Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
And it would all make sense if it turns out Blue Fairy is the mastermind behind all of this!
It makes so much sense. And yet, sadly, A&E are probably aware of the Sneaky Fairy theory, which kind of squishes any chance it has to come to fruition. Because oh noes, we must surprise the fans. (Why random left-field villain — in the best case scenario, formerly known as Peasant #5 — should cause any sort of surprised excitement from the audience is totally beyond me, but there you have it).
But this goes back to the point that a lot of people are making on this thread: that, basically, A&E really suck at storytelling.
[adrotate group="5"]Right. Do they not want us to theorize or speculate? Do they just want us to sit back, numbly, and not think too hard about the show and plot and characters and just be TV-watching sheep??
This is the thing, though. The entire premise of the show, as S1 was set up, was about theorizing and speculating — outside of the Charmings, Regina, and Emma, who the other characters were and what their past had really been about was this exciting process of discovery. And then it turned out that many of the characters were actually combinations of fairytale characters (such as Rumple). So much of this show was based on being given the pieces, but not knowing how they fit together. At some point after S3, though, it stopped being that. Rather, new pieces were added, seemingly at random, and mostly through the kinship diagram from hell method which quickly got very very old.
I think one way they could have gone, and that would have been so much more compelling, is to go the same avenue they did with Rumple (where he was also the Beast, and the Crocodile), but expand this to other characters. This would have given the main crew an opportunity to explore new aspects of their characters, and not overburden the show with random and ultimately irrelevant plotlines. It might have given them some space to work with characters they had exhausted by adding new dimensions/story elements (Robin comes to mind).
George R.R. Martin has spoken openly of the temptation to change his books that he, a great author, has had to avoid when some very clever fans correctly theorized about the ending of his book series.
This is exactly right. I think careful readers who really get into a fictional world will put things together no matter what, but that’s part of the pleasures of consuming a well-crafted work of fiction. If you’re able to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to the correct conclusion, you get a huge feeling of satisfaction, I think. The sorts of last minute changes to the structural elements of the story (Nealfire, Dark Swan and so forth) are sort of like trying to change the physics of an imaginary world at the last moment: “Surprise, there’s no gravity!” It doesn’t work.
I’m pretty sure A&E just wish the audience were simple-minded sheep. Hence, Rumple’s very meta line: “Your questions are pointless.”
A&E’s relationship to their audience is awfully similar to something like “Shut up and look pretty. And don’t you even think of disagreeing with me — I’m the one doing the thinking here.”
Hi back!
I keep meaning to ask. Who’s on your new profile pic?
Or just altogether.
Seriously. Cant we just send them to their room for a bit?
That is like oh people figured out that Harry Potter is going to kill Voldemort, that means we have to change it so that random hufflepuff guy kills Voldemort and it is a surprise. Then people read seven books waiting to see Harry kill Voldemort and then he doesn’t.
lol Right. And to fix it, they would announce that Voldermort was really that random hufflepuff guy’s third cousin. Bet you never saw that coming. (No, A&E, we didn’t. That’s what foreshadowing is for).
I think everyone would be better off if Adam and Eddy get a time out from social media for a while — it seems that part of their problem is that they are in this echo chamber of audience response, and have completely lost any sense of personal creative vision. Which goes back to the comparison that @Slurpeez made with GoT a few pages back — where audience response has never shaped either Martin’s work, or the GoT creators’ way of televising the story.
And during that discussion they brought up something really interesting: that they had knowledge that OUAT is the work of someone else (not Lindelof and not Fables) and that A and E were very close to getting sued for copyright infringement.
That could certainly explain the quality drop. Even if it’s not entirely true, and OUAT is more of a chimera of several people’s ideas which A&E then appropriated as chiefly their own, by this point in the story I think it’s pretty safe to say that A&E can’t sustain a long narrative. They might be better off applying themselves to a mini-series type format. Because lets face it, their worldbuilding is a hot mess, their characters get eviscerated for the purpose of plot (often asinine), and their relationship to the audience/response to their show is just pathetic.
