The Big Picture: Plothole Surfers

Exley97_v1legacy

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YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I love everything about this (including the title, which made me laugh) and can't wait to watch the others videos on the subject.

I'll just throw in a quick rant about so-called "plot holes": The Hunt for Red October isn't "ruined" for me because I don't understand why the cook's assistant shot up the cabin *before* going to the missile bay to blow up the sub, when it would have been much easier to just go there quietly and connect the damn wires. I didn't notice it the first few times I watched it, and I don't really care about it now either. It's an insignificant flaw in an otherwise superbly-executed action thriller. And every single one of the movies we love has flaws and blemishes and errors and the vast majority of them don't need to be blown up into "OMG PLOT HOLES!" rants on YouTube or -- worse -- goddamn listicles and slideshows.

Signed, a dedicated Star Trek fan who loves the reboots and no I don't care what you say about Nero's "patience" or the Enterprise being under water or any other "holes" you can think of.
 

CyanCat47_v1legacy

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I don't get the hate for Cinemasins honestly, i never took them seriously as film critics and i never expected nayone else to because they have sins like "scene does not include a lapdance" and "doctor Kurt Cockings". It's kind of like being mad that Monthy Python's The Holy Grail isn't a faithful retelling of the legend of King Arthur. I mean, does it look like they are even trying to be? It's poking fun at cliches and oversights, it's not like all the hacks reviewing TLJ claiming to know everything about cinematography
 

Abomination

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I am sorry, but when your film has logical inconsistencies the narrative and themes go from "moving" to "contrived" very quickly.

I mean Jesus Tapdancing Christ, how long was Leia in space for? A minute? Twenty seconds? That ship is constantly accelerating, otherwise why bother with thrusters-- never mind. I realize it's all about space magic but at the same time there comes a point and Last Jedi went way past it.

Rose's "This is how we win" is supposed to be emotional? She did the exact same thing Finn was trying to do but she sacrificed just as much for a far smaller result. If the message is that the rebels win by making mistake after mistake and just getting lucky, or being willing to sacrifice thousands of themselves so only 12-17 of them can get away? Uh, you really sold that.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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darkrage6 said:
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.
No, Cage is a genuine hack both in game design and writing. I wasn't even getting into plot holes with Cage, more about his themes are dumb and he can't actually tell a story worth a damn. Like our own Yahtzee said in his review of Detroit, one of the twists he brings up is how the child the nanny bot runs away with also turns out to be a robot. That completely undermines and actual, interesting question of "can a robot mother truly love a human child." Why would you do that? It makes no sense.

And that's before you get into his uncomfortable writing, his treatment of women and minorities in his narratives, and his reliance on lazy cliches. And if we're going to do the "well, look at what this critic says!", I raise you Heather Alexandra, Kirk Hamilton, and Evan Narcisse:

https://kotaku.com/1826578490

https://kotaku.com/detroit-become-human-the-kotaku-review-1826277408

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-casual-inhumanity-of-how-detroit-become-human-uses-1826776147

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-opening-of-detroit-become-human-is-some-dumb-butt-1826270803

Yeah, I can play that game too, it's not hard. And the funny thing about Detroit's main theme: most of its fandom doesn't care, even admitting its political commentary is awful and just wants to ship characters:

https://kotaku.com/the-super-fans-of-detroit-become-human-hate-most-of-th-1828260985

Cage is not very good at his job.
 

darkrage6

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daibakuha said:
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.
That is why I prefer his game reviews over all his film stuff, his review of Ghostbusters was pretty weak.
 

darkrage6

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Aiddon said:
darkrage6 said:
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.
No, Cage is a genuine hack both in game design and writing. I wasn't even getting into plot holes with Cage, more about his themes are dumb and he can't actually tell a story worth a damn. Like our own Yahtzee said in his review of Detroit, one of the twists he brings up is how the child the nanny bot runs away with also turns out to be a robot. That completely undermines and actual, interesting question of "can a robot mother truly love a human child." Why would you do that? It makes no sense.

