Yeah, I enjoyed Spider-Man, but everything else with the multiverse theme has either sucked or I haven’t found interesting enough to invest time into to. And I agree, the whole, concept of multiverse has burned out really fast.
I watched about 4 episodes of the flash and switched it off, ironically I thought it was too SLOW, let's see how fast Barry can actually run, 4 seasons later still checking
Sadly they don’t care and don’t have mental capacity to even think outside of woke hive they built and they are mindless drones forever working for Female Message Queen
I agree but it seems like the new generation has no respect for the past. Maybe 1 or 2 movies a year are really original with a lot of depth or just that in the west we get overloaded with studio garbage instead of more thought provoking films. It would be a nice break to see well written screenplays for a change.
@@bartsullivan4866I think that's been changing as seen by the box office numbers. Gen-z is not falling for it as much as they want you to believe they are.
The three worst ways to end a movie just got a new worst way. They are: 1- Time travel; 2- It was all a dream; 3- They're actually aliens; And entering at number 4- Multiverse!
@hallihallo it's not a movie that ends that way, but the amount of dream sequences in Slenderman 2017 had me riled up. There's also a bullshit movie I watched for free on Amazon Prime called Psychoshark, and that entire movie did appear to just be a dream sequence. It sucked total ass though even without the crappy ending. If you decide to watch it and die of cringe just remember I never told you about it
I really hate it how pretty much every film we get today is setting up a shared universe or multiverse franchise. I miss the days of originality and excitement for movies.
TV too. The CW based their entire programming on crossovers involving all their superhero shows. None of which are entertaining anymore by themselves, so why do they think forcing me to watch them all would be better?
@@tnzwestEXACTLY, i remember that when i saw the flash tv show i was excited to see other stuff, particularly legends of tomorrow......then i learned that i literally cannot watch that show and others because i had to get to an specific season of Flash AND arrow, a show i straight didn't wanted to watch, to understand the show. I said fuck that, finished the first season of the flash and dropped the dc universe entirely (mainly because i heard that the flash went downhill after a certain season and again couldn't watch the other shows, GREAT JOB douchebags
It's A Wonderful Life is technically a "multiverse" trope. But did George Bailey realize he needed to defy the space-time continuum to save all of existence in every universe? No. He reaffirmed his love for the people in his life and emerged from the experience changed for the better. Ya know, an ARC and a STORY. Damn, that movie is good.
Part of the problem I think (and I didn’t watch the video yet so maybe he mentions this) is the mixing of different franchises and iterations. It takes away the feeling that when you’re watching something that it’s meant to be the definitive storyline. Takes away the feeling of it being that writer/director’s interpretation of a story when you can just say “oh yeah all those other versions of this story exist in this world too, just in the multiverse” Get what I mean?
Ebenezer Scrooge is brought to the future by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come and discovers a fate he must change so he’ll have mourners when he dies. But is it apocalyptic? No. The only person liable to die for his failure is Tiny Tim but that it makes it a better story because it puts a human face on it
A wonderful life isn’t really a time travel story it’s a one man can make a difference to all those lives he touched story like his brother dying means those soldiers he saved died it’s all connected that’s the point maybe there is a plan in the universe
Been watching some 90s block busters recently and it was so refreshing to just watch a movie that actually ends.. no post credit scene or sequel set up...
@@Kane0123 an interesting point but the difference with 007 is (outside of the Daniel Craig films) each movie was at least its own self-contained story. You had a clear villain and defined plot, and once the movie ended that was it. They all more or less followed the same formula, but that’s why they worked. They weren’t trying to string audiences along to come back 3 years later for the next sequel and then the next one and one after that in hopes of finally seeing a villain defeated or see a resolution to the story. Same reason shows like Columbo or Hawaii 5-0 or even the Twilight Zone and MASH were a hit. While they all followed the same main characters and allies, each episode was more or less it’s own individual story that didn’t string audiences along for an entire season to reach a conclusion like Game of Thrones did and so many other wanna be copy cats. Imagine if it took Columbo an entire season to solve one case, or if Rod Serling tried to hammer the same theme and mystery across 35 episodes? Audiences would’ve dipped out early especially back then.
One of my favourite writing RUclipsrs always phrases stories like this: “It’s not about what happens, it’s about why it matters.” Amping up the scale to multiversal size doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter to characters we’ve grown attached to.
Case in point: most viewers cared a lot more about a kid in red underwear stopping a family man in a bird costume from stealing some C-tier Avengers merch from a plane to pay his mortgage, than they did about an entire multiverse worth of villains bent on destroying every iteration of infinite existence.
Exactly. A story can be really mundane or simple in concept. But if the character work is good, the audience will care. Internal conflict is what drives a story and is what makes us invested. Different kinds of external conflict can just be good additions to a genre, but that alone is not going to establish our empathy.
Seems like the smartest people don’t make it to the point of running things in certain industries. Imagine if nuclear plants or other important infrastructure were run like that. Now that I think about it, sometimes it is sadly.
It's a perfect example of just how tired and lazy almost the entire industry has become. Imagine being a Christopher Nolan only going to the bathroom twice a day during 12+ hour shoots to not waste people's time when your "colleagues" are just shitting out garbage CGI and multiverses while jerking off to furry porn in their trailer.
I blame lazyness. Writers could reasearch comic-books or sci-fi novels for months before coming up with a script. But they would need to put a lot of effort in it. Ripping off a good idea from an obscure source would be much better than this crap.
One reason I still love the original Karate Kid is because of the stakes involved. The world wasn't going to come to an end; it was just a simple regional karate tournament with an enormously tacky trophy. But the audience cares about the ending more than anything because they know that the real battle is taking place within Daniel himself, and that's what they're pulling for.
@@freshPrinceOfBelfairs I feel like that's a big point to it that the series does tell well, more so towards the beginning, where he's trying to figure out what Mr Miyagi would do or tell him in situations where he feels lost or recalling old lessons and hidden subtext in his teachings bla bla bla. To me the dynamic between him and Johnny is fantastic because it's quite clear that Johnny creates chaos and unbalance in Daniel's life even just by running into each other but there's no Mr Miyagi to ground him back to a balanced mindset. Can't forget the 3rd movie either (even if many try to) where we get to see the darker side of Daniel who is still an emotional teenager who is very much still impressionable, that Cobra Kai stuff probably did some long lasting damage. And like ep said it's in great deal about the internal battle of Daniel to try to keep that balance, keep that darker impulsive side in check and be better so I hope the last season doesn't forget about the whole point of reconciling and learning to accept and forgive in the first place.
I think the “cannon event” idea from the spider verse films is a great workaround for having infinite realities while still having stakes. The idea that some events are unchangeable reintroduces tension, even if it’s a kind of retcon of the idea of multiverses itself, solving a problem that shouldn’t have existed in the first place
Rick and Morty handles it nicely as well. The idea of the central finite curve, how Rick(s) created a barrier that isolates all the infinite possibilities where Rick is the smartest from all the infinite universes was a great explanation as well imo.
@@ryukyle5913 Doctor Who's "fixed points". Basically, sometimes you can screw around with events and usually it doesn't make much difference - the rest of reality sort of compensates around the change. But there are some events that ALWAYS happen; they cannot be changed and trying to do so makes all realities/dimensions/etc. start to collapse. Or if a certain person isn't in a certain place at a certain time, it can escalate into massive, universe-altering changes. Or if a certain person IS in a place/time, but they aren't supposed to be... Doctor Who has time travel and has alternate realities, but still manages to keep the stakes (or at least, they did).
I always liked the Lovecraftian idea of "Yes there's other dimensions and realities. You want absolutely nothing to do with them, there are very bad things out there and you'll go mad trying to comprehend it all"
I always think about that in Star Trek like, holodecks, alien influence, etc, everyone on the Enterprise goes through some kind of identity mindfuck every few weeks, seems like everyone would lose their minds never knowing if they can trust reality lol. Is this a normal day or is it just Q having a laugh? Better off not knowing
@@adamkares7549I remember the episode where Riker was duplicated by the transporter because it proved McCoy was right about transporters all along. Those things are horrifying.
I’d be fine with multi verse in Star Wars if it meant that the last 3 movies were actually some distant universe that we can write off and ignore they ever happened
Star Wars is a massive galaxy with a massive history spanning millennia. There are so many possible opportunities and story ideas that could be explored, yet we only ever see the same period of approximately 100 years.
@@Simplebutsandy thats just the cocksuckers known as disney being lazy and just using the clone wars and empire era as a cashcow since star wars fans will accept anything these days just as long as its mildly better than the sequels which makes andor an anomoly since most expected that to be crap
Its solveable problem, but not easy one. If main antagonist multiplied, one that took maximum efforts to beat previously, then now they must become unstoppable force, as our now more experienced protagonist can fight and maybe even beat two of them at time, but if there is dozens then all protagonist can do is run and hide until he find solution. Or, if the protagonist now THAT powerful so he can take out dozens of instances of previous main antagonist, then writer must prove to audience that its hero become powerful, not villains weak - let them easily defeat some allies of protagonist that could stood against antagonist previously, let protagonist be completely undefeatable for mid enemies from previous movie (and then give him even battle with multiplied antagonist) but ultimately its bad decision to multiply specifically main antagonist. "He was so powerful and now its MORE of them" is theoretically good hook but its so big jump power-wise that most of the plots cant stand it and end up just unexplainable nerf him. Much better if multiplied one is not final boss, but first. Someone who hero beat when his training arc was complete. Then dozens of that enemy is believable threat step higher than former final boss, and hero can fight all them at once if use maximum efforts as dramatical plot is needed
6:41 "At a certain point it becomes a complete waste of time to care about anything that happens in those movies because the next one's probably just going to undo everything you just saw." Now you've gotten to the heart of it. People not caring is the point. Destruction and demoralization is the point.
@@razorback9999able it's not N I H I L I S M or any of that high horse psycho philoso mumbo crapjack. It's a VERY SIMPLE writing 101 fact that if you want the reader invested, you need to create viable emotional stakes. Take the story of 3 piggies: if the wolf brings down their house, it's going to eat them and they're going to die. You add 2 scenes at the beginning to make the piggies likable, so the viewership cares they actually survive the predicament. The caring drives them to want to come see if they prevail in movie #2 as well. Now write 3 Piggies Reloaded where the Wolf actually wins and eats the piggies, but Gemberello Khacussion Crystal from Dimension Qookeay, brought by Queatcoatl Menelegemo re-sets the timeline and returns the piggies and we end where we began. Well now the stakes are gone, the viewership is confused and they sure as heck don't want to see your 3 Piggies Resurrection where we learn we are going to get the same story as in #1 only with old pigs doing same stuff as in #1 and #2 only with even more confusing names, events, dimensions, timeline retcons, especially after you announced that after #3 you are scraping the whole "universe" and starting over (Aquaman in a nutshell). I mean, tl; dr: the purpose of a story is to make the reader/viewer feel like they've been on a grand adventure, accomplished something and learned something in the process. That there IS the product; those THREE things - not 2/3, not 1/3, ALL 3/3. You fail at that, you fail at storytelling. What I described above is failing to deliver at "accomplished something".
Exactly. It is an easy way to turn young people into passive,nihilist,violent prone idiots,ready to enlist for a war against anyone who stands up and confronts the "system". Scifi has become a propaganda tool that creates a void in the heads of the fans,instead of the "old" scifi that had as a mission to doubt the status quo . Young people need to watch your videos in order to start questioning "the Message".
I'm reminded of the character from the movie "The Core" who talked about how he wasn't there trying to save the world because the world was too much to consider. He was there to save his wife and daughters. Saving the world was just a bonus.
Just wanting to save the Earth/humanity is always a bit abstract and corny in these types of disaster movies. Having actual _personal stakes_ makes everything much more relatable.
I remember in the movie 'The One' where as he defeated other versions of himself their total power would divide among those left. It was a multiverse story but focused on an individual and it worked. it's about making an interesting story on concept, not about writing something and then trying to use the concept to shoehorn it in.
I like The One, but that movie has problems too. If one of the two final Jet Li's have a kid, then wouldn't that kid be the only version of that person? Would that kid be super powerful? If the evil Jet Li dies in prison would the universe explode since there is only one Jet Li left?
I think you nailed it with the metaphor of a video game you can simply restart from the last save point. These "writers" are the generation that grew up playing restartable games (as opposed to games that cost you quarter after quarter just to beat one level, or board games that you could lose and be eliminated while others played on). Stakes are important for compelling storytelling.
One of my favourite shows, Farscape, had an episode that tackled this concept without even invoking time travel or multiverses. It's the episode where an alien probe scanned Crichton and produced a caveman version of him and version that was highly evolved from him. The evolved version was highly intelligent but turned out to have no feelings or compassion. All ounces of humanity were gone. The caveman Crichton turned out to be noble and self sacrificing despite being primitive. At the end they both die. The episode finishes with D'Argo trying to cheer up Crichton by saying the evolved version was only one of many possibilities that humanity become. And Crichton retorted that it's because it was a possibility that's why he's disturbed about it. That show seriously had some great writers, among other things.
The first guy to put the multiverse in a story was Michael Moorcock (unfortunate surname). Central to his works is the concept of an Eternal Champion, who has many avatars across multiple dimensions. The Eternal Champion is a doomed figure, destined to keep the balance between Law and Chaos, no matter the cost. What I love is that the writer took the concept of the "tragic hero", along with several other common tropes, and turned it into a metaphysical concept for his writing. The Eternal Champion saga tells the story of a guy/girl destined to save the Earth, but each story has a different protagonist and cast of characters, setting, time period, and all versions of Earth are different. The stories are structurally simmilar, but they all vary in tone, genre and ideas, so they never feel stale (and yes, there is an occasional crossover here and there). The fact that Hollywood managed to make a concept with that many possibilities STALE so quickly is more impressive than anything.
For anyone wondering about Moorcock, he is best known for Elric of Melniboné (one of the Eternal Champions), the White Wolf. If you like The Witcher then Elric is the original which Sapkowski was happy to plagiarize large sections from. Also, the very famous Chaos symbol that Warhammer loves to throw around is one for one taken from Moorcock, of course they never compensated Moorcock for it, but don't worry Games Workshop will do anything to stop you from profiting from anything remotely related to "their" IP.
The best writing tip I've learned is this: Characters need a sense of death to make the reader feel the tension for those characters. And death doesn't have to be mortality. It can be death of their dreams, their freedom, etc. Like Drinker said. Characters' actions need stakes. Otherwise it's not worth watching or reading.
That's one of the problems I've always had with prequels. There's zero tension when characters who are prominently featured in the original story are in the prequel and are put in what should be life or death situations. We know they're not in danger because they're in the story that takes place after.
That's why I completely reject all Star Wars stuff outside of the 6 Lucas films. If Darth Maul and Boba Fett and Palpatine didn't die, then what the hell is the point?!?! I say you only get to pull this crap ONCE in your series or franchise. And it had better be convincing.
