The problem is most certainly Druckfaggot forced Abby down people's throats for no reason. We should be exploring the all consuming rage that Ellie feels and she should get more brutal and destructive in her methods. She should completely murder Abby's friends, her living family, her lovers....until Ellie herself realizes she's enjoying the murder and the torture entirely too much. She's turning into the monster. Have the fungus begin stalking her mind. Have it be an ever present voice, telling her that the fungus is God's judgement for Humanity's violence, and that this is hell on Earth. Those immune to the fungus are the demons. You make choices throughout the game where Ellie can give into the violence, becoming darker and more monster-like. Have her embrace the brutality along with the player and lead her down a dark road. In the end, Ellie kills Abby, but her pain isn't satiated. She needs more. She eventually loses her mind, giving into her pain and bloodlust, becoming a boogeyman, something more dangerous than any monster.
The fact that a game like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain actually portrays the cycle of violence in a better way than TLoU2, both in story and in gameplay (the piece of shrapnel in your head growing/more blood being permanently applied to the player model the more times you kill people is pathetic. Hell, I'll even throw in 3, as it shows all of the people you killed on your road to save the boss towards the end of the game.
Problem was, Hicks and Newt dying was a result of those kajillion rewrites and was a last minute addition as well, which is why Michael Biehn got so pissed off by it and demanded he be paid his full promised salary for it.
Nobody is denying it's a tragic movie but it's unfortunately also a shitty movie. If takes the pussy route of re-negging on the world building and expansion of Aliens and tries to make it a claustrophobic horror movie in the same vein as the first Alien, but also makes the mistake of setting it in an environment full of large, wide open spaces where the xenomorph is so easily outrunnable.
Oh, and someone should have told Sigourney to fuck off if she seriously thought her "no guns" rule wouldn't look stupid.
And being better than Alien Resurrection isn't something that's hard to do at all.
Have you seen the...I think it's called the assembly cut of Alien 3? It's the closest thing the film got to a directors cut, and it turns it into an actually pretty good movie. The theatrical release was a complete mess though, yeah
He'd be the classic example of it. Mostly failing, some pulling it off. But I fucking hate narrative reversals in the last thirty seconds where you've got 0 time to process it so I'd add an extra 500 words if I'd ranted about that. The only good thing about his failures is that they waste about, more or less, 2 hours of your time and around 5 bucks on home video.
The other examples I used have wasted decades of people's lives and hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. I went for the bigger fish, so to speak.
Yes, its been around forever, which I used the example of The Prestige, a movie nearly 15 years old. And yeah, its been around for longer than that. If I wanted to list examples of where this was competently, this would have been 5,000 pages long. Another part of my point is that this narrative failure has been, lately, limited to genre fiction whereas in dramatic fiction, this problem is largely absent. My point wasn't that this was new, my point was that people are doing this and thinking they're genuises without giving the audiences anything back for their loyalty or satisfaction, resulting in an anti-climax. My point was in genre fiction they seem to think this is a new idea, forget what an anti-climax is, and think that's genuis.
I really like how you pointed out the fact that writers are using it in genre fiction which, by convention, is usually meant to be broadly appealing and is able to derive its tension and excitement from spectacle rather than complexity. Making subverted expectations a lot of risk with comparatively little reward. At least, that's my response reading this.
I also notice these "creatives" who like subverting expectations do it very inappropriately. As in they subvert things that are essentially *basic information* necessary to our understanding and relationship with the work itself. So they pick the one area where screwing it up can do maximal damage.
The Luke-Vader example is great. I guess Vader being Anakin instead of killing him changes some basic information but really we knew Vader was bad because he was in black armor and choked people to death. Him killing Luke's father was for Luke's motivation, not our own understanding of why Vader is so bad. So the impact of this twist is limited to Luke for the most part, and for us raises the stakes and drama (which is rewarding enough to get over the change). Whereas if they had Luke join Vader that would absolutely violate our relationship with the story. Because we take for granted that Luke is a swell dude who will make the right choice (and faces the consequences of doing that).
With the drama of AOT's ending fresh on people's minds, exactly how did that subverting fare, compared to the likes of the previous subverters such as TLOU2, ME3, GoT, TLJ, Lost, HIMYM, etc?
