This seems like the antithesis of worldbuilding.
Chekhov's Gun
151–160 of 181 posts
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
“ Red Herring, which is explicitly a detail that not only doesn't matter, but purely exists to mislead the audience.” There is also the McGuffin which appears to matter, but exists entirely to elicit character action. For instance, in “Psycho” the plot line about the stolen money is dropped almost as soon as it is established, but it did its job by getting Marion on the run and into the motel.
The MacGuffin isn’t just there to elicit a response though… it’s a primary motivator for the characters. It’s usually (but not always) a physical object, but that matters less than the fact that the characters are trying to obtain it (usually unsuccessfully). It’s also rarely explained — it is an object that simply exists. Hitchcock loved the MacGuffin, but Psycho isn’t the example I’d use. The money in Psycho is a u…
With regards to Pulp Fiction, is the Gold Watch another MacGuffin?
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#153Chekhov Gun discussions always remind me of this Vonnegut passage: "I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with his meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading ch…
Vonnegut drawing graphs of famous story plots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ I saw him do this bit in person in the early 90s and never forgot it.
This is fantastic. Do you have a link to the full talk by any chance?
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#1541889. It's so old I don't think it's very relevant for a modern fiction author. It's older than 99.99% of popular, genre fiction. Older than the cinema, than radio, and than pulp magazines. Even Wells hadn't starting writing yet. Conan Doyle had barely started. Fiction and storytelling evolved a lot afterwards.
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
The MacGuffin isn’t just there to elicit a response though… it’s a primary motivator for the characters. It’s usually (but not always) a physical object, but that matters less than the fact that the characters are trying to obtain it (usually unsuccessfully). It’s also rarely explained — it is an object that simply exists. Hitchcock loved the MacGuffin, but Psycho isn’t the example I’d use. The money in Psycho is a u…
The Pulp Fiction briefcase is more of a "pure MacGuffin", where the film director / scriptwriters are playing with the concept of MacGuffin more than actually using it as its intended purpose. After all, its a Tarantino film. He basically expects the audience to be familiar with film theory (or at minimum: expects the audience to already be familiar with "typical plotlines"). ---------- Your typical action movie / po…
I don’t know if I agree that the audience needs to care about the MacGuffin for it to be a well written story though. I think in some circumstances it can help, but it’s not necessary (or sufficient) for a good story.
I mean, I read that Lucas thought of R2D2 as the MacGuffin of “A New Hope”, and thought that it was important for the audience to care deeply about him. And it worked. However, as a film device, I think it’s more important that the audience cares that the protagonist cares about the MacGuffin. I still don’t know why I should care about the Maltese Falcon, but I know that Bogart certainly cared. And for me, that was enough to make the story compelling.
I do agree though about Pulp Fiction. The briefcase was a very meta reference where the audience is assumed to know what is going on. And in that case it helped to provide a common thread through the different plot lines. But from a higher level, it was done with a wink and a nod to the audience. It was basically using the MacGuffin as a foil to use as the “typical linear storyline” when what Tarantino was really doing was playing with time lines and points of view.
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#156Earlier 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.
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 wi…
Archer is also known for this sort of thing.
https://www.engadget.com/2015-03-21-massive-archer-easter-eg...
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chekhov's gun treatment can remove an element of surprise, or worse, reveal whole plot-line. It's a convention that is an art in itself, too much and too little can ruin the experience.
Properly blending it in is a form of art, and a surprise in itself. For example, [spoilers] the rock hammer in The Shawshank Redemption, or more literally, the rifle on the wall in Shaun Of The Dead. A good gun makes you go "oooooh!" On the other hand, building up readers' expectations with details that turn out to be irrelevant is just deception. See the last season of Game of Thrones, for instance. All those charac…
Discarding with explanation can sometimes be used to effect too.
For example, suppose a character sends a spy to accomplish an objective. Meanwhile, another group of people are also trying to do this, which will benefit the main character, although the main character is unaware of this. The second group gets there first, and even though there was considerable buildup to the spy's mission, in the end, his presence doesn't matter (much).
If you want as lean a story as possible, you would cut out the spy's mission altogether, but its presence gives a sense of realism, because the character in the story doesn't know ahead of time that sending the spy would be redundant.
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#158"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.
That is a surprising thing to note. Though it does help set up two of the most important scenes in the movie: Lightsabers are used in the dramatic battle between Vader and Obi-Wan; It's good to have them in a few scenes if the first time they're in a battle, the mentor is killed. Furthermore, at the end when Luke is doing the trench run, he's relying on his targeting computer until force ghost Obi-Wan tells him to use the force. This relaxing and trusting in the force was directly set up in the Falcon training scene.
I think overall this is the best way to use Chekhov's Gun: Introduce several things, but don't make it obvious how they're going to fit together.
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s also celebrated as the worst film ever made.
I've never seen The Room so my opinion may change if I ever do, but there is another movie that I have seen (though only by proxy of MST3K) called Manos: The Hands of Fate that also has been referred to as the worst movie ever made, and I wholeheartedly agree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manos:_The_Hands_of_Fate
Not sure why I chose to watch that but I have to agree, that's comparable to The Room (if not as funny on it's own like The Room is, absent the jokes added by the MST3K hosts this one would be getting fast-forwarded constantly).
Things that are "bad" like that are uniquely bad. It's not just annoying or purposefully bad, it's a side effect of a series of poor judgements that make it amusing.
The most revealing part was in a Youtube comment that explained the master's helper guy (who takes up a ton of screen time) was clearly on acid the whole time, which makes his totally unusual behaviours understandable for anyone who has tried that before. But still very very socially awkward and creepy.
Re: Chekhov's Gun
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vonnegut drawing graphs of famous story plots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ I saw him do this bit in person in the early 90s and never forgot it.
This is fantastic. Do you have a link to the full talk by any chance?