Plot and Plausibility
We watched “Sharknado” last night, and found it every bit the over-the-top improbability fest we’d hoped for. I can clearly remember the jolt of outrage I felt when it first caught fire with the public: “To think I've ever worried that any of my plots are implausible!”
Sometimes you watch a movie with growing suspicion or distaste toward the storyline, which can only stretch to so many coincidences, late-blossoming superpowers and out-and-out miracles before the audience starts to feel the restless sense that they've been had. But there’s something liberating about a story which throws plot so unabashedly to the – well, sharks.
A movie like “Sharknado” dispenses with the expectation that the plot has to hang together even before the audience decides to watch it; the title shatters the viewer’s default storytelling standards with a sledgehammer. Instead of feeling played, the viewer enters the experience in conspiratorial mode: “This movie's gonna suck SO MUCH! Bring on the flying sharks and let me watch them kill everybody to a bloody pulp!” And after setting up that expectation, the movie does bring it. Drenched in equal parts silliness and gore, it gives the audience the opportunity to enjoy the unabashed “action hero” story they've become too sophisticated to feel comfortable liking, while simultaneously basking in intellectual superiority as they laugh at the sucky storyline. Win, win, and ca-ching!
So what does “Sharknado” teach other storytellers? Should we just throw plot out the window and funnel all our cash into special effects? Of course not. For most stories, the plot had better be airtight, or your readers/viewers will be forever hung up on “But the Mad-Eye Moody impostor could have turned ANYTHING IN HIS OFFICE* into a stupid Portkey, skipped all the Triwizards foolishness and sent Harry to that graveyard the day he arrived at Hogwarts!”
“Sharknado” is a reminder that, as a storyteller, you have to know when to break the rules. And when you decide it’s time, it can be a great idea to jump the shark and break them so badly that any literary judge would hand you a life sentence instead of a $50 fine.
Oh—and never forget that made-up words can be full-on totally frickin’ awesome.
*”Harry, as your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher I need to check your wand for curses… give it here a sec… thanks…. right, looks good, you can have it back… MWAHAHA! Tell the Dark Lord “hi” from me, sucka!”
Sometimes you watch a movie with growing suspicion or distaste toward the storyline, which can only stretch to so many coincidences, late-blossoming superpowers and out-and-out miracles before the audience starts to feel the restless sense that they've been had. But there’s something liberating about a story which throws plot so unabashedly to the – well, sharks.
A movie like “Sharknado” dispenses with the expectation that the plot has to hang together even before the audience decides to watch it; the title shatters the viewer’s default storytelling standards with a sledgehammer. Instead of feeling played, the viewer enters the experience in conspiratorial mode: “This movie's gonna suck SO MUCH! Bring on the flying sharks and let me watch them kill everybody to a bloody pulp!” And after setting up that expectation, the movie does bring it. Drenched in equal parts silliness and gore, it gives the audience the opportunity to enjoy the unabashed “action hero” story they've become too sophisticated to feel comfortable liking, while simultaneously basking in intellectual superiority as they laugh at the sucky storyline. Win, win, and ca-ching!
So what does “Sharknado” teach other storytellers? Should we just throw plot out the window and funnel all our cash into special effects? Of course not. For most stories, the plot had better be airtight, or your readers/viewers will be forever hung up on “But the Mad-Eye Moody impostor could have turned ANYTHING IN HIS OFFICE* into a stupid Portkey, skipped all the Triwizards foolishness and sent Harry to that graveyard the day he arrived at Hogwarts!”
“Sharknado” is a reminder that, as a storyteller, you have to know when to break the rules. And when you decide it’s time, it can be a great idea to jump the shark and break them so badly that any literary judge would hand you a life sentence instead of a $50 fine.
Oh—and never forget that made-up words can be full-on totally frickin’ awesome.
*”Harry, as your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher I need to check your wand for curses… give it here a sec… thanks…. right, looks good, you can have it back… MWAHAHA! Tell the Dark Lord “hi” from me, sucka!”
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