I thought Prometheus to be very predictable, but I still enjoyed it.

See, there's a good point. I could see a lot of things coming, because if you've seen enough horror films you know what to expect, but the atmosphere made up for it all by being so atmospheric. I loved how mysterious it felt, and even though I saw many things coming I still can't answer all the film's elusive questions.

Prometheus was one of the films that I had to defend recently against the scorching criticisms of an emotional viewer. He accused the ending as being "predictable", which is was, but perhaps that wasn't relevant. What I stop to ask is...Was it cool? To me, it was. It was what I wanted to see, so I think the film delivered.

Merida

That seemed to be the major (sometimes only) complaint anyone had about Brave, and it didn't stop me from enjoying the film.

That was actually the main reason I wrote this entry. Who knew iBrow could read minds?

Merida

Well said. While subverting expectations can be a valid way to craft a story, there's something to be said for archetypes, in all their forms.

I also felt a lot of the criticism of Avatar (the movie, not the television series) fell into the trap of decrying predictability. Yes, it was essentially Dances with Wolves in space. But what's wrong with that? It's telling a timeless story in a way it's never been told before! Especially in film, the execution of a concept is just as important as the raw concept itself.

Personally, I think Agatha Christie's works are tremendously predictable in that they rely on the same pattern of piecing together minute details that most readers would reasonably dismiss as inconsequential, as well as deliberately making it appear that someone is an obvious distraction for the suspect, before having the whole entended reveal bit, after attempting to foster the idea of unpredictability. I got tired of this after ten or so of her books, and haven't really read more. They seem to be all the same after a while. But, I guess when you write 100 or so mystery novels, they all tend to converge, as all of the few unpredictable plots are exhausted.

~B~