Cosmonaut Variety Hour

> "Jay, what do you think of Cosmonaut Variety Hour?"
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> "... I'm sure he's nice"
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> - MauLer and Jay, EFAP 85
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**The Cosmonaut Variety Hour**, **Cosmonaut** or **Cosmo** for short, also known as **Cosmonaut Marcus** or just **Marcus**, is a YouTube video essayist. He is known for his vocal fry, which EFAP originally theorized was fake, but actually isn't.

His profile picture is a head-and-shoulders view of a fluffy gray cat with blue eyes and human arms smoking cigarette, though he also has a human form.

## History

### vs Sam Raimi's *Spider-Man*

> “That’s a cute outfit, did your husband give it to you?”
> “What if he did make it for him, would that be so bad? Wow Spider-Man, you're kinda homophobic”
>  - The Human Spider and Cosmonaut
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EFAP first encountered Cosmonaut in EFAP 12, where MauLer, Rags, and newcomer CJ of Cynical Reviews took a look at his video titled "Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy - Worse Than You Remember." The lot of them had recently rewatched the titular trilogy so to be aptly prepared, and reported that besides the third film it still holds up, and in contrast to the video's title, *Spider-Man 2* was actually *better* than they had remembered. With mixed reports from chat claiming the video was actually just a joke, the gang had to take the CinemaSins approach and address each point first as though it were sincere and then as though it were a joke. Cosmo introduced his video by explaining that every time he talks about a new Spider-Man movie people will say that *Spider-Man 2* is better - a sentiment MauLer agreed with, considering it to edge out *Homecoming* for first place, with Rags stating he'd give the first film no less than an 8 - and his goal was to dispel that idea because while he likes all three of the Raimi films he considers them all to be messes.

Cosmonaut began by stating he hates Tobey Maguire the most about these movies, considering him not to be his definitive Spider-Man because he's too meek and wimpy, even as Spider-Man. MauLer in contrast figured that he had gained a lot of confidence he didn't initially have by the end of the first movie. On the other hand, Cosmo considered Willem Dafoe's Norman Osborne to be the best character in the trilogy, which the roster was happy to agree with, though what Cosmo called acting like an alien they described as simply Dafoe playing Norman the way a man like that would behave. He found it odd that Harry introduced his father by his full name, to which MauLer and Rags answered that Harry and Norman have a distant relationship and so Harry is speaking about him more clinically, with CJ adding he is also introducing him to Peter who has an interest in the field Norman Osborne is known for. Cosmo poked fun at the actor playing the teacher being younger than the students, but a search for the actor (who was credited simply as "Teacher") showed he was indeed older, though the gang still agreed that the students do look a tad too old. He also called everything the teacher said whispered and aggressive, ignoring that his only lines pertained to chastising students for not keeping their voices down. He found Norman's motivations unclear, claiming not to understand what "back to formula" meant, while MauLer figured the movie made it fairly clear that progress on the drug being developed had been set all the way back to before they'd even have a drug to test, with the time counting down until they lose funding. Cosmo called the scientist who went along with Norman testing on himself a doormat, ignoring that he was being pressured into it by his superior and was very vocal about his opposition. MauLer and co did all agree with Cosmonaut that Norman saying "ooh, iss cold" when the metal touches him was hilarious, and similarly agreed with him praising the pacing, finding the back-and-forth between Peter's and Norman's stories to be very "classic." Cosmo stated that he wasn't going to nitpick the movie, like pointing out that Peter was content walking to school until the bus showed up and he suddenly felt the need to chase after it, which reminded MauLer of LeafyIsHere's infamous habit of saying he isn't going to insult someone and insulting them in the process. Regardless, the nitpick was wrong, since Peter was initially waiting at the bus stop, and only got distracted when he had the opportunity to talk to MJ, who ended up getting driven to school by her friends while the bus left Peter behind. Cosmo took issue with Uncle Ben chastising Peter for fighting in self-defense and Peter taking this lesson and spending the rest of his life beating people up, missing that Ben acknowledged it was self-defense and the other guy probably deserved it, but was warning Peter against what he worried was him going out looking for fights to justify using his newfound strength, not telling him to never use force. Cosmo brought up the "Did your husband make it for you?" joke as being dated, calling Peter homophobic for it, and everyone was uncertain if he was joking about that or not.

Cosmonaut enjoyed the strange behavior of the background actors, adding that even James Franco can be caught idle-simming in the background, but the clip he used as an example was of Franco's character looking detached because he his father was praising Peter in place of him. One thing everyone was able to agree on was praise for J K Simmons as J Jonah Jameson, though Cosmo describing him as "legitimately funny" further confused the thesis of the video by raising the question of if the other things he found funny were illegitimately so. He criticized the quality of the CGI, prompting CJ to ask how much better they could have done at the time. Cosmo, however, brushed off defenses like these by saying even people at the time found it bad, citing Roger Ebert (Chat later pointed out that Roger Ebert also called *Spider-Man 2* one of the best superhero movies ever made), which Rags pointed out would go against the "worse than you remember" label if people *already* found it bad initially. MauLer added that ultimately whether the CGI will bother someone is up to the individual and fairly surface level, recounting that he only brought up bad CGI once in passing in his *Black Panther* review, prefering to focus on the writing. Cosmo questioned why Green Goblin's bombs turn people into skeletons (Rags pointed out that they don't turn you *into* skeletons, you already have one in you) but did no damage to MJ, and CJ argued that not only was she further from the blast but he was also aiming for them specifically. MauLer added that the better criticism would be that he never uses those bombs again. Cosmo then described Spider-Man as kidnapping MJ while being cheered on, rather than him saving her and dropping her off in a safe place, arguing she should be taken to a hospital instead since she was pinned under rubble, when closer inspection showed she wasn't pinned by it. He described the second half as being when the movie loses it, calling it an unintentional comedy, citing a jumpscare of the Green Goblin as being completelely without reason, ignoring that it was something Peter was seeing due to a nightmare, and similarly described Norman being unsettled by masks in his house as random, ignoring that a mask is what represents his other personality. Cosmonaut finished off the first movie by describing the end conflict where Green Goblin forces Spider-Man to choose between his loved one and a trolley full of children as so cliche that there would be public outcry if a movie did that today, and the gang's skepticism of that claim was cemented by Chat reminding them that *The Dark Knight* had a similar dilemma. He gave the movie a 6/10 as a "serious film," and a 10/10 as a comedy, then played a laugh track over a mortally wounded Norman begging Peter with his dying breath not to tell his son about the monster he had become. MauLer expressed that they had never been so lost responding to a video, being unable to tell what means what, at one point being unsure if Cosmonaut saying he "liked" Green Goblin's plan to turn Spider-Man against the public was a sincere like or an expression of mockery. He also stated he already remembered all of what the video covered despite it being titled "Worse Than You *Remember*." At one point someone in Chat said the video was meant specifically to highlight the negatives, but the video also highlighted many positives, as well as several ambiguous judgments. Some suggested the title was meant to be clickbait, and the content of the video was meant to be the real point being made.

