The Big Picture: Plothole Surfers

Dragon Zero

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For the Q&A:
-What is your favorite Wrestling match of all time? Of 2018, so far?
-What are your thoughts on Shin Godzilla/Godzilla Resurgence?
-How would you rank the Star Trek movies in order from worst to best?
 

thejboy88

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Looking back over all the past Big Picture episodes you made (or at least the ones you can recall), which would you say are the ones you're most or least happy with?
 

PsychedelicDiamond

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It's one of those things where I realize that I just don't really watch movies the way most people do because very rarely is the plot or its internal consistency the most important thing to me. I mean, I'm not gonna simply dismiss it either because that'd be a disservice to the effort that goes into writing a screenplay but my personal rule of thumb is: If I don't notice a plothole without having it pointed out to me, it doesn't matter. I'm sure someone could spin this into a "Psyche only watches movies for pretty visuals and feels, that fucking sissy" but to me film is an aesthetic medium first, an emotional medium second and a narrative medium only third. It's not that the narrative doesn't matter but a movie doesn't need a particularly well constructed one or, as a matter of fact, a narrative at all, to be good. But even in an explicitly narrative move: creativity, emotional resonance and thought provoking themes are more important to me than internal logic. There are hardly any movies I like for how much sense they make. Sure, I can appreciate I clever screenplay but if anyone pointed out to me just how consistent a story is and how it never contradicts itself my reaction to it would be hardly more than "Oh, neat.", it wouldn't make me appreciate the movie all that much more.

My favourite novel and what may or may not be the most significant literary work of of the 20th century (yes, that's a hill I'm willing to die on) is Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon representing the artistic movement referred to as "postmodernism" that gets anally retentive old men so angry. It's a fantastic book and one of the most intelligent, most creative, most emotionally resonant and most socially aware stories ever told, a masterpiece of prose, storytelling and sholarship and... look, it's a great novel, you dig? Anyway, if you actually reading it and expecting to follow how it got from one situation to the other, being able to make out why specific characters were at specific places at a specific time or expecting a clear beginning, middle and end in the conventional sense it wont make you very happy, I imagine. Now, clearly, your typical Star Wars movie or comic book adaptation is no Gravity's Rainbow and I'm not claiming they are but if you go over them with a fine tooth comb trying to find inconsistencies instead of actually paying attention to the craftsmanship, the emotions they invoke, the visuals they present and the actual stories they tell, honestly, you're watching movies wrong.
 

Falseprophet

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Blachman201 said:
The Last Jedi is a rather bad film for other reasons though, and it is not about "plot holes". It has more to do with Rian Johnson's approach to "subverting expectations". I have seen quite a few outlets praise the film for "subverting expectations", but this is not a good thing in and off itself, and to claim so is really just an empty appeal to novelty.
The Last Jedi is a rather good film because it "subverts expectations" the same way the franchise as a whole has done from the beginning. The damsel in distress is actually a take-charge military leader? The way to take out the massive technological terror isn't with technology but commitment to a higher spiritual purpose? The annoying green gnome is actually a legendary spiritual master? The hated villain is actually your long-lost father? Boba Fett is actually lame? Savage teddy-bears can have the courage and ferocity of Wookies? Victory over evil isn't through superior strength or mastery, but by showing mercy and compassion for those who least deserve it? The princess was your sister all along? The Old Republic wasn't actually that great? The Jedi weren't actually that great? Sure, a lot of this stuff feels old hat now, but that's because Star Wars invented it/introduced it to a mainstream audience.
 

darkrage6

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And now my questions to Moviebob for the Big Picture Q&A-What in your opinion is the single WORST movie you have ever seen in your entire life?

What do you think is the most overrated movie of all time?

