Meet Kyle "Krimson Rogue" Martin, a published author, super nerd, and all around admirer of the written word, who is consistently aggravated by Hollywood's constant inability to make a good Film of the Book. So to vent out his grievances he hosts the Video Review Show The Book Was Better, where he's fixing today's movies one book at a time.
His reviews also contain a running storyline in a similar vein to Atop the Fourth Wall.
In addition to his main review series Krimson Rogue also has a side series "Rogue Reviews" where he reviews a recently released film and a number of long-form analysis videos dealing with bad books in significant detail.
This web series provides examples of:
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Review Tropes
- Adaptation Decay: The most common criticism found in his reviews, with bad acting/casting in a close second, and stupid characters in third.
- All Animals Are Dogs: Discussed in the How to Train Your Dragon review. Krimson points out that, while it's true that Toothless is trained to do tricks like a dog, he has much more in common with a cat, and, even though it's less common, cats can also be trained to do tricks.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: In his Whiteout review he states that in order to get himself out of his "there's no snow" funk, he decided to watch a film about Antarctica, adventure and snow, namely The Thing (1982).
- Berserk Button: Adaptation induced plot holes and changes from the source material for no reason will make him very angry.
- He also doesn't react well when the work he's reviewing doesn't have internal logic and/or consistency such as Inkheart and Empress Theresa.
- Repo Men's ending made him shoot up a poster of the movie.
- Call-Back: The man in the horse mask and sushi-chef bandana from the 50 Shades review shows up again in the New Moon review, revealing that he speaks Gratuitous Japanese.
- The Cameo: During his review of Fourth Wing, Krimson notes that he usually gives a copy of the book being covered to his wife to read along with him so they can compare notes. He then admits it didn't work this time. Cut to his wife surrounded by Toothless and Light Fury plushes.Mrs. Krimson: I like dragons!
- Crossover: Krimson joins up with CJ of Cynical Reviews to talk about Empress Theresa.
- Disproportionate Retribution: In his review of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones he tries to escape after finding out who directed it only for his cat to lock him in his room for the transgression of its dinner being a few minutes late.
- Domestic Abuse: Krimson discusses this a lot in his Twilight: Eclipse review, particularily in regards to the two love interests, and how they seem to personify two sepparate types of abuse.
- Edward is emotionally abusive, treating Bella like his property and constantly ordering her around. Krimson especially takes issue with how Edward pretty much moves Bella out of state without her input and later puts her under house arrest with the excuse that it's for her safety.
- While Jacob hasn't gotten violent with Bella yet, his constant outbursts are a reminder that he has severe anger issues that he refuses to work through, and will most likely get physically abusive sooner or later.
- Fanfic: He brings up the subject a good deal of times, and claims it's a great way for new writers to practice their art. He does lament that, since most fanfics are written unprofessionally, the vast majority are bad.
- Fictional Currency: Explored in the Ready Player Two review: Krimson points out that the novel fails at successfully implementing this because it doesn't give the reader any idea of what one credit is worth, so there is no way to know how much "1000 credits" is worth when GSS gives that much to OASIS users in compensation for the events of the plot.
- Funny Background Event: In the background of the How to Train Your Dragon, the amount of Toothless and Light Fury plushes gradually increase.
- Gratuitous Rape: As shown when covering Onision’s books, he is heavily against the use this trope due to how insensitive it is to victims and how poorly the trope tends to be implemented.Rogue: "If you can use anything other than rape... DON’T USE RAPE."
- Hollywood Evolution: Mocked in his review of The Relic when the main character states the the monster hunting them was originally human we cut back to Rogue with a photoshopped image of Charles Darwin's gravestone with crying noises in the background.Rogue: Oh great, you made him cry!
- Idiosyncratic Ratings Scale: Books, movies, and adaptations are generally related on a scale of 1 to 5. Some stories are horrible enough to earn a "Fuck You out of 5", while stories even worse than that receive "Total Cancer out of 5".
