The Wall (Nostalgia Critic)
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"If missing the point was a sport, Doug Walker would be the champion of something for once in his life."
— Sourcy
"The Wall" is an episode of the Channel Awesome web series Nostalgia Critic. It is the Nostalgia Critic's clipless "review" of the 1982 cult-following live-action/animation hybrid musical film Pink Floyd – The Wall based on the 1979 album of the same name by English rock band Pink Floyd, the review is featured special guest stars from Corey Taylor (also featured his son Griffin Taylor as young-self of Corey), Rob Scallon, Brad Jones and Satellite City creator Sam Fennah. The episode was uploaded on YouTube on September 18, 2019. It was heavily panned by various online music/internet critics, social media users, YouTubers, audiences, Pink Floyd fans, and even the Nostalgia Critic’s fans, in which the video earned 70k dislikes. "The Wall" is considered the worst "review" ever created by both Channel Awesome and Nostalgia Critic since "Let's Play: Bart's Nightmare", as well as one of the worst "reviews" of all time where Many people said this is how not do to a review.
Plot
The nurse (played by Tamara Chambers) was cleaning the hallway when she noticed the sign at the door was not to disturb, and then she left. After the titles, the only one who lived in this room was Slipknot and Stone Sour member Corey Taylor sitting on his couch emotionless until he noticed the YouTube video known as "The Wall - Nostalgia Critic" had arrived. He plays the video as The Critic discusses the 1982 live-action/animation musical film "Pink Floyd - The Wall" ("When the Wall Broke Free"). It jump-cuts to Corey as young-self (played by Griffin Taylor), when he enters the cinema to watch The Wall then walks away in confusion. The nurse returns to knocking which causes Corey to his flashbacks ("In the Floyd") as The Critic busted out the TV to show his version of the movie.
We go back to young Corey, where he found the VHS tape of "The Wall" under his father's desktop drawers ("When the Wall Broke Free" again) as he becomes curious again that he likes to become a guitarist. We jump back to modern Corey. He notices the creature is watching until his teacher (played by Rob Scallon) interrupts him, and the music distracts the students in his school rather than educate them as young Corey walks away from the school due to evil or mean-spirited teachers and poor U.S. education ("We Need More Victimization"). After this segment, two students (Tamara Chambers and Walter Banasiak) escape until they notice many other students trapped in the train that leads to somewhere. It causes them to think it is a reference to an infamous event in World War II until Critic (in a giant form) tells them it isn't. Critic releases the dove as surreal imaginary as the giant monsters appear in the war. ("So Long, Weird Song")
After the song, Critic was ready to play a slow mopey song until Corey Taylor skipped various parts, and he fell asleep. Later the nurse and Corey's crew (Brad Jones plays the manager, and Malcolm Ray plays the employee) try to wake him up, but to no avail, as Critic sings during the scene ("Comfortably Dumb"). The crew takes Corey to the garage, where he finally wakes up as he is switched to The Critic played as Pink in Hammer Cloth where he spreads across the internet with a hashtag, outage culture, and tweeting. ("In the Floyd (Again?)", then "Waiting for the Point") After the song, Corey walks to the train station to search for Critic until he is stopped by various people singing to bashing at "The Wall"'s run-time. ("Bring the Runtime Down")
Corey heads to the Channel Awesome studio to greet The Critic, where he gives Corey a message. His phone rings were Sullivan Croft (Sam Fennah) along with Hyzenthlay (Azure Douglas) that he tells Critic where is Lucy Lacemaker was that she appears randomly in the review. A Kivouachian cat-like creature, Lucy Lacemaker (Rikki-Leigh Taffurelli) appears front at Critic to talk about "The Wall" and even the various monster/creatures in "The Trail" segment that it was used for character development. Lucy and the others monsters (Winifred, Fontaine, Shuck, Mystique, Sombra, Fleischer, Ludwig, Dorothy and Luna) singing together for the finale ("Fennah's The Trial"). After the song is finished Critic destroys the wall, but Corey is confused about this he doesn't get a line or song where he tells Critic about the movie as he simply says "The movie ended on such an open vagueness, that it only makes sense that the review end on such an open vagueness" then Corey angrily said it's was the opposite of review as Critic said he like it fine. Critic told what to do next, so Corey could play a song that was one of his favorites as he sang with Critic and the crews of Channel Awesome at the end of the review was the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song.
Why It's Not a Brick in the Wall
- It was another clipless review similar to Deadpool 2, Jurassic World, Suicide Squad and the 2017 version of It. Still, it used the music and image clips from the movie with different lyrics as the "review" despite the movie itself already being released on DVD.
