So back in 2016 Logan Paul had recently jumped off of the sinking ship that was Vine, to instead focus on becoming a full-time youtuber.
But he held true in his heart, that someday, if he tried hard enough - he could become a real celebrity.
The platform YouTube, meanwhile, was interested in the concept of making a huge amount of cash
off of Logan's extremely young, and surprisingly large following.
Thus, a YouTube Red original movie was produced, to achieve these two selfish goals.
It's bad.
The movie surrounds a not too distant future, where students in America are given standardized tests, and are euthanized, if they do not pass.
The explanation is, that the United Nations have asked each country to kill 5% of their population yearly, to combat overpopulation.
This is an idea so hilariously stupid, that I think even the people being led out of the room to be murdered, understood how this plan makes no sense.
But the movie wants you to think that's serious. So let's all just roleplay, that it's not the dumbest thing you've ever heard.
Logan Paul's character in the movie, is the son of the governor of Texas.
Who is the lead person campaigning for the continuation of the Thinining program.
After his girlfriend fails a test, and is thus taken away,
Logan decides to fail the next test on purpose, to essentially kill himself.
But when he still passes the test, despite giving literally no answers,
he goes full-on Rambo, and begins assaulting people and breaking through random parts of the school.
The first Thinining movie has so many moving parts, that make it so perplexingly bad.
But I think my favorite, has to be the bit character of Wade Freeman.
"Out the way, bitches.
Wade Freeman, all-star quarterback. REPRESENT!"
Wade Freeman is a football player at the school, who gets out of the repercussions of the test,
basically because he's good at sports.
He walks around like he owns the place, he hogs the attention of the viewer, whenever he's on screen;
and all around, he just comes across like a cartoonish narcissist.
In other words: he is an on-screen representation, of what Logan Paul is like in the real world.
The first movie ended with Wade Freeman, Logan Paul, and several other students, being "executed" for failing the test.
Only to then, wake up in a giant prison. Apparently, people who fail the test get killed.
They just go into slave labor and make iPads. That's the twist!
I was unbelievably excited, when I heard, that they were officially making a Thinining 2.
Because I knew, that it was going to be bad, and even potentially worse than the original.
However, all that seemed to change around New Year's,
when Logan Paul decided to vlog inside of a Japanese suicide forest,
and uploaded barely censored footage of a real dead body.
YouTube then promptly put his sequel "on hold".
At the time, I openly stated that I presumed, that this meant that it was cancelled forever.
As had been done with previous YouTube Red projects.
In fact, just like with the Channel Awesome episode - up until a few weeks ago,
I had planned to make this the final episode of fallen Titans.
Just an entire Fallen Titans, dedicated to studying the second Thinining movie, that was never released.
But now it's out! So... I guess I gotta review it like a regular movie.
So, to actually watch the Thinining 2, I had to go ahead and get a YouTube Red subscription.
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With that, ladies and gentlemen, I present... The Thinining 2.
- It's pretty awesome, all this shit's goin'!
- We're slaves, idiot.
- I'm not a slave. I'm nobody's slave. I'm Wade Freeman, bitch!
The Thinining 2 has a small collection of scenes, which are so stupid, that they made me laugh.
Keep in mind - I've been waiting for this movie forever.
In fact, almost a year ago now, I released a video, basically campaigning for it to be released.
And I'll have to admit, that it was extremely gratifying, to see so many my predictions from that video turn true.
It was a "prison escape" movie, that got kind of ridiculous,
Wade Freeman did have a much bigger role in the sequel,
it was a really bad movie.
But I think there's one thing in the video, that is worth highlighting more than anything else.
But in a way, I almost feel like it's better, that I do never see it.
Because in my head, it's so hilariously bad,
that I'm terrified, that it might be slightly less bad than that in the real world.
I think I couldn't handle that. I think that would be my final crushing blow.
I honestly do. I think that would destroy me.
Of all the things, that I said in that "review", that is the thing that turned out to be the most true.
This movie is bad. But it's not "fun-bad", like the first one was. It's not excitingly bad.
It's just dull, it's pretentious, and it's try hard.
