# Hey, Hollywood, HERE'S a novel idea for a plot twist...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 24, 2002, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347 "2002-08-24T06:08:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/1 "2002-08-24T06:08:12Z")
… No plot twist at all!
Let’s look at things. In my opinion, there’s a craze for “plot twists” among a lot of Hollywood producers that’s starting to get annoying. The current craze started, I think, with _The Sixth Sense_. Everyone who saw the movie said, “Oh my GOD, that’s an amazing plot twist! I never noticed it!” From that, Hollywood got the idea that “Plot twists make good movies!”
From there, we go to _Unbreakable_ (which actually kept harping on the fact that it had an “amazing plot twist” in advertisements), and _The Others_, and _Fight Club_. Now today, I saw _Collateral Damage_ (I rate it as below average… not a total stinker, but even _Commando_ was better), which again featured a plot twist right at the very end.
C’mon, do we really need movies that exist solely to set up a plot, only to completely flip-flop on us at the end? What other movies can y’all think of that threw in a plot twist, either gratuitously (like in the case of _Collateral Damage_ and, in my opinion, _Unbreakable_), or well-integrated into the story (like _Fight Club_)?
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### Author:  [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/2 "2002-08-24T06:29:53Z")
> [@](#):
>
> What other movies can y’all think of that threw in a plot twist,
Does _Gosford Park_ qualify?
> [@](#):
>
> do we really need movies that exist solely to set up a plot, only to completely flip-flop on us at the end?
No. Lots of movies don’t do this.
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### Author:  [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/3 "2002-08-24T06:34:07Z")
You thought the \* Unbreakable \* twist weas gratuitous? I thought it was everything! It tied the whole thing together and made it all make sense!
Collateral Damage was stupid. Arnold should retire.
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/4 "2002-08-24T07:24:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> No. Lots of movies don’t do this.
I’m aware of that. I wasn’t trying to paint the majority of movies of this. I’m just getting tired of silly plot twists. It’s akin to the “snazzy one-liners” craze that made, say, _Batman & Robin_ detestable.
> [@](#):
>
> You thought the Unbreakable twist weas gratuitous? I thought it was everything! It tied the whole thing together and made it all make sense!
Eh. It turned what was, for me, a pretty cool, quasi-mystical movie into a sad parody of itself.
> [@](#):
>
> Collateral Damage was stupid.
Yeah. Replace Arnold with Harrison Ford and you have _Clear And Present Danger_ all over again.
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### Author:  [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/5 "2002-08-24T07:57:16Z")
Well, you know _Unwatchable_ really doesn’t count, since it was also done by M Night Shaymalayan (I’m not interested enough to look up the correct spelling). When it’s the same guy, it’s a “motif,” not “cashing in on your previous success.” It seems like he’s going to keep milking his cash cow for as long as Hollywood lets him, and you know – fine by me. As long as I don’t have to watch them.
And for _The Others_, I haven’t read up on the history of the film or anything, but I get the feeling that it was an idea that was being kicked around for a while, and only got green-lit once _The Sixth Sense_ turned out to be so popular. I can’t explain why exactly, but that seems a little bit less derivative.
And for the others, I hadn’t noticed a twist-ending trend as much as a ghost-movie trend. But I can see how a twist-ending craze could take off – it makes the studios happy because they see the success of _Sixth Sense_, and it makes the creators happy because they can consider themselves very clever for constructing such a finely-tuned plot. Of course, neither one of those is hardly ever true, but it is Hollywood after all.
