Movies, especially comedies, never paint a positive picture of any hobby, pastime or leisure activity. They are just formulaic plot devices to create comic characters and situations (in the loosest sense of those terms).
Sports fans are drunken louts (or at least that’s the way they are portrayed in the UK), people who play sports are dumb jocks and anyone who plays a musical instrument is either a stoner in some cliched rock band or some dork in an orchestra. Add a pair of glasses or a can of beer to each appropriate stereo type and you have a framework for a movie.
So gamers are now being lampooned. So what? Best to roll with it, because excessive complaining will just backfire and play into the hands of those who wish to mock. Don’t give them the pleasure of rising to the bait.
As my Grandad use to say, it’s not the insult that counts but who says it. As this is coming from an industry that is mainly bereft of any wit, intelligence and insight, I’d say there’s precious little to be upset about.
Plus, it has Casper van Dien in it. I rest my case.
Absolutely now words and real reflection of games short of anything i just said.
@Roger
Well said my friend. This isn’t something to get our knickers in a twist about.
I think it’s less about twisted knickers and more about being flabbergasted that someone, somewhere, thought that this was a good idea for a movie. It’s garbage not because it’s a poor satirizing of a hobby, but because it’s just that awful.
I’d look on it as a bit of a positive step forward, actually. That cybergaming and gamer jargon has moved into the mainstream sufficiently for the bulk of people to vaguely understand wtf a word like “noob” implies (even if they get the exact semantics wrong.) Enough to bother making a movie out of it.
First it was D&D and tabletop gaming. It was, what, the spawn of Satan for a while, then it started getting lampooned in TV cartoons and comedies, and seems to have moved off the radar now, leaving toy miniatures as just something people do / kids play with (Heroclix? Skylanders, if we stretch it?).
Comics and the fantasy genre as a whole weren’t given much attention either, besides being classified as weird or childish. Now look at ALL the movies with comicbook superheroes or fantasy/magic tropes being made once the suits realized how much $$$ they could make. Tolkien? Harry Potter? Part of the mainstream now.
Possibly in 10 years or less, we’ll have competitive cybergames and commentary on the TV in other countries besides just Korea, or have a lot more development on it internet-wise.
How desperate for money is Adam Sessler to agree to be in this movie? Additionally, you gotta love how frequent there were clips of strippers in the preview, which means one of two things: 1. They spend a lot of time in a strip joint or the more likely one… 2. Visit a strip club once in the movie, show multiple clips from the one scene to sex up the movie and try to get people interested in it.
This is my life
Mazes and Monsters will (probably) remain the worst ever depiction of gaming to ever come from Hollywood, though this is pretty crass I’ll admit.
The claims made about this flick are amazing:
“‘noobz’: an indie film comedy that is the first realistic look at competitive gaming.”
“Noobz is the first big, outrageous comedy to capture gamer culture from the inside.”
Indie? Realistic?
A quick search turned up this satisfying article in which VentureBeat pwns “noobz”: “powerful stupid…Movie studios often dump their worst stuff off in January.” http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/03/noobz-movie-no-no-n/
Some more actual movies made in 2012 to enjoy… just imagine their content from these titles:
2-Headed Shark Attack
Adopting Terror
Alien Tornado
American Balls Aka Kisses And Caroms
Arachnoquake
Bikini Spring Break
C’mon Man
Celebrity Sex Tape
Creep Van (side note: I think I knew this guy in High School!)
Devil Dolls
Dorm Of The Dead
Dysfunctional Friends
Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal
Girls Gone Dead
Hard Boiled Sweets
Jersey Shore Shark Attack
Jurassic Shark
Leprechaun’s Revenge (side note: Flash-backs to Lucky Charms commercial! ack!)
LOL (side note: another bad WTF movie?)
Mommy’s Little Monster (side note: Most 5 year olds!)
Nazis At The Center Of The Earth
Piggy
Piranha 3DD (side note: A double-d fish??!!)
