Critical Research Failure cleanup

That's much better. I'm not sure if every folder will be used but that's no big.

I've added the folders to Sandbox.Critical Research Failure Wick Check.

Trope Repair Shop Thread.

Following up on this,, do you guys think CriticalResearchFailure.Live Action Films, CriticalResearchFailure.Live Action TV, CriticalResearchFailure.Video Games, and CriticalResearchFailure.Web Videos are short enough to merge into Critical Research Failure?

to merging them all.

Not sure if these have already been talked about, but from YMMV.The Mysterious Mr Enter.

• Critical Research Failure:
  • In his review of Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, he claims that Hinduism is one of the least popular mainstream religions. Hinduism is the world's third-largest religion, with over a billion adherents worldwide.^note However, if he meant it in a U.S.-only context, then he would be right - only 1% of the United State's population practices Hinduism.
  • He complains in his "One Coarse Meal" review that whales don't eat plankton and that the only thing they eat is krill. Some whales do in fact eat plankton - not all whales, mind you, but krill is not the only thing that every whale ever eats. Additionally, Pearl is a sperm whale, which doesn't eat plankton or krill. He actually brought up this point in his "Top 11 Worst Episodes Reviewed" video, admitting he did some research and found out that some whales do eat plankton... before pointing out that some whales also eat crabs, fish, and squid.
  • Part of the reason that many dislike his beliefs on the COVID-19 pandemic is because some of them rely solely on correlation, which leads to inaccurate information. For instance, he claims that viruses evolve to be less deadly to their hosts^note While viruses do evolve and parasites usually don't want their hosts to die, viruses are non-living, so a parasite's method for survival wouldn't be the same as a virus's. or criticizing the George Floyd protests for causing a second wave.^note While it may have indirectly influenced the second wave (due to many businesses reopening in response to the protests), an outdoors event with most people wearing masks wouldn't have had a direct impact on the spread of the virus.

The first two are fine.

Those are quite easy stuff to know.

YMMV.Pokemon Detective Pikachu:

• Critical Research Failure: When the heroes are being chased by a group of Greninja, Pikachu manages to trigger Psyduck's headaches to blast them away with psychic energy. Greninja are part Dark type, so they would be immune to Psychic type attacks. However, as mentioned under Fridge Brilliance, they may have the Protean ability which changed their Type to Water given they used Water Shuriken constantly.

Besides arguing with itself, it wasn't technically a psychic-type attack that caused it. And if we're getting into technicalities game-mechanics are often treated flexibly by adaptations (which are separate continuities so aren't bound to rigidly follow game rules). Thoughts?

Not an example, and it argues with itself. Plus, if we had to put "Pokemon gets hit by an attack of a type they would be immune to in the games" as CRF every time it happened, we'd be here for quite a while. Feel free to cut it.

There's also this from Episode 77 of Animaniacs:

• Critical Research Failure: Hello Nurse claims the bird statue "in the name of Gulf+Western". But in 1989, Gulf+Western dissolved and became Paramount Communications. Viacom would later buy the company in 1994.

How many of us consider the year said company dissolved to be common knowledge? Not only that, this example is under Trivia, not YMMV.

This wasn't a period piece, and G+W was already dead at the time of production, even given Animation Lead Time.

Per TRS Critical Research Failure is now a disambiguation meaning all CRF examples and wicks are to be cut (or moved to something else if it fits).

This thread can be used to bring examples that might fit something else or be worth keeping in some form to determine if to keep and what to move them to.

This sandbox contains examples that were originally under Critical Research Failure, but where later moved to Dan Browned and Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, but were later cut because they were just copied over without seeing if they fit the other tropes. What should be done with those examples?

Edited by costanton11 on Feb 13th 2022 at 7:58:43 AM

Keep the sandbox for now. Once we sort through CRT examples to decide what fits Artistic License, Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, or Dan Browned better, we can go back to she which those examples fit.

Thoughts about these?

YMMV.Ani Mat

• Critical Research Failure: As is common with Internet reviewers, he's still prone to this:
  • In his review of Sausage Party, he claims that the animation was modeled after the '40s style of animation. This is false, as the animation was modeled after Pixar, mainly their Toy Story films. Justified, though, as the characters do really look like anthropomorphic food characters from 40s cartoons.
  • In his The Wild Life review, he incorrectly refers to a Pangolin as an Armadillo.

These's many other web reviewers/analysis with such entries. Would this be Dan Browned as reviewers are by definition expected to have done the research for their reviews? Cowboy BeBop at His Computer for the later as it's a basic fact about fiction mistaken?

I think DB fits better as CBAHC seems to be when the mistake is made by those who aren't partially fans/vested in the work or made so casually they are not expected to have researched the matter. Or does DB require official word from the creator it's meant to be accurate to real life or researched?

YMMV.The Conversion Bureau The Chatoverse

• Critical Research Failure: Contrary to what "New Universe Three: The Friendship Virus" claims, men are not responsible for 98% of all violence and rape.
  • Also, the increase of oxytocin would increase nurturing... in anyone within your "group" according to nationalism. Enough of it increasing worldwide would cause such an up-spike in tribalism that about five wars would break out at once.
  • She has stated that her interpretation of Celestia, who is basically the omnipotent god empress of Equestria, is more in line with Lauren Faust's original version of the show, despite Faust herself directly stating that Celestia is not actually a goddess.

The Celestia part can be moved to Undermined By Reality. The oxytocin thing might be Artistic License, but it and the 98% I don't know what to do with especially since the author is so contentious the line if it's meant to be factual is blurred.

Thoughts?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Feb 15th 2022 at 12:27:22 PM

Looking at the specifics of the disambiguation (and following on from a question I brought up on the TRS thread that I feel is teetering on the edge of getting lost in the noise), that would that mean that my proposed idea for rebuilding the old Critical Research Failure page for Zero Punctuation would fit better under Cowboy BeBop at His Computer rather than Dan Browned.

To throw my two cents in on what Ferot_Dreadnaught brought up in the above comment when it comes to web reviwers, the impression I get from reading the descriptions for both pages is that the former is when inaccuracies crop up in media publications, and the latter is the author of a work asserting a claim of factual accuracy when the opposite is the case, which implies to me that an unspoken maxim of reviewers being expected to have done their research wouldn't apply to Dan Browned. At most, it would mean that Cowboy BeBop at His Computer would be redundant, even though as written, it does serve a separate purpose.

Even the disambiguation page words it to imply that Dan Browned has the work claiming accuracy in spite of the noticeable lack of it, while Cowboy BeBop at His Computer is just the inaccurate information without the preceding claim of accuracy.

For that reason, I'd imagine that Cowboy BeBop at His Computer would cover internet review shows in that regard.

Edited by Akriloth2160 on Feb 16th 2022 at 5:29:11 PM

So you're saying internet reviews/analysis shows fall under Cowboy Be Bop At His Computer as doing research is the base expectation (like for the non-fan media that get it wrong) while Dan Browned is claiming research/authenticity beyond that?

If so what would such a claim of research/authenticity beyond base audience expectations entail? Official statement?

WebVideo.Game Theory (a major thorn in our side over this issue) is about showing extensively how it did it research/analysis despite several of the facts/assumptions behind it being fundamentally incorrect. Would DB fit better as showing their research/analysis process equivalent to saying they did the research? What does their "it's just a theory" do besides grey the issue if it's Artistic License instead?

I'd imagine an official statement would, though on closer inspection, the first sentence of the full description on the Dan Browned page seems to leave wiggle room for creators to merely imply thorough research instead of outright stating it, so I see where you're coming from there. With Game Theory, I think Dan Browned would still fit better, since showing the research is one of those unspoken implications that research was at least attempted, and the "it's just a theory" defence only really covers the various conclusions that the series comes to more than the information used to reach such conclusions. Dan Browned would make sense if the Achilles' Heel lies with fundamental errors in what a given theory is backed up with.

Part of me is thinking at least one of the other tropes in the CRF disambiguation could be orbiting somewhere near a need for TRS because of all this, but I don't want to be hasty, especially this soon after a conclusion was finally reached for CRF.

Bringing up the following examples from

• Critical Research Failure:
  • In "Nothin' on You", B.o.B says "You're my Wonder Woman; call me Mr. Fantastic." Even casual superhero fans know that not only are Wonder Woman and Mr. Fantastic not romantically involved together (in fact, it's common knowledge that Mr. Fantastic's one true love has always been Invisible Woman), but the two characters aren't even part of the same company or universe (Wonder Woman is DC, and Mr. Fantastic is Marvel.)
  • In "Flatlines," B.o.B claims that NASA is part of the Department of Defense. It's not.

I think the first example might qualify for Cowboy BeBop at His Computer, but I'm not sure what (if any) the second would fall under.

Having stumbled upon previous discussion I wasn't aware of until now in this ATT thread, I've rebuilt the CRF Zero Punctuation subpage under the Cowboy BeBop at His Computer namespace here. It does seem that placing it under that namespace was the right call, going off of the comments there.

Since Critical Research Failure is now a disambig, I've moved a few of their entries to Artistic License and Cowboy Be Bop At His Computer, since they seem more fitting. However, I'm not sure where to put the two entries I found on Family Guy S 16 E 18 HTT Pete and Family Guy S 17 E 4 Big Trouble In Little Quahog, both amounting to "They got the date of millennials wrong".

The first one's close enough to the modern definition of "millennial" that it isn't an example (if there even are consistent year boundaries; even the example itself admits the term is ambiguous).

The second one is almost certainly Stewie making a fourth-wall joke. Back when the show began, he was born in 1997, so if not for the floating timeline it would be reasonable to call him a millennial.

There's a South Park episode where Kyle is runs a group of millennials despite being ten (his colleagues are noticeably older) so I'll assume it's the same principle of being a Comic-Book Time / stereotype gag.

