"Men propound mathematical theorems in besieged cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on the scaffold, discuss a new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature." C. S. Lewis How's that for tonal inconsistency?
Et Cogito Ergo Sum a lack of death does not make it softer. The only soft episode this season was the last one, and it was softer due to the subject matter. The other two were very thought-provoking. You're the worst kind of fan, and it's no longer for you. Tune out.
yea star-wars scene critasisum can not be undercut by the setting of space wizards , though its an absurd scenario we are supposed to take it somewhat seriously, and putting a crap joke that doesn’t fit within the context, in an awkward annoying way is an example of poor use.
@@DiddyHack It depends on the film-maker. Kubrick and Lynch movies are full of humour. David Cronenberg as well. Often the humour is the type that is difficult for some people to discern or recognize. Speilberg doesn't have a cerebral sensibility. His humour comes out of the characters so it wuold be misplaced in the holocaust movie. Kubrick would've had humour in his if he ever made it. I'm not talking about humour that makes you feel good.
Actually Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri did the mixing tone in a great way. And they undercut an impactful moment with a dark joke... If they can do it, all movies can do it as well if they really do it great.
I dunno. I've been in some weird situations and while you might not laugh at them as they're happening, once you get over the shock factor I find plenty of people will make jokes about it. It's not that strange. People deal with stress in different ways. I laugh when I'm nervous. Which is actually a pretty common habit among women for that matter. (So, yeah, keep that in mind if someone is giggling a lot. They MAY be having a good time, but it's just as possible that they're extremely nervous and uncomfortable with what's going on.) Does that mean I'm not taking the situation seriously? Clearly not, since it is in fact a reflexive response to anxiety and stress. Making weird, awkward jokes at such times can be regarded as a variation on a theme there...
@Joe Dick yet people do that. war is full of gallows humor. do some reading about life in the trenches in ww1. you will find the soldiers published newspapers full of jokes and songs that to you an outsider would need an explanation but to someone in the trench would be a source of lols. theconversation.com/gallows-humour-from-the-trenches-of-world-war-i-17900 hell soldiers would shake a disembodied hand sticking out of the mud when they passed by it as a joke.
Tonal Inconsistency is a byproduct of value dissonance, when a story in someones opinion does something tone deaf or out of place, i.e. die hard can make jokes and they are funny but don't ruin the tone of the film, you laughing at fast and furious is due to your value dissonance to what is happening most of the film but the part you were crying for was perfect in tone and thus worked, to me tonal inconsistency is when you hear an off note in a song it sticks out more then the good notes and for some people ruins the song(read movie) to me the USS Callister has no humor but only horror, even if a line is funny it can still be terrifying, tonal inconsistency is real like when someone makes a death joke at your wife's funeral, the tone is wrong and you can't in joy it, yet at someone else's funeral they wanted those jokes to be read from beyond the grave and knowing the person makes them funny. it's not a myth but a part of the brain doing it's job.
Agreed. Tonal consistency is desirable for a reason. You make promises to your audience, and consistency is delivering on those promises. (if you promise horror, then the horror needs to be taken seriously even if there jokes.) Though you can break any rule of writing or filmmaking if you do so with style and if you 'pick your moment'. Thor Ragnarok, though hilarious goes 'one joke too far' as it consistently undercuts serious moments and consequences to drop in some deadpan Kiwi humor. As when Asgard is being destroyed and the rock biter drops a final joke as we see it burn. That was, for me, one joke too many and I haven't revisited the movie since.
@@MarkAndrewEdwards Thor Ragnarok actually makes me angry. It feels like a cop out. It feels as though the filmmakers were afraid of taking the characters and the materials seriously, either because they didn't believe the Ragnarok story deserve the dignity of a fully emotionally committed, dramatic treatment, or because they didn't think they had the ability to pull it off. I had the same problem with several scenes in Endgame. For example, the fat Thor jokes got old very fast.
@@eggsybenedict7014 I hear ya. The original script was apparently pretty serious. The director decided to go full comedy on it without rewriting the plot. So all the emotional weight of the original is constantly undercut by Kiwi ad-libs. Endgame was so bad I couldn't believe the same team worked on it as on Infinity War. Felt like completely different writing and directing teams.
I read the title wrong at first. I was all ready to argue the hell out of this video because USS Callister is easily my favourite Black Mirror episode also I want to re-watch Shaun of The Dead..... not sure why 🤔
Really? This episode made me stop watching the series. 2 it has nothing to do with the orignal series, in the end the good wins, if they are not absolutely miserable or at least ambiguous its not black mirror,
@@helderoliveira2994 ill admit i did enjoy season 3, it went more mainstream but it kept the essence of the show, however season 4 went full on mainstream and the show lost its essence
I don't agree with you though. Its all about perfect timing. You can't all of a sudden crack jokes at someones funeral whislts everyone is crying and the mood(tone) doesn't fit. But when you come into a situation where everyone is having a chat about the deceased and experiences they've had. You can read the room and tell a happy funny story then. Comedy is about timing.
thank you. I absolutely agree with him on the blending of tones. What it seems he is missing is that tones work well when jokes are timed well. And many times in ahem. TLJ for example the timing was completely off and deflated the seriousness of certain scenes. Whereas in Civil War, the moments "blend/ time the jokes very well. E.g there are many jokes in the Aircraft scene. There are non in the missile silo Cap vs Iron man scene. People (I) are not saying you can't mix it up. But rather you need to know when a joke will work and when it will fall on its face. Some directors seem to miss this. The best comedians have made an art of this Check Dave chapelle for example. He knows when to go off on a serious note then right after he says some messed up stuff that's controversial, he deflates the tension and reminds everyone he is joking.
@Stanley Fisher I'd say then the video was pointless from the start then. Timing is the key aspect. If everyone understood that, then nobody would by complaining about "tonal inconsistency," they'd be complaining about "bad timing"
I see whay you're saying, but I've been to a few funerals where a lot of people tell jokes and helps many people feel better because it helps them remember the good times, rather than just "they're gone and we'll never seen them again"
I think the scene in Jaws where they're all drinking and talking about scars is a really good example. The characters keep showing off scars and cracking jokes until they're laughing hysterically, then someone asks about an old tattoo. The old guy tells a story about being stranded in the middle of the ocean after a ship sank while the other survivors are being eaten by sharks. The scene shifts gears from cheesy jokes to awkward to traumatic horror, but it works so well because it happens organically; everyone acts like real people. To an extent, light-hearted moments humanize the characters more and that makes the drama more powerful. Moments of comedy that take you out of the world of the film harm the "suspension of disbelief" effect. When the characters act out a joke or a scene that feels like it was put there as if to tell the audience a joke it makes the film less believable and immersive. The older I get, the harder it is for me to take Star Wars seriously anymore for that reason.
Tonal inconsistency isn't about "mixing tones" it's about the author not seeming to have a good handle on what they're doing with tone, and so frequently making tonal mistakes. I've never heard anybody call Pulp Fiction tonally inconsistent and that movie is all over the map with tone. The reason Last Jedi gets called tonally inconsistent is because the tone frequently gets in the way of what the scene is attempting to accomplish.
People always complain about the tonal shifts in Black Mirror. Season 5 had a lot of hate because of this. Even the episodes I wasn't keen on I still sat there thinking "what the fuck am I watching?" Which is exactly what makes Black Mirror, Black Mirror!
I like most of your videos, but I think you're missing the concept of "tonal inconsistency". It's not just "different tones in the same scene", it's a tone in a scene which undercuts the intended tone of the scene.
@@Ghost-Raccoon No. That's not what he is saying. Because when having two disparate elements WORK in the same scene it is NOT tonally inconsistent. It is in fact, tonally consistent. He's missing the whole "consistency" part of tonal consistency, and seems to be summing it up as ANY time there's two different tones in the same scene. Which is an incorrect description of tonal inconsistency. It's why Joss Whedon scripts work. And many of Spielberg's films. Because they CAN handle suspense and humor in the same scene. They're tonally consistent with their characters and the characters motivations and reactions to a scene. To put it simpler, there's nothing tonally inconsistent about USS MaCallister. The characters behave and react in each given scene how you would expect those characters to behave and react. That would be consistent.
@@JamesMcCormickIV I think that was his point, that tonal inconsistency exists and is misused to undercut USS Callister. When he says "everyone hates laugh and fun," he immediately follows it up and says "but seriously." There's not much discussion of tonal inconsistency itself beyond explaining it to later point out how it's not at play in this episode of Black Mirror, so I think the video title is just misleading.
The best part is that if the bit at the start of the Episode is how Space fleet is supposed to play out, you have a convincing Commentary on fans that only acknowledge the top layer of their favorite shows. Daley only acknowledges what the captain of the Show USS Callister does on screen, not the reasons behind them or what he does off screen.