(Also, Hi everyone!)
Haven’t been around for a while, but I’ll play (I’m only partially joking).
Regina: Regina Mills and Evil Queen reconcile, move to NYC, go to law school where they are flatmates, and open a law firm called Mills, Regal, and Associates. Regina specializes in class action litigation, EQ does corporate law. Rumplestiltskin occasionally consults for them on a part-time basis (with a specialization in contract law).
Emma: Emma Swan volunteers for NASA’s Mars program, and is training to be an astronaut. Her obsession with CS falters under the intensity of her training. Henry is entirely supportive.
Hook: Hook creates a line of designer clothing that all looks suspiciously the same, and brings back Goth fashion from its otherwise moribund state — most of his clothing line is worn by aging rock stars. He eventually becomes disenchanted with the lifestyle, discovers Osho, and goes off to live on a hippy commune in Goa.
Henry: Henry Mills writes his first novel, which stays at the top of the NYT Best Seller list for longer than anyone could have expected. Critics have described it as “Being John Malkovich” meets “Great Expectations.”
Snow and Charming: Now left to run Storybrooke, Snowing have a moment of self-awareness and realize they are terrible leaders. They leave and live on a self-suficient, environmentally sustainable homestead somewhere in the Mahoosuc Range. Snow makes her own kimchi and pickles mushrooms. They homeschool their kids.
Rumple and Belle: After all the mains leave SB, the peasants slowly trickle back into town, relieved that the cloud of disasters that followed their leaders is finally starting ignore them. Rumple and Belle capitalize on this by devising a scheme to put SB on the global grid, mostly by finally getting Amazon Prime to deliver to town and revamping the place into a living history museum — on the model of Colonial Williamsburg, but with magic. There is an economic boom as a result. Belle creates a wildly popular and profitable residency program for aspiring creative writers. Rumple occasionally consults for Regina’s NY law firm, but mostly sells antiques on Etsy. Having put SB back on rails, Rumple follows Belle who applies to a graduate program in anthropology. Belle and Rumple leave to do fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.
Zelena: Zelena learns computer programming and works for tech startup on the West Coast, remotely. Rumor has it that she is also a notorious hacktivist. She identifies herself as a tiger mom. At 2 1/2 Robin is able to play the violin, speaks five languages, and can put together a five course meal.
Ok,those are the thoughts for now. I’ll wait for yours.
A really interesting read, and I think he’s got some very good points, but to me there were also some problematic leaps of logic. The broader point about the Yelpification of art is well taken. But then, hasn’t there always been art for the masses — that which was meant to please as broad a population as possible — and art for art’s sake (or maybe for other projects, like art as politics)? But yes, some aspects of human activity, when subsumed into consumerist (read capitalist) logics, become either absurd or perverse (or both).
But then he makes some weird analogies. So for example, there are some problematic conflations under the general umbrella of “fandom.” When he’s essentially saying that the GamerGate trolls (who attacked women game developers who are already an incredibly marginalized and underrepresented faction in the industry) with people who were clamoring for an LGBT take on Elsa, this really does a disservice to his argument. In one instance we have an entitled dominant group persecuting members of a marginalized minority, effectively attempting to silence the voices of that minority and keeping it out of what they perceive as “their” domain. In the other instance, we have a vocal minority taking on an activist stance against a default/unmarked hegemonic way of telling a story/depicting a character. So, sure, in both instances we have social media mediating who gets to express themselves, in what ways, and to what social effects, but this doesn’t mean that both are legitimately comparable. It’s like saying that Nazi officers put in charge of concentration camps, and rebels in, say, the French resistance (to go with the WWII analogy) are both representative of the same thing because they both killed people.
