The Storytelling Thread

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This is a thread to talk about a storytelling

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

garjones wrote:

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njerry

Back to the elements of storytelling, there was a discussion earlier (maybe on a different version of the thread) about what makes an anti-hero, and in most cases – maybe all cases – anti-heroes are simply traditional heroes. They are often even more heroic than traditional heroes in the sense that they are tougher, smarter, stronger and often more determined than their traditional counterparts.

For example, take a look at these scenes from WOLF OF WALL STREET which, like GOODFELLAS, is essentially the heroic journey of a criminal.

Obviously, the movie (also like GOODFELLAS) is based on a factual story. At least, there really is a Jordan Belfort who is a disgraced Wall Street broker that committed the crimes and acts supposedly described in the movie. Also, it was based on the book he wrote about himself.

The movie presents him as a kind of slick-talking, stock pushing prodigy who just happened to walk into a penny stock brokerage after losing his job on the “real” Wall Street and it turned out that he had the knack for talking people out of their money with worthless stocks. His fellow penny stock traders are dumbstruck at his skill as if he is practicing some kind of wizardry right in front of them.

However, the truth, as usual, is more mundane. None of that makes sense. First, there is no way the guys doing this job were not even better than Belfort would’ve been if he was just starting out at this. In his real life, actually, Belfort did not simply walk into a penny stock boiler room and almost accidentally learn the secret to making money from suckers. Instead, he founded and ran that boiler room. He didn’t take all these guys who just happened to work there and then train them up to be better con artists on the phone. He hired experienced guys who already knew how to do. He probably didn’t even write the scripts they would use, or even use scripts until it was big enough to recruit people just to keep all the phones busy.

That’s not a good story, though. It isn’t heroic, and it’s really heroism that makes an anti-hero work. Belfort, the protagonist of the movie, is going through the same initiation rites that heroes from Hercules to Huckleberry Finn have. The “anti” part of the hero isn’t in the character or his progression, but in the context of the story. If this had been a story about a man trying to cure a disease or fighting a totalitarian dictator, Belfort’s dedication to his goal would have been completely admirable. However, it is a story about acquiring as much money as possible with absolutely no regard to any impediments – especially legal ones – and then spending that money in the most conspicuous ways imaginable. The framework of the journey – the map of its territory – is completely contrary to normal morality, but Belfort progresses along that journey with the same heroic determination that Abraham Lincoln has toward the 13th Amendment in Spielberg’s LINCOLN.

I think that’s an important thing to remember when writing for something like television or movies. First, the character must remain heroic in the context of the story. Not simply “better” in some sense that any other character, but absolutely dedicated to fighting for his or her goal – their “treasure” because they have to really value it. Second, almost nothing else is really going to attract a lead actor to the role. Often, heroes are really upstaged by many characters in their supporting cast. There will be a Han Solo friend character – or in the case of this movie Jonah Hills Donnie Azoff – or worse a villain who has all the good lines or steals the scene. Driving, irrepressible heroes are what lead actors look for so no matter who gets those good lines or comes on to steal the scene, they can be sure the whole movie is really about their character who really makes it all happen. Otherwise, they end up like Luke Skywalker or Neo – a cipher in the screen surrounded by stuff that is a lot more interesting than they are.

 

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Todd

I see anti-heroes as basically characters who take moral and ethical shortcuts that traditional heroes would not.

Daredevil (traditional hero) attempts to solve the problem of crime by catching criminals and seeing them incarcerated while the Punisher’s (anti-hero) solution is simply killing the bad guys.

But if you want to get really technical, the majority of superheroes are anti-heroes as they are not sanctioned or licensed by some form of governing body. They are vigilantes. Whereas law enforcement officers are trained, licensed, and must follow the law, superheroes don’t. Law enforcement must follow strict guidelines to ensure a suspect’s civil rights are not violated and gather sufficient evidence in a specified manner for it to be considered admissible in a court of law. Superheroes do whatever the fuck they want. Sure, many won’t kill but that doesn’t mean they don’t commit felony assault and battery and destroy property with little or no consequence. Spider-Man, who it probably one of the more moral and ethical superheroes, is in actuality a serious criminal. That was one of the things I wished had been explored more after Marvel’s Civil War event: what the difference between a “registered” versus “unregistered” superhero means and what responsibilities and consequences of each are.

If you look at superhero genre too closely and think about it too much, you see the fatal flaws in the whole concept and how terrible the characters are really are.

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Todd wrote:

If you look at superhero genre too closely and think about it too much, you see the fatal flaws in the whole concept and how terrible the characters are really are.

Essentially it’s just a simplification of concepts for the sake of entertainment. The vigilante is a troublesome concept but also if you deconstruct it too much you suck all the fun out of it. So I’m kind of glad it wasn’t explored too much further after Civil War (for the Marvel comics line or MCU) but it is good reading in the current Daredevil run where they are addressing the issue in a single book that has always had a more ‘down to earth’ approach.

James Bond is similar too, wanders wherever he wants globally with his ‘license to kill’, he’s basically carrying out covert assassinations as he fancies and never remotely checks back in for high level authorisation, just a chat with M at the start and end. He’s not that far removed from Judge Dredd in that sense.

 

 

Anonymous wrote:

I think that’s an important thing to remember when writing for something like television or movies. First, the character must remain heroic in the context of the story. Not simply “better” in some sense that any other character, but absolutely dedicated to fighting for his or her goal – their “treasure” because they have to really value it. Second, almost nothing else is really going to attract a lead actor to the role. Often, heroes are really upstaged by many characters in their supporting cast. There will be a Han Solo friend character – or in the case of this movie Jonah Hills Donnie Azoff – or worse a villain who has all the good lines or steals the scene. Driving, irrepressible heroes are what lead actors look for so no matter who gets those good lines or comes on to steal the scene, they can be sure the whole movie is really about their character who really makes it all happen. Otherwise, they end up like Luke Skywalker or Neo – a cipher in the screen surrounded by stuff that is a lot more interesting than they are.

That was an interesting analysis, and I agree pretty much completely, except that like with every rule, there are also plenty of examples of them being broken. I’m immediately thinking of Coen Brothers movies, where quite often the main characters aren’t active heroes pursuing a goal, but are rather pushed into a situation in which they are propelled by the events and have no choice but to go along – even though they would rather not. The Man Who Wasn’t There is of course an example for that, but so’s The Big Lebowski or A Serious Man and the TV series Fargo (especially Martin Freeman in season 1) – and all of those are fantastic roles. A character can be made interesting by all kinds of things, it doesn’t have to be his heroism.

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Todd wrote:

I see anti-heroes as basically characters who take moral and ethical shortcuts that traditional heroes would not.

