Hello Internet!
My name is Daniel *WOAH* Brian
And welcome to another episode of Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder
The show that..
A show that, like, if it had t-shirts would you buy one?
Would you buy and wear a shirt that said
'Obsessive Pop Culture Disorder' on it?
In a-
In a cool way? Would you buy that?
I've been making these videos for, like, five years
and they're only gonna let me keep making them if they turn a profit
So, like
T-shirts?
Is that a dumb idea?
Gut says 'yes'
Anyway!
Today's episode uncovers
Heyy
Looks like someone crunched the numbers
and found out that videos with
'Bizarrely specific' in the title
did better, on average, than other videos
so, let's dig in!
Movies with plans or schemes have a hard task in front of them
On the one hand, they need to set up the scheme
Ocean's Eleven style
to inform the audience what every character is supposed to be doing
to pull off their heist
On the other hand
they need to throw in a few false positives
red herrings
and misdirection
so the audience
can still be surprised and satisfied by the end
In rehersal
Ocean's Eleven will show the audience every step of their plan
in advance
Except the part of the plan where Carl Reiner
believably fakes a heart problem
Or when George Clooney gets detained
"Did you have a hand in this?"
"Did I have my hand in what?"
They built a realistic plan
And then throw most of it out
To make it frogsh**t impossible to follow
in the interest of surprising the audience
Man
Movies use so much to surprise and please me
and all I do is tell them they're wrong
Do you think I'm the abusive one in this relationship?
Anyway
Here are some bizarrely specific movie plans that shouldn't have worked
At the end of Empire Strikes Back
Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite
and sent to Jabba the Hutt as a trophy/prisoner
I mean, it's not a trophy in the way that
a standard deer head is a trophy
because the deer is dead
and Han's still alive
And it-
It's not a prisoner
in the way that a standard prisoner is a prisoner
because, you can't like
torture
or gloat at
or rehabilitate
or otherwise interact with frozen Han
Essentially all you're doing
is preserving Han with no overhead cost
So, Han could
He could-
Theoretically
live in suspended carbonite for
a hundred years
He can outlive you, Jabba
But
Let's ignore that for this episode
And definitely make sure we include it
in a
future episode
So
Han's trapped
In a
thing
And, literally
all of his buddies have come to help him out
in one of the most famous rescue missions ever filmed
Let's really break down
what he and all of his buddies
are doing for this plan
For this plan to work perfectly
Han needs to get unfrozen
re-captured
and then positioned right in front of a gigantic monster pit
made of eating
His robot friends
needed to at one point show up and
pose as service droids for Jabba
R2-D2 has Luke's lightsaber
in his belly
That's important
His on again
off again
princess girlfriend
the one who freed him from carbonite
and also murdered Jabba
needed to first show up as a dangerous bounty hunter
And then she needed to get found out
and captured
and turned into a slave girl
His closest
friend bear
Chewy
needed to pretend to be a prisoner of that bounty hunter
His new little buddy, Luke
needed to show up
use magic
get captured
and, when the magic failed
get thrown into a pit with a monster
kill the monster
and then get re-imprissoned
So that he too
could be placed in front of a gigantic monster pit
made of eating
At some point his
Buddy?
Lando
gets a security job
at Jabba's palace
and ends up pulling guard duty
when all the big stuff goes down
It all mattered!
R2-D2, Lando, Luke, Leia, and Chewy
were all instrumental in
in Han's dramatic escape
But why?
And how could a well executed plan
involve Luke getting captured
twice?
Leia strangled Jabba to death
But they ended up blowing up his palace
Meaning
He would've died anyway!
Meaning
What the f**k was she even doing there?
Was her role just 'Unfreeze Han'?
Cuz
If so
Get someone else for that step of the plan!
Because if the plan just ended up involving
cool lightsaber magic
did we need actual princess/general
becomes bikini clad slave
briefly
as one of the steps?
And Lando!
How long did he work at Jabba's palace
undercover
for a plan that is essentially
Take the thing I want
And then blow up everything else
Because, remember
Their plan ended up being
'fight everybody who is bad'
And
Instead of just having
Luke, Lando, Leia, and Chewy
charge in with all their weapons
They deliberatly chose a plan
that forced them to disarm
and in some cases wear a metal slave bathing suit
And it worked
But, like
WHY?