And it's mind boggling to realize that the subverting that happened in Danganronpa V3's ending, while it was still divisive, didn't completely nuke that fanbase, compared to those other instances of subverting. Granted, the DR fandom is it's own can of worms...
Granted, part of the reasoning for the ending, was that the staff behind the games wanted to make another game, but were obligated by the company to make another Danganronpa game, so the staff made the game with this double middle finger ending, as an attempt to kill off the franchise. It also bears resemblance to Mass Effect 3's ending, except you can tell that it was deliberate by the staff, so the sting isn't as bad.
With the drama of AOT's ending fresh on people's minds, exactly how did that subverting fare, compared to the likes of the previous subverters such as TLOU2, ME3, GoT, TLJ, Lost, HIMYM, etc?
And it's mind boggling to realize that the subverting that happened in Danganronpa V3's ending, while it was still divisive, didn't completely nuke that fanbase, compared to those other instances of subverting. Granted, the DR fandom is it's own can of worms...
Granted, part of the reasoning for the ending, was that the staff behind the games wanted to make another game, but were obligated by the company to make another Danganronpa game, so the staff made the game with this double middle finger ending, as an attempt to kill off the franchise. It also bears resemblance to Mass Effect 3's ending, except you can tell that it was deliberate by the staff, so the sting isn't as bad.
AOT's ending was not really subversive as parts of it were honestly predictable. It only serves as a subversion to people who believed Eren was fully a gencodial chad with a blonde waifu especially with how the ending's reaction was split between people who hated it because they wanted the rumbling (or didn't like where the story was going to begin with) or people who still enjoyed the series who were rooting for the "cringevengers" so I guess it would technically be comparable to V3’s subversive ending as that also split the fanbase down the middle since the fan reactions were similar from what I have seen.
I guess it would technically be comparable to V3’s subversive ending as that also split the fanbase down the middle since the fan reactions were similar from what I have seen.
Granted, the split that V3's ending had between people liking it or hating it didn't reach the points that TLOU2 had, to the point of people calling others as bigots, transphobes, homophobes, GamerGaters, anti-Semites, being part of the alt-right, etc. All because someone dared to not like the game that won over 200 awards in The Last of Us 2.
Granted, the split that V3's ending had between people liking it or hating it didn't reach the points that TLOU2 had, to the point of people calling others as bigots, transphobes, homophobes, GamerGaters, anti-Semites, being part of the alt-right, etc. All because someone dared to not like the game that won over 200 awards in The Last of Us 2.
I was comparing V3's ending splitting the fanbase to Attack on Titan's ending since I am comparing both fandoms reaction and it honestly feels the same.
TLOU2's ending is more on par with TLJ where it became a battleground for a bullshit culture war between people who hated it while the other side calling the haters various similar labels that you have mentioned.
I think one of the best subverting expectations experiences is your first time watching The Matrix.
2001 was when I saw it for the first time and as a kid, you're led to believe that it's that movie where Keanu Reeves dodges bullets and with all the slow mo. And it is... for the first 30 minutes.
First timers don't expect the moment where "Neo wakes up" in the nightmarish future. They thought this was going to be an epic sci fi action movie. So now they have to digest this world building. Humans are harvested by machines and now Neo is "the one" to wake them up.
So you come for the awesome action and you stay for the rich lore and storytelling.
I think that's also why the sequels suck. It still tries to surprise the viewers with "more stuff about this world" but the problem is, the information isnt new. By giving us nothing in the way of new information, they've given us no information at all.
I think that's also why the sequels suck. It still tries to surprise the viewers with "more stuff about this world" but the problem is, the information isnt new. By giving us nothing in the way of new information, they've given us no information at all.
I've never seen the sequels, because I heard they sucked, but they were never not gonna suck, even if the Wachowski brothers weren't hack frauds who enjoy wearing panties.
By the end of The Matrix, Neo is both Jesus and Superman. He literally comes back from the dead and has super powers and doesn't afraid of nothing. His arc is complete, he's become the invincible chosen one. There's nowhere you can go from there story-wise that isn't disappointing or dumb.
I've never seen the sequels, because I heard they sucked, but they were never not gonna suck, even if the Wachowski brothers weren't hack frauds who enjoy wearing panties.