But ethics are not absolute, they depend on your frame of reference. Punisher kills people, therefore he’s an anti-hero. Robin Hood skewered dozens of hard-working castle guards, but he’s a true hero. Punisher is only an anti-hero within the frame of reference Stan Lee established for what is heroic within the MU.

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Ehh… Robin Hood IS a thief though… the prince of thieves in fact… therefore a criminal/outlaw. People see him as a hero because he gives money to the poor, much like people see the Punisher as a hero because he “cleans the streets”. They’re basically the same in that they’re both criminals who provide a service to the masses (but in essence they’re “buying” their heroism in a very unethical way). Same reason why a lot of people saw Pablo Escobar as a hero…

Point is, best not think about the ethical ramifications of comicbook heroes… it gets really muddy really quick… =P

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Jon wrote:

criminals who provide a service to the masses (but in essence they’re “buying” their heroism in a very unethical way)

Like police!

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Todd

Christian wrote:

That was an interesting analysis, and I agree pretty much completely, except that like with every rule, there are also plenty of examples of them being broken. I’m immediately thinking of Coen Brothers movies, where quite often the main characters aren’t active heroes pursuing a goal, but are rather pushed into a situation in which they are propelled by the events and have no choice but to go along – even though they would rather not. The Man Who Wasn’t There is of course an example for that, but so’s The Big Lebowski or A Serious Man and the TV series Fargo (especially Martin Freeman in season 1) – and all of those are fantastic roles. A character can be made interesting by all kinds of things, it doesn’t have to be his heroism.

However, there are interesting variations like the way comic heroes obviously act contrary to normal morals but are still heroic in the context. In the Big Lebowski, Serious Man, Fargo, the main characters are more comic heroes, but they do act to drive the story. The Dude does decide to replace his rug. Marge does go back to question Jerry (this is the whole reason for the scenes involving her classmate who lies about everything – it makes her realize that she needs to be more suspicious of men who appear to be harmless). They take action toward a generally worthy goal in the context of the story. In the Man Who Wasn’t There, the character does start the blackmail scheme and that triggers everything. Nevertheless, comic heroes are in some ways anti-heroic because comedy at heart is funny because it ridicules or makes fun of traditional moral attitudes.

The most anti-heroic hero I can think of is not any serial killer or mad criminal hero in films – they all generally have goals and conflicts – but it is Forrest Gump who doesn’t change, never really wants anything, who walks in and out of dramatic conflicts without participating and still ends up successful by pure chance. The shape of his story is a straight line.

However, as far the characters in a story that are most interesting, the actual protagonists are often dead last on the list. Primarily, that is because the audience is supposed to identify with them rather than to identify with their actions. A hero with an interesting personality has limited appeal – can turn people off. So, the foils, antagonists and sidekicks provide the personality so the story doesn’t get boring. Again, see Forrest Gump in that regard.

Nevertheless, if the context of the story is centered around a moral goal, then the heroes often use whatever means to achieve it and no one would really consider them anti-heroes. In a War movie, when the G.I.’s ambush a bunch of Nazi’s, that usually isn’t considered murder. In LINCOLN, mentioned above, when he has his people bribe representatives and when he lies to Congress, it doesn’t make him an anti-hero because he’s doing so to end the institution of slavery.

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Christian

Anonymous wrote:

Nevertheless, if the context of the story is centered around a moral goal, then the heroes often use whatever means to achieve it and no one would really consider them anti-heroes. In a War movie, when the G.I.’s ambush a bunch of Nazi’s, that usually isn’t considered murder. In LINCOLN, mentioned above, when he has his people bribe representatives and when he lies to Congress, it doesn’t make him an anti-hero because he’s doing so to end the institution of slavery.

Yeah, with Lincoln, he does all of that in service to the greater goal, and that is one whose morality is not in doubt.

I think mostly an anti-hero is defined by their having private moral failings? Now, I Lincoln was taking a lot of drugs and acting out violently, and solving a murder on the side…

Comic heroes are, almost by definition, anti-heroic as the nature of a comic story is to find humor in cultural assumptions. It would be missing the point to consider Black Adder or Deadpool to be anti-heroes for that reason.

In the end, though, I actually think there is no such thing as a true anti-hero as all protagonists act in the same way, it is just the nature of the story that changes. The only “anti-heroes” in fiction are those protagonists that actually don’t do anything heroic even though they are treated as the hero. For me, as mentioned, Forrest Gump is the most popular of these – and I think a lot of people missed that in the movie, Gump is terribly unheroic in nature and it is the presentation that fools the audience. Also, even better but less well known is Chance the Gardener (Chauncey Gardner) in Being There. These stories present a rather below average person who is lauded as a hero by those around them and actually defies or really argues against the basic idea of heroism. At heart, though, the nature of those stories is comic and satirical so they could be considered comic heroes, though I think the absence of any real agency or personal intention in context of the stories sets them apart from the comic heroes.

Anonymous wrote:

In the end, though, I actually think there is no such thing as a true anti-hero as all protagonists act in the same way

Well, depends on how you define “anti-hero” though. Usually, what you call an anti-hero is defined not by not acting heroically, but by acting heroically in spite of not being what you would consider a “hero” in character. It’s really just a bit of different flavour on your hero, in the end.

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Todd

However, I think what might be considered “anti-heroes” is actually the norm for all heroes throughout history. David in the Bible to Sherlock Holmes to the musical Hamilton. There was never really a time when a traditional hero was perfectly moral whether it was Dickensian melodramas or John Wayne Westerns. I think much of this may have come about from intentional censorship of children’s entertainment and only very recently. The OZ and Alice in Wonderland stories present some very strange and disturbing content for kids, but that is not generally what we get in Disney cartoons and shows for kids today.

So, anti-hero may just turn out to be heroes in stories with an adult audience, while the traditional hero is really the exception and mostly for undeveloped minds.

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DavidM

I think that is true to a large degree. I am sure we could still find a lot of heroes without any private moral failings in movies – Cap and Superman obviously, but also characters like Ethan Hunt – but with those, you have exactly the problems you described above: They’re not very interesting as characters, so can only be defined by their determination to make the plot happen and to fight the bad guys.

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Ethan Hunt is a good example. Bond is a good example of what some would call an anti-hero and others would consider a straightforward regular hero depending on the movie. Also, of course, Captain American and Superman are a good example of how heroes for kids were generally simple. It was only when comics started to be bought by adults that they became more complicated (Cap’s Nomad period and Superman in The Dark Knight Returns).

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Christian

Anonymous wrote:

Also, of course, Captain American and Superman are a good example of how heroes for kids were generally simple. It was only when comics started to be bought by adults that they became more complicated (Cap’s Nomad period and Superman in The Dark Knight Returns).

