Just shocking writing... professionally.

[Rustyoznail]

All of this crap doesn't work for me at all, and that is why it's been years since I've enjoyed a movie or tv-show... or porn

Heydouga and Shirohame. Japanese uncensored amateurs. I have no idea what they are saying, but actions speak volumes.

 

[Paul_Chance]

LOL for those who cite old action movies as an example, my only response is, uh, go rewatch them with a critical eye. They can be pretty horrible.

There is a reason action movie's rarely, if ever, win best screenplay or best adapted screen play in any of the various awards.

(My personal bugaboo in action movies (non-superhero) is when they get into a knockdown drag out fist fight - and they're up and moving with no problems in the blink of an eye. Uh, having been in a few knock down fights, even if you win them, it doesn't work that way. It takes weeks to recover from a solid beating. A single punch or kick can have you sucking wind for a month.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

How come Hollywood writers get away with such crap, when there were far more plausible ways of generating the same tension? This isn't deus ex machina, it's just completely improbable. It is, in short, lazy, crap writing that only flies because 'it's an action film' with an over-paid surprisingly-short producer.

It's not really "improbable" that's the problem here. The problem is something that often coincides with "improbable" but that's not the root of it.

As an example of a book that uses an improbable event effectively, take Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Charlie's finding a golden ticket must have been a one-in-a-million shot at best. That's pretty dang improbable, but it didn't hurt the book.

OTOH, if I wrote a story about some guy who was down on his luck, about to lose his house, and then in the last chapter his problems are solved by a one-in-a-million lottery win, readers would probably call that "lazy, crap writing" and they'd be right.

The difference between those two isn't improbability. It's a tricky thing to nail down exactly, but I find it useful to think in terms of earned vs. unearned outcomes. Readers mostly like to feel that the characters they follow have some kind of influence over their fate.

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the ticket is something that sets Charlie up for making important choices, rather than for making his choices meaningless. He spends the rest of the book in the company of other children who were also lucky enough to get a golden ticket - but he gets a good ending and they don't, because they made selfish/greedy choices and Charlie didn't.

Even before he finds the ticket, Dahl works pretty hard to make it feel like more than just blind luck. He builds up tension as the family open the wrapper, then shows their disappointment. Later, Charlie finds some money in the street and wrestles with the choice between buying a second bar and bringing the money home to his family. He's still immensely lucky to get that ticket when he buys that bar, but it also depends on the choice he made.

IMHO a lot of complaints about "improbable" are really about taking away that feeling that the characters are earning the endings they get.

I haven't seen the film you're discussing, so I may have misunderstood how the scene works. But from your description, I get the impression that scene could've been at least partially salvaged by framing it as a consequence of earlier choices. For instance:

Gadgeteer: here is fancy new grappling hook for you!
Ethan: but I like old hook, we have made many adventures together, feels like old friend
Gadgeteer: not regulation issue, must use new one. Rules.
Ethan: well okay then. [Pretends to turn in the old one, then surreptitiously swipes it back when Gadgeteer's not looking.]

You'd want to polish the dialogue, but at least this way when the hugely improbable hook related thing happens the audience can think "okay, that was very lucky, but it couldn't have happened if Ethan hadn't insisted on keeping the old hook", and I suspect that might go a long way to making the improbability more palatable.

Or take Aliens, which is where I pinched that particular idea from in the first place. Early in the film, most of the Marines survive an unexpected xenomorph attack in close quarters with limited firepower. There's no way for any of us to make a reasonable judgement on whether that's improbable, because the whole thing is SF a long way from real life. Their survival depends on whether it suits the writers, and that's not something one wants the audience thinking about.

But the film sets up their survival as a consequence of two choices: first Vasquez and Drake disobeying Apone's orders to disarm, then Ripley's disobeying Gorman and coming to the rescue in the ATV. We might not be able to analyse the rest of that encounter, but we can see some of the decisions that salvaged the situation.

If they hadn't been ordered to disable their weapons in the first place, if the backup plan had always been to bring in the ATV for an escape, the outcome would've been no more or less plausible, but it would've felt far less satisfying.

 

[Bramblethorn]

LOL for those who cite old action movies as an example, my only response is, uh, go rewatch them with a critical eye. They can be pretty horrible.

