I hope people start watching this show, it's basically a fresh air of credible reviewing on TGWTG.

Good work. Also, way to give them the Asylum the best complement ever, calling them Han Solo.

I'm glad you brought that up - it feels like most of the other well-known reviewers on the site are getting more gimmicky and aren't giving us real reviews anymore, just badly disguised skits with shots of a movie thrown in. :/

i did not discover "Heart of Gaming" untill the last few episodes were released and when it ended i was legit sad about it! I'm very glad you have this new show and it is being promoted on this site too! :D good luck Leon your stuff is really great!

I liked the content, and I'll look for more content, but the audio was very bad.

VERY VERY BAD.

This was quite excellent! I know about 95% of The Asylum's work, and enjoy the vast majority of them. Hell, I'd say that a good amount of time, their "mockbusters" are far more engaging than the bigger budgeted films (ie- Transformers vs. Transmorphers, Journey To The Center Of The Earth (w/ Brendan Fraser) vs. Asylum's Journey To The Center of the Earth). Also, their "Sherlock Holmes" is my second favorite film of theirs, excellent call there!

Another great video!!! keep it up!!!

I'm going to start giving a closer look at the asylum movies. I've already been able to sit through a couple of them and be entertained, now that I know more of the story behind them I'll be checking more of them out. They bring me back to the kind of entertainment that used to be on sci-fi back during the Lex days.

The only difference is that that the big studios have things like a budget, real actors, post 90's special effects, and semi competent writers.

The Asylum movies can be entertaining for their ironic camp factor, but I would never call any of their movies actually good.

It's a sad state of affairs in cinema when a good case can be argued that The Asylum is one of the more original studios out there, and you have made such a case.

What is the opening/ending music from? What movie was it featured in?

Attack the Block, an absolutely awesome movie.

Great Video. BTW from the reviews I've seen about Lincoln vampire hunter, after reading the book, decided not to watch it. I did however watch Lincoln v zombies and thought it was pretty funny. That is saying a lot considering I watched the whole movie in one sitting and usually never watch anything longer than 20 minutes. I'd love to see you review more Asylum movies.

I really like the analogy to Han Solo at the end.

I keep hearing about how Hollywoods (and video games) unwillingness to do anything original is at a breaking point but I always wonder what that means. I mean I believe it, kinda. But what does it really mean; that people will just stop watching movies, or that a different film city will take over.

I really liked this episode! Oh so glad to have more! :-) Everything really felt on point. Though I think the evidence stands more as a condemnation of the major studios than as any sort of praise for the Asylum. As much as I enjoy watching various producers riffing on bad movies, I just don't have the patience to sit through them myself. The fact that the studios also engage in hackery isn't enough for me to excuse the Asylum's bad behavior. A lot of their movies are just God awful. But really, other than lacking the spit-polish & shine of a major studio, it's really hard to find fault with the Asylum's cynical mockbuster approach.

Isnt the baby sitter a readaptation of adventures in babysitting?

Great work! Taxed with the same topic, though, I would have focused a little more on the rampant plagiarism outside of adaptations in Hollywood. Well, in theory. In practice, I would have flown into a panic, flailed around and started crying.

Great video.

The only thing I could say about the larger studios is not the fact they're so "creatively bankrupt" on their own accord; the audiences helped put them there. Hollywood has always run on trends and audiences vote for what kind of films they want to see come to their local cinema each time they buy a ticket or pick up the DVD/BluRay.

The big boom of comic book movies would certainly stumble and potentially come to a complete halt if the next slate of Marvel pictures tank; it would send a message that maybe the comic book is played out. However, since that won't happen; comics, no matter how big or small will get produced. There's the occasional bust/okay performer (Jonah Hex/Ghost Rider 2); but overall they've done good business.

As long as enough people pay for sequels/reboots/prequels etc over original content to generate profit, the "creative bankruptcy" of Hollywood won't end.

A fine essay on the thorny and occasionally subjective issue of "originality" and, by slight extension, elitism in the viewing audience. What makes one adaptation different from another adaptation when it comes to being "original"?

While no one is probably ever going to suggest that Asylum's productions are superior to the mainstream big budget studios out there (although you could argue it on a case-by-case basis), it's certainly no reason to suggest that they shouldn't exist or should be litigated out of existence.

By and large, the studios aren't even in direct competition with Asylum anyway which does, as you point out, mostly DTV releases while studios rely upon ticket sales. It might be slightly different once the Blockbuster hits DVD release and you might get someone confused at the RedBox or Netflix selection phase, but so what?

