MovieBob leaving The Escapist

[Dunesen]

I went through more pages of this thread than can be healthy, and while I don't have much of an opinion about Bob's departure and whether or not it was deserved I am baffled by how so many people are taking the time to tell others that they're glad to see him gone because (they disagreed with his movie opinions/they disagreed with his political views/they didn't watch his videos at all).

On the first or second page someone uses a restaurant as an analogy; 'If I'm eating at a restaurant I don't want to hear noxious political opinions.' And I'm thinking 'Dude, just leave the restaurant!'

All of these 'I'm glad he's gone' comments are about videos and columns you don't have to watch/read in the first place! Why does it matter if he is on this site or somewhere else when you have no obligation to devote focus to his stuff? All this means is you won't be reminded of his existence when you visit the site's main page, and if you are so relieved not to have that happen anymore, you have bigger issues than the specific focus of your ire.

 

[William Ossiss]

Now, if Yahtzee leaves, I'll have no reason to come here. Other than Critical Miss.


OT: though this is quite a shock. The last person I thought would be leaving would have been Movie Bob...

After Extra Credits, and that comic that grabbed its own site... This site seems to be going downhill.

 

[Lugbzurg]

No, no, no...! Well, there goes my favorite... The Big Picture was always something I looked forward to. It always felt the most personal, the most dynamic, the most intellectual... Guess I'll be here every Wednesday... other Wednesday... Whenever. But I guess this does give me a good catalyst to check out his "Game Overthinker" material.

Looks like that next "maybe" crossover isn't going to happen after all.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

All of these 'I'm glad he's gone' comments are about videos and columns you don't have to watch/read in the first place! Why does it matter if he is on this site or somewhere else when you have no obligation to devote focus to his stuff? All this means is you won't be reminded of his existence when you visit the site's main page, and if you are so relieved not to have that happen anymore, you have bigger issues than the specific focus of your ire.

I think it's more the fact that a lot of people really liked Bob in the early days and did not like what he became. The temptation to watch can often come from a hope that he might turn it around in terms of his extremist rhetoric. You probably saw that very few people actually have ill will towards the guy personally. And all that is discussion worthy. Especially the manner in which he departed and how The Escapist is being represented and where it is going. The Pub club gang have a lot to consider there...

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

All of these 'I'm glad he's gone' comments are about videos and columns you don't have to watch/read in the first place! Why does it matter if he is on this site or somewhere else when you have no obligation to devote focus to his stuff? All this means is you won't be reminded of his existence when you visit the site's main page.

It also means somebody with actual talent and professionalism can take his spot and deliver content I actually want to watch/read. I don't care what becomes of him, I just want to see those 5 weekly spots put to better use.

 

[Pyrian]

...I just want to see those 5 weekly spots put to better use.

From what I've seen, that's just... Not how it works.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Just throwing this theory out there, but maybe he feel Yahtzee doesn't need a plug since he is the face of the escapist. Not saying your wrong since Bob can be extremely petty as shown by his heel turn against Nolan for a perceive Marvel snub just giving an alternate explanation.

I dunno, Bob gives me the impression of being easily offended.

Love the Nic Cage avatar btw. He looks so dumbfounded in that poster.

...I just want to see those 5 weekly spots put to better use.

From what I've seen, that's just... Not how it works.

Going by what Archon and others have said, they're looking to fill up the weekly schedule again. Maybe not exactly spot by spot, but you get the picture.

 

[Spankable]

I love bob's video's & podcasts. I found him years ago with the gameoverthinker, i only found the escapist when he moved here. There is now little here to interest me.

I've added Zero punctuation's YouTube channel to my account & unsubscribed to the escapist.

So long & thanks for all the fish.

 

[silver wolf009]

Maybe we should look into getting the Micheals back for another show now?

What ever happened to those two anyway?

