Post by wordweaver3 on Jan 15, 2019 23:18:43 GMT
Parasite Storytelling.
I want to coin this as a phrase.
What this means is that someone has an idea for a story, but they don't know if it can stand on it's own. Instead of taking the risk, they attempt to improve the odds by latching it onto a known brand or property in an attempt to guarantee success. As typical for a parasite, it does great harm to the body it has latched onto.
I want to offer up Star Trek Discovery as an example. There are a lot of other examples, but let's just consider STD. There are some ideas in it that could be fine on their own. Some of them not even plagiarized. You could tell a story about a war in space being fought with magic mushrooms, that could be very interesting. I mean, anything can be interesting if told right. The problem is that it doesn't fit with Star Trek. Star Trek already has its own lore and science that has been established. It's like introducing Hogwarts into the Enterprise. Not saying there's anything wrong with Hogwarts, just that if the transporters suddenly worked by waving a wand and yelling "Onerarium" that would raise some eyebrows. Sure, that's an outlandish example, but this is a thing we keep seeing over and over, old properties with ideas that don't seem to fit.
Now the Star Trek brand seems to be in decline. Even the "Jean-Luc Picard is back" thing is in serious doubt. Something that should excite the fans, but somehow isn't. Parasites have weakened the body.
Here's another one I want to explore.
Bully Reboot/Sequel.
This is a little different than Parasite Storytelling. The "Bully Reboot" would be the retelling of a older story with efforts to demean or damage the old story in some way. Either specific characters or some other part of the story. Sometimes overt but often subtle. It is purposefully causing damage in order to bolster its own importance.
Let's look at Ghostbusters 2016. In this movie there's a scene where one of the main characters releases a ghost which leads to the death of paranormal debunker who just happens to be played by Bill Murray. Effectively killing Peter Venkman. There is also the main villain of the movie who seems to be a thinly veiled fanboy who has to suffer all sorts of demeaning attacks, including getting a proton stream in the nuts at one point.
And of course let's look at The Last Jedi. Luke discovers that Rey and Kylo are force masturbating together (or whatever the fuck they were doing). Then Rey demands answers from Luke, when he refuses she physically attacks him, defeats him, and makes him cower to her. An attempt to make her appear superior even though in reality she had no right to any answers and was just beating an old man into submission. Presumably she also took his milk money.