eddstarr88 wrote:
Siskel & Ebert listed several plot themes on a special edition of their show. But the real fun started when Roger would give a movie title and Gene would find which theme that movie fit in.
Here's my quick recap:
Girl meets Boy / Boy meets Girl: this plot needs no explanation. This is a large category that includes Romantic Comedies.
Man vs. Monster: the monster attacks, can it be stopped before it attacks again? Roger Ebert used this theme to cover all of the themes listed by S n S in his earlier post as "Man vs X". The "monster" can be another man, or a machine, or even the main character's psyche - the monster within.
The Hero's Journey, aka "The Quest": brave explorers set off to the unknown. Joseph Campbell fans know all about this one as it's sometimes called the "stranger in a strange land" plot. Some "Quest" films have supernatural elements too.
The Idiot Plot: A plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie would be over.
The Buddy Cop Plot: two people, usually opposites of each other with conflicting personalities, are forced to work together.
The Rags to Riches Plot: the main character starts out a loser and ends up a winner.
The Fish Outta Water Plot: the main character is placed in a world totally foreign to the one he or she is accustomed to.
That's seven categories but I think Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert made a list of ten plot themes altogether. But like I said earlier, the fun was watching them pick a movie title and fight over which plot theme it belonged to.
Only after Gene Siskel's death did I realize how close Gene and Roger were. Now I can just imagine the two of them going back and forth over reviews made by Roger in his last few years at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Some things never change.