"Just stick close to Chewy and Lando"
"I've taken care of everything"
"Oh!"
"Great."
The Dark Knight is my third favourite Batman movie
After Tim Burton's Batman
And, you ready for this?
Lego Batman Movie
Fight me.
It's in my top three
because it's fun, and good
but mostly because
Heath Ledger's joker is so good and watchable
He's SO good
and watchable
that it actually
distracts you from the many
rediculous plot holes in this movie
Joker gets captured by Batman
and Jim Gordon that everyone thought was dead
But then he escapes prison
because he installed a bomb in the belly of a guy
he knew was also going to get arrested
And at some point
He captured Rachel Daws and Harvey Dent
and stored them in explosive filled warehouses
on opposite sides of town
He did this
because he wanted to torture Batman
Let him think he caught Joker
so he could meanwhile
kill Rachel
or Harvey
Didn't
seem to matter
Somebody had to die
Probably
Maybe!
I have never coordinated
and will never coordinate
anything that complex
Joker, an agent of chaos
a guy who claims to not have a plan
planned enough to know that he was going to be captured
and put into prison
at the same time that another guy was in prison
with a bomb in his gut
while Joker's henchmen
were making sure that Rachel and Harvey were trapped
in their various warehouses
Rachel gets killed
Harvey becomes Two Face
which motivates the final act of the plot
and Joker ends up escaping
to continue the rest of his
day
The plan depends on Joker getting caught
meaning it depends on Gordon surprising him
by being alive
and it also relies on the Gotham
police department
having corrupt officers that Joker could
coerce and manipulate
What if Joker
didn't randomly get caught
by a suddenly alive Gordon
and a bat motorcycle
What if
he successfully rocket-launched Batman to death?
As was his plan
Would he have just kept living?
Causing trouble?
While Harvey and Rachel blew up
affecting no one
Would he still have done the-
the boat thing?
We'll never know, because
Luckily
The Joker's plan worked
Wherein 'works' means
Literally, a few good people died
and Batman was kinda sad for a short amount of time
We know from Dark Knight Rises
that Joker's second eventual capture
led to an unprecedented period of peace and safety in Gotham
until Bane showed up
Like
Joker did his thing
Which, sure
killed Harvey Dent and Rachel Daws, but
he essentially disolved the mafia
made Batman irrelivent
and inspired Gordon to retire
because there wasn't enough crime in Gotham
Cool plan
you painted up butthole
Star Wars! Again?
Maybe these movies are bad
Okay
The Star Wars prequels aren't known for their
anything positive
And sure, they're all bad
But, the ridiculousness of Emperor Palpatine's
career plan gets special distinction
for being so specifically bad
Like, bad in a way that takes work
not just lazy bad
The Emperor
AKA Darth Sidious
AKA Sheev Palpatine
A-
Sheev?
Really?
Elgh!
George
Ellgh!
Anyway
At the start of Phantom Menace
Sheev
is leading a double life as both Darth Sidious
the evil Sith Lord
and Sheev Palpatine
the charismatic senator from Naboo
A f**king mostly water planet
I think
That seems important for some reason
He didn't assume someone else's identity
by the way
He's an active senator
who is very distinguished
and well liked by his constituants
and his fellow senators alike
He has earned the trust
of the Queen of Naboo
He's vocal about how much he looves democracy
"I love democracy."
Meanwhile
he's behind the scenes
convincing the corrupt trade fedaration
to f***ing invade Naboo or whatever
This leads to chaos
Or-
Not chaos,
Confusing political bureaucracy which
which Sheev uses to persuade the senate
to get rid of Supreme Chancellor Valorum
And then-
Does anyone like these movies?
And then
he gets himself appointed Supreme Chancellor
which he accepts humbly
and with tremendous regret
In Attack of the Clones
Wikipedia says
He "exploits constitutional loopholes to remain in office even after the official expiration of his term"
Whew!
Is anyone else rock hard over here or what?
While his alter ego
Darth Sidious convinces rogue Jedi,
now Sith
Count Dooku
to convince a bunch of planets
to succeed from the republic
and form a new confederacy
of independent systems
They start building a droid army!
