Why I Stopped Watching Rick Worley

Foreword: 

 

This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Friday October 7, 2022. I wasn't sure if I should even repost this on here. I was content with just having it be one of the posts that I just kept on DeviantART, and didn't repost on my blog because it was a journal about a YouTuber that I started watching and was starting to like, but then completely gave up on and distanced myself from after I saw this one video from him that showed his true colors as a bigot. But, after I saw that someone recently favorited on DeviantART, and I read it again, I thought, "Hmm, this is actually good enough to post on my blog," and that's how we ended up here. So, think of this as my post for Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈. 

This will also be the first post in-which the note at the beginning is called a "foreword," since that's technically what they are. Expect that on all on all the old posts I repost on here. Besides this foreword, I didn't make a lot of changes to this post. I just corrected any typos, misspellings, or any other grammar errors that I spotted while re-reading it on DeviantART. If I spot anymore after I post this, expect to see more grammatical corrections. That's what I do on all of my posts.

I only post three posts last month, and I apologize for that. I got preoccupied with a lot of stuff that kept me from writing new posts from reposting old posts. But the posts I did post last month, I spent a lot of my time re-editing, and adding new stuff to. I was even re-editing and adding stuff to a post that I didn't post in the month of May, but one that I posted all the way back in February, my Armageddon ☄️ review. The biggest and most notable change I made to that post is that I added an update where I addressed the way I wrote about the visual effects company, Digital Domain in the original text, and how it likely stemmed from my love/hate relationship with James Cameron, and how I've sort of started to dislike James Cameron as I've gotten older. It is funny that I mention James Cameron here because his directorial debut was the 1982 sci-fi horror monster film, Piranha II: The Spawning, the sequel to 1978's Piranha. I have some things to say about Piranha, stay tuned for later in this foreword.

Because of all the recent changes I made to that post, the views got bumped up to 125 views, because Blogger for some reason counts the creator/author's views in the view counts. But, this didn't cause my Armageddon ☄️ review to jump up to the top of the most popular posts on the blog chart that's at the bottom of every post. The most popular post on my blog right now is the one I wrote about my ideas for a Loud House Movie sequel. And again, that's only because of how many times I've gone back to it and edited it and made changes or additions to it, and then viewed on the blog itself to review the changes and see if they came out the way I wanted or if they flow good with the text. The Armageddon ☄️ review has more views than that the Loud House Movie sequel post does, and it yet it hasn't significantly surpassed it on the most popular posts chart. Why is that? Blogger if you're reading this, can you fix that? 

But, I guess it doesn't really matter that much since all of those views are from me since no one's actually reading this blog yet. I sent links to it to my cousin, to my older sister, and even on DeviantART itself, and yet outside engagement has not increased since I started this blog back in November of last year (2023). It's just me alone in my little corner of the time shouting out into the ether when one is around to hear (or read rather) what I have to say. 

I just had to start a new blog at a time when blogs and blogging in general aren't as popular or influential as they used to be on the Internet. That was just bad timing on my part. But, I'm going to keep doing it even if one's reading it because writing is my passion, and hey, if no one's reading my blog, that gives me more freedom. It means that I can write whatever I want, or post whatever I want, and no one's going to complain about it or question it, no one's going to scrutinize me for every little thing I do. I guess there are benefits to being a nobody online. 

I will try to post more stuff on the blog this month if I can. I should because I'll have more freedom this month, and I won't be busy with all kinds of stuff like I was in May. Busy in relative terms, since I spent a lot of my last month downloading videos off of YouTube, re-editing them, making them forward and inverted (the I use for backwards), downloading certain types of videos 🔞 from certain websites 🔞 I can't exactly mention on here without risking it getting age restricted (that's all I'll say) for my own pleasure, and also going to graduation receptions with my grandma for a bunch of family members in my extended family that I don't know all that well. But still, I was doing a lot of stuff, and it did keep from posting stuff on the blog, whether they be new or old. 

It also doesn't help that I haven't really seen that many new movies this year. I've only see three movies this year that were new releases this year, 2024: The Beekeeper 🐝, Land of Bad 🇺🇸🇵🇭, and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. And of those three, I've only seen two of them in theaters, Land of Bad 🇺🇸🇵🇭 and Godzilla x Kong. I didn't get the chance to see The Beekeeper 🐝 in theaters, I only saw it on the streaming service/digital video store formally known as VUDU, now called Fandango at Home. My aunt rented it, and she let me watch it on her account. Then I bought the Blu-Ray 💿 months later when the movie finally came out on physical media. You can read my review of The Beekeeper 🐝 here, and stay tuned for when I talk more about in my 2024 New Year’s Eve Recap.

I am hoping that I'll at least get to see Bad Boys: Ride or Die in theaters, or Twisters 🌪️, the legacy sequel to the 1996 classic, Twister 🌪️. Can you believe that people are already saying that Twisters 🌪️ is going to be bad? Come on! At least give it a chance, and wait until it comes out to pass judgment instead of already deciding your opinions on the movie before it has even come out. I mean, who knows? Maybe Twisters 🌪️ will be the Top Gun: Maverick of this year. A legacy sequel that very few people had faith when it announced and when it was marketed, but turned out to be amazing, surpassing everyone's expectations and proving all the naysayers wrong. I mean, it does have one of the same actors as Top Gun: Maverick, Glen Powell, so maybe it will be. 

People are reacting the same way to that Crow 🐦‍⬛ remake that's coming out this year with Bill Skarsgård as Eric Draven, where they're just assuming that it's going to be bad based solely on the marketing and the fact that it even exists at all. People were really against the idea of remaking The Crow 🐦‍⬛. It became one of those sacred movies that people felt should never be remade, sort of like Jaws, which I'll get to in a moment because something that I'm going to say in this foreword has to do with Jaws. All because it starred Brandon Lee, and Brandon Lee died on set while filming the movie. People just felt that it felt wrong to do a remake of a movie where the lead actor died while making it. 

I guess it's kind of the way I feel that ill-fated western movie, Rust that pretty much ruined Alec Baldwin's career and reputation, but a similar more positive way than I how I feel about Rust. That movie is forever tainted for me because of what happened on that shoot. I'm mentioning Rust because the cinematographer who got shot to death by Baldwin on that movie died in pretty much the same way Brandon Lee died. Brandon Lee was shot with a prop gun that wasn't probably checked, that had broken pieces of shrapnel or a real bullet or something inside of it. 

That's what happened to Halyna Hutchins (who happened to be of Ukrainian descent 🇺🇦 I'd like to add since I've talked about Ukraine 🇺🇦 quite a few times on this blog), she was shot to death by Alec Baldwin while they were filming a scene that involved him using a prop gun, and that gun was not properly checked and had a real bullet in it. It was a very clear example of gross negligence and a complete disregard for safety just as it was on the set of the original 1993 Crow 🐦‍⬛ movie. However, unlike The Crow 🐦‍⬛, I doubt Rust will ever get finished or come out. 

It might very well be one of those movies that's unfinished and gets canceled halfway through because of the tragedy that happened and legal troubles that transpired because of what happened that day. I don't think Rust should continue, and I don't think it should come out. There's too much baggage with that movie that it would just feel very wrong and sacrosanct to continue that movie's production and release it. Plus, I want everyone involved to be held accountable because they are all responsible for this woman ♀︎'s death. They all have her blood 🩸 on their hands. 

I'm glad that the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 18 months in prison for what she did, because that whole thing was her fault. Or at least, a good chunk of it was. Hutchins died unnecessarily because of her gross negligence and disregard for safety. She was completely irresponsible and shouldn't have been allowed to handle the firearms on any movie production. I still think her sentence is a bit light for what she did, but at least she was held accountable for what she did and wasn't allowed to escape justice. 

I do think that Alec Baldwin should also be tried for what he did since he fired the weapon and this movie was kind of his pet project. He was the one who wanted to make that movie, and put the money 💵 to make it. And this death happened his watch, and whether he likes it or not, he was the one who fired the weapon and shot Hutchins. So, he is responsible too, and he should be held accountable in the court of law 👨‍⚖️⚖️ for it. But either way though, I think his career is finished. Like, what Alec Baldwin did was a thousand times worse than what Will Smith did at the Oscars in 2022. He actually killed someone. That's another reason why I think Rust will never be completed, and why I think it'll probably be canceled and why I think it should be canceled. If there was still right in the world, and if Hollywood had somewhat of a moral compass or could simply read the room, then that is what would happen. 

Anyway, sorry about going off on a tangent about Rust and Alec Baldwin but I had to kind of get that off of my chest, especially since that "incident" happened in my home state, New Mexico, and both Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and Alec Baldwin were and are being tried within the New Mexico legal system by the New Mexican state court ⚖️. So, it hits closer to home than some of these other infamous on-set tragedies such as the one that happened on The Crow 🐦‍⬛, speaking of which. 

