I liked when The Flintstones met The Jetsons...

bdcjacko:

MB202:
When I think of The Flintstones, I think of 3 things:

1.) I think of how often I'd watch it as a kid, even though I NEVER paid attention to the actual plots of each episode.

2.) I think of how it's one of the few animated Prime Time shows that lasted longer than 2 season, aside from The Simpsons and another obscure animated show.

3.) I think of how Doug Walker doesn't like The Flintstones, because of how lame and unfunny it is.

Who cares if some guy in glasses doesn't like the flintstones?

First of all, h'es not just "some guy" in glasses. He's THE "That Guy With The Glasses", the literal mascot of a site of reviewers and critics that, honestly, are being given too much of a hard time by the Internet.

Second, it's just something that always comes to my mind when it comes to The Flintstones, after he reviewed the live action movie.

I hate it when something labeled "formulaic" by someone who has no idea what that really means.

If you look at all the sitcoms that came out over the last 20 years, you'll find that each of them only had 6 original episode and the rest were just variations of those episodes; Perfect example... Ross and Rachael.

Formula is a double edged sword. It can be a great way to get started but if you rely on it too much, it may be the death of you.

That whole beginning segment about hating when critics do their job poorly reminded me of when you chopped the balls off of all the Mass Effect 3 fans without so much as entertaining the notion. That made me sad panda :(

MovieBob:
Stone Soup

MovieBob takes a good look at the Flintstones.

Watch Video

Moviebob, do you understand that more than one of your own reviews invoke the same reaction you describe at the begining of this video from a significant number of viewers? I'd suggest that you take a look at your status as a film critic - you know, the fact that you run a minor weekly webseries as the sum monument to your abilities. You're only in a position to be a hypocritic when making such statements about the work of others.

TL;DR - You actually are pretty bad at movie criticism, and should deflate your own ego a bit.

EDIT: Megaman stands up horribly today. I really wish you could ditch your nostalgia when talking about games, because you seem to hate anything new in games with the exception of when they haven't made any progress in the last decade.

Cocoa Pebbles > Fruity Pebbles. Sorry, Bob.

Ten bucks says next week he talks about the Pebbles and Bam Bam cartoon...when they were teenagers.

That or Captain Caveman.

So next week we get the Flinstones Kids and (maybe) the Pebbles and Bambam as teenagers spinoff?

Roboto:
That whole beginning segment about hating when critics do their job poorly :(

i almost rage quit out of the video at that point. I dont think Bob has ever said something this arrogant before, he essentilly implied he was in a position to say other critics are bad because they may disagree on what the strenths and weaknesses of a movie with what he thinks
he even condemns them for calling something "formulaic" but then says it ok when he does it because....?

Cry Wolf:
EDIT: Megaman stands up horribly today.

The original NES version? Yeah, that one's kinda terrible.

"Retraux" 9? Total shyte, I never even bothered with 10 because of it.

The series as a whole? A great fuckin' lot of titles in there that are still a blast to play today. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, the original X, X4, X5, the Zero games, Zx, Battle Networks 2 and 3, Star Force 3...

So what annoys Bob is people that he thinks aren't as good as he is? That's....that's bloody charming that is.

So confession time, when I was a kid, I never liked the Flinstones. Especially after the Great Gazoo happened, and then the focus shifted to Pebbles and Bam-Bam, the series just got stupid. Also, I'm pretty sure it was virtually the same show as the Jetsons, except on two opposite ends of the time spectrum.

I respect it for what it did, but maybe I was just too young to find enjoyment out of it. Also, I never liked Fred Flinstone as a character. He just seemed like the lazy husband archetype but without any of the redeeming qualities.

Also, yeah, Bob, you probably could have done that intro a little better. Instead of "other movie critics suck" you could have just started out with "I really hate it when some movie critics criticize a movie for being formulaic."

This topic reminds me of when this one guy told me that he didn't like the works of P.G. Woodehouse because they where to formulaic, and I was so shocked not only could I not respond, but I couldn't even form a complete sentence for about 8 minutes.

Avatar is not bad only because of the formula, it's because of the formula and super uninteresting characters. In the end, everything sucks except the world itself.

On the other side of the spectrum we have House, really formulaic but awesome characters.

I liked MovieBob's explanation on formula. It highlights the key difference between a formulaic game and a clone game. A formulaic game will take a basic structure (Mega Man, Zelda, Mario) are keep things like the story structure fairly simple while trying to be innovative with bosses, items, or level design.

A clone game is one that relies exclusively on formula to carry it through. I think that was one of the biggest faults of the game Dante's Inferno, was that it did not have enough innovation and seemed to rely on the God of War formula to carry it through.

