The Big Picture

From the creator of The Game Overthinker and Escape to the Movies comes The Big Picture.

I have watched all these since he launched it and I must say I agree with his most recent one. Really what are we going to do about space travel? And no we should not whore it out to private corporations, fuck that, because then we end up with massive megcorps in space and we all know how well THAT turns out.

edited 23rd Nov '10 1:20:19 PM by syvaris

It's a funny thing. I like Bob. He's a funny guy, and pretty smart, most of the time. I don't always agree with him — in fact, I'd say there's only about half the time that I do — but he always illustrates his point of view well, and is thus an excellent point of comparison, though which to explore my own thoughts.

Also, like I said, he tends to be funny, so that's a big plus.

But in this little segment on his views on the space program?

"... well, if a genie showed up, and handed me two choices: peace on Earth or cities on Mars within my lifetime? Well folks, I don't think my answer would be the one that wins me a Miss America crown."

So, apparently Bob would rather being able to know that mankind has built another incredibly expensive city in what is just about the most impractical, inhospitable area vaguely within our reach... over mankind collectively deciding to stop killing one another 'for no goddamn reason?'

And you bracket that statement with the petulant, self-righteous whining, implying that anyone who would choose "peace on Earth" would only do so out of mindless moralizing, or the desire for recognition and approval?

I find myself disagreeing with that on a couple levels. But to sum it up:

What the fuck? That is the most monstrously ignorant, selfish and arrogant thought I have ever heard from the man.

He goes on to admit that for feeling this way that he may be a "bad guy", but I'm quite certain he understand how true that is. Yes, Bob. Having "end pointless human suffering" lower on your list of priorities than "do something really cool, no matter the practical application or lack there of" does make you a bad guy. It makes you Lex Luthor. Golden Age Lex Luthor.

And you're okay with this? You look at this situation from all sides, and you're accepting of it? I don't get it. Is he even really aware of what he's arguing here? This man never tries to argue that mankind, collectively, are assholes... but given the option of a peaceful world — implying a global environment free from ignorance, hate and general douchebaggery — he'd prefer fulfilling a childish dream that could still be achieved, and achieved better, afterwards?

And finally, to top it all off, he has the gall to claim that because some people are actually more interested in trying to fix things here, or at least keep the world from imploding on itself, instead of building a giant space dick on Mars, that the general populace is more 'jaded' than him.

In short: Not cool, Bob. Also, I'm pretty sure there aren't any loincloth-wearing men defending whores from saber tooth cats on Mars or whatever. I'm pretty sure it's just dust, rocks and a lot of carbon dioxide.

This is why I don't care for Caustic Critic types. Too many of them have massive egos and at least a slightly exaggerated view on how thoroughly they understand a situation.

Pundits. That's all they are.

edited 23rd Nov '10 9:08:37 PM by Charlatan

The Captain America one was a complete mess. Seriously I think that's the case with the three of them. He just rambles incoherently with something that could more easily be summarised by a blog post, at least that would be proofread and rewritten to make more sense.

His film reviews are ok, with Intermission occasionally being quite interesting. His TGO stuff is also interesting if a little heavy handed and waaay too often filled with Strawmen. But this Big Picture thing is really stupid IMO, I dunno why the Escapist would pay him to ramble about random crap and fill that rant with weird pictures.

I think I'd give him around 2 or 3 eps to grow the beard but after that I'll probably give it a miss.

@Registered, that's a really good point you raise. I feel like he really shot the message with this one.

edited 23rd Nov '10 11:27:26 PM by ShadowScythe

I just started on this one and Bob and me reallyt DO think alike. he had the same idea of one on one battles as opposed to actual war as I did.

Well, his thing about space was stupid. His thing about Halo made sense. His thing about One More day was lacking.

On the other hand, I thought about that One on one thing when I was a child. It makes more sense than sending in countless people to kill each other.

Exactly!

You mean other than the fact that it makes no sense, completely misses the point of what a war is and treats war as though it's some kind of sport?

Also One More day....guh (incoming rant I guess), did he even say anything in that video? I mean, he starts with "comics are weird" and then rather than explaining that with several examples (which he already did with that intermission about the really weird stuff in comics that would never make the movies) and instead summarises OMD before saying that Peter was better off cause he could sleep with whomever he wanted (thus proving that he has no idea what he's saying) and then...just ending like that? Also how was any of that "The Big Picture"? It was just a ramble about a niche/geek interest.

Ugh, I was going to give this guy a few more chances but his rants have no structure, could easily be summarised in a simple tweet, and compared to stuff like Extra Punctuation or Extra Credits have no real substance to them either.

edited 3rd Dec '10 7:17:29 PM by ShadowScythe

Okay, this latest actually interests me and it' not some annoying rant on something he had not come to a proper conclusion with, it's a comparative thing and since it's the sort of thing I deal with or plan to deal with in my When All Else Fails blog.

But anyhow, well said, finally.

Yeah, I checked that out after you linked it. It's actually not that bad, seems fairly well thought out for once. And something worth ranting about. Hopefully he keeps going in this direction.

Shadow Scythe: again what is wrongw ith the concept? why should war have to stay the way it is with the one on one system it would reduce or elimentate casualties.

^ Um, well tbh to me War seems more like a declaration of outright conflict and where all of the rules are broken. Introducing a rule where each country can only use one soldier seems so arbitrary and I really don't see how any country would agree to something so dealbreaking like that when the whole declaration of war/invading thing seems to suggest that they didn't give a crap about whatever rules were imposed on them.

And again, it treats war like some vicious gladiator blood sport, which it really isn't.

Put on a smaller scale let's say someone was giving me a hard time at school so I decided to fight them. The fact that I broke the rule and actually assaulted them would suggest that this was such a big issue to me that I didn't care about the school rules with this. If in the rules there was one that stated that all conflicts had to be resolved with wii boxing, and let's say that I lost in the wii boxing match, is that really going to stop me from beating the crap out of that guy?

And extrapolating on that, why should an entire nation listen to something so meaningless and arbitrary and one that would cost whatever they had to gain from using missiles or other technology?

EDIT: Also War....war never changes /obligatory

edited 11th Dec '10 4:22:33 AM by ShadowScythe

I liked this episode. The part at the beginning about him not liking reality to an absurd degree is a shame, but the rest is gold.

TBP is a deal-breaker for me. It lacks the preachy nature of TGO or as arrogant as his Ett M, although the vids can feel funny, and intresting, they feel somewhat pointless, it not still enjoyable.

I didn't even get past Combat Evolved.

Godwin's Law and blatant misrepresentation of facts can all do that for a person.

I actually liked that episode on Conspiracy theories. I thought it was insightful.

You know, when I was watching him go off on Birthers and JFK looneys, I kept hoping he'd mention David Icke and the lizard people. Then he used that as part of a Credits Gag, and I was overjoyed.

This was good however I feel like it was somethign that should've addressed years ago and just feels like old news.

I could be wrong though.

I'm a biased Big Picture Fanboy. I'm very opnionated just like bob.

Don't you just hate it when he's only half right and then proceeds to make it all the right go away?

That bad?

Not that bad. He brings up excellent points but let's his egotism get in the way. In fact, that's how a lot of his good vids end up...

Start of Darkness for Bob, eh?

I really liked the Magneto one, actually... what do you think he did wrong?

It was the part where we were bullied best on a "Superiority potential" thing. The X-men analogy was good, but he may have used the wrong parts. I get the feeling we might've gotten more out of a longer video.