by James Rolfe Instead of the confusing storyline about the aliens and area 51 it's just a simple road trip story. The whole movie is just James, kidnapping HSW and planning on locking him up in his basement and showing him the game and how much agony he caused. Have a cameo with Mike working the counter at a bar and he winds up in the car. Kyle also joins as a drifter with a guitar and give the 3 some entertainment. The Whole movie could have been filmed with the three of them in the car, maybe throw in a planes trains and automobiles or mad mad world reference, show James taking him to the Atari building, the landfill, and all this time they're being chased by a lone police cruiser. during the last 15 minutes of the movie he finishes the review of ET and screams in HSW's face telling him how it ruined his life. Finally at the end of the review , HSW Finally snaps at James saying "you had to play it? Boo fucking hoo, I had to create it in 3 days, you think I like being blamed for the videogame crash and bankrupting Atari? I tried my best yada yada" and the nerd has a revelation that it's easy to shit on games because it's plastic, but back then, it was really hard to make games, and people poured their hearts into making them and that in his reviews, he's essentially shitting on other people's dreams. Nerd lets him go at a bus station, starts driving home, sirens hit, its the lone police car, pulls over, there's a knock at the window rolls down... It's Officer fuckin Bootsy "Hey guys! Wanna play Cops and Robbers!?" Nerd, Mike, and Kyle just sit in the car and yell "mother Fucker !" At the same time
one of the better “alternative takes” on the movie, at least from what i’ve read in youtube comments sections. i personally would have wanted a feature-length version of the polybius episode, but this one actually sounds pretty good.
I think most people, myself included, agree that he's a good dude. Even though I didn't like the movie, it doesn't take away how much respect I have for the guy. He's inspired countless artists to follow their dreams. He's genuinely someone that audiences root for. It's just one movie that was cringe. He's made countless high quality shows and pieces of content that have made him a legend.
Clerks had a budget around 100k less than the avgn movie and Clerks 2 (a comedy without any special effects or big action sequences) had a budget of FIVE MILLION. James really should've done his homework to see how expensive movies are to make. And by homework I mean 5 seconds of googling x movie budget. He should've looked up the budget for whatever Hollywood summer blockbuster action flick he was trying to emulate and gone, "yeah, I don't have anywhere close to 30 million"
There have been some really good, slick-looking movies made for a few hundred grand. (Just check out "The Vast of Night".) James' simply got in over his head and lacked the surrounding talent and savvy to utilize his budget and resources efficiently or effectively. Also, it costs nothing to write a decent script, but the script was HORRIBLE.
he went way past his expiration. its like a show that was good for 5 or 6 seasons but now its on season 18... his content is just a fossil at this point.
ปีที่แล้ว +1
I wish he could simply go back to simpler AVGN game reviews. Like in the Angry Nintendo Nerd times. Some of the newer reviews and pretty good. But older ones are better. I miss the simpler times. The anger that felt more legit, when the show felt more dense, more review, more talk in less runtime. I watched that AI voiced Faith PC game review. Yeah, someone did that recently and it definitely took me back to the past.
tbh his movie should have been a special episode, where the Nerd only reviews E.T in his basement, without all that bs fantasy story going, just like a normal Nerd review, with some special history of E.T game as well, that wouldve been better
I enjoyed watching this, and I like how you offer solutions on how the film was made. Worth noting that since they took so long to actually start production, ONE THIRD of the money raised had to go to taxes. i.e. OVER $100,000 was flushed down the bog. (Rolfe mentions it in his book). Imagine realising that and still having to go shoot the film, damn
Filmmaking is ROUGH. You could never knock out a grand slam on your first attempt. James and crew did pretty well for a first feature. Especially given the entire situation.
I saw the movie last year, and it was way better than everybody said. It’s not very good, but it’s exactly as good as most movie adaptations of things that did not need a movie adaptation.
Never watched the movie, know James and I'm into movie making and all that comes with it even though I don't know Jack but.... Your point of filming locally is such a big deal as well as using people you know.
@@Vario69 he needed to think longer then, not having people from the universe killed it and not even funny cameos at least He would have been more comfortable too if he was local and had people he knew.
The best thing James could have done, honestly, was make a movie that wasn't about AVGN, and not star in it himself. He's not an actor, and the harder he tries to hit 'actor' the worse it is. He's at his best when he's just riffing. He could probably write and direct a decent movie, but trying to shoehorn it to be about the nerd was probably a choice made to ensure he could get funding for it, sadly. I'd like to see him try his hand at a low-budget horror movie that he DOESN'T star in.
Yeah I think he could do a good movie as well. I remember him saying something about scrapping the horror movie he had planned. Something about an abandoned theme park.
As a professional film Director with my first feature film about to come out. But I also have plenty of experience working in documentaries and television. it honestly just sounds like James was highly inexperienced working with a legitimate film crew. Also filming in LA was a horrible idea.
"As a professional film Director... bla bla..... " Wow, I won't even quote more of you (I don't want to "t'enfoncer plus dans la merde" (that's French). BUT... You truly are pathetic, you put so much emphasis on how "professional" you are that ( and yet NOTHING on yr "anime" channell, sad..... It is obvious you're not what you're saying or at least don't have talent (many "pros" don't). As a audio visual worker myself, I truly can tell about you people, sorry :( PS: Please oh please tell me the name of your "feature film"....
@@thomasdupont7186 Everything I said was legitimate, I didn’t say I was Steven Spielberg. I said I’m a professional film Director which is true I’m one of the main directors of the Netflix documentary series inside the mind of a serial killer. Also have directed numerous different projects for discovery plus, A pilot for television and a featured film titled exposure and another feature film titled quiet on set. Google my Contant I want numerous awards did premieres at Deadcon last year for a horror film o directed. Like seriously you do realize how many directors there are in the world right that are in the DGA union? Again I didn’t say I directed Stranger Things or a Blumhouse movie I simply said I’m a professional film Director which is true that is what I do and what I get paid to do in the industry. Furthermore it’s extremely obvious and easy to see the James Roth yes he’s a great guy but he has very little experience actually working on legitimate film sets which again before I was a Director I’ve worked on professional productions since I was 18 years old barely out of high school. Which helps you a lot more when you’re putting your own production together then if you ran some TH-cam series with like a three man crew in your basement.
@@c0m4g1bb that’s not the point that I’m giving him simply given the fact of why he regions movie failed miserably and never made any money. And agreeing with the guy who made this video who is also a filmmaker on the flies of James his mindset on producing his movie. He filmed in Los Angeles despite the fact that it added literally nothing to the plot points he could’ve easily filmed in any other desert location and saved legitimately easily probably $80,000 of his budget. He hired union filmmakers despite not being union himself and not knowing how to run a proper film crew which caused him to go behind schedule, which to be frank is extremely rookie mistake that any real filmmaker who works on professional sets as their day job would’ve never made. He chose for some reason to cast and waste money on the list actors that no one would care about instead of hiring local actors that were good at performing but also cheap and also casting people from the AVGN family which is what the fans wanted to see. I’m not simply just seeing this as some guy on the Internet I’m saying this is a professional filmmaker and furthermore someone who worked on the AVGN movie I was there I saw the production cycle it was ran terribly but most of it went back to James Rolfe not understanding anything about running a proper production set. Furthermore if I was doing a plug-in I will be standing up productions I’ve made I didn’t make a plug-in otherwise I would be posting links to my productions in begging people to purchase copies from me. I made realistic criticism of the issues of James Rolfe trying to make his first feature film which failed miserably.
@@Faceplay2 you are just taking an opportunity to brag my friend. We do not need to know what you may or may not have worked on, we are here to watch avgn
This was such a well made video. Yeah I remember seeing the AVGN movie back when it became available for purchase on TH-cam about a decade ago and was indeed disappointed.
I believe that the AVGN movie is more Kevin Finn's dream than James', the movie seems less weird if you compare it only to the AVGN episodes that have Kevin Finn in them, and James never really acted like he wanted a Hollywood springboard, he was just happy to have an audience at all, however Kevin Finn desperately wanted to break into Hollywood, I believe he's even working there now, and he appeared on the AVGN show just as it was getting popular and co-wrote the movie's original script around that time, which makes me strongly suspect that it was Kevin's idea to write it.
Nah, if you watched all the production stuff when the movie was being made, James said he expected the movie to "open doors" for him. Kevin had been working as a producer on TV-Shows way before the movie started pre-production.