It’s an important element with kids. I’ve found watching with mine that the toughest thing is that ambiguity in who is good/bad. They could handle some of darker themes in some movies ok but they need to know who to root for.

Civil War was a chore and Batman v Superman a disaster in getting their heads around why heroes are fighting each other.

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Anonymous wrote:

Bond is a good example of what some would call an anti-hero and others would consider a straightforward regular hero depending on the movie.

And depending on how much tea is in your bloodstream, I’d imagine.

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garjones wrote:

It’s an important element with kids. I’ve found watching with mine that the toughest thing is that ambiguity in who is good/bad. They could handle some of darker themes in some movies ok but they need to know who to root for. Civil War was a chore and Batman v Superman a disaster in getting their heads around why heroes are fighting each other.

I don’t doubt this, but it contradicts the evidence of comics. Hero-on-hero is a staple of comics, even from the days when comics were actually pitched at kids, and I certainly never struggled with the idea. Is it because of the medium, because the printed page with editorial captions in every panel can convey more meaning than on-screen action?

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garjones wrote:

Batman v Superman a disaster in getting their heads around why heroes are fighting each other.

I recall my then-6-year-old grandnephew excitedly saying he wanted to see BvS, and his worldly 8-year-old sister telling him “But that’s dumb — they’re both good guys!”

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DavidM wrote:

Hero-on-hero is a staple of comics, even from the days when comics were actually pitched at kids, and I certainly never struggled with the idea.

It is and don’t think I didn’t consider that when I posted. Very few of those stories, if we are looking at pre Watchmen/DKR when the focus was largely at a young audience, were ethical dilemmas on the approach to heroism. They were misunderstandings or some outside malignant force pitting them that way. Something that’s either made clear from the outset or soon enough in. More like the mind controlled Hawkeye attacking the Avengers in the first movie.

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DavidM wrote:

I don’t doubt this, but it contradicts the evidence of comics. Hero-on-hero is a staple of comics, even from the days when comics were actually pitched at kids, and I certainly never struggled with the idea. Is it because of the medium, because the printed page with editorial captions in every panel can convey more meaning than on-screen action?

I think that’s part of it, but also because of the approach they’ve taken. In those old comic book, the hero-vs.-hero fights mostly just looked fun, honestly, and nobody would ever get hurt – just a lot of property damage. And most importantly, the fighting part only lasted for five pages or so (usually after they first meet, kinda like with the GotG and Tony in Infinity War) and then the misunderstanding is quickly cleared up and everybody gangs together to fight the bad guy.
Whereas with the Civil-War-(the-comic-)-like approach, the violence is pretty devastating, and more importantly so is the emotional confrontation. Civil War (the movie) is all about Cap and Tony feeling betrayed by each other, and BvS is… well, you know. It’s all about brutally fighting the other guy to the death. (Well, until – MARTHA!)

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garjones wrote:

It is and don’t think I didn’t consider that when I posted. Very few of those stories, if we are looking at pre Watchmen/DKR when the focus was largely at a young audience, were ethical dilemmas on the approach to heroism. They were misunderstandings or some outside malignant force pitting them that way. Something that’s either made clear from the outset or soon enough in. More like the mind controlled Hawkeye attacking the Avengers in the first movie.

True – or it was a trick to fool a villain or due to a trick of a villain disguised as a hero. In the 80’s, though, when teens and 20 year olds were the audience, it did seem like that’s the time when the trope of heroes fighting as soon as they meet really became normal.

Anonymous wrote:

due to a trick of a villain

One of my problems with BvS is I kept expecting Lex to show up and make his manipulations more obvious

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njerry wrote:

I recall my then-6-year-old grandnephew excitedly saying he wanted to see BvS, and his worldly 8-year-old sister telling him “But that’s dumb — they’re both good guys!”

The ironic thing with bad guys though is that often kids are attracted to them. George Lucas would often mention that Darth Vader was by far the most popular Star Wars character with little kids. His theory was that Vader was powerful and the one thing kids want most is power since they are so very aware of their own powerlessness and vulnerability.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

njerry wrote:

I recall my then-6-year-old grandnephew excitedly saying he wanted to see BvS, and his worldly 8-year-old sister telling him “But that’s dumb — they’re both good guys!”

The ironic thing with bad guys though is that often kids are attracted to them. George Lucas would often mention that Darth Vader was by far the most popular Star Wars character with little kids. His theory was that Vader was powerful and the one thing kids want most is power since they are so very aware of their own powerlessness and vulnerability.

There’s a great bit in The Toys That Made Us documentary about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe franchise where it talks about them coming up with the catchphrase “I have the power!” quite calculatedly, for exactly this reason.

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Todd

Rocket wrote:

One of my problems with BvS is I kept expecting Lex to show up and make his manipulations more obvious

Well that’s where the theatrical cut failed miserably, since Lex’s plot is waaaaaaaaaaay more obvious in the ultimate edition… that said, I didn’t mind that aspect in the theatrical, because it worked for me… at some point in the movie it all clicked together and I literally gasped and said to myself “oohhhh this has all been Lex’s doing”, but it seems it just didn’t work for most people.

What I don’t get is that people claim they don’t want any more moustache-twirling villains ’cause they’re too simplistic and one-dimensional and cliché, but then you get a Jesse Eisenberg Luthor who deviates from that steretype very well, and they also complain because “it didn’t make sense”…

Essentially, as much as I am generally intrigued by Snyder’s interpretation of the DC universe and how you can draw some evolution from the way he approached WATCHMEN to the way he enters into the DCU tradition, my problem with MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN VS SUPERMAN comes down to the storytelling.

Take something like HAMLET. You can somewhat say that there is a lot NOT going on in Hamlet. However, in truth, it is clear from the beginning that Hamlet has very definite goals. He needs to avenge his father’s death, BUT he also needs to confirm that his father was actually murdered AND that his Uncle, now King Claudius, committed the murder. On top of that, he has to determine if his mother was an accomplice. All of those are nearly impossible tasks that he contends with in every scene. However, it starts with his father already dead and his uncle on the throne for a significant amount of time.

Snyder would start that story with a whole scene of Claudius plotting the murder while having an affair with Hamlet’s mother, committing the murder, taking control of the Kingdom… and then Hamlet comes home and the story starts already an hour into the story and mopes around another 30 minutes until the ghost appears to the night watchmen. The Snyder films start their stories too early, they are driven by the the antagonists for the majority of the movie while the protagonist is very indecisive and has unclear goals with random objectives and not even a conflict anyone can define in dramatic terms.

What his writers needed to do is to look at the plot and just point to the spot where the real conflicts begin. Where there are clear objective on all sides clashing against each other. That’s where the story actually starts and where the movie should start. Then they need to look at all the stuff they did before that point and find a way to build it into the movie after that point that intensifies either the external or internal struggles of the protagonist.

