COLUMN: Don't Tell Me What Happens

By Tobin Barnes
Now here’s an advantage: I can watch a movie I’ve seen before and enjoy it just as much as the first time. That’s because I have no idea of what’s
going to happen even though I’ve seen what happens before.

The second time, for me, is often like the first.

Oh sure, I usually remember some characters and settings and stuff, but it’s the plot I don’t remember.

I had kind of realized that about myself before, but it’s only been lately that have I looked upon this idiosyncrasy as a benefit. As in, “I have a boundless range of entertainment before me.”

It’s like I’ll never run out of movies to watch, even if they stop making them.

Over Easter weekend I watched a couple movies I’ve seen before and had no idea what was going to happen in either.

That’s right. No self-inflicted spoilers.

New or old, it’s new to me.

Of course, this also causes some concern.

My enthusiasm over lack of plot memory may perhaps be akin to an overly optimistic Alzheimer’s patient being upbeat about his condition, “Hey, I meet a new friend every day.”

But Alzheimer’s disease is no laughing matter, and maybe neither should be my jauntiness over my inability to remember plots.

This could be serious business. I could, at my age, be “slipping into darkness.”

But I don’t think so. I remember most necessary details of my life well enough, thank you.

It’s just—for good or ill—those pesky plots I have trouble with. And worse, I’m an English teacher, for crying out loud. Shouldn’t I be a veritable compendium of even the most obscure plots?

Well, actually, no.

I tell my students that story plots are a dime a dozen. Most of the great writers borrowed at least some of their plots, Shakespeare included. It isn’t the plots that make their works memorable as much as characterization, dialogue, description, and imagery.

Characters, for example, live on long after plots have become fuzzy.

Besides, it’s a matter of English teachers’ canon law that there are only four basic conflicts or plots: man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. society, and man vs. himself. So every plot can theoretically be crammed into one of those packages.

That is, until I ran into three more: man vs. technology (e.g., Grandma trying to use a computer), man vs. the supernatural (What the heck is that black smoke thing on “Lost”?), and man vs. god/religion (Lord, please help my team beat the spread).

Maybe the four basic plots can be boiled down further into these:

1) Boy meets girl and boy loses girl;

2) Boy meets girl and boy wins girl;

3) Boy meets enemy/girl and boy is defeated by enemy/girl;

and, finally,

4) Boy meets enemy/girl and boy defeats enemy/girl, saving male obliviousness for the foreseeable future.

That last one, I think, is the overall plot of the six Star Wars movies.

And that reminds me. I ought to watch those movies again. All I remember is something about finding Luke Skywalker’s dad?