- Even Corey Taylor himself told the Critic "It's a review! That's the opposite of what that is!", meaning it completely wasted 40 minutes with only music and lack of an actual review.
- Speaking of which, the only thing this video does like a review is just saying "I think the film's fine" at the end, and that's it. No in-depth analysis, no reasoning, just one line about his thoughts on the movie in a 40-minute review.
- Everyone also commented that it feels more like a parody/satire rather than a review.
- The point of the parody/satire itself is one that ends up flying over the heads of most of the viewers, as The Critic doesn't really do a good job getting it across. The idea is that the "review" is supposed to be experimental like The Wall, with the songs are told from the perspective of someone who was utterly confused by the film when he watched it as a child and is now watching it again as a cynical adult.
- When Doug was promoting the album for the review, he said it was "such a love letter to Pink Floyd's music and The Wall." Which it isn't.
- It failed to talk about or even research the entire movie and original album. Instead, all it felt like Doug did was read the Wikipedia plot for a minute after a troll edited/vandalized it. Here are several reasons in various music segments based on the original version, not including new songs like "Corey!" (Which uses some stock music, but only three lines are "Corey"), "The Deeper Meaning" and even the "SpongeBob SquarePants" theme song.
- "In the Floyd" (In the Flesh?) - W.I.P.
- "When the Wall Broke Free" (When the Tigers Broke Free) - The first part is slightly understood as The Critic said "The Wall" is first released that it received mixed reviews, decent box-office then it disappeared until it earned a cult following from Pink Floyd fans years later to earned praise reviews from critics. However the second, he said this one has some spoiled child going through someone's property, but in the movie, it's Pink as a kid who finds his deceased father's military stuff like his hat, scroll, and the bullets as Pink dresses up just like his father.
- "The Song After This One Is Really Good" (Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1/The Happiest Days of Our Lives) - The Critic suggests that these two songs are filler to build up to what he claims is the best song on the "The Wall", Another Brick in the Wall Part 2. While Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 is the most well-known song in the album, whether it is the best song is up for debate. Meanwhile, the two songs before Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 are anything but filler. Another Brick in the Wall Part 1 is about the initial brick in the wall (the death of Pink's father), with it introducing the recurring leitmotif that would appear in the other two parts and some of the other songs in the album. The Happiest Days of Our Lives, meanwhile, sets up Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, as it explains the brutal post-WWII school system Pink had to endure as a child (with Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 being a protest against it).
- "We Need More Victimization" (Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2) - This one is considered to be the worst and most infamous song where The Critic against this segment for "pandering like hell" (the album has a runtime of an hour and 21 minutes and the movie has a runtime of an hour and 35 minutes) and mocking at modern U.S. (United States) education like "LOL so school sucks? Grow a damn pair of balls!", but the setting of the album and movie is located in the U.K. (United Kingdom) where Pink as a child has a troubled life in school after World War II ended where all the teachers have become abusive or corrupt, which is explained by the fact that the headmaster is being pushed around by his wife.
- "So Long, Weird Song" (Goodbye Blue Sky) - The Critic said the monsters looked too silly and completely nonsensical. However, the album and movie where the monsters and planes are connected to The Blitz that's bombing and causing destruction to London with a large threatening mechanical eagle known as the Reichsadler (symbol from the Nazi) on it. To add extra salt to the wound, he said the music feels like "Oscar bait", which couldn’t have been possible as the album was released three years before the film was.
- "The Forgotten Song" (Hey You) - The song is a complaint about how one of the more well known songs "The Wall", Hey You, is missing from the film for no reason whatsoever. As seen in the special edition DVD of the film, a sequence for the song was shot, with its omission due to its redundancy, as it basically consisted of reused footage and the song after it, Is They Anyone Out There, also featured the theme of Pink attempting to reach out and make contact to anyone on the other side of his self-built wall.
- "Is There Anybody Who Cares?" (Is There Anybody Out There?) - W.I.P.
- "Comfortably Dumb" (Comfortably Numb) - The Critic believes the film to be boring. Not only is Corey sleeping through the entire song, but Doug criticizes the film for having a lot of mellow songs back to back and having a slow pace, meanwhile making a parody video and album with pacing poorer than the film/album he’s reviewing.
- "In the Floyd (Again?)" (In the Flesh) - The video stops becoming a review and focuses more on Doug’s anti-cancel culture, (likely the #changethechannel movement) going against the point of a review. This is true for the next song as well.
- "Waiting for the Point" (Waiting for the Worms) - Doug brings Social Media into the song (again, going against the video’s point about critiquing the film). The hammers are replaced with mobile phones making the review date itself in front of a timeless album/film. The song has a suspense crescendo near the end, yet the song doesn’t end until a few seconds after the suspense sound.