I'm not as invested in this remake because I didn't even like the original Crow 🐦‍⬛ movie all that much.  So, I don't really care either way, and I'm not as passionate about this remake as some of these die hard Crow 🐦‍⬛ fans and Brandon Lee fans are. I still like Brandon Lee though, I have no problem with him as an actor, and I do agree with what people have said about him since his tragic death. I do think that he would've become a huge star, and would've gone on to even bigger and greater things. This movie, as much as I wasn't that big of a fan of it, was a big stepping stone to that, or it would've been had he not died and been taken from us so suddenly and so soon. 

However, I do think the fact that he was Bruce Lee's son and he died too is what kind of added to the mystique of Brandon Lee and made him larger than life, and in turn made the movie, The Crow 🐦‍⬛ so sacred and untouchable in the eyes of so many people. It's like, he was the son of a legend, and just like his father, he died young just when his career was starting to take off. But, he ended up becoming much more beloved and much more legendary in death than he ever was in life. That's the way I see it.  

It's kind of ironic in a way because before his death, Brandon Lee talked about how he didn't want to be in his father's shadow, and how he wanted to differentiate himself from his father so that he wouldn't simply be remembered as "Bruce Lee's son." That's kind of the reason why he did The Crow 🐦‍⬛ because it was such a different role for him at the time, and it was so different from anything his father had done, and it would allow him to truly strike out on his own and become his own actor, his own man ♂︎.

And yet, his career and his life ended up kind of going the same way that his father's did. And now their graves 🪦 are lying right next to each other, father and son. But, even if he didn't live to see the results, I do ultimately think that he succeeded in what he set out to do by starring in The Crow 🐦‍⬛. Now, nobody remembers him as "Bruce Lee's son" (in fact I'm sure the majority of people nowadays don't even know that he was Bruce Lee's son) but as Brandon Lee. He did become his own man ♂︎. 

Every other movie that I wanted to see in these past couple of months that I had planned on writing reviews for on this blog I'll probably have to watch on either digital and streaming or on Blu-Ray 💿. Like, Boy Kills World, Civil War 🇺🇸 (which I've heard mixed things about from my cousin who saw it with his girlfriend apparently and they said that they didn't like it), Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and maybe Monkey Man 🐒🇮🇳. I am at least glad that I got to see Godzilla x Kong in theaters, since I didn't get to see Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters when it came out. MonsterVerse movies should be seen in theaters, and unfortunately, Godzilla vs. Kong was the one that I didn't get to see in theaters when it came out because you know, the pandemic 😷🦠. 

So, I made sure that I saw the next movie, Godzilla x Kong, in theaters. I missed out on Monkey Man 🐒🇮🇳 to see it. But, I don't mind because I really liked Godzilla x Kong. It's probably my favorite movie of this year so far. It's hard to top a Godzilla and King Kong tag-team matchup against two new monsters, a giant evil orange ape with spinal cord whip and a giant reptile with ice breath 🧊 while Godzilla and Kong have both been upgraded. With Godzilla becoming a supercharged solar-powered ☀️ pink version of himself, and Kong getting a mechanical glove that not only heals his frostbite 🥶 (that he got from Shimo breathing her ice breath 🧊 on his right arm) but also increases his strength tenfold. 

And also a metal tooth since one of his canine teeth was chipped at the bottom and was rotten, and had to be removed and replaced with a titanium one. Plus Mothra, can't go wrong with Mothra, especially the MonsterVerse version of Mothra. You can go read my review for it right now, and stay tuned for when I talk it in my 2024 New Year's Eve Recap, which I will post on here on New Year's Eve at the end of this year. If things keep going as they have been, this year's recap may end up being way shorter than the ones I wrote for 2022 and 2023.

I think I'll probably be able to see Mars Express, that French anime-inspired futuristic cyberpunk-type movie 🇫🇷 that takes place on Mars and was crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Or at least, I think it was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, the info on the movie's financing is a bit of sketchy or rather nonexistent. If it wasn't crowdfunded, just ignore that last part. I'm probably getting it confused with that upcoming Pakistani animated movie 🇵🇰 that was actually crowdfunded, The Glassworker. I'll probably edit it out if I find information that it wasn't crowdfunded. 

Anyway, that movie's coming out on Blu-Ray 💿 and on streaming since it's being distributed by GKIDS Films, which is a distribution company that specializes in releasing Japanese anime 🇯🇵 and other foreign and indie animated films in North America. They're one of the few companies out there still willing to do physical media releases, and they do fairly decent ones. Not all their releases are perfect, some of them have flaws and lack sufficient special features, but for the most part, I think they put good releases and they're on the whole on the up and up. I'll review that movie if I ever get the chance to buy it and watch it. It comes out on Blu-Ray 💿 on June 18, 2024, which is two weeks from now. It's coming up real soon. I hope we'll still have enough money 💵 by then to buy it because my grandma's payday is the week before. Maybe I'll win some extra money 💵 at the casino 🎰 if we play at the casino 🎰 on any of those days before the movie's home release 😄. 

I should mention that Mars Express is technically a 2023 movie. It was released exclusively in France 🇫🇷, since it's a French movie 🇫🇷, and it is just barely getting a release in North America this year, 2024. So, for us, this is a 2024 movie, but for the French 🇫🇷, it was a 2023 movie. For most people in America 🇺🇸 and Canada 🇨🇦, this will be the first time that they will be able to see it, myself included. It sort of reminds me of how Boy Kills World was released. Boy Kills World is technically a 2023 movie, but it was only shown on the film festival circuit, and didn't get a wide release until this year, 2024. So, for who frequent film festivals, it was a 2023 movie, but for the rest of us, it is a 2024 movie.

I plan on posting my review of Transformers: Age of Extinction this month since it's the next Michael Bay Transformers movie after Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Even I though I think I probably wrote the review for Age of Extinction before I wrote the one for Dark of the Moon. I didn't originally write them as reviews, but as descriptions for re-edits of videos that I had downloaded off of YouTube. They were explosion compilation 💥 videos since Michael Bay is known for putting a lot of explosions 💥 in his movies, including and especially the Transformers movies. 

That's why whenever you see an explosion 💥 in a movie, or a clip of an explosion 💥 in a movie on YouTube, someone almost always makes a joke about Michael Bay in the comments. I was only planning to do the ones for Age of Extinction and The Last Knight, but then I decided to do the ones for Transformers (2007), Revenge of the Fallen, and Dark of the Moon. The whole series. The review that you won't see is the 2007 movie since I didn't feel that the description for that was good enough or long enough to make into a review. So, the only reviews you'll see are for the sequels.

I also plan on posting the next entry in my series on Taiwan 🇹🇼 and China 🇨🇳, though this next one I'll be posting will be exclusively about Taiwan 🇹🇼 and won't focus as much on China 🇨🇳 as the one that I posted last month. Don't worry, I will get to the post that I wrote about North Korea 🇰🇵 and its weird and complicated relationship with China 🇨🇳 eventually, but I want to get the ones that I wrote about Taiwan 🇹🇼 out of the way first. I'm posting them in order from when I wrote them. 

Which is pretty much the exact opposite of how I've been posting the reviews I wrote of the Michael Bay Transformers movies and the 1998 Roland Emmerich Godzilla movie. I posted the Armageddon ☄️ review long before I started posting any of the reviews I wrote for the Transformers movies, even though I wrote the Armageddon ☄️ review after I wrote the reviews of the Transformers movies. I wrote the review of Godzilla (1998) long after I wrote the reviews of the Transformers movies, but I ended up posting it in-between the reviews for Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon.

I do also plan on reviewing Piranha 3D, AKA just Piranha (2010) at some point in the future. That was a movie that I was interested in seeing in theaters when it came out back in 2010 since it was exactly the kind of movie that was up by ally. A creature feature about killer fish 🐟. Normally those kinds of movies are low-budget B movies that only get released direct-to-DVD/Blu-Ray 📀💿, but Piranha 3D was example of a creature movie about giant prehistoric animals that eat people that was put out by a major studio, Dimension Films (which was owned by the Weinstein Company at the time 😨), and had a fairly decent budget and some decent well-known actors such as Christopher Lloyd and Ving Rhames.  

Piranha 3D didn't have a super big budget. It only costed $24 million 💵, which is still considered a low budget for a movie, not making it to mid-budget range which like $30 million up to $70 million. You can tell that it did cost that amount of money 💵, that it did only cost $24 million 💵, since I have seen clips from that movie, and the CGI on the piranhas doesn't look very good at several points. I think they spent the majority of the movie's budget on getting those big name actors, and securing that partnership with Girls Gone Wild ♀︎, and not enough on the special effects. 

