The Storytelling Thread

Topic

This is a thread to talk about a storytelling

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Anonymous wrote:

That’s because you can make money selling bullets.

There’s money in sex and porn too. Or so I’ve heard….

njerry wrote:

Anders wrote:
That’s because you can make money selling bullets.

There’s money in sex and porn too. Or so I’ve heard….

This dialogue is such a rip-off of Alan Moore!

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Todd

I was about to write a post on a completely different forum about the difficulty of representing an inner struggle in a role-playing game, and was going to use the example of a protagonist with two love interests: one safe and boring and one exciting and dangerous.

Then I started thinking about how a story like this would end. Usually it will end with the protagonist choose the safe and boring person and living happily ever after. But this is only true if the protagonist is a woman. If the protagonist is a man, he will instead choose the exciting and dangerous person.

Is this generally true in most fiction? (I seem to only be able to come up with a few examples myself.)

Yeah, the trope of the exciting/dangerous/crazy woman that the protagonist falls in love with is definitely a very present one, and I don’t think it’s quite the same the other way around. But I think there’s also a lot of stories in which the woman goes for the dangerous one? All depends on whether you want a happily-ever-after story or one of devastation and heartbreak really.

I think of the end of Big Trouble in Little China. Jack and Grace are both the wild type of people yet Jack rejects her offer to stay together. “I eventually rub people the wrong way.” He goes off on his own, leaving her behind. I’m probably reading far more into it but it seemed Jack had a self aware moment and realized that their Type A personalities would not have long term compatibility and wanted to save them both pain.

Todd wrote:

I think of the end of Big Trouble in Little China. Jack and Grace are both the wild type of people yet Jack rejects her offer to stay together. “I eventually rub people the wrong way.” He goes off on his own, leaving her behind. I’m probably reading far more into it but it seemed Jack had a self aware moment and realized that their Type A personalities would not have long term compatibility and wanted to save them both pain.

Nah, he was gay.

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njerry

Unresolved plotlines

Fans criticized GoT for having all these plots that were left open and were never used to make the last season interesting. (See the YouTube vids upthread) Well the Sopranos also had the same problem. The last season could have been so much better. The Russian escaped in the woods and never came back. Some expected him to come back but he never did. A lot of the storylines and characters seemed forced in the last season but it is what it is – 10 years ago. Who cares now? Same with GoT. It is over and wasn’t done that well so deal with it.

I do think a problem sometimes with ‘unresolved’ plots in long running fiction is that they were resolved but not in the way the viewer wanted them to be.

In a show like LOST which got hammered for not answering the mysteries, in truth they did answer the vast majority of them, it’s just people didn’t like the answers.

 

garjones wrote:

In a show like LOST which got hammered for not answering the mysteries, in truth they did answer the vast majority of them, it’s just people didn’t like the answers.

Ha ha touche, although I’d argue a good chunk of those are “I didn’t like the answer” which invariably was ‘it’s magic’ by the end.

Al-x wrote:

Fans criticized GoT for having all these plots that were left open

The majority of criticism wasn’t that plots were left open, it was that they were resolved catastrophically bad, with themes and foreshadowings outright abandonded in favor of surprising the viewers. Very few plot points were left open.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Al-x wrote:

Fans criticized GoT for having all these plots that were left open

The majority of criticism wasn’t that plots were left open, it was that they were resolved catastrophically bad, with themes and foreshadowings outright abandonded in favor of surprising the viewers. Very few plot points were left open.

GoT needed Seasons 6 & 7 to be ten episodes each (not the short ones we got) and probably a Season 8 with 10 episodes to come to something close to a satisfying conclusion. It may have still faceplanted the landing but I think it would have had a better shot with more episodes.

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Rocket, garjones

What happened to Hot Pie? What happened to his pies? Why were they so tasty? How could he make a living from them when he clearly ate them all? Why does he refuse Arya’s money for the pie? Where does he get the ingredients? Where did he get the cherries from when the climate didn’t look suitable for growing them? If they are imported where does he get the money for exotic fruits when he gives pies away for free and eats the rest himself?

We need answers Anders.

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Al-x, Todd

garjones wrote:

Why does he refuse Arya’s money for the pie? Where does he get the ingredients? Where did he get the cherries from when the climate didn’t look suitable for growing them? If they are imported where does he get the money for exotic fruits when he gives pies away for free and eats the rest himself?

These are obviously answered within the subtext of Brans ascent to the throne. He clearly instituted a fully magicated luxury communism under his Starkinist banner. Geez, Gar. Where’s your viewing comprehension? Maybe you’re not such a marvel after all…

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Todd

garjones wrote:

What happened to Hot Pie? What happened to his pies? Why were they so tasty? How could he make a living from them when he clearly ate them all? Why does he refuse Arya’s money for the pie? Where does he get the ingredients? Where did he get the cherries from when the climate didn’t look suitable for growing them? If they are imported where does he get the money for exotic fruits when he gives pies away for free and eats the rest himself?

We need answers Anders.

Game Of Scones

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njerry, Todd

A song of pies in fire.

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garjones, Dave, Todd

garjones wrote:

What happened to Hot Pie? What happened to his pies? Why were they so tasty? How could he make a living from them when he clearly ate them all? Why does he refuse Arya’s money for the pie? Where does he get the ingredients? Where did he get the cherries from when the climate didn’t look suitable for growing them? If they are imported where does he get the money for exotic fruits when he gives pies away for free and eats the rest himself?

We need answers Anders.

There’s been like 18 short stories covering this, you know

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Rocket, Al-x

lorcan_nagle wrote:

There’s been like 18 short stories covering this, you know

Not counting the slashfics.

