Hold the MacGuffin
Spoily Spoilerson, here. Don't read this yet if you haven't seen Vantage Point, but plan to!
Vantage Point is structured around an attack on an international summit to fight terrorism; the President of the USA is shot by sniper fire, and the whole location bombed. We see this attack scene over and over, from various characters' points of view -- the idea being that all the perspectives are required to fully understand what happened, and who did what. It's all kind of frenetic, and even fun...
...except that you never learn why the terrorists attack. You don't learn what they want, or what they stand for. It's as if the terrorists' message is "You want to fight terrorism? We'll show you terrorism!" Okayyy. This is the hill you're going to die on? The right to commit terrorist attacks sometime in the future?
There's even an American (a supposed good guy) who turns out to be on the inside, working with the terrorists. (And by the by, if you don't see the reveal of this guy's true colours coming a mile away, you must be new to movies.) At one point, this traitor says "This war will never end." Well, pardon me, but -- What war? Would you mind being a bit more specific?
Isn't terrorism a tactic, rather than a cause in and of itself?
Sorry, but terrorism is a terrible MacGuffin. A briefcase full of something gold and shiny -- that's a MacGuffin. You want to risk your life blowing stuff up and kidnapping and murdering politicians, I expect you to have some kind of reason.
Imagine the alternative: a movie in which terrorists take the opportunity of an anti-terrorism summit to cause mayhem in order to make their desires known. Pretty good, no?
If you write weak-ass motivations like this, then the terrorists have truly won. (I know: you saw that coming a mile away.)
Vantage Point is structured around an attack on an international summit to fight terrorism; the President of the USA is shot by sniper fire, and the whole location bombed. We see this attack scene over and over, from various characters' points of view -- the idea being that all the perspectives are required to fully understand what happened, and who did what. It's all kind of frenetic, and even fun...
...except that you never learn why the terrorists attack. You don't learn what they want, or what they stand for. It's as if the terrorists' message is "You want to fight terrorism? We'll show you terrorism!" Okayyy. This is the hill you're going to die on? The right to commit terrorist attacks sometime in the future?
There's even an American (a supposed good guy) who turns out to be on the inside, working with the terrorists. (And by the by, if you don't see the reveal of this guy's true colours coming a mile away, you must be new to movies.) At one point, this traitor says "This war will never end." Well, pardon me, but -- What war? Would you mind being a bit more specific?
Isn't terrorism a tactic, rather than a cause in and of itself?
Sorry, but terrorism is a terrible MacGuffin. A briefcase full of something gold and shiny -- that's a MacGuffin. You want to risk your life blowing stuff up and kidnapping and murdering politicians, I expect you to have some kind of reason.
Imagine the alternative: a movie in which terrorists take the opportunity of an anti-terrorism summit to cause mayhem in order to make their desires known. Pretty good, no?
If you write weak-ass motivations like this, then the terrorists have truly won. (I know: you saw that coming a mile away.)
Labels: backstory, macguffin, motivation
posted by Jennica at 1:51 p.m.
3 Comments:
I haven't seen Vantage Point, but I don't understand what you're spoiling-- in fact it sounds as if there is nothing spoil, unless it's the fact that the film is not worth seeing.
Yeah, I think I intended to spoil more when I started the post... the warning doesn't seem particularly necessary here.
But still, knowing going in that there's no true motivation behind the terrorist acts could alter how one sees the film... as could knowing there's an American traitor (there are only a few American characters prominently featured...).
That description of Vantage Point doesn't sound any more implausible than the entire so-called 'War on Terror': "they attack us because they hate freedom, democracy and little kitty cats".
Today's real-life "terrorists" are scripted to be understood like classic movie Bad Guys...they don't need motive, and they can't be bargained with. They're just born bad, and do bad things...killing them is the only thing to be done, you see. Conveniently, terrorists can always be counted upon to show up in strategically important areas that need a good invading.
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