There is a reason action movie's rarely, if ever, win best screenplay or best adapted screen play in any of the various awards.

(My personal bugaboo in action movies (non-superhero) is when they get into a knockdown drag out fist fight - and they're up and moving with no problems in the blink of an eye. Uh, having been in a few knock down fights, even if you win them, it doesn't work that way. It takes weeks to recover from a solid beating. A single punch or kick can have you sucking wind for a month.)

I can mostly suspend disbelief for that, but I had a bit of trouble recently with one where a major character took a gunshot wound to the shoulder, passed out, had one scene where she was pretty much immobilised by the injury... and then a couple of hours later was all ready for the next action sequence without a hint of having been injured.

 

[Zootonius]

To be fair, a lot of fiction has improbabilities. I'll pick Pride and Prejudice, where, after Darcy appears in the community, Mr. Collins, whos patron happens to be Darcy's aunt, appears. Followed by Wickham, his childhood friend, appearing in the village. We don't think too much of these coincident.

 

[Stimtheone]

This is why a lot of people don't care about the writers' strike. "Professional" writers have gone down in quality so much that you can find better works on fanfiction sites. You can find worse, but it's appalling that you can find much better when reading some Simpsons x MHA scat fanfiction. No, that's not an example I read and I do not want to but it's POSSIBLE.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This is why a lot of people don't care about the writers' strike. "Professional" writers have gone down in quality so much that you can find better works on fanfiction sites. You can find worse, but it's appalling that you can find much better when reading some Simpsons x MHA scat fanfiction. No, that's not an example I read and I do not want to but it's POSSIBLE.

Professional really just means paid to write. I think in most cases a writer writes a reasonably tight script but then a producer reads it and says "needs more kung fu, more car chases, more shootouts, more stunts, more 'splosions and more tits" and then hires a different writer to specifically add it in. The writer in this case is just doing what he is paid to do. Often the producer will change the script himself, not only getting the extra junk that he wants stuck in but conveniently giving himself writing credit too.

What it boils down to is plot driven by motive or by spectacle. Most movies contain spectacle (explosions, car chases, lasers, fuck scenes, etc) and they should. They are visual stories after all. But when the plot becomes nothing more than excuses for over the top spectacle rather than events determined by the motives of the characters, the story loses all credibility.

The OP's rock climbing hook scene is a terrific example because it also demonstrates that motive is very much like the laws of physics. The pond goes 'sploop' and rings radiate out in the surface because the laws of physics dictate that that is what happens when a raindrop falls in it. Likewise one character stabs another to death because of motive, whether it be jealousy, revenge, paid hit, mistaken identity, etc. The climbing hook slip and catch is simply for the spectacle with no regard whatsoever for the characters' motives nor even the laws of physics. It's bad plot. If your motive doesn't make sense or have reasonable plausibility you have bad plot.

 

[AchtungNight]

Simple: she's easy on the eyes, and her stint as Wonder Woman is on hold.

I meant her character in the next film. I agree with you about Gal Gadot.

 

[AchtungNight]

For the record, I still enjoy many action movies today, other sorts of films and porn also. I’m not as skeptical about them as a lot of people here seem to be. I’m also glad that the writers’ and actors’ strikes are over. Hopefully the quality of their work will soon get back to high.

 

[KachinaDoll]

Pet hate - when a character goes into unnecessary detailed information such as instead of, "Here, take my gun," he'll say, "Here, take my Dragon 7.62mm semi-automatic rifle with telescopic sight and a 24 round magazine." Sometimes it's used clumsily to give important information to the viewer - "I'll meet you at our cabin, up in the Ozarks, just west of Clarksville by the lake."

 

[Altissimus]

It's not really "improbable" that's the problem here.

Nope, it's improbable.

Now, I don't call Charlie's ticket improbable (though it is) because that's the premise of the whole damn story. The reader implicitly understands that Dahl was out to write a story about the fifth ticket winner, and it turned out to be Charlie. If Charlie hadn't found the ticket and George Bloggs had instead, then Dahl would've written that story. So that's ok, it makes sense.

