The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[The_awesome_one]

damnit, why is it every time halo crops up on this site it makes me feel ashamed of playing it?

anyway not the point, Bob makes a good point.

No, he dosen't. He's lack of knwoledge and random accusasions wich have as base he's own ignorance of the Halo universe are poop. He makes 0 points, only thing it does is piss off people like me. That think that he's just tooo silly when talking games...

 

[Reav]

Now what I saw there was the exact opposite to the BIG PICTURE term. More like THE SMALLEST PICK from a not so deep game to talk about racism some more. Because game developers are c bit subconciously racist, like no other people are. and yes!

I think it's quite the opposite, we don't notice because we have gotten to a point where the majority are not fearful of difference in race and culture

and saying that the race u play against in a game is evil because u play against it is realy mature. do allied forces become evil if i play for the axis in Memoir'44?

although it all could be a troll. nicely done in that case.

anyways i'm done with your shows, that was too lame.

 

[obliterate]

Great show!!! Really like it...Hope there is plenty more where that came from

 

[Sewer Rat]

Oh gee, another outlet for movie bob to spread his smug words of 'wisdom'. So Halo is like Starship troopers... What a novel concept! I never heard that before! What earth breaking revelation shall you reveal next? That the secret to a long and happy life is breathing? [/sarcasm]
To be honest though, I used to like movie bob, but lately he has seemed to be incredibly full of himself. This video just confirmed my fears. Sorry Movie Bob, but this is the last you'll be seeing of me.

 

[MB202]

I showed my friend this, my friend who plays Halo, and he said he didn't recall anything about blue eyes... in the novelization.

He said that while the games stories aren't that good, he thought the first game's story was alright, and the novelization was kick-ass.

So, maybe you ought to check it out? To see if there really is anything redeemable about Halo?

 

[Galad]

Leaving aside the whole "surprise nazi undertones in Halo" thing, it's harder to be aware and get used to racial and etc diversity, because 1. Diversity is usually the exception, rather than the norm. and 2. People are afraid of what's slightly different, slightly off (see one of the last Extra Credits videos). Sure, not everyone's afraid or subconsciously despises every other race or religion or whatever..but there IS a combination or a few that work on everyone's nerves for no solid reason whatsoever.

Just my 2 eurocents on it.

 

[ecoho]

Combat Evolved?

This week MovieBob rants about Halo.

Watch Video

im quoteing you to try and explain why all the guys in halo look the same for the humans. Its a millitary thing uniforms are for intimenation. Lets say you were faceing a group of solders that were wareing all different uniforms and all looked different would that inspire fear in you?

Now same situation only all the solders looked like each other and by that i mean helments that obsere what they look like so as far as you know its the same guy you just shot trying to kill you. Lot more scary huh.

(sorry for the misspells my dam spellcheck doesnt want to work for me right now)

 

[Draconalis]

Man... I DID love the Starship Troopers novel...

That's what we're talking about here... right?

To be fair though... that "Man verse Monsters" bit on the Starship Troopers picture... the war was like a backdrop to the rest of the story... hell, you didn't even see the Bugs for more than two or three Chapters...

Specifically the arbiter's plot from Halo 2 I found a lot more interesting than any of the rest of the games (although the level design could have been better in places) you have a disgraced general who goes on a suicide mission to regain his honor. On that mission he finds out that his leaders are blind fouls who's plan will result in their own destruction and he has to team up with his former enemies (the ones who disgraced him) in order to save his people. That is an interesting plot, I want more of that and less of "get from point A to point B and kill everything in your way."

Same... That's why Halo 2 was the only halo game I actually enjoyed till Reach came out. (Halo 3 spat on everything 2 built up...) I picked up Reach for 4 player co-op, but was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed the story so well.

 

[Redemption003]

I guess this just goes to show that you can take a ridiculous, narrow-minded and idiotic concept, dress it up in an intelligent manner and convince hordes of people that you're a genius. Before I go more into this I'll just point out that I'm not some raving Halo fan-boy or anything (never owned either Xbox for starters, I have played 1,2,3 and Reach thanks to friends though and they aren't spectacular, but they aren't as bad as most of the internet community would have you believe).

Now that I've covered my back from anti fan-boy rage I'll continue. It actually annoys me that MovieBob's videos are so popular. He comes across as an elitist douche a little too far up his own ass for his own good and then people take his word as gospel a lot of the time.

Keeping with the context of the video, no matter how much you say "it may not have been intentional" it won't make your point any more valid. The Covenant brainwash entire species into carrying out a sequence of events that will bring about the destruction of all sentient life. Seems like a good enough reason for humanity to want to fight them off, does it not (well that and the whole randomly being attacked by the Covenant first thing)? It has nothing to do with some racist undertones that the humans may have (hell, they even tried to make the "faceless" Spartans more diverse with Reach for crying out loud). Maybe over-thinking without having a full understanding of the story isn't such a good idea after all, something you might want to take into account with every other video you make.

TLR? MovieBob is an elitist tool and that's the Big Picture.

 

[Draconalis]

To be fair, from what little I really understand of the Halo story. Despite all these races that form the Covenant, it is the humans that are placed on a pedestal by being the race which everything was created for.

We place ourselves as higher than everything around us by being the descendants of the forerunners. What is the point of such a plot twist? Why make ourselves as special when all these other races are not?

 

[jdennison101]

I really like the new show. More moviebob is okay with me.

 

[rascoll]

O.k. Why is this show Not Featured As the Other Shows are? This should be front page news!

 

[De Ronneman]

Chipman for president!