- I Need a Freaking Drink: The numerous changes from the source material in the first Percy Jackson movie cause him to slowly drink himself half to death.Rogue: Alcohol makes it better, alcohol makes it all better.
- It's Personal: To an extent with his analysis videos of Empress Theresa. A fan of his sent a message to Norman Boutin (the famously thin skinned author of said book) challenging him to ask Krimson to review it. Boutin responded that Krimson was "just another kid" and "would be forgotten." Krimson took up the implied challenge.
- Magic A Is Magic A: He says that fantasy stories have to follow this trope to be good.
- My Nayme Is: "Krimson", nothing in common with the color Crimson (which rarely, if ever, appears on the show).
- Non-Indicative Title: He points out how Fifty Shades of Grey started as a The Twilight Saga fanfic named "Masters of the Universe", and how odd it is that it was completely devoid of He-Man.
- Noodle Implements: In the Fifty Shades of Grey review, we are shown a shot of a guy with a metal staff and a blue bodysuit, a woman in a facemask hanging upside down, and a guy in a suit, horsemask and sushi chef bandana. Given that he had just talked about BDSM, we can make an educated guess.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Done word for word in The Time Traveler's Wife review.
- Running Gag: A particularly dark example arose while Krimson was reviewing the books by Youtuber Onision. The first two of his books featured school shootings, neither very well handled. In his video on the third of Onision's books Krimson joked that at a critical position in the plot there was a school shooting only to admit that there wasn't, but after the last two cheap uses of that plot point would anyone be surprised? This carries on into his review of Trigger Warning, where the entire plot is about a School Shooting at a univerity.
- Sanity Slippage: The prospect of reviewing Inkheart renders Rogue insane enough to shave his beard, he initially covers his face afterwards and at the end he even says he misses his beard. It's back in the following episode.
- Serial Escalation: In the second part of his review of
Norman Boutin's Empress Theresa, Krimson explains how he takes approximately 12-14 pages of notes on a book. Reaper's Creek by Onision had about twice as many notes as average (26), and Empress Theresa had rougly FIVE TIMES as many notes as Reaper's Creek(122 pages total). - Stalking is Love: Krimson takes great issue with how this trope is handled in Fifty Shades of Grey. He even goes as far as to say that it gets worse than The Twilight Saga, since the stalker in that series is an actual vampire, and thus could stalk Bella relatively easily, whereas Christian Grey is an ordinary, if rich, human, so he actually had to put in a lot of effort.
Storyline Tropes
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Raem completely shrugs off all of Rogue's attacks and nearly kills him. The only reason why he's ultimately defeated is because of his lack of immunity to swords. (It later turns out that this is because Rogue's other attacks were him trying to use magic outside his discipline, and he's unknowingly a natural sword-mage).
- Lies to Children: A lot of Rogue's early problems dealing with magic are revealed in The Da Vinci Code review to be due to the magic book he's studying from being a simplified version intended as a primer for children. His main mistake was thinking the list of specializations was comprehensive when it's actually just the most common ones, leading to frustration since his isn't on the list.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: You just had to play with those Lantern rings didn't you Rogue. Enjoy having a demonic Archenemy.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Raem, a demonic entity whose purpose seems to be to proliferate bad works of fiction, was sealed in six Lantern rings and accidentally unleashed when Rogue put them on. This also seems to result in the entity taking on Rogue's appearance.
- Shared Universe: Because of the cameos in his show, Krimson counts as being part of the Reviewaverse.
- Take That!: At Electronic ArtsG.C.: What about the other vowels, what about I O U?
NPC: After what they did to Battlefront 2, they certainly do. - Vitriolic Best Buds: Kyle and G.C. They bicker constantly and G.C never misses an opportunity to mock Kyle. However, he is genuinely concerned for Kyle's safety and is even willing to go against a circle of mages in order to try and help him.
- World of Weirdness: The Reviewaverse. A universe where there would be magic and Lantern rings.