By the end of The Matrix, Neo is both Jesus and Superman. He literally comes back from the dead and has super powers and doesn't afraid of nothing. His arc is complete, he's become the invincible chosen one. There's nowhere you can go from there story-wise that isn't disappointing or dumb.
I don't remember anything about Matrix 2 except the Merovingian had a cool tie. And nothing about Matrix 3 other than that it was too visually busy even to figure out what was going on half the time. For all I remember Neo trooned out in it.
I've never seen the sequels, because I heard they sucked, but they were never not gonna suck, even if the Wachowski brothers weren't hack frauds who enjoy wearing panties.
By the end of The Matrix, Neo is both Jesus and Superman. He literally comes back from the dead and has super powers and doesn't afraid of nothing. His arc is complete, he's become the invincible chosen one. There's nowhere you can go from there story-wise that isn't disappointing or dumb.
I'd say Reloaded is worth watching for the Burly Brawl. It's so stupid and ridiculous that it lapses right back into being insanely awesome. It's hard to tell what Lily and Lana were going for, but all I know is that it's impossible for me to watch that scene and not have a big, stupid smile on my face.
You may as well stop watching after it though. Even the best parts of Revolutions, you already saw done, and better, in the first movie.
You can tell interesting stories about Superman, especially if you add complexity to the world and new characters who can relate to Superman on his level. Matrix Reloaded accomplished that. On the subversion topic, it reversed the meaning of the One. Neo isn't really Cyber-Jesus, he's just a garbage collector the Matrix runs before it gets rebooted. And it had fun action scenes, though I'm more partial to the chalet fight and the freeway chase than the burly brawl. Unfortunately, Revolutions is completely forgettable crap.
I really like how you pointed out the fact that writers are using it in genre fiction which, by convention, is usually meant to be broadly appealing and is able to derive its tension and excitement from spectacle rather than complexity. Making subverted expectations a lot of risk with comparatively little reward. At least, that's my response reading this.
I also notice these "creatives" who like subverting expectations do it very inappropriately. As in they subvert things that are essentially *basic information* necessary to our understanding and relationship with the work itself. So they pick the one area where screwing it up can do maximal damage.
The Luke-Vader example is great. I guess Vader being Anakin instead of killing him changes some basic information but really we knew Vader was bad because he was in black armor and choked people to death. Him killing Luke's father was for Luke's motivation, not our own understanding of why Vader is so bad. So the impact of this twist is limited to Luke for the most part, and for us raises the stakes and drama (which is rewarding enough to get over the change). Whereas if they had Luke join Vader that would absolutely violate our relationship with the story. Because we take for granted that Luke is a swell dude who will make the right choice (and faces the consequences of doing that).
I mean, subversion when done well, is excellent. But yes, its typically done in genre. It builds off the fact that in genre, people want twists and surprises, and it goes really around the bend with it. You can do subverting expectations well like I said in the original post.
Because the difference between a subversion and a twist is that with a twist, you are adding new, or unexpected information to a story. A twist in a story is additive. A subversion is subtraction, you are removing something expected from a story. A successful subversion requires a subtraction and then a subsequent addition to be successful. You can't just take something out of a story, leave it missing and call it a day. Its like doing a heart transplant without putting in the new heart.
When you subvert something, especially something basic, you need to replace it, because it is not just a twist, it is removing something and I think a lot of writers fail to realize this. It is negating what we knew before. So with this negation, you have to put something back into it. You have to introduce something that justifies it, or intrigues us, or informs on this subversion in a major way. You can't just go "Oh, Luke was this way because he tried to kill a blood relative" And just do that with a five minute explanation. What you've removed is so major that it is incomparable to your explanation. You have changed the nature of a character, utterly altered his heroes journey. The problem is quite obvious. You need an entire movie for 1) Justification and 2) Redemption. Audience will be fine with Jake Skywalker if you can revolve the movie around him, why he's like this (with twists) and eventually redeem him. That's how that would have worked to subvert Luke. We take this knowledge and its modified.
The problem is Johnson doesn't do any of this. The movie just glosses all this over and half-asses it. It removes without giving anything in its place. Something like 'fuk the jedi' could work. But you need to explore it and make look the main focus. And you can't do that if you want to highlight Rei, which is why TLJ fails (it fails in a lot of other ways but this is just with Luke).
