Star Trek Insurrection by J.M. Dillard Review Thread (27th Anniversary)

[Christopher]

I'm not entirely sure what timeframe you're talking about where "nobody" used to mind, but I've always personally disliked knowing plot details prior to watching something.

I already specified -- times like the 1960s-70s when filmmakers didn't object to novels coming out months ahead of the films, but actually saw it as a good thing for the audience to know the story in advance. When I said "nobody," I was referring to how the makers of movies felt about what we call spoilers, since I was replying to Greg's post about that topic.

 

[Greg Cox]

While we're at it, the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back came out a month before the movie, and I think David Prowse revealed Darth Vader's identity in an interview a year before the movie came out, and nobody thought it ruined anything. (Although I remember mentioning it loudly to my family on my way out of the theater in 1980 and getting an annoyed look from a passerby going into the theater. Though at the time, I assumed Vader was lying about being Luke's father.)

Funny you should cite that example. I still regret that a friend, who read the novelization of Empire before the movie came out, eagerly spoiled the major plot points in a note she left on my desk, which I read before I realized -- too late! -- what it was about:

Han gets the princess.

Vader is Luke's father.

Han disappears.


Grumble, grumble. It's been 46 years and I'm still grumpy about getting spoiled that way.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I found the textbook reference. And forgetting the middle level for building suspense turned out to be an absurdity.

It's in Rust Hills, Writing in General and the Short Story in particular (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). (Author's bolding and italics.)

Techniques of Suspense
It seems to me that there are three basic techniques of suspense, often used in combination, of course. First, there is mystery, which evokes curiosity as its effect on the reader. Second, there is conflict, which evokes uncertainty as to its outcome. Third, and most effective, is tension, which evokes anticipation. Thefirst is resolved by some sort of explanation; the second is resolved by some sort of decision; the third is resolved by some sort of fulfillment.

Hills goes on to give detailed explanations of the three: why "Mystery and Curiosity" is the lowest-level technique, pointing out at the end of its section that it puts the writer "into competition with the reader instead of partnership"; why "Conflict and Uncertainty" is the next level up; why "Tension and Anticipation" is the highest level.

And with conflict being a virtually ubiquitous element of storytelling, it's easy to see why I feel that my brain-fart about what the middle level was made me look like a complete idiot.

 

[Christopher]

Han gets the princess.

Another thing I got wrong in 1980: I strongly disliked the idea of Leia letting that disreputable scoundrel seduce her, and I was convinced that Luke would turn out to be her true love.

Hills goes on to give detailed explanations of the three: why "Mystery and Curiosity" is the lowest-level technique, pointing out at the end of its section that it puts the writer "into competition with the reader instead of partnership"; why "Conflict and Uncertainty" is the next level up; why "Tension and Anticipation" is the highest level.

That's a neat way of looking at it. Partnership with the audience vs. competition. Of course, a friendly competition isn't always a bad thing. The appeal of the mystery genre to its audience is the game, the competition between the writer and audience to outsmart each other. SF author Hal Clement said that hard science fiction was a competition between the author trying to convince the audience of the speculative science and the educated reader trying to spot the flaws. But that kind of consensual competition, where both sides seek out the mutual challenge, is arguably a form of partnership too. The readers/viewers know what they're getting into and seek it out because they welcome the challenge.

Still, it shouldn't be the default for all storytelling. I like the idea of a partnership with the audience, guiding them on a journey through the story, and I agree that just hiding information from the audience is a cruder way to generate a response than creating real uncertainty or tension about the outcome of an event.

I know that it annoys me when a story deliberately misleads the audience in order to create artificial tension. I hate that gimmick where the camera cuts between, say, a group of pursuers closing in on a door and the pursued character inside a closed room staring nervously at the door, and you think the pursuers have cornered the character, and then they burst through the door and find the room empty, and it turns out the pursued character is in a different location altogether and was never in actual danger of being discovered. It's a cheap trick, using deceptive editing to create artificial suspense, and it's way too overused. There are better ways to create genuine suspense, ways that play fair with the audience.

