I’d hate to see how long it would have taken for a sequel if they had taken their time!
8 Likes
Yet another intriguing video about the narrative issues of The Incredibles 2, this one dealing exclusively on the issues with the Screenslaver story. The creator suggests ways he would fix the story, which certainly sound better than what we got (if a bit cliche, imo).
An interesting watch, regardless:
6 Likes
Avatar comes to mind.
I’m not sure I fully agree with that reviewer’s choices, but I understand them. Actually, it sounds like he would have made Winston the Protagonist and Helen or Winston as a Steadfast MC, with Evelyn the IC, all rooted in Physics. (Or in other words, filled in the story that @Greg had been arguing for, just with different players.) Personally, I would rather have the half-baked Psychology story made complete, instead, but that would probably be much harder to do.
What I find most interesting from that, though, is even the reviewer picked up on a missing Change character. After all, he added one in, specifically. …Neat.
4 Likes
Actually I think it would have been pretty easy – just make it more clear that Winston was being manipulated by Evelyn the whole time, so that despite having good intentions, everything he was doing was serving her ends. That’s basically the movie I watched and enjoyed!
You might have to fix the First Driver too, so that a Goal of “stopping Evelyn’s plot” would make sense. Maybe one reason I could fill in the blanks (and blank out the flaws) of the OS Psychology story is that I missed the very beginning while making popcorn. I remember I was like “wait, was that the same fight that they ended the first movie in?” and my daughter was like “no dad! no way!” so I just shrugged and figured I had missed something important.
Sometimes missing part of a movie can be a good thing. There’s a lame action movie called The Island with Ewan MacGregor and Scarlet Johansson, 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, but if you turn it off halfway through it becomes a really cool sci-fi film that you unfortunately missed the ending of.
Maybe. I never caught whether Screenslaver was referenced in any form or fashion toward the beginning. But, I can see what you’re saying. And, the movie you described is what I had thought I was watching.
Probably time I go back to working on my novel, though…
Me too.
Regarding the “improved” version that @jhay posted, it occurred to me that the main thing the reviewer was objecting to was the way the element of Trust was used in the Evelyn/Winston part of the story (i.e. it was stupid and didn’t make sense), and that might be because Trust is part of Being, while the Evelyn story might work better as Conceiving – “Getting people to have a different idea about supers.” So while the Trust element actually ties in well with everything the Parrs are dealing with, it might be wrong for the other part of the movie. The solution might be (as you’ve said @Hunter) to flesh out two different storyforms.
Interestingly, if you choose Conceiving and an Issue of Expedience, that leaves you with an Element quad of Inaction/Production/Protection/Reduction – which seems kind of perfect for the reviewer’s “improved” version.
4 Likes
So the reason I was being so rigid is because I figure that a broken storyform is still objective, right? So it seems like we should still be able to figure out what is there so we can see what isn’t there. What I can see now, thanks to your steadfastness @mlucas, @Lakis, and @Hunter, is that without at least a more complete storyform, even if it is objective, a missing piece is all it takes to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint where the conflict comes from. Like with Incredibles 2, if you have what looks like Physics conflict in service of a Psychology throughline (or the other way around) an MC character without a clear change can really keep you from pinpointing a solid example for a storyform.
When I first saw the movie, I remember thinking that Vi telling Bob she wasn’t going to go anywhere was the solution to the OS and then I was waiting to see where Bob would change. I’ll concede that Vi making that statement could be a Psychology Solution-just as her not going anywhere could be a physics solution-but we really need Bob (or Helen) to change to prove that solution.
Now I know everyone’s thinking “that’s not a new revelation, Greg. It’s been pointed out many times before on this very forum that a broken storyform can keep you from locking anything in.” But i bring it up to let M, L, and H know what I was doing as well as to say that knowing something is very different from experiencing something. Trying to do something and seeing why it can’t be done is a very helpful experience. So thanks for your part in that, guys.
I also want to say that between this movie and Infinity War, I’m also get a much better feel for the difference between a movie that is really good (to me, I guess, some of you others don’t seem to’ve thought this one was that good) and a movie that says something. Again, it’s cool to know it, but much different to experience it.
5 Likes