Subverting basic information with a work is....hard. What you remove has to be replaced with something equally big or larger. For example, Luke turns to the Dark Side only to manipulate the Empire to betray them from within. He hones his abilities and becomes this sort of Ying-Yang master, greater than the light or dark side. That everything was a ruse and choses to sacrifice himself to destroy the rot within the Empire and try to reform it without more war. Of course this changes the nature and trajectory of the story.
The problem is a lot of authors confuse twist and subversion. These are not the same thing. A twist adds new knowledge to a work. Subversion subtracts old knowledge and adds new knowledge/themes/tone. Most of the massive failures of subversion comes from treating it like a twist. Which is just is not true.
With the drama of AOT's ending fresh on people's minds, exactly how did that subverting fare, compared to the likes of the previous subverters such as TLOU2, ME3, GoT, TLJ, Lost, HIMYM, etc?
And it's mind boggling to realize that the subverting that happened in Danganronpa V3's ending, while it was still divisive, didn't completely nuke that fanbase, compared to those other instances of subverting. Granted, the DR fandom is it's own can of worms...
Granted, part of the reasoning for the ending, was that the staff behind the games wanted to make another game, but were obligated by the company to make another Danganronpa game, so the staff made the game with this double middle finger ending, as an attempt to kill off the franchise. It also bears resemblance to Mass Effect 3's ending, except you can tell that it was deliberate by the staff, so the sting isn't as bad.
There was really no subversion in AoT's ending. It was relatively straightforward, if extremely hilarious that a character comitted genocide because he was a virgin who wanted to fuck his siter and killed his mom to do it.
I think one of the best subverting expectations experiences is your first time watching The Matrix.
2001 was when I saw it for the first time and as a kid, you're led to believe that it's that movie where Keanu Reeves dodges bullets and with all the slow mo. And it is... for the first 30 minutes.
First timers don't expect the moment where "Neo wakes up" in the nightmarish future. They thought this was going to be an epic sci fi action movie. So now they have to digest this world building. Humans are harvested by machines and now Neo is "the one" to wake them up.
So you come for the awesome action and you stay for the rich lore and storytelling.
I think that's also why the sequels suck. It still tries to surprise the viewers with "more stuff about this world" but the problem is, the information isnt new. By giving us nothing in the way of new information, they've given us no information at all.
Its hard for me to call the Matrix a subversion of expectations, because its still a sci-fi movie and Neo is still special. In general its a twist we can feel coming. It doesn't come out of nowhere as we feel that there's something wrong. There's really still no tonal shift, it doesn't switch genres and the plot and characters are largely the same. Its just a regular old twist. Subversion relies on taking something away, and the reveal that everyone is human batteries doesn't take away the Matrix or its importance.
I think we have to recognize the difference between a regular twist in story-telling to subversion. Subversion is a major alteration. This can be a change in tone, character or expectations. In the Matrix, we're expecting something more was going on.
For example, subversion in the Matrix would be finding out that the opposite was somehow true at the end. the 'Matrix' was reality and the whole post-apocalypse we were shown before was a simulation. So it subverts our expectations, changes the nature of the story and is different information than what we were given before, and it was not expected. That would be a subversion (or inversion really) of what we were told.
So a twist is not necessarily a subverting of expectations. Luke Skywalker being a massive cunt and a pussy is a shock, its not a twist because its prevented from the outset. Its a subversion because it goes against what we expected. You could also say lack of a twist is a subversion if a movie is hinting at some big reveal and it just turns out it was fooling you all the time. Or that a character is giving you false information you think is true and you're waiting for a reveal but it turns out to be something else entirely.
We've got to separate a twist in the story and subversion. A lot of authors fail to do this, but its actually quite easy to remember. ITs kind of mathematic like I explained before. With a twist, you are adding something. With a subversion, you are subtracting something of value and then adding something of equal or greater value. For a subversion to work, the value of what you take away has to be equal or greater than what you add. If it isn't, the subversion will fail. Twists are a lot easier. Because while they can fuck up a work, its only additive. And it doesn't matter how big or small. Twists can still fuck something up, but typically nowhere near as much as subversion.
I mean, subversion when done well, is excellent. But yes, its typically done in genre. It builds off the fact that in genre, people want twists and surprises, and it goes really around the bend with it. You can do subverting expectations well like I said in the original post.