The difference, for me, is that Jason Rothenberg doesn’t treat his main character Clarke (someone very much in S1 Emma Swan mold) like A and E treat Emma Swan for S5.
I feel sort of sympathetic to Rothenberg in this instance (I like the show, but am not super invested, it’s a bit too YA for my tastes). But I think the difference is that his social media persona is a lot more diplomatic and socially talented than A&E. He comes across as a reasonable, thinking adult. The main character of 100 comes off as an evolving, complex entity that lives and breathes. Not as a PlotBot.
4) So basically everything that made it into the World Book
Yes! That’s exactly right. Also, they log giant encyclopedia-like tomes around. To coffee shops. I mean, those two are dedicated researchers. I am always going to be impressed and a little jealous, because (a) they look like they are having so much fun, and (b) it looks like the perfect relationship. Who wouldn’t want to nerd out over the history of the Children of the Forest for hours over a cappuccino in the beautiful NM hight desert.
I didn’t know the ale house part about Tolkien — that’s awesome. 🙂
At least not in the network/ad buyers realm. We, the viewers, are the ones being sold. The ad buyers are buying our time, our eyes, our desire to check out the whatever they’re shilling out.
Ah, that’s an excellent point. I always forget that from the network’s perspective, a show is just a canvas to use for ads. From that perspective, perhaps the comparison with a fiction author isn’t fair — there aren’t any ads in a novel, so that’s a different kind of “product” being sold, and perhaps a different relationship to the audience.
*points to above for product discussion* but yes I agree that A and E aren’t really trying to tell a story anymore. Or at least, they don’t plan a full coherent sensible story. Just look at what happened to Sean/Robin this year.
Yes, and to go back to @svsm’s point, isn’t that exactly where what floats the show seems to come into play? I wonder whether anyone among the show runners or writers realizes that the audience they have is mostly coming back for #2, and out of investment into #1. I don’t think A&E are self-aware enough to go the cynical route, along the lines of “hey, we don’t need to put in any effort. They’ll keep coming back for Lana, Bobby, and Colin, it doesn’t matter what bs we throw at them.” But they might as well.
In retrospect this makes Rumple look like an idiot that he relied on a dark curse to get him to Storybrooke whne there are numerous other methods he could’ve used.
Yup. But I don’t think A&E care
I can see why ABC ties OUAT to LOST (and even other media outlets do this, always bringing up LOST when they interview A and E); LOST is actually the only reason ABC took a look at OUAT.
I think that’s probably true. At the same time, you’d think A&E have had the opportunity to really get their writing/show creating chops to tip top notch by now, and they just haven’t. Between the experience with Lost, and their really long run with OUAT, they should have a clue about how to do this. As in, plan ahead. As in, stop being a toddler on social media.
The show is getting steadily worse with every season, but it’s still hanging in there. Sometimes, I wonder how much this is a factor of the audience (whether fandom or GA) extending them undue credit because of their association with Lost. But of course, it’s not just them — there are other people, from the cast to folks like Jane Espenson, who lend their name to the show, and prevent it from tanking completely, without being able to pull it out of the bog of mediocrity within which it is mired.
There’s an assumption here that without pressure from fans, writers, producers and other artists will be free to assert themselves with originality and boldness, completely free of any expectation.