Speaking of which, the reason why I never got to see it was all the sexual content and nudity that was in that film. My parents and other family members let me watch a lot of other kinds movies with blood and gore 🩸, but nudity was where they drew the line. If a movie had nudity in it, they wouldn't let me watch it, and Piranha 3D has a lot of nudity. Almost to point of being softcore porn. Oops, I said the P word 🫢. That was I trying to avoid earlier by just using this emoji 🔞. The movie even has an actual pornstar in the cast. Her name is Kelly Brook. Or at least, I thought she was a pornstar for the longest time. But no, she's just a model and an actress. Before she was in Piranha 3D, she was a heartthrob 😍 for a lot of guys ♂︎ because she was in those Axe commercials, you know the ones that relied heavily on sex appeal, and tried to make it seem like Axe body spray was like a pheromone that would instantly attract any woman ♀︎.

The movie is apparently really good, like it is an awesome creature feature with a lot of gory kills 🩸, and also sexy ladies ♀︎ in bikinis 👙 and fully nude in some cases. To my surprise upon looking at the Wikipedia page for it, it did actually get glowing reviews from critics upon its initial release 👍👍. It's surprising to me because this is ostensibly a B movie, a B grade creature feature about giant killer prehistoric piranhas that eat a bunch of idiotic spring breakers, and film critics and film reviewers tend to look down on those kinds of movies. 

But, I guess it was one of the good ones that even broke through to snobby critics, which increases my interest in seeing it. That is what you get when you get the guy who directed the 2006 Hills Have Eyes remake to do it. It did get a terrible sequel called Piranha 3DD, as in 3 Double-D like Double D from Ed, Edd n' Eddy (that's how it's pronounced), although Double-D in that instance was referring to breast size (it's a pun), but what else is new? A lot of horror movies get bad sequels, and Piranha 3D was no exception. Although, Piranha 3D is more of a horror comedy as opposed to a straight up horror movie. 

It is weird to me that is called Piranha 3D considering that it's no longer in 3D. As far I know, it's never been released in 3D on home media, like it didn't get a 3D Blu-Ray 💿 release as far as I know. It was only released in 2D on regular DVD 📀 and regular Blu-Ray 💿. Meaning that when it was released on home media, it was just called Piranha, just like the original 1978 movie. Yes, that's right, Piranha 3D is a remake. It's technically the second remake of Piranha (1978), since there was a 1995 remake that was much more low budget than even Piranha 3D was, and was made for TV. Whereas Piranha 3D was a full theatrically released movie. Piranha (1995) faded into obscurity, and most of you reading this probably had no idea that it even existed until I told you. I didn't know that it even existed until I looked the Piranha movies on Wikipedia due to my recent Piranha kick.

You either you thought that Piranha 3D was the first or "original" Piranha movie and didn't know that it was a remake, or you knew that Piranha 3D was a remake, but you thought that it was the only remake of the 1978 movie and didn't know that there already was a remake to the 1978 movie prior to Piranha 3D on TV in 1995 like I did. And didn't, I guess. Either way, Piranha 3D is still probably the better of the two remakes. It is probably better than the 1995 movie. 

They should've retitled the movie, Piranha 2D when it was released on home media, just so that people know that it isn't in 3D anymore, and to better differentiate it from the 1978 movie or the 1995 movie that no body remembers. That way no one gets confused. But then again, if it wasn't still called Piranha 3D and was called Piranha 2D once it hit the home media market, what would've they called the sequel? Well, they could still call it Piranha 3DD when it's in theaters and in 3D, but when it came out on home media, they could retitle it to Piranha 2DD, problem solved. It's that simple.

But, why am I so interested in watching and reviewing Piranha 3D any way? Because I recently got back into sharks 🦈 and shark related media 🦈 because I got back into Jaws. See, I told you it would come into play later. I started thinking about the idea of doing a crossover movie between Jaws and Piranha. A versus movie called Piranha vs. Jaws. I mean, I was already kind of thinking about this before when I was watching kill count videos of various sharksploitation movies 🦈 like the Mega Shark series and the Sharktopus trilogy among other weird and stupid low budget creature features. 

But, I didn't really start taking it a bit more seriously until I actually got back into Jaws thanks to me remembering the 2006 Jaws game, Jaws Unleashed, and watching a longplay of it on YouTube put out by the YouTuber, ★WishingTikal★. And also the hit 2020 open world action RPG that it inspired called Maneater, which I've been watching a longplay of also. BTW, I would like to point out that the shark 🦈 in Maneater (2020) is a bull shark, and not a great white shark. I do like the fact that they made the shark in Maneater (2020) a bull shark instead of a great white because great whites are kind of overplayed in media, and kind of get old after awhile. Like, they're overexposed in shark media 🦈. Every time you see a shark 🦈 in a movie, TV show, book 📖, or video game, it's usually a great white. 

Even on the cover for Maneater (2020), they still used a great white, even though the shark in the game is not a great white, it's a bull shark. Bull sharks look a lot different from great white sharks. They look a lot more like tiger sharks, even though they aren't in the same family as tiger sharks. Bull sharks are a species in the requiem shark family and tiger sharks are in the ground shark family. But anyway, it makes sense why they made the shark 🦈 in Maneater (2020) a bull shark because bull sharks are the only kinds of sharks 🦈 that can survive in both freshwater and saltwater (that we know of, as Lindsay Nikole would say), and the devs wanted to create a huge and expansive map that the player could explore, that had coastlines, beaches, harbors, and bays, but also had lakes, rivers, and bayous. 

So, the only real option to do that was to use a bull shark, and have that be the player character. It wouldn't have made sense scientifically if it were a great white shark. I know that filmmakers have done a lot of crazy and stupid things with great white sharks and in the ever expanding genre of sharksploitation 🦈, but having one swim in freshwater would've been quite a stretch in the devs' minds. Plus, bull sharks are way more aggressive than great whites. They are more likely to attack humans than great whites are. 

So, it does make sense that the shark in the game is a bull shark, and this bull shark would become a man eater, even if no bull sharks have ever been recorded actually eating humans. They've just bitten them. But, it's a video game. They push the suspend the belief to have the bull shark eat humans, not just simply bite them. But, not to have a great white shark swim in freshwater, no, that's too far. I've even heard that male bull sharks ♂︎ have a lot more testosterone than even male elephants ♂︎🐘, which is partially explains why they're more aggressive. 

But, the bull shark in Maneater (2020) is a female ♀︎, and female bull sharks ♀︎, just like females ♀︎ of other shark species 🦈 (including great whites), grow larger than the males ♂︎. Plus, the testosterone thing only explains why male bull sharks ♂︎ are so aggressive, but not females ♀︎, and it's the entire species that's aggressive. It isn't just the males ♂︎ that are super aggressive, it's the females ♀︎ as well, which is why bull sharks are considered to be so dangerous, and why shark experts 🦈 take extra caution when dealing with that species. I hope that I’ll get the chance to actually play Maneater (2020) for myself one of these days. Whether it’s on the Nintendo Switch or on the PlayStation 4. Probably on the PS4 since they have the APEX Edition available, which has all the DLC (downloadable content) included. That way, I can just play the DLC and I won’t have to buy it separately and pay for it with actual real money 💵. I wish that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had all the DLC already included 😒.

Jaws and Piranha are two franchises that are somewhat linked together, beyond them both being creature features about killer fish 🐟🦈. Many people have said that Piranha (1978) was just a rip-off of Jaws. It even had a similar poster and everything. Even though from what I understand, it's more accurate to say that Piranha (1978) was a parody of Jaws rather than an imitation or a rip-off because as I said, it was more of a comedy. It was more of a funny movie rather than being a truly scary movie. The Piranha movies have always been more on the comedic side and have never taken themselves all that seriously, meaning that Piranha 3D and Piranha 3DD weren't as big of a departure by being horror comedies as some might assume. 

BTW, the poster for Piranha 3D looks even more like the poster for Jaws than the poster for the 78 movie did. And they both feature Richard Dreyfuss. He of course was in the original 1975 Jaws movie, the first one, where played the character, Matt Hooper. And he had a small cameo role in Piranha 3D. He even said that he was supposed to same character in Piranha 3D that he was in Jaws. Even though, in Piranha 3D, he dies at the beginning. So, what he's basically saying by saying that he's supposed to be Matt Hooper in that scene is that Matt Hooper canonically dies in Piranha 3D. He gets eaten by the piranhas. That's the end of that iconic character from cinema. So, why not put Piranha and Jaws together? 

Why not have the shark 🦈 from Jaws or rather a shark from Jaws (since it's always a different shark 🦈 every time) go up against an entire school of the giant prehistoric piranhas from the Piranha movies, or at least the ones from Piranha 3D and Piranha 3DD? It sounds like a crazy and perhaps even stupid idea, but I think it could work. Godzilla vs. Kong, Batman v. Superman, Robocop Versus The Terminator, Freddy vs. Jason, Alien vs. Predator, Sadako vs. Kayako, it's cool. I mean, there was also a Lake Placid vs. Anaconda movie awhile back, so why not? 