Anonymous wrote:

you can draw some evolution from the way he approached WATCHMEN to the way he enters into the DCU tradition

Well the evolution was more the Nolan Bat-trilogy and then MoS…  I mean, it was initially Nolan who pitched his idea to Snyder and it was in the same vein as his bat-flicks.

Anonymous wrote:

Snyder would start that story with a whole scene […]

Not necessarily… he tends to be extremely faithful more often than not, but I mean, sure… could happen. He is controversial by his own admission (he’s actually quite self-aware despite what a lot of people think), so yeah, I can see him doing something like that, and even worse =P

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Jon wrote:

Not necessarily… he tends to be extremely faithful more often than not, but I mean, sure… could happen. He is controversial by his own admission (he’s actually quite self-aware despite what a lot of people think), so yeah, I can see him doing something like that, and even worse =P

True – that’s sort of what I mean. If it is a completely original script, his writers will start the movie far too early before the story even begins and I think he is faithful to those scripts rather than saying “hey, the story really starts here, so can we start the movie here, too, guys?” While in movies like 300, he’s got a story to follow even before the script is written. As far as the filming of the scenes, it is hard to criticize them. It’s the whole story that suffers from a lot of wasted time in the set up.

However, there are a couple considerations there, too. First, Man of Steel was an origin story meant to set up a second movie that never actually happened. There should have been a MOS 2 in between so, that means a lot of the material in the set up of MOS was not paid off AND all that material needed to be somehow condensed into BvS to set up Justice League — which was meant to be two movies as well. So, very few of the story problems are really due to Zack Snyder necessarily as much as unrealistic demands from WB.

Anonymous wrote:

However, there are a couple considerations there, too. First, Man of Steel was an origin story meant to set up a second movie that never actually happened. There should have been a MOS 2 in between so, that means a lot of the material in the set up of MOS was not paid off AND all that material needed to be somehow condensed into BvS to set up Justice League — which was meant to be two movies as well. So, very few of the story problems are really due to Zack Snyder necessarily as much as unrealistic demands from WB.

I think that is a big problem in Hollywood in general: Gearing movies as Part One in a franchise instead of just telling a complete story. Many times, the first movie in a potential franchise leaves so much on the table with the expectation that subsequent films would fill in those holes. Unfortunately, the first film tanks, which scuttles the franchise and those questions are left unanswered. I do wonder if the film had told a good stand-alone story they might have been more successful. I think good franchises expand and open up their world after the first movie rather than fill in the blanks left by the initial outing.

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/ajanibazile/movie-tropes-people-hate?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeed&ref=bffbbuzzfeed&&fbclid=IwAR39y8lsNErSfc6bckLHkYExVm-oI3U5zz9ISqnuMovocRYHY9mTlsZS6_M

1. “If your plot can only be maintained by your characters not having a simple conversation to resolve things, you’re a bad writer and I don’t like you.”
—u/ShelbaBarbera

Yup, that’s a big one. BvS comes to mind.

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DavidM

Anonymous wrote:

Then they need to look at all the stuff they did before that point and find a way to build it into the movie after that point that intensifies either the external or internal struggles of the protagonist.

To me the issue with the Snyder DC films can actually be boiled down to being too much plot led and not character. A lot of the major faults are in understanding their motivations. Now this isn’t going to be a Snyder bash because I liked a lot of Man of Steel and he also isn’t the sole writer on these things. The two fan trigger points in that film are the Pa Kent heading off to die and the neck snap. The first is still quite confusing the latter I heard Goyer in an interview explain that it is a young Superman and the story would then explain how he moves on to learn and be better.

Which is fine but that’s not ably described in what we saw (or after to be honest but maybe Goyer’s role there reduced and plans changed as they do). Similarly in BvS my usual moan will come about Batman going from obsessed opposer of Superman to ‘he’s my friend’ in such a short time, similarly in ‘Justice League’ Wonder Woman appeals to a close personal relationship with Kal-El to talk him down when on screen they met for 2 minutes, I’m not sure he even knows her name. Again that could be Whedon and not Snyder.

I think they are actually relatively easy fixes and I am now tempted to see if the JL remake does that but it’s quite a fine line really and spelling out the character motivation can make any plot work. In truth I think MCU films can have more plotting problems but the character consistency papers over them, even if the Civil War idea always (in the comic and film) stretches that to the limit.

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I’m gonna wait ’til ZSJL releases to continue this convo, because apparently a lot of people will be surprised… we’ll see… I don’t expect minds will be changed in here, but who knows…

Jon wrote:

apparently a lot of people will be surprised…

I will certainly be shocked if all the Snyder fans watch it and say it’s much better than the original, and no-one else really gives a shit about it one way or another.

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Dave wrote:

and no-one else really gives a shit about it one way or another.

True, I’d be shocked if that happened…

Christian wrote:

1. “If your plot can only be maintained by your characters not having a simple conversation to resolve things, you’re a bad writer and I don’t like you.”
—u/ShelbaBarbera

Yup, that’s a big one. BvS comes to mind.

Honestly, that’s a problem with a whole lot of movies. The problem becomes that if the characters did talk, you wouldn’t have the movie.

Todd wrote:

Honestly, that’s a problem with a whole lot of movies

It’s also a problem with real life.

I think it’s much less realistic for movies to have characters rationally talk something out and come to a solution within 30 seconds, because real world interactions between people with differing ideas or goals are rarely that smooth and focused. And yet movies commonly do that, because nobody wants to listen to a conversation going round in circles for 30 minutes and ending with “let’s take this off-line and pick it up on next week’s call” yes thank you VERY MUCH FOR CALLING THIS MEETING WHICH HAS JUST WASTED HALF AN HOUR OF MY LIFE AND DECIDED NOTHING

Erm, sorry, what was the topic again?

 

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Todd wrote:

Honestly, that’s a problem with a whole lot of movies. The problem becomes that if the characters did talk, you wouldn’t have the movie.

Yep. And I really hate that.

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Todd

It’s true that it’s realistic that characters in movies act in stupid ways, and fail to communicate. But it is silly when a super villain has a plot that depends on it.

(Most Obviously Captain America: Civil War, where the super villain’s plan would have been thwarted if either Iron-Man or Captain America at any time just had said: “Hey, you actually have a point!”)

Other movies are great because people act like idiots or make moronic plans. But a super villain should know better, or be relegated to the warm-up fight before the opening credits.

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Tobias Radesäter wrote:

(Most Obviously Captain America: Civil War, where the super villain’s plan would have been thwarted if either Iron-Man or Captain America at any time just had said: “Hey, you actually have a point!”)

God, yeah, that was another really bad case of this. They sort of made it work because the dialogue was pretty good when they did fight about it (“Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth” remains a great line), but it was still bullshit.

