Episode Two

Man, so much to discuss here, and so much of it more interesting that the reasons for suggesting this movie. I guess I can't really get to it all.
I'm going to have to lay down points very quickly without an opportunity to really respond to whatever everyone is saying or trying to be very persuasive about my points.
It's interesting how much of the reason for my suggestion came through in this conversation, in rather unexpected ways. Matt mentioned hearing a lot of good things about Turbo Kid from a lot of sources, but never having seen it. I was in the the same boat, though I kept hearing it mentioned in certain ways that led me to suggest it was just a deliberately silly retro action movie. It would get mentioned alongside Kung Fury sometimes, and I assumed that it was something along those lines. I started watching it briefly some time ago and when there was nothing funny in the first few minutes I figured it was a waste of time. Even Kung Fury was a little bit of a waste of time, and that was only 30 minutes.
Sara mentioned the Red Letter Media review, and that was indeed what led me to watch the movie, where they asserted that Turbo Kid was in some ways the opposite of Kung Fury, at least in its treatment of nostalgic film elements. Whereas Kung Fury is making fun of older action films (nominally 80s kung fu movies, but it freely drifts into elements of other time periods, and sometimes abandons the premise entirely), Turbo Kid is not. Turbo Kid is not meant to be bad at all, and I'm not even sure it's meant to campy, but whether you want to call it campy or not doesn't matter too much. Calling anything campy is mostly just a way of identifying yourself as an asshole.
The filmmakers here just love a bygone style of filmmaking, and they made a film in that style. If I had more time I would stress this point more, but all I can say is that I basically agree with Red Letter Media. I suppose I would add that this is not like a reference-fest; and I don't even believe that film depends on nostalgia for older action movies. (I don't really even believe that Turbo Kid, or Kung Fury, is really as connected to the 1980s as we are signalled to believe, and that if we weren't being told to associate with the 80s we would just associate it with low-budget action/sci-fi films from about the 60s onward. There are obviously specific elements that relate to the 80s, but the movies are not as mired in 80s-ness as is generally accepted.)
And so, Sara and Lewis disagreeing about whether this movie was made with love and care, or whether it's about making a shitty movie for the sake of making a shitty movie, that fits right in with what's interesting to me about Turbo Kid, because I think that's what's being widely misunderstood about it, even by some of its proponents.
So, I suggested Turbo Kid for a reason that is, perhaps, a little bit circular. Turbo Kid is a movie that I am seeing used as a reference point frequently; I think it's something that you will see used as a reference point in the future. In a sense, I'm saying people should have it available as a reference because people are going to use it as a reference.
But it's not completely circular, even described that way. But more to the point: A Wikipedia summary, or a vague description, or even a detailed description by the film proponents, may not suffice to give you an accurate view of what this movie was like, and how its tone and treatment on retro qualities differs from Kung Fury. Maybe I should have suggested Kung Fury at the same time, but I suppose everyone has seen that. But Kung Fury and Turbo are two important reference points to use in describing other sorts of nostalgic/retro works
All that said, if you did not enjoy the movie, if most people did not enjoy the movie, then I'm not sure it really serves any purpose as a separate reference. If your reaction to Turbo Kid is that you think it is not only bad, but intentionally bad, then its main distinction from Kung Fury is probably that it's just longer and less funny. And if someone compares a future work to Turbo Kid, even if you are able to intellectually acknowledge that they're referring to a certain kind of childish reverence for obsolete style, you will probably actually take away from that comparison that the work they're talking about is stupid.
So, I still give it a thumbs up, I still thinks it's valuable, I still think it's something you're going to see referenced, and I think it's something that it's helpful to reference. But the strength of this suggestion is maybe more inherently democratic than most, because if the majority of people just see this movie as new shit made to look like old shit, then I don't think it's really a good example of what I'm holding it up for.