@@RockoEstalon exactly, Kevin probably convinced James by telling him that it would "open doors" if he filmed it in Hollywood, probably knowing full well what a terrible idea it was.
I see many of the same conceptual mistakes that RedLetterMedia did with their feature film Space Cop - and the RLM guys are much, much better filmmakers than James Rolfe. It always goes this way: since green screen and CGI have become relatively easy to handle, and digital is way easier than shooting on film, people assumes they can fill their movie with all kinds of "fun" crap; so the screenplay becomes this bloated mess of references and comedy styles that don't gel together. This also comes at the expense of good dialogue, pacing and characterization, things that are infinitely more important. But at the same time, since there's only so much you can do with a limited budget and homemade special effects, the director eventually uses the "corny on purpose" excuse, or "homage to B-movies" as a shield. And everybody knows that an unintentionally bad movie is much, much funnier than something done as a joke. Anyway, the "democratization" of filmmaking in the last few decades has paradoxically done a huge disservice to film creators. When every inch of film is an added cost, and a pain in the ass to edit with a Steenbeck in a dark and claustrophobic room, you think twice about every decision. When you're absolutely sure you don't have the budget for GOOD special effects, you choose a simpler story as your first work.
I think it also comes down to the fact that long form screenplay (and fiction in general) is a skill set that can take years to get even mediocre at. But everybody thinks they can write a script because they have an idea in their head or because they’re good at another factor in filmmaking. I guess it’s kind of like sports. Everyone can point out the mistakes and what could’ve been done but even the worst professional linebacker on their worst day will be better than most people on their best day.
Does anyone else think james should hang up avgn for good? I feel like he's tired of the nerd and wants to focus on more projects he really likes. I know he wants to bring board james back and id like to see him go back to making videos he likes, not being forced to do because of screenwave or whatever they're called.
I consider myself a big fan of this content creator. I've been watching very loyally since around 2009. As a big fan I am, I can admit that this movie is pretty bad. It would be absolutely terrible if it weren't for my history and knowing the inside jokes present here. I still watch it every couple years and I have a framed poster of this movie signed by James. Somewhere.
I've never understood the need popular TH-camrs seem to have to make a movie. Movies are a completely different format and usually completely at odds, stylistically, tonally, and contextually, with what makes the TH-camr's channel entertaining and engaging. And the saddest thing is, these "movies" don't even turn out to look like actual professional movies, but extended, slightly more elaborate skits bereft of the qualities that make the content creators and their content enjoyable in the first place.
@@redacted2275 I can understand James wanting to make movies, as he's always been in to filmmaking. I just don't know why the need to make a film based on his TH-cam characters or why so many other TH-camrs (particularly in the movie/video game review genre) want to make movies based on their TH-cam persona.
I think James was/is too obsessed with past filmmakers (i.e. Romero, Coppola, etc). He often romanticizes the stories of directors who "started out small" making short films & clips, and eventually found their way and started making films. But this isn't the 70's, and nowadays any old youtuber (no matter how big they are) simply can't make hugely successful films. Unless it's someone who has been in the film industry most of their life, they don't have the connections/resources/etc to make quality feature length films. At best they can make excessively long TH-cam shorts, which is basically what he created. I mean, haven't big youtubers tried to do it in the past (i.e. Shane Dawson, Jake (or Logan?) Paul, etc?) and it just ends up being a contrived mess?
There's really no way the Nerd could be entertaining for more than 30 minutes...I remember being excited about the trailer. Disappointed when I found out it was terrible....I still haven't personally watched it yet.
I think you're right on the money. I wish the whole movie was done in a low budget Blair Witch style where James(a nobody) finally ventures outside the nerd room, buys a car from some creepy hillbilly playing a banjo, then documents his frustrating and surreal trip to the Nevada desert to resolve the mystery. No special fx, a few supporting actors like Bootsy who creates all kinds of unforced problems, and perhaps some psychological horror elements. Basically a long-form version of his Texas Chainsaw Massacre intro.
Excellent video, great job! I agree with your thoughts on the finished movie 100%. Couldn't have said it better myself. Baffling use of a decent size budget.
Fun fact: The music for the Angry Video Game Nerd Movie was actually done by Bear McCreary. He would go on to do the score for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). Around the late 2000s, James Rolfe released a series of Godzillathon videos as part of Cinemassacre’s Monster Madness.
Mike can't even act and never wanted to be on camera to begin with, let alone in a feature film lol. It took a long time to convince him to even come on camera at all. I know that the side characters suck but this idea that throwing mike into it would have fixed that issue is flawed logic. The movie does suck. I think it was an issue where they had too much money and too many ideas. I still think AVGN Movie could have worked in theory, just not in execution. But I think the best thing for James personally is to move on from the character and start doing maybe just an episode or 2 a year. Giving him TIME to focus on the projects he actually wants to pursue. Like his horror movie idea.
- The hero's journey vibe - The road trip and all the incidents that happen during which can produce a lifelong enjoyable memories - Leaving your own town to follow your dream and become something more - Meeting new & interesting people These are all rewards from doing the movie hollywood provided for james that he would never have experienced if he did THE MOVIE of his life time in his old boring town with the exact same old people he hang on with.
To anybody surprised why James didn't make it as an actual film maker - have you seen his movies outside of AVGN? Have you seen what he's been making well in his twenties before he struck gold with nerd? It's unwatchable. And he claims he spend over 2 years writing the story for the movie. 2 years for such terrible result. He can't write. He can't act. And he can't even direct. I'm afraid all the fame went massively into his head and he's still in denial. Just look at the behind the scenes video he made in 2021, it's delusional.
Filming himself and his friends playing around in his backyard, sticking a title on it an calling it a "short film" of which he's "made over 200" is a joke from a delusional creator.
Yea... this gave him PTSD... think he realized with this movie that he's not as good as he thought he was, and he will never make it as a director... you can tell it damaged his ego and changed him...
You know you are middle-aged when your regrets outnumber your dreams, and your own life's unfulfilled ambitions and goals pass onto those of your kids.
I remember James sittin in front of the camera tellin a lil teaser horror story he would love 2make in2 a full film & having goosebumps by the end of the video... like an abandoned amusement park or sumthing like that, i dont remember it all it wuz so long ago but thats where he shines wit story telling
The Key to the Nerd episodes was making fun of games that we hated or were frustrated by. I didn’t make it past 15 minutes of the movie film. It’s just not that big of a deal. James, if you ever read this, thanks for all the years of entertainment my dude.
If you want a night and day comparison, the next film related project James produced after the AVGN movie was a fake movie trailer for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Game: The Movie. Unlike the AVGN movie, it was shot locally in the Philadelphia area, he worked more with people he was already close to, he kept it a secret until he was ready to release it, and the fans seemed more receptive of it. It was both true to the spirit of the AVGN, while also being its own original thing. I could also tell that James felt very passionate about that project in his behind the scenes video on it.
Thank you for reminding me about this. I totally remember when he released this AND the behind the scenes. I remember him being happy and passionate and it seemed like it relit a fire for him. I might have to make a video about this next.
I love Board James, I don't know if Dream Phone , Mr Bucket were longer and bigger budget maybe could have worked , heck could have made like horror anthology series
Maybe I'm psychoanalyzing the guy, but I feel like James was blinded by the aesthetics and trappings of film-making instead of its soul, and perhaps for understandable reasons. He grew up on a steady diet of Hollywood classics, so at least part of him probably thought that the only way to make "real" films is to actually go there and make big budget productions.
Any way you slice it, James endured a lot and LEARNED a lot. Beyond that, just imagine what *YOU* would have to do to keep up a channel (via Mike) while attempting to direct AND PERFORM in massively (assively?) complicated feature-length! Yes, he could have simplified, but why? Why, when you have $300k? Just the fact that the film was COMPLETED is a miracle.
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
@@Novastar.SaberCombat none of that means he’s above criticism dude. we’re not saying he didn’t go through hell to push this thing out, in fact quite the opposite - we’re saying his efforts were misplaced and would’ve bared much better fruit if he played to his strengths and limited the scope.
Less is more, as they say.
This movie should have been the retro video game equivalent of Clerks
For sure
or did it like a Weird Al or Pee wee Herman movie self aware.
He wanted to put in a kaiju scene among other things. I cant blame him for throwing everything and the kitchen sink at it. Its probably the biggest budget he will ever get to work with based on how little he seems to be pushing for his other movie ideas.
