The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[Redd the Sock]

Congrats on the show. I think we're all envious of people that can get screen time just to vent their spleen without having to be part of the Fox "opinion" group. Same congrats for getting so many people POed within 5 minutes.

To answer you end question, most of us on some lower level know that the bad guys are diverse due to our own ADD and intollerance at shooting at the same thing all day and the good guys are similar becase of the same reason real armies are similar: we need purely visual recognition to know who to shoot. There might be somthing accidental to it, but it's up there with damsels in distress as something that persists more to our own lack of effort to break from it than from any serious intent. Maybe people should. I don't know. I'm not a Halo fan so I can't really commment on specifics.

 

[Chaos-Spider]

Does this mean that we'll finally get that semi-coherent treatise about the patriarchial dynamics present in the Bearenstien bears that we were offered in one of the episodes of Escape to the movies. I can't remember what episode exactly but I know it existed.

 

[Therealgijoe]

I really don't think Bungie was trying to play the Neo Nazi, master race versus team-of-several-different-people's-coming-together card. Especially since in the first 4 Halo shooters whenever you had people following you, there was always an Australian, a Latino, a black guy, a white guy, and I think some Hispanic chick. Granted, they all spoke English, but I bet the French heard them all speak French, and the Germans heard them all speak German, etc. And in the 3rd one, Master Chief learned to put aside his differences and made friends with all the elites (awwwwwwwwww).

And even Noble Team had ethnic diversity. There were 3 Slavic? people, one of which was also Oriental. It's just easier to show racial diversity when all the aliens are way different, or does Movie Bob only judge sentient beings by the way they look?

I think Movie Bob is just going Glen Beck on us and taking one small detail, and making conspiracies with it. Pretty soon He'll have a chalkboard on his new show.

 

[GEAR BOSS]

Uh, Moviebob, no offense, but whole argument is sort of based on coincidence. The Covenant, like you said, is a slave army. Every race was forced to give blind faith to the Profits. Also, the reason why the Spartans look similar and don't seem to talk much has more to do with the structure of the previous Halo games then who the Spartans are, IMO. Halo: Reach is one of the few games in the Halo series to take elements from the entire cannon, from Dr. Halsey to the inaction of a Winter Contingency. Further more, I've noticed lately that he seems to have more bias in his videos when he talks about games that he personal likes or dislikes. I noticed this a lot when he did his Metroid: Other M video. I'm trying to bash Moviebob or anything, but I liked it when he talks more about concepts then about specific games. But hey, it's just my opinion.

 

[Bruce Edwards]

I had a feeling that Bob, doing this on Halo, would put forward an intellectually dishonest devils-advocate rant that would serve to piss off many and generate traffic. Because he dislikes Halo and likes pageviews.

... and I fell for it. So, yeah, uh, well done again Moviebob.

On a side note: Does Godwins law apply to moviebob articles?

 

[silverdragon9]

I think you're way of base here. firstly the unsc has shown itself to be racially and culturally diverse; obviously int the expanded universe, though still noticeably in the games. The unsc seems homogeneous because well, it is. As in a blending of many different things into a single mass. Such as new york city, where playing basketball with your friends, going out for Indian food, then going home to drink Heineken and watch anime isn't the slightest bit unusual. secondly while humans are the protagonists both the games and the E.U. repeatedly point out that humans can be truly horrible. Thirdly the quasi fascist under tones seem a hell of a lot closer to to the state versus federal argument of the American civil war. or to make a reference to another scifi, alliance vs brown coat in firefly. Albeit with much darker morality on both sides in the halo universe. And finally i doubt Bungie meant anything by it; they were just trying to make a good story.

 

[shadowyoasis]

I want to say first that I love movie bob. But this video didn't just attempt to jump the shark, it attempted a triple spinning backflip while doing it. I understand your not aware of the halo lore and that you in fact hate the game. But master race vs diverse race? Kinda reaching there.

As far as the blue eyes thing this is how I took it:
They just pumped soldier X full of nanobots so now he's part machine. How do we show this? blue or green glowing eyes to signify electronics. Green is usually considered evil(damn necrons) and is generally harder to do because of green-screen effect. So we go with blue, which also has a significance of being good. That is somewhat part of the whole master race thing however. Ever notice that in the first two fables the good/pure to the max will turn your eyes blue and your hair blonde? DBZ anyone?