Todd wrote:

GoT needed Seasons 6 & 7 to be ten episodes each (not the short ones we got) and probably a Season 8 with 10 episodes to come to something close to a satisfying conclusion. It may have still faceplanted the landing but I think it would have had a better shot with more episodes.

True, but in the end there were some reports of the cast being tired of it all. GRRM said the show could have gone on to season 13 but the fatigue… I guess everyone in it wanted it to just end so they can move on.

I was thinking just now about some actors in it being typecast… A lot are just taking a break from it all and will get into other roles when the time is right. It pretty much died down now….

As previously mentioned with GoT, the audience was expecting some of the previous plots, characters, tricks, gimmicks, to be used in season 8 to really give it a great ending but they never really came. The audience was then disappointed.

After the debacle of LOST, JJ Abrams made a better effort to get it right with another series, FRINGE. The series had five seasons of weird stuff including parallel realities and “flash forward” episodes, but Abrams and his team tied everything together fairly neatly in the end, using “Fringe” weaponry confiscated in the first season to battle the invading force (The Observers) in the final season in a way that made me feel he planned this from the beginning and stuck to it.

And then he went and did the Star Wars sequels….

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Christian, Al-x

Al-x wrote:

True, but in the end there were some reports of the cast being tired of it all. GRRM said the show could have gone on to season 13 but the fatigue… I guess everyone in it wanted it to just end so they can move on.

Of course… can you imagine 10 years of your life dedicated to that and only that? Specially the kids who grew up while the show was being produced. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t want it to end because that was a great job and a great revenue stream for whatever city they were filming in mainly, but I can see the “creatives” and the actors being done with that shit.

Also, the reality is: No one would’ve been satisfied with the ending whether they had made 2 more or 20 more episodes. Okay, maybe with 20 more… but come on… =P

I agree the last 2 seasons should’ve been 10 eps each, but considering how they spent their budget, I understand. I think at some point people will come around to it all because it wasn’t the disaster people claim it is. The ending was a bit rushed, that’s about it. Happens frequently enough both in TV and movies, but also in fantasy books.

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garjones, Al-x, Dave

I am in agreement that the main issue with Game of Thrones was pacing. Everything that happened is pretty logically set up during the series, other choices could have been used, like who defeated the big bad and who ascended to the throne but I think those are just subjective preferences.

Pacing is a place where a lot of things can fall down.  JK Rowling I found is really bad at it, in the final Potter book they forget the main plot for most of it and fart around camping, then the final confrontation is pretty brief. The movie versions often fixed her pacing and work better from a purely structural perspective.

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Dave, Christian, Todd

garjones wrote:

Pacing is a place where a lot of things can fall down.  JK Rowling I found is really bad at it, in the final Potter book they forget the main plot for most of it and fart around camping, then the final confrontation is pretty brief. The movie versions often fixed her pacing and work better from a purely structural perspective.

So, so, so true. From book five, I liked the movies better than the books for that reason. Though with these, it’s not just pacing it’s also that they needed to be fucking trimmed down.

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Dave

The movie version of Deathly Hallows Part 1 does try to be an extremely faithful adaptation by also being really fucking boring.

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Christian

Dave wrote:

The movie version of Deathly Hallows Part 1 does try to be an extremely faithful adaptation by also being really fucking boring.

I don’t know, it’s not quite the same if it doesn’t feel like they’re in that fucking forest for fucking years doing nothing but bickering and sniping at each other. In the movie it’s like, boom, Ron’s gone, here’s some Nick Cave.

…wait, that’s part 2, isn’t it? Man, I don’t remember anything from those last movies.

Harry Potter and the backwards face-dude – 1/5 this is clearly a childrens book

Harry Potter and the big-ass basement snake – 1/5 none of this shit makes sense

Harry Potter has an uncle, you know – 3/5 this book is actually pretty decent

Harry Potter and the murder championship – 4/5 holy shit, if this gets any better I don’t know what to do!

Harry Potter and the order out of order – 3/5 it’s cleary not going to get better…

Harry Potter and the incel edgelord – 3/5 just tell me, is Snape a good guy or not?

Harry Potter and the writer wealthy enough to not give a fuck – 1/5 well, at least I’m glad this shit is over

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Rocket, Todd, DavidM, lorcan_nagle, Christian, Dave

Oh, and then there’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Fanfiction – 0/5  I read the script, so you don’t have to

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Todd, Dave

You missed out Fantastic Johnny Depp And Where To Find Him.

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Christian wrote:

I don’t know, it’s not quite the same if it doesn’t feel like they’re in that fucking forest for fucking years doing nothing but bickering and sniping at each other.

The film is much better, it spins out the action scenes and truncates the 300 pages of camping and bickering. It still seems too long but it’s far better paced than the book.

Dave wrote:

You missed out Fantastic Johnny Depp And Where To Find Him.

Those are movies, not books. But it would go a little something like this:

Fantastic Johnny Depp and Where To Find Him – 2/5 Blah blah Redmayne blah, the Danish Girl is way, WAY, better

Fantastic Johnny Depp and the crimes of Amber Heard – 1/5 How much for a night with Jude Law?

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

garjones wrote:

Christian wrote:

I don’t know, it’s not quite the same if it doesn’t feel like they’re in that fucking forest for fucking years doing nothing but bickering and sniping at each other.

The film is much better, it spins out the action scenes and truncates the 300 pages of camping and bickering. It still seems too long but it’s far better paced than the book.

Yeah the book was a massive drag and a huge disappointment for what was such a keenly awaited finale.

The film was marginally better, but only because it was impractical for it to fit in 17 hours of camping.