I totally see what you’re saying, @sciencevsmagic, and I think that’s largely right. There’s always the imagined reader/viewer. But I also read that article as a commentary on A&E’s inability to learn from their mistakes, or to take critique in a productive way that would allow them to grow as writers. There’s something very basic about A&E’s failings, and that’s their utterly idiotic refusal to admit that they don’t plan ahead very effectively. Just to give an example of a different way of writing… So, a few years back, I happened to spend some time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is where GRR Martin is. Santa Fe’s a weird town, it’s mostly retirees, artists, and writers , so coffee shops are super busy. I happened to also do my work at coffee shops, so I’ve seen GRRM do his thing. The dude would sit there with his wife and world-build. For hours. That’s what they’d do — they’d just sit and draw up this really intricate mythology that will likely never make it into anything GRRM writes except for oblique hints because it’s just too damn much. There is way more world than there are books, or space to describe. I am sure there’s still an argument to be made that GRRM isn’t free from audience expectation, and he’s still writing in such a way as to sell his books. But I think he’s breathed enough life into the world that he’s built that it’s got its own momentum, laws, and overall functioning that can’t be jettisoned in favor of fan service. If you’ve imagined a world with a particular physics, you aren’t going to suddenly change those laws to make the fans happy. But that’s exactly what A&E do over and over again, because I think they either don’t care about how “organic” their world building is, or they just don’t realize that they’re supposed to be consistent if they want their viewers to invest. Minimally, it would be useful to have established rules to their magic system. But they haven’t even managed that. That might have worked for one season, when much is still left offscreen and up for speculation, but 5 seasons later, it’s just a hot mess.
Late to the party, but thanks @RG for linking that Kiki article. Well written, and I think really on point.
Someone who is more of a Lost fan than I was might comment to this, but I was really struck by the way in which A&E (and ABC marketing A&E) have linked them to Lost. After reading some of the background on the show’s production, I was really surprised to realize they had come on board to a show that was already in motion (it was the brainchild of JJ Abrams, Lieber, and Lindelof originally).
And here’s the thing that struck me in relation to this. I think A&E might be, at their core, fanfic writers. Not to actually insult fanfic writers because there are many excellent writers who also write (or who have started with) fanfic. For example, I think Seanan MacGuire/Mira Grant’s books are delightfully entertaining, and she often says in her interviews that she learned the craft by writing fanfic. Anyway, point being, there’s something very particular about fanfic — you don’t do the world-building, you build on/reinterpret something that’s been created by someone else. So that’s what I think A&E really are, and where many of their failings come from. They suck at world-building. It worked for S1 because OUAT at its core is a fanfic, and OUAT S1 did what a good fanfic does: reinterprets the original source, fills in the blanks, and lets you see the story/stories in new, surprising light. And then, they ran out of ideas — and, I think, just never developed the skillset that a writer needs to create a credible world and “hack your brain” — and so what they produce is ever more mediocre, derivative, and cliched. Even their “prize” romances can rival the offensively bad fan-driven ships (in the fine tradition of the Rey/Kylo Ren shippers). Anyway, one of the points that article makes is that A&E are simply incompetent writers who don’t learn from their critics or their mistakes. I think that’s dead on.
1) Less focus on romance, especially of the Suddenly!True Love variety. Instead, more focus on both the existing relationships, including marital and family ties, and friendships that last longer than five minutes.
2) I would love to see OUAT get back to the “twisty” approach to well-known stories, but in a way that isn’t just facile “oh, this was a good guy — lets make him a villain” like they did with Arthur. Related – no more Hamburger Helper villains, and I think this would necessitate no more season split.
3) Less world-building inconsistencies. The biggest one is that OUAT needs to decide what its magic system is, and stick with it.
4) Rumple’s character development actually goes somewhere. No more endless repetition of the same internal and external conflict with no progress or resolution. Rumbelle resolves — however it does — and the pointless and never-ending on again off again cycle stops once and for all.
5) Emma’s character isn’t reset to zero. I am so not interested in her WallsTM, or how Hook plans to break them yet again.
6) No more Once Upon a Hook
7) It doesn’t turn out that one can actually kill one’s worst aspect made flesh and somehow emerge white and fluffy as a result.
8) Less plot, less “quests,” less dollar store MacGuffins. Less superlatives and hyperboles along the lines of the mushroomiest mushroom in the history of all evil mushrooms, or whatever that whole Crimson Crown thing was.
9) Henry stops being written as an 8 year old.
10) Less flashbacks and pointless realm jumping. Actually develop SB again.