And at least it’s not as bad as when every movie wanted to be _Jaws_. Or every movie wanted to be _Aliens_. Or every movie wanted to be _The Breakfast Club_. Or every movie wanted to be _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. Or when every movie wanted to be _Scream_. Or…
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/6 "2002-08-24T09:54:24Z")
And the end, we find out that **SPOOFE** actually LOVES plot twists …
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### Author:  [@Potter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Potter)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/7 "2002-08-24T13:43:46Z")
THANK YOU! I **loathe** plot twists, which just smack of lazy writing that simply couldn’t be bothered to finish up what it had started. I can watch _Fight Club_ multiple times right up until the motel room scene, at which point I have to start throwing stuff at the TV. It just feels like the script pouncing out at you yelling “AHA! AHAHAHA! Fooled you! See? See how clever and tricky we are?? AHAHAHAHAA!” etc. It was an interesting, funny and original movie already, and I wanted the resolution to the story I’d been watching so far. The only positive thing I can see about the plot twist in _Fight Club_ is that on watching it again, you manage a little more empathy for Marla, and get to feel smug everytime you notice the narrator talk about deja vu. However, the cynic in me would suggest that the fad for plot twists is primarily motivated because of this - it’s a simple way for filmmakers to encourage the audience to want to watch again; “Hey, it’s a whole different movie the second time out!”
Blech. I’m trying hard to think of a plot twist I’ve liked. _Momento_ is probably the only time I’ve really felt it’s added more to a movie than it’s taken away: usually a movie will try to convince you to believe in this world they’ve created, so a plot twist that proves your beliefs to be completely unfounded is unsettling and (I think) fairly insulting. _Momento_ didn’t allow you a moment to think that any of the decisions you were making were correct, turning your assumptions/theories upside down constantly. It didn’t make you (and then punish you for being) smug or complacent; it rewarded you by maintaining your interest and curiosity all the way through. The whole damn thing was a plot twist, and it still managed to surprise me right up to the very end.
_Unbreakable_ was a deeply silly movie (which I enjoyed immensely); I just didn’t realise how much so until the plot twist made it even clearer for me.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/8 "2002-08-24T13:47:49Z")
I have nothing against a good twist ending. In fact, some of my favorite movies have them. GOOD movies with twist endings include:
1. “The Usual Suspects”
2. “The Vanishing” (Dutch original, not the lame AMerican re-make)
3. “The Wicker Man”
The thing is, those were all good, interesting movies that were ENHANCED by the surprise ending. But there are way too many mediocre, formulaic films that seem to have little or nothing BUT the twist ending going for them. SOMETIMES, I almost get the feeling a writer came up with a cool twist ending FIRST, and then quickly wrote a stupid book or screenplay for the express purpose of leading up to that twist.
So-so films that didn’t have much going for them EXCEPT the twist ending (which was often more predictable than the author seemed to think):
1. “Primal Fear” (though, frankly the twist isn’t really a surprise- most people saw it coming a mile away)
2. “Presumed Innocent.” The twist was the ONLY clever thing in the book (Scott Turow is a deathly dull writer) and in the movie.
3. “The Sixth Sense.” This was a pretty good movie with a great ending, not a great movie.
Then there are flat-out awful movies that include what’s SUPPOSED to be a shocking ending. I mean, in virtually every horror film, the supposedly dead slasher or monster twitches or shows SOME sign of coming back to life. By now, that’s so commonplace, I wonder why they bother. Everybody KNOWS a semi-successful horror film is going to have 5 sequels, so why even PRETEND the killer/monster is dead? NOBODY believes it for a second, any more than they believe the Rolling Stones concert is really over the first time they walk off stage.
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### Author:  [@Potter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Potter)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/9 "2002-08-24T14:17:36Z")
Another thing - what happens when you figure out the twist? I figured out _The Usual Suspects_ about ten minutes from the start, and was surprised that my friends hadn’t figured it out _The Crying Game_, as to me, it was staring me in the face the whole time that character was onscreen (I am generally completely clueless but for some reason it just clicked those times; I usually won’t even see the plot twists in Disney films until someone explains them to me). A friend thought _The Sixth Sense_ was obvious, another predicted the end of _Three Kings_ before the starting credits were through. A story that relies on its twist is completely scuppered should the viewer guess correctly too soon. You can’t enjoy feeling smart, as you either suspect you’ll turn out to be wrong, or realise no-one will believe you if you’re right. Your enjoyment of the movie is tainted by the realisation that it’s not as clever or surprising as you’d heard; hell, if a movie’s not as smart as _me_, then it’s gotta be positively moronic. Worst of all, it’s harder to make that leap of faith into accepting the world on screen and letting yourself go with it - you can still see the little man stood behind the curtain making the cogs turn.
