The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[maninahat]

I like this. I haven't played Halo much so I can't comment, but when watching 300, I did think to myself:

"wow, the Spartans are boring. They all look and fight the same, and aren't interested in anything except for shouting and fighting. Oh wow, these Persians come in so many different shapes and sizes, and they're into things like jewellery and weird orgies and stuff. They're interesting."

Kudos for pointing out the quasi-fascist elements of Spartan society as well. I get sickened when some guy describes Spartans as bastions of ancient democracy, them failing to realise 80% of Spartan society were slaves who couldn't vote. Kind of ironic how the "evil" persian empire actually abolished slavery and enriched the local culture of wherever they conquered.

 

[wolftypex]

ah dude, the elites join the humans kinda puts a big hole in you single race argument!

 

[ZodiacBraves]

I would have liked if Movie Bob could have provided some more examples of this phenomenon of "pure race" vs "racial mixing" in fiction. Because by just mentioning Halo, it looks like he's just trying to bash Halo.

Moreover, he clearly demonstrates he hasn't played Halo 2 and Halo 3 in which the humans team up with some of the aliens, "working together towards a common goal".

Yeahhhh, this really wasn't a great start.

I agree, I think this series has potential, but I felt like the video ended before making any sort of real relevance. If he had discussed more examples or made his point more solid before ending, it would have been a success in my eyes.

 

[Vaccine]

Oh come on, at least come up with some creative troll bait.

 

[sgtshock]

I love your stuff MovieBob, and I look forward to more of this series, but this is pretty much the definition of reading to much into things. You play as a godlike super soldier to justify why your AI teammates don't fight nearly as well as you, not because Bungie supports fascism. The covenant is not a group of multi-race aliens because Bungie subconsciously hates multiculturalism, it is to provide enemy variety, so you aren't shooting the same enemy the whole damn game. Plus, Halo 2 and 3 even made some of the aliens the good guys when roughly half of them rebelled from the evil alien zealots.

Not every damn thing has to have subtext.

 

[subject_87]

Hoo yah! More MovieBob, explaining the disturbing similarities between Halo and Nazism! I could not be happier!

 

[Dyp100]

This is series is going to be maxium trolling, I'm sure, but I at least respect you for moving from "HALO HAS NO STORY" to "HALOS STORY SEEMS A BIT ODD", at least that's a step in the right direction.

Personally, I think the whole thing about the Covenant is they're mostly innocent to the will of the Prophects, being slaves and all, even the higher races are such.

 

[JugglerPanda]

Bob has a habit of being pseudo-intellectual when he talks about things he's unfamiliar with.
One of the main characters in the Halo series is black. The elites defect from the covenant as early as Halo 2 and fight alongside the humans. Fighting the same thing over and over again in a video game is not fun.

Bob took an incredibly large leap and made himself look like an idiot.

 

[Knight Templar]

So it's like the Gameoverthinker?

Anyway it's prehaps unfair to take away context to make your point about diversity, but the human government is not nice people with context.
Before the Covenant showed up we were busy putting down separatists, in not-so-nice ways. The Spartans were created to kill anybody who didn't want to be part of the whole UN thingy.
ONI in particular is quite, evil, but ONI is also the reason we are not dead.

EDIT:

Bob has a habit of being pseudo-intellectual when he talks about things he's unfamiliar with.
One of the main characters in the Halo series is black. The elites defect from the covenant as early as Halo 2 and fight alongside the humans. Fighting the same thing over and over again in a video game is not fun.

Bob took an incredibly large leap and made himself look like an idiot.

He's aware of those things, and I think you've missed his point.
The difference between a black man and a white man is nothing.
A Grunt and a Hunter?
Hell in Reach you can find more difference between two different grunts than any two marines. They have colour, form, species and mindset. We have personality.

 

[Rednog]

I honestly don't know what to say, it felt like I was watching a car speed down a straight highway, suddenly decide to take a turn and ended up crashing and bursting into flames, and I just sat there dumbfounded on wtf just happened.

 

[Koganesaga]

Wow so many remarks, guess it's because it's something new. At any rate, interesting movie and I'll take anything to anger those squeaky voice 10 year old fanboys that ruined halo for me.

Not looking forward too, but very curious as to what Ole Bob will do next week.

