The perfect scene

You’ve probably seen hundreds of scenes in movies where the hero, the animal, or the monster does some really advanced manouver and pulls it off perfectly… almost too perfectly…

In some scenes you really see how the director took 80 shots of that scene to get it just right, but if it takes 80 shots to get it right, maybe it shouldn’t be just right, maybe the hero should have slipped, or fucked up that jump.

For instance, how often does a person stumble randomly in movies, or hit his head on a lamp or get distracted by something that wasn’t of interest to the plot of the movie? Not often… but these things happen all the time in real life.

It gets even more obvious in animated movies, where the chaos factor of our daily movement isn’t directed or thought about.

Look at this clip from The Golden Compass (spoiler alert)

Notice how all the movements are perfect, they fall, roll and get up perfectly, no one in the audience is distracted, no ear is twitching, no movement is wasted… it’s too perfect to the point that you notice that something is weird and off, but you can’t put your finger on it.

Now look at a clip from Jurassic Park for instance (not an animated movie in the same sense but it’s still special effects)

A lot more unnecessary movement, sliding of the feet and things that happen that isn’t directly necessary for the plot. Even though they aren’t as smooth as monsters are in most of today’s animated movies I still think this is so much more interesting and alive when you add a certain chaos factor to it.

It’s also quite visible in the Aliens VS Predator movies where one monster is a guy in a suit and the other is animated. The predator seems much more alive and clunky… especially clunky, than the smooth perfect alien who’s never heard of a misstep or stumble or hesitation (also difference between the aliens in the first two alien movies compared to the later ones).

In my opinion those small quirks makes a scene much more memorable when it comes to movement. The same goes for small talk that isn’t related to the plot is usually much more interesting than talking that is directly related and necessary for the plot and the viewers comprehension of it (a good example here is the firefly series). But that is a subject for another week.

Well anyway, that’s what’s on my mind this time.