What do you think is the most underrated film ever?
 

darkrage6

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thejboy88 said:
Looking back over all the past Big Picture episodes you made (or at least the ones you can recall), which would you say are the ones you're most or least happy with?
I'd imagine he's probably not fond of the Magneto was Right episode.
 

darkrage6

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Ukomba said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Patrick's video became viral because of Mauler's 5 hour long stream criticising it:


Honestly to me this is gonna soon create precendent where everyone are gonna now criticize youtube critic's videos when it comes to movies and tv. Making video responses to other videos.
Soon? Do you not remember the days of youtube where the response video's use to be listed directly below the video being responded to? Youtube use to promote that exact thing to fuel debate.

Mauler, Rags, and Wolf do a great job here though. Mauler in particular absolutely destroys The Last Jedi in his review really breaks these things down. His deconstruction of the whole "Theme" argument really puts Bob's shallow defense of it to shame.
Nah, Mauler sucks major ass. Rags and Wolf are both bigoted pieces of shit not worth listening to.
 

Orekoya

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A lot of truth in this video. And for some reason Cinema Sins has rampant misogyny when it comes to writing their sins, with an almost active hatred of Scarlett Johansson in particular. Edit: Also remembered watching a video last year specifically about why Cinema Sins is bad in many different ways so gonna include this link for those that might wonder why people that series is trash.

 

franksands

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I have to wholeheartedly agree with "plot holes" obcession. I started watching Cinema Sins because it had some fun things about Back To The Future and complaining about Man of Steel and I was sucked in. But after some time, they started doing "problems" with cartoons, which felt wrong to me. Do cartoons need to be realistic? and I started watching Cinema Wins and thought, you know what? It's much better focusing on what a movie did right than the "problems" with the movie. So I unsubscribed from Sins and my movie going experience only improved. Also, Cinema Wins is a great channel and deserve your attention.
 

darkrage6

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Blachman201 said:
The Last Jedi is a rather bad film for other reasons though, and it is not about "plot holes". It has more to do with Rian Johnson's approach to "subverting expectations". I have seen quite a few outlets praise the film for "subverting expectations", but this is not a good thing in and off itself, and to claim so is really just an empty appeal to novelty.

"Subverting expectations" essentially means nothing if you don't try to doing something emotionally meaningful with the act of "subversion" itself. Rian Johnson's approach to "subverting expectations" seems for all intents and purposes to be "You expected me to bring you a bottle of beer, but I gave you a beer bottle filled with phosphor! Sure fooled you!"
I enjoyed the movie, but yeah people like Angry Joe do have a point with at least some criticisms of the film. I remember back when people were praising Feast for "subverting expectations", I guessed every single twist that would happen in that film and was unimpressed to say the least.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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When you get down to it, storytelling is not a logic puzzle (though there are stories that . There is A KIND of logic to storytelling and it mostly has to do with consistency, themes, characterization, etc. There are some stories where certain mechanisms are done (like the films of Christopher Nolan or Agatha Christie's novels) but for the most part they're not a Rube Goldberg machine.

Another problem with this nitpicking about "plot holes" is that it also damages actual criticism. It's one of the reasons hacks like David Cage keep getting away with melodramatic, histrionic bullshit because they can pull the "You're so heartless and cruel!" card when they're called out on terrible storytelling and nonsensical plots.
 

darkrage6

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Aiddon said:
When you get down to it, storytelling is not a logic puzzle (though there are stories that . There is A KIND of logic to storytelling and it mostly has to do with consistency, themes, characterization, etc. There are some stories where certain mechanisms are done (like the films of Christopher Nolan or Agatha Christie's novels) but for the most part they're not a Rube Goldberg machine.

Another problem with this nitpicking about "plot holes" is that it also damages actual criticism. It's one of the reasons hacks like David Cage keep getting away with melodramatic, histrionic bullshit because they can pull the "You're so heartless and cruel!" card when they're called out on terrible storytelling and nonsensical plots.
Personally I don't think Cage is a "hack" at all, I think he's a damn good writer, Laura Kate Dale did an excellent review on Detroit:http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2018/05/24/detroit-become-human-succeeds-by-focusing-on-small-timely-stories

I actually think most of what Bob said can apply to the people whining about Cage's writing having "plot holes", for me I was too absorbed into the storyline of his games to give two shits about plot holes.

