#it's flimsy and weak and poorly paced and developed | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

billconrad · 1 month

Text

Try Not to Write Like Hemingway

A friend of mine recently told me they wanted to write a fictional book and wanted to pick my bonkers mind for ideas. I answered her questions, and one stuck out, “Should I read a bunch of Ernest Hemingway books to write like him?” I told my friend not to pattern themself after other writers, and I thought it would be interesting to explain my opinion.

Talented authors like Emily Dickinson, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare have a style and storytelling ability that define the literature benchmark. Writers should be well-versed in famous books to learn about character development, descriptions, plot structure, and flow. However, I think it is a huge mistake to copy their writing style.

The problem is twofold. First, readers know these works and copycat books are not appreciated. Second, master authors are called masters for a reason. Only 0.001% of us have that writing ability, and attempting to write like a master is a recipe for failure.

Instead, I recommend reading a variety of books from many authors. This list must include bad authors (we prefer to be called up-and-coming). Their books contain flawed stories, dismal characters, no flow, flimsy descriptions, grammmmar, and awful dialog.

Why? Poorly written books are a tremendous resource because beginning writers can think about solving apparent problems. This book dissection is a fun activity, and it is also reinforcing. “Hey, if I can spot this problem, maybe my writing is alright.”

Let me provide an example. I met a fellow author through Facebook who asked me to critique his first book. It is a spiritual awakening autobiography like The Razor’s Edge. (If you have not seen the 1946 movie, I recommend it. The 1984 remake is so-so.) From the first page, there were many problems.

When I provided feedback, I recall focusing on one sentence, “I gave a speech on the topic.” Ok… Where did this speech take place? How many people were there? What was their reaction? This lack of description was so big that a bus could have driven through it. When reading a book like The Grapes of Wrath, spotting glaring mistakes is impossible.

Yet, I know I have not convinced you, so I want to focus on the Hemingway book, The Old Man and the Sea. “I want to write a book just like that.” Alright, a similar plot is not out of the realm of possibilities. Let’s tweak the base story. A female sheepherder deep in the mountains guards her flock. Suddenly, a wolf attacks, and they battle to the death. The book contains epic scenes, grand descriptions, and powerful emotions. The result would be very similar to The Old Man and the Sea.

What would critics think? “Weak plot, but good writing.” Why? Now, with powerful AI tools, excellent editors, and grammar checkers, the minimum benchmark is a well-written book. Readers now expect bold and unique plots to rise above the latest TikTok cat videos. Does this make The Old Man and the Sea obsolete because the plot is dated? I prefer to consider it a high-quality writing benchmark but concede the base story no longer holds up.

Why? Today, the old man could have called his friends or the Coast Guard over a cell phone or radio to rescue him. Who cares about a silly fishing story? According to YouTube, you can buy fish at the grocery store. This classic has a slow pace, and today’s readers travel at the speed of the internet. But what if the writing goal was a slow-paced book? Such books have a limited market.

Let me attack this from a different angle. A new author is a huge Tom Clancy fan who wants to write a similar novel. The problem is that readers are not static. They want fresh plots that rise above the noise. “I wrote a spy novel exactly like The Hunt for Red October” is not a recommended read. “I wrote a spy novel better than Tom Clancy’s best works” is an annoying boast. “I wrote a spy novel with dragons.” Dragons? Really? I might have to check that out.

You’re the best -Bill

March 20, 2024

Hey, book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

These books are available in softcover on Amazon and in eBook format everywhere.

#writing #books #classic books

0 notes

ot3 · 3 years

Text

i watched red vs blue: zero with my dear friends today and i was asked to “post” my “thoughts” on the subject. Please do not click this readmore unless, for some reason, you want to read three thousand words on the subject of red vs blue: zero critical analysis. i highly doubt that’s the reason anyone is following me, but hey.

anyway. here you have it.

