Discussion question: predictable movies

[alexandra_thorn]

When you describe a movie as predictable, what does that mean? When someone tells you that a movie is predictable, what do you assume they mean?

Comments

[mik3cap]

Predictable to me usually means that I can tell what's going to happen next while I'm watching the movie. But it's a matter of degrees - if I see a trailer and get an idea of what a movie's about, I may speculate what the general plot is going to be, and how much the movie actually fits that speculation affects how predictable I think it ends up being. If it follows a lot of tropes, or heavily uses foreshadowing (like in 2001: A Space Odyssey - the sign warning about EXPLOSIVE BOLTS appears something like four times).

But also, if I'm watching a film, and something signals to me what's going to happen next (a piece of dialogue reveals something, or a scene unfolds a certain way); if that sign triggers a revelation about what the ending is going to be it can upset me a bit because it makes the finale of the movie utterly predictable. It's worse of course when it happens sooner rather than later.

I almost never take anything anyone says about a movie seriously because people rarely have the same movie experience that I do.

[maedbh7]

For me, it means I can tell you what's going to happen to the plot before it unfolds. When the two love interests first meet, in almost any romantic comedy, you know that they will hook up, one of them will do something colosolly stupid (usually the male), he'll spend the rest of the movie making it up to her, she'll relent, and they walk off into the sunset together. Now, that's not predicatability - that's the trope of romantic comedies. Predictability is when you can tell exactly how he will mess up and with whom, what 3 over the top things he will do to make it up to her, what she will say when she forgives him and what the dog will be wearing at their wedding *and* you can tell all that from the moment they lock eyes in the first 15 minutes of the movie.

I appreciate directors who make it a habit of *not* doing that. Any Firefly fan will remember that they set up Simon as The Bad Guy from his first appearance in the show, but Whedon revealed later in the episode that it just wasn't so. I'm told he's done the same on other shows as well.

So, when someone else tells me it's predictable, I assume they mean I can tell you the specifics of the plot (not the trope, but the specifics) earlier in the movie than the writer/director intended. -H...

[nablacdotu.livejournal.com]

The opposite of original. Full of cliches. Not particularly thought-provoking.

I would like to distinguish from being able to tell what happens next, because by that definition, every movie is "predictable" the second time you view it.

[metahacker]

*Obviously*, if I call something predictable, it means that you are stupid for liking it, and I am way cooler than you for being able to anticipate the plot twists.

At least, that's what I always hear when people dismissively talk about something as 'predictable'. >-| Luckily, a few years back I managed to install a "my identity is not assailable by people who think less of me because of what I watch, read, or listen to" circuit in my self-esteem module.

When I actually call something predictable, generally it means that the consequences of actions, and the sequence of the plot, resemble something I've seen a few times before. Generally the extreme involves me being able to predict or quote along with actual lines of dialog. The polar opposite would be "inchoate", which would also be unpleasant.

FWIW, I did not find much of Inception to be predictable, and I'm kind of confused by people who did. Perceiveable, perhaps, based on clues in the earlier bits, but I would dare anyone to write out the remainder of the plot given the first 30 minutes.

[(Anonymous)]

To me, it means that it's not inventive enough to deviate from typical formulations in movies, so you know what will happen ahead of time. This may or may not mean it's a terrible movie, but it's a disappointment to me when it happens. When someone else tells me this, it may also mean that they are good at figuring out plots of movies ahead of time.

Typically, a movie being predictable is not a good thing.

[wispfox]

Sorry, that was me. Didn't realize I wasn't logged in. :)