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 Forum index » Meta » General META Discussion
Story bloat
Moderators: imbri, ndemeter
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Ozy_y2k
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Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 460
Location: Carmel, Indiana

 		Story bloat
Been thinking a lot about the unwieldiness of certain game/story universes lately, first after watching that horrid excuse for a summer popcorn flick THE MATRIX: UNLOADED (pun intentional), and now even more after reading the advance Cannes reviews for Peter Greenaway's latest load of cinematic/Webcasting wankery, THE TULSE LUPER SUITCASES.

TULSE LUPER comes complete with 92 (!!!!!) CD-ROMs containing the alleged multimedia content of each of the main character's titular suitcases, plus loads of webcontent -- as has been noted elsewhere in this forum -- which may or may not constitute an ARG, plus a trilogy of movies tipping the scale at over eight hours total. My head is throbbing just thinking about it.

Now, granted, Greenaway has long positioned himself as the poster boy for nauseating cinematic excess (just TRY to suffer through the surfeit of bad ideas that weigh down previous movies of his like THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER, which just narrowly beats out Terry Gilliam's drive-by raping of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS for my vote for Worst Movie Of All Time), but this TULSE LUPER project is over the top even for him. He is boldly going on record as stating that the previous conception of cinema-as-passive art is "dead and buried", and that the only art worth making anymore is INTERACTIVE art (e.g., ARGing, gaming, or any sort of postmodern metaphysics that involves the reader/viewer-as-auteur right along with the creator of the piece).

Fine, okay, well and good. I'm all for interactivity. But the only problem that I can see is that so many of these "interactive" pieces wind up suffering from a sort of storyline bloat that starts from the original author's intention to bite off WAAAAAY more than s/he can chew with the scope of the story, and becomes only exponentially worse with each successive contributing player/author's need to add his/her own (potentially conflicting) worldview to what was gone before with little or no understanding of where the original author intended his story to be heading.

What you are left with is less of a compelling story/game universe, and more of one of those things that happens when you try to write ANYTHING by committee; a compromised piece of tripe laden down with internally contradictory elements and lacking any sense of a singular authorial voice.

Length is not in and of itself an indicator of bloat. I mean, the GODFATHER trilogy was nine hours long, but it was VERY CLEARLY filtered through the singular perceptions of both Mario Puzo and Francis Coppola, and therefore emerged as a strong story notwithstanding its length. Same thing with the LORD OF THE RINGS filmic trilogy, largely because Peter Jackson has such a strong grasp of Tolkien's source material and has consistently refused to allow it to be compromised or retconned by overzealous fans or exec-producer types. In contrast, Billy Corgan attempted to turn over control of his GLASS AND THE MACHINES OF GOD proto-Web-epic to all the Smashing Pumpkins fans that posted on his band's website's message boards, and what he was left with was a masturbatory and contradictory Christ-fantasy that didn't make a lick of sense. (And I say this as a rabid Pumpkins fan.)

So will the TULSE LUPER project look more like the former examples, or the latter? Time will tell, and I'm willing to give anything a chance in the name of Promoting Artistic Advancement, but given Greenaway's own sense of self-importance and shaky past track record, I'm hedging my bets and getting ready to jump ship as soon as the going gets shady.

O

PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2003 11:56 am
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Ozy_y2k
Unfettered


Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 460
Location: Carmel, Indiana

 		More on TULSE LUPER's reception at Cannes:

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/va/20030524/105379559300.html

PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2003 12:16 pm
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dmax
Unfictologist

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Posts: 1387
Location: Location: Location!

 		Perspective
"'Interactive' just means unfinished."

-Brian Eno-
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PostPosted: Sat May 24, 2003 2:57 pm
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Tien_Le
Charter Member


Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 878
Location: corner of no and where

 		story bloat
I think story bloat is a huge problem in this genre. For myself, not being able to turn off that blanking music on Tulse Luper was enough to turn me off. I think a lot of the problem is that these games are being created by puzzle makers instead of writers who know how to edit and serve the story.
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consume less; live more

PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2003 11:17 am
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bill
Unfettered


Joined: 25 Sep 2002
Posts: 614
Location: Tampa

 		It seems the most popular games have more memorable stories than puzzles. But puzzles shouldn't be the only area where players can interact with the story and characters.

Tulse will certainly go a long way towards defining the story side. And with the duration and breadth they have planned, it will be interesting to see how much the audience grows from start to finish.

I think many recent games have fizzled simply because the player base ebbed beyond recovery and the critical mass of players didn't come back. With big media tie-ins and an actual promotional budget, I'm sure Tulse will grow as it progresses until it either reaches a stable audience or explodes as a pop culture phenoma. Time will tell
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PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2003 12:27 pm
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sjct
Boot

Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 57
Location: Not in GA Anymore

 		I dont' know. Perusing thru decadent, Eurotrash masturbation doesn't appeal to me. I don't care how much money they put behind it, I'm not playing. And the creepy musak isn't the only thing putting me off this endeavor. Now, if Peter Jackson wants to start a Trilogy game, I'm on board. Very Happy In the meantime, I'm gonna support American grass roots games! Very Happy At least, I'll support those that seem to actually have a player-base instead of shills and barkers...

PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2003 7:40 pm
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