Sfdebris.net

For me, hands down, it's his unbiased, fair, and impartial look into Lucas and the history that went into analyzing his past, his works on the original trilogy, the prequels, and what led to the Disney buyout. In particular, Chuck has called Jar Jar Binks a Jamaican in the past, and compared him as similar to the Twins, a position I vehemently disagree with - as the Twins are worse, and Jar Jar Binks is not a racist stereotype at all - but when it came time to discuss the prequels, he didn't mention any of that, and actually included Ahmed Best's outrage in people mischaracterizing Jar Jar as a false racial stereotype, a position I was already aware of, but given Chuck's propensity for ranting against things he's hated in the past, this maturity blew my hat away, and it's something that legitimately made me proud to be a supporter of the channel. Or take another example, that he didn't inject his own feelings into the fact Lucas's wife was cheating on him, given how messy and complicated that is, even though, my own feelings would be that was wrong, and I think Chuck, as a happily married man, would agree, yet it was still framed in the larger tragedy that was affecting George without judgment. Really, this could be considered one of his crowning jewels in terms of its objectivity, given most of his work has "opinionated" in the title, so he was perfectly entitled to say whatever he wanted, and instead chose to pull back and try and see things from a more balanced perspective. It's truly incredible, and has left a mark on me to this day.

His background look into Doctor Who's missing episodes. The care and amount of detail he put into it was mind boggling. Though you could say that about alot of the stuff he reviews, he doesn't just look at the work but the background of it, but even with his already top notch work I think his Lost In Time series was him knocking it up to 11 atleast in my opinion.

His video essays are usually excellent, but I'm particularly impressed with how well he handles the background material/history behind a work. I enjoy all things history so I'm not an impartial judge, but he does an admirable job covering that kind of material in a way that's both informative and entertaining. And he really doesn't miss much- when I'm not familiar with something (like say, the history of Godzilla), his reviews are entertaining, and when I am familiar with a work I usually don't come away thinking that he failed to mention something important.

It's nice to see his research skills so consistently on display, especially after doing this for such a long time. Plenty of reviewers in his position, who answer only to themselves, would be tempted, subconsciously at least, to neglect on those details and coast on reputation and established gags/jokes.

I, too, always appreciate the sheer amount of research Chuck does, especially for things that he isn't really familiar with. I'm big on Gundam, for instance, and I appreciate even the relatively shallow dive he took into the clusterfuck of behind-the-scenes and expanded universe stuff involved there.

On the flip side, I know shit all about Full Moon, but Chuck really convinced me to appreciate the level of character development and thematic purpose in a shojo series I would otherwise never watch.

Chuck maintaining the schedule he has for as long as he has is worthy of praise alone. But I agree with the OP that the George Lucas biography stands above everything in terms of sheer 'wow' factor. The fact that the biography when added together is longer than the entire Star Wars trilogy itself should say something.

And to be clear, I was commenting on his impartial look at it, not even commenting on Jar Jar Binks being a racist stereotype past people's perceptions of it, and including what Ahmed Best had felt, which is a position I felt very pleasantly surprised by because I knew he'd called Jar Jar a Jamaican in the past and compared him to the Twins, which I think is inaccurate and unfair, but because he was approaching this with a more objective eye than he typically does, I could absorb the work a bit more openly than with something like, say, his review of "The Quickening," as we all know my feelings on that.

I think I remember in one review Chuck talked about how he found Jesus.

Don't get me wrong, Chuck's examination of Lucas and Star Wars was impressive and impartial. (especially considering the amount of vitriol thrown against Lucas on the internet.) But there are two things that make me iffy on it.

The first is that when he talks about why Luke's lightsaber was green in ROTJ, he says that it was a clever way to show that it was a new lightsaber. However, I've heard that it was because the blue lightsaber didn't stand out enough against the blue Tatooine sky. (and indeed there are early promo images of Luke using a blue lightsaber on Jabba's barge).

The second is when he talks about Lucas scaling back projects and withdrawing after ROTJ, and he's making all the parallels to Obi-wan's exile on Tatooine. This might be nitpicky, but to me it seems too much like trying to form a narrative from real life events. Kind of like how i've heard that when writing biographies of historical figures, the authors can be guilty (intentionally or unintentionally) of making it match with "The Heroe's Journey".

Now, the OTHER big research project he did: The Rise and Fall of the Comic Empire. That impressed the hell out of me. I'd heard about the comic crash before, but didn't really know much about it. But Chuck not only did lots of research, but provided context for how so many small factors contributed to such a large impact.

The fact that Chuck already has a ridiculously full schedule, but he'll still stop and do things like review 4 or 5 episodes of My Little Pony at a time, and make them bonus holiday specials, so as to not upset his other fans or get in the way of the normal schedule. And he does stuff like that all the time.

Though as much as I appreciate all Chuck does and the schedule he keeps, I do wish Chuck would take it a little easier, since his doctor apparently keeps insisting on it. Gotta take care of your health man! Cut it down to just two reviews a week for a few months if you need to! He's already probably the most prolific scripted reviewer going (most others do one episode a week, or every two weeks, and maybe some unscripted thing off the cuff to fill gaps)