- "Bring the Runtime Down" (Bring the Boys Back Home) - As previously mentioned in 2.4, the album and movie are 1 hour and 35 mins long which isn’t long for a movie. This is important because Doug only criticizes the length, which is hypocritical since one of his favorite films is Fantasia which is half an hour longer than The Wall.
- "Fennah's The Trial" (The Trial) - Not considered the worst but it has notable flaws. In this video, the monsters are used to criticize the film’s supposed lack of character development and the defense being that the film has no story and is just a series of moving pictures and music which isn’t the case as in the album/film they’re figures from Pink’s past. Namely his teacher, his wife, and his mother, before the judge tells him to finally tear down his social barrier. The review has no reason to “Tear down the wall” other than... Well, the movie did it, so the review should do it. Something he says in this review is that the movie ended on an open note when it’s clear that Pink tore down his social barrier. The story doesn’t have an open ending, it cycles back to the beginning in an endless loop.
- There's a few moments where The Critic fails to properly interpret the symbolism being portrayed in the original film.
- In the segue between "We Need More Victimzation" and "So Long, Weird Song", the students that escape from the teacher assume that the train containing a group of putty-faced children is a reference to World War II (in particular, Jewish children being transported to concentration camps during the Holocaust), when the kids in the train are actually supposed to represent boarding school students.
- A scene spoofing a part in "The Thin Ice" where Pink swims in a pool that gets redder due to the blood coming from the cut from his hand has The Critic yelling "I'M JESUS!", when his crucifix position is actually meant to symbolize the crosses that appear on the graves of soldiers who died during the two World Wars.
- Terrible CGI (saving for Fennah in Redeeming Quality), lighting, green-screen, and stop-motion effects in various segments. One notable example was in the "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" segment where the entire students run away or slowly march (in a bad-looking green screen that is reused and worse reversed) from the giant teacher (played by Rob Scallon) destroying cities. You can easily notice that the city is spinning to the left, but the teacher is moved to the right.
- Poorly written and unfunny jokes.
- Much of the lyrics are both cringe-worthy and an insult to the movie, original album, and even Pink Floyd fans.
- The vocals are hard to hear due to terrible mixing. Made worse by the fact that there are no subtitles.
- Doug Walker's singing is the worst it has ever been since it sounds more hammed up than actually putting in an effort.
- Even the singing outside of Doug is flat out terrible.
- The theme for SpongeBob SquarePants at the end has nothing to do with Pink Floyd.
- As mentioned, this video is almost 40 minutes long, but because of the slow pace, complete with tons of filler, it feels more like 3 hours.
- World War I has nothing to do with Pink Floyd, either; in the movie, the main character aptly named Pink Floyd has a flashback that reveals his father was killed while defending the Anzio bridgehead during World War II, not World War I. (The Battle of Anzio occurred from January 22nd to June 5th, 1944, 136 days)
- Besides the title of the video, the thumbnail itself doesn't include the Nostalgia Critic himself; he's only depicted as the screaming face on the wall. Only a bizarrelooking photoshop that looks out-of-place with no context whatsoever.
- The critical reception was so negative that Rob Scallon permanently deleted the album from Bandcamp.
- Aside from The Trial, the music lacks character and sounds like it was an unfinished early demo. Considering how Doug constantly rushes his productions, it wouldn’t be surprising if it was the same case here.
Redeeming Qualities
- Making the review a musical is a pretty interesting concept if only they understood the symbolism behind the album and film and had better songwriting and singing talents.
- The CGI on the creatures, mainly Lucy Lacemaker, and settings in "The Trial" segment by Satellite City creator Sam Fennah is very impressive.
- Even the 2D animated marching hammers by Fennah's girlfriend are also substantial.
- Fennah's dad's guitar solo at the climax of the scene was also pretty badass.
- Some instrumentals are excellent recreations of the original.
- The "Comfortably Dumb" segment has the only bit of good humor wherein one shot, the critic walks through a field before stopping to look around, visibly shouting "Where the f**k am I?" in frustration.
- The Honey Commercial segment was quite entertaining, even if it was an advertisement.
Videos
Episode
Reviews
Trivia
- It was the first Nostalgia Critic episode to be featured on Wikipedia, until it was deleted due to a policy.
- A Honey advert has become a meme due to Doug Walker's over-the-top reaction with the Endless Stairs music from Super Mario 64.
- The reason why Corey Taylor is featured in this is that his son, Griffin Taylor wanted to meet Doug Walker.