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Christian

garjones wrote:

Pacing is a place where a lot of things can fall down.  JK Rowling I found is really bad at it, in the final Potter book they forget the main plot for most of it and fart around camping, then the final confrontation is pretty brief. The movie versions often fixed her pacing and work better from a purely structural perspective.

Or the Dune saga, for example… IIRC all of the books have VERY weird pacing towards the end and the “final confrontations” happens super quickly and feel very anti-climatic.

Another example are two of my favorite fantasy writers Hickam & Weiss (from Dragonlance fame) who always rush the end of their stories… hell Dragonlance itself has a pretty weird pacing overall.

So yeah, pacing tends to be an issue, for sure. So in that regard, the rushed ending of GoT didn’t feel super weird to me, even if I would’ve prefered otherwise.

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Arch nemesis

By now I am used to Superman’s main villain being a human genius Lex Luthor and not some evil counterpart. If anything all the Kryptonian villains and others with rival powers have been really grotesque as a contrast. Come to think of it: How many Kryptonians survived the explosion or were off world at the time anyway?

Batman’s main enemy from his rogues gallery is as you know the Joker. I already argued about him as an enemy and won’t rehash it. Now in there is some caped ninjalike enemy called the Ghost Maker who knows Bruce from the past as they trained in the Far East together. The fighting scenes are OK but it all feels forced and shoehorned. I mean Grant Morrison made Prometheus in JLA as a counterpart to Bats and it didn’t really work out, DeathStroke fights Bats now and then but he is taken mostly by the Titans iirc. This leaves Batman with no real villain who can give him a run for his money. So the writer Tynion came up with Ghostie there…. DD had Bullseye and now and then DD would take on a small squad of ninjas during Miller’s run. Now giving ninjas to Batman would be a little too similar and what are so many ninjas doing in Gotham anyway? Bats has no real counterpart but now we have the Ghost Maker.
See how that turns out.

As for Punchline, Harley is going through her changes as a character leaving Joker so lonely. So they came up with Punchline. Maybe it is too many new characters and not being resourceful with what is already there imho.

Batman’s had plenty of ninja rogues… Lady Shiva, for one… there’s also Cain… plus the ninjas Ras Al Ghul employs, I mean, they’re “assassins”, but they’re mostly depicted as ninjas anyways…

I don’t know who this “Ghost Maker” is, but it sounds stupid, so I don’t see him sticking very long.

Edit: Oh boy, I just saw a picture… he looks even stupider… =/

Haters gonna hate.

So far, I kind of like the Ghost Maker in his eponymous story but it all depends on where it’s going. He’s basically a Jason Todd type character, with swords instead of guns, but he’s on Batmans level, with a slightly different skill set. The fact that they trained together makes it interesting. We’ll see where it goes.

The basic misconception is that an arch-nemesis needs to be a physical match for the hero. This is because we’re expecting fight scenes in a comic and we want to feel they are close matches, but really the fight scene should be a minor element, even a digression, in the hero’s core duties.

Batman doesn’t need a foe to show off his martial arts against, he needs someone who will challenge him by saying “Catch me or stop this poison entering the Gotham water supply Batman… you choose. Hahahahahaah etc.” Overcoming the moral dilemma is a bigger win than punching out the world’s greatest martial artist would be. In the same way, Doomsday is a rubbish villain for Superman. A good opponent for Superman isn’t one who’s stronger than Superman, he’s one who threatens innocents in a way that forces Superman to use his brains to save them. (Note: snapping a neck is not using your brains.)

I count (Silver-Age) Superboy as a bigger hero and role model than Superman for this reason. In Superboy stories, he very rarely punched out tough guys. All his stories were about making sacrifices, overcoming his pride, doing the right thing even though it hurt him. Superboy would an alien invasion with his brains, not with his fists. Superman will just heat-vision the flying saucers to slag, which might look cool in the hands of a good artist but isn’t really that heroic.

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Todd, Dave

It’s a really good point about Superman, and it’s something Morrison leaned into with All-Star Superman. Out of all 12 issues, I think there’s only one time he solves a problem by punching it (fighting Solaris). Everything else is a lot more about creativity and imagination.

Doesn’t he knock Lex out cold while also saying “Brains over brawns” or some hilarious shit like that.

Anonymous wrote:

Haters gonna hate.

So far, I kind of like the Ghost Maker in his eponymous story but it all depends on where it’s going. He’s basically a Jason Todd type character, with swords instead of guns, but he’s on Batmans level, with a slightly different skill set. The fact that they trained together makes it interesting. We’ll see where it goes.

Yep, I’ll always hate a fugly design…  Glad you’re enjoying the story/character but it’s hardly a new concept, in fact it’s been over done at this point, but the thing is (and maybe I’ll be proven wrong) that I don’t see this “Ghost Maker” character making it into the bat-villains pantheon. He looks like a short-lived re-hashed idea.

Also, he looks like Deadpool with baggy pants… ha! Now that I think about it, he does look like a Rob Liefeld character… xD

Now I’m trying to think of newer Bat-villains that have become somewhat iconic… newer as in post-00’s I guess… and I can’t really think of many… So far I’ve got Hush (whom they mishandled, unfortunately, but his look has kinda become classic), Professor Pyg, The Batman who Laughs, and I dunno, one of those Owls, Talon I think? Or was Talon a good guy, I can’t recall… oh well, the whole court of owls I suppose.

Those are all I can think of off the top of my head…

The Batman who laughs is a good example, ’cause he’s failry new but he’s already become iconic… They really aced his design, silly as it might be. Anyways, any other candidates anyone can think of? Mine’s a fairly short list, I’m sure there has to be more… or I hope so… =/

Hush, Pyg and The Court of Owls are probably all up there, yeah. I’d say maybe Doctor Hurt too.

