Successive reveals
Jun. 15th, 2010 12:52 amOften a plot has a structure like:
1. A hero triumphs over adversity with the virtue of some aspect of humanity, in contrast to the villain. Eg. love, free will, hope, etc, etc.
2. The villain reveals that actually he's been manipulating the hero all along, and actually the human virtue was a comfortable illusion.
3. The hero says, "actually, by SHEER FORCE OF WILL", I will ACTUALLY triumph using the virtue you despise, and does so.
Obviously many stories only do 1, and many stories only do 1 and 2. And sometimes it's not actually a virtue, it's just the hero thinks she knows what's going on, or that so-and-so is her friend, etc, and then the villain reveals that was all a plot, and then the hero suddenly puts all the red herrings together and figures out what's REALLY going on, or the spy decides they really DO want to be on the hero's side after pretending to be for 300 pages, or whatever.
It's possible to do this story very well, and represent an epic clash of philosophies in an action or detective story. For instance, (imho) Total Recall or Anthony Price both have reveals that go "this is what's going on, no wait THIS is what's going on", but both make more sense, both more sense as a coherent narrative, and more sense as a one-up triumph of the story's philosophical position.
However, many stories, even quite good stories, fuck it up. I think the pervasive problem is that for this to work, 1 has to be plausible, 2 has to make MORE sense, and 3 has to make EVEN MORE sense, either coherently, or thematically. However, audiences are trained by bad stories to gloss over inconsistencies, so when you reveal that #1 is incorrect, they may go "whu? I was supposed to spot that? I was too busy glossing it over, I thought I was supposed to".
I think the fundamental problem with the Matrix sequels is not that they outright suck, but they attempt to subvert the first film's comparatively straightforward "kung-fu good, virtual reality indistinguishable from reality, being enslaved even unknowingly bad" message with a lot of rambling nonsense based directly on the first film's weakest points (namely, why are we in the matrix in the first place). Investigating unresolved questions is good if you can make them clearer, but bad if you just draw attention to something everyone was happily suspending disbelief about. The rambling nonsense is not inherently a BAD theme, it's just that the films are much, much better setting up the message of the first film than that of the later ones, so it comes across not as clever, but as stupid.
I think this is why, after the second film, we still held out hope, because it raised interesting questions, but hated the third film, because it just confirmed everything we thought was stupid.
1. A hero triumphs over adversity with the virtue of some aspect of humanity, in contrast to the villain. Eg. love, free will, hope, etc, etc.
2. The villain reveals that actually he's been manipulating the hero all along, and actually the human virtue was a comfortable illusion.
3. The hero says, "actually, by SHEER FORCE OF WILL", I will ACTUALLY triumph using the virtue you despise, and does so.
Obviously many stories only do 1, and many stories only do 1 and 2. And sometimes it's not actually a virtue, it's just the hero thinks she knows what's going on, or that so-and-so is her friend, etc, and then the villain reveals that was all a plot, and then the hero suddenly puts all the red herrings together and figures out what's REALLY going on, or the spy decides they really DO want to be on the hero's side after pretending to be for 300 pages, or whatever.
It's possible to do this story very well, and represent an epic clash of philosophies in an action or detective story. For instance, (imho) Total Recall or Anthony Price both have reveals that go "this is what's going on, no wait THIS is what's going on", but both make more sense, both more sense as a coherent narrative, and more sense as a one-up triumph of the story's philosophical position.
However, many stories, even quite good stories, fuck it up. I think the pervasive problem is that for this to work, 1 has to be plausible, 2 has to make MORE sense, and 3 has to make EVEN MORE sense, either coherently, or thematically. However, audiences are trained by bad stories to gloss over inconsistencies, so when you reveal that #1 is incorrect, they may go "whu? I was supposed to spot that? I was too busy glossing it over, I thought I was supposed to".
I think the fundamental problem with the Matrix sequels is not that they outright suck, but they attempt to subvert the first film's comparatively straightforward "kung-fu good, virtual reality indistinguishable from reality, being enslaved even unknowingly bad" message with a lot of rambling nonsense based directly on the first film's weakest points (namely, why are we in the matrix in the first place). Investigating unresolved questions is good if you can make them clearer, but bad if you just draw attention to something everyone was happily suspending disbelief about. The rambling nonsense is not inherently a BAD theme, it's just that the films are much, much better setting up the message of the first film than that of the later ones, so it comes across not as clever, but as stupid.
I think this is why, after the second film, we still held out hope, because it raised interesting questions, but hated the third film, because it just confirmed everything we thought was stupid.