Because the difference between a subversion and a twist is that with a twist, you are adding new, or unexpected information to a story. A twist in a story is additive. A subversion is subtraction, you are removing something expected from a story. A successful subversion requires a subtraction and then a subsequent addition to be successful. You can't just take something out of a story, leave it missing and call it a day. Its like doing a heart transplant without putting in the new heart.
When you subvert something, especially something basic, you need to replace it, because it is not just a twist, it is removing something and I think a lot of writers fail to realize this. It is negating what we knew before. So with this negation, you have to put something back into it. You have to introduce something that justifies it, or intrigues us, or informs on this subversion in a major way. You can't just go "Oh, Luke was this way because he tried to kill a blood relative" And just do that with a five minute explanation. What you've removed is so major that it is incomparable to your explanation. You have changed the nature of a character, utterly altered his heroes journey. The problem is quite obvious. You need an entire movie for 1) Justification and 2) Redemption. Audience will be fine with Jake Skywalker if you can revolve the movie around him, why he's like this (with twists) and eventually redeem him. That's how that would have worked to subvert Luke. We take this knowledge and its modified.
The problem is Johnson doesn't do any of this. The movie just glosses all this over and half-asses it. It removes without giving anything in its place. Something like 'fuk the jedi' could work. But you need to explore it and make look the main focus. And you can't do that if you want to highlight Rei, which is why TLJ fails (it fails in a lot of other ways but this is just with Luke).
Subverting basic information with a work is....hard. What you remove has to be replaced with something equally big or larger. For example, Luke turns to the Dark Side only to manipulate the Empire to betray them from within. He hones his abilities and becomes this sort of Ying-Yang master, greater than the light or dark side. That everything was a ruse and choses to sacrifice himself to destroy the rot within the Empire and try to reform it without more war. Of course this changes the nature and trajectory of the story.
The problem is a lot of authors confuse twist and subversion. These are not the same thing. A twist adds new knowledge to a work. Subversion subtracts old knowledge and adds new knowledge/themes/tone. Most of the massive failures of subversion comes from treating it like a twist. Which is just is not true.
There was really no subversion in AoT's ending. It was relatively straightforward, if extremely hilarious that a character comitted genocide because he was a virgin who wanted to fuck his siter and killed his mom to do it.
Its hard for me to call the Matrix a subversion of expectations, because its still a sci-fi movie and Neo is still special. In general its a twist we can feel coming. It doesn't come out of nowhere as we feel that there's something wrong. There's really still no tonal shift, it doesn't switch genres and the plot and characters are largely the same. Its just a regular old twist. Subversion relies on taking something away, and the reveal that everyone is human batteries doesn't take away the Matrix or its importance.
I think we have to recognize the difference between a regular twist in story-telling to subversion. Subversion is a major alteration. This can be a change in tone, character or expectations. In the Matrix, we're expecting something more was going on.
For example, subversion in the Matrix would be finding out that the opposite was somehow true at the end. the 'Matrix' was reality and the whole post-apocalypse we were shown before was a simulation. So it subverts our expectations, changes the nature of the story and is different information than what we were given before, and it was not expected. That would be a subversion (or inversion really) of what we were told.
So a twist is not necessarily a subverting of expectations. Luke Skywalker being a massive cunt and a pussy is a shock, its not a twist because its prevented from the outset. Its a subversion because it goes against what we expected. You could also say lack of a twist is a subversion if a movie is hinting at some big reveal and it just turns out it was fooling you all the time. Or that a character is giving you false information you think is true and you're waiting for a reveal but it turns out to be something else entirely.
We've got to separate a twist in the story and subversion. A lot of authors fail to do this, but its actually quite easy to remember. ITs kind of mathematic like I explained before. With a twist, you are adding something. With a subversion, you are subtracting something of value and then adding something of equal or greater value. For a subversion to work, the value of what you take away has to be equal or greater than what you add. If it isn't, the subversion will fail. Twists are a lot easier. Because while they can fuck up a work, its only additive. And it doesn't matter how big or small. Twists can still fuck something up, but typically nowhere near as much as subversion.
Maybe nowadays you'd be right, but back in 1999 and before TMR came out it was legitimately a subversion. And if it wasn't, I don't think the movies would be as iconic as they are today.
