Inside the Brain of E.C. Henry

A Chimpy Christmas

E.C. Henry & Chimpy wish you all a very merry Christmas! 

Buy-in Point

So I went to see "Mortal Engines" with my father on its opening night at the Bonney Lake Multiplex.  After the movie was over we talked a little about it, and I found that my dad liked the movie more than I did.  I found the world building of "Mortal Engines" to be very unbelievable.  Though my dad conceded that point to me, he said it didn't bother him so much, and he liked all the action.

Do movies have to be believable?  Logically make sense? 

OR are you supposed to just go with flow and enjoy the ride?

Riding dragons: buy-in--James Cameron style!

Depends on who you are, I guess.  I'm not going to insist that you see the world my way.  We all enjoy things in our own way.  By in that accord EVERY movie faces an audience member's buy-in point.  

A movie's buy-in point is the threshold of where an audience member accepts the world, characters, and situations.  

Different genre's have different expectations.  Horror is supposed to solicit thrills and chases.  Romantic Comedies are supposed to inspire romance while providing some laughs along the way.  Superhero movies are supposed to have characters with powers squaring off against a villain.  Cartoon movies are supposed to attract youth and inspire their own imaginations.  

Yet despite the different expectation all movies have a buy-in point.  Let's take a look:

"Halloween" (1978).  Genre: Horror.  Buy-in point: do you believe its plausible for an escapee from a mental institution to wreck havoc in his hometown?  E.C. would rate this buy-in point: 9.5 out of 10.  Very plausible; every once in a while you hear about some sicko do heinous things.  Michael Myers wasn't that big of a stretch to believe.    

"House of Wax" (1998).  Genre: Horror.  Buy-in point: a couple of sadistic brothers have taken over a town and fill it with wax figures.  They kill all who enter their town and add them to their collection.  E.C. would rate the buy-in point 4 out of 10.  Not really believable that two crazies could get away with having a whole town to themselves.  Didn't believe that could happen.  

"Dan in Real Life" (2007) Genre: Romantic Comedy.  Buy-in point: do you believe that a couple of middle-aged people can have a romantic hit off, then have them spend the weekend together at a family outing, with the complication that the girl is in a relationship with the guy's brother.  Buy-in point: mixed feelings about this.  Because the family weekend was VERY BELIEVABLE, as were all the characters.  All you have to accept is the initial set-up, which is a bit of a stretch but since the rest of the movie is done so well I would rate this a 7 out of 10.

"How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" (2002) Genre: Romantic Comedy.  Buy-in point: two people in the magazine business embark on a romance JUST to prove a point, then end up falling in love.  Though I LOVED this movie, it is very improbable, and it has a high buy-in point as pertains to believibilty.  IF you buy-in, there are great set pieces, but in all honesty neither Benjamin Barry, nor Andie Anderson felt like real people.  So I would rate this movie's buy-in point very high.  A 2 out of 10.  You basically have to throw out reasonable expectations and just go with it.

Yeah, even rom-coms have a buy-in point: kisses have to be earned!

"Splash" (1985) Genre: Romantic Comedy.  Buy-in point: Mermaids living off the coast of New York.  Rate: 4 out of 10.  Once you get over mermaids living off the coast, once in New York, the story is pretty grounded.    

"Transformers" (2006) Genre: Cartoon Series Adaptation.  Buy-in point: Believing in a world where robots can assume to identity of cars, planes and spaceships; and that there two factions to this group; one bent on taking over the world, the other set on protecting us.  I would rate this buy-in point 1 out of 10.  Very unbelievable.  Autobots vs. Decepticons.  To me this whole movie is forced to go an uphill battle trying to prove that these kinds of machines really exist.    

"The Matrix" (1999) Genre: Sci-fi.  Buy-in point: Machines have replaced reality with artificial, computer reality, and have taken over most of the world with only a select few aware of what's going on.  In the machine world you can have special powers if you have a strong enough mind.  Buy-in point: Acceptance of special powers that people can have in this artificial world.  Accepting the fact the the survivors are traveling around in hi-tech mining spaceships despite the fact that world is burned out.  Accepting the fact that machine are harvesting electricity off people.  To me this movie has a moderate buy-in point 5 out of 10.  Yeah, there's a lot going on, but the concept covers a lot of its believibility points.  Since the matrix is an artificial world basically higher powers are mentally possible.  My biggest gripe with the matrix was the ship that the survivors were on.  That wasn't believable to me.

"Planet of the Apes" (1968) Genre: Sci-fi.  Buy-in point: A play on the theory of evolution, where things have reversed and centuries after a nuclear exchange, astronauts from a time just before the exchange return though a space phenomenom to a world where apes rule over primitive man.  Rate: 4 out of 10.  Some exposition is given in effort to explain the passage of time, men becoming apes requires a level of buy-in, but once you do the rule of the world are pretty believable.

"Avatar" (2009) Genre: Sci-fi.  Buy-in point: An alien world where the native population can ride non-firebreathing dragons.  Simple story of an evil corporation trying to steal a special mineral from an indian-like group.  Rating: 2 out of 10.  Attempts are made a making this somewhat believable, but a lot of that good will goes out the window when you name that special mineral unobtaininum.  Pitiful.    

