Every narrative requires coincidences to keep the story engaging, but these films take things too far, pushing the realm of believability.
Summary
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Coincidences can enhance a film’s narrative and add tension, as seen in
pulp fiction
The chance meeting between Butch and Marcellus Wallace. -
Too many coincidences can make a film seem convoluted and unsatisfying, frustrating viewers and straining its credibility.
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Movies like
Ready player one
and
Now you see Me
They rely heavily on coincidences, resulting in a narrative that seems contrived and undermines the credibility of the story.
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Almost every movie has a handful of coincidences in its narrative, but some are so riddled with lucky accidents that they become complicated and unbelievable. Coincidences are not inherently bad for a fictional story, as they are frequent in real life and can help add tension. Butch runs into Marcellus Wallace in pulp fiction is a great example of a coincidence adding to a movie by making it more engaging and driving the story forward.
A good rule of thumb is that coincidences are excusable when they create conflict and burdensome when they resolve it. This is not a hard and fast rule, however, as a film whose conflict is entirely driven by coincidence can become tedious and unsatisfying. Certain movies rely too much on coincidences and push the realm of believability. They typically twist and bend the narrative in unnatural ways to reach certain plot points, frustrating viewers in the process.
10 Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Sequels often have problems with coincidences, as a similar plot happening to the same group of people more than once is inherently a coincidence. However, some sequels use fortunate accidents to recall or even undo certain events from the previous film. This is the case in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which uses a series of coincidences to recall the death of Colin Firth from the first film. It turns out that the Kingsmen are investigating their American counterpart, who turned out to be the ones who saved Firth but didn’t say anything for years. It’s an unsatisfying way to bring back a beloved character and it doesn’t make much sense.
9 Batman vs. Superman
The first fragment of Zack Snyder. batman vs superman does a fairly successful job of explaining why the two heroes are at odds. However, he undoes all that work by turning the narrative into Lex Luthor’s convoluted plot, which relies heavily on a series of random events as well as characters acting irrationally. It’s okay when a character makes a bad decision, but when it’s revealed that they’re all part of a master plan, the decisions seem forced by the writer. While the extended cut clarifies some of these coincidences, the narrative is still stagnant, making the film feel overly complicated.
8 Ready player one
Although its narrative is cleaner than the book on which it is based, Ready player one is a film held together by a series of coincidences. Despite being on the OASIS world server, it turns out that all the main characters live in the same major city, but have never realized it. Every challenge within the OASIS is solved with some knowledge that the main character conveniently stumbles upon, even though the entire world is trying to win the same game as him. Ready player one It’s a confusing celebration of nostalgia and it’s not as clever as it wants to be.
7 fall from the sky
In the wake of The dark knight, several blockbusters attempted to recapture the Joker’s success by having a villain with a master plan that involves being captured by the hero. However, not all stories support this type of pacing, and the James Bond adventure fallen from heaven suffers for it. The villain Silva has a complicated plan that depends on Bond having a micro-GPS tracker and Q accidentally giving him access to MI6 servers. Silva simply knows too many details about what’s going to happen, which makes the story seem flimsy instead of making his villain seem smart.
Related: Every James Bond Movie Ranked From Worst to Best (Including No Time to Die)
6 red notice
When it debuted, red notice It quickly became Netflix’s most-watched movie of all time. Despite this, there is an unfortunate amount of overlap in the film’s narrative. At first sight, red notice It appears to be a light-hearted buddy action-adventure movie, which makes it somewhat excusable. However, the revelation that the entire plot was planned well in advance by Dwayne Johnson and Gal Gadot’s characters puts the entire plot into doubt, as there is simply no way they would have taken into account every little detail that happened in the path.
5 World War Z
the novel that World War Z It is based on the fact that it does not have a central protagonist. Instead, it is made up of a series of people retelling events that happened to them in the zombie apocalypse. That narrative framework works well for a book, but makes less sense for a blockbuster starring Brad Pitt. The film takes these disparate stories and centers them around a single character. For all of these events to happen to one man, the film becomes too reliant on coincidences, with Pitt’s protagonist being in the right place at the right time for almost the entire running time.
4 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
Originally presented as separate adventures that take place in the same world as Harry Potterhe Fantastic Beast The films quickly became increasingly connected to the broader lore of the Wizarding World. By centering the narrative on Dumbledore and his famous battle with Gellert Grindelwald, the films struggled to justify why characters like Newt Scamander were involved. The Crimes of Grindelwald is the worst offender on this front, as the characters seem to randomly stumble into a plot that has nothing to do with them.
3 Now you see me
Most of the movie about the magician heist is incredible, but once Now you see MeThe final twist happens, the movie really goes off the rails. It is revealed that the detective chasing the main group of characters was actually pulling the strings the entire time. Very similar red notice, Now you see Me is more focused on delivering a surprising twist than a satisfying narrative. His master plan doesn’t make much sense and he raises questions about whether something like this could ever happen in real life.
2 Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man: No Way Home It was a cultural event, and the coming together of the three Spider-Men is a cinematic moment that will be remembered for years. To get to that point, however, the film becomes a complicated mess. Ned is a wizard, the villains come only from other live-action movie universes, and what they remember and what they don’t are details the audience only has to follow to reach three Spider-Men. In the end, the movie makes it seem worth it. However, as a story, No way home It’s messy, full of beats that feel unnatural, and creates holes in Spider-Man’s plot that the MCU needs to fix.
1 The Rise of Skywalker
The latest film in the Skywalker saga tries to achieve a lot. Not only does it want to serve as a satisfying ending to its saga, but it also strives to please fans unhappy with The last Jedi. Unfortunately, the film fails to do either, functioning primarily as a series of coincidences that undo previous story narrative beats. Star Wars films. It is not only The Rise of Skywalker full of annoying coincidences, like the heroes crashing into quicksand that takes them where they want to go, but the revelation that Rey is a Palpatine makes most of The force awakens a coincidence in retrospect.