Poll: What do you think of MovieBob/The Game Overthinker?

[Wolfenbarg]

I like a lot of his stuff. The way that he rattles on without pandering to the lowest common denominator reminds me of Extra Credits, though obviously a whole lot more subjective. I watch Escape to the Movies every week and have gone off of his recommendations of Scott Pilgrim and Black Swan, and they were both very good. I also enjoy The Big Picture too, though not nearly as much Escape. His opinions are interesting and some of them give insight into niches I wouldn't have bothered to explore.

I'm not sure about Game Overthinker. I like his breakdowns and insights, but he is such a blatant fanboy that it's hard to look past. At least Extra Credits retains a great deal of objectivity instead of bashing console titles they don't like without seeking out titles that they do. Whenever he mentions the Xbox 360 he mentions Halo, Gears of War, and Call of Duty and then makes it a point to call the people who play games on the 360 a bunch of douchebags that aren't demanding better games of the industry. Forget all of the multi-platform games, forget Mass Effect and Lost Odyssey, forget that we got Final Fantasy. Forget all of that, it's just a douchebag console that is in direct competition with Nintendo. It makes me very angry to see him generalize so badly when he's defending the console that the hardcore crowd (ergo his audience) has been the least endeared to this generation.

 

[Lilani]

As an animation student, I appreciate the way Bob looks at movies for both their artistic and entertainment values. Like The Last Airbender, for example. He gave the movie props for its gorgeous special effects and cinematography, but didn't fail to mention that even with all of that, it just wasn't that entertaining.

I feel like many critics get fixated on one thing and only critique the movie on a one-dimensional plane; or they take whatever complicated reasoning they used to critique the movie and boil it down to one, single overly-simplistic answer that just doesn't do it justice. Bob is able to speak to me as both an artist and a moviegoer. To me, that is pretty impressive.

 

[Littaly]

Overall, I like him. Enough to have his blogg bookmarked, but then again, I have a lot of things bookmarked.

That said, there are a couple of things I really wish he'd stop doing. Mostly I'd wish he'd be a little more... professional, for lack of a better word, with what he puts in his videos.

A lot of things out there have fans and fans, especially on the Internet, tent to be pretty touchy with things they like, there's not much you can do about it, that's just the way it is. Criticizing something, especially something that has a lot of fans, is going to make you a few enemies. But that's alright, I don't even want to think about what the world would look like if people held back criticism for fear of being disliked or hated.

But there is a significant difference between writing a negative review on say, the Star Trek reboot or Halo: Reach, or express skepticism towards the new Spider Man movie. It is another thing to take every opportunity you get to take a gratuitous stab at any of those when it is not appropriate.

MovieBob, unfortunately, has the very bad habit of doing just that. If you take every opportunity you get to express how bland of a character you think Master Chief is, when one time in the right context is enough, you can't really fault people for flaming you. It's also kind of irresponsible, you don't use your featured videos as a forum post, if you are aching to express your distaste for The Expendables or your undying love for Nintendo, either wait for the appropriate moment or take it somewhere else where it belongs.

But like I said, despite that I still like what he does. When he's not acting like a grumpy fanboy (which is far from always), he's a pretty interesting guy. He has enough pop culture knowledge to be interesting and he's a pretty good writer/talker to be entertaining.

 

[The Rascal King]

He's not afraid to share his opinions on matters, which garners him some respect in my book. Though we may disagree with some or most of what he says, I ask you that if you spilled all of your thoughts out to the world, wouldn't you think there would be people that would disagree?

All in all MovieBob is a jaded nerd that shares my love for this:

fuck yeah

 

[Crazy_Dude]

I usually agree with most of his movie reviews and understand his arguments. But he can get a bit obsessed with hot women. (Scarlett Johanson to name one of them) And he can rant on for ages about certain movies/franchises he dislikes. (The Expendables/Twilight)

 

[CK76]

To be honest was surprised to see the plug on Extra Credits (a show I love since YouTube days).

The one issue I have with Bob? Whenever I see "difficult discussion incoming" on the screen. I've never felt anything Bob has stated is thought provoking so it comes off as talking down to his audience or I'm the wrong audience. Overall I'm pretty indifferent to him.

 

[dragonburner]

I like some of his stuff, sometimes he makes good points. However, I find a few of his points are quite different from my point of view. I like what he is trying to do, but I disagree with some of his opinions.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Seriously, Metroid: Other M is the Twilight of the video game world, both in themes and quality. I'd go more into that utter abomination, but this wonderful review [http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html] puts it better than I ever could.

I had not seen that editorial on Metroid. Thank you. It pretty much sums up everything that I had to say about why the plot and Samus' characterization infuriated me. (I still bought the game as I had fun playing it as a rental and, other than the missile thing, I didn't have that many problems with the gameplay.)

 

[badgersprite]

I don't always agree with his opinions on a lot of things, but he's one of those guys where I just find him so interesting to listen to that I don't care about that. I always get where he's coming from. Besides, that doesn't seep into his movie reviews so much as it does The Big Picture. I like his kind of dry sense of humour too.

