Hello everyone! Welcome to another Classy Critique! In this critique, we’ll be looking at episode 10 of “The StickNodes Movie!” Remember to watch the episodes before/while reading the critique for the sake of understanding and whatnot. Let’s get started! 😀

Episode 10:
Why the actual hell. I swear, Empress Roux is a total thot. Why was this even added? Why? Let’s pick apart this starting scene bit by bit. First, the Rouxian asks to come in, and Roux is displeased because he is interrupting her while she does “evil things.” However, the audience only sees her just standing. Nothing else. Nothing relatively amusing, even. Just literally standing. If it were something less evil, like maybe playing with Pokémon (Roux has revealed herself to be a collector of sorts), it would be much funnier. It’s completely bland. And that’s not the worst part. The Rouxian recalls a reward, Roux’s eyes do a Lenny ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), and SHE SHOWS OFF HER BREASTS to the solider. Another soldier enters and takes a photograph. Then, the camera is zoomed in on Roux’s face, cutting off part of (but still revealing) her breasts. She then says, “maybe another time.” This scene is horrible in every cinematic aspect possible. It is completely unnecessary to the plot and adds nothing good to the character besides already-butchered “sex appeal.” It seems like this sequence is less of an addition to further the plot and more of an addition to satisfy the animator’s “special interests.” Instead of actually being a well-written and and interesting character, Roux seems to be the template that the animator can focus their raging hormones on. Literally this has nothing to do with the story, and it is bad in every way. Any “humor” derived from the scene is just immature. It only cements Roux more as a (pardon the language) shameless slut. Maybe the film is trying to make Roux flirty, but there is a difference between flirtatious and slutty. Some characters can be pulled off very well with flirtatious personalities. Take Lord Dominator from the show “Wander Over Yonder.” A great example of this, she uses her feminine charm and appeal to sway others and be flirty while keeping her dignity and not being shameless. The character acknowledges and uses her feminine nature and physique to her advantage while also retaining respect for her (by the audience) as a person and fear for her as a “dominator.” It can be pulled off, but the portrayal of Roux in this scene is completely butchered. It’s completely unfitting for her character as well, since she’s an empress. However, one may wonder about why this is so important. The answer is simple: that lustful and skanky portrayal of Roux sticks with the minds of the audience for the entirety of the series from then on, and impacts their views of Roux from previous episodes. It’s nothing heartfelt, no passion or love to it. There’s nothing well-made about it; the scene could better emphasize Roux’s flirtatious nature through dialogue and not blatantly committing to the action. Instead, it’s simply “lol look at my boobs.” This ruins the villainous side of Roux entirely, as in the same episode that Roux flashes her soldier, she invades Utopia. Throughout all of that, Roux is no longer seen as a threat but an object of questionable sex appeal. But wait, that’s only the first minute of this episode. There’s much more. Explosive Bullet’s death could have been more impactful for Epitaph since they were rivals and probably friends in the past, but Epitaph simply brushes it off completely. Kaiju says he noticed more disturbing activity besides Node Spawn activity, but he doesn’t explain what at all. Epitaph says that users are too destructive to be allowed in central utopia, but there is no context behind this at all, and it is not explained either. Roux’s speech to the Rouxians is badly written. It’s stereotypical and cliche, and it doesn’t flow well grammatically. The Rouxian prep for battle scene is also way too fast paced. Also, this Pharaoh Tehphet character is completely random in the storyline. She just randomly shows up, and the story once again expects the audience to know who she is and what the “Battle of 2.0.0” was. Also, Tehphet seems, just like the previous Roux scene, to be detailed simply for “specific special interests.” Female characters don’t have to be shown to be female by their incredibly oversized physiques. Maybe that’s why detail is so emphasized in this story. Also, why is the focus on Epitaph and Tehphet having some relationship rather than Roux literally planning to invade and conquer utopia? The connection with Tehphet goes offline, and Roux says, “thought she’d never shut up.” However, Tehphet clearly didn’t shut up since she was continuing a sentence. The Rouxians just ended the transmission. This doesn’t add up well, and demonstrates the bad writing and dialogue even more. Traveling is once again way too fast with Epitaph and Kaiju. The frame of Roux standing with all the ships around her is cluttered and unorganized. The ships are all at odd angles and they don’t look right. It’s also weird for Roux to suddenly be there without any explanation. How did this happen so quickly? The whole frame just doesn’t fit right. Also, the “brother” revelation is weak and doesn’t make the audience feel anything at all. The fact that Epitaph and Roux are siblings has never been shared in the SN Movie until this moment, so it should at least have a little more impact. Also what the hell is “extra thicc” doing in a sequence like this, where Roux is literally threatening the lives of all the users in central utopia. It’s completely irrelevant. Humor can be pulled off very well in tense situations, but it typically isn’t childish humor (unless of course the humor originates from children, take Gravity Falls as an example). It only portrays the Origin Beings as irresponsible children having their own individual tantrums. Kaiju might have had one too if he actually was relevant to the plot. Spacing is once again a problem, and Epitaph literally teleports his positions to fight the Rouxians.(Not intentionally, it’s just an animation spacing problem) The fight lasts only 2 seconds as he’s shot in the back by a shotgun. This is completely lazy and horribly made to have Epitaph go down like that so simply. Then, for just a moment, Kaiju has a single second of action fighting against someone. Also, Cyan Claw hasn’t even been introduced to the Users but already knows their names. An explosion occurs that reveals Roux and the Rouxians, but it happens so quickly that it doesn’t add any level of suspense at all. Also there is literally no explanation to the button pushing teleportation thing. The whole scene is lazily made and way too fast paced to be considered good. Also, the “stop right there in the name of good scriptwriting” is completely stupid. It’s also incredibly ironic from a cinematic viewpoint. You see, it is actually BAD scriptwriting to interrupt Roux from her monologue, considering that the audience doesn’t know anything about her motivations or backstory. Either that, or the movie assumes the audience already knows. It could actually have made Roux interesting, instead of the overly-busty terribly handled sex appeal character that is Roux. It’s actually a bit sad to say that cliche would make the movie better. Also, Epitaph comes out of nowhere randomly. This entire episode seems to be lazily made and random because of examples like this. Also, what the hell happened to Galaysite? I thought Chimdi and Squido were going to try to find her and rescue her or something. Instead, now they’re just meaningless tag alongs, when they used to actually be the most interesting characters of the story. I didn’t include this before, but there’s only music in 2 of the 12 episodes. All other sound is just the SN sound effects. As a result of this, the episodes feel incredibly empty. Absolute silence for dialogue is boring. At least add a little music to make sure things aren’t all that uneventful.