I think you hit nail on the head when you said its a tonal blending, that's the key, when its done well it can work brilliantly (hell the entirety of Doctor Who is built on being able to shift its tone moment to moment if need be and its lasted more than 50 years) and then its tonal blending, seamlessly moving from one to the other and back again. But when its done badly then it is tonal inconsistency as it jars between the elements instead of blending them together into a complete whole. If the humour/satire/ridiculous seems utterly separate from the drama it will create a dissonance. I think people probably complain about it often because its more often done badly than well.
The irony of this episode is that Robert is pretending to be a good moral man in the game but he’s not despite the constant reminders around him of what he’s supposed to be. The people in the real world seem to be assholes at first glance because they treat him poorly but in the game they never once turned on each other even when they’re being tortured, two of them sacrifice they're lives for the rest, they’re unintentionally showing him what he should be acting like,
I read an interview with Charlie Brooker last week where he said the darker an idea, the funnier he finds it. I have to agree, this is one of my favourite episodes and had me in tears of laughter, despite being quite horrific when you think about it. The same as White Christmas, when Greta's clone cookie is forced into becoming her real self's personal organiser, or Black Museum when Carrie gets stuck inside a toy monkey.
I liked how you when first mentioned 'Tonal Inconsistency' you immediately cut to Domhnall Gleeson who was in both 'Be Right Back' and 'The Last Jedi'. Suppose you can call that DOMHNALL INCONSISTENCY
Tonal inconsistency is not bad in and of itself. What matters is how well it works in the final edit. Directors should just be more careful as to when and where they use it.
The simple fact is, tonal inconsistency can and does ruin films and TV. The Hobbit is a perfect example - unlike LOTR, which had a general overarching tone but occasionally shifted in specific scenes when the shift was actually merited, The Hobbit was just all over the place. It didn't know whether to be a sprawling epic fantasy or a kids movie which bordered on the cartoonish, so it tried to be both, and failed miserably. It wasn't just inconsistent in itself, it was inconsistent within a wider franchise. The bizarre plate tossing scene at the beginning of the first film simply would not have happened in LOTR, yet it appeared to be taking place in the same universe, employing the same actors for recurring roles, and using the same sets. That creates a sense of incongruity, which completely takes the viewer out of the film. USS Callister, on the other hand, could justify its inconsistency precisely because it was about a psychotic nerd who had imprisoned the consciousnesses of work colleagues inside a world in which he was roleplaying. That immediately allows for realistic tonal shifts, because it goes from cheesy sci-fi acting to the sinister in a completely natural way.
In music, the same tension that creates harmony - i.e., of different notes within a scale - is that which creates discord. Dissonance, or tonal inconsistency, isn't a bad thing. But there is a structure to tonality, both in the aural-musical sense and in the mood-character sense, that sort of forces you to play within a set of rules. You can bend and sometimes even successfully break the rules, but to do so takes a particular skill and awareness of the convention to be able to play with it knowledgeably. Tonal inconsistency can be fine (or even good, when done right) or it can be terrible. Harmonious tonal tension is great; discordant tonal tension is not.
I've never seen this episode, but I generally hate the premise of it. I guess it fuels the reasoning to bully or hate socially awkward people without good reason. Also, the idea of blowing of steam playing video games is not a bad idea. However, I'm sure they purposely made the outcast seem evil. I could point out that video game characters do not act this way, or they realize they are doomed prisoners, even after trapping the gm.
Tonal inconsistency doesn't refer to how each moment in a work relate to each other, but how the works cues the audience to react to what is happening on screen. We need to know what to consider seriously and what not to. Star Trek and Galaxy Quest tell similarly structured stories with action and comedy sequences throughout each film, but by giving different emotional cues, or setting different tones, provide very different experiences. Tonal inconsistency arises when a filmmaker or showrunner gives conflicting emotional cues without providing a reason for the change either by shifting the perspective of the events or by giving the character (or characters) involved the experiences necessary for change.
My personal mantra has always been that tone (like theme and plot) should be driven by character. When humor OR terror feels obnoxious is when the characters feel like they ONLY exist to insert a certain mood to the piece- it’s why figures who are explicitly “The Comic Relief” like, say, Jar Jar Binks, come off as annoying- they’re not really a *character,* they’re a mechanism to deliver gags. Even in an outright comedic property, characters need more layers to them otherwise they really only work in VERY short bursts, like sketches or cameos. The same applies to other sides of the emotional spectrum. A story trying to JUST scare you or JUST make you sad get monotonous and boring because who could care about characters who are just vehicles for a sensation, rather than fully rounded individuals who feel different things on a moment to moment basis like we do in reality?
I had someone ruin this episode for me with one simple argument: If you're copying these people into your game through DNA samples, why do they have all the memories of those people?
Tonal consistency can be boiled down to a movie knowing what it is. When a movie undercuts itself it's showing that it doesn't know how to deftly use tone and balance the humor with drama. It's called bad writing. But tonally inconsistent writing is a thing. And a few of the complaints people have that you reference are valid with that definition.
I think tone has all to do with intention. If there is a reason for contrasting tones in a film or tv show, and the creators are able to do it well, it can be very successful. I think the issue, though, is that a lot of times, tonal inconsistency seems like an accident, or like we, as viewers, aren't sure what the creators are actually trying to do.
USS callister was ruined by the fact that he used her DNA to somehow make a digital copy of her with her memories intact. Wtf. That makes no fucking sense in a series otherwise using physically possible or grounded technologies that COULD happen.
What I find really appealing about uss callister is that the ‘villain’ per say feels so realistic, Robert Daly feels like so many men that I’ve met and that why it feels so sinister to me, I know with and have worked with this man and I think many others have too, whereas some black mirror characters feel irredeemably evil or cruel such as Victoria skillane, the main character in crocodile who’s name currently escapes me, or the god awful Disney channel style auntie manager in Rachel jack and Ashley too, daly feels like someone so real
This isn't really what someone would call "tonal inconsistency" though, I don't think any of your examples of it being good are actual examples of any inconsistency in the overall story. Individual scenes can have different tones between each other and even within themselves, but it's the combination of every scene that creates the tone of the entire story. The best way yo explain tonal inconsistency is Mr. Plinkett's explanation: imagine if there was a pie-in-the-face gag in the middle of Citizen Kane.
My rule on Tonal Inconsistency. When its good i dont notice it. it simply blends with the story. When its bad its the only thing i notice and it drives me crazy
Actually Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri did the mixing tone in a great way. And they undercut an impactful moment with a dark joke... If they can do it, all movies can do it as well if they really do it great.
I agree with this video so much. What a lot of people weirdly don't get is that well ... people commonly use humor to deal with stress in the real world. So comedy being inserted into "serious" scenarios isn't all that unnatural. Humor humanizes people. You need the contrast of lighthearted scenes to bring out the impact of more serious scenes without it becoming unrelentingly dark. Some people complain about the humor in the MCU. But Infinity War's apocalyptic snap scene drew a lot of its power from the lighter tone of previous scenes. You feel a full range of emotions watching that movie. You laugh, you cheer, you lean forward in suspense, you gasp at the deaths of fallen heroes. Peter's death is a shock to the system, capable of making you cry because of how much it previously made you laugh. If the movie had been 100% serious until then, it would have just been one more dark thing. Even the Christopher Nolan Batman movies had a few moments of levity. Man of Steel/Batman vs Superman were completely incapable of lifting the tone and it did not make them more enjoyable.
TheJadedJames You’re talking about a shifting tone, which almost any piece of media has and benefits from. Tonal inconsistency is when the shifting tone *doesn’t* *work*. For example: i overall loved how guardians of the galaxy 2 blended comedy and drama, and i think the drama worked better because of the comedy. *However* i didn’t think it worked when starlord turned into pacman in the final fight. The fight was very emotional up to that point and seeing him turn into pacman just came off as jarring and undercut all the tension that’d been built up to that point. That’s tonal inconsistency imo. Ofcourse what is and isn’t tonally inconsistent is highly subjective.
I loved this episode. It gave me incredible anxiety and lasting dread and was one of the most impactful episodes after the immortality program one on my mentality and life overall.
Tonal inconsistency can be a tone itself. It's called "ironic tone". Nothing wrong with that, it's just very hard to pull off, and doesn't work in many genres
I think what people are complaining about is poor storytelling rather than tonal inconsistency. Stuff like having a character tell a joke as in the original Predator doesn’t tend to get a complaint while having the Predator participate in a physical gag for no reason, as in the new one, does.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 yeah, but jokes in the original were a part of it's badass one-liner spewing tone, and jokes in the new one just ruin any fear of the Predator, and destroy any immersion
You literally admit in this video that tonal inconsistency is not a myth. Also you seem to be confusing the fact that stories move through a variety of tones and the actual issue at hand of a scene going for a specific feeling, but undermining their own desires. That's what people really mean when they call out "tonal inconsistency"; It's more about what the scene is trying to accomplish and what it does to undermine its _own_ goal. To use one of the movies you mentioned as an example, The Last Jedi is reliant upon constant tension for both its overall narrative to be interesting and for all of its biggest moments to hit. But through it's constant use of comedy in scenes that the script has clearly designed to be tense, it deflates that tension and renders the movie boring and emotionally inert. This was a huge problem with the MCU up until very recently where it finally figured out that important moments need to breath for them to have weight. Lo-and-behold the movies that have come to this realization are the best in the series. If you don't undermine your own goals, you can make something that's overall funny, but still has dramatic punch. Also, comparing the use of comedy in dramatic situations in a horror story (which this definitely is) to that of a primarily dramatic piece is apples to oranges. Horror interacts with comedy in a way wholly unique to that genre. In any other scenario, the fact that comedy inherently deflates tension is the entire point of its use. That's part of what makes comedies funny. However, the contrast between comedy and horror is so stark that it creates a sense of unease that permits the story to experiment with the psyche. To say that it worked here, so it must work elsewhere is simply wrong.
