Scurvy_Platypus
Explorer
For me it depends on the question "how important is travel in the first place?"
Some stories (movies etc) have travel be important; it's where character development is happening and the vast majority of the story takes place as the characters travel. It doesn't matter if it's travel so they can fight the Big Bad at the end of the journey, if the majority of the story has them travelling... then travel is important.
Take Firefly for example: Travel is of medium to high importance there. You've got stories taking place in the course of travel and you see the character's relationships with each other firm up in the "day to day" sorts of bits shown during travel, not just the planet-side mission.
Star Wars is low to medium travel importance: some stuff happens as they travel, but as much or more happens in destinations compared to "going there".
The Unit (military tv show) travel is of minimal importance to high importance. The show is all about going to different places in the world and kicking butt, but the travel bit is both compressed and focused on. It's a bit of an oddity in some ways. The actual _getting_ to the specific part of the world is pretty much handwaved, but the missions themselves frequently are taking place in the context of travel. Escorting someone, an ambush, a complication to their mission, etc.
The anime show "Claymore" is all about travel. Sure, there's demon killing and all sorts of stuff like that, but towns are interchangable and the demons don't especially matter. We see the characters relating to each other in the course of their roaming around the world and what that means.
The anime Mushishi on the other hand is location based, even though the protagonist roams the countryside (he's like an adventurer almost, only not homicidal). But all the development we see is once he actually hits a town and does his thing.
Human Target, travel is of minimal importance. Christopher Chance does his thing in different locations, but getting there generally isn't overly important. It's getting _inside_ the location where we tend to start seeing things happen.
Anyway, that's how I parse things. Is the act of travel important for the story? In most cases, there's a "default" setting. Yes or no. Then you get brief "interludes" where they focus (or skip) so they can develop the story/characters in a different direction.
Some stories (movies etc) have travel be important; it's where character development is happening and the vast majority of the story takes place as the characters travel. It doesn't matter if it's travel so they can fight the Big Bad at the end of the journey, if the majority of the story has them travelling... then travel is important.
Take Firefly for example: Travel is of medium to high importance there. You've got stories taking place in the course of travel and you see the character's relationships with each other firm up in the "day to day" sorts of bits shown during travel, not just the planet-side mission.
Star Wars is low to medium travel importance: some stuff happens as they travel, but as much or more happens in destinations compared to "going there".
The Unit (military tv show) travel is of minimal importance to high importance. The show is all about going to different places in the world and kicking butt, but the travel bit is both compressed and focused on. It's a bit of an oddity in some ways. The actual _getting_ to the specific part of the world is pretty much handwaved, but the missions themselves frequently are taking place in the context of travel. Escorting someone, an ambush, a complication to their mission, etc.
The anime show "Claymore" is all about travel. Sure, there's demon killing and all sorts of stuff like that, but towns are interchangable and the demons don't especially matter. We see the characters relating to each other in the course of their roaming around the world and what that means.
The anime Mushishi on the other hand is location based, even though the protagonist roams the countryside (he's like an adventurer almost, only not homicidal). But all the development we see is once he actually hits a town and does his thing.
Human Target, travel is of minimal importance. Christopher Chance does his thing in different locations, but getting there generally isn't overly important. It's getting _inside_ the location where we tend to start seeing things happen.
Anyway, that's how I parse things. Is the act of travel important for the story? In most cases, there's a "default" setting. Yes or no. Then you get brief "interludes" where they focus (or skip) so they can develop the story/characters in a different direction.