The problem is Johnson doesn't do any of this. The movie just glosses all this over and half-asses it. It removes without giving anything in its place. Something like 'fuk the jedi' could work. But you need to explore it and make look the main focus. And you can't do that if you want to highlight Rei, which is why TLJ fails (it fails in a lot of other ways but this is just with Luke).
This was really disappointing for someone who worked on Breaking Bad, one of the shows that did subversion better than nearly anything else on TV, and even directed its best episode, "Ozymandias," which makes it by implication one of the best single episodes of television ever.
I think he simply had contempt for the source material and its audience. Yes, in a very real sense, Star Wars is trash, but that's no excuse for doing a trash job.
I'd compare to Laurence Kasdan's work on Empire. Kasdan is similarly a highbrow creator, but didn't treat the work or the audience with contempt, and it is easily the strongest of the entire series. He also had something to do with TFA, the only one of the Soy Wars trilogy that was any good at all.
There was really no subversion in AoT's ending. It was relatively straightforward, if extremely hilarious that a character comitted genocide because he was a virgin who wanted to fuck his siter and killed his mom to do it.
While the outcome was easy enough to predict, I would argue there was a subversion in character motivation.
Before 139 the nature of Ymir had been that she was a slave, for 2000 years she had continued building Titans and serving those of royal blood because her natural instinct had been that of a slave. And Eren is given the full power of Ymir by embracing her and declaring her to just be a person free to make her own decisions.
But no, in the last chapter it's revealed that the only thing Ymir was a slave to was King Fritz cock.
Same with Eren, just a few chapters earlier it had been repeatedly stated that Eren's actions was just a natural progression from the day his mother died. He was killing most of humanity to save his home and his friends.
But no, last chapter reveals he was just a slave to fate, he had been the one that got his mother killed, and it was all done so Ymir could get over her love for King Fritz by seeing Mikasa kill Eren.
And what's the given reason for why Eren had sacrificed himself to satisfy Ymir, and why Ymir was so deeply enthralled?
Well apparently Eren kinda forgot while moving forward, and apparently only Ymir knows why she did as she did.
I think he simply had contempt for the source material and its audience. Yes, in a very real sense, Star Wars is trash, but that's no excuse for doing a trash job.
Yeah you can read condescension, or at least something close to it, in some of his interviews. I don't wanna say contempt just because I think the overlapping and fast paced production schedule undertaken without so much as a spreadsheet of a basic story outline explains everything so much more.
The script is sloppy, needs revising, and relies on Hail Mary's because he knew he had to show results. The Plinkett review shows this a little where he had to sign off on the "final budget sheet" and he was clearly unhappy doing it. Like he knew he was going to be reprimanded for it.
But back to his interviews he was clearly not at all interested in fanservice. He was interested in the Mythical qualities of Star Wars, which requires challenging the characters and audience as much as possible. Which I wouldn't say he failed at exactly... but he did go too far. I think now that the sequel trilogy is over I respect his entry the most just because the other two didn't even bother (and I think Johnson is a better director than Abrams anyway). But none of them are good. It was also a bad call on his part since he had no control over the final installment and should have predicted that beeg tweests were going to be inserted there as well.
I think we'll disagree a lot on this because I probably dislike TFA the most. But it's not really a big disagreement since I doubt we truly like any of the three. They all seemed to make the worst possible choices.
The Force Awakens made the short term choice to redo A New Hope, which while not bad did set up the other films do either tell the same story as before or have to radically depart from the track they were on. It didn't do the hard job of setting up a new trilogy if it ever conflicted with the easy job of reminding people of the old. Which I notice a lot of worn out franchises do. They essentially write themselves into corners by being too indulgent and not spending their time wisely. It's the narrative equivalent of eating your sweets and not your vegetables.
The Last Jedi tried to radically run off the tracks at the expense of telling a good clear story in the foreground.
And the Rise of Skywalker squandered its efforts by rejoining the track. So there wasn't even a silver lining to TLJ's badness.
I mean, subversion when done well, is excellent. But yes, its typically done in genre. It builds off the fact that in genre, people want twists and surprises, and it goes really around the bend with it. You can do subverting expectations well like I said in the original post.
