The "why does this movie exist" scene
Hello,
I just rewatched the final boss fight of the spectacularly amazing 2010 movie Kickass, and I remembered something I've been meaning to float by movie-knowers...
As I see it, this boss fight is the reason this movie exists. The way I picture how "hollywood"-movies are made is that there is a writers room or producers meeting where nothing happens until someone brings out the weed, schrooms and/or coke which lets real brainstorming take place. And suddenly BAM! You have a single amazing thing happen: the Event.
Once that is settled they work backwards to building a believable story that leads up to that event.
The Event for Kickass is having a grown man beat the pulp out of a young girl without anyone really noticing or making a big deal out if it.
This creates some constraints (remember its 2008/9 at the time of writing), for example:
- the girl can not be seen as a helpless victim.
- the man can't win in the end.
- the beating must be reasonably justified within the story and not just pure sadism/misogyny.
- the beating must look very unrealistic.
From those premises they created a a scenario that would make it possible and wrote out a whole film.
I often find myself having an A-ha!-moment when I find the Event in movies, it's one of the reasons I watch them.
This is in my view one of the biggest reason why sequels are bad: the Event has already been had in the first movie so there isn't really anything of value left to the story.
I'm up for talking about things like:
- how far away I am from the real method of making films
- what defining Events you see in this or other movies
- how and why sequels in general or particular are good/bad
- who went as Kick-Ass or Hit-Girl for Halloween
- ....
In the specific case of Kick-Ass, the movie is adapted from a comic, which I haven't read but almost certainly has a more complex and involved story than the film. Mark Miller wrote the whole thing himself, no writer's room involved (I'm sure there was for the movie adaptation, as well as various script doctors and rewriters and so on).
Fun fact, Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl are both in the same universe as Kingsman!
The mechanics of how different writers create stories are many and varied. Some create characters and put them in situations and see what they do, some come up with situations and work backwards, some do a bit of each and so on and so on.
fwiw none of the handful of people I know who work in TV or movies as either producers or writers is involved with taking fun substances at work. Not to say it doesn't happen, of course!
If you enjoy spotting patterns in movie narratives, just wait until you find out about The Hero's Journey because you will see that everywhere
Look ma, no hands!
Without following the link I will say: oh, no, I know... I call it the Jesus story though, one saviour to save us all. It's so boring and one of the main reasons I almost stopped watching movies unless someone else wants to watch a movie (and picks it), the 2 other main reasons are:
Sometimes I think I should get into non-hollywood movies, but then I remember that I don't have to watch movies :)
Eh, the Hero's Journey is a little more involved but basically, yes. There's only eight stories anyway so y'know. Not much to be done.
btw if you liked Kick-Ass and you want a non-Hollywood action-buddy-love-musical-drama-comedy-thriller to try, check out RRR. It's three hours long and easily one of the best films I've seen this century.
I mostly prefer TV to movies these days. I like longer and more complicated stories, which TV can do in a way movies just don't have time for.
True, ever since reading about the storytelling in one of the weird worlds in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (the one where there really isn't a story just the recanting of events and books are just an exact number of words) I've been fascinated by storytelling and how few stories there really are. I wonder if the dramatic journey (or however it's called... info, problem, resolution, extra problem final resolution) in itself imposes a kind if constraint that limits the stories we can tell.
Anyway, I will look up your recommendation, at times I need to keep myself entertained ;)
I tend to agree with you that the plots of most movies are boring/predictable/samey, but I still watch and enjoy them because I enjoy experiencing the craft behind the films--visual world building, composition of scenes, camerawork, performances and choices by actors. I still get bored by movies, but it happens more with stuff like the MCU where there's no real artistic direction other than make them as bland looking as possible and have 50% of it be CGI instead of real people on screen. Give me a movie with a generic or boring plot, but from a great director with a great cast and crew, and I probably won't even notice.
I've mostly realised that what I enjoy is the act of watching the movie as a social event with people, some chatting & snacking (adjusted to movie and company ofc!).
Interesting read! I don't write much but find that when I'm inspired to write, the setting see to come easily, and the plot much harder. Like I'll have an idea for a world where ... and it's really interesting, but I don't have a story to tell. Ultimately I think I'm bad at creating characters and adding them to the setting.
In Doom (2005) there's a sequence at the end where the protagonist arms up and starts ploughing through the bad guys fully in first person "just like in the game". It's 100% of the payoff of the rest of the frankly incredibly bland film, and isn't that good of a sequence in and of itself, but I'm absolutely certain that scene is the entire reason the movie exists.
That was my first thought as well. It must be the prime example because as you say the movie itself and even that sequence isn’t that noteworthy other than pleasing nostalgic gamers.
Just watched the clip, and my first thought was "Those poor, harmless people are being gunned down by the one guy in a room armed with a gun." All the same, I am sure this clip is remains the best scene in the movie.
