Luc Besson's Valerian doesn't follow the basic storytelling concept of "show, don't tell" - General

I thought this scene in valerian was stupid and too wordy: [video=youtube;1JSHKC3Jib0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JSHKC3Jib0[/video] imagine if your self-driving car told you statistics about your house every time you drove home from work... so i tossed in some music with *rough* editing to sync everything up. [video=youtube;KFfHATfxkhw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFfHATfxkhw[/video] I just thought the end result was neat enough to share.

"show, don't tell" is a lie.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097803]"show, don't tell" is a lie.[/QUOTE]because showing is a way of telling?

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097803]"show, don't tell" is a lie.[/QUOTE] how can a command be a lie?

[QUOTE=Joazzz;53097817]because showing is a way of telling?[/QUOTE] No, because it was made up in the 1950's. [editline]31st January 2018[/editline] I'm not saying I disagree with it, I just don't think it should be called a rule.

I prefer movies that respect me as an audience member and let me figure stuff out. It feels more fufilling and makes you feel smart. The same applies to games. Like the way hl2 teaches new ideas without actually telling you. Or in breath of the wild, I love how it doesnt handhold you in any way.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097831]No, because it was made up in the 1950's. [editline]31st January 2018[/editline] I'm not saying I disagree with it, I just don't think it should be called a rule.[/QUOTE] Do you have anything to actually back this up because Show Don't Tell has been a writing technique for a lot longer than the 50s.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097831]No, because it was made up in the 1950's. [editline]31st January 2018[/editline] I'm not saying I disagree with it, I just don't think it should be called a rule.[/QUOTE] I would argue its been around since Citzen Kane which was 1941.

[QUOTE=EnlightenDead;53097871]Do you have anything to actually back this up because Show Don't Tell has been a writing technique for a lot longer than the 50s.[/QUOTE] A book called [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_the_Cultural_Cold_War"]CIA and the Cultural Cold War[/URL] and a [URL="https://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited/"]19 year old article[/URL]. So I'm probably just full of shit tbh.

I forgot this scene exists because the movie's opening is probably one of the best examples of "Show not Tell" in sci-fi. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oTziHKM_c[/media] Scene in OP is a waste because the same message is communicated far better in this clip. I can't get too upset about it though, since the rest of the movie manages to maintain a strong sense of wonder and discovery.

Constant narration in the way that is shown in this clip is extremely tacky. Show don't tell applies here. The fact that the writers tried to cram an entire setting into a scene of just a couple of minutes, it really destroys the sense of adventure and discovery in the film by just labeling and making statistics everything right off the bat. Most of that info was simply unneeded, while other tidbits could have been used as vital plot points in the story rather than a rattled off statistic. Even as just a viewer, I can see the sorry attempt at universe building they've got going on here. Imagine if starwars started rattling off all the planets, species, the names of all the jedi, what the different kind of imperial ships were called, etc. that where going to be featured in the films right off the bat in a new hope. It would look just as stupid as the above scene did.

I remember seeing this scene in the movie and thinking how ridiculous it is that these people, who I presume [I]live[/I] in Alpha, arbitrarily ask for a bunch of meaningless statistics on it. It's even stupider because none of the information about those locations or species or demographics ever become relevant later in the movie. [QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097831]No, because it was made up in the 1950's. [editline]31st January 2018[/editline] I'm not saying I disagree with it, I just don't think it should be called a rule.[/QUOTE] Ironic that you say this while sporting a Twin Peaks avatar, considering David Lynch is notorious for showing so much and telling so little.

[QUOTE=The Vman;53097907]I remember seeing this scene in the movie and thinking how ridiculous it is that these people, who I presume [I]live[/I] in Alpha, arbitrarily ask for a bunch of meaningless statistics on it. It's even stupider because none of the information about those locations or species or demographics ever become relevant later in the movie. Ironic that you say this while sporting a Twin Peaks avatar, considering David Lynch is notorious for showing so much and telling so little.[/QUOTE] I just don't like calling it a rule, that's all.

casting cara or dane deehand might just be the stupidest choices of all time.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097935]I just don't like calling it a rule, that's all.[/QUOTE] I think it's accurate to call it a rule "of thumb" at the very least.

