The Necessity of a Reversal?

[Tiana Calthye]

I was, in a fit of boredom, watching a movie. This happens occasionally, when I want a quick-fix of entertainment... I find myself watching movies of all sorts of various shapes and sizes (though very often cartoons) as long as I can find them on the internet.

 

Today I watched Tangled.

 

This is a cartoon I've seen got good reviews and I'd wanted to see it for a while. I'll save the review for another thread, but there was one point of the movie where... I took one look at the scrollbar and saw there was quite a bit of the movie left! Now, I knew not all of the threads were tied up, bad guys were still on the loose, but it was a point where, if they would've just stopped right there, everyone would've lived HAPPILY EVER AFTER (except for the bad guys).

 

And it struck me that this had happened in the last movie I watched too (Megamind... did I mention I liked watching cartoons in this kind of mood? Yeah)... that there was one point where it was OH SO CLOSE to being a happy ending.

 

But things still needed to be tied up.

 

And I knew, that in approximately 30 seconds, things would go from happy, to horrible, and absolutely crash. It's usually when the two characters are about to kiss for the first time.

 

I found myself running through the various movies I've watched, and this seems to be a very frequent trend. If there's not a romantic main plotline running through, there will still be a point where things reach a high, and well, if there weren't those loose ends everything would be JUST PERFECT... and you know it's going to turn head over heels. Just like there's going to be a point where you just KNOW things can't get any worse... and then someone gets stabbed.

 

Is this a necessity for a good story or just a common outline?

 

I feel like it is important for most genre stories to follow the crash and burn outline. Leading people along only to crush their hopes and dreams is what keeps people reading. Without the carrot, people get bored; with the crash, people carry on out of hope to see things pick up.

 

Of course, on a different note, I feel most movies should end probably 5-10 minutes before they actually do... right in the bottom of the pit. I wanted Final Fantasy 13 to end a couple minutes before the actual credits rolled. It would've been the most stunning ending ever. But alas, the happy ending seems a necessity after you pull the rug out from beneath your character's feet.

 

How do you feel about story arcs?

[Wookiee Jedi]

I'm actually happen to enjoy reading story arcs that take a downward spiral and never climb back up, only giving you the illusion of hope. It's hard for me to believe a hero is a hero until they've lost it all. Maybe I'm just too much of a realist.

 

By the way, I loved Tangled.

[Amidala Skywalker]

Tangled was the best movie I've seen in a long time.

 

I do think the crash is important for good storytelling. I mean, there might be a few stories/movies that can just build up and never crash. But dramatic tension is something we like. If there is no tension, it could be really boring.

 

And while I like a few dark/dreary endings, I'm just a sucker for a happy ending. So I love how the fortunes rise again at the end, and the characters get to live happily ever after in some form of the term. And I think most people agree with me on that. Hence why this literary form is such a successful and widespread convention.