Movie Logic - Divergent

Divergent is a terrible film in every way. Dumb story. Terrible acting. A plot that insults the viewer in the way it uses cliches and coincidence. Dull, by-the-numbers action scenes. A lead actor (Shailene Woodley, who I think was chosen because she looks like Jennifer Lawrence) who has one facial expression; a kind of pouty, vaguely sad look.

For me, the icing on this cliche cake, however, is the conclusion in which Four (Theo James) is brainwashed and told to kill Tris (Woodley). It has been established that the society of this dystopic future world can mentally condition people into becoming murderous killers and that there is no way to break the conditioning. However, after Four looks into Tris's blank, watery eyes, that somehow destroys the conditioning. Our heroes then fight off 50 million trained killers, effortlessly destroy society and ride off into the sunset...or something like that. By the time I got to the conclusion, I was bored I may have fallen asleep. Or entered an auto-hypnotic trance. One of those.

The explanation, that Four's conditioning is broken because he is afraid of looking in the face of someone he is about to kill - or some such nonsense - makes zero sense. Does that mean if I, with my fear of spiders, was subject to this conditioning, but that saw a daddy longlegs on the floor, I would snap out of it? At the same time, it is also completely predictable. We know that our Teen-Beat cover model protagonists are not going to kill each other. So, having Four stick a gun in Tris's face holds no tension. Why even bother?

It's not that I'm opposed to happy endings. I generally expect - and accept - that the protagonists will triumph. However, creating false tension this way is terrible story-telling. It is made worse when the event that defuses the tension is so idiotic.

Movie Logic - Wait, How's That A Happy Ending? Spoilers!

So, I was watching The Sons of Katie Elder , a John Wayne/Dean Martin Western from 1965. It's pretty entertaining, even if there are plot points and individual scenes that don't make much sense. However, the ending is a great example of movie logic.

The film follows four brothers who return home for their Mom's funeral in late-19th century Texas. They clash with the local businessman who stole their family ranch, then murdered their father. Eventually, the bad guys are dead, as well as the least interesting of the brothers (Earl Holliman). However, the ending gives the impression that everything is going to be fine for the remaining brothers. Not so fast, Hollywood.

Did you think we would forget that Dean Martin is wanted for murder? Or that John Wayne went and killed the chief villain, even though local law enforcement told him not to? Even in 1880s Texas, I assume that would be considered manslaughter. And we still don't know how the Wayne and Martin are supposed to pay for youngest brother Bud's (Michael Anderson, Jr.) school, since it was Mom's dream he go to college. What about the horses they had picked up on credit to sell that are now wandering all over the ass-end of Texas? Hey, given the state of medical technology in Ciudad El Remoto...or whatever the town they are in is named...how confident are we that Martin's and Anderson's injuries aren't going to leave them permanently crippled? Will John Wayne wind up changing Dean Martin's bedpans?

But, hey, the bad guy is blown up, the dead brother is forgotten and John Wayne is probably going to bang sassy boarding-house owner Martha Hyer. Happy Endings for all!

TV Logic - Walking Dead (episode 13 "Alone")

Do they really walk? More like, Shuffling Dead...

I've been enjoying this half-season. After some of the misfires of the first half of season four - in particular the pointless Governor two-parter - I've liked spending some time with the protagonists. Not every episode has been great (the Tyreese and the kids episode was weak) but they've all been entertaining and pretty logical as far as telling stories. That's why last week's episode had an event in it that bothered me a bit. While most of it was okay, the scene where Beth (no longer "what's her name...Hershel's blonde daughter" which was how I referred to her since she was introduced...now, she has a name) is kidnapped struck me as needlessly random. We are to believe that a car just happened to be driving by at the moment a zombie horde attacks the house? Even if the person or people in the car turn out to be the one's who had been staying in the funeral home, his is still a coincidence too far.

This is a common trope in fiction; the improbable or coincidental happening in just such a way as to advance the plot. While it can be accepted in some -even many - cases, here it seems like poor writing. Can this been redeemed? Sure. If the explanation of why they just happened to be driving by and why they stooped even though there were zombies wandering around AND if the story-line is engaging enough, then plot-device will be forgivable; however, it will still be a painfully obvious plot device and a prefect example of reliance on tropes over original writing.