Finally this guy gets what he deserves! More time! To The Movies is one of the oldest shows around, and one of the best, but the amount of comments and advertisement is not a lot. This new show got at least 5 people on probation and 24 pages of comments allready! What's up with that? Is it because of Halo? Let's see if it sticks, I hope it will. He'l give Yahtzee a run for his money!

Now they gave him a show to rant about ANYTHING he wants? God, that's so awesome! All the sidetracks he gets on during to the movies now get a platform? Seriously? Why did that take so long to create? It's solid awesome with golden lining!

I hope the CIA won't think I'm stalking or anything, so don't tighten security yet Bob, but I'm a big fan!

 

[Sephiroth_deus]

I don't know if anyone has already made the points I'm about to say(given that I'm not going to read 24 pages of comments), but there are several fundamental flaws in MovieBobs perception of Halo. The first is his repeated usage of the word Fascism. It's a word largely in reference to a governmental structure. In a broader sense it can be used to identify any organization that is highly authoritarian, hierarchical, antidemocratic, and nationalistic. In the Halo Universe we don't see the Human government. The only indication of what the government is like in Halo is in the name of the military: UNSC or United Nations Space Command. Assuming it's anything like the real world UN we can safely assume it's not fascist.

What do we see in the Halo universe that fits this description then? The military. The thing is all military's fit this description out of necessity. The military's only function is to enforce the will of a government by force and all of these characteristics are necessary for it to do this function efficiently. ESPECIALLY in a time of war and ESPECIALLY facing an existential threat. Applying this standard to both sides would reveal that both were fascist. And since we know that the Covenant government is theocratic we know it is almost by definition Fascist as well. So who's more Fascist: Humans or Covenant? I think we can safely say Covenant.

Now for the diversity charge. No doubt the Covenant are diverse given all the different SPECIES that make up this interstellar nation. But what about Humanity? Where's the diversity there? Well in gender and ethnicity. These are the two traditional ways video games show diversity(I agree with Extra Credits points about needing more). How do the humans measure up in these two standards? Are there women? Yes. Are there ethnicity's other than white? Yes. How do the Covenant measure up to these two standards? Women? Unknown. We don't know how to differentiate gender for any of the different species shown. Ethnicity? Unknown. Again we don't know how to differentiate ethnicity for any of the different species shown. Could we assume that the Covenant military is made up of only males from one ethnicity for each species effectively making them a monoculture? Yes. Would we be right? No. Could we assume the opposite? Yes. Would we be right? No. There simply isn't enough information. (However I would like to note that traditionally in Sci-fi species other than human tend to be monocultures given the incredible difficulty of depicting multiple, diverse species.)

Further we do know all the Covenant species have one thing in common. Their religion. So let me get this straight. The humans are not diverse because there are no other species in their military. Even though there are depictions of other ethnicity's and gender beyond white male. And the Covenant are diverse because they have multiple species but unidentifiable gender and ethnicity's. So Halo's diversity sin is that the UNSC doesn't look exactly like Starfleet? That simply doesn't make sense.

In conclusion I think it's pretty clear Bob is wrong(at least in my opinion) about Halo. If I knew nothing about Halo and only briefly played any of the games I can see how one could come to the conclusions he did. Maybe I'm wrong though and I'm looking at Halo through rose colored glasses. If that's the case I'd enjoy further proof to be presented. Like I said I'm sure others have said these things, but I wanted to make sure it was said. For what it's worth I enjoyed the video and I'm excited to see more of them. He made me think and that's why I enjoyed it.

 

[HeySeansOnline]

While all he said was true, and was mor esubconcious than anything. What wa sneglected was the fact that (most likely) the Covenant army is varied as to provide interesting enemies to fight. Small grunts, fast jackals, tough hunters, hulking brutes, smart elites. That's what I always personally thought justified the whole mixed army thing.

Also the Spartan's are more weapons if anything. I felt ODST did a better job of this as they could have personalities. As much as I love the Spartan idea they still are no more than clone troopers.

 

[Pills_Here]

I'm glad they gave Movie Bob an interesting opportunity rather than just letting the dudes from ENN and LRR smash watermelons with sledgehammers or something lame like that.

I do remember thinking wen playing through Halo for the first time "wait, I'm basically destroying this whole armies holy land and NOTHING bad is supposed to happen from it?" but I never thought about the specific racial aspects before.

 

[0thello]

Interesting topic MB too bad it's going to waste on the folks here. After all, I've seen far too much apologetics, terrible attempts at apologetics. Halo has done a piss poor job at showing diversity in both "Gender" and "Ethnicity". Having Sergeant loud-black-dude-from-aliens, a few main females in SECONDARY positions (both in temrms of narrative and playability) and a few non-important grunts as well as side characters is not the weakest form of 'diversity' I've seen. Defend Halo's gameplay but don't make me laugh by attempting to defend its lack of diversity. REACH put slightly more effort into it but it pretty much submits to every stereotype it can in order to satisfy the consumers. I don't know who's worse, the creators for thinking lowly of their fans or the consumers who allow the creators to do so.

 

[sanguinator]

I never really thought Halo was supposed to be that complex, I always just thought that the extent of its complexity was shooty shooty bang. Oh, and teabaging -.-

its not SUPPOSED to be that complicated. more complicated than you think but less than movie bob thinks.

 

[Zakarath]

I'd like to point out that many of the people refuting MovieBob's claims are coming off as having much more well-reasoned points than the people on MB's side who are pretty much just calling the people who disagree with him as being Halo fanboys.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Great new show, very intelligent, I look forward to seeing more.
Oh, and I'd never realized how "racist" Halo is, I wonder if Bungie intended it to be that way...