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Todd

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Fuck off, Todd, I refuse to watch that!

Oy, something we discussed in the random comics thread made me remember this – idea for a kind of reverse Harry Potter novel:
In a world in which everybody is a wizard and magic is the foundation of society, there’s just a few people born without magic powers. Of course, to make this work, they also have to be able to negate magic – they’re magical voids, so to speak, and spells can’t affect the. Amongst those people, a special child is born yadda yadda “You’re NOT A WIZARD, ‘arry!” and all that. The wizarding world we’re talking here is a totalitarian nightmare, obviously, so the kid is a resistance fighter.

It’s something that could be fun to write just to fuck with the Harry Potter crowd and with all the magician tropes out there.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, DavidM

I’ve played in an RPG setting that had elements of that. Turned out the kid in question (an NPC we were to protect) was this fantasy worlds version of Satan.

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Uncle Retrospective, Christian

Ooooh that’s also a nice little twist!

In a world where you can do everything with magic, I don’t think you would ever invent technology. So all your defensive spells are geared towards stopping magical attacks. Nobody ever needed to figure out a defence against bullets.

Then one magic-proof rebel invents a machine gun…

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Christian, Todd

Christian wrote:

Oy, something we discussed in the random comics thread made me remember this – idea for a kind of reverse Harry Potter novel: In a world in which everybody is a wizard and magic is the foundation of society, there’s just a few people born without magic powers. Of course, to make this work, they also have to be able to negate magic – they’re magical voids, so to speak, and spells can’t affect the. Amongst those people, a special child is born yadda yadda “You’re NOT A WIZARD, ‘arry!” and all that. The wizarding world we’re talking here is a totalitarian nightmare, obviously, so the kid is a resistance fighter.

Reminds me a bit of the set up for A Spell For Chameleon.

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DavidM

Ah, interesting. Somehow, I never read any Piers Anthony… that’s kind of weird, isn’t it. Holy fuck, he’s still alive and writing? That’s crazy!

Christian wrote:

Ah, interesting. Somehow, I never read any Piers Anthony…

He’s okay – really his books are best if you’re 14 or 15 years old. He’s no Terry Pratchett.

P.K. Dick did a series of stories with “anti psi” characters (World of Talent is one of the best) similar to the X-Men but much more intelligent and paranoid with authoritarian governments and psychic espionage at the center of the stories. That would be similar – just change the psi powers to magic.

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Christian, DavidM

According to Wiki, Piers Anthony is the only author to have published a novel beginning with every letter of the alphabet.

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garjones, Uncle Retrospective, DavidM, Todd

I really like Peirs Ant–

Anonymous wrote:

really his books are best if you’re 14 or 15 years old.

Er, ahem, I mean, yeah I used to like him, he’s fine if you’re a kid

 

But seriously, I did a Xanth re-read a couple of years back and they still hold up well I think. It’s not high literature, but it’s good fun with likeable characters and packed with clever ideas. It probably helps if you think bad puns are the highest form of human wit, though.

 

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njerry, Rocket, Todd

Ok…

Any retcons (mostly in comics) that you like or don’t like?

——————————————————-

I can remember in the Spawn movie from the 90’s, there was a character that was black in the comics that was changed to a white character for the movie. People usually call this a “whitewashing” to change it “better” for the mainstream audience.

A few examples: Disco music and its style of dance was originally developed in gay clubs, bars, and it spread to other minority groups (black and Hispanic people). Yet the mainstream iconic disco movie of that era was “Saturday Night Fever” featuring the white Italian community having a good time in their dance clubs.

“Dirty Dancing” was pretty much a takeoff of the lambada style of dance that was popularized in Brazil among minorities and also people of color in the US. The movie with the same name however, featured as you know Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as the main couple dancing in some Summer country club.

I could go on about Bo Derek’s braids in “10” but may be more of a cultural appropriation as well…

You get the point by now.

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Uncle Retrospective

Al-x wrote:

“Dirty Dancing” was pretty much a takeoff of the lambada style of dance that was popularized in Brazil among minorities and also people of color in the US. The movie with the same name however, featured as you know Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey as the main couple dancing in some Summer country club.

I think cultural appropriation is a real grey area, and that particular example is loosely based on the screenwriter’s formative years – it’s something that actually went on in the 1950’s.

Surely the idea of culture is to express yourself and spread your ideas, so if it bleeds into other sections of society, isn’t that a good thing? It would be silly to say that only Chinese people can eat Chinese food, so why can’t other nationalities dance, for instance, Brazilian dances? If it helps bring it to a wider audience, and the appreciation of that culture grows, then so much the better.

Also, it influences wider culture – rock and roll evolved out of the rhythm and blues that originated among African American communities, so is rock and roll a bad thing?

 

 

 

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DavidM, Dave

Al-x wrote:

Any retcons (mostly in comics) that you like or don’t like?

…all of them?

Steve Sensible wrote:

Also, it influences wider culture – rock and roll evolved out of the rhythm and blues that originated among African American communities, so is rock and roll a bad thing?

And African-American blues was played on an instrument invented in Spain… the “appropriation” goes on forever. In the end there’s just human culture, and no one sub-group should have exclusive ownership of any of it.

 

 

I realise I’m saying that from a position of white privilege, and I’ve never had any of my songs stolen by Jimmy Page, but nevertheless…

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Uncle Retrospective

Steve Sensible wrote:

Also, it influences wider culture – rock and roll evolved out of the rhythm and blues that originated among African American communities, so is rock and roll a bad thing?

It is interesting. Obviously, many black artists were prevented from making money as white audiences would not listen to black music for a large part of its development. Then in the 60’s a lot of white musicians (especially in the UK) popularized it until it took over the music world. So now, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie as as much a part of my culture as they are black culture. Largely due to MTV which was fairly exclusively white artists until those two started making the best music videos.

Naturally, if you’re a working musician, you want your music to get as popular as possible. That’s how you make a living. The problem isn’t necessarily appropriation, but the ownership of the music. MTV was very successful because in the original business model the musicians or their labels produced the videos and gave them to the channel for free as it was considered a promotional expense, but it wasn’t like MTV wasn’t profiting off all this free content and the record companies would take that expense out of the musician’s share of the profits in the end. All the liabilities were primarily put on the artist with other people benefiting from their success.

– – –

As far as retcons, I’m not sure if Prometheus and Blade Runner 2049 count, but I didn’t like their additions or revisions to the originals. Actually, I’m not sure I understood them, either. Is Deckard a replicant?

In Man of Steel – I didn’t really understand the whole atmosphere business with Kryptonians on the ship not having powers and such. Thought it was unnecessarily complicated. However, I did not mind the changes in Krypton vs. the original movies.

