Will yall just stop bickering with each other and make my dam Dinner you lazy weed parents like fuck. You made me and @Weevo540 eat kraft mac with no cheese powder for the last 6 nights.
But mom @Finessology out here with a new weave and an 90$ set of nails. Like come on
And dont even get me started on dad @Eshtion with his Precious Moments collection. Dad drove 15 hours to get a Morton Salt moment like dam. And it was 2,290 and he wouldnât stop at McDonaldâs to keep me quiet either
I dont know why I was suprised youâre awake lol.
youâre always here at like 2 am
Im on Break at my 3rd Shift job!!
You want to watch the main character play catch up for half the book? If theres anything that shouldve been timeskipped its this guy learning everything we already know.
lol what if aliens started with not-ripley in a white room being flashback dumped in full detail because thats essentially why the book sucks then at the very end thereâs a relevant encounter with xenos & its already the the last chapter at that point.
slog slog slog
The characters werenât that deep in the first place. In order for a character centric story to be good the character has to be good.
Predators is the old fashioned muscle men fighting Pred.
Plus also
THOSE THINGS ARENâT REVELANT TO THE STORY
Story is preds hunt criminals
Show. Donât tell. Thatâs a basic of writing. And thatâs exactly what flashbacks are for.
A. Again this is assuming itâs even that long in the first place
B. Flashbacks can be revelant.
Exactly my point. The time skip avoids this because it doesnât matter.
So every predator movie has to be the same?
And what actuallyâŚ
No.
Predator
Chopper comes in
Debriefing scene
Chopper scene
Exploring the jungle
Coming across the bodies
Coming across the camp
THEN we finally get an action sequence.
Pred 2 did
Predators has the parachute scene but after that itâs exactly the firstovie until the mob A.I action scene.
A. With short stories you can devolop a character through action
B. Flashbacks are apart of a characters devolopment, not the entirety of it.
SO SHORT STORIES ARENâT BAD IN THE FIRST PLACE
Why does it have to be constant?
One is enough.
God this just makes me hate bad writers
Yes.
Sex scenes are just blatant sex appeal.
The time skip adds a bit of realism to the world.
Things take time, rookies get promoted. Not everything happens at once.
In fact most cod games probably do this under the radar.
Since when is flashbacks info dumping?
Would you describe the Lord of the rings-
KNOW WHAT YOU ALREADY SAID THE LORD OF THE RIMGS FLASHBACK WAS GOOD SO CLEARLY IT DOESNâT MATTER
Thatâs what flashbacks are
In fact
YOU LITERALLY SAY JUST USE DIALOGUE WHICH IS THE EPITOME OF TELLING
Flashback is showing. It presents an unknown element of a character as itâs own short story that compliments the current story.
Because pacing. In long media, showing a character backstory before theyâre even revelant is awful.
Imagin a series showing off the backstory of a character thatâs not even introduced until episode 5 and it ends up heâs a side character.
Or imagine a cold character, who both the rest of the cast, and the viewer, slowly learn about.
Either way your going over the information. Only difference is that you actually get to see it instead of being told a long winded conversation.
Like?
Yes. It was fun watching some one discover it slowly.
Like in predator
Or predator 2
What?
A. Nowhere in the book is there a flashback
B. You mean one of those intros where it likes âthis is what happenedâ
Ya. Those are fine as a plot introduction. Aliens is already slow paced as is so I donât think itâd work.
A. You mean like it built up Ripleyâs daughter being dead, built up to the board meeting, built up aripley leaving for LV-426, built up the marines in the locker room, cafeteria, load up, and the drop scene, and then built up the missing colonists, then built up the barricades, then built up Newt, then built up finding the colonist, then building up the hive, AND THEN WE SEE ALIENS
A lot of set up till we actually see the namesake.
And the one chapter things is completely exaggerated. Predators are sprinkled multiple times during the book.
oh cool is it same place same characters etc ?
By characters you mean Zues then yes
As well as Dutch.
Literally the only character here.
As for placeâŚ
Thereâs a jungle
Dutch check
Scary pred check
jungle check
Sold
Donât forget Zeus dont got no legs
From what I recall wasnât he just permanently injured?
Permanently injured no legs whats the difference. Lol
Oh not much just having to live in eternal pain like a mini hell on earth. You know. No big deal.
Yep
Flashbacks are sitting down delivering the audience a powerpoint presentation in a completely disconnected storyline thats already happened, hell theyâre usually narrated. Itâs low stakes content no oneâs invested in. Base -> flashback story to a pred -> next base -> another flashback story of a pred is a ridiculous format. Youâre just telling the audience the same stuff they already know like some sort of recap episode.
lord of the rings gets a pass because its a BOOK adaptation extremely dense on worldbuilding. You get sauron flashbacks and stuff too it doesnt mean theyâre good inserted halfway into the story and theres no reason these couldnt just be prologues that later circle back to being central to the plot, it just disrupts the whole story theyâre inserted into the middle.