I will mention this idea that I have of a Piranha vs. Jaws movie in my review of Piranha 3D when I get to it. Probably when I talk about Richard Dreyfuss's cameo in the movie. Boy, talk about a man ♂︎ who's had an epic fall from grace 😬. The recent controversy surrounding Richard Dreyfuss does somewhat tie into this post since it has to do with transphobia 🏳️‍⚧️. Richard Dreyfuss said some transphobic and homophobic comments 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 among other things at a recent Jaws event that was a screening of the movie and then a fan Q&A/panel discussion with a moderator. It was a disaster 😞. 

The people put that event together, the that particular screening of Jaws, had to apologize for what Richard Dreyfuss said at the event about trans people 🏳️‍⚧️, gay people 🏳️‍🌈, and women ♀︎ probably. What he said was very offensive, even by right-wing chud standards 😟. He came into the panel discussion after the screening wearing a dress 👗, mocking trans people 🏳️‍⚧️, and just generally acting crazy and unhinged. He made James Wood and Jon Voight look normal by comparison.

Now, you’re probably wondering how or why I got this Piranha/Jaws kick, and it’s actually a funny story. I started thinking about Jaws, and in turn, Piranha and Piranha vs. Jaws because of Iron Chef. Yeah, you remember Iron Chef? That Japanese cooking competition show 🇯🇵 from the 1990s where a designated Iron Chef and a challenger compete in a “kitchen stadium,” and cook various gourmet dishes based on a single theme ingredient. Only during special events were there more than one theme ingredient, such as the All French 🇫🇷 and All Chinese 🇨🇳 battle where they had three or four theme ingredients (all of which the Chairman's favorite ingredients), and also the sushi battle 🍣 where they had multiple theme ingredients since sushi 🍣 requires more than one ingredient to put together. 

But, usually, it was usually just one theme ingredient. They could use any ingredients they want alongside the theme ingredient(s), but they have to make sure the dishes they do make has the theme ingredient(s) in them. Like, if the theme ingredient is lobster 🦞, they have to incorporate lobster 🦞 into all of their dishes to clear the theme ingredient requirement. And they have to do it all in 1 hour, meaning that there’s a time limit, and the two chefs have to work against the clock in order to get their dishes done in time. 

The whole thing was coordinated by Chairman Kaga (played by Takeshi Kaga), an eccentric millionaire gourmet. He's basically an aristocrat who just wants to eat really good food. Food that’s good enough to be works of art. Meaning that he wants to eat fancy gourmet type food. That’s why a lot of the theme ingredients and a lot of the other ingredients available to the competing chefs are often really expensive and "luxurious" ingredients, many of which are considered delicacies in fine dining circles such as foie gras, swallow’s nest, shark fins, truffles, matsutake mushrooms, maitake mushrooms, sturgeon, sturgeon roe AKA caviar, abalone, homard lobster 🦞, giant lobster 🦞 AKA southern rock lobster, AKA red rock lobster, AKA spiny rock lobster, softshell turtle, scampi prawns 🦐, bluefin tuna, unisex salmon, yellowtail, cod, salmon roe, quail, Guinea fowl, duck 🦆, black chicken, conker eel, pike eel, octopus 🐙, squid 🦑, cuttlefish, king crab 🦀, Shanghai crab 🦀, blue crab 🦀, Matsuba crab 🦀, Mishima beef, veal, vessie, mackerel, sea bass, Jinhua pork, Tokyo X hybrid pork, porcini mushrooms, sea urchin roe AKA uni, stingray, and anglerfish, among other things. 

They even used ostrich as a theme ingredient in one episode, both the meat and the eggs, which are some of the most prized in the entire world. Ostrich eggs, I've heard, are pretty good. They used ostrich as the theme ingredient for the episode that featured a female Australian chef 🇦🇺👩‍🍳 because of they did. Of course, they would use ostrich as a theme ingredient for an Australian chef 🇦🇺👩‍🍳. Thy only way they could've made it more stereotypical is if they used emu as the theme ingredient for that episode. I actually don't know if emu is legal to hunt for food in a commercial sense or not. 

I would suspect it's not considering that it's their national bird. But then again, the Australians 🇦🇺 did famously wage a war against their supposed national bird called the Emu War. The war that everyone on the Internet likes to make jokes and memes about. But, it is legal to hunt ostrich for food and to harvest their eggs (or at least it was back then in the 1990s), so I imagine the people at Fuji TV and on the show specifically picked ostrich as the theme ingredient for that particular episode because it's also a big flightless bird and it's the next best thing to emu, even though ostriches are from Africa and not Australia 🇦🇺 like emus are. 

That episode was never dubbed into English or aired in North America. It was only aired in Japan 🇯🇵, and the only way you can watch it now is a poor quality VHS rip of it on YouTube with no English subtitles. So, unless you know Japanese, you won't be able to understand most of what's said in that episode except for the parts featuring Gillian Hirst, the female Australian challenger 🇦🇺♀︎ in that episode. That was also one of the episodes featuring Nakamura when he was the Iron Chef Japanese 🇯🇵, and he actually defeated her, he defeated Gillian Hirst, using an ingredient that isn't at all used in Japanese cuisine 🇯🇵.

So, he handpicked the chefs in Japan 🇯🇵 that he felt were the best in their field of expertise, as in their chosen cuisine. And he named them the Iron Chefs, the invincible men ♂︎ of culinary skills. And by men ♂︎ I do mean it. There never was a female Iron Chef ♀︎👩‍🍳 in the original Japanese Iron Chef series 🇯🇵. Just a pure sausage fest. Which makes sense since this was still 1990s Japan 🇯🇵.  It was still a very patriarchal society back then and not every conducive to women's right ♀︎ or women's participation ♀︎ in professions and activities that typically involved men ♂︎. They had female challengers ♀︎, but no female Iron Chefs ♀︎. There’s an Iron Chef Japanese 🇯🇵 that specializes in making Japanese food 🇯🇵. There’s an Iron Chef French 🇫🇷 that specializes in making French food 🇫🇷. There’s an Iron Chef Chinese 🇨🇳 that specializes in making Chinese food 🇨🇳. And there’s an Iron Chef Italian 🇮🇹 that specializes in making Italian food 🇮🇹, although the Iron Chef Italian 🇮🇹 wasn’t introduced until later on in the series. 

The Iron Chef Japanese 🇯🇵 changed two times, with Rokusaburo Michiba being the first one before he retired and left the show. Then it was Koumei Nakamura for a very short time, and then he left. And then they finally settled on Masaharu Morimoto, who was the Iron Chef Japanese 🇯🇵 for the remainder of the series. The Iron Chef French 🇫🇷 also changed, but only once. It was Yutaka Ishinabe in the pilot, and then it was Hiroyuki Sakai, who stuck around for the entire series after that and ended up becoming the King of Iron Chefs at the end of the series after he beat Chen Kenichi in a one-on-one Iron Chef against Iron Chef match. Making him a legend among legends. 

The Iron Chef Chinese 🇨🇳 position is the only one that didn’t change throughout the entire series as it was always Chen Kenichi. The fact that Iron Chef Chinese 🇨🇳 position never changed, and Chen always held onto it from the very beginning earned him the nickname, "the Dean of Iron Chefs." That, and the fact that he had the best win-to-lose ratio. He had the most amount of wins out of any of the Iron Chefs by the end of the series. And I guess also the Iron Chef Italian 🇮🇹 didn’t change either since Masahiko Kobe was always the Iron Chef Italian 🇮🇹. But, like I said, there wasn’t even an Iron Chef Italian 🇮🇹 until later on in the series, probably around the time Nakamura left, and Morimoto took his place. When Kobe and Morimoto came on, they were the two youngest Iron Chefs, with Kobe being the youngest and Morimoto being the second youngest. All the retired Iron Chefs who left did return in guest appearances in various points in the series where they were designated as "Honorary Iron Chefs." 

Ishinabe even got to compete numerous times throughout the series, both solo as an Honorary Iron Chef filling in for Michiba while he was on sick leave, and then again later on in the All-French 🇫🇷 vs. All Chinese 🇨🇳 tag-team match, where he was on the All-French team 🇫🇷 lead by Sakai. With the best of the best at his beck and call, Chairman Kaga created the Kitchen Stadium to pit his Iron Chefs against the top chefs from all over the world (but mostly from Asia and mostly from Japan 🇯🇵 since this was a Japanese show 🇯🇵), and have them both create artistic dishes that have never been made before or tasted before.

