A Very Long Talk About Toy Story with Gaming Magic 13

same here!

Alright, I just rewatched the discussion and I'm super annoyed at how douchey and indignant GM13 was. However, it's VERY mature and VERY Big Joel to be the bigger person and recognize that some people are just immune to criticism. Yes, you could systematically destroy this guy point by point, but what would be the benefit? Great stuff.

This is wild

Ryan Peters

ME TOO (about joining) 🤣 I was like I can’t be alone in how helpless and frustrated I feel right now

Rachel Lento

I did exactly the same thing.

Jazz Jensen

Wow, this whole thing was exhausting LOL. I watched the video on Nebula where there are no comments and had to subscribe here because I just needed to know someone else felt the same way. The "abuser" conversation was already tiresome because it dealt with a lot of irrelevant hypotheticals, but then the driveway conversation was even worse. Oh my gosh.

Jared Wark

I think it can he true he doesn’t understand storytelling and is a pendant, but also that it’s interesting to understand how and why someone would be so locked into viewing movies this way. His insecurities and pedantic points are valuable to him because of how he views movies. He has dedicated so much time and thought to them, but somehow come out with a completely different understanding of what a movie fundamentally is - that’s interesting to me.

Sebastian Horey

Ultimately, he just doesn’t understand that things change. Characters evolve, relationships evolve, circumstances evolve. Which is one of the most interesting things about the toy story franchise, the evolution of themes throughout each film. It’s frustrating to hear him constantly go on about the characters being inconsistent and the driveway not being there, because those things changed in service of the new plot and themes, and them changing doesn’t discount the previous films

Y'all are being way too charitable to the gamer guy. He fundamentally doesn't understand storytelling, he doesn't have some fascinating way of criticizing media, he's an awful pedant and insecure debate bro. I can't believe there's 35 minutes left on this. Edit: Also this guy shows classic nostalgia poisoning common with gamers. Capitalism really fucking up people's brains.

Brendan McCoy

Yeah same, I see the opening scene in TS4 having the general goals of 1/ fun action scene to hook the audience 2/ reintroduce Bo and what happened to her (since she's an important character in the movie later) 3/ start laying down the themes of the movie (with Bo leaving, Woody being conflicted about it etc.). Like, sure it's tense but the movie just started, the audience is nowhere near the same emotional level as the incinerator scene in TS3 at this point.

Jaffre

GamingMagic13 seems to be stuck on this notion that "if character feels X, then they will do Y concrete action". There's no understanding that emotions can express themselves in different ways, that a character could have multiple conflicting emotions pushing them in opposing directions, or that a character might do something that goes against their core identity in moments of pain or stress (like, for example, when their kid just gave them away). I doubt he thinks that people in real live act in such a predictable, algorithmic way, which would suggest that he doesn't really expect fictional characters to behave the way actual people would. I also think it's kind of wild that he would suggest that Toy Story 4 is placing the same amount of weight on the opening flashback action scene as Toy Story 3 did on the incinerator scene that serves as the climax of the entire film.

Chuck Roslof

The sphere of YT media critique that this dude resembles is honestly super interesting. I've fallen off the chair with multiple Marvel Universe Expert readings of American Psycho, this seeming to have significant overlap in analytic approach, but in a way that betrays a far more sympathetic, earnest innocence over another kind of blind narcissism. But, yeah... as there's not much common ground that could be established in a two hour conversation on Toy Story(!), and he seemed to be a well-meaning, decent dude going hard at debating the big issues, then it's best to just try to be kind. I think you did well in this regard.

Exai

I'm just here signing up as a Patron because the whole "abuse is whatever makes me feel bad" bit was kinda chilling and you handled it really well. Kudos on both choosing to engage with him and deciding to walk away from covering him in future.

Mags

This conversation was honestly fascinating.

It really feels like his ideal movie is more of a simulation. Characters are concretely who they are and the best version of a film is the one that holds the most true to how they would behave in a given situation. He’s frustrated by change, conflict, and elasticity and really values expectations being maintained. That simulation thinking also clearly is the roadblock that gets him frustrated with emotional beats that make him feel like characters are wasting time or acting callus. Because he thinks it should be a straightforward, nearly accurate sequence of events he thinks tragedies and unfortunate circumstances can be avoided. He’s not seeing that those unfortunate circumstances are where the STORY IS. The writers outline things like “RC is in trouble > tense rescue mission with a near miss > sense of calm > Bo is taken away” and add details and visual broadcasting around that to make it interesting. No matter how long two characters quip for the point is for there to be tension so the rescue will always be a near-miss. But he sees these sequences so literally that he doesn’t seem to understand that the point of all of these scenes is to tell a story someone intended on telling, not just speculating what would happen in a given situation.

"I don't care about that." That sums up both sides of this interview. Big Joel doesn't care about small plot-enabling inconsistencies or the literal believability of the toy story universe, and GamingMagic13 doesn't care about these movies as a medium for creative expression and narrative vision. The way these two people are consuming this media is entirely different. I'm glad that this conversation is only being release to a limited audience. I think fans of either channel would watch this video and think the other side had made a fool of themselves. It felt like this dialog made Big Joel exhausted and GamingMagic13 frustrated. That being said, I enjoyed the video and found the conversation deeply engaging. I found myself drawing parallels between GamingMagic13's approach to Big Joel's previous video and his takes on Toy Story: he progressed through a big list of complaints, moving diligently from one to the next and failing to grasp the broader meaning of the work. This framework definitely loosened toward the end of the video, which I think was the highlight - it really emphasized the humanity on both sides. I think this is a great example of the sort of content that belongs on Patreon, but not YouTube.