This movie sucks.
Yes!!! Sadly it wasn’t.
The first big mistake I think he did was have the viewer go outside of the nerds point of view. He was always talking to the viewer and it was never implied the nerd was famous either. They should’ve stayed him alone at the start and ended off with him meeting friends along the journey. Breaking the 4th wall the nerd had is what made it so weird in the first place. He runs his own production in the nerd room not a guy with a camera.
You know, you bring up a really good point here. Classic AVGN is one of those things that gives you a very specific feeling, and I don't mean nostalgia. There's something about the presence of the very limited perspective of the basement and few side characters that makes it seem kind of in its own place I guess. Even og reviews that stray from the basement are largely done in only one or two other locations, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre one. I know you were mainly talking about the conversational quality of the nerd to the audience, but it got me thinking about this stuff lol.
In my opinion, a lot of youtubers similar to and including James definitely diminished in quality as they gain more money to have film crews and professional sets. You lose a lot of the personality and charm of the idea when it's no longer a humble home movie made by one or two guys in their basement. Especially with AVGN, having professional production quality ironically feels like it cheapens the experience for me. Even on the perspective of effects, they go from shoddily made but creative ms paint tier effects to effects that are only passable by big budget standards, without a quarter of the personality of those humble goofy effects.
The Nerd talks to a stuffed animal, or at least he used to. When he goes back in time he shows us this.
Ĺ
even still, they should have at least made the sidekick mike, or at least an actor playing mike, that’s obviously not mike, but that could be another “intentionally crappy b-movie” joke
@@RustyNickelsit was a nanny cam. it’s a joke about the crappy film quality of the earliest episodes.
His Polybius episode is 100x better of a movie than this was. That's what the movie should have been
I always saw the nerd as just that a nerd. Him being an in universe celebrity really hurt the movie for me.
Yeah same here
But he would still be a viral sensation, with an audience, otherwise, who would he be talking to in his videos?
Yeah it was egotistical
@@TheSupaman98 By that same logic, why doesn't Doug Walker depict the Nostalgia Critic being swarmed by his fans? It's a character, and him talking to the camera isn't meant to be an in-universe thing; it's for the sake of entertainment.
@@juanelorriaga2840 I guess Wayne's World is egotistical then, too, huh? Do you even listen to yourself?
If James wanted to be taken seriously, he could've spun his AVGN movie into a psychological horror film of a guy trapped in his childhood and lashing out at the world. I can't believe he genuinely thought Sony or Paramount would back a movie with absolute Z-grade trash and toilet humor.
Is that a joke? Sony makes hot garbage adam sandler movies.
That's basically what Board James was.
But I honestly think he either should've kept the film to limited scope or do what Ashens did in The Proxy: be a comedic relief character that serves the plot instead of drives it. AVGN's cynicism and anti-social personality would probably be great in that role IMO.
Yeah but he wanted to retain the frat boy toilet humor spirit of the show. It wouldnt of worked in any way. Hollywood would of seen James as just another outsider wannabe trying to break through their iron curtain.
To be fair, it isn't like Sony or Paramount has much quality films either let alone nowadays
The budget skyrocketing like it did may have been the worse thing that could have happened to James. With an initial budget of only $75,000 they may have been looking to do something smaller that might have felt like an expanded episode. With the budget exploding like it did, though, it feels like they got in way over their heads and tried to go too big.
Honestly, good theory for the main problem. The 400% budget probably added huge pressure to deliver something worthwhile for the fans' money, despite the original script's scopelikely being pretty reserved. This then probably caused them to chase more extras, the useless shit like tanks and what not just to say they used the budget.
He simply tried to do too much and over extended himself. It really seemed to burn him out.
@@Cheesehead302My God, you can't be possibly blaming the movie's *sponsors* 🤌 to advocate in favor of James' poor management! 🤦♂️
@@redacted2275 He didn't blame the fans, he is blaming Rolfe. Just to put an example to it: It's not the dead parents fault that their kids wasted their inheritance. Rolfe should have been far more reserved and spent it back home producing it.
@@birdsteak9267 He could have made multiple low budget films with that amount instead of splurging it all on one film. I don't who he hired in LA to run the production, but I wouldn't be surprised if he got taken advantage of.
He's had Lloyd Kaufman on a couple of times, I don't know why he didn't became a Troma director... worked out quite well for a certain Mr James Gunn.
Very good point. He could still direct a Troma film, not too late.
James problem is he assumed his first major movie would be a huge success and he gave up his dreams when it failed. He doesn't have the will or patience anymore to keep going despite failures because he isn't interested in film making like before. He just wants to be a famous director.
He had Macaulay Culkin on as well. You'd assume he would have connections within the film business and L.A also.
@@struttux5156 The problem also is that he had absolutely no experience in directing movies. Finishing college and making some home/internet videos does not make you a movie director. He should've looked for a job in the movie making business, maybe as an assistant, slowly make his way up and have AVGN as his side gig and THEN make his debut.
Or keep making documentaries, because Rocky Jumped a Park Bench and The Dragon in My Dreams were SO GOOD.
@@DarkButz His major mistake was to make the movie about AVGN. The movie should've been based on his horror script he pitched a few years ago. I don't think it would've been a masterpiece but it wouldn't have been embarassing at least.
It really never has been the same since this film...
I almost responded with "In my opinion things really changed around the time when he did that time-traveling Megaman episode." Then I Google and find out these two things released within a couple months of each other. Yeah that was definitely when things started taking a sharp downturn for the franchise.
@@shooby9496 but hey, we still have the memories and the occasional decent episodes. I enjoyed the taito collection video well enough.
idk I stopped watching after the double vision episode which was like 4 years earlier
@@sameash3153 I stopped watching since the brownshirt slobs took over. Never again!
@@sameash3153congrats?
I was more dissapointed that Mike and Bootsy wasn't involved in being some of the characters in the movie.
Instead they went with Token characters for the film to appeal to Hollywood and not the people who were often there to help out James Rolfe in the original AVGN episodes.
I have honestly never seen it, and in fact when I found out that Mike was in essence the actual AVGN. I started watching him on Twitch, and I barely ever watch AVGN anymore. Mike is awesome and one of my favorite people in this weird industry, just look at how Popular James and Mike Mondays was, and how unpopular Neighbor nerds is by comparison.
It was to appeal to his wife. She's the one who called AVGN a "Caucasian sausage fest"
I been a huge fan of cinemassacre for over a decade. Kinda sad that James is the only one left. I would love to see Mike and everyone else come back.
It would be great to see the old gang back together! They have great chemistry and it’s just good to see James with his real friends.
"I been a huge fan of cinemassacre for over a decade."`
That's nothing ! I was a fan since more than 23 years.
@@thomasdupont7186 Who cares
Really the thing is the Bootsy thing I think was the actual bad break up, Kyle felt he wasn't paid enough but it's not clear if either party even established compensation. Mike and James split was more Mike. He wanted to do twitch and him and James are still pretty close.
@Stefano Pavone probably, he did make a name as motherf*cker Mike.
I’m just sad that this failure seems to have crushed his dreams and then family responsibilities came in so he has ‘no time’ even if he wanted to make another movie. It really is tough with any job when you see it as a stepping stone but then realize it could be the endpoint. I’m rooting for James though.
I’m rooting for James too. It’s not a closed book for him. Just might take a little longer than expected.
I liked this movie
James seems completely devoid of any passion now. It's gonna take a real kick in the ass for him to get his mojo back. I hope he does, at his height he was very VERY entertaining
He'll be back when the kids are grown.
How great must your life be that you feel "sad" that James has "only" had the success he has had. Are you Elon musk?
The major mistake James made was that he made an AVGN film instead of just using fan support to fund a feature length original film. Additionally, I've always gotten the sense that Mike Matei was heavily involved in crafting the vision behind the nerd. It seems like James isn't as good at capturing the character's true essence without Mike being heavily involved. Even the recent episodes that are good (Doom, Earthbound) use Mike Matei gameplay footage and involve him in the creadits. Moreover, the inability of the film to reflect the original character on the big screen is what ultimately hurt its success. A good comparison, for example, is between the AVGN movie and Wayne's World. Both started as skit shows. Wayne's World, the film, however, was an adequate reflection of the humor of the skit into the length of a feature film. The AVGN movie tried and failed to do something similar.
Mike is the actual AVGN, I'm not even a fan of him but I watched his stream a few times and back when they were still doing J&MM, he is clearly the angry man-child that inspired the character. Raging as the TV and the completely random inappropriate humor just randomly thrown out.