While it's extremely depressing to admit, after waiting this long,
the moment, that YouTube Red decided to release this movie,
was the exact moment, that the Thinining 2
went from being a mystifying and captivating piece of lost media,
to a movie that sucks, and you don't need to see.
This is gonna sound really weird, but I think, the reason that this movie is so less fun,
is that they didn't give Logan Paul any good material to work with.
I'm not saying, that Logan Paul is some Shakespearean level actor,
whose performance elevates any work, that he's involved with.
Quite the opposite, Logan Paul is a terrible actor.
He reminds me of a high school theater kid, that appears in all the plays, but isn't really invested in acting.
He just likes being in plays. So he says the lines, he memorizes the little songs, he puts on the faces.
But he's not being a character. He's just... Logan Paul.
Sometimes there are scenes, where other characters talk about "Blake", the character that he plays in these movies.
And it's really surreal, to hear the writer describe the job, that Logan Paul is supposed to be doing.
- Blake was one of the kindest souls, I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
And he failed the test on purpose, to protest this rigged system.
Like wow, that was a lot of... character motivations, and like...
impressions, that this girl got from him, that... do not come across to the audience. At all.
Because in the movie I saw, uh... there was a youtuber, trying to be an actor.
And he was in a movie, and that's all I really picked up on.
The prison storyline in the sequel, starts with Logan trying to escape,
but then Kylo Ren shows up and breaks his leg.
He spends most of the rest of the movie, trying to recover.
So, you know how in "The Theory of Everything" how Eddie Redmayne plays
the character of Stephen Hawking, throughout numerous different stages in his life,
representing different moments in the development of his disease,
and bringing a different perspective to each scene,
while still making you believe, that it's the same character.
This is Logan Paul trying to do that, and it's really embarrassing.
The main problem was, that Eddie Redmayne was able to convince you of the passage of time,
and the change of character, as a result of what was happening to him.
All of Logan Paul scenes feel, like they were shot in the same afternoon.
What made the first film so hilarious, was that you were never sure, what Logan Paul was going to do.
Because he is not talented enough, to imply character motivation.
So one moment, you'd have a shot of him looking sad in a hallway,
and in the next shot, he'd be assaulting someone.
This film does have a few quirky moments like that.
But he spends most of the film limping around this prison, trying to look serious.
By the time you get to the point, where he's actually done anything;
you've spent 80% of the movie, waiting for anything to happen.
- Do it! - Do it! Jump, jump.
Get the net!
[Quinton] Logan Paul acts, like his camera's out. He's like "shit! dammit!"
If you're wondering, what happens inside of the prison, it's basically a rape revenge storyline.
Logan finds his girlfriend from the first movie.
But it turns out, she's been forced into an unwanted relationship with another prisoner.
And Logan is occasionally ambushed and beaten up by this prisoner, over the course of about eight months.
The two were then separated, and Logan spends most of the rest the plot trying to recover.
But there's this boxing match, that the "bad guy prisoner" holds to beat up weaklings,
and Logan paul enters one day, and just beats the shit out of him.
Revenge has been had, for that rape storyline.
One thing, that seriously disappointed me with this movie,
was the great lack of scenes with Wade Freeman, all-star quarterback.
Uh, I'm including this as a bit of a meme, but also because... I don't understand this character.
Like, he is constantly in your face, your eye is always drawn to him.
He seems, like the filmmakers want you to think, that he's important.
But really, no plot description of either these films, has to mention him.
It's almost, like his role is to- is to walk into shot, do a dance, be distracting, and then wander off.
Like, that's Wade Freeman, and I don't understand why he exists.
[all three] WHOA!
Let's go over a brief part of the plot, that happens outside of the prison.
Because I hate all of it!
So in the last movie, Logan Paul's father...
I- I mean Logan Paul's fictional father, not Logan Paul's real father.
Logan Paul's fictional dad murders babies, and I still like him more, than Logan Paul's real dad.
Logan Paul's father started a campaign, to run for President of the United States.
This movie is all about him getting elected.
The main girl from the Thinining 1 ends up campaigning for him,
because she's working for a secret organization, trying to expose the secrets of the governor and the Thinining.
The characters in the movie are eventually thus able to find evidence of the illegal slave labor.
But by the time they've exposed the governor, and all the secrets of the Thinining,
he's been elected as president.