Cosmonaut began his coverage of *Spider-Man 2* by stating that "The point of this video is to bring up the crummy aspects of this movie and kinda laugh at it," further supporting the idea that the things he is criticizing about these movies are things he considers genuinely bad. He criticized *Spider-Man 2* for being too mean to Peter by making every character act like an asshole towards him, starting off with Aunt May, whom he called the second worst character in the film. He accused May of abusing random people because she slapped money out of a bank teller's hand as he was trying to steal it and because she kicked a bank teller's foot, forgetting that she kicked him by mistake while trying to kick Peter's foot to get his attention. His evidence of her nagging Peter was the scene where she was insistent that he accept birthday money from her despite her own financial troubles, and he similarly chastised her for leaving the situation while distraught after Peter told her he was responsible for her husband's death. With this evidence presented, MauLer concluded that if May is one of the worst characters in the movie then it must be pretty good. *The* worst character in the film, according to Cosmonaut, was MJ, whom he found manipulative and petty, as evidenced by her telling Peter she's seeing someone just to mess with him. MauLer retorted that the two of them were dealing with complicated feelings and going back and forth between wanting and not wanting to be together, and MJ was finally pursuing other options but told Peter she was interested in someone as a way of telling him to make up his mind because the door was closing. Cosmo also found it weird that she tried to recreate the upside-down kiss from the first film with her new boyfriend, but CJ countered that that's hot, and MauLer figured that it was genuinely just an attempt to see if Peter was Spider-Man or if kissing upside-down always felt like that. The only knock against MJ's character the roster agreed on was that it was bad of her to leave her fiance at the altar for Peter. Cosmo considered Otto to be the dumbest character for building a reactor in his apartment and not providing protection for his guests, with MauLer correcting that it wasn't plain stupidity but Otto's arrogance and certainty that nothing would go wrong. He also questioned why Otto's arms would want to build sustainable energy, the singular goal they were programmed to work towards. Cosmo claimed Tobey Maguire was incapable of having a normal scene with anyone, showing a clip of him having a fairly understated and reasonable reaction to May taking credit for his heroics. Lastly, he poked fun at MJ for promising to always stay with Peter even with his responsibilities as Spider-Man only to leave him in the next film, ignoring that people can believe they are able to do something but realize otherwise when they actually try to do it, Peter's behavior got worse and put a strain on their relationship, and most importantly that Harry made her break up with him under threat of murder.

With the rest of the video's runtime set to be focused on *Spider-Man 3*, Rags found it odd that a video ostensibly dedicated to proving these movies are "worse than you remember" would spend the least amount of time on the movie broadly considered the best and the most amount of time on a movie people already agree is bad. Cosmonaut argued that while *Spider-Man 3* was bad its tone was consistent, raising the question of if his criticisms of the other movies' tones were meant as genuine negatives. He criticized the first act for being rushed, setting up two villains in the first 10 minutes, which the gang agreed with, then argued that the symbiote being an alien worked in the comics where it had more context, but with all that is known about the world of the movies, introducing aliens is a step too far. Rags wondered what would discount the existence of alien life in this world, given that so much other fantastical science exists. Cosmo once again considered MJ to be insufferable, claiming that the first time Peter has to be Spider-Man she gets upset, when that was likely not the first time, and in that same scene Peter also shifted the focus to him when MJ was trying to talk about her abusive father. He similarly criticized MJ for being envious of the acclaim Peter gets as Spider-Man when she was feeling insecure about her own career. The rest of the coverage of *Spider-Man 3* was fairly agreeable, with them finding common ground on praising Sandman's origin and the fight where Peter has to protect his engagement ring, as well as taking issue with Harry's sudden amnesia, Peter kissing Gwen, Peter's emo phase, and Harry's butler appearing out of nowhere to tell him the truth. Oddly enough, Cosmo argued that *3* was no worse than the other movies and that can be seen if you watched them back to back, which amused the gang since they had indeed just watched them back to back and couldn't disagree more. With Cosmonaut's video finished they concluded the writing was all over the place but the production was competent and some of the jokes were alright, making it the *Spider-Man 3* of YouTube videos.

At the request of Chat, MauLer and co watched the beginning of another video where Cosmonaut clarified his intentions with the previous one, stating that he thinks the campy tone is both good and intentional, but was simply trying to say that it stands out by today's standards. In addition to being in stark contrast with many of the points he made in his video (including the title), it also left the gang uncertain if it was even true, since surely campy films could still find an audience today.

### vs the *Star Wars* Prequels

> "I don't have time to explain..."
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EFAP returned their sights to Cosmo in the Prequel Arc, taking a look at his video "**Every Star Wars Movie Reviewed - Pt. 2 - The Prequels**." In addition, they took a look at snippets of his video on *The Force Awakens* and *The Last Jedi* to get an idea of what his metric is for judging these movies and see how his critiques of the prequels match up.

*The Force Awakens* theater experience was best he had ever had, but few weeks later people just started to call it worse than prequels, which baffled him. Dumbest thing you can say is that prequels are better than *The Force Awakens.* only edgy people say that Force Awakens is bad movie or worst movie of all time. Its not true since it made money and some people just decided to not like it.

