The Worst Plots in London

[hashishinahooka]

I'm listening to an old Creative Screenwriting podcast, and in it, Jeff Goldsmith says that one of the oldest complaints about Sweeney Todd is that it's predictable. I won't say what's predictable about it to avoid spoiling anyone

Comments

[noreentry]

I figure predictable things can be fun and enjoyable but are rarely life-changingly interesting.

[hashishinahooka]

I don't think there's a connection between the fact we hold Shakespeare in such high esteem and predictability being a good or bad thing. (That's a really poorly articulated point. Hopefully what I was aiming for is apparent.) Modern audiences theoretically know how the histories go.*

I'm not talking about modern audiences here. I am talking about the audiences during his time. I'm wondering if predictability was even a consideration in previous times.

But if the point's entertainment and not placing emphasis on execution, then predictability is a bad thing. If I'm reading a Tom Clancy novel, I don't want it to be utterly predictable. (Admittedly, certain elements of Tom Clancy novels are utterly predictable.)

That's the conclusion I'm coming to these days. I find that I don't mind predictable plots when they're executed well. For example, I hated "The Village" because not only was it terribly predictable, it wasn't executed well. So, I wonder if the movie had better execution, would I have even minded that it was predictable.

[hashishinahooka]

But doesn't film and television fill the void as accessible, mass entertainment?

[mofoburrell]

Predictability isn't always a bad thing. The most recent remake of King Kong is a fantastic movie, I think, though its story is so well-known that if you were born in the past 70 years, you surely know how it ends, even if you've never seen the original movie.

If your story is predictable, you have to make up for it in other ways, though, which I guess is the trouble. Something that's predictable and has mediocre dialogue/acting/lighting/whatever is just doomed.

[theniwokesoftly]

If your story is predictable, you have to make up for it in other ways, though, which I guess is the trouble.

Exactly. I despise romantic comedies for the most part because they're predictable AND insipid. Every so often there's one that's not so predictable, which is awesome, but one that's well-written can make up for it in other ways. Like I knew exactly how The Proposal was going to end but it was still enjoyable for me because it featured different characters- it was more about the hero than the heroine, and he was snarky and she was rather off-putting. Plus Betty White is awesome.

[echoandsway]

I've heard it said that when it comes to plotting, people want the same thing, only different. That is, they want the same plot elements and archetypes, and for the story to progress in a fairly predictable way (because most of the time, those tropes have some kind of logic, even if it's not really *logical* as such), with a twist or two to make it "fresh." There's only so many basic stories out there, really -- they recur in different forms through time and different cultures -- it's the trappings that change. And some of those basic stories are pretty potent to the human imagination. Hence why the Coen Brothers could re-frame the Odyssey in Depression-era Mississippi and have a movie that's still an interesting story.

Also, when people try too hard to come up with something really original, it tends to show that they're trying too hard, and is usually tedious and not fully coherent.

[imitationangel]

Because we are jaded and spoiled. In recent decades we've come to expect new and shiny all the time and we complain when we don't get it.

Instead of treasuring the familiar like we have in bygone eras, we put our old folk in homes instead of caring for them as they cared for us, we must have this new thing and we must be first in on this latest craze and then we just as quickly discard it.