@@DrewPicklesTheDark not really, I think Mike is the "gamer" side of AVGN since hebis the one doing most of the game plays you see old AVGN episodes. The nerd was true to his persona and Mike inspired him to keep going. Without Mike's direction or motivation, James just dont care anymore.
It makes no sense that the nerd has all these fans in the movie. In the world that AVGN exists in, he most definitely would have no fans at all. James Rolfe has a huge amount of fans, the nerd does not.
The nerd is why he's popular in universe no but in real life the nerd is popular
This. The character makes no sense if it’s not like this
He prolly spent 90k of the 300k and pocketed it, biggest scam in yt history before roobet and nft scams
@@Siptoseina dude what are you even talking about
@@Cam987. He scammed his fans before with cheetaman shit look it up lmao
This movie would have worked better if it was just James, Mike, Bootsy and/or Kyle. And it's funny that Mike said he don't want to appear in AVGN movie because he don't know how to act. This guy is freaking hilarious playing as that annoying friend in the Board James series and also as the Joker/Bugs Bunny/Jason Voorhees with his 'acting' in AVGN episodes yet now he suddenly don't know how to act when the AVGN movie came around? I guess deep down Mike also know how hilariously bad the movie will be lol and don't want to associate himself with it.
It would instantly make it better. Even if it was a crap fest, it would still be better seeing the inate chemistry they have on on screen.
I think Mike much rather had his eyes set on the cinemassacre channel, the real money maker
Just like with Rex Viper, he's doing things that clearly aren't in his lane and it shows
My favorite thing about this entire shit show, was his interview with Joe Bob, and Joe stright up says "there is no more Hollywood, make your movie where ever you are. Boise, Idaho is Hollywood" and the look on Bimmy's face is priceless.
I'm Bimmy
@Blim Whitmer keep liking your own comments.
Where can I find that?
My favorite part of the movie is when James was like "I did nothing wrong, I did everything correct"
@@ajaxmaxbitch nothing he could do dood!
The AVGN movie feels more like one of those channel awesome movies as opposed to something James would make
I've never seen the movie but reading your comment cements it should stay that way.
But dougs stupid "Movies" cost no money while James had 300 grand
At least Doug filmed the movies with his friends
I can rewatch a lot of Nerd episodes all the time because they were so well made. This movie I saw once and never wanted to see it again.
I go to season 5. That should've been the end.
I fast forward the film after some 30-40 minutes. Nothing about it was clicking. And by not adding any of the lore of the characters it really made me feel like this was a different character or alteranate universe, so it really kill the attachment that could have made sit trought the whole film.
@@daniel79tjTbh the only good character that I also like is Cooper, pretty much rest of the new casts especially Mandi, General Onward and Zandor are tasteless.
I really enjoy how you clearly have a MASSIVE respect for James as a fellow film-maker while at the same time acknowledge the films failings with sincerity. that's good stuff man. It's odd to me how Hollywood James went.
he's really a big fan of Indie stuff. I mean he's an admirer of Lloyd Kauffman and Troma which are famous for being low budget. James' even read some of his books and has done interviews with lloyd atleast twice. Thinking of all that, you'd think he'd know to stick to cheaper locations and be more efficient with the budget. Oh well, Maybe he just felt he owed his fans an "L.A. level" production.
Hey thank you! I’m glad that you can see my respect for James. I’ve been a fan since the beginning. But yeah, first feature films are where some of a filmmakers biggest lessons come from. My first feature film took 3 tries to make so I can relate to James big time. He definitely did NOT take a page from the Troma book of filmmaking that’s for sure.
@@ScottyDunn Not to sound rude, but you seem to have too much respect for Rolfe.
The age of requiring big Hollywood producers to have your movie seen by large audiences ended way back in the 1970s when independent slasher/horror flicks became all the rage. Large studios didn't want to tarnish their reputation making such schlock, and the gap in the market was filled mostly by small-timers, for a while. Then home video exploded in the 1980s and paved the way for even more zero-budget cult classics to gain a huge fan base.
Attributing even a microscopic amount of that progression to James couldn't be more bizarre.
ironic it being in LA only made the film look cheaper. he's basically paying extra just to say the movie was filmed in LA. what a waste of money
In the youtube documentary on Silvester Stallone recutting Rocky IV (a documentary I know James has said he was a fan of), Sly says something about how the basic limitation of film is that it's like if Picasso needed 500 people to make a painting. I'm betting that line resonated with James. It must have been tough to discover that "full-scale" fim-making is so tied up with managing a giant team of people you barely know.
There are at least three major mistakes that he made during the making of this film. First off he should have used his resources and connections to make the movie in Jersey. James personally knew Lloyd Kaufman and could have more than likely distributed via Troma. Second was lack of familiar faces, and no, cameos don't count. Love him or hate him I think a NC appearance would have done well if they gave him a lengthy scene of fighting James. Sort of in lieu of Family Guy with Peter and the chicken. As for someone to be his sidekick in the film it should have went to Kyle. He was already an established and loved character from the show. Lastly I hate to say but James gave too much creative control to his wife. She was the smoking gun that really put this project in the grave. I wont even get into the ins and outs on that but it's pretty much well known and the only reason Cooper is in the film. Not to mention these are only a few things wrong with this film. Never mind the long run time, and too much crap in it. I mean Zombies, Aliens, government agents, giant robots? Fucking slow down man lol.
I agree with what you said and I would also add that he made a movie that was, frankly, not in the spirit of the show. It’s like he made the love letter movie to camp films with a AVGN mask on it. What audience was that supposed to be for?
Is his wife the reason he never has time? There's guys who have a full time job, wife and kids and still run a TH-cam channel. James works from home, how does he not have time to do more effort? Makes no sense. Unless his wife is more behind the scenes than we think and it does make sense she didn't want James having a relationship with the female actor, I never thought about that, but after watching this...wow, the relationship stuff was out onto 'cooper' and not james
@@robbieracer3294 I’ve brought this point up many times in other comment sections. Personally, I think any person could say they “don’t have time” to put forth their best work. When I had family problems a few years back, did I tell my clients “I don’t have time to give you good therapy. Here’s some half assed work”. No. You fucking nut up and keep at it. Or you retire or do a job that requires less from you. TH-cam is a creative field. If you phone it in, people will stop watching (which they were).
The 2 games were made way better, and the second had parts of the movie in it as a joke. I love the games, the movie was not that bad, but could've been way better. James is talented, hopefully he uses his connections to Kaufman to make a Horrormovie and release it via Troma. That is actually a great idea, but we didn't know in 2012 he had this connection.
NC did have a cameo in the movie
The Game Chasers are the only TH-camrs who have made a movie that's actually good. It actually feels like a real movie as opposed to an overlong TH-cam video and works for both people who know and people who have never heard of them.
Ashens movie "the game child" and its sequel are quite good too!
What is the name of the film?
@@Uutbusters Adventures in Game Chasing
I could write a better AVGN screenplay in the car on my way to work
🤣
It's sad that the movie ended up being this way, because the episode on Polybius shows that the Nerd can do some pretty good horror/drama stuff. The way he was slowly driven to madness by forces outside his control was just so, so good. I think something like that could've easily worked for the movie.
I love the Polybius episode too!
The Board James series was basically what he should have done. The avgn with his actual buddies trapped in the worlds of the worst nintendo games and fighting to return to reality.
"What were they thinking?!"
Surprised you didn't show that clip of Kevin Finn saying that they sent the script to Hollywood directors and producers that said, "This script is shit! It's going to suck!" and then James adds that some said they wanted to work on it while Kevin politely nods.
I've worked with James several times over the years and he's a truly sincere, talented, passionate artist. Thank you for making a video that doesn't aim to tear him down like so many others that I've seen.
I will always be a fan of James. He’s inspired me a lot and seems like a good guy. Good to hear he’s cool in person. Thanks.
I remember when the movie was announced. The immediate reaction was:
Yeah, you could waste a year making a movie that’s definitely going to suck.
Or… just keep making the regular damn episodes that we came to see!
It was guarenteed to suck. The movie could have been great. The problem is the movie he chose to make, sucked. It needed to be a genuine celebration of the AVGN legacy. That means Mike, Kyle, and Bootsie should have been in it. It should have been shot locally, paid homage to the worst games he reviewed, and stuck to what James genuinely loves - which is horror, spooks, atmosphere. It should have been like AVGN + The Evil Dead. Pushing his violence and practical FX gags to the limit while also being a send up to James doing reviews.
