Generally, a bad movie is just a bad movie. Although inversely, a "good" movie may hold no interest for me at all.

Ok

ugh, shut up

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.

You know, it's interesting. You can pack all of those themes into one type as Siskel and Ebert do, or you can use that one type to describe all plots as my fourth grade English teacher did. (The Quest is often comprised of Man vs. Nature [traveling over great expanse of land] and/or Man vs. Man [a battle during or after the trip]. Rags to Riches is a story of someone struggling in society to overcome the obstacle of being a loser--Man vs Man.)

After some thought, I have realized that the Siskel & Ebert system is better for readers or viewers. It hints at the content of the story and what sort of events can be expected. Meanwhile, the English Teacher system (possibly) works better for writers, while they are in the process of building the concept and structure of the story.

I learned this in (I think) fourth grade, while we were reading A Wrinkle In Time. The other thing we learned at the time was plot structure.

Well done S n S, it took a lot of searching for me to realize that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were "taking liberty" with theme categories so viewers could have fun putting their favorite films under a header.

It seems to fit into the informal style of "Siskel & Ebert" to play around with descriptions and I bet the two of them also use their theme categories on television as well as movies.

Roger and Gene are gone but their love of film sure made an impact on me.

Any story can be boiled down to these plots:

Man vs Man
Man vs Nature
Man vs Self

What still awes me is that Gene Siskel said that every movie ever released falls into an established plot theme. No one ever has a uniquely "new" movie idea.

Works for me because I like variations on a theme just fine.

plot structure.

Any story can be boiled down to these plots:

Man vs Man
Man vs Nature
Man vs Self