Rule #1

I’m reading more amateur reviews of movies (and video games) lately – and I’m noticing a lot of complaining about “originality” - in both negative and positive reviews people talk about how “original” something is like if it’s not the most original thing it will stop being fun/good.

I’ve said it before – and I’ll say it again – originality is probably the most overrated concept in movies. Just about every story has been done and done to death.

We crave movies to be brought to a familiar place and guided through the motions – leave us comforted and happy. The majority of films – the good guy wins – the right girl ends up with the right guy – and mankind survives despite unbeatable odds. All of these things are cliché – but much needed clichés in films. Sure, there are the occasional twist endings – where everything ends wrong – and it’s great – but those films don’t happen as much as you’d think.

Why? Because movies are our escape from reality and reality is filled with the bad endings. That’s why thousands of years ago – fiction was created on the walls of caves – around campfires and passed between nomadic travellers. They used it to escape from the world where there are real dangers around every corner.

Fiction is our delusional way of dealing with reality – and comforting ourselves into not believing everything is as bad as it is.

We all know in reality if a bad guy captures the good guy – he WOULD NOT explain his devious plans – then walk away leaving him to be eaten by his missile-guided badger-sharks... The bad guy would shoot the good guy dead and go on doing his bad things.

It’s a standard movie concept though – bad guys giving the good guy a loop hole – but that’s what we want! We could run around saying that it’s not original – but we are generally optimists as people – and want to see the good beat out the bad – and we conveniently ignore that it’s not “original” because we’re being entertained.

It’s not originality that we miss – it’s creativity! In storytelling, in characters, in direction and performances! Why was AVATAR such a huge hit? Not for its originality, no ma’am! What about THE DARK KNIGHT? It was a typical action good guys versus bad guys film – with great performances and solid direction. INCEPTION was pretty cool – but was it original? Not really – there has been plenty of heist films and plenty of dream films – but combining them in that way – was pretty damn cool!

If the journey is worth telling in an interesting way – or the same story framed in a different light – or a story based on intelligence and not boom-boom splosions - people will catch on!

But cblaze – your banner – DOOMSDAY – not creative!!! I know – but the fact that it’s so uncreative – and it wallows in the pigpen of its own derivativeness of its genre – that is something I personally love! I like movies that are one thing – don’t pretend to be another – they do that one thing - and they do it well. Leave the art, self-awareness and the comedy out of it – just do a well-made stand-up genre film full bore – and I’ll be a fan.

Well, I said my piece – got Rule #1 out there – again! (Oh how original!) I may expand on that in the future – or keep rolling out the rules as they are fully realized.