@@sporkenste1n236 Even a prequel can be good if it explores an interesting facet of a characters development but again, it requires a great writer to instill that sense of "death" because even if the character lives and you know that, as the OP stated it doesnt have to be a literal death at stake, it can be other stakes that are risked especially if the characters past is unexplored and the prequel is fleshing out their journey into what they would eventually become. A prequel, like the concept of a multiverse isn't necessarily bad, it depends on execution.
There was a time not long ago when writers were doing the shock and awe by killing off everyone's favorite characters regardless how it would impact the viewers or story line. It was like a Joe versus the volcano scenario of "We'll jump and we'll see". Walking Dead and Game of Thrones and others were doing this to the point where you just tuned in to see what favorite character they killed off in this weeks episode. So now we have the Multiverse or what I call the pet cemetery effect. And we all know how that turned out. What you bury is not what you get back.
@@stevepalpatine2828i didn't even watch multiverse yet i love pegging multiverse concepts as a shit excuse like "oh look its spiderman but instead of web they/them shot toxic dildo
Man, the Ace Rimmer character study is a perfect example of why I love this channel. Some of the best examples of storytelling are those on obscure low budget TV shows that Hollywood executives can't wrap their greasy paws around.
Oh they tried... There was an unaired (or ONLY the pilot episode aired then canceled...) pilot episode made for the American audience, but the yanks couldnt get their heads around it. It had the original Kyton actor, and Teri Farrel (Jadzia from Star Trek DS9) as a gender swapped Cat. Look long enough and you can find it on RUclips.
@Jabber-ig3iw Maybe it has a wider reach than I'm aware of. I'm 31 and most people in my circles haven't heard of it, despite me being a big fan of the show (not counting Back to Earth 👀). But I'm sure you get the point I was trying to make.
The multiverse trope can be akin to classic television crossovers. It used to be a big event having two (or more) shows crossover and your favourite characters interacting. But now, the crossover has been stretched to every episode of every season that it lost its special significance.
The idea itself is not bad at all. Multiverse concept is a great opportunity for cross-overs and also different versions of the same beloved character to meet, interact, and have interesting story-writing scenarios with. Perfect examples of the latter are No Way Home and Into the Spider-Verse The issue is that the idea has been played out now because of Marvel and DC’s Flash executing the idea very terribly
When I watched the Loki series, in the beginning, one of the time jerks had a desk that had multiple and numerous infinity stones within one of the drawers. Loki found them and asked shockingly how did they get them. The time jerk reaponds by basically aaying that he just collected them and implied they were basically worthless. In that single scene, the entirety of the three full phases of Marvel movies and over a decade of story-building in a shared universe was made pointless. Not surprising by Disney.
That sort of analysis is exactly why you have almost 2 million subscribers - because you honestly deserve a listen. Being a Scot and hilarious likely help, but dang man - you are truly great to listen to. It is almost like taking a Masters Class in Storytelling to listen to your reviews
The matrix example to me was more of an example of power creep. Neo became so powerful in the previous movie that Smith no longer stacked up and became less of a threat. Now the only way to write a good antagonist is to make a new one who is even more powerful or give the old one a new trick that makes him more of a match again.
The Matrix sequels never needed to be made. The story was complete. But.. money talks. And they diluted an excellent standalone movie to a weaker trilogy. (we don't acknowledge there was ever a 4th....)
So it sounds like you guys don't wanna see characters that died 😂😂😂 yet you didn't want those characters to die anyway because you wanted to see more of them so which is it? wannabe critics are something else, no consistency in their arguments whatsoever.
@@rickyrackey7930 You're damn right "woke" is meaningless. I've never seen a neologism flip through so many definitions in such a (relatively) short timespan. 🤦♂️
Theres probably a multiverse where Critical Drinker is currently praising Disney for their female empowerment and "amazing writing" in the hopes of getting a Disney sponsor 😂
My favorite use of time travel and multiple dimensions is from Star Gate: The episode in which alternate versions of the sg1 team travel to our universe instead of theirs Not only did it give us the audience a chance to see Dr. Fraser one last chance and say good bye but also to see SG1 at their absolute lowest and desperation to do anything to save themselves. The other was the episode where a guy was trying to use an ancient failed to see his wife one last time. Has the most gut punching line ever from Jack of all people.
I've watched it with my daughter a few years back, and, what we got at the the end was that the SG1 team we followed were like the 5th or 6th iteration of the original characters because of all the timeline changes and such that happened throughout the series. An example is the fish in Jack's lake, for one. It was sad, but really well executed!
Multiverse was also a theme in season one ep18 'there but for the grace of god" Daniel finds a mirror device and ends up in another universe with info gained from that saves his earth while the one he went to is taken over by the goa'uld.
Ive found enjoyment in books recently that often has multiverses in them (beastborne) though time travel can also be a minefieldvwhere if done well its great but done badly it sucks (pyre souls) and reborn apaclypse being good examples
I remember reading Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid, and keeping so many fingers in so many pages because I was unable to commit to a decision. Seems that is what these execs are doing - unable to cut off any possibilities by committing to just one. "Decide" by the way, means 'to cut away'. No cutting means no decision.
Pretty much every text adventure is a Choose Your Own Adventure, and every Twine game. I like Sorcery 2. You can go forward, but never go back.@@ThomasGarman
One of the things about the early seasons of Game of Thrones was that the audience was convinced any character could and would be killed off, and it could happen at any moment, such as the Red Wedding. That is one of the things that made those early seasons so gripping and compelling; there was no plot armour. The problem with multiverses is your main characters are an integral part of it all, so they have ALL the plot armour, and so the threat has to be watered down and then hidden under a pile of CGI and dramatic fights.
Game of Thrones plot armour thing was kinda gimmicky in hindsight and ironically wasn't realistic if you know your history. Gotz the Iron Hand, John Mcafee and Christopher Lee of all people would be called unrealistic if they were fictional characters due to their insane accomplishments or bizarre life events, reality is stranger than fiction.
I'm actually really not a fan of how Game of Thrones and similar shows have radically altered the expectations of a decent portion of audiences regarding character deaths in most other TV shows. A vocal minority or plurality (not sure which) seem to think that any show that has any deaths, even the most occasional red shirts or once a season side characters dying, *MUST* start offing their main cast like its GoT. Hearing this a lot regarding the last season of Stranger Things, for example (and the many of main characters are still sort of kids, even if the actors aren't, due to the showrunners screwup, which makes the demand especially kind of fucked up).
Dear Drinker, Your observation on the pitfalls of raising stakes to a level to which we can't relate was summed up by one of Stalin's henchmen: "One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic." Frank.
Thanks for the Red Dwarf reference and comparison. That episode was a(nother) example of the great writing on that series. The whole idea explained and explored in one tightly written episode. Thanks for the great explanation. Cheers. P.S. Stoke me a clipper, I’ll be back for Christmas!
Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis did multiverses quite well. They used them to show how far the characters would go to actually save earth when it really came down to the wire. My favorite episode of Stargate Atlantis is the second to last episode of the show. It's all about the lead character set in an alternate universe where he's down on his luck, failing at a job he doesn't seem to be passionate about, and just isn't doing great personally. But then, through a murder case he's working, he's told about an alien that's come to earth to destroy the planet, and the government can't track it down. He's told by a character who previously travelled to the main universe the show is set in, about the version of him who is the show's protagonist. Partly inspired by his alternate version, and partly because that is who he was all along, be sacrifices himself to stop the alien and dies at the end of the episode. It's exactly what multiverses should be used for. Showing exactly who your character is at the core, no matter what the circumstances of his life have been.
Great example. Although SG1 started out cheesy, it got better and I grew to love it, but overall I really liked Atlantis better, the setting and characters were awesome. Both shows had very heartfelt moments (Rodney's deteriorating IQ), hilarious situations (Jack and Teal'c stuck in a time loop), and memorable characters (Todd the Wraith). II still like to rewatch both shows every couple years, they're still certainly better than what we get now.
@@vormina9808 I preferred SG1 to Atlantis, but 'Vegas' was a better example than any of the parallel earth episodes in SG1. Except maybe when Daniel goes through the mirror or '2010' when future SG1 dies to save their past selves from the Ashen. I think the reason I like SG1 better is because I think the main cast all work fantastically individually, as well as in the group. In Atlantis, they work much better as a group than on their own. At least, Teyla and Ronin do. Also some of the writing with Teyla and her baby was pretty bad. But they're both such fantastic shows honestly. I love that they had a place for comedy and serious SciFi without taking themselves too seriously or poking too much fun at themselves. You also really get the sense of how passionate everyone involved in the shows was about making them. TV just isn't like that anymore, sadly.
There's a reason Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis are my favorite shows. Then the writers decided to do exactly what they joked about in episode 200 and killed the third Stargate show before it got off the ground.
The reason Tony Stark's death was powerful was because he's (typically) the egotistical/arrogant one, yet he chose to sacrifice himself. At the time, if there was knowledge of the multiverse stuff, it would have completely taken the gravitas out of the scene. Everyone would have just thought, "but he's not really killed himself. They'll just bring him back."
Jet Li's "The One" was the first instance of a multiverse that i can remember, and it's probably just nostalgia, but that movie was one of my childhood favorites.
I like how the evil jet li also has the same wife and she just goes along with him killing his counterparts over and over. He killed the good jet lis wife so if you think about it, he might have been killing her counterparts too. I dunno I remember liking the music.
It was a new take on the idea. The making of extra on the DVD has always stuck with me. Jet Li developed distinctive fighting styles for the good and bad versions.
Yeah I can, it's grating on me like someone is constantly flicking you in the ear when you're trying to do something. And when you turn and punch them in the face for it, they scream and cry victim then you get punished for it. You are supposed to just sit there and take that ear flicking, you can't retaliate or make them stop because that's wrong. But they always act shocked when people say NO MORE to them.
Probably has something to do with the fact that there are more female writers and directors now… makes sense when you understand that women seem to be innately allergic to accountability 😅
I’m willing to interject, at least a little, about “the characters don’t matter because we can just get them from another universe”. I feel like it’s done right when there is still weight to the initial death. The only example I can recall is the Injustice 2 video game. There’s a specific intro between Black Canary and Green Lantern that goes as follows: BC: Go to hell, Jordan GL: Still angry with me? BC: Is my Ollie still dead? In my eyes, it drives the implication that those close to the one lost are suffering an inner conflict due to the fact that the lost ones were “replaced”, but are still dead. I’ve never seen Hollywood think, or even attempt to make us think, to apply it in such a way, and they probably won’t anyway.
Am I the only one that remembers Jet Li's "The one" An awesome movie from the early naughties about a guy who goes around killing himself in other multiverses, getting stronger and faster each time he does. The finale being an incredible spectical. Great soundtrack also. It's how the MV should be used, to tell a good story, not to get out of a bad story in another movie. go watch it, it's low budget, corny fun and it's better than anything Marvel is pumping out these days.
I remember the movie very well, I have it on DVD and ended up watching while our internet was out for a few days last week. I was and kinda still am a Jet Li fan.
Drinker makes a well thought out and articulated argument that's so full of insight, I'm going to watch it multiple times. Someone please send Bob Iger a link.
I don’t think Bob gives a damn. Money is not what disney wants, spreading the message is. They just re-released Soul to movie theaters and made…. $20 PER movie theater. They’re way past caring about profit.
The banks have already said they're the arbiters of morals. The studios are bamking on it to receive DEI compensation for the movies no one want to see.
The Ace twist is one of the best I’ve ever seen and use it a lot in my own self-development. Another level of genius to it is that traumatic events in youth are called Adverse Childhood Experiences Coincidental or deliberate, it’s still incredible, and a perfect example of “show don’t tell”
The movie "it's a wonderful life" is also another good example of an alternate time line. A man who thought his life meant nothing turned out it meant everything to the people around him.
Loved the Red Dwarf shout out. That comedy show had way more depth and genuine insight than it gets credit for. The "Confidence and Paranoia" and "Inquisitor" episodes are also really great examples of TV that can get you thinking and feeling even as they make you laugh.
This video gave me a quick thought of how Kang could have been used effectively as a multi film primary antagonist without one defeat reducing future appearances. First antagonist Kang could have mostly spent his movie as a assumed major threat, one whom people who know him fear, and he could have had some handful of powerful robot warriors (suggested to be just a fraction as strong as Kang himself) serving as the battle threat. Then, when they're finally defeated and the worn out, near hopeless heroes have to come up against Kang himself...they find out that he is like the Wizard of Oz, a man giving off the appearance of power from behind a curtain but ultimately lacking in skill or strength. He would be quickly beaten up by the good guys, surprise, and then as the movie begins to wrap it would be revealed that this Kang was little more than a servant, one who managed to escape and take some of the true Kang's tech and bots and such. Thus, our heroes would come to the realization that there IS a Kang threat out there, one even more powerful than assumed in the movie we had just watched. Cue the common thread for the Phase in which these heroes would need to work to convince skeptical needed heroes to prepare and/or come together to face the coming threat (which would manifest in other preliminary ways, not always as the primary threat of a film).
That's essentially what they did in Loki, when they first introduced Kang. "He Who Remains" was a relatively pacifistic version of Kang who was trying to stop all the other variants from rising up. Taking him out is what opened the door to the other Kangs being unleashed on the multiverse. But it still ends with the same problem: there are infinite Kangs out there, so defeating any one of them is always going to be a hollow victory.
Sorta. My proposal sticks with "good" Kang in Loki, and then the first bad Kang in Ant Man could have been an introduction to him as a bad guy...but fixed the problem of undermining him by beating him over and over by having him be a subservient one who escaped from the big bad Kang. I suppose there could still be a big bad Kang, but having already encountered one legit bad Kang does undercut, as this video lays out.
The whole multiverse thing happens because writers and execs are too weak, too lazy, too afraid to *let things end.* Somewhere along the way, letting something end became a taboo. No one wants to finish things in a weird, meta-commentary on the fears of our own mortality. Writing an ending means you can't milk the profitable IP any more, means you have to move on and try something new. And that is Kryptonite to a modern writer. Make endings great again.
I don’t think it’s the writers. The problem is the money. Essentially these are less *stories* than parts of a franchise. It’s simply easier for a studio to half ass a story in a universe where showing the logo or the name is enough to pack the theater. And thus these things have become essentially meaningless and basically story fast food. I think the ultimate answer is to simply ignore franchises until they die. If slapping the Marvel logo on a junior high level script is no longer enough to clear a couple hundred million dollars in tickets, they’ll stop doing it. When Star Wars “Let’s destroy the universe and save it again” doesn’t make money, they’ll stop.
Analogy wise, this is Mattel with Fast and Furious Hot Wheels themes. Minus the cars that have yet to be cast, Mattel won't let the FnF cow die after milking it for so long. (Not helped by how many reruns of certain vehicles from that franchise.)
It's hard to 'end' something an ending was never written for - like a soap opera - they just keep jumping around looking for the best viewer response and then write to that. It ends when they think they aren't being watched enough, usually without closure.