Yeah, I wouldn't say that Asylum productions are blood-sucking leeches on the body of the American film industry. Yeah, they are obviously out for a quick buck, provide probably what could (very reasonably) be considered sub-standard product, and the films are in general forgettable (except as fodder for endless ranks of internet media reviewers). And so what? As with so many "undesirable" media works, if you aren't interested in it, don't put your money or time into it. But don't rail against the heavens (or the jury) that it shouldn't exist.

Wow, that was really good!

Every The Asylum movie I've seen has been bad, really bad! But you're absolutely right: they are a ton of fun to watch with a group of like-minded friends who want to tear the movie apart.

My friends and I recently watched Paranaconda. We had a ball laughing at how ridiculous the whole plot was, what the former "professions" of some of the "actors" might be (i.e. ex-porn stars) and how bad the FX were.

Personally I hope this studio stays around for a long time, because they are good at what they do. And what they do is awful! :D

I really enjoyed this video and it definitely helped open my eyes to a new way of thinking about The Asylum. Great job and be assured i will be checking out more by you very very soon.
You deserve more attention.

A very astute perspective. It won't get me watching the Asylum films any time soon, but I will enjoy watching the films, "ironically."

And yes, you're right, Hollywood's creative juices are running on reserves. Though I'm not particularly against them making adaptations to novels because a lot of them are good, I hate to see a shit load of more sequels, prequels, reboots, etc. Hell, I never want to see Battleship.

You frame your argument as corporation vs. corporation: The Asylum vs. Hollywood. However, that's not really the victim who loses out. People who wanted to see "Thor" last year didn't NOT see the film because they saw "Almighty Thor".

The person who gets hurt are consumers. This is conjecture on my part, but I'd say the Asylum looks to make a good bit of its money off of consumer confusion -- your un-hip uncle shopping for your Christmas gift who picks up "Transmorphers" instead of "Transformers".

Perhaps there is indeed a niche of people who actually enjoy these "mockbusters", but I don't think anyone actually seeks them out. They are created to pump out a product that will be sold to an unsophisticated consumer. It's the Hong Kong "Spader Man" toy found in a little Korean grocery store, the "Couch" handbag sold on a street corner in New York.

In the end, the Asylum knows this. And it's absolutely deplorable to me.

http://www.youtube.com/ watch? feature=player_embedded&v =_a6lxiB1b_I

The Asylum of consoles.

That "he is not the worst thing in the Universe" line would have been better with a picture of Rupert Murdoch.

your basic argument is two wrongs make a right, that its okay they steal copyrighted work, the other people are using other peoples work as well. but the studios are not stealing it, they are paying for it so the original person who made the idea still gets payed. Im sorry that is not the same, that is saying its okay to rob a restaurant the other people don't tip very well.

Your argument may have worked better if you didnt spend the most going on and on how its okay they steal work the other people do adaptation, then you didnt list just said asylum does better, list there movies like you did for fox. this comes across as knee jerk hate at the big guys cause they are big and defending the little guy cause they are little not becuase they are worth defending.

I didn't take this as his point at all. There is little to no "stealing" involved, since the release dates of the Asylum films are so close to the mainstream films they are emulating, though the Asylum certainly scoots around in the gray areas. I definitely agree that, while the law is technically in favor of the mainstream studios when it comes to titles and content, the argument that they use is EXTREMELY hypocritical, as Leon pointed out. I have to tip my hat to the Asylum guys: their product may not be as polished as the movies they are up against, but this kind of underground film-making is still fun and enjoyable. Great review Leon. Keep up the good work, and I'll keep watching.

I don't give The Asylum a free pass for unoriginality. The point of the episode is to show that Hollywood claiming The Asylum is being unoriginal is hypocritical and that The Asylum often produces more original content than a major motion picture studio.

I didn't say two wrongs make a right. In fact, I said emphatically in the video that isn't what I'm saying. Actual line from the video:

"In fairness, two wrongs don’t make a right, and simply because Hollywood is in an era which lacks originality does not excuse some of The Asylum’s unoriginality. That much is true."

I appreciate you watching my video, and I'm pleased that it has generated discussion, but if you're going to argue against me, please listen to what I actually said.

For similar reasons to what was laid out here. Basically, it's far more difficult to create a story within specific constraints. The asylum has to avoid outright copyright infringement with their movies. While studio adaptations can just mindlessly ape the stories they buy up. Doesn't mean the asylum's results will be better. But I'd argue that often times it does, technically, mean the asylum was more creative.