Sexting In Suburbia
Space Twister (side note: Imagine if double-billed with one above!!><)
Strippers Vs Werewolves
The 25th Reich
The Dead Want Women (side note: WHO DOESN'T!!)
The Haunting Of Whaley House (side note: a local San Diego haunted house!)
The Rise & Fall Of A White Collar Hooligan
Where The Dead Go To Die
Whiskey Business
And a story in the titles:
Wanderlust
Cupid
The Girl From The Naked Eye
2 Days In New York
The Hunger Games
The Aggression Scale
The Sleeper
The Pregnancy Project
The Pact
The Vow
The Marriage Chronicles
The Gospel Of Us
The Trouble With Bliss
The Grind
Bending The Rules
Barbie In A Mermaid Tale 2
Suspicion
Why Stop Now
The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
The Raid
The Forger
The Rift
What Goes Around Comes Around
Crisis Point
What My Husband Doesn't Know
Unstable
The Devil Inside
Lizzie
True Bloodthirst
Devil Seed
Best Laid Plans
You're Nobody 'til Somebody Kills You
Brake
Falling Away
Gone
Love Never Dies
Horrible, no one is gonna pay to watch this seriously.
Bill Belamy is still alive?
Also, Grandma’s Boy is the most accurate depiction of game devs on film.
If a movie costs less than 2 million (and that was a while ago, so it might be more), it’s essentially guaranteed to make a profit.
That’s why movies like this get made. They sell enough simply by existing to be reasonably profitable.
I actually kind of laughed as I saw some elements of my mates in there. Thou of course exagerated for mainstream audiences …then again I remember Hackers
the guild does a wonderful job portraying how the gamers, even stereotypical ones actualy are, while being funny and over the top, so.. I have to admit, I laughed in few places. but I watched the trailer with a sort of disconnect.
Grandma’s Boy is one is the worst, if you ask me. It does nothing to help lift off the stereotypes and instead plays to the base assumption that that gamers are basement-dwelling stones who can’t associate with women. I don’t know about you guys, but that doesn’t apply to most gamers I know.
Movies, especially comedies, never paint a positive picture of any hobby, pastime or leisure activity. They are just formulaic plot devices to create comic characters and situations (in the loosest sense of those terms).
Sports fans are drunken louts (or at least that’s the way they are portrayed in the UK), people who play sports are dumb jocks and anyone who plays a musical instrument is either a stoner in some cliched rock band or some dork in an orchestra. Add a pair of glasses or a can of beer to each appropriate stereo type and you have a framework for a movie.
So gamers are now being lampooned. So what? Best to roll with it, because excessive complaining will just backfire and play into the hands of those who wish to mock. Don’t give them the pleasure of rising to the bait.
As my Grandad use to say, it’s not the insult that counts but who says it. As this is coming from an industry that is mainly bereft of any wit, intelligence and insight, I’d say there’s precious little to be upset about.
Plus, it has Casper van Dien in it. I rest my case.
Absolutely now words and real reflection of games short of anything i just said.
@Roger
Well said my friend. This isn’t something to get our knickers in a twist about.
I think it’s less about twisted knickers and more about being flabbergasted that someone, somewhere, thought that this was a good idea for a movie. It’s garbage not because it’s a poor satirizing of a hobby, but because it’s just that awful.
I’d look on it as a bit of a positive step forward, actually. That cybergaming and gamer jargon has moved into the mainstream sufficiently for the bulk of people to vaguely understand wtf a word like “noob” implies (even if they get the exact semantics wrong.) Enough to bother making a movie out of it.
First it was D&D and tabletop gaming. It was, what, the spawn of Satan for a while, then it started getting lampooned in TV cartoons and comedies, and seems to have moved off the radar now, leaving toy miniatures as just something people do / kids play with (Heroclix? Skylanders, if we stretch it?).
Comics and the fantasy genre as a whole weren’t given much attention either, besides being classified as weird or childish. Now look at ALL the movies with comicbook superheroes or fantasy/magic tropes being made once the suits realized how much $$$ they could make. Tolkien? Harry Potter? Part of the mainstream now.
