The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

A recent trend with movie and TV heroes reveal that good guys who need to save the day are usually out-muscled and out-classed by their bad guy counterpart. When the good guy wins (as most movie formulae require), it's usually due to good luck or some chance event happening that cause the evildoer to fail. And I think it's stupid.

To make a compelling story between good & evil that includes a final showdown, you must (as least as much as possible) make it seem to the audience it's possible either entity could win. In other words, you make the good guy seem invincible, you show the bad guy kick some ass seabass, so that when they tangle against each other you look forward to the outcome. It's hard to pull off, especially when it's usually a given the good guy will win, but you can't still make for exciting sequences until you reach that conclusion.

But that's not what has been happening lately. Let's take the film The Transformers as an example. You see the evil head robot dude, Megatron, destroy everything in its path and it's easily conveyed it's not someone to mess with. Then Optimus Prime, the head of the good guy robots, shows up and doesn't really do anything special, but since he's the leader you think he can hold his own. Well, that didn't happen (spoilers ahead, but who cares, the movie sucked so I'm likely just saving you time) and instead Megatron beat on Optimus Prime like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. Optimus got practically zero offense in, and they only reason why Megatron lost the battle...actually I don't remember exactly what happened, but it was as ridiculous as him slipping on a banana peel before he was about to deliver the fatal blow to Mr. Prime. So the good guys eek out a lucky escape...is that a satisfying ending?

Don't we want to see the heroes we're rooting for show a little moxy and dish out a little punishment to the deserving villains? I do. I think it makes for a better viewing experience. Let the good guys HTFU a little!