The 'Burbs with Tom Hanks (and Brother Theodore!)
♪ I want to kill ever-y-one ♪ Satan is nice ♪ Satan is my pal ♪
Is it really true that the Oxford English Dictionary, widely recognized as the most comprehensive English language dictionary in the world, is a better authority on English word usage than SDMB poster Roadfood? With all due respect to Roadfood, yes, it is.
*I’m sure they do their best. The most recent quotation for “plot twist” in the OED Online is from 2001, and it comes from the film magazine Premier. That’s after the 1999 release of The Sixth Sense, and your suggestion there was a post-Sixth Sense shift in meaning is pure speculation anyway.
*I never thought I’d be asked to check the accuracy of the OED using Urban Dictionary, but if you insist. The only relevant Urban Dictionary definition for “twist” is #2, “An unexpected change.” The sole definition given for “plot twist” is “A sudden change in events; often ironic.” This is consistent with the OED and Merriam-Webster definitions I already cited. If you require further corroboration from Yahoo! Answers then you’ll have to ask there yourself.
*I said much the same in my last post. But for some reason you decided to continue arguing with me about correct usage of the term, even though I have already offered cites from two reputable dictionaries while Roadfood has provided no cites at all in support of his definition of “twist”. This isn’t what I expect from the SDMB. Perhaps I am the victim of a belated April Fool’s Day prank. If so, well, you got me.
Quartz, it might be helpful if you’d come back to this thread and explain what you meant by “twist” so we’d have a better idea what sorts of examples you were looking for.
It has been done on film. Available at Netflix.
Does Twelve Monkeys have a twist? I mean, the whole jist of the film, that they needed a sample of some sort, went through (what with the lady on the plane at the end, if I’ve somehow understood what was going on).
Willis’ character has a sad end, but I don’t think it was a twist. Was it ironic? That he went ahead with his plan, knowing all along that he would fail, having seen himself do so as a child?
Oh I agree. I was expecting some big turmoil and was pleased to see I didn’t get it.
In a similar vein in the movie That Thing You Do there is a bit where one of the characters has a crush on a member of a Supremes-type girl group and had braced myself for a big “racial brew-haha” plot point. Nothing ever comes of it, much like real life. Well played.
What a twist!!!
(Should I even bother seeing Twelve Monkeys now?)
While I appreciate the clever snark, surely you must know that’s not what I was referring to.
Why won’t you provide this quotation and accompanying sub-definition?
It’s not pure speculation - see for example the M Night skits on the show Robot Chicken.
I just don’t think it’s fair to quote the sub-definition which is older and broader and in some cases only half of a whole phrase, when there is a newer and more specific sense of the term that is often denoted by a multiword phrase.
I’ll grant that the broader sense of a term is not incorrect, because real life usage varies, from mild surprise to ultimate mind fuck, but this also does not disinclude more specific variants. And single use of term is very different than comparative. If you are referring to a single example, you might use any term - twist, surprise, revelation, because the referred to example is easily understood. It’s when you start comparing multiple examples that paying attention to the more specific nuances of the family of terms becomes important.
While I do still think something like Urban Dictionary is more relevant than the OED for modern terms and old terms with new nuances, I agree that it wasn’t helpful in this particular case. And I haven’t been able to find any comprehensive film narrative term glossaries online. So let’s look at tvtropes - they look at the technique from several angles:
TwistEnding - Seems to agree that twists don’t qualify as true twists if they are merely surprising: “The other problem with the Twist Ending is that it walks a mighty fine line: if it’s too in-keeping with the direction of the story, it* doesn’t qualify as a twist*. If it’s too far out-of-keeping, it comes off as a Deus Ex Machina and the viewer feels cheated.”
Subverted Trope - the twist ending started out as this - “you set the viewer up for one thing [a classic trope or fictional cliché], then pull the rug out from under them.”
Mandatory Twist Ending - “In terms of cinema, directors like M. Night Shyamalan are the constant subject of criticism for continuous use of the twist element. Once the audience know the twists are coming sooner or later, works can’t help but lose some of their potency.” Note that tvtropes agrees that the Sixth Sense “Practically spawned the twist ending for the new millennium.”
The Usual Suspects Ending - rather than relying on a lack of clues, this twist relies on the unreliability of clues
The Reveal - refers not to a type of twist, but instead to the moment when it occurs
Xanatos Gambit - “A type of scheme perpetrated by a particularly devious villain” which is often is the explanation for some twists
Twilight Zone Twist - a twist with a moral message
Outer Limits Twist - “A Twist Ending that serves no purpose other than to be excessively cruel.”