And then it should have been the end of AVGN. James should have used it to start making Indie films at that point. Like he always wanted to. AVGN had been going for a nearly a decade at that point. Enough was enough.
i thought the movie was a good idea at first. i could go without a new AVGN episode for a year if it meant the movie was good and worth it. unfortunately it wasn't. it was possibly the worst thing the Nerd was ever in. i don't even see it as canon with the show. it was also the worst way possible for him to do E.T. a review he was hyping up forever and the actual E.T review portion of the movie is only like 12 minutes. ya hyped up that review for that?
@@evenhartwick4422 To be fair, what's there to say about ET? It's just a nice, basic little Atari game that everyone spits on for no apparent reason other than the reputation it somehow recieved.
@@TheSultan1470 i definitely agree with that point i mean its far from the worst game ever made, i mean as far as atari games go id even call it somewhat complex. but i still think he could have made a better more traditional review for it instead of basically making it the movies end credit scene. he was building up E.T. for like 10 years on his show
@@evenhartwick4422 I guess he was but I never paid much attention. There were always new AVGN episodes.
Honestly, I do think that the solution to modern cinemassacre is for James to make another movie, and maybe one that has nothing to do with AVGN. An independent horror film could not only revitalize his love of movies, but I think there would be surprising interest from crowd funding. People want to see James doing something he loves, and what better way to breathe life into an old passion than to throw blood, gore, and monster effects at it : ) It could be like a metaphorical massacre of cinema, for the viewers who have left the channel, and for James as a film maker.
Because really, cinemassacre really needs something that is unique to them again. AVGN started the trend of retro video game person videos, and it did that and then it also grew in quality to become also the best retro video game person videos. That's why so many people enjoyed the older episodes. It was goofy, it was silly, but it was also passionate and engaging, and the channel as a whole doesn't have that anymore. Their podcasts are just a copy of other people's podcasts but worse. Their music is much the same, which feels bad to say because they are not pro musicians, but that's kinda the reality. That style of videogame music has been done, and it's been done to a technical level that it would honestly take complete emulsion into music theory and practice to even get to a level where people would listen to your music casually. I guess it's just sad to see that a channel that not only started a thing, but also took the time and effort to always go above and beyond, that channel has become a worse version of not only itself but other popular vid types as well. And rental reviews...oh rental reviews. That show is the poster child for something that has already been done and done much better.
So I don't think, or maybe I hope, that James hasn't lost his love of moviemaking, just that he needed to take a break and to hit a big comeback project. It needs to be something that is him, because that's what people always appreciated about cinemassacre, and what better way to do that than a completely not tied-to anything else horror movie. He's got a great movie left in him, I know it : )
He needs to get the hell away from the Nerd. It's only holding him back now.
Yeah that Nerd character was sone way before that crappy movie was made.Move on man and stop with the excuses
I always love how he made his character basically an A-List celebrity that literally everywhere he goes people want his autograph.
It really goes to show his ego. His insistence on having to film it in LA. He definitely thought this was going to be his big break into Hollywood and he could maybe leave the AVGN character behind.
I feel less sad for him and more sad for all of the backers that wanted a legitimate AVGN movie but got *this* instead...
That's such a bad faith take. Who said he just wanted to break into Hollywood to leave his TH-cam career behind?
This video did and nobody else
I actually give him credit for this: James, a massive cinema-phile, just wanted the experience of making a big Hollywood movie as a personal bucket-list item. Like how Trekkies want to meet the actors behind their favorite characters, or how Rocky fans travel to Philly and run up "those" steps every day, or how car guys wanna restore or rebuild an old classic car, when they'd save lots of time and money just buying one? James just wanted the experience so he could say he DID it. He got his fans to pay for what was basically his Mecca, and he double-dipped it into a romantic getaway with his wife so she could share his dream with him. I don't think anyone cared whether or not the film was top-notch besides some seriously deluded, over-entitled, over-expectant juffalos that don't understand that it takes more than $325,000 dollars to make an MCU-quality film.
That's a good way of looking at it
"MCU-quality film." You say that like it's a good thing.
Yea, plus his autism could not derail the energy Mike Matei was channeling through him back then.
@@ericrhodes5174 It's a false way of looking at it. He wasn't making a feature film as a one and done "bucket list" item, his original ambition was to make movies. The AVGN was just a side project that took off unexpectedly. If the movie had been successful and James got a agent and other offers to make movies, I guarantee that AVGN would have been retired (except maybe for occasional specials) and he would have tried to be like Kevin Smith, a guy who has his fingers in all kinds of media----movies, writing comics and animation, hosting shows, etc----instead of just being a TH-cam creator.
>Give me your hard earned money you dweebs so I can fulfill my fantasy, dream and bucket list and my wife can have an LA and Hollywood escapade
>HOW DARE YOU ask for a decent product, you entitled dweebs!
The cognitive dissonance and lack of self awareness is beyond parody. Can’t make this stuff up!
I knew it would suck as soon as the Nerd was revealed to be some kind of mega popular chad.
2:20 even worse is when you read the part in his new book where he says they spent more than $100k in Paypal fees and taxes on this money. So many ways they could’ve avoided losing that much money.
There was no reason to shoot in LA. It’s too expensive, and hardly any film studio does it anymore. The only things that get shot in LA are medical dramas, police procedurals, porn, and TH-cam pranks.
you seems to know so much virgin man.
@@thomasdupont7186 what’s a “virgin”?
You nailed it.
1 - We (indie film makers) were super inspired not by the fund raising, and the process of going from YT to full feature movie.
2 - He should have done a long episode (in the style of board-james), and with his budget he would simply don't need anymore to do YT for a year, so he could focus on a long low budget movie with no budget.
He's ironically guilty of the same mistakes he saw in video games like ninja turtles. He brought in new characters and left out og characters. It also seems like a huge vanity project. Should have shot locally with og chatacters and wittty banter with a more organic feel. This is 180° from what this film should have been.
Without mike and his pals james is nothing, mike is the driving force mike should have dirrected
He took his shot… can’t blame the man
Imo it should have been a prequel and semi-autobiographical of how he became the AVGN.
Overal this a great analysis but I think you missed the point a bit on some of the writing decisions between James himself and the character of the Nerd (at least as james sees it). James loves his fans and is flatter when he meets them, but the nerd hates it. He hates what he does and he hates the games he plays. The awkward flirting on the gameboard isn't *james'* idea of erotic. It's the nerd's. The guy who shits on things, cuts VHS tapes in half with swords, and screams constantly obviously isn't going to be that good with women.
I do 100% agree that the fundamental problem with this was that he didn't make it feel like the web series with the characters we know and love. I believe he did this because back during conception (in 2010) there was still a big disconnect between TV audience and Web audiences. He likely assumed that too many references to the web series would put off new fans, and didn't really think enough of his youtube views would translate into film views. It's easy to scoff at that now, but at the time we really had no idea how viable youtube would be as an actual career. All I could think while watching the nerd movie was "this isn't bad but it really just makes me want to go watch the episodes...."
A perfect example of a webseries that made a movie that did cater to existing fans was Pure Pwnage. It used existing characters, catered to fans, and worked very well across the board.
James' story is actually kind of sad because he arguably was the very first "game reviewer" that would spawn thousands of others including pewdiepie. And he made all the right decisions given what we knew at the time (try to push into hollywood because youtube isn't going to be a viable longterm career) and got screwed by that decision because YT surprised us all.
Thanks! And I see your point. Going to have to look up the Pure Pwnge webseries. James was navigating uncharted waters at the time and I have a lot or respect for how he’s paved the way for TH-cam’s and filmmakers alike.
I think another thing about the writing that should have been brought up was that James co-wrote the film with his friend and co-director Kevin Finn. With the AVGN series (at least back in the day), James wrote the scripts all on his own with maybe some things suggested by Mike Matei. Now we can't say for sure which questionable aspects of the script came from James or Kevin, but I did think it was worth pointing out this distinction between the series and the movie.
After reading his autobiography to completion, I think I can understand why he made decisions he made a lot better. However, I do still agree LA wasn't the place to do this. On my first viewing, I thought the movie was poor too. Though I think it got better for me the second time. I could see it more for what he was trying to accomplish and I feel ultimately did accomplish. He does break down how the budget was spent in a few spots too. He wasn't working with what the Indiegogo actually concluded with.