JJ Abrams retcon in Star Trek worked for the first movie, but it brought up a whole lot of questions in the sequel with Khan being completely different from the original.

 

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DavidM, Todd

As far as whitewashing: In rock and roll history, when it started to become popular, the powers that be in music did not want their white teens to dance to the black entertainers. So, they brought in some white singers like Pat Boone and Fabian to mimic and sing a “tamer” watered down versions of songs by the likes of Little Richard, Fats Domino, etc. It was a whitewashing of the music and guess who got most of the money and the attention? And I haven’t even gotten into Elvis…

It is the same story today. There are some record companies promoting their white acts and records, adding more bass to their songs, etc. trying to mimic being so cool. (I give Eminem credit for not getting into that).

To get back to my storytelling point… What I am trying to say is: Say you originally developed some new style or trend for pop culture and someone else sees it, does a knockoff of it and gets all the credit, fame, notoriety, MONEY, etc. How would you feel?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/evelinamedina/nonsense-superhero-movie-moments

Al-x wrote:

To get back to my storytelling point… What I am trying to say is: Say you originally developed some new style or trend for pop culture and someone else sees it, does a knockoff of it and gets all the credit, fame, notoriety, MONEY, etc. How would you feel?

There is more nuance to it than that though. If Elvis hadn’t brought Rock and Roll to the masses, I would never had listened to Michael Jackson or there may have never been the market for all the performers that followed. It’s not Elvis or the Beatles or the Stones’ fault that they were popular and they introduced many people to their influences.

And even inside specific groups, we saw acts succeeding even though they are basically taking the style of another performer or group that didn’t find success. David Bowie outright admitted that he stole constantly just as Michael Jackson would get many of his dance moves from unknown people performing on the streets or at clubs. Madonna, of course, did the same thing for her shows.

On top of that – was it really just a knock-0ff? Was everything that Elvis or the Beatles or Led Zeppelin did with their music exactly the same as the African American influences? Not really.

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Todd

Steve Sensible wrote:

I think cultural appropriation is a real grey area

Hugely so.

It’s probably the most nuanced argument there is.

I’m not saying it doesn’t exist like obvious stuff like the ‘Redskins’ football team but people are frequently promoting their cultural ideas to spread as proof of their value. I was working in India when people were up in arms at Madonna wearing a sari at some awards show, at the same time every woman working in the office from the UK was compelled to wear a sari to work. They loved it.

If you moved to Wales and had a kid we’d love it if he/she wore Welsh costume on St David’s Day, it’s a compliment.

In music you get this amazing synergy, the original house musicians were mixing rock record with disco and adding their own touches in what was largely a black and gay movement. They loved it was picked up in Europe by mainly white and straight people while they were ignored at home. It was never their desire to keep it to themselves and they made a lot of money off it.

To this day almost nobody in the US, black or white, knows who Derrick May is. In Europe he gets his music played by symphony orchestras.

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Anonymous wrote:

On top of that – was it really just a knock-0ff? Was everything that Elvis or the Beatles or Led Zeppelin did with their music exactly the same as the African American influences? Not really.

True. I am not saying that everything cool, trendy, and popular originated with black people, just that in certain instances, credit should be given where credit is due.

Remember the Paul Simon album “Graceland” where he had some of the Soweto South African musicians? Or in movies: Anyone here ever saw the movie “Bring it On” from the early 2000s with Gabriel Union and Kirsten Dunst?

Getting back: In an old interview, Robert Plant mentioned some old black blues musicians and guitarists I didn’t even know. He mentioned the myth of one who sold his soul to some devilish man at some country intersection or crossroads…. The Beatles said that when they were growing up in Liverpool, they would get American Records imported at the seaport and they also listened to black entertainers that way.

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Al-x wrote:

He mentioned the myth of one who sold his soul to some devilish man at some country intersection or crossroads….

That would be Robert Johnson.

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Al-x

Al-x wrote:

Remember the Paul Simon album “Graceland” where he had some of the Soweto South African musicians?

The touchy stuff really with Graceland was South Africa was still under the apartheid regime. He was breaking the cultural boycott by working there and he didn’t get the approval of the ANC.

With the thing as a piece of music it was pretty clear he was showcasing Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s music rather than presenting it as his own invention.

The credit thing is a lot touchier with the likes of Led Zeppelin who ‘borrowed’ huge chunks of blues songs without attribution.

 

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Uncle Retrospective, Al-x, lorcan_nagle

As far as story ideas, we’ve had invasion stories where aliens have come to invade and colonize earth (Independence Day or The Arrival 1996).  We’ve had colonization stories where the Earth is dying and people have to colonize another planet (Raised by Wolves recently). I’ve even seen a few stories where people from a future on the verge of collapse invade the past (our present) – TENET sorta uses this idea as well as the novel and movie MILLENIUM and it was an element of Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS.

We’ve had stories where other dimensions have been discovered and stories where those other dimensions were actually the source of our ideas of Heaven and Hell (Event Horizon), and those dimensions let monsters into our world (THE MIST or I think the DOOM videogames and media are based on this idea).

However, have we seen anything where a dying Earth discovers a dimension that is the source for our myths of gods, demons, angels and monsters, and they send in a colonization team to eliminate the native life and build a new world? I’m just seeing an image of a bunch of grunts in the (not so) distant future packing serious heat and tramping through Dante’s Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise hunting down God and the Devil.

The closest thing I’ve read are a few SCP entries like SCP 2922:

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Todd

Interesting video about how Tolkein used scholarly unreliability as part of his conceit of authenticity to the stories of Middle Earth.

Why Lord of the Rings LIES to you — Tolkien’s unreliable narrator – YouTube

Does anyone else find media from the early 2000’s somehow more dated than stuff from the 80s or 90s?

For instance, I tried reading BKV’s Runaways a while back, and the way the kids talked was so irritating I gave up on it after a couple of issues. The writing style just left me cold, even though I remember loving it at the time.

And then this evening, we watched the first episode of Jekyll, the Steven Moffatt series from 2007. Again, I remember enjoying it at the time, but it seemed incredibly dated, with James Nesbitt’s Mister Hyde acting like Jim Carrey’s The Mask. It was hilariously awful.

There’s a weird uncanny valley effect where the closer you get to the present, the more dated things seem.

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I don’t know if this has anything to do with this, but there is definitely an effect where you can now look back at fashion in the eighties and think hey, that’s kind of cool, when you’d just shake your head at how eye-rollingly dumb everybody looked when you looked back at the eighties from the nineties. If you know what I mean.

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garjones

It is going to be interesting to see how nostalgia changes since everything is available so people will be introduced to Mork and Mindy the same time as Friends or to He Man the same time as Rick & Morty.