[QUOTE=Meller Yeller;53097943]I think it's accurate to call it a rule "of thumb" at the very least.[/QUOTE] A guideline.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097935]I just don't like calling it a rule, that's all.[/QUOTE] I think that's being a bit pedantic, because the "rules" in filmmaking aren't really "rules." There is absolutely no enforcing of them, and people break them all the time. They're just guidelines, a general "if you don't have anything specific about this topic in mind, then you should probably just follow this." In this case, if your film doesn't have a really interesting and creative way to disseminate information, then just show it, rather than an exposition dump. Because people can spot exposition dumps, especially when done as badly as this scene, and they ruin the immersion. That's all that the show-don't-tell "rule" means. It's not a "rule" by any other metric.

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;53097948]I think that's being a bit pedantic, because the "rules" in filmmaking aren't really "rules." There is absolutely no enforcing of them, and people break them all the time. They're just guidelines, a general "if you don't have anything specific about this topic in mind, then you should probably just follow this." In this case, if your film doesn't have a really interesting and creative way to disseminate information, then just show it, rather than an exposition dump. Because people can spot exposition dumps, especially when done as badly as this scene, and they ruin the immersion. That's all that the show-don't-tell "rule" means. It's not a "rule" by any other metric.[/QUOTE] You're right, it is pretty nit picky of me. Sorry everyone.

Eh, tbh I'm not sure any amount of editing can save this scene. The edit you did was a nice try, but it really just feels like a bunch of disconnected scenes coming one after another with no understanding of how they tie together. The only way to make this work is to re-write the scene itself. Usually, if you have a setting that is extremely alien to anything we have in reality, you'll identify with a character who is essentially the "fish out of water". That way the audience has a channel through which to gain understanding of the alien world as the character does. It is also much easier to do the whole "show don't tell" thing with a character like that. Valerian had the very difficult challenge of getting audience investment with unrelatable characters and worlds with no channel of understanding for the audience (other than expository dialogue of a droning AI). That's the whole point of good story-telling imo: Show others how your story has meaning to them. If you want good examples of show don't tell, I'd just watch all the Pixar shorts. I think they all follow that style.

[QUOTE=ThePanther;53097959]Eh, tbh I'm not sure any amount of editing can save this scene. The edit you did was a nice try, but it really just feels like a bunch of disconnected scenes coming one after another with no understanding of how they tie together. The only way to make this work is to re-write the scene itself. Usually, if you have a setting that is extremely alien to anything we have in reality, you'll identify with a character who is essentially the "fish out of water". That way the audience has a channel through which to gain understanding of the alien world as the character does. It is also much easier to do the whole "show don't tell" thing with a character like that. Valerian had the very difficult challenge of getting audience investment with unrelatable characters and worlds with no channel of understanding for the audience (other than expository dialogue of a droning AI). That's the whole point of good story-telling imo: Show others how your story has meaning to them. If you want good examples of show don't tell, I'd just watch all the Pixar shorts. I think they all follow that style.[/QUOTE] I agree entirely. I'm all for the power of the edit, but there are cases where footage is just unredeemable. And I think this scene is just unredeemable. I haven't seen the film, but from what others in this thread have said, it feels like most everything in this scene bears no relevance to the story at large, anyways. So if I were in control of the edit room for this film, I'd just cut everything after the "welcome to Alpha", drop the exposition, leave out all of the shots that aren't of the ship flying through the city, and call it a day. If it serves no purpose to the story and can't be saved in the edit, then I personally think you should just cut it altogether.

my biggest gripes about the movie were that it did a bad job of being coherent for too long at the start, and relied too hard on michael bay visual overload in a lot of the scenes that were TECHNICALLY impressive and could have been so impressive if you could focus on any given thing. Also the dude felt like a really dry, walmart brand, young keanu reeves Like everyone else is saying here, the "siri tell me basic things about the place and peoples I've lived and worked with my entire life" scene was such an awful crutch to show off some neat set pieces (some of which come in later in the movie, but this felt far from being 'establishing' shots), and stands in direct opposition to the silent but impactful "timeline of human relations in space eventually becoming this core city station that does the same for intergalactic society" montage. You could feel the corporate oversight making creative changes in the name of focus groups and appeasing [del]dumber[/del] broader audiences

