ABED wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 11:29 pm
I mean, can't a movie do both? Battle of Gods did some good world building & had some good emotional resonance for me.
Generally no. World building for the sake of world building is just information. The whole point of the gods and the other universes wasn't worldbuilding, it's a thematic point being made - there are more adventures to be had and greater mountains to climb.
Little crumbs of information over the years is bound to happen and it's best when it's to set up the drama but when people talk about the lore and worldbuilding what they want is almost always straight exposition and nothing in service of furthing the characters or plant some seed for the story that is paid off later. There is an abundance of examples we have of history being explained and it just ends up being disappointing. Stories should give only the information it needs for the story to function and no more.
Saiyan history has been done to death. It's a caste system based in strength. That's pretty much all we need to know.
The prequels were badly executed but the idea to explore them was flawed from the start. How can you possibly explain the fall of the republic, the Jedi, Anakin in the time it has and have it all feel satisfying? Explaining Darth Vader is like trying to explain Hannibal Lecter. The original trilogy gave as much information as it needed for the story to function but not so much that it ground the story to a halt. Prequels are practically by their nature about information.
Bardock wasn't great because it explored history. It told us nothing we didn't already know. It's great because it is a tragedy that has a meaningful story arc for its protagonist. It's not because of the mythology.
Rogue one is terrible. It doesn't do anything remotely meaningful. We don't need those details explained and the only ones asking those questions are nerds who want to know everything about the fictional stories they consume.
The single worst part of that Broly movie is the intro. Cut it, it's not necessary. Almost every movie benefits from being shorter.
We don't need 100% of the history of the Saiyans, but the glimpses we HAVE gotten are really good that I think it's ok to get them fleshed out more.
Or perhaps it's because they are just hints that they are so interesting. It's usually best to leave certain things up to the audience's imaginations because it's beyond the scope of the story being told and no explanation will deliver on the audience's expectations. The movie is too long as is.
One of the best action movies of all time is Predator. Very little backstory is given, but we understand the characters and what's motivating them. That's all that matters. Attempts to explore the predator mythology have almost all been disappointing.
My take on this is that worldbuilding really only works when the story itself is fundamentally about worldbuilding and mythmaking.
Or in other words: start with worldbuilding and make stories out of that world. Turn that exposition into narrative, weave it into narrative, and so on. This is what makes Lord of the Rings feel like an actual mythology more than just a trilogy, after all (though it also hurts the prose of the books themselves if you ask me). Without worldbuilding, LotR wouldn't have been as rich as it was. But the trick there was that Tolkien spent time building the world beforehand and set a story in that world, not creating a story and building lore around it. A lot of overwrought fantasy does the latter in a way while presenting itself as the former.
When worldbuilding fails, it's because creators do the latter. Indeed, the Predator example is perfect: the initial movie gave us exactly what we needed to know and rode off the themes and conflict. Ever since, we've basically been getting nothing but worldbuilding that waters down what made the first movie great. We're basically told more information about the Yautja and Weyland-Yutani's actions and history and only occasionally getting some novel insight.
This isn't intrinsically due to worldbuilding; the problem is all about information presented and how it's given.
Worldbuilding is addicting— I can tell you this upfront right now— but by itself it's just a fictional encyclopedia. I mean, if that's what you're going for, more power to you. But if an actual narrative story you're trying to tell feels like you jammed an encyclopedia into it, that's when things fall apart. When it's done well, you can create whole universes just through clever dialogue and action. Indeed, speaking from experience, I prefer heavy worldbuilding just because sometimes you get things like that you wouldn't from pantsing a story. Things like the particular way characters speak or some conlang. So long as you don't jam the brakes stopping and explaining the history of such a thing in the middle of the story, it's fun.
Edit: On that note, what you're probably referring to is exposition dumps.
ABED wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 11:29 pm but when people talk about the lore and worldbuilding what they want is almost always straight exposition
Exposition dumps are a sign of bad writing in general and a big reason why reading 19th century novels can be an experience of wading through sludge. When people talk about the lore and worldbuilding, in practice they do mean exposition dumps badly interrupting the flow of the narrative or pointless extensions to the story after the story has been told, but what they really
want is that aforementioned encyclopedia, something separate from the narrative that enriches the story without being necessary to enjoy it fully.
As aforementioned, it's always dangerous to become obsessed with worldbuilding in an established story because you run the risk of crushing your toes backtracking on things, hence why, if you're making a lore-heavy world, it's always best to create that mythos first and get the story you wanted to tell out of it later. Good example being Gine. She was fine as the answer of a trivia question of "Who is Son Goku's mom?" but the lore she came with retroactively fucked with Dragon Ball's themes.
If you're not making a lore-heavy world from the outset, then just don't bother. Things will get way too convoluted way too soon.
The way I see it, lore-heavy works feel like a funnel. You create a massive world, lots of lore, your own little mythology, and whatnot, and then sharpen stories out of it, usually feeding back into that larger lore. Because of this, you probably don't need large infodumps if there's more of a world you're going to flesh out in other stories or chapters.
Lore-light or loreless works are streamlined from the outset, explaining little to nothing that doesn't matter to the plot. Going for light-on-worldbuilding to lore-heavy feels like branches extending outwards into a state of maximum convolution all trying to explain and justify themselves.
