Are gamers too sharp for movies?

[Mark]

I tend to find that most movies can't surprise me, even when they try. Some flicks purposefully telegraph their twists and it seems they use this wink to the audience as a failsafe against people saying it wasn't clever enough. The two movies in (fairly) recent memory that did a fine job of keeping me off-balance were The Usual Suspects and The Sixth Sense. I'm guessing most other gamers are difficult to bamboozle, so help me find some movies that might pull the wool over my eyes. I'm sure it also depends on the moment in time in which you see a film but if it fooled someone on these boards, I'm sure it has a chance of duping me, too.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Hola Mark,

Fortunately I'm pretty dense so movies have an easy time fooling me. I didn't see the telegraphing in "The Others", "Mission: Impossible" (first one), "Unbreakable", or "Scooby Doo"...

Er, well, maybe I saw it in Scooby.

Anyway, I have this theory that all good stories tell you how they're going to end before they end.

 

[orbitalfreak]

Most times, movie plots are fairly evident to me. This could be that a lot of times, the stories are just retellings of old clichés. The evil guy has a tendency to turn good at the end of the movie. The guy always gets the girl. The world never ends in cataclysm.

Some movies are exceptions, though, and throw in twists that I would never expect.


*****OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNINGS*******

Darth Vader's "I am your father." That is something that I don't think anyone ever suspected. (I know, everyone knows this now, but I put it in with the spoilers to be safe)

Deep Impact, the meteor? asteroid? whatever actually hit Earth.

Not a movie, but the Fox series "24", the main character's wife (also a main star of the show) is killed in the final episode. Just when you thought it was going to be a sappy family reuniting scene, her body is found strapped to a chair.

**********END SPOILER SECTION**********



The Sixth Sense, though, totally threw me for a loop, and scared the bejezzus out of me in the process!

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

While Minority Report was a great movie...I remember figuring it out about an hour into it.

 

[Crothian]

Some movies like Sixth Sens I am able to figure out others like ?Usual Suspects completely through me. But then there are movies like Basic that really just try twist after twist and they fail to make it interesting.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Funny you mention The Usual Suspects, because I figured that out very quickly. On the other hand, Unbreakable I didn't figure out at all, although that could have been my mental state at the time. Or me just being oblivious

I don't think it's a gamer thing though. I think it's more of a matter that twist endings have become more and more prevalent these days that it's almost a surprise when there isn't one. Because of this, people are on the lookout and pick up more of this stuff. Intelligence and familiarity with stories certainly aids in this task, but then those don't apply any differently across role-players than it does across the norm, IMO.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Pick up Frailty at your local video store. It's directed by Bill Paxton who also appears in the movie. Other names worth mentioning are Matthew MacConughey and Powers Booth.

Edit: spelling.

 

[Dr Midnight]

My favorite twist movie is MALICE. Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin and Bill Pullman. One twist is pretty obvious, but everything else threw me when I saw it eleven years ago, and there's a glorious twist right at the end that puts a forehead slap on everything. I have the DVD and make sure to show it to everyone who'll watch it. It's very quotable, too, which is too bad because I'm the only fan I know.

"Sit down."

"What did you say to me?"

"I said SIT the **** DOWN. I'm running the show."

Halfway through, you'll see that what you've been trying to figure out is entirely irrelevant... the movie's not about what you first think it is.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I don't think movies try to fool people today, it s not in their nature. They are trying to get an age group to them and are marketed to that demographic. I just think that demographic does not really catch/notices some ideas and thoughts the way I an older movie goer (43) does, they are more flash and here now.

 

[EricNoah]

Sometimes a story exists to set up a pattern and then break the pattern, in order to surprise. Some people are pleased by that surprise.

Sometimes, though, a story exists to set up the pattern and then fulfill the pattern. Some people are pleased by having the pattern fulfilled.