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Chekhov's Gun

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Re: Chekhov's Gun

#161

Post by titzer »

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 great thing about the Room is that it is so poorly acted that it is impossible to replicate. So it is a kind of a side-channel into the minds of the people playing here. It might be lame and unwatchable at places, but it's also more genuine than any performance a trained person could put forth.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#162

Post by mPReDiToR »

mmaunder wrote: post #64
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…

It’s also celebrated as the worst film ever made.

I thought Battlefield Earth held that title?

If you're masochistic, download it from somewhere. If you're sadistic, have people watch it with you.

I'm not engaging in hyperbole when I call it ridiculously bad.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#163

Post by jiggawatts »

xattt wrote: post #118
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.

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…

Doctor Who is similar, with plot twists often spanning seasons.

"And you, daughter of London, there is something on your back." -- Lucius, the chief auger of Pompeii

That quote raises goosebumps on my arm every time I hear it...

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#164

Post by mPReDiToR »

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.

At the mention of a shaggy dog story I am perpetually reminded of a literary great's famous one.

If you've not read it, don't read the plot summary, the [spoiler] is enormous.

Get the text, enjoy the story, love the wit.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah_Guido_G.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#165

Post by rukuu001 »

One of my favourite examples of this is an episode of Mad Men (mild spoiler) where at the start of an episode one of the accounts guys is riding a ride-on lawn mower through the office (new client), and at the end of the episode a drunk secretary is using it to run over someone's foot.

*edit: spelling

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#166

Post by while1fork »

Unique, inconsequential details and themes immaterial to the plot line add texture and realism to a work. Otherwise, characters and scenes appear shallow, boring, and generic.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#167

Post by Double_Cast »

samatman wrote: post #100
shakna wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best stories frequently break the principle. There is a ton of worldbuilding done in even simple-reading stories like the Hobbit, that are largely irrelevant to the greater whole, but serve to give the reader a better perspective. Mindlessly following Chekhov's Gun, in my opinion, will always result in pulp fiction. Whether it's TV or novels, or movies. If you've stripped a story down to the bare basics, all you'…

The tiny ring of invisibility which Bilbo uses as a plot devise to escape a few times, turns out in Lord of the Rings to be the most important artifact in Middle Earth. About as Chekhov's Gun as it gets. I wouldn't say that leaving frequent references to the depth and age of the world, and then filling in the Legendaria in note form for the rest of your life, is much related to this concept. If a sword hanging on the…

fwiw, Tolkien wrote the trilogy only after fans requested an encore of The Hobbit. The ring's importance/malevolence was a retcon.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#168

Post by scubbo »

morganvachon wrote: post #70
mmaunder wrote: post #64

Earlier 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

Those 2, and "Plan 9 from Outer Space", are the 3 I generally hear "lauded" as the worst.

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#169

Post by MiddleEndian »

codetrotter wrote: post #60
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…

Speaking of that movie, I can recommend anyone who is familiar with The Room, but who hasn’t seen The Room, to watch the movie The Disaster Artist (2017) instead. I’ve only watched the latter and not The Room itself but watching the latter instead was a nice experience. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3521126/ The Disaster Artist is based on the book "The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie…

It's worth watching The Room first, IMO

Re: Chekhov's Gun

#170

Post by trees101 »

newacct583 wrote: post #106
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…

> In real life there is nobody enforcing Chekhov's gun. Of course not. Which is sort of the point. We already have real life. Stories are something different. Checkov's gun isn't a statement of some kind of platonic ideal of fiction construction, it's a convention . We like stories with "tight" framing because it's easier to watch and keeps our attention on the things that matter. And that's all it means. You can tel…

according to some theories, there is enforcement of Chekov's gun. Reality is combinitorial explosive, ie. there are vastly too many inputs for us to synthesize. So our perception and memory both function to "chunk" events and objects. These "chunks" are what you perceive and remember. So you don't just bump into random objects, but in fact you only see and remember things that are in some way relevant. In other words, everything is a Chekhov gun in some ways.

I think there are lots of different thinkers with this perspective, here is one concise formulation:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPByuAeFxwE

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