Reality and Rules

A quote from Todd Phillips about the Hangover, taken way out of context


"I'd love to say the movie is very real-feeling, and everything in the movie is real, and I love comedies that are real"


It's incredibly important to create a reality in any story. Like you mentioned about Dumb and Dumber deleted scenes, they felt off because they ruined the truth and reality of the character. He wasn't playing by his own rules any more, and it didn't work.

Think about in your own daily life, what rules you follow, how you talk. I got in some trouble today for making a comment about Pakistanis, but within my set of rules, and reality, the comment was okay. That's why some comedians are so successful. They have a different set of boundaries, but they absolutely have boundaries, and a reality that they exist in, where certain jokes work, and others don't.

It's what makes collaborating with others so difficult and so rewarding- we have difficulty following someone else's reality and rules, but at the same time we can create a mutual set that governs the ideas of both of us. The same way that a solo album sounds different from a band's album, so does branding allow for something to be a part of one group and not the other.

I think about BRM- the site had certain rules. While we maybe outright said them, we all felt at times that things that were contributed by ourselves and others were maybe pushing the limits, or even totally out of bounds. A lot of times we need to see that to understand what it looks like. To quote poorly the Supreme Court, "I know porn when I see it."

So for a movie to be successful, engaging, etc., at it's very core, it has to depict a real world. It shouldn't be the world that the viewer lives in, it shouldn't be the world that the writer lives in (because that's too easy) but it needs to have a reality, and a set of rules.

If two guys are going to drive across the country, they need to have a way of paying for it. It allows for the audience to reflect upon themselves, and ask, "could I do something like this?" It's a huge part about why Batman and Iron Man are so successful, and mostly likely why they changed the new Spiderman to have him build his webshooters. It creates something that is much more accessible.

Reading this again, it all seems pretty common sense, but sometimes it's good to write it out loud. I'm amazed by how much stuff I learned in college was right on the surface- anyone could grab it, the professor just did it a little better than the next guy.


At the end of One Way Ticket, the movie fails if we have not created a reality where the psychiatrist kills herself.

In Annisquam 2, ghost pirate zombies will not work unless they come from a real place, and have rules that they too have to obey - this leads to the whole outbreak debate, and the fast/slow zombie stuff, and you realize how important these little things are before you can progress with the story. This is also why the Avengers movie has had about a 5 hour prologue when you combine all the other Marvel movies that have come before it- they have spent an incredible amount of time/money/effort to create a world where all of these mutations and superheroes, gods and humans and monsters, can coexist. I don't have high hopes for The Avengers, but it is damn impressive that it's being made.

The end - I am currently considering taking a job that may make me hate things that I used to love, and I wanted to think about anything else for a moment - the end