Hi everyone. This week I’m back with a different and interesting sort of topic: writing analysis of a writing device or trope. This is something I’ve thought about doing and this post will be the inauguration of this type of writing format. For those of you who don’t know, I tend to frequent and edit on the website TV Tropes, a website that catalogues tropes in fiction. It amount to a catalogue of all the writing devices you would expect in fiction, from basic concepts such as mentor archetypes and plot twists, more abstract ones like jumping the shark and the infamous black dude dies first concept to even ideas the users on the site have come up with such as the franchise original sin that headlines this post. The basic format lies in how the trope is listed and described, along with examples of it in a variety of media being listed, from film and television to video games and animation. These works also have their own pages on the wiki, which gives a list of tropes that work uses, along with how they use them. As for what exactly is this franchise original sin I am talking about? I will elaborate and discuss it!
For those interested in going to TV Tropes, here is the link, but be warned, only do so if you have a lot of time to spare. It’s a time killer! http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
Also, for another update, I have added five film reviews discreetly in the past week, so here are the pages if you don’t want to search the site for them. This batch is horror related as a result of me having watched a good amount of the Halloween films recently:
Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
Additionally, I have added two new pages on the pop-up folder to the right collecting all my film and video game reviews so you can find them in one place anytime. With all the updates out of the way, let’s get on to the trope analysis at hand!
The Trope: Franchise Original Sin
What is the idea of a franchise original sin? Well this is a subjective idea, much like jumping the shark, that revolves around a series or show running long enough that complaints have started to increase. With this idea, the concept is that criticisms of a current installment can be traced back to earlier entires in a series, albeit in a smaller and less annoying fashion. Basically, it’s when problems that were small or inconsequential in a series or tv show become major problems later in its lifetime. As this involves talking about shows or series, naturally examples from those will be drawn upon.
For instance, take Star Wars. It’s well known that the prequel trilogy is infamous for not living up to the original trilogy, with prominent complaints about the overuse of CGI and chroma key effects, wooden and clunky dialogue/acting and an abundance of juvenile comic relief. The problem is, for all the shots taken at how much Anakin hates sand, Jar Jar and the abundance of digital characters, all this stuff was in the original trilogy as well. The Ewoks and our favorite droid duo were there to fill out the juvenile comic relief for starters with slapstick humor, some of the lines are made fun of in a not so endearing fashion by people who have seen the movies (But I was going to Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!) and there were plenty of special effects shots in the trilogy that used chroma key, such as every time a spaceship flies.
Of course, the key emphasis here is that they were present, but either in small amounts or not as large of a problem. For the comic relief, sure the Ewoks, R2-D2 and C-3PO are prominent characters, but they weren’t main characters and their brand of humor is mostly relegated to themselves and slapstick humor is hardly the worst kind of humor. With the prequels, you have humor happening all over the place, from squeaky voiced battle droids populating the villains’ armies and slapstick happening in every scene with Jar Jar, who even steps into a pile of crap and gets farted on. When you have silly humor happening all the time to seemingly everyone, it deflates the tension a lot and comes across as annoying, when contrasted to attempts at restricting it to select moments. As for the effects, both films were using state of the art effects or inventing them, but in the original trilogy, it was largely organic to the story, even if it was showy. Since the spaceships had to fly, there was no other option but to blue screen them, which is less forgivable than when you start inserting CGI characters left and right like in the prequels, even when they could be practical such as with the clone trooper armor. In the case of the dialogue, sure there are real stinkers in the script, but a large amount of the dialogue doesn’t suffer as much ridicule as the prequel scripts do because for the most part, the story and characters around them were engaging or fun. It’s been well documented that several of the original trilogy actors hated the dialogue and frequently requested changes, most prominently Carrie Fisher, who even rewrote other people’s dialogue. Since Star Wars and George Lucas were not household names, people were willingly to speak up to Lucas whenever they felt something was crap. Naturally, someone without industry-changing clout would have to listen, as everyone involved in a collaborative process like filmmaking should do. By the time of the prequel trilogy, Star Wars and the man who created it were legends and understandably, no one would be willing to challenge him, which leads to a very rough product that hasn’t been properly proof-read and lets all the flaws slip in through the cracks. Not surprisingly, the prequel films, not having this luxury of collaboration in their development, suffered an emphasis on spectacle over any sort of relatable characters and story which itself reads like a rough draft because of a lack of constructive peer-editing.
So Why Does This Exist? What’s the Reasoning?
Well, series suffering from a build-up of negative flaws is something that happens when you have to run a series for a long time. Artists are human and can make mistakes, which means the possibility of them getting cocky and not wanting to proof-read their scripts is very real. Alternatively, they have their ups and downs like anyone, which can bleed over into their work. For every great film Steven Spielberg has made like Jaws or Schindler’s List, he has his stinkers such as The Lost World and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Plus, there’s also the reality that when you run a TV show, you eventually start losing steam or run out of ideas, which makes writers get desperate in their attempts to appeal to viewers. Thus, this can lead to situations like the infamous jumping the shark moment on Happy Days, which is a clear sign something has lost its touch. Naturally, this isn’t necessarily permanent, however, as a series or writer can make a turn around and recapture interest if they learn their lesson, as can be seen with the roaring success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films after the disastrous reception of Batman and Robin. In that case, the films were gradually becoming too outlandish and comical with more emphasis on the villains than Batman, so they evidently learned their lesson by producing films that were more grounded with just as much emphasis on the Bat as his Rogues. Ultimately, this trope is an unpredictable thing, as changing and wild as human nature itself. It also depends on whether you think something has been suffering a longtime problem yourself, so your perspective will vary.
What did you think of this new experiment? What kind of writing device should I spotlight next? What other series can you think of that had a gradual build-up of bad traits? Leave your comments and suggestions.
Sam Thornley's Domain 