On Endings

      One of the first things I thought about when I first writing my screenplay was the very last shot of the film. Before I started my outlines and character sheets, all I had was a theme, a name, a couple characters and an ending ready to go. Why? Because I deeply believe that the ending of a story should probably be its strongest point.
     When you get involved in a work of fiction, and I mean involved somewhere on a scale between I have T-shirts from this thing and I run a website devoted to this thing, you realize that, inevitably, there must be a point when you have to say goodbye. I talked about this last week, but endings can be heard to take, but they don't have to be. They can leave you with such a positive aftertaste that you can't wait to introduce everyone to this epic that you've discovered.
      What makes an ending good, though, is the question that we storytellers have to figure out. I have a few suggestions, but as an amateur, I could be way off base.
       The first suggestion is to make sure your ending is satisfying, in all the right ways. This might seem obvious as the opposite of satisfying is unsatisfying and who wants ANYTHING to be unsatisfying? Well, sometimes writers apparently are tempted to use their ending to deliver one last jolt of unexpected energy, whether it's revealing that it was all a dream, or killing off a major character, or revealing that the real killer was actually the detective's brother. This sort of thing is not inherently bad or anything, but as a reader, I get incredibly frustrated if this sort of thing if it doesn't feel like a natural outcome to what came before it. Take Inception's famous ending, for example, the film ends on a note of uncertainty, you aren't sure if what you are being presented with is real, and I think this works because much of Inception dealt with characters basically toying with the very foundations of perceived reality.
     The second suggestion is that you want your ending to feel like this is what the audience came for in the first place. If your ending is the main character retiring from his job to live in Montana, make sure that as soon as possible, the audience is rooting for this guy to grow a spine and quit his job. If the audience is instead hoping he gets a promotion, they're going to put down your book quite disappointed that the hero failed. I mean, what was the point of that. right?
      Really, the best point of advice I could give is to know your ending and work backwards from there. This isn't a one-size-fits-all sort of advice, admittedly, as my possible favorite novel, The Lord of the Rings, was begun without the ending in mind. Then again, Mr. Tolkien did tinker with his manuscript for years, so maybe after you're done writing your first draft from the seat of your pants, take the ending you came up with, and build towards it in subsequent drafts.
      The ending is important, I think, because is your only opportunity to say goodbye on your terms, and  it's the very last taste of your work that the consumer gets. So, I would argue that for your ending to feel like a proper finale to your story, you have to be ready to build your entire story towards your ending, so it really helps if when you go to make your outlines, and your character sheets, you have, along with maybe a title, a theme, and a couple characters, your ending all ready to go.



*post scripts*

 While my inspiration to write about endings was partially due to the finale of How I Met Your Mother airing this week, I admit that I don't actually watch the show, and didn't watch the finale, so none of this is directed at said finale. I am loosely aware of what transpired on it, though, and I seriously doubt I would have enjoyed it had I ever seen a single episode of the show.

Also, this post has nothing to do with April Fools day. Nothing. Sorry guys, but I just don't care about pulling silly pranks.

Saying goodbye to your favorite series.

     Television series can occasionally start feeling like friends. You see them every week or so, save for their occasional vacations, and you quickly allow some to get closer than others. You might have watched Law & Order when it was on, but only when there was nothing else you cared more about. On the other hand, you never missed an episode of 24, and you followed that series breathlessly through the good times and Season 6.

   This is why it's so hard when a show ends as psych does tomorrow night. Psych is one of those rare shows that I've watched from the very beginning. Seriously, since Day 1. Now, with its eighth and final season coming to  close, I ruminate on the ups and downs of psych, and of the many other shows that I've lost over the years.
       It's hard to say goodbye to a well liked show no matter how it ends, whether cancelled, cut short, or with a proper finale. You still have to say goodbye to a show that you had scheduled as part of your week. psych will be no different. My Wednesdays will still be busy, and I can, in fact, function without a show to every night of the week, but I'll miss Shawn and Gus, and their hectic and comedic adventures. I'll miss the various alternate theme songs that popped up from time to time. I'll miss the occasional Val Kilmer reference. (anyone else annoyed that they never managed to get him on the show? I mean, come on) psych isn't as good as it was for its first three seasons. But it was still a show I thoroughly enjoyed, and I'll be sad to see it gone.

*Updated after the finale. Great ending, and I will not spoil anything, but I am not disappointed or annoyed.

A Critical Response to Critical Hit's Frozen Review

So, there's this youtube channel out there called Critical Hit, they critique movies. Makes sense, right? They caught quite a few people's attention with their first video, an in-depth review of Disney's Frozen, which I'll post below:

(WARNING, this review, and the response to it placed below, contain major spoilers for the film Froze, and Wreck-It Ralph, so it's probably best to watch those before watching this and reading my stuff below... also you should see those because they're both really great movies, but that's besides the point)

So, I watched the above review, which you'll note is quite critical of possibly my favorite film of 2013, and had prepared my self to strongly disagree, but to still better understand the merits of why people wouldn't like this film. (And I will note here that you are totally allowed to not like Frozen, or even to think it's over-rated, this is America, you've got a constitutional right to be wrong... I'm kidding... kinda) What I watched, though, was what I thought to be a bizarre and frustrating collection of complaints, that occasionally had me baffled on exactly they wanted, since most of their critiques seem to be based around a premise of "We didn't really like this film, but if they made the movie in such and such away, we would have liked it."
   
 I have a problem with this because it's basically the same thing as seeing West Side Story and thinking "I don't like musicals too much, except for Blues Brothers, it should have been like Blues Brothers... and also a Sci-Fi action film" You can't take apart a movie and want it to be something it's not and then degrade it for not being the thing you want it to be. That doesn't make sense. I mean, I like to occasionally imagine a different way of making the story of the Star Wars prequels, with different concepts and stuff more inclined to my tastes. But I don't dislike the prequels because they aren't the stories I would write, I (mostly) dislike the Prequels because they're kinda lousy. 
  
  Anyway, Since Frozen comes out on Blu-Ray and DVD today, I decided to take the time to post a bit of an outline where I refute the points made in Critical Hits' video And I want to give credit to these guys before I start bashing their points, they composed this thing very well, made some well structured arguments. Their arguments were WRONG, but they were still very well argued. :)

Brace yourselves folks, this is a long one.