Here are my opinions on RVB0 as someone who has quite literally no nostalgia for any older RVB content. I’ve seen seasons 1-13 once and bits and pieces of it more than once here and there, but I only saw it for the first time within the past couple of months. I’ve literally never seen any other RT/AH content. I can name a few people who worked on OG Red vs. Blue but other than Mounty Oum I have NO idea who is responsible for what, really, or what anything else they’ve ever worked on is, or whether or not they’re awful people. I know even less about the people making RVB0 - All I know is that the main writer is named Torrian but I honestly don’t even know if that’s a first name, a last name, or a moniker. All this to say; nothing about my criticism is rooted in any perceived slight against the franchise or branding by the new staff members, because I don’t know or care about any of it. In fact, I’m going to try and avoid any direct comparison between RVB0 and earlier seasons of RVB as a means of critique until the very end, where I’ll look at that relationship specifically.

So here is my opinion of RVB0 as it stands right now:

1. The Writing

Everything about RVB0 feels as if it was written by a first-time writer who hasn’t learned to kill his darlings. The narrative is both simultaneously far too full, leaving very little breathing room for character interaction, and oddly sparse, with a story that lacks any meaningful takeaway, interesting ideas, or genuine emotional connection. It also feels like it’s for a very much younger audience - I don’t mean this as a negative at all. I love tv for kids. I watch more TV for kids than I do for adults, mostly, but I think it’s important to address this because a lot of the time ‘this is for kids’ is used to act like you’re not allowed to critique a narrative thoroughly. It definitely changes the way you critique it, but the critique can still be in good faith. I watched the entirety of RVB0 only after it was finished, in one sitting, and I was giving it my full attention, essentially like it was a movie. I’m going to assume it was much better to watch in chunks, because as it stood, there was literally no time built into the narrative to process the events that had just transpired, or try and predict what events might be coming in the future. When there’s no time to think about the narrative as you’re watching it, the narrative ends up as being something that happens to the audience, not something they engage with. It’s like the difference between taking notes during a lecture or just sitting and listening. If you’re making no attempt to actively process what’s happening, it doesn’t stick in your mind well. I found myself struggling to recall the events and explanations that had immediately transpired because as soon as one thing had happened, another thing was already happening, and it was like a mental juggling act to try and figure out which information was important enough to dwell on in the time we were given to dwell on it.

Which brings me to another point - pacing. Every event in the show, whether a character moment, a plot moment, or a fight scene, felt like it was supposed to land with almost the exact same amount of emotional weight. It all felt like The Most Important Thing that had Yet Happened. And I understand that this is done as an attempt to squeeze as much as possible out of a rather short runtime, but it fundamentally fails. When everything is the most important thing happening, it all fades into static. That’s what most of 0’s narrative was to me: static. It’s only been a few hours since I watched it but I had to go step by step and type out all of the story beats I could remember and run it by my friends who are much more enthusiastic RVB fans than I am to make sure I hadn’t missed or forgotten anything. I hadn’t, apparently, but the fact that my takeaway from the show was pretty accurate and also disappointingly lackluster says a lot. Strangely enough, the most interesting thing the show alluded to - a holo echo, or whatever the term they used was - was one of the things least extrapolated upon in the show’s incredibly bulky exposition. Benefit of the doubt says that’s something they’ll explore in future seasons (are they getting more? Is that planned? I just realized I don’t actually know.)

And bulky it was! I have quite honestly never seen such flagrant disregard for the rule of “show, don’t tell.” There was not a single ounce of subtlety or implication involved in the storytelling of RVB0. Something was either told to you explicitly, or almost entirely absent from the narrative. Essentially zilch in between. We are told the dynamic the characters have with each other, and their personality pros and cons are listed for us conveniently by Carolina. The plot develops in exposition dumps. This is partially due to the series’ short runtime, but is also very much a result of how that runtime was then used by the writers. They sacrificed a massive chunk of their show for the sake of cramming in a ton of fight scenes, and if they wanted to keep all of those fight scenes, it would have been necessary to pare down their story and characters proportionally in comparison, but they didn’t do that either. They wanted to have it both ways and there simply wasn’t enough time for it.