"Guardians of the Galaxy" (2015) Genre: Superhero.  Buy-in point: A band of mixed species characters band together to save the galaxy from a super foe.  Buy-in point: 0.5 out of 10.  HORRIBLE set-up.  You basically have to put your brain on a hat rack and just go with it.  A talking raccoon?  A dim-witted tree who can only say, "I am Groot."  Ridiculous.  The whole fuckin' thing is totally ridiculous.  It's only saving grace is the banter between this totally unbelievable assortment of characters.  Lose yourself in the wizbang spectacle and NEVER question a thing, because NOTHING will be explained, nor does anything make any sense.  These kind of movies are born from those with a 6-year-old's sensibilities.  Every time I see movies like this I feel dumber for having sat through it.  

"Christopher Robin" (2018) Genre: Children's fairytale.  Buy-in point: Seeing Christopher Robin re-experience his make-believe world later in life and learning a new lesson from these talking teddybears that live in an alternate reality.  I would rate this buy-in point quite high 3 out of 10.  You have to accept talking teddy bears, and their child-like take on everything.  Also the silly lesson that the older Christopher Robbin must learn isn't very engaging.  

"28 Days Later..." (2004) Genre: Zombie  Buy-in point: Believing that a man made, bloodborn disease can reduce people into violent canibals after exposure in about 5-10 seconds.  I would rate this a buy-in point of 8.5 out of 10.  Could a disease do this to someone?  Well, in the story within the first 5 minutes you get to see a woman's transformation into one of these violoent, red-eyed monsters.  Does a lot to make the movie believable, and allows the audience to mentally extrapolate how this released horror could devistate London so quickly.  

"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) Genre: Zombie.  Buy-in point: for reasons unexplained suddenly corpses are coming back to life and preying on the living.  Rating: 2 out of 10.  When bodies die they decompose.  NEVER explained how or why this is happen, you just have to go with it.  Very weak stroytelling at a core level.

George Romero vs. Danny Boyle: Zombies, who did it better?

"Fury Road" (2015) Genre: Post Apocalyptic Sci-fi.  Buy-in point: Accepting that armorized vehicles are means of a constant from of warfare in a bombed out sandy world following a nuclear war.  Rating 3 out of 10.  The crazed, hardened characters are a mixed lot of believibility.   A bit of a stretch to think this is how the world would be after a global, nuclear war.

Exhibit A: Spectacle, George Miller style 

"Mortal Engines" (2018) Genre: Post Apocalyptic.  Buy-in point: Accepting that armorized cities move through a barren landscape in search of other mobile cities to conquer and strip off all of its resources.  Also mass changes to the the Earth have eclipsed the world we know today.  Rating 0.5 out of 10.  Completely unbelievable.  Static, boring, characters make for a long day as well.  And get this, one of the main characters is a historian who is collecting relics of the past.

Exhibit B: Spectacle Peter Jackson style

So there you have it.  Buy-in point: a different way of looking and evaluating movies.  We all see the world differently, and have different buy-in points based on our own tastes and way of looking at the world.  Me, as a story teller, I have a high threshold of believable, buy-in point.  I have learned to set my buy-in point aside, I can enjoy movies like "Transformers", "Mortal Engines" and "Christopher Robin": enjoying the action, dialog exchanges or charm; BUT I prefer movies that make me think, and are well though-out.  "The Matix's" high concept is really out there, but it is believable.  Effort were made to explain how things work, and I appreciate that.  

What I don't appreciate is lazy storytelling where OBVIOUS issues aren't addressed.  Yo, George Romero you had over 50 years to explain how dead bodies get re-animated into zombies--and never did!  What mentally lazy, bastard!  (Just kidding I would never say that to George Romero in real life, but do think that way in my mind).  Alex Garland: the writer of "28 Days Later..."; explained his zombies right off the bat, just sayin'...  

To me there are movie so bad in their buy-in point that they deserve to be bashed ruthlessly.  "Transformers" is a movie that spends all of its time and resources trying to justify its ridiculous premise.  "Mortal Engines" is basically a mash-up of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "The Road Warrior" that doesn't work.  Now don't get me wrong I LA-OVE Peter Jackson.  Heck, someday I hope to WORK with Peter Jackson.  And I get it, Weta Digital Studios HAS TO HAVE BIG movies like "Mortal Engines".  That's what they do: bring elaborate fantasy worlds to life.  To that extent I recognize that I have to build up Thars so that it's worth of a pro like Peter Jackson.  But one thing I'm NEVER going to do is lie and blow smoke.  If I don't like something, I'm going to say so.  Not going to candycoat it and lie.  I have strong sense of what works, what doesn't, and why.  I am a great storyteller and will NEVER make dreck like, "Transformers" or "Guardians of the Galaxy".  Sorry, if you like those movie, I pity you, because at their core those are movies made for stupid people.  When I see movies like that, I cry a little inside.  Such great whizbang technology, misused in inferior stories.  

Still, many storytellers do it right.  The take an implausible situation and make it work: "The Matrix", "12 Monkeys", "Planet of the Apes"; come to mind.  It takes a knack to do this.  Not everyone has this skill.  But the ones that do, make true movie magic!