Gravity Review

As a bit of a detour, while I was away being trained, a coworker an I went to see the movie Gravity in IMAX 3d.

My main impressions were as such, roughly chronologically: Holy cow it's cold in here.  How low do they keep the thermostat?  Wow is that screen big (I've been to IMAX movies before, but not that often).  Cold.  The pre-previews stuff was mostly dumb, and made my eyes slightly hurt while looking at the screen.  The previews all went as follows: Cold.  Oh, interesting.  I'd like to see that.  I wonder what happens next?  Oh, wait, the trailer is done.  Cold.

The movie itself took very good advantage of the 3d aspect, IMO.  Without going into too many details (at risk of spoiling the movie), it starts with some astronauts in space, and the panorama of the Earth, with depth, behind the crew is space was fabulous.  In many other occasions, the 3d effect added wonderful depth to the film, without being obtrusive to me in any way.  The only time I realized the effect during the movie was when I subconsciously tilted my head for a different view on something, and the movie went out of focus due to the glasses no longer being aligned.  It was a problem I quickly remedied.

The viewpoint was such that I had to close my eyes a few times, though I since that was due to the camera spinning around wildly I have to assume that would have happened without 3d as well.

Many shots were done in apparent weightless environments, and I found after the movie that it seems the filming didn't ever get to space.  I don't know how they got all the shots they did, but as a non-aerospace engineer, none of the physics rang false to me (one did appear to be false, but has an in-movie explanation within a couple minutes, so I'm willing to give that one a pass... for now).

As for the plot itself, again avoiding spoilers, it was a well-constructed work.  The plot wasn't the feature, IMO -- that would be the scenery and the visuals -- but it was completely serviceable.  It did tend toward the disaster-adapt-repeat formula, a little obviously at times, but as I said, serviceable.  The mentor figure is appropriately removed, going out on his own terms.  The emotional beats are there, including a spike of humor at times to help alleviate the tension -- or to prep the audience for an even bigger shock by swinging their emotions elsewhere moments later.

Overall I'd recommend it, but mostly for the visuals rather than the story.  If you do, try to see it on a big screen, with 3d is possible.  I doubt it will translate nearly so well to a TV screen.

HULK SMASH: Blockbusters

From Film Crit Hulk Smash: THE AGE OF THE CONVOLUTED BLOCKBUSTER:

ALL OUR BIGGEST POPCORN MOVIES SEEM DESPERATE TO STRIVE FOR OBFUSCATION. AND AS HULK RECENTLY WALKED OUT OF A SCREENING OF STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, THE DEPTHS OF THIS REALITY HIT HULK DEAD ON… 

WE LIVE IN THE AGE OF THE CONVOLUTED BLOCKBUSTER.

I'll say it right out: this is a wonderful demolition of recent blockbusters that end up making little to no sense, either in the movie theatre or after (I'm not versed enough to call it a trend, though Hulk might be).  The impetus seems to be Star Trek: Into Darkness, which I saw a couple months ago and had a few problems with (pointed out superbly in this article as well).

Still.  Some of the main points from the article can easily be applied to writing novels as well as the screenplays.  Such as:

SO WHEN WE LOOK AT THE STORIES IN ABRAMS’ WORK WE DON’T FIND MUCH IN THE WAY OF STORY AT ALL. WE FIND PLOTS. IT’S ALL MASTER SECRETIVE PLANS BUILT ON REVEALS UPON REVEALS UPON REVEALS. [...] WE WATCH FILMS WHERE THE MECHANICAL PLOT DICTATES CHARACTER REACTIONS, RATHER THAN CHARACTER’S ACTIONS DICTATING THE STORY.

and

BY OBFUSCATING CLARITY IN THE NAME OF A GRANDIOSE PUZZLE, WE CAN’T HELP BUT GET IN THE WAY OF THE OPTIMAL EMOTIONAL RESONANCE IN OUR STORIES. WE MAKE THEM FEEL LIKE CONSTRUCTIONS.

and

THERE'S CAUSE. THERE'S EFFECT. AND THOSE TWO THINGS ARE  GROUNDED IN A THROUGH-LINE OF TRANSPARENCY BECAUSE IT STEMS FROM LASER-FOCUSED OBJECTIVES THAT GUIDE THE SHIFTING NARRATIVE. AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, THERE’S ALWAYS A POINT TO ALL OF IT, AS THE ENDGAME OF ANY GOOD MYSTERY HAS TO RESONATE.

and... and... and just read the article, alright?  I can't keep quoting it or I'll just be reprinting the whole thing here, practically verbatim.

But on to the practical parts.

Which has more inherent drama, a stranger telling you he is your long-lost brother and being chased, or your actual brother you've known your life telling you he is being chased by cops?  By analogy, when a mystery person has things happen to them, we care less, but when a character we've come to know has things happen to them, we're invested.  This requires setup.

About reveals:

ALL A WRITER NEEDS TO MAKE A REVEAL WORK IS TO ASK TWO SIMPLE QUESTIONS: “WHAT IS THE SPECIFIC CONFLICT BEING CREATED BY NOT KNOWING THIS INFORMATION?” AND “WHAT IS THE SPECIFIC CONFLICT CREATED BY NOW KNOWING THIS INFORMATION?” AND DEPENDING ON THE STRENGTH AND VIABILITY OF THAT CONFLICT YOU HAVE YOUR ANSWER ON WHEN TO REVEAL.

...and in the course of reading the article find out how Finding Nemo could have been a huge flop.

So what do you think?  What are the best pieces of writing advice you find in the article?  Or can you convince me it's wrong, somehow?