Please don't write down to readers / Happenings In The Outhouse 25-Jan-2019

Writers, by and large, don't seem to write down to readers.  Movies, on the other hand, seem to do so.  Whether this is the fault of the director, the movie studio, the producers, the screenwriters, or a combination of them all.

Some of the fault may also lie in the movie-goer themselves.  I was listening to a recent podcast where they analyzed Fantastic Beasts 2: Crimes of Grindelwald.  Those on the podcast irritated me to no end.  Not because they completely trashed the movie--hmm, it grossed $650+ million and was one of the top ten movies of 2018--but because they didn't see the big picture.  They wanted all of the mystery spelled out for them--no, I will not share what the podcast is nor share a link, so please do not ask me.

First, let me express my deep distain for reboots of old movies.  I've been noticing a trend the past decade or two that there are very few original movies--okay, there are, but they get overshadowed by reboots.  I am a child of the 1980's, which, in my opinion, is the hallmark of original movies.  Many of the classic movies that topped the charts in those days were original.

Then, in the past few decades, there are reboots upon reboots--Ghostbusters, anyone?

Back to the Fantastic Beasts discussion, what they mostly complained about was the lack of clarity for the future.  They didn't see the mystery behind it.  They also kept comparing it to both the original Harry Potter movies as well as the canon behind it.

I read a lot of various series.  Years ago, I made a study on it, to compare first novels in series.  All seem to do it differently.  Some series are written where one can read any book in the series and not get lost.  Others, you do need to start at book one.  But there seems to be an underlying fact: the writer still leaves an air of mystery by not telling all in the first book.  They also don't dumb down their stories.  One must assume a reader is smart enough to know what you're talking about.  And if they don't, they'll still keep reading until they do understand it.

I think this is a topic I'll tackle more later.  As you can tell from the length of this post, I have much to say on this subject.