Trick Twist - “As opposed to most twist endings, where the story simply delivers an unexpected ending, when the Trick Twist occurs it reveals itself as having been inevitable all along. […] In the most extreme cases, the entire plot can hinge on such things as which word of a sentence was emphasized […] Another way of achieving a Trick Twist is to flash back to a series of earlier moments which seemed irrelevant at the time, but now that you look at them were clues.” Examples: Saw, Prestige, The Others, Sixth Sense.
Tomato surprise - this seems to be the key form of plot twist that is relevant to the OP: “The resolution of a plot (usually but not always for a Speculative Fiction story) by the sudden revelation of some important detail which has been deliberately hidden from the viewer.” So maybe it’s best to say that while both Unbreakable and 12 Monkeys had some weak form of twist, but only Unbreakable actually has the Tomato Surprise form of twist.
So what is the reverse of this, where the twist is that there is no twist? Click the links for more examples…
The Unreveal - “It appears that a reveal is being set up… but there’s no reveal in the end.” From the examples, this seems to mostly consist of there being secret information that we just never get to see, such as the ‘missing reels’ in Planet Terror and the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
The Untwist - “An untwist is what happens when Chekhovs Gun looks like a Red Herring.” Examples include the “DevilInPlainSight” - where the obvious villain turns out to be the actual culprit.
MetaTwist - “Say you’re into a particular writer who likes giving each of her stories a special kind of Twist Ending. She likes using it so much it’s practically a signature element for her works. […] Imagine the surprise when, after you’ve put down the book, the twist isn’t there.” In other words, the twist is expected not because of the film itself but because of it’s creator. Film examples include Lady in the Water and The Straight Story.
That’s exactly what you were referring to. You wrote “Is that really true though?” directly beneath a quote of me saying “but if the question is how most people use the term then the OED is by far the better authority.” You chose to omit the part of the sentence that made it clear I was comparing the authority of the OED to the authority of poster Roadfood, but the full sentence was “There’s nothing to stop Roadfood (or anyone else) from using “twist” to mean whatever he wants it to mean, but if the question is how most people use the term then the OED is by far the better authority.”
*Nice use of “won’t” to suggest I deliberately omitted the quote for sinister reasons, but I didn’t provide the Premier quote because it wasn’t relevant. Since you’re so curious, here it is: “With its gratuitous nudity…and wildly over-the-top plot twists, the movie just seems guilty of the very things it claims to criticize.” That is the entire quote as given, the ellipses is in the OED. There is no accompanying sub-definition. I already quoted the one and only definition for “plot twist” given by the OED, there aren’t any others.
In the future, please feel free to look things up for yourself.
*It wasn’t helpful in making your case, you mean. I looked up the source you suggested, since you couldn’t be bothered to do so yourself, and it said almost exactly the same thing as the two more reputable dictionaries I had already cited. Funny how it suddenly became unhelpful the moment you learned it supported my position rather than yours.
*None that say what you want them to say, you mean. Oh, nice try with TV Tropes, but it doesn’t say what you want either:
*(Emphasis jackdavinci’s.) This means an ending doesn’t qualify as a twist if it isn’t surprising. It doesn’t say anything about some element other than surprise being necessary, it’s just saying that good twist endings must be unexpected without coming totally out of left field.
Since you’re obviously determined to reject or misrepresent any source that doesn’t agree with you, I don’t see any point in continuing this discussion. I regret the time I’ve already wasted on you. My apologies to the OP for participating in this hijack.
I was going to come in here boldly with a few suggestions, but the Pedantic Police make me just want to dip my toe in the water instead.
I want a ruling on the following:
Se7en, starring Pitt and Freeman. I thought it was a murder mystery and that the killer would be revealed as someone in the cast. Maybe even one of the principles. Then, before the shocking ending (I might be sympathetic to the argument that exciting or interesting doesn’t equal a twist) Kevin Spacey walks out for the first time and confesses.
Sure, the interesting part was Gwenyth’s head was in the box, the killer was the victim of wrath, and that the good guy was the deliverer of said wrath. But I’m not sure it qualifies as a twist. I just know it was a damn good ending.
Another interesting entry is The Game starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. There were many highs and lows designed to telegraph a twist, but in the end it was really what Penn told Douglas it would be (a game to make his life more interesting). My friends, bright movie goers, thought the movie was a thrill ride. But I called every single turn of that one to such an extent that my friends swore I’d seen it before.