Sunday, January 31, 2010

Rant against non-lineral story telling.

1,2,3,7,8,9,3 That's how my daughter counts. Cute? Sure. Informative or useful? Not so much.

Know what hollywood fad cheeses me off, that they SEEM to finally be pretty much done with? Non linear story telling.

Sure, many of them do it simple... start with a massive exciting or interesting scene, then closeup to the protagonist:
"I guess you're wondering how I got in this situation..." Aw man, here we go again.
Rewind 3 weeks, watch from the REAL beginning of the story until you get to the point where the movie started, blah blah. If you can't write an interesting actual starting scene, don't feel the need to jerk me around and pad the movie by 15 min with a replayed sequence. Heck, a lot of books do that too.

CHAPTER 1
EXCITEMENT, PUZZLING EVENTS!! HERO LIGHTS A FUSE ON A BOMB UNDER A GIANT ALIEN CYBER MULE!!!

Chapter 2
50 years earlier: (and you're lucky if they bother telling you that this isn't just a confusing continuation from chapter 1)
"I was a dirt farmer. Most people think that means I farm for stuff that grows in the dirt, but no, i just farm dirt. Ever try to get dirt to grow? I tell ya, it ain't easy."

Shut up, shut up, shut up! I don't care! I was ready to see a giant cyborg donkey blow up! Screw this, skip ahead, skip ahead. Second last chapter? Aww screw it. Where's my playstation controller?

If you wanna get deliberately confusing, you can keep throwing in unannounced flashbacks, or worse, SOMEONE ELSE'S FLASHBACKS, and while you're at it, don't ever show the flashbacks in the order they happened. These kinds of gimmicks just scream "I NEVER HAD A STORY WORTH TELLING TO BEGIN WITH" Why don't you just write a fanfic of Voyager, or some other unoriginal time travel shlep?
It's late, I'm cranky. My household has one member less today, and my cat won't stop farting. Kthx, bai.

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