The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[i7omahawki]

If you truly believed in what you were saying 'variety of enemies + similarity with allies = wrong/fascist/hitler' then why not bring up Mario (a game you purport to love) up to the same critique?

Mostly because that actually wasn't the point.

As for applying this to the Mario franchise... I'm not sure what the point of that is supposed to be, but okay:

2 Italian-Americans, 2 human-looking Princesses of indeterminate nationality, a race of upright-walking humanoid mushrooms (and later humanoid beans) an island's worth of sentient Dinosaurs, whatever the Piantas are supposed to be, living stars, living clouds, a variety of talking animals, plants and fish plus a spacefaring metaphysical woman in a comet and "good" versions of almost every creature-type usually seen fighting for the other side versus... an even more varied enemy army. That seems pretty well-balanced, to me.

I apologize for double-quoting, if thats actually a thing, but I felt I had something to add that was lacking in my previous posts, namely that I respect your opinion, and your outlook on movies and games.

Not saying that because I think your ego is brittle enough to be damaged by the hate you've recieved for this particular installment of your new venture, but that it was something that was missing from my response to it. Sure, I think this particular piece doesn't deserve much credit, but your other reviews (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Toy Story 3, even your review of the worthless Twilight New Moon was worthwhile) makes you respectable, and thus I should treat work you have done that I don't agree with, with a little more respect.

I look forward to your next 'Big Picture', even if I disagree entirely with this one.

 

[Mantonio]

Well, that was horrible and pretentious.

I'm not exactly a Halo lover myself, but for the love of god Bob, you're reading FAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR too much into this. There's no ingrained 'omg multi culture bad / single culture good' thing going on. You said it yourself, the Spartans are meant to be reminiscent of the Spartans, and the Covenant are supposed to be the same for the Persians. THAT'S ALL.

Stop being such a pseudo-intellectual, you just end up making yourself look stupid.

 

[Logic 0]

It's official the over thinker has spilled over into the escapist ... and it's amazing.

 

[tobiasbrackner]

Dude, I love your very insightful movie reviews. However, I cannot help but think that you are approaching Halo from a movie critic and not a videogame critic. The primary reason that the Covenant are such a diverse race is (as many others before me have pointed out) to provide clear and interesting targets for the player to shoot at. Now while you do make valid arguments about the concept of multi-culture vs master race, those really only show up if you look at the game from the outside. Inside the game Bungie makes even the Spartans a diverse group with members from various ethnicities and Halo 2 ends with the Elites joining the humans bringing along their Hunter buddies.

Now, say for example the Covenant appeared friendly at first. Appeared to join with and aide the humans, infiltrating all strata of human society and slowly usurping control, then suddenly oppressing humans more and more until they had no other choice than violent revolution, killing these aliens and any sympathizers, also going to their homeworld and completely eradicating all of the species from the universe to make it safe for humanity. THEN I would find a much stronger argument towards it having a Nazism subtext.

However, that is not the story of Halo. In Halo, humanity gets blindsided by a hyper-advanced alien army that completely outclasses the entire human military save for the Spartans. Now while the Spartans may have some "master race" qualities about them, you must also realize that they were taken from all around the world to become these super human killing machines, and even then they got taken to the curb by the Covenant. Really, if there is anything to be disappointed about for the sake of diversity in the Halo franchise, it is that the story is really told from an American perspective. i.e. all of the majority of the soldiers you see in game appear to have American accents and even the lack of ethnic diversity among the military's brass. Then again, that can be chalked up to the fact that the game is made in the good ol' USA and it may not be easy to get voice actors in foreign languages and make them not sound like stereotypes (offset pretty well in Reach by the Spartan from, what, Bosnia?)

Also, that was kind of a low blow at the characterization in Reach. I mean, yes when you break them down the characters fall into standard tropes. At the same time, I am sure that you know how hard it is to make a character who is not some trope or another. I felt that they handled their implemented character tropes rather well and at the very least much better than other games. At the same time, my character development experience is from my Senior year of highschool English (which in all fairness my high school was a 4 year college prep course).

 

[Kurokami]

I love reading too much into things.

Also...Movie Bob is the one to get a second show? No offence ment but...Movie Bob?! Da fuck?

Can't wait for that Hit with an Axe spin off...

This show probably takes very little time and effort to make since its basically him ranting on about stuff, which would be a dream job for most of us, I'm sure.

That wasn't meant to be criticism or some kind of insult to Bob btw, just saying it takes nothing to prepare.

 

[TurboPanda]

so let me get this straight

When the covenant found humans they branded them as heretics and used this as a justification for launching a genocidal campaign against a relatively helpless species.

and the Spartans are the Nazis?