Oh, the hypocrisy!

Not of Hollywood, mind you, of the video here.

Come on! First off, way to gloss over the kinda relevant point that studios buy their IP while The Asylum plagiarizes it. "We couldn't afford it" isn't any more of an excuse here than it is to, say, download and watch their films for free.

The notion of The Asylum as the underdog trying to make a name for themselves is kind of ludicrous, too. A lot of tiny studios survive on original content without ripping anybody off... or don't survive and go out of business without ripping anybody off. Both are more legitimate than this.

Also, for the uninitiated, there's a big, big lie at the core of this video: film studios don't trade on adaptations nearly as much as LT claims. See, that note about ignoring Fox Searchlight? Yeah, that defuses the entire argument. Fox Searchlight is Fox's branch for financing and distributing smaller, original or independent films. That means that LT is comparing all of The Asylum with only the part of Fox that trades in commercial, big budget blockbusters. Which, by the way, we all hype up before they come out and then religiously show up to watch while we shun even action movies with a riskier, more original approach.

What happens if we compare only The Asylum's "mockbuster" branch with Fox's blockbuster branch? Well, Fox still takes more risks. Meanwhile, Fox Searchlight pushes indie, artsy filmmaking without having to resort to plagiarism, partially because of all the money made on the big, safe summer popcorn flicks.

I can appreciate B grade drivel as much as anyone, and these guys can be fun at times, but arguing for their crappy ripoffs diminishes both them and LT here. Their size notwithstanding, their business practices are shameful, in the way that a pickpocket is still a thief.

Bravo Noel, couldn't have said it better myself.

Romanticizing what The Asylum actually do is to completely ignore the wrong and immoral aspects of it just because they're "the little guy".
That's a terrible argument to make. The Paranormal Activity guys spent $15,000 and created their own story.

There are countless un-optioned scripts they could put into production very cheaply. Instead they choose to attempt to leech off the buzz of a Hollywood project in a tawdry attempt to grab sales. In the process they no doubt dupe consumers...how can you justify this? I also take issue with your Fox originality tally...counting straight adaptations as being unoriginal. Are all book adaptations unoriginal in your eyes? If the adaptations in question have not been put to film before, does that make it truly unoriginal? Technically yes, but for a whole new audience who haven't read the books or seen the plays or been on the theme park ride or whatever....it's a new story.

I also take issue with boiling it all down to originality, as if THAT'S the only issue the studio has with what they are doing...it's not, and their concerns cannot be waived away without you advocating the abolition of any and all copyright claim that an artist has on their work. The studios work within the system and purchase the rights to IP's...they have a right to protect their interests, that can't be glossed over as easily as you seem to think. They are not Han Solo....he had somewhat of a conscience and morals behind the rogueishness. While you acknowledge that 2 wrongs don't make a right, you seem to easily ignore it due to slanting the argument slightly and ignoring other factors, such as entirely discounting the various divisions of Fox which would render your comparisons moot.

Lastly, their version of Sherlock Holmes is terrible. Poor acting from charisma free leads, terrible pacing and editing and lazy writing of the highest order which amounted to throwing a bunch of cool geek stuff like dinosaurs and robots and robot dragons at the screen in place of competent film making.

What the Asylum do with their crappy mockbusters is NOT OK and should not be excused in any way, I don't care how unoriginal Hollywood are, that doesn't excuse the duping of consumers and the attempts to skirt copyright law.

Good point, too. I agree, adapting a novel is not "unoriginal". A lot of novels are written with the intent to get a movie deal in the first place, it just happens to be easier to market them than a spec script AND the author gets to make some money back by selling the book before it gets optioned. At times things are labelled as an adaptation although the book was written at the same time as the script (see Brick or Memento, which both got this treatment).

It was also kind of weird how much focus the video had on "changing the title" of the novel, as if that was an attempt to mask the fact that the film is an adaptation. It's... not. Some titles just work better on a book cover than they do on a movie poster. That's why the series "Game of Thrones" isn't called "A Song of Ice and Fire". It's not that HBO is pretending they came up with the idea themselves. In fact, they're pushing the fact that they're an adaptation as hard as they can.

But those are incidental, I think. There are two arguments being made here: that The Asylum does the equivalent of adapting IP and that isn't morally wrong (they don't and it is) and that Hollywood studios are equally creatively bankrupt and push less original IP than The Asylum (which is not true).