I always go back to Rick and Morty when multiverses come up. Whatever you think of the show, one of it's best running jokes is how pointless everything is in a multiverse of infinite possibilities. People you save die infinite times in other universes, and people you kill are alive in other universes.
Rick and Morty is an excellent case study on the entire concept of multiverses. The second and third seasons are at their peak, because they take the logical consequences of a multiverse to their extremes and play with them in the most absurd ways - However, in Season 4 and up, Rick is basically a god-like entity, and at some point the humor can't sustain itself anymore. "Everything's pointless, we're all gonna die anyway" may be funny once, but it get's old and stale eventually. The episodes are funny every now and then, but they often feel by the numbers, and lack that absurd genius that the first seasons had.
I don't think nihilism is usually the goal... I think, as Drinker argues, it's mostly ineptness and poor planning. "We've made a big mistake... how do we undo it?!" Case in point is the very famous 'twist' in Dallas where they made a whole season of the show into a 'dream sequence' because an actor who quit agreed to come back to the show and they had to un-kill him. Some think they contributed to the end of the show as people got mad.
That Star Trek: TNG episode with Picard is one of my favorite Star Trek episode of all time, from any series. The message was so well presented and portrayed, like the writers were trying to pass on important life lessons for EVERY viewer.
Multiverses can also serve as metaphors when they present thematic questions. In EEAAO, the concept refers to a dispute where every family member isn't happy with the decisions made by themselves and others. However, the protagonist realizes that everyone suffers and feels the same way that drives her to use the power of the multiverse to see problems and resolve them with kindness. This permits her to find meaning in life and appreciate her own universe despite its ups and downs.
Marvel published a series called What If? starting in the 70s. I think it worked because each issue was a one off story, like What If the Venom suit took over Peter Parker? And it had no effect on the main universe.
@@abeartheycallFozzy I'm actually alright with alternate timelines as long as it's not overdone. They have consequences for the whole universe and not always for the better as shown with the Tapestry's example. What if's can be great thought experiments, but I'm glad they don't impact the main continuity.
You can create great drama and tension with the Multiverse. Even by raising the stakes. All it takes, as always, is Good Writing. Exemples : the Spider-Verse movies, Old Man Logan, the Avengers/New Avengers run by Jonathan Hickman (culminating with Secret Wars), The Dark Knight Returns, Superman Red Son...
Finally someone has the courage to talk about the Street Fighter the movie multiverse. That Bisonopolis with a even bigger food court would have been EPIC!
I write D&D campaigns for my friends and am currently pulling them through what is essentially a Multiverse arc. Sure, the whole of mortal reality is unraveling, but instead of "infinite realities" I have limited the number to 15 parallel universes - Paraverses, if you will - and use each one to showcase how each player character, if they made just the slightest changes to their moral codes, could go off in a completely different direction. The point of my multiverse isn't to remove stakes, but to heighten them by forcing each character to look inward and ponder what their motivations and moral roots are.
I'm employing a similar idea in my campaign, where 90% of the terrible things that happened in the players' pasts were the direct meddling of a lawful evil god who intentionally orchestrated multiple crisis to generate heroes capable of ultimately stopping the BBEG, and through dreams, being charmed, and vailed exposition from some of the other powers-that-be, they are going to learn that none of them are leading the lives they are meant to. My goal is to somehow have them end up body-swapping with their alternate universe counterparts and getting the team back together (they're all from different corners of the world), before traveling back and eventually confronting the god who set all this in motion.
I also feel when they say, "oh no the multivers and all reality are going to be destroyed!" Often by one act by one person. It builds a fence around the multivers, and makes it seem much smaller and less impressive than it really is.
Yeah, this is a good point. If the multiverse is truly so vast but can be destroyed by one person from any universe, it should be under constant threat of annihilation from infinite variations of that villain. And only one needs to succeed anywhere.
God i hate that trope. The fact some random asshat villain can delete existence because the plot says so is beyond me. Even universes with an actual god of creation suffer this trope despite the fact an omnipotent god would just design his universes so it can never be truly destroyed.
I like multiverses that spring up naturally, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles having multiple incarnations that sometimes cross over. But when writers set out to create an infinite multiverse, they end up making everything meaningless due to how expendable everything becomes. We have to be invested in universes before they mean something to us.
Yeah TMNT went the right route by just having a bunch of content produced by different people that gradually merged into one multiverse naturally over time to make for fun crossovers for the fans. Usually Hollywood just immediately tacks multiverse as a concept onto something so the shitty writers don't get called out for endless inconsistencies and bad writing.
Exactly, Spider-Man and TMNT work is because they have so many amd varied incarnations that it is exciting to see how 2003 serious Leo would react to the 2012 more inexperienced one, or Spectacular Spider-Man to the one from the 90s show. But the mcu in particular..... doesn't do that, they just took the concept to make up characters and turn them into jokes, like the illuminati which straight up felt like a fuck you to the X-men and fantastic four fans. And every other thing that tries to do a multiverse also follows that exact same pattern
@@ironmaster6496in regards to the 90s spider-man even in that show it dealt with a multiversal threat in the form of Spider-Carnage but did so properly showcasing that no one man can do everything on their own and that even the ordinary can do the extraordinary if they have the will. It showcases trauma and grief paired with compassion. You felt connected to the story and weren't just dismissive
The key, and this is my amateur take, is to keep it personal. Multiverse of Madness was stupid for... Many reasons... In particular how it picked up after WandaVision yet didn't treat her as the monster she became... but if they had just focused on Wanda and her desperation for Vision, their children, and the Happy Ever After she wanted... It could have been a poignant story about grief, about envy, about coming to terms, of doing wrong and about accepting the consequences, because a Wanda who ultimately handed herself over, willingly submitting to prison and beginning the long climb back to being a hero.
@@Antonio-ys5zd That's because back then entertainment media actually contained story and not just an endless reel of vacuous drivel from people chanting "MEN HAVE PERIODS TOO".
I was watching Last Action Hero and never realized that movie gave us a couple of firsts. The scene when he walks in the police station is our first taste of the multiverse. When he gives Hamlet a little spice. That was our first taste of adding some modern flair to period pieces. Like Knights Tale and Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet. But back then we didn't beat a good idea to death. 😊
The only time a character can come back from death is as a ghost. Sort of. There's other instances but I'm specifically thinking of Mia Fey from Ace Attorney, who is very much dead and limited to the two characters who can channel her through their spirit medium powers. She is an immense help to Phoenix, but eventually she is no longer channeled and left to death in peace. Her death is a terrible blow and she can't be channeled at first either; her sister, Maya, has to work hard to channel her and it's almost not until the very end of the first case that she manages it. After that case, Maya sometimes struggles to channel Mia, meaning that you can't rely on Mia to help you. I think that's one of the few times a character "comes back" and it works...
I still believe there's a place for multiverses in storytelling. They may often be misused or overused, yes, but in skilled hands, they can create unique and compelling narratives. It all rests on the ability and creativity of the writers.
Of course! There is nothing wrong with multiverses. This is a superficial interpretation. "The stories are bad. Is there a trend? Multiverses. Therefore multiverses are bad".
No Way Home, Spider-Verse, EEAAO, hell even Rick and Morty and Fiona and Cake manged to expand on its wider realities and characters without losing its core emotional story.
@@alfredosaint-jean9660 Did you watch the video? The whole thing is all about multiverses being a good medium that's being horribly misused, not that the concept itself is bad in any way. Half the video is even examples of good uses of multiverses and a showcasing of how and why current Hollywood is bad at using it, not the other way around.
THANK. YOU. Time travel already usually stressed me out and then all this multiverse crap started happening all the time and it is literally too much for me! Not only is it way more than I want to think about on a Friday night, but it's also emotionally exhausting. Like bro, it makes me anxious enough worrying about one universe, please don't bring in a million others (looking at you Spider-Man 2099). At this point when the stakes are so high, I automatically go into survival mode and disengage.
I LOVE the shoutout to red dwarf. The Ace Rimmer episodes were hands down the best of the series. Ace actually makes a return, actually, in an episode that really hits home with Rimmer as a character. I won’t spoil anything, just, if anyone browsing the comments is curious as to what this Red Dwarf show is and if its worth checking out, it ABSOLUTELY is. The show is HILARIOUS.
_Tapestry_ is one of my favourite _ST:TNG_ episodes. Great writing, just enough humour, powerful Pat Stewart acting, and his humbling at the end, realizing he all but owed Q a debt of gratitude.
I happened to come across that episode on TV when I was going through a difficult time in my life where I didn't know what to do with myself and it really touched my heart. That episode got me thinking about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to accomplish before I died. I pulled myself together and became a much more competent adult with a bright future. I'm glad that episode came around when it did.
This did a fantastic job of explaining why multiverse and time travel stories can be so unsatisfying, with a cogent explanation of how to do those right as well--to serve the main storyline, not subvert it.
"Tapestry" absolutely one of the best episodes of TNG.....presenting one of the great speeches from Q ...and the unlikely scenario of Picard shouting that Q was right and HE was wrong!! Amazing.....
The curious thing about the concept of the Multiverse is that the first major pop culture property to use it was Michael Moorecock's Eternal Champion meta-franchise fantasy books, headlined by his star character series Elric of Melnibone, and the half-dozen completely different, distinct, and unique other characters he wrote over the course of his thirty-plus years of fantasy writing from the 1960s to the 1990s, crossing them over and tying them together as different aspects of a cross-dimensional entity called the Eternal Champion. Moorecock used the Multiverse as a binding meta-connection between his properties, with each individual one wildly different from the others. Some of his works were were of completely separate fantasy subgenres such as Steampunk/Dieselpunk and had often very different plots compared to each other. He never made the massive mistake that modern wielders of the Multiverse concept make in using it to rationalize putting multiple iterative variations of the same character from different creators over a property's lengthy commercial lifespan together, or conveniently allow the writers to reset the plot to square one at the end of one arc and the beginning of another.
@@evereethingplayyz8509 The Dark Tower was published in 1982. The first Elric book, "Elric of Melniboné" was published in 1972...EDIT: THE above is incorrect, Elric is even older. The first was "Stormbringer" in 1965, itself preceded by short stories (from which it was made) going back to 1963... So Moorcock was doing it nearly 20 years before Stephen King.
Dude, i just came from one of your other videos and commented on the multiverse. Now i found this video and you explained perfectly how i feel about this topic. Greatly done, mate
when ned stark died in Game of thrones i never thought oh well he will be back later, he died, it was sad, and that was it, just the concept that he can come back easily if the writers want it, even if they do not do it, completely kills the emotional stakes for me
The Jon Snow (and Beric D) resurrections emphasize their difficulty and the *damage to self* that is suffered. Beric speaks of how little "Beric" is left after returning several times and Jon is haunted by knowing that there is nothing after death.
@@obelisktoucher4562Even when Caitlin Stark comes back in the books (Beric gives her whatever magic is keeping him alive) she's barely human, she's a zombie obsessed with revenge, to the point that she literally does nothing but hunt down those who betrayed her family. Likewise it's implied Jon went into his wolf while he was gone so in the books he's likely to take up animalistic traits when he wakes up.
This whole "Why Modern Movies Suck" series is a great class for writers too. I think this installment is especially well prepared, well reasoned and turns a pithy phrase or two. Nicely done!
Modern movies don't suck tho. We had an incredibly amazing movie year in 2023 with absolutely fantastic movies. You literally just need to open your fucking eyes and stop only watching Blockbusters. It's really that easy. But no better act like only Disney or WB makes movies these days and then complain while being majorly part of the problem why are house movies are going extinct.
There were hundreds of english language movies released last year and tens of thousands of films released all over the world a lot of great films were released in 2023. I implore Critical Drinker and the rest of the "modern movies suck" crowd to put on their big boy pants and look beyond superhero/marvel and hollywood blockbusters.
You nailed it once again. Much like the song "Bad to the Bone", the multiverse concept has been overused and doesn't work anymore. What people forget is that in the modern world, DC Comics is sort of the "creator" of the multiverse but they didn't do it for some grand reason - they did it to explain why Batman and Superman didn't age in the comics. That was their out, Superman and Batman in the 30s were from one universe, them in the 50s was a different one, them in the 70s another, etc. It allowed them to keep the characters current and not be tied down by events that happened 30 years earlier. Used properly, the multiverse is a great concept but it has to be used sparingly and can't be used as a cheat to get you out of a mess you made which is exactly the problem today.
Was epic alright... an EPIC FAIL! Because it was a completely wrong example, guess Drinker drank too much that day. But i never expected the dumdums of the comment section to figure that one out. FIGHT ME!
The problem with that example is that Smith weakening was a sign that Neo had gotten much stronger and so Smith (which is the avatar of the machine's AI that keeps humanity imprisoned) had to get extra creative in order to carry on fighting.
The point you make that god forbid that they should let their audience feel bad about something, is SO spot on. When the producers of M*A*S*H killed off Henry Blake, one of the main characters for the three first seasons of the show, they received letters from thousands of angry viewers. When people lamented that they felt like they had lost a friend, and that the producers had made them feel terrible, Larry Gelbart (the runner of the show) replied: "That's why we did it. To show you the horrors of war." I don't think that would happen today. When characters die these days, it's mostly off screen, which keeps the window open for them to return. Or re-appear from another universe.
Not wanting for the audience to feel bad is actually a good thing, at least for shows and movies made for a big audience. Most people go to the movies to feel good, and feel betrayed when the oposite happens. But there also must be exceptions for the other kind of audience.
@@VernulaUtUmbra With everyone in the theaters knowing very well that everything will be solved on the next part. The MCU is a good example on "safe treats".* *Unless the actor contract expires.
@@alfredosaint-jean9660 Peter Pan syndrome in movies eventually leads to everyone feeling nothing and is self defeating because even in fantasy land everything isn't perfect and feel good all the time.
@@alfredosaint-jean9660that's actually why I knew ahead of time that Ironman and Cap America weren't gonna make it to the end or would retire; because I knew their contracts were up. Aren't movies magical?!
IDK about that one being so great, but it kept it simple and it wasn't part of a long TV and movie fictional world certain continuity was expected, like Vulcan NOT GETTING BLOWN UP @@Komainu959
A tiny budget movie called Coherence made great use of the multiverse. It had like 7 charaters, and it filmed in under a week in an ordinary house. It was complex and thought provoking.
One good example of recent multiverse use? Sonic Prime. All the different shards of the universe have different versions of our main characters, and they are wildly different due to how they grew up. One of the main conflicts of the show stems from Sonic - being the short attention span easy going guy he is - not realizing Nine is NOT the Tails he knew for many years, and giving him a false impression of friendship. We also get to see Rogue becoming a leader of a rebellion on a Sonic-less world, Knuckles being a selfish pirate, or Rose in one universe being a robot built by Eggman.