Ahh, shut me up, I’ll rant for hours. It’s like fantasy stories written by kids, full of magic and wonder - but at the end, you wake up “and it had all been a dream”. Fine and dandy, but when it’s used by a professional writer, it just feels to me like a big fat wimp-out.
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/10 "2002-08-24T16:55:03Z")
“Twist” endings have been popular since well before movies existed.
What was the twist in _Three Kings_? Seemed pretty straightforward to me.
_The Sixth Sense_ was a great movie that happened to have a twist ending.
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### Author:  [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/11 "2002-08-24T17:43:36Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Potter \*
> \*\*THANK YOU! I **loathe** plot twists, which just smack of lazy writing that simply couldn’t be bothered to finish up what it had started. I can watch _Fight Club_ multiple times right up until the motel room scene, at which point I have to start throwing stuff at the TV. It just feels like the script pouncing out at you yelling “AHA! AHAHAHA! Fooled you! See? See how clever and tricky we are?? AHAHAHAHAA!” etc. It was an interesting, funny and original movie already, and I wanted the resolution to the story I’d been watching so far. The only positive thing I can see about the plot twist in _Fight Club_ is that on watching it again, you manage a little more empathy for Marla, and get to feel smug everytime you notice the narrator talk about deja vu. However, the cynic in me would suggest that the fad for plot twists is primarily motivated because of this - it’s a simple way for filmmakers to encourage the audience to want to watch again; “Hey, it’s a whole different movie the second time out!”
> \*\*
See, the Fight Club twist has thematic weight (and the book it was based on was written years before The Sixth Sense. The movie was also completed before TSS was released to theaters). It’s not just an empty exercise to fool the viewer or reader. One of the subtler themes is about the culture of ‘not my fault’ that exists in today’s culture. So here we have our narrator who wants to pass off his actions as the being done by some alter ego, but can’t since he discoveres they are really done by him.
I’ll grant that the book does a better job of this than the movie, as well as hiding it in plain sight.
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### Author:  [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/12 "2002-08-24T19:11:08Z")
I’ll echo some of the sentiments already expressed. I think “twist endings” did become the sort of thing that Hollywood tried to emulate and mass-produce. Most people could tell the good ones from the bad, and most people credited a successful twist to films that engrossed them from the get-go.
That’s something about a twist-ending, if the film is good enough to hold your attention on the plot and characters as it occurs, you’ll be surprised. If the plot and characters are weak, your mind will wander throughout the film, speculating on the surprise. For instance, I was glad to hear that there was no surprise ending in _Signs_, otherwise I would have wasted the experience of the movie trying to figure it out.
I think _The Usual Suspects_ was the one that really got the trend started, and it’s starting to wane now. Moviemakers will again be concentrating on the experience of the film rather than the “payoff”.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/13 "2002-08-24T21:05:51Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Baldwin \*
> \*\*“Twist” endings have been popular since well before movies existed.
>
> What was the twist in _Three Kings_? Seemed pretty straightforward to me.
> \*\*
One person’s twist ending is another person’s “duh” ending. After I saw **Dragonfly** I read the reviews on imdb and was shocked that so many people talked about the “twist ending.” What twist ending?? I knew how the movie was going to end within the first 20 minutes, but no one else saw it coming? At least the twists or non-twists are fun to discuss, right?
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### Author:  [@White\_Lightning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/White_Lightning)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/14 "2002-08-24T23:06:24Z")
Thank you, **Raygun99**. You said all the things I was going to say about _Fight Club_.