His criticism goes under 3 categories: valid/correct, invalid/incorrect and and "yeah...you're right...but like..... it's not that big of a deal....get over it"

The Force Awakens is copy of A New Hope, which he believes is the point, as its not like the creators tried to hide it. Copying works because Star Wars is simple story of good vs evil. The series can do well outside this, but it does best by sticking to good vs evil. Then he compares Star Wars as franchise to jalapeño popper, saying that its a one thing and trying to change it drastically by putting things in it that to belong to it is bad idea (which is apt comparison to The Last Jedi, which he doesn't see, as in his view The Last Jedi was good because it tried something new), it has to be always same thing. Prequels were the where when they tried to do something different and they sucked, but The Force Awakens did the same thing, so its good good in his books.

He firmly believes that those people that say something like Holdo maneuver doesn't make sense or goes against lore should shut the fuck up, go away and let other people have good time, since its just movie about space wizards. Its far more valid to go against bad acting, bad ADR and bad dialogue than something like Holdo maneuver, but people don't care about ADR and only go against unimportant things like "plot-holes". He references a book that came out only couple of years before the movie that explains how Holdo maneuver could be possible, but it was Disney made book, so the fact is wishy-washy at best. Also, they even say that using hyper-drive is dangerous in the OT.

Cosmos opinion is that every Star Wars movie sucks, they are dumb and awesome, we just make different excuses to why we like them. You just have to accept the dumb stuff and enjoy them. He then goes against this point in his other videos when he does not accept something dumb as lightsaber being used to fly like helicopters, as its too much. On that not, he says that every character in Star Wars is Mary Sue as every character is capable and good because they are main characters of stupid action movie, so its okay, but in another Star Wars review he says that he doesn't like a character because he thinks she is Mary Sue. Cosmonaut just has no standards and will make statements that he will ignore in his other videos

He doesn't think he add anything to prequels conversation as everything is covered, but made the video anyway because his fans made him do it (or most likely to get easy money out of his fans)

Cosmonaut thinks you have to be brainwashed to like Prequels, and he knows because he was brainwashed as child to like them because of the toys. People are only now mad at the fact that the franchise is a cash-grab and believe Disney is the only reason Star Wars is trying to make money. They just saw the lightsabers and ship and didn't care that the story was bad, but then they realized that there were no good aspect to enjoy about the prequels. And then, there was peace in the fandom as everyone accept that the prequels were bad. But when sequels were labeled bad, people started to praise the prequels and even said bad movie like Batman v Superman was bad, even though prequels suffered he same writing problems.

He respect people more if they hate both sequels and prequels equally, but if they think that prequels are better, then they are stupid and people that think his video of why prequels suck is about him praising them, then they are stupid

#### ***The Phantom Menace***

It isn't the worse movie ever made, but the pod race is the only moment when you don't feel like you are dead, except the final battle. But then again, those scenes tricked people into liking the movie. It could all be good, but he didn't care about the characters or the story. The movie just has low stakes and energy and he rather take the quippy sequels over the prequels. To him, the movie is not fun to watch or to make fun of.

He says that nothing makes sense, but he rarely explains why it doesn't make sense to him.

Music he sees as good, but Cosmo then condescends the movies by saying that after composer saw how bad the movies story and acing were, he decided to carry the whole movie with his music alone. Cosmo then notes that music is blaring when there is nothing worth happening, but then he shows scenes just moments away from action, making the scenes he shows a lead up to the important action, but he sneakilly cuts out the context to the scene to sell his own narrative.

Like any great critic, Cosmo uses his fully evolved film brain to say that title crawl talking about taxation is too boring, like a little kid thats here for the action alone. He admits that he has never understood what the story is about, even after watching it for 20 years. Even his own audience couldn't tell him the story from the top of the head. Just showing how much brain power is going around in his cirle.

He thinks that the people talk weird and its not directed in engaging way. All people talk the same, like weird Shakespearian dialogue, but his point of view Star Wars should be simple (not thinking that some of the characters are politicians, so they would talk more formally than normal people). He thinks that without help George made the dialogue bad and there was nobody to clean it up. Since all characters talk like robots we can't relate to them in the deeper level, as they don't have character traits. They never talk about how they feel, they just spend their time coming up with plans and not point are they showing emotions. When Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan get eaten they don't panic or show emotion, but he misses that they are Jedi, who have control over their emotions and wont panic and get overly emotional every time something and happens.

Cosmo sees jar jar as racist with his accent, but he is the least bad part of the movie and is actually more important than most of the other main cast in the movie and has more character than Qui-Gon. He is the only character that feels real as he shows emotions and without him, the movie would be worse.

He just says that the plot is not told well to the audience. Like how Jedi don't want to train Anakin because they sense fear in him and they should not expect that a kid wouldn't feel fear. He even thinks Qui-Gon could be just left to teach Anakin and nobody would care. Cosmo does not understand why Palpatine wants to kill Padme in second movie and not in the first movie, which makes no sense to him. He needs to have villains with easy to grasp goals, like Palpatine's goal to rule the universe, which he sees as "simple minded goal" and makes sense since his wise Sith master.

You don't have to watch Phantom Menace to get the other two movie, but you can watch Solo because its fun and doesn't hurt the series.

#### ***Attack of the Clones***

> "Robots, STOP IT!"
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> - MauLer, paraphrasing what Cosmo wanted Yoda to say to the killer robots currently attempting to murder his friends
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This movie is as bad as the previous one in his opinion, to the point where he cant figure out which one is worse. But confusingly he can say that this one is marginally better, as story is more comprehensible and acting is better and characters show more emotion. But things just happen in the plot, there is no surprises and nothing to enjoy, characters act stupid, but people like the these movies better than the sequels, which he is salty about.

Weirdly beyond belief, Cosmonaut comments how he does not have enough time to talk about things in his own video: Palpatine's plan has so many holes that he doesn't even have enough time break them down, so he wont tell what flaws there are as it would take entire video. The whole plot is dumb but doesn't explain why it is, just thinks people can see it this way by saying things - no time to explain in his own video. Same goes with the final lightsaber fight in the movie. Cosmo says its bad, but yet again doesn't explain how its bad, you can figure it out yourself- he doesn't have the time to explain it.

