Current mood:	sarky
Entry tags:	movie reviews, snark, star trek, transformers 2

Good Idea / Bad Idea
Strangely, I've spent a notable portion of the past two days at the theater.

Exhibit A: J.J. Abrams's Star Trek.
Exhibit B: Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Seeing these movies back to back sort of invites comparison, and considering how, uh, different they are, the format that springs immediately to mind is Good Idea, Bad Idea from "Animaniacs".

What to include in your "teaser" to hook your audience into the story before the opening credits roll:
Good Idea
Action, explosions, familiar names, dramatic music, lives in peril, desperate heroics, Important Plot Points That Will Be Recalled Later.

Bad Idea
Was that a tiger? In Egypt?



How to introduce characters with whom your core audience is already familiar:
Good Idea
Bones (to Kirk): "My wife got half the planet in the divorce. All I've got left are my bones."

Bad Idea
Optimus Prime (to General Whatsisbollocks): "I am Optimus Prime blah blah blah Autobots blah Decepticons blah blah blah ancient times blah blah energon blah [ten minutes of chalky exposition] blah...."



How to gently let the pendantic section of the fanboy contingent know they're not in Kansas anymore, and that it's unreasonable to expect the new version to be exactly like the source material in all respects:
Good Idea
Spock: "Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the U.S.S. Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party."
Uhura: "An alternate reality."
Spock: "Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been if the time continuum was not disrupted, our destinies have changed."

Bad Idea
Wolverine: "Nice uniforms."
Cyclops: "What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?"*



How to show you're taking the internal consistency of your story seriously, despite the fantastic setting:
Good Idea
Employ a continuity editor, and at least hand-wave the really outrageous science stuff, if there's no rational explanation.
Scotty: "Huh. I never would have thought of space as the moving object."

Bad Idea
Have robots drool, vomit, fart, and weep for the sake of "comedy"; be unable to calculate that five minus one plus one is five and not six; dramatically rip the top off of Khafre's pyramid (that's the really distinctive one which still has its casing stones, for non-geeks) at Giza, but don't worry about having the same pyramid, intact, in the background of subsequent shots; etc., etc., etc....


How to set up and pay off a running gag:
Good Idea
"You cheated." / "Time travel, changing history... that's cheating."

Bad Idea
A dog humping another dog / a robot humping someone's leg.


How to let your audience know that your main villain is not merely a monster of the week, but Serious Business, and the world as we know it is in peril:
Good Idea
Capt. Pike: "This is Captain Christopher Pike. To whom am I speaking?"
Nero: "Hi, Chris. I'm Nero." *commits genocide, takes off for Earth*

Bad Idea
Have him talk in a really mean voice.


How to use specialized camera work to create a sense of tension and action:
Good Idea
Use quick zooms and wobble to give a hand-held/gritty-reality feel to very carefully staged effects shots, "Firefly"-style.

Bad Idea
Shoot everything from a crane. Or a trolley. Or roller skates! EVERY CAMERA MUST BE MOVING, DAMNIT, EVEN IF NOTHING IS HAPPENING.


How to make a raunchy joke, but keep it suitable for a PG-13 audience:
Good Idea
Uhura: "And here I thought you were a dumb hick who only had sex with farm animals."
Jim Kirk: "Well, not only."

Bad Idea
Simmons: "Enemy nutsack sighted!"


When to drop the soundtrack out of your movie for dramatic effect:
Good Idea
When something explodes in space.

Bad Idea
Sometimes, at random, when anything explodes.



How to designate characters as comic relief:
Good Idea
Zany accents and snappy dialogue!
Scotty: "What? Are you from the future?"
Kirk: "Yeah, he is. I'm not."
Scotty: "Well that's brilliant! Do they still have sandwiches there?"

Bad Idea
Zany accents and racial stereotypes that are offensive or annoying, depending on context!
Sam (holding out Cybertronian symbols): "Can you read this?"
Skids or Mudflap: "Read? Nuh-uh."
Mudflap or Skids: "We don't really do much reading."


How to set up the final climactic battle sequence, where everything miraculously goes right for Our Heroes, without undermining the seriousness of their peril:
Good Idea
Scotty: "Okay, if there's any sense to the design of this Romulan ship, I'll be beaming you into the cargo bay. Shouldn't be a soul in sight."
(Kirk and Spock are beamed into Engineering, where a bunch of surprised-looking Romulans are staring at them and reaching for weapons.)

Bad Idea
Michaela: "How do you know this will work?"
Sam: "Because I believe it."


How to please the old-school fans with the end credits:
Good Idea
Get a full orchestra to do the original theme music.

Bad Idea
Nickelback.

I think the real lesson here is never start a "yo' momma" fight with a half-Vulcan.

* Fine, I can't blame Michael Bay for that one. I still hate it, though.