Why is everything so predictable?

I personally feel someone in this thread is telling a TALL TALE.

Are you referring to the most recent Batman movie? Because other than that, I can only think of one of his other movies that has a big twist, and it is heavily telegraphed. In fact, when you rewatch the movie, you notice all kinds of small nods to the twist.

Because life continually follows similar patters and emulation is inevitable.

Once you've seen enough stories told, you learn how they're told. You learn that small clues are never there by accident, and so if it seems like something could possibly be the case, it almost always is.

1. There is no goddamn way you could guess how The Dark Tower ends based solely on The Gunslinger. Unless you're a psychic, there's just no goddamn way.

2. Well, The Sixth Sense is predicated on a simple twist that anyone could see coming within the first five minutes if they were paying attention.

@hailinel: It's also a lot easier to predict a twist when you know there is one. As much as I don't like The Big Bang Theory, one of the episodes I have seen mentions this. Once you tell someone that the ending is mindblowing or that it has a good twist, they will be looking for stuff specifically while watching the movie (or reading a book, or interacting with any medium).

All of the Batman movies shoehorn in some sort of twist (Begins: Ra's al Ghul didn't die at the beginning. Dark Night: James Gordon feigns his own death for some inexplicable reason, presumably just to give the audience a gasp moment when he rips his mask off later on in the movie. Rises: Well, that one goes without saying). Inception does it too. Memento. He's just as bad about that as M. Night and nobody calls him out on it. I'm not saying any of these are poor films - well, some of them are but that's not my point. Just that he loves his little "gotcha" moments.

@hatking: The main difference between Nolan and Shyamalamadingdong is that, while Nolan does love his twists, his greater skill in writing and directing makes them easier to forgive than, say, a poorly constructed movie about aliens with a water allergy invading a planet that is seventy percent water.

Absolutely. I didn't mean to compare the quality of their films. Simply the similar tactic. Nolan's movies are generally entertaining, even if they aren't holding up as a narrative. M Night's movies are sometimes fun to laugh at, but mostly just make me sad that talent has so little to do with recognition.

@zfubarz: Well .... try watching some of Werner Herzog films .... they are so unlike hollywood that you may be unable to guess the endings , also well most movies are very structured and american films try its earnest to not deviate from the usual , so its not unheard of that they can be a tad predictable. Sometimes I do guess some endings but I get so inmersed in some movies that the mind just flicks off and I am able to enjoy it even if the ending is hinted heavily before hand.

Also maybe you should wacth and older film.... like Passion of Joan Ark by Carl Theodor Dreyer , its not baaout the ending but the ride that matters.

There was a period last-gen (weird saying that) when practically every single game with a story I played had a character betraying the protagonist(s).

I mean, stuff like that has always been in games and it still occurs, but like, 5-6 years ago, I pretty much expected any helpful NPC in every game to screw me over at some point.

I don't see that happening as much as I used to.

Because you just hit puberty and part of growing up is being cynical about everything and everyone, thinking you know everything and that you could've done things better. Hopefully you come out the other side okay as a fully formed adult, if not well, that's why Metal was invented.

This episode of South Park is appropriate -

@hatking: I think there is a big difference between a "gotcha" moment and a twist. The ending of The Prestige is a twist. Jim Gordan being alive isn't.

And I can't, for the life of me, figure out what twists you are referring to in Memento and Inception.

What a pointless, jerk-off thread. The fact I wasted 5 minutes reading any of it...an old man, alone, filled with regret

This is why I just like to switch my brain off for most movies. Unless it's very blatant, I won't question the plot holes, try and predict anything, or connect the dots and foreshadowing. It's just not fun. If you're trying to just predict everything that will happen, how will you ever be immersed?

Also, predictability is not necessarily a bad thing. Take Breaking Bad, for example. Some of the things that were going to happen in that series were very obvious, but watching the scenes play out and all of the fallout was tremendous fun. Not everything revolves around big twists, or even plot.

yup.

@killerfridge said:

+1. There are more to stories than endings. If you are unable to enjoy a story because you know the ending, then the story has failed.

If you are unable to enjoy any story because you know all the endings, then you have failed.

@zfubarz: I've studied film analytically (a real "useful" bachelors degree), so I know exactly how you feel, even more so. The media world lives on its formulas, they know what sells. This applies to everything from movies to TV, music, games, even books for goods sake. It's always been like this, it's nothing new (even the classic composer copied each others and followed formulas). Some have, and do, challenge them though. Try watching something less known that you know nothing about. Check out films by David Lynch, René Laloux, Fritz Lang, Gaspar Noé, just to name a few. Expand your horizon mate. Hell, you might even like some of Apichatpong Weerasethakul movies. I really enjoyed Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, but it's certainly not for everyone.

Very much these. Breaking Bad is a good example as well, a lot of it is predictable as hell, but generally the production and acting is well worth watching despite that.

Thanks to the people offering advice, I'll add some of them to the stockpile of things to read/watch some day.

Generally speaking in most forms of western art they follow a pattern of showing heroes or protagonists as having some sort of weakness or ailment. It's been that way since the ancient greek myths. Sounds like you just know how to recognize patterns really well.

Everything is so predictable in movies because scripts are written and edited based off rules which were recently laid down in a book called Save the Cat. These rules have been followed by Hollywood since the late 1980s and they work damn well on general audiences. I imagine it's the same for blockbuster video games too. When you have multimillion budgets at stake, you don't want to take many risks.

Welp I guess you are just too smart and cool and should never consume any media ever again.

Have you considered that most of what you listed isn't trying to be unpredictable?

@jasonr86:

This^

you could stop watching/reading derivative pop fiction as a start. Or you know, just stop trying to convince everyone in the room how brilliant you are. People totally see through that dude and it's not attractive/endearing. Keep it up though, see if you can guess the ending to that story.

Let me ask you this: Did you guess Samus's gender right in Metroid? If you did, you're a psychic.

As the great Shirley Bassey said; It's all just a little bit of history repeating.

Hollywood is mostly recycling so much with very little imagination in the story in so many many films lately.

Read more books. Watch less movies.

Pulp fiction, the genre not the film. It's cheap, it's easy to produce and it's made to entertain. It's a part of all media so there's a cheap quality to it, even though we like this or that for other reasons.

You aren't alone duders. I get this same deal constantly. It sucks because no one likes a know it all.

I Think @truthtellah nailed it, it's predictable because it's simple. Life is a circle and we look for the patterns.

At the end of the Gunslinger you predicted the end of the series? Absolute bullshit.

If I could perdict things, I'd have a different power too. The power to make a change. Save the world form someone else going through this. I mean wouldn't you be better off if someone did that for you in the first place. I probably shouldn't post on such a old thread.

I don't mean to brag, you guys, but I totally predicted this thread getting resurrected 5 and a half years after the fact.

@killem_dafoe: Hahaha, Bravo!