The Escapist Presents: MovieBob Reviews Star Trek

[DalekJaas]

This is my first time watching MovieBob, and I'm usually entertained by the videos hosted by the Escapist...but not this one.

First I certainly hope it's not supposed to be funny. I got a whiff of 'humor vibe' every now and again, but found my brow furrowed through most of the review. Never smirked or smiled, so I hope those attempts at humor aren't meant to be hook for this series.

Second, I was really very disappointed with the production values of this video. Maybe that's me, but everything else here, even ZP, looks better. This looks like it was done in Microsoft Movie Maker. Maybe it was? It works for ZP because ZP is fast, random, and humor centered, not 'review' centered. This might work if it was funny, but even if it was funny it just seemed thrown together in 15 minutes after hastily writing the review in a previous 10 minutes (Don't forget a bunch of expletives, because that obviously makes a point more valid) and doing the voice-over in one take on a crappy analog $6 mic from Staples. Maybe it's the compression, maybe it's the quality reduction in order to make the whole thing 'streamable', but it sounds like it was done by sitting at a kitchen table and talking into the mic built into your netbook. I suppose this second point is more aesthetic then anything else, but it really bugs me. Maybe that's me.

Thirdly, and finally, it seems I have the same problem with this movie reviewer as I do with nearly every reviewer around: Everything has to be an epic masterpiece, or it's balls. Granted that Star Trek was given a 'in the middle' sort of 'grade', but with the hate on the new X-men Origins flick and Transformers, it just strikes me as nerd rage rather then serious review. Apparently you can't just have a fun action movie anymore, it has to be super well acted with no artistic license from the source material whatsoever. Anyone remember the first Die Hard? Poorly acted, campy action, and silly one-liners. But you know what? It's awesome. It's awesome because it's a fun action movie. But as soon as it's a brand, it's shit if it's hits that same style. Yes it's important to have at least decent acting and story and the like, but it seems like lately it has to be Oscar worthy and exactly like the source material in order for people to just shuttup and enjoy a movie these days.
But maybe that's just me.

Anyways, pardon the long post. I'll try watching some of the older ones to see if it's just this one that bugs me.

I came to this website after seeing ZP. Then Doomsday Arcade appeared, as well as 'There Will be Brawl' Such good quality videos. I agree with you completely.

 

[Chipperz]

Ah yes, in the halls of Unskippable, Zero Punctuation, Unforgotten Realms, There Will Be Brawl and Doomsday Arcade, we now have MovieBob's Yahtzee-for-movies-without-the-comedy. I'm sure Yahtzee wasn't the first to do the whole "Talking fast with a MSPaint-drawn background" thing, but he's the first to nail it.

Simple fact. American voices can't do talking fast and expect to be good. It's like the American kid who tried to do a ZeroPunctuation and was rubbish. Also, leave publicized hate to the professionals - it IS a skill to hate without senseless ranting, and I hate to say this MovieBob ('cos I LOVE people who spread the hate), but you don't got it.


Lastly, I LIKED Transformers. It could have done with more robots beating the hell out of each other, but I'm fairly certain that's what'll happen in the sequel this year.

 

[Jman1236]

Moviebob, I respect you, I support your reviews and your Game overthinker segments but after this....I don't know. I liked Star Trek when I saw it last night and well, I know the Trekies are going to flame my ass for this, I thought the original movies and series were slow, and boring since nothing EVER HAPPPENS until the last 5 mins(at least the first one).

Also I thought the guy who play Scooty looked familar, I couldn't fugure out who it was since they had him shave off his bread and mustace.

 

[LlamaNL]

Because of your nonsense series 'game overthinker' all your opinions are now void. Your ragging on Star Trek because you think it's cool not because you actually think it sucks. Same as your overthinker BS.

It's a popcorn action flick, what the hell do you expect? The entire bridge meandering on whether or not to shoot Nero into oblivion? Your review could've been saved by some good jokes but this endless whining (in combination with the voice) just grates the nerves. Please fire this guy

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I was just asking last night where MovieBob had got too.

Sorry BT, but from the looks of it I agree with MovieBob on this one. Simon Pegg was always the reason I'd watch it and the basic writing looks shit.