Because the difference between a subversion and a twist is that with a twist, you are adding new, or unexpected information to a story. A twist in a story is additive. A subversion is subtraction, you are removing something expected from a story. A successful subversion requires a subtraction and then a subsequent addition to be successful. You can't just take something out of a story, leave it missing and call it a day. Its like doing a heart transplant without putting in the new heart.
When you subvert something, especially something basic, you need to replace it, because it is not just a twist, it is removing something and I think a lot of writers fail to realize this. It is negating what we knew before. So with this negation, you have to put something back into it. You have to introduce something that justifies it, or intrigues us, or informs on this subversion in a major way. You can't just go "Oh, Luke was this way because he tried to kill a blood relative" And just do that with a five minute explanation. What you've removed is so major that it is incomparable to your explanation. You have changed the nature of a character, utterly altered his heroes journey. The problem is quite obvious. You need an entire movie for 1) Justification and 2) Redemption. Audience will be fine with Jake Skywalker if you can revolve the movie around him, why he's like this (with twists) and eventually redeem him. That's how that would have worked to subvert Luke. We take this knowledge and its modified.
The problem is Johnson doesn't do any of this. The movie just glosses all this over and half-asses it. It removes without giving anything in its place. Something like 'fuk the jedi' could work. But you need to explore it and make look the main focus. And you can't do that if you want to highlight Rei, which is why TLJ fails (it fails in a lot of other ways but this is just with Luke).
Subverting basic information with a work is....hard. What you remove has to be replaced with something equally big or larger. For example, Luke turns to the Dark Side only to manipulate the Empire to betray them from within. He hones his abilities and becomes this sort of Ying-Yang master, greater than the light or dark side. That everything was a ruse and choses to sacrifice himself to destroy the rot within the Empire and try to reform it without more war. Of course this changes the nature and trajectory of the story.
The problem is a lot of authors confuse twist and subversion. These are not the same thing. A twist adds new knowledge to a work. Subversion subtracts old knowledge and adds new knowledge/themes/tone. Most of the massive failures of subversion comes from treating it like a twist. Which is just is not true.
I think we're of the same mind. I've even been known to use mathematical allegories to explain things before lol.
It's interesting for me to discuss this because I've let myself get embroiled in some fandoms which just have the most outrageous headcanons. For reasons I will not go into they're not only silly they're clearly conjured up in bad faith as well.
What makes them so bad is that they ascribe subversions to the narrative that really, genuinely are not there. So they just undercut the ordinary, direct relationship between set up and payoff that does exist. And of course these subversions are centered on basic, foundational information about key character relationships.
And because I'm a masochist I've tried pointing this out, that these get us nothing while taking a lot away, but if someone doesn't wanna get it they won't get it. A lesson I sorely need to learn.
But the tl;dr is I can observe, almost in real time, writing made worse in exactly the ways you describe.
This was really disappointing for someone who worked on Breaking Bad, one of the shows that did subversion better than nearly anything else on TV, and even directed its best episode, "Ozymandias," which makes it by implication one of the best single episodes of television ever.
I think he simply had contempt for the source material and its audience. Yes, in a very real sense, Star Wars is trash, but that's no excuse for doing a trash job.
I'd compare to Laurence Kasdan's work on Empire. Kasdan is similarly a highbrow creator, but didn't treat the work or the audience with contempt, and it is easily the strongest of the entire series. He also had something to do with TFA, the only one of the Soy Wars trilogy that was any good at all.
It is kind of jarring that he directed 'Ozymandias', worked with the best writers on television. I mean, just fucking look at this:
He directed that. How can someone who directed that magnificent piece be responsible for TLJ? I think there's a couple of reasons.
1) I don't necessarily think it was contempt for the material. Audience, definitely, material....ehh...I don't think so. I think the problem was he wanted to do his own type of Star Wars movie. I think it would have been infinitely better to have Johnson direct something completely new with no new characters and have him play around some. The problem was he hated being shackled to all of this history and he wore it like an albatross around his neck.
2) Disney's directives. I have no doubt in my mind he was also tied up by Disney's directives to murder the old Star Wars universe. That might have made him treat the material with natural contempt because it was going to be thrown away, so he saw no real desire to treat it with any modicum of respect. Previous to this, Johnson had been largely in charge of his own stuff or on really high-brow stuff.