This movie is such a colossal disapointement. As a fan of the original comic and anime I didn't even expect it to be faithful to that legacy and just be a solid, fun general public scifi flick, and oh god did it fail at being that. And obviously had nothing to do with the comic or the anime and washed down the characters of Valérian and Laureline to unbearable flirty teenagers. The casting choices were maybe the worst of last year with GITS reboot. It's the pinnacle of wasted budget on spectacle with 0 substance. The most visualy impressive scene of the movie that was super promoted in trailers (light spoiler)[sp]Valerian crossing the city at high speed to catch the spaceship[/sp] has absolutely 0 plot weight and could have been any other sequence. And the whole movie is like that. The whole scene with Rihanna and her whole character are pure pandering completely pointless to the plot. And obviously here in france it was super hyped because the comic is ultra famous and it's Besson and they played around his 5th element fame so much in marketing and uuugh. Hilariously it had the highest budget of any french movie in history, managed to be a train wreck [I]and[/I] Besson refused to pay a ton of people who worked on it! Probably a bigger disapointement than Ghost in the Shell because you'd know that one was trash from miles away. If you never head about valérian et Laureline before, I highly recommend the comic and the anime if they were translated. The comic inspired Star Wars a lot, and was a precursor of a ton of modern scifi themes. [Img_thumb]http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sDkzhTnYpq4/VOKrKu-fjwI/AAAAAAACd3A/1Wph3cBWMdo/s900/ergwqegwegwegwegweg.jpg[/Img_thumb] [Img_thumb]https://media.senscritique.com/media/000006515524/1200/Valerian_et_Laureline.jpg[/Img_thumb] The way Besson treated this franchise to insert his Rihanna fantasies legit saddens me. And obviously it tanked so hard we won't ever get more of this universe.

Exposition is one of my biggest pet peeves with cinema. The almost, complete lack of exposition is what makes Holy Motors as fascinating to watch as it is. Similarly, I felt that the cut of Blade Runner with Harrison Ford's narration pretty much ruined the movie, by leaving too little for the audience to contemplate.

[QUOTE=BF;53098123]Exposition is one of my biggest pet peeves with cinema. The almost, complete lack of exposition is what makes Holy Motors as fascinating to watch as it is. Similarly, I felt that the cut of Blade Runner with Harrison Ford's narration pretty much ruined the movie, by leaving too little for the audience to contemplate.[/QUOTE] I thing I do now days is when I see exposition happening I try to see how they could explain it without making it obvious such as visual cues. It's pretty fun.

[QUOTE=Loth;53098114]This movie is such a colossal disapointement. As a fan of the original comic and anime I didn't even expect it to be faithful to that legacy and just be a solid, fun general public scifi flick, and oh god did it fail at being that. And obviously had nothing to do with the comic or the anime and washed down the characters of Valérian and Laureline to unbearable flirty teenagers. The casting choices were maybe the worst of last year with GITS reboot. It's the pinnacle of wasted budget on spectacle with 0 substance. The most visualy impressive scene of the movie that was super promoted in trailers (light spoiler)[sp]Valerian crossing the city at high speed to catch the spaceship[/sp] has absolutely 0 plot weight and could have been any other sequence. And the whole movie is like that. The whole scene with Rihanna and her whole character are pure pandering completely pointless to the plot. And obviously here in france it was super hyped because the comic is ultra famous and it's Besson and they played around his 5th element fame so much in marketing and uuugh. Hilariously it had the highest budget of any french movie in history, managed to be a train wreck [I]and[/I] Besson refused to pay a ton of people who worked on it! Probably a bigger disapointement than Ghost in the Shell because you'd know that one was trash from miles away. If you never head about valérian et Laureline before, I highly recommend the comic and the anime if they were translated. The comic inspired Star Wars a lot, and was a precursor of a ton of modern scifi themes. [Img_thumb]http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sDkzhTnYpq4/VOKrKu-fjwI/AAAAAAACd3A/1Wph3cBWMdo/s900/ergwqegwegwegwegweg.jpg[/Img_thumb] [Img_thumb]https://media.senscritique.com/media/000006515524/1200/Valerian_et_Laureline.jpg[/Img_thumb] The way Besson treated this franchise to insert his Rihanna fantasies legit saddens me. And obviously it tanked so hard we won't ever get more of this universe.[/QUOTE] I too was disappointed being a valerian fan myself, however I put it above all of the new star wars movies combined for being a good bad movie like the room or a neil breen film. I was able to laugh my ass off. Back to it's problems judging it as a normal movie, two big things that urked me, one being the lackluster music compared to the anime. [url]https://youtu.be/OfDZbqgFnnw?t=2m52s[/url] [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx4tYx2KDz4[/url] two is that they took out valerian and lauraline being time travelers, holy shit movie I thought you were a mess because it written itself into a corner trying not to confuse the audience with time AND space without rewrites, but then in the end [sp] you introduce time and space in passing indicating you might of had them as time agents [/sp] all along in an old draft. Imagine the villain in the end being a time traveler or knows about the time agency, his motivations would seem more sane. I highly recommend this movie for a bad movie night with friends.