Jon wrote:

I don’t see this “Ghost Maker” character making it into the bat-villains pantheon. He looks like a short-lived re-hashed idea.

I’m not sure he’ll be a recurring character. His arc may have an end to his character.

Jon wrote:

The Batman who laughs is a good example, ’cause he’s failry new but he’s already become iconic overused

Agreed.

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Todd

I’m not arguing with that much… but hey, it’s still a sign of something “sticking”… what’s funny is that it’s such an obvious idea, that has probably been explored many times, but there you go, stick a memorable design on it and boom!

The most overused thing lately in superhero comics – but also stretching far into other media – is the “multiverse” with all the alternate realities constantly spitting some different version of a character into the main storyline. That was starting to get overused in the late 90’s but now it makes nearly every major title a major pain in the ass to get into or even keep up with.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

The most overused thing lately in superhero comics – but also stretching far into other media – is the “multiverse” with all the alternate realities constantly spitting some different version of a character into the main storyline. That was starting to get overused in the late 90’s but now it makes nearly every major title a major pain in the ass to get into or even keep up with.

The other thing that has gotten old for me is the use of time travel to resolve the plot. Marvel movies and TV seemed to be doing that in the last couple of years (Avenger: Endgame, Agents of SHIELD, and Legion). I give Legion credit for doing something different and interesting with it.

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Yeah, specially when it’s so badly done… Funny thing is the Justice League movies were also gonna use time travel… so that would’ve been one more instance.

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Oh… and also, there is this kid in Gotham with a mohawk helmet and this baseball bat with a bat blade on it. I think he calls himself the Clown Hunter or something like that. He emerged during the Joker War when the Joker took over Gotham.

I say if the sales are good and there is a fan demand for this Clown Hunter kid and the Ghost Maker, they will come back to the title. I don’t see it though, but we have to see what Tynion has in mind.

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Rocket

Jon wrote:

Yeah, specially when it’s so badly done… Funny thing is the Justice League movies were also gonna use time travel… so that would’ve been one more instance.

The Justice League movie does use time travel, they went into the past and try to resolve the already resolved plot by making a new cut of it, calling it the Snyder cut. Haven’t you heard?

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Steve Sensible, Todd

garjones wrote:

In a show like LOST which got hammered for not answering the mysteries, in truth they did answer the vast majority of them, it’s just people didn’t like the answers.

The problem with Lost is that the series spent a lot of screentime setting up mysteries, and then half-assed the answers to all of them. The numbers? The mysterious whispers? The Others? The Dharma Initiative? The smoke monster? The skeletons? Jacob? The island itself? It was all just a big pile of meh.

In the end, it was all just a big waste of time, and the series went from a cultural phenomenon when it premiered to a joke by the time it ended.

And, unfortunately, it has become the prototype of a lot of 21st century genre entertainment: All set up and no payoff. See also Game of Thrones, the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Kelvinverse Star Trek, Doctor Who…

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Todd

[Jason]

garjones wrote:

JK Rowling I found is really bad at it, in the final Potter book they forget the main plot for most of it and fart around camping, then the final confrontation is pretty brief. The movie versions often fixed her pacing and work better from a purely structural perspective.

The final Harry Potter book is really kind of a mess.

First of all, it has the protagonists running around trying to find two sets of cursed artifacts. I mean one set of cursed artifacts is hoary enough, but she had to go and throw in another one? The Horcruxes were kind of foreshadowed earlier in the series, but the Hallows just seemed to come out of nowhere and little impact on the story, other than giving it an intriguing title.

And second, much of the plot hinges on the idea of “wandlore” where we have wands changing their loyalties after their owner is disarmed, which is something that I don’t think was even hinted at until the final book, and even seems to contradict what we had seen previously. We have seen wizards and witches being disarmed in the previous books, and losing the loyalty of their wands was never an issue.

And third, the business about Voldermort using Harry’s blood to grow a new body tethering Harry to life and whatever the hell it was that prevented Voldemort from killing him in the forest was confusing as hell. It just came off as so much word salad, and it seems like it could have been explained in an easier, less convoluted way.

And there’s also the matter of Harry, Ron, and Hermione going all emo in the woods for what feels like three-fourths of the story. I also found it kind of weird that the previous six books all took place at Hogwarts, and then the final book covers the “seventh year,” but Harry and his friends spend most of the book away from the school until the big battle at the end. Granted, it’s out of plot necessity, but it seems incongruous to what we saw before and I found it jarring.

 

 

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Jason.

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Christian

Jason wrote:

It was all just a big pile of meh.

Read that as “a big pile of meth” and that doesn’t seem so bad.

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Christian, DavidM, Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Jason wrote:

It was all just a big pile of meh.

Read that as “a big pile of meth” and that doesn’t seem so bad.

That series about meth is one of the few that actually landed a great ending.

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DavidM

I’d even give it credit for landing two endings (BB + El Camino).

Todd wrote:

The other thing that has gotten old for me is the use of time travel to resolve the plot. Marvel movies and TV seemed to be doing that in the last couple of years (Avenger: Endgame, Agents of SHIELD, and Legion). I give Legion credit for doing something different and interesting with it.

I agree where Endgame is concerned, but with Agents of SHIELD I think the time travel was used differently – it wasn’t used as a way to set things right that’d gone wrong, to write the series out of a corner it’d backed itself into, but it was a thing in itself, and one where the tricky thing was that they had to fight against someone fucking up the timeline on purpose. Time travel was the point of the season’s story from the get-go. That worked way better for me.

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Rocket, Todd

In Endgame, time travel wasn’t really used to set right something that went wrong in the classic sense. A classic time travel do-over would have had them go back to the final battle of Infinity War and fight it again but better. In Endgame, all they did was gather plot maguffins to help them win the *next* battle, which is an entirely different worn-out fiction trope.