James does stuff in a weird way. He has a lot of talent but doesn’t understand that if he only makes something as a stepping stone it’s gonna be bad.
He forgot too many rules in Film-Making.
1: Keep the plot and story simple and streamlined.
2: Everything introduced into the story early on need to serve the plot later in the story
3: Human-Story, all genres need characters with adversities and challenges we can relate to.
4: Atmosphere. It being so overly bright isn't good and it won't look good with green screen either, add a filter, warm it up!
I have to agree, there is almost no location that needed to be shot in California. Atlanta is where they film all the Marvel films. (I live there, lol). And has huge production studios, etc. But none of that even seemed necessary for the AVGN film.
I think James would have benefited from some people around him guiding him during this time period. It reminds me of when musicians go solo and they have no one balancing them out creatively anymore. The result can sometimes be just too far in the wrong direction, completely missing what was special in the first place.
He kinda pulled a George Lucas... but without crafting a cool universe that would keep shining years later as the poor filmmaking decisions faded.
You might think it's like poetry, but that shit does NOT rhyme :D
He should've quit long time ago, when he did wanna quit back then.
James wife sounds like she may wear the trousers in that set up.
I saw this movie in a theater with James there for discussion when it had ended, and it was literally one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. One dude was sleeping in front of me.
Man that’s brutal. Wish I could’ve gone to one just to see the vibe. It’s would’ve been an experience for sure.
This video was so on point, thank you for making this!
My pleasure! Thank you for watching and commenting.
With that budget he could've made a horror movie
Yeah, that's probably the biggest problem right there. He made a movie based on a character that became an internet sensation, rather than making a movie that felt like it came from James himself.
Yeah but he almost certainly wouldn't have made near that much if the fundraising didn't have "AVGN movie" as the headline.
@@shooby9496 I'm sure he could work it out with less budget (with likely better results) than what actually happened with avgn movie
Exactly but I think he got a bit egotistical and thought making a movie on the nerd was gonna make him a name in Hollywood cause of how good his YT channel was doing at the time but YT isn’t Hollywood and that movie was horrible I never finished it.He should’ve done something horror based something different away from the vomit/shit humor and open mouth Muppet face shit but sadly that’s all he knows
I see a lot of myself in James. I feel that his quiet shy nature probably got the best of him and the people who helped him in the movie didn't do such a good job and he was too afraid to change things or too exhausted from putting so much effort in
It wasn't just the people helping him that weren't doing a good job, James himself gets a lot of the blame by default because it was his project that he was directing. The issue is that he just wasn't cut out for larger scale movie making.
Very well said. As a fellow fan of James Rolfe and his show/movie I agree with everything you said.
Thanks Patreck!
My favourite background actor is definitely the guy in the orange beanie who just gets completely ignored by James when reaching out for a handshake, It seriously makes me laugh every time i see it😂 8:38
You know, this is the first video I saw from you. Revisiting it, it's really well done. I'm actually surprised I haven't seen you on Red Cow Arcade.
Thank you. I love Red Cow Arcade. I’d love to go chat with those guys on their show. I’ve been watching them for a while and went down a BoxMac rabbit hole on their other channel Red Cow Entertainment. Good dudes.
When I first heard of an AVGN movie, this is what I had envisioned:
Kyle hasn’t come up to play the theme for so long, the Nerd gets worried and goes behind the couch. He finds that it’s actually a portal to hell, and that Kyle has been dragged to the bottom layer of hell and the Nerd has to save him in a parody of Dante’s Inferno where Mike is Virgil. As the Nerd goes down the layers of hell he is pleased that now he gets to watch characters he’s hated like Fred Fuchs play shitty games.
He finally reaches the final circle of hell and sees that Satan is actually Super Mecha Death Christ and the Nerd has to fight him and Satanic Mario maybe with a cameo by Keith and Shit Pickle and win. They find out Kyle is actually an Angel and frees the Nerd of his eternal torment and ascends to heaven where he’s still in his basement but has all the Rolling Rock and good games he could ever want and the Nerd happily notes that the Angry Video Game Nerd is over… and ends with a show montage as everyone sings a cover of the theme song in an over the top Broadway style… basically just a 90 minute high production value episode of the nerd.
Is this idea a bit cringe? Maybe, but much better than his fucking movie turned out to be.
I love this idea !!
I was thinking something like there's a serial killer on the loose that kills people in the style of old video games and the police need the Nerd's intimate knowledge of these old games to solve the case.
if you read his book or listened to it. it is an eye opener. it's really more about him being expelled from college, and how he is a very socially awkward introvert in reality. instantly seeing the fans swarming like zombies is probably his take on not being able to feel comfortable with the amount of fame, fans, attention and the situations it brings.
his acting in the movie is like how he is in the new modern nerd episodes, the handlers him and mike went to seem to struggle to write for him, and waste a lot of money on furniture.
the new way of producing scripts and acting was also a part of James' decision, clearly it's not as genuine, robotic and not as impactful, as this new style is for producing mass nerd content.
he goes into this mode in the movie it's so strange.
as you said, James can be a really good actor when done right, seems like a lack of certainty in his actions, or so much nervousness it ruined the coming across of genuine and belief in how you act. the weird faces also a sign of this.
it's so weird, he felt a need to film in hollywood, rather than close by and make fake sets of real places in the world, he could of cheaply just filmed at irl. i'm sure he's reflected upon this.
regardless i love James, and Cinemassacre as they've been a great part of my entertainment and joy and so for many other people. i hope there's a new change, and old rekindling with Kyle, Mike and Bootsy. they really seem to have an insane huge positive effect on James and also a driving force for what made them so successful than others. losing these people really did change Cinemassacre for the worst.
someways i hope James reads these comments, but i doubt it.
Yep, I read the book long after making this video. I wish he would’ve talk more about his TH-cam days with the nerd and how he was feeling and how he did behind the scenes stuff with that. I liked the movie details he gave but I’m even more interested in the early TH-cam days.
@@ScottyDunn yeah haha ikr, might also be worth to check out what Red Cow Arcade has to say, they're a little over mean, but have some decent points.
anyways, good video Scotty, take care big guy
Haha I got recommended Red Cow arcade a while back and I still check in with their podcast channel😆. Thank you 🙏 I appreciate that.
Great breakdown of this epic failure. Truly a sad sad story. I wish James the best and hope comes back from this but its not looking promising. IMO James could do a second movie and crowdsource the script and also a lot of the work from his fans. It would be 10 times cheaper and align himself back with his fans. We can only hope.
Thank you. Yeah I still wish him luck. It’s possible that he could make a good film still and yeah like you said I think fans would get behind it.
He refused to review or watch the Ghostbusters movie, will always respect that. As he said if you know you're not going to enjoy something then why waste your time or money? And those who watch stuff that is garbage just to complain about it are kind of sad. The Nerd was a comical character and through his insulting and hating the games there was still some fondness for them and it provided entertainment. Watching people say how bad something is like any of the Star Trek after about 2000 is not entertaining, it's sad that they're even watching it. Somethings you don't need to watch to know they're bad. Like the AVGN movie, nothing about it seemed right and I think I was still a fan back then, when was it made? 10 years ago!!! Wow I'm old.
Excellent comment.
The trick is to always try to keep it simple and focus more on keeping it streamlined.
In order to relate the characters with the audience, you need to humanize the plot, to have a human-story and then inject comedic moments in between the human-moments, like Dumb and Dumber, their dumb as rocks but they are human and they face adversities which is relatable.
Even South park the movie had a human element going for it.
You are spot-on with your critique. I only got halfway through the movie before turning it off, but still love James' AVGN TH-cam videos.
The biggest problem with the avgn character and series is that you can't really make it last 1hour+10 minutes without major pacing issues or make the script super convoluted.
The Movie should have started with him reviewing ET like every other episode, but halfway through the review, he snaps and leaves the basement. Credits roll as he drives to New Mexico.