Formula is a steeping stone to give the game a structure or direction, but you can't make a game out of it.

Wait, there's a show based on the vitamins? (I kid, I kid.)

Anoni Mus:
On the other side of the spectrum we have House, really formulaic but awesome characters.

House is excellent example of a formula that works because of the characters. In fact the weakest part of the show, in my opinion, are those times they try to do over-arching story lines to break that formula. I did enjoy the hiring contest in season four, but most of these story lines were really poorly handled. I actually quit watching when House and Cuddy got together, it was just painful to watch.

Cry Wolf:

Moviebob, do you understand that more than one of your own reviews invoke the same reaction you describe at the begining of this video from a significant number of viewers? I'd suggest that you take a look at your status as a film critic - you know, the fact that you run a minor weekly webseries as the sum monument to your abilities. You're only in a position to be a hypocritic when making such statements about the work of others.

TL;DR - You actually are pretty bad at movie criticism, and should deflate your own ego a bit.

EDIT: Megaman stands up horribly today. I really wish you could ditch your nostalgia when talking about games, because you seem to hate anything new in games with the exception of when they haven't made any progress in the last decade.

I had to make an account just to tell you how much I agree with you.

I enjoy watching these 'The Big Picture' videos just on the off chance that Bob will start talking about something that is somewhat interesting in its own right, without having Bob give us his own, annoyingly biased opinion, like a certain comic book story-line. Usually when he starts talking about his own opinion I switch off. As for his movie reviews I watched a few but I can't say I was sold on him being a movie critic.
I'm sure he doesn't care that a few viewers don't really hold him in very high regard as a real movie critic, but I feel like I have some say in the matter as I am a film studies student. I understand why he is so appealing to people who are only moderately interested in films and don't study the medium, but I don't think this entitles him to be so darn egotistical.

Your point on Megaman is completely true too, I think anybody claiming that a 25 year old series still holds up is going to have a hard time persuading someone who didn't spend their childhood playing the games.

I'm glad someone agrees with me, as someone who really doesn't like his movie reviews I couldn't really believe what I was hearing for about a minute of this video.

Anyone else think how awesome a 'Fallout: Bedrock' would be while watching this?... christ im predicable.

Oh, and as a soon to be trainee Paleontologist (with any luck) I was always let down by the Flintstones.

hurricanejbb:
The Flintstones was an okay series, but the Honeymooners sucked.

Bah. The Honeymooners was amazing. I know formula isn't necessarily a reason to bash a work of art, but in the case of Avatar, it just made it downright boring. I know the visuals were supposed to be amazing, but they just didn't do much for me. The characters were too poorly developed for me to care about any of them and I found the entire premise to be farfetched. I felt the same way about Dances With Wolves. I'm not unsatisfied that it's the same plot as another movie, I'm unsatisfied because I didn't like that plot much in the first place.

Nice one, Bob. Though I'd make a distinction between something that is formulaic to release both creators' and viewers' mindspace so that they can focus on something else (like the Avengers, Avatar, or how every fantasy story either has a formulaic story to draw attention to the world or a formulaic world to draw attention to the story) and something like the Flintstones, which is formulaic because the joke is how the formula applies to a completely different setting. I reckon you could see this kind of formula as a deconstruction lite.

flintstone kids next week awww yeah!

BehattedWanderer:
Aha, finally. Now, the next time people are bitching about Mario or Zelda games being formulaic, I can just point them here and say "his argument applies to the titles in question."

Man, I'd nearly forgotten about this show. I don't remember nearly any of it, but I do remember some of the weird shit that went on later. Also, does the Jetsons count as a spinoff? Or were they parallel?

You kind of missed the point of the argument. The argument doesn't apply to something like Nintendo games because they are sequentially being formulaic their previous iterations. While something like the Avengers was formulaic in the overarching plot it was still used for something new. We haven't had an Avengers movie before. However if this was say Avengers 4 and they were still sticking to the same, Act I: Introduce Avengers; Act II: They disagree; Act III They band together it would be a big problem.
Same with the Flinstones, while it uses tropes from sitcoms and the honeymooners it wrapped them up into something new, it's not like they had another prehistoric 60's parody around.

If Nintendo made a game that sort of felt like Zelda and carried the plot of say Metroid and looked like Mario one could argue and say yea sure it's formulaic and really doesn't bring anything new to the table, but it is a solid new game/series. Whereas with the current Nintendo franchises it's like oh look, it's formulaic and that's bad because we've seen the exact same thing before.
There is a big difference between following tropes and being a slightly off carbon copy.