DavidM wrote:

In Endgame, time travel wasn’t really used to set right something that went wrong in the classic sense. A classic time travel do-over would have had them go back to the final battle of Infinity War and fight it again but better. In Endgame, all they did was gather plot maguffins to help them win the *next* battle,

Although that battle basically was the final battle of Infinity War but better.

A few things:

There are quite a few reboots and movies in the works for past shows. I read an interesting article that said that given how times have changed, what clicked with the audience 10 years ago might not work now. The Entourage movie, for example, bombed partly because times have changed and no one cared anymore for the goings on of a Hollywood agent of a rich actor and his friends. The same goes for Sex and the City reboot, NYC and the dating scene, we’ll find out if the same formula works. I can go on about True Blood, Gilmore Girls, GoT prequel, the Sopranos movie… it is all in the timing and if the audience is really in the mood for it.

All these franchises… the Terminator, the Matrix, Rocky with its underdog beating the odds story… Liam Neeson even said he wondered about the Star Wars franchised being on the way down over fatigue. Surprising that Cobra Kai made it back but bullying never did go out of style even with the anti-bullying messages over the years.

Interesting with Cobra Kai – apparently karate is a metaphor for power that can corrupt and be used for bad or good depending on the use by the sensei and dojo. Star Wars similarly uses the Force as a metaphor for power with the dark and light side.

Hollywood is just throwing things out there to see whatever sticks, but I feel they could do better by getting a feel for what the audience wants and knowing the timing.

Cobrai Kai isn’t a reboot… it’s a sequel.

I wasn’t just talking about reboots, but the franchises and storylines that are being brought back.

Al-x wrote:

The same goes for Sex and the City reboot, NYC and the dating scene, we’ll find out if the same formula works.

In this case I doubt it will be the same formula. I think it will necessarily be different given that the characters will be at such a different stage of their lives.

Well… it’s up to young people to do new things. I mean, they aren’t gonna be totally original most likely, but don’t expect anything new from 30+ year olds. You can do good. Things can be good, and even great, but it’s the job of 29 and younger to do something we’ve never seen before.

I know it’s tough. Obviously we’ve seen more than kids have but that’s the challenge. No one said it would be easy and it’s not.

Al-x wrote:

Hollywood is just throwing things out there to see whatever sticks, but I feel they could do better by getting a feel for what the audience wants and knowing the timing.

That’s what they’re trying all the time. And then somebody comes along and does something everybody was sure nobody would want and it’s a huge success, like Walking Dead or Game of Thrones, and then everybody tries to copy that because they think that’s what the audience wants but it turns out they don’t anymore.

Trying to figure out what the audience wants is useless. Find a strong concept that you think is interesting, and support people who clearly know how to tell the story they want to tell. Great content will find an audience. Well, not always… but the chances are better than when you try to decide what people want and then make that.

…damn, can’t find a clip of that Merc Lapidus meeting that shows how I imagine TV producers trying to figure out what the audience wants…

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Todd, Dave

Al-x wrote:

There are quite a few reboots and movies in the works for past shows. I read an interesting article that said that given how times have changed, what clicked with the audience 10 years ago might not work now.

The original audience is older and their tastes change. Younger audiences have different tastes to begin with and eventually, their tastes will evolve.

A lot of these “reboots” (I’m using “reboot” as a catch-all for actual reboots, prequels, sequels, etc.) are primarily aimed at the original audience for the show. A streaming service has the original series in its library and the reboot theoretically helps boost views of the original.

It also plays heavily into nostalgia. “Remember that show you liked years ago? Here’s more of the same, ONLY DIFFERENT!” Oftentimes, the audience was in a different place mentally and culturally during the initial run. The audience gets older and they change. Sometimes, the shows don’t age well as the culture as changed and what was once acceptable no longer is. Capturing what made the show successful in the first place while trying to adapt it to a new cultural landscape is difficult at best and fails more often than not.

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Al-x

One thing I find a truly weird idea is True Blood being remade by Roberto Aguirre-Saccasa. I mean, Riverdale and Chilling Adventure are fine, but the thing is that everything that these shows run on – the shlocky horror thrills, the sex, the teenage drama, just how exaggerated everything is… True Blood did all of that before them and honestly it did it better than either of those shows. So I don’t see how this could be anything but a diminished version of True Blood.

I do think with remakes and re-imaginings there’s an element of a break and fresh thought.

If you think about comics franchises it’s less common a writer is fired off a book and more often moves on because their ideas have run their course.

Not strictly storytelling but in the 1970s talent shows were huge in the UK with New Faces and Opportunity Knocks, then died off and came back with a new impetus with the Cowell shows in the 2000s. Now they are starting to wane badly in the ratings, they may well take another break of 20 years and come back with a new take on it with new people behind them.

Sometimes it doesn’t work (say Robocop) sometimes it does (Battlestar Galactica).

I have to say that if the people who want to revisit/reboot old stories were smart, they would take into consideration several factors.

Has the story been told well the first time around? What is there to add and remake? Is the audience in the mood for it? How have the times changed affecting peoples perception of it? I could go on but I see them only thinking that nostalgia will make money for them.

Land of the Lost could have been awesome imho. I was also thinking about reviving Babylon 5, but what is there to add or remake?

Now West Side Story is coming and we will see…

Any stories you would like to see revisited?

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Spider-Man’s origin is ripe for a retelling.

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Todd, njerry

garjones wrote:

Spider-Man’s origin is ripe for a retelling.

I bet they could fit two retellings in a single movie. Hell, get Chris Terrio to write it and The Znyde to direct it. Can’t fail. Nope, no sir.