Once more he does not understand the crawl, only seeing it as boring and the movie won't tell you what the crawl means, like how are Jedi being overwhelmed by Separatists. And another of his confusing comments is that the movie doesn't explain anything, but also its too boring when it explains anything.

When it comes to him not understanding the plot, he thinks that Padme was just for some convoluted reason called to the senate to be blown up. He doesn't understand why Palpatine wants to kill Padme, while also saying that he wants to kill her for voting against the formation of army. Then he says that Padme is attacked by assassin, but assassinations stop when she is not around, but then she is put on arena and almost killed, so why send a assassin? Also, sending person to send another person, to distance yourself from the assassination is stupid in Cosmos opinion, like how Padme making herself be a bait for assassination is stupid since it could get her killed. Although he notes that Jango doesn't want to kill Padme himself but he kills the assassin, while he could have killed Padme.

He thinks story is written badly, making it so that Palpatine looks like he can predict the future and all bad decision can be overlooked by saying that it was part of his plan and he could see that it was part of his plan, but he can't predict the future like a good spider oracle. Overall Palpatine's plan is convoluted to become the king of space.

He constantly repeats himself.

Bizarrely he thinks that Anakin would be still hero after this movie, even when he kills the women and the children too.

One of the assassin characters is a shapeshifter, but why is she one? This is somehow bad to him.

Obi Wan doesn't connect Dooku and clones, even though he has all the information, he cant connect the dots. He doesn't think that just because you have all the relevant information, you might not be able to connect the dots and see what's really happening.

Yoda's portrayal is a problem to Cosmonaut, as he doesn't act like he does in OT, as he should find non-violent way to end a fight and seeing him directing troops upset him. He wanted Yoda to be like Luke at the end of the Last Jedi, as that's how he sees Jedi to act. Yoda doesn't negotiate with robots or with Dooku to stop the fighting. Cosmo claims that "the Jedi way" was to never use violence, prompting Rags to ask what the sword is for.

#### ***Revenge of the Sith***

This movie is not as bad as the other two as this movie feels like the first time the story is worth telling in prequels, but it has the same problems. He firmly quotes that the people only like this movie for the memes, like the how some like Spider-Man 2. But he has told us that one of his own believes is that as long as the movie is liked, its good, so then how is Revenge of the Sith's bad if people like it for the memes?

Palpatine is captured off screen, which is bad. its would have been better if it was show in the beginning, would have been better opening and they should have trimmed other scenes. Which is not true, it would have simply added extra scenes to the beginning. Opening battle is good, but the then its just boring as there is just people talking and sitting around. All the scenes are either too long or too slow for him and his kiddy brain.

He thinks that killing unarmed and surrendered Dooku is not a bad thing, even if narrative says it is as Jedi always kill people and Mace tries to kill unarmed Palpatine, who, as Cosmonaut seems to forger, was shooting lightning as him afterwards.

For the first time he enjoyed seeing the main characters together is the beginning of the film, but then they get split up.

Padme is different character here than in the first 2 films.

The viillains are bad as they are weird and only exist for characters to fight Dooku is the worst Star Wars character of all time, as he is one dimensional and never becomes a real threat. maul should have had his role, he would care more and there could be rivalry between maul and obi-wan.

There is too much politics in these movies for Cosmo, but George made these movies for kids, so its bad that there are politics in the first place.

Anakin's fall is too fast and only happens in this movie. The events of Attack of the Clones doesn't connect with this movie.

Yoda didn't even try anything against the clone troopers.

He can't forgive this movie for being bad even if he thinks its better than the other two in the trilogy.

### On the Dumbness of Those who Disliked *The Last of Us II*

> "Joel is not a fucking beloved character, Winnie the Pooh is beloved character, Joel is a violent anti-hero"
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MauLer, Rags, Fringy, Southpaw, and Evan Monroe next encountered Cosmonaut Variety Hour on EFAP 98, where they checked out his video "The Last of Us 2 Isn't That Bad - You Guys Are Just Dumb"

He liked the first game's story, but it had middling gameplay and thinks that the sequel has to justify its own existence

First half of the game's gameplay didn't engage or challenge him, as you just wander around and open safeboxes, since opening safe just wastes his time as there is nothing else to do. The environment was too big and you get disoriented in the world and get lost and he didn't like that there are too many simple rope puzzles. On the other hand he thinks that the combat saved his gaming experience as the difficult setting has less health and less weapons, so you must use everything you have found to kill enemies. The guns and fighting feel good, making him feel like he is in a real life-or death gun fight.

The enemy AI is unpredictable, as they might yell and poop out out of nowhere, or they might not. To him they feel like real people, as they yell each others names, although NPCs have a dozen names and only few character models, so it was weird to him. He also enjoyed looking for different ways to kill them. Zombies AI was bad, however.

He thinks he might be a masochist because he likes to restart when he dies in the game

Hardest difficulty is 8/10 combat

Story itself is mixed bag, some things he likes, some he doesn't. He is mainly mad that people got mad at the wrong things in the game, like people are just mad that Joel died. Some are just mad that Joel doesn't get redemption, but he they don't realize that he does with his talk with Ellie. People seem think that Joel is hero of the first game because he rescues his adopted daughter and even claim that he is "beloved character". But all the big brained critics like Cosmonaut know the truth that a "violent anti-hero" cant be beloved character. The dumb people think that the game is about saving your loved ones, but Joel dooms humanity for his own personal reasons to protect his daughter figure. They even think killing Joel is bad as he and Ellie were great characters and Joel is the hero, which he is not and there is nothing heroic in the Last of Us story, at all. Joel is not like Winnie the Pooh, an actually beloved character.

joels death is not for shock value and he hates when people say they killed main character for shock value, which feels to him like the Last Jedi hate all over again. people were just made that Luke died and not because the movie had faults. people just don't like their main characters dying people would be as mad at Joel if it was other way around, where we first plaid as the doctors and watched joel kill the doctors and then you had to play as the killer Joel's daughter. it would be silly that people would get angry at the game for that

He can't understand people that don't like that Ellie didn't kill Abby for killing Joel, since Ellie has a flashback of Joel, where he talks about forgiveness, so she decides to forgive Abby, as Ellie needs to learn in the game to forgive Joel and then she forgives Abby. If you really think that the best narrative choice was for Ellie to kill Abby, then he cant understand how you consume stories as he never saw the story as a revenge story as both females suffer from revenge by getting their loved ones killed and Ellie has nobody left after she goes to get vengeance. He realized that the game is about forgiveness, not revenge, like a good consumer.

