The 'Art' of Poor Storytelling

We all love good storytelling.

It could be Mary Poppins, The Godfather, Shrek, The Firm, Alice in Wonderland, Frankenstein, The Hobbit or The Matrix. The reason these, and many other stories (in whichever form: book, movie, play) last, their impression resonating for many, many years after their release, is because of one major common factor: good storytelling.

Then, there are instances when you take a good concept, and make a mediocre, or poor storytelling out of it (*cough *Star Wars prequels * cough *).

And then, there is bad storytelling, which can be bad for a number of reasons: bad writing overall, bad dialogue, bad ideas, bad setup, poorly written characters, etc., and most of all - bad story logic.

Case in point: Captain Marvel. Marvel has created an ingenious story line of nearly 20 (!) movies with characters in standalone films (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, etc.) and interacting in so-called 'tent-pole' films (The Avengers)...then, all of a sudden, after all these movies, you bring in a new character, out of the blue!

Where was this character all these years/movies? what has she been doing? there was no a clue, not a mention in any of the previous films.

Then there is this mysterious beeper that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has but tried to use it only towards the end of Avengers: Infinity War. According to the producers, who's to say he hasn't used it before?

Here's the thing: if it hasn't been implied earlier, or shown, or talked about, in any way...it hasn't happened. That is one of the foundations of good storytelling.

In Die Hard, for example, John McClaine (Bruce Willis) finds a bag full of detonators early in the movie. Later on, the terrorist leader, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) frets about it, demanding they retrieve it. However...if we didn't see, or weren't aware of the existence of those detonators, it wouldn't make sense...

'Detonators? Why would we need detonators...?'

Another, more extreme case: In The Godfather, a man named Bonasera asks Don Corleone to help get justice for his daughter; we don't hear or see him until much later in the film, when Don Corleone shows up at his door and asks him to "return the favor" and dress up his dead son (Sonny) as best possible. But what if we didn't see that opening scene, and Don Corleone simply shows up at the person's house and asks him to take care of his dead son, as a return for his favor? but wait...what favor is he talking about? when did it happen? this scene would be completely senseless if we didn't see what happen at the start of the movie: the man owed Don Corleone a favor, and he's here to collect it. But if we don't see the request, and the favor itself, then the payoff...is not a payoff at all.

'Do I know you from somewhere? Oh right...the beginning of the movie.'

Remember the old Hitchcock quote about the difference between surprise and suspense? a bomb that goes off is a surprise...a bomb that appears and doesn't blow up...that is suspense. Blowing up a bomb that suddenly appears out of thin air in the last act of a movie or novel, is a cheap way to find a resolution. So, bringing in a new character in the endgame (in the case of The Avengers, literally), doesn't make a lot of sense. Which is in a lot of ways disappointing: It's like you have an all-star caliber basketball player, and you're saving him (or her, in this case) for game 7 of the finals. Why? On the other hand, look at the original Superman: The setup for the sequel was already set up with the villains, who made an appearance and, therefore, stuck in viewers mind. They did not appear out of nowhere in Superman II.

Sadly, as we've learned all too much in recent years, big box office doesn't equate mean quality or top-quality storytelling.