What this seems to be is making Star Trek cool. Despite what anyone, even Gene Roddenberry, has to say.

And "cool" films bore me. In the same way RTD's Doctor Who does (Apart from Midnight and Turn Left).

It's REAL easy to take an old franchise and slot the characters into a RIP-ROARING plot, but if you don't bring in the basis of who they are, then you've done the same as they did with Mission Impossible, The Avengers, The Saint (Remember that???) or Transformers.

Franchise reboots need to bring the franchise in, not just the names. Hulk, Spiderman, X-Men 1, Pirates 1 all worked wonderfully.

This, by the looks of it, doesn't. It may be a great blockbuster, but it isn't Star Trek, and Star Trek is what's drawing the punters in.

Reboots need to understand what the series was about and not just replace the shoddy backdrops of yesteryear with CGI whilst throwing out the set dressings.

No one, and I'm going out on a limb here, watched ST:TOS for the visuals; they watched it for the plots. The reboot of Red Dwarf showed this disparity wonderfully recently. Lister belongs in a smeggy scumhole, and is wonderful in it. Put him in "The Truman Show" and he's just not Lister anymore.

 

[Armored Prayer]

Great Review Moviebob. Keep on making more.

 

[Lukirre]

This is my first time watching MovieBob, and I'm usually entertained by the videos hosted by the Escapist...but not this one.

First I certainly hope it's not supposed to be funny. I got a whiff of 'humor vibe' every now and again, but found my brow furrowed through most of the review. Never smirked or smiled, so I hope those attempts at humor aren't meant to be hook for this series.

Second, I was really very disappointed with the production values of this video. Maybe that's me, but everything else here, even ZP, looks better. This looks like it was done in Microsoft Movie Maker. Maybe it was? It works for ZP because ZP is fast, random, and humor centered, not 'review' centered. This might work if it was funny, but even if it was funny it just seemed thrown together in 15 minutes after hastily writing the review in a previous 10 minutes (Don't forget a bunch of expletives, because that obviously makes a point more valid) and doing the voice-over in one take on a crappy analog $6 mic from Staples. Maybe it's the compression, maybe it's the quality reduction in order to make the whole thing 'streamable', but it sounds like it was done by sitting at a kitchen table and talking into the mic built into your netbook. I suppose this second point is more aesthetic then anything else, but it really bugs me. Maybe that's me.

Thirdly, and finally, it seems I have the same problem with this movie reviewer as I do with nearly every reviewer around: Everything has to be an epic masterpiece, or it's balls. Granted that Star Trek was given a 'in the middle' sort of 'grade', but with the hate on the new X-men Origins flick and Transformers, it just strikes me as nerd rage rather then serious review. Apparently you can't just have a fun action movie anymore, it has to be super well acted with no artistic license from the source material whatsoever. Anyone remember the first Die Hard? Poorly acted, campy action, and silly one-liners. But you know what? It's awesome. It's awesome because it's a fun action movie. But as soon as it's a brand, it's shit if it's hits that same style. Yes it's important to have at least decent acting and story and the like, but it seems like lately it has to be Oscar worthy and exactly like the source material in order for people to just shuttup and enjoy a movie these days.
But maybe that's just me.

Anyways, pardon the long post. I'll try watching some of the older ones to see if it's just this one that bugs me.

And to think, I was going to spend my times typing all of this out.
Thank you for saying it for me.

 

[Grae]

This review....






Fucking. A.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

The videos not loading for some reason.

 

[m_jim]

It was fun, there were a few laughs, and it looked fantastic. Take it for what it is and you might actually enjoy yourself.

The government scientists surgically removed my ability to have fun and enjoy myself at the allotted age. I'm told that it's a necessary operation required to maintain the social cohesion that comes from teenagers liking different things from older generations and provides material for official humour outlets such as The Onion.

