Pitch Meetings · 3:22am Mar 5th, 2021
My father introduced me to this series by Screen Rant, and I love these guys' videos.
The basic premise is that you have a Screenwriter pitching the plot of some movie to an Executive (the two are played by the same guy, just with different outfits and a pair of glasses to tell one from the other). The Screenwriter's pitch is usually really, well, bad, often pointing out flaws, plot holes, or other weird bits in the story. The Executive is able to easily identify the problems with the script, but is either too money-obsessed, easily distracted, or just a pushover to really overrule things.
It's a pretty fun series, all told.
Here's a few choice examples for your consideration.
First up is, admittedly, some low-hanging fruit. M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender.
After that, Star Trek Beyond. This one will probably appeal to a lot of Trekkies who didn't like the reboot era. (And they really savage "Into Darkness" in the video they did on that one too. XD)
And next, for a bit of a personal slant here... The Dark Knight Rises. I really have nothing nice to say about the Nolan Batman movies, so it was a devilish bit of fun for me to watch them comedically shred just about everything in this movie. 
And finally... I imagine that this might upset at least one person for whom this may well be blasphemous... Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
(Yeah, I'm really not a fan of the Gene Wilder movie, so it's good for me to see somebody cast a jaundiced eye on this "classic".)
There's plenty more out there that these guys have done. You can think of a movie, they've probably done some kind of riff on it.
(If they haven't done one for the MLP movie, I might try a hand at writing my own riff on that, Pitch Meetings-style, just for giggles. Think I might have some ideas there. 
)
I never really got into them. Not quite sure why, just never appealed to me, I guess. I did watch the WW84 one and now I kinda want to watch the Into Darkness one now, because dear lord that one was a mess. It's a poor man's Wrath of Khan transporter-fused with a 9/11 conspiracy theory.
Also thanks for reminding me that I need to write that compare/contrast blog about the 1970s and 2005 Wonka movies. Actually something I've been planning for a while now, just need to get around to it...
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It's funny that you say that, because really, compared to a lot of other riffers out on the Internet (MST3K, Rifftrax, HISHE) I find these guys a LOT more tolerable and enjoyable.
If you watch the Into Darkness video, I really hope you'll enjoy it, because I found it riotously funny when I saw it.
Ohhh, I get the feeling that I will not enjoy that when it comes, considering that I find the 2005 movie vastly more enjoyable than the original (and to my opinion, overrated) Wilder movie...
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I’d rather you didn’t jump to conclusions so easily. There’s actually a lot I like about the 2005 movie and I don’t hate it in the slightest, but I think it unfortunately misses the mark in a couple key areas that the 70’s film did better, not because it’s the OG movie but because I legitimately think it did them better.
But all that will come eventually.
Also not a big fan of the use of “overrated”. On a general principle I think it’s just an inherently false concept.
Okay, just watched the Into Darkness pitch meeting and
Dear Lord, this movie was so friggin' dumb...
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Based on previous conversations that I've seen, I never got the impression that you liked much of anything about the Burton film. So this is news to me.
Also, I'm not a fan of "overrated" myself, but frankly, after years of seeing people online heap praise on the movie - which I found just mediocre - and viciously trash Burton's movie, I have little to no problem using it for this specific context.
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Glad you liked it, anyway.
Screen Rant. I've heard of them before, but never really seen their videos save for the odd recommendation here and there.
God I love these videos. XD Pitch Meetings is such an obvious-seeming idea that I can't believe nobody had tried it before, but Ryan George pulls it off so well.
You might also like his comedy sketch videos, which have a similar style of humor - he loves to take completely mundane concepts and just lay bare the absurdities that become apparent if you look too deeply into them.
I considered doing pitch meetings for fics, although I didn't come up with anything yet :)
I think because I saw the 05 Wonka film first and it generally had better effects, also Christopher Lee, I'm more of a fan of it than the Gene Wilder version. I still like it, I just prefer the Tim Burton one.
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I'm not a diehard follower of their wider stuff, but these videos are to my opinion pretty entertaining.
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That's fine and quite fair.
I... well, I first saw the Gene Wilder movie in primary school. And that's a pretty crap environment to watch any movie in, for sure. But I think, even without that environment, I still would have enjoyed the Burton film far more anyway - due to the effects, the music, and as you say, Christopher Lee.
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Heh, yeah these vids are a real goldmine of comedy.
My dad's a fan of Ryan George's other videos, I remember him really laughing at some of those. XD
Understood. Admittedly if I were to do a Pitch Meeting of my own, I'd keep it to a blog post myself. Don't think you can really support a whole story around it, at least by this site's rules anyway.
My sister introduced me to these two and it actually touches on a lot of the complaints and plot holes I had with some of the movies. There is really clever writing as well.
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Glad to hear that you also enjoy these. I definitely agree, there is some really clever writing at work in this. The acting is honestly really good too - I love the way that Ryan George is able to play two roles who are both very cheerful but he makes them *work* so well at playing off the other.
Do you have any particular favorites, may I ask? Most of the ones here are top choices of my own, though I left a few others out. Their video on "Star Trek Into Darkness" had me laughing out loud, and their video on "Twilight Breaking Dawn" also had me guffawing at some points. (I almost felt bad for the Executive in that one. XD)
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Oh, I meant as in pitching the idea for a fic, like a Fallout Equestria pitch meeting or something :)
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Ohhh, I see now.
Well, that could be fun too.
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My personal favorites have to be The Lost World; Jurassic Park and After Earth.
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Ahh, okay. I've not seen either one of those yet. (The former because, well, I actually genuinely like the movie, and the latter because, well, part of me felt like it was such an easy target for them to go for.