The 2000’s is interesting as technology was changing rapidly in that period – especially moving from film to digital, practical effect to CGI – so not only do we have the strangely downgraded technology people were using in the stories, but also completely different looks and sound to the material we’re viewing as well. It’s a bit of a period in transition much more so than the 80’s or 90’s were. Also, if you think about the most popular movies of the 90’s, often they were set much earlier than present-day or intentionally used the style of previous periods. SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, FORREST GUMP,  THE ENGLISH PATIENT, SCHINDLER’S LIST, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Tarantino’s films were intentionally meant to seem more like 70’s movies. The Coen Bros made Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski in the 90’s and only Fargo and Lebowski approached a contemporary setting, but were still set at least a few years in the past.

90’s movies or television shows that were set in the 90’s are the ones that seem most dated today like GHOST or THE FIRM. Tom Clancy and Grisham adaptations, for example, that certainly don’t seem as timeless as DANCES WITH WOLVES or GOODFELLAS.

At the same time, it is interesting to wonder why so many filmmakers at the time were not very interested in making movies about the present or why audiences were so drawn to movies about another period. In the 70’s, there were movies like BONNIE & CLYDE, CHINATOWN and THE GODFATHER set in the past, but there were also ROCKY, TAXI DRIVER, NETWORK, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, THE EXORCIST, JAWS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. Plenty of popular films – still classics today – set present-day. 80’s action movies were mostly in 80’s settings. While in the 90’s, it seems the majority are already looking back into the past before most of the audience members or filmmakers were even born.

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DavidM

Anonymous wrote:

90’s movies or television shows that were set in the 90’s are the ones that seem most dated today like GHOST or THE FIRM. Tom Clancy and Grisham adaptations, for example, that certainly don’t seem as timeless as DANCES WITH WOLVES or GOODFELLAS.

Always depends though. There was also Fight Club, Seven, Silence of the Lambs, the first Mission Impossible, Heat, A Few Good Men, Wild at Heart and Lost Highway.

Anonymous wrote:

It is going to be interesting to see how nostalgia changes since everything is available so people will be introduced to Mork and Mindy the same time as Friends or to He Man the same time as Rick & Morty.

I don’t know if it’s going to be that different to how things were growing up in the 80s and 90s, where you had current shows alongside reruns of loads of older stuff going back to the 50s and 60s like I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Mork and Mindy or whatever.

(As a result, I always found Happy Days really confusing.)

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While it is not myths and gods, Myke Cole’s Shadow OPs series dealt with military response to a magical universe invading ours

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Christian

Anonymous wrote:

While it is not myths and gods, Myke Cole’s Shadow OPs series dealt with military response to a magical universe invading ours

You’d think there’d be more of that kind of thing out there. I’m a bit surprised I can’t think of any examples.

True – anime has GATE (also a Japanese light novel) where a fantasy army tries to invade Japan and is quickly routed by the high technology of the JDF. Then they invade through the magical gate the army left open and actually open negotiations and diplomatic relations with the people there. It’s interesting and entertaining.

That’s the closest popular version of that idea, but I haven’t seen an invasion of the afterlife kind of story. Kind of like, if God existed and he created this political prison where people are tortured for eternity, then mankind would be obligated to go to war against Heaven to free Hell. Obviously that meets all the criteria for evil dictators.

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Christian

An interesting thing in relation to stories, I like looking for what I’d call are “microtrends” in movies. Basically, these are a few films that have similar concepts even though the stories are very different and not even in the same genre but share a lot of elements.

Like KNIVES OUT, READY OR NOT and THE HUNT were made and came out within a year of each other, but you could say they are all about the hypocrisies of the American class system.

VENOM and UPGRADE are another two films that share a lot of similarities, and I’d almost include a couple other films, the not so well known KIN and BRIGHTBURN, but these fail a bit. VENOM and UPGRADE are enjoyable, I think, because they essentially are stories about the “Id taking control.” My favorite of these is THE MASK, actually, but I think Upgrade actually is the deepest out of all of them.

Personally, I think this is what all the HULK movies and television shows (and some of the comics) miss.

Opinion piece on the “evil Superman” trope (sort of):

https://ew.com/tv/tv-reviews/evil-supermen-men-of-tomorrow/

Meh… feels like the author is too in love with certain interpretations… The “evil Superman” trop ecan be used to great effect, and I think Homelander is a great example, which the author seems to be minimizing to make a not-so-great point.

I get the idea of how having Super adventures for a Superman could be a good thing, but then he’s missing the point of Superman… that’s not what Superman is, or at least what people want from Superman… That’s where other archetypes come in, to fill in that type of stories… and hey, sure, there’s been plenty of “outer-world sci-fi adventures” with Superman, Morrison was hardly the first one to explore that… but even ASS was centered around earth and the idea of Superman being earth’s ultimate protector, to the point of ASS sacrificing himself so that the earth can go on.

But hey, the fact that the author uses Steven Universe to make his point is all you need to know, really… mind you, I haven’t watched that cartoon, but I’m pretty sure it’s abosultely not at all the same Superman archetype, nor the same type of story and tone, etc… So it’s literally comparing apples to pizzas… which is to say, I don’t think he understands the whole Superman thing very well, therefore it’s the type of articles that create false narratives that people repeat, and that’s how you end up with people believing things like “black suit superman = evil superman”… u_u

It is an interesting article though. I think Steven Universe lost the plot in the last arc of episodes, but it is a good comparison for that type of story. Though probably closer to Power Rangers and Dragonball than Superman.

Invincible is another look at a bad Superman, but it is an alternate version like so many of the others. An evil Superman is unusual and usually an aberration. What was that Superman story where he lost his memory and became a street vigilante Gangbuster? That was another interesting idea. A superman who didn’t know he had powers fighting crime like Batman.

At heart, Superman is a power fantasy and he’s actually more relevant today than he’s been in years. He arose in the depression when organized crime, industrial barons, wealthy financiers and corrupt politicians were basically running roughshod over working people and any semblance of democracy. He had a very Democratic Socialist theme and appealed to the working class and poor – the powerless.

Today, though, all power is considered to be inherently evil, and Superman has – like people do over time – taken on a more conservative aspect, so the incentive to give him a more malevolent perspective is going to be pretty strong.

On top of that, it does feel like there is a much stronger impulse promoted by our present spirit of the age that if you have an advantage – if you have power – then you should exploit it for your own interests.

I doubt the new Superman movie, even if he is cast as a black man, would really go back to the roots of the character to re-envision it, but a Superman clashing with gangs, corrupt police and city government on the behalf of the poor and minorities caught up in the sort of system inner city black and latino communities faced in the 80’s and 90’s (the legacy is still there, too) during the period of cocaine would fit the original conception of the character. Also, imagine a black Lex Luthor who came out of the same community and points to books like The 48 Laws of Power for inspiration. He’d see Superman as a representative of all the wrong lessons for people to follow.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

In movies and tv shows (ie. the Kat Dennings character in Wandavision): Being able to hack into “high security” government data files rather easily.

