On 10/1/09 8:31 AM, Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:54:53 -0500,
wrote:

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:17:23 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:


Jesus - no wonder Hollywood can't make any money.

Don't they have any original ideas?

Nope, there are six, maybe seven, plots used in movies. Any creativity
used, is in making them look fresh. For the most part, it doesn't work.

Um...well, that's one way of looking at it.

There are seven basic themes, six basic elements and seven basic
plots.

Themes: The Quest, Voyage and Return, Rebirth, Comedy, Tragedy,
Overcoming, Rags to Riches

Elements: Character, Action (or Plot), Ideas, Language, Music,
Spectacle (according to Aristotle).

Plots: versus: nature, man, the environment, machines/technology,
supernatural, self, god(s)/religion

There are some who want to stretch each, any or all of these into
compendium type all-inclusive lists, but those are the generally
accepted parts of a good story. One can mix and match, but that's
about it.

Take "Moby Dick" as the example (I was wrong - there are actually five
- I forgot about the 1978 version). Each movie examined a different
aspect of the story as a rule, but all the elements of all the movies
were exactly the same. When examined it is completely fair to define
"JAWS" as "Moby Dick" only with Bruce the Shark instead of a whale.

Not many differences between the two movies really in terms of themes,
characters, etc.

To me, another "Moby Dick" would just be a waste of money - Gregory
Peck was the definitive Ahab with Orson Wells coming in a close
second, Jon Luc Picard coming in third. :)

Right off the top of my head, there are three or four urban fantasy
series in book form that would make much better movies or TV shows.


Well, no one is going to call you Ishmael.



--
Birther-Deather-Tenther-Teabagger:
Idiots All