I think it depends on the context and intent of the story. As long as its got a purpose to it, comedy in a serious moment, or any clash of tone, can work :)
How do you extract a persons personality from DNA?
5 років тому
He owns a company that have products to literary scan people's brain. That's how he gets the personality. I believe the DNA is just for being more precise (in terms of appearance, aging, etc)
Life is full of tonal inconsistencies. It’s insane to think movies have to have the same tone throughout. You can do it wrong, of course, but the majority of movies need it to feel alive. Even on the saddest days my friends and family have been able to make me laugh by the end of the day. If you look at Marvel, I think they do a tremendous job at knowing when to pull back. Take Civil War: Tony might crack jokes all day long cause that’s who he is (“isn’t it so weird how you run into people at the airport?”). But the second he sees that clip of his parents being killed it’s 100% serious. There are so many other examples, but that’s a main one. In conclusion, have multiple tones isn’t a bad thing, it’s needed for most films, you just can’t mess it up
I don't think you really get the argument of tonal inconsistency that you're arguing against. You present the scenes of sarcasm and complacent 'joking' between the digital crew members as being a good example of fitting jokes into an otherwise bleak story, but the show never presents those things as being funny. The other crew members don't laugh, no one's having a good time, these things are presented as being horrible, and the characters are sarcastic about it because they have been broken by it, which fits the overall tone of the episode. To contrast that, a movie you mentioned got criticized for tonal inconsistency, Us, presents all it's events as being horrible. Right up until it presents them killing a family of villians as being funny. The characters aren't shaken by their acts, the mistakes made during their fights are presented as slapstick comedy, and an obnoxiously song played for comedic effect runs through the background of the scene. Immediately after this scene, the tone goes back to being one of depressing horror, without any acknowledgement of the goofy slapstick murders we just witnessed. Shaun of the Dead, another movie you've referenced as a good example of blending tones, you're entirely right about. But that movie is still tonaly consistent. Right from the first scene it's made clear that the movie will be a goofier take on zombies. And while there are emotional/tense scenes throughout the film, those scenes are built up to gradually, having been built off the back of the comedy earlier in the film. There is nothing tonally inconsistent about USS Callister. It's a blend of tones for sure, but what we should expect from the episode is presented in the first two scenes, and the episode never breaks from that.
Good video but Schindler's List does have jokes. Some of Spielberg's best. Off the top of my head there's the SS Captain pushing his date out the way so he can get closer to Oscar in the photo. The montage of Oscar choosing his trying secretary with the typing getting slower as the interviewee gets "hotter". The bit where he tells the train attendees that if they don't find Stern they'll all be in Russia by the end of the month: smash cut to them yelling for "Stern". And perhaps most amusingly the soldier in jail asking if after he kissed a Jewish girl: "Did your prick fall off?" Cue his raucous laughter at the utter absurdity of Nazi doctrine. And there's many more examples I've forgotten. However I find none of it jarring, in fact all these moments are extremely human and add to the realism.
I dunno... this seems to ignore that tonal inconsistency can really happen, even if it isn't a strictly serious movie like Schindler's List. TLJ very clearly has a problem with the jokes. They don't work as well as jokes in previous movies. Whether or not that's Tonal Inconsistency, there's clearly a problem there. (and for the record there's a problem with other movies as well, TLJ is just the main one I can think of.)
It seems like a definite reference to the TNG episode "Hollow Pursuits", and possibly the TOS episodes "Charlie X" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (which I keep mixing up). There seems to be an underlying spite towards classic Trek though, odd since the writer seems to be a Trekkie of some sort.
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I don't think USS Callister has a happy ending. The idea of some entirely digital AI killing a human and escaping the system they were confined to is not happy. It is terrifying. Imagine if the demons from doom could do the same thing, or any other evil characters from a video game. They don't even have to be evil; many video games let us live out more sadistic pleasures. If they were intelligent, the characters of GTA or TES would absolutely love to punish the player for doing what the game exists for them to do.
Easily the most disturbing stories of black mirror are with the cookies where you are a digital copy and have full consciousness like a human but in a computer in various awful scenarios...forever. Is terrifying dystopia of future tech.
Water tight must be English slang. We’d say air tight. Showed up in the Ashely Too episode. I’ve noticed a few other moments where American characters use English slang. Charlie Brooker should have a script supervisor suss those out for American characters.
There was a show I was discussing the other day, and i said it had tonal inconsistency. I got a similar response to this one. After hearing your definitions, "blend of tone" is a great way to describe it. But my problem dosn't lie with too much silliness or seriousness. It's an anniversary series, so each episode has different themes and structures, but there is a consistent plot. Is there a word for this?
@@hashbrownslinging-slasher872 but the episodes are connected. Calling it an anthology would be like calling Dr who or NCIS an anthology series. That's what makes it feel weird.
Kamen Rider Zi-O. The bigger point is that in part due to a special structure this year, the only things holding the series together as a whole are the characters returning each week and getting stronger. How and why they get stronger changes every 2 weeks.
Tonal "inconsistency" is never a problem in of itself. The issue arises if the tonal shift is dishonest or inauthentic to the way a character would respond. This is where The Last Jedi failed. It's not just that jokes were inserted into otherwise serious scenes. It's that those jokes coming from those characters in that context simply didn't make emotional or logical sense.
I don't understand why people like the og seasons more. "National Anthem" was an hour long joke, where you knew the punchline only minutes in. There was nothing clever, insightful, or even interesting about it.
Absolutely agree! If you want to see one of the best examples of tonal blending in TV history, look no further than Avatar - The Last Airbender. I think it got away with it, because it's been disguised as a children's show, which made people more willing to accept the humor. But really, it's drama is as dark and deep as any Black Mirror episode
I think what people really mean when they talk about TONAL inconsistency is really CHARACTER inconsistency. There's no reason for someone who's scared shitless in a horror to start making jokes if they're truly frightened, unless of course it's in their nature. If this is how they deal with things, go ahead. It's like what you talk about here. These CHARACTERS are consistent even though the TONE may not be because they deal with their endless torture through sarcasm and wit. That's why many movies fail with tonal inconsistency because their characters wouldn't say that in that situation, giving rise to character inconsistency which many instead interpret as being the fault of the blend of tones. Again, like you say, nobody in Schindler's list should be making jokes, and that's because none of the characters would.
This may sound obvious but to a degree this is what all the actors on ST:OS had to endure at the hands of Shatner, the Network and Roddenberry (though he was only indirectly doing it). Actors had their lines stolen by Shatner, and even Nimoy had to fight when WS complained about him being interviewed while getting his makeup that time. Wow. It gives the complaint by George Takei a lot more gravitas. Of course as said below, to a degree the 'Universe'/real life is filled with tonal inconsistency and due to this thing called luck, two people with similar backgrounds might experience widely different outcomes. Great video and analysis!
You have a point to make but classic it as a "myth" is going a bit far. It's not a myth, it definitely happens and is definitely a problem that absolutely deservedly is picked up on so much. This episode of Black Mirror manages to balance tones particularly well. A hell of a lot of other material out there... doesn't. At all. And it's glaring, and it's grating, and it really does ruin stuff. So yeah, "sometimes it can work" isn't equal to "opposite thing basically doesn't exist". However I like that stance on discouraging people from necessarily excluding trying things when writing. That I can wholeheartedly get behind - never think of something as off limits. There's always a way.
I think it works here because the episode is lampooning the old Star Trek. It doesn't work in The Last Jedi because that movie isn't supposed to be lampooning anything, but it sure appears that it's lampooning the franchise itself. Obviously, Ruin Johnson, Kennedy, Lucasfilm/Disney have the right to do that. That's cool. Very cool. It's all cool, fam. Whatever.
I don’t think it successfully lampoons old Trek though; it comes across as written by someone who never liked Trek and never got it either. If you want a good lampoon of classic Trek watch Galaxy Quest instead - it’s actually fun and not pessimistic or mean-spirited like this Black Mirror episode.
The issue is For example lets say a mocie just has a big revelation a big moment that changes the characters story hes messed up Then 5 min later he starts quipping and making jokes like its a birthday party Its done wrong when the change in tone undermines the previous scenes
I actually watched the video with a different take. I take it you presume that the computer programs representing the crew of the Callister were sentient beings. While they certainly would pass the Turing test, there's no real way to prove their sentience or whether they're just a very sophisticated, but ultimately unfeeling computer program. I look at it through the latter lense, in which case this isn't the story of oppressed beings overcoming a tyrant, but a somewhat cruel programmer being murdered by his very fantasy. In other words, it's the story of a rogue A.I. mutiny, but on a small scale.
I've no problem with movies using humour - even serious ones. The problem is when the humour ends up being forced and completely breaking the scene. Let's look at Empire Strikes Back vs The Last Jedi for example - all throughout Empire there were little throw away jokes, From Leia "I'd sooner kiss a Wookie and Han's comeback "Good, he could do with a good kiss!" to Artoo on Dagobah sticking up his periscope only to be told he's going in the wrong direction. The point is, that the humour feels right, it's not forced and it fits neatly into the scene. Yet in the last Jedi we have two moments that just so annoy me from the outset - Poe prank calling Hux and Hux being dragged across the ground comic fashion by Snoke. Why you might ask - because the humour just did not fit, it felt forced. This too is the same when you compare the two Ghostbuster movies, they were both comedy horror, but the humour in the first was understated, it never got in the way of the story, yet in the reboot the jokes felt forced - many of them going on for far too long. With USS Callister the humour felt just right, whilst lampooning shows like Star Trek and also online gaming to some extent while at the same time having the much darker real world story going on at the same time. The two meshed together neatly, with the comic touches like the conversation with Gillian just clicking. That is what makes all the difference.
They’re not real. That wasn’t his son. They exist in a specific cyber space and they killed someone. It make beg the question does an entity that shares your memories and your will actually alive? This bring up deep philo-no. The “real people” are still alive and were never tortured. Is it sick? Sure. But that doesn’t mean you should have feelings for your computer program
It's interesting you have that perception. Maybe if this had been the first Black Mirror episode I saw, I would have shared your assessment. But in previous eps like White Christmas, the AI entities had been well established already, showing how similar in experience their perceptions were to their human counterparts while trapped in inhuman circumstances, such that it probably helped me buy into the whole thing from the very start. It's different to talk about feelings for it. For your computer program as opposed to here where they introduce them together with Daley for the first few minutes as a crew, and only later do they start unveiling that they were all AI's except for Daley.
While I completely disagree with your opinions on the Netflix Black Mirror episodes...I LOVED you analysis of one of my favorite episodes of the series...bravo sir!
I don't understand your take on tonal inconsistency, tbh. First off, it's not just about comedy vs. drama (like, it's why you wouldn't put a lightsaber fight in a period piece biopic) But more importantly, I don't think anyone disputes that movies can hit a whole lot of tones. Look at The Dark Knight for example. Very, very funny movie. It's also unbelievably tense and well constructed But to use Civil War as an example, it's a very good movie overall, but the placement of the airport scene is iirc right at the start of the third act. It's an entertaining scene, but most of the movie is a very serious, grounded look at the consequences that years of hero work have taken on all of our heroes and also the rest of the world. There's humor, but it does a good job of reminding you what's at stake But then right at the beginning of the third act, right where many people would say the story should be at it's most bleak and hopeless, there's a silly twenty minute scene where all of the heroes fight each other, but not that seriously and without much consequence. They fuck up a whole airport without a second thought It sort of flies in the face of all of the themes the movie had set up about consequences Of course the ending of Civil War is fantastic, and the choice to have the airport scene where it is in the story is so ballsy that it almost kind of works, but I can see why some would think the whole movie is sort of... dulled down because of it So a movie can be both entertaining and tonally inconsistent, unfortunately.
@@madtitanthanos7898 The Dark Knight is hilarious, rewatch it. There's many, many scenes with overt visual gags and comedic moments. I meant the airport scene specifically in Civil War, not the rest of the movie
Huh? I didn’t notice before but this whole episode is just like the situation with Vault 112 in Fallout 3. Wonder if there was some inspiration drawn there?
Basically the vault occupants were plugged into a VR world controlled by the Overseer while their bodies were cryogenically preserved. He basically was like a god in side it and used the people as his play things in various simulations, endlessly tormenting them, killing them in twisted ways and wiping their memories in the end and starting a new scenario with them fresh again. When you get there they’ve been trapped inside for 200 years.
I found it to be an entertaining story but not quite working well as a Black Mirror episode because it seemed to focus too much on the artificial creations in the artificial world as being heroes/protagonists, rather than on the tragically flawed main human character Robert Daly. I see a bullied withdrawn man too insecure and unassertive to present himself satisfactorily in the real world - striving for an artificial world which gives him the illusion of reality and real people but also the control and power that he feels he lacks in the real world. The illusion of control, and an immature need for such control. His genius and tragic flaws lead him to create a world that takes on a life of its own which then rejects him. This has played out in literature many times. Pygmalion. My Fair Lady. Perhaps even Nabukov's Lolita (which is about a man obsessed with innocent young girls thinking he can own/control one). But instead of trying to mold a real person into something else it is with an artificial reality. Where it fails as Black Mirror for me is that it spends too little time presenting the implications of such an artificial reality for people who immerse in it and too much time presenting the world as a hero in its efforts to reject and destroy this rather pathetic damaged human being.
Ian Sneddon I cant agree more. I feel more for Robert Daily than I do these artificial people. This, for him, is escapism and this is a way for him to escape his own personal hell. What’s funny about this is that the real world is the exact inverse of what he has in his created world. Although his actions in the created world were very cruel, I couldn’t help but to think this is almost like GTA for him. You may hurt these characters but, they’re not real. Plus, he can bring them back or transform them, etc. This followed the traditional Black Mirror unhappy ending because he was never able to escape his own hell.
People don't get upset that jokes exist in serious movies. People get annoyed when the jokes are crap and ruin the serious moments. Poes prank call to Hux at the start of TLJ was really odd and stuck out.
he obviously knows it's Jesse, not Hank. Some of y'all aren't very fast on the uptake.
It's a multilayered intentionally wrong guess. Hank isn't even on Better Call Saul afaik.
"Men propound mathematical theorems in besieged cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on the scaffold, discuss a new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is our nature."
C. S. Lewis
How's that for tonal inconsistency?
the mcu is a good of example of tonal inconsistency, also the show sucks since netflix made it softer
Et Cogito Ergo Sum a lack of death does not make it softer. The only soft episode this season was the last one, and it was softer due to the subject matter. The other two were very thought-provoking.
You're the worst kind of fan, and it's no longer for you. Tune out.
@@CamJames I never said it had anything to do with death, you are the worst kind of racist ignorant fuck.
tonal shifts are all about execution. same as in music. hard to say how to do it right, but we all know when they do it wrong.
Yes! Absolutely!
Often, people that don’t joke around in their actual life have problems with people joking in movies. A joke isn’t just a relief of tension.
yea star-wars scene critasisum can not be undercut by the setting of space wizards , though its an absurd scenario we are supposed to take it somewhat seriously, and putting a crap joke that doesn’t fit within the context, in an awkward annoying way is an example of poor use.
Nutsilica: moving comix laffs That’s exactly what I said when Schindler’s list had like no jokes at all like tf???
@@DiddyHack It depends on the film-maker. Kubrick and Lynch movies are full of humour. David Cronenberg as well. Often the humour is the type that is difficult for some people to discern or recognize.
Speilberg doesn't have a cerebral sensibility. His humour comes out of the characters so it wuold be misplaced in the holocaust movie. Kubrick would've had humour in his if he ever made it. I'm not talking about humour that makes you feel good.
Real life is tonally inconsistent
That's just like uhhhh your opinion man
@@nmr7203 but sometimes these movies or shows try to mimic real life through tonal inconsistency.
@@eldritchemissary4718 Where's the money Lebowski?
Wow, that's pretty deep actually lol
Real life also doesn’t have plot, character arcs, symbolism, pacing.
Mixing tone can definitely work. But I think the issue of undercutting an impactful moment with a joke is a problem in some cases.
Described the MCU in a nutshell
Actually Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri did the mixing tone in a great way. And they undercut an impactful moment with a dark joke... If they can do it, all movies can do it as well if they really do it great.
I dunno. I've been in some weird situations and while you might not laugh at them as they're happening, once you get over the shock factor I find plenty of people will make jokes about it.
It's not that strange. People deal with stress in different ways.
I laugh when I'm nervous. Which is actually a pretty common habit among women for that matter. (So, yeah, keep that in mind if someone is giggling a lot. They MAY be having a good time, but it's just as possible that they're extremely nervous and uncomfortable with what's going on.)
Does that mean I'm not taking the situation seriously? Clearly not, since it is in fact a reflexive response to anxiety and stress.
Making weird, awkward jokes at such times can be regarded as a variation on a theme there...
@Joe Dick yet people do that. war is full of gallows humor. do some reading about life in the trenches in ww1. you will find the soldiers published newspapers full of jokes and songs that to you an outsider would need an explanation but to someone in the trench would be a source of lols. theconversation.com/gallows-humour-from-the-trenches-of-world-war-i-17900
hell soldiers would shake a disembodied hand sticking out of the mud when they passed by it as a joke.
Heh, poop.
“But you threw my son out of an airlock, so fuck you to death.” Is my favorite black mirror line
That episode is like a sarcastic version of “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”
Very obscure video game reference
@@halkeye20 It was a short story first!
Incidentally, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" has much less comedy and is infinitely superior. Funny how that works...
Tonal Inconsistency is a byproduct of value dissonance, when a story in someones opinion does something tone deaf or out of place, i.e. die hard can make jokes and they are funny but don't ruin the tone of the film, you laughing at fast and furious is due to your value dissonance to what is happening most of the film but the part you were crying for was perfect in tone and thus worked, to me tonal inconsistency is when you hear an off note in a song it sticks out more then the good notes and for some people ruins the song(read movie) to me the USS Callister has no humor but only horror, even if a line is funny it can still be terrifying, tonal inconsistency is real like when someone makes a death joke at your wife's funeral, the tone is wrong and you can't in joy it, yet at someone else's funeral they wanted those jokes to be read from beyond the grave and knowing the person makes them funny.
it's not a myth but a part of the brain doing it's job.
Agreed. Tonal consistency is desirable for a reason. You make promises to your audience, and consistency is delivering on those promises. (if you promise horror, then the horror needs to be taken seriously even if there jokes.) Though you can break any rule of writing or filmmaking if you do so with style and if you 'pick your moment'.
Thor Ragnarok, though hilarious goes 'one joke too far' as it consistently undercuts serious moments and consequences to drop in some deadpan Kiwi humor. As when Asgard is being destroyed and the rock biter drops a final joke as we see it burn. That was, for me, one joke too many and I haven't revisited the movie since.
@@MarkAndrewEdwards well said, to do anything right it takes effort, to be honest i got burned out before ragnarok.
@@MarkAndrewEdwards Thor Ragnarok actually makes me angry. It feels like a cop out. It feels as though the filmmakers were afraid of taking the characters and the materials seriously, either because they didn't believe the Ragnarok story deserve the dignity of a fully emotionally committed, dramatic treatment, or because they didn't think they had the ability to pull it off.
I had the same problem with several scenes in Endgame. For example, the fat Thor jokes got old very fast.
@@eggsybenedict7014 I hear ya. The original script was apparently pretty serious. The director decided to go full comedy on it without rewriting the plot. So all the emotional weight of the original is constantly undercut by Kiwi ad-libs. Endgame was so bad I couldn't believe the same team worked on it as on Infinity War. Felt like completely different writing and directing teams.
Real question: Why you drinking skim milk in your megalomaniac power fantasy?
Emily Griese why not?
mommy issues, suckled too much
*skimmed milk
Robot killer Oh damn, I just got destroyed with facts and logic.
Asking the important questions!
I read the title wrong at first. I was all ready to argue the hell out of this video because USS Callister is easily my favourite Black Mirror episode also I want to re-watch Shaun of The Dead..... not sure why 🤔
The reason you want to rewatch Shaun of the Dead is because it exists.
Really? This episode made me stop watching the series.
Really? This episode made me stop watching the series. 2 it has nothing to do with the orignal series, in the end the good wins, if they are not absolutely miserable or at least ambiguous its not black mirror,
@@SyriusJupiter San Junipero wants to have a talk with you
@@helderoliveira2994 ill admit i did enjoy season 3, it went more mainstream but it kept the essence of the show, however season 4 went full on mainstream and the show lost its essence
I don't agree with you though. Its all about perfect timing. You can't all of a sudden crack jokes at someones funeral whislts everyone is crying and the mood(tone) doesn't fit. But when you come into a situation where everyone is having a chat about the deceased and experiences they've had. You can read the room and tell a happy funny story then. Comedy is about timing.
thank you. I absolutely agree with him on the blending of tones. What it seems he is missing is that tones work well when jokes are timed well. And many times in ahem. TLJ for example the timing was completely off and deflated the seriousness of certain scenes. Whereas in Civil War, the moments "blend/ time the jokes very well. E.g there are many jokes in the Aircraft scene. There are non in the missile silo Cap vs Iron man scene. People (I) are not saying you can't mix it up. But rather you need to know when a joke will work and when it will fall on its face. Some directors seem to miss this. The best comedians have made an art of this Check Dave chapelle for example. He knows when to go off on a serious note then right after he says some messed up stuff that's controversial, he deflates the tension and reminds everyone he is joking.
@Stanley Fisher I'd say then the video was pointless from the start then. Timing is the key aspect. If everyone understood that, then nobody would by complaining about "tonal inconsistency," they'd be complaining about "bad timing"
Change the channel, Marge
I see whay you're saying, but I've been to a few funerals where a lot of people tell jokes and helps many people feel better because it helps them remember the good times, rather than just "they're gone and we'll never seen them again"
AstrosGamer reread the comment, I assure you it’s in there.
I think the scene in Jaws where they're all drinking and talking about scars is a really good example. The characters keep showing off scars and cracking jokes until they're laughing hysterically, then someone asks about an old tattoo. The old guy tells a story about being stranded in the middle of the ocean after a ship sank while the other survivors are being eaten by sharks. The scene shifts gears from cheesy jokes to awkward to traumatic horror, but it works so well because it happens organically; everyone acts like real people. To an extent, light-hearted moments humanize the characters more and that makes the drama more powerful.
Moments of comedy that take you out of the world of the film harm the "suspension of disbelief" effect. When the characters act out a joke or a scene that feels like it was put there as if to tell the audience a joke it makes the film less believable and immersive.
The older I get, the harder it is for me to take Star Wars seriously anymore for that reason.
Aaron Paul did the voice on the condition that it would not prevent him from being in a future Black Mirror episode.
There has been recurring actors/actress in the series
@@jasondavidson1987 no there haven't
Bella Blue the doctor from black museum appeared in 2, shania from this episode appeared in 2, and the singer from 15million merits appeared in 2...
Tonal inconsistency isn't about "mixing tones" it's about the author not seeming to have a good handle on what they're doing with tone, and so frequently making tonal mistakes. I've never heard anybody call Pulp Fiction tonally inconsistent and that movie is all over the map with tone. The reason Last Jedi gets called tonally inconsistent is because the tone frequently gets in the way of what the scene is attempting to accomplish.
People always complain about the tonal shifts in Black Mirror. Season 5 had a lot of hate because of this. Even the episodes I wasn't keen on I still sat there thinking "what the fuck am I watching?" Which is exactly what makes Black Mirror, Black Mirror!
I like most of your videos, but I think you're missing the concept of "tonal inconsistency". It's not just "different tones in the same scene", it's a tone in a scene which undercuts the intended tone of the scene.
That's what he is saying. But it is not about the inconsistency of the tone then, but just bad execuction of the blending of tones.
@@Ghost-Raccoon No. That's not what he is saying. Because when having two disparate elements WORK in the same scene it is NOT tonally inconsistent. It is in fact, tonally consistent.
He's missing the whole "consistency" part of tonal consistency, and seems to be summing it up as ANY time there's two different tones in the same scene. Which is an incorrect description of tonal inconsistency.
It's why Joss Whedon scripts work. And many of Spielberg's films. Because they CAN handle suspense and humor in the same scene. They're tonally consistent with their characters and the characters motivations and reactions to a scene.
To put it simpler, there's nothing tonally inconsistent about USS MaCallister. The characters behave and react in each given scene how you would expect those characters to behave and react. That would be consistent.
@@JamesMcCormickIV I think that was his point, that tonal inconsistency exists and is misused to undercut USS Callister. When he says "everyone hates laugh and fun," he immediately follows it up and says "but seriously." There's not much discussion of tonal inconsistency itself beyond explaining it to later point out how it's not at play in this episode of Black Mirror, so I think the video title is just misleading.
That "just fucking go" was so damn funny i kept replaying it over and over 😂
While I do believe not all media juggles tones effectively, my favourite films/books/etc. are those which are both very dark and very tongue-in-cheek.
So true. Those are some of the best books/films etc.
The best part is that if the bit at the start of the Episode is how Space fleet is supposed to play out, you have a convincing Commentary on fans that only acknowledge the top layer of their favorite shows. Daley only acknowledges what the captain of the Show USS Callister does on screen, not the reasons behind them or what he does off screen.
This was an excellent analysis!
I think you hit nail on the head when you said its a tonal blending, that's the key, when its done well it can work brilliantly (hell the entirety of Doctor Who is built on being able to shift its tone moment to moment if need be and its lasted more than 50 years) and then its tonal blending, seamlessly moving from one to the other and back again. But when its done badly then it is tonal inconsistency as it jars between the elements instead of blending them together into a complete whole. If the humour/satire/ridiculous seems utterly separate from the drama it will create a dissonance. I think people probably complain about it often because its more often done badly than well.
A dash of humour makes any story more appealing and any character more relatable to me.
The irony of this episode is that Robert is pretending to be a good moral man in the game but he’s not despite the constant reminders around him of what he’s supposed to be. The people in the real world seem to be assholes at first glance because they treat him poorly but in the game they never once turned on each other even when they’re being tortured, two of them sacrifice they're lives for the rest, they’re unintentionally showing him what he should be acting like,
Finally someone speaks about my favorite Black Mirror Episode thank you
I read an interview with Charlie Brooker last week where he said the darker an idea, the funnier he finds it. I have to agree, this is one of my favourite episodes and had me in tears of laughter, despite being quite horrific when you think about it. The same as White Christmas, when Greta's clone cookie is forced into becoming her real self's personal organiser, or Black Museum when Carrie gets stuck inside a toy monkey.
First time watched black mirror because I saw this video on UA-cam. Awesome! Thanks for making video!
I liked how you when first mentioned 'Tonal Inconsistency' you immediately cut to Domhnall Gleeson who was in both 'Be Right Back' and 'The Last Jedi'. Suppose you can call that DOMHNALL INCONSISTENCY
Tonal inconsistency is not bad in and of itself. What matters is how well it works in the final edit. Directors should just be more careful as to when and where they use it.
The simple fact is, tonal inconsistency can and does ruin films and TV. The Hobbit is a perfect example - unlike LOTR, which had a general overarching tone but occasionally shifted in specific scenes when the shift was actually merited, The Hobbit was just all over the place. It didn't know whether to be a sprawling epic fantasy or a kids movie which bordered on the cartoonish, so it tried to be both, and failed miserably. It wasn't just inconsistent in itself, it was inconsistent within a wider franchise. The bizarre plate tossing scene at the beginning of the first film simply would not have happened in LOTR, yet it appeared to be taking place in the same universe, employing the same actors for recurring roles, and using the same sets. That creates a sense of incongruity, which completely takes the viewer out of the film.
USS Callister, on the other hand, could justify its inconsistency precisely because it was about a psychotic nerd who had imprisoned the consciousnesses of work colleagues inside a world in which he was roleplaying. That immediately allows for realistic tonal shifts, because it goes from cheesy sci-fi acting to the sinister in a completely natural way.
In music, the same tension that creates harmony - i.e., of different notes within a scale - is that which creates discord. Dissonance, or tonal inconsistency, isn't a bad thing. But there is a structure to tonality, both in the aural-musical sense and in the mood-character sense, that sort of forces you to play within a set of rules. You can bend and sometimes even successfully break the rules, but to do so takes a particular skill and awareness of the convention to be able to play with it knowledgeably.
Tonal inconsistency can be fine (or even good, when done right) or it can be terrible. Harmonious tonal tension is great; discordant tonal tension is not.
The recent first season of Doom Patrol has been a MASTERPIECE of mixed tones.
I've never seen this episode, but I generally hate the premise of it. I guess it fuels the reasoning to bully or hate socially awkward people without good reason. Also, the idea of blowing of steam playing video games is not a bad idea. However, I'm sure they purposely made the outcast seem evil. I could point out that video game characters do not act this way, or they realize they are doomed prisoners, even after trapping the gm.
Tonal inconsistency doesn't refer to how each moment in a work relate to each other, but how the works cues the audience to react to what is happening on screen. We need to know what to consider seriously and what not to.
Star Trek and Galaxy Quest tell similarly structured stories with action and comedy sequences throughout each film, but by giving different emotional cues, or setting different tones, provide very different experiences.
Tonal inconsistency arises when a filmmaker or showrunner gives conflicting emotional cues without providing a reason for the change either by shifting the perspective of the events or by giving the character (or characters) involved the experiences necessary for change.
Tonal inconsistency can be a big problem in a story, but also a great asset
More on Black Mirror please :) Love your videos
This was my second favorite episode due to it having a good ending lol
Wheatly The Moron Core n the first?
I thought the ending was the worst part of the episode lol
My personal mantra has always been that tone (like theme and plot) should be driven by character. When humor OR terror feels obnoxious is when the characters feel like they ONLY exist to insert a certain mood to the piece- it’s why figures who are explicitly “The Comic Relief” like, say, Jar Jar Binks, come off as annoying- they’re not really a *character,* they’re a mechanism to deliver gags.
Even in an outright comedic property, characters need more layers to them otherwise they really only work in VERY short bursts, like sketches or cameos. The same applies to other sides of the emotional spectrum. A story trying to JUST scare you or JUST make you sad get monotonous and boring because who could care about characters who are just vehicles for a sensation, rather than fully rounded individuals who feel different things on a moment to moment basis like we do in reality?
I had someone ruin this episode for me with one simple argument: If you're copying these people into your game through DNA samples, why do they have all the memories of those people?
Thank you for making a video about this episode. It's like a very good movie in it's own right.
Tonal consistency can be boiled down to a movie knowing what it is. When a movie undercuts itself it's showing that it doesn't know how to deftly use tone and balance the humor with drama. It's called bad writing. But tonally inconsistent writing is a thing. And a few of the complaints people have that you reference are valid with that definition.
I think tone has all to do with intention. If there is a reason for contrasting tones in a film or tv show, and the creators are able to do it well, it can be very successful. I think the issue, though, is that a lot of times, tonal inconsistency seems like an accident, or like we, as viewers, aren't sure what the creators are actually trying to do.
USS callister was ruined by the fact that he used her DNA to somehow make a digital copy of her with her memories intact. Wtf. That makes no fucking sense in a series otherwise using physically possible or grounded technologies that COULD happen.
What I find really appealing about uss callister is that the ‘villain’ per say feels so realistic, Robert Daly feels like so many men that I’ve met and that why it feels so sinister to me, I know with and have worked with this man and I think many others have too, whereas some black mirror characters feel irredeemably evil or cruel such as Victoria skillane, the main character in crocodile who’s name currently escapes me, or the god awful Disney channel style auntie manager in Rachel jack and Ashley too, daly feels like someone so real
The irony is that making jokes in tense/scary situations is something people do in real life, as a coping mechanism, to maintain camaraderie, etc.
Fantastic essay man!
This isn't really what someone would call "tonal inconsistency" though, I don't think any of your examples of it being good are actual examples of any inconsistency in the overall story. Individual scenes can have different tones between each other and even within themselves, but it's the combination of every scene that creates the tone of the entire story. The best way yo explain tonal inconsistency is Mr. Plinkett's explanation: imagine if there was a pie-in-the-face gag in the middle of Citizen Kane.
My rule on Tonal Inconsistency.
When its good i dont notice it. it simply blends with the story.
When its bad its the only thing i notice and it drives me crazy
Actually Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri did the mixing tone in a great way. And they undercut an impactful moment with a dark joke... If they can do it, all movies can do it as well if they really do it great.
I agree with this video so much. What a lot of people weirdly don't get is that well ... people commonly use humor to deal with stress in the real world. So comedy being inserted into "serious" scenarios isn't all that unnatural. Humor humanizes people. You need the contrast of lighthearted scenes to bring out the impact of more serious scenes without it becoming unrelentingly dark. Some people complain about the humor in the MCU. But Infinity War's apocalyptic snap scene drew a lot of its power from the lighter tone of previous scenes. You feel a full range of emotions watching that movie. You laugh, you cheer, you lean forward in suspense, you gasp at the deaths of fallen heroes. Peter's death is a shock to the system, capable of making you cry because of how much it previously made you laugh. If the movie had been 100% serious until then, it would have just been one more dark thing. Even the Christopher Nolan Batman movies had a few moments of levity. Man of Steel/Batman vs Superman were completely incapable of lifting the tone and it did not make them more enjoyable.
TheJadedJames You’re talking about a shifting tone, which almost any piece of media has and benefits from. Tonal inconsistency is when the shifting tone *doesn’t* *work*. For example: i overall loved how guardians of the galaxy 2 blended comedy and drama, and i think the drama worked better because of the comedy. *However* i didn’t think it worked when starlord turned into pacman in the final fight. The fight was very emotional up to that point and seeing him turn into pacman just came off as jarring and undercut all the tension that’d been built up to that point. That’s tonal inconsistency imo. Ofcourse what is and isn’t tonally inconsistent is highly subjective.
Pierre Jahns That kind of thing is totally in line with the kind of person Star Lord is though. It would be weird if Batman did it
The thing that stuck with me was the psychology behind it. How the bullied, became the bully.
This episode just says "Bullying in real life is okay but in videogames is not okay."
I loved this episode. It gave me incredible anxiety and lasting dread and was one of the most impactful episodes after the immortality program one on my mentality and life overall.
TLJ wasn't ruined by tonal inconsistencies. It was pretty much everything else that did that.
Shifting tones obviously doesn’t mean tonal inconsistency, but tonal inconsistency obviously still is a thing.
