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mknod  ·  3355 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Children of Men - Discussion Thread

    It's the clumsiest, weakest, shittest writer's crutch there is. Write characters, not parables.

This was actually my biggest problem with the new series "Black Mirror" in particular with Charlie Brooker's stories. It didn't seem like he cared about the characters he was writing for at all, he just wanted everyone to know "Hey people are jerks heres a universe where they are all jerks, this could happen in real life huh?"

It is just so irritating. The preachiness doesn't even annoy me, it's the idea of "Well we need all of these characters to be as bland as possible so that they can fit into every situation in the viewers mind"

On the other hand, individually in Children of Men, I think Ejiofor, and Owen do a lot of good work in terms of acting (or the editor at least made them look particularly good). There are nuances when the Human Project meet up. They bring something to the characters where they could have easily been very very cardboard.