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Category: Other Series

The Unique Dynamics in Star Wars Lightsaber Conflicts

Posted on February 27, 2020February 27, 2020 by Professor Noone

One of the things I’ve found disappointing in so many recent scifi/fantasy/superhero/action whatever films is that the main conflict of the film so routinely is resolved by people hitting each other really hard. Maybe they hit with fists, or with bullets, or laser beams, or laser swords, but one way other another it’s going to…

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When Character Motivations Serve the Plot, Not the Character

Posted on July 10, 2019July 10, 2019 by Professor Noone

In story telling, it’s crucial that characters act according to their own motivations, and not because the plot requires it of them. There is an elegant way to make the character serve the plot when it doesn’t really make sense, what Michael Byers (no relation) calls the Sure-But-And-So, but that’s a discussion for another time…

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Demogorgon Spotted in 1959 Puerto Rico

Posted on July 9, 2019July 9, 2019 by Professor Noone

From Hunter S. Thompson’s novel The Rum Diary.

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Comparison of the Structures of Seasons 1-3

Posted on July 7, 2019July 7, 2019 by Professor Noone

In this post, I’m going to go through each of the three seasons of Stranger Things and analyze them in terms of basic story structure and pacing. Before jumping in, I want to first get some of the jargon out of the way. For purposes of this discussion an “A Story” is the central conflict…

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The Cliches Season 3 of Stranger Things Needs to Avoid

Posted on July 3, 2019July 3, 2019 by Professor Noone

It’s almost become expected that as a series continues the quality will trend downhill; it doesn’t always happen, but it’s so common as to become cliche. I suspect the reason for this is because the lead up time to the original film or TV season (or novel) can often be years, while the turnaround for…

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The Mechanical Issues in Stranger Things Season 2

Posted on July 1, 2019July 1, 2019 by Professor Noone

While overall I enjoyed Season 2, it certainly was not as strong as Season 1. In this post I want to critique the season in terms of technical story telling mechanics. I know I’m a bit late to the Season 2 criticism party, but hopefully you’ll find it interesting to look at the season not…

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Where the Season 2 Story Structure Went Wrong

Posted on June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 by Professor Noone

I just finished Season 2 today, and while I think it was overall pretty decent, it certainly didn’t live up to the quality of Season 1. I suspect a lot of this is from what I’ll call Season One Depletion. Basically, you have writers who’ve had ideas percolating in their heads for years, then they…

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The Unique Three-Dimensionality of Johnny Lawrence

Posted on June 6, 2019October 12, 2020 by Professor Noone

(Full disclosure, I haven’t seen Season 2 yet. Waiting to get over my Game of Thrones hangover before diving in.) Borrowing from Michael Byers’s Faking Shapely Fiction, a three-dimensional character needs to possess three characteristics: unaligned traits, spectrum traits, and self-reflection. Unaligned traits are those which can go together, but we don’t expect them to….

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The Novella is the Right Form for Cobra Kai

Posted on May 20, 2019May 20, 2019 by Professor Noone

This will be the first in a short series of posts where I’m breaking down just why Cobra Kai’s Season 1 was so good (I haven’t seen Season 2 yet, we’re using it to fill the break between GoT and Stranger Things). It’s also the summer, I’m done grading papers and instead of responding to…

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Recent Posts

  • The Unique Dynamics in Star Wars Lightsaber Conflicts
  • The Gut is Cliche, the Grind is Creative
  • Targaryen Madness as a Deux Ex Machina

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