- Look, I don't mean to be a downer here. But all of this is extremely illegal!
- Not anymore.
The president's staff then orders the arrest of anyone, who has ever disagreed with the Thinining.
I'm gonna repeat that one.
The president's staff then orders the arrest of anyone, who has ever disagreed with the Thinining.
I don't know where to start.
Because there's not a single sentence, or word, or thought,
about that plot point, that makes sense.
I mean, just starting with the fact, that you would be arresting like 45% of the American population,
which is gonna be like, well over a 100 million people.
You would need a police force matching that, so...
So you would need the rest of the American population, to also be, like 45% police force.
Which is not a thing, that's gonna ever be true.
I mean, at that stage, you need 90% of the country to be involved with this plan.
45% are getting arrested, 45% are police.
Also, just the fact, that the- For one, obviously, the, the-
The President the United States does not have this power.
For two, they do this on election night.
Like, even before they've called all the states.
Like... like, long before he's been sworn into office, and really before he's even officially won.
But he- his staff called for the arrest of every person, who has ever disagreed with the Thinining.
[visible disppointment]
I can't even get mad anymore about this stuff, cause it's like...
It's like, if I got mad about stuff like that, I would just like...
Like, I'd just be like, a very unhappy person all the time.
It's just... I'm not angry. I'm disappointed, movie.
So um, here's the thing: I fucking hate Trump.
He embarrasses me every day. He makes us all look like backwards idiots.
And frankly, the fact that he got elected, means that we probably are all backwards idiots.
Uh, he's ruining people's lives.
He's making horrible, racist decisions,
which are probably going to have long-lasting repercussions,
long after he's out of office.
Overall, I would be a much happier person, if we found a way to
deport him from every position of power, that he has ever had.
But on that note, I feel like if this is a movie about Trump, they're doing a bad job.
You get the feeling this was written, like late November 2016.
It's a political movie, written in 2016, about the 2016 elections, before Trump was sworn into office.
Which, because of production, and because of all this drama surrounding the suicide forest,
got pushed back to almost the end of 2018.
We no longer have any use for this.
It is outdated, it is unnuanced, and it is..
It's frankly embarrassing, that they decided to release this.
The movie ends with Logan Paul and his two girlfriends being arrested for being anti-Thinining.
But while they're driving off, one of the resistance members from earlier shows up and rescues them.
He says that "they're going to war", presumably against the president.
Cut to black.
So, the Thinining franchise is clearly a staple of YouTube content at this point.
And I think - clearly, it should be something that they continue to make.
However, I think at this stage it would be fair to say,
that it would be questionable for YouTube, to continue to work with people like Logan Paul.
So we're in a position, where it would make sense for them to make these movies;
but not for them to work with the lead actor of these movies.
To rectify, this I would like to pitch my own, third Thinining movie.
It's called "Freeman: a Thinining Story".
Make the entire 3rd Thinining movie about Wade Freeman, and how he single-handedly
stops the President of the United States, and ends the Thinining for good.
Make the character's growth and execution in the first two films feel entirely justified, by giving him a proper payoff.
And create a film, which could either be the end to a brilliant trilogy,
or the start to a new age in YouTube Red content.
Preferably, the final act of the movie would involve a scene,
where Wade Freeman saves the day, entirely by throwing a football.
Perhaps, there is a button at the end of a hallway, where the walls are closing in.
And if you press that button, the Thinining ends.
And people say: "there's no way, we can hit that button in time".
And Wade Freeman says: "Who the hell do you think I am?"
Throws the football, crowd goes wild, gets the girls, saves the day.
That's the movie for me.
And you guys can help get the third Thinining movie made, by signing my change.org petition.
Change.org - 1% honest effort, 99% shitposts about bad movies.
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And I think I'm gonna need that five dollars, cause this room has just spontaneously caught on fire.
Okay, better wrap this up.
Uh, if you liked this video, remember to hit that subscribe button,
and give me the bell, so you'll see when I upload.
Hit that like button, so the algorithm stops being mad at me.
Find people in your life, that make you happy in small ways, and and tell them how much you love them.
That's all you need. I gotta go!
[chair falls over]
[room continues to burn down]