I think that people who are chronically against enjoying things will find plenty to hate in this movie (as the article from the Onion so eloquently put it), but at least Star Trek fans didn't have to undergo the savage beating that Indiana Jones fans did his last outing, or Star Wars fans for that matter.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Thirdly, and finally, it seems I have the same problem with this movie reviewer as I do with nearly every reviewer around: Everything has to be an epic masterpiece, or it's balls. Granted that Star Trek was given a 'in the middle' sort of 'grade', but with the hate on the new X-men Origins flick and Transformers, it just strikes me as nerd rage rather then serious review. Apparently you can't just have a fun action movie anymore, it has to be super well acted with no artistic license from the source material whatsoever. Anyone remember the first Die Hard? Poorly acted, campy action, and silly one-liners. But you know what? It's awesome. It's awesome because it's a fun action movie. But as soon as it's a brand, it's shit if it's hits that same style. Yes it's important to have at least decent acting and story and the like, but it seems like lately it has to be Oscar worthy and exactly like the source material in order for people to just shuttup and enjoy a movie these days.
But maybe that's just me.

Anyways, pardon the long post. I'll try watching some of the older ones to see if it's just this one that bugs me.

I didn't get that at all. I think his point isn't that every movie has to be an epic masterpiece, but that they have the potential be. There are action movies out there with amazing effects, great actors, deep story and everything else you would want in a film in addition to simply being an enjoyable watch. If this was any other generic action space movie I think I would agree with you, but Star Trek carries quite a depth to it. So I think it's a fair assessment to expect more of it.

I'll be going to see it today, so I'll have more to say later.

I'll have to agree with this one, and I'll be going to see it soon, I'm very interested to see how my opinion will form as I have not really seen much of the original series.

 

[dogrum1]

actually with all the ZP references here, Moviebob sparks this in my head "Fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never EVER be grateful for any concession you make. The moment you shut out their shrill tremulous voices the happier you'll be for it. "

You sound like a nerd in rage, or in heat and nobody wants to fuck you...

 

[KValentine]

Tried to listen, but the audio sounded like someone talking into a tin can with string at best or at worst yelling into a toilet.

 

[HobbesMkii]

What I loved about Star Trek was that is was a cerebral sci-fi. The crew of the Enterprise didn't grapple with powerful adversaries (well, they did some of time), they mainly grappled with the moral and ethical dilemmas that they encountered on a seemingly daily basis. I liked Star Wars too, but that was a quest story, as it was based on Kurosawa films. Star Trek wasn't going to just blast first and ask questions later, they were going to stop, think their problems through, and then engage if given no better option. Their "shoot-last" mentality was refreshing to me, but it was probably BORING AS HELL to people who were used to films that boil down to the good guy's major goal being to kill the bad guy.

I mean, this was a franchise that at the end of its second major series put humanity on trial. Like Asimov, Roddenberry was not interested in flashy lasers and wars and what not. He was more interested in parables and critiques on modern society through the encounters the crew had.

Yes, I agree, you can have a super fun time watching Die Hard. But the backstory for Bruce Willis' character is that he's a New York City cop, not an NYU professor, and the moral of that film is essentially "We should fight terrorists, not be pussies and just acquiesce like that guy who tries to sell out Bruce Willis." Meanwhile, Star Trek has a back story of (JUST LIKE MODERN MILITARIES) rules of engagement and the whole Prime Directive thing. And if I was the guy who did Alias and Lost, yes, I would find that whole "moral standards, ethics" thing a major buzzkill.

Luckily, I'm not.

 

[daedrick]

That review sucked. Your taste in movies is terrible. Transformers wasnt that bad, at least it was entertaining, which is what a movie is meant to be. What the hell do you expect? Also you have an annoying, grating voice I'm sorry to say. Stop trying to be Yahtzee.

Quoting for emphasis.

Even tough I hate startrek, so cheesy.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Victor Lewis-Smith and Charlie Brooker are ripping off Yahtzee as well. He should sue or something.

If you could sue over being cantakerous and swearing alot George Carlin would have sued the shit out of Yahtzee (when he was still alive, RIP George)

And hell, what about The Spoony One? He's pretty much Yahtzees inspiration isn't he?

True. Very true.

I find it quite entertaining that Yahtzee appears to be the alpha and omega when it comes to this kind of humour to many, many people on this forum. As soon as Bob showed his face here I expected a huge backlash of comments from people who think he's 'copying Yahtzee', and I wasn't disappointed.