 

[Ensiferum]

While I don't always agree with Bob Chipman, I've always found his views to be exceptionally well-informed and enlightening. He's a great critic and I enjoy his work.

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

I enjoy him enough. I think he has a few valid points that I agree with, and he certainly seems willing to be reasonable in his arguments.

 

[Terminate421]

Honestly, I find him annoying.

The problem being that he tends to overthink things WAY WAY WAAAAY too much. That bit at the end of "Combat evolved?", he thought that we are all going to some pure and clean society, little did he know that we follow under society for standards as human beings. Also the covenant started the war, not us humans because we have big balls.

It seems that he also tends to hate everything that has to do with the "Because it is" reasoning, plus, he remains unreasonable and unable to listen to ANYONE elses logic.
Imagine this,

I only liked the expendables for pure on action and 80's recreation. You know what he did? He called me some unintelligant asshole. Even when I knew for a fact the movie was meant to totally be like the movie "Commando" with Sylvester Stallone.
He also has to be right about everything. It's as if HE was trying to be the "Purifier". He's no teacher, he's a menace.

AND BEFORE ANYONE SAYS "Halo is the problem of today"
It is not. Halo is a product, and icon if you will that spawned alot of ideas today. Though, many mediocre ideas that attempted to rip it off (I'm looking at you Section 8), it is not the problem. The problem is the parents currently running the current generation of children, clearly, most are not educating the next generation of children very well and submitting to allowing the government to run things.

 

[Verp]

I like MovieBob.

We don't always share the same particular interests and priorities and I don't always agree with his logic, but I like the way his arguments are constructed and presented. Even if I don't find them correct, they have this far given me perspective and made me think about things I haven't thought about before. I also like his low-key presentation of the issues he touches upon -- the high-strung and super snappy people are entertaining too, but variety is key.

Sure, he is a bit of a fanboy and his videos are more saturated by obviously personal things than, say, Extra Credits, but I don't watch his videos to get sound advice or to hear cold hard facts. I watch them because I enjoy hearing people pick apart and analyse things that not only interest me, but are also things that they care a lot about and are involved in. That MovieBob does, and he seems to do it with gusto.

I have never really read other people's comments concerning him, or several other contributors, thus I have never really realised that there are people who harbor large amounts of personal-sounding grudge/hate for some critic whose videos they've seen on the Internet. Is this... 'Normal'?

 

[Internet Kraken]

But really, it's not what he says more than how he says it that rubs me the wrong way.

This is pretty good summary of my problem with Movie Bob. I can watch someone and disagree with what they say, but with Movie Bob that doesn't work. He's just downright annoying, and he acts more like a fanboy than reviewer. Like Yahtzee, only it feels like he's being dead serious. Also not nearly as funny.

If he wasn't so downright insulting I could tolerate him, but even when I do agree with him on something I find him to be far to annoying.

Honestly, I find him annoying.


The problem being that he tends to overthink things WAY WAY WAAAAY too much. That bit at the end of "Combat evolved?", he thought that we are all going to some pure and clean society, little did he know that we follow under society for standards as human beings. Also the covenant started the war, not us humans because we have big balls.

I made a whole thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.244165-Metroid-represents-everything-wrong-about-our-treatment-of-the-enviornment] outlining the problem with that video in particular. I think at that moment he really lost credibility to me, as he pretty much proved he wasn't hating something on its merits, but rather because he was determined to not like it.

 

[Otogi]

I'd hate to bump this thread, but I'm still interested in what more of you think. From I can get out of this thread, people seem to like him enough, but they have some problems with his style.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

He's such a gigantic Nintendo fanboy, but I like his taste in movies. Not games, though.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

He's seems like a nice guy, who sticks to his opinions. This flames people and lead them to call him an attention whore having intentionally biased views. This may be true, but that's not the point. I started with Big Picture and i like it. He introduces different perspectives that i hadn't seen before, and he's okay funny. I don't see the problem. and for the record, the Halo episode was creepy, but true.
I watch some of his movie reviews but not all since i don't watch many movies anyway.

 

[Otogi]

I'm actually curious about this "Halo is creepy, but true" thing, because a lot of things were said in the video, but what is the creepy but true thing to you, Grizzler?

 

[ThePerfectionist]

I'm a big fan of him, so much so that he's become my main movie reviewer now. I've seen quite a few movies on his recommendation now and been very thankful for it. Though, I'm not sure this is because he's a brilliant reviewer and more that he seems to enjoy what I do (with the exception of his fascination with tits, which I don't understand).

I only glance over Intermission, and I can't be asked to go hunting for the Overthinker stuff, but I do have to agree with some of the Big Picture criticisms. That said, let's remember what he said in the first one: The Escapist essentially asked him to get up on a soapbox and rant for five minutes a week, and that's what he did. Could he have picked a better title given his content? Yes, certainly, but it's not fair to level criticism at him for doing what he was asked to do. Let the guy talk about what's on his mind. That's why we're on the internet too, after all.