Multiverses were done well in the Korean show Eternal Monarch, by the end he visits every universe to find the woman he loves and in every universe there's a hint of recognition, but none of them are the one he lost, and they all have something to protect or keep them happy. It's lovely because every time he meets another version of her he's obviously so sad but also happy that she is happy in so many different universes. Bit of a spoiler but there's a lot withheld from that.
@@roarbertbearatheon8565 Only in the hands of dumb people. Your proclamation shows your media consumption is pretty pedestrian. Read some more. It's good for you.
There's another TNG episode where Worf starts to phase in and out of alternate universes and some of the differences are as mundane as "Picard was standing two feet to the left" to "Riker is captain of the Enterprise because Picard didn't survive the events of The Best of Both Worlds" and it was fascinating to see these different ideas, even if it was brief.
And this is why I subscribed to the Drinker. Top notch, thoughtful analysis of the problems and challenges with storytelling with great use of examples.
My biggest problem with multiverses is the same as my biggest problem with 108 item buffets. At first, it seems amazing and incredible, and holy shit! You probably can get whatever the hell you want. Awesome. Until you become overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, you quickly realize that some choices (crab legs) are far superior to others (lookin at you, orange jello), and ultimately, you can never really satisfied bc you can never really feel confident in your choices, or worse, you have to cram in so many choices to feel like you got your money’s worth, you end up throwing up and you feeling worse than when you started. Yeah, that’s pretty much my analogy. xoxoxo ❤
Same thing at the supermarket. When I was growing up, there were five flavors of ice cream, and maybe five toppings for pizza, and only three flavors of potato chips. Today there are a dozen choices for each. At least. I counted eleven varieties of prepared tuna fish. Even had a choice of how it was packaged. Canned or in a pouch. Sometimes it is a resealable pouch. WOW !! When I was about twenty years old I used to complain there weren't enough sci-fi movies, or novels to dig into. I knew there would be eventually, given time. Today, I complain about the opposite. There is WAAAYYYY too much of both. If you throw comic books into the mix, it's completely overwhelming. On a scale, I never thought would be reached. At least it's better than nothing at all. Maybe that's the way to look at it. Happy shopping everyone.
"Antagonist Dilution" can also be likened to Flanderization: if you keep ratcheting up an character's power or role in a story, you're eventually gonna get to the point where the human brain is gonna reduce them to their most basic traits in order to keep up with the plot and that's what's going to go into writing them later on.
I remember reading a comment on a video once that went along the lines of "bad multiverses are 'look at all these places I can go', good multiverses are 'look at all these people I become'". And specifically, the people I become is the important part. Not the people I am fighting, not the threats I face - but the self. This is how Spiderverse did it, this is how EEAAO did it. That's the only way you can make a multiverse have a meaningful result. By making it about the character examining themselves, you're able to take a common motif - self-growth - and externalize it into a narrative that audiences can understand easily.
I’d argue the difference is “what if we change one pivotal event, how should that alter characters and storylines afterwards.” Vs “what if Spider-Man, but black”
You are absolutely right. I just read the second book in the wheel of time, and there’s a moment that explores that exact thing. Different lives of the main character-and it matures him and prepares him for the next leg of the story.
Another good multiverse use was in Rick and Morty where after Rick's potion Chronenburgs the whole world, minus his family, he and Morty go to another universe where their counterparts have both recently died. Then they both live here with another copy of the family they left behind in their original universe. So while Rick and Morty use the multiverse to escape their problems the entire cast for nearly 2 seasons is doomed. Morty realises just how bad this ending is. Then in a later episode they have to go back to their original universe.
Almost. A multiverse is infinite, it's not "look, it's that character but with a mustache". It's you, it's that character, down to every decision, every cell in their body, existing an infinite amount of times. It's the ultimate "you're not special". EEAAO also tried to blow up the multiverse, which is always stupid no matter how you slice it, but it did go into multiple variations of universes very creatively, so I can enjoy it just for that. The best multiverse plot would be how to deal with the fact that you are freed of all responsibility to matter. Every dream you had you achieved in some reality, everything you ever wanted was gained, every road that could've been traveled was traveled. So what do you do now?
The best way multiverse is utilised is in Ben 10, where all realities branched from one, so if anything happens to that ben, rest of multiverse wouldn't exist, I think in Loki season 2 ending, they established the same with that tree, at this phase they are doing good in Loki and Spiderverse, but rest of them don't work
THE ACE RIMMER REFFERENCE! I have a newfound respect for the critical drinker, knowing he likes red dwarf! Massively underrated show I'd definitely recommend it Edit: I can see why most people in their 30s now might have thought it wasn't underrated. But ask anybody of my age (18) about it and you'd be devastatingly shocked. NOBODY and I mean almost NOBODY ubder 18 has heard of it
Too many people criticize Multiverse without knowing. You can create great drama and tension with the Multiverse. Even by raising the stakes. All it takes, as always, is Good Writing. Exemples : the Spider-Verse movies, Old Man Logan, the Avengers/New Avengers run by Jonathan Hickman (culminating with Secret Wars), The Dark Knight Returns, Superman Red Son...
@@rKhael53 you are absolutely right with your examples because I have seen them and they were great. My only problem is when we get bombarded with all these so called multiversal trope is bad writing with no stakes.
@@rKhael53 Multiverse can be a gateway to many possible storytelling that's bind to its source material prior to the new alternative reality but modern hollywood and Disney's been using it as a facade for multiDiverse to race swap and gender bender the popular characters to better suite the woke criteria
@@rKhael53 Multiverse can be a gateway to many possible storytelling which is actually bound to its source material prior to a new alternative reality but modern day hollywood's been using it solely as a facade to raceswap and genderbender the popular characters to better suit the w o k e criteria
4:25 You just described why I love cyberpunk edgerunner so much when a character dies they are gone, forever, no plot armour no nothing I always loved stories with lower stakes because the story feels more personal and in a way kind of unique
If the 2010s is the decade where reboots, remakes and sequels had studios getting carried away with too much of them, the 2020s is shaping up into the decade of lazy multiverses, bullying review sites to remove reviews that dont conform to "the message" and covid splitting relationships
11:26 For medical issues, i had to retired of studying my career for a whole semester. In general, i wasn't sure if being a lawyer was my thing, my grades were bad and i wasn't paying it enough attention. During that time outside the studies, i realized the importance of the career, the many ways i could help the people and my country and the oportunities it can gave me, so when I returned, i came back with the energy of a thunderstorm. I started enjoying and caryng what i was doing, almost got an institucional recognition for my grades and i feel better than ever in my life. Somethimes i wonder what would happen if i didn't stop studying during that semester. Maybe i would had quit the university, or continues sad, not understanding nothing and with low grades. Who knows, maybe my story will appear in a Marvel What If Chapter
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
The whole concept of a “multiverse” got played out way sooner than anyone expected, I feel
it worked with spiderman not because it was a good plot device but we got to see all these old actors one last time together again which was fun
Not in my universe
Yeah, I enjoyed Spider-Man, but everything else with the multiverse theme has either sucked or I haven’t found interesting enough to invest time into to. And I agree, the whole, concept of multiverse has burned out really fast.
I thought it was played out in first season of Loki lol. That shit was so corny to me.
No way home sucked
This is the problem I have with The Flash series. Started watching it a couple months ago. Everyone always comes back, there's no stakes.
Now i'm invested in the character so I can't stop watching till I finish lol
Yup and there's aaaalways a bigger threat, before the old one is even defeated
I stopped watching The Flash series around season 6 or 7. Got terrible with the stupid mirror girl episodes. lmao
It goes to absolute SHIT after season 4
I watched about 4 episodes of the flash and switched it off, ironically I thought it was too SLOW, let's see how fast Barry can actually run, 4 seasons later still checking
This video series should be mandatory viewing for everyone working in the entertainment industry.
Sadly they don’t care and don’t have mental capacity to even think outside of woke hive they built and they are mindless drones forever working for Female Message Queen
Agreed.
I agree but it seems like the new generation has no respect for the past. Maybe 1 or 2 movies a year are really original with a lot of depth or just that in the west we get overloaded with studio garbage instead of more thought provoking films. It would be a nice break to see well written screenplays for a change.
@@bartsullivan4866I think that's been changing as seen by the box office numbers.
Gen-z is not falling for it as much as they want you to believe they are.
It's really sad that Hollywood writers are so stupid that this isn't obvious to them.
The three worst ways to end a movie just got a new worst way. They are:
1- Time travel;
2- It was all a dream;
3- They're actually aliens;
And entering at number 4- Multiverse!
It was all a dream really pisses me off. Time travel sometimes works, like in the movie Project Almanac or The Butterfly Effect
I still cant decide if Donnie Darko had that or not
Number 2 is literally the biggest sin a movie can make. Every time I've ever seen a movie like that it makes me want to scream
@@hydrosynthetik2 i can't remember ever watching auch a movie. Could you recommend me movies like 2?
@hallihallo it's not a movie that ends that way, but the amount of dream sequences in Slenderman 2017 had me riled up. There's also a bullshit movie I watched for free on Amazon Prime called Psychoshark, and that entire movie did appear to just be a dream sequence. It sucked total ass though even without the crappy ending. If you decide to watch it and die of cringe just remember I never told you about it
I really hate it how pretty much every film we get today is setting up a shared universe or multiverse franchise. I miss the days of originality and excitement for movies.
TV too. The CW based their entire programming on crossovers involving all their superhero shows. None of which are entertaining anymore by themselves, so why do they think forcing me to watch them all would be better?
@@tnzwestEXACTLY, i remember that when i saw the flash tv show i was excited to see other stuff, particularly legends of tomorrow......then i learned that i literally cannot watch that show and others because i had to get to an specific season of Flash AND arrow, a show i straight didn't wanted to watch, to understand the show.
I said fuck that, finished the first season of the flash and dropped the dc universe entirely (mainly because i heard that the flash went downhill after a certain season and again couldn't watch the other shows, GREAT JOB douchebags
Even _Captain Planet_ managed to get the concept of the multiverse right. 🤦♂️
Watch The Tomorrow War....its a stand alone film and it is absolutely amazing and one of the best films released in years
I agree with everything you said.
It's A Wonderful Life is technically a "multiverse" trope. But did George Bailey realize he needed to defy the space-time continuum to save all of existence in every universe? No. He reaffirmed his love for the people in his life and emerged from the experience changed for the better. Ya know, an ARC and a STORY. Damn, that movie is good.
A Christmas Carol.
Part of the problem I think (and I didn’t watch the video yet so maybe he mentions this) is the mixing of different franchises and iterations. It takes away the feeling that when you’re watching something that it’s meant to be the definitive storyline. Takes away the feeling of it being that writer/director’s interpretation of a story when you can just say “oh yeah all those other versions of this story exist in this world too, just in the multiverse”
Get what I mean?
Ebenezer Scrooge is brought to the future by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come and discovers a fate he must change so he’ll have mourners when he dies. But is it apocalyptic? No. The only person liable to die for his failure is Tiny Tim but that it makes it a better story because it puts a human face on it
Enjoy the memory of it while you can, because there are plans to "wokify" it too.
A wonderful life isn’t really a time travel story it’s a one man can make a difference to all those lives he touched story like his brother dying means those soldiers he saved died it’s all connected that’s the point maybe there is a plan in the universe
Been watching some 90s block busters recently and it was so refreshing to just watch a movie that actually ends.. no post credit scene or sequel set up...
You obviously missed the post credit scene in Speed..where Keanu's character said he gets Sea Sickness
I wonder what people are thinking of an adjacent but far less common James Bond style of “timeless character”
@@Kane0123 an interesting point but the difference with 007 is (outside of the Daniel Craig films) each movie was at least its own self-contained story. You had a clear villain and defined plot, and once the movie ended that was it. They all more or less followed the same formula, but that’s why they worked. They weren’t trying to string audiences along to come back 3 years later for the next sequel and then the next one and one after that in hopes of finally seeing a villain defeated or see a resolution to the story.
Same reason shows like Columbo or Hawaii 5-0 or even the Twilight Zone and MASH were a hit. While they all followed the same main characters and allies, each episode was more or less it’s own individual story that didn’t string audiences along for an entire season to reach a conclusion like Game of Thrones did and so many other wanna be copy cats. Imagine if it took Columbo an entire season to solve one case, or if Rod Serling tried to hammer the same theme and mystery across 35 episodes? Audiences would’ve dipped out early especially back then.
i recommend watching lethal weapon. they're masterpiece than modern boring marvel movies like brie larson's the marvels which is fucking sucks.
Even now post credits is exclusive to superheroes flicks. There's no way adult, award winning movies use that
One of my favourite writing RUclipsrs always phrases stories like this: “It’s not about what happens, it’s about why it matters.”
Amping up the scale to multiversal size doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter to characters we’ve grown attached to.
Case in point: most viewers cared a lot more about a kid in red underwear stopping a family man in a bird costume from stealing some C-tier Avengers merch from a plane to pay his mortgage, than they did about an entire multiverse worth of villains bent on destroying every iteration of infinite existence.
Exactly. A story can be really mundane or simple in concept. But if the character work is good, the audience will care. Internal conflict is what drives a story and is what makes us invested. Different kinds of external conflict can just be good additions to a genre, but that alone is not going to establish our empathy.
@@ScrambledAndBenedictmovie name? That movie sounds glorious.
@@DeviemTwen Spider-Man Homecoming
I'd know that Abbie quote anywhere.
Let's not forget the best line ever written in cinematic history: "Somehow Palpatine returned..."
A Long Time Ago, in a Multi-Verse Far Far Away...
Fuck that shit.
I always cringe when remembering that line, can't believe it wasn't fake.
Damn, I can't believe RUclips deleted my comment. What a time we're living in, eh?
@@vee-bee-a what was your original comment about?? And ice had that happen many times before, it gets very annoying sometimes.
It really says something when studios take a concept with limitless potential and somehow manage to make it the most bland and uninspired thing ever.
Seems like the smartest people don’t make it to the point of running things in certain industries. Imagine if nuclear plants or other important infrastructure were run like that. Now that I think about it, sometimes it is sadly.
It's a perfect example of just how tired and lazy almost the entire industry has become.
Imagine being a Christopher Nolan only going to the bathroom twice a day during 12+ hour shoots to not waste people's time when your "colleagues" are just shitting out garbage CGI and multiverses while jerking off to furry porn in their trailer.
That is because executives and not creatives are in charge
I blame lazyness. Writers could reasearch comic-books or sci-fi novels for months before coming up with a script. But they would need to put a lot of effort in it. Ripping off a good idea from an obscure source would be much better than this crap.
I suspect that the writers that would put months of research in before proposing a script are long gone from today's Hollywood.
One reason I still love the original Karate Kid is because of the stakes involved. The world wasn't going to come to an end; it was just a simple regional karate tournament with an enormously tacky trophy. But the audience cares about the ending more than anything because they know that the real battle is taking place within Daniel himself, and that's what they're pulling for.
