In Which I Rant About Romance...
So I freely admit that I'm a romance junky - period pieces, rom-coms, superhero movies, the works. I say this before I make the following comments, just to give you an idea of where I'm coming from as a viewer.
WHEN YOU WRITE A ROMANCE, YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY WRITE. THE. ROMANCE. I don't care what genre you're in - fantasy, action, comedy, drama, whatever. You cannot have 1-2 scenes of a 'couple' together and then expect me to swallow the crap you throw at me after. I'm getting sick and tired of screenwriters' collective narrative laziness. They want the plot ramifications of the relationship, but they don't actually want to have to invest any time in writing it. If you're making an action movie you could probably get away with it, but when the entirety of a character or the entirety of the narrative depends on the audience's investment in a relationship, and you don't put more than maybe 5 minutes of thought into it...it shows...and it ruins any intention you had for that romance in the context of the movie/show/etc.
I'm specifically looking at the following:
Man of Steel (seriously, Lois/Clark had like one scene before they were declaring their epic love)
Oz: The Great & Powerful (I could write a whole dissertation on my problems with gender dynamics in this movie)
The White Queen (did they love each other because they're both pretty? was that it? because he legit tried to rape her...)
Now You See Me (this 'romance' was so tacked on, it was painful)
Les Miserables (I know this is based on something that's existed for years, but they could have at least TRIED to make me care about Cosette/Marius)
Those movies certainly aren't the only ones, half of the teen romance movies spawned from Twilight have a similar feel. Those movies made millions of dollars, all of it based on a 'romance' that involved the male lead looking like he wanted to vomit. I don't even know...
This, of course, isn't to say there aren't recent exceptions. Iron Man 3 and Warm Bodies being two that come to mind. I just want to know when being TOLD characters are in love became more common than being shown WHY characters are in love.
Seriously though, I hated Oz.
WHEN YOU WRITE A ROMANCE, YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY WRITE. THE. ROMANCE. I don't care what genre you're in - fantasy, action, comedy, drama, whatever. You cannot have 1-2 scenes of a 'couple' together and then expect me to swallow the crap you throw at me after. I'm getting sick and tired of screenwriters' collective narrative laziness. They want the plot ramifications of the relationship, but they don't actually want to have to invest any time in writing it. If you're making an action movie you could probably get away with it, but when the entirety of a character or the entirety of the narrative depends on the audience's investment in a relationship, and you don't put more than maybe 5 minutes of thought into it...it shows...and it ruins any intention you had for that romance in the context of the movie/show/etc.
I'm specifically looking at the following:
Man of Steel (seriously, Lois/Clark had like one scene before they were declaring their epic love)
Oz: The Great & Powerful (I could write a whole dissertation on my problems with gender dynamics in this movie)
The White Queen (did they love each other because they're both pretty? was that it? because he legit tried to rape her...)
Now You See Me (this 'romance' was so tacked on, it was painful)
Les Miserables (I know this is based on something that's existed for years, but they could have at least TRIED to make me care about Cosette/Marius)
Those movies certainly aren't the only ones, half of the teen romance movies spawned from Twilight have a similar feel. Those movies made millions of dollars, all of it based on a 'romance' that involved the male lead looking like he wanted to vomit. I don't even know...
This, of course, isn't to say there aren't recent exceptions. Iron Man 3 and Warm Bodies being two that come to mind. I just want to know when being TOLD characters are in love became more common than being shown WHY characters are in love.
Seriously though, I hated Oz.