In teen movies – throughout the movie, the teen doesn’t seem to study all that much, but goes to all these parties and “cool” social venues, yet towards the end gets accepted to the most elite universities in the country.

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It’s almost…fictional!!

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Rocket, DavidM

Yeah, if I wanted to watch people having a hard time doing mundane things, I’d just go to work!

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garjones, Christian, Rocket, DavidM

There’s a very old cartoon showing a group of fighters and wizards etc. and one of them is holding up a book and saying “It’s called Papers & Paychecks, we each take the role of a fictional charatcer who goes to the office and sits at a desk all day…”

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Rocket, Todd

DavidM wrote:

There’s a very old cartoon showing a group of fighters and wizards etc. and one of them is holding up a book and saying “It’s called Papers & Paychecks, we each take the role of a fictional charatcer who goes to the office and sits at a desk all day…”

That was a background joke in Alan Moore’s TOP TEN as well. I believe there was a comic book called Lawyerman that you’d see lying on a table or desk in a kid’s room, and in the spin off series SMAX, set in a Terry Pratchett like fantasy world, the dwarves were addicted to a role-playing game called Malls & Muggers.

Fwiw, Babylon 5 is on HBO Max. There was some links about rebooting it but why? I feel that rebooting has to be appropriate if you can add to the story and modernize it. Also timing is the key. I feel if you reboot it now, it would just get lost with all the other stuff out there and not stand out at all. Currently, it is all a mashup.

Now there is news about talking to Henry Cavill about a Highlander reboot.

Al-x wrote:

Also timing is the key. I feel if you reboot it now, it would just get lost with all the other stuff out there and not stand out at all. Currently, it is all a mashup.

Do you see a time in the near future when the sheer number of new stuff out there will diminish? Every few months it seems like a new streaming service debuts (in the US, at least). It’s already hard for me to keep track of the stuff appearing on Netflix, let alone what’s new on Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, and Disney+.

[Al-x]

https://www.looper.com/15119/tv-shows-become-unwatchable-age/

Baywatch is on that list btw… If you watched that show on mute back in the day… We understand

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Al-x.

Vampire Story CARMILLA Did Everything DRACULA Did First

And let’s be honest, did it better. Because lesbians

JRCarter wrote:

Vampire Story CARMILLA Did Everything DRACULA Did First

That’s a very poorly written phrase… I understood that Dracula did it first, Carmilla just did the same… but I’m guessing the intention is the opposite…

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DavidM, Dave

That’s very true.

A comma before the final word might help.

Al-x wrote:

In teen movies – throughout the movie, the teen doesn’t seem to study all that much, but goes to all these parties and “cool” social venues, yet towards the end gets accepted to the most elite universities in the country.

In ARMY OF THE DEAD, there is a scene where the heroes are racing to a helicopter on the building of a roof and when they get there it’s gone… but of course it isn’t really gone, the pilot is just hovering a few yards away over the edge of the building.

Realistically, first, the rooftop landing thing is likely okay because most tall buildings are regulated to allow helicopter landings in the case of emergencies. We can assume that the pilot would either know or be able to tell if a roof is designed to support a landing.

Second, the hovering is risky but not impossible. A chopper can fly up to three hours before refueling so it is risky if you think you’ll be there long but I think they had less than an hour before the whole place blew up.

Third, the idea that characters couldn’t hear a helicopter in flight from around thirty yards away is unbelievable, of course. However, realistically, nearly all these characters have been firing automatic weapons, machine guns and using anti-personnel explosives WITH NO EAR PROTECTION all day. Realistically, the dialogue of the movie should have just been “WHAT?! WHAT DID YOU SAY?! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” 90% of the time.

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Christian, Todd

BLACULA Explores Slavery and Reincarnation’s Connections to Vampirism

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Todd

It was Vampire Week on Nerdist:

How DRACULA’S DAUGHTER Left a Huge Mark on Modern Vampire Fiction

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The most interesting and unexplored aspect of Dracula is the line in the novel where Van Helsing explains that the Count was educated in magic by the Devil himself in a sort of Slavic and demoniac version of Hogwarts.

At heart, Dracula is the ultimate human rebel. He is similar to Sauron or Palpatine or the Achaean Prometheus in his utter opposition to the fundamental Puritan reality of the age.

Interesting point on Back to the Future…

Unlike Bill & Ted or Terminator, 1985’s classic Back to the Future presents a view of time travel where you can change the past — and even cause the timeline to splinter into alternate realities, like the “good” version of Hill Valley that Marty returns to at the end, or the bad version where Biff’s in charge that we see in Back to the Future II. It’s that first one that makes things confusing. We know that Marty McFly’s in danger of being wiped out if he doesn’t fix the timeline in 1955, as evidenced by the scenes where he almost fades out of existence before he manages to get his parents back together, but we also know that the 1985 he returns to isn’t the one that he left — the Twin Pines Mall has become the Lone Pine Mall after Marty knocks one of the trees down with the DeLorean. What really complicates things, though, is that Marty sees that timeline’s version of himself heading back to the past in Doc Brown’s time machine after he arrives back.

You might think that’s just closing the loop, but watch the end of the movie. The Marty that leaves isn’t the one who grew up in the crappy subdivision with an underachieving father, it’s a Marty who grew up in a world where George McFly was a successful go-getter who writes sci-fi novels about Darth Vader from the Planet Vulcan — presumably becoming as rich as George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry put together. So where did that Marty, Marty II, go when he traveled back in time?

Comic book writer Ryan North went into this in-depth in his book-length review of the Back to the Future novelization, but the short version is that the timeline winds up splintering into infinite branches, each with a Marty who can never truly go home again, and lives out his days in a universe of his own making. No wonder he’s depressed in the future.

https://www.grunge.com/102584/one-messed-thing-80s-movies-nobody-talks/

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DavidM

My take on BTTF’s logic is that the reality warps around the time-traveller. So Marty can remember his original past because he’s the time traveller, but he’s also very much the son of the George and Lorraine of the new reality. The whole aspect of jeopardy with him sabotaging his own conception and birth wouldn’t work if he wasn’t. As long as George and Lorraine have a son who ends up becoming friends with Doc and travels back in time then the logic more or less holds, regardless of what other details change in Marty’s life.

To be honest though the vast majority of time travel stories have logic issues to a greater or lesser extent. The Terminator franchise that you mentioned is far from consistent, and actively switches from a closed-loop approach to the timeline in the first movie to a split-timeline “the future is not set” approach in the second.