Joel's decision to save Ellie is selfish and damages his relationship to Elllie, and Ellie makes the selfish choice to leave Dina and damages her relationship to her.

He says that people were upset that they had to kill the doctor in the end of the first game.

HE likes that the games don't give player choice. When Ellie kills, she kills, you don't get to decide if she kills someone. Its bit heavy handed in his opinion, but its not about us, its about the characters. The audience is too comfortable with concept that their choice matters, some games work well by taking players choice away to contextualize the world. it would be different game if you didn't have to kill anyone in the game. Its not like Metal Gear Solid V, you are treated as bad person, even when you don't do bad things, which creates an disconnect. As Ellie, you do bad things, as this is not a nice story and is not for everyone

people meme that the game is melodramatic, but its post-apocalyptic drama, so it has to be sad. also the first game was as miserable, so he doesn't understand why people are complaining. people that don't like Joel's death probably don't like No Country For Old Men

people don't talk about the games real problems, like the passing.

doesn't like that Abby's story is not connected to Ellie and Joel, which makes the real waste of time, not Ellie letting Abby live, but for example, the medicine hunt that ends with medicine not mattering in the first place. The whole game would have been better if it was told chronologically. He hates the game for more for wasting his time and not getting invested in the characters

He doesn't care if people don't like the game, but they are dumb for for thinking the game is bad.

The game is 6.5/10 in his opinion.

### on Season 2 of *The Mandalorian*

MauLer, Rags, Fringy, and Moriarty next encountered Cosmonaut Variety Hour in EFAP 122, where they took a look at his video on Season 2 of *The Mandalorian*.

Doesn't just like the show, but loves it. Not enough to do a full video on the series though, as it was winter and he makes big videos at that time. He never seems to have time to do anything -- Season 1 is 10/10, he is one of few critics that thinks so. Not because its perfect, but because its what he wants from Star Wars. Just shows where his priorities are and how misinforming his scoring system is -- Season 2 has same energy but there are lot of things he doesn't like about it. like how it has long running narrative instead of one-shot episodes that all can happen in vacuum. he likes long running and sprawling story, but he preferred when he could watch the episodes however he liked and thinks star wars is at its best when its not centered around gigantic, overarching plotline that expanded across the galaxy, (having experienced burnout with the Skywalkers), but second season began to "feel" like cameo season. Ahsoka was okay as she was there for one episode, so he gives her a pass, as even though he didn't want Jedi in the show, but he got "cool episodes". But then cameos just keep on coming -- Boba Fett is useless in the show, as his inclusion to the show was fumbled as he doesn't do that much. He could have been anybody. He could have been super significant but wasn't -- Luke's inclusion was okay in his opinion as his lizard brain liked it. His problem was that Luke is "weird CGI monster". He could not feel the emotion of the scene because the weird CGI face. He knows that's nitpicking, but its hard to connect with CGI face. He could have cried if the scene was done differently -- These nitpicks should not ruin season for anyone as the episodes are great. he likes the expanding the universe with Bill Burr and how we get to go to new planets and learn new things about the cultures, like the Imperial culture -- He wants to see things we don't normally see in the other movies and TV shows. series is excellent when it comes to world-building -- Production values are better, like shots and action and sets -- second season was good 9/10, but it has him worried. Originally the series was about adventures of bounty hunter with baby, but now the baby is gone, even thought the dynamic between the two made the show work -- His mom watches the show and likes it because it's simple -- He is going to go and watch the season 3, but of course he is going to be skeptical about its quality (but this is Cosmonaut skepticism, so its going to be high praise)

### in Defense of Cosmonaut

On EFAP 130, MauLer and co found themselves coming to the defense of Cosmo, as they were covering a video by Tex defending *Batman V Superman* against Cosmonaut's criticisms of it, while also covering some of Cosmo's criticisms of *Man of Steel*.

Most of Cosmonaut's criticisms were shaky and few were him misunderstanding aspects of the plot or not wording his critic clearly, but he was mostly right with his points.

### on How to Fix the MCU

MauLer, Rags, Fringy, JLongbone, Disparu, Weekend, and Dev returned to Cosmo in EFAP 234, where they took a look at his video examining the current state of the MCU and how it needs to change to retain its viewership, finding it funny how late to the party he was since the MCU had already been bleeding viewers. Cosmo mentioned *Wakanda Forever* as being the movie that temporarily reinvigorated his hope, prompting Fringy to ask if he could actually recount the movie's plot if he was asked to. He echoed the sentiment that Phase 4 was "mid," citing it as he most accurate usage of the term, since Phase 4 was not outright bad, and had some fun parts. He also described the previous phases as containing a lot of "mid" movies, but still praised them for containing the a lot of much better ones, then put forth that what Marvel should have done was follow them up with movies that were even bigger and bolder, contrasting that against the infamously bad explosion scene from Black Widow, something which baffled Fringy since *Black Widow*'s bad CGI had nothing to do with its scale, it and most other Phase 4 movies still being focused on the fate of the world, some even on the fate of the multiverse. Cosmo did put forth that Kang had the potential to be more interesting than Thanos, listing his specialties against Thanos' "purple man wants to kill everybody" (a reduction that didn't even work since Thanos explicitly did not want to kill everybody), and figured the mistake Phase 4 had been making was not planting enough seeds for Kang, prompting MauLer to ask if the existing stories would have been made any better if references to Kang existing had been peppered in.