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Todd

WHY DID YOU COOK THAT RICE!!!

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Rocket, Christian, Todd, njerry

Al-x wrote:

Any stories you would like to see revisited?

I am surprised we haven’t gotten a big retelling of HUCK FINN and TOM SAWYER aside from a few mediocre and in some cases very niche films or television series.

I mean, other than the musical BIG RIVER, I can’t think of anything that would be the “classic” adaptation of either book, but this wasn’t it —

 

Al-x wrote:

Any stories you would like to see revisited?

Yes, the very unfortunatly cancelled Threshold series…  Can you believe they cancelled a show with this kick-ass cast?

And without Gugino & Dinklage it wouldn’t be the same… BUT the concept of the show was really cool… so if someone could re-launch it with the same type of care as something like the Expanse, yeah, that would be awesome.

Ah, Threshold, in the first class of Lost wannabes of 2005 — along with Invasion and Surface. The shortest lived one, but also the one that had the most potential.

Network tv is littered with a ton of these things: Lost-inspired sci-fi/supernatural flavored mystery series with murky, one-word titles and ensemble casts… most didn’t make it past the first season.

Heroes (2006-2010), The Nine (2006-2007), Flashforward (2009-2010), V (2009-2011), The Event (2010-2011), Terra Nova (2011), The River (2012), Revolution (2012-2014), The Returned (2015), The Crossing (2018), Manifest (2018-)… and even then I’m probably missing a few.

Really amazing that Hollywood keeps tapping into that Lost well, even though these knock-offs keep failing to attract viewers, and even by the end, Lost was hated by a large number of its fans.

Well I don’t know if it was actually a Lost wannabe since it was not really the same thing at all, but yeah it got released in that period of time when a bunch of shitty shows came out all at once trying to cash in to Lost’s success, so yeah a lot of them got swallowed.

But the concept was super solid (the execution not that much at times, I have to admit, probably why it didn’t make it) and it could be a really really REALLY good premium cable type of show with good writers attached.

And yeah, you’re missing a lot… I can remember the 4400, Jericho, Revolution, Under the Dome, there was Fringe of course, and then all of the Sci-fi channel drecks like Falling Skies, Defiance, and the more recent ones… There’s been A LOT of shitty sci-fi programming indeed… =P

Sliders could be revived but it would be too much like a Dr. Who knockoff.

Also, really doing justice to the parallel world concept would take a lot and be more than what can be chewed…

Al-x wrote:

Sliders could be revived but it would be too much like a Dr. Who knockoff.

Also, really doing justice to the parallel world concept would take a lot and be more than what can be chewed…

Sliders had a lot of potential but Fox wanted more action and had writers who weren’t versed in sci fi. Fox and SciFi Channel never really let the show achieve its potential.

There have been talks of a revival with some of the original cast members.

Any ideas for reboots, rewrites, even redos?

like replacing the teddy bear Ewoks with Wookiees in Return of the Jedi.

Recasting Sophia Coppola and getting rid of the Vatican stuff in Godfather 3.

Rebooting Wiseguy

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njerry

I would remake the Lord of the Rings, but I would drop the confusing stuff with taking the ring to Mordor, I would just have Gandalf or Aragorn wearing the ring and leading the armies of Rohan and Gondor to kick orc ass. I think you could trim the trilogy down to a single movie and make it a lot more exciting by just having big fights.

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Christian, njerry

I think the time is right for the Snyder cut of THE IRISHMAN, with 2 hours of added footage, and replacing Robert DeNiro with Meryl Streep.

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Uncle Retrospective, Rocket, Christian

Does anyone remember Wiseguy?

It was a great show in the late 80’s about a government agent who went undercover in many situations besides the Mafia.

They won’t show it because of Kevin Spacey, but I feel a smart reboot would be nice.

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Todd

Al-x wrote:

Does anyone remember Wiseguy?

I remember watching and liking it back then. It was one of the better shows about somebody working as an undercover cop.

But honestly, I mean, my memory is hazy, but I don’t think there was anything particularly special about the characters or the concept? You could basically make any kind of undercover cop/mafia show instead of remaking that one. Which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it, I’m sure it’d be fine, or at least could be.

Speaking of old mafia shows, does anybody remember Crime Story? I always liked that one, too. Once again, I don’t remember a lot of it apart from the Las Vegas/early sixties setting (which was all very neat), but I do remember how it all ended: the bad guy escaped and wakes up in a house somewhere in the desert, presumably safe. But as he walks around he finds that what he thought were people are all mannequins and he suddenly realises that his goon has brought him to a nuclear testing site. Series ends with a nuclear explosion. Now that’s a cool way to end a show.
(Or it should’ve been the end, and I think it was as far as German TV is concerned; reading wiki now, there was apparently another season after that.)

Christian wrote:

But honestly, I mean, my memory is hazy, but I don’t think there was anything particularly special about the characters or the concept? You could basically make any kind of undercover cop/mafia show instead of remaking that one. Which doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it, I’m sure it’d be fine, or at least could be.

The unique thing about WISEGUY at the time was that each season consisted of two or three story arcs, at a time when all other television crime shows were basically a collection of done-in-one episodes with a different crime/bad guy each week. The first 10-episode arc featured actor Ray Sharkey as Sonny Steelgrave as a New Jersey mobster; the second 12-episode arc featured Kevin Spacey and Joan Severance and brother-and-sister arms dealers Mel and Susan Profitt.

These days we are used to crime shows like DEXTER and HANNIBAL that feature one primary story arc over 10 or more episodes; but not in 1988 when WISEGUY debuted.