 

[Vault101]

Id rather him just learn a few lessons and become a well adjusted member of society.

you make him sound like someone who got locked up for breaking into peoples houses and eating their pets

[quote/]I won't be keeping track of him from this moment forward, but I hope he does well. And I hope he finds more beautiful things in life then uploading videos.[/quote]
that's a bit condescending isn't it? it was his [I/]job[/I]...just as much as its Jim's [I/]job[/I] to stand in front of a podium and caress a 3ft dildo while talking at the camera, he just does it independently now

temptation to watch can often come from a hope that he might turn it around in terms of his extremist rhetoric. ...

...extremist?...really?

 

[Fox12]

Id rather him just learn a few lessons and become a well adjusted member of society.

you make him sound like someone who got locked up for breaking into peoples houses and eating their pets

[quote/]I won't be keeping track of him from this moment forward, but I hope he does well. And I hope he finds more beautiful things in life then uploading videos.

that's a bit condescending isn't it? it was his [I/]job[/I]...just as much as its Jim's [I/]job[/I] to stand in front of a podium and caress a 3ft dildo while talking at the camera, he just does it independently now [/quote]

He went on his twitter and called people subhuman, and blabbered about how the end justify the means, and how there are no bad tactics, just bad targets. That's a pretty deranged world view, and I think he needs to adjust his attitude.

I don't think it's condescending at all. He went in front of the green screen he put in his house in order to tell us that he needs to keep making videos. It's clearly very important to him, and it's his job. And that's fine. But I would tell anyone who was too involved in their job to find other things to find value in as well, because that's healthy. His passion in life could be selling drills at home depot for all I care, I just think it's unhealthy to completely define yourself by your work. But I'm just going by the tone on his Patreon.

 

[Silverspetz]

And he is already freelancing for Badass Digest with articles. Haters, go home, cause Bob's not going anywhere.

Didn't you just say he went to Badass Digest?

Didn't you see my edit? Nice try though.

What did I just try? I don't know what 'scotching' means.

Trolling, you don't need to know that word to figure out the meaning from the context. Though to be fair, I may have misspelled it.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

...extremist?...really?

extremist
-noun
a person who favours or resorts to immoderate, uncompromising, or fanatical methods or behaviour, esp in being politically radical

adjective
of, relating to, or characterized by immoderate or excessive actions, opinions, etc

I have never known Bob to be a moderate. His opinions always tended to be black or white. He loves to label people and put them in boxes, uncompromising. I mean extremist in the literal sense and not the news media beheading, suicide bombing way. He spoke with the arrogant certainty of someone who sees the world the way he sees it and cannot perceive it another way.

Extremists are people who denigrate and dehumanize people who do not share their beliefs.

 

[llubtoille]

I came to the escapist after seeing a zero punctuation, and started watching his movie reviews and found them useful, but stopped about a year ago when he started bringing a agendas and personal opinions not relevant to the movies themselves.

 

[Fireaxe]

Frankly, Bob's content got vastly worse in the past 6 months -- when he did comic and show history that was vastly more interesting than the social justice crusades.

 

[Tojumaru]

Good riddance. He started off good and I liked his early reviews. However his bias towards Nintendo and Marvel got annoying, his hatred of anything outside his glorious liberal left(I am a leftist myself, but I do not judge a film based on that), his arrogance(i know stuff and I am right, if you disagree you are a bully), his tendency to use horrendously forced strawmen, his nostalgia for everything '80s, constant hipocrisy(Aneeta ftw, oooooh look at how good this starlet looks in tight leather outfits in this film), his Mass Effect videos(hey, I never played the games nor will I ever do.... here's my opinion on them), his hatred of FPS games as a whole... it's like almost too much to count. I think he was terrible honestly, especially in his latter days so I am actually glad he is leaving.

I hope he returns back to what he was doing 5 years ago. And discontinue his Game Overthinker series, because that is terrible. And leave his bias at the doorstep because he has been hating on films and games from the get-go. Though, he has been spiraling down for such a long time that I think letting him go is actually a good idea. Good riddance.

