Great Expectations

Have you ever been waiting for something to happen with so much excitement that when it finally happens, there is a sense of loss because it wasn't as great as you anticipated it being?

As I sat in line for the new Star Trek movie, this thought crossed my mind. I sit in those lines, breathless with anticipation, assuming the movies will be worth every minute. But what happens when it doesn't meet the standard of everything I hoped it would be?

Star Trek Into Darkness was a fantastic film filled with eye-popping special effects and the acting bar raised beyond measure. I gave it an A- in my post-movie blog. Why not an A? Well, I just missed the easy one-liners that the first film had so easily mixed in with the action and storytelling. Not that there weren't funny moments; the film just has a darker tone and the comedy would have lightened the mood where the film meant to take you to a dark place.

Expectations. They can make or break a film.

 I saw The Big Wedding when it first came out solely because I like the ensemble of actors that were in the movie, not because I had an over-whelming desire to see what would happen. I already knew what was going to happen. The movie was fairly predictable but here's the thing: I loved it. The performances were so nuanced and mixed in with other characters storylines that you didn't have to time to sigh that you've already seen this movie. There is nothing like the feeling of leaving a movie more than pleasantly surprised at how much you liked it.

Maybe that's part of the problem: predictability. Most movies, big and small, are fairly predictable. At least to me they are. I am pretty good at predicting what is going to happen before it does. Scratch that- I predict plot points in movies better than anyone else I know, and I have some pretty intelligent friends who can do this very well. The "twists" in the new Star Trek were not mind-blowing but fairly easy to figure out. The director and writers laid out the hints of the audiences like breadcrumbs, basically asking us to come to the conclusion before we even see it happen on screen.

I worry about that time when I'll find movies, especially the ones I wait in line for hours to see, utterly predictable and no longer have that same sense of excitement. The only place I find originality is in B-movies and indie films, and there you have to sift through all the riff-offs of the A-list movie that it was inspired by.

The same can be said for television. I watch more than 80 hours of TV a week and 95% of the time I know what is going to happen before it does. This isn't a negative commentary on the shows, more that I just had the training to be able to do this. I believe this ability stems from watching soap operas since I was about 5, anything that can and could happen does on those shows. I've seen a character die 5 times, have 2 alternate personalities, and a secret twin. Those shows showed me how predictability is it's greatest ally: people want to see these characters happy and then destroyed. It's the way of life on a soap.

Movies and television think that shocking has to be dealt in blood baths, deaths, and surprise babies. These can be exciting and great ratings for the shows, but in all honesty they just delay the slow turn back to predictability. The most "original" shows on TV right now utilize violence and that is a sad commentary on our society. I know how hard it is to be original, I have to come up with these blogs and my own show ideas are little bits of other shows that influenced me.

I guess my really worry is that someday, I won't be able to have the moment of pure delight when a movie or television show is able to pull one over on me. I really don't want to know what will happen then.