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The make-up is crudely applied.
The smile-effect is made from knife scars at the corners of his mouth: the origin only hinted at.
His actions deadly and insane.
And those eyes, right?
Now, take Leto's Joker ...
The ultimate in telling and not showing us!
And what is up with all the tattoos and metal teeth caps? The insanity is literally all surface.
Take GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY ...
Five individuals we had never seen before.
Yet their backstory was smoothly integrated into the flow of the story until by movie's end ...
when we hear Groot sacrifice himself for the others and rumble, "WE ARE GROOT," we actually tear up, don't we?
Take SUICIDE SQUAD ...
There are too many thrown in all at the beginning as we get the Cliff Notes version of the backstory.
We cannot feel for any of them very much or mourn when they die.
ACTION ...
Action must strive for some worthwhile goal or it is all sound and fury signifying the fight scenes in SUICIDE SQUAD.
Action scenes don't just happen because it is time for one as in comics or comic movies.
Your action scenes must propel your narrative forward in meaningful ways.
Good Storytelling, even by males, must have female characters that are WHOLE, STRONG persons in and of themselves
Women characters must exist as entire personalities, not be one-dimensional or the entire story suffers.
In SUICIDE SQUAD, the biggest laugh of the movie is when Batman hits Harley Quinn in the face.
She has an abusive relationship with her Puddin', the Joker ...
nor is it referenced as anything but some bad taste joke.
WHAT OTHER EXAMPLES
OF
GOOD VS BAD STORYTELLING TROPES
DO YOU SEE ON THE SCREEN OR TV OR NOVELS?
Hi Roland - I honestly don't know - if I don't like something that's it - never sees the light of day (or on switch) again ... Pass on this one I'm afraid ... cheers Hilary
ReplyDeletePassing on this one as well. Sigh.
DeleteI don't know if this counts as a trope but I hate it when all the characters in the book are jerks of one sort or another. I felt so cheated when I read GONE GIRL. I have to have one character to care about, otherwise I feel like I wasted my time.
ReplyDeleteSo GONE GIRL was like I feared it would be, huh? If I am going to share a part of my life with a book, some of those characters should make me feel glad I went for the ride with them! :-)
DeleteI've been harping on a couple members of my writers group for telling instead of showing. Of course, their stuff isn't published. And they're getting better at it.
ReplyDeleteWord by word, scene by scene -- we get better if we drag the woman screaming onto the page and not just say: the woman screamed. :-)
DeleteWow, I haven't see those movies, but that just sounds incredibly tacky. Batman stopped interesting me at about the third remake.
ReplyDeleteWant to enjoy SUICIDE SQUAD? Watch a compilation of all its trailers. Whoever did those trailers was a talent. Sadly, the talent ended at the trailers. :-(
DeleteBatman could be done so well: the elements of a Greek tragedy are there -- just no one seems to have the desire to do him right.