3) Disney did not oversee him. He didn't really feel like he had a lot of oversight. Kennedy largely approved of the character assassination he did on the franchise.
4) It doesn't seem like he's the best writer. Breaking Bad's writers room was fucking tight. And they had a lot of vision of what they wanted to do and say. So there's not really much room for movement there. Obviously if Johnson is provided with a script, he's a competent director.
In all honesty, him blowing TLJ kind of fucked him even if he doesn't want to admit it, because he is largely responsible for the downfall of that franchise. So him just tossing it away and not disposing it with thoughtfulness fully fucked him over.
While the outcome was easy enough to predict, I would argue there was a subversion in character motivation.
Before 139 the nature of Ymir had been that she was a slave, for 2000 years she had continued building Titans and serving those of royal blood because her natural instinct had been that of a slave. And Eren is given the full power of Ymir by embracing her and declaring her to just be a person free to make her own decisions.
But no, in the last chapter it's revealed that the only thing Ymir was a slave to was King Fritz cock.
Same with Eren, just a few chapters earlier it had been repeatedly stated that Eren's actions was just a natural progression from the day his mother died. He was killing most of humanity to save his home and his friends.
But no, last chapter reveals he was just a slave to fate, he had been the one that got his mother killed, and it was all done so Ymir could get over her love for King Fritz by seeing Mikasa kill Eren.
And what's the given reason for why Eren had sacrificed himself to satisfy Ymir, and why Ymir was so deeply enthralled?
Well apparently Eren kinda forgot while moving forward, and apparently only Ymir knows why she did as she did.
I guess it is a subversion of Eren's character, but we really don't know what he was talking about, his motivation was largely kept in the dark from us. So we really didn't know why he was doing what he was doing. I guess its the worst of both worlds, a fucking awful twist and a fucking awful subversion to heap upon that shit sandwhich.
Still, the image of Eren getting his ass beat and crying in a puddle that he did it to fuck his sister and wanted no other man to have her was fucking hilarious.
It's interesting for me to discuss this because I've let myself get embroiled in some fandoms which just have the most outrageous headcanons. For reasons I will not go into they're not only silly they're clearly conjured up in bad faith as well.
What makes them so bad is that they ascribe subversions to the narrative that really, genuinely are not there. So they just undercut the ordinary, direct relationship between set up and payoff that does exist. And of course these subversions are centered on basic, foundational information about key character relationships.
And because I'm a masochist I've tried pointing this out, that these get us nothing while taking a lot away, but if someone doesn't wanna get it they won't get it. A lesson I sorely need to learn.
But the tl;dr is I can observe, almost in real time, writing made worse in exactly the ways you describe.
I mean, fandoms are basically representations of what the fans want. A lot of the time, they're utterly fucking retarded, so you're really not going to see any sort of logic or literary work with them. They want to believe something, they'll look in the work and pick out the barest hints that seem to justify their pet theory. Like shippers. Fujoshits will posit any male friends are fucking each other in the ass on the daily, despite completely misunderstanding how male friendships work or that homosexual relationships are not or never will be a theme of what they are reading.
There's no real reason to point it out, because these people are obsessive, have a shitty imagination, who can't create anything and just want their personal pet theories to be true. They basically want things for them only. There's no point in talking to people that obsessed. They'll take single throwaway lines and stretch them out to this insane shit. There was a LOT of that with the matrix, huge essays and theories on the littlest things and then they all just got blown the fuck out hilariously.
I'll never forget laughing in the theater when one of my friends shouted "ORGASM CAKE" in the second matrix. So to those pages upon pages of deep philosophy for the first Matrix, it was all destroyed with that.
Yeah the desire to see their pet theory validated is what I was alluding to with 'bad faith'. They are often not even consistent with themselves when you catch them in unguarded moments. They just want a particular conclusion and have 3 different routes to get there (when you only need one).
Speaking of the Matrix I think the question of if the Architect's revelation is a subversion is definitely true of the common fan interpretation of the first film. Since he's basically saying your deep and meaningful adolescent rebellion is just another form of control.
Whether it is in the context of the canon it's highly overshadowed by the sequels not being very good. Overstuffed and underdone. Because telling Neo this conflict isn't actually that special doesn't change that Neo martyrs himself for peaceful machine-human coexistence amidst torrents of kung fu gunfights anyway.