And that's before you get into his uncomfortable writing, his treatment of women and minorities in his narratives, and his reliance on lazy cliches. And if we're going to do the "well, look at what this critic says!", I raise you Heather Alexandra, Kirk Hamilton, and Evan Narcisse:

https://kotaku.com/1826578490

https://kotaku.com/detroit-become-human-the-kotaku-review-1826277408

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-casual-inhumanity-of-how-detroit-become-human-uses-1826776147

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-opening-of-detroit-become-human-is-some-dumb-butt-1826270803

Yeah, I can play that game too, it's not hard. And the funny thing about Detroit's main theme: most of its fandom doesn't care, even admitting its political commentary is awful and just wants to ship characters:

https://kotaku.com/the-super-fans-of-detroit-become-human-hate-most-of-th-1828260985

Cage is not very good at his job.
No he is not a "hack" at all just cause YOU personally claim he is, that right there is total bullshit. His writing did not come off as "uncomfortable" to me at all, I don't feel like he did too much lazy cliches. Personally I feel like all those articles you came up with are very piss poor examples of "yellow journalism". Gizmodo in particular is a website I fucking despise, TotalBiscuit did a great Soundcloud where he ripped them apart(God I wish TB was still around) so anything they post I personally cannot take remotely seriously(their article on the Punisher TV show was particularly awful)

I think Cage does game design quite well, maybe it's because i'm sick to death of "live services" crap, but it's refreshing to see a person like Cage is still committed to making single-player focused experiences and not succumbing to the bullshit the infects most AAA games these days(I.E. multiple special editions, day one DLC, pre-order bonuses, season passes, microtransactions and lootboxes, etc).

He can too tell a story "worth a damn" I found Heavy Rain in particular to be highly compelling(as TotalBiscuit said about that story, it's more impactful if you have kids yourself)

I like Yahtzee but I strongly disagree with him on Cage's games, and I feel like too many people fail to realize that Yahtzee often exaggerates things in his reviews for the sake of comedy, as too many people take it at face value(the PC Master thing is a perfect example, far too many people didn't realize he was mocking arrogant assholes who wouldn't stop bragging about their PCs and insulting console users when he coined that term, people took it literally and Yahtzee eventually mentioned that he regretted coming up with the term in the first place in his Kingdom Come Deliverance video because of how many assholes took it literally).

Cage is very damn good at his job considering how well his games sell.
 

darkrage6

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Exley97 said:
YEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I love everything about this (including the title, which made me laugh) and can't wait to watch the others videos on the subject.

I'll just throw in a quick rant about so-called "plot holes": The Hunt for Red October isn't "ruined" for me because I don't understand why the cook's assistant shot up the cabin *before* going to the missile bay to blow up the sub, when it would have been much easier to just go there quietly and connect the damn wires. I didn't notice it the first few times I watched it, and I don't really care about it now either. It's an insignificant flaw in an otherwise superbly-executed action thriller. And every single one of the movies we love has flaws and blemishes and errors and the vast majority of them don't need to be blown up into "OMG PLOT HOLES!" rants on YouTube or -- worse -- goddamn listicles and slideshows.

Signed, a dedicated Star Trek fan who loves the reboots and no I don't care what you say about Nero's "patience" or the Enterprise being under water or any other "holes" you can think of.
My mom grew up watching the original series when it first aired and she's also a big fan of the reboot series and she was utterly baffled when I told her about all the hatred some people have towards those films.
 

darkrage6

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webkilla said:
I will have to disagree with Bob on some of his points - but I'll agree to some of them too.

He complains that people want flowchart box-checking... but I don't think he quite realizes what kind of people want that. I'm thinking the people who want diversity checklists and whatnot. Equally, his point that theme and emotional investment in a movie is better - yes - but again, who exactly is it who's pushing for the other thing? I don't think its the people that Bob thinks it is.

He even uses the Beauty and Beast movie as example here... and I'm not quite certain what tropes and whatnot he's refering to, but the only drama I recall about the movie was the addition of a gay mini sub-plot in the movie. If this was done to satisfy anyone, then I would again question exactly who.

Also bob's redefinitions of what a plothole is - hasn't it always been a somewhat subjective issue, based on how much a consumer of a given media product has been paying attention to the plot, how genre savvy they are, and so on?

Equally, I think bob just straight up wrong when he puts forth the idea that people detailing plotholes are doing it as a cheap way of doing movie critique - I think you can do a youtube vid about plotholes without having to do movie critique, and conflating the two seems disingenuous.

And then Bob goes on to effectively claim - showing clips of star wars - that what you think is a plothole might not even be a plothole, because you might be "one of those people" who didn't like The Last Jedi. Come on Bob, that's low even for you. ...and you then go on complain about people who try to make their subjective opinion off to be actual fact? Dude, come on.


but then around the 3min mark Bob gets into something a little more interesting: he claims that "back in the days" of early geek culture, people were nicer and knew better than to debate each other into the ground. I think he's wearing some really rose tinted goggles there.

when he brings up the Titanic movie as example - again, he admits to as much that it was a really popular movie at the time (it was...) but I think his argument falls apart a bit here too. He's making it sound as if pointing out plotholes isn't allowed for the purposes of movie critique, or that it cheapens movie critique.


...and then he finally gets to Star Wars the last jedi. I get it bob, you liked it - and you're angry that other people don't like it - but for fuck's sake don't try to claim that it was some secret work of a genius.

Oh and "Zarbon of akkad" - Real subtle there Bob, its almost as if you're not coming off as a petty passive-aggressive child when you try to smear people like that. Hell, I'd probably be a lot more open to accepting your ideas if you didn't also use your platform here to smear to smear people.
You're coming off as the manchild here, anyone that honestly takes Sargon seriously needs to have their head examined, he has as much credibility as Alex Jones, he's a bigoted piece of shit who no sane person takes seriously.

Clearly you didn't watch Lindsay's video on Beauty and the Beast.

Anyone who complains about people wanting more "diversity" is someone who cannot be taken remotely seriously and is usually a closeted bigot.

Last Jedi isn't a secret work of genius, because most critics really liked it.

Sargon IS racist and stupid, anyone with half a brain can see that.
 

darkrage6

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Abomination said:
I am sorry, but when your film has logical inconsistencies the narrative and themes go from "moving" to "contrived" very quickly.

I mean Jesus Tapdancing Christ, how long was Leia in space for? A minute? Twenty seconds? That ship is constantly accelerating, otherwise why bother with thrusters-- never mind. I realize it's all about space magic but at the same time there comes a point and Last Jedi went way past it.

Rose's "This is how we win" is supposed to be emotional? She did the exact same thing Finn was trying to do but she sacrificed just as much for a far smaller result. If the message is that the rebels win by making mistake after mistake and just getting lucky, or being willing to sacrifice thousands of themselves so only 12-17 of them can get away? Uh, you really sold that.
Eh it worked fine for me.
 

RC1138

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I was thinking of the Hitchcock quote the whole time I saw this and Lindsey Ellis' videos; you don't need to watch movies for a 100% 'logical', no plot holes, no 'inconsistencies' in the most literal sense. They have that thing already, it's called watching/reading the news. Everything has to 'fit' in reality cause it actually happened, even if the story you're told is wrong, but there are no plot holes. Movies are supposed to be fun (and all that entails; sad-fun, scary-fun, ect)

Q/A Question:

You know more about the science of filmaking (theory) than say, the vast vast majority of people. So when you see a film about film-making (Scream comes to mind, which you've said way-back-when you hated more than any other movie) I assume you find yourself rolling your eyes at people who know a 1/10th of your background trying to claim knowledge of the film making process based on said film when it typically amounts to chapter/class titles rather than the actual premise and theory. So extending that logic to other fields, do you find that film critics can often be blinded by feigns towards fields of study that are not their own due to lack of depth of knowledge in said field.

Or, put simply, do you find that film critics can often be, 'blinded by the bullshit' of stuff they don't know? I ask because of more recent film and especially television fair that often makes motions towards scientific and mathematics literacy, and praised for that aspect, often times using it as a, "Well the rest of the show is mediocre but the science-y stuff is fascinating." As someone with a PhD in Chemical Engineering, I cannot tell you how shows are made worse by false claims to science, not because a 'plot hole' aspect, but because said claims are used to prop up what are typically shallow and pedantic plots, themes, and even worse characters.

Put another way: the Math jokes in (classic) Simpsons are infinity more indicative of scientifically literate writing staff adding actual nuance and layers to their already great characters/plots/themes than other recent fare that just happen to show examples of things that can be found in the table of contents of a Physical Chemistry text book.
 

