DISQUS

Nevernude · 1 year ago

i have no problem at all with the continuing diminishing of the fabled "3 Act" structure. You can't have too much of a good thing. I, for one, would sacrifice a whole day, nay a whole month! to watch The Dark Knight if it had a running time of 4 weeks. However, if its a bad film that goes on and on and piles on the crapiness for hours on end e.g. imagine a 2 or 3 hour long epic/superhero/scary/date/disaster movie. Mon dieu!

Mister Hand · 1 year ago

I believe the death knell of the 3-Act Structure was rung most loudly by QT's PULP FICTION. How many times did you think you'd reached the end of that movie before it actually ended? And every time, were you not delighted to then discover that QT still had more story to tell?

Long, short, middlin', to me a good movie is a good movie. If it can be long and good, I say all the better.

RETURN OF THE KING, by the way, for me, was too long before they even got to Aragorn's coronation. Frodo and Sam's extended march to Mt. Doom was rather... tedious for me.

Aleric · 1 year ago

I agree with the OP and the article, if the movie uses the extended time well then it is worth the longer run time. Too many of the bad movies seem to waste the extra run time by having fluff discussions that don't add to the movie at all.

I have left a lot of movies over the last few years thinking that they were unfinished and needed additional content to be a complete movie. The first AvP was a prime example, it seemed rushed and needed a lot more combat and development of the Predators themselves. It seemed like more of an assembly line of characters than a movie, introduce characters, stick in bad situation, kill off all but one or two of the main characters, roll credits.

Cole Abaius · 1 year ago

I hate to agree with Fure, because he's a terrible human being, but I hate the tacked-on endings, too. It's like the epilogue in books. How many people read epilogues? Zero? Thought so.

I would be willing to bet money that we'd like some of those movies even more if they hadn't had the extra meat on the end and we didn't know what we were missing. For LOTR it's difficult because we have extensive source material to look to.

I'm not sure I see the same thing with Pulp Fiction - I felt like it had a 3-act structure, just not in the right order.

Meanwhile, I applaud your dedication, Nevernude!

Jim Rohner · 1 year ago

I think I have to agree with Cole that I didn't see Pulp Fiction as breaking the form of a three act structure. It certainly rearranged things linearly, but it still had three distinct acts. QT, after all, did pull from the mantra that all films need a beginning middle and end. Just not in that order.

SideItem · 1 year ago

I think what you're actually complaining about is movies with flawed pacing. Whenever I feel like I'm watching a second or third or fifth ending, I can't help but think that I'm just watching events that couldn't be properly integrated into the narrative proper. Sure, they couldn't just be abandoned and forgotten (that's probably another raw point, unresolved plot points) but if the only way to wrap up a thread is to staple a conclusion after the climax, I have to think that the progression had a few hiccups along the line.

Also, while I see what you're saying, I don't think The Dark Knight commits the same crime as RotK, or it at could at least be defended as doing it in a less glaring way. TDK made the 'mistake' of setting up the ending at the 2-hour point, a time when audiences are prepared for a movie to end, but I never expected that the film would fade to black at that point, seeing as the narrative was still pulsing forward, whereas you could literally choose from the four or five different ending points to wrap up RotK effectively and definitively (maybe not as effectively to sate the fanboys, but they're fanboys).

nathan · 1 year ago

you got that right buddy! but i would have liked to see Humphrey Bogart and Claude Raines play cards and talk about fish at the end of Casablanca...

John · 11 months ago

I agree with the spirit of what you're saying but I believe, (correct me if I'm wrong) but the three act structure doesn't end at the climax. Technically, there's a wind down after the climax which is what those movies are doing. The trend is for many movies to cut the third act short and end at the climax.

Tron · 5 months ago

I agree with you.

some movies just seem to drag on too damn long (Return of the king which had about 25x that me and my friend thought 'ok NOW it's @ the end').

I'm perfectly happy with a well written GOOD 90 - 120 min movie.

hell unless i'ts a GREAT movie that I love (watchmen was the most recent one i can think of). I start to just lose interest and zone out by a little after the 2 hour mark.

If there's a ton of extra footage, throw it in as bonus on the dvd when I can watch it at my own pace.