The story itself is… uninteresting. It plays out more like the flimsy premise of a video game quest rather than a piece of media to be meaningfully engaged with. RVB0 is I think something I would be pitched by a guy who thinks the MCU and BNHA are the best storytelling to come out of the past decade. It is nothing but tropes. And I hate having to use this as an insult! I love tropes. The worst thing about RVB0 is that nothing it does is wholly unforgivable in its own right. Hunter x Hunter, a phenomenal shonen, is notoriously filled with pages upon pages of detailed exposition and explanations of things, and I absolutely love it. Leverage, my favorite TV show of all time, is literally nothing but a five man band who has to learn to work as a team while seemingly systematically hitting a checklist of every relevant trope in the book. Pacific Rim is an incredibly straightforward good guys vs giant monsters blockbuster to show off some cool fight scenes such as a big robot cutting an alien in half with a giant sword, and it’s some of the most fun I ever have watching a movie. Something being derivative, clunky, poorly executed in some specific areas, narratively weak, or any single one of these flaws, is perfectly fine assuming it’s done with the intention and care that’s necessary to make the good parts shine more. I’ll forgive literally any crime a piece of media commits as long as it’s interesting and/or enjoyable to consume. RVB0 is not that. I’m not sure what the main point of RVB0 was supposed to be, because it seemingly succeeds at nothing. It has absolutely nothing new or innovative to justify its lack of concern for traditional storytelling conventions. Based solely on the amount of screentime things were given, I’d be inclined to say the narrative existed mostly to give flimsy pretense for the fight scenes, but that’s an entire other can of worms.

2. The Visuals + Fights

I have no qualms with things that are all style and no substance. Sometimes you just want to see pretty colors moving on the screen for a while or watch some cool bad guys and monsters or whatever get punched. RVB0 was not this either. The show fundamentally lacked a coherent aesthetic vision. Much of the show had a rather generic sci-fi feel to it with the biggest standouts to this being the very noir looking cityscape, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like something from a batman game, or the temple, which my friends and I all immediately joked looked like a world of warcraft raid. They were obviously attempting to get variety in their environment design, which I appreciate, but they did this without having a coherent enough visual language to feel like it was all part of the same world. In general, there was also just a lack of visual clarity or strong shots. The value range in any given scene was poor, the compositions and framing were functional at best, and the character animation was unpleasantly exaggerated. It just doesn’t really look that good beyond fancy rendering techniques.

The fight scenes are their entire own beast. Since ‘FIGHT SCENE’ is the largest single category of scenes in the show, they definitely feel worth looking at with a genuine critical eye. Or, at least, I’d like to, but honestly half the time I found myself almost unable to look at them. The camera is rarely still long enough to really enjoy what you’re watching - tracking the motion of the character AND the camera at such constant breakneck high speeds left little time to appreciate any nuances that might have been present in the choreography or character animation. I tried, believe me, I really did, but the fight scenes leave one with the same sort of dizzy convoluted spectacle as a Michael Bay transformers movie. They also really lacked the impact fight scenes are supposed to have.

It’s hard to have a good, memorable fight scene without it doing one of three things: 1. Showing off innovative or creative fighting styles and choreography 2. Making use of the fight’s setting or environment in an engaging and visually interesting way or 3. Further exploring a character’s personality or actions by the way they fight. It’s also hard to do one of these things on its own without at least touching a bit on the other two. For the most part, I find RVB0’s fight scenes fail to do this. Other than rather surface level insubstantial factors, there was little to visually distinguish any of RVB0’s fight scenes from each other. Not only did I find a lot of them difficult to watch and unappealing, I found them all difficult to watch and unappealing in an almost identical way. They felt incredibly interchangeable and very generic. If you could take a fight scene and change the location it was set and also change which characters were participating and have very little change, it’s probably not a good fight scene.

I think “generic” is really just the defining word of RVB0 and I think that’s also why it falls short in the humor department as well.

3. The Comedy

Funny shit is hard to write and humor is also incredibly subjective but I definitely got almost no laughs out of RVB0. I think a total of three. By far the best joke was Carolina having a cast on top of her armor, which, I must stress, is an incredibly funny gag and I love it. But overall I think the humor fell short because it felt like it was tacked on more than a natural and intentional part of this world and these characters. A lot of the jokes felt like they were just thrown in wherever they’d fit, without any build up to punchlines and with little regard for what sort of joke each character would make. Like, there was some, obviously Raymond’s sense of humor had the most character to it, but the character-oriented humor still felt very weak. When focusing on character-driven humor, there’s a LOT you can establish about characters based on what sort of jokes they choose to make, who they’re picking as the punchlines of these jokes, and who their in-universe audience for the jokes is. In RVB0, the jokes all felt very immersion-breaking and self aware, directed wholly towards the audience rather than occurring as a natural result of interplay between the characters. This is partially due to how lackluster the character writing was overall, and the previously stated tight timing, but also definitely due to a lack of a real understanding about what makes a joke land.

A rule of thumb I personally hold for comedy is that, when push comes to shove, more specific is always going to be more funny. The example I gave when trying to explain this was this:

saying two characters had awkward sex in a movie theater: funny

saying two characters had an awkward handjob in a cinemark: even funnier

saying two characters spent 54 minutes of 11:14's 1:26 runtime trying out some uncomfortably-angled hand stuff in the back of a dilapidated cinemark that lost funding halfway through retrofitting into a dinner theater: the funniest

The more specific a joke is, the more it relies on an in-depth understanding of the characters and world you’re dealing with and the more ‘realistic’ it feels within the context of your media. Especially with this kind of humor. When you’re joking with your friends, you don’t go for stock-humor that could be pulled out of a joke book, you go for the specific. You aim for the weak spots. If a set of jokes could be blindly transplanted into another world, onto another cast of characters, then it’s far too generic to be truly funny or memorable. I don’t think there’s a single joke in RVB0 where the humor of it hinged upon the characters or the setting.

Then there’s the issue of situational comedy and physical comedy. This is really where the humor being ‘tacked on’ shows the most. Once again, part of what makes actually solid comedy land properly is it feeling like a natural result of the world you have established. Real life is absurd and comical situations can be found even in the midst of some pretty grim context, and that’s why black comedy is successful, and why comedy shows are allowed to dip into heavier subject matter from time to time, or why dramas often search for levity in humor. It’s a natural part of being human to find humor in almost any situation. The key thing, though, once again, is finding it in the situation. Many of RVB0’s attempts at humor, once again, feel like they would be the exact same jokes when stripped from their context, and that’s almost never good. A pretty fundamental concept in both storytelling in general but particularly comedy writing is ‘setup and payoff’. No joke in RVB0 is a reward for a seemingly innocuous event in an earlier scene or for an overlooked piece of environmental design. The jokes pop in when there’s time for them in between all the exposition and fighting, and are gone as soon as they’re done. There’s no long term, underlying comedic throughline to give any sense of coherence or intent to the sense of humor the show is trying to establish. Every joke is an isolated one-off quip or one-liner, and it fails to engage the audience in a meaningful way.

All together, each individual component of RVB0 feels like it was conjured up independently, without any concern to how it interacted with the larger product they were creating. And I think this is really where it all falls apart. RVB0 feels criminally generic in a way reminiscent of mass-market media which at least has the luxury of attributing these flaws, this complete and total watering down of anything unique, to heavy oversight and large teams with competing visions. But I don’t think that’s the case for RVB0. I don’t know much about what the pipeline is like for this show, but I feel like the fundamental problem it suffers from is a lack of heart.