IE squid games prologue works parallel to the last game, imagine how crap it would be if they kept interrupting the current game to cut to old mans flashbacks.
If you want an example of why constant timeskips injected into the middle of the story are irritating watch the new Dune. I could almost give it a pass because its just him having visions of the future but its just feeding the audience the same information every night watching zendaya smile in the desert but 5 seconds longer each time. I like Dennisâs directing but this is why Dune is unadaptable.
The book was already slow-paced. It reads like a mockumentary.
They cover this in a few lines instead of timeskips for a reason.
Itâs not plot relevant its just character details and establishes that time has passed with a few lines. Now think Alien 3 where Newt and Hicks die offscreen, garbage timeskip. A flashback wouldnât have made that any better. Flashbacks waste screentime. Theyâre never neccesary, just means your current plot is loose and needs holes filled in by the most direct, distracting method possible.
But no this book was just a recollection of preds killing people in a jungle like some kind of anthology series with the same predjungle short stories sprinkled throughout while the protag goes whoaaa crazy, so its not even that.
Predator 2 mentions the val verde incident and then stops there because thats as plot relevant as it is, if they start rerunning footage from pred 1 at that point its just filler.
Preds are barely in the book and most of the time of they are theyre dying in an anticlimatic flashback with a host of characters we dont know or care about because they exist in some subplot past timeline.
I lightly nudged the delete button gg im not reposting that.
This is addressed in a single scene to convey time has passed, not because ripleyâs daughter is integral to the plot of the current movie or even a character at all. We donât know her.
Then go check Aliens 3 amazing timeskip where hicks and newt die offscreen.
Literally none of this is a flashback and if it was itâd be shit storytelling. Imagine flashing back to a cafeteria lol.Timeskips used in LOTR as last-resort worldbuilding because its a dense book, sauron stuff takes place over AGES, and its not possible to cover all that. Look at the new Dune movie, I like Dennis as a director but constant cuts at night flashforwarding to zendaya smiling in the desert - this is part of the reason why Duneâs unadaptable, its not definite parallel storytelling like maybe I Am Legend either. Even though its at night in dream sequences so you arent directly missing anything relevant to the character, you still know its taking up valuable runtime.
As for Aliens Cameron told a single, fluid story there. The prologue was newt on the colony. Prologues and epilogues exist so you donât have to skip around the story IN THE MIDDLE and take the audience out of it. Very rarely are flashbacks used to tell parallel storylines, simply using it to jump backwards 'nam flashback/timeskip like its a segment on the history channel is the laziest padding. Half of it didnt pertain to the MC.
Imagine squid games but they cut to black every time the old man starts speaking they interrupt the current plot and start showing his childhood. Completely unneccessary, disjoints everything.
Stalking Shadows reads like a mockumentary its incredibly light on actual pred content and preds just exist as climaxes of each timeskip to watch a bunch of underdeveloped generic fodder characters die then skip around and do it again.
Predator 2 addresses the val verde incident in a few lines of dialogue, we donât need val verde re-run episodes because it doesnt pertain to the current story.
The point was that thereâs a lot of scenes before we even get to Xenoâs.
You do realize the book isnât a flashback either right?
Itâs a story being told in sequential order.
Imagine thinking flashbacks can be used willy nilly.
I think thatâs a you problem.
There is no skipping around. Itâs one fluid flow of events. They just donât happen back to back.
Ok I like how you admit this argument isnât even an inherent problem
Never saw it
Whatever book, or show, or game your playing
Stop
None of these issues are inherent to flashbacks. Flashbacks are more than recaps. Just stop watching bad shows because itâs clearly giving you the impression that flashbacks are only possible one specific way.
Yes! Fight for my amusement!
skipping years ahead throwing a bunch of fodder characters around is not a fluid story. its completely unneccessary to start at a characters conception lmao. It just means the author didnât have the content to tell a single story and instead wrote it like a half assed short story collection.
we dont care about how he rose through the ranks and worked as irrelevant cleanup crew we want to see space aliens shoot stuff and theyâre barely present. name a book with less pred pages in it than stalking shadows.
This is called disjointed storytelling.
Its trash and usually a last resort because people that want to be invested in a plot want it told in correct sequence. You donât go watch a trilogy out of order, if you do its less than optimal & usually happens due to constraints, or a company releases a prequel as a latent cashgrab similar to spinoffs. I wouldnât suggest watching star wars backwards would you?
Flashbacks are literally recaps. You have infodump recap or mystery recap. Occasionally you have a mystery that takes the liberty of dishonestly adding in little details that werenât even there originally despite being the same exact frame which is also bs. Iâm positive this is a trope, its the equivalent of attending a magic show and they keep closing the curtain.
If they need to constantly time skip or flash back to tell a story then they did a shit job at story telling
I honestly had a terrible time reading the book. Hunters and Hunted are so much better.