The hook, on the other hand, isn't a) called out in advance, b) necessary, c) particularly plausible according to the laws of physics, or d) at all likely to do what it does (catch-slip-catch). It's this latter that is *particularly* improbable, along with being *particularly* unnecessary.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Nope, it's improbable.

Now, I don't call Charlie's ticket improbable (though it is) because that's the premise of the whole damn story.

Which is in line with the point I was making: "improbable" isn't inherently a problem, it's how it fits into the story.

The reader implicitly understands that Dahl was out to write a story about the fifth ticket winner, and it turned out to be Charlie. If Charlie hadn't found the ticket and George Bloggs had instead, then Dahl would've written that story.

Not sure what you're saying here. The story is fictional; Dahl decided that the fifth winner was going to be Charlie. He wasn't reporting on events outside his control and he definitely had ideas about what kind of child his protagonist was going to be.

Indeed, the improbability is part of the appeal of that book. Charlie's set up in contrast to children like Veruca Salt, whose parents bought up thousands of bars to get her a ticket.

Even outside that particular lottery scenario, in stories where there's no such "well somebody had to win", audiences are generally quite accepting of improbability in the premise. Nobody stresses about the unlikelihood of somebody developing superpowers from being bitten by a radioactive spider or exposed to gamma radiation, or of happening to walk into that one particular café out of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world.

If "improbability" was the heart of the problem, we wouldn't put up with those things either. But we do.

 

[Stimtheone]

Professional really just means paid to write. I think in most cases a writer writes a reasonably tight script but then a producer reads it and says "needs more kung fu, more car chases, more shootouts, more stunts, more 'splosions and more tits" and then hires a different writer to specifically add it in. The writer in this case is just doing what he is paid to do. Often the producer will change the script himself, not only getting the extra junk that he wants stuck in but conveniently giving himself writing credit too.

You know, that's something that I think is degrading the quality of just about everything. When people stop paying for expertise just because it contradicts what they think. No, the expert knows more than you. Plenty of other domains where things suffer because of this. Promoting for butt-kissing rather than merit, hiring for subservience rather than skill, and much more...

But if that's the case, why don't they just come out and say it? Because those people will not hire them again? Odds are they won't already.

 

[MajorRewrite]

I agree on the Marvels. The three leads are nice to look at, but I’m not impressed with the writing enough to see it in the theater.

How can you know the writing is bad if you haven’t seen it?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Not sure if this applies, but what really gets me is when characters tell each other things they so obviously already know.

"Come on, we're brothers."

"Come on, you're a Nobel Prize winner."

Bothers me every single time when it's that blatant.

But the audience doesn't know... so much dialogue is in service of explaining something to the audience that the characters already know.
That's why Dr. Who has a companion, so he has someone to explain things to for the audience's benefit.

 

[alohadave]

I can mostly suspend disbelief for that, but I had a bit of trouble recently with one where a major character took a gunshot wound to the shoulder, passed out, had one scene where she was pretty much immobilised by the injury... and then a couple of hours later was all ready for the next action sequence without a hint of having been injured.

You can look at Prometheus for another example. The MC has a C section and a few seconds later is running around dodging spaceships. Granted, it is advanced medicine, but still, strains credulity.

 

[Stimtheone]

How can you know the writing is bad if you haven’t seen it?

I listened to a professional reviewer tell me exactly why the writing is bad. And saw a few examples that made me cringe internally. Come on, even I write better stuff and I don't even consider myself more than "above average".

 

[MajorRewrite]

I listened to a professional reviewer tell me exactly why the writing is bad. And saw a few examples that made me cringe internally. Come on, even I write better stuff and I don't even consider myself more than "above average".

It’s possible the reviewer has an axe to grind. When it comes to Captain Marvel, there is a whole lot of that.

 

[Altissimus]

Not sure what you're saying here. The story is fictional; Dahl decided that the fifth winner was going to be Charlie. He wasn't reporting on events outside his control and he definitely had ideas about what kind of child his protagonist was going to be.

What I was getting at here is that he's writing the story about the fifth winner - obviously - so the point is there's only a story because Charlie is the fifth winner. This makes the issue of improbability moot; clearly the event happened, because otherwise there'd be no story. It's the same as the 'chosen one' mindset in fantasy - improbability aside, you know the protagonist has all the power, because that's what the story is about. It's a very different improbability than if, say, Charlie only saved an oompa loompa from certain death because a hook caught, twice, in a rock wall. Incidentally, Dahl often portrayed his stories as 'This is totally true, I was told this story by such-and-such who approached me to write it for him', even when it is evidently fiction - something the recent adaptation of Henry Sugar played to quite strongly.

