Most confusing/convoluted plots of all time

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Rocker, Aug 11, 2019.

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  1. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    One of my friends loves "Tree of Life" so much he bought a Blu-ray player just for that one movie.

    It's still the only BD he owns! :help:
     
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  2. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    I'm not sure if "BTTF2" seemed confusing in 1989, but I know it was a massive disappointment!

    Didn't enjoy it at all back then, and the decision to end on a cliffhanger really bugged me. It's common now to do that in franchises, but I didn't expect it back then, and was supremely irked that the movie literally concluded with a trailer for the next movie!

    On subsequent viewings, I came to like "BTTF2" more. Still the weakest of the 3, but it's much better than I thought 30 years ago...
     
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  3. budwhite

    budwhite Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

    Location:
    Götaland, Sverige
    Totally agree. Next time I watch it I'm going to to switch on the dynamic volume/night mode on the receiver. I never do that but the audio on Inception is just to much of everything. I want to hear the dialog loud and clear without being assaulted by that audio mess. Dynamic volume does the trick.
     
  4. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    Two movies most have probably not seen: The French Liutenant's Woman and Slaughterhouse Five - I can't imagine that anyone who had not read these books could make any sense at all of either one.
     
  5. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I would agree about Slaughterhouse 5. I believed at the time that the book was unfilmable, and I still do.
     
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  6. In the case of the former, yes but in the case of the latter, as long as you realize it’s one of the first mainstream films using non-linear narrative and note the slight difference in cinematography styles, I think it makes sense. My wife figured it out without having read the book.

    Then there are those films that make my head hurt and no amount of explanation will help.
     
  7. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK

    I think my feelings at the time of watching were "This is not a relaxing fun watch!"
     
  8. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I thought Inception was convoluted because of the multiple dream layers, the Mal character haunting the dreams, the element of industrial espionage and mostly the ambiguity of the ending.
     
  9. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    "BTTF2" boasted a very different tone than the first film - more action-oriented and darker.

    The first was a giddy, playful romp, whereas the second lacked the same bubbly feel.

    And that's why I disliked it in 1989 - and then enjoyed "BTTF3" so much more.

    But once I knew what to expect from "BTTF2", I came to appreciate it.

    I just had to forget what I thought it would be and take it on its own terms!
     
  10. John B Good

    John B Good Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    NS, Canada
    I vaguely remember it from college days, and it seems to have been in slow motion in sepia... and made me a bit dizzy.
     
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  11. John B Good

    John B Good Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    NS, Canada
    Just a couple of thoughts until I study the thread, and perhaps, other films come to my mind. I know there are many

    Are plots sometimes confusing and convoluted (and unbelievable) to make the story more interesting, or is incompetent production and direction and execution involved.

    Not every movie is made for Everyman.

    And in the immortal lyric, "the movie wasn't so hot, it didn't have much of a plot":)
     
  12. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    Season 8 of Game of Thrones. The work of very confused writers.
     
  13. Dr. Funk

    Dr. Funk Vintage Dust

    Location:
    Fort Worth TX
    I was pretty disappointed with the ending.
     
  14. 93curr

    93curr Senior Member

    [​IMG]
     
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  15. Bobby Buckshot

    Bobby Buckshot Heavy on the grease please

    Location:
    Southeastern US
    A couple mentioned already in Vanilla Sky & Inception make my list as well but I think it's partly due to checking out a bit as I couldn't find any reason to care about the protagonists and whether they were successful.

    Don't think anyone's mentioned Downsizing yet. A movie that couldn't figure out what it wanted to be and got more convoluted as it went on. I'm wondering if it just got lost in the editing process.

    Another one that wasn't the easiest to follow especially on first viewing was Being John Malkovich - mainly the 2nd half. But overall I liked the movie.
     
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  16. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    You can't really undo a bad mix. It's kind of like trying to get cow back out of hamburger: once it's smashed that much, it's all over with. Many, many audio professionals have complained about Nolan's mixing decisions as well.
     
    Chris DeVoe likes this.
  17. budwhite

    budwhite Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

    Location:
    Götaland, Sverige
    I know. But the dynamic volume helps with keeping the dialog at the same level as everything else.
     
  18. Etienne Hanratty

    Etienne Hanratty Forum Resident

    Location:
    uk
    I enjoyed Mr Robot but I couldn’t tell you what it was about most of the time. Some of that might be down to my computer illiteracy but even if they stripped out some of the twistier storylines and made it about something I understood, it’d be hard work.

    in spite of that Christian Slater’s true identity was so obvious that it made Finding Nemo look like The Usual Suspects. Tho the bit with Daryl from the office as a dodgy widower/prison warden was just weird.
     
  19. Sternodox

    Sternodox SubGenius Pope of Arkansas

    Myra Breckinridge
     
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  20. Splungeworthy

    Splungeworthy Forum Rezidentura

    I really really tried to get into this. Season 1 was OK. Season 2 was ridiculous. No show should be this much work.
     
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  21. stereoptic

    stereoptic Anaglyphic GORT Staff

    Location:
    NY
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  22. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    Chandler was being facetious. He knew because he wrote the book. In
    the novel Marlowe is hired by Gen. Sternwood to find the blackmailers
    who sent him dirty pictures of his daughters and to stop them, and
    incidentally, to find out if his friend and chauffer Sean Regan, who's
    disappeared, is the blackmailer. Marlowe learns youngest daughter
    Carmen is a nymphomaniac who shot Sean Regan and dumped his body
    down an oil well. She tries to kill private eye Philip Marlowe as well. She
    was posing in her birthday suit for Geiger who ran a porn business using
    his bookstore as a cover. That's all backstory. The real story is that Joe
    Brody and his Agnes found out about the blackmail scheme and decided
    to press it on their own. These aspects of the story had to be inferred or
    completely removed because of Hollywood censors at the time so that
    the script writer had to "write around it." Touchingly, Marlowe decides
    not to tell Gen. Sternwood of Sean Regan's death nor that his daughter
    was responsible because he doesn't want to hurt the old man.

    What could be more clear than that? It's in the book.

    2001: A Space Odyssey makes perfect sense. It's about evolution.
    It's meant to be experienced on the big screens of its time, not on TV's.
     
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  23. Cryptical17

    Cryptical17 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York
    Did anyone mention the 007 movie “Diamonds are Forever”?
    I love the movie although the diamond smuggling plot line is absolutely impossible to understand or follow. Probably the most incoherent Bond script of all time.
     
  24. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Also the title is a lie. Diamonds aren't forever. They can be smashed and they can be burned (Harold Zidler's "diamond dogs" at the Moulin Rouge were notorious for burning insufficiently sparkly jewelry gifts from their suitors.)
     
  25. Tim Lookingbill

    Tim Lookingbill Alfalfa Male

    Location:
    New Braunfels, TX
    Too bad the article's author didn't throw in Quantum physics which states that one molecule can be at two places across the universe at once. Yeah! Like that'll explain time travel paradox in movies.

    At least the author demonstrates no one needs to warn of spoilers when explaining convoluted time travel plots in movies. I got lost on his write up of Terminator's time travel plot holes so technically he didn't ruin the movie for me though I've already seen it several times. Might be interested in reading his take on Back To The Future. On second thought, maybe not.
     
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