Written and directed by James Rolfe
Instead of the confusing storyline about the aliens and area 51 it's just a simple road trip story. The whole movie is just James, kidnapping HSW and planning on locking him up in his basement and showing him the game and how much agony he caused. Have a cameo with Mike working the counter at a bar and he winds up in the car. Kyle also joins as a drifter with a guitar and give the 3 some entertainment. The Whole movie could have been filmed with the three of them in the car, maybe throw in a planes trains and automobiles or mad mad world reference, show James taking him to the Atari building, the landfill, and all this time they're being chased by a lone police cruiser.
during the last 15 minutes of the movie he finishes the review of ET and screams in HSW's face telling him how it ruined his life. Finally at the end of the review , HSW Finally snaps at James saying "you had to play it? Boo fucking hoo, I had to create it in 3 days, you think I like being blamed for the videogame crash and bankrupting Atari? I tried my best yada yada" and the nerd has a revelation that it's easy to shit on games because it's plastic, but back then, it was really hard to make games, and people poured their hearts into making them and that in his reviews, he's essentially shitting on other people's dreams.
Nerd lets him go at a bus station, starts driving home, sirens hit, its the lone police car, pulls over, there's a knock at the window rolls down...
It's Officer fuckin Bootsy
"Hey guys! Wanna play Cops and Robbers!?"
Nerd, Mike, and Kyle just sit in the car and yell "mother Fucker !" At the same time
one of the better “alternative takes” on the movie, at least from what i’ve read in youtube comments sections. i personally would have wanted a feature-length version of the polybius episode, but this one actually sounds pretty good.
12:49 your #5 point sums it all up.
He could have made a movie in the same Vain as Clerks or Waynes Worlds but no it just had to be an Epic
Feel bad for him. I see so much criticism & hate for him online. He seems like a good dude.
I think most people, myself included, agree that he's a good dude. Even though I didn't like the movie, it doesn't take away how much respect I have for the guy. He's inspired countless artists to follow their dreams. He's genuinely someone that audiences root for. It's just one movie that was cringe. He's made countless high quality shows and pieces of content that have made him a legend.
Clerks had a budget around 100k less than the avgn movie and Clerks 2 (a comedy without any special effects or big action sequences) had a budget of FIVE MILLION. James really should've done his homework to see how expensive movies are to make. And by homework I mean 5 seconds of googling x movie budget. He should've looked up the budget for whatever Hollywood summer blockbuster action flick he was trying to emulate and gone, "yeah, I don't have anywhere close to 30 million"
There have been some really good, slick-looking movies made for a few hundred grand. (Just check out "The Vast of Night".) James' simply got in over his head and lacked the surrounding talent and savvy to utilize his budget and resources efficiently or effectively. Also, it costs nothing to write a decent script, but the script was HORRIBLE.
Come now, Clerks 2 had lights and a smoke machine for the donkey show.
he went way past his expiration. its like a show that was good for 5 or 6 seasons but now its on season 18... his content is just a fossil at this point.
I wish he could simply go back to simpler AVGN game reviews. Like in the Angry Nintendo Nerd times.
Some of the newer reviews and pretty good. But older ones are better. I miss the simpler times. The anger that felt more legit, when the show felt more dense, more review, more talk in less runtime.
I watched that AI voiced Faith PC game review. Yeah, someone did that recently and it definitely took me back to the past.
tbh his movie should have been a special episode, where the Nerd only reviews E.T in his basement, without all that bs fantasy story going, just like a normal Nerd review, with some special history of E.T game as well, that wouldve been better
That would be just an ordinary AVGN episode so not really.
Great job, really interesting - especially from the view of an Indie iflm maker himself.
Hey thank you!
I enjoyed watching this, and I like how you offer solutions on how the film was made. Worth noting that since they took so long to actually start production, ONE THIRD of the money raised had to go to taxes. i.e. OVER $100,000 was flushed down the bog. (Rolfe mentions it in his book). Imagine realising that and still having to go shoot the film, damn
Thank you. Yeah I read about that way after this video came out. Not a pretty picture. I have sympathy for James.
This film is,if Stallone tried to make Rocky 4 in 1976 rather than making the original Rocky film a simple character study.
Filmmaking is ROUGH. You could never knock out a grand slam on your first attempt. James and crew did pretty well for a first feature. Especially given the entire situation.
I saw the movie last year, and it was way better than everybody said. It’s not very good, but it’s exactly as good as most movie adaptations of things that did not need a movie adaptation.
Never watched the movie, know James and I'm into movie making and all that comes with it even though I don't know Jack but.... Your point of filming locally is such a big deal as well as using people you know.
I guess James thought it wouldn't be a movie and just a longer AVGN episode if he did that
@@Vario69 he needed to think longer then, not having people from the universe killed it and not even funny cameos at least He would have been more comfortable too if he was local and had people he knew.
The best thing James could have done, honestly, was make a movie that wasn't about AVGN, and not star in it himself. He's not an actor, and the harder he tries to hit 'actor' the worse it is. He's at his best when he's just riffing. He could probably write and direct a decent movie, but trying to shoehorn it to be about the nerd was probably a choice made to ensure he could get funding for it, sadly. I'd like to see him try his hand at a low-budget horror movie that he DOESN'T star in.
Yeah I think he could do a good movie as well. I remember him saying something about scrapping the horror movie he had planned. Something about an abandoned theme park.
I remember seeing this during a screening near Philly. I couldn't wait for it to end.
As a professional film Director with my first feature film about to come out. But I also have plenty of experience working in documentaries and television. it honestly just sounds like James was highly inexperienced working with a legitimate film crew. Also filming in LA was a horrible idea.
"As a professional film Director... bla bla..... "
Wow, I won't even quote more of you (I don't want to "t'enfoncer plus dans la merde" (that's French). BUT... You truly are pathetic, you put so much emphasis on how "professional" you are that ( and yet NOTHING on yr "anime" channell, sad..... It is obvious you're not what you're saying or at least don't have talent (many "pros" don't). As a audio visual worker myself, I truly can tell about you people, sorry :(
PS: Please oh please tell me the name of your "feature film"....
@@thomasdupont7186 Everything I said was legitimate, I didn’t say I was Steven Spielberg. I said I’m a professional film Director which is true I’m one of the main directors of the Netflix documentary series inside the mind of a serial killer. Also have directed numerous different projects for discovery plus, A pilot for television and a featured film titled exposure and another feature film titled quiet on set.
Google my Contant I want numerous awards did premieres at Deadcon last year for a horror film o directed.
Like seriously you do realize how many directors there are in the world right that are in the DGA union? Again I didn’t say I directed Stranger Things or a Blumhouse movie I simply said I’m a professional film Director which is true that is what I do and what I get paid to do in the industry.
Furthermore it’s extremely obvious and easy to see the James Roth yes he’s a great guy but he has very little experience actually working on legitimate film sets which again before I was a Director I’ve worked on professional productions since I was 18 years old barely out of high school.
Which helps you a lot more when you’re putting your own production together then if you ran some TH-cam series with like a three man crew in your basement.
this guy just taking about themself and plugging their shit
dude cool story- we're here for avgn
@@c0m4g1bb that’s not the point that I’m giving him simply given the fact of why he regions movie failed miserably and never made any money.
And agreeing with the guy who made this video who is also a filmmaker on the flies of James his mindset on producing his movie.
He filmed in Los Angeles despite the fact that it added literally nothing to the plot points he could’ve easily filmed in any other desert location and saved legitimately easily probably $80,000 of his budget.
He hired union filmmakers despite not being union himself and not knowing how to run a proper film crew which caused him to go behind schedule, which to be frank is extremely rookie mistake that any real filmmaker who works on professional sets as their day job would’ve never made.
He chose for some reason to cast and waste money on the list actors that no one would care about instead of hiring local actors that were good at performing but also cheap and also casting people from the AVGN family which is what the fans wanted to see.
I’m not simply just seeing this as some guy on the Internet I’m saying this is a professional filmmaker and furthermore someone who worked on the AVGN movie I was there I saw the production cycle it was ran terribly but most of it went back to James Rolfe not understanding anything about running a proper production set.
Furthermore if I was doing a plug-in I will be standing up productions I’ve made I didn’t make a plug-in otherwise I would be posting links to my productions in begging people to purchase copies from me.
I made realistic criticism of the issues of James Rolfe trying to make his first feature film which failed miserably.
@@Faceplay2 you are just taking an opportunity to brag my friend. We do not need to know what you may or may not have worked on, we are here to watch avgn
This was such a well made video. Yeah I remember seeing the AVGN movie back when it became available for purchase on TH-cam about a decade ago and was indeed disappointed.
