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Complex Thoughts: Why Are Movies So Damn Complicated?

Posted by Mike on February 27, 2015
Posted in: Conversation. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Hey all. This will be a new semi-regular piece on Moving Pictures where Zach and I have a bit of back and forth about whatever topic has gotten stuck in our heads recently. This is a bit of a longer article than you’re probably used to on this site but I hope you all like it.

P.S. I don’t have a name for these recurring pieces yet so please feel free to give me some suggestions.

DARK KNIGHT RISES

Mike: Over complexity is something you and I have talked about a lot. It seems more and more I’m drawn towards movies with a concise, straight forward story but really interesting and well written characters.

Big budget and genre fair especially recently feels like it’s bogged down with over complicated, pace ruining plot points that don’t really add anything to the experience. What’s up with that?
Zach: I completely agree with your sentiment, so many filmmakers seem to not trust us to follow their plots without having a character stop, face the camera, and give us 5 minutes of bland exposition. It’s either they don’t trust us, or they write themselves into a plot that they think demands it. We don’t need it. We can typically follow what’s going on.
I recently saw Horns and almost groaned when I saw a similar scene set up, but then found myself elated when they didn’t do it. There was no exposition, no dumb pseudo-science techno-babble explanations, we didn’t need to know why Harry Potter was turning into a demon, we were along for the ride and we could piece it together from other dialogue and hints in the story.

I wish more writers and directors had the confidence to do that. I hate to blame current movies for everything, but this really does feel like a recent phenomenon. When did you first start noticing this trend?

M: It feels like the trend recently has been complexity = quality. What boggles my mind is that it’s happening in exactly the type of movies that you don’t want to be over-complicated. Big budget, event type fare that used to be a good excuse to turn your brain off for 90 -100 minutes and watch shit blow up has become bloated and almost unwatchable due to screenwriting by committee and just cramming plot into places where it doesn’t belong.

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