The plot thickens
August 4, 2015 1:48 PM   Subscribe

What was once a series content to celebrate simple boy-racer pleasures, the seventh Fast & Furious fell prey to a recent tentpole-film affliction: ridiculously over-complicated plotting. Iron Man 3 and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation writer Drew Pearce draws an analogy for this blockbuster bloat, responsible for routinely pushing run times over the two-hour mark: “Much as I love a prog-rock album, if it’s a pop song I like it to be short and sweet, and I think it has more impact that way. And summer blockbusters are very proggy right now.” Mission impenetrable: are Hollywood blockbusters losing the plot?
posted by fearfulsymmetry (58 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm glad that the article talks about how it's not that the plots are complicated, it's that the production process makes the finished product a loud shiny narrative mess.
posted by bleep at 1:57 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Pacific Rim screenwriter Travis Beacham says he first noticed this “pet peeve” with the advent of the Marvel films: “It’s a very literal complexity, it’s not an emotional complexity. It’s very point A to point B, we have to get the talisman to stop Dr Whatever from raising an army. Very pragmatic stuff that doesn’t leave a lot of room for character.”

Pot meet kettle.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:00 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]




Pot meet kettle.

Pacific Rim had more complex emotional interpersonal relationships in it than just about any MCU movie and I say that as a giant fan of MCU.
posted by griphus at 2:02 PM on August 4, 2015 [20 favorites]


A couple years ago there was a discussion on how blockbusters all use the same plot, so that isn't really what is getting complicated. I'd say it's more that there is more business, that is, more people doing stuff. Certainly not that there are more complex conflicts, other than that their resolution involves more. This is natural for an industry that has thrived on a "more is more" attitude.

I liked Ant-Man for, to go with the pun, going small in these terms. It was a straightforward heist film that involved superhero stuff. I think more high concept summer movies would be fun.
posted by graymouser at 2:03 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


In the immortal words of Joe Bob Briggs, "Too much plot gettin' in the way of the story."
posted by HillbillyInBC at 2:04 PM on August 4, 2015 [7 favorites]


Pot meet kettle.

It would probably take paragraphs to explain why, but Pacific Rim(and the aforementioned Ant Man) somehow avoid this problem without avoiding a lot of the smaller problems that create it.

They basically do the stupid things right. And doing stupid things right is like, what separates good punk from bad and a lot of other things.

Something can be simple and rote and enjoyable, but it can also be simple and rote and utterly uncompelling or even confusing.

Just because two things are spaceships made out of lego bricks doesn't mean that one isn't concise, and with the other one you can't even tell which end is the front.
posted by emptythought at 2:07 PM on August 4, 2015 [7 favorites]


There's always an exception or two, as the article points out. For instance, here's the entire plot of Mad Max: Fury Road.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 2:08 PM on August 4, 2015 [13 favorites]


Pacific Rim had more complex emotional interpersonal relationships in it than just about any MCU movie and I say that as a giant fan of MCU.

We are in de gustibus territory here, but I'd say that Pacific Rim had many delightful wacky characters and a few very melodramatic, overwrought character pairings. I'mnot sure if I'd say that its plot was particularly lean, though. Fury Road was lean. Kill Bill: Part 1 was lean. Pacific Rim had a bunch of dead-end little moments and a wacky scientist B-plot that was loaded with highjincks.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:09 PM on August 4, 2015


There's always an exception or two, as the article points out. For instance, here's the entire plot of Mad Max: Fury Road.

Mad Max: There and Back Again
posted by Going To Maine at 2:10 PM on August 4, 2015 [19 favorites]


It would probably take paragraphs to explain why, but Pacific Rim(and the aforementioned Ant Man) somehow avoid this problem without avoiding a lot of the smaller problems that create it. '
emptythought

Well, there's certainly been endless paragraphs of fanwank attempting to explain why Pacific Rim isn't actually the utter Michael Bay-level dreck it is.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:14 PM on August 4, 2015 [10 favorites]


> Jonathan and Christopher Nolan’s screenplay for The Dark Knight is a model of discipline in its attempt to infuse a pulp format with heavyweight contemporary concerns and real-world nuance.

What is it with people and this movie, which was not at all horseshit?
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:15 PM on August 4, 2015 [7 favorites]


Well, here's the two word version to save you from all that reading Sangermaine: Del Toro.

You're welcome.
posted by FJT at 2:16 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Pacific Rim had a bunch of dead-end little moments and a wacky scientist B-plot that was loaded with highjincks.

I agree, it wasn't exactly economical. But at least it got giant robots fighting giant monsters exhilaratingly right, and when it went for bad-drama it did it properly b-movie-badly.