Both the challenger and the Iron Chef must have their dishes judged by a panel of judges, usually celebrities, politicians, newscasters, food critics, and other discerning gourmets. Like, one of the regular judges towards the beginning was a novelist, another one was a so-called “Rosanjin scholar,” since the entire series was heavily inspired by the works of a Japanese artist 🇯🇵 who went by the pseudonym, Rosanjin. Then towards the later part of the series, one of the regular judges was a photographer and then another one was fortune teller. A fortune teller 🔮! I don’t why they chose a fortune teller of all people to judge food on a cooking competition show. Doesn’t exactly seem like a profession that lends itself to expertise or well-informed insight on food, especially gourmet-style food. 

It’s a pretty good show, I’ve been binge watching it a lot recently since a YouTube channel called FilmRise has been uploading all of the episodes, albeit mislabeled and out of order. Episodes that were listed as Season 6 are from Season 1, 2, or 3, and episodes from Season 7 are listed Season 3. That sort of thing. They also couldn't use any of the original music that Han Zimmer had composed for the show, and instead had to use royalty free music or music from their own library. But, I was first exposed to the show as a kid when it was aired in North America on the Food Network back in the early-to-mid 2000s. It’s a very theatrical show. I’ve seen a lot of people compare it to pro-wrestling, where large parts of it are scripted and staged, and where they come up with fictional storylines, like the Ohta Faction and the long-standing rivalry between the Gourmet Academy and Toshiro Kandagawa, a Japanese chef 🇯🇵 (who specialized in Japanese cuisine 🇯🇵) who took on the role of a heel throughout the show. 

Heel if you’re unaware is a term that originates from pro-wrestling that refers to a wrestler who plays a more antagonistic or adversarial role in a story arc or singular match. Kandagawa was basically that, he was a heel but for cooking. Even the organization behind the Kitchen Stadium and the Iron Chefs that Chairman Kaga runs, the Gourmet Academy is fictional. There is no such thing as the Gourmet Academy, it doesn’t exist in real life. 

Even Takeshi Kaga is essentially playing a character when he takes on the role of Chairman Kaga. Chairman Kaga is basically a fictionalized version of the actor, Takeshi Kaga. He's playing himself, but a fictionalized version of himself. They brought the sensibilities of pro-wrestling to the world of cooking. The made a cooking show with the stylings and trappings of pro-wrestling. Meaning that the goal was not to educate, and teach people how to cook, but to be entertaining, to put on a show that will dazzle the viewers at home. At least the food was real. Don’t want anyone eating fake food. 

So, the pure culinary aspect of the show was done for real, and the dishes created by the Iron Chefs and the challengers were actually edible. So, after reading all that, you’re probably wondering what any this has to with Jaws. How does this tie back into Jaws, and how did Iron Chef start my Jaws, Piranha, and shark 🦈 kick? Well, funny you should ask. It’s because I was thinking of the idea of an Iron Chef video game. Although Iron Chef grew into a franchise, with numerous spin-off shows such as Iron Chef America 🇺🇸 with Mark Dascascos taking on the role as the Chairman (the official storyline was that he was supposed to be Chairman Kaga’s nephew, although Mark Dascascos and Takeshi Kaga aren’t related in real life), it never had a movie or a video game. 

Which is surprising to me because other popular reality TV shows from the 90s and 2000s got movies and video games. Pimp My Ride and Jackass got video games, and The Crocodile Hunter 🐊 got a movie. But not Iron Chef, it never got anything like that, even though some of the specials they did were feature length. In all honesty, I think it would be a lot easier to make a video game out of Iron Chef than it would be to make a movie. I was thinking about how would make a video game out of this show. At first, I thought maybe you could have the player choose between playing as a challenger (likely a custom made character) or as one of the Iron Chefs. 

But, then I thought, “Everyone will just want to play as the Iron Chef,” based on the notion that most people who watched the show when it was airing rooted for the Iron Chef. I know that when I watch the show, I always root for the Iron Chef. So I went against that idea, and just went with the idea of players playing as one of the four Iron Chefs, and going up against AI-controlled challengers. 

I rationalized it by saying to myself, “Nobody would want to play as a challenger, they’d just want to play as an Iron Chef. Having an Iron Chef game where you don’t play as the Iron Chef is a lot like having a Jaws game where you don’t play as the shark 🦈. They’ve tried that, where you play as a human trying to kill the shark 🦈 or swim away from it, and it’s never worked. The only Jaws game that has worked is the one where you do play as the shark 🦈.” That’s it. That’s what started my recent Jaws kick, and in turn started my recent Piranha kick, and just my recent general shark kick 🦈. It’s as simple as that. Though, it isn’t that simple as you can read. That’s just how my brain 🧠 works. 

Since I am back into Jaws at the moment, now's a better time than any to buy Jaws on Blu-Ray/4K 💿. I think I'll also get the 4K Ultra HD set 💿 that has all of the sequels on it, Jaws 2, Jaws 3 AKA Jaws 3D, and Jaws: The Revenge. It doesn't come with the first one, it just has the sequels, so I'll have to buy the first one separately and then buy that box set with all the sequels. Even if the sequel 4K set will be going for a pretty steep price on Amazon, $79.99 💵 😱. That one's coming out on July 23, 2024. Would've been better if it had come out on July 4, 2024 since the whole entire first movie was centered around the Fourth of July 🇺🇸. That was the reason why the mayor of Amity Island didn't want to close down the beaches because he wanted to continue on and have the Fourth of July celebration 🇺🇸🎆, and he didn't want to miss out on all of that sweet tourism revenue 🤑. 

The mayor in Jaws 2 was the same one from the first movie, and he was still stupid, reckless, negligent, and greedy 🤑, ignoring Chief Brody's concerns about the new shark 🦈 and dismissing him as crazy and paranoid, despite the experience with the previous shark 🦈 from the first one 🤦‍♂️. And the mayor in Jaws Unleashed is pretty much the same. He isn't the same guy, but he acts pretty much the same as the one from the first two movies, where he wants to keep the beaches open for the Fourth of July celebration 🇺🇸🎆, even though there's a killer shark 🦈 on the loose and he knows it. That's what makes the mayor in Jaws Unleashed worse than the one in Jaws 1 and Jaw 2. 

He knows that there's a shark 🦈 out there, and that it's eating people, and yet he doesn't care. I mean, the mayor in the first movie knew that there was a shark 🦈 too, but he didn't really know the true extent of the problem. He didn't really know that it was a great white shark (despite Hooper telling him that it was) and he didn't know how big it was. In fact, nobody knew how big it was until Brody, Hooper, and Quint went to hunt it down in the Orca, and they determined that the shark 🦈 was 25-feet long. The mayor in Jaws Unleashed knew that this was a man-eating shark 🦈, and that it was huge, over 35-feet long. It was bigger than the shark 🦈 in the first movie, but the same size as the adult female ♀︎ in Jaws 3. He wanted to put the shark 🦈 on display at the Amity Island aquarium (which looked a lot like how Sea World looked in Jaws 3), after they captured it and after it had just ate a couple of people before it was captured. 

It doesn't work since the shark 🦈 escapes from the aquarium back into the open ocean, killing several people and an orca—or false killer whale, depending on which one you choose to fight during the opening story mission at the aquarium (★WishingTikal★ fought the false killer whale during her playthrough because the orca was too hard for her)—in the process. What a moron 🙄. And he goes ahead with the Fourth of July celebration 🇺🇸🎆 at the beach later on when he mistakenly assumes that the shark 🦈 is dead after it destroyed that facility owned and controlled by the evil corporation, Environplus. He assumed that it died in the explosion 💥, but it didn't. It blew it up in his face just as it did for the mayor in the first movie 😕. 

Except in Jaws Unleashed, the mayor actually dies. He gets killed by the shark 🦈 when the shark 🦈 rams his yacht 🛥️ (which was a pretty shitty looking yacht 🛥️ BTW if I do say so myself) into the firework barge 🎆, causing all of the fireworks 🎆 to go off at once prematurely. Meaning that the mayor burned to death 🔥 rather than being eaten alive. So, I guess he got off a little bit easier, compared to his citizens who did get eaten by the shark 🦈. Is it just required that the mayors of Amity Island in the Jaws franchise have to be idiots? I think I've talked plenty at length about things that don't entirely relate to the main topic of this post, so I think I'll stop there, and let get you get on with it. This is the reason why I stopped watching Rick Worley.

 

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Update (Wednesday June 5, 2024):

 

🕶️ 

Remember when I said that Piranha 3D was never released in 3D on home media? Well, scratch that because it turns out that it actually was. It was released on Blu-Ray 3D, and you can buy it on Amazon for $24.96 💵. Piranha 3DD was also released on Blu-Ray 3D, but only in certain regions. The Blu-Ray release 💿 that does come with 3D can only available on Region B/2 players, meaning that it will not play on most players in North America, Central America, South America, Japan 🇯🇵, South Korea 🇰🇷, Taiwan 🇹🇼, Hong Kong 🇭🇰, and Southeast Asia. Meaning that it can probably only play on Blu-Ray players 💿 in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 and the European Union 🇪🇺. 