Steve the Pocket

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webkilla said:
He even uses the Beauty and Beast movie as example here... and I'm not quite certain what tropes and whatnot he's refering to, but the only drama I recall about the movie was the addition of a gay mini sub-plot in the movie. If this was done to satisfy anyone, then I would again question exactly who.
I guess you didn't watch the movie or any of the critiques of it, or at least not the ones I've seen. You could definitely benefit from seeing the specific video Bob referenced, the one by Lindsay Ellis. But to sum it up, the writers of the movie seem to have laser-focused their efforts on "fixing" the "plot holes" and "historical inaccuracies" of the original (e.g. "Why did no one in the village know about the prince who used to live in the nearby castle?" "How is Chip still a child if the curse happened a decade ago?" "Why are people in old-timey times OK with a girl learning how to read?" etc.) even though no one of consequence was demanding it. Personally I suspect they did it because you're expected to change something when you remake a movie, and Beauty and the Beast is such a beloved, universally-lauded classic that this was the only excuse they could think of. It's not like Bob Iger personally said "Bad news, everyone! People are complaining about plot holes in one of our most famous movies! We gotta spend millions of dollars making a new version so they'll shut up!"
 

webkilla

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darkrage6 said:
You're coming off as the manchild here, anyone that honestly takes Sargon seriously needs to have their head examined, he has as much credibility as Alex Jones, he's a bigoted piece of shit who no sane person takes seriously.

Clearly you didn't watch Lindsay's video on Beauty and the Beast.

Anyone who complains about people wanting more "diversity" is someone who cannot be taken remotely seriously and is usually a closeted bigot.

Last Jedi isn't a secret work of genius, because most critics really liked it.

Sargon IS racist and stupid, anyone with half a brain can see that.
Didn't bob just say that trying to pass off your own subjective opinion as fact is a bad thing?

Anywho, I see that you have certain opinions about Sargon. Good for you. That doesn't mean you should call me names though - that's not very mature, is it? I'm not claiming to be a saint myself, but you're equating Sargon to Alex Jones? Really?

And I did watch Lindsays video - but I was commenting on Bob's remarks about the movie.

Critics might have liked TLJ - but it still only has a 46% audience score on rotten tomatoes, and I think that the paying costumers who fork over money to see the movie - as opposed to professional reviewers - should have a say in this.

But clearly, I am but a poor lost soul with half a brain by your logic - though my three university degrees does make that a little weird. Anywho, no I don't think Sargon is racist and you're completely off topic in bringing that up, but whatever you do you.
 

JimB

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For the Q&A:

Vaguely related to Lindsay Ellis's video about YouTube selling the authenticity of content creators, what factors into your decisions about how your curate your online persona? For example, you've at least implied in some episodes of Really That Good that you want to affect the general tone of movie criticism and consumption online in a more positive, thoughtful way; I assume you intend to do this by example?

EDIT: Also, did you bother counting how many people in the comments to your "people should stop trying to present subjective opinions as objective facts" argument responded by trying to present their subjective opinions as objective facts in order to "prove" you wrong?
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
From actions I would say Picard is the better captain but William Shatner was in MLP so I suppose I have to give it to Kirk.
 

darkrage6

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webkilla said:
darkrage6 said:
You're coming off as the manchild here, anyone that honestly takes Sargon seriously needs to have their head examined, he has as much credibility as Alex Jones, he's a bigoted piece of shit who no sane person takes seriously.

Clearly you didn't watch Lindsay's video on Beauty and the Beast.

Anyone who complains about people wanting more "diversity" is someone who cannot be taken remotely seriously and is usually a closeted bigot.

Last Jedi isn't a secret work of genius, because most critics really liked it.

Sargon IS racist and stupid, anyone with half a brain can see that.
Didn't bob just say that trying to pass off your own subjective opinion as fact is a bad thing?

Anywho, I see that you have certain opinions about Sargon. Good for you. That doesn't mean you should call me names though - that's not very mature, is it? I'm not claiming to be a saint myself, but you're equating Sargon to Alex Jones? Really?

And I did watch Lindsays video - but I was commenting on Bob's remarks about the movie.

Critics might have liked TLJ - but it still only has a 46% audience score on rotten tomatoes, and I think that the paying costumers who fork over money to see the movie - as opposed to professional reviewers - should have a say in this.

