I expect a few things from my fiction. Fairly basic things, really.
1) That the premise be entertaining in some fashion, be it humorous, exciting, inspiring, educational, frightening, etc.. In other words - am I interested in what is happening?
2) That the characters, antagonist and protagonist, be such that I can invest in them for the duration of the story. Do I care what happens to them?
3) That the world presented is internally consistent, both on it's own, but also within the larger subset of it's genre. Does the snapshot of the fictional world stand up well enough to serve as the backdrop to the story being played out by the characters?
Am I going to sit down for a fun night of watching torture porn? Or a supposed romance between a sparkling vampire and a plank of wood? No. That doesn't sound interesting at all. Actually, I'm starting to feel ill just thinking about it.
If I am watching a romantic comedy, and the two leads clearly have no chemistry despite the movie trying to tell me that they really, really do, how invested am I going to be in those leads getting together at the end? Not much.
If every single premise put forth in a science fiction tale not only doesn't make sense if placed against reality, but actually is self-contradicting within it's own narrative, am I going to be able to suspend my disbelief to the extent necessary in order to accept the story being presented by the characters, no matter how interesting that story might be on its face or how well disposed towards those characters I might initially feel? Sigh. No. No, Snowpiercer. I am not.
I could go down a list of everything about the film that so overwhelmed my suspension of disbelief I actually heard it snap wetly like a compound fracture, but I won't.
I could go into an excruciatingly long, punctuation-less, nerd rage-fueled, hyperbolic, late-night internet rant about just how stupid every single moment of this film was, but I won't.
I could try to detail plot point by plot point, character by character, line by line, how it all could have been done better, as only a true netwarrior, in the comfort of my own home, can armchair general "important" fiction, but I won't.
I've been down that road. I've seen where those tracks lead. And this film already stole two hours of my life, like a thief in the night - a hobo thief that hopped the rail and skipped town with my time wallet.
I'll leave the heaping of praise and the wringing of hands, the heaping of scorn and gnashing of teeth to other, no doubt better netwarriors than I.
If you have seen Snowpiercer, I am genuinely interested in reading what you thought of it. If you haven't, I would suggest that, perhaps, your time would be better spent elsewhere. However, if you are bound and determined to lay down on those tracks in the belief you can get off before the crazy train runs over your brain, I would leave you with one final point:
By the end, the perpetual motion machine driving the train was the only thing in the entire film I was actually able to accept as reasonable and well thought out.
PS - Only now, at the end, do I understand ... that I misspelled "thou" in the thread title. Sigh. No, wait! It has deeper meaning, you just have to think about it really hard.
1) That the premise be entertaining in some fashion, be it humorous, exciting, inspiring, educational, frightening, etc.. In other words - am I interested in what is happening?
2) That the characters, antagonist and protagonist, be such that I can invest in them for the duration of the story. Do I care what happens to them?
3) That the world presented is internally consistent, both on it's own, but also within the larger subset of it's genre. Does the snapshot of the fictional world stand up well enough to serve as the backdrop to the story being played out by the characters?
Am I going to sit down for a fun night of watching torture porn? Or a supposed romance between a sparkling vampire and a plank of wood? No. That doesn't sound interesting at all. Actually, I'm starting to feel ill just thinking about it.
If I am watching a romantic comedy, and the two leads clearly have no chemistry despite the movie trying to tell me that they really, really do, how invested am I going to be in those leads getting together at the end? Not much.
If every single premise put forth in a science fiction tale not only doesn't make sense if placed against reality, but actually is self-contradicting within it's own narrative, am I going to be able to suspend my disbelief to the extent necessary in order to accept the story being presented by the characters, no matter how interesting that story might be on its face or how well disposed towards those characters I might initially feel? Sigh. No. No, Snowpiercer. I am not.
I could go down a list of everything about the film that so overwhelmed my suspension of disbelief I actually heard it snap wetly like a compound fracture, but I won't.
I could go into an excruciatingly long, punctuation-less, nerd rage-fueled, hyperbolic, late-night internet rant about just how stupid every single moment of this film was, but I won't.
I could try to detail plot point by plot point, character by character, line by line, how it all could have been done better, as only a true netwarrior, in the comfort of my own home, can armchair general "important" fiction, but I won't.
I've been down that road. I've seen where those tracks lead. And this film already stole two hours of my life, like a thief in the night - a hobo thief that hopped the rail and skipped town with my time wallet.
I'll leave the heaping of praise and the wringing of hands, the heaping of scorn and gnashing of teeth to other, no doubt better netwarriors than I.
If you have seen Snowpiercer, I am genuinely interested in reading what you thought of it. If you haven't, I would suggest that, perhaps, your time would be better spent elsewhere. However, if you are bound and determined to lay down on those tracks in the belief you can get off before the crazy train runs over your brain, I would leave you with one final point:
By the end, the perpetual motion machine driving the train was the only thing in the entire film I was actually able to accept as reasonable and well thought out.
PS - Only now, at the end, do I understand ... that I misspelled "thou" in the thread title. Sigh. No, wait! It has deeper meaning, you just have to think about it really hard.
