Critical Research Failure cleanup

Prodigal is listed on You Keep Using That Word under "meaning has started to drift in popular use". But I don't remember if that trope can be used to ding writers or if it's restricted to in-universe.

Prodigal is one of those words that is basically only used as a biblical allusion and not for its literal meaning. At most this is an extremely pedantic example of You Keep Using That Word, but it is certainly not CRF. Cut.

for kicking out the "prodigal" example.

Edited by Albert3105 on Dec 10th 2019 at 7:49:35 AM

Anime And Manga, the example from Detective Conan:

In Serinox' opinion, it isn't an error:

conanforum.org/thread/7215-fehler-in-conans-schlussfolgerungen

Edited by Ai-Fan on Dec 11th 2019 at 6:16:45 PM

These examples on Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers seem more like nitpicking than actual CRT:

• Critical Research Failure:
  • In "Final Hours", Francis' ultimate creation, Super Saiyan God Goku, is depicted as Goku in his Super Saiyan Blue transformation. Super Saiyan God is the red-haired transformation.
  • A number of them concerning the Splatoon series:
    • The universe of Splatoon takes place 12,000 years into the future where humans become extinct. In this universe, they coexist in the same world.
    • An in-universe example happens in "The Mario Showdown": in "If Mario Was In...Splatoon", Mario went to Inkopolis through a sewer tunnel. In the former video, Inkopolis is easily accessible and can be driven to normally.
    • Inklings are born as squids and then once they turn fourteen they develop human-like qualities. In "Final Hours", Meggy transformed into a human by losing all of her ink to Francis' machine, as if Inklings are the opposite; humans with squid-like qualities.
  • In "Sans's First Day In Smash Bros", Papyrus refers to Sans as his little brother, but in the Undertale canon, it's Sans who is Papyrus's elder brother. Papyrus might be referring to size instead of age, though.

As all of those are about works, they belong under Cowboy BeBop at His Computer anyway, not Critical Research Failure.

Comic Books entries appear to be inspired by Linkara remarks. Let's fix it.

• Marville:
  • It begins a descent into utter madness ^note  or utter silliness, if you consider that the whole series' satire, such as it is, went from blatant to subtle starting in the third issue that includes, among many, MANY other offenses, the protagonists scooping up some water with microbes in it to use as a "biological clock" for their time machine, under the logic that they'll know to stop when the microbes evolve into a dinosaur. It just gets worse from there.
  • It also contains the popular misconception that shows up a few times below that humans are the only creatures who kill members of their own species. Nearly all species do it, however humans are (so far) the only species that feel good or bad about it.

• Superman once multiplied 10x20x16 and got 32,000. (It's 3,200, by the way.) That wasn't just math, it was Super Mathematics.

I can confirm Marville's author made these wrong claims, but I think the entry needs rework. What about the Superman example?

• In a Quicksilver miniseries, the mutant speedster goes on the run with his half-Inhuman daughter Luna, but her mother and Quicksilver's ex-wife Crystal is forbidden from going after them by Black Bolt and Medusa. Crystal coldly tells them they'd be more understanding of her plight if they had children of their own. The writer didn't seem aware that Black Bolt and Medusa have a son. His name is Ahura. There was an entire graphic novel about Medusa's pregnancy and her decision to defy the Inhuman Council to give birth after they ordered her to have an abortion because they deemed it too risky to allow Black Bolt to sire children due to his own destructive power. Crystal should know; she was there by her sister's side the entire time.

Isn't this Series Continuity Error or Continuity Snarl?

Edited by Tomodachi on Dec 13th 2019 at 9:38:24 AM

The last one is definitely misuse. I should also mention that one of those examples is Ape Shall Never Kill Ape; not sure if this is grounds for cutting.

From Sonic X.

Critical Research Failure: The series is supposed to be set between the anime's Chaos and Shadow sagas. However, it depicts Station Square as being in its prime, even though it was supposed to be in ruins following the former saga's events. When fans brought up this massive continuity error, the writer admitted that the reason for it was that he hadn't watched the episodes, so he was unaware the city had been decimated. Eventually, the comic came into its own, with more influence from the mainline comic books than the anime.

Should I cut this and put it on Continuity Snarl on the main page?

Yes. Anything regarding continuity errors and the like can be removed without needing to ask.