Cosmo explained that the MCU needs to hurry up with its Multiverse Saga since everybody else has a multiverse now, showing B-Roll of the upcoming *Flash* movie as an example, further explaining that it was Marvel that started this trend with *Spider-Verse*, then conceding that that was not an MCU movie but still maintaining that it led to *No Way Home*'s multiverse story which kicked the whole trend off. Naturally this raised the question of how exactly Marvel was falling behind if they have been the ones leading the charge and their competition is one not yet released DC movie. He did specify that normally he has no issue with standalone MCU movies, but it was getting to be an issue now since too many had been standalone, prompting MauLer to recall that Phases 1-3 hardly built up Thanos and he was seen as a nothingburger until *Infinity War* fleshed him out as well as it did, with Fringy still wondering why it even mattered whether they built up to Thanos since he was, after all, just a big purple guy who wanted to kill everything. MauLer stood by that Cosmo would likely not have this complaint about the recent standalone movies if they had actually been good. Cosmo felt like the MCU was just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, something Dev found himself agreeing with while MauLer still felt it was not getting to the heart of the issue, since the first *Ant-Man*, *Guardian of the Galaxy*, and *Doctor Strange* films could be seen as throwing shit to the wall, and Marvel seems to be continuing forward despite almost none of its recent projects sticking. Cosmo described it as obvious that *No Way Home*, the movie everyone thought would be popular, was the most popular entry, though he chalked that up to it being a multiverse movie, rather than it being a return of previous Spider-Man actors, then concluded that people respond well to the multiverse as a concept while showing the Illuminati from *Multiverse of Madness* onscreen despite that portion of the film being almost universally derided. He mocked the MCU for choosing to make a movie about Black Widow, who he boiled down to being "a dead lady," and Thor, whose movie he boiled down to "kinda fuck[ing] around for a few hours" rather than focusing on the multiverse like everyone wants. Disparu asked if Thor's movies in general could not be boiled down to him just fucking around on his own solo adventure, and MauLer added that a superhero just fucking around was the whole premise behind *Hancock*. Fringy was a little proud of Cosmo for criticizing how no other MCU movie has had reference to *Eternals*' giant Celestial hand sticking out of the ocean, since that was an actual critique of the MCU's worldbuilding, though even that was a fairly stale take that everybody else had already made ages ago.

At this point, Rags was sent a list of Cosmonaut's ratings of every Phase 4 MCU project from his individual reviews of them, which were as follows -

* *Eternals* - 4
* *Black Widow* - 5
* *Falcon & the Winter Soldier* - 5
* Hawkeye - 5
* *Love & Thunder* - 5.5
* *What If?* - 6
* *Miss Marvel* - 6
* *Moon Knight* - 6.5
* *WandaVision* - 7
* *Shang Chi* - 7
* *She-Hulk* - 7
* *Multiverse of Madness* - 7.5
* *Werewolf by Night* - 8
* *Wakanda Forever* - 8
* *Loki* - 8.5

*No Way Home* was listed as having no score, which Fringy guessed would have been due to him not feeling as though he could rank it rationally given how much of an event it was. Fringy asked why *Werewolf by Night* was rated so highly when it had nothing to do with Kang, and MauLer extended that further to none of Cosmo's highest-rated movies doing anything to set up Kang and most of them having lower stakes than *Endgame*. Cosmo did sympathize with their situation though, asking aloud how they were supposed to follow up the biggest blockbuster of all time despite having given what he thought was the obvious answer of "go bigger" earlier. This issue was compounded by half of their original Avengers being out of commission and the other half seemingly not wanting to be in the movies anymore, failing to realize the reason they didn't want to be in those movies anymore was because they were bad. He also felt the MCU had been too focused on worldbuilding rather than character building, which MauLer found at odds with his earlier claim that the movies were too standalone and did not connect together enough. Fringy also found it strange that he showed *What If?* onscreen when talking about too much worldbuilding when *What If?* took place entirely in other worlds and was focused on characters, to which MauLer suggested he may have been holding it up as a positive example, but that also did not track since he scored it lower than most of Phase 4*m* Cosmo described every character as going on the exact same arc of accepting who they are and getting their costume, even the established characters, to which MauLer asked if something that broad could not be said of *Iron Man* or most movies in Phases 1-3. This put Fringy in the odd position of feeling compelled to defend the MCU shows in premise, describing Sam Wilson's arc as feeling like he could not live up to the mantle of Captain America both from the point of view of his own personal relationship with Steve as wells as the world's view of what Captain America meant, couched in the context of a post-Snap world, in contrast with She-Hulk's arc being about whether she wanted to do something that would disrupt the life she wanted for herself. Cosmo's summary ended with him bait-and-switching Wanda's arc as "does domestic terrorism and gets her costume," leading Fringy to wonder if he had realized he could not fit Wanda into the mold he had laid out and decided to deflect with a joke instead.

At this point in the stream, Moriarty joined the roster, and quickly came to understand that he had missed nothing important since Cosmo would go on to both repeat and contradict his previous points. Cosmo himself did state that he had initially given most of Phase 4 favorable reviews, but now felt none of them had left a lasting impression on him, to which Fringy asked if that made him think differently about the way he reviews newly-released media. Cosmo described the character development in every Phase 4 project except *WandaVision* and *Loki* as just being setup for the character to be on a team later on, prompting the question of why that is a bad thing by his standard when he wants Phase 4 to be building up to a conflict with Kang. He recalled considering the possibility of the MCU taking a break after *Endgame* came out, and felt that had they done this they could have spent more time on each project rather than push so many out one after the other. Disparu pushed back on this, explaining that each project would have its own team dedicated to it and cutting down on the number of releases would not then magically make the other ones better, the writing itself would need to be improved rather than the time spent in production. Cosmo was hopeful that the lukewarm reception of Phase 4 caught their eye and that was why Marvel was dialing back its planned releases, but MauLer found it more likely that the low revenue caught their eye, and *Loki* season 2 being rushed out was a result of it doing well monetarily. At this time the gang became so disinterested in the video being watched that they launched into a tangent on the current landscape of Twitch, but eventually turned back to the video.