 

[AchtungNight]

How can you know the writing is bad if you haven’t seen it?

I watched the trailers and read Wikipedia.

 

[ronde]

Professional really just means paid to write. I think in most cases a writer writes a reasonably tight script but then a producer reads it and says "needs more kung fu, more car chases, more shootouts, more stunts, more 'splosions and more tits" and then hires a different writer to specifically add it in. The writer in this case is just doing what he is paid to do. Often the producer will change the script himself, not only getting the extra junk that he wants stuck in but conveniently giving himself writing credit too.

What it boils down to is plot driven by motive or by spectacle. Most movies contain spectacle (explosions, car chases, lasers, fuck scenes, etc) and they should. They are visual stories after all. But when the plot becomes nothing more than excuses for over the top spectacle rather than events determined by the motives of the characters, the story loses all credibility.

The OP's rock climbing hook scene is a terrific example because it also demonstrates that motive is very much like the laws of physics. The pond goes 'sploop' and rings radiate out in the surface because the laws of physics dictate that that is what happens when a raindrop falls in it. Likewise one character stabs another to death because of motive, whether it be jealousy, revenge, paid hit, mistaken identity, etc. The climbing hook slip and catch is simply for the spectacle with no regard whatsoever for the characters' motives nor even the laws of physics. It's bad plot. If your motive doesn't make sense or have reasonable plausibility you have bad plot.

There have always been movies with implausible or completely unbelievable scenes and dialogue. In most cases, that unbelievable situation was used to introduce the plot. An example is the "Tarzan" novels by Burroughs. Once you accept the premise that apes could raise a human child to think he's also an ape, the rest of the plot follows. The initial "Jurassic Park" series is another. The implausible idea that dinosaurs could be cloned using DNA from mosquitoes in amber is a pretty wild idea, but it serves as an explanation for the rest of the movie. Neither is more than an introduction into the plot.

I think the change point was the first "Star Wars". The movie was still well written for the most part, and used all the special effects to add drama and tension. After that, writers started to rely more on special effects than any actual detailed plot and believable dialogue. With the capabilities of computer graphics, that lack of decent writing has become much easier to pull off. A lot of action movies today just use a little dialogue to set the stage for the graphics to follow. It's become a race to see which director can produce the most smoke, flames, car crashes, etc. The writing has almost become secondary.

If the movie is taken from a novel, the difference becomes extremely apparent. Most successful novelists are good writers. The writing gets lost during the writing of the screen play.

 

[alohadave]

I think the change point was the first "Star Wars". The movie was still well written for the most part, and used all the special effects to add drama and tension.

Star Wars is only as good as it is because Marcia Lucas is a very good editor. There were whole plotlines that she excised that tightened up the movie.

 

[MajorRewrite]

I watched the trailers and read Wikipedia.

Reminds me of when I watched trailers for Hamlet and Wikipedia said everyone died. Boy, am I glad I didn’t see that one.

 

[AchtungNight]

Reminds me of when I watched trailers for Hamlet and Wikipedia said everyone died. Boy, am I glad I didn’t see that one.

Fortinbras lived! Horatio also.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I still think we're off blaming poor writing. A writer on a movie, especially a major studio action piece, simply doesn't have that kind of power. There are way too many people between the start and finish of a film.

If any of a dozen people say "this doesn't work for me, re-write it" the writer has the choice. They can say "No" and suddenly lose their paycheck, or they can say "how many more times do you want the hook to slip and catch boss" and keep getting their paycheck.

The same holds true for writing for pay anywhere. "Drop that subplot." "No." "Okay, good luck and goodbye." Or "Sure, give me a couple of days". You can always self-publish, but almost no one is going to write you a check and give you complete control of the finished project unless you reach Stephen King levels of fame, when you can "follow the muse" and say "no, I am not going to change it" and the business side of the publisher will say "okay Mr. King, oh, let me introduce you to your new editor".