When I'm occasionally gripped by the desire for a giant tub of popcorn, I want to make fun of the barely-trying melodrama and grin like an idiot at the giant shit blowing up and kicking ass. It's not a lot to ask for yet most of today's marvel and batman and so on leave me confused, a bit headachy, and scratching my head at the misguided attempts at Real Drama. FOR THREE HOURS.
posted by tempythethird at 2:16 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


Mad Max: There and Back Again

Well, if we're going to mention The Hobbit you've got to wonder how such a slim volume with such a simple and direct plot became three films of God-knows-what complexity and garbage.
posted by Artw at 2:17 PM on August 4, 2015 [28 favorites]


Pacific Rim can't possibly be Michael Bay-level dreck because there was not a single laminated card with the age of consent printed on it in the entire movie.
posted by griphus at 2:26 PM on August 4, 2015 [8 favorites]


Wait, so the plot of Rogue Nation was complicated? Where? When? How?
posted by I-baLL at 2:31 PM on August 4, 2015


Mad Max: There and Back Again

Or How a Lowly Dude Became King of the Mountain.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:34 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


On the upside, Prometheus 2 starts filming soon!
posted by bonehead at 2:36 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Well, there's certainly been endless paragraphs of fanwank attempting to explain why Pacific Rim isn't actually the utter Michael Bay-level dreck it is.

Can I ask you a question that has perplexed me for some time now?

What is it like to live in a world without joy?
posted by maxsparber at 3:00 PM on August 4, 2015 [23 favorites]


What is it like to live in a world without joy?

So you didn't see the Hobbit movies?
posted by shakespeherian at 3:02 PM on August 4, 2015 [11 favorites]


I'd noticed how convoluted and overstuffed "popcorn" movies had become, particularly Nolan's Batman and latter Marvel stuff, and I'd just chalked it up to writers and directors thinking the notion of comic book movies was beneath them, so they would try to make things as deep and sophisticated as they could... "Real" cinema. (And maybe it dawned on Whedon, who overcompensated with way too much snappy banter in Avengers 2).

It's probably why my favorites of the lot are still the first Spider-Man and Iron Man. Fairly straightforward stories, a healthy dose of personality and levity, and action that doesn't get overindulgent.

Even comic book geeks seem to have trouble making heads or tails of some of these plots, and I find myself wondering if kids just end up being drawn towards the lighter, more fanciful animated versions of the franchises.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 3:04 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


nd maybe it dawned on Whedon, who overcompensated with way too much snappy banter in Avengers 2

Whedon's been pretty clear that some aspects of the movie were forced on him by Marvel brass. So the article has some good points about executives forcing the overstuffing of movies. Pretty sure it's this sort of thing that will create a crash in super hero movies.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:08 PM on August 4, 2015


Anhedonia is not a requirement for thinking Pacific Rim was pretty bad.
posted by kyrademon at 3:10 PM on August 4, 2015


Maybe hour-long battle scenes against an IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT adversary is a damn tired trope. Especially when the "who cares?" good guys inevitably win anyways.

Looking at you, Marvel.
posted by glaucon at 3:12 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


> If we're going to mention The Hobbit you've got to wonder how such a slim volume with such a simple and direct plot became three films of God-knows-what complexity and garbage.

And
>> What is it like to live in a world without joy?
> So you didn't see the Hobbit movies?


Yeah, when I heard that there were going to be 3 - three! - Hobbit movies, I cringed. Surely there wasn't that much source material? But then I reread the book (read it aloud to my son) and well, maybe there was enough material there after all.

Then I watched the first one.

And made myself endure the second one. (Really, Legolas surfing down the river on Hobbit heads?)

I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the third one. It sits there, marked "unwatched", inducing a tiny stab of guilt when I look at it. Ugh.

This article also clears up what I hated so much about The Dark Knight Rises and what made me a bit uneasy about Avengers: AoU and why I haven't bothered with Man of Steel and probably won't watch Batman vs Superman.
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:23 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'd just chalked it up to writers and directors thinking the notion of comic book movies was beneath them

I'm not a big comic books person, but the one thing I've been able to clearly and certainly establish through years of occasionally trying to wade through wikipedia synopses is that story-wise, comic books are way more convoluted than the movies.
posted by aubilenon at 3:27 PM on August 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


Pretty sure it's this sort of thing that will create a crash in super hero movies.