Cosmo made a point of reminding people that he criticizes the MCU because he cares, and did not subscribe to the idea that they were just dumb popcorn movies that should not be expected to be anything better, since superhero movies can be and have been great, and the biggest movies being put out should be held to a high standard. This was a sentiment EFAP could of course get behind, but Fringy did wonder if he had said otherwise in other circumstances (He was right, Cosmo had often told people to stop complaining about *Star Wars* content being dumb because *Star Wars* is meant to be dumb). Cosmo expressed that he thinks it is fine to enjoy MCU movies and other movies as well, a sentiment that literally nobody on planet Earth disagreed with. He described the first *Captain America* film as being mid overall, leaving MauLer and co wondering if that meant he considered it on par with Phase 4, but he held the film's ending where Cap is unfrozen in high regard, because it had heart that Phase 4 was lacking (except *Loki* and *WandaVision*). Weekend felt as though Cosmo was just on the edge of reaching enlightenment, and realizing that there was no singular ingredient missing from Phase 4 and they were just plain old badly written. Cosmo elaborated on his point about a lack of heart with the example that *No Way Home* is impossible for him to rewatch outside of a theater, citing the Amazing Spider-Man's appearance as a moment with a pause included for the audience to cheer during. Fringy never cared for that argument since moments like those are so sparse compared to the total runtime of the movie, and MauLer added that not only do plenty of movies have moments for the audience to take in a cool reveal or spectacle, but the pause made sense in universe, since Ned and MJ are seeing a stranger enter their home dressed like their friend and Amazing Spider-Man has just seen a portal to a random apartment open up in front of him. Cosmo considered scenes like these to be failed attempt to recreate Cap lifting Mjolnir, which he argued only worked because it was earned after multiple movies of buildup, leading MauLer to ask could a moment not be built up and delivered upon in a single movie.

Cosmo hoped that *Quantumania*'s poor reception would encourage Marvel to get their shit together, and when Rags asked how, MauLer summed up his insightful advice of build up Kang, be bigger than *Endgame*, write good, be fun, have likable characters, and VFX be good. Cosmo disagreed that superhero fatigue was kicking in, and instead offered up that the market was flooded causing people to care less, which JLongbone said sounds an awful lot like fatigue. He held out hope that *Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3* would remind people what a legitimately good Marvel movie was, raising the question of whether *Loki* and *Wakanda* *Forever* were "legitimately" good or not. Moriarty was reminded by this video of Mark Brown, but Rags gave Mark Brown more credit since at least the nothings he said were consistent

## Powers and Abilities

* **Variety Hour -** Cosmonaut is able to hold any number of contradictory viewpoints in his head depending on what justifies his opinion in a given moment, hence his show being a Variety Hour. According to him this is a result of him having evolved as a critic, though instances that evolution have taken place even within the same video
* **WalMart -** If the going gets tough, Cosmo can abscond to WalMart, ending a battle in a stalemate

## Trivia

* A movie is not bad if you had fun watching it, like *The Room* and *Troll 2*. A bad movie is the one that leaves you empty. *The Room* had a documentary made of it and it made people laugh so it can't be all bad.
* He prefers that a series end with just one season and doesn't drag things too far.
* people come to his channel to hear him spout random things
* *Wonder Woman* is a 4/10, as he thinks it's fair.
* He thinks it's not okay to change comic book characters, but its okay if it works into the movies context, but it's not okay if it does not, which is why he likes *Aquaman* as that works while being different for the source material and *Civil War* does not as it doesn't have as much build up as the comic did so it doesn't have as much emotional resonance for him. Also why he does not want Batman to use gun to kill people.
* Star Wars fans are exaggerating, but he is level headed, giving 10/10 to property because it had what he wanted, spectacle
* Mostly follows his lizard brain, wanting spectacle and fights
* He rates *The Rise of Skywalker* higher than *Revenge of the Sith*, which is stupid since TROS is far worse.
* His brain is like a pinball machine, bouncing around and making weird takes.
* He could explain his point, but he doesn't have time and doesn't want to
* By his own account, his fanbase is made of “naïve 11-year olds, eccentric European weaboos and depressed alcoholic college students”
	+ Which is why he talks to his audience like they are children, since a least 1/3 of them are
* You shouldn't care if Will Smith is suffering from depression, because he is rich. He can afford a therapist

## Quotes

* “It annoys me that these people look at the first two as some sort of 'superhero Holy Grail', when they’re not like, really that good anymore” - on *Spider-Man* and *Spider-Man 2*, EFAP 12
* “I’m a dumb dumb internet movie boy”
* “Corny Sam Raimi Shit”
* “I won’t nitpick the rest of this first act, since that would be way too easy”
* “See, they even thought it was shit back then, so leave me alone”
* "God dammit, you'd think after two movies he'd probably get good at this"