[QUOTE=usaokay;53101607]I see the OP has seen Star Trek Beyond lol [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZTnSxW4pOI[/media] Which, yes, does help to "show, don't tell" to some extent after they do some mild exposition on the political nature of Starbase Yorktown. [editline]2nd February 2018[/editline] She got in as an actress through nepotism since her family is super rich and has a bunch of connections.[/QUOTE] i know why Cara is a famous """"""""actress"""""""". that still doesnt make it right. she is completely talentless and relies entirely on influence and money to do whatever she wants.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097831]No, because it was made up in the 1950's. [editline]31st January 2018[/editline] I'm not saying I disagree with it, I just don't think it should be called a rule.[/QUOTE] It is the penultimate rule in storytelling. It is the ONLY rule in interactive entertainment besides "make things fun".

The biggest issue I had with Valerian was that the pacing of dialog made me think either: - I was on something at the time - The film was not filmed in English, and I was watching it dubbed Anyone else get that?

[QUOTE=Ithon;53102128]I too was disappointed being a valerian fan myself, however I put it above all of the new star wars movies combined for being a good bad movie like the room or a neil breen film. I was able to laugh my ass off.[/QUOTE] I havent seen the Last jedi because of my insane work schedueles lately but oh god that couldn't be less true. Valérian failed at being a basic entertainement. I'm a big Star Wars fan and enjoyed TFA and in particular Rogue One. TFA isn't an amazing movie but was great entertainement, and Rogue One was straight up a great movie in my eyes. Valérian is an insulting joke putting rich talentless non actress stars above giving a shit about its source materials or giving a good narrative. Entire scenes of the movie are just pure cringe I don't wish on anyone, or completely useless to the plot and just visual show off or star talent cameos. The two main characters are played by completely talentless actors and are pure cringe to watch. They have 0 chemistry yet entire 5-10m long scenes are dedicated to just them talking like flirty teenagers and of course [sp]although valerian has been portrayed as an idiotic cheating pervert the whole movie and did nothing to earn her trust, even less her love, she ofc falls in love with him mid movie when suddenly they're in danger and we get completely cringy fake teenage tier "i <3 u" scenes [/sp] Awful stars cameos has been a plague to big budget french movies for years. It's like they already know they're gonna lose so much money, they waste millions on getting expensive stars to play an awful role in an awful scene everybody wants to forget. It's exactly what killed Astérix aux jeux Olymiques, another super high budget french movie who blew everything on trendy comedians and actors camos instead of making an actual movie. Reminder that, unlike Valérian, most bad movies [I]actually fucking pay the people who worked on them.[/I]

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;53097803]"show, don't tell" is a lie.[/QUOTE] I find it extremely ironic that you've posted this when your avatar is from Twin Peaks, David Lynch is arguably the king of 'show don't tell'