Why do we care if it was a dream?
- Thread starter mrbigchin
- Start date
The end of Inception really only bothered me because you just know they're setting up for...
THE SEQUEL! (jazz hands)
-- spinner
as alcove said in above post, we care because we feel cheated.
I like to see how the character struggles, and how they find the way out of sticky situations. "OMG! Her arm got eatten by aliens, she has only one bullet, and the bomb is gonna blow in 20 seconds! Is she gonna shoot the gas pipe and get out?? is she going to fight with the aliens till the end??? oh... oh wait... what the... and she wakes up!??? Oh, oh writer, you're a b*tch..."
I like to see how the character struggles, and how they find the way out of sticky situations. "OMG! Her arm got eatten by aliens, she has only one bullet, and the bomb is gonna blow in 20 seconds! Is she gonna shoot the gas pipe and get out?? is she going to fight with the aliens till the end??? oh... oh wait... what the... and she wakes up!??? Oh, oh writer, you're a b*tch..."
"It was all just a dream" stories take off the table all stakes we invested into our protagonist.
We feel cheated in our emotional investment because the protag was "actually" under no "real" threat within the story.
Also consider and acknowledge that some people will enjoy the journey of losing money at the craps table, they can enjoy the game for the sake of the game win or lose, while many other people would like to know that the house is not cheating and have rigged the craps dice to always favor the house.
To turn the metaphor again, would you like antibiotics for your infection or sugar pills that leave a pleasant aftertaste but feed the bacteria?
Films are for entertainment.
Entertain me.
Don't jerk me.
We feel cheated in our emotional investment because the protag was "actually" under no "real" threat within the story.
Also consider and acknowledge that some people will enjoy the journey of losing money at the craps table, they can enjoy the game for the sake of the game win or lose, while many other people would like to know that the house is not cheating and have rigged the craps dice to always favor the house.
To turn the metaphor again, would you like antibiotics for your infection or sugar pills that leave a pleasant aftertaste but feed the bacteria?
Films are for entertainment.
Entertain me.
Don't jerk me.
I can think of one example where this trope works (off the top of my head). And that is the Star Trek TNG episode, "The Inner Light." Not only does it work, but it's also one of the best episodes of the entire series.
Also:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllJustADream
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrWasItADream
Also:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllJustADream
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrWasItADream
what.
And again, there are countless examples of "it was all a dream" done correctly that don't cause you to lose concern for the 'events' that just transpired.
In closing, I would like to say,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGHyutNq-S4
Huh.
You know, sometimes you don't realize exactly how much your tastes and temperment has changed. I remember being bothered by this a lot when I was younger (Alice In Wonderland was and still is one of my favorite books ever, and I tended to skip the last chapter because of it). Looking at the TVTropes link Dready posted (and then quickly closed the tab, because I have things to do and can't get sucked into an all-day TVTropes pit!), however, I found that none of those bothered me. In fact, some of the movies listed are among my favorites. And some brilliant tv too. "The Sting" episode of Futurama, and the "Far Beyond the Stars" episode of Deep Space 9 both rank high on my list of favorite episodes for both series. I've gone from hating this cliche, to not minding it, to actually sort of liking it. Kinda weird to think about.
The only examples I can think of where "it was only a dream" bothered me, there were plenty of other things that I disliked as well. Boxing Helena comes to mind...great concept, terrible execution. The dream ending seemed like chickening out of an extreme fetish movie, but even still, I would have been okay with it had so much of the rest of the movie not been flawed. I think that could go for any movie with a twist for the sake of having a twist.
Now, the one thing that DOES bother me about movies is where there is nothing to it other than what they show you/tell you. I like films/books/comics/cereal boxes/etc that SPUR my imagination, not take the place of it. I recognize that not everyone views it that way. And, hey, disagreeing is what makes conversation fun!
The caveat to all of this is that I am, generally speaking, very interested in dreams, and am far more likely to watch and/or enjoy something that contains or is about them.
The only examples I can think of where "it was only a dream" bothered me, there were plenty of other things that I disliked as well. Boxing Helena comes to mind...great concept, terrible execution. The dream ending seemed like chickening out of an extreme fetish movie, but even still, I would have been okay with it had so much of the rest of the movie not been flawed. I think that could go for any movie with a twist for the sake of having a twist.
Now, the one thing that DOES bother me about movies is where there is nothing to it other than what they show you/tell you. I like films/books/comics/cereal boxes/etc that SPUR my imagination, not take the place of it. I recognize that not everyone views it that way. And, hey, disagreeing is what makes conversation fun!
The caveat to all of this is that I am, generally speaking, very interested in dreams, and am far more likely to watch and/or enjoy something that contains or is about them.
There is a somewhat successful film director in Bulgaria, who has done a somewhat good movie.
Save the ending... The ending was - It's all a dream...
Everybody was so disappointed... Interesting plot, good action scenes and at the end It was just a dream?!
The film director had a long and difficult time to recover his career.
It's simple: We can relate to other people's conflicts, but we all know, dream is just a dream...
Save the ending... The ending was - It's all a dream...
Everybody was so disappointed... Interesting plot, good action scenes and at the end It was just a dream?!
The film director had a long and difficult time to recover his career.
It's simple: We can relate to other people's conflicts, but we all know, dream is just a dream...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)
EDIT: and by phenomenology I mean phenomenalism, sorry, I'm trying to read Being and Time again and I guess my frustrations at that bubbled up in my frustrations on this topic
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It's only a word unless you've experienced it.
I've experienced watching a few films that ended with: It's just a dream (It didn't happen) and I was so disappointed...
I think I agree, in that language can only express human experience and breaks down when used to represent lofty, abstract concepts, but then again, I think language itself is also necessarily abstract, representative, and communicative, so the true value of words could be that they're tools we use to arrive at mutual understanding.
Have you watched any films (or read any stories) that ended with "it was just a dream" and not experience disappointment, though? I understand that a lot of them are bad (and I agree that done incorrectly it completely devalues the rest of the work) but I must protest the idea that they are all bad based on a limited sampling (which any single one of us is stuck with, individually).
Of course, there's a lot left open to individual tastes, etc. I feel that there are many cases where the dream ending is not only appropriate but rewarding, it is simply the context in which it presented. If Die Hard had ended as all a dream John McClane had had on the flight to see his wife, it would've been very unsatisfying, because seeing him reconcile with his wife after such a conflict is what makes it so good. On the other hand, Inception's ending with an ambiguous reality is rewarding (in my opinion, anyway) because one of the major themes of the movie is the subjective nature of reality, and a sly, self-referential wink (as I interpreted it) elicited a smirk from me. Who cares if it's real if he's happy?
Context, context, context.
