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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

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Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#71

Post by smcl »

The film was released a little while back, why are there suddenly a bunch of exaggerated opinions like this being published right now? Ben Shapiro was also complaining about it on Twitter, and there have been a handful of others.

I personally enjoyed it, not quite as much as I enjoyed the original and I imagine there are people who didn't particularly like it. That's totally fine, everyone has different tastes, but I find it hard to believe these people truly hated the movie as much as they claim. It feels a bit performative.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#72

Post by morelisp »

boppo1 wrote: post #46
paulryanrogers wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

iirc it's extremely authoritarian. "Listen to your betters without question, for they know better than you. You do not need to understand their reasoning." We follow our heroes through an adventure and then our expectations are subverted when we learn their insubordinate adventure was bad and we're bad for rooting for them. Sorta flies in the face of everything people liked about star wars before it.

The Last Jedi is literally the only movie in the series to propose that a pseudo-religious order of wise men with a side obsession concerning blood lineages may not be the best way to structure a political movement.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#73

Post by illuminerdy »

belval wrote: post #44
automatoney wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author also "absolutely loathed Star Wars: The Last Jedi" which to me feels like an overreaction to a movie.

The Last Jedi was completely disjointed from the previous movie, introduced "fuel" as a plot device that hadn't been even mentioned in the 7 previous movies, gave us the Mary Poppins Princess Leia, had a weird and heavy handed side quest in a casino planet that ultimately had no impact on the plot, killed Snoke without giving the audience some form of closure as to who he was, had BB-8 pilot an AT-ST as an ex-machina…

[dead]

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#74

Post by ageitgey »

bambax wrote: post #48
ageitgey wrote: post #10

Glass Onion takes the well-worn detective genre and creates some genuinely surprising moments by "cheating" a little with what it shows the audience. This article says it should have played it straight. I think that would have made for a more standard, boring movie. But whatever, that's just opinion. But I think it is silly to call it bad writing. Bad implies that the writer didn't have command of their craft. It is…

> creates some genuinely surprising moments by "cheating" a little I haven't seen the movie yet, but I know this much: you can't cheat . If you do, and you keep some fundamental fact hidden until the last minute, or if you use some kind of magic, or if the murderer was a complete outsider, or if the victim died by accident and nobody's guilty, or, God forbid! if it turns out the victim isn't actually dead, or it was…

In the 1920s, Ronald Knox came up with a list of "Ten Commandments" of Detective Fiction listing what wasn't fair cheating [1], getting at this exact point. So codifying what is and isn't fair cheating in detective stories is nearly as old as the genre.

I'm 100% sure Rian Johnson was aware of these rules as the writer. I'd say Glass Onion technically violates 2 of them, but only for the first hour of the movie. Then you get let in on the cheating before the main climax of the movie.

[1] https://agathachristie.fandom.com/wiki/The_%E2%80%9CRules%E2...

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#75

Post by browningstreet »

morelisp wrote: post #69
browningstreet wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When JM showed up in the island, Miles should’ve had a reaction to her presence. The cheat is worsened when the movie doesn’t ever tell us how he reacted, even after the fact. IMO it qualifies as a giant plot hole.

> When JM showed up in the island, Miles should’ve had a reaction to her presence. The shot lingers on literally the same facial expression when she arrives on the island as when he first sees her again after he shoots her.

I should’ve been more clear. He may have reacted in his face, but it’s never addressed, even in a private moment. Given the potential realm of implications to her presence, he just… carried on. Same as he planned. And I’d argue her presence, plus the addition of an investigator… can’t reasonably be ignored, or dismissed. Which, in the story, it seems to have been.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#76

Post by googlryas »

smcl wrote: post #71

The film was released a little while back, why are there suddenly a bunch of exaggerated opinions like this being published right now? Ben Shapiro was also complaining about it on Twitter, and there have been a handful of others. I personally enjoyed it, not quite as much as I enjoyed the original and I imagine there are people who didn't particularly like it. That's totally fine, everyone has different tastes, but I…

It just came out on Netflix a few days ago.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#77

Post by matthewdgreen »

bambax wrote: post #48
ageitgey wrote: post #10

Glass Onion takes the well-worn detective genre and creates some genuinely surprising moments by "cheating" a little with what it shows the audience. This article says it should have played it straight. I think that would have made for a more standard, boring movie. But whatever, that's just opinion. But I think it is silly to call it bad writing. Bad implies that the writer didn't have command of their craft. It is…

> creates some genuinely surprising moments by "cheating" a little I haven't seen the movie yet, but I know this much: you can't cheat . If you do, and you keep some fundamental fact hidden until the last minute, or if you use some kind of magic, or if the murderer was a complete outsider, or if the victim died by accident and nobody's guilty, or, God forbid! if it turns out the victim isn't actually dead, or it was…

The movie doesn’t “cheat” as far as I can tell. What it does is withhold details from what the camera shows the audience. This could be upsetting if you felt there was some implied promise that the camera PoV was showing you the entire story, but there isn’t.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#78

Post by code_runner »

automatoney wrote: post #20
rendall wrote: post #14

> Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery might be one of the worst written movies I’ve ever seen. Then this person has not seen very many movies. > And now Glass Onion will haunt me for the rest of my days. I don't care too much for this superlative, unduly passionate style of pop culture critique even if it is a joke. I enjoy reading negative critique of movies I like, as long as it shows understanding that reasonable pe…

The author also "absolutely loathed Star Wars: The Last Jedi" which to me feels like an overreaction to a movie.

The last Jedi was pretty tough. Magic flying leia, the racing animal subplot that had no impact on the main plot whatsoever. The entire resistance hinging on one guy who is totally stopped so that his girlfriend can give him a kiss.

It was a weird fever dream of a movie even for a franchise that brought us a giant space slug gangster and a backwards talking green puppet

7-9 were better than 1-3, but last jedi was undoubtedly the worst of the new trilogy

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#79

Post by Hamuko »

etempleton wrote: post #49

I too was disappointed with "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." My first struggle with the movie is that it breaks the first rule of a good mystery story in that you need the audience to have enough information that they can plausibly solve the crime themselves. Glass Onion only provides information when it becomes relevant to move the plot along. You could have never known certain things, you could have never even…

>the first rule of a good mystery story in that you need the audience to have enough information that they can plausibly solve the crime themselves

I feel like I disliked Murder on the Orient Express more for that exact rule.

But I do feel like Glass Onion does in fact deliver to some degree in that aspect. In the first part of the movie when you're lead to believe that it's about the murder of Miles, they do establish motives in order to have the viewers thinking of who it could be. And after the mid-twist that the focus shifts to the true murder mystery, there is a profound lack of good hints because it's not any one of the fingered suspects. If you watch the movie and think to yourself "Who would benefit the most from this murder?", all fingers point at the true suspect.

My biggest problem with the Glass Onion is the peashooter gun.

Re: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Bad Writing

#80

Post by smcl »

googlryas wrote: post #76
smcl wrote: post #71

The film was released a little while back, why are there suddenly a bunch of exaggerated opinions like this being published right now? Ben Shapiro was also complaining about it on Twitter, and there have been a handful of others. I personally enjoyed it, not quite as much as I enjoyed the original and I imagine there are people who didn't particularly like it. That's totally fine, everyone has different tastes, but I…

It just came out on Netflix a few days ago.

Ahhhhh
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