Concept of blue eyes and golden hair being "good" precedes the master race, we just impose that upon that image because of one crazy bastard. Its also the reason why anything with a swastika is generally viewed is bad, but its heavily dominant as a symbol of good in Asian culture. Did you know it was also at one point a common symbol used by special divisions of the US military?

 

[ThePants]

GREAT first episode, Bob!

But....Now I'm going to think of Halo in the space-nazi-undertoned way you talked about it. Halo will never be the same for me. I don't even own it, or an XBox for that matter, and I play it at friends houses very little.

 

[Traun]

This is what happens when Movie Bob talks about Halo or FPS games in general. Now Bob is an intelligent guy and he has proved it a lot of times, however when he talks about the two subjects mentioned in the last sentence you can see a mix of bias and a bunch of wrong facts or misunderstandings(not to say ignorance). I am going to watch this with interest, as I do MovieBoB and TGO, however Bob, please stay away from FPS games, please? They aren't your strong point.

If it's any comfort, he posted a video on GameOverthinker about how the FPS genre is destroying all that is good in the world.

Yes...I noticed...afterwards. I just hope that this kills the topic and he never speak of FPS games.

I would be curious to see him talk about other genres, but honestly - he is better sitting in his comfort zone, he wants to go in-depth about things he doesn't understand( or really care about) which makes him look pseudo-intellectual on those occasions that he does.

Bob, if you are reading this (and we know you are reading these forums), nothing personal, we love ya'.

 

[ChupathingyX]

Woohoo I'm not the only one who thought the humans in Halo were the boring bunch of guys ever created and thought the Covenent were the complete opposite. Seriously who likes listening to a bunch of thick headed, "badasses"(a word thrown around way too much nowadays) yelling out military jargon and suicide worthy one liners. Then you have the Covenent with the Elites and their deep spiritual beliefs and warrior code, the Grunts and their general comedy, the Brutes and their pack behaviour and animalistic strength determined pecking order. Way more interesting than the humans and their brown and black uniforms, guns, ships and personlities.

 

[0megaZer0]

that... was fucking retarded Bob. I'm disappointed in you.

We have this epic, complex (ok, maybe not THAT complex...) storyline about intergalactic war, a hierarchy of religious nutjobs crusading across the universe, enslaving entire planets and causing mass destruction and mayhem as they go, our race set to be next on the list, and, in all probability the last hope of stopping these maniacs from total universal conquest---and all you can see with your bob-squint-o-vision is "eww, "BAD" aliens are diverse, and the "good" people in the military all look the same... THE CREATORS MUST BE RACIST CONFORMIST PRICKS!!"

*sigh* I keep wanting to think that you're better than this, but you keep proving me wrong...

 

[silverdragon9]

EU doesn't matter.
Reach should have made that clear when it contradicted its own source material.

nope turns out they didn't
http://www.bungie.net/projects/reach/article.aspx?ucc=personnel&cid=24040

 

[Turbo_Destructor]

I like MovieBob and everything - he does great movie reviews. But I thought most of what he said the Covenant and Halo, while only his opinion, was kind of nonsense.

While yes the characters were fairly stereotyped, that obviously wasn't the salient point of the video. And While, yes maybe society does still view variety with a subconsciously negative feeling, I do not think this applies to Halo at all. The Covenant are a 'variety' because it makes them more interesting on 2 levels. One is the mythos, they are more interesting to learn about, from the noble elites to the worm-like Lekgolo (Hunters).

The other level is gameplay: having a variety of enemies makes the game a lot more interesting for the player. Who the hell would prefer a game where there were ONLY elites, or ONLY jackals. Sure it might be amusing for a while, but the lack of variety would make the game get boring fairly quickly. The varied enemies force the player to adopt different strategies for each species (e.g. precision weapons for grunts, anti-shield weaponry for elites etc.), and when several come at you at once, it keeps you on your toes (at least on the higher difficulty settings).

