wordwalker
Auror
Something that's always bugged me is how so many movies (and other cheap storytelling) build drama by getting silly with the facts of a story, instead of using them to put in us in why that world ought to be so thrilling. But here's a couple things I worked out:
Stormtrooper "precision shooting" is one of the biggest jokes in movies, how villains in (well, almost any film, ever) will go through crates of ammunition but can't hit the broad side of a Death Star unless the plot specifically calls for it, as the only way to let the heroes live through the story. Still, there's an easier way around this, as long as we're writing fantasy rather than fantasy-in-spacers'-clothing:
Most guards wouldn't have ranged weapons at all. Without gunpowder and manufacturing, bows and crossbows were too hard to teach or build for ordinary troops, and a guard's usual job was to drive off or surround troublemakers, not put arrows in that one elusive MC. So the soldiers can close in with their spears (or clubs, often) and the hero can fight or dodge to keep from being surrounded--it's when he gets beyond the city and they send ranger squads after him that he starts having to do a full Dive For Cover.
I always laughed at Star Wars armor too, and how useless it was. But just the fact that armor's given out to common troops usually means weapons have had time to get fairly good at penetrating it. So we ought to see guards' armor softening hits and making them harder to fight, but not invulnerable--and not all in what looks like full chain or plate armor just to make them look scarier than they are. (Meanwhile some heroes might avoid armor as long as they're more concerned about outrunning a dozen troops than fighting just two or three of them. Remember Aragorn in that leather armor-- but then suiting up in chain at Helm's Deep?)
Anyone else have any pet peeves about "dramatic but absurd" story facts and how to fix them?
Stormtrooper "precision shooting" is one of the biggest jokes in movies, how villains in (well, almost any film, ever) will go through crates of ammunition but can't hit the broad side of a Death Star unless the plot specifically calls for it, as the only way to let the heroes live through the story. Still, there's an easier way around this, as long as we're writing fantasy rather than fantasy-in-spacers'-clothing:
Most guards wouldn't have ranged weapons at all. Without gunpowder and manufacturing, bows and crossbows were too hard to teach or build for ordinary troops, and a guard's usual job was to drive off or surround troublemakers, not put arrows in that one elusive MC. So the soldiers can close in with their spears (or clubs, often) and the hero can fight or dodge to keep from being surrounded--it's when he gets beyond the city and they send ranger squads after him that he starts having to do a full Dive For Cover.
I always laughed at Star Wars armor too, and how useless it was. But just the fact that armor's given out to common troops usually means weapons have had time to get fairly good at penetrating it. So we ought to see guards' armor softening hits and making them harder to fight, but not invulnerable--and not all in what looks like full chain or plate armor just to make them look scarier than they are. (Meanwhile some heroes might avoid armor as long as they're more concerned about outrunning a dozen troops than fighting just two or three of them. Remember Aragorn in that leather armor-- but then suiting up in chain at Helm's Deep?)
Anyone else have any pet peeves about "dramatic but absurd" story facts and how to fix them?