Conclusion: The plot has been completely butchered. There has been no character development at all, and this is the second to last episode. All Epitaph-made female detailed characters (with the exception of Charxek) seem to be created only with “extra thicc” in mind. The main characters are all uninteresting and dull, with no lessons learned or morals gained. The only interesting characters have had all attention taken off them completely, and their story arc has been practically deleted. It seems as if through all of this, Epitaph has been making up the story as it goes and forgetting parts of his own episodes, since it is unorganized and terribly scripted. Remember how Roux released Rejected figures onto the world in the first episode? What the hell happened to those guys? Nothing happens with the rejected figures after episode one, even though they were originally a huge plot point of the film. This episode is supposed to be a setup for the climax of the story, but in its attempt to build up suspense, it only trips off a cliff and into a volcano. Dialogue is terrible. I haven’t mentioned the grammar and spelling in a while, but it’s bad. Spacing and pacing are atrocious. The Main Characters are all cliche, unoriginal tropes with bland personality and no depth. All other characters are just part of the background and become meaningless additions. For being the second to last episode, this one is particularly bad.

This is a long one, but expected considering it’s the second to last episode. It’s a pretty hard burden for episode 10 to carry the burden of the previous 9 episodes and their problems, but instead of picking up that weight, episode 10 just caves in and adds to that pile of flaming trash. Apologies for the notes and tones of these criticisms; the reason I don’t pull any punches and speak the truth on this one is because 1. I’m having to write these factual and intellectual critiques and I wish the StickNodes Movie was actually worth my time, and 2. I’ve already been criticized myself for not having good criticisms and that I only “shower praise” lol. Well, these critiques, and all my critiques in the future, will tell the whole factually-supported truth about the quality of a project. And the quality of this project is very bad.

That’s all folks! Tune in for the final critique of the StickNodes Movie, as I critique episode 11 and try to explain the reason why everyone thinks this movie is stellar, despite it being practically the opposite! I’ll be happy to answer any questions, and I encourage constructive, mature discussion in the comments! Thanks! Stay Classy!