Comment on To save the superhero movie, we need to bring back themes
tiramichu@lemm.ee 3 days agoAll movies have a story. This happens, then that happens, then that happens. A story is just a sequence of events.
But what often separates a good story from a dull one are the thematic elements.
The theme is the big narrative idea into which everything else slots. It drives the plot. It defines the character’s motivations and creates stakes. It creates tension and makes character’s actions feel like they have purpose.
We need a great story, but good story comes from solid themes.
Sure mate, Stephen King says this:
. . . starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story”
But what does he know?
How to write okayish page-turners that are far from the only valid way to approach literature?
Yeah, if we weren’t talking about Marvel films you’d have a point.
Maybe the themes in a Marvel movie will be more universal and rather broadly drawn, but to avoid overstaying their welcome with a rote and repetitive “peril-catharis” cycle, the action needs to be in service to something compelling. Otherwise, it just sort of sputters to the finish line because ultimately we’ve seen the stories before. To the extent he’s not just talking out of his ass, King’s describing a workflow, not a philosophy.
adam_y@lemmy.world 2 days ago
tiramichu@lemm.ee 2 days ago
If we are quoting King then he also said in “On Writing” just a paragraph or so after your quote:
I may not have been right in saying the story /comes/ from the theme, but I very much stand by the notion that solid themes are required, even if the theme does not come first.
King also said:
As the story is written and progresses, conscious work is needed to refine the theme and draw it out, and good works always are about something that is bigger and richer than the basic story beats themselves.
So to the original argument on superhero movies, the writer’s opinion that we need good themes is still something I very much agree with.
adam_y@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Which is to say that absolutely, you are right that theme is important because ultimately theme is context.
I do wonder how much of this belongs, not to the creator, but to the viewer/reader.
There’s that great example with Ray Bradbury telling people that Fahrenheit 451 was not about fascism until someone pointed out to him how it absolutely was.
adam_y@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I think the slightly casual, almost throwaway comment that I started this with was more about the fact that, specifically Marvel, films have become all theme and no story.
The standard superhero narrative of “Bad guy gets weapon, or does something bad and Superhero A must stop them” doesn’t sustaing multiple franchises.
Couple that with the classic trauma genesis story which forms the obligatory introduction arc.
Marvel films have become about themes almost entirely to the point where characters and story are interchangable. Take the latest captain America… Almost any other Marvel character could have played the same role in that film… The narrative is so weak that it doesn’t matter. The themes are grand and perhaps even important (a bright red tyrannical monster rampaging in the whitehouse) but the story is what let’s it down.
These stories are weak and we’ve seen them multiple times now. It doesn’t matter how often we change the themes, whether the film is about fascism in America, finding friendship and family, or the perils of unchecked science… These themes ultimately fall flat when the underlying structure, the story, used to convey them is weak.
Sure, all art is usually about something, and those themes can be important, but I stand by what I said… If you want Superhero films to see any good they need to shrug off the notion of being entirely about symbology and theme and maybe have some gripping story.