That’s not a plot twist, that _is_ the plot. It follows along perfectly with the trajectory of the film, especially considering the gigantic amount of foreshadowing in the first half of the movie. Not to mention that it can barely be grouped in with any of the other movies mentioned in the thread, considering that it’s based on a book that was first published back in 1996.
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### Author:  [@Potter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Potter)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2002, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/15 "2002-08-25T11:08:35Z")
In the book of _Fight Club_, granted, the ending doesn’t jar with me quite so much, but it’s still a problem for me - a twist can be subtle. It can be difficult to decide either way what is ‘reality’, exactly what and who you are supposed to believe. Think Henry James and _Turn of the Screw_; it’s impossible to put a finger on what is the ‘Truth’. The resolution of _Fight Club_ was simply too explicit for me which, again for me, stood out as a wrong note. _The Usual Suspects_ directed its audience less; you think you know what’s going on at the end, but could still be incorrect. Certainties are presented as less-concrete, more of a POV which could still be exposed as a skewed one. _Fight Club_ doesn’t give you this option and that’s simply not to my taste, especially after what I thought both the movie and book achieved in sly humour and originality of representation.
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \*
> \*\*One person’s twist ending is another person’s “duh” ending. \*\*
Exactly. I’d read reviews talking about the twist in _Three Kings_ and was surprised to watch what I thought was a pretty straightforward storyline. Still, it was odd to experience someone so accurately predicting the entire movie as the starting credits rolled.
I’m aware all this is just my pet peeve - twist-in-the-tale storytelling will always feel too ‘Five Minute Fiction’ to me. Yes, it’s been done for years, and I’ve hated it since I started reading.
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### Author:  [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2002, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/16 "2002-08-25T11:46:55Z")
**I guess this hijack has SPOILERS for _Unbreakable_ in it…**
So the topic has turned a little: did _anyone_ think that the ending of _Unbreakable_ was really a surprise? A friend and I saw it together, and we kept waiting for the big pay-off only to be left thinking _that was it?!?_ You couldn’t read any review of the film that went to great lengths to tell you that the reviewer was doing a favor by NOT revealing the big twist ending, which of course had us all anxious to see how the story was going to play out. To discover at the end that it just lurches along to end exactly the way you’d expect it to, was disappointing to say the least. (As soon as Samuel Jackson came on-screen, my friend leaned over and whispered, “I love how he even has a super-villain costume on.”)
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2002, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/17 "2002-08-25T11:49:28Z")
Actually One of the best plot twists ive ever seen was in the original oceans 11 Although i dont know if it counts…
But If you look back the standard ending to almost any heist film is the oceans11 ending in that they get outsmarted of the loot
afer a while the ending becomes cliche …
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### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2002, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/18 "2002-08-26T23:41:18Z")
What about the biggest one of all?
“No…I am your father!”
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### Author:  [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2002, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/19 "2002-08-27T06:52:29Z")
Nobody mentioned Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman’s 1987 thriller **No Way Out** , which had what I thought was a great twist (it surprised _me_ anyway.) I _like_ a good twist.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2002, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-hollywood-heres-a-novel-idea-for-a-plot-twist/125347/20 "2002-08-27T07:15:00Z")
Thank you so much SPOOFE. I absolutely abhor the twist trend that has been going on in Hollywood lately and I’m glad someone else has noticed. Everyone I mention it to thinks I’m crazy. I actually know people who liked **The Others** and thought the twist was original and surprising! I know people who thought the ending to **Jeepers Creepers** was a shocking surprise (hmm, “where’d you get those peepers?” is sung throughout the entire horrible movie, you think the monster might eat his eyes?)! I also recently saw **Collateral Damage** and thought the twist was lame, but the ultimate recent lame-ass action twistfest was **Reindeer Games**. And sadly, I have relatives that liked that movie.
Now, to set the record straight once and for all: **The Sixth Sense** was a horrible, ass-soringly long, bland, and boring movie that wasted two hours setting you up for a mildly shocking ending. And (surprise!) it’s only gone downhill from there.
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