Speaking of Nolan, I didn't like how the Dark Knight started the trend of "villain gets captured on purpose as part of an incredibly convoluted scheme that makes no sense". I rolled my eyes when Skyfall pulled that crap too.
 

Darth_Payn

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There's also the REALLY wrong way to criticize a movie: tell the actors and director to kill themselves and threaten death upon their families. There's Twitter harassment of actors who just so happen to be women and not-white, under the guise of criticizing their movies. In comment sections of review articles and YouTube comments (no surprise there), I've read calls for Zack Snyder's head just for what he did with Batman v. Superman. Maybe that's what drove his daughter to commit suicide. That should be the signal that this kind of behavior should not be tolerated anymore.

As for the Q&A:
Are you going to do a guest spot on The Nostalgia Critic's show?
What episode of the Simpsons do you think truly is the WORST one EVER?
 

Bedinsis

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I agree with the overall point of this video. I will say though that if someone did not connect with the movie in question emotionally then their thoughts started to wander off which makes them more likely to notice holes in the logic of the story. In other words, people noticing plot holes can be the symptom of the greater problem that the movie failed in connecting emotionally.
 

Cherukuri Praharsha

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question:1)the next trend in going to be india-:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rgqc-9MPIY&t=2s
so why not cover more indian content in your because we make 2000 movies a year and can you do review of ''2.0'' when it comes out because it is the most expansive film in india
2) do a review of ammoru it has english subtitles-:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXae6jK3Bfo
because it is unique horror genre excucive to india
 
Mar 9, 2012
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Falseprophet said:
But, yeah as I said:

"Subverting expectations" essentially means nothing if you don't try to doing something emotionally meaningful with the act of "subversion" itself.
And this is important because these:

The damsel in distress is actually a take-charge military leader? The way to take out the massive technological terror isn't with technology but commitment to a higher spiritual purpose? The annoying green gnome is actually a legendary spiritual master? The hated villain is actually your long-lost father? Boba Fett is actually lame? [...] Victory over evil isn't through superior strength or mastery, but by showing mercy and compassion for those who least deserve it? The princess was your sister all along?
...are actually pretty good examples of what I'm talking about (I somewhat disagree on other examples (they are good concepts in and off themselves, but I think they were executed poorly) but that is a whole other discussion). They are emotionally meaningful "subversions". I think our main disagreement here might actually be on whether or not TLJ has anything resembling them.

EDIT: And for the record, I think that Knights of the Old Republic II had already done all the most interesting things TLJ tried to do, and it also did it so much better that it isn't even funny.
 

daibakuha

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darkrage6 said:
I enjoyed the movie, but yeah people like Angry Joe do have a point with at least some criticisms of the film. I remember back when people were praising Feast for "subverting expectations", I guessed every single twist that would happen in that film and was unimpressed to say the least.
People like AngryJoe would like the movie a lot more if they paid any attention when actually watching it. One of the points in the Patrick (h) Willems video is that people often don't pay close enough attention to things and then complain when they don't make any sense. That's about 90% of the problems people have with The Last Jedi.

I think AngryJoe is an excellent person, but his criticism is super shallow and bad, like he has no background in film crit and it shows.
 

Devieus

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Cinema sins doesn't really deserve the hatred just because you think it's serious. The more lighthearted one looks at it, the more lighthearted it becomes and it only becomes valid criticism if one accepts it as such.

Just because a movie has holes doesn't make it any less enjoyable, but then that's the point here. However it's also a thing to keep in mind when watching entertainers riff on a movie because it gets the views.
 

daibakuha

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Devieus said:
Cinema sins doesn't really deserve the hatred just because you think it's serious. The more lighthearted one looks at it, the more lighthearted it becomes and it only becomes valid criticism if one accepts it as such.

Just because a movie has holes doesn't make it any less enjoyable, but then that's the point here. However it's also a thing to keep in mind when watching entertainers riff on a movie because it gets the views.
The problem is that the guy who makes CinemaSins views it as legit criticism and he is serious. There are multiple videos on this.