 

[Bailoroc]

I did something that I normally do not do due to time; I actually read each and every comment in this thread (or at least the first 57; I wouldn't be surprised if by the time I was done writing this, someone else posted a few times). And I got to say....you guys have brought up some things I didn't think about.

Had you asked me that question without me having read all of the comments, I would have just said that I thought he was a funny if nerdy guy who offers an interesting perspective on things most people don't think about.

Now however...you all make some very hard points that I am unable to ignore. He does come off as a bit of a fan boy. Now, to his credit, he *admits* this; you may not think so but I feel that alone gives him some credibility. However, the fact that he does paint core X-Box users as this race of doucebags or something like that does bother me a bit. Maybe they're not the old-school gamers that make up his generation (and admittedly mine for that matter) but they're still gamers all the same. He once mentioned (in text) that he actually does have some friends who are regular X-Box users a long time ago but still. (Plus, doesn't the Playstation also have an internet...thingy...where people can talk to each other? If so, then it's not just X-Box that has the annoying trolls and assholes; it's just an unfortunate problem with the hobby).

He does seem to misunderstand or heavily distrust religion. Now, I would never expect or demand everyone to believe the same way I do (and to be fair, I've met some people of different or even no faith who treated me the same way) but I believe that the first step in empathy is understanding and while I often cannot *agree* with others, I do try to take the time to *understand* them (though when people start using words like "sheep" and "crutch", that tends to undermine credibility greatly; I know of a least one blog that I actually almost completely *agree* with but the *way* it's written makes me avoid it like the plague). That is, I can't understand another person until I understand how he views the world. He once made a claim about the Christian creation/origin story that paints it like all Jews/Christians blame Eve for the whole "downfall of the human race" thing. I want to say, speaking from the inside, that isn't always true. That's a topic probably for never but let me just say that I know plenty of Christians who would actually blame them either equally or even blame *Adam* more, not Eve. What I'm trying to say is that not everyone in any particular religion or even a denomination ever thinks the exact way; hell, I usually have a lot of opinions in common with my own parents and yet there are tons of things which we would disagree with. I want to understand other people as much as possible, which means I have to study both their religion/worldview *and* their own personal following of said religion/worldview. For some reason, MovieBob does not strike me as a guy who wants to take that extra step, which is rather ironic considering his Game Overthinker persona.

The way he talks about women just...creeps me out. A lot. Now, the key to understanding women is the same to understanding men; you have to see them as individuals, not as a hive mind group. Being a straight male myself, I'll admit I can appreciate the female form...but I'm not *obsessed* with it. Even if it's just a joke, it bothers me when MovieBob flashes up a picture of a "hot" women (most who are in dresses which, because of my own admittedly unusual taste in women, is a major turn off), and acts all distracted or, even worse, expects *me* to act the same way. Look, many a cute or even hot girl have come into my eyes' range of sight but I've never turned into a jellyfish or acted strange....mostly because I know said women would be put off or even offended by that behavior. The other thing that irks me is his obsession with lesbians. Now, I'm going to come clean here; I've had a ridiculously sheltered life before I became a regular internet user...and even now there are tons of things that I just "don't get". For the life of me, I will never understand how or why some guys like yuri or why some girls like yaoi (now, gay men liking yaoi or gay women liking yuri, on the other hand, makes *perfect* sense to me). I do, however, have to just accept that they do. To the credit of some, they aren't all completely creepy about it (well, actually, I still find it somewhat voyeuristic but I hope you know what I'm trying to say).

With MovieBob, however, it goes well over into the creepy side. He once joked that understanding women was a key to get them to pull lesbian tricks for his pleasure (that's too far, Bob), once implied that Princess Peach and Daisy should get into bed together (Bob, *really*? We're talking about two supposedly straight characters in a series meant for all ages! WTF, mate!), and then played some Classical music when talking about that one ballerina movie just because of some sex scene between two women. Somehow I doubt he would act the same way about a movie that tried the same seriousness between two men.

Wow....@#$%, looks like I actually like the guy less than I thought I did...maybe I'll have to rethink that whole watching his stuff now.

The episode about the closing of the space program started to draw me back into it, but Bob saying that he'd rather refuel the space program and make a large impact outside our planet (colonise Mars etc) rather than bring about World peace has to be one of the most selfish, narrow and plain idiotic thing I have ever heard.

This so hard. When I watched the episode, I was genuinely offended and it's really tough to get me to admit when something offends me but heaven help me, I was about to fall out of my chair in shock from that statement. Never mind that world peace would solve at *least* half of the problems of our planet, just....wow. I don't think he really took the time to think about how that might go over well with others. I mean, I've actually not posted in this forum on several times just because I thought my opinion might offend someone. And then go says something like *that*. I can think of very few other things that would be worse to say in front of a web cam.