Like he says: if you want to succeed at having your work consumed, just rewrite the Cinderella story over and over until people's eyes bleed. I'm sure I'm not the only one who noted Hollywood's recent increased crammed accordioning of these troughs and peaks in a completely unnatural way, leaving you tired and frustrated and even angry at the end of it all. It's like eating ice cream followed by candy and then a cake, washed down with 2L of Coke and a stream of sour Skittles.
I first noticed this in The Martian: Matt Damon evades crisis after crisis only to wind up grappling with more of the same. The last straw is as he's reaching his objective ("Finally!", your brain screams), yet his journey just. Won't. STOP. Obstacle after impossible obstacle. You're under a torrential Slurpee downpour straight from Sugar Mountain, mouth vice gripped open. And then Finding Dory, same thing. I remember liking its predecessor quite a bit, so I was excited to watch the story of an equally memorable character. Boy was I in for a disappointment. There's a point near the end when an octopus is driving a truck into the ocean when my friend and I just looked at each other and she let out an exasperated groan: "Oh come on. Just end it already!".
| The psychologist in me wonders what this does to our (children's!) brains, attention spans, stimulation centres, memory, emotional expectations of life... the list goes on. Watch for this next time you're in theatres. A talented soul kindly turned some of this wonderful lecture into an infographic so you can quickly identify the type of story you're watching. The ones worth your time break these norms. |
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