I've been anticipating this happening since the MCU started dropping hints about Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet. The whole reason I love the MCU while not caring for the comics themselves much is that, in theory (and in practice during Phase One and part of Phase Two), the MCU isn't beholden to decades' worth of baffling and nonsensical continuity. The movies can pick and choose what bits of canon to use or rework. The limitations of the form, the fact that Marvel only had the rights to certain characters, and some clever choices in adaptation all combined to produce the best-parts versions of the comics stories.

Upon learning about the set up for Thanos and the Infinity Wars, I thought, "oh, it's all going to go to shit, isn't it." The character-specific movies remain decent to great, but there was stuff in the first Avengers that had me going "ugh, comics" and suspecting that the team up movies would have diminishing returns. And lo and behold, Age of Ultron was pretty shit: bloated and overstuffed, juggling too many characters to do any of them particular justice, and teasing future plotlines to the detriment of maintaining character continuity with past ones. Plus these team up movies have the problem of escalating the stakes in a way that feels artificial and unconnected to character or emotion.

Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier and Iron Mans 1 and 3 are my personal platonic ideals of Marvel and/or superhero movies. I have the feeling it's all going to be downhill from there, and I've adjusted my expectations accordingly.
posted by yasaman at 3:31 PM on August 4, 2015 [4 favorites]


If you haven't seen it, it's worth noting that Iron Man 3 and Lethal Weapon 2 have much the same plot.
posted by Catblack at 3:31 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


I don't like a hell of a lot of comic series. Most of all I dislike many Marvel arcs, like Infinity Gauntlet.

There are many comic series I do like and did follow, like Sandman, Sin City, Spawn, certain Wolverine arcs, the Mask, Maxx, Wetworks, GiTS, Savage Dragon and many more sometimes complex character studies, sometimes just 'simple' action/superhero fare.

And, just like the comics I didn't care for, so exactly the movies go now: instead of focussing on the character of the subject and deriving the drama and interest from that and (the subsequent interaction with) the created world they inhabit, these movies fail to attract me because they conflate the aforementioned with a cast of characters and a host of actions.

'They' think we are exited and drawn in by only the costumed characters and the set-piece action extravaganzas. So the obvious way to gain and regain our exitement, attention and, most importantly, patronage is to stuff their tentpole movies with more characters, more action, more 'plot'!

And in so doing, not only do they lose sight of what made these movies interesting to so many of us in the first place but they will lose their larger audience as well, which will collapse into that exact, much smaller and niche subset of geek- and nerddom who consumed those comics so many years ago, when that group was much smaller and much more niche.
posted by MacD at 4:00 PM on August 4, 2015


I think the movies aren't lacking plot, so much as they lack any serious consequences.

ALL of the MCU movies have endless fight scenes like the Transformers, where there's a lot of punching and hitting and cities getting wrecked, but nobody gets permanently hurt, except for (maybe) the bad guy. I mean, seriously...here, kid, take this hammer and bang on that car for a bit...that's more entertaining than any of the fight scenes in these movies.

MI:Rogue Nation has some of this going on, too (and don't get me started on someone in a bulletproof box shooting bullets that apparently don't ricochet).

Oooh. Hulk just punched Thor. Oooooh, Thor just punched Hulk. Guess they both learned a valuable lesson. Oooooh, now giant robot x is punching Godzilla's cousin and the Golden Gate Bridge just got destroyed...A f'in GAIN.

Bullets only kill bad guys and weak characters. Punches have no value. I'm bored even writing about this.
posted by Chuffy at 4:05 PM on August 4, 2015 [17 favorites]


George R.R. Martin does this well...he kills off characters you like. Anyone dies in any of these movies and, mostly, everyone is "meh" - there's no consequence. We know the bomb will be defused at the last second. Imagine if it doesn't get defused...and actually goes off and holy crap, all those people are dead. That's conflict. That's consequence...

Here, two robot factions punch each other a lot and nothing happens. Enjoy!
posted by Chuffy at 4:13 PM on August 4, 2015


I think the MCU gets bogged down when they stop being about good guys punching bad guys, and start selling themselves as metaphors for the singularity, security state, military-industrial complex, and celebrity. I'm probably missing a few there. The problem is that all of those metaphors are half-assed and shallow. I think I said a while back that Fury Road, in spite of being lean, felt like it might have actually read the dystopias of Butler and Tepper. Age Of Ultron felt like it read the back cover of a Gibson paperback.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:18 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


If we're going to mention The Hobbit you've got to wonder how such a slim volume with such a simple and direct plot became three films of God-knows-what complexity and garbage.

And still no Tom Bombidil!?!
posted by sammyo at 4:21 PM on August 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


I suspect that when people talk about later MCU movies not being all that good they mean they've only seen Age of Ultron, as Ant-Man worked out pretty well and Winter Soldier and Guardians were pretty great.
posted by Artw at 4:23 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


I suspect that when people talk about later MCU movies not being all that good they mean they've only seen Age of Ultron, as Ant-Man worked out pretty well and Winter Soldier and Guardians were pretty great.