The Karate Kid is probably my favourite movie but I think Mr Miyagi would be very disappointed with the man Daniel became.
Called Crane technique. If do right, no can defence.
Amazing 😅@@monkey39128
Its like that old Jean claude Van damn movie where the fought in that tournament as well.
@@freshPrinceOfBelfairs I feel like that's a big point to it that the series does tell well, more so towards the beginning, where he's trying to figure out what Mr Miyagi would do or tell him in situations where he feels lost or recalling old lessons and hidden subtext in his teachings bla bla bla. To me the dynamic between him and Johnny is fantastic because it's quite clear that Johnny creates chaos and unbalance in Daniel's life even just by running into each other but there's no Mr Miyagi to ground him back to a balanced mindset. Can't forget the 3rd movie either (even if many try to) where we get to see the darker side of Daniel who is still an emotional teenager who is very much still impressionable, that Cobra Kai stuff probably did some long lasting damage. And like ep said it's in great deal about the internal battle of Daniel to try to keep that balance, keep that darker impulsive side in check and be better so I hope the last season doesn't forget about the whole point of reconciling and learning to accept and forgive in the first place.
I think the “cannon event” idea from the spider verse films is a great workaround for having infinite realities while still having stakes. The idea that some events are unchangeable reintroduces tension, even if it’s a kind of retcon of the idea of multiverses itself, solving a problem that shouldn’t have existed in the first place
sadly the only good movies currrently are animated except a few
Rick and Morty handles it nicely as well. The idea of the central finite curve, how Rick(s) created a barrier that isolates all the infinite possibilities where Rick is the smartest from all the infinite universes was a great explanation as well imo.
@@ryukyle5913 Doctor Who's "fixed points". Basically, sometimes you can screw around with events and usually it doesn't make much difference - the rest of reality sort of compensates around the change. But there are some events that ALWAYS happen; they cannot be changed and trying to do so makes all realities/dimensions/etc. start to collapse. Or if a certain person isn't in a certain place at a certain time, it can escalate into massive, universe-altering changes. Or if a certain person IS in a place/time, but they aren't supposed to be... Doctor Who has time travel and has alternate realities, but still manages to keep the stakes (or at least, they did).
I always liked the Lovecraftian idea of "Yes there's other dimensions and realities. You want absolutely nothing to do with them, there are very bad things out there and you'll go mad trying to comprehend it all"
And reality hopping can lead to a very, very bad things.
Event Horizon was a Warhammer 40k prequel.
That's what I wanted Multiverse of Madness to be: Our one warning of "do not fuck with this"
I always think about that in Star Trek like, holodecks, alien influence, etc, everyone on the Enterprise goes through some kind of identity mindfuck every few weeks, seems like everyone would lose their minds never knowing if they can trust reality lol. Is this a normal day or is it just Q having a laugh? Better off not knowing
@@adamkares7549I remember the episode where Riker was duplicated by the transporter because it proved McCoy was right about transporters all along.
Those things are horrifying.
I’d be fine with multi verse in Star Wars if it meant that the last 3 movies were actually some distant universe that we can write off and ignore they ever happened
Star Wars is a massive galaxy with a massive history spanning millennia. There are so many possible opportunities and story ideas that could be explored, yet we only ever see the same period of approximately 100 years.
@@Simplebutsandy this
Add to that Dr Who...
@@Simplebutsandy thats just the cocksuckers known as disney being lazy and just using the clone wars and empire era as a cashcow since star wars fans will accept anything these days just as long as its mildly better than the sequels which makes andor an anomoly since most expected that to be crap
they are.. they are from an universe were Luke is a pathetic green milk sucker looser 😕 that none of us care about 🤷♀
The Agent Smith explanation of "Antagonist Dilution" was great.Excellent point made.
Great username, even better pun
@@kokuutou92 I even have Lucius' wand/walking stick,Sirius' wand,and my Death Eater tattoo!
Always gave that one the benefit of the doubt when I was younger thinking it was just the clones so basically NPCS
Agent smith is still one of the greatest villains ever
Its solveable problem, but not easy one. If main antagonist multiplied, one that took maximum efforts to beat previously, then now they must become unstoppable force, as our now more experienced protagonist can fight and maybe even beat two of them at time, but if there is dozens then all protagonist can do is run and hide until he find solution. Or, if the protagonist now THAT powerful so he can take out dozens of instances of previous main antagonist, then writer must prove to audience that its hero become powerful, not villains weak - let them easily defeat some allies of protagonist that could stood against antagonist previously, let protagonist be completely undefeatable for mid enemies from previous movie (and then give him even battle with multiplied antagonist)
but ultimately its bad decision to multiply specifically main antagonist. "He was so powerful and now its MORE of them" is theoretically good hook but its so big jump power-wise that most of the plots cant stand it and end up just unexplainable nerf him. Much better if multiplied one is not final boss, but first. Someone who hero beat when his training arc was complete. Then dozens of that enemy is believable threat step higher than former final boss, and hero can fight all them at once if use maximum efforts as dramatical plot is needed
Only thing missing is Lucius discovering the multiverse and reviving Maximus in Gladiator 2.
Zombie Maximus. Where he conquers forces east of the Rhine by eating their brains.
6:41
"At a certain point it becomes a complete waste of time to care about anything that happens in those movies because the next one's probably just going to undo everything you just saw."
Now you've gotten to the heart of it. People not caring is the point. Destruction and demoralization is the point.
*N I H I L I S M*
@@razorback9999able it's not N I H I L I S M or any of that high horse psycho philoso mumbo crapjack. It's a VERY SIMPLE writing 101 fact that if you want the reader invested, you need to create viable emotional stakes.
Take the story of 3 piggies: if the wolf brings down their house, it's going to eat them and they're going to die. You add 2 scenes at the beginning to make the piggies likable, so the viewership cares they actually survive the predicament. The caring drives them to want to come see if they prevail in movie #2 as well.
Now write 3 Piggies Reloaded where the Wolf actually wins and eats the piggies, but Gemberello Khacussion Crystal from Dimension Qookeay, brought by Queatcoatl Menelegemo re-sets the timeline and returns the piggies and we end where we began. Well now the stakes are gone, the viewership is confused and they sure as heck don't want to see your 3 Piggies Resurrection where we learn we are going to get the same story as in #1 only with old pigs doing same stuff as in #1 and #2 only with even more confusing names, events, dimensions, timeline retcons, especially after you announced that after #3 you are scraping the whole "universe" and starting over (Aquaman in a nutshell).
I mean, tl; dr: the purpose of a story is to make the reader/viewer feel like they've been on a grand adventure, accomplished something and learned something in the process. That there IS the product; those THREE things - not 2/3, not 1/3, ALL 3/3.
You fail at that, you fail at storytelling. What I described above is failing to deliver at "accomplished something".
Exactly. It is an easy way to turn young people into passive,nihilist,violent prone idiots,ready to enlist for a war against anyone who stands up and confronts the "system".
Scifi has become a propaganda tool that creates a void in the heads of the fans,instead of the "old" scifi that had as a mission to doubt the status quo .
Young people need to watch your videos in order to start questioning "the Message".
They did it because the comics have done it for a very long time, you absolute schizoid.
The brains of far leftists that infest Hollywood
I'm reminded of the character from the movie "The Core" who talked about how he wasn't there trying to save the world because the world was too much to consider. He was there to save his wife and daughters. Saving the world was just a bonus.
That's a fine movie. An utter nonsense popcorn movie but fabulously entertaining with a superb cast giving it everything.
Just wanting to save the Earth/humanity is always a bit abstract and corny in these types of disaster movies. Having actual _personal stakes_ makes everything much more relatable.
Nah, that's just stupid. Of course saving the world matters and of course we all understand and are deeply invested. This is just an asinine concept.
I remember in the movie 'The One' where as he defeated other versions of himself their total power would divide among those left. It was a multiverse story but focused on an individual and it worked. it's about making an interesting story on concept, not about writing something and then trying to use the concept to shoehorn it in.
It also had a limited set of universes. I think there were only like 125 versions of himself.
I was hoping someone would bring up that movie. I think about it nearly every time someone mentions multiverses.
Jet Li and early Jason Statham. Yes, it was a decent, fun movie.
I like The One, but that movie has problems too. If one of the two final Jet Li's have a kid, then wouldn't that kid be the only version of that person? Would that kid be super powerful? If the evil Jet Li dies in prison would the universe explode since there is only one Jet Li left?
A six pack of beer + this movie = excellent fucking night
I think you nailed it with the metaphor of a video game you can simply restart from the last save point.
These "writers" are the generation that grew up playing restartable games (as opposed to games that cost you quarter after quarter just to beat one level, or board games that you could lose and be eliminated while others played on).
Stakes are important for compelling storytelling.
One of my favourite shows, Farscape, had an episode that tackled this concept without even invoking time travel or multiverses.
It's the episode where an alien probe scanned Crichton and produced a caveman version of him and version that was highly evolved from him. The evolved version was highly intelligent but turned out to have no feelings or compassion. All ounces of humanity were gone. The caveman Crichton turned out to be noble and self sacrificing despite being primitive. At the end they both die.
The episode finishes with D'Argo trying to cheer up Crichton by saying the evolved version was only one of many possibilities that humanity become. And Crichton retorted that it's because it was a possibility that's why he's disturbed about it.
That show seriously had some great writers, among other things.
That show is a hall of fame scifi masterpiece, its almost unfair to compare modern shows to it, its just soo far above them
Shhhhhhhh, Disney might hear you and think "we need to buy and improve farscape for the modern audience."
That sounds very interesting. Never heard of Farscape before, but I'll check it out.
Thanks for reminding me! I have all of Farscape on DVDs. I just have to start rewatching them. Its been too long. Man I love that show!!!
Farscape is REALLY good!
The first guy to put the multiverse in a story was Michael Moorcock (unfortunate surname). Central to his works is the concept of an Eternal Champion, who has many avatars across multiple dimensions. The Eternal Champion is a doomed figure, destined to keep the balance between Law and Chaos, no matter the cost. What I love is that the writer took the concept of the "tragic hero", along with several other common tropes, and turned it into a metaphysical concept for his writing. The Eternal Champion saga tells the story of a guy/girl destined to save the Earth, but each story has a different protagonist and cast of characters, setting, time period, and all versions of Earth are different. The stories are structurally simmilar, but they all vary in tone, genre and ideas, so they never feel stale (and yes, there is an occasional crossover here and there).
The fact that Hollywood managed to make a concept with that many possibilities STALE so quickly is more impressive than anything.
He must have had a tough time in school
@@matthewlacey4198probably at that time, the vocab didn't degenerate enough for the kids to play around with it lol
@@jefflight8188play around with what? _🤨_
@@jefflight8188 You sweet summer child.
For anyone wondering about Moorcock, he is best known for Elric of Melniboné (one of the Eternal Champions), the White Wolf. If you like The Witcher then Elric is the original which Sapkowski was happy to plagiarize large sections from. Also, the very famous Chaos symbol that Warhammer loves to throw around is one for one taken from Moorcock, of course they never compensated Moorcock for it, but don't worry Games Workshop will do anything to stop you from profiting from anything remotely related to "their" IP.
The best writing tip I've learned is this: Characters need a sense of death to make the reader feel the tension for those characters.
And death doesn't have to be mortality. It can be death of their dreams, their freedom, etc.
Like Drinker said. Characters' actions need stakes. Otherwise it's not worth watching or reading.
writing 101, not to say it isn't damn important!
That's one of the problems I've always had with prequels. There's zero tension when characters who are prominently featured in the original story are in the prequel and are put in what should be life or death situations. We know they're not in danger because they're in the story that takes place after.
That's why I completely reject all Star Wars stuff outside of the 6 Lucas films. If Darth Maul and Boba Fett and Palpatine didn't die, then what the hell is the point?!?!
I say you only get to pull this crap ONCE in your series or franchise. And it had better be convincing.
@@sporkenste1n236but you know every minor character that you don’t recognize is about to get the worst death
@@sporkenste1n236 Even a prequel can be good if it explores an interesting facet of a characters development but again, it requires a great writer to instill that sense of "death" because even if the character lives and you know that, as the OP stated it doesnt have to be a literal death at stake, it can be other stakes that are risked especially if the characters past is unexplored and the prequel is fleshing out their journey into what they would eventually become. A prequel, like the concept of a multiverse isn't necessarily bad, it depends on execution.
There was a time not long ago when writers were doing the shock and awe by killing off everyone's favorite characters regardless how it would impact the viewers or story line. It was like a Joe versus the volcano scenario of "We'll jump and we'll see". Walking Dead and Game of Thrones and others were doing this to the point where you just tuned in to see what favorite character they killed off in this weeks episode. So now we have the Multiverse or what I call the pet cemetery effect. And we all know how that turned out. What you bury is not what you get back.
Sometimes, dead is better.
@@stevepalpatine2828i didn't even watch multiverse yet i love pegging multiverse concepts as a shit excuse like "oh look its spiderman but instead of web they/them shot toxic dildo
Man, the Ace Rimmer character study is a perfect example of why I love this channel. Some of the best examples of storytelling are those on obscure low budget TV shows that Hollywood executives can't wrap their greasy paws around.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!
Oh they tried... There was an unaired (or ONLY the pilot episode aired then canceled...) pilot episode made for the American audience, but the yanks couldnt get their heads around it. It had the original Kyton actor, and Teri Farrel (Jadzia from Star Trek DS9) as a gender swapped Cat. Look long enough and you can find it on RUclips.
Red Dwarf is hardly obscure
@@AnnoyingMoose No one could surf on a crocodile like Ace Rimmer. What a guy!
@Jabber-ig3iw Maybe it has a wider reach than I'm aware of. I'm 31 and most people in my circles haven't heard of it, despite me being a big fan of the show (not counting Back to Earth 👀). But I'm sure you get the point I was trying to make.
The multiverse trope can be akin to classic television crossovers. It used to be a big event having two (or more) shows crossover and your favourite characters interacting. But now, the crossover has been stretched to every episode of every season that it lost its special significance.
The idea itself is not bad at all. Multiverse concept is a great opportunity for cross-overs and also different versions of the same beloved character to meet, interact, and have interesting story-writing scenarios with. Perfect examples of the latter are No Way Home and Into the Spider-Verse
The issue is that the idea has been played out now because of Marvel and DC’s Flash executing the idea very terribly
I still remember as a kid watching in awe the ben 10 and generator rex crossover that was amazing and a one and done thing
When I watched the Loki series, in the beginning, one of the time jerks had a desk that had multiple and numerous infinity stones within one of the drawers.
Loki found them and asked shockingly how did they get them. The time jerk reaponds by basically aaying that he just collected them and implied they were basically worthless.
In that single scene, the entirety of the three full phases of Marvel movies and over a decade of story-building in a shared universe was made pointless.
Not surprising by Disney.
Yep! That kinda pissed me off, too🙄
It is hollyWOKE, baby🤮
The writers are absolute woke morons
all for some basic bitch joke that NO ONE laughed at.
