The Write Stuff: The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

[AndyC]

Discuss @David Flin 's latest article

 

[AndyC]

I'm rejigging some of the schedules.

The bookflying photograph - let's just say I've got quick reactions and a lot of books and leave it at that...

(The very perceptive can just make out a blurred map of the planet Elpis on the wall behind)

 

[Alex Richards]

Interestingly enough, the very first edition of Blake and Mortimer from all the way back in 1948 (give or take for the original syndication) features a bit where they're sneaking into a temporary enemy encampment by disposing of a sentry.

It works enough to let them in, but then a patrol finds the dead sentry and raises the alarm before they escape so it's still a hot exit. Which at least makes more sense than the usual.

The commentary about the arch-enemy/love interest dynamic also reminds me of Megamind, though in that case it's more of a 'the love interest has been kidnapped so many times that she's just bored and bantering with the arch-enemy.'

That film actually does a lot to deconstruct a fair bit of this:

-The stereotypical hero is just utterly bored with everything because it's always the same, while the titular villain practically treats it as a game.

-The hero fakes his death, the villain wins and... realises that after putting up a few big statues of himself he doesn't actually know why he wanted to take over the city or what to do next. So tries to create a new hero to fight who ends up being an even bigger villain that he ever was as he doesn't care about 'the rules' of how it's 'meant' to go.

-The villain eventually reforms, becomes the city's new hero and hooks up with the love-interest of the old hero, which works because it looks like they've probably got more in common personality wise, have spent huge amounts of time together over the years from all the kidnapping and he's had the character development to lose the bits which were unacceptable to her (i.e. the extreme villainy).

 

[Alex Richards]

I rather liked Megamind for exactly that reason. It is, I would venture, rather well written.

Really deserved to be more successful IMO.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Similar to the dead-ground issue, there’s what I refer to as the Exhaust Duct issue. Why have an exhaust duct directly connected to the main reactor core that a single bomb dropped into the duct causes a distinct downturn in the Mighty War Machine? Rather than relying on TIE fighters and turbolaser gun emplacements, use a sheet of chicken wire, and goodnight, Rebel base.

I personally get less bothered about this in Star Wars than in Rogue One, where this vulnerability is deliberately programmed in by a saboteur. After that, I can't overlook "yeah that IS stupid for it to have! Was that the only way to vent the thermals?" and have to consider that someone sat through design meetings, worked on hundreds of hours of paperwork etc to ensure this happened when it would not otherwise have, without anyone catching on.

 

[Warthog]

, if they plan to become dictator of Britain, their plan might be to gain a monopoly on all ice cream sold anywhere in Britain, and then during the summer holidays, threaten to remove all ice cream from sale, until children across the country badger their parents into making him dictator.

Clearly, this brilliant scheme will involve acquiring the means of production of ice cream and stocks of ice-cream, .

1. I actually read an American version of this, except with infantry instead of children. The nation then saved by a marine who hated ice cream
2. This is presumably an even more dystopian version of Gordon Banks

 

[Death's Companion]

The one piece of this I will nick pick is the exhaust port.

Because that took space magic to work, the Imperials realized the danger but dismissed it as a likely scenario and the Rebels got slaughtered trying and failing to reach it before Luke got basically divine intervention to make a shot work that experienced pilots thought impossible.

The reason the Tie Fighters were not sent out until Vader lost patience and led them personally was elaborated in the EU where a previous raid of much more numerous fighters was slaughtered by TIE Fighters who were subordinate to a different branch than the Gunners. The commander of the Death Star being a gunner himself by trade wanted his branch to get some glory and given the enemy battle plan had been dismissed as impractical and the sheer firepower available relative to the tiny number of fighters it seemed again a safe bet.

As bad guy stupidity go, inter service rivalry mixed with the wrong lessons being learned from previous engagements seems positively brilliant. And the Gunners fucking it all up for everyone also seems rather realistic.


Though thread tax, the Empire never again after the final film gets portrayed as remotely competent or threatening. Its defeats only get more humiliating and its villains less and less credible. The protagonists only ever add to their tallies and the universe will bend itself backwards more and more to make the Empire suck. The First Order of the more recent movies doubles down on this.


Its sad because who doesn't love a good threatening villain?

 

[Death's Companion]

Also yes Megamind was perfect.

I also think that Metroman was secretly keeping an eye on things and would have stepped in if it looked like people were actually going to die. But during his montage of self help books and psychology figured out that Megamind was going to do the right thing anyway and just needed the crucible of seemingly being totally out of alternatives.

I really liked that movie. It was just so fun.

 

[OwenM]

The way you describe the love interest thing made me think of the Percy Jackson books, which is basically the first option you offered - the love interest had a crush on the main villain (technically more of a lieutenant, but the main one in practise) for years before he switched sides (at more or less the same time she met the hero), he having been one of the two people who looked after her the first couple of years after she ran away from home, and a friend for several years in between, and it obviously isn't going to disappear immediately, especially when basically the entire main cast sympathises with his reasons, if not his actions.