 

[lukey94]

I see where ya was going with that mate, but really, saying that the UNSC represents the "pure master race" is probably (by which i mean most definitely) blowing things Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! out of proportion especially seeing as the in the Halo Universe the Human colonists and SPARTANS are largely ethnically mixed. Just seemed a bit like a typical rant about Halo... nothing new and original, it seems to be that Halo is all people complain about, when really it blows Half-Life and COD right out of the water (single-player and the novel universe that is). It's like Yahtzee says, if you notice something has depth and immersion then it's gone, but I rarely have that trouble with the Halo universe, there is so much story and background in there that I think most modern pretentious ...... (cant think of a better word here so I shall leave it blank) totally skip over, before going on to give crap like Limbo and Half-Life 10/10s and such and praising till the cows come home.


Obviously I respect the fact that these are my views and everyone is entitled to their freedom of speech (except Mudokens) but I just feel it's about time that this lame ass Halo-Hating needs to stop.

 

[_Nocturnal]

I LIKE IT!

Ahem.
It works great as a bridge between the video and the weekly issue parts of the site. And Bob's certainly a great guy to fill the role: even more fun and cerebral content from him is always welcome.
I'm a bit concerned by the wide range of listed potential topics, but this first video? Perfect!

 

[Twinmill5000]

TBH, when I played Halo 1 and 2 when I was little, I loved the covenant. Bungie did too, which is why you fought with them in the second and third. Not throughout the game, of course not, but the bad guys were technically the brutes -excluding the prohpets- and their facist-extremo views against the rest of the races. So it was more like a civil war than anything. The only reason why you don't see this in Reach is because it takes place before Halo 1, where these ideals you speak of were probably true throughout the staff.

God dammit, I'm going to make a game now. It's going to be a very crappy game and will probably crash every 2 minutes, and it's not going to be very big or advanced because I'll probably make it in Blitz3D instead of an actual, professional game engine, and the animation will be almost nonexistant and the art will suck, but at least it will have a good story and plot driving it. Both on the surface, and beneath.

 

[Unesh52]

I'm not sure I buy what you're selling Bob-o (I only played Halo 2 with a friend and we skipped most cut-scenes), but I enjoyed hearing about it. I'm always in favor of the Escapist adding more shows.

 

[Apackof12Ninjas]

You know I watch Escape to the Movies every week and while I dont agree with some of your reviews and sly comments *IE: Every mention of Halo is met with contempt* this show certainly started off very badly. I mean what a swing and a miss!

For starters Bungie gave the people who made the commercial (who was hired by Microsofts PR division) certain information and templates to make the commercial. Which was a simple albeit somewhat erroneous idea of how a spartan is made.

I mean geez could you have chosen a worse way to get context about the story??? A television commercial even...

If you want proper context about the story its entirety read the books and play the games.
You would know that The reason the Covenent want kill the entire human race is because the Prophets (aka leader caste) discovered that the gods they worship (ancient species that was wiped out by the Halo effect) were the ancestors of humans IE contradicting their entire religion and said knowledge would literally destroy the covenent (IE the bonds between the Elite caste and the Prophet caste) Rather then lose power and dissolve the Covenent the prophets chose to hide all knowledge of the relationship between the Forerunners (aka ancient gods they worship) and wipe out all of humanity to retain their power and their Covenent.

Seriously you barely scratched the surface of the story and from that scratch you have come with the most craziest conclusion and over depth analysis I have ever heard.

Next thing I hear is how Smurfs is just another story with hidden ties to Racism, fascism, and bigots.

 

[gilgamesh32]

Well this was pretty lame. I guess it makes sense though, trolling a popular franchise is a good way to gain some early notoriety.

 

[Monsterfurby]

I always thought you were supposed to be playing as the, erm, guys on the moral low ground in the Halo games. But then again, I never made it though part 2 without getting bored, so I might be wrong.

Anyway, I see nothing wrong with the depiction of the two factions. Yeah, you're playing a genetically-engineered pseudo master-race representative who busies himself mowing down hordes of ethnically diverse aliens. Of course you're the bad guy. I always thought that was the point of the Halo-games, but maybe I've been overthinking it from the start.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

Yay now we can get a show where someone bends over for Nintendo and says how xbox and ps3 are unoriginal, and have bad games.

 

[Reaper69lol]

Always awesome to see new stuff from you Bob, keep up the good work