Spoilers ahead.
This morning, shortly after my review of Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), I discovered the film included a scene significant to the plot that was embedded into the credits, roughly thirty seconds to one minute after the transition from the film’s plot (Caesar looking down at a burning San Francisco) to non-diegetic production information (the credits!). The scene, which I have not seen thanks to the ingestion of an obscenely large Diet Coke, wraps up one of the central plot threads of the film. For those who have seen the film, Will Rodman (James Franco) develops a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. An early version of the medication is easily killed by the patient’s anti-bodies, so Will develops a stronger version using a virus as the medicine’s carrier. When he tests it, he discovers that apes become smarter and humans eventually die from exposure, as we discover from the eventual fate of the lab technician (Tyler Labine). Before his death, the lab tech sneezes blood all over an unsuspecting neighbor. The scene, without knowledge of the mid-credit tag, feels like an odd loose end; an odd digression in the midst of the film’s action packed finale.
Yet, the mid-credit scene reveals that the lab tech’s affliction was contagious and the person he sneezed on was an aircraft pilot. Thus, the virus eventually spreads across the world, killing the bulk of humanity, and leading to, well, the rise of the planet of the apes. Now, this is a damn fine sci-fi film and my favorable opinions towards it have not changed. That said, I think it is poor storytelling to embed a scene that carries great narrative significance (as a hateful rant at NPR noted, “at the end of the movie you get, in effect: ‘P.S. Also humanity is wiped out by a superbug.’”) within non-diegetic material.
Now, for a bit of narrative theory. The diegesis of a text (be it a novel or a film) is the world in which the situations and events occur. In a typical film, the diegesis includes everything after the pre-credit studio and production company logos and before the film’s end credits. Sure, the credits and logos are part of the entire film text but that does not mean, traditionally at least, that they are not part of the diegesis. Essentially, the fade to black and transition to credits connote a movement towards (at the beginning) or away (at the end) from the plot. This is essentially the classical approach, to borrow from the work of David Bordwell and his colleagues Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, to filmic storytelling.
While it is common for credit sequences, like those of so many comedies, to include outtakes and gag reels, this material is not usually diegetic in nature. It’s beyond the depicted narrative; it’s extratextual. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, like many of the Marvel films (and the Matrix films before them), have attempted to change the audience’s relationship to the credits. Yet, the tag scene in Apes struck me as being akin to publishing the ending to a book on the back cover. I’m not against challenging filmmaking norms and I realize each medium has its own formal quirks, so my analogy between the tag scene and the novel may seem like an overstatement. Yet, particularly in the case of Apes and the Marvel films, the tag scenes are not only poorly tied to the diegesis (although there is a logic to the tag in Apes: the humans are merely an afterthought in the narrative and the form of the tag does re-enforce that). Moreover, particularly in the case of the Iron Man films (2008, 2010), this information is essential not only to the understanding of the films but to their transmedia brothers and sisters (Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers). In this last case, it is both bad storytelling and bad marketing because, given the significance of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), those out of the textual loop essentially lose the glue that holds the franchise house of cards together.
That said, here are some of tips for exploring the tag scene in a way that helps push the boundaries of the text without alienating the viewer:
1. Timing is Everything: Do not wait until the end of the credits or one minute in. What is the purpose of burying major plot information? Just get it out.
2. Location is Everything: This is a formal suggestion that goes hand in hand with suggestion number one. Either run the credits superimposed on the tag scene or run the tag scene in a separate frame, off to the left or right of the credit crawl.
3. Easy Access: Put the scene online so that those who missed it can be filled in. A filmmaker who utilizes a tag scene is imposing an alternate mode of spectatorship on the viewer. That’s fine, in theory, just hold our hands a bit. Lead us to a new mode of film practice, help us grasp it.
I asked David Bordwell for his thoughts on the matter (and I thank Myles McNutt, Daniel Carlson, Zoran Samardzija, and William Goss for sharing in a lively Twitter and Facebook discussion on this topic) and he was eager to use his encyclopedic knowledge of film to point out a few additional “credit cookies” in Armageddon (1998), Wild Things (1998), and Two Weeks Notice (2002). He compared them to Easter Eggs in video games, but I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison. An Easter Egg, in a video game or a film, typically does not have any large consequences when it comes to our understanding of the plot. It’s a reference and it may even be presented in the diegesis (like the pod from 2001: A Space Odyssey in The Phantom Menace or Hot Coffee in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas) but the acknowledgement of the Easter Egg does not alter our understanding of the narrative.
Bordwell went on offer three observations about the tag scene. First, it is a “strategy of differentiation” (it changes the conventions of filmic storytelling, which can provide a refreshing experience for the moviegoer and can be marketable in itself). Secondly, it keeps fans in the theater “through the credits.” Finally, Bordwell hypothesized that the tag scene may be a by-product of the DVD medium, as it encourages re-viewing the film.
I just wish Rupert Wyatt had given us a scene that was as smart as his apes (and the other 99% of the film).
I think it could be argued that the tags at the end of the Marvel films, at least, are separate entities. They aren't connected to the sequels, but to the larger Marvel Universe. It's not required that you see the tag in order to understand either the film itself or other films in the universe. All they do is introduce a concept for new film. Narratively, as it stands apart from the film, using it as a tag makes sense. If, however, in situations like "Apes" I concur.
ReplyDeleteNot sure I agree with you. So many of my non-comic book reader friends saw the second movie and kept asking me "What the hell is Samuel L. Jackson doing here?" Marvel is sculpting a universe and, in my opinion, they are doing a pretty piss poor job on doing it. Hawkeye in Thor? Ugh.
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree that the placement of the additional scene in "Rise" was odd at best. It's just far enough into the credits that those many souls who bolt for the door as quickly as possible will certainly miss it. And that sadly describes most of the audience. It might as well have been after the credits.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't really get worked up over because in my opinion, the scene is entirely superfluous. If you were paying attention, the movie gave you pretty much all of that information already. If you have any knowledge of how a virus spreads, it's pretty damn easy to put together that the maniacs did not, in fact blow it up, at least not in a explosive sense.
I would have cut the scene entirely and used it as the opening credit sequence for the inevitable sequel, just to get everyone up to speed quickly.
John,
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what I was expecting them to do and that's why I was especially pissed. Seemed like too major of a revelation to hide in the credits.