I had a very interesting discussion about theater and film the other day. My parents and I were talking about Little Shop of Horrors and, specifically, about the ending of the musical versus the ending of the (1986) movie. In the musical, the story ends with the main characters getting eaten by the plant and everybody dying. The movie was originally going to end the same way, but audience reactions were so negative that they were forced to shoot a happy ending where the plant is destroyed and the main characters survive. Frank Oz, who directed the movie, later said something I think is very interesting:
I learned a lesson: in a stage play, you kill the leads and they come out for a bow — in a movie, they don’t come out for a bow, they’re dead. They’re gone and so the audience lost the people they loved, as opposed to the theater audience where they knew the two people who played Audrey and Seymour were still alive. They loved those people, and they hated us for it.
That’s a real gem of a thought in and of itself, a really interesting consequence of the fact that theater is alive in a way that film isn’t. A stage play always ends with a tangible reminder that it’s all just fiction, just a performance, and this serves to gently return the audience to the real world. Movies don’t have that, which really changes the way you’re affected by the story’s conclusion. Neat!
But here’s what’s really cool: I asked my dad (who is a dramaturge) what he had to say about it, and he pointed out that there is actually an equivalent technique in film: the blooper reel. When a movie plays bloopers while the credits are rolling, it’s accomplishing the exact same thing: it reminds you that the characters are actually just played by actors, who are alive and well and probably having a lot of fun, even if the fictional characters suffered. How cool is that!?
Now I’m really fascinated by the possibility of using bloopers to lessen the impact of a tragic ending in a tragicomedy…
u know that thing where an animals grow in a far off place and some idiot introduces him to a new habitat and it turns out its characteristics that help them in their own sometimes are too helpful in the new one and they become like an invasive species yeah thats the word i was missing anyway back to my point i think i saw a human version of that just now i was driving in tonights snow storm and i saw a man wearing a big ass cowboy hat to keep the snow off him and a bandit red bandana to keep it off his face and a big ass pancho to keep him warm and nice ass cowboy boots to keep his calves dry and he was prancing along while everyone on the road looked miserable and frozen solid and idk i guess the point im trying to make here is i feel like cowboys would have taken over russia if given the chance or something
“Cowboys could be an invasive species” is an extremely hot take I wasn’t prepared for
i’m gonna use my hacking powers to do an all pyjama run in pokemon y
Mission parameters set.
Fuck that noise.
YOU’RE NOT MY REAL MOM
God this is gonna suck when I get to Frost Cavern.
Still holding on tight to that 3DS I don’t have and couldn’t figure out how to get back. Our mom’s probably holding it hostage.
Haha I’m never going back in there in case the game notices I’m not wearing the default outfit and forces me into actual clothes again.
Oh hey, do you want to see how it resolved the issue of not having a full render model?
The short answer is it didn’t.
Every now and then notes for this float past my dash and I’m forcibly reminded that I had to stop because I got trapped behind Nurse Joy’s counter and couldn’t figure out how to leave the Pokémon Center because the camera clipped through the floor into PokéHell.
