Yesterday I wrote a lot about the troupes or clichés that I couldn't stand in media, but today I realized something while watching an old video on YouTube. Some of the greatest moments in games, books, or movies that I thought were awesome back then have started to get stale, and has caused what I thought was great to now be just another thing I have seen too often. Depending on whether it was movies, books, or games, something came to mind for each different art form of something that I thought used to be cool, but now I see many today ridicule as just a cliché.
The video I was watching specifically talking about the type of boss fights everyone seems to be annoyed by; the unwinnable first fight. That kind of moment when it turns out the boss you are fighting was built for you to lose, and there for doing anything once you figure this out or its the next time you decide to run through the game is a waste of time. Now, I've seen it done with a twist nowadays, where the boss can be beaten. It's incredibly difficult verging on impossible, but you get a reward and an alternative cutscene for being able to make it without losing. This gives the player that incentive to actually try, but in the end the game continues down the same path that was started. In fact, you can go on YouTube right now and there are entire compilations that show what happens when you beat bosses that were supposed to be unbeatable. Sometimes the cutscene still plays as if nothing had changed, other times it breaks the game.
Books on the other hand have a different problem where a cliché has been seen so many times, that I remember being told word for word "This isn't the [insert time frame] anymore." Things like writing stories about the author going on an amazing journey to find his muse, or twist that once done can't be done ever again or else the well-read reader will see it coming from the very first chapter. Even being overly detailed in describing a scene is often met with the remarks of "You aren't J.R.R. Tolkien/C.S. Lewis/Stephen King" or something similar. Yet I still love everything Rick Riordan writes or wrote! I might be bias after being told he's from Texas, but for some reason the magically gifted teenager who is born special and fights monsters is different with Percy Jackson. I could go into detail why that first book. "Lightning Thief" is so different from the usual chosen one troupe that I talked about in my last post, but at its core it did something that I feel many might not appreciate today.
On the other hand, movies are the easiest target for things that might have worked even as soon as a year ago but will never work again, coining the term box-office poison. Things like making a movie about toys being alive or bugs or what have you worked once and now no matter what spin you put on it, everyone is just going to go into the movie saying its a clone of a well known movie. Yet I will always, ALWAYS love every single cheesy action movie cliché. Perfect example of this is "Pacific Rim." I couldn't care less about the plot's problems or whether common sense would've told me that certain moments don't make sense. Such as, does it really matter that the pilots decided to wait for no apparent reason to use the sword concealed in the arm of the mech and use a boat instead as a weapon? No! Why? Because it's cool dang it! In fact I say that the reason the second movie didn't do so well is because of keeping the focus on the action, the best part of the previous movie, they wanted to focus more on plot which showed just how lacking it was. I came to see giant monsters fight giant robots, and the first movie delivered.
Thank you for making it this far. Of course talking about all this makes me realize that I have my own fear I'm sure many people, especially writers have. It's that Simpsons-did-it moment, where it turns out this idea that you had that was supposed to be so special and so unique actually already has a popular series already written about it. It's like what happened when I tried to be a YouTuber. I spent all this time and effort designing what I thought was an original idea, and even searched multiple times on Google and all kinds of social media platforms to make sure it was a unique idea. The first day I was going to put up a video I did another quick check and found there was five or more different channels with a similar username and similar content to mine. That doesn't matter much to me now, but I was so upset back then. Now I just have to make sure I keep working at it and be known as the guy that makes fun wizard-cowboy stories even if I'm not the first. Thank you again, and only four more days until Halloween!
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