Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: lurk

Whenever I watch TV or movie, I always comment about whether or not a character is a “Player Character” or “PC.”

When I played RPGs, looooong ago, bad guys didn’t monologue, because our player characters never stopped to listen. They ID’d the heavies and laid down maximum firepower on them (or ran like hell, depending on how over matched we were...).

In books, movies and TV, the morons will hesitate, listen to the villain run his mouth and let him gain a physical or psychological advantage over them. Or do stupid things like surrender over a hostage (idiots - he’s just going to kill you both...), etc.

Dunno who writes those scripts or why they write them that way. I’d like the show a lot better if some bad guy started to talk and had his brains instantly flushed out the back of his head...


8 posted on 12/07/2012 8:17:34 AM PST by Little Ray (Get back to work. Your urban masters need their EBTs refilled.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies ]


To: Little Ray

Like the negotiation scene in The Fifth Element.


17 posted on 12/07/2012 8:36:56 AM PST by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

To: Little Ray

Probably because it’s fiction.


19 posted on 12/07/2012 8:40:39 AM PST by stuartcr ("Everything happens as God wants it to, otherwise, things would be different.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

To: Little Ray

“Dunno who writes those scripts or why they write them that way”

Because realistic spy stories are probably boring as heck. There are dramatic needs that have to be met entirely apart from what would be the smart thing to do. They create new villains for every movie, give them all their little quirks and hire some actor who wants to show off. If they don’t get to put him and the old characters in scenes together the audience will notice and rebel. It is an unspoken expectation.


22 posted on 12/07/2012 8:46:25 AM PST by Tublecane
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

To: Little Ray

The primary reason for the monologue is the viewers like to find out what’s going on. In an RPG situation after the PCs kill the bad guy the players can always ask the game master to explain the diabolical scheme they just foiled, TV and movie viewers don’t get that option. There’s a big belief in Hollywood that viewers don’t like to be confused, a lot of your better writers (JMS, David Chase, Vince Gilligan) have achieved the success they have with the mantra “the viewers are smarter than that” and tend to explain very little trusting the audience will figure it out. But the faceless nameless guys that produce the majority of the content still worship the rule of 3 and full explanations... and make some of the most profitable franchises in entertainment history, so maybe they’re right.


24 posted on 12/07/2012 8:49:51 AM PST by discostu (Not a part of anyone's well oiled machine.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson