#this is apropos to NOTHING I mean it's not like anything is in the pipeline

[avelera]

One thing I kind of love about the whole concept of “The Old Guard”’s immortality is that it doesn’t really take that much away from the standard action movie set up. 

Like, yes in theory, having characters who can’t die reduces tension. But let’s be real, how often are main characters actually in danger during most of these types of films? Conversely, how often do these main characters get a career ending injury like getting shot in the shoulder or stabbed in the stomach, and then shrug it off because the plot demands they’re back to being badass in the next action scene?

As long as the Old Guard writers keep getting captured in mind as the real threat, rather than death, the tension level really doesn’t drop all that much. Getting shot in the head is still a threat, because a bad injury has you down long enough that you’re helpless. Certain types of capture become much more terrifying, like torture (another action movie staple when you want to hurt the good guy but not kill them) when there’s no sweet release of death as a possibility if things get really bad, or starvation, or as we see in the film, getting put in a chest and forgotten about. Honestly, IMO, if as a writer you’re so dependent on the threat of death (or injury) for creating tension that you can’t come up with a million scenarios where capture, discovery of your superpower, or temporary incapacitation aren’t real, serious concerns, then you’re probably not a very good writer.

Which is my roundabout way of saying: yes please, give me a bazillion episodic missions, an adult Saturday morning cartoon, and literally whatever spin-off you can think of for the Old Guard, in particular badass queer couples Joe/Nicky and Andromache/Quynh kicking ass across the Middle Ages, and I will eat that up with a spoon. Their immortality adds drama if you’re not an idiot. The fact they can’t get permanently injured or killed is completely in line with how most action movies function anyway and if you can’t come up with tense scenarios for that then you’re a bad writer and you should feel bad. 

#the old guard #tog meta #this is apropos to NOTHING I mean it's not like anything is in the pipeline #I was just thinking about people saying their immortality makes the tension lower and it's like #yeah only if you're dumb