Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Top Movie-Making Blunders
1. Switching out actors: I was watching some period mini-series a few years ago—I can’t recall which one (it’s probably not worth being recalled)—and at the start of a new episode, I was startled to find the set populated with different actors. I think I dropped the series within minutes of that realization, as my motivation to stick with the story had disappeared. I know that the writers wanted to convey the passing of time, but couldn’t they have found some way other than swapping out characters I had come to care for, even a little? Did they think viewers wouldn’t notice?
2. Sloppy old people makeup jobs: Although switching actors is a no-go, movies trying to get by with bad makeup jobs is also a bad option. With all the technology available, why do some flicks try to pass off a hunched figure caked with high school stage makeup as the character we know and love?
3. Lazy script writing: By lazy, I mean dirty, full of innuendoes, double entendres, and outright crude jokes. I’ve had to abandon movies with great appeal in terms of time period, story, actors, and costumes because the writers will hit us right off with a clumsy bedroom scene, wink-wink-nod-nod situations, and cliched sexually-charged scenes. Becoming Jane, Shakespeare in Love, and the wildly popular Sanditon all made my no-watch list because of this bottom-shelf script-writing technique. I get all primed for a beautifully shot story and then am subjected once again to a scene with a prim lady scoping out a guy going for a swim. So original—actually, so easy to write—the script almost creates itself. I have experienced many of these disappointments.
4. Thoughtless story: A script doesn’t have to be dirty to be bland and cheap. Viewers are canny about obvious signs that writers were rushing to meet deadlines and satisfy demanding audiences by pushing out productions. With thoughtless writing, you have superficial action where characters seem to be listlessly working out a lame plot in lush settings. You have anachronisms and stories stuck in the wrong century. Stock characters do their thing, as if the writers felt they could wind them up and let them go while attending to more important things. I’m looking at you, Downton Abbey, especially in season openers. I’ll never forget when the lady of the house, during a mundane discussion about upcoming events, told the lord in her hard, curving ‘r’s: “Don’t forget—Thursday’s our anniversary!” That was likely the beginning of the end for me. I won’t get started on Sanditon. We’d be here all night.
5. Ultra-sad plots: I don’t watch movies to get depressed. I watch to escape, to revel in beautiful scenery, to enjoy good stories well told, to get the satisfaction of catching subtleties the skillful creators put there for us. This doesn’t mean that there can’t be some unhappy circumstances in movies. Sad aspects in endings are fine, too, as long as a hopeful note of truth is sounded. But I generally avoid the nihilistic, the despairing, the unrelentingly dark stories. I don’t have time for those.
What other blunders should movie writers, producers, and directors avoid?
Published in Entertainment
Yes, so many others… having an Earth calendar on the wall of an alien spaceship…
That’s part of the joy of watching Plan 9 – looking for all those details and giggling at the effects…
Originally titled “Grave Robbers from Outer Space” this is Ed Wood’s Magnum Opus… His best known and greatest success of his movies…All made on a budget of just $60 000.
We’re kinda spoiled today with what a film maker could do with $60 000…There should be an Ed Wood film festival, of not just his films – but selected low budget films…
But of course, $60k in 1957 would be worth over 10x that much today.
Correct. $669,995.00 in 2024 dollars. The average movie in the 1950’s had a budget of just $2.6 Million. or nearly $30 Million in 2024 dollars.
They weren’t competing against a century of back catalog product available to home viewers.
Number 3 is not about “great art”. We are not talking about Botticelli’s Venus sculpture. There is a vast distance between a truly artistic portrayal of human sexuality and the cheap thrills and gross depictions we see in recent movies. We used to make a distinction between trash and art, but that line has been erased.
We are not “pearl-clutchers” when we object to what is just trash. Part of Christianity’s improvement of humanity had to do with keeping sexuality in its proper place. That is a good thing. We are not disgusted with sex or sexuality but with it being uncontrolled. (Maybe you think that is a bad thing.) Yes, the sexual instinct is strong but that is the very reason it must be controlled and regulated. Healthy sexuality is discrete and modest.
Anger is also a strong impulse especially when we have been aggrieved. We want to express that without letting it get out of control. Control of impulses is what we call ‘civilization’.
My pet peeve about movie plots would be inconclusive endings, where you have to guess what happened or what happens next.
If you have been paid to write a story, finish the job!
Reminds me of that blank canvas “art,” what was it called? “Take The Money And Run?”
Torturing popular characters. I grew with Scott and Jean in the Lee-Kirby shaped X-Men comic. Then Chris Claremont tortured them both with a “Dark Phoenix” story arc that left Jean dead and Scott in a PTSD pit of despair. It sold and sold and sold. It was a slow motion NASCAR pileup of a story arc that flew off the stands thanks to all the torture porn.
Then Bryan Singer tried it as a movie, X-Men 3, and it turned out very badly. The movie had many flaws, but Phoenix was the crowning bad. What generated phenomenal sales at newsstands and comic stores cratered at the box office.
And so, with a very respectable library of successful stories to draw on, they returned cheerfully to the Phoenix torture porn again for the big win. And they swept up the ashes from this bomb and added them to the urn holding the X-Men 3 ashes.
If you want to torture a character, make it one like Wolverine, the annoying Canuck punk.
Blame Canada!
They do it to Spiderman all the time.
As you wish.
Yes, it was one of the many reasons I hated Star Trek Picard… Icheb (from Voyager) was tortured to death… Very graphic – which was stunning considering it was so off brand for a Star Trek series…
But remember that Picard himself was shown as being tortured in a 2-part TNG episode. It didn’t get all that graphic though because it was broadcast TV.
There have been many torture scenes in Star Trek. Most were ridiculous.
The TNG episode were Picard was tortured was fairly ingenious. In that it kept with the standards of Star Trek, but was psychologically harrowing. It was the first torture scene on Star Trek to be interesting.
This was not smart, interesting or even necessary.
That episode had to be written smarter and Patrick Stuart had to act with all his craft because they could not rely on gore. It reminds me of some of the best twilight zone episodes.
I’m curious, which other episodes do you think involved torture? And why were they ridiculous?
Enterprise:
Broken Bow.
Shockwave pt 2 – T’pol’s torture scene was just weird – flashing lights while she squirmed and screamed? Purely comedy.
Anomoly
Azati Prime
Cold Station 12
Kir’Shara
In the Mirror Darkly
That;s just from Enterprise… Over all there have been 21 scenes in all the star trek series… Now I am not suggesting that they all should have been a gorey end of a character – but there should have been some recognizable psychological pressure on the ‘victim’… This is why “Change of Command” in TNG was such a good episode. It exceeded expectations, by being real.
Hmm, I guess. Been a long time since I watched, what I remember of those was mostly “aftermath” scenes.
But I thought it was rather ridiculous how Princess Leia seemed just fine after spending however long it was with that flying torture-droid thing.
True. They downplay the psychological effects of all traumatic events they glamorize.
How about Babylon 5? Did you think “Intersections In Real Time” was ridiculous?
Sounds ridiculous, but Ive never seen Babylon 5.
What a shame.
Here’s a start…