Skip to main content

How Not to Make an Audience Care

I recently watched Thor: Ragnarok, the latest in Marvel's seemingly endless torrent of superhero comedy/action movies. While I generally enjoyed it (at least compared to other films in the same genre), I found myself rather bored during many of the scenes which were intended to be the most dramatic. The movie puts an enormous amount of effort into epic music, gratuitous explosions, and intricately animated fight sequences, but many of its action scenes just felt like something to be waited through until something more interesting happened. In fact, I think you could cut out a solid 10 minutes of absurdly acrobatic duels and massacring of minions and the film would't actually lose anything of value.

Now, I should say that I am not bored by all action scenes. For example, Mad Max: Fury Road managed managed to keep me on the edge of my seat, and that movie is probably around 50% giant explosions. So what exactly did Thor: Ragnarok lack? After a fair amount of thought, I have come to the following conclusion: the action scenes weren't engaging because I didn't actually care what happened. For all of its special effects, the movie wasn't able to get me invested in what was going on. I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters, the plot wasn't atypical enough to intrigue me, and there wasn't really any dramatic tension. After all, it's not like Marvel is going to allow one of their protagonists to lose in the end, much less actually die. 

This flaw in Thor: Ragnarok is made even worse by the fact that it is entirely possible to have extremely dramatic action scenes with the simplest of visuals, as long as the viewer actually cares. The webcomic Order of the Stick is a perfect example of this. It is a parody of Dungeons & Dragons/fantasy adventure drawn entirely in stick figures which still manages to be more exciting than any Marvel movie I've seen. This is due to a myriad of factors, foremost among them a genuinely well-written and unconventional plot, nuanced characters, and a real willingness on the part of the author to have the heroes lose, often quite badly. The plotline which runs from strip 623 to 663 is a particularly strong example of how action can be dramatic without extravagant special effects.













In the end, the viewer's enjoyment of action in any entertainment media is not dependent on the visuals with which it is portrayed, but rather on the interest they have in the characters and the situation. While it is unfortunately extremely unlikely that this will actually occur, I do hope that eventually Marvel realizes that story and characters are more important to the drama of a scene than grand spectacles of computer-generated destruction.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Narrowcasting on Youtube

The discussion of narrowcasting we had in class reminded me of this fascinating video on the surprisingly complex process which determines what ad you see when you click on a video on Youtube. The short version is this: In the millisecond between you clicking the video and the ad playing, Youtube's algorithms analyze the video (looking at its title, views, comments, etc.) and analyze you (trying to determine your age, gender, location, etc. based on your watch history) and then give those pieces of information to the algorithms of the advertisers, which have been programmed to target certain kinds of videos and specific viewer demographics. The advertiser algorithms then hold an auction to determine what commercial you see when the video loads. While this process is certainly useful for Youtube, advertisers and content creators, it has some disturbing implications. If you and someone else watch the exact same video, you may well see completely different ads. This, as with all ...
2 comments
Read more

Do We Really Want the Trump Administration Censoring the Media?

MissRepresentation was an excellent documentary. Before watching it, I was already aware of many of the problems with the representation of women in media which it illuminates, but I was still impressed at how comprehensive and powerful its argument was. However, I disagree with the film on one major point: I do not think that media content should be further regulated by the government or any other organization, even with the purpose of reducing the objectification of women. To see why this kind of regulation could be so problematic, it is helpful to look at the history of media censorship in the United States. From 1930 to 1968, almost all American movies were produced under the  Motion Picture Production Code , a set of rules governing what could be shown onscreen. The rules were intended to safeguard public virtue by eliminating immoral content from the media and were created by the film industry itself to preempt government regulation. While the idea of such a code may seem l...
5 comments
Read more

Exult

What phoenix of fire and wires empowered our minds and sent forth our brains and imagination? Moloch! Civilization! Science! Beauty! Networks connecting, letters illuminating! Medicines sweeping away plague! Children safe in their laughter! People celebrating in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Wonder of Moloch! Moloch who touches the stars! Moloch who sunders the atom! Moloch who banishes the darkness! Moloch who brings peace untold! Moloch who gave you a roof! Moloch who fed you, Moloch who clothed you, Moloch who taught you! Moloch whose memory gives us your thoughts! Moloch who caught your words from the very air and handed them through time! Moloch whose mind is pure humanity! Moloch whose blood is flowing words! Moloch whose eyes are a billion curious questions! Moloch whose cities shelter the artist! Moloch whose farms sustain the wonderer! Moloch who stands before Death, and strives against it, and drives the spectre back! Moloch who knits the nations! Moloch who slips the...
Post a Comment
Read more