All for a throwaway joke. Why? Because these writers don't care about the story and they think we're stupid for caring.
Isn't this kind of like a worf effect. Listen to how powerful we are, because these super powerful things mean nothing to us.
That sort of analysis is exactly why you have almost 2 million subscribers - because you honestly deserve a listen. Being a Scot and hilarious likely help, but dang man - you are truly great to listen to. It is almost like taking a Masters Class in Storytelling to listen to your reviews
The matrix example to me was more of an example of power creep. Neo became so powerful in the previous movie that Smith no longer stacked up and became less of a threat. Now the only way to write a good antagonist is to make a new one who is even more powerful or give the old one a new trick that makes him more of a match again.
I agree, it actually makes him more frightening because no one is safe from his body stealing. Not to mention he manages to escape the matrix.
The Matrix sequels never needed to be made. The story was complete. But.. money talks. And they diluted an excellent standalone movie to a weaker trilogy. (we don't acknowledge there was ever a 4th....)
The Matrix: Nobody who has faced an agent has lived to tell the tale. - Morpheus
Matrix Reloaded: Everyone's beating up agents.
Matrix 2 & 3 simply destroyed the memory of the excellent first film, which did not need any sequels. Money-grabbing ventures for fanboys.
@@secondchance6603 That’s a great point and a much better example of what the drinker is trying to point out.
Thank you for saying so eloquently what many of us are feeling but unable to articulate the way you can.
So it sounds like you guys don't wanna see characters that died 😂😂😂 yet you didn't want those characters to die anyway because you wanted to see more of them so which is it? wannabe critics are something else, no consistency in their arguments whatsoever.
It’s really sad that Filthy Frank of all people can make a more consistent and compelling story than Hollywood.
I rather him than woke Hollywood who removed all writers and people who didn’t follow woke movement
@@Jeffro5564 Don’t use that word tho It’s meaningless.
@@rickyrackey7930 You're damn right "woke" is meaningless. I've never seen a neologism flip through so many definitions in such a (relatively) short timespan. 🤦♂️
Also, Filthy Frank knew when to stop while things were good, unlike Marvel, who *really* should've stopped after _Endgame._
@@rickyrackey7930 Woke is more socially acceptable than gay though.
This is such a rampant, reoccurring problem in so many franchises right now. On-point topic.
Theres probably a multiverse where Critical Drinker is currently praising Disney for their female empowerment and "amazing writing" in the hopes of getting a Disney sponsor 😂
We have one in our universe, his name is Chris Stuckmann!
Oh no, and he's sober while doing that!
You are very clever 😊
The Forgiving Sober @@TheGoodLuc
Oh that’s a bit far fetched you’ll tell me is he wearing mickey ears next
My favorite use of time travel and multiple dimensions is from Star Gate:
The episode in which alternate versions of the sg1 team travel to our universe instead of theirs
Not only did it give us the audience a chance to see Dr. Fraser one last chance and say good bye but also to see SG1 at their absolute lowest and desperation to do anything to save themselves.
The other was the episode where a guy was trying to use an ancient failed to see his wife one last time. Has the most gut punching line ever from Jack of all people.
I've watched it with my daughter a few years back, and, what we got at the the end was that the SG1 team we followed were like the 5th or 6th iteration of the original characters because of all the timeline changes and such that happened throughout the series.
An example is the fish in Jack's lake, for one.
It was sad, but really well executed!
I’m just here to kree
Multiverse was also a theme in season one ep18 'there but for the grace of god" Daniel finds a mirror device and ends up in another universe with info gained from that saves his earth while the one he went to is taken over by the goa'uld.
Yeah that was a good use of multiverse, showing how bad things will get if they don't lift their game.
Ive found enjoyment in books recently that often has multiverses in them (beastborne) though time travel can also be a minefieldvwhere if done well its great but done badly it sucks (pyre souls) and reborn apaclypse being good examples
I remember reading Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid, and keeping so many fingers in so many pages because I was unable to commit to a decision.
Seems that is what these execs are doing - unable to cut off any possibilities by committing to just one.
"Decide" by the way, means 'to cut away'. No cutting means no decision.
Pretty much every text adventure is a Choose Your Own Adventure, and every Twine game. I like Sorcery 2. You can go forward, but never go back.@@ThomasGarman
“Wish that Finn had become the last Jedi instead of Rey?” Yes. Virtually almost everyone wishes for that.
One of the things about the early seasons of Game of Thrones was that the audience was convinced any character could and would be killed off, and it could happen at any moment, such as the Red Wedding. That is one of the things that made those early seasons so gripping and compelling; there was no plot armour. The problem with multiverses is your main characters are an integral part of it all, so they have ALL the plot armour, and so the threat has to be watered down and then hidden under a pile of CGI and dramatic fights.
This! 👆🏻
Game of Thrones plot armour thing was kinda gimmicky in hindsight and ironically wasn't realistic if you know your history. Gotz the Iron Hand, John Mcafee and Christopher Lee of all people would be called unrealistic if they were fictional characters due to their insane accomplishments or bizarre life events, reality is stranger than fiction.
That is why I loved it when at the end Blondie flipped out on her dragon and had to be taken out, unlike all the crybabies who had a stroke.
I'm actually really not a fan of how Game of Thrones and similar shows have radically altered the expectations of a decent portion of audiences regarding character deaths in most other TV shows. A vocal minority or plurality (not sure which) seem to think that any show that has any deaths, even the most occasional red shirts or once a season side characters dying, *MUST* start offing their main cast like its GoT. Hearing this a lot regarding the last season of Stranger Things, for example (and the many of main characters are still sort of kids, even if the actors aren't, due to the showrunners screwup, which makes the demand especially kind of fucked up).
Jon Snow and Arya Stark clearly had plot armor the entire show, though. No way those mfers were ever going to die
Dear Drinker,
Your observation on the pitfalls of raising stakes to a level to which we can't relate was summed up by one of Stalin's henchmen: "One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic."
Frank.
Awesome quote dude. Loved it.....
Aaaaaaand this quote is totaly fake btw. Neither Stalin or his people never said this.
@@awddawd6812 aaaaand that doesn't take anything away from the meaning of the quote anyway, smartass.
I was so stoked when I first heard about Marvel's idea of a multiverse. Now, if I never see another superhero movie, it'll be way too soon.
@@user-wk2rw7le3mit definitely won't. Even if it's good one good movie won't bring back the fans their last 10 TV shows and movies chased away.
Thanks for the Red Dwarf reference and comparison. That episode was a(nother) example of the great writing on that series. The whole idea explained and explored in one tightly written episode. Thanks for the great explanation. Cheers.
P.S. Stoke me a clipper, I’ll be back for Christmas!
I had such a crush on Ace Rimmer. What a guy!
Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis did multiverses quite well. They used them to show how far the characters would go to actually save earth when it really came down to the wire. My favorite episode of Stargate Atlantis is the second to last episode of the show. It's all about the lead character set in an alternate universe where he's down on his luck, failing at a job he doesn't seem to be passionate about, and just isn't doing great personally. But then, through a murder case he's working, he's told about an alien that's come to earth to destroy the planet, and the government can't track it down. He's told by a character who previously travelled to the main universe the show is set in, about the version of him who is the show's protagonist. Partly inspired by his alternate version, and partly because that is who he was all along, be sacrifices himself to stop the alien and dies at the end of the episode. It's exactly what multiverses should be used for. Showing exactly who your character is at the core, no matter what the circumstances of his life have been.
Great example. Although SG1 started out cheesy, it got better and I grew to love it, but overall I really liked Atlantis better, the setting and characters were awesome. Both shows had very heartfelt moments (Rodney's deteriorating IQ), hilarious situations (Jack and Teal'c stuck in a time loop), and memorable characters (Todd the Wraith).
II still like to rewatch both shows every couple years, they're still certainly better than what we get now.
@@vormina9808 I preferred SG1 to Atlantis, but 'Vegas' was a better example than any of the parallel earth episodes in SG1. Except maybe when Daniel goes through the mirror or '2010' when future SG1 dies to save their past selves from the Ashen. I think the reason I like SG1 better is because I think the main cast all work fantastically individually, as well as in the group. In Atlantis, they work much better as a group than on their own. At least, Teyla and Ronin do. Also some of the writing with Teyla and her baby was pretty bad. But they're both such fantastic shows honestly. I love that they had a place for comedy and serious SciFi without taking themselves too seriously or poking too much fun at themselves. You also really get the sense of how passionate everyone involved in the shows was about making them. TV just isn't like that anymore, sadly.
There's a reason Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis are my favorite shows.
Then the writers decided to do exactly what they joked about in episode 200 and killed the third Stargate show before it got off the ground.
Man i miss stargate , SG1 and Atlantis got me through college lol
Tok'ra Kree Shova
I’m reminded of Futurama -
“So there's an infinite number of parallel universes?"
“No, just the two."
Anytime I hear “Multiverse” it means I have alot of homework to watch
Better get an A+ on the homework. Or else you'll be racist, sexist, and not a real fan
@@Nightwizard63 wouldn't getting good results in today's age be classed as racist 🤔..
"Its not meant for you!" Lol
@@gazzisright7362 in real actual productive school yes, but if you fail the woke mob, then no
I hear "Multiverse" and it's an automatic "NO!"
The reason Tony Stark's death was powerful was because he's (typically) the egotistical/arrogant one, yet he chose to sacrifice himself. At the time, if there was knowledge of the multiverse stuff, it would have completely taken the gravitas out of the scene. Everyone would have just thought, "but he's not really killed himself. They'll just bring him back."
Jet Li's "The One" was the first instance of a multiverse that i can remember, and it's probably just nostalgia, but that movie was one of my childhood favorites.
It also has a definite end. It doesn't leave a massive franchise door open for other versions of him.
I like how the evil jet li also has the same wife and she just goes along with him killing his counterparts over and over. He killed the good jet lis wife so if you think about it, he might have been killing her counterparts too. I dunno I remember liking the music.
It was a new take on the idea. The making of extra on the DVD has always stuck with me. Jet Li developed distinctive fighting styles for the good and bad versions.
I AM NOBODY'S BITCH... YOU, ARE MINE... I WILL BE THE ONE!
@@shakalaka5446maybe, but I would’ve loved a part 2 chronicling bad Li’s time on the prison planet & attempts at escape.
Unlike most films that use the Multiverse trope, the Drinker always delivers the goods.
Writers have violated the Law Of Consequences. People want to ignore that our decisions have consequences. You can feel it in movies and in society.
A bit like life in that regard.
Yeah I can, it's grating on me like someone is constantly flicking you in the ear when you're trying to do something. And when you turn and punch them in the face for it, they scream and cry victim then you get punished for it. You are supposed to just sit there and take that ear flicking, you can't retaliate or make them stop because that's wrong. But they always act shocked when people say NO MORE to them.
Especially in society,people ignore bad decisions have bad consequences.
100% true
Probably has something to do with the fact that there are more female writers and directors now… makes sense when you understand that women seem to be innately allergic to accountability 😅
I’m willing to interject, at least a little, about “the characters don’t matter because we can just get them from another universe”. I feel like it’s done right when there is still weight to the initial death.
The only example I can recall is the Injustice 2 video game. There’s a specific intro between Black Canary and Green Lantern that goes as follows:
BC: Go to hell, Jordan
GL: Still angry with me?
BC: Is my Ollie still dead?
In my eyes, it drives the implication that those close to the one lost are suffering an inner conflict due to the fact that the lost ones were “replaced”, but are still dead. I’ve never seen Hollywood think, or even attempt to make us think, to apply it in such a way, and they probably won’t anyway.
Am I the only one that remembers Jet Li's "The one" An awesome movie from the early naughties about a guy who goes around killing himself in other multiverses, getting stronger and faster each time he does. The finale being an incredible spectical. Great soundtrack also. It's how the MV should be used, to tell a good story, not to get out of a bad story in another movie. go watch it, it's low budget, corny fun and it's better than anything Marvel is pumping out these days.
Never heard about it. Sounds like an interesting story where multiverse is a tool to explore ideas and concepts. And that's how it should be.
A bit off the Highlander trope but with a different execution and amazing actor.
@@ImperativeGames Definitely go give it a watch, it's worth it for the final fight scene alone!
Frickin awesome film.
I remember the movie very well, I have it on DVD and ended up watching while our internet was out for a few days last week. I was and kinda still am a Jet Li fan.
Drinker makes a well thought out and articulated argument that's so full of insight, I'm going to watch it multiple times. Someone please send Bob Iger a link.
I don’t think Bob gives a damn. Money is not what disney wants, spreading the message is. They just re-released Soul to movie theaters and made….
$20 PER movie theater. They’re way past caring about profit.
The banks have already said they're the arbiters of morals. The studios are bamking on it to receive DEI compensation for the movies no one want to see.
The Ace twist is one of the best I’ve ever seen and use it a lot in my own self-development.
Another level of genius to it is that traumatic events in youth are called Adverse Childhood Experiences
Coincidental or deliberate, it’s still incredible, and a perfect example of “show don’t tell”
And as Lister replied to show how he wasn't like Rimmer as he was made up for "Spanners"
Say booooo! 👎 At disney!
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast
ruclips.net/video/0TnLN3ehV0o/видео.htmlsi=d_Rj9lQut2nY3W_2
what a guy!
You just reminded me again of Nic Cage and Tea Leoni in Family Man. That’s a nice “Wonderful Life” kind of multiverse story.
The movie "it's a wonderful life" is also another good example of an alternate time line. A man who thought his life meant nothing turned out it meant everything to the people around him.
Massive ‘ish’.
best movie that i watch every xmas
I came here to say this, but you beat me to it by an hour lol
Unfortunately, I think that’s getting a woke remake, too.
That movie is beautiful and mostly timeless. I hope it's treasured for centuries to come.
Multiverses is the new "found footage" genre. Very unique, but got so popular now everyone's using the gimmick to hide their shitty productions.
Loved the Red Dwarf shout out. That comedy show had way more depth and genuine insight than it gets credit for. The "Confidence and Paranoia" and "Inquisitor" episodes are also really great examples of TV that can get you thinking and feeling even as they make you laugh.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast. 😁
What a guy....
He will never need a zimmer
'Are you talking about what I think you're talking about?'
'What do you think I am talking about?'
'Playing pool....with planets!'
Give quiche a chance
This video gave me a quick thought of how Kang could have been used effectively as a multi film primary antagonist without one defeat reducing future appearances. First antagonist Kang could have mostly spent his movie as a assumed major threat, one whom people who know him fear, and he could have had some handful of powerful robot warriors (suggested to be just a fraction as strong as Kang himself) serving as the battle threat. Then, when they're finally defeated and the worn out, near hopeless heroes have to come up against Kang himself...they find out that he is like the Wizard of Oz, a man giving off the appearance of power from behind a curtain but ultimately lacking in skill or strength. He would be quickly beaten up by the good guys, surprise, and then as the movie begins to wrap it would be revealed that this Kang was little more than a servant, one who managed to escape and take some of the true Kang's tech and bots and such. Thus, our heroes would come to the realization that there IS a Kang threat out there, one even more powerful than assumed in the movie we had just watched. Cue the common thread for the Phase in which these heroes would need to work to convince skeptical needed heroes to prepare and/or come together to face the coming threat (which would manifest in other preliminary ways, not always as the primary threat of a film).
