• Dolores [love/loves]
      ·
      2 years ago

      have you seen Star Wars which has Han Solo being sarcastic and too-cool-for-this for 3 whole films

      like yeah, it can be poorly received if you don't establish a character and earn the payoff of a half-joke like that, but that is not inherent to putting it in a movie.

            • Dolores [love/loves]
              ·
              2 years ago

              define this 'kind' of banter in such a way that it includes the first episode 7 quip, but not any of the other ones we're fine with. my whole thesis is that irony, sarcasm, lampshading etc. are things that can be done well and people just don't like when they don't land :edgeworth-shrug: and who likes a joke when it isn't funny? ascribing anything deeper to it doesn't work when we can find dozens of beloved similar lines and occurrences with the chief difference being they work!

                • Dolores [love/loves]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  i don't know what this argument is about, i fully appreciate the way that scene does not entertain a lot of people.

                  the more you get into it the more unique and less identifiable with broader trends it becomes, and the less you can use it as a yardstick to judge other writing. 99% of quips are not in the same room as Dark Helmet, in a situation that will threaten the speaker's mortality. that's not a problem with 'whedonisms' its a problem-with-joking-when-the-villain-has-the-protagonist-in-their-power.

                    • Dolores [love/loves]
                      ·
                      2 years ago

                      bending the narrative logic to make room for jokes

                      this is not a good guiding principle. proper comedies and good jokes revolve the narrative around what would be funny. illogic of a situation is a base form of comedy, the subversion of the expectation is a base form of comedy. you can't make these pay off without playing with narrative logic. Pulp Fiction is a parade of wildly unlikely and absurd events, but it's written by a disgusting pervert who can do a joke well.

                      we can wax all day about story ,narrative, comedy, genre and how they should balance each other but at the end of the day we're talking subjective preferences and never about truly great movies. the new star wars trilogy is Not Good, everyone agrees on this except preteens. most of the Marvel movies are mid, most films -period- aren't blowing people's minds.

                      its not controversial at all to assert 'comedy in some movies these days doesn't land', but we've got to channel that through a grievance politics against "Marvel Soy dialogue" or whatever because everyone gets to use it as a stalking horse for [leftist] complaints about creativity under monopoly/capital [reactionary] complaints about diversity [contrarian] popular thing must be bad.