Examples from YMMV.How It Should Have Ended

• Critical Research Failure:
  • "How Pacific Rim Should Have Ended", has Beckett realizing the highly effective Whip Sword Gipsy Danger packs would be far better used simply camping by the rift and killing Kaiju before they can do anything. This ignores several facts, the first of which being the Sword was only incredibly effective against Otachi due to its small size and does not have the cutting power to simply one shot every Kaiju ever, as Raiju's own momentum is what allowed it to be killed in one hit. On top of that, the reason bladed weapons weren't extensively used was because Kaiju blood is spectacularly toxic and practically salted the earth where it fell, with the only remedy given being a lazy Hand Wave of the Power Rangers coming out of nowhere with a vacuum to clean it up. The sword also wouldn't be able to handle a Kaiju that was armored enough to No-Sell it, which is again Hand Waved by having Voltron show up out of nowhere to kill a Kaiju they couldn't handle. Finally, Jaegers have limited oxygen supplies, something that becomes a source of dramatic tension during Beckett and Mako's final push through the rift, which means that they can't just camp down there and kill every kaiju that comes through without closing the rift.
  • In "How It Should Have Ended," Pennywise shows the Deadlights to the whole gang at once, scoring a complete victory. Some viewers point out that the reason he didn't just do that in the film was because they only work if he is close to his victims and the gang wasn't that close enough for it to work. On top of this it's made incredibly clear that the Deadlights are Pennywise's last resort and that using them would "sour the meat" for him.
  • In the parody of Solo, the eponymous character spontaneously decides he’s tired for no reason and indulges in heavily Leaning on the Fourth Wall while sitting around and complaining. Viewers have noted that at that point in the plot, Han was in a rush, and the entire scene is a major Out-of-Character Moment even by the standards of the normal videos for the sake of complaining about the film.
  • How Aquaman Should Have Ended shows Batman and Superman being jealous that Aquaman's movie made $1 billion dollars. The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises both crossed the billion-dollar mark, so what does Batman have to complain about? Unless HISHE were likely counting only films strictly in the DCEU.
  • HISHE is far from the only people to do it, but “Nostalgia Detective" has Batman take a jab at The Lion King for claiming to be live-action, when the film itself has never been called live-action by its creators or Disney (the correct terminology is “photorealistic CGI”).
  • How Spider-Man Far From Home Should Have Ended: J. Jonah Jameson releases on TV (and Spider-Man see it in a giant screen at the street) Spider-Man's secret identity, but Spider-Man prevents it by using EDITH to hack the TV and overwrite its contents. As anyone would know, that shouldn't work: the signal is generated somewhere else and received by TV terminals everywhere, such as the one Spider-Man saw. Even a deus-ex-hackina as EDITH would be useless for Spider-Man, changing the contents of that specific TV would be just a glorified case of Shoot the Television.

From YMMV.The Simpsons S 2 E 4 Two Cars In Every Garage And Three Eyes On Every Fish

• Critical Research Failure: Burns nicknames the three-eyed fish "Blinky" and it displays its ability to blink its eyes in sequential order. However, pretty much everyone knows that fish don't have eyelids. While the fish is a mutant, no one ever implies that the eyelids are part of its mutation. However, later episode show a rhinoceros hatching from his egg and a giraffe coming out of a hole so being a cartoon applies to animals too.

The example seems to argue with itself. Think this can safely be cut.

Let's run a little thought experiment I like to call "if only the writers had researched [blank]." If the resulting sentence is ridiculous nonsense, that's a pretty strong indicator that the entry is shoehorning and should be cut. Ready? Let's go!

• Pacific Rim: If only the writers had researched the effectiveness of giant robot swords on kaiju! Cut
• It: If only the writers had researched the properties and abilities of lovecraftian horrors! Cut
• Solo: If only the writers had researched the fourth-wall-leaning habits of fictional characters! Cut
• Spider-Man: If only the writers had researched the way fictional hack-everything AI thingies work! Cut

The Aquaman entry argues with itself, and I wouldn't consider the exact marketing terminology used by Disney to be a matter of common knowledge, so let's cut those as well.

• If only the writers had researched the properties of mutated cartoon fish! Cut

The Spider-Man thing seems more like Artistic License Played for Laughs to me than an actual error, based on the writeup.

Yeah, all the examples seemed iffy. Removed theme all. Wanted a second opinion just to be sure.

YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 3 E 26 has similar examples of reviewers missing things in the film, which I don't think fits the definition of the trope.