Guardians sort of flies in the face of what I just wrote...
posted by Chuffy at 4:26 PM on August 4, 2015


Guardians was cute in parts but I thought that it had exactly the kind of horribly convoluted plot that this article complains about.
posted by octothorpe at 4:33 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


“Much as I love a prog-rock album, if it’s a pop song I like it to be short and sweet, and I think it has more impact that way."
Two words: Yes. Roundabout. The most fun I've ever had in 8 minutes 36 seconds (and with a 'pre-credits roll-up' that most action movies would envy)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:51 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


“Much as I love a prog-rock album, if it’s a pop song I like it to be short and sweet, and I think it has more impact that way."

That's why metal is much better.
posted by Chuffy at 5:05 PM on August 4, 2015


George R.R. Martin does this well...he kills off characters you like.

Yeah, but he kills off ALL the characters you like. That's not a virtue.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 5:48 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think the MCU gets bogged down when they stop being about good guys punching bad guys, and start selling themselves as metaphors for the singularity, security state, military-industrial complex, and celebrity.

Wait what? I'm asking because Winter Soldier was a huge hit and my friends and I were JUST TALKING about how one the best things about the film was the way the plot was so much deeper than just a fight-fight-fight movie.

I'm just not used to people wanting storytelling to be more shallow but whatever works for you I guess.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 6:19 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


I agree, it wasn't exactly economical. But at least it got giant robots fighting giant monsters exhilaratingly right, and when it went for bad-drama it did it properly b-movie-badly.

This is actually my biggest beef with Pacific Rim. Not only are the dialogue, characters and plot all varying levels of dumb, but the one thing you're really there to see turns out to be poorly executed. I wanted as much as anyone to get behind giant robots pounding the crap out of giant monsters, but when I saw the actual product it all just came off as very plastic and cheesy. Nothing really felt like it had weight or impact for some reason. And don't even get me started on the "backup weapon."
posted by chrominance at 6:22 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh, and +1 for Winter Soldier being my favourite MCU movie so far. There are spy movie elements and warring factions and a meditation on security versus liberty and yeah I'm all over that stuff please give me more of that.
posted by chrominance at 6:24 PM on August 4, 2015 [3 favorites]


I had a good time watching Winter Soldier but man, does that movie build up the Winter Soldier to be this stealthy badass assassin and then it turns out that he can't even put one bullet into Cap without blowing up an entire city block during rush hour.
posted by murphy slaw at 6:48 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


In order to hit those targets, production schedules have little room for deviation; finished scripts often lag behind the key special-effects sequences, which are devised early so mockups around which actors can be directed are ready when shooting starts. Screenwriters, says Pearce, are often left to link the showpieces as best as they can.

“Because of that, you get these kind of labyrinthine machinations to desperately weave in character motivation, geography and the practical aspects of getting from one scene to another.”

This is how video games are often written. Rhianna Pratchett has mentioned in interviews that she was hired to write Mirror's Edge after the levels were designed, so she was left to fill the gaps with story. I think it's interesting that games have been chasing Hollywood for decades, and now Hollywood blockbusters are built more and more like games.

The first movies I remember that really really suffered from this were the Pirates of the Caribbean series. People liked Johnny Depp mugging, they liked the effects and the elaborate action sequences, but no one cared about the ever-growing mountain of completely nonsense plot.
posted by skymt at 6:49 PM on August 4, 2015


A lot of my movie watching is done while I'm doing something else (namely, PC gaming), so I was a bit perplexed at first by the 5-plots-in-1 setup of Furious 7. But then I quickly realized that the plots really didn't mean shit and no one (the director, the actors, the audience) cared about them anyway. The plots were just strings tying together (very loosely) one ridiculous action set piece to the next. You can enjoy the movie and have no fucking clue what is going on or why. The dialogue is awful, so why even bother to sort it out? I can't say it was a bad movie, because it doesn't ever promise to be a "good" one.
posted by Brocktoon at 7:15 PM on August 4, 2015


I had a good time watching Winter Soldier but man, does that movie build up the Winter Soldier to be this stealthy badass assassin and then it turns out that he can't even put one bullet into Cap without blowing up an entire city block during rush hour.