PS: Just because a person makes videos for the internet doesn't suddenly make their word gold. Just because someone like Bob, Yahtzee, Jim, Extra Credits say something it doesn't mean you should follow it blindly nor expect to post their argument and have it suddenly be the end all be all of an argument. It could be a well rationalized argument but very few, if any, arguments are the final answer to a problem.

The Gentleman:
When he said "plot formula," who here immediately thought of Detective Conan/Case Closed? Seriously, entire episodes were written like a Madlib:

RAN: So you were all in the [activity usually associated with European upper class] at university

[FEMALE CHARACTER WHO INVITED THEM AND IS THE ONLY ONE INNOCENT OF ALL OF THEM]: Yes, until [Dead Girlfriend/Boyfriend of the KILLER] passed/killed him/herself.

[VICTIM 1 AND THE ROOT CAUSE OF SAID-GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND"S DEATH, Yelling]: All you shut up, I don't want to talk about him/her. I'm going to grab a smoke/take a bath. [Exit's for a few hours only to be found dead later...]

The manga is actually advancing the main plot now I am very happy for that one.

Krion_Vark:

The Gentleman:
When he said "plot formula," who here immediately thought of Detective Conan/Case Closed? Seriously, entire episodes were written like a Madlib:

RAN: So you were all in the [activity usually associated with European upper class] at university

[FEMALE CHARACTER WHO INVITED THEM AND IS THE ONLY ONE INNOCENT OF ALL OF THEM]: Yes, until [Dead Girlfriend/Boyfriend of the KILLER] passed/killed him/herself.

[VICTIM 1 AND THE ROOT CAUSE OF SAID-GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND"S DEATH, Yelling]: All you shut up, I don't want to talk about him/her. I'm going to grab a smoke/take a bath. [Exit's for a few hours only to be found dead later...]

The manga is actually advancing the main plot now I am very happy for that one.

On the other hand, it is currently chapter 817...

Want proof that the FLINTSTONES. ARE. WEEEEEEIIIIIIRD? Go check out The Flintstones: On the Rocks.

A movie about Fred and Wilma taking a vacation in a last ditch attempt to salvage their failing marriage, complete with Fred's stop-motion fantasy about dancing and making out with another woman. It was a pretty jarring gearshift when I saw it on Cartoon Network as a kid.

One thing I liked was the cross-overs they had with the Jetsons. So many popular I.P's under one company and you could do things like that.

I love The Flintstones. Absolutely adore them. Aside from the obvious that The Flintstones is an amazing cartoon, Fred looks totally like my dad, and sometimes even acts like him. Which made it so much better for me when I was a kid.

unacomn:
Speaking of shoddy criticism. I've seen quite a disturbingly high amount of movie reviews, Metacritic'ed movie reviews, that started with "I couldn't stand trough more than 15 minutes of this, therefore, I give it a zero". While I would understand that in the case of obviously bad movies, I've seen such reviews of things that weren't that bad actually. I think Melancholia was one.
This type of behavior really bugs me, since my current job requires me to review video games. Often horrible video games, and I make sure to play them properly, at least once, to make sure that when I review it, I actually know what I'm talking about.

I kind of see where you're coming from, but at the same time, if a game is so bad that you can't even keep playing it, than surely you've picked up everything you need to know to tell the consumer right? Tell people that you couldn't play/watch for more than half an hour, and maybe you'll save them their money by discouraging them from going through the same experperience.

I'd like to throw in advice for the sake of people who read reviews:
a) Don't get pissy when a reviewer says bad things about a show you like
Really, do I need to explain this one? It is absurd to expect there to be a reviewer out there who perfectly matches your tastes. Don't even bother looking for one.

b) Don't demand your reviewers to be objective/balanced/unbiased etc.
There is no point whatsoever to a reviewer who doesn't have tastes, likes and dislikes, bad moods etc. What you end up with is reviewers trying to review genres they don't even like, essentially lying to the audience about their experience because they're playing a type of game they would rather not play. Instead, find reviewers who wear their prejudices on their shoulder, and make it very clear what they like and dislike.

c) Know when to disregard reviewers
The big one. In accordance with the point above, the better reviewers are the ones who are transparent about their tastes. This is why people like Yahtzee or MovieBob are useful as critics - we know that Moviebob isn't the biggest fan of shooters, we know that Yahtzee isn't into JRPGS. Therefore, if you like jRPGs, you know that you can disregard much of the criticisms Yahtzee makes about them. If you don't like jRPGs, than pay attention to the few Yahtzee praises, because those will be the jRPGs that have outsider appeal and ones which you might like too. It's all about matching tastes with relevant points of view.

Hopefully I'm going to find out what the hell the deal was with that weird alien dude. Was it all in Fred's head? Was he real? Is it an allegory for God?

I wish to know these answers.