MetaFilter posts tagged with plot

Random TV Plot Generators

not_on_display — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:51:38 -0800

On TV on any given night:
• Party Baby: Game show contestants with a shoe box full of cash, combating threats to our rain forest, almost always confused by what's going on, find out that even when you lose, you win.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Whlist studying a pre-warp civilization, Wesley falls ill when the Enterprise encounters an apparent duplicate of Riker which is in fact a holographic simulation, so Riker delivers a phaser blast, which means everything turns out okay, though Picard has had to deal with children. Then, finally Guinan says something cliche and they leave at warp factor five.
...or, try your luck*.
*[previously on a very special MetaFilter. Other generators sold separately.]

Grab your gun and bring in the cat

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:51:11 -0800

Reviews and thoughts on the Battlestar Galatica finale, and a few answers from show creator Ron Moore

Every scene must turn...

Pastabagel — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:46:05 -0800

The Wager: "I'll bet you that video games will never become a significant form of cultural discourse the way that novels and film have. I'll bet you that fifty years from now they'll be just as mature and well-respected as comic books are today," posits game designer Steve Gaynor. Responses and rebuttals. Aristotle wrote, "most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse." Literature and cinema have attempted to follow these ancient rules of story since their inception, and in the industry's infancy, some games embraced a form of second person narrative in which the player was acknowledged as the central character. But as the industry has matured, the focus has shifted to storyless worlds or tournament games whose open-endedness was precisely their selling point. (However, see also Portal (spoiler!)and System Shock 2) Does the interactive medium of video games inhibit the "structuring of incidents" requisite to form a cohesive narrative? Is the open-endedness in games precisely that which prevents their evolution into a culturally relevant artform? Or is the art-form "too new", the application of those time-honored rules to video games still being worked out?

Movie plot threats

Afroblanco — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:00:47 -0800

Security expert (and personal hero) Bruce Schneier on the subject of movie plot threats : Sometimes it seems like the people in charge of homeland security spend too much time watching action movies. They defend against specific movie plots instead of against the broad threats of terrorism.

This month, Schneier announces a contest for readers of his blog and newsletter - submit the most unlikely, yet still plausible, terrorist attack scenarios you can come up with.

From the announcement : "The prize will be an autographed copy of Beyond Fear. And if I can swing it, a phone call with a real live movie producer."

Dictators and their demises

dhartung — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 04:41:52 -0800

Dictators and their demises: a miscellany. Saddam and the Destruction of Civil Society in Iraq is the timely find, and deals with the entire history of Iraq since the Ba'ath party takeover, including a detailed ideological history of the party and the increasingly totalitarian aspects of Saddam's rule in Iraq. To ask whether democracy, even in a non-Western sense, has a chance in Iraq is to jump one step ahead of the game. The fundamental questions we need to answer first are: What was the nature of Iraqi civil society before the Ba`thist regime destroyed it? How did the Ba`th oliberate it? And can Iraqi civil society be rebuilt after Saddam has left the stage? [more inside]

Sean Meade — Mon, 01 Jan 2001 08:59:47 -0800

My wife and I watched 'Notorious' last night. We weren't far into it before we realized the plot had been lifted for 'Mission:Impossible 2'! It makes us think even less of the latter movie. What's more, we couldn't find anything in their publicity about stealing the plot. It had to be left to the critics.

Can you name any reworkings of original plots that actually turned out good or better? (more inside)

Nyarlathotep — Wed, 30 Aug 2000 09:12:36 -0800

I Have A Cunning Plan, My Lord... - According to Al Fayed it was Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who masterminded the plot to kill Diana and Dodi and now he's gotten the CIA to help with the cover up. Perhaps he's been watching too much Blackadder or something.