Fridge Brilliance
- What makes "The Good Witch Of The Woods" good? well in ATFW magic can only be used for good, and though she is attacking people with lethal force, it's to prevent Malachite from returning to power, thus putting her into Knight Templar and/or Good Is Not Nice territory.
- Malachite uses the Power Glove to physically control the Nostalgia Critic, dressed as Link, while using magic or sweet fighting moves on everyone else.
- It's better when you notice the pose the Critic appears to be in with each hit.
- The Channel Awesome crew being the ones sent on the quest seems very appropriate once you find out that Malachite wants to destroy the world because he hates science and technology usurping magic as the dominant power of civilization. Who better to defend the 21st century than internet personalities who are famous for reviewing movies and video games?
- What makes this even better, is the fact that Benzaie is dressed as Conan, who, as we all know, doesn't like sorcery.
- The Voice of the Ancients was defeated by a pair of music critics.
- Malachite being revealed as a hypocrite is rather fitting, considering that the only reason Aeon began the age of technology was because he could not be trusted. It really is all his fault.
- Larry Prince is Lori Prince's father, just like Barney Walker is the father of Doug Walker (the actors who play them).
- Spoony manages to walk off a double-orbit and crash-landing on Earth on account of wearing a Star Sapphire ring, which protects the wearer from the harshness of space travel.
- Fifteen people manage to pull a successful Stealth Goodbye on the Nostalgia Critic and later half of them pull it again on the Cloaks. One year earlier, Linkara was the head of the Kickassian FBI and trained most of them on how to be stealthy.
- Todd, despite his threat to Jew Wario in Part 1, is the only gun-wielder in the cast who doesn't become the Combat Pragmatist when the chips are down. Makes sense, as in-universe (see: his Driven to Suicide moment in the "Imma Be" review), it's genuinely not a real gun.
- The stinger on the DVD. Malachite, who wanted to use the magic gauntlet to destroy the world of technology, is defeated. Who ends up with it instead? Mechakara, who wants to use magic to help robots conquer the world. Not sure if irony is the right word, but one should take into account the implications of defiance of Evil Is One Big, Happy Family, and Malachite's greatest weapon just ended up in the hands of his polar opposite.
- According to commentary, Benzaie's line when he enters dressed as Conan was supposed to be "Crom", the god in the Conan films, but instead he says "Come". This actually works just as well though, because in the Conan review Nostalgia Critic asked what it would be like for someone to work out their entire lives—cut to an interview with Arnold who compares it to "cumming".
- "Cum" is also appropriate when you consider Benzaie runs series like "Let's Fap."
- Am I the only one who thinks the sword the Critic takes from Mickey after the Master Sword breaks looks like the White Sword from the first game?
- This may be slightly meta, but: there is a deleted line from Linkara during the end (mentioned in Lewis' commentary on the movie) that says that he's having Pollo work on a solution to being dead. Just a harmless Call-Back to his own show in and of itself, but it's fortunate that the line was removed, because earlier he made the speech about Phelous finally realizing that "True friends are made of flesh and blood, not material posessions". Wouldn't it have made him quite the terrible hypocrite to say something like that when his own closest companion is a robot?
- I don't know if it was intentional or just a bit of colour-blind casting that worked really well, but I appreciated the fact Malachite had dark skin. A time period isn't specified, but it's safe to guess a time full of magic would be before whatever evolutionary elements that produced paler skinned people came into play.
- Malachite's use of the "I love the Power Glove, it's so bad" line at first seems like damaging the character's anti-modernist/technology credentials just to work in the famous line, but it makes total sense once we find out he's a hypocrite who uses an iPhone.
- Malachite suffers pain after ripping out that guy's heart: the main reason is because his use of magic drains his life force, but this could also be a subtle clue that the key to his defeat lies with 'heart'.
- Possible an unintended Shout-Out: The Nostalgia Critic/Link draws forth a powerful item of magic forged long ago. The Big Bad appears afterwards and takes an ultimate power from him. This power is put against its opposite and the Big Bad is defeated in the end, with the loss of the hero's companion as the cost of victory. Sound familiar?
- At Ma-Ti's funeral, Mickey says they should've used a Pop Tarts container for his remains. In the first part, the Critic calls Ma-Ti a Pop Tart.
- One of Critic's only good traits is his loyalty. Film Brain betrayed him back in Kickassia, so it'd make sense that he'd get more of the cold shoulder.
- Everyone who had been in Kickassia betrayed him back then. Thus, it makes even more sense that the Critic would want someone who hadn't even been in that special to be the one doing him favors and such.
- If the glove was hidden right at the starting point, why did the Channel Awesome crew need to do this whole quest? Because the glove could only be found by the pure of heart. The critics and reviewers start out as immature, bratty, greedy jerks in funny costumes and are nowhere pure, but after an entire quest and all those adventures spent Becoming the Mask, they turned into real heroes. One may even speculate that Malachite trained the obviously weasly Jaffers in a Batman Gambit where he would betray his magic mentor, train the cloaks and create the conditions for true heroes to emerge.
- Critic makes a major revelation after making a big rant in-character as Link. He said that being in character was apparently supposed to help them solve the riddles, and this scene proves that right.
- When Phelous demands the Nostalgia Critic "say hello" to his little friends, and the Critic quickly obeys, despite being thoroughly confused and creeped out. Why did the Critic react that way? In the last movie, Kickassia, he treated Phelous like a disposable henchman, until that memorable scene where Phelous backed him against the fridge. The Critic is terrified of Phelous now. No wonder he kept telling other people to try and do something about Phelous when he seemed to be losing his mind in this movie. (Adds a new layer to "Fridge Brilliance."
- Linkara left his classic trillby hat home when he came in costume, meaning that he accidentally prevented Malachite from winning easily. In universe, his hat prevents health drain while casting, meaning that stealing it would have given Malachite the same result as getting the power glove!
- James "The Angry Video Game Nerd" Rolfe portrays the Voice of the Ancient World. This already made for a hilarious cameo, but it enters Fridge Brilliance territory when you consider that the AVGN show is often considered the first internet reviewer show and was the inspiration for many online reviewers today (some of which are members of Channel Awesome). This makes James Rolfe sort of an "ancient prophet / benevolent precursor" to the online community. Also the fact that he reviews retro video games, you could say he "voices" his opinion on the "ancient world" of video games.
- One could easily put down the bad fight choreography of everyone but Malachite (his actor is a black belt martial artist) to the fact that the film is a labor of love by people whose main jobs are reviewing things on the internet rather than producing action films. Or you could put it down to the fact that the protagonists are a bunch of internet reviewers and Jaffers' minions are just a bunch of his friends who he taught magic to. Of course they don't know the first thing about fighting.
- Same goes for the costumes. They're not actual characters, they're minions/reviewers dressed up as those characters, so it makes sense half the costumes look handmade or bought from Walmart.
- Another less obvious thought is that the movie is a stealth commentary on the "dystopia of technology" that Malachite was so railing against. Ma-ti defeating Malachite? Awesome! However, one must also remember why Heart was chosen as part of Captain Planet. "For all the heart it's gonna take to make a change." The stealth commentary is that Science is a good and useful thing, but it is the Heart we share with each other that will ultimately make life meaningful, as evidenced by such solemn and respectful show off to Ma-ti. Less rage against the machines, more finding the balance with them. And despite what some seem to think about the internet, there is genuine heart in online comedy, and it's not really a frivolous medium after all. Well played Doug. Well played.
Fridge Horror
- Malachite finger flicks Spoony into a double-orbit and crash-landing on Earth. He also punches [Gaffers straight into the air at a speed that surpassed escape velocity and never came down.
- Spoony has horrible memories of Kickassia (not the least of which, him being forced to become Dr. Insano, which he tried to put behind him). His Big "NO!" is certainly warranted.
- The home owner seemed strangely non-chalant about being duct taped on the couch. Then you find out that she has Ask That Guy in her basement. Not only is being tied up likely a regular occurance for her, but her Death Glare towards Team B could be interpreted as a Stockholm Syndrome induced Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?.
- Actually, according to Ask That Guy, she's in his house. Which just makes it worse.
- Considering Critic is almost catatonic with grief when he's sitting beside Ma-Ti's body, you've got to wonder how long it took (or how hard it was) for the others to get him back to almost-normal in time for the funeral. Especially as Linkara had to change his clothes, Todd had to cremate Ma-Ti and everyone else looks pretty shaken too.
