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Thank you so much for posting this because I had the same thought a few years ago but lost it π
Really good shows don't have this problem as much. There were times in Severance (my recent show obsession) where I thought some communication between characters would have made more sense - but upon reflection it seemed fair what they were keeping from each other.
But yeah some shows are like "if these two people had a 3 message text conversation the entire plot wouldn't exist" π
yeah its like to some degree this has been going on before, as people point out, but yeah to much just shoveling crap out and cheapening out with writing. Like things can be like this a bit. Maybe someone makes a bad call. But man when it seems like it runs constantly through the plots its like. ugh.
Especially if the show is overall good, it makes the writing look very lazy haha
no, this is a huge trope throughout the entertainment industry... in my opinion it has little to do with the genre.
another fun game to play is 'would this movie happen if they could pickup a cellphone and talked to x character'. many pre-cell movie scripts rely entirely on moving information from one person to another in the longest way possible
thing is I have not noticed it before. Has it always been common or is it something more common nowadays?
its always been pretty common, but its more frustrating today because communication is so easy to achieve. trivial even. we all are more or less able to communicate with almost anyone else at almost any time. theres simply no excuse anymore.
theres also just shitty writing. the 'im going to keep this a secret so theres a plot' trope. the recent series Evil did a great job of portraying a close team of 'professionals' who constantly fail to tell each other important bits of information the entire series. its beyond frustrating.
Thanks although some of the examples are not so bad. Like the lost one sounds like an assumption but like in the school spirit one they never discuss the dead friends experience as a ghost and even worse at one point he asks her what she is looking at (it was other ghosts) and she is like. oh nothing. I mean I can't for the life of me see why it would be like well you only see me but there are other ghosts. sorry that is a bit of a spoiler but its a pretty inconsequential aspect to the whole thing.
It's always been a common sign of sloppy writing. At the very least, a writer should create a situation that believably prevents the passage of information. Not just people being too stupid and emotionally blocked to tell each other. That goes for "I love you, and I'm sorry" and also for "the murderer is..."
My guess is that a part of the popularity of the trope comes from shows used to needing to return to the status quo at the end of the episode, plus needing ways to create conflict/drama without actually making their characters bad or evil. "It was all just a big misunderstanding!" type plots do those well, even if they end up making watching frustrating because it turns into 23 minutes of watching people fail to do the one simple thing that would resolve everything.
Honestly im finding all the characters are not really heroes anymore with most doing various honestly unforgivable things that all the characters sorta shrug their shoulders over and go. deep down we are good.
It's not just you, it even has a name :
My #1 reason for rage quitting a movie, series, or book. In any genre, even comedies.
Just got done marathoning Cobra Kai. The entire premise of about 90%+ of the conflicts on that show are based off this very trope. It was even more obvious when watching back to back seasons and they seem to show tons of character growth when someone actually talks, only for those same characters to go right back to the toxic silence immediately in the next episode.
Ugh, I'm glad I never picked it up then. It has come recommended by so many people but I've been reluctant to invest in it.
Makes me wonder what people see in that kind of plot line. I just find it unsatisfying and frustrating.
I don't feel like I wasted the time watching it thankfully. Despite the criticism's leveled against the excessive use of the trope, I did enjoy the show and am looking forward to the final season in a few days.
Huge caveats though, mainly;
I had it on as a background show while playing low impact video games, making dinner and decompressing after work.
And, this is a big one,
I was the exact right age when Karate Kid released. It was a top 3, core memory movie of my childhood and the show mines that nostalgia pit in a way that kept my anxiety riddled brain on a constant dopamine drip.
If you share a childhood love of the original movies, seeing Billy Zabka play Johnny again and develop him into one of the most endearing, fully realized characters in modern media is phenomenal.
If neither of those apply though, steer clear. You'll likely not be able to get past the repetitive, tropey speed bumps.
Have you seen Pitch Meeting on YouTube? Just pick a recent one and watch it. Lots of examples of bad writing like this trope you mention.
That said, it can be difficult to write a story if everyone knows everything all the time. That's why many books are set in fantasy worlds, pre-cell phone eras, or space settings without instantaneous communication. In modern situations, cell phones often mysteriously lose signal or run out of power, or people fail to pick up.
It's a bit like how in kung fu movies the bad guys can't use their guns ("Stop! This entire room is filled with explosives!"), or they get knocked away, or they miss a shot or two and then run out of bullets, or the movie is set in pre-gun eras. It sort of makes it hard to sustain the central conceit if a bad guy can just pull out a handgun and shoot Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan.