In comparison to Red vs. Blue

Let's face it. This is a terrible successor to Red vs. Blue. I wouldn’t care if NONE of the old characters were in it - that’s not my problem. I haven’t seen past season 13 because from what I heard the show already jumped the shark a bit and then some. That’s not what makes it a poor follow up. What makes it a bad successor is that it fundamentally lacks any of the aspects of the OG RVB that made it unique or appealing at all. I find myself wondering what Torrian is trying to say with RVB0 and quite literally the only answer I find myself falling back onto is that he isn’t trying to say anything at all. Regardless of what you feel about the original RVB, it undeniably had things to say. The opening “why are we here” speech does an excellent job at establishing that this is a show intended to poke fun at the misery of bureaucracy and subservience to nonsensical systems, not just in the context of military life, but in a very broad-strokes way almost any middle-class worker can relate to. At the end of the day, fiction is at its best when it resonates with some aspect of its audience’s life. I know instantly which parts of the original Red vs Blue I’m supposed to relate to. I can’t say anything even close to that about 0.

RVB is an absurdist parody that heavily satirizes aspects of the military and life as a low-on-the-food-chain worker in general that almost it’s entire target audience will be familiar with. The most significant draw of the show to me was how the dialogue felt like listening to my friends bicker with each other in our group chats. It required no effort for me to connect with and although the narrative never outright looked to the camera and explained ‘we are critiquing the military’s stupid red tape and self-fullfilling eternal conflict’ they didn’t need to, because the writing trusted itself and its audience enough to believe this could be conveyed. It is, in a way, the complete antithesis to the badass superhero macho military man protagonist that we all know so well. RVB was saying something, and it was saying it in a rather novel format.

Nothing about RVB0 is novel. Nothing about RVB0 says anything. Nothing about it compels me to relate to any of these characters or their situations. RVB0 doesn’t feel like absurdism, or satire. RVB0 feels like it is, completely uncritically, the exact media that RVB itself was riffing off of. Both RVB0 and RVB when you watch them give you the feeling that what you’re seeing here is kids on a playground larping with toy soldiers. It’s all ridiculous and over the top cliche stupid garbage where each side is trying to one-up the other. The critical difference is, in RVB, we’re supposed to look at this and laugh at how ridiculous this is. In RVB0 we’re supposed to unironically think this is all pretty badass.

The PFL arc of the original RVB existed to show us that setting up an elite team of supersoldiers with special powers was something done in bad faith, with poor outcomes, that left everyone involved either cruel, damaged, or dead. It was a bad thing. And what we’re seeing in RVB0 is the same premise, except, this time it’s good. We’re supposed to root for this format. RVB0 feels much more like a demo reel, cutscenes from a video game that doesn’t exist, or a shonen anime fanboy’s journal scribbling than it feels like a piece of media with any objective value in any area. In every area that RVB was anti-establishment, RVB0 is pure undiluted establishment through and through.