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Christian, Todd, Dave

I remember that being a distinguishing feature for Murder One, too. At the time it was a real novelty that the entire 20-whatever-episode season followed one murder case.

At the time it was blamed for the show’s poor ratings – they couldn’t guarantee that people would watch every episode, and ended up having to include ever-lengthier explainer recaps at the start of each.

It makes you realise how much impact on-demand streaming services (and to a lesser extend the earlier DVD boxsets) have had on the structure of TV. Now it’s pretty unthinkable that someone would only watch occasional random episodes out of sequence and not watch everything in order, but back then that was the norm.

Could novelistic shows like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad (let alone stuff like The Wire) have worked in the same way back in those days? Probably not.

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njerry, Todd

The continuing-story format worked successfully for nighttime weekly soap operas like DALLAS, DYNASTY, and FALCON CREST, and for miniseries like ROOTS; not so much for legal, police/detective, or medical dramas. Shows like LA LAW, HILL STREET BLUES, and ER had subplots that ran throughout various episodes, but each individual episode tended to focus on one or two cases that were resolved by the end of the 60 minutes.

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Todd

I wonder how much the advent of the VCR changed that. Before that if you weren’t free at the exact time a show was on the episode was missed and with it the ability to follow a continuous narrative. So the ‘done-in-one’ format was important to make the show accessible. That was true in the UK too for most shows.

Being able to go back and watch a show has become more and more accessible, first with retail video and finally streaming where everything is online at any time.

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Todd

garjones wrote:

I wonder how much the advent of the VCR changed that. Before that if you weren’t free at the exact time a show was on the episode was missed and with it the ability to follow a continuous narrative. So the ‘done-in-one’ format was important to make the show accessible. That was true in the UK too for most shows.

I guess the counter example for all of this is soap operas, where the story would continue episode to episode and would rely on people sticking with it to follow the story threads, sometimes on a daily basis. And they’ve been popular for many decades, well before the advent of the VCR.

One way in which they used to help people keep up with those in the UK (don’t know about elsewhere) is by scheduling repeats soon after broadcast, sometimes showing a new episode every evening and then repeating it at lunchtime the next day for people who missed it, and sometimes running bumper omnibus editions at the weekends.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

I guess the counter example for all of this is soap operas, where the story would continue episode to episode and would rely on people sticking with it to follow the story threads, sometimes on a daily basis. And they’ve been popular for many decades, well before the advent of the VCR.

Interesting point here – and in general – is the role the audience plays in this.

First, a side note, imagine writing for a narrative that airs every day. The question really isn’t how were soap operas so bad, but how were they so relatively satisfying to the audience day after day especially back when some of them were taped practically live in real time. What sort of process did the writers use to deliver on a schedule like that without killing themselves? I’ll see if there are any documentaries on the old soaps (probably a few good books) as it is a fascinating subculture.

However, for comparison, there is an interesting theory that culture in New York changed so rapidly not simply because of the mayorship of people like Guiliani or Bloomberg that turned the city into a tourist attraction (a sure culture-killer), but it really happened in the 80’s and 90’s when so many members of the gay community died from AIDS. For gay New Yorkers thirty to forty years ago, the Ballet was like Major League Baseball, the theatre – not just big Broadway shows and musicals – writing and the arts depended upon the gay New York scene for not just their attendance but to spread the word. There is an old saying by old New Yorkers that if you live in New York City, you’re Jewish even if you’re not Jewish unless you’re a cop, in which case you’re Irish. Yet, much of the innovation in the arts in the 60’s, 70’s and into the 80’s came out of the emerging gay culture and pride of the city.

But that practically disappeared and disintegrated overnight when AIDS hit the town and the rest of the country. And especially the audience disappeared.

Soap operas – which may have a notable gay audience, I don’t know – faced a different problem. They depended a lot on women who were not employed outside the house. Married women who would stay home and watch the shows every day. Then, of course, more and more women started working even when they were married and the audience got squeezed not only because people could not watch them, but other daytime shows became more popular and competitive.

About this same time, though, we started to see what people would call the Prime Time Soaps like NYPD Blue, E.R. and a lot of what is on television commonly now. The type of storytelling follows its audience and can quickly diminish if that audience disappears.

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garjones

You are right on the soaps and I had considered that but as you say they had their own versions of catchup with the weekend omnibus. In the US they were mainly daytime shows and consumed by stay at home housewives.  They are also slightly an oddity because at some point everyone comes in cold knowing nothing, or most anyway, I wasn’t born when Coronation Street started. There’s a certain familiarity to the everyday storylines too that are easier to pick up than an espionage tale or something. When I watched Eastenders or Neighbours years ago I can’t say I watched every one and never missed an episode, I don’t know how much is built in to how they’re written to cater for that. If I missed an episode of say Line of Duty I’d be well lost.

It could be nothing but I do see the trend of the continuing narrative in drama coincide rather well with the opportunities to play back increasing. Comedy too, I think it’s around the late 80s/early 90s that an element of it started coming in there, Only Fools and Horses moved to have more of an ongoing element than the traditional reset to status quo each week. That’s pretty common now in stuff like Ricky Gervais’ sitcoms or Gavin and Stacey.

It’s not to say it never happened before, Reggie Perrin did have a certain amount of plot progression in the 1970s and there were the soaps and various drama series that did like Jerry’s examples but I think it’s more common and more as we get into the video era. To a degree that can be use to defend the point because it’s not as if someone came up with it as a new idea.  The shows that are ‘reset status quo’ each episode are relatively rare now compared to when I was a kid and it was the vast majority on the air.