Palpatine grants himself emergency powers in addition to his constitutional
mind and lightning powers
Initiates the creation of a clone army
So the whole galaxy
which
was once in near perfect harmony
is now fighting itself
in a Droid vs. Clone battle
that is run on both sides
by Palpatine
The guy who wants control
but somehow doesn't know he already has it
Palpatine then gets his ass captured
by some droid separatists?
on purpose
And has Anakin murder Count Dooku
Remember him?
And so now
he has control of the senate
and also, I guess runs the separatists?
Then they kill all the Jedi
Including
And espescially
the babies
And then Sheev Sidious Palpatine re-
r-uh-
reorganizes
the universe, so
these two opposing factions are now
all together?
They stopped fighting
They go back to how things were like before
Only now he's in charge of all of it
And then he has a Death Star built
Cuz, like, what if
some motherf***er ever wants to step to him?
With an equally convoluted plan?
Spoiler alert!
The opposition will never have an equally convoluted plan!
They have the one plan
It's the-
the 'Blow up the Death Star' plan
That's it
Now
if you're still with us
you, like me, are confused
Why would the Emperor manufacture a war
that half of him was bound to lose?
Why would he want total control over the galaxy
if the only thing he seemed to want
is the ability to blow up planets with the Death Star?
How would he know that the path to owning tha galaxy
runs through him
being the beloved senator
of a sh**ty frog planet
in peace time for years?
"I am the senate."
Remember
the reason the senate allowed him to get total control
over everything
means that they trusted him
Meaning, he did something to distinguish himself
and appeared to be an incorruptible politician
for years
"I wanna run the galaxy one day,"
which means
a lot of great work in the local political sector
of a sh**ty frog planet, for like
A decade
Also
His plan relied on Anakin
killing a bunch of people
to help consolodate his power
and wipe out the Jedi competition
Anakin killed Dooku
cut off Mace Windu's arm, and slaughtered
A ton of Jedi children
He was integral to the plan
How could Palpatine have a plan
that by design
required a magic baby
to just appear on his doorstep one day?
Setting aside, for a moment
the fact that the plan makes no sense
Palpatine,
Sidious,
Sheev,
What are you even in this for?
You're a gross pale goblin that everyone hates
and now you've got a bunch of clones and robots and huts
you don't know what to do with!
Are you just sitting around waiting for Jedi to kill?
Find a hobby!
Look at birds or get
good with f***ing knots or something
Write a book about your time in politics
Profiles and Corison
I don't give a sh*t
You built Death Stars to fight the rebellion
the rebellion only exists
because you took the entire galaxy
tore it appart
and then rebranded it as 'The Empire'
Those people were fine!
"The Republic will be reorganized into the First Galactic Empire!"
Star Wars movies are, like, bad
I dated a woman a few years ago
Who had never seen any of them before
And I was like, "What? Stop! We're watching all of them right now"
Like, that was the date
We laid down on my couch watching the original trillogy
and we finished Empire
and she was like, "Should we do the next one now?"
And I was like, "Actually, you can skip it."
Cuz
Actually
You can skip it
If you think Star Wars is perfect
watch it with someone who has never seen it before and
try to explain to them
Why it's perfect, and you'll realize
It's just mostly like, meh,
But I love it!
But like, meh.
I'm so happy it's part of my life
and pop culture history
But
Skywalker and Solo
were never cool names
They were busy
loadbearing names
Way too on the nose
Can't wait for the stand alone Solo movie, though
Or, the next two
in the new trilogy
Or
whatever other f***ing Star Wars movies come out
from between now and when I die
which will be
Never!
I'll see them all!
You can skip 'em
Anyway
That's all for now
Join us next month when our topic will be
The show sells a ton of t-shirts, so much so
that we don't need to do the show anymore?
Oh!
You've put me in quite the difficult position
show that seems to know the future
Okay!
So I need a bunch of you
to buy t-shirts and duffle bags
and whatever the f**k else we're selling these days
But I need some of you to not do that
Because
we need to stay hungry
or else we'll get lazy, so
Audience
Uh
Divide yourself in half
and half of you buy stuff
The rest of you
next month's episode will be about
I don't know, Flubber?
Anyway, Bye!
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