 

[arch4non]

I believe MovieBob has confused multicolored with multicultural. Just because the Covenant is made of different races doesn't mean it's the multicultural rainbow he makes it out to be. Instead, it's a theocracy where one dominant race rules all the others.

 

[Deadman Walkin]

Even though you probably won't read this due to 26 pages of other comments, why did you choose Halo Reach? I didn't play ODST, but Halo 2 was probably the best of the series, and Halo 3 wasn't the best but the multiplayer was a blast. Halo Reach was a big meh. Predictable plot, fairly thin characters and some more crap.

 

[PhiMed]

Yeah... normally I like MovieBob's stuff, I enjoy his columns, but I think this was stretching for symbolism that wasn't there. I mean, the Covenant design and backstory could have been as simple as "this is an inversion of the normal roles in aliens vs humans stories, which usually have disparate humans band against one homogeneous alien force."

His analysis can be interesting, but this felt more like simply prodding the Halo community for a reaction, and reaching for connections that are not in evidence. MovieBob is better than that. Here's hoping the next video improves.

You hit the nail on the head. He's trolling Halo fans. He's not better than that, and never has been. He has always taken a lot of pleasure in trolling the fanbases of franchises he dislikes.

Whether those franchises are Halo, Twilight, or Christianity, he pokes and prods while laughing maniacally. The popularity of the franchise and the seriousness of the fanbase are both directly proportional to the maliciousness of his tweaking. He is a part-time critic, but a full-time troll. Don't ever assume he's better than that, and you'll never be disappointed.

Okay. Though to be fair, I find his movie analysis -- when he's not talking about a franchise -- tends to be quite well-informed. The problems start when he gets away from talking about movies, which is one reason why these videos concern me a bit. I'm not really a fan of the franchises he generally goes after, so his trolling doesn't register with me, though I can see how it would be annoying.

The other issue is that film makers and reviewers on this site have to try and compete with Yahtzee, who's got a strong persona going on already. They need their own shtick, and in some cases they're still finding it.

Regardless, MovieBob was starting to sound like Glenn Beck for a minute there. That's something the Escapist, and the gaming community, REALLY doesn't need.

I didn't say he was bad at his part-time job. I just said it's a secondary goal. He's quite good when he decides to focus. He goes off on a lot of tangents, though.

It's the nature of criticism to be somewhat inflammatory, but I think he's taken that aspect of critique a bit too much to heart. Rather than being a side effect of honest opinion, I think he actively seeks to inflame more often than he should. It all reeks of desperate cries for attention, kind of like the female archetype for which he so often proclaims his affection: The "aggressively alternative" girl.

 

[Signa]

Carter's eyes turn blue to indicate that the surgery worked. It's not that they turned blue, MovieBob, it's that they turned so vibrantly blue. You can't show eyes turning vibrantly brown. Considering that those are the only two common eye colors, they were kinda limited by human biology. If his eyes had turned, say, bright red, it would look like he had been turned evil or something. Blue is the perfect middle ground between showing the surgery success and making him a superhuman freak.

Playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't they have turned them vibrantly green? You know, the color everyone associates with Halo and Master Chief?

I've not played much of Halo, but I didn't think eye color was a topic that had been canonized in the games. They could totally have done it and MovieBob wouldn't have had the ammo he did.

 

[The Long Road]

Carter's eyes turn blue to indicate that the surgery worked. It's not that they turned blue, MovieBob, it's that they turned so vibrantly blue. You can't show eyes turning vibrantly brown. Considering that those are the only two common eye colors, they were kinda limited by human biology. If his eyes had turned, say, bright red, it would look like he had been turned evil or something. Blue is the perfect middle ground between showing the surgery success and making him a superhuman freak.

Playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't they have turned them vibrantly green? You know, the color everyone associates with Halo and Master Chief?

I've not played much of Halo, but I didn't think eye color was a topic that had been canonized in the games. They could totally have done it and MovieBob wouldn't have had the ammo he did.

They could have, but his eyes were blue to begin with. The shift to vibrant blue would be less jarring than a shift to vibrant green. Plus, just try to picture vibrant green eyes. They still look really weird. Blue is bright enough to be noticed, but still subtle enough to keep from being a big distraction.

 

[Signa]

Carter's eyes turn blue to indicate that the surgery worked. It's not that they turned blue, MovieBob, it's that they turned so vibrantly blue. You can't show eyes turning vibrantly brown. Considering that those are the only two common eye colors, they were kinda limited by human biology. If his eyes had turned, say, bright red, it would look like he had been turned evil or something. Blue is the perfect middle ground between showing the surgery success and making him a superhuman freak.

Playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't they have turned them vibrantly green? You know, the color everyone associates with Halo and Master Chief?

I've not played much of Halo, but I didn't think eye color was a topic that had been canonized in the games. They could totally have done it and MovieBob wouldn't have had the ammo he did.

