Gladiator II And The Too Easy Solution
Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about Gladiator II, the long awaited sequel to Gladiator, a movie about…well…gladiators (grins) and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this half-naked-men-fighting-to-the-death-in-the-Colosseum movie, you might wish to skip this post.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I watched Gladiator II.
The first Gladiator was serious. It was well written. It was…well…not factual but it attempted to look historical.
This second Gladiator movie is silly. At one point, the Colosseum fighting ring is filled with water and stocked with very large great white sharks.
I often enjoy silly. Heck, I AM a bit silly. (grins) I wrote The Godrabbit. That’s a super silly concept.
But Gladiator II is also boring and predictable.
I knew this was a different movie when they once again killed off the hero’s wife.
When the wife or female love interest dies in a movie now, I brace myself for some lazy and uninspired storytelling.
And this proved to be true with Gladiator II.
They also killed the wife off for no good reason.
Because Gladiator II would have been a stronger, more interesting movie if she HADN’T died.
The wife was a warrior. She could have been a female gladiator. The hero might have faced her in the ring. Or fought alongside her. Or watched and worried while she fought and gained new urgency to free himself AND her.
THAT would have kicked a$$. And it would have been original, instead of striving to be a washed out copy of the first movie.
But, instead, the filmmakers reached for easy.
And they gave us boring.
If a solution in your story seems TOO easy, reconsider it. Interesting is rarely easy.
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Muse Food – The Struggle
(These gorgeous flowers in Iceland are growing where very few flowers could – amidst bare rock during harsh weather.)
One of the (many) reasons we love romance novels is
because the heroes and heroines (and everyone else) have to FIGHT to secure their romantic happy ever afters.
It’s difficult. There are mistakes, pain, and, in my stories, sometimes decapitations. (grins).
The heroes and heroines have to somehow navigate situations such as the dark moment, where every hope of happiness seems to be lost.
An easy romantic happy ever after is boring. It isn’t believable. It is unsatisfying and a dang short story.
We NEED the struggle.
Give that to your characters.
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