Controversial opinion: movies should look more like games.
See, like, when they have those battle scenes in movies, and it's all just a bunch of special effects, showing hundreds of armed men going at each other, or major characters locking swords (like idiots), or aircraft/spacecraft shooting at each other and frantically trying to dodge the shots, etc.. -- all those are so obviously effects.
It's like, here's a show of special effects. Look, special effects! Look, stuff blowing up! Look, people getting killed left and right! Okay, we're done here, now here's your outcome.
So? That didn't make me feel anything. I didn't understand what was going on, other than "a fight occurred".
No, instead, why don't you think more like a videogame. Present me the rules by which the conflict operates:
1. give me a good sense of the layout of the battlefield.
2. what are the objectives? just kill as much of the opposing dudes as possible? or to reach certain destinations to deliver intel? or to connect certain supply lines?
2. what tactics are each side using or intending to use, and how do they change as the battle progresses?
3. how and when does the tide of battle change? what are major losses or wins (other than "oh no, this important character died)? how do individual units (or in the case of smaller-scale fights, individual actions) actually affect the course of the combat -- e.g. misdirection, buying time, going an odd path to flank the enemy, prepping one object/feature beyond the enemy's immediate comprehension, etc.
Honestly, I wouldn't much mind if movies just switched to a strategy RPG battle scenario map and plunked down all the units onto it like chess pieces and played out the scenario that way. At least I'd have a better understand of what went on. And it's not like diagrams and recounts of troop movements are much different anyway.
That's because the best fight scenes are the ones that establish the "rules" under which the confrontation takes place -- the lay of the land, the abilities of the opposing characters/factions -- and then it shows me, mechanically, how it plays out. I get to marvel at really smart moves or cringe at key tactical blunders.
Otherwise you might as well just tell me that superhero A fought supervillain B and here's a laundry list of the collateral damage caused.
It's like, here's a show of special effects. Look, special effects! Look, stuff blowing up! Look, people getting killed left and right! Okay, we're done here, now here's your outcome.
So? That didn't make me feel anything. I didn't understand what was going on, other than "a fight occurred".
No, instead, why don't you think more like a videogame. Present me the rules by which the conflict operates:
1. give me a good sense of the layout of the battlefield.
2. what are the objectives? just kill as much of the opposing dudes as possible? or to reach certain destinations to deliver intel? or to connect certain supply lines?
2. what tactics are each side using or intending to use, and how do they change as the battle progresses?
3. how and when does the tide of battle change? what are major losses or wins (other than "oh no, this important character died)? how do individual units (or in the case of smaller-scale fights, individual actions) actually affect the course of the combat -- e.g. misdirection, buying time, going an odd path to flank the enemy, prepping one object/feature beyond the enemy's immediate comprehension, etc.
Honestly, I wouldn't much mind if movies just switched to a strategy RPG battle scenario map and plunked down all the units onto it like chess pieces and played out the scenario that way. At least I'd have a better understand of what went on. And it's not like diagrams and recounts of troop movements are much different anyway.
That's because the best fight scenes are the ones that establish the "rules" under which the confrontation takes place -- the lay of the land, the abilities of the opposing characters/factions -- and then it shows me, mechanically, how it plays out. I get to marvel at really smart moves or cringe at key tactical blunders.
Otherwise you might as well just tell me that superhero A fought supervillain B and here's a laundry list of the collateral damage caused.
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Yeah yeah yeah I'm itching for an argument over this. And I can't bring myself to actually trollpost, so instead I've half-assed written up this piece of crap. Feel free to shitpost this thread. It's in the General category so you don't have to feel bad.
I don't need your twerking twirling camera to understand what a scene is like. I can get it just fine from a set of 16-bit tiles.
I don't need close-ups of people's faces just to understand their feelings, when expressively-designed sprites will do.
I'm looking at the world from this nice top-down or side-view (or even first-person) perspective. Don't interrupt it and fuck over my immersion just because YOU HAVE A PRETTY AMV TO SHOW, OOH, SO PRETTY spend your fucking art budget elsewhere will ya.
Just, like, y'know, move the pieces around. It makes a lot more sense, in fact, when the camera isn't zooming across the chessboard on waterskis or something.
Leave an option to turn off autoadvancing text or something.
Or we can just, like, not make them talk, save on the voicework budget, and I can imagine their voices just fine when you put up text boxes.
On a similar vein, no need to constantly shift view focus between the two characters when a dialogue is going. Just show me both of them, maybe show speech bubbles. My eyes are capable of movement, and if they're not, my neck is.
If you want me to get invested in a fight scene, you have to, well, get me invested.
A fight scene that's just [bunch of special effects and then outcome happens] is not investment. That's the same investment as I'd have as some character who wasn't involved in the fight, watching it.
If you want to put me into the shoes of a participant, then you'll have to tell me what that participant's abilities and limitations are.
Unless you can show me that those mooks actually have a shit accuracy stat, or that our hero has a special ability that lets her avoid tons of bullets, I'm not going to feel that her avoiding tons of bullets while flying straight into the face of them is justified at all.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
how odd
ive never played it myself though
That's not all they're good for, but imo it's a particular strength of the medium, besides the obvious (the ability to create new and unusual challenges for the player) and one which i value a lot.
when I look at art I usually am looking for it to show me the experiences and thoughts and feelings of other people, not myself
play Gone Home or something idk
plus you hate any form of music that isn't Kvlt underground avant-garde doom death screamo grindcore trap mixtapes, Yes, REM, or Enya
also he was very hot