"You'd think after two movies he'd explain the problem"
- Cosmonaut and MauLer
* "She makes him kiss her, like Spider-Man kissed her in the first movie. What if your girlfriend went up to you and was like, 'hey, can you kiss me like this one guy used to kiss me?'" "Well she doesn't say that, does she? And, you know what, I think it was hot, so..." - Cosmo and CJ
* "*Star Wars The Force Awakens* is the worst movie ever made. At least, that's what I would say, if i was a fucking moron" - EFAP 85
* "it doesn't matter if it's original, its still bad"
* "I'm not fucking braindead"
* "All kidding aside, *shut the fuck up you god damn idiot its a movie about space wizards! Stop making shit up to be mad about!* Analyze a film like a regular person and don't pick apart shit with made up fantasy facts!" - EFAP 85
	+ "The new Inquisitors use their new gimmicky lightsaber... to fly, like a helicopter! I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous! Anyone who takes this show seriously needs to just look at this. Imagine if during the fateful battle between Luke and Vader, one of them twirls their sword around, and flies away. That's not how the Force works" - on *Star Wars Rebels*
* "Whenever someone says they're a fan of Cosmonaut Variety Hour, just ask them which Cosmonaut Variety Hour they're a fan of" - MauLer, A Critique of Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Part 3
* "It's..........called..........Star WARS............." - Cosmo, on why the Stormtroopers in the sequel trilogy are laughably incompetent
	+ "Why does Media keep perpetuating the fact that Stormtroopers are just incompetent idiots? Can't we just get one bit of Star Wars media where the main icons of the series can be threatening?"
* "You might think it's a little strange that I'm judging a comic book movie, based on the comic that it takes its material from, because I usually don't do that. I usually like to judge these as completely separate stories. But when the comic is done so much better than the movie, it's hard to ignore"
	+ "'Oh, my stupid corny cartoon villain wasn't represented the same way he was in the comics!' Yeah well, get over it, alright? I read a lot of comics, and if I got mad every time something was different, I would've died of a heart attack back when I saw *Fantastic 4*" - in defense of the Mandarin being revealed to be a drunken British actor who never actually existed in *Iron Man 3*
* "I really think people have been giving Rey a very bad rep for some pretty bad reasons. Most people just say they don't like her because she's 'too strong,' but... I don't know, doesn't bother me. I personally don't really mind seeing a character who is good at things in *Star* *Wars*. All the other main characters in *Star Wars* are really good at stuff. 'Oh how come Obi-Wan can defeat a Sith Lord all by himself, when his master couldn't even do that?' 'How come Luke is really good at using the Force, without getting any training?'" - on Obi-Wan catching Maul off guard and slashing him once, and Luke pulling a handle one foot into his hand
	+ "Sabine is a walking Hot Topic ad. She feels like the forced strong female character. She couldn't be more Mary Sue unless she was also Force-sensitive, which at this point wouldn't even really surprise me"
* "It's shallow how people are talking about this story" - on *The Last Of Us Part II*
* "I'd say this is like a 4/10... if we're being honest... that seems pretty fair... [music cuts off]" - EFAP 122
* "The common word I hear around the MCU nowadays is 'mid,' and honestly, I think it's probably the most accurate use of that word. Because mid doesn't really mean bad, it just means mediocre, middle of the road. And yeah, the recent MCU entries usually aren't horrible. Every once in a while, you watch something pretty fun and cool, but most of the time it's just.. fine" - EFAP 234
* "There are a lot of mid movies in that collection, but there are also a lot of iconic action adventure movies in there too. And if you wanna follow that up, you kinda have to go bigger and bolder, and Marvel is not doing that right now"
* "I'm not gonna lie, the Multiverse Saga has potential to be more interesting than the previous overarching plot. Evil time-traveling mastermind with multiple incarnations of himself trying to stop the Avengers, is a much more interesting story than, "Purple man, wants to kill everybody" "Oh, shut UP!" - Cosmo and Weekend
* "Normally I'm okay with having a standalone every story once in a while that doesn't affect the overarching plot" "Let me help you out, you're okay with them when they're good, you're not when they're bad, that's it" - Cosmo and MauLer
* "Instead of following up Phase 3 with stories people wanna see, we have a movie about a dead lady" - on *Black Widow*
* "This feels like a Classic Cosmonaut Reduction" - Weekend Warrior
* "Remember what he said, cuz this really does make sense, he was like, 'You need to interconnect it, you need to make sure it has stakes that are bigger than Endgame, that's why *Black Panther 2* is the best one" - MauLer
* "And you know I kind of understand the problem to a certain degree. How do you follow you follow up the biggest blockbuster of all time-" "Well you go bigger like you said" - Cosmo and Fringy
* "Hell, even the shows about the established characters have the same formula. This is how Captain America accepts his role as a superhero and gets his costume. This is how She-Hulk accepts her role as a superhero and gets her costume. This is how Wanda does domestic terrorism and gets her costume"
* "I'm almost feeling compelled to actually- cuz there's nuance to this" "That's why it's not in the video" - Fringy and Rags, EFAP 234
* "Everyone knows who they are and that's not big enough goddammit!" - Weekend Warrior, applying Cosmonaut's teachings
* "We're just kinda listening to someone's perspective on this whole thing and so far it's been- would you call it insightful, everyone?" "It's unsightful" - MauLer and Rags
* "You have to grade his scores like a car, the moment he says them they've already devalued about 50%" - Disparu
* "You know the nice thing about watching one of Cosmo's videos is that even though I'm coming in halfway through I know he's just gonna repeat everything for the next several minutes so I'm still gonna get the full experience" - Moriarty
* "I think it's fine to enjoy these movies and enjoy other movies as well"
	+ "'I shat on everything you love, audience, but it's okay, you can like it'" "But he shat on everything *he* likes!" - Weekend Warrior and MauLer
		- "So he shat on it, and then he's swimming in it" - Weekend Warrior
* "Too many people are like, 'Oh well, they're just Marvel movies, they don't need to be amazing, and I'm like, 'Why not?' Why can't they be amazing? I've seen superhero movies that are amazing. Movies that were labored over with love and care by everybody involved. Why can't we get that with the MCU? They're the most popular movies that exist right now, why can't they also be great?'" - EFAP 234
	+ "Basically, this is the kind of series where you really need to just accept the dumb stuff, and enjoy the stuff that you like" - on *Star Wars*, EFAP 85
* "Kind of the Cosmonaut Lore, if ever he makes a single statement, he's contradicted it before. Hundred percent" - MauLer
* "Somebody posted that one scene from the first *Captain America* movie, the ending scene that I've praised a million times in the past. Like if you asked me, I'd probably say that that movie overall is 'mid' too, but I really like that one scene. It's something that kinda sticks with me, it encapsulates the heart of that film really well in just a little moment. And it reminded me that we don't really get moments like that anymore"
* "Even when I like one of the new movies or shows-" "Look at these scores, that's normally! You normally like them" - Cosmo and Rags
* "That's essentially what he's trying to say right now, is that it's the same quality but they don't have any great moments" "Man, it feels like they're not the same quality then" - MauLer and Fringy, EFAP 234
* "You watch a video like this, and you sort of wonder like, what is the central point you're trying to make in a video like this? I don't know that he could even tell you what it is, cuz this is just jumping all over the place, contradicting himself constantly. It's like he sat down, got his Microsoft Word Document, just started writing his stream of consciousness, and then recorded it" "Is this your first time with a Cosmo?" - Fringy and Moriarty
* "What's the difference between good and legitimately good? Only Cosmonaut knows" - Fringy, EFAP 234