I am SUPER OVERINVESTED in this stupid movie so I can answer this! There is a reason for the total lack of stealth: Pierce is about to have three Death Stars at his disposal, his pet brainwashed assassin is just distraction at that point, and sowing more chaos is more or less all he requires. It should be noted that the Winter Soldier shot Fury through a wall, without direct visual on him, so it's not like he's lacking in stealth skills. Keeping him a shadowy secret just no longer mattered to HYDRA, since he was about to become obsolete. Anyway, don't get me started, over a year later and my tumblr is still 66% weeping over Cap 2.
posted by yasaman at 7:36 PM on August 4, 2015 [5 favorites]


...yeah.

The one Marvel film I saw was "Guardians of the Galaxy". I had fun; I enjoyed it on a surface level. But.

At one point I realized it was time for a bathroom break. So as the characters were flying down to some planet for some reason, I got up and went to pee. When I got back, they were just leaving the place. I suppose an action sequence took place there. I really couldn't tell you. I didn't feel like I'd really missed a single thing important to the overall story of the movie.

It really sounds like all of these superhero movies are becoming crap in the exact same ways the source comics are crap. Nothing can ever really happen, everything gets reset at the end of an episode like it's a sitcom; the folks involved in making the movie pass the toys they got to play with back to their corporate owner, who hands them out to the next crew of enthusiastic idiots who have wanted to play with these toys since they were six.
posted by egypturnash at 8:42 PM on August 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


The basic measure of these movies is: "It's the movie on the plane, do you finish watching it?"

Captain America: yes
Winter Soldier: no
Age of Ultron: no
Thor 2: yes, but fell asleep during part
Guardians of the Galaxy: 80% sure the answer is yes
Iron Man 3: yes
Pacific Rim: yes
Kingsman: Christ, no, I couldn't watch even 10 minutes of this garbage, maybe there's some random midseason episodes of Girls or something or I could just watch the flight tracker
posted by escabeche at 9:05 PM on August 4, 2015


Batman & Robin: No, I turned it off and stared at a blank screen for the rest of the flight
posted by aubilenon at 10:04 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


A lot of my movie watching is done while I'm doing something else (namely, PC gaming), so I was a bit perplexed at first by the 5-plots-in-1 setup of Furious 7.

I've been this person too. When I am, I believe that it behooves me to cut any film I'm watching a limitless amount of slack; I can't really blame a film for being too convoluted for me if I'm refusing to give it the modicum of attention it demands.

(On the other hand, I'd like to think that some movies are specifically planned with the idea that people won't care about watching them with all of their attention, but then it kind of behooves them to be marketed with that attitude.)
posted by Going To Maine at 11:02 PM on August 4, 2015 [1 favorite]


I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the third [Hobbit movie].

I finally did. The phrase "joyless slog" comes to mind.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:53 AM on August 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


Batman & Robin is surprisingly good if you turn the sound and captions off and listen to something else.
posted by griphus at 6:25 AM on August 5, 2015


griphus: I'm imagining it playing without any sound projected into a brick wall at a bar or nightclub, and yeah that sounds okay. I can't hear it, I'm not really watching it, and I'm drinking.
posted by aubilenon at 9:19 AM on August 5, 2015


> The basic measure of these movies is: "It's the movie on the plane, do you finish watching it?"

In 2009 my wife and I flew from Toronto to Melbourne, then from Melbourne to Hong Kong and then from Hong Kong back to Toronto. So we spent a lot of time on planes, and I watched a lot of movies. In that context, Eagle Eye seemed like kind of a masterpiece. I "enjoyed" Quantum of Solace. I even made it through Crystal Skull without much trouble. The only movie I turned off was G.I. Joe.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:30 AM on August 5, 2015


I watched the Coen Bros. Ladykillers three times in a row on an international flight.
posted by griphus at 11:39 AM on August 5, 2015


Oh, an in-flight movies sidethread!

Lineup that forced me to contemplate suicide, but opted for becoming an alcoholic instead: Garfield + Dirty Dancing 2, Havana Nights

Most awkward movie when sitting in the aisle seat in the front row: The Wolf of Wall Street (watched it 1.5 times and laughed outwardly throughout)

Thor 2: Didn't finish it. Didn't miss much.

and a bunch of other movies that I would only watch if I had hours to kill and really limited options...
posted by Chuffy at 1:46 PM on August 5, 2015


I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch the third [Hobbit movie].

Your impression of it will be easily predictable based on your opinions of the first two. In fact, your decision to not bring yourself to watching it is probably something you should just let happen...the difference between "I can't stand it, I have to finish, " vs. "I can't stand it, I will never get those hours back," is sort of a personal decision.
posted by Chuffy at 1:49 PM on August 5, 2015


« Older "I like music."   |   Costumed wrestling heel VS costumed vigilante face Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments