Clunky exposition/info dump scenes are by far my most hated. "Hello, Character. Don't you remember this detail of your life I am reminding you of for absolutely no story-driven reason, fellow character?"
What if you write it where it looks like it's going to be an exposition, but then the other character cuts him off and says, "Oh, don't worry, I know. but why don't you tell me something *I don't* know?"
You cut the part where Rose finishes to say : ''That's how we gonna win : not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love'' and then the door they are supposed to protect - which procures cover to the ones they love - explodes. Lol. That was a hot mess of dissonance and hypocrisy, where Fin is ridiculed while he should be a hero, and Rose thinks she is the hero, when she is full of it...
The problem is that when it comes to bad scenes and TLJ, you can just put the entire movie. So you have to make a stop in any case where you could have shown more to illustrate the point.
There's actually one scene I like a lot in TLJ--the one where Kylo Ren is tempted to shoot Leia, then he decides not to. I thought that was well done in terms of tension, internal conflict, and character development. Sadly though, the scene was followed shortly after by the Flying Leia scene.
7:13 That's what i hate about when people use the "it's a kids movie there's no reason to get this upset" that's a cop out excuse for bad writing and diminishes a child's level of intellect and awareness. There are tons of amazing films and shows with compelling writing that still hold up for decades. Not to mention most films and show are *FAMILY friendly* meaning it's for everyone
To paraphrase Roger Rabbit: "you could have got out of those cuffs at anytime?" "Well not anytime. Only when it was funny." It was played for laughs. Sure, they could have escaped using the blob at any time but then it wouldn’t be funny.
This has been done before in older cartoons. Its not new. But you act as if only the new movies have this issue. Its for laughs and entertainment. Yall making it into a bigger deal than it should be
For me it's the classic problem of "Sex/sexy scene that doesn't do anything for the story or theme, doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the movie, and is clearly just the director wanting to see this actress do this."
ITA. Most sex scenes in movies slow the story down. Plus, hey, that's a private moment, and maybe we don't need to be there? I can think of a couple exceptions, but mostly, sex scenes are there for eye candy, not to forward the story.
It also turns a movie that I would otherwise be okay watching with family into a movie that I'm nervous or uncomfortable watching with family. Like there are movies that would otherwise be G rated or PG, but they have one or two sex scenes that don't really fit at all, and it means I'm definitely not watching it with my family. And the other thing is...there's actual porn for that sort of thing.
I REALLY hate it when a romance story has the two main characters ready to confess to each other, only to have the moment interrupted an all chances of anything going anywhere evaporating.
@@ZenMonkeyGod right? They should just kiss when they're ready to kiss - not when the author finally gets over their fear of having to find something else to bring suspense in the story. readers: "Will they or won't they...? 💕" *Minor plot development later* Readers: "Ooo! They will! It's time for them to kiss, right?" Author: "Err.... MAYDAY MAYDAY! The story still needs drama. Kiss incoming! ABORT ABORT! TAKE EVASIVE ACTION!"
@hebercluff1665 Ha! So true! I see and read such moments so often, I have to remind myself it's a different book/film from the last time I witnessed it. It's fairly rare that the character doesn't wind up with their love interest, and although such moments do happen in real life, it always comes across as contrived when it's in a romance (or even an action) movie. Disney shows and films have always been the most egregiously guilty of this; character is about to confess something, the other character interrupts with something completely undoes the moment, and then the first character doesn't go through with confessing. Same goes for characters confessing their feelings to each other. It's been so tired for so long now, we end up surprised when it doesn't happen. I've just convinced myself it's some unspoken writers' rule to always manufacture some unsolicited drama for drama's sake! 😅
Can you do “How to write action scenes in books”. I want descriptive and specific fight scenes that last for a long time, but don’t drag on. Something with multiple characters fighting each other and how to explain everything that’s going on
Sure, I'll add this request to my list... I may have actually covered this topic a year or two ago, by I can't remember which video. Might have been this one: ua-cam.com/video/rGqR3Oj61yo/v-deo.html
The Geoff Thompson books are really good. The fighting is all real too, from when he was a bouncer. There's three books in a row. One of them is called "Watch my back"
Don't forget about The Wircher books. I started to read him a week ago and now it's already my guide to writing action scenes and describing the fantasy world by showing it and not telling.
Love your work, and would absolutely second the request on writing good, punchy action scenes that don't leave the reader confused as to what's happening, or bored. I'm going to be writing a lot of action scenes in the coming chapters of what I'm working on!
The best advice I ever got for writing action scenes is to make sentences shorter. Shorter is punchy! It makes it read faster! More exciting! The second best advice is to go back through your scenes and act out the choreography with physical items (on a table or something). It will help you solidify character placement and keep the action easy to visualize and consistent from your main POV.
For bad writing Game of Thrones S8 is the gift that keeps on giving. Hard to pick only one bad scene since every episode insults itself, the characters and audience at every turn. But the "let's pick a king scene" has to take the cake. The whole thing is classic What. The. F***??? If that isn't the worst scene ever it has to be top (bottom?) three.
I don't hate season 8 as much as you seem to do but yeah, that scene was utter bullshit. After all that happened, the 7 kingdoms should have been independent again, like the North does. It would have been a logical, moral and beautiful decision to end the war for the iron throne. The end of an era and the beginning of a new one
I actually didn't mind the story for season 8. It's thexproduction I take ire with. It was clearly rushed and needed a full season to flesh out the story, not wrap everything up in 8 episodes.
@siegfriedmordrake3229 First, I am not sure it is possible for anyone to hate GoT S8 as much as I do. The story was rushed, characters lacked motives (or even rationality) for their actions, character archs where obliterated, battle scenes were shot in utter darkness so we couldn't see anything, and the ending was preposterous. But I do think the "let's pick a king" scene stands head and shoulders above the rest for sheer badness. Quite honestly if it had been left out entirely, and the seven kingdoms merely descended into civil war, that would have been a better ending.
@@briantrafford4871 haha, I get you ok 😆 like someone said earlier, I think the story is good but indeed rushed and poorly executed. GoT should have been made of 9 or even 10 seasons but D&D wanted to end it as soon as possible to work on Star wars (which they ironically never did) so whatcha gonna do... But yeah, the king picking made me jaw drop and not in a good way. Because who has a better story than bran, except literally every other character ,
That last episode could have been a season or even two on its own. Let's say first part of the season 9 is them actually taking the city, the middle part is Dany taking the throne and ruling, becoming more mad episode by episode, and at the end Jon kills her. Season 10 starts at the aftermath of the regicide, in the midpart the lords of westeros arrives to kings landing and schemes who should be king, and at the end there would be a grand council where the new king is decided.
Yeah if there's any word I would use to describe the Last Jedi it's "safe"... You can describe literally almost anything as if it's a mistake divorced from any context. Or even within plenty of selectively chosen points of context. "Darth Vader sacrificing himself doesn't make any sense, he spends two movies seemingly trying to kill his own son, and the only attempt he makes to reach out to him as an ally is offering to exploit the relationship to prop himself up as a dictator in the emperor's place. Then even though it doesn't _really_ make any sense for the character, who's been presented as the personification of evil - when he's finally redeemed by defeating the emperor, instead of living with what he's done, and having to face it, or even just getting to see the seeds of his redemption grow, he has to die. Even though he did it for his son, they don't really ever get to know each other, this robs them of that, and we don't get to see how the rest of the Star Wars universe reacts to this implausible 180, or how Vader would respond to their response to it. The real sacrifice is truly intriguing storytelling for a cheap popcorny trope that combines the cliches, 'love conquers all' with the 'redemptive martyrdom.'" It doesn't make *total* sense to argue that self-sacrifice is _the_ logical and necessary endpoint for Fin's character arc, in part because that's extremely predictably rigid and formulaic, and in part because it implies that sufficient character work had been done on Fin to justify it. Art is not science. People mistake their critical incites for objectivity.
@@futurestorytellerI’d argue that Rose stopping Finn’s sacrifice could have made for a good scene if 1) it wasn’t done in a stupid way that should be extremely likely to just kill them both, 2) Rose hadn’t shown zero self-awareness about it and acted like she was helping them win, and 3) the movie hadn’t framed it as if Rose was RIGHT.
@futurestoryteller I have. I also know how that ends. Joel also doesn’t respond to Ellie’s fury at discovering the truth with “I saved you, dummy.” He understands that she has a right to be upset at her chance to be the cure being taken, even if he doesn’t regret his choice. I also don’t recall any moment surrounding that choice that’s as self-contradictory as a character saying “we win by saving what we love” while a giant laser blows up what they love as a result of her choices. In other words, TLOU is an example of how you CAN do a “screw the greater good” type of scene where a character chooses their own loved one and make it work. Joel’s choice is justifiable to many, but he doesn’t lie to himself and pretend that it’s for some greater purpose than just saving one person that he cares about, with his view never being called into question. The hospital scene and the scenes referring to it are more well-written and tonally appropriate than the Finn/Rose scene.
To be fair to the mom in that first scene, I think it’s a lot to ask of someone to stop and carefully consider their options in a panicked, desperate state of mind like that, and I can completely understand why the frying pan was her first instinct.
For me it's a pivotal scene without a proper buildup. A scene so forced, contrived and coming seemingly out of nowhere that instead of feeling like a major revelation it leaves you baffled and disappointed. My personal #1 of hated scenes is Love Confession scene writers pull out of their asses at the very last moment. As if they are just ticking the checkbox.
It's super frustrating to be invested in a character's dilemma for it to be resolved by the author (convenience plot device or deus ex machina) or by denying the bad outcome of the final decision. A dilemma is interesting because there's no perfect solution and you can wonder forever if you did the right thing, which easily creates conflict and unexpected outcomes. And, if you respect the dilemma's bad consequences, you can watch/read that story again and it will never feel like an easy moment. However, if the foreseen bad consequences are denied or another element solves the dilemma for the character, you lose all possible tension in any rewatch/reread. Great video as always! Thanks for your work!! ❤
I very rarely post youtube comments nowadays… but I JUST (I know you hate that word😂) had to show my support for this channel and for you, Brandon. I’m still writting my first real novel, and people like you have been a huge help for my learning. Keep inspiring! And as always… keep on writing! Much love.
I especially hated the part where everyone thought Chewbacca was dead only to have the movie cop out and reveal he really wasn't mere minutes later. Why build up an emotional scene only to immediately undo it??
I refer to them as the "fake Star Wars series". I mean, my middle son (huge Star Wars fanatic) said that I should watch the first fake Star Wars movie before criticizing it--so we watched it together (after it was on video) and then I turned to him and said, "You know, I think I saw this in 1977. They did a better job the first time."
WORST SCENE: i have go to back to that Star Wars movie for the scene when Princess Leia flies in space. I cringed so hard i left a permanent inprint on my seat
Yeah, considering we all heard about Carrie's passing before TLJ, that moment should've been when her character died; would've been a more fitting end than...whatever they actually did. @@EH23831
What's worse about that scene is that it came after a legitimately good moment where we saw Kylo Ren struggling with the temptation to kill Leia. He has his thumbs on the blaster triggers, then he opts not to kill her. That was my favorite moment in the entire movie, and then the next thing that happened is Icicle Leia flying
The main problem with that for me is that if you read the old comics and books you knew that Luke trained her, but she didn't got the full training because she has to help govern the new republic. The movie needed to add that. Same goes to Palpatine returning. Done in a comic books decades ago. Also, with force healing, never showed in the movies, but I did use that power playing the Star Wars RPG. Heck, you have to reed the novels and comics to understand the New Order, or whatever they were called.
Regarding the scene where Rose saves Finn, Rian Johnson came up with it just to create a “false scare”, which backfired and ended up treating his audience like idiots. Somehow he thought most of the audience were little children.
My theory for that scene was they wanted people to pair Finn and Rose because people were pairing Finn and Poe... So they gave them a rescue the "damsel in distress" scene to make it plausible... Which just came out as SA (don't randomly kiss people!) It's the worst... It betrays the characters, the fandom and the story all at once.
Its a horrible scene. Also its already about third time in the movie where all you have to do to win is to perform one kamikaze flight. Also in what world you save your loved one who is about to save everybody so that he could die moments later with everybody?
Overkill scenes can work, as long as your intention is to make it clear that the character is thinking frantically or irrationally. The first thing I thought of while going down the description was the scene in Terminator 2 where T-800 and John break into the car: T-800 smashes open the window, rips off a panel and hot-wires it, while at the same time John lets himself in via an unlocked door, finds the keys inside the sun shade, then jingles them in T-800's face and says "Are we learning yet?" I can also tolerate the frying pan scene from THHE because tense situations like that don't exactly allow for rational thought, much less careful planning. Better acting or better editing could have salvaged that scene.
The difference is that T2 shows the bad consequence of the overkill decision and turns it into a joke. The Coen brothers are masters of this, they often let their characters choose overkill measures (woodchipper in Fargo, pretty much every interaction in Big Lebowski) to show that the characters are out of their depth and panic in situations they're unprepared for.
Last Jedi is actually really good.... because it's got so many examples of bad writing that no matter the topic you can always use a scene from it as an example
Hey man… I’m a writer Director here in Hollywood, and I Love your channel! You should do a video about scenes from movies that technically don’t talk about what the scene is about, but the message is conveyed to the audience like a ton of bricks! Point in case: the scene from “Julie and Julia“ (not a very good movie, but stay with me) with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. The scene where Streep is in the kitchen and her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, comes home with an unopened letter from her Sister… She opened it and the dialogue indicates that she’s happy hearing the news that her Sister is expecting a baby. However… The subtext, aided by the performance, tells us the tragedy that this couple has endured. NOTHING to that trauma is ever spoken about, but we get it with a full barrage of emotion!
Dothraki riding into the dark to face the Night King at the Battle of Winterfell knowing that they’ll die and become more soldiers for the army of the Dead. Or wait… Danny “forgot about the Iron Fleet” and lost her second to last dragon… to a CROSSBOW BOLT fired from a ship. No sorry hiding in the crypts of Winterfell… actually just submit the last season of GoT.
1) Bad exposition scene in Pixar's Cars, at the Wheel Well, when Sally is explaining the effects of the interstate highway system to Lightning, who unenthusiastically mutters "uh huhs" and "yeas" as responses over an interminable scene. 2) In the beginning of Despicable Me 3, Gru heroically recovered a stolen diamond only to be fired by the AVL for having allowed the thief to escape after he fell for a deception. The scene introduces an ambitious and terrible new boss character who only exists to fire Gru and push the plot to the middle segment of the story.
I'll disagree on Cars. Most of the movie up until that point is very focused on the town and what being cut off has done to it. An explanation has been foreshadowed, it doesn't feel unnecessary or too much because there's been build-up, and unlike most of those scenes its actually quite emotional because it adds so much to the characters. I think it's an important and well done exposition scene.
@@oliverford5367 You guys ever think about how when you want to criticize something, some kind of plot device, you'll complain about how its existence ruins the plot, or "breaks the universe" but then other times you claim only the _logical implementation_ of the device ruins the plot, or breaks the universe. So you don't argue that it doesn't make any sense to do that, given the things we know to exist - in this case - in the Star Wars universe, your only complaint is that something you obviously never thought of before is so simple that it's ridiculous it has only been used one time...
Worst scene: The mall scene at the beginning of Wonder Woman 1984. So bad I didn't make it through the whole scene, and definitely didn't watch the rest of the movie.
Looked like some bad 80's commercial. When she winked at that little girl while holding the bad guy by his leg, I thought that I'll hear that Mentos song.
You got spared one of the literal worst movies I have ever seen then. Good instincts since it's only downhill, precipitously, from there for multiple reasons. Such a shame since the first DCEU _Wonder Woman_ movie is overall decent outside of too much slow-mo and most of those last 10 minutes with Ares, but _WW84_ is so bad it lowered my opinion of Patti Jenkins herself unfortunately.
Or how about the amazons not knowing about WW1? You'd think they'd at LEAST keep up to date on global conflicts? I know that's from the first Wonder Woman movie, but I felt it was close enough to ask.
@@LucianDevine I can see how this feels like a plothole, but for all the issues even with the first DCEU _Wonder Woman_ movie, much less the _WW84_ dumpsterfire, it isn't. The Amazons just really do tend to be *that* isolationist and insular, which somewhat makes sense between being immortals who generally have all their needs met and how it's generally very difficult to return Paradise Island for various reasons. Additionally, the weapons technology they encounter is very new for the time on top of that, especially for how long the Amazons actually have been around. That said, I agree that first _Wonder Woman_ movie does a rather subpar job at exploring or communicating much of anything about Amazonian history beyond their relationship to the dead Greek Gods, much less the DCEU version of it. And it's only something that _WW84_ and, retroactively, both versions of the DCEU _Justice League_ movie only make worse somehow since the DCEU is unfortunately still that much of an unplanned mess. (I still don't understand how Diana got that stupid armor in the _WW84_ since it's not clear it was lost alongside Astrea or just chilling at Paradise Island where she seemed effectively "banished" from, but that's like the least of that movie's myriad problems.)
2:01 "I'm no expert on dropping babies..." Oh, then you should have called on Anthony Jeselnik. He's got a 5-minute bit on dropping babies. He's an expert! 🤣
A character withholds information from other characters because if she would take 10 seconds to share, the story wouldn't need to happen in the first place.
I've seen all of these in Argylle (2024), sadly. One thing that drives me nut lately is all the scenes that delay information for the purpose of suspense but without good reason to do so. Examples: the Julia Robert film Leave the World behind, and Fargo season 5 (which was otherwise a good show) ; the number times I rolled my eyes or screamed at the tv : "why wouldn't you say something!" The advice given to writers to never give a direct answer to keep suspense is too often taken to absurd levels.
For me this isn’t a “Worst Scene”, but more of a terrible decision made in a lot of shows: A entire episode on a side story/character that doesn’t matter. Both The Mandalorian and Stranger Things are guilty of this. It’s when a show focuses on a specific character that isn’t associated with the actual story in a proper way. In The Mandalorian S3 E3 the entire episode was just focused on a character nobody remembered from season 2. The problem with this is that the show doesn’t live up to it’s name. A show called “The Mandalorian should be about the Mandalorian, not some ex-imperial officer.
@@kingofthejungle2894 Season 2: The Lost Sister. It’s been hailed by the fanbase as the worst episode of the show, and everyone would have been better without it being in the series.
It's not about Dr. Pershing (he just happens to be the pov character in the episode) it's a world building episode about the New Republic's government. I'm ok with world building episodes, or episodes that slow down the plot or deviate from the Main Characters, as they add value without forcing an additional side quest. This does come back into play in the Ahsoka Series quite a bit so it's not a waste, it even comes into play in other episodes in the Mandalorian where Carson Teva has to go rogue to get the Mandalorians to help the town, hinting at the Imperial agents are sabotaging the new Republic from the inside, which what do you know, shows up everywhere in Ahsoka. It's a connected universe and sometimes there's no good place for that set up, but it's necessary. Marvel could do it at the end of movies because people would stick around. A TV show like this can't afford to do it that way. So sometimes an episode needs to be sacrificed to world build. It seems like you are upset Din Djarin isn't keeping the spotlight to himself because of the show title, just like those who had a problem with Kenobi sharing the spotlight with Leia and Reva. That's an ok thing to be upset about. Personally, I'd rather have one episode on a "lesser" character that world builds (In Mando's case, at least it gives an insight on the problems of the New Republic which plays out consistently in later episodes and other series) than having to wait for a whole new series just to get answers about the world or era if it's not worth spending a season or movie on, which in this case, i don't believe it is.
Great work Brandon. Very nuanced and provocative. It’s just so hard to explain to some people or your casual movie consoomer just how awful and awkward certain scenes of movies can be. One bad scene in a book or movie can just take right out of the whole experience.
I think the worst scene for me is the climactic scene in the animated movie "Turbo". Main character loses his ability to go fast again, cars behind him are wrecked, main character is a few feet away from the finish line, and it's the last lap. Instead of winning the race by walking to the finish line, he mopes and cries because he lost his ability to go fast. Like, was I supposed to feel sad? Like bro, you're near the finish line. Finish the race!! If they wanted a scene like this to work, why not instead have the main character lose his ability to be fast, and be behind the wreckage almost hundreds of feet away from the finish line (btw this is neglecting any legal rule in IndyCar)? That would've made sense as to why he would be sad.
"There's always a bigger fish" Scene in Phantom Menace where they build up the danger of going through the planet core for the characters to make it through by sheer luck and are completely nonchalant.
a good example of that first scene type is the opening of saw 4. one guy has his mouth stitched shut and the other has his eyes stitched shut. instead of the mouth guy using all the sharp tools around to cut his stitches, he just kills the other guy and opens his mouth with force at the end of the scene anyway
I'm usually a HUGE fan of fast paced action/fight scenes, but it REALLY frustrates me when a character like John Wick gets little or no injuries during an action scene like that one scene in John Wick 3 where John Wick and Sofia shoot their way out of Casablanca. As a result, the scene looks boring and unrealistic to me. A scene that does a better job is a scene just like the fight scene between Peacemaker and Rick Flag from The Suicide Squad(2021). By the way, I read Entry Wounds, love it👍great work, It's a masterpiece.
Wow thank you for the kind words about Entry Wounds. Glad you liked it. Please leave an Amazon review if you don’t mind. Those help a ton. And going back to your John Wick comment, I love those movies, but I miss the groundedness of JW1. Remember how he had to recover after being thrown off a balcony at the Red Circle? That was great. Same with when he had to get patched up at the start of JW3. I just hope they keep JW4’s ending final. If they want to do a JW5, just make it a prequel about his impossible task
I don't remember what movie it is, but I REALLY hate the bulletproof suits. I mean even if it can stop the bullet from penetrating, it still has to absorb the kinetic force of the impact, which John just absorbs, often times with his hand holding the edge of his suit. It's just stupid as all hell.
I love a good villainous monologue. A philosophical dive into the psyche of the bad guy where they share why they do what they do or why they are so different from the hero (Thanos to Dr Strange, Joker to Batman). But at what point do we say the writer is just trying to be pretentious? A writer making themselves out to be this great, pseudo-intellectual thinkers through said monologue.
Worst scene Scream 4. While sitting in his car, cop gets stabbed in the forehead with giant knife. Then opens his door, gets out, walks a bit swinging punches and EVENTUALLY falls down dead. I actually burst out laughing in the cinema when I saw that😂😂
Except that people receive massive head trauma all the time and are still able to function on at least SOME level. The ones that are the most unrealistic are the ones where someone gets stabbed/shot and dies immediately. Now THAT is rare.
Well supposedly the “knife in forehead but keep fighting” thing actually happened in real life to someone. The director heard about it and wanted to add it into the movie.
Rose: That's how we win. Not fighting what we hate... saving what we love. Meanwhile: EVERYONE THEY LOVE IS ABOUT TO DIE BECAUSE THE LASER BROKE THROUGH THE DOORS!!! Joking aside, I really love watching your videos, and your books just came in the mail, so I'm very excited to get to them!
Reacher breaks these rules almost the entire episode, every episode. The main character is a male Mary-Sue. No character development at all for the main character. The main character either knows everything the moment he needs to know it or will figure it out finding an impossible amount of clues out of thin air...and all while nothing at all ever presented is a challenge or threat. He is presented as being a military veteran that was an MP. Yet, he is a combat expert in ALL forms. From weapons to explosives to hand to hand. He is a master detective. He can figure out how a fire started just by looking at a burnt vehicle for a few seconds, a thing even a Fire Marshal cannot do. He can hack computers. He knows how every government department operates, including secret service and somehow knows all the tactics of spies and hitmen and even knows how foreign militaries work and how they are connected to every criminal group in America...BTW, he is also apparently the greatest psychologist in history and all while displaying no emotions and has no issue at all going up to 5 guys as if they are ants and there is no chance they could hurt him. Its some of the worst writing going and somehow the creator of the character and stories won awards...
8:23 What's interesting about this scene, and a lot of scenes like it, is that Rose gives an explanation that's not just supposed to justify to Finn why she risked her life, but justify to the audience why Finn's story can't end here. The truth is, audiences are comfortable with a character's story continuing *if that option is better than if they died* . So when we're given a fake-out like this, writer's want to immediately assure us that this choice was made in good conscience. But the problem is that even if they give us a continuation of Finn's story that outweighs the impact his death would have potentially had (whether the rest of this movie and its sequel succeeded in that, that's a discussion of its own), it would still beg the question, "well, if Finn can't die yet for the story you want to tell, why'd you try to trick us into thinking he'd die to begin with?"
I don't have a specifc example here, but I hate the trope of random and gratuitous sex scenes, this always takes me right out of it and I can't get immersed again and unfortunatelly this is very common.
"And somehow Palpatine has returned" is probably the most painful moment in a recent major film I can think of right now. In a film filled with painfully dumb moments, that stands out.
"As you know..." The last Airbender. I was like, yeah! That's exactly what M Knight actually wrote. 😂 I really love his talent but geez buddy! Great video as always! ❤
Overkill scene: in Quantum of Solace, Bond recklessly and unnecessarily drives his motorcycle on to a boat, making an enormous leap. It's absurdly and unjustifiably dangerous, and overshadows the chase that follows.
I don't know under which category it falls under, but the worst scene for me in recent movies has to be the big GIRL POWER scene in Avengers Endgame. It completely killed the immersion for me. Most of the cinema groaned
Anything Ryan Murphy writes for AHS. *person enters room* “hello everyone, I’m a villain and I do bad things. I’m gong to do bad things to all of you bc I’m a bad person. Did I mention, I’m the villain in this story?”
I hate scenes that use dialog or character interactions for effect. Marvel, Star Wars, and Doctor Who do this all the time. It's like scenes are created to be little scratches stuck in to be clever or create a momentary impact without story purpose. These are often dramatic or humorous, and in Doctor Who's case wreck series canon.
I thought for sure your example for #4 (cheat code scene) was going to be TLJ- when Poe and Rose end up in a jail cell, with the exact guy who can fix their issue even though it’s not the guy they were looking for. (But let’s be honest, you would show every example of these scenes from just TLJ. This was a movie that hated its audience and wanted to punish them for liking SW, plain and simple.
The major convenience in Strange World that I thought you were going mention was the ending. The characters have discovered the way they have been getting their source of power is damaging and they need to stop. We then cut to one year later where they announced that they have a new way to make power that isnt harmful to their world. Ok…. What did they do for the entire year without usual form of power?! They just gloss over that when that’s an unfortunate truth for why they would get pushback from abandoning their usual form.
"Once he makes his decision, it feels like a meaningful end to his character arc." Except it wasn't going to be meaningful, and that was kinda the point. His sacrifice wouldn't have done anything to help. I actually thought it was great commentary on the "heroic sacrifice" trope in addition to Holdo and Paige's sacrifices. "Stop killing yourselves just to slow down the enemy. They have WAY more people than us, so we can't afford to keep losing numbers to pointless sacrifices."
Funnily enough the worst scene I've seen is also the last example in your video. The fact that the scene plays out with rose crashing into Finn when their chemistry is so flimsy just feels underhanded. And as well their kiss is accompanied by the exploding rebel base behind them creating a really confusing tone. AND THEN after the scene comes concludes are we supposed to believe that rose just carried Finn back to the rebel base through the no man's land directly in front of the first order fleet? No scene has ever struck me like that one, utterly baffling. Also fantastic video very in depth lol.
I’m not a fan of the scene in Infinity War where Quill throws a fit while everyone is trying to remove Thanos’ glove. This was a defining moment in, at the time, the ultimate Marvel movie, and his character flaws seemed created only to advance the plot. Furthermore, it made Quill immediately into a terrible person. Plus, taking down Thanos was so dramatic, that the problems with removing the glove didn’t seem believable. Watching the heroes struggle to remove the globe in the background looked so fake almost to be comical.
A scene steadily builds tension and closes a chapter on a strong hook, I turn the page and next chapter immediately switches to another pov or situation not even connected to what I just read. It's like hitting a brick wall--WTF? For me, momentum is completely lost. And often, my interest.
Brandon Sanderson, or literally any writer that vomits multiple protagonist stories with chapters dedicated to their own conflicts. If their goal was to annoy the reader, congratulations are in order.
@@salami155 I read contemporary romance and the 'series' trend has me tearing my hair out. The author wants to introduce characters from past or as yet unwritten books in the series--all in one book. I counted 42 freaking characters in one novel awhile back. 42! Some were filler characters, no purpose in the story other than saying something meaningless. 42!
@@scruffypupper Sounds like that author should make their own silmarillion with all those characters lol. I've never read the romance genre before, my only experience is seeing those novels with fabio on the cover when I was young. Have to say I'm not into the whole love triangle thing, but it's all I've ever been subjected to.
8:49 what put the exclamation point on the terrible scene with Rose and Finn is that the director is either a world class troll or completely lacking in self awareness as he shows the weapon firing while Rose is giving her little bromide, and you watch as the based is cracked open. And that is only done so that everyone is forced to go out the back and Rey can save the day. Man, I hated that film.
Need this! My Manuscript is snowballing [221 pages :) ] but now I'm focusing more and more on economy and efficiency with my scenes. Could these two characters be morphed into one character? Am I selling the characters short? Am I leaving plot holes? Is this a self-defeating scene? You're the best!
You got this man! only another 100 pages to go, so make sure you keep your initial promise to the reader and wrap it up neatly enough for this story, and leaving us with a decent cliffhanger. :) Keep writing! My story is coming along too, but I'm only at about 125 pages.
Sometimes I'm doubting with my writings, just like you. But then I remember the writings worse than mine but still have a success. And then I'm having peace 😌
I am a new writer and I sincerely love your advice , you inspire me in so many ways. I enjoy your videos and learn so much from your topics. I am not sure if you have covered this topic yet, if not could you make a video about how to create and build characters for a story. Tips on how to create names and identities for your characters, their environment, employment, family, friends, etc... I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you for sharing your talent with the world. You help me and so many others.
I'll offer some advice on the writer fussing about "get rid of it" being a weak answer, but you have to find the solution on your own. Every scene has to bring some new information or change. If it's new information, this should probably cause a new look at a situation, probably complicating it and setting up subsequent scenes. This is easy if you're doing action scenes but pretty miserable if it's something subtle, but at the very least, it should leave the reader wondering what the protagonist is going to do about the new situation. You always have to work to find a way to keep things unsettled at the least leading to an emotionally or physically dangerous situation. One example offhand is when John Legazamo gets a call from the Russian boss in "John Wick" asking why he punched his kid. Legazamo knows this is a man who could easily have him killed, but simply states the kid stole Wick's car and killed his dog. What does the boss do? He goes "Oh..." and hangs up. He doesn't say "Oh" because he doesn't care, you know it's because the Boss knows what kind of hell Wick is capable of, he's going to be nearly impossible to stop, and what is he going to do about the kid? One simple scene with a few lines of dialog undoes the Boss's entire world in that instant, and lets you know Wick is one of the only men the Boss is afraid of.
That's a great scene from JW1. Does an amazing job building hype toward John's reveal. I'm so glad I went into JW1 completely blind. A friend was like "Just watch it," and I didn't bother to look up a summary or anything. Movie blew me away.
What gets me are scenes that blow up the logic of the movie itself, or prequels. The second independence day did this when they brought in the lazy hive mind concept just for the clean ending. But if they all die when they queen dies, why did they keep fighting after the mother ship exploded in the first one? For ten years even! But they all auto died for the clean ending in the second?
The type of scene I hate the most, in the misunderstanding scene. One character overhears a conversation between 2 other characters, but only hear what’s convenient for them, and not what actually matters, which is incredibly frustrating. An example of this would be Shrek. Great movie, but they still used this. Donkey and Fiona are talking in the cave, when Shrek walks by, and listens in to their conversation. Shrek misses everything except for when Fiona says, “Who could ever love a beast so hideous and ugly? Princess and ugly don’t go together. That’s why I can’t stay here with Shrek. My only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love. Don’t you see Donkey? That’s just how it has to be.” If Shrek got there a little sooner, or stayed a little longer he would have understood, but they needed that scene for another plot point. It always annoys me when I see a scene similar to that one, which has been done a ton of times.
I'm getting really tired of the "multiverse" thing, especially when it brings a "fan favorite" character back to life. It makes their death in the previous film less impactful and any unexpected, dramatic death that happens in future films barely have any impact as long as the "multiverse" effect is still in play.
Yep, resurrecting dead heroes is a major problem these days. Death is supposed to be severe and meaningful, and when you resurrect a character, you cheapen everything.
@@WriterBrandonMcNultyIt’s not really a problem “these days”. If we’re talking superheroes, every single one has died and every single one has come back to life. That’s always been a part of the long history of comic book characters. In my opinion if there’s a great story to tell about a character dying, you should tell it. And if there’s a great story to tell about them later, but they’re dead, bring them back to life. Of course that’s not always the case. But I don’t think the concept itself is a bad one.
@@nickmustay Tony Stark is dead, and hasn't come back yet. Black Widow is dead, and hasn't technically come back yet. Her movie was CRIMINALLY late in the franchise, to the point of being pointless. I can't help but wonder what could have been if they'd made her movie back when their hearts were in it and she deserved her movie, after Iron Man 2. Before or after Thor is fine, because of the end credit scene, but how do wait until after Endgame?
The type of scenes I don't like are ones that really take you out of the immersion, like I'd be watching an intense and bloody battle scene, it's all highly serious, and then some random guy falls of a wall or ladder and does the Wilhelm scream which for a few seconds makes me think "why did they make that goofy sound?" It's like injecting an out of place fart noise when someone gets shot or stabbed.
@ 8:49 - "What's the worst scene you've ever scene?" Homophonic error aside, I can't remember the worst scene ever, but I disagree about the bicyclist in Thelma & Louise. I really liked that scene, even though I thought it stretched credulity by having a cop in a black uniform stuffed in a trunk in the heat of midday with only one air hole. (Every time I hear "I Can See Clearly Now," that scene comes vividly to mind.) The worst scene in that movie was blowing up the tanker. Just too far-fetched to be believable. From IMDb goofs: "Thelma and Louise could not have blown up the rude trucker's tanker by merely shooting holes into it with a handgun, this is pure Hollywood hokum. For an explosion to occur the correct fuel/air mixture is required, additionally the vaporised gasoline would need an ignition source like an open flame to combust. The women could be firing military incendiary rounds into the tanker and it would still not blow up. Gasoline cannot burn much less explode without an oxygen source."
A great example of #2 is Die Hard with A Vengeance holding everything up just after the subway bomb so we can see some office workers have a chat. They don't appear anywhere else and don't give any new information. In fact, as they're speculating about what's happened, they have less information than the audience. You can completely drop this scene without it making any difference to the rest of the movie. Later on in the same movie, Simon Gruber tells the police the radio detonaters on his bombs work on a similar frequency to the police radios. This means the police can't use their radios and are issued with mobile phones. Then we get a scene with two new characters in which they tell us the exact same thing again. It's far too late into the film to introduce new characters, especially ones that only exist in one scene and reiterate what we've already been told. I like the film (I have a real fondness for the Die Hard franchise) but it's the only time I've tried to re-edit a film to deal with some of the bad writing.
I don’t know if this counts but it’s what I like to call “confused morality” where the seen is meant to showcase an important lesson to learn. But really it’s the wrong lesson. Like the character was actually in the wrong but was being presented as in the right. An example of this comes sadly from one of my all time favorite TV shows, Avatar the last airbender. Yeah not everything was done right in the show. In the episode “the painted lady” the gang visits a village that’s struggling to get by because of the fire nation weapons factory polluting the river they lived on. Katara understandably sees how bad they have it and wants to help them, but Sokka says no because they have a mission to accomplish and they can’t afford delays as it’s time sensitive. Which does make sense seeing as the mission was invading the fire nation capital during an eclipse which leaves the firebenders powerless so they couldn’t afford to be late. Katara decieds to take matters into her own hands and help the village in secret while making it seem like Appa was sick. They couldn’t leave without him seeing as he’s their transportation. So they were forced to stay in town so katara could help them in secret. She brought them food and medicine and on the final night she blew up the factory polluting the river. Now as admirable as katara’s actions were, she was also being very reckless delaying her group like this. In forcing them to hang back they could’ve missed their deadline to meet with the invasion team. Not to mention the fire nation soldiers who were at the factory wanted to take revenge on the village for destroying their factory thinking they had something to do with it. It also turned out that katara had also been stealing from the soldiers and giving to the village. Not only did she endanger her group’s mission but also the lives of that village. Her actions could’ve gotten them killed. However the episode paints Sokka as the bad guy for getting mad and saying she shouldn’t have done anything. While it is admirable, what she did, that doesn’t excuse the fact that it could’ve had harsh consequences in the long run. And it’s just a very confused and backwards message. Sokka was totally right in his decision but was painted as the bad guy, katara was being reckless and endangering lives but she was the one that was rewarded and praised.
I've been reviewing the Vampire Diaries tv series and they use the same message of love being more valuable than hate. There is a character named Tyler who is obsessed with revenge because one of the antagonists murdered his mother. His love interest at the time urges him to abandon his quest because the antagonist is immortal and he would be merely wasting his life and endangering the other people he loves. The problem is Tyler is also immortal so he has all the time in the world for the revenge. These moments in Vampire Diaries and Star Wars might sink in more if there was greater futility to the pursuit; for example, if the audience was led to believe that Finn's heroic sacrifice would not change much in the grand scheme.
I love horror movies, but can people stop jumping out of windows? In most cases, wouldn't it be more difficult or even impossible to do? Wouldn't the windowpane impede you from doing this? I know it's a desperate act done for survival, but wouldn't you be cut up pretty bad? Does no one in horror movies own storm windows? Maybe that's a nit-pick, but it's just so overused I find it to be a cliche at this point.
The entirety of the Last Jedi is just an Atrocity unfolding on screen lets be honest. I stopped taking it seriously when Leia used the force to miraculously float herself out of deep space like Star Jesus walking on water, and Luke Skywalker meditating himself to death made me burst out laughing
That Rose scene in star wars was so stupid. The way in which she saves him, Slamming a speeding vehicle into his speeding vehicle could of (and realistically should of killed him)... so she could of stopped him from saving everyone and killed them both in the process... yet it acts like what she did was totally rational... I mean, the whole movie is trash, so i'm not surprised the scene sucks but you know....
I really hate argument scenes where it's clear the author is in favor of one side (which will be presented as the "right/good" side) and the dissenting side has either no argument or a really bad argument on purpose. I saw a movie called In the Shadow of the Moon which was actually pretty entertaining up until the end where the "villain" reveals their plan to the "hero", which is essentially killing people in the past for having a different opinions in the future, and the hero simply goes along with it without pointing out how wrong and evil that is because the movie is clearly on the side of the villain and isn't interested in pointing out the flaws in that logic. You have to actually see the movie to understand how colossally stupid the ending is. I am not doing it justice here.
Ah yes, in the Shadow of the Moon. Essentially the climax of Avengers Winter Soldier drawn out to feature-length, where everyone deemed a high threat is taken out regardless of whether they have actually done anything wrong.
The worst scene I have ever seen is every scene in the film "Birdemic: Shock and Terror". There is extremely little stakes in the film and the first 40 minutes don't add anything and serve as filler!
Fin was on a suicide mission that the movie makes clear will not succeed. "It's too late." and Poe after learning how to be a real leader and not a reckless idiot orders Fin to pull back. Funny that you include "The Last Jedi" in this list considering it subverted so many tired tropes that you seem to buy into still. For "The Hills Have Eyes", there aren't always elegant solutions. She's not Batman and sees it as a very likely lose-lose situation. What do you do in that situation? "Hmm, I'm surrounded by weapons... not clever enough. Just kill me and my child please." For "Strange World", it's a joke. Makes sense that they're captive, but the amorphous blob is an obvious easy way out. So they had fun with it.
Worst Scene for me, also in Strange world. Ids the board game scene between Dad, Grampa and son, where son lectures his elders for playing the game wrong, that their does not need to be a bad guy and they are the problem, they are the bad guy. Kinda laying out the entire plot of the movie to the audience is a huge smack in the face, especially because it made absolutely no sense. What kind of board game includes monsters and weapons but you lose if you ever use a weapon to kill a monster?
The Self-Defeating Scene was a mainstay of Star Trek: The Next Generation... so many plots would escalate to real tension, and then with 3 minutes to go, they would have some magical thing out of nowhere resolve the crisis without the conflict they'd been building for the entire episode. It would be the peaceful non-conflict solution, which can be fine but it's been promising action and conflict and usually justice, that the audience gets cheated out of. Usually by something deus ex machina.
I feel like this is why watching bad movies is so useful. You can really learn a lot about what not to do by watching something like a "Manos" or a "Samurai Cop".
These days, I think I most hate the fan-service scenes in cash-grab sequels/reboots to past successful franchises. It's just a giant crutch of laziness. I also hate the blatant virtue-signaling scene -- even if I fundamentally agree with the message, I don't appreciate being hit over the head with it. For god's sake, when it comes to that sort of thing, show, don't tell.
Worst scene... man, that's hard to choose. I would have to go with an Idiot scene in Prometheus. The part where the cowardly scientist who freaked out over a hologram of a centuries-dead bipedal alien suddenly decides that he wants to pet the spacey lamprey. Mind you, this is the dude who role for the mission in order to map the interior of the structure and he got lost.
I got a game: fix these scenes. The change has to be contained in the scene, but can ripple out. The Draft one seems pretty easy; starting a meeting before an important business decision by putting everyone is on the same page is totally normal. Simply modify the dialogue to reflect that they're professionals. When someone whistles after watching a play, you know he's seen it a hundred times, but it still gets his blood pumping. Last Jedi: Rose is deep cover. After the death of her sister she is contacted and flipped (during the prison break? There's one of those, right?), manipulated into believing that the only way to prevent future grief like her's is to end the war decisively. Have the moment heighten the tension instead of confuse and muddle the finale. It already reads as a betrayal (she really thought they'd both survive the collision *and* crash landing?), just own it. Subvert our expectations.
Hey Brandon it seems like you're really rushing today. I don't mind , I love your videos, but I would say feel free to do good videos over fast video! We love your wisdom and I doubt anyone would be angry if you just need to skip a week.
Hey thanks! And I was indeed rushing. I spent a good chunk of the past week trying to hire an audiobook narrator for my upcoming novel, and I finally selected one on Wednesday. That meant I had to script/record/edit this video in a day-and-a-half to meet my Thursday deadline. To be honest, I've been dragging myself across the finish line week after week for the past couple months. UA-cam is a lot of work and I'd love a week off, but at the same time I don't want to lose any momentum until after I release my new book in late April. Once it's out, I may take a week off to recharge (or maybe just do a couple simpler/shorter videos). But thanks for reaching out and for the kind words!
I've really enjoyed a lot of your videos. This is one that stands out as just bad. It's ironic that your video covering bad scenes is one of your worst written videos. A lot of context is ignored so that you can say "this was poorly written." If I could suggest a way to rectify that, I'd tell you to propose changes to the scene, rather than just demeaning it. I've seen most of these movies in theaters. These scenes landed for viewers. Proposing a change could take this format in a better direction. Then it's not about fighting against what we hate, it's about preserving what we love. And yes, I'm paraphrasing Rose. But she was right. And it was impactful.
Clunky exposition/info dump scenes are by far my most hated.
"Hello, Character. Don't you remember this detail of your life I am reminding you of for absolutely no story-driven reason, fellow character?"
What if you write it where it looks like it's going to be an exposition, but then the other character cuts him off and says, "Oh, don't worry, I know. but why don't you tell me something *I don't* know?"
The end of Hitchcock’s the Birds and the end of Psycho- clunky info dump by an “expert” lecturing other characters 🙄
Hitchcock is over-rated
As you know, I've been your brother for our entire life
@@FisherBrosit's a bit less lazy and more self aware but still not perfect
@@EH23831 you clearly don't get what a McGuffin is, which is exactly why the info dump is irrelevant and probably imposed by the studio.
"Somehow Palpatine returned"
General Grievous brought Palpatine back to the library 'cause he was way overdue. 😖
That's not really a bad scene, it's bad dialog in a bad scene. No argument that it belongs in this comment section, though.
Ooof 😖
😆🤣
“Somehow the Enterprise was protected from the tachyon field…” - yeah, it’s been going on for a long time.
You cut the part where Rose finishes to say : ''That's how we gonna win : not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love'' and then the door they are supposed to protect - which procures cover to the ones they love - explodes. Lol. That was a hot mess of dissonance and hypocrisy, where Fin is ridiculed while he should be a hero, and Rose thinks she is the hero, when she is full of it...
I was blown away by that in the theater because it came right after the sacrifice of Holdo, which made it even more of a total thematic trainwreck.
Yup. I facepalmed myself so hard that I hit the person sitting behind me.@@xeroprotagonist
The problem is that when it comes to bad scenes and TLJ, you can just put the entire movie. So you have to make a stop in any case where you could have shown more to illustrate the point.
The scene was purposeful; the whole movie was a feature length troll of Star Wars fans.
There's actually one scene I like a lot in TLJ--the one where Kylo Ren is tempted to shoot Leia, then he decides not to. I thought that was well done in terms of tension, internal conflict, and character development. Sadly though, the scene was followed shortly after by the Flying Leia scene.
7:13 That's what i hate about when people use the "it's a kids movie there's no reason to get this upset" that's a cop out excuse for bad writing and diminishes a child's level of intellect and awareness. There are tons of amazing films and shows with compelling writing that still hold up for decades. Not to mention most films and show are *FAMILY friendly* meaning it's for everyone
To paraphrase Roger Rabbit: "you could have got out of those cuffs at anytime?"
"Well not anytime. Only when it was funny."
It was played for laughs. Sure, they could have escaped using the blob at any time but then it wouldn’t be funny.
Precisely.
@@intergalactic92 I always thought that was the best power limitation in any movie. He's got infinite powers, but he can only use them if it's funny.
"Well the kids that watched this are gonna turn into adults and realize how dogshit it really was!"
This has been done before in older cartoons. Its not new. But you act as if only the new movies have this issue. Its for laughs and entertainment. Yall making it into a bigger deal than it should be
For me it's the classic problem of "Sex/sexy scene that doesn't do anything for the story or theme, doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the movie, and is clearly just the director wanting to see this actress do this."
ITA. Most sex scenes in movies slow the story down. Plus, hey, that's a private moment, and maybe we don't need to be there?
I can think of a couple exceptions, but mostly, sex scenes are there for eye candy, not to forward the story.
The only example of a story that shows story and character development through sex scenes is Mysterious Skin. It's a bit of a weird movie though.
Agreed. It is such an 80s thing. Look world, we are having sex, we're cool people... Boring 🕑🕝🕒😮💨
It also turns a movie that I would otherwise be okay watching with family into a movie that I'm nervous or uncomfortable watching with family. Like there are movies that would otherwise be G rated or PG, but they have one or two sex scenes that don't really fit at all, and it means I'm definitely not watching it with my family.
And the other thing is...there's actual porn for that sort of thing.
50 shades of grey trilogy entered the chat
I'm not expert on dropping babies - Brandon McNulty, 2024 😂
its never too late to learn a new skill set
@@benjaminwatt2436 Adding it to my resume right now.
You could’ve at least consulted a baby dropping expert.
Jack of all traits
Expert of none
I REALLY hate it when a romance story has the two main characters ready to confess to each other, only to have the moment interrupted an all chances of anything going anywhere evaporating.
Or when they're about to kiss, only to get interrupted by someone who walks in on them. It's honestly among the most tired cliches of all time.
@@ZenMonkeyGod right? They should just kiss when they're ready to kiss - not when the author finally gets over their fear of having to find something else to bring suspense in the story.
readers: "Will they or won't they...? 💕"
*Minor plot development later*
Readers: "Ooo! They will! It's time for them to kiss, right?"
Author: "Err.... MAYDAY MAYDAY! The story still needs drama. Kiss incoming! ABORT ABORT! TAKE EVASIVE ACTION!"
@hebercluff1665 Ha! So true! I see and read such moments so often, I have to remind myself it's a different book/film from the last time I witnessed it. It's fairly rare that the character doesn't wind up with their love interest, and although such moments do happen in real life, it always comes across as contrived when it's in a romance (or even an action) movie. Disney shows and films have always been the most egregiously guilty of this; character is about to confess something, the other character interrupts with something completely undoes the moment, and then the first character doesn't go through with confessing. Same goes for characters confessing their feelings to each other. It's been so tired for so long now, we end up surprised when it doesn't happen. I've just convinced myself it's some unspoken writers' rule to always manufacture some unsolicited drama for drama's sake! 😅
Is that my phone ringing? Pardon me while I answer it in this important moment.
Can you do “How to write action scenes in books”. I want descriptive and specific fight scenes that last for a long time, but don’t drag on. Something with multiple characters fighting each other and how to explain everything that’s going on
Sure, I'll add this request to my list... I may have actually covered this topic a year or two ago, by I can't remember which video. Might have been this one: ua-cam.com/video/rGqR3Oj61yo/v-deo.html
The Geoff Thompson books are really good. The fighting is all real too, from when he was a bouncer. There's three books in a row. One of them is called "Watch my back"
Don't forget about The Wircher books. I started to read him a week ago and now it's already my guide to writing action scenes and describing the fantasy world by showing it and not telling.
Love your work, and would absolutely second the request on writing good, punchy action scenes that don't leave the reader confused as to what's happening, or bored. I'm going to be writing a lot of action scenes in the coming chapters of what I'm working on!
The best advice I ever got for writing action scenes is to make sentences shorter. Shorter is punchy! It makes it read faster! More exciting!
The second best advice is to go back through your scenes and act out the choreography with physical items (on a table or something). It will help you solidify character placement and keep the action easy to visualize and consistent from your main POV.
For bad writing Game of Thrones S8 is the gift that keeps on giving. Hard to pick only one bad scene since every episode insults itself, the characters and audience at every turn. But the "let's pick a king scene" has to take the cake. The whole thing is classic What. The. F***???
If that isn't the worst scene ever it has to be top (bottom?) three.
I don't hate season 8 as much as you seem to do but yeah, that scene was utter bullshit.
After all that happened, the 7 kingdoms should have been independent again, like the North does.
It would have been a logical, moral and beautiful decision to end the war for the iron throne. The end of an era and the beginning of a new one
I actually didn't mind the story for season 8. It's thexproduction I take ire with. It was clearly rushed and needed a full season to flesh out the story, not wrap everything up in 8 episodes.
@siegfriedmordrake3229 First, I am not sure it is possible for anyone to hate GoT S8 as much as I do. The story was rushed, characters lacked motives (or even rationality) for their actions, character archs where obliterated, battle scenes were shot in utter darkness so we couldn't see anything, and the ending was preposterous.
But I do think the "let's pick a king" scene stands head and shoulders above the rest for sheer badness. Quite honestly if it had been left out entirely, and the seven kingdoms merely descended into civil war, that would have been a better ending.
@@briantrafford4871 haha, I get you ok 😆 like someone said earlier, I think the story is good but indeed rushed and poorly executed. GoT should have been made of 9 or even 10 seasons but D&D wanted to end it as soon as possible to work on Star wars (which they ironically never did) so whatcha gonna do...
But yeah, the king picking made me jaw drop and not in a good way. Because who has a better story than bran, except literally every other character ,
That last episode could have been a season or even two on its own. Let's say first part of the season 9 is them actually taking the city, the middle part is Dany taking the throne and ruling, becoming more mad episode by episode, and at the end Jon kills her. Season 10 starts at the aftermath of the regicide, in the midpart the lords of westeros arrives to kings landing and schemes who should be king, and at the end there would be a grand council where the new king is decided.
"And this example of self-defeating scenes comes from The Last Jedi."
*plays entire movie*
"Don't do that. Just don't."
Normally once I hear the movie, I can guess the example. Last Jedi gives me stack overflow.
Yeah if there's any word I would use to describe the Last Jedi it's "safe"... You can describe literally almost anything as if it's a mistake divorced from any context. Or even within plenty of selectively chosen points of context.
"Darth Vader sacrificing himself doesn't make any sense, he spends two movies seemingly trying to kill his own son, and the only attempt he makes to reach out to him as an ally is offering to exploit the relationship to prop himself up as a dictator in the emperor's place. Then even though it doesn't _really_ make any sense for the character, who's been presented as the personification of evil - when he's finally redeemed by defeating the emperor, instead of living with what he's done, and having to face it, or even just getting to see the seeds of his redemption grow, he has to die. Even though he did it for his son, they don't really ever get to know each other, this robs them of that, and we don't get to see how the rest of the Star Wars universe reacts to this implausible 180, or how Vader would respond to their response to it. The real sacrifice is truly intriguing storytelling for a cheap popcorny trope that combines the cliches, 'love conquers all' with the 'redemptive martyrdom.'"
It doesn't make *total* sense to argue that self-sacrifice is _the_ logical and necessary endpoint for Fin's character arc, in part because that's extremely predictably rigid and formulaic, and in part because it implies that sufficient character work had been done on Fin to justify it. Art is not science. People mistake their critical incites for objectivity.
@@futurestorytellerI’d argue that Rose stopping Finn’s sacrifice could have made for a good scene if 1) it wasn’t done in a stupid way that should be extremely likely to just kill them both, 2) Rose hadn’t shown zero self-awareness about it and acted like she was helping them win, and 3) the movie hadn’t framed it as if Rose was RIGHT.
@@nou1186 Have you ever finished The Last of Us?
@futurestoryteller I have. I also know how that ends. Joel also doesn’t respond to Ellie’s fury at discovering the truth with “I saved you, dummy.” He understands that she has a right to be upset at her chance to be the cure being taken, even if he doesn’t regret his choice. I also don’t recall any moment surrounding that choice that’s as self-contradictory as a character saying “we win by saving what we love” while a giant laser blows up what they love as a result of her choices.
In other words, TLOU is an example of how you CAN do a “screw the greater good” type of scene where a character chooses their own loved one and make it work. Joel’s choice is justifiable to many, but he doesn’t lie to himself and pretend that it’s for some greater purpose than just saving one person that he cares about, with his view never being called into question. The hospital scene and the scenes referring to it are more well-written and tonally appropriate than the Finn/Rose scene.
To be fair to the mom in that first scene, I think it’s a lot to ask of someone to stop and carefully consider their options in a panicked, desperate state of mind like that, and I can completely understand why the frying pan was her first instinct.
"I'm gunna risk killing us both to save you from killing yourself to save everyone." -Rose
Makes perfect sense.
For me it's a pivotal scene without a proper buildup. A scene so forced, contrived and coming seemingly out of nowhere that instead of feeling like a major revelation it leaves you baffled and disappointed. My personal #1 of hated scenes is Love Confession scene writers pull out of their asses at the very last moment. As if they are just ticking the checkbox.
It's super frustrating to be invested in a character's dilemma for it to be resolved by the author (convenience plot device or deus ex machina) or by denying the bad outcome of the final decision. A dilemma is interesting because there's no perfect solution and you can wonder forever if you did the right thing, which easily creates conflict and unexpected outcomes. And, if you respect the dilemma's bad consequences, you can watch/read that story again and it will never feel like an easy moment. However, if the foreseen bad consequences are denied or another element solves the dilemma for the character, you lose all possible tension in any rewatch/reread.
Great video as always! Thanks for your work!! ❤
That Thelma and Louise scene would have been a great post-credits scene
I love this guy. Always dispensing some sound advice. Definitely worth the watch.
Thank you!
I very rarely post youtube comments nowadays… but I JUST (I know you hate that word😂) had to show my support for this channel and for you, Brandon. I’m still writting my first real novel, and people like you have been a huge help for my learning. Keep inspiring! And as always… keep on writing!
Much love.
Hey thanks for this comment! I appreciate the kind word. Best of luck with your writing!
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Thank you sir :)
The so-called Star Wars sequel trilogy should be listed under "How to insult fans and moviegoers".
Also add avatar the last airbender movie
I especially hated the part where everyone thought Chewbacca was dead only to have the movie cop out and reveal he really wasn't mere minutes later. Why build up an emotional scene only to immediately undo it??
I refer to them as the "fake Star Wars series". I mean, my middle son (huge Star Wars fanatic) said that I should watch the first fake Star Wars movie before criticizing it--so we watched it together (after it was on video) and then I turned to him and said, "You know, I think I saw this in 1977. They did a better job the first time."
WORST SCENE: i have go to back to that Star Wars movie for the scene when Princess Leia flies in space. I cringed so hard i left a permanent inprint on my seat
Yes!! That was the worst - insulting to the character, the audience and the whole franchise 😟😖
Yeah, considering we all heard about Carrie's passing before TLJ, that moment should've been when her character died; would've been a more fitting end than...whatever they actually did. @@EH23831
What's worse about that scene is that it came after a legitimately good moment where we saw Kylo Ren struggling with the temptation to kill Leia. He has his thumbs on the blaster triggers, then he opts not to kill her. That was my favorite moment in the entire movie, and then the next thing that happened is Icicle Leia flying
The main problem with that for me is that if you read the old comics and books you knew that Luke trained her, but she didn't got the full training because she has to help govern the new republic. The movie needed to add that.
Same goes to Palpatine returning. Done in a comic books decades ago.
Also, with force healing, never showed in the movies, but I did use that power playing the Star Wars RPG.
Heck, you have to reed the novels and comics to understand the New Order, or whatever they were called.
Wait didn't she use the force to save herself?
Can the force not do that?
Regarding the scene where Rose saves Finn, Rian Johnson came up with it just to create a “false scare”, which backfired and ended up treating his audience like idiots. Somehow he thought most of the audience were little children.
My theory for that scene was they wanted people to pair Finn and Rose because people were pairing Finn and Poe... So they gave them a rescue the "damsel in distress" scene to make it plausible... Which just came out as SA (don't randomly kiss people!) It's the worst... It betrays the characters, the fandom and the story all at once.
The vast majority of "false scare" scenes are terrible. I wish they'd stop using it. It just teases us with a far better scene.
Its a horrible scene. Also its already about third time in the movie where all you have to do to win is to perform one kamikaze flight. Also in what world you save your loved one who is about to save everybody so that he could die moments later with everybody?
Even a child would feel insulted with that scene
They want to “subvert expectations” just for the shock, without actually having it feel like a natural twist.
Overkill scenes can work, as long as your intention is to make it clear that the character is thinking frantically or irrationally.
The first thing I thought of while going down the description was the scene in Terminator 2 where T-800 and John break into the car: T-800 smashes open the window, rips off a panel and hot-wires it, while at the same time John lets himself in via an unlocked door, finds the keys inside the sun shade, then jingles them in T-800's face and says "Are we learning yet?"
I can also tolerate the frying pan scene from THHE because tense situations like that don't exactly allow for rational thought, much less careful planning. Better acting or better editing could have salvaged that scene.
The difference is that T2 shows the bad consequence of the overkill decision and turns it into a joke. The Coen brothers are masters of this, they often let their characters choose overkill measures (woodchipper in Fargo, pretty much every interaction in Big Lebowski) to show that the characters are out of their depth and panic in situations they're unprepared for.
Love your videos! They're the most focused and informative out of all the content for writers.
Last Jedi is actually really good.... because it's got so many examples of bad writing that no matter the topic you can always use a scene from it as an example
And people swear up and down that it's a "brilliant" Star Wars script
You two are confusing opinions for facts.
@@futurestoryteller And I suppose you know any better?
@@rayvenkman2087 Um... yes.
Hey man… I’m a writer Director here in Hollywood, and I Love your channel!
You should do a video about scenes from movies that technically don’t talk about what the scene is about, but the message is conveyed to the audience like a ton of bricks! Point in case: the scene from “Julie and Julia“ (not a very good movie, but stay with me) with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. The scene where Streep is in the kitchen and her husband, played by Stanley Tucci, comes home with an unopened letter from her Sister… She opened it and the dialogue indicates that she’s happy hearing the news that her Sister is expecting a baby. However… The subtext, aided by the performance, tells us the tragedy that this couple has endured. NOTHING to that trauma is ever spoken about, but we get it with a full barrage of emotion!
Dothraki riding into the dark to face the Night King at the Battle of Winterfell knowing that they’ll die and become more soldiers for the army of the Dead. Or wait… Danny “forgot about the Iron Fleet” and lost her second to last dragon… to a CROSSBOW BOLT fired from a ship. No sorry hiding in the crypts of Winterfell… actually just submit the last season of GoT.
1) Bad exposition scene in Pixar's Cars, at the Wheel Well, when Sally is explaining the effects of the interstate highway system to Lightning, who unenthusiastically mutters "uh huhs" and "yeas" as responses over an interminable scene.
2) In the beginning of Despicable Me 3, Gru heroically recovered a stolen diamond only to be fired by the AVL for having allowed the thief to escape after he fell for a deception. The scene introduces an ambitious and terrible new boss character who only exists to fire Gru and push the plot to the middle segment of the story.
I'll disagree on Cars. Most of the movie up until that point is very focused on the town and what being cut off has done to it. An explanation has been foreshadowed, it doesn't feel unnecessary or too much because there's been build-up, and unlike most of those scenes its actually quite emotional because it adds so much to the characters. I think it's an important and well done exposition scene.
All 5 apply to the Last Jedi!
I kept saying to myself "he's talking about TLJ here!"
Hahahah!!
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty Like the whole not telling anyone the plan, pulling hyperspace ramming out of its ass then never using it before or since....
@@oliverford5367 You guys ever think about how when you want to criticize something, some kind of plot device, you'll complain about how its existence ruins the plot, or "breaks the universe" but then other times you claim only the _logical implementation_ of the device ruins the plot, or breaks the universe. So you don't argue that it doesn't make any sense to do that, given the things we know to exist - in this case - in the Star Wars universe, your only complaint is that something you obviously never thought of before is so simple that it's ridiculous it has only been used one time...
Best intro yet. The thumbnail had me locked to watch it to the end, but the intro made me like and comment. The outro also made me lol
I get a feeling that should-have-been-deleted scenes are often kept in to fulfill an obligation or to sate someone's vanity.
yes, and I also often suspect inside jokes of the film team to have a play in it. (No pun intended)
In very bad movies it can even be to extend the run time to the bare minimum length for a feature film
Agree with all of these. Keep it up, Brandon! Whenever someone asks for booktube recommendations, I always name you first!
Worst scene: The mall scene at the beginning of Wonder Woman 1984. So bad I didn't make it through the whole scene, and definitely didn't watch the rest of the movie.
Looked like some bad 80's commercial. When she winked at that little girl while holding the bad guy by his leg, I thought that I'll hear that Mentos song.
You got spared one of the literal worst movies I have ever seen then. Good instincts since it's only downhill, precipitously, from there for multiple reasons. Such a shame since the first DCEU _Wonder Woman_ movie is overall decent outside of too much slow-mo and most of those last 10 minutes with Ares, but _WW84_ is so bad it lowered my opinion of Patti Jenkins herself unfortunately.
Or how about the amazons not knowing about WW1? You'd think they'd at LEAST keep up to date on global conflicts? I know that's from the first Wonder Woman movie, but I felt it was close enough to ask.
@@LucianDevine I can see how this feels like a plothole, but for all the issues even with the first DCEU _Wonder Woman_ movie, much less the _WW84_ dumpsterfire, it isn't. The Amazons just really do tend to be *that* isolationist and insular, which somewhat makes sense between being immortals who generally have all their needs met and how it's generally very difficult to return Paradise Island for various reasons. Additionally, the weapons technology they encounter is very new for the time on top of that, especially for how long the Amazons actually have been around.
That said, I agree that first _Wonder Woman_ movie does a rather subpar job at exploring or communicating much of anything about Amazonian history beyond their relationship to the dead Greek Gods, much less the DCEU version of it. And it's only something that _WW84_ and, retroactively, both versions of the DCEU _Justice League_ movie only make worse somehow since the DCEU is unfortunately still that much of an unplanned mess. (I still don't understand how Diana got that stupid armor in the _WW84_ since it's not clear it was lost alongside Astrea or just chilling at Paradise Island where she seemed effectively "banished" from, but that's like the least of that movie's myriad problems.)
@@MusicoftheDamned WW84 is far and away the bigger dumpster fire. That much can't be denied.
2:01 "I'm no expert on dropping babies..."
Oh, then you should have called on Anthony Jeselnik. He's got a 5-minute bit on dropping babies. He's an expert! 🤣
A character withholds information from other characters because if she would take 10 seconds to share, the story wouldn't need to happen in the first place.
The “as you know, your father, the king…” scenes are one of the worst for me
The worst seens should be left unscene
Good one 🤘
I've seen all of these in Argylle (2024), sadly.
One thing that drives me nut lately is all the scenes that delay information for the purpose of suspense but without good reason to do so. Examples: the Julia Robert film Leave the World behind, and Fargo season 5 (which was otherwise a good show) ; the number times I rolled my eyes or screamed at the tv : "why wouldn't you say something!" The advice given to writers to never give a direct answer to keep suspense is too often taken to absurd levels.
For me this isn’t a “Worst Scene”, but more of a terrible decision made in a lot of shows: A entire episode on a side story/character that doesn’t matter. Both The Mandalorian and Stranger Things are guilty of this. It’s when a show focuses on a specific character that isn’t associated with the actual story in a proper way. In The Mandalorian S3 E3 the entire episode was just focused on a character nobody remembered from season 2. The problem with this is that the show doesn’t live up to it’s name. A show called “The Mandalorian should be about the Mandalorian, not some ex-imperial officer.
That reminds me of at least half of Barry Season 4
Whatˋs the example in stranger things?
@@kingofthejungle2894 Season 2: The Lost Sister. It’s been hailed by the fanbase as the worst episode of the show, and everyone would have been better without it being in the series.
@@SilverLovesJesus Oh right! I have totally forgotten about that episode. Wouldn't make any difference though😂
It's not about Dr. Pershing (he just happens to be the pov character in the episode) it's a world building episode about the New Republic's government. I'm ok with world building episodes, or episodes that slow down the plot or deviate from the Main Characters, as they add value without forcing an additional side quest. This does come back into play in the Ahsoka Series quite a bit so it's not a waste, it even comes into play in other episodes in the Mandalorian where Carson Teva has to go rogue to get the Mandalorians to help the town, hinting at the Imperial agents are sabotaging the new Republic from the inside, which what do you know, shows up everywhere in Ahsoka. It's a connected universe and sometimes there's no good place for that set up, but it's necessary. Marvel could do it at the end of movies because people would stick around. A TV show like this can't afford to do it that way. So sometimes an episode needs to be sacrificed to world build. It seems like you are upset Din Djarin isn't keeping the spotlight to himself because of the show title, just like those who had a problem with Kenobi sharing the spotlight with Leia and Reva. That's an ok thing to be upset about. Personally, I'd rather have one episode on a "lesser" character that world builds (In Mando's case, at least it gives an insight on the problems of the New Republic which plays out consistently in later episodes and other series) than having to wait for a whole new series just to get answers about the world or era if it's not worth spending a season or movie on, which in this case, i don't believe it is.
Great work Brandon. Very nuanced and provocative.
It’s just so hard to explain to some people or your casual movie consoomer just how awful and awkward certain scenes of movies can be.
One bad scene in a book or movie can just take right out of the whole experience.
Both Finn and Rose would have died in that crash.
Yep. Ever play the Star Wars Rogue Squadron games? You hit another ship, it's game over.
I think the worst scene for me is the climactic scene in the animated movie "Turbo". Main character loses his ability to go fast again, cars behind him are wrecked, main character is a few feet away from the finish line, and it's the last lap. Instead of winning the race by walking to the finish line, he mopes and cries because he lost his ability to go fast. Like, was I supposed to feel sad? Like bro, you're near the finish line. Finish the race!!
If they wanted a scene like this to work, why not instead have the main character lose his ability to be fast, and be behind the wreckage almost hundreds of feet away from the finish line (btw this is neglecting any legal rule in IndyCar)? That would've made sense as to why he would be sad.
I love the fact that SW8 was a symbol of bad script.
It wanted to be boldly original, but whenever the chips were down, it played things safe.
"There's always a bigger fish" Scene in Phantom Menace where they build up the danger of going through the planet core for the characters to make it through by sheer luck and are completely nonchalant.
a good example of that first scene type is the opening of saw 4. one guy has his mouth stitched shut and the other has his eyes stitched shut. instead of the mouth guy using all the sharp tools around to cut his stitches, he just kills the other guy and opens his mouth with force at the end of the scene anyway
“Draft Day” characters watching a grape scene:
“That’s pure Rothlesberger”
I love the videos on this channel. I learn so much and the videos always move at a good pace.
Thank you!
The movie POOR THINGS has paradigm cases of McNulty's bad writing -- characters explaining things everyone around them already know. :(
I'm usually a HUGE fan of fast paced action/fight scenes, but it REALLY frustrates me when a character like John Wick gets little or no injuries during an action scene like that one scene in John Wick 3 where John Wick and Sofia shoot their way out of Casablanca.
As a result, the scene looks boring and unrealistic to me. A scene that does a better job is a scene just like the fight scene between Peacemaker and Rick Flag from The Suicide Squad(2021).
By the way, I read Entry Wounds, love it👍great work, It's a masterpiece.
Wow thank you for the kind words about Entry Wounds. Glad you liked it. Please leave an Amazon review if you don’t mind. Those help a ton.
And going back to your John Wick comment, I love those movies, but I miss the groundedness of JW1. Remember how he had to recover after being thrown off a balcony at the Red Circle? That was great. Same with when he had to get patched up at the start of JW3.
I just hope they keep JW4’s ending final. If they want to do a JW5, just make it a prequel about his impossible task
Isn't it John Wick 2 where he gets hit by a car and in the next second gets up and continues fighting. I had to stop watching it at that point.
I don't remember what movie it is, but I REALLY hate the bulletproof suits. I mean even if it can stop the bullet from penetrating, it still has to absorb the kinetic force of the impact, which John just absorbs, often times with his hand holding the edge of his suit. It's just stupid as all hell.
I love a good villainous monologue. A philosophical dive into the psyche of the bad guy where they share why they do what they do or why they are so different from the hero (Thanos to Dr Strange, Joker to Batman). But at what point do we say the writer is just trying to be pretentious? A writer making themselves out to be this great, pseudo-intellectual thinkers through said monologue.
Worst scene Scream 4.
While sitting in his car, cop gets stabbed in the forehead with giant knife. Then opens his door, gets out, walks a bit swinging punches and EVENTUALLY falls down dead. I actually burst out laughing in the cinema when I saw that😂😂
Hahah a friend dragged me to see that when it was in theaters. I still give him shit about it to this day
Except that people receive massive head trauma all the time and are still able to function on at least SOME level. The ones that are the most unrealistic are the ones where someone gets stabbed/shot and dies immediately. Now THAT is rare.
Well supposedly the “knife in forehead but keep fighting” thing actually happened in real life to someone. The director heard about it and wanted to add it into the movie.
“Fuck Bruce Willis” 😂😂😂
Rose: That's how we win. Not fighting what we hate... saving what we love.
Meanwhile: EVERYONE THEY LOVE IS ABOUT TO DIE BECAUSE THE LASER BROKE THROUGH THE DOORS!!!
Joking aside, I really love watching your videos, and your books just came in the mail, so I'm very excited to get to them!
Yeah sure, Rose, you'll topple tyranny by saving your friends, ot by... Well, toppling the tyrant... 😆
Thank you for the kind words. Hope you enjoy the books! I'm releasing a new one in April
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty looking forward to it
They plagiarized good lines, but didn't plagiarize proper context. It's like it was written by AI.
Reacher breaks these rules almost the entire episode, every episode. The main character is a male Mary-Sue. No character development at all for the main character. The main character either knows everything the moment he needs to know it or will figure it out finding an impossible amount of clues out of thin air...and all while nothing at all ever presented is a challenge or threat.
He is presented as being a military veteran that was an MP. Yet, he is a combat expert in ALL forms. From weapons to explosives to hand to hand. He is a master detective. He can figure out how a fire started just by looking at a burnt vehicle for a few seconds, a thing even a Fire Marshal cannot do. He can hack computers. He knows how every government department operates, including secret service and somehow knows all the tactics of spies and hitmen and even knows how foreign militaries work and how they are connected to every criminal group in America...BTW, he is also apparently the greatest psychologist in history and all while displaying no emotions and has no issue at all going up to 5 guys as if they are ants and there is no chance they could hurt him.
Its some of the worst writing going and somehow the creator of the character and stories won awards...
8:23 What's interesting about this scene, and a lot of scenes like it, is that Rose gives an explanation that's not just supposed to justify to Finn why she risked her life, but justify to the audience why Finn's story can't end here. The truth is, audiences are comfortable with a character's story continuing *if that option is better than if they died* . So when we're given a fake-out like this, writer's want to immediately assure us that this choice was made in good conscience. But the problem is that even if they give us a continuation of Finn's story that outweighs the impact his death would have potentially had (whether the rest of this movie and its sequel succeeded in that, that's a discussion of its own), it would still beg the question, "well, if Finn can't die yet for the story you want to tell, why'd you try to trick us into thinking he'd die to begin with?"
I don't have a specifc example here, but I hate the trope of random and gratuitous sex scenes, this always takes me right out of it and I can't get immersed again and unfortunatelly this is very common.
I believe those are a holdover from home video era marketing, when those were intended to improve sale and rental revenue.
"And somehow Palpatine has returned" is probably the most painful moment in a recent major film I can think of right now. In a film filled with painfully dumb moments, that stands out.
"As you know..." The last Airbender. I was like, yeah! That's exactly what M Knight actually wrote. 😂 I really love his talent but geez buddy! Great video as always! ❤
Thanks!
Overkill scene: in Quantum of Solace, Bond recklessly and unnecessarily drives his motorcycle on to a boat, making an enormous leap. It's absurdly and unjustifiably dangerous, and overshadows the chase that follows.
Another great vlog, Brandon. You picked some excellent examples!
Thanks!
I don't know under which category it falls under, but the worst scene for me in recent movies has to be the big GIRL POWER scene in Avengers Endgame.
It completely killed the immersion for me.
Most of the cinema groaned
Anything Ryan Murphy writes for AHS.
*person enters room* “hello everyone, I’m a villain and I do bad things. I’m gong to do bad things to all of you bc I’m a bad person. Did I mention, I’m the villain in this story?”
I hate scenes that use dialog or character interactions for effect. Marvel, Star Wars, and Doctor Who do this all the time.
It's like scenes are created to be little scratches stuck in to be clever or create a momentary impact without story purpose.
These are often dramatic or humorous, and in Doctor Who's case wreck series canon.
I thought for sure your example for #4 (cheat code scene) was going to be TLJ- when Poe and Rose end up in a jail cell, with the exact guy who can fix their issue even though it’s not the guy they were looking for.
(But let’s be honest, you would show every example of these scenes from just TLJ.
This was a movie that hated its audience and wanted to punish them for liking SW, plain and simple.
The major convenience in Strange World that I thought you were going mention was the ending. The characters have discovered the way they have been getting their source of power is damaging and they need to stop. We then cut to one year later where they announced that they have a new way to make power that isnt harmful to their world. Ok…. What did they do for the entire year without usual form of power?! They just gloss over that when that’s an unfortunate truth for why they would get pushback from abandoning their usual form.
"Once he makes his decision, it feels like a meaningful end to his character arc."
Except it wasn't going to be meaningful, and that was kinda the point. His sacrifice wouldn't have done anything to help. I actually thought it was great commentary on the "heroic sacrifice" trope in addition to Holdo and Paige's sacrifices. "Stop killing yourselves just to slow down the enemy. They have WAY more people than us, so we can't afford to keep losing numbers to pointless sacrifices."
Funnily enough the worst scene I've seen is also the last example in your video. The fact that the scene plays out with rose crashing into Finn when their chemistry is so flimsy just feels underhanded. And as well their kiss is accompanied by the exploding rebel base behind them creating a really confusing tone. AND THEN after the scene comes concludes are we supposed to believe that rose just carried Finn back to the rebel base through the no man's land directly in front of the first order fleet? No scene has ever struck me like that one, utterly baffling. Also fantastic video very in depth lol.
Ah yes, the idiot scene...
One thing comes to mind. "Dany just kinda forgot about the iron fleet."
I’m not a fan of the scene in Infinity War where Quill throws a fit while everyone is trying to remove Thanos’ glove. This was a defining moment in, at the time, the ultimate Marvel movie, and his character flaws seemed created only to advance the plot. Furthermore, it made Quill immediately into a terrible person. Plus, taking down Thanos was so dramatic, that the problems with removing the glove didn’t seem believable. Watching the heroes struggle to remove the globe in the background looked so fake almost to be comical.
A scene steadily builds tension and closes a chapter on a strong hook, I turn the page and next chapter immediately switches to another pov or situation not even connected to what I just read. It's like hitting a brick wall--WTF? For me, momentum is completely lost. And often, my interest.
Ah yes, the Dan Brown method of constant cliffhangers. It’s such a cheap trick.
Brandon Sanderson, or literally any writer that vomits multiple protagonist stories with chapters dedicated to their own conflicts. If their goal was to annoy the reader, congratulations are in order.
@@salami155 I read contemporary romance and the 'series' trend has me tearing my hair out. The author wants to introduce characters from past or as yet unwritten books in the series--all in one book. I counted 42 freaking characters in one novel awhile back. 42! Some were filler characters, no purpose in the story other than saying something meaningless. 42!
@@scruffypupper Sounds like that author should make their own silmarillion with all those characters lol.
I've never read the romance genre before, my only experience is seeing those novels with fabio on the cover when I was young. Have to say I'm not into the whole love triangle thing, but it's all I've ever been subjected to.
8:49 what put the exclamation point on the terrible scene with Rose and Finn is that the director is either a world class troll or completely lacking in self awareness as he shows the weapon firing while Rose is giving her little bromide, and you watch as the based is cracked open. And that is only done so that everyone is forced to go out the back and Rey can save the day. Man, I hated that film.
Need this! My Manuscript is snowballing [221 pages :) ] but now I'm focusing more and more on economy and efficiency with my scenes. Could these two characters be morphed into one character? Am I selling the characters short? Am I leaving plot holes? Is this a self-defeating scene? You're the best!
You got this man! only another 100 pages to go, so make sure you keep your initial promise to the reader and wrap it up neatly enough for this story, and leaving us with a decent cliffhanger. :) Keep writing! My story is coming along too, but I'm only at about 125 pages.
You're on the right track. Best of luck with fine-tuning things!
Sometimes I'm doubting with my writings, just like you. But then I remember the writings worse than mine but still have a success. And then I'm having peace 😌
I am a new writer and I sincerely love your advice , you inspire me in so many ways.
I enjoy your videos and learn so much from your topics. I am not sure if you have covered this topic yet, if not could you make a video about how to create and build characters for a story. Tips on how to create names and identities for your characters, their environment, employment, family, friends, etc...
I would greatly appreciate it!
Thank you for sharing your talent with the world. You help me and so many others.
I'll offer some advice on the writer fussing about "get rid of it" being a weak answer, but you have to find the solution on your own. Every scene has to bring some new information or change. If it's new information, this should probably cause a new look at a situation, probably complicating it and setting up subsequent scenes. This is easy if you're doing action scenes but pretty miserable if it's something subtle, but at the very least, it should leave the reader wondering what the protagonist is going to do about the new situation. You always have to work to find a way to keep things unsettled at the least leading to an emotionally or physically dangerous situation.
One example offhand is when John Legazamo gets a call from the Russian boss in "John Wick" asking why he punched his kid. Legazamo knows this is a man who could easily have him killed, but simply states the kid stole Wick's car and killed his dog. What does the boss do? He goes "Oh..." and hangs up. He doesn't say "Oh" because he doesn't care, you know it's because the Boss knows what kind of hell Wick is capable of, he's going to be nearly impossible to stop, and what is he going to do about the kid? One simple scene with a few lines of dialog undoes the Boss's entire world in that instant, and lets you know Wick is one of the only men the Boss is afraid of.
That's a great scene from JW1. Does an amazing job building hype toward John's reveal.
I'm so glad I went into JW1 completely blind. A friend was like "Just watch it," and I didn't bother to look up a summary or anything. Movie blew me away.
The scene with Rose and Finn was the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my life.
What gets me are scenes that blow up the logic of the movie itself, or prequels. The second independence day did this when they brought in the lazy hive mind concept just for the clean ending. But if they all die when they queen dies, why did they keep fighting after the mother ship exploded in the first one? For ten years even! But they all auto died for the clean ending in the second?
I agree. I really hate the whole "just take out their leader/mother ship and the whole enemy army shuts down" trope. It's so lazy.
The type of scene I hate the most, in the misunderstanding scene. One character overhears a conversation between 2 other characters, but only hear what’s convenient for them, and not what actually matters, which is incredibly frustrating. An example of this would be Shrek. Great movie, but they still used this. Donkey and Fiona are talking in the cave, when Shrek walks by, and listens in to their conversation. Shrek misses everything except for when Fiona says,
“Who could ever love a beast so hideous and ugly? Princess and ugly don’t go together. That’s why I can’t stay here with Shrek. My only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love. Don’t you see Donkey? That’s just how it has to be.”
If Shrek got there a little sooner, or stayed a little longer he would have understood, but they needed that scene for another plot point. It always annoys me when I see a scene similar to that one, which has been done a ton of times.
I'm getting really tired of the "multiverse" thing, especially when it brings a "fan favorite" character back to life. It makes their death in the previous film less impactful and any unexpected, dramatic death that happens in future films barely have any impact as long as the "multiverse" effect is still in play.
Yep, resurrecting dead heroes is a major problem these days. Death is supposed to be severe and meaningful, and when you resurrect a character, you cheapen everything.