But clearly, I am but a poor lost soul with half a brain by your logic - though my three university degrees does make that a little weird. Anywho, no I don't think Sargon is racist and you're completely off topic in bringing that up, but whatever you do you.
You're clearly trying to pass your opinion off as fact, hypocrisy thy name is webkilla(oh boy is that an edgelord username if I ever saw one).

How do you know that the people who downvoted TLJ actually saw the damn thing? You don't, user scores are highly susceptible to downvoting campaigns, that's how come the Ghostbuster trailer got so many dislikes. So that userscore means fucking nothing.

Yes I am, Sargon engages in the same kind of bullshit conspiracy theory nonsense that Jones does, I don't think comparing the two is farfetched at all and i'm far from the only person to have done it(let me guess, you're one of those people who sends death and rape threats to people like Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian all the time right?)

Three degrees my ass, and even if that is true that still does not inherently make you smarter then someone who has not gone to college or who has less degrees, that's not how things work.

Trump has a degree too, but no sane person would argue that automatically means he's not a complete moron.

I'm not off topic at all saying that Sargon is racist, considering that was part of this video.
 

darkrage6

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RC1138 said:
I was thinking of the Hitchcock quote the whole time I saw this and Lindsey Ellis' videos; you don't need to watch movies for a 100% 'logical', no plot holes, no 'inconsistencies' in the most literal sense. They have that thing already, it's called watching/reading the news. Everything has to 'fit' in reality cause it actually happened, even if the story you're told is wrong, but there are no plot holes. Movies are supposed to be fun (and all that entails; sad-fun, scary-fun, ect)

Q/A Question:

You know more about the science of filmaking (theory) than say, the vast vast majority of people. So when you see a film about film-making (Scream comes to mind, which you've said way-back-when you hated more than any other movie) I assume you find yourself rolling your eyes at people who know a 1/10th of your background trying to claim knowledge of the film making process based on said film when it typically amounts to chapter/class titles rather than the actual premise and theory. So extending that logic to other fields, do you find that film critics can often be blinded by feigns towards fields of study that are not their own due to lack of depth of knowledge in said field.

Or, put simply, do you find that film critics can often be, 'blinded by the bullshit' of stuff they don't know? I ask because of more recent film and especially television fair that often makes motions towards scientific and mathematics literacy, and praised for that aspect, often times using it as a, "Well the rest of the show is mediocre but the science-y stuff is fascinating." As someone with a PhD in Chemical Engineering, I cannot tell you how shows are made worse by false claims to science, not because a 'plot hole' aspect, but because said claims are used to prop up what are typically shallow and pedantic plots, themes, and even worse characters.

Put another way: the Math jokes in (classic) Simpsons are infinity more indicative of scientifically literate writing staff adding actual nuance and layers to their already great characters/plots/themes than other recent fare that just happen to show examples of things that can be found in the table of contents of a Physical Chemistry text book.
I sure hope Bob has changed his mind on Scream, cause boy were his reasons for hating it unbelievably shallow and weaksauce.
 

Horadrius

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Q&A questions:

1) Was it hard to get back into ?Big Picture? mode after such a lengthy hiatus?

2) Where are the various faces from? Were they drawn from photos? Do you have a favorite?

3) Do you have a favorite Kaiju video game, and if so, is it Rampage?

Mine is Shadow of the Colossus

4) Do you remember your 2012 election video from the ?American Bob? series where you shouted out to the viewer about the importance of the SUPREME COURT? Because I do.

I?d also like to say your video explaining the Collector scene at the end of Thor 2 came in handy for Guardians 2 and Thor 3!
 

Exley97_v1legacy

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For the Q&A, here's a question:

Are there any reviews you've done where your opinion of the film has drastically changed (positively or negatively) as time has passed since your initial review?
 

CaitSeith

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Well, now I know why the other Escapist forums have been so quiet.

I never know what to ask in Q&A (and someone already ninja'd me the Big Picture's faces question). The only thing I can come up is:

"What's the weirdest question you ever answered in a Q&A?"

"What's the weirdest question you ever got answered in someone else's Q&A?"
 

CaitSeith

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darkrage6 said:
I was glad that the military were actually portrayed as competent in the Transformers films
I'm not surprised. The US military financed those movies.