So, you're best bet to get Piranha 3DD on Blu-Ray is just buy the standard 2D Blu-Ray, which you can find easily on Amazon as well. It's cheaper than the one that has 3D anyway. The standard 2D release of Piranha 3DD is only $10.79 💵 on Amazon. BTW, the 2D version of the movie is called Piranha DD, as in Piranha Double-D. That's how it's supposed to be pronounced. Which I think is stupid, I think Piranha 2DD sounds way better.

The same doesn't entirely apply to Piranha 3D because the standard 2D release, the only just called Piranha (2010), for some reason costs way more than the one that comes with the 3D version, at around $38.00 💵. So, the one does come with the 3D version is technically cheaper, but not by a whole lot. $24.96 💵 is still a lot for a Blu-Ray 💿 of a 14 year old movie that has been in circulation for a similar amount of time. I mean, 3D Blu-Ray players 💿 aren't even sold anymore, neither are 3D TV because no body gives a damn about 3D anymore. 

But, luckily, the 3D Blu-Ray release 💿 does come with a regular Blu-Ray 💿 with the standard 2D version on there. So, if you don't have a 3D Blu-Ray player 💿 or a 3D TV, or 3D glasses 🕶️ to go with that 3D TV, then you can still watch the movie. You can just watch the 2D version on a regular Blu-Ray player 💿 and a regular HD TV. But, at the end of the day, it's up to you which one you want buy, and how much money 💵 you're willing to spend on a single Blu-Ray release 💿. 

– 

Update (Saturday June 8, 2024): 

🔞

 

I have another correction to make. Piranha 3D did actually have a pornstar in it, and it wasn't Kelly Brook. She was just a regular model. No, the pornstar that was in the movie was in fact, Riley Steele. I don't know if I've ever seen her in anything. I probably have but I just don't remember. But, the name definitely sounds familiar. Piranha 3DD did not have any pornstars in it surprisingly. I checked on the Wikipedia page, but it doesn't. It has Russian Playboy model 🇷🇺 named Irina Voronina, but that's about it. So, it's just Piranha 3D that has a pornstar in it.

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(This the transgender pride flag 🏳️‍⚧️.) 

 

I was watching some videos by a YouTubers, Rick Worley, which were about Star Wars. They mainly defended the prequels, the special editions, and George Lucas from the fans who complain endlessly about them. Or used to rather. People are a lot more accepting and forgiving of the prequels and of George Lucas nowadays. There's more love than hate nowadays, but Rick Worley was talking about the days when hatred for the prequels and George Lucas were at their highest and most vitriolic. And while I did for the most part enjoy those videos and what to the conversation about Star Wars and George Lucas and their relationship with the fans, there was one video he put out that I object to.

It was a video that was defending J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books 📖, and her comments about trans people 🏳️‍⚧️. It was very much in the style of his videos on Star Wars and George Lucas, only with Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling. Presenting the creator or the artist as this innocent victim who created what they wanted to make and the fans were too stupid, immature, or close minded to appreciate it, and attacked them for it for no good reason.

While, there is more of a case to make about George Lucas and the way he was treated by the fans after he made the prequels and made the special editions of the original trilogy, you can't really make that same case with J.K. Rowling. The reason why people have been criticizing her has nothing to do with creativity and artistry (mostly), but with politics. They're criticizing her for her political opinions about trans people 🏳️‍⚧️. Opinions that she herself decided to put out there into the world on social media. Defending George Lucas because he made movies that people didn't like or understand, or because he re-edited classic movies in a way that people didn't like, is not the same as defending J.K. Rowling for saying that trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ don't deserve the same rights or deserve to be treated the same as any other people.

While, Rick did have somewhat of a point in the section of his hour long video where he defended her from all the racism and cultural appropriation claims that have made about her and her books 📖, I don't agree entirely with what he said in that section to try to defend her either. I didn't agree with him when he said that people shouldn't have told J.K. Rowling which Japanese name 🇯🇵 to use for her Japanese wizard character 🇯🇵.

People didn't like the name she came up with, and were suggesting her different names to change it, something that is actually fitting in the Japanese language 🇯🇵. Rick didn't like this. Saying that J.K. Rowling is the author, she can name her characters whatever she wants, and that writing is an insular process and is only for the audience of one: the author themselves. But, I don't agree with that at all, I think it's pretty stupid. Just because you're the author of a book 📖, doesn't mean that you shouldn't accept any outside opinions whatsoever. Sometimes an outside opinion can make your writing better, especially when it comes to different languages and cultures.

If I was writing a book 📖 that had a character from a different culture that I didn't know much about, I would ask people of that culture for their input. Like what words to use, what clothes should I have the character wear, and what to name them even, like what are the names of that culture? Research is a key component to writing a book 📖, especially about something you're ignorant about, or have limited knowledge of, and talking to people of a different culture and asking them about their language and culture is a type of research. J.K. Rowling doesn't really have that much of an excuse to be ignorant, and not ask people about the Japanese language 🇯🇵, and ask about the different words and names related to wizardry.

I mean, the woman is rich 🤑. She's worth $1 billion. She has all the resources at her disposal, and she has a fanbase willing to offer her tips. If I was her, I would take it. But Rick is a firm believer in the auteur theory, and he thinks that the author is infallible, and should never be questioned, and should not accept outside opinions or advice, and they should be the only decision maker as far as storytelling is concerned.

He doesn't think that what J.K. Rowling did was wrong as far as the racism and cultural appropriation stuff is concerned, and he thinks that all the people who complained about her practices when writing characters of different races, or nationalities, or even species (the Goblins in the Harry Potter series have been accused of being racist Jewish stereotypes ✡️ because of the way they look, they were described, they were designed, and the way they were depicted as being the ones in total control of the entire banking system 🏦 in the wizarding world and being inherently greedy 🤑, which is similar to a common Jewish conspiracy theory ✡️ that Jews ✡️ control the entire banking system 🏦) are crazy, immature, stupid people. But, it's really in the transgender section 🏳️‍⚧️ where I start to see problems with his arguments.

He uses a lot of outdated and thoroughly debunked and discredited arguments that a lot of transphobes use in order to try to defend what J.K. Rowling has said about the subject. He uses the whole "think of the children" argument when talking about whether or not it's okay for kids to transition or not ⚧. Then he brings up the bathroom question, whether or not trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ should be allowed to use their preferred bathroom. He takes J.K. Rowling's side of the argument, meaning that he doesn't think trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ should be allowed to use their preferred bathroom out to fear that sexual predators may prey upon the poor women ♀︎.

This is a very erroneous claim that has been debunked a lot of LGBT activists 🏳️‍🌈 and LGBT allies 🏳️‍🌈. Yes, there have been instances that male predators ♂︎ have snuck into women's bathroom ♀︎ while posing as a woman ♀︎ and sexually assaulted the women ♀︎ inside. But, it is a very rare occurrence, like it's not so big of a problem that bathrooms need to be more actively policed and controlled like Rick, Rowling, and others like them seem to think. Then he brings up trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ in sports, and boy is that one a doozy.

He talks about how trans women 🏳️‍⚧️ are still technically biological men ♂︎, and therefore they harm women's potential in sports when they're allowed to compete against one another. Then he goes on about how sports is judged purely on the physical, and not identity or metaphysics, and therefore trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ (trans women 🏳️‍⚧️) should be excluded from women's sports. I'm guessing that he was probably in favor of Donald Trump's ban on trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ in the US military 🇺🇸 back when he was still president, then?

Then he complains about non-binary people, and there being multiple genders. And he thinks that the people who use these labels are delusional, and their gender identity isn't valid, not really. He also complains about how intersex people are often lumped in LGBT 🏳️‍🌈, and said that some intersex people don't want to be apart of the LGBT movement 🏳️‍🌈. He said something rather awful about intersex people and their inclusion in the LGBT movement 🏳️‍🌈, like "just because you're born with an extra foot or an extra finger doesn't mean you're proud of it or you identify as something else." Yes, intersex people don't like being born with the genetic defects 🧬 that they're born with, but that doesn't mean they should be mistreated or be discriminated against in anyway.

That's what the intersex pride/acceptance movement is about, and that's why they're sometimes considered a part of the LGBT community 🏳️‍🌈. So that they'll be accepted in society, to have more political rights, and not be ostracized in any way for the way they were born. Then he goes on and on about how "trans activists" attack J.K. Rowling endlessly and send her death threats or post sexist comments at her, even though she defended herself and her words. I don't like death threats or sexist comments either. I think those are wrong and abusive. But still, that doesn't make what J.K. Rowling said okay. Two wrongs don't make a right, and the abuser can be the victim and vis versa.