Possibly in 10 years or less, we’ll have competitive cybergames and commentary on the TV in other countries besides just Korea, or have a lot more development on it internet-wise.
How desperate for money is Adam Sessler to agree to be in this movie? Additionally, you gotta love how frequent there were clips of strippers in the preview, which means one of two things: 1. They spend a lot of time in a strip joint or the more likely one… 2. Visit a strip club once in the movie, show multiple clips from the one scene to sex up the movie and try to get people interested in it.
This is my life
Mazes and Monsters will (probably) remain the worst ever depiction of gaming to ever come from Hollywood, though this is pretty crass I’ll admit.
The claims made about this flick are amazing:
“‘noobz’: an indie film comedy that is the first realistic look at competitive gaming.”
“Noobz is the first big, outrageous comedy to capture gamer culture from the inside.”
Indie? Realistic?
A quick search turned up this satisfying article in which VentureBeat pwns “noobz”: “powerful stupid…Movie studios often dump their worst stuff off in January.” http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/03/noobz-movie-no-no-n/
Some more actual movies made in 2012 to enjoy… just imagine their content from these titles:
2-Headed Shark Attack
Adopting Terror
Alien Tornado
American Balls Aka Kisses And Caroms
Arachnoquake
Bikini Spring Break
C’mon Man
Celebrity Sex Tape
Creep Van (side note: I think I knew this guy in High School!)
Devil Dolls
Dorm Of The Dead
Dysfunctional Friends
Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal
Girls Gone Dead
Hard Boiled Sweets
Jersey Shore Shark Attack
Jurassic Shark
Leprechaun’s Revenge (side note: Flash-backs to Lucky Charms commercial! ack!)
LOL (side note: another bad WTF movie?)
Mommy’s Little Monster (side note: Most 5 year olds!)
Nazis At The Center Of The Earth
Piggy
Piranha 3DD (side note: A double-d fish??!!)
Sexting In Suburbia
Space Twister (side note: Imagine if double-billed with one above!!><)
Strippers Vs Werewolves
The 25th Reich
The Dead Want Women (side note: WHO DOESN'T!!)
The Haunting Of Whaley House (side note: a local San Diego haunted house!)
The Rise & Fall Of A White Collar Hooligan
Where The Dead Go To Die
Whiskey Business
And a story in the titles:
Wanderlust
Cupid
The Girl From The Naked Eye
2 Days In New York
The Hunger Games
The Aggression Scale
The Sleeper
The Pregnancy Project
The Pact
The Vow
The Marriage Chronicles
The Gospel Of Us
The Trouble With Bliss
The Grind
Bending The Rules
Barbie In A Mermaid Tale 2
Suspicion
Why Stop Now
The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
The Raid
The Forger
The Rift
What Goes Around Comes Around
Crisis Point
What My Husband Doesn't Know
Unstable
The Devil Inside
Lizzie
True Bloodthirst
Devil Seed
Best Laid Plans
You're Nobody 'til Somebody Kills You
Brake
Falling Away
Gone
Love Never Dies
Horrible, no one is gonna pay to watch this seriously.
Bill Belamy is still alive?
Also, Grandma’s Boy is the most accurate depiction of game devs on film.
If a movie costs less than 2 million (and that was a while ago, so it might be more), it’s essentially guaranteed to make a profit.
That’s why movies like this get made. They sell enough simply by existing to be reasonably profitable.
I actually kind of laughed as I saw some elements of my mates in there. Thou of course exagerated for mainstream audiences …then again I remember Hackers
the guild does a wonderful job portraying how the gamers, even stereotypical ones actualy are, while being funny and over the top, so.. I have to admit, I laughed in few places. but I watched the trailer with a sort of disconnect.
Grandma’s Boy is one is the worst, if you ask me. It does nothing to help lift off the stereotypes and instead plays to the base assumption that that gamers are basement-dwelling stones who can’t associate with women. I don’t know about you guys, but that doesn’t apply to most gamers I know.
i’M NOT GONNA WATCH THIS UNLESS THERE’S NUDITY.