Similarly, I don't like the idea of leaving a story unfinished and using a cliffhanger to lure the audience back for the next installment. It feels like holding the rest of the story hostage to force the audience to come back. I think a better way to get the audience to come back is to give them a complete story with a satisfying ending so that they want to see your next story. Of course, I've used cliffhangers myself in my book series (particularly my Tangent Knights audionovel trilogy, which was emulating the serialized format of Japanese superhero shows like Kamen Rider), but I always give each installment a resolution of its own main story, with the cliffhanger just being a tease for the next stage of the story. I don't just stop in the middle of an ongoing story with nothing resolved. I answer the current story's questions first and then pose a new question to spark curiosity about the next installment.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And while I use all three at various points in my novel, a lot of the conflict involves my trying to paint deliberately conflicted and anti-stereotypical word pictures, or my protagonist trying to do seemingly oxymoronic things, and a lot of the mystery is derived from how the conflict gets resolved. And while there's probably never any question in the reader's mind about whether or not my protagonist gets her doctorate, despite deliberately doing it in the hardest possible way, there is mystery and conflict in how it finally happens.

 

[Christopher]

And while I use all three at various points in my novel

Well, sure -- any storytelling device can be valid. It's just a question of not relying too much on one device to the exclusion of others.

 

[Greg Cox]

Another thing I got wrong in 1980: I strongly disliked the idea of Leia letting that disreputable scoundrel seduce her, and I was convinced that Luke would turn out to be her true love.

I can testify that, back in 1977, every high school girl I knew agreed that Han was much hotter than Luke.

 

[Avro Arrow]

When I said "nobody," I was referring to how the makers of movies felt about what we call spoilers, since I was replying to Greg's post about that topic.

Ah, sorry, I guess I missed that context.

 

[Set Harth]

Another thing I got wrong in 1980: I strongly disliked the idea of Leia letting that disreputable scoundrel seduce her, and I was convinced that Luke would turn out to be her true love.

Dodged a bullet on that one!

 

[Christopher]

I can testify that, back in 1977, every high school girl I knew agreed that Han was much hotter than Luke.

The irony is that, as scripted in the original movie, Han was a blowhard who probably wasn't half as good a pilot as he claimed; his misuse of "parsecs" in the Kessel run line was a scripted character error meant to illustrate that he was blowing smoke, though Obi-Wan's rolled eyes in response were largely lost in the edit, so people assumed it was the writer's error instead of the character's. (I have the strong suspicion that Chewbacca was meant to be the brains of the outfit.) But Harrison Ford was a breakout star, so in the sequels, they wrote Han to be actually as great a pilot as he claimed.

 

[Greg Cox]

The irony is that, as scripted in the original movie, Han was a blowhard who probably wasn't half as good a pilot as he claimed; his misuse of "parsecs" in the Kessel run line was a scripted character error meant to illustrate that he was blowing smoke, though Obi-Wan's rolled eyes in response were largely lost in the edit, so people assumed it was the writer's error instead of the character's. (I have the strong suspicion that Chewbacca was meant to be the brains of the outfit.) But Harrison Ford was a breakout star, so in the sequels, they wrote Han to be actually as great a pilot as he claimed.

For what it's worth, the consensus among the same friends back in 1980 was that Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) was much hotter than Flash Gordon (Sam Jones).

 

[Christopher]

For what it's worth, the consensus among the same friends back in 1980 was that Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) was much hotter than Flash Gordon (Sam Jones).

Sounds like your friends had a type.

 

[Set Harth]

his misuse of "parsecs" in the Kessel run line was a scripted character error meant to illustrate that he was blowing smoke, though Obi-Wan's rolled eyes in response were largely lost in the edit, so people assumed it was the writer's error instead of the character's.

Is that the official story? Because it could still just be a mistake on Lucas' part.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Actually, it's been retconned to the general effect that it actually is a distance measurement, something to do with one or more extreme hazards that are obstacles to the run. I think the details, and the source of those details, are given somewhere in "Wookieepedia."