He's pretty much conflating trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ with "trans activists." When transphobic people say "trans activists," they usually just mean trans people 🏳️‍⚧️. He also talked about the topic of trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ dating cis people or cis people dating trans people 🏳️‍⚧️, but I didn't bother watching that part because it was likely trash. But, the most ironic thing of all is that he used a clip from the trans YouTuber 🏳️‍⚧️, ContraPoints's video on J.K. Rowling to try to make a point about how crazy and irrational "trans activists" are, when that very video is a critique of J.K. Rowling and her stance on transgender people 🏳️‍⚧️. She even quotes RedLetterMedia in one section when she says "You might not have noticed it, but your brain 🧠 did," and Rick has said that he hates RLM's Star Wars videos and thinks that they show a fundamentally lack of understanding of Star Wars and of George Lucas.

Like, it pretty much debunks most of the arguments that Rick himself uses in his video defending J.K. Rowling. And yet, he took that clip out of context from her video in order to try to prove his own point about how "trans activists" are crazy, insane, misogynistic people who are attacking J.K. Rowling for no good reason. The kind of argument tactic that he criticized prequel and special edition haters for using in his Star Wars videos. And yet, he's doing it himself to valiantly defend an artist who he feels needs to be defended. It's very hypocritical and disingenuous.

Rick also dismissed the idea of dog whistles, and said that they're just something that "trans activists" and LGBT activists 🏳️‍🌈 made up to try to silence any and all criticisms. Even though dog whistles are a real thing, and have been used by bigots in the online space. I mean, Neo-Nazis have lots of dog whistles that use to communicate with each other and to manipulate people and try to convert them to their side. These are the kind of arguments and talking points that I used to hear a lot from anti-SJWs when I used to watch that kind of content and take it seriously. I was surprised that Rick Worley would stoop to that level in order to defend an artist who he claims to like and admire.

I think the reason why this video is so bad is that Rick has this strong belief that the artist, the auteur, the author, the director is sacred. Everything they make is for them, the audience of one, and shouldn't be made for anyone else, much else a corporation or the audience or the fans. Everything they say or do should be respected, honored, and admired, or at the very least understood. And any criticism of those artists is invalid is just people hating the artists for not giving them exactly what they wanted or expected, or being immature adult babies who refuse to grow up.

While, I do broadly believe that, I do think Rick takes this idea way too far. The idea that you should defend or accept everything an artist says or does, including their shitty real-life political opinions or their shitty real-life behavior is just wrong. Like, should we defend or accept H.P. Lovecraft's racism just because we like his books and because he was so influential in the world of horror fiction? Or should we defend or accept Michael Crichton's climate change denial just because we like his books 📖? Or to use a couple of film examples, should we accept or excuse John Landis's complete disregard for safety and regulations during the making of Twilight Zone: The Movie, and his complete lack of empathy for the people he killed with his recklessness just because he made some good movies before and after that incident? Should we accept or defend or excuse Roman Polanski's child molestation just because he made good movies that won awards? No, of course not.

It's perfectly fine to criticize an artist for an awful political opinion they might have or criticize them for their shitty real-world behavior, and still enjoy their work for the most part. Unless, it's baked into their work, and it's difficult to near impossible separate it, which is sort of the case with guys like Marilyn Manson, P. Diddy, and R. Kelly. It's the same with J.K. Rowling. You can like her books 📖, but still criticize her transphobia. Speaking of her books 📖, Rick seems to have this idea that just because J.K. Rowling has criticized racism and bigotry in her books 📖, and made the villains in her books 📖 like Voldemort the wizard version of Adolf Hitler, that means she can't possibly be bigoted towards trans people 🏳️‍⚧️. That's completely wrong. Just because you aren't not bigoted in one area, doesn't always mean you aren't not bigoted in another.

And in Rowling's case, she's bigoted towards trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ while being a feminist and being an anti-racist. Those are not contradictory in any way, those realities can exist at the same time, and they often do. Just because someone accepts gay people 🏳️‍🌈, and respects them, and treats them like normal human beings, doesn't always mean that they do the same for trans people 🏳️‍⚧️.

I myself have fallen in that trap in the past, where I was accepting of gay people 🏳️‍🌈, like I accepted gay men ⚣, lesbian women ⚢, and bisexuals, but I didn't accept trans people 🏳️‍⚧️, and I didn't accept pansexuals, which is a sexual orientation that includes attraction to trans people 🏳️‍⚧️. And I am ashamed of it. I was ignorant, I am trying to do better, and I am trying to understand transgender people 🏳️‍⚧️ and other gender identities and sexual orientations like pansexuality than I did before. I mean, Rick himself is a gay man 🏳️‍🌈, or a bisexual man, I'm not sure. He admitted that in his video talking about the Star Wars special editions that he dated a man ♂︎. But, just because he's gay 🏳️‍🌈 doesn't mean that he can't be bigoted towards trans people 🏳️‍⚧️. Gays 🏳️‍🌈 and lesbians ⚢ are fully capable of being transphobes, just as much as cisgender straight people ⚤ are.

Feminists who don't like trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ are called Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, or TERFs for short, which is another term that Rick dismisses in his video as a fake made-up term that "trans activists" use to silence their critics. And on top of that, all of the statements that J.K. Rowling made that Rick Worley insists are not transphobic actually are, and ContraPoints does a good job of explaining why.

And of course, going back to the race thing for a moment. Sure, J.K. Rowling might say that she's an anti-racist, and Rick may believe her, and say that she is an anti-racist because the villains in the Harry Potter books 📖 and in the Fantastic Beasts movies are pretty much wizard Nazis. But her writing for other characters like minority characters (people of different races or nationalities) and characters of other species within the wizarding world is very questionable to say the least.

The Goblin thing is a good example, I already touched on that already, Rick actually did address that in the video itself. He dismissed the claims that depiction of the Goblins were racist or antisemitic because he basically said that goblins have been creatures represented throughout history and usually depicted as negative, and are therefore not racist or representative of one group, though they can.

Well, that's why people have a problem with the Harry Potter Goblins because they are representative of a group of people, based on old conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes about Jews ✡️ running the entire world or Jews ✡️ being in control of the entire banking system 🏦 and other financial institutions. Like, doesn't the Goblins being in sole control of the banking system 🏦 of the wizarding world, as well as being inherently greedy 🤑 and having hook noses and all these other things associated with antisemitic Jewish stereotypes ✡️ kind of raise eyebrows 🤨? I think that there is something to these claims and accusations, Rick may not think so, but I do. The depictions of Goblins in Harry Potter is very suspicious.

Even the depiction of the Muuns in Star Wars is a bit questionable because they're pretty much the same as as the Goblins in Harry Potter where they're in control of the entire banking system 🏦 (in Star Wars's case, in control of the entire banking system 🏦 of the galaxy) and they're inherently greedy 🤑. Like, I have seen people compare the Muuns to Jews ✡️ in YouTube comments talking about them and the Intergalactic Banking Clan (IGBC), which is an institution that has monopolized the banking industry 🏦 in the Star Wars galaxy and is run almost exclusively by Muuns.

On top of that, the IGBC was portrayed as a completely greedy 🤑 and morally corrupt organization that's purely out to get more money 💵 and that played both sides of the Clone Wars, like they gave money to the Republic and the Confederacy. Which is something that anti-Semites say about Jews ✡️ in a lot of Jewish conspiracy theories ✡️, that they control the entire banking system 🏦 and the financial institutions and they've used the immense power and wealth to fund all the wars throughout history from the Napoleonic Wars to the First World War; usually supporting both sides. The Rothschilds are an example of a group that has been targeted by such anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The same type of conspiracy theories that Hitler and the Nazis used to get into power and justify the Holocaust.

But anyway, you get my point. The depiction of Muuns in Star Wars is just as questionable as the depiction of Goblins in Harry Potter. I say that as someone who likes the Star Wars prequels, which is where the Banking Clan and the Muun species were initially introduced. Rick might say that's wrong, there's nothing there, and are just seeing what they want to see, but that's the truth.

The only remotely admirable or respectable thing Rowling has done or said since this transgender controversy 🏳️‍⚧️ began was that she criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine 🇷🇺🇺🇦, and she went after Vladimir Putin for comparing himself and the situation Russia 🇷🇺's in right now to hers. She basically said that people who slaughter innocents have no right to complain about cancel culture which is exactly what Putin tried to do. Though, I think part of her opposition to Putin has to do her seeing her own character, Voldemort in him, and valiantly acting as a white knight who predicted a man like Putin and righteous compares him to him. Besides that, everything Rowling has said in recent years is wrong.

After I saw this video, my perception of Rick Worley changed. I can see that while he may have great points about the Star Wars prequels, the Star Wars special editions, George Lucas, and the Star Wars fandom, his opinions about trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ are terrible. This video of his demonstrates a complete ignorance, lack of understanding, and even a sense of bigotry towards transgender people 🏳️‍⚧️. It's clear that he has his own prejudices against trans people 🏳️‍⚧️ and he's conveniently and deceptively hiding them behind a defense of J.K. Rowling as an "artist."

