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Chekhov's Gun

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Re: Chekhov's Gun

#111

Post by shepherdjerred »

mrec wrote: post #110
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

The one that always gets me is Luke's lightsaber in the original Star Wars . It's introduced as a connection to the father he never knew, making it hugely significant. There's a whole scene on the Falcon of Ben training him to use it. And then he never takes it out again for the remainder of the movie.

Wow I never realized that. Did they already intend to film a sequel and call back to his lightsaber, or was that just a random detail they worked in later?

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#112

Post by shepherdjerred »

justsomeuser wrote: post #96
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

I also think that the rifle can “set the frame” for the character or scenario. E.g. that the character is the kind of person who owns guns. It does not go off or get used, but the viewer will use that as input to make a judgement about the character.

Gun isn’t literal here. Gun is a metaphor for details; if the details don’t serve the plot (if the gun doesn’t go off) then the details should be removed (don’t show the gun)

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#113

Post by mrec »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #111
mrec wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one that always gets me is Luke's lightsaber in the original Star Wars . It's introduced as a connection to the father he never knew, making it hugely significant. There's a whole scene on the Falcon of Ben training him to use it. And then he never takes it out again for the remainder of the movie.

Wow I never realized that. Did they already intend to film a sequel and call back to his lightsaber, or was that just a random detail they worked in later?

Lucas definitely had sequels in mind, but it was very much in doubt whether the movie would succeed. There was an official sequel novel by Alan Dean Foster called Splinter of the Mind's Eye released in '78, which was explicitly designed to be filmable on a very low budget if the original didn't do too well. That does feature Luke duelling Vader with his saber.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#114

Post by zuminator »

mrec wrote: post #110
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

The one that always gets me is Luke's lightsaber in the original Star Wars . It's introduced as a connection to the father he never knew, making it hugely significant. There's a whole scene on the Falcon of Ben training him to use it. And then he never takes it out again for the remainder of the movie.

Even though Luke never uses his saber again, its introduction and exposition gives some heft to the later fight between Kenobi and Vader.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#115

Post by wander_homer »

plafl wrote: post #49

Quite dull. That's why I love The Big Lewobski. It's full of irrelevant details. There is a story too but the movie it's about the little things.

Yeah, yesterday I watched Star Trek Beyond and I hated all those foreshadowing events and almost everything else. Spoilers: There's a supposedly useless artifact, which gets a big camera zoom when getting archived and oh surprise, it turns out to be a weapon of mass destruction. There's a huge space station, which gets introduced with long camera shots full of happy people and oh surprise, it's about to get attacked later. There's some relationship drama and discussion about a stupid gift, which later gets used as a tracking device to save everyone. The captain notices a motorcycle on a spaceship, which later gets used to make a stupid stunt show to save everyone. The captain, for no apparent reason, plays a video log showing the crew of an old space ship and oh surprise, later this video is used to reveal the identity of the villain. Some alien found some old music tapes from our time and we get to hear them loudly, and of course this music is later used as a super weapon to save the day. ...

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#116

Post by [deleted] »

mrec wrote: post #110
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

The one that always gets me is Luke's lightsaber in the original Star Wars . It's introduced as a connection to the father he never knew, making it hugely significant. There's a whole scene on the Falcon of Ben training him to use it. And then he never takes it out again for the remainder of the movie.

[deleted]

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#117

Post by jhbadger »

mrec wrote: post #113
shepherdjerred wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I never realized that. Did they already intend to film a sequel and call back to his lightsaber, or was that just a random detail they worked in later?

Lucas definitely had sequels in mind, but it was very much in doubt whether the movie would succeed. There was an official sequel novel by Alan Dean Foster called Splinter of the Mind's Eye released in '78, which was explicitly designed to be filmable on a very low budget if the original didn't do too well. That does feature Luke duelling Vader with his saber.

It also (rather uncomfortably in light of later revelations) features Luke & Leia as a romantic couple! Apparently Lucas signed off on Foster's manuscript, so he hadn't had the idea that they were siblings yet.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#118

Post by xattt »

mrec wrote: post #110
xaedes wrote: post #27

"The Room", by Tommy Wiseau, is a movie where Chekhov's gun isn't applied. It contains lots of small happenings with no further relevance. It has lots of other issues, technically speaken. But together they make this film not only amateurish, but it also gives it a certain kind of realism. In real life stuff happens and still may have no further relevance to the "story" after all. In real life there is nobody enforci…

The one that always gets me is Luke's lightsaber in the original Star Wars . It's introduced as a connection to the father he never knew, making it hugely significant. There's a whole scene on the Falcon of Ben training him to use it. And then he never takes it out again for the remainder of the movie.

You see this in lots of long-play shows/properties. Adventure Time comes to mind. A number of seemingly irrelevant details become central to the main plot in much later episodes (years/seasons later).

I am wondering, however, whether there is some sort of plot bible that lives with the “keepers” of the storyline, or whether some details are just randomly sprinkled here and there as hooks with the hope that writers will weave them into the future plot.

Either way, this type of writing is extremely rewarding to long-time fans of a show.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#119

Post by ineedasername »

twelvechairs wrote: post #105
ineedasername wrote: post #98

It's not a universal requirement of "good" writing. Contrast it with the shaggy dog style, basically the antithesis of Checkov's gun. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_story IRL is probably more like the shaggy dog.

Its a polemic really. The terseness and immediacy of Chekhov's stories and plays made them 'modern' and set them in contrast to older art. It was a very powerful shtick at the time. Of course today's times are very different. Our lives have so much content and immediacy now that is beyond Chekov's experience that people seek out exactly the opposite. Still I think the way he carefully and deliberately constructed thi…

Agreed, But:

Wikipedia cites it as a "dramatic principle", not merely a style. I've seen it advocated as "the way things should be done". That's why I think the contrast is important to note: it's not a principal of good writing, it's merely one style of telling a story.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#120

Post by goto11 »

croes wrote: post #3

This principle kills surprises because a soon you see the rifle you know what will happen. A little bit of misleading is not a bad thing.

No, it just tells you that somebody will fire the rifle at some point. This increases tension but does not really tell you much about what is going to happen except it is going to get dangerous and violent.
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