...and if barring Comic-Book Time, the main characters could be born in 1987 or 1988, making them squarely Gen Y, given that the show debuted in 1997 and the ages are established then (the creators are born in the early 1970s by the way, making both Gen X).

Not just that, but even the children in The Simpsons can also be considered Gen Y (with Bart being born in 1982 and Lisa being born in 1984) based on the fact that Lisa's birth is very closely tied to the 1984 Summer Olympics according to an episode that chronicles Lisa's birth that aired in 1992. However, if we used the Simpsons children's ages to when they debuted (which was in 1987 as shorts within The Tracey Ullman Show), Bart would be born in 1977 and Lisa would be born in 1979, making both of them Gen X.

Yes, I do split Gen Y and millennials (with the former being born between 1980 and 1989 and the latter being born between 1990 and 1999).

Edited by Nen_desharu on Mar 11th 2022 at 2:32:13 PM

I have some examples from The Kill Count that I wish to bring up. I know these examples are under Cowboy Bebop On His Computer right now, but when I came across them initially, they were under Critical Research Failure. I have sorted my examples based on my thoughts on them:

• Literally just "misnames something/someone"
  • In his Friday the 13th Part 2 Kill Count, James says that Jason is wearing a pillow case over his head when it is actually a potato sack.
  • In the Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter episode, James says that Jason used a machete to kill a character when it is actually a meat cleaver.
  • In his Kill Count for Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, James says that the imposter Jason put a knife through Matthew Letter's head. However, it was actually a railroad spike.
  • For the first few Halloween films, James says that Michael Myers uses a butcher knife when he's actually using a chef's knife. He changes the terminology to chef's knife for the fourth film, apologizes for his mistake and thanks the viewers for the correction.
  • During the video for The Purge: Election Year, he consistently refers to Minister Edwidge Owens as Minister Jones.
  • An acknowledged one for Cabin In The Woods. During the segment when he's introducing the characters, James interrupts himself to point out that for years he had thought two characters (Dana and Marty) were siblings when they are unrelated and did not know otherwise until after he had recorded his parts and so he keeps referring to them as brother and sister for the video. He acknowledges this, which the entry acknowledges, so...

• Feels like misinterpreting the film rather than a lapse in research
  • In the Kill Count for Friday the 13th Part III, James doesn't realize that Jason needed to take his mask off to remove the noose from around his neck.
  • In Demonic Toys, despite, by all accounts, The Kid being killed off and having enough qualities to count as a kill, James does not count him and gives no explanation why, though possibly because James was very confused about the ending and didn’t feel confident adding The Kid as a kill if he wasn’t sure.

• Feels very specific
  • In the same video, he quotes Joss Whedon as the one behind the snappy dialogues of The Avengers (2012), showing a clip of Tony's Galaga as an example. That line is actually one of the many many ad-libs by RDJ.
  • In the Ready or Not Kill Count, James says that Stevens the Butler was listening to Beethoven when the piece he was listening to was Tchaikovsky's iconic 1812 Overture (although Beethoven's music does appear in the movie).

• Valid
  • In Jaws 3-D, James states his shock about Bouchard's decision to save an unconscious woman over his own nephew. In real life, saving unconscious victims are considered a top priority in risk assessments as they are more at risk and their injuries could be more severe. In the video, James might not have seen that the woman was unconscious when the shark broke through the glass.
  • In Leprechaun 2 James made fun of the fact that the Leprechaun's weakness was iron. Although he would later on in the series learn and realize that iron has been known to be a deterrent towards fairies, which includes leprechauns. He addressed this in Leprechaun Returns even referring to himself back then as a dumbass.
  • In the Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III Kill Count, James made fun of and criticized that the term "dusted" isn't a thing. Although as the comment sections show, the term is actually pretty commonly used by US Southerners which included Texans.
  • In the Kill Count for The Thing (1982), James notes that there are characters named Windows and Mac(Ready), saying that it's a funny coincidence because Microsoft and Apple hadn't been founded yet in 1982. Both companies had, in fact, been founded in The '70s, though neither of them had yet come close to their future prominence.

I'm not sure about the reasoning behind any of those examples, there's never really been anything under CRF or CBAHC about lapses in research being excusable with caveats like "more than just misnaming something", "being very specific" or "interpreting the work wrongly". Maybe I can see "feels very specific" as one interpretation of that awkward period when everyone had to specify that Critical Research Failure was about failures in common knowledge rather than insider knowledge, but that was hard to define anyway, and it's not really the case now that CRF has been disambiguated.

Edited by Akriloth2160 on Mar 21st 2022 at 3:21:57 PM

Where would this entry on YMMV.Toy Story 1 go?

• Critical Research Failure: Andy's Mom drives with Molly in the passenger seat. It's illegal to have a baby in a car's front seat. Honest Trailers calls the film out on this.
  Honest Trailers Narrator: Does Andy's Mom realize it's super illegal to have a baby ride in the front seat? Everybody knows that.

Edited by costanton11 on Apr 7th 2022 at 4:43:09 AM