It's white knight logic and behavior, and Rick Worley often acts like he's a white knight in shining armor, the only one who can defend this poor helpless artists who are being lynched by a mob of immature manbabies. These poor helpless artists who are super rich 🤑 and live lives of comfort and luxury that your average person will never be able to live.

You know, George Lucas is worth $10 billion, and J.K. Rowling is worth $1 billion. Not exactly struggling or starving artist. Plus, Lucas is retired, he's not an active artist anymore, at least as far as I know. You might say, "Well, this video's over an hour long, surely it must be good." Well, to use Rick's own logic and words against him, length is not an indicator of quality 😉.

I decided to complete disassociate myself with his channel, I removed all of his videos from my Likes, and I will no longer watch or support his channel in anyway. I don't like YouTubers who think the way he does. Plus, he was kind of a pretentious prick. I mean, you have to be a pretty pretentious film snob to refer the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) as simulacra, a word that no one uses unless they're into The Matrix or they want to sound smarter and more sophisticated than they actually are, which Rick clear does. He also criticized Zack Snyder, and insinuated that his movies are trash and that you would want to get a refund on your ticket after seeing it in theater, while playing the Martha scene in Batman v. Superman that so many people still misunderstand and ridicule including Rick himself obviously.

He treats Zack Snyder the way he criticizes others for treating George Lucas, even though Snyder is just as much of an auteur and an artist with his own vision as Lucas is. The only difference between the two directors is that Snyder has made way more adapted works than Lucas ever has. And Rick Worley has also called himself a loser on a few different occasions in his videos, so there is that 🤷‍♂️. A little self-depreciation to try to make himself seem more "relatable" and not a completely pretentious weirdo with horrible political beliefs 🤔. It's also funny too because he said that people who complain endlessly about the changes made to the original Star Wars films for the Special Edition releases and subsequent home releases are "weirdo uncles." Like, he's pretty much saying that anyone who focuses on details that don't matter in real life are "weird uncles" who their nephews and nieces try to avoid or make fun of.

By his own standards, his own definition, he himself is also a "weird uncle" because he does pretty much the same thing. He obsesses over movies (like he prides himself on the fact that knows more movies and knows more about movies than "those other people") and obsesses over details that don't matter in real life, and he complains about people complaining about movies he likes and complaining about details that don't matter and telling them that they're wrong, stupid, and ignorant, while insisting that they're the ones that need to grow up. On top of that, he has very bigoted views of trans people 🏳️‍⚧️, which he will never admit to, but he totally does, given how he talks about them in this video. That's like a stereotypical "weirdo uncle" thing to have, to have bigoted views of another group. That is why Rick Worley is so hypocritical and contradictory. So, dropping him is not a huge lose for me personally. I'm better off without his videos in my life. 

 

(ContraPoints's video on J.K. Rowling.)

 

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Note:

 

Something I forgot to mention about Rick Worley is that in addition to thinking the artist or the auteur is the end-all-be-all of storytelling or art, and thinking anything they want or anything do should always be respected and honored, he also has another belief: that art is not a democracy. Art cannot be decided by the audience or the fans or by a corporate boardroom or a committee, and it can only come from the artist and from the artist alone.

I did sort of mention this in the journal by saying that Rick thinks that artists (whether they're writers, directors, or painters) should only create art for themselves, for the audience of one, with their tastes and sensibilities and no one else's, but what I'm talking about here is his belief that art isn't a democratic process, how true the auteur theory actually is or how much art is or can be a collaborative effort.

In a broad sense, I do agree with most of this, but what I'll add to that is while art may not be a democracy (or at least, it shouldn't be), it doesn't have to be a dictatorship. When it comes to film, far too often, I see so-called auteur filmmakers acting like assholes, being complete tyrants on set, treating their cast and crew horribly, and just generally be abusive, all for the sake of a "good shot," or all for the sake of a "good performance" or all for the sake of "artistic integrity" or whatever.

The most extreme example of this is John Landis, who many actors and crew on his movies have said was an absolute tyrant and was very difficult to work with because of his tyrannical and abusive behavior. This extreme perfectionism, lack of empathy or restraint, and abusive behavior culminated in the Twilight Zone movie set disaster where three actors, including two young children were killed in an accident involving a UH-1 Huey helicopter, something that Landis himself caused and orchestrated.

He wanted to do this stunt involving the helicopter and he wanted to do it that very specific way. People kept telling him that it was dangerous and even illegal (since the two child actors he used in that scene were non-union and were not legally allowed to work at night due to child labor laws, and their parents were illegally paid under the table to have them work there), and that he was going too far and should pull back a little bit.

He didn't listen, and kept pushing it and pushing it, just so he could get the "perfect shot" that fit his vision for that segment of the film. And he got three people, including two children who were not even legally supposed to be there, killed as a result. But, Landis is probably the most extreme example of a tyrannical director who's obsessive perfectionism and unchecked abusive behavior goes too far, since he actually committed crimes and killed people (through manslaughter and gross negligence) in the pursuit of "making a good film." As Steven Spielberg said in response to the Twilight Zone helicopter incident, no movie is worth dying for.

There are less extreme and equally egregious examples like James Cameron, Stanley Kubrick, Michael Cimino, and various others. Directors who go way too far in trying to bring their vision to life, and make sure everyone's doing what they want them to do, that they end up being abusive and overly tyrannical.

You can create good art or even great art, without being an asshole. Being an asshole doesn't mean that you're be a great artist, or that you'll make good or great art. The director of the first Blade movie (with Wesley Snipes), Stephen Norrington is a good example of this. He was hired to direct the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie, and he was a huge asshole. He was very tyrannical, very abusive, and didn't get along at all with his cast and crew, especially not Sean Connery, who was the main star. And none of that behavior contributed to a great end product, as the production of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was a complete mess, and the movie was only able to be finished and made into a watchable film in spite of him, not because of him.

You might say that these directors are just passionate about their work, and they don't want anything or anyone to ruin it, especially while they're working on it. And that's fine, it's great to be passionate about your work while you're doing it and wanting it to be the best that it can be, but sometimes, some directors take their passion too far and end up becoming abusive, mean, or even reckless and callous to the point that they end up mentally straining their actors and crew, or even endanger their lives in some cases.

To me, at least, your work would go much more smoothly and maybe even turn out better if everyone working with you genuinely respects you likes you and wants to work with you to bring this story to life, to help you realize your vision, rather than being afraid of you, and doing everything they can to please you to not get on your bad side? Being respect is always better than being feared, at least when comes to filmmaking.

So, to me, art is not democracy, but it is also not a dictatorship, or at least, it shouldn't be. And I think Rick Worley thinks the opposite. He's probably perfectly fine with art being a dictatorship, and he's fine with directors being as tyrannical or abusive as possible. That's just how they are, and we should respect their creative process, and their end product no matter the circumstances or the methods that were used to create that end product.

But, I disagree with that. I think you can criticize a filmmaker's methods of bringing their vision to life, and I don't think the abusive and overly tyrannical method is the most effective to making a good movie. As I said, it's better if everyone respects you and likes you and wants to work with you in a mutual way, than if everyone's afraid of you and doing everything they can to not piss you off. Of course, this gets into the question of how collaborative film 🎬🎥 actually is.

It is a completely collaborative or collective effort where everyone equally contributes, has a say in its making, and the end product belongs to everyone involved or is a more top down pyramid effort where the director is always on top and everyone else is beneath him or her (or them) and they don't all have equal say and are just there to serve the director's needs, wants, and wishes? Rick would probably say it's more of the latter than the former. But, I think it's somewhere in the middle.

Film is a collaborative effort. It's not something you can do on your own, you need other people to help you out with it, and without those other people's contributions, the movie would not be the same or it would even be lesser than what it is without them. But, at the same time, the director's the architect, they're the leader, they're the one who is guiding those people to bring their vision to life. None of those people would be there without the director, and they would be directionless without them. That's why they're called a director.

So, it's somewhere in between and is a mixture of both, it's collective work, a collective effort, but it is working on a blueprint made by one person or a few people, usually the director(s) or the writer(s). But the blueprint is a template, and not rigid or static thing, it changes as the filmmaking process unfolds, usually because of the other people involved such as the actors and the crew.

You know, the auteur theory is not the end-all-be-all of film theory. The filmmaking process is not a pyramid or top down process, and it shouldn't be an oppressive dictatorship where the director gets to act with complete impunity and zero accountability. Bad things can happen that way, and have happened the way.  

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Update (Saturday June 8, 2024):

🏳️‍⚧️

Here's a more recent video by ContraPoints, explaining why J.K. Rowling is a transphobe 🏳️‍⚧️ and why she isn't great of a person as she tries to present herself as, and as some people still think she is.