Captain Jack wrote:
> I've always been a big fan of the "seven basic plots" idea. 

Which of those would The Dark Knight fall under, I wonder.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:19:07 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Captain Jack wrote:
>> I've always been a big fan of the "seven basic plots" idea.
>
> Which of those would The Dark Knight fall under, I wonder.

That would be "Overcoming the monster".



-- 
FE

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Warp wrote:
> Captain Jack <Cap### [at] comcastnet> wrote:
>> In acting classes that I have attended as well as taught, we talk about "two 
>> dimensional characters", "cardboard cutouts", and "characters with no 
>> depth", all referring to the same thing.
> 
>   Btw, was the original expression "two-dimensional character" (meaning a
> character with no depth), after which some people started using an
> exaggerated version of the expression, "one-dimensional character" in
> their desire to say "a really, really flat character", and after years
> of using that, it has basically replaced the original expression and thus
> everybody nowadays says "one-dimensional character" when they really mean
> what "two-dimensional character" meant originally?
> 
That is probably it, yeah.  Though extending the metaphor in that way 
does yield some useful ideas.

That the character lacks all dimensionality except as a single thrust, 
or file.  Hints at the
possibility of a no-dimensional character, a single point, useful as a 
reference, a position, and that is all.

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Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 08:19:07 +0100, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Captain Jack wrote:
>>> I've always been a big fan of the "seven basic plots" idea.
>>
>> Which of those would The Dark Knight fall under, I wonder.
> 
> That would be "Overcoming the monster".

I disagree that covers it. If it does, then the categories are so broad as 
to be meaningless.  When your seven plots are "funny", "sad", "conflict", 
"romance", ..., I think the analysis is pointless. It's like saying "All 
programs fall into only a few categories: GUI, CLI, Server, ..." It tells 
you nothing useful about the program itself.

Which one is the monster? The city? The mob? The joker? Two-face? Crane? 
Batman's own fear?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> > That would be "Overcoming the monster".

> I disagree that covers it.

  Movies rarely fall into one single category.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New wrote:
> No, but there are lots of books and short stories like that. It wasn't 
> original - it was just the first *movie* with that, per se.

Not even the first that year.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/
Surrogates.  The whole point of the movie is that people experience the 
real world through fake bodies.

...Chambers

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Darren New wrote:
> I understand much of the complexity was cut. There were scenes on earth 
> motivating the need to attack the planet, drug abuse amongst the 
> marines, marine leaders taking bribes (altho for what I don't remember), 
> etc etc.

While those things could have made the movie better, I doubt they would 
have.  Seeing how the material that's there was handled, I don't think 
adding more material (that's handled just as poorly) would have been the 
answer.

...Chambers

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> That would be "Overcoming the monster".
> 
>> I disagree that covers it.
> 
>   Movies rarely fall into one single category.

Sure, but I think the idea that all movies can be categorized into only 
seven basic plots makes those plots too general to really be of much use 
analyzing movies.

Maybe in writing a play, you are better off sticking to one of those seven 
main themes, but I think there's a lot more you can do with books and movies 
than you can with plays. I can see where in a play you wouldn't want to 
combine a comedy with an overcoming-the-monster per se, for example.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Sure, but I think the idea that all movies can be categorized into only 
> seven basic plots makes those plots too general to really be of much use 
> analyzing movies.

  I believe that the whole point of that book was to give seven extremely
broad categories under which the vast majority of stories can be categorized.
In other words, "any movie can be classified as one of these" is the main
idea.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   I believe that the whole point of that book was to give seven extremely
> broad categories under which the vast majority of stories can be categorized.

Vast majority I'll go with, sure. And "if you're a beginning playwrite, 
stick with these themes" makes sense, as in "make sure you have an 
antagonist if the protagonist just sits in the same place without changing" 
and so on. But I'm not sure what's useful about a classification system 
where Frankenstein, The Matrix, and Hamlet can all be categorized in the 
same pile. :-)

"Here's seven ways to add something interesting to your story" or "seven 
ways to turn a situation into a story" I can see, yes. Otherwise it's just 
an essay about the situation.

How about "The Cube", the one with the guy trapped in the white cube with 
all the visitors, not the one with the rooms with a door on each side?

The *innovative* movies are the ones that don't match one of those seven 
plots, methinks. The *good* innovative movies are rare, yes. :-)  But I 
think a lot of (for example) PKDick stories don't fall into those categories.

Not that I really care. It's just that the topic has come up in three 
different online places I hang out in the last couple of weeks, so I've 
thought about it more than I should. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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