Tonal inconsistency can be a tone itself. It's called "ironic tone". Nothing wrong with that, it's just very hard to pull off, and doesn't work in many genres
I think what people are complaining about is poor storytelling rather than tonal inconsistency. Stuff like having a character tell a joke as in the original Predator doesn’t tend to get a complaint while having the Predator participate in a physical gag for no reason, as in the new one, does.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 yeah, but jokes in the original were a part of it's badass one-liner spewing tone, and jokes in the new one just ruin any fear of the Predator, and destroy any immersion
You literally admit in this video that tonal inconsistency is not a myth. Also you seem to be confusing the fact that stories move through a variety of tones and the actual issue at hand of a scene going for a specific feeling, but undermining their own desires.
That's what people really mean when they call out "tonal inconsistency"; It's more about what the scene is trying to accomplish and what it does to undermine its _own_ goal. To use one of the movies you mentioned as an example, The Last Jedi is reliant upon constant tension for both its overall narrative to be interesting and for all of its biggest moments to hit. But through it's constant use of comedy in scenes that the script has clearly designed to be tense, it deflates that tension and renders the movie boring and emotionally inert. This was a huge problem with the MCU up until very recently where it finally figured out that important moments need to breath for them to have weight. Lo-and-behold the movies that have come to this realization are the best in the series. If you don't undermine your own goals, you can make something that's overall funny, but still has dramatic punch.
Also, comparing the use of comedy in dramatic situations in a horror story (which this definitely is) to that of a primarily dramatic piece is apples to oranges. Horror interacts with comedy in a way wholly unique to that genre. In any other scenario, the fact that comedy inherently deflates tension is the entire point of its use. That's part of what makes comedies funny. However, the contrast between comedy and horror is so stark that it creates a sense of unease that permits the story to experiment with the psyche. To say that it worked here, so it must work elsewhere is simply wrong.
Great stuff, would love more episodes on Black Mirror 😃
Season 5 is coming out!
I think it depends on the context and intent of the story. As long as its got a purpose to it, comedy in a serious moment, or any clash of tone, can work :)
How do you extract a persons personality from DNA?
He owns a company that have products to literary scan people's brain. That's how he gets the personality. I believe the DNA is just for being more precise (in terms of appearance, aging, etc)
Life is full of tonal inconsistencies. It’s insane to think movies have to have the same tone throughout. You can do it wrong, of course, but the majority of movies need it to feel alive. Even on the saddest days my friends and family have been able to make me laugh by the end of the day. If you look at Marvel, I think they do a tremendous job at knowing when to pull back. Take Civil War: Tony might crack jokes all day long cause that’s who he is (“isn’t it so weird how you run into people at the airport?”). But the second he sees that clip of his parents being killed it’s 100% serious. There are so many other examples, but that’s a main one. In conclusion, have multiple tones isn’t a bad thing, it’s needed for most films, you just can’t mess it up
I don't think you really get the argument of tonal inconsistency that you're arguing against. You present the scenes of sarcasm and complacent 'joking' between the digital crew members as being a good example of fitting jokes into an otherwise bleak story, but the show never presents those things as being funny. The other crew members don't laugh, no one's having a good time, these things are presented as being horrible, and the characters are sarcastic about it because they have been broken by it, which fits the overall tone of the episode.
To contrast that, a movie you mentioned got criticized for tonal inconsistency, Us, presents all it's events as being horrible. Right up until it presents them killing a family of villians as being funny. The characters aren't shaken by their acts, the mistakes made during their fights are presented as slapstick comedy, and an obnoxiously song played for comedic effect runs through the background of the scene. Immediately after this scene, the tone goes back to being one of depressing horror, without any acknowledgement of the goofy slapstick murders we just witnessed.
Shaun of the Dead, another movie you've referenced as a good example of blending tones, you're entirely right about. But that movie is still tonaly consistent. Right from the first scene it's made clear that the movie will be a goofier take on zombies. And while there are emotional/tense scenes throughout the film, those scenes are built up to gradually, having been built off the back of the comedy earlier in the film.
There is nothing tonally inconsistent about USS Callister. It's a blend of tones for sure, but what we should expect from the episode is presented in the first two scenes, and the episode never breaks from that.
Good video but Schindler's List does have jokes. Some of Spielberg's best. Off the top of my head there's the SS Captain pushing his date out the way so he can get closer to Oscar in the photo. The montage of Oscar choosing his trying secretary with the typing getting slower as the interviewee gets "hotter". The bit where he tells the train attendees that if they don't find Stern they'll all be in Russia by the end of the month: smash cut to them yelling for "Stern". And perhaps most amusingly the soldier in jail asking if after he kissed a Jewish girl: "Did your prick fall off?" Cue his raucous laughter at the utter absurdity of Nazi doctrine. And there's many more examples I've forgotten. However I find none of it jarring, in fact all these moments are extremely human and add to the realism.
I dunno... this seems to ignore that tonal inconsistency can really happen, even if it isn't a strictly serious movie like Schindler's List. TLJ very clearly has a problem with the jokes. They don't work as well as jokes in previous movies. Whether or not that's Tonal Inconsistency, there's clearly a problem there.
(and for the record there's a problem with other movies as well, TLJ is just the main one I can think of.)
Second episode of fifth season is the best in my opinion. Anddddd, it has Moriarty in it :D
It seems like a definite reference to the TNG episode "Hollow Pursuits", and possibly the TOS episodes "Charlie X" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (which I keep mixing up). There seems to be an underlying spite towards classic Trek though, odd since the writer seems to be a Trekkie of some sort.
THANK YOU! Folk who think S1 and S2 of BM are the golden age and not S3 onwards. This is such a gem of a channel cause you guys will also defend Moff's era.
Jesse Plemons was perfect for this role.
I don't think USS Callister has a happy ending. The idea of some entirely digital AI killing a human and escaping the system they were confined to is not happy. It is terrifying. Imagine if the demons from doom could do the same thing, or any other evil characters from a video game. They don't even have to be evil; many video games let us live out more sadistic pleasures. If they were intelligent, the characters of GTA or TES would absolutely love to punish the player for doing what the game exists for them to do.
Easily the most disturbing stories of black mirror are with the cookies where you are a digital copy and have full consciousness like a human but in a computer in various awful scenarios...forever. Is terrifying dystopia of future tech.
Water tight must be English slang. We’d say air tight. Showed up in the Ashely Too episode. I’ve noticed a few other moments where American characters use English slang. Charlie Brooker should have a script supervisor suss those out for American characters.
This was a great episode. In my top 5. My favorite is fifteen million merits though. All that build to totally flip it on its ear like that.
"Is that hank from better call saul?" I am very disappointed in you sir.
I just took it as a troll
obviously a joke
Wait. Was I supposed to root for the crew members?
There was a show I was discussing the other day, and i said it had tonal inconsistency. I got a similar response to this one. After hearing your definitions, "blend of tone" is a great way to describe it. But my problem dosn't lie with too much silliness or seriousness. It's an anniversary series, so each episode has different themes and structures, but there is a consistent plot. Is there a word for this?
randomdogdog Anthology series?
@@hashbrownslinging-slasher872 but the episodes are connected. Calling it an anthology would be like calling Dr who or NCIS an anthology series. That's what makes it feel weird.
@@randomdogdog Back in the day they would probably call that a serial. What's the show called?
Kamen Rider Zi-O. The bigger point is that in part due to a special structure this year, the only things holding the series together as a whole are the characters returning each week and getting stronger. How and why they get stronger changes every 2 weeks.
randomdogdog That would be an arc. Most tv shows have those these days.
Spioler warning
I think the ending should have been more bittersweet, letting Deli live and only saving our main cast :/
yeah tbh him going veggie mode felt a lil tacked on, like yeah he's a bad guy but it just felt a bit cheap
"Sometimes sympathetic" i exploited the hell out of that in my fanfic XD
Tonal "inconsistency" is never a problem in of itself. The issue arises if the tonal shift is dishonest or inauthentic to the way a character would respond. This is where The Last Jedi failed. It's not just that jokes were inserted into otherwise serious scenes. It's that those jokes coming from those characters in that context simply didn't make emotional or logical sense.
I don't understand why people like the og seasons more. "National Anthem" was an hour long joke, where you knew the punchline only minutes in. There was nothing clever, insightful, or even interesting about it.
All the other episodes are miles better tbh, with a few exceptions
It was a horrible episode to launch a series with and has killed any interest in ever watching another episode in more than one person.
Absolutely agree! If you want to see one of the best examples of tonal blending in TV history, look no further than Avatar - The Last Airbender. I think it got away with it, because it's been disguised as a children's show, which made people more willing to accept the humor. But really, it's drama is as dark and deep as any Black Mirror episode
How is it’s drama as dark and deep as black mirror? Genuine question.
I think what people really mean when they talk about TONAL inconsistency is really CHARACTER inconsistency. There's no reason for someone who's scared shitless in a horror to start making jokes if they're truly frightened, unless of course it's in their nature. If this is how they deal with things, go ahead. It's like what you talk about here. These CHARACTERS are consistent even though the TONE may not be because they deal with their endless torture through sarcasm and wit.
That's why many movies fail with tonal inconsistency because their characters wouldn't say that in that situation, giving rise to character inconsistency which many instead interpret as being the fault of the blend of tones. Again, like you say, nobody in Schindler's list should be making jokes, and that's because none of the characters would.
