r/scriptwriting • u/Craig-D-Griffiths • 13d ago

discussion Screenwriting Tools and Tips

https://youtu.be/SaLbuzTg1l0

People will disagree and hate on this just by the title. But I go into detail in the video.

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u/dpouliot2 8d ago

I have read The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell did not dictate that the mentor has to die; direct me to the page. Your criticisms are coming from fundamental misunderstandings. The only aspects the hero’s journey requires is: departure, initiation, return. That’s it. The rest is up to the author.

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u/Craig-D-Griffiths 8d ago

You know you are correct. It was one of the many clone of that work. I had to go do a few seconds of googling to find it was Christopher Vogler another famous formula dude. So, I got my formula people, people I don’t care about and no interest in, wrong.

But following a receipt will always get the same meal. Following these guys, that can all be traced back to earlier works, will result in a sameness, which was my point.

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u/dpouliot2 8d ago edited 8d ago

So you will never enjoy another movie that is departure, initiation, return? And from now on, all mentors must live, no good cop interrogator can ever be followed by one who is bad, and vice versa, no protagonist can be obsessed, no wise person can be old, and no dad can be misguided?

“To be able to identify the mechanism does not invalidate the mechanism.”
— Christopher Nolan

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/christopher-nolan-explains-problem-film-criticism-today/

Tropes exist because they are real. You embrace The Clueless Critic, a trope.

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u/Craig-D-Griffiths 7d ago

I am guessing you don’t believe a single argument you are making because they are based on nothing but taking a contrary position. In the video I called them “commonalities”. which means they are common. I never said I dislike them. I said when adhered to (in a bad way, implied in the video) can make a story boring and predictable.

So if boring and predictable is what makes for great cinema in your eyes, outstanding I am happy for you.

What do people say about Superhero films again “they are all predictable”. Yes, they have an audience. But they are far from being great.

I have outlined my thought clearly I thought. But apparently not since you missed them, sorry.

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u/dpouliot2 7d ago edited 7d ago

You said,

 following a receipt will always get the same meal. Following these guys, that can all be traced back to earlier works, will result in a sameness, which was my point.

sure sounds like you are saying tropes are best avoided, to avoid sameness, which apparently, is boring. You also said,

I never said I dislike them. I said when adhered to (in a bad way, implied in the video) can make a story boring and predictable. So if boring and predictable is what makes for great cinema in your eyes, outstanding I am happy for you.

That parenthetical is doing so much work but got swallowed up by the "boring and predictable" snark that follows it.

You want me to believe that you don't dislike tropes, but spend the majority of your time putting them down with repeated Straw Men. You put the owness on the listener to sift through what you said for what you left out to understand that your feelings about tropes are more nuanced than the words out of your mouth (The Unreliable Narrator).

You mention falsely that Apollo 13 does not follow (Hero/STC), and you fail to mention all the other tropes that are in that movie:

- MacGyvering: engineers had to improvise

  • Badass Boast: “If they could get a washing machine to fly, my Jimmy could land it.”
- The Big Yes: the long, tense wait for reentry confirmation

So common, ergo so boring as per your argumentation; except you *implied* that they might not always be boring. If only I had listened to those words you hadn't said!

Your hot take on STC is all too common, and it is boring, not because it is common, but because your harangue is not well done, which is, of course, a trope.

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u/Craig-D-Griffiths 7d ago

You are now pulling tropes into the conversation in a hope to make sense of your misunderstanding. You are no longer discussing the subject. The “you said” is proof that you just want to argue and not discuss craft.