That's essentially what they did in Loki, when they first introduced Kang. "He Who Remains" was a relatively pacifistic version of Kang who was trying to stop all the other variants from rising up. Taking him out is what opened the door to the other Kangs being unleashed on the multiverse. But it still ends with the same problem: there are infinite Kangs out there, so defeating any one of them is always going to be a hollow victory.
Sorta. My proposal sticks with "good" Kang in Loki, and then the first bad Kang in Ant Man could have been an introduction to him as a bad guy...but fixed the problem of undermining him by beating him over and over by having him be a subservient one who escaped from the big bad Kang. I suppose there could still be a big bad Kang, but having already encountered one legit bad Kang does undercut, as this video lays out.
The whole multiverse thing happens because writers and execs are too weak, too lazy, too afraid to *let things end.*
Somewhere along the way, letting something end became a taboo. No one wants to finish things in a weird, meta-commentary on the fears of our own mortality. Writing an ending means you can't milk the profitable IP any more, means you have to move on and try something new. And that is Kryptonite to a modern writer.
Make endings great again.
I don’t think it’s the writers. The problem is the money. Essentially these are less *stories* than parts of a franchise. It’s simply easier for a studio to half ass a story in a universe where showing the logo or the name is enough to pack the theater. And thus these things have become essentially meaningless and basically story fast food.
I think the ultimate answer is to simply ignore franchises until they die. If slapping the Marvel logo on a junior high level script is no longer enough to clear a couple hundred million dollars in tickets, they’ll stop doing it. When Star Wars “Let’s destroy the universe and save it again” doesn’t make money, they’ll stop.
Analogy wise, this is Mattel with Fast and Furious Hot Wheels themes.
Minus the cars that have yet to be cast, Mattel won't let the FnF cow die after milking it for so long. (Not helped by how many reruns of certain vehicles from that franchise.)
Agreed.
It's hard to 'end' something an ending was never written for - like a soap opera - they just keep jumping around looking for the best viewer response and then write to that. It ends when they think they aren't being watched enough, usually without closure.
Which is weird, I've found that killing my characters off is the most fun thing about writing them.
I always go back to Rick and Morty when multiverses come up. Whatever you think of the show, one of it's best running jokes is how pointless everything is in a multiverse of infinite possibilities. People you save die infinite times in other universes, and people you kill are alive in other universes.
of course we get to watch the Rickest Rick,
I was always a fan of the interdimensional TV concept.
MULTIVERSE OVERDONE.
Rick and Morty is an excellent case study on the entire concept of multiverses. The second and third seasons are at their peak, because they take the logical consequences of a multiverse to their extremes and play with them in the most absurd ways - However, in Season 4 and up, Rick is basically a god-like entity, and at some point the humor can't sustain itself anymore. "Everything's pointless, we're all gonna die anyway" may be funny once, but it get's old and stale eventually. The episodes are funny every now and then, but they often feel by the numbers, and lack that absurd genius that the first seasons had.
it also shows there are limits to the characters otherwise there would be infinite rick primes with infinite power which there isnt
It's modern day nihilism manifested in entertainment. Really well put, Drinker.
I don't think nihilism is usually the goal... I think, as Drinker argues, it's mostly ineptness and poor planning. "We've made a big mistake... how do we undo it?!" Case in point is the very famous 'twist' in Dallas where they made a whole season of the show into a 'dream sequence' because an actor who quit agreed to come back to the show and they had to un-kill him. Some think they contributed to the end of the show as people got mad.
That Star Trek: TNG episode with Picard is one of my favorite Star Trek episode of all time, from any series. The message was so well presented and portrayed, like the writers were trying to pass on important life lessons for EVERY viewer.
Multiverses can also serve as metaphors when they present thematic questions. In EEAAO, the concept refers to a dispute where every family member isn't happy with the decisions made by themselves and others. However, the protagonist realizes that everyone suffers and feels the same way that drives her to use the power of the multiverse to see problems and resolve them with kindness. This permits her to find meaning in life and appreciate her own universe despite its ups and downs.
Why can't you just write out the show name you nerd?
What the hell is EEAAO?
@@jimbobjunior.I’m assuming the comment is referring to the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once
@@jimbobjunior.Everything Everywhere All At Once most likely
So in the end it wasn't about the multiverse, it was about the multiverses we multiversed along the multiverse.
Realized this problem when I was a kid with comics. Multiverses immediately removed any stakes or meaning for me and I gave them up.
Marvel published a series called What If? starting in the 70s. I think it worked because each issue was a one off story, like What If the Venom suit took over Peter Parker? And it had no effect on the main universe.
@@abeartheycallFozzyagreed 👍…
Even the writers back then tactfully used the multiverse story arcs , didn’t over do it.
They knew better. 👍
yeah lol once everyone can just magic or use a machine to jump to a different universe it kills the story
@@abeartheycallFozzy I'm actually alright with alternate timelines as long as it's not overdone. They have consequences for the whole universe and not always for the better as shown with the Tapestry's example. What if's can be great thought experiments, but I'm glad they don't impact the main continuity.
You can create great drama and tension with the Multiverse. Even by raising the stakes. All it takes, as always, is Good Writing.
Exemples : the Spider-Verse movies, Old Man Logan, the Avengers/New Avengers run by Jonathan Hickman (culminating with Secret Wars), The Dark Knight Returns, Superman Red Son...
Finally someone has the courage to talk about the Street Fighter the movie multiverse. That Bisonopolis with a even bigger food court would have been EPIC!
Of course!
No, it would have been Tuesday
raul julia is the main reason to ever watch that turkey :)
@@dercooney Bison/Vega wasnt supposed to be a fun guy but Raul Julia immortalized it. Great cast choice back then.
A bigger food court??? Game… OVER!
I write D&D campaigns for my friends and am currently pulling them through what is essentially a Multiverse arc. Sure, the whole of mortal reality is unraveling, but instead of "infinite realities" I have limited the number to 15 parallel universes - Paraverses, if you will - and use each one to showcase how each player character, if they made just the slightest changes to their moral codes, could go off in a completely different direction. The point of my multiverse isn't to remove stakes, but to heighten them by forcing each character to look inward and ponder what their motivations and moral roots are.
That sounds amazing!
I'm employing a similar idea in my campaign, where 90% of the terrible things that happened in the players' pasts were the direct meddling of a lawful evil god who intentionally orchestrated multiple crisis to generate heroes capable of ultimately stopping the BBEG, and through dreams, being charmed, and vailed exposition from some of the other powers-that-be, they are going to learn that none of them are leading the lives they are meant to. My goal is to somehow have them end up body-swapping with their alternate universe counterparts and getting the team back together (they're all from different corners of the world), before traveling back and eventually confronting the god who set all this in motion.
That's really cool. How did you form these Paraverses, if you would?
I assume you mean that each of your 15 universes has every single event and decision happen identically up until X or Y choice, then?
I also feel when they say, "oh no the multivers and all reality are going to be destroyed!" Often by one act by one person.
It builds a fence around the multivers, and makes it seem much smaller and less impressive than it really is.
The only movie that did that well (imo) is JL: crisis on two earths
Sooner or later they will have to introduce the _multi-multiverse_ to raise the stakes.
@@EvilDoresh oh shit that's evil
Yeah, this is a good point. If the multiverse is truly so vast but can be destroyed by one person from any universe, it should be under constant threat of annihilation from infinite variations of that villain. And only one needs to succeed anywhere.
God i hate that trope. The fact some random asshat villain can delete existence because the plot says so is beyond me. Even universes with an actual god of creation suffer this trope despite the fact an omnipotent god would just design his universes so it can never be truly destroyed.
I like multiverses that spring up naturally, like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles having multiple incarnations that sometimes cross over. But when writers set out to create an infinite multiverse, they end up making everything meaningless due to how expendable everything becomes. We have to be invested in universes before they mean something to us.
Yeah TMNT went the right route by just having a bunch of content produced by different people that gradually merged into one multiverse naturally over time to make for fun crossovers for the fans.
Usually Hollywood just immediately tacks multiverse as a concept onto something so the shitty writers don't get called out for endless inconsistencies and bad writing.
Exactly, Spider-Man and TMNT work is because they have so many amd varied incarnations that it is exciting to see how 2003 serious Leo would react to the 2012 more inexperienced one, or Spectacular Spider-Man to the one from the 90s show.
But the mcu in particular..... doesn't do that, they just took the concept to make up characters and turn them into jokes, like the illuminati which straight up felt like a fuck you to the X-men and fantastic four fans.
And every other thing that tries to do a multiverse also follows that exact same pattern
@@ironmaster6496in regards to the 90s spider-man even in that show it dealt with a multiversal threat in the form of Spider-Carnage but did so properly showcasing that no one man can do everything on their own and that even the ordinary can do the extraordinary if they have the will. It showcases trauma and grief paired with compassion. You felt connected to the story and weren't just dismissive
The key, and this is my amateur take, is to keep it personal. Multiverse of Madness was stupid for... Many reasons... In particular how it picked up after WandaVision yet didn't treat her as the monster she became... but if they had just focused on Wanda and her desperation for Vision, their children, and the Happy Ever After she wanted... It could have been a poignant story about grief, about envy, about coming to terms, of doing wrong and about accepting the consequences, because a Wanda who ultimately handed herself over, willingly submitting to prison and beginning the long climb back to being a hero.
@@Antonio-ys5zd That's because back then entertainment media actually contained story and not just an endless reel of vacuous drivel from people chanting "MEN HAVE PERIODS TOO".
I was watching Last Action Hero and never realized that movie gave us a couple of firsts.
The scene when he walks in the police station is our first taste of the multiverse.
When he gives Hamlet a little spice. That was our first taste of adding some modern flair to period pieces. Like Knights Tale and Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet.
But back then we didn't beat a good idea to death. 😊
I'm starting to wonder if both entitlement and 'been there - seen that' has had an effect that will be hard to overcome.
The only time a character can come back from death is as a ghost. Sort of. There's other instances but I'm specifically thinking of Mia Fey from Ace Attorney, who is very much dead and limited to the two characters who can channel her through their spirit medium powers. She is an immense help to Phoenix, but eventually she is no longer channeled and left to death in peace. Her death is a terrible blow and she can't be channeled at first either; her sister, Maya, has to work hard to channel her and it's almost not until the very end of the first case that she manages it. After that case, Maya sometimes struggles to channel Mia, meaning that you can't rely on Mia to help you. I think that's one of the few times a character "comes back" and it works...
lol i wouldnt think id be seeing an ace attorney reference here
I never expected Red Dwarf to be used in a serious discussion of writing choices. Hats off, sir
We were so busy laughing our asses of watching it, we took the fantastic quality of it's science fiction writing for granted
Smoke me a kipper...
Thank you for referencing Red Dwarf. I have binge watched that series several times and it doesn't get old.
I still believe there's a place for multiverses in storytelling. They may often be misused or overused, yes, but in skilled hands, they can create unique and compelling narratives. It all rests on the ability and creativity of the writers.
Of course!
There is nothing wrong with multiverses. This is a superficial interpretation.
"The stories are bad. Is there a trend? Multiverses. Therefore multiverses are bad".
No Way Home, Spider-Verse, EEAAO, hell even Rick and Morty and Fiona and Cake manged to expand on its wider realities and characters without losing its core emotional story.
Isn't that what Critical Drinker said?
@@alfredosaint-jean9660
Did you watch the video? The whole thing is all about multiverses being a good medium that's being horribly misused, not that the concept itself is bad in any way. Half the video is even examples of good uses of multiverses and a showcasing of how and why current Hollywood is bad at using it, not the other way around.
@@joshuakim5240 Which is why is so frustrating seeing multiverse attacked.
THANK. YOU.
Time travel already usually stressed me out and then all this multiverse crap started happening all the time and it is literally too much for me! Not only is it way more than I want to think about on a Friday night, but it's also emotionally exhausting. Like bro, it makes me anxious enough worrying about one universe, please don't bring in a million others (looking at you Spider-Man 2099). At this point when the stakes are so high, I automatically go into survival mode and disengage.
Dr. Strange MOM was when I noped out. You explained it perfectly, it became to convoluted. Impeccable video per usual sir! 🌟
What a terrible movie. I honestly still can't decide if having watched Wandavision beforehand made the movie more or less confusing.
Hadn't watched it and I had no clue at first what was going on. It became clear a bit later but still.
I LOVE the shoutout to red dwarf. The Ace Rimmer episodes were hands down the best of the series. Ace actually makes a return, actually, in an episode that really hits home with Rimmer as a character. I won’t spoil anything, just, if anyone browsing the comments is curious as to what this Red Dwarf show is and if its worth checking out, it ABSOLUTELY is. The show is HILARIOUS.
It’s a smegging fantastic show.
Smoke me a Kipper 👍
I wonder if having a cheat code to a chastity belt might have some bearing on the situation you describe.
It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere. I'm all alone. More or less.
“Call me by my nickname: Ace.”
Your nickname was never Ace. Maybe Ace Hole.”
One of the greatest burns ever.
_Tapestry_ is one of my favourite _ST:TNG_ episodes. Great writing, just enough humour, powerful Pat Stewart acting, and his humbling at the end, realizing he all but owed Q a debt of gratitude.
Mon capitan!!!
"Excuse me, is there a JON LUK PIKERD here?" 😂
Q is the best. Definitely one of the best characters.
I happened to come across that episode on TV when I was going through a difficult time in my life where I didn't know what to do with myself and it really touched my heart. That episode got me thinking about who I wanted to be and what I wanted to accomplish before I died. I pulled myself together and became a much more competent adult with a bright future. I'm glad that episode came around when it did.
This did a fantastic job of explaining why multiverse and time travel stories can be so unsatisfying, with a cogent explanation of how to do those right as well--to serve the main storyline, not subvert it.
I love watching writers create a whole new universe, where they still can't write.
Neat.
You silly goose.
Modern Hollywood writers don't CREATE anything, lol.
In some universes, there are constants.
"Tapestry" absolutely one of the best episodes of TNG.....presenting one of the great speeches from Q ...and the unlikely scenario of Picard shouting that Q was right and HE was wrong!! Amazing.....