 

[Demagogue]

-snip-

Glad to hear you guys have have a plan, although it isn't that surprising either, you don't last a decade without making and adjusting plans to the current environment. I know this year has been hard on you guys so far, and I look forward to the new work you bring in!

 

[Ralancian]

Ugh 628 posts will anyone care what I have to say? Probably not but feel like I want to give my two cents worth.

I've hated the entire #gamergate saga some people are doing some very abhorrent things but other aren't listening to any legitimate arguments because of it. I'm pretty apathetic to it all the only bit that angers me most is describing myself as a geek and gamer outside of community was finally becoming acceptable and bunch off people have ruined that. All collections of people have their idiots and it's our job to call them out on it. Bob however was pretty terrible at doing that and rather than targeting the individuals because it's hard the internet due to anonymity and called everyone subhuman rather than the small collection of them that actually exist within the community. I've only met a few people whom I describe as 'giving geeks a bad name' the vast majority are fine people whom I enjoy spending time with.

My issue with Bob is his online persona via Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture slowly declined in a putrid mess. He's always been opinionated guy but that's fine both show's were about expressing his opinion one about movies and the other about whatever he feels like. I use to be interested on his opinion on movies (please note I'm not calling out for bias or not being objective as both of those come into opinion pieces and are part of it). Here are the few of the things that annoyed me,

About once a year a film would really disappoint Bob which is fair enough in the review of that film (Transformers, Green Lantern, ASM, Man of Steel to name a few). I didn't mind the review of that film being negative after all it's his opinion but it's harping on about it virtually every review afterwards really grated. I know he hated that film lets stop talking about it and talk about this film instead.

Token Revisionism of the past, at one stage The Dark Knight was one of the best comic films made in his opinion. Overtime he has been highly critical of the Nolan Batman franchise due to the dark depressing Batman. Fair enough I say we are all allowed to change our opinions but he'd never really explained why he had such radical change of heart over this.

Not reviewing the damn film/forming opinions before they are out, the later is really prominent now he doesn't take each film on it's own merit. He hated ASM2 before it came out, The Dark Knight Rises before it came out, he thought Avengers would be brilliant before it came out. However it's the earlier one that got me first to start questioning watch his 'review' of The King's Speech, I don't have problem with the fact he didn't like the film I have problem with the fact that disliked the film why it got made (to win oscars). Yes and most films are also made to make money. That doesn't matter when reviewing a film it's a question of the film itself fair enough if you didn't like why it was made but what about the finished article.

Placing opinion about a film from a culture he doesn't come from.....too many times he's told me a British person what we think about stuff he's usually wrong.


As noted above I'm not bothered by Bob's political views he's terrible at expressing them in a cohesive manner without coming off as imbecilic. However the quality of the content he was producing became steadily worse to the point reading his reviews were better than watching them.

I don't really have a complaint about The Big Picture he said from the start it was about expressing himself on anything he wanted and it was exactly that. Sometimes I agreed (Sucker Punch) some I disagreed (punching up & down) some I didn't give two hoots about (Schlocktober). Overall though it was mostly harmless and sometimes insightful (TV, Comics is WIERD).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Also unlike Jim, Bob is keeping his options open. He hasn't gone full independent and we don't know what his full plans for the future are

I watched his Patreon video. I don't think he knows either.

Captcha:

 

[Lono Shrugged]

snip.

Good points well made. It harks back to my post about him not liking movies. I think my disdain for him really started to manifest when he started flip-flopping his opinions on movies. I often said that I sometimes don't see eye to eye with people like Jim or Yahtzee. But I always respect their opinions because it comes from an honest place and is not filtered to provoke a reaction or ride a wave of popular opinion. Or as Bob so very often likes to say "I told you so/ I was right" Which he did in his very last article.

"Keeping options open" means praying the phone will ring. Anyone who is considering hiring him is surely reading this thread and twitter is seeing the pretty overwhelming glee at him being gone.