• Critical Research Failure: The Critic makes some very lazy jabs at the film.
  • He says it's a Contrived Coincidence that Steve is able to find Jasmine, even though Steve invited her to stay at his base, which is where she went for refuge and where he went to look.
  • He also derides Whitmore for taking up a plane for the final battle, even though the film established early on that he was a fighter pilot and the standing order was to find anyone who could fly a plane.

Edited by costanton11 on Dec 19th 2019 at 7:14:51 AM

Seconded. Those both look cutworthy to me.

Edited by HighCrate on Dec 19th 2019 at 5:20:43 AM

Here are the other Nostalgia Critic Subpages with CRF wicks.

• YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 1 E 15
• YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 2 E 51
• YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 5 E 2
• YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 5 E 10
• YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 6 E 9
• YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic S 12 E 33

From a cursory view, most seem like shoehorning. Only the first two seem to be about real life things that are not the subject of reviews, but I'm not sure if they're common enough knowledge to qualify.

Edited by costanton11 on Dec 19th 2019 at 7:47:20 AM

Yeah, those all look pretty bad.

To finish up this topic, here's the examples in the main YMMV page:

• Critical Research Failure:
  • In his review of Tom and Jerry: The Movie, one of his criticisms of the film is breaking the alleged series rule that the characters never talk. Except that anyone familiar with the series would know that both of the main characters can and do talk, just on irregular occasions. That said, he later owed up to this mistake on his "Why Are Tom And Jerry So Awesome" editorial, but also pointed out that the original shorts never overdid it like the movie did.
  • Claiming that TMS was responsible for the animation of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame II. While the film did have a few former TMS staffers, the credits point out that the animation was outsourced to Disney's Japan-based sub-studio.
  • Claiming that the reason Disney turned to more Direct to Video hand-drawn features was because their main line animation studio had less work to do due to the rise of CGI in the 90's, while is complete and utter crock—the main studio was always tied up making at least two films at a time with overlapping production periods, and the sequels weren't even done in-house, but at Disney's sub-studio Disneytoon Studios, and they were strictly done for the purpose of cashing in on the mainline animated films.
  • He decides to put the blame on Flubber on the other writer rather than John Hughes. That would be the dead screenwriter of the original, who got the credit because his script was followed too closely.
  • In The Purge, Critic calls the polite leader “Henry” when that was the boyfriend's name and he even showed that clip.
  • His "Has CGI Gone Too Far?" editorial is practically this trope from start to finish. Probably the worst example is when he claims, the CGI Yoda from the Star Wars prequels doesn't work as well as Roger Rabbit does, because for Roger, the crew used a doll on-set for reference, so they could get how the lighting on the super-imposed cartoon perfectly. Except, that's exactly what the prequel crew did when creating Yoda.
  • His first two reviews for X-Month have some significant ones, such as his irritance towards Rogue only having her touch ability when she could fly in the comics, or his claiming that Xavier has telekenesis (Rogue only got those powers after absorbing Ms. Marvel too long, and Xavier is explicitly a telepath—Jean Grey is the one with the telekenetic powers). Tellingly, the last two reviews have less issues, implying he took the criticism to heart and did more research.
  • One of the main reasons why his review of The Wall was negatively received by fans, of both the Critic and Pink Floyd, was how he completely missed or misinterpreted the messages of the movie, particularly the movie's jab at the British school system in 'Another Brick in the Wall Part 2.' Critic simply considers it nothing but Wangst of how "school sucks", apparently oblivious how harsh and even downright abusive the British education system was back in Roger Waters and Pink Floyd's time.
    • A brief line calls "Goodbye Blue Sky" an Award-Bait Song, when it was written for the album and predates the film by several years, and unlike most such songs, is related to the plot: it's a metaphor for the Blitz, one of many things that shaped Pink's childhood and adolescence.

Basically more along the lines of what was already discussed.

Yup, all bad.

Those research failures are legitimate - just badly worded and too opinionated, like trying to justify Doug's mistakes or calling him worse than he is.

Edited by Tomodachi on Dec 20th 2019 at 5:03:45 AM

They still don't meet CRF criteria because some, like the Tom and Jerry example are about a work instead of the real world, and others, like the CGI example are not something the bulk of the audience would be expected to know.

But it is not wrong to point out the error. Or is it?

Perhaps not, but they don't fit Critical Research Failure. Cowboy BeBop at His Computer exists, though, so there is a place to put errors regarding knowledge of other works.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Dec 20th 2019 at 9:10:38 AM

Right, CRF is not "person gets something wrong ever", it's "person gets a basic fact wrong, or gets something wrong that they could've learned with a quick google-search".