Originally posted by: ScottyB
I don't want to sound like a dick, but here goes. Highly plot-driven is the bottom of the barrel as far as fiction is concerned. And your analysis of what current movies depict is even more alarming. The best films should be concerned with character development first and foremost. Plot comes second.
Think of some of the films (even blockbusters) that remain memorable even to this day. Take Jaws for example. How much action (plot devices) is really in the film? The shark is shown for what, a few minutes at most? The movie is memorable for character development such as the speech by Quinn about his time in the water after the Indianapolis disaster. ?Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces.? Then there is Chief Brody and his fear of the water, and his interaction with the town council and the woman whose child has died. There is the tension between Quinn and Hooper with their champagne liberal and working class conservative bickering. The story is in the characters, the plot is coincidental.
Now think of a film that is plot driven--a Sci-Fi original for instance. Often they have a similar plot as Jaws. A town is overtaken by some monstrous creature and a group must band together to hunt it down. These films are not as memorable. It is not that they don't have interesting plots. Many do. It is that the characters are flat. They have no qualities that make them into something to remember. They aren't human. Fictional pieces should be like a history of a place that hasn't been. The characters should be "real" people.
We can see how Terminator Salvation fails in this regard. Think of the moment when Marcus and Blair bond. A deep relationship is supposed to have emerged in one night. It is highly unrealistic. He cuts her down, beats up a gang of miscreants, and suddenly she is supposed to trust him with the fate of humanity. This isn't real character development. It is a plot point that the characters must achieve to move the film along to a new event. There is no connection made with the characters. We can't "feel" what they are feeling and therefore there is nothing to relate to in the film. It is merely pictorial events shown on the screen. And, like a picture taken of some obscure artifact that is inconsequential to our existence, we have no reason to remember the film for any length of time as there is nothing to remember.
sorry, Character is
definitely more appropriate. I use "plot" as a loose generalization on these pages.
I also had immediate issues with the Marcus vs thugs scene in the junkyard. Why are we watching this? Why did they spend 1-2 weeks filming and eventually editing this? It has to be important, no?
well, as you said, it is only there b/c they need to have that moment of her sidling up to him, giving him that look, and the immediate "trust" happens. Clearly, this moment was written in before the "uh...how do we get here?" sequence.
It's funny, my GF and I were driving back from the showing discussing that moment, wondering wtf it was there. I had already come to the conclusion that M & B couldn't reach trust and love by the "cutting the cord" scene alone, so we needed YAUAS (yet another useless action sequence) to get there...for love...which would be why McG thought we needed that moment.
I understand that the moment was necessary (
in this type of flick), but the two scenes to get there, alone, were independently incapable of reaching that necessity. And honestly, by that time, there really is no other solution. This is when you realize the director is thinking "The audience doesn't care. They're as dumb as I am, so let's just move along and force more shit into their mouths and they'll like it."
This type of thing is painfully obvious to me. It's the type of revelation one gets when watching any M Bay disaster. And you know it's coming. But the audience continue to pump money to these people. This is the same audience, according to ATOT, that seems to understand that a flick like T2 is CLEARLY superior to many other action films. They also think, for the large part, that Transformers is awesome and good. They also think that T3 is shit. Matrix 2, et al, is badass and good.
Once you realize that none of these opinions match, there is no other conclusion that can be reached than: "The ave movie-going audience has no fucking clue what they like." Furthermore (and far more importantly), they have no idea why they like what they like. To recognize that T2 is un-surpassable in the genre (T1 is a bit better, but both are great...), believe that Transformers is TITS, as well as Matrix 2, yet T3 was an abomination, is simply a complete clusterfuck of film awareness. I honestly don't think many have seen T2 in quite some time. They have become so used to the non-stop brainless shit-canning you get out of Vin Diesel flicks that their memory of a film like T2 is of the same sort of nonsense.
It isn't.
T2 has characters. It goes from element to element, character to character, with action when necessary. Flawless, necessary, non-ridiculous action, of course, but I really don't think the mouth breathers "get that." As long as they see flipping gyroscopic robots doing god knows what, they're happy. I think they remember that kind of shit happening in T2, and assume it set the standard for this.
you brought up Jaws, properly, as it is EXACTLY what I had in mind as an example of the departure from the Terminator story to what we get in this shithole presentation.
We NEVER SEE THE FUTURE. It is the anonymous baddy, the presence we constantly fear; as an audience we really want to see it, to see lasers and robots because it's terrifying and badass, but the reality is that the greatness of the film only happens when we DON'T SEE IT.
Hitchcock taught us this.
The current (ave) movie-going young dumb males wouldn't know this concept from their assholes. Yet they claim to know "why something is good and something is bad."
I laugh.
No, you were not being a dick, believe me. Your response is spot-on, and far more eloquent than what I prattered on about before or even here. I am not in edit mode, particularly in online forums, so I prefer to be dickish about things that, honestly....do not matter.
I give you a :beer: for your reasonable and sensible response. I'll take the dick mantle on this b/c I simply don't care here. I've come to realize that some need to be jolted out of their comfort zone to think about things like this, whether or not it really matters. I mean no general offense, honestly, as I believe there are others that take these things far more seriously, and they really don't know why.
I was one of those.....then I woke up (yeah, that means I grew up thinking Star Wars = pinnacle of film. I was cured by rational thought... )
This is why critics are important. people bemoan them for not liking what they like. What people don't understand, naturally, is that the critic's job is to explain why they like what they like, and what fails in those things that they don't like. No one sees this, of course, b/c they refuse to get it.
I've come to understand that the people that despise movie critics are the types that have:
1: rarely ventured outside of their country (let alone their
county)
2: rarely visit an art museum
3: rarely ask questions.
I understand the awesomeness of simple stupidity. I actually love it. (I totally dig the Farelly Brothers flicks. Will Farrell has a talent that, while getting tired for sure, is clearly unmistakable.) I do not tolerate stupidity for the sake of assuming the audience is stupid and simply does not care (read: everything Michale Bay and McG has ever done).
Another :beer: for ScottB, for explaining things rationally and clearly.