Bolt needs a more believable premise @ Monitor Duty

Bolt needs a more believable premise

Posted on November 26th, 2008 The Shark 1 comment

The trailers for Disney’s film Bolt look funny, especially that gung-ho hamster character. However, I can’t imagine the movie will be very good for one simple reason.

The main character is a dog who thinks he has superpowers, but he actually just plays a super-powered dog on TV and the show’s creators hide the truth from him so that he doesn’t know he’s on a show.

In other words, he’s never heard the word, “Cut!” Nor has he ever had to retake a scene. And apparently, there are no stunt-dogs or stand-in dogs. Also, every one of his adventures must be done sequentially.

Can you buy that?

I’ve often been baffled at how much we average citizens know about movie-making (and TV, natch) that the movies assume we don’t know. By that I mean: I think a LOT of us know that movies are grueling series of retakes, they aren’t shot in sequence, there is no soundtrack playing while they do it, stunt-people are used, stand-ins are used during back-and-forth conversations that are then assembled to look as if two actors are opposite one another, etc.

How does it occur to movie-people, who know this better than anyone else, to make films that are entirely dependent on a fictitious style of movie-making in which all special effects are done in real time and action scenes go on for five minutes without any cuts? Think of the Robin Hood-esque movie within "The Rocketeer" where there’s a soundtrack playing during the fight scene and the entire fight scene has to be redone due to an actress’ flubbed line in a close-up. Nobody makes movies that way. Or the countless films that rely on the "movie being made by hundreds of hidden cameras everywhere" premise, the most recent being "Tropic Thunder."

When I saw the trailer for Bolt, I couldn’t believe the premise at all. Too bad.
Animation, Movies

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One response to “Bolt needs a more believable premise”
1. The Shark November 26th, 2008 at 09:23
  
  Uh, Mike-
  
  Ease up, man. “Bolt” is very much a popcorn flick geared mostly toward a younger audience. I have a degree in film and tend to be very snooty about what I watch, but I had no problem walking in to “Bolt” and suspending my disbelief long enough for some good laughs and a fun little adventure. In fact, I would recommend the movie to anyone. It’s not amazing, but I definitely don’t regret dishing out 10 bucks to see it. Yes, the premise is silly — but I don’t think they are trying to fool the audience into thinking something like this could actually be done. It’s a freaking cartoon, man.
  
  As for your comment about “The Rocketeer” — actually, filmmaking CAN very much be like that. It depends on a number of factors, but the biggest one is whether or not they are trying to capture the entire scene in one shot, all from one camera (that may or may not be locked down/moving around). Not many films have tried doing that since the advent of editing and especially sound, but it is done enough that I don’t get too carried away with the logistics of that scene.
  
  Well, except for the soundtrack part. If it was a silent film, I could see that happening. Or maybe if they were planning on re-dubbing all the audio (including dialog) — which just wouldn’t make sense. So, yeah, I’ll give you that, although I don’t think “The Rocketeer” makes any real attempts at being a super-intelligent form of cinema.
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