@@WriterBrandonMcNultyIt’s not really a problem “these days”. If we’re talking superheroes, every single one has died and every single one has come back to life. That’s always been a part of the long history of comic book characters.
In my opinion if there’s a great story to tell about a character dying, you should tell it. And if there’s a great story to tell about them later, but they’re dead, bring them back to life.
Of course that’s not always the case. But I don’t think the concept itself is a bad one.
@@nickmustay Tony Stark is dead, and hasn't come back yet. Black Widow is dead, and hasn't technically come back yet. Her movie was CRIMINALLY late in the franchise, to the point of being pointless. I can't help but wonder what could have been if they'd made her movie back when their hearts were in it and she deserved her movie, after Iron Man 2. Before or after Thor is fine, because of the end credit scene, but how do wait until after Endgame?
The Rose Ram scene from TLJ that you mentionned.
After that, I've been super cautious about what movies I watch.
This was fantastic! Good examples!
Thanks!
The type of scenes I don't like are ones that really take you out of the immersion, like I'd be watching an intense and bloody battle scene, it's all highly serious, and then some random guy falls of a wall or ladder and does the Wilhelm scream which for a few seconds makes me think "why did they make that goofy sound?" It's like injecting an out of place fart noise when someone gets shot or stabbed.
@ 8:49 - "What's the worst scene you've ever scene?"
Homophonic error aside, I can't remember the worst scene ever, but I disagree about the bicyclist in Thelma & Louise. I really liked that scene, even though I thought it stretched credulity by having a cop in a black uniform stuffed in a trunk in the heat of midday with only one air hole. (Every time I hear "I Can See Clearly Now," that scene comes vividly to mind.)
The worst scene in that movie was blowing up the tanker. Just too far-fetched to be believable. From IMDb goofs: "Thelma and Louise could not have blown up the rude trucker's tanker by merely shooting holes into it with a handgun, this is pure Hollywood hokum. For an explosion to occur the correct fuel/air mixture is required, additionally the vaporised gasoline would need an ignition source like an open flame to combust. The women could be firing military incendiary rounds into the tanker and it would still not blow up. Gasoline cannot burn much less explode without an oxygen source."
The cyclist scene is clearly a social commentary, "ACAB" basically.
A great example of #2 is Die Hard with A Vengeance holding everything up just after the subway bomb so we can see some office workers have a chat. They don't appear anywhere else and don't give any new information. In fact, as they're speculating about what's happened, they have less information than the audience. You can completely drop this scene without it making any difference to the rest of the movie.
Later on in the same movie, Simon Gruber tells the police the radio detonaters on his bombs work on a similar frequency to the police radios. This means the police can't use their radios and are issued with mobile phones. Then we get a scene with two new characters in which they tell us the exact same thing again. It's far too late into the film to introduce new characters, especially ones that only exist in one scene and reiterate what we've already been told.
I like the film (I have a real fondness for the Die Hard franchise) but it's the only time I've tried to re-edit a film to deal with some of the bad writing.
I don’t know if this counts but it’s what I like to call “confused morality” where the seen is meant to showcase an important lesson to learn. But really it’s the wrong lesson. Like the character was actually in the wrong but was being presented as in the right. An example of this comes sadly from one of my all time favorite TV shows, Avatar the last airbender. Yeah not everything was done right in the show. In the episode “the painted lady” the gang visits a village that’s struggling to get by because of the fire nation weapons factory polluting the river they lived on. Katara understandably sees how bad they have it and wants to help them, but Sokka says no because they have a mission to accomplish and they can’t afford delays as it’s time sensitive. Which does make sense seeing as the mission was invading the fire nation capital during an eclipse which leaves the firebenders powerless so they couldn’t afford to be late.
Katara decieds to take matters into her own hands and help the village in secret while making it seem like Appa was sick. They couldn’t leave without him seeing as he’s their transportation. So they were forced to stay in town so katara could help them in secret. She brought them food and medicine and on the final night she blew up the factory polluting the river. Now as admirable as katara’s actions were, she was also being very reckless delaying her group like this. In forcing them to hang back they could’ve missed their deadline to meet with the invasion team.
Not to mention the fire nation soldiers who were at the factory wanted to take revenge on the village for destroying their factory thinking they had something to do with it. It also turned out that katara had also been stealing from the soldiers and giving to the village. Not only did she endanger her group’s mission but also the lives of that village. Her actions could’ve gotten them killed. However the episode paints Sokka as the bad guy for getting mad and saying she shouldn’t have done anything. While it is admirable, what she did, that doesn’t excuse the fact that it could’ve had harsh consequences in the long run. And it’s just a very confused and backwards message. Sokka was totally right in his decision but was painted as the bad guy, katara was being reckless and endangering lives but she was the one that was rewarded and praised.
I've been reviewing the Vampire Diaries tv series and they use the same message of love being more valuable than hate. There is a character named Tyler who is obsessed with revenge because one of the antagonists murdered his mother. His love interest at the time urges him to abandon his quest because the antagonist is immortal and he would be merely wasting his life and endangering the other people he loves. The problem is Tyler is also immortal so he has all the time in the world for the revenge. These moments in Vampire Diaries and Star Wars might sink in more if there was greater futility to the pursuit; for example, if the audience was led to believe that Finn's heroic sacrifice would not change much in the grand scheme.
I love horror movies, but can people stop jumping out of windows? In most cases, wouldn't it be more difficult or even impossible to do? Wouldn't the windowpane impede you from doing this? I know it's a desperate act done for survival, but wouldn't you be cut up pretty bad? Does no one in horror movies own storm windows?
Maybe that's a nit-pick, but it's just so overused I find it to be a cliche at this point.
The entirety of the Last Jedi is just an Atrocity unfolding on screen lets be honest. I stopped taking it seriously when Leia used the force to miraculously float herself out of deep space like Star Jesus walking on water, and Luke Skywalker meditating himself to death made me burst out laughing
That Rose scene in star wars was so stupid. The way in which she saves him, Slamming a speeding vehicle into his speeding vehicle could of (and realistically should of killed him)... so she could of stopped him from saving everyone and killed them both in the process... yet it acts like what she did was totally rational... I mean, the whole movie is trash, so i'm not surprised the scene sucks but you know....
I really hate argument scenes where it's clear the author is in favor of one side (which will be presented as the "right/good" side) and the dissenting side has either no argument or a really bad argument on purpose.
I saw a movie called In the Shadow of the Moon which was actually pretty entertaining up until the end where the "villain" reveals their plan to the "hero", which is essentially killing people in the past for having a different opinions in the future, and the hero simply goes along with it without pointing out how wrong and evil that is because the movie is clearly on the side of the villain and isn't interested in pointing out the flaws in that logic.
You have to actually see the movie to understand how colossally stupid the ending is. I am not doing it justice here.
Ah yes, in the Shadow of the Moon. Essentially the climax of Avengers Winter Soldier drawn out to feature-length, where everyone deemed a high threat is taken out regardless of whether they have actually done anything wrong.
The worst scene I have ever seen is every scene in the film "Birdemic: Shock and Terror". There is extremely little stakes in the film and the first 40 minutes don't add anything and serve as filler!
I’m surprised you didn’t make the joke “It’s shocking and terrifying how much filler is in this movie.”
Fin was on a suicide mission that the movie makes clear will not succeed. "It's too late." and Poe after learning how to be a real leader and not a reckless idiot orders Fin to pull back. Funny that you include "The Last Jedi" in this list considering it subverted so many tired tropes that you seem to buy into still.
For "The Hills Have Eyes", there aren't always elegant solutions. She's not Batman and sees it as a very likely lose-lose situation. What do you do in that situation? "Hmm, I'm surrounded by weapons... not clever enough. Just kill me and my child please."
For "Strange World", it's a joke. Makes sense that they're captive, but the amorphous blob is an obvious easy way out. So they had fun with it.
Worst Scene for me, also in Strange world. Ids the board game scene between Dad, Grampa and son, where son lectures his elders for playing the game wrong, that their does not need to be a bad guy and they are the problem, they are the bad guy. Kinda laying out the entire plot of the movie to the audience is a huge smack in the face, especially because it made absolutely no sense. What kind of board game includes monsters and weapons but you lose if you ever use a weapon to kill a monster?
Don't give D&D any ideas for a new version.
@@BKPrice But then they will actually have a new idea
The Self-Defeating Scene was a mainstay of Star Trek: The Next Generation... so many plots would escalate to real tension, and then with 3 minutes to go, they would have some magical thing out of nowhere resolve the crisis without the conflict they'd been building for the entire episode. It would be the peaceful non-conflict solution, which can be fine but it's been promising action and conflict and usually justice, that the audience gets cheated out of. Usually by something deus ex machina.
Excellent!
Thanks!
I feel like this is why watching bad movies is so useful. You can really learn a lot about what not to do by watching something like a "Manos" or a "Samurai Cop".
These days, I think I most hate the fan-service scenes in cash-grab sequels/reboots to past successful franchises. It's just a giant crutch of laziness. I also hate the blatant virtue-signaling scene -- even if I fundamentally agree with the message, I don't appreciate being hit over the head with it. For god's sake, when it comes to that sort of thing, show, don't tell.
I couldn't agree more about the "fan-service" scene.
Worst scene... man, that's hard to choose. I would have to go with an Idiot scene in Prometheus. The part where the cowardly scientist who freaked out over a hologram of a centuries-dead bipedal alien suddenly decides that he wants to pet the spacey lamprey. Mind you, this is the dude who role for the mission in order to map the interior of the structure and he got lost.
Independence Day did the sacrifice scene a lot better.
I got a game: fix these scenes. The change has to be contained in the scene, but can ripple out.
The Draft one seems pretty easy; starting a meeting before an important business decision by putting everyone is on the same page is totally normal. Simply modify the dialogue to reflect that they're professionals. When someone whistles after watching a play, you know he's seen it a hundred times, but it still gets his blood pumping.
Last Jedi: Rose is deep cover. After the death of her sister she is contacted and flipped (during the prison break? There's one of those, right?), manipulated into believing that the only way to prevent future grief like her's is to end the war decisively.
Have the moment heighten the tension instead of confuse and muddle the finale.
It already reads as a betrayal (she really thought they'd both survive the collision *and* crash landing?), just own it. Subvert our expectations.
Hoping for a new book announcement soon???
Thanks for asking! I'm releasing one in April: www.amazon.com/Half-Murders-Brandon-McNulty-ebook/dp/B0CVBNH87N/
Great video - I noticed an overarching theme is choose your scenes wisely towards the end of a story!
Hey Brandon it seems like you're really rushing today. I don't mind , I love your videos, but I would say feel free to do good videos over fast video! We love your wisdom and I doubt anyone would be angry if you just need to skip a week.
Hey thanks! And I was indeed rushing. I spent a good chunk of the past week trying to hire an audiobook narrator for my upcoming novel, and I finally selected one on Wednesday. That meant I had to script/record/edit this video in a day-and-a-half to meet my Thursday deadline.
To be honest, I've been dragging myself across the finish line week after week for the past couple months. UA-cam is a lot of work and I'd love a week off, but at the same time I don't want to lose any momentum until after I release my new book in late April. Once it's out, I may take a week off to recharge (or maybe just do a couple simpler/shorter videos).
But thanks for reaching out and for the kind words!
I've really enjoyed a lot of your videos. This is one that stands out as just bad. It's ironic that your video covering bad scenes is one of your worst written videos. A lot of context is ignored so that you can say "this was poorly written."
If I could suggest a way to rectify that, I'd tell you to propose changes to the scene, rather than just demeaning it. I've seen most of these movies in theaters. These scenes landed for viewers. Proposing a change could take this format in a better direction. Then it's not about fighting against what we hate, it's about preserving what we love. And yes, I'm paraphrasing Rose. But she was right. And it was impactful.