This may sound obvious but to a degree this is what all the actors on ST:OS had to endure at the hands of Shatner, the Network and Roddenberry (though he was only indirectly doing it). Actors had their lines stolen by Shatner, and even Nimoy had to fight when WS complained about him being interviewed while getting his makeup that time. Wow. It gives the complaint by George Takei a lot more gravitas. Of course as said below, to a degree the 'Universe'/real life is filled with tonal inconsistency and due to this thing called luck, two people with similar backgrounds might experience widely different outcomes. Great video and analysis!
USS callister is truly a gem!! It’s so unique and I’m so glad it exists
You have a point to make but classic it as a "myth" is going a bit far. It's not a myth, it definitely happens and is definitely a problem that absolutely deservedly is picked up on so much. This episode of Black Mirror manages to balance tones particularly well. A hell of a lot of other material out there... doesn't. At all. And it's glaring, and it's grating, and it really does ruin stuff.
So yeah, "sometimes it can work" isn't equal to "opposite thing basically doesn't exist". However I like that stance on discouraging people from necessarily excluding trying things when writing. That I can wholeheartedly get behind - never think of something as off limits. There's always a way.
I think it works here because the episode is lampooning the old Star Trek. It doesn't work in The Last Jedi because that movie isn't supposed to be lampooning anything, but it sure appears that it's lampooning the franchise itself. Obviously, Ruin Johnson, Kennedy, Lucasfilm/Disney have the right to do that. That's cool. Very cool. It's all cool, fam. Whatever.
I don’t think it successfully lampoons old Trek though; it comes across as written by someone who never liked Trek and never got it either. If you want a good lampoon of classic Trek watch Galaxy Quest instead - it’s actually fun and not pessimistic or mean-spirited like this Black Mirror episode.
I feel like Jesse Plemons is typecasted as weirdos for the rest of his career.
The issue is
For example lets say a mocie just has a big revelation a big moment that changes the characters story hes messed up
Then 5 min later he starts quipping and making jokes like its a birthday party
Its done wrong when the change in tone undermines the previous scenes
I actually watched the video with a different take. I take it you presume that the computer programs representing the crew of the Callister were sentient beings. While they certainly would pass the Turing test, there's no real way to prove their sentience or whether they're just a very sophisticated, but ultimately unfeeling computer program. I look at it through the latter lense, in which case this isn't the story of oppressed beings overcoming a tyrant, but a somewhat cruel programmer being murdered by his very fantasy. In other words, it's the story of a rogue A.I. mutiny, but on a small scale.
I've no problem with movies using humour - even serious ones. The problem is when the humour ends up being forced and completely breaking the scene. Let's look at Empire Strikes Back vs The Last Jedi for example - all throughout Empire there were little throw away jokes, From Leia "I'd sooner kiss a Wookie and Han's comeback "Good, he could do with a good kiss!" to Artoo on Dagobah sticking up his periscope only to be told he's going in the wrong direction. The point is, that the humour feels right, it's not forced and it fits neatly into the scene. Yet in the last Jedi we have two moments that just so annoy me from the outset - Poe prank calling Hux and Hux being dragged across the ground comic fashion by Snoke. Why you might ask - because the humour just did not fit, it felt forced.
This too is the same when you compare the two Ghostbuster movies, they were both comedy horror, but the humour in the first was understated, it never got in the way of the story, yet in the reboot the jokes felt forced - many of them going on for far too long.
With USS Callister the humour felt just right, whilst lampooning shows like Star Trek and also online gaming to some extent while at the same time having the much darker real world story going on at the same time. The two meshed together neatly, with the comic touches like the conversation with Gillian just clicking. That is what makes all the difference.
They’re not real. That wasn’t his son. They exist in a specific cyber space and they killed someone. It make beg the question does an entity that shares your memories and your will actually alive? This bring up deep philo-no. The “real people” are still alive and were never tortured. Is it sick? Sure. But that doesn’t mean you should have feelings for your computer program
It's interesting you have that perception. Maybe if this had been the first Black Mirror episode I saw, I would have shared your assessment. But in previous eps like White Christmas, the AI entities had been well established already, showing how similar in experience their perceptions were to their human counterparts while trapped in inhuman circumstances, such that it probably helped me buy into the whole thing from the very start.
It's different to talk about feelings for it. For your computer program as opposed to here where they introduce them together with Daley for the first few minutes as a crew, and only later do they start unveiling that they were all AI's except for Daley.
Great video and I totally agree with all the points. Apart from “Us”. I still think that film is a mess.
While I completely disagree with your opinions on the Netflix Black Mirror episodes...I LOVED you analysis of one of my favorite episodes of the series...bravo sir!
I only ever watched the first couple of episodes of the first series of Black Mirror. I decided that it was brilliant, but just too depressing.
I don't understand your take on tonal inconsistency, tbh. First off, it's not just about comedy vs. drama (like, it's why you wouldn't put a lightsaber fight in a period piece biopic)
But more importantly, I don't think anyone disputes that movies can hit a whole lot of tones. Look at The Dark Knight for example. Very, very funny movie. It's also unbelievably tense and well constructed
But to use Civil War as an example, it's a very good movie overall, but the placement of the airport scene is iirc right at the start of the third act.
It's an entertaining scene, but most of the movie is a very serious, grounded look at the consequences that years of hero work have taken on all of our heroes and also the rest of the world. There's humor, but it does a good job of reminding you what's at stake
But then right at the beginning of the third act, right where many people would say the story should be at it's most bleak and hopeless, there's a silly twenty minute scene where all of the heroes fight each other, but not that seriously and without much consequence. They fuck up a whole airport without a second thought
It sort of flies in the face of all of the themes the movie had set up about consequences
Of course the ending of Civil War is fantastic, and the choice to have the airport scene where it is in the story is so ballsy that it almost kind of works, but I can see why some would think the whole movie is sort of... dulled down because of it
So a movie can be both entertaining and tonally inconsistent, unfortunately.
Yeah he is totally off on his take.
Civil War is a movie I’ve seen get criticised for the kind of thing I was talking about so I find this funny lol
@@madtitanthanos7898 The Dark Knight is hilarious, rewatch it. There's many, many scenes with overt visual gags and comedic moments.
I meant the airport scene specifically in Civil War, not the rest of the movie
@@FullFatVideos I chose it because you mentioned it big guy ;)
For real though, your videos on Cap and Starlord are some of my favorites about the MCU
I love how much you used Shaun of the Dead
Huh? I didn’t notice before but this whole episode is just like the situation with Vault 112 in Fallout 3. Wonder if there was some inspiration drawn there?
What's the situation with 112 ?
Basically the vault occupants were plugged into a VR world controlled by the Overseer while their bodies were cryogenically preserved. He basically was like a god in side it and used the people as his play things in various simulations, endlessly tormenting them, killing them in twisted ways and wiping their memories in the end and starting a new scenario with them fresh again. When you get there they’ve been trapped inside for 200 years.
Just because half-assed critics on UA-cam don't know what tonal inconsistency is doesn't make it a myth.
Dark humour in horrible situations? Every doctor & nurse watching this literally just raised their hands! can I get at amen 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 so accurate!!
i think theres a major difference between tonal balance and tonal inconsistency
I predict Hank will be on Better Call Saul this next season.
I found it to be an entertaining story but not quite working well as a Black Mirror episode because it seemed to focus too much on the artificial creations in the artificial world as being heroes/protagonists, rather than on the tragically flawed main human character Robert Daly. I see a bullied withdrawn man too insecure and unassertive to present himself satisfactorily in the real world - striving for an artificial world which gives him the illusion of reality and real people but also the control and power that he feels he lacks in the real world. The illusion of control, and an immature need for such control. His genius and tragic flaws lead him to create a world that takes on a life of its own which then rejects him. This has played out in literature many times. Pygmalion. My Fair Lady. Perhaps even Nabukov's Lolita (which is about a man obsessed with innocent young girls thinking he can own/control one). But instead of trying to mold a real person into something else it is with an artificial reality. Where it fails as Black Mirror for me is that it spends too little time presenting the implications of such an artificial reality for people who immerse in it and too much time presenting the world as a hero in its efforts to reject and destroy this rather pathetic damaged human being.
Ian Sneddon I cant agree more. I feel more for Robert Daily than I do these artificial people. This, for him, is escapism and this is a way for him to escape his own personal hell. What’s funny about this is that the real world is the exact inverse of what he has in his created world. Although his actions in the created world were very cruel, I couldn’t help but to think this is almost like GTA for him. You may hurt these characters but, they’re not real. Plus, he can bring them back or transform them, etc.
This followed the traditional Black Mirror unhappy ending because he was never able to escape his own hell.
People don't get upset that jokes exist in serious movies. People get annoyed when the jokes are crap and ruin the serious moments. Poes prank call to Hux at the start of TLJ was really odd and stuck out.
Does it seem out of character for him? It'd be out of character for Rey, or Finn.