They could have, but his eyes were blue to begin with. The shift to vibrant blue would be less jarring than a shift to vibrant green. Plus, just try to picture vibrant green eyes. They still look really weird. Blue is bright enough to be noticed, but still subtle enough to keep from being a big distraction.

Depends on how necessary they felt the subtlety was. Personally, I'm picturing the green eyes to be totally bad ass. I guess the fact that they changed the eyes at all meant that they wanted it to be noticed somehow, so subtlety wasn't crucial.

Once again playing devil's advocate here. I don't give two shits what Halo does. I was amused by the video how all these themes were coming together, and probably none of them were intentionally relevant at all. It actually caused me to gain a little respect for Halo because it makes it look far more thought out than I gave it credit for.

 

[370999]

I've never played Halo, never will. It did seem though to me that Moviebob was slightly talking out of his ass here. Why does everything have to be about a race war? Why can't it just be alot of different looking scary aliens are attacking mankind? In short i find it preachy and more based on MovieBob being biased then informative.

 

[Iscin]

I have to admit, I quite like Bob's new shot. As long as he doesn't hump Nintendo to the extent like he used to I'm happy with this .

 

[beema]

more movie bob is greaT!
i love this new show

 

[Unoriginal069]

Add one more reason for me to visit The Escapist.
Grats on the new diggs Bob!!

 

[NKnight]

Another Mobie Bob show. Life is good

 

[ckam]

Wow, that was a very nice introspection on the franchise.

 

[Laerid]

If you truly believed in what you were saying 'variety of enemies + similarity with allies = wrong/fascist/hitler' then why not bring up Mario (a game you purport to love) up to the same critique?

Mostly because that actually wasn't the point.

As for applying this to the Mario franchise... I'm not sure what the point of that is supposed to be, but okay:

2 Italian-Americans, 2 human-looking Princesses of indeterminate nationality, a race of upright-walking humanoid mushrooms (and later humanoid beans) an island's worth of sentient Dinosaurs, whatever the Piantas are supposed to be, living stars, living clouds, a variety of talking animals, plants and fish plus a spacefaring metaphysical woman in a comet and "good" versions of almost every creature-type usually seen fighting for the other side versus... an even more varied enemy army. That seems pretty well-balanced, to me.

I apologize for double-quoting, if thats actually a thing, but I felt I had something to add that was lacking in my previous posts, namely that I respect your opinion, and your outlook on movies and games.

Not saying that because I think your ego is brittle enough to be damaged by the hate you've recieved for this particular installment of your new venture, but that it was something that was missing from my response to it. Sure, I think this particular piece doesn't deserve much credit, but your other reviews (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Toy Story 3, even your review of the worthless Twilight New Moon was worthwhile) makes you respectable, and thus I should treat work you have done that I don't agree with, with a little more respect.

I look forward to your next 'Big Picture', even if I disagree entirely with this one.

That's all fine and dandy you politely disagree with the guy blabla... BUT(!), like MovieBob said, what the fudge was your point with the mario franchise??
Was it a poor attempt at a hurtful poke? Is it because Mario = Mussolini just because he's Italian? Or did you just throw a random videogame in there, your point being that you can basically over-analyse any game and make it into something it's not?

No seriously, I wanna know what you were thinking.

Oh, and give the guy some slack, it's not like he insulted your mother or something (I'm actually surprised he didn't make an explicit master race - master chief connection).

 

[i7omahawki]

That's all fine and dandy you politely disagree with the guy blabla... BUT(!), like MovieBob said, what the fudge was your point with the mario franchise??
Was it a poor attempt at a hurtful poke? Is it because Mario = Mussolini just because he's Italian? Or did you just throw a random videogame in there, your point being that you can basically over-analyse any game and make it into something it's not?

No seriously, I wanna know what you were thinking.

Oh, and give the guy some slack, it's not like he insulted your mother or something (I'm actually surprised he didn't make an explicit master race - master chief connection).

I suppose the point was: Would MovieBob bring Mario up to the same critique? In other words: Would he notice this sort of issue in a game he liked? If he had pointed out a similar trend in another game - which he liked - it would have empowered his argument. As it stands it looks like someone who doesn't like a game, and can't give any interesting reasons as to why not, made up some controversy accompanied with a crude psychological portrait of the typical Halo player.

I think the case could made that Mario's Mushroom kingdom is a monoculture, lots of diverse races etc. but one ruler, and a stomp on the head to all dissenters. Just because that case could be made, doesn't mean it isn't ridiculous, however, I think that Bob's case against Halo is equally absurd, and grounded in nothingness.

As for the master race - master chief connection, what connection? Both have the word master in, that's all I can see. The Spartans are not a certain race, they are just strong individuals who were put through harsh and immoral experiments.