If I was going to argue any other point here I'd go for the notion that studios adapt and remake things more now than they used to. If we count modern indies, old timey Hollywood adapted just as much stuff. Off the top of my head, every single major picture for which you remember, say Humphrey Bogart was an adaptation. Casablanca? Adapted from a play. To Have and Have Not? A novel. The Maltese Falcon? Technically a remake AND adapted from a novel. The Big Sleep. Novel again. Technically part of a franchise, since it's a Phil Marlowe story, which is something that continues to be made to this day. High Sierra, an adaptation. The African Queen, adapted from a novel. The Caine Mutiny is from a novel. But hey, before he died he did make Sabrina and The Barefoot Contessa, which were original screenplays. Then again, his last movie, The Harder they Fall, was adapted from a book.

See a thread? And this was during the 40s and 50s, it's not "modern Hollywood decadence".

"film studios don't trade on adaptations nearly as much as LT claims."

Yes. Yes they do.

If you include remakes, sequels, prequels, re-imaginings, and adaptations that makes up more than 80% of all studio output. Probably more than 90%, but I don't have the figure in front of me right now. LT is being generous. And I am say this as an insider.

By the way, expect more than a few Hunger Games-ish and similar films for young adults in the next few years...

There are a lot of reasons for this trend, and I can go into them if you really want, but suffice to say, it is a very, very real problem.

Having said that, the authors and other content owners have every right to control their intellectual property, and if Asylum - or any studio - can't afford those rights, then tough. I have no sympathy for property theft, be it my car stereo or the rights to adapt a board game. Make more original works, or adapt public domain works in new ways.

Since Asylum already does this, why don't they just do more of that instead of the cash-in mockbusters? They'd get a heck of a lot more respect.

I disagreed for the most part with the argument, but it was very well presented, keep it up.

An alternative review to the usual reviews found on thatguywiththeglasses.com but this review 1) still fits well with the spirit of TGWTG due to the diversity of the site and 2) it's a damn good review as well!

It's rare that the Asylum is portrayed in a fair and flattering light and this review manages to do so while maintaining the facts. Kudos to Leon Thomas on this one and I look forward to more entries.

-Mike D.

No..... No. I don't have any sympathy for those jackals. What the Asylum shovels out is what I like to call shovelware. They don't have any kind of excuse. They don't deserve defending. They are nothing but con artists trying to RIP PEOPLE OFF! They are scum! If a company doesn't have the money to make a great movie, they shouldn't make it!
They're like... The UFO Games of movies!

Karutomaru, totally disagree. They're trying to rip people off AND provide a service. They could very easily, before netflix provided a bit of income, just shoveled out $10 movies that all took place in a one room apartment. But they didn't because they, or at least many of the many people involved with their company, really did desire to make something and have some fun with it. I mean I dare you to look at the performance of the guy playing Lincoln in "Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies" and say he's more scammer than actor. He, and many other members of the cast who've talked about it, really put their heart into that movie.

The same goes for many of their other productions as well. The lead actress in paranormal entity had a lot of fun with it, and I know many of the cast of the Sherlock Holmes movie were really trying to make something fun.

If you set a price tag on art, you destroy it. Saying if you don't have enough money to make a great movie than you shouldn't try at all? Man, that'd be the death of art.

The motive really isn't all that important. Are they producing stories which make many people happy? Hell yes they are. I mean this isn't the days of blockbuster anymore. I think most people who see their stuff are doing it from netflix. It's part of unlimited streaming deals, not an individual rental that they're being charged for.

"Are they producing stories which make many people happy?"

.................. No. Only if you count the chuckles people get from laughing at how terribad it is. I know he IS counting that kind of fun, but that should only be the case when they're actively trying to make a bad movie, like The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Trying to make a decent movie and failing is, more often than not, painful to watch.

Like games, a good movie requires time, money, and effort. Not the rushed, cheap, and half-assed trash Asylum shovels out. At the very VERY least, a decently written movie could almost make up for how pathetic everything else is, but, as many have pointed out, almost all of Asylum's scripts and premises are copies and cliches.

I have to agree with the poster above mentioning the bad audio, it's bad, but not to the point that it annoyed me enough to stop watching.

Good video though: no skits, a fair representation of the involved parties and their arguments as well as a statement of your own opinion... Are you sure you're right here? : )

Just to complain on a high level (aka nitpicking): The last part about enjoying something ironically felt more like something you wanted to put in because it annoys you and it felt a bit disconnected to the rest of the video, although you at least tried to connect it.