 

[Tosk]

Grumble, grumble. It's been 46 years and I'm still grumpy about getting spoiled that way.

You should be. Anyone who intentionally spoils (when not asked for) is a prick.

Actually, it's been retconned to the general effect that it actually is a distance measurement, something to do with one or more extreme hazards that are obstacles to the run. I think the details, and the source of those details, are given somewhere in "Wookieepedia."

As shown in Solo.

Is that the official story? Because it could still just be a mistake on Lucas' part.

The idea that Solo was bullshitting and Obi-Wan knew it was introduced in one of the revised-after-the-fact script publications of the fourth draft. (Edited: This is based on an assumption and shouldn't be taken as fact.) The actual physical script of the fourth draft March 76 features no such line.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, it's been retconned to the general effect that it actually is a distance measurement, something to do with one or more extreme hazards that are obstacles to the run. I think the details, and the source of those details, are given somewhere in "Wookieepedia."

That's what I'm saying -- as originally scripted, the "parsecs" line may have been intended to be meaningless bluster showing that Han was a liar or a fool or both (or at worst was an error on the scriptwriters' part), but when Ford became a breakout star, the sequels retconned Han into a more legitimate ace pilot, so later writers tried to come up with a way to rationalize his nonsense line as actually truthful.

As shown in Solo.

And years before that in a Rebels episode, I think, though indirectly. They had to get through an obstacle in space, and Hera (I think) came up with a way to shorten the journey that was implicitly a reference to earlier tie-in rationalizations of the Kessel Run line.

The idea that Solo was bullshitting and Obi-Wan knew it was introduced in one of the revised-after-the-fact script publications of the fourth draft. The actual physical script of the fourth draft features no such line.

Oh, I see. Well, the only reason to revise a script after the fact is as a "dialogue release" script to match the final onscreen dialogue and action. I think you can briefly glimpse Alec Guinness rolling his eyes if you look closely. So it was evidently somebody's intent during the production.

 

[Tosk]

Oh, I see. Well, the only reason to revise a script after the fact is as a "dialogue release" script to match the final onscreen dialogue and action.

Or one of George's many changes well after the fact. I'm not saying it is that, but it's another possibility.

The public version with the extra line purports to be the revised fourth draft, from January 1976. Whereas the actual physical script without that line is the revised fourth draft from March 1976.

 

[Christopher]

Or one of George's many changes well after the fact. I'm not saying it is that, but it's another possibility.

Why? If it's just in the script rather than a released version of the film, what would be the point?

The public version with the extra line purports to be the revised fourth draft, from January 1976. Whereas the actual physical script without that line is the revised fourth draft from March 1976.

Doesn't that suggest the opposite of what you're saying, that it was in the January script and deleted from the March revision? The very phrase "revised fourth draft" means there's more than one version of the fourth draft (i.e. with revisions minor enough not to warrant calling it a separate draft), so there could easily be two or more revisions of the fourth draft.

 

[Tosk]

If it's just in the script rather than a released version of the film, what would be the point?

It's in the public release version of the script. (Which apparently was released two years later.) If I could find a physical script for that version I wouldn't have suggested it as a possibility.

...I also should not have stated it as a fact, so that's a 'fact' retract for me.

(i.e. with revisions minor enough not to warrant calling it a separate draft)

Possibly. I won't pretend to know the rules on what constitutes a newly numbered draft. There's some arguably major changes between those two scripts though, with Luke Starkiller being in one and Luke Skywalker in the other.

 

[Christopher]

There's some arguably major changes between those two scripts though, with Luke Starkiller being in one and Luke Skywalker in the other.

I wouldn't call that a major change. Character names get tweaked in scripts all the time. You often see notes like (to borrow an example from another thread I'm following) "Change Ericssen to Khan throughout." It's a simple enough change in the script, and it has no effect on the events of the story or on production needs like set and prop construction, scheduling, etc. Character names can even be changed after filming by redubbing dialogue. So it's a minor tweak from a production standpoint.

In my prose writing, I often end up changing character names mid-draft or in revisions, e.g. if I realize two characters' names are too similar and easily confused.