And I suppose you could add another level in that they're more interesting to look at (before they start shooting at you).

Having said all of that, that bit where the Spartan's eyes turn blue was definitely an ill-advised little symbol. Like, what were they thinking?

 

[clockout]

Well at least he did a great job at getting peoples panties in a bunch.

 

[shadowyoasis]

The soldier is also a clean shaven "skin head".
As opposed to the typical military crew cut or even the electric razor cut.

Yes and the borg and robocop had long flowing hair. Completely hairless is also a common trait in cyborgs. For that matter most cyborgs in C&C were also completely hairless, only kane(if you could consider him a cyborg) had a goatee.

*I decided to go watch a hi-def version of the "how to make a spartan video". He starts out with a crew cut going into the installation and is then shaved(something thats actually common for medical procedures is that they shave the area). Also he starts out with blue eyes, its hard to tell because he has dark grey-blue eyes. But its blue eyes. They just suddenly gain a glow which is also slightly purple-ish not blue.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Interesting video. Looking forward to seeing if anything good comes of this. I hardly ever agree with his movie reviews anymore but I've enjoyed The Game Overthinker and this appears to be quite similar to that so we shall see.

 

[Krion_Vark]

some food for thought

How about this as some food for thought. The people on Reach have no definitive race all they have is a common Language so that they can communicate with each other. Which in the case of Reach is Hungarian. If you pay attention to facial features the supposed Hispanic Jorge is not Hispanic. All he does is have darker skin that can be attributed to many different things. You say that they pushed the boundaries with this game? How about this was the only game that they could really push the boundaries. Reach was the first game that didn't star a single character. The other games stared a SPECIFIC person. Halo 1-3 Master Chief. ODST a Space Marine. Reach any type of person you wanted to make with a supporting cast of different people. In the end Reach is a straight story without any deviance from the story but unless you are alone you can pretty much be a pansy who sits back and does nothing or you can be the badass up front.

 

[Timbydude]

Bob, your shows are usually entertaining, but this was just too much of a blind leap. I sort of get the feeling that you wanted to start off with a bang by saying something to which you knew people would react.

I don't really think anyone looks at the Covenant while playing Halo and thinks, even subconsciously, that "they're bad because they're diverse".

The Covenant are diverse because it's not fun to shoot the same character model over and over again. Gamers demand a little more, and thus in pretty much every game, the enemies end up as a more diverse group than the players.

Look at any given RPG. Your party consists of maybe 3-4 people at a time, and there you are killing hordes of different creatures. Sure, they're not all united under one banner, but enemy diversity is just inherent to gaming as a whole.

Plus, the blue-eyes thing? That was just too much of a stretch, though you seemed to realize that as well.

Most of all, though, I'm just having trouble seeing how you look at the very diverse members of Noble Team and call them "faceless". They're cliched characters, sure, but I'm pretty sure each one has a different accent of some sort. They're as diverse as humans get, and arguably more diverse than the Covenant you're fighting.

 

[Keepitclean]

He sounds like my English teacher. Bob, I don't think Bungie thought about it this much.

 

[Tears of Blood]

Bob,

Gotta' tell ya', I love your movie reviews.

That said, I HATE it when you talk about games, because you're a huge Nintendo fanboy who thinks the Wii is dominating the market by a landslide, but also a retro gamer who tends to favor the older games of the previous generations, and tends to forsake the amazing games that are out this generation.

I'm not saying you're a bad guy, but your opinions on games seem to lack a certain amount of validity, and this latests episode on the Halo series kinda' cements that view I have. I know you weren't accusing Bungie of being some sort of terrible people who want to propagate the "master race," but you certainly made it seem that way, and you're looking way deeper into the game's themes and story than intended. I am not saying the games are shallow, just that you sound more like a "conspiracy theorist," rather than a "concerned citizen."

It would be like if I were to analyze the Mario games, and with the theme of eating plants and fungus with varying effects depending on what specific sort was intended to be a theme about drugs and the trips associated with them.

Oh yes, and this felt more to me like crazy sensationalism. Like I was watching an episode of Glenn Beck's show, rather than a real analysis of what was presented to us.