Ooh watching the Pitch Meeting video instead of the shitty movie it's about is tight!
Im liking it more than honest movie trailers.
I will look for the pitch meeting thing on youtube. Im not sure if its going to make fun or be a real thing but either way sounds like it will be fun.
It's a series of sketches, the guy that does them is great! I enjoy a lot of his content.
Itβs an easy trope to add conflict into the plot. Probably will get even worse as AI starts taking the jobs of actual talented writers since AI canβt create anything novel and has to generate tropes
Writer's strike, studios replace them, we get slop writing.
We're in the third act of this drama.
I sorta forgot about that and that would make sense.
You're just noticing a very common writing technique. If characters communicated more clearly there would be far fewer of the misunderstandings and clueless overreactions that fuel plot lines.
Not just movies, television shows too. I really, really enjoy the horror/mystery show "From", but a lot of the nonsense would be eliminated if the characters actually talked to each other.
sorry my examples were actually tv shows. I meant to say movies and tv and well. duh. Ill edit the title.
It's been a pet peeve of mine for decades. It just comes across, to me, as lazy weak shit.
As someone who has had to learn and grow through maladaptively relationship-hopping my way between a bunch of very intensely intimate situations (bad idea, but I did technically speaking still learn a LOT), not telling basic information to the person you trust most in the world for dumb reasons is actually super common, particularly in unhealthy relationships, which are a dime a dozen in the real world. I've also noticed that sometimes even an otherwise healthy couple will avoid telling each other important information under extreme duress, it just takes a lot more to get them there.
The biggest difference between media and reality I would argue is just the increased frequency of toxic relationships and / or high-stress situations (which, as stated, can introduce toxicity into an otherwise healthy relationship). For the most part people don't want to watch a couple make pancakes with their kids followed by a light morning walk in the woods on a Saturday morning, and when they do, it's usually a secondary experience as a contrasting leadup or resolution to the more dramatic situation.
My worry right now is producers attempting to introduce a strong sexual component to this show. I say this even as someone with my own hypersexual tendencies and typical enjoyment of lascivious media. The asexuality on top of the agendered nature of the protagonist is fairly central to the story, and I'm LIVING for their interrelationship with the spaceship bot that is extremely similar to a "like an old married couple" / "belligerent sexual tension" trope just without the sexual component. An ace couple with that much chemistry is just amazing in ways I don't have words for but I can absolutely see some media exec trying to say it won't sell as well without a sexual aspect and I'm crossing my fingers they'll get told where to stuff it.
Maybe people in Hollywood are more used to unhealthy relationships and poor communication. The track record of famous actors seems to indicate as much.
sounds like the relationship with the robot from the orville.
Similar but bitchier on both sides in all the best ways.
It's a common trope as others have said. It's more noticeable now because writing isn't respected in modern media anymore. Scripts are lucky to get a second draft before shooting starts. Writers don't get the time to workshop ideas to reduce the number of problems like no one talking or everyone being stupid. Another common one is time and space problems with off screen characters. They aren't always difficult problems to solve, but they can require time to identify and work through them that writers don't get anymore.
When I see it in a movie I'm watching, I'll just talk to the TV "So, you're not going to get on the radio and call for help? You just saw a guy get pulled away into the darkness. No? Wait, you're going to slowly walk into the darkness? You are the main character after all, so I guess you just want me to see what's in there. Thanks, I guess."
I love riffing on bad movies. When the character is finally around other people I'll say "Oooh, guys... she has a secret! It's pretty important. Probably something that will kill everyone in the station. I would tell you guys, but I think she wouldn't want me to share it."
My wife and I have been watching Lost (rewatch for me) and itβs great stuff but literally most episodes would be fixed through a conversation. At least the show acknowledges this from time-to-time and the characters use knowledge as leverage a lot shrug. If it wasnβt dramatic, a lot less people would watch
I think part of it is I can handle it in like that scenario. They are strangers. A lot are dicks. There are cultural things. Etc. But like literally best friends asked a direct question and their like. Nah. Not gonna tell em. gonna hide it. because??? reasons I guess. Just some are way worse than others.
As others have said, it's a common trope, however "The Magicians" is just all over the place as far as shows go.
The best one I have noticed is are these characters in a franchise or fans of the franchise based on how they act.