The Great Dictator (1940) comes to mind. The entire movie is good, but the reason it exists is to give Charlie Chaplin an open mic for five minutes at the end.
The "I've had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane!" line from Snakes on a Plane feels like it fits here just because you can't make a movie starring Samuel L. Jackson called Snakes on a Plane and not have him say that.
This actually happened in the opposite order, if you can believe it. As I recall Snakes on a Plane was a working title for a script that was in pre-production. Samuel L Jackson happened to knew the director and signed on without even reading the script. When a list of movies in production was leaked, someone from a forum, I'm thinking Something Awful, though it could have been 4chan, started making memes about it.
The working title was so dumb, with a star like Sammy J attached, that it was prime meme fodder. The memes generated so much publicity for the film that they went back and rewrote it to match the tone of a schlocky B-movie, specifically adding that line to match the tone of the memes. I think the original was supposed to be a lot more serious of a serious thriller, and the actual title would have been something like Pacific Airlines Flight 141 or something like that.
Or as the TV edit put it, “I’ve had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday to Friday plane!”
You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?
When I've written D&D campaigns, or attempted NaNoWriMo, I often find that I start with an Event (as you call it) and work back from there. I've no idea if this is a good way to write, and it might contribute to the fact I've never actually finished any of my writing... But you do hear a lot of writers talk about knowing the ending long before they know anything else, so I think there must be something to it.
That's my writing process as well. I tend to have a few Events in mind. Half the fun is seeing how the heck I get there!
especially when the story starts taking me in wild directions that I never expectedCome to think of it, part of my problem with block may be that most Events are midpoints rather than the ending...
In The One, the Event is a superpowered Jet Li fighting ... himself! And I'm pretty sure they worked backwards from there.
It's not a great film, but it's a great film, if that makes sense.
Slightly humorous clarification: I think The Event for that movie was more like "What if we had a fight scene from The Matrix, except both fighters were Jet Li!". And it totally worked IMO, I like that movie , especially once I put my brain into low power mode and just watch.
There’s some movies where that is how the writers/directors approached it.
Singing in the Rain was created around Gene Kelly’s musical number where he sings in the rain.
Christopher Nolan I think has admitted to doing this often. Inception was built around the hallway fight. Tenet around the moving backwards in time concept.
Funny, I thought Tenet was built around the "don't try to understand it" scene...
I imagine a fair amount of action movies in particular are built around a specific sequence or stunt idea like that. I know Jackie Chan said that was his process when he started producing; in the featurettes for the original Police Story, he said the script was written after the fact to incorporate ideas he had for the bus chase scene, the car busting through the hillside village, the telephone comedy sequence, and the shopping mall fight. I don't think the iconic pole stunt itself was something he had in mind until they found the specific mall to shoot in, but it definitely looks like The Event when you watch the film.
I'm pretty sure the peeing scene (2/3? of the way through) the new Anaconda movie was the genesis for the whole film.
I even turned to my wife in the moment and told her, "they wanted to do this scene, and the rest of it flowed from there." I don't think either of us even noticed the pun.
As someone who has zero desire to watch the movie but am curious what the hell you're talking about, care to elaborate with spoilers?
I'll describe it briefly:
Anaconda Spoilers
Our intrepid cast are fleeing through the jungle, from a spider, if I remember correctly, and Jack Black's character gets bitten by it on the leg. Laying on the ground, he declares that the only way to cure the poison is for someone to pee on it. Paul Rudd and Thandiwe Newton's characters defer, so Steve Zahn's must step up to the plate. He confesses to being pee-shy, and takes considerable convincing, then shamefully admits he pees sitting down. The end result is that Newton is crouched by Black's head, Rudd is on his hands and knees across Jack Black's torso, Steve Zahn is sitting on Rudd's back, and finally is able to pee on the bite.
The whole scene is ridiculous, extensive (it goes on and on), hilarious, and at an entirely inopportune time (they just got clear of a giant spider and a giant snake is on their tail).
As I sat there watching the scene, I could see someone writing this and figuring out the whole rest of the movie from there (What bit him, a jellyfish? No, a giant spider. Where would four childhood friends from the 'burbs find a giant spider? A jungle. Why the hell are they in a jungle? Remaking the 1997 classic, Anaconda.)
ETA: The movie is genuinely funny. I didn't go in expecting high cinema, nor do I have any nostalgia for the original, but I thought it worth a watch.
Thanks for the explanation, that does sound humorous. The movie didn't look good from the trailer, so I'll see how it holds up
Reminds me of the snakebite scene from City Slickers 2. Come to think of it, this scene might just be the reason it exists. An otherwise forgettable film but it’s embarrassing how often my brain reminds me of this part of it.
This is looking more and more like an #ask.recommendations, I'm all for it! Thx <3