#long post #really long post guys. look out !#rvb

203 notes · View notes

lastgeeksdying · 7 years

Text

On the twelve Friday the 13th films

I recently rewatched or watched for the first time all of the F13 movies. Here's what I thought. On Part 1: The ending is a cool twist on expectations, even today. Most folks go into this film still expecting Jason Vorhees and instead are shocked. If they get that far. Because this movie is super garbage otherwise. Poorly written, poorly edited, it looks like it's from the early 70's but instead is from the 80's. The movie goes out of it's way to make you hate most of the characters. On Part 2: A remix of the first film, trying to make a sequel to a really strange final moment. Lumberjack/Baghead/KKK Jason here is the where his personality seems maluable, but you can see the seeds of him starting to become the Silly theatrical maniac that would come on display as we go. On Part 3: If the first film is laughable bad for it's low budget, this is laughable for how big it's budget is and how much time is wasted on shitty 3D effects. But Jason with a Harpoon gun is choice. On Part 4: Solid. Because it felt like it was going to be the last Jason movie, it did a good job creating the world of Crystal Lake and bringing it to a close. It also cautiously set up sequels. Corey Feldman did a good job for a child actor. On Part 5: Interesting ideas with Characters as developed as the first few films so...actually underrated. I think this film gets a lot of hate because SPOILERS the killer isn't Jason. Much Like Halloween III, Every character that isn't Tommy, is laughably bad. I think a really good reboot could do Tommy's arc justice. If a writer was careful. This also feels like the point where the series is taking itself less seriously. This may be because it's become a cash grab annual franchise, but I think it gives the franchise a soul. It's not a dark a gritty series anymore. It's not Low Rent Halloween, but it's not the campy gore-fest of Nightmare on Elm Street. It's exactly where I want it to be. On Part six: Great. If my favorite Jason movie didn't exist, this would be it. It takes every trope established in the franchise up to this point and nails them. It has Tommy come back and not pay off the ending of Part 5 since audiences hated that, and instead has been have a break down and create the thing he hates. It's when the series moves from silly, but maybe real to Supernatural Killer. I feel like every idea non-fans have of the character of Jason comes from this movie. My only complaint is that his costume isn't as cool as the one in 7. On Part Seven: The last act is cool. Otherwise this movie just trots along at a slow pace. Nothing super exciting happens, even with a telekinetic main character. This was originially conceived as a Carrie vs Jason movie, but they couldn't get the rights. Which is likely for the best considering how they handled Tina's backstory here. But it'd be funny to use this movie as a launch pad for continuing Carries rain of destruction. But the last 20-30 minutes are worth the wait. Once Tina starts cutting loose with her powers, suddenly Jason has a real adversary that he can go toe to toe with. On Takes Manhattan: Half good, half a joke So the funny story about this movie, go watch the trailer. It's all this is a movie set in new york. You know this is new york. And here's shots of Jason on a street! Here's Jason on a Subway. For anyone whose seen the movie, they laugh at the trailer. Because it's actually set on a "cruise" ship that passes by Crystal Lake on it's way to New York. It's 2/3rds of the film before they reach New York. Then it's about 2/3rds of the time remaining on the docks and the warehouses there. Including a really gross and needless mugging, drugging, and attempted rape scene. The last third spends most of it's time getting from the docks, to downtown New York, onto a Subway, and then into the Sewers. The last 10ish minutes are in the Sewers and Jason dies in the stupidiest, most non-sensical way. Now, this is the part where I say something that sounds silly. The stuff on the boat? Actually feels like Jason and the Friday the Thirteenth movies. The stuff in New York? So bad, and such a joke...which leads us to... On Jason Goes to Hell: Hated it. Don't do it. This is the worst film in the franchise. This is a film that is trying way way too hard to take itself seriously and make Jason scary again. It loses all of the fun of the previous movies and it just falls apart. It's way too late to try to go back. It's plot is nonsensical. Long Story Short: Jason gets tricked by the FBI who blow his body up. Then via MAGIC(???) or something it's discovered in the dumbest way possible that Jason isn't just Supernatural, but a demon. And it's the dumbest fucking thing. The coroner examining Jason's body is maybe compelled by the heart, maybe he's just crazy, to eat Jason's heart. This transfers Jason from his exploded body into the coroner's body. Now he can run around and kill people, and as his new body is dying he has to change into a new person. Yeah, it's a body swaping movie that feels like they just reshot a huge chunk of the movie to take a generic horror movie and make it about Jason. And surprise, it was heavily reshot and edited and changed by the producer/franchise creator because the lead actress walked off set and the director had to be let go with days of filming still to go. And then later they went back and filmed more. So about 60 percent of the movie was done after the principle filming. This gets worse when you get to the fact that there was a secret Vorhees sister who had a daughter who had a daughter. The Sister is killed and now Jason is hunting the Daughter and her daughter. But it's not a