The curious thing about the concept of the Multiverse is that the first major pop culture property to use it was Michael Moorecock's Eternal Champion meta-franchise fantasy books, headlined by his star character series Elric of Melnibone, and the half-dozen completely different, distinct, and unique other characters he wrote over the course of his thirty-plus years of fantasy writing from the 1960s to the 1990s, crossing them over and tying them together as different aspects of a cross-dimensional entity called the Eternal Champion. Moorecock used the Multiverse as a binding meta-connection between his properties, with each individual one wildly different from the others. Some of his works were were of completely separate fantasy subgenres such as Steampunk/Dieselpunk and had often very different plots compared to each other. He never made the massive mistake that modern wielders of the Multiverse concept make in using it to rationalize putting multiple iterative variations of the same character from different creators over a property's lengthy commercial lifespan together, or conveniently allow the writers to reset the plot to square one at the end of one arc and the beginning of another.
It still amazes me the same author linked such disparate world arcs (and styles) as Dancer at the End of Time with Corum.
The Elric Saga 1&2 were the only books of his I read. Sadly I feel like very few people knew who Elric of Melnibone was
@@darkzak47it’s probably more than you expect
When did steven king make his books then? Cuz isn’t the dark tower linked to like every one of his books?
@@evereethingplayyz8509 The Dark Tower was published in 1982. The first Elric book, "Elric of Melniboné" was published in 1972...EDIT: THE above is incorrect, Elric is even older. The first was "Stormbringer" in 1965, itself preceded by short stories (from which it was made) going back to 1963... So Moorcock was doing it nearly 20 years before Stephen King.
Dude, i just came from one of your other videos and commented on the multiverse. Now i found this video and you explained perfectly how i feel about this topic. Greatly done, mate
when ned stark died in Game of thrones i never thought oh well he will be back later, he died, it was sad, and that was it, just the concept that he can come back easily if the writers want it, even if they do not do it, completely kills the emotional stakes for me
Enter Jon Snow whom beat the 'They aren't dead unless you see them die' trope.
The Jon Snow (and Beric D) resurrections emphasize their difficulty and the *damage to self* that is suffered. Beric speaks of how little "Beric" is left after returning several times and Jon is haunted by knowing that there is nothing after death.
@@obelisktoucher4562Even when Caitlin Stark comes back in the books (Beric gives her whatever magic is keeping him alive) she's barely human, she's a zombie obsessed with revenge, to the point that she literally does nothing but hunt down those who betrayed her family. Likewise it's implied Jon went into his wolf while he was gone so in the books he's likely to take up animalistic traits when he wakes up.
This whole "Why Modern Movies Suck" series is a great class for writers too. I think this installment is especially well prepared, well reasoned and turns a pithy phrase or two. Nicely done!
Yikes you thought this was good
Modern movies don't suck tho. We had an incredibly amazing movie year in 2023 with absolutely fantastic movies. You literally just need to open your fucking eyes and stop only watching Blockbusters.
It's really that easy. But no better act like only Disney or WB makes movies these days and then complain while being majorly part of the problem why are house movies are going extinct.
There were hundreds of english language movies released last year and tens of thousands of films released all over the world a lot of great films were released in 2023. I implore Critical Drinker and the rest of the "modern movies suck" crowd to put on their big boy pants and look beyond superhero/marvel and hollywood blockbusters.
@@LETSPLAYmartinname ten then.
You nailed it once again. Much like the song "Bad to the Bone", the multiverse concept has been overused and doesn't work anymore. What people forget is that in the modern world, DC Comics is sort of the "creator" of the multiverse but they didn't do it for some grand reason - they did it to explain why Batman and Superman didn't age in the comics. That was their out, Superman and Batman in the 30s were from one universe, them in the 50s was a different one, them in the 70s another, etc. It allowed them to keep the characters current and not be tied down by events that happened 30 years earlier. Used properly, the multiverse is a great concept but it has to be used sparingly and can't be used as a cheat to get you out of a mess you made which is exactly the problem today.
Comic book age trope bores me
Using Matrix’s Agent Smith as an example of “antagonist dilution” was epic!!! Thanks for a great channel. Bring back good movies
Was epic alright... an EPIC FAIL! Because it was a completely wrong example, guess Drinker drank too much that day. But i never expected the dumdums of the comment section to figure that one out. FIGHT ME!
The problem with that example is that Smith weakening was a sign that Neo had gotten much stronger and so Smith (which is the avatar of the machine's AI that keeps humanity imprisoned) had to get extra creative in order to carry on fighting.
The point you make that god forbid that they should let their audience feel bad about something, is SO spot on. When the producers of M*A*S*H killed off Henry Blake, one of the main characters for the three first seasons of the show, they received letters from thousands of angry viewers. When people lamented that they felt like they had lost a friend, and that the producers had made them feel terrible, Larry Gelbart (the runner of the show) replied: "That's why we did it. To show you the horrors of war." I don't think that would happen today. When characters die these days, it's mostly off screen, which keeps the window open for them to return. Or re-appear from another universe.
Not wanting for the audience to feel bad is actually a good thing, at least for shows and movies made for a big audience.
Most people go to the movies to feel good, and feel betrayed when the oposite happens.
But there also must be exceptions for the other kind of audience.
@@alfredosaint-jean9660 You're forgetting that the entire reason Infinity Wars was such a huge milestone in the MCU was because Thanos won.
@@VernulaUtUmbra With everyone in the theaters knowing very well that everything will be solved on the next part.
The MCU is a good example on "safe treats".*
*Unless the actor contract expires.
@@alfredosaint-jean9660 Peter Pan syndrome in movies eventually leads to everyone feeling nothing and is self defeating because even in fantasy land everything isn't perfect and feel good all the time.
@@alfredosaint-jean9660that's actually why I knew ahead of time that Ironman and Cap America weren't gonna make it to the end or would retire; because I knew their contracts were up.
Aren't movies magical?!
Dude, you spoke my heart. I always hated time travel and multi-verses as a cheap way to change it all around
Not to mention, if it's not properly handled. It can easily tangle up your story into a mess of nonsense. It all has to lead to a nice payoff.
And yet Back to the Future is still one of the greatest movies ever made.
IDK about that one being so great, but it kept it simple and it wasn't part of a long TV and movie fictional world certain continuity was expected, like Vulcan NOT GETTING BLOWN UP @@Komainu959
@@Komainu959 Because in Back to the Future, it wasn't a cheap way to change it all around
@@martelraykinBack to the Future is probably one of (if not the only) instance where time jumping wasn’t just used as a gimmick
A tiny budget movie called Coherence made great use of the multiverse. It had like 7 charaters, and it filmed in under a week in an ordinary house. It was complex and thought provoking.
Ooh yeah. Love that film . Highly recommended 👌
Ditto - fantastic movie that seemed to slip under the radar.
One good example of recent multiverse use? Sonic Prime. All the different shards of the universe have different versions of our main characters, and they are wildly different due to how they grew up. One of the main conflicts of the show stems from Sonic - being the short attention span easy going guy he is - not realizing Nine is NOT the Tails he knew for many years, and giving him a false impression of friendship. We also get to see Rogue becoming a leader of a rebellion on a Sonic-less world, Knuckles being a selfish pirate, or Rose in one universe being a robot built by Eggman.
Omg Sonic Prime was so good. And I saw Nine's betrayal coming but the dialog and the way they did it was really compelling
Multiverses were done well in the Korean show Eternal Monarch, by the end he visits every universe to find the woman he loves and in every universe there's a hint of recognition, but none of them are the one he lost, and they all have something to protect or keep them happy. It's lovely because every time he meets another version of her he's obviously so sad but also happy that she is happy in so many different universes.
Bit of a spoiler but there's a lot withheld from that.
Yeah, I hate when people blame multiverses, or time travel, or similars, because that is blaming the tool instead of the user.
Multiverses are dumb
@@roarbertbearatheon8565 Only in the hands of dumb people.
Your proclamation shows your media consumption is pretty pedestrian. Read some more. It's good for you.
There's another TNG episode where Worf starts to phase in and out of alternate universes and some of the differences are as mundane as "Picard was standing two feet to the left" to "Riker is captain of the Enterprise because Picard didn't survive the events of The Best of Both Worlds" and it was fascinating to see these different ideas, even if it was brief.
TNG has more creativity and originality in single episodes than 100 modern shows in their entirety, combined.
It also has a better message.
I always thought that was a highly underrated Worf episode.
And this is why I subscribed to the Drinker. Top notch, thoughtful analysis of the problems and challenges with storytelling with great use of examples.
My biggest problem with multiverses is the same as my biggest problem with 108 item buffets. At first, it seems amazing and incredible, and holy shit! You probably can get whatever the hell you want. Awesome. Until you become overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices, you quickly realize that some choices (crab legs) are far superior to others (lookin at you, orange jello), and ultimately, you can never really satisfied bc you can never really feel confident in your choices, or worse, you have to cram in so many choices to feel like you got your money’s worth, you end up throwing up and you feeling worse than when you started.
Yeah, that’s pretty much my analogy. xoxoxo ❤
Choice paradox
the internet did that to us also.
All information is no real information
Same thing at the supermarket. When I was growing up, there were five flavors of ice cream, and maybe five toppings for pizza, and only three flavors of potato chips. Today there are a dozen choices for each. At least. I counted eleven varieties of prepared tuna fish. Even had a choice of how it was packaged. Canned or in a pouch. Sometimes it is a resealable pouch. WOW !!
When I was about twenty years old I used to complain there weren't enough sci-fi movies, or novels to dig into. I knew there would be eventually, given time. Today, I complain about the opposite. There is WAAAYYYY too much of both. If you throw comic books into the mix, it's completely overwhelming. On a scale, I never thought would be reached. At least it's better than nothing at all. Maybe that's the way to look at it. Happy shopping everyone.
@@LorenzoMasterConnector Very good point
you hate the Multiverse now but when Deadpool 3 and Avengers: Secret Wars come out you will fanboy over it.
Did not see Ace Rimmer being used as an argument against lazy writing coming. Bravo Drinker! 👏👏
"Antagonist Dilution" can also be likened to Flanderization: if you keep ratcheting up an character's power or role in a story, you're eventually gonna get to the point where the human brain is gonna reduce them to their most basic traits in order to keep up with the plot and that's what's going to go into writing them later on.
I remember reading a comment on a video once that went along the lines of "bad multiverses are 'look at all these places I can go', good multiverses are 'look at all these people I become'". And specifically, the people I become is the important part. Not the people I am fighting, not the threats I face - but the self. This is how Spiderverse did it, this is how EEAAO did it. That's the only way you can make a multiverse have a meaningful result. By making it about the character examining themselves, you're able to take a common motif - self-growth - and externalize it into a narrative that audiences can understand easily.
I’d argue the difference is “what if we change one pivotal event, how should that alter characters and storylines afterwards.”
Vs “what if Spider-Man, but black”
You are absolutely right. I just read the second book in the wheel of time, and there’s a moment that explores that exact thing. Different lives of the main character-and it matures him and prepares him for the next leg of the story.
Another good multiverse use was in Rick and Morty where after Rick's potion Chronenburgs the whole world, minus his family, he and Morty go to another universe where their counterparts have both recently died. Then they both live here with another copy of the family they left behind in their original universe. So while Rick and Morty use the multiverse to escape their problems the entire cast for nearly 2 seasons is doomed. Morty realises just how bad this ending is.
Then in a later episode they have to go back to their original universe.
I'm glad to have gotten good enough to not have to ask about the acronym for
Everything
Everywhere
All
At
Once
Almost. A multiverse is infinite, it's not "look, it's that character but with a mustache". It's you, it's that character, down to every decision, every cell in their body, existing an infinite amount of times. It's the ultimate "you're not special". EEAAO also tried to blow up the multiverse, which is always stupid no matter how you slice it, but it did go into multiple variations of universes very creatively, so I can enjoy it just for that. The best multiverse plot would be how to deal with the fact that you are freed of all responsibility to matter. Every dream you had you achieved in some reality, everything you ever wanted was gained, every road that could've been traveled was traveled. So what do you do now?
The best way multiverse is utilised is in Ben 10, where all realities branched from one, so if anything happens to that ben, rest of multiverse wouldn't exist, I think in Loki season 2 ending, they established the same with that tree, at this phase they are doing good in Loki and Spiderverse, but rest of them don't work
Ben 10 also has the best and least expected crossover too. The generator rex crossover
THE ACE RIMMER REFFERENCE! I have a newfound respect for the critical drinker, knowing he likes red dwarf! Massively underrated show I'd definitely recommend it
Edit: I can see why most people in their 30s now might have thought it wasn't underrated. But ask anybody of my age (18) about it and you'd be devastatingly shocked. NOBODY and I mean almost NOBODY ubder 18 has heard of it
Yes! Red Dwarf has intelligent writing, something hollyWOKE is massively missing🙄 Oh, and Red Dwarf is absolutely brilliant and extremely funny, too🤣😂
Underrated? It's literal cult classic.
What a guy!
Smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast. 😂
A citizen of the UK would have to be raised in a cave to be ignorant of red dwarf.
Thank you Mr. drinker. I was waiting for someone to call stop to this Multiverse trope.
Too many people criticize Multiverse without knowing.
You can create great drama and tension with the Multiverse. Even by raising the stakes. All it takes, as always, is Good Writing.
Exemples : the Spider-Verse movies, Old Man Logan, the Avengers/New Avengers run by Jonathan Hickman (culminating with Secret Wars), The Dark Knight Returns, Superman Red Son...
@@rKhael53 you are absolutely right with your examples because I have seen them and they were great. My only problem is when we get bombarded with all these so called multiversal trope is bad writing with no stakes.
Tropes aren’t bad, the people are
@@rKhael53 Multiverse can be a gateway to many possible storytelling that's bind to its source material prior to the new alternative reality but modern hollywood and Disney's been using it as a facade for multiDiverse to race swap and gender bender the popular characters to better suite the woke criteria
@@rKhael53 Multiverse can be a gateway to many possible storytelling which is actually bound to its source material prior to a new alternative reality but modern day hollywood's been using it solely as a facade to raceswap and genderbender the popular characters to better suit the w o k e criteria
4:25
You just described why I love cyberpunk edgerunner so much when a character dies they are gone, forever, no plot armour no nothing
I always loved stories with lower stakes because the story feels more personal and in a way kind of unique
Loss is hardly tragic if it ain't actual loss.
If the 2010s is the decade where reboots, remakes and sequels had studios getting carried away with too much of them, the 2020s is shaping up into the decade of lazy multiverses, bullying review sites to remove reviews that dont conform to "the message" and covid splitting relationships
11:26 For medical issues, i had to retired of studying my career for a whole semester. In general, i wasn't sure if being a lawyer was my thing, my grades were bad and i wasn't paying it enough attention. During that time outside the studies, i realized the importance of the career, the many ways i could help the people and my country and the oportunities it can gave me, so when I returned, i came back with the energy of a thunderstorm. I started enjoying and caryng what i was doing, almost got an institucional recognition for my grades and i feel better than ever in my life. Somethimes i wonder what would happen if i didn't stop studying during that semester. Maybe i would had quit the university, or continues sad, not understanding nothing and with low grades. Who knows, maybe my story will appear in a Marvel What If Chapter