 

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Dave

Yeah, the single camera comedy show is a big idea. Arrested Development really ran with that. Curb your enthusiasm. Entourage. Mostly comic with some drama as well. Some actors have talked about how their careers took a dive when the format and style changed because they were so strongly associated with some sitcom or episodic show and the producers didn’t think they could make the move to a different format. Also, a lot of production companies took this change to change the terms in treatment of actors. Not so many perks.

It is something we’re often not informed as far as business decisions affecting the media we see. In a lot of ways a celebrity or star (or influencer) is selling a product to the people who pay them. They aren’t selling their skill as an actor or anything they directly own – but the product for a celebrity is basically their fans – as consumers. Basically, the star’s product is us. They are selling us as ticket buyers to a movie or DVD/Streaming purchasers, as eyes for advertisers on television, as purchasers of some product if they are any sort of influencer in social media.

So, even though two stars might have a massive fanbase, you’ll rarely see them cast in the same movie if they have the same fanbase. Or, if it’s Star Wars or a Marvel movie, they don’t need to cast stars because the fans are there for the material. However, that also means that the driving factor for a lot of films is “who will pay to see this?” No one is going to give you money to make it if you can’t answer that question specifically in detail.

However, that was pretty much the same with the Globe Theater and we still got Shakespeare.

Anonymous wrote:

First, a side note, imagine writing for a narrative that airs every day. The question really isn’t how were soap operas so bad, but how were they so relatively satisfying to the audience day after day especially back when some of them were taped practically live in real time. What sort of process did the writers use to deliver on a schedule like that without killing themselves? I’ll see if there are any documentaries on the old soaps (probably a few good books) as it is a fascinating subculture.

I used to look out for writers’ names on soap operas when I was young (I was such a cool kid!) and with a lot of the ones I watched it was a different name every day. My assumption was that the people running the show plotted out the main beats of the story and then had a large team of jobbing writers to do the day-to-day scripting necessary to give them 25 minutes a day (or whatever) of scenes.

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Dave wrote:

My assumption was that the people running the show plotted out the main beats of the story and then had a large team of jobbing writers to do the day-to-day scripting necessary to give them 25 minutes a day (or whatever) of scenes.

Yup that’s how it works.

I forget his name now but I remember reading an interview with one of the top Eastenders writers about 20 years ago. He was English but his wife was a Welsh speaker and through her he ended up working on Pobol Y Cwm (the Welsh language soap that’s been running since the 70s). He was going in and driving the plots to a team of scripters when he couldn’t even understand the language.

By all accounts it’s a pretty relentless job which is why, with a few notable exceptions, there is a very high turnover of cast. The UK soaps though are of a higher quality than the US ones which really are nonsense. A few good actors have come out of US soaps but in the UK some very fine writers cut their teeth on them.

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Wiseguy was a smart show that had interesting plots and characters

I remember Crime Story and how it really ended. It was a takeoff of the Untouchables with this squad of cops after a mobster. Thing that was wrong was the head cop was said to always get his man. So if he was so great, why hasn’t he gotten the mobster already? They let that storyline drag for too long.

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Al-x wrote:

So if he was so great, why hasn’t he gotten the mobster already? They let that storyline drag for too long.

Exactly. Kojak woulda had him behind bars by the end of the first episode.

Anonymous wrote:

Exactly. Kojak woulda had him behind bars by the end of the first episode.

Who loves ya, baby?

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Rocket, Todd

garjones wrote:

It’s not to say it never happened before, Reggie Perrin did have a certain amount of plot progression in the 1970s

Reggie Perrin was actually an adaptation of a novel, which is why is progressed from episode to episode. It was written by the original novelist and he actually used the manuscript of the book in order to write the TV script. And then wrote two sequel novels to adapt as the second and third series of the show.

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DavidM, garjones

That is interesting, can’t think of any other examples right now of an ongoing sitcom based on a novel. It’s a fairly unique show anyway because even though there’s progression in Reggie’s life it’s also true that nothing truly changes, whatever the circumstances the characters all end up doing and saying the same things.

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lorcan_nagle

garjones wrote:

That is interesting, can’t think of any other examples right now of an ongoing sitcom based on a novel. It’s a fairly unique show anyway because even though there’s progression in Reggie’s life it’s also true that nothing truly changes, whatever the circumstances the characters all end up doing and saying the same things.

I’m sure there’s some other BBC shows from around the time that would fit the bill, but probably not with the same close relationship as Reggie Perrin had, especially not adding novels to the series to provide more material for the show.

garjones wrote:

By all accounts it’s a pretty relentless job which is why, with a few notable exceptions, there is a very high turnover of cast. The UK soaps though are of a higher quality than the US ones which really are nonsense. A few good actors have come out of US soaps but in the UK some very fine writers cut their teeth on them.

It is pretty much the very last holdout from the classic live broadcasting days of early television where a lot of writers would start their careers.

Today, I’m not really sure where the heat is as far as writing. Some videogames have good writing that a lot of people might never see but also require a lot of fluidity in narratives due to the interactive nature. I feel that the BBC, because it does have a public responsibility, may have more of a process bringing in new writers and developing their careers a bit more directly than the freelance and mercenary nature of American television.

I’ll be honest and say it isn’t something I’ve analysed in any depth.

It’s a noted thing in the UK because Jimmy McGovern started on a soap and he went on to be one of the most hard hitting and incisive writers with stuff like Cracker and Hillsborough. Some of the best Dr Wh0 episodes come from former soap writers. It w0uldn’t surprise me if that happened in the US too as a way in but I’m just not as aware of it.

Before VCRs, a lot of US viewing was appointment TV. You would actually plan your social life around it or include it. You would gather together to watch. I remember gathering at people’s houses to watch Cosby and the Thursday night comedies, Babylon 5, STNG, and other shows.

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Todd