Michael Myers situation. It's because of a shitty prophecy that Jason can reborn his original body by using a blood relatives body. At the end of the film, Jason breaks out of his body as a demon creature, and it looks really bad. Eventually he uses the body the dead sister (He didn't use the sister earlier because the writers had thought of that plot line yet. There were three writers, can you tell?). Jason is reborn, there is another prophecy about only a Vorhees can kill a Vorhees so Jason's niece stabs Jason witha magic knife and he gets pulled into hell. Then big suprise ending moment. The surprise ending moment is that Freddy Krugars claw comes out of the ground and Freddy Laughs. At this point, they were trying hard to get a Freddy Vs Jason movie, but hadn't nailed the rights yet. This will lead to them making Jason X. The one redeeming moment is that they used a prop from another movie as just a creepy book in the Vorhees house. But for fans it is the Necronomicon from Evil Dead. Which lead to a comic of Freddy Vs Jason Vs Ash. On Jason X: Loved it. Jason X is my favorite film in the franchise. If Jason goes to Hell takes itself too seriously, Jason X understands how campy it needs to be and what a scifi movie needs to be. There are characters I genuinely like and am saddened when they die. There are surprises for someone who hadn't watched it in years. You can tell that these were fans of Alien and Aliens and wanted to Mash them together with the previous core Jason concepts. And by doing so it creates magic. It also has a cool premise about the idea that Jason in the future isn't unstoppable, but he is tough. They stop him, and then in the fifth act twist, space science accidentally gives him an upgrade and he becomes Uber Jason, who crashes on Earth 2. I don't want to ruin anything else about the movie, but this is the movie with the best line. "Hey guys, it's fine! He just wanted his machete back!" And not only is it a great line, it actually works in context and creates a hilarious but terrifying moment. On Freddy Vs Jason: It's so bad. And it's a shame because there is bare concept that's good. The idea that Freddy has been forgotten. That the town banded together to try and stop him from existing by blocking thoughts and dreams of him and redacting everything possible, that's neat. The film is missing elements that are key to making it work. The first thing is the teens. They are all shitlords and totally not worth your time. The "Good" Characters are both flimsy at best, but also not really likable. Characters don't make dumb choices, the writers drop bad ideas into their heads because they want certain scenes or plot. The entire plot involving dream suppressing drugs feels like it is going to be important, but by the midpoint, the film has tossed it out. Freddy has always been a pretty garbage and had traded entirely on gore and Robert Englund's performance. Here he makes dumb decision after dumb decision. And it's just...you know, I don't even care. What really pushed this movie into almost Goes to Hell bad is it's portrayal of Jason. This Jason has no personality. He's a big killy monster who wants to kill. He doesn't have any of the theatrics that make Jason interesting to watch. He doesn't have the weird teleports or the brutal kills. He's boring here. And then they gave him a weakness. They handed him a water phobia. Which doesn't fit the character or the continuity. He Looks like a Jason Cosplayer and has the scripting of one. It's bad, and mostly unforgivable. The redeeming element of this movie is that there are ideas here that are interesting, but so much of it is mishandled by bad direction and bad writing that it just becomes a shame. On the Remake: I appreciate that the used the film to try and pay homage to what little plot exists in the first three films. Let's show the mom is a killer. Let's show him do some kills with the bag on his head. Let's have him find the mask after his bag is damaged. And that's the first 40 minutes. It is almost like they knew they a modern audience could take just one of those films plots and they really wanted to speed it up. It even feels like they want to create a Tommy Jarvis like anti-Jason in the form of the very tall Jared Padelecki. It's important to remember this is a new Jason, and a new world. And I am okay with that. But the writing feels too on the nose. It gives character traits to people that are going to die, and character missions for characters who will survive. I don't hate this new Jason. I want to know why he grows weed and doesn't want to let anyone near it. That's really weird. But overall the film does some brutal kills. It has nudity for nudity sake. It has drug use. ��It has virginal characters. It has the killer. It has the teens (Who are campers instead of counselors which annoys me but whatever). And even has a smidge of heart. I just feel like the film could have been tighter. The flashback about Pamela should have been saved as a Camp Fire story flashback. And the first group of Campers should have been killed off much faster. The film spends a solid fifteen minutes with them, when it should have been five. The biggest missed opportunity here is that it is trying to be serious again, and it needed to embrace the camp. There is a part where a character walks off and starts singing with his ipod to Sister Christian. This should have lead into a montage where Jason kills those five to that song. Ultimately, there were only a few I will ever go back to. And only one I'd tell people is worth the time to watch if you like comedy/horror(Jason X rules!) Don't worry guys, he just wanted his Machete back!

#F13 #Friday the 13th #friday the 13th the game #Jason Vorhees #Freddy Kruger #Batman

1 note · View note