Thank you for your kind words 🙏
I believe that the AVGN movie is more Kevin Finn's dream than James', the movie seems less weird if you compare it only to the AVGN episodes that have Kevin Finn in them, and James never really acted like he wanted a Hollywood springboard, he was just happy to have an audience at all, however Kevin Finn desperately wanted to break into Hollywood, I believe he's even working there now, and he appeared on the AVGN show just as it was getting popular and co-wrote the movie's original script around that time, which makes me strongly suspect that it was Kevin's idea to write it.
Nah, if you watched all the production stuff when the movie was being made, James said he expected the movie to "open doors" for him. Kevin had been working as a producer on TV-Shows way before the movie started pre-production.
@@RockoEstalon exactly, Kevin probably convinced James by telling him that it would "open doors" if he filmed it in Hollywood, probably knowing full well what a terrible idea it was.
I see many of the same conceptual mistakes that RedLetterMedia did with their feature film Space Cop - and the RLM guys are much, much better filmmakers than James Rolfe. It always goes this way: since green screen and CGI have become relatively easy to handle, and digital is way easier than shooting on film, people assumes they can fill their movie with all kinds of "fun" crap; so the screenplay becomes this bloated mess of references and comedy styles that don't gel together. This also comes at the expense of good dialogue, pacing and characterization, things that are infinitely more important. But at the same time, since there's only so much you can do with a limited budget and homemade special effects, the director eventually uses the "corny on purpose" excuse, or "homage to B-movies" as a shield. And everybody knows that an unintentionally bad movie is much, much funnier than something done as a joke.
Anyway, the "democratization" of filmmaking in the last few decades has paradoxically done a huge disservice to film creators. When every inch of film is an added cost, and a pain in the ass to edit with a Steenbeck in a dark and claustrophobic room, you think twice about every decision. When you're absolutely sure you don't have the budget for GOOD special effects, you choose a simpler story as your first work.
I think it also comes down to the fact that long form screenplay (and fiction in general) is a skill set that can take years to get even mediocre at.
But everybody thinks they can write a script because they have an idea in their head or because they’re good at another factor in filmmaking.
I guess it’s kind of like sports. Everyone can point out the mistakes and what could’ve been done but even the worst professional linebacker on their worst day will be better than most people on their best day.
I still haven't seen this. Not sure if I should.
Do one on reviewer Oliver Harper’s crowdfunder where he sent people a bunch of crappy DVD-Rs that didn’t even work and folded posters etc.
Really disappointed to hear that :(
I didn’t know that happened. Which movie was he crowdfunding for?
@@ScottyDunn See Peaked Interest channel, video : “British TH-camr Oliver Harper Troubled Kickstarter”
Does anyone else think james should hang up avgn for good? I feel like he's tired of the nerd and wants to focus on more projects he really likes. I know he wants to bring board james back and id like to see him go back to making videos he likes, not being forced to do because of screenwave or whatever they're called.
I consider myself a big fan of this content creator. I've been watching very loyally since around 2009. As a big fan I am, I can admit that this movie is pretty bad. It would be absolutely terrible if it weren't for my history and knowing the inside jokes present here. I still watch it every couple years and I have a framed poster of this movie signed by James. Somewhere.
I've never understood the need popular TH-camrs seem to have to make a movie. Movies are a completely different format and usually completely at odds, stylistically, tonally, and contextually, with what makes the TH-camr's channel entertaining and engaging. And the saddest thing is, these "movies" don't even turn out to look like actual professional movies, but extended, slightly more elaborate skits bereft of the qualities that make the content creators and their content enjoyable in the first place.
James has an obsession to pretend he's a film maker... it's quite weird, he says he made hundreds of movies already on Cinemassacre's official site.
@@redacted2275 I can understand James wanting to make movies, as he's always been in to filmmaking. I just don't know why the need to make a film based on his TH-cam characters or why so many other TH-camrs (particularly in the movie/video game review genre) want to make movies based on their TH-cam persona.
I think James was/is too obsessed with past filmmakers (i.e. Romero, Coppola, etc). He often romanticizes the stories of directors who "started out small" making short films & clips, and eventually found their way and started making films. But this isn't the 70's, and nowadays any old youtuber (no matter how big they are) simply can't make hugely successful films. Unless it's someone who has been in the film industry most of their life, they don't have the connections/resources/etc to make quality feature length films. At best they can make excessively long TH-cam shorts, which is basically what he created. I mean, haven't big youtubers tried to do it in the past (i.e. Shane Dawson, Jake (or Logan?) Paul, etc?) and it just ends up being a contrived mess?
There's really no way the Nerd could be entertaining for more than 30 minutes...I remember being excited about the trailer. Disappointed when I found out it was terrible....I still haven't personally watched it yet.
I think you're right on the money. I wish the whole movie was done in a low budget Blair Witch style where James(a nobody) finally ventures outside the nerd room, buys a car from some creepy hillbilly playing a banjo, then documents his frustrating and surreal trip to the Nevada desert to resolve the mystery. No special fx, a few supporting actors like Bootsy who creates all kinds of unforced problems, and perhaps some psychological horror elements. Basically a long-form version of his Texas Chainsaw Massacre intro.
This was a satisfying watch.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching.
Excellent video, great job! I agree with your thoughts on the finished movie 100%. Couldn't have said it better myself. Baffling use of a decent size budget.
Hey Thank you!
Watched avgn since beginning but never ever ever ever evvvvver thought about watching this. I wish the old crew was in here. Bootsy or mike.
Fun fact: The music for the Angry Video Game Nerd Movie was actually done by Bear McCreary. He would go on to do the score for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). Around the late 2000s, James Rolfe released a series of Godzillathon videos as part of Cinemassacre’s Monster Madness.
Mike can't even act and never wanted to be on camera to begin with, let alone in a feature film lol.
It took a long time to convince him to even come on camera at all.
I know that the side characters suck but this idea that throwing mike into it would have fixed that issue is flawed logic.
The movie does suck.
I think it was an issue where they had too much money and too many ideas.
I still think AVGN Movie could have worked in theory, just not in execution.
But I think the best thing for James personally is to move on from the character and start doing maybe just an episode or 2 a year. Giving him TIME to focus on the projects he actually wants to pursue. Like his horror movie idea.
- The hero's journey vibe
- The road trip and all the incidents that happen during which can produce a lifelong enjoyable memories
- Leaving your own town to follow your dream and become something more
- Meeting new & interesting people
These are all rewards from doing the movie hollywood provided for james that he would never have experienced if he did THE MOVIE of his life time in his old boring town with the exact same old people he hang on with.
To anybody surprised why James didn't make it as an actual film maker - have you seen his movies outside of AVGN? Have you seen what he's been making well in his twenties before he struck gold with nerd? It's unwatchable. And he claims he spend over 2 years writing the story for the movie. 2 years for such terrible result. He can't write. He can't act. And he can't even direct. I'm afraid all the fame went massively into his head and he's still in denial. Just look at the behind the scenes video he made in 2021, it's delusional.
Filming himself and his friends playing around in his backyard, sticking a title on it an calling it a "short film" of which he's "made over 200" is a joke from a delusional creator.
Well... they're no masterpieces. But he's got passion.
Yea... this gave him PTSD... think he realized with this movie that he's not as good as he thought he was, and he will never make it as a director... you can tell it damaged his ego and changed him...
You know you are middle-aged when your regrets outnumber your dreams, and your own life's unfulfilled ambitions and goals pass onto those of your kids.
Damn, I recognized myself there.
Farted so phocking hard just now lasted like 6 seconds was a deep growl.
well done - man -- I enjoyed this!
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Polybius is a better AVGN movie, change my mind
I remember James sittin in front of the camera tellin a lil teaser horror story he would love 2make in2 a full film & having goosebumps by the end of the video... like an abandoned amusement park or sumthing like that, i dont remember it all it wuz so long ago but thats where he shines wit story telling
Lol the muppets comparison was the perfect description. I wanted to slap him every time I saw that in this video.
I had to look this up but he's like the muppet named Beaker. Look it up. Uncanny.
@@ScottyDunn lol!
I wish there were a side by side video of this bc it’s so funny and true!
@@justlaura7177 I should’ve don’t that 🤔
The Key to the Nerd episodes was making fun of games that we hated or were frustrated by. I didn’t make it past 15 minutes of the movie film. It’s just not that big of a deal. James, if you ever read this, thanks for all the years of entertainment my dude.
I'd like him to make another, but make it a horror film and go meta with it... make board james the villain or something idk...
Oh yeah, more "meta"... You muricans are so stupid.
He shouldn't act in the movie because he's not an actor.