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Romance subplots in films.

Started by bgmnts, July 17, 2019, 03:53:33 PM

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bgmnts

Why do they exist? I'm not talking about films where a romance is central to the story or a rom com or anything like that but almost any genre there are pointless love stories.

Commando has a fucking romance sub plot for christs sake.

Is it just a shitty way of getting women involved in films? Is love and romance really important to an audience going tk watch Deathkill 3? 

Icehaven

Virility innit. He's not just a mean lean, killin' machine, he's a mean, lean, lovin' machine too. You aren't a real man unless you get the girl as well as the disembodied heads of your foes.

Jerzy Bondov

So you can have a look at a woman's legs

chveik


St_Eddie

I found the scene in Pixels, where Q-Bert transforms into a trophy woman for the fat male protagonist to be nothing short of beautiful.

Oh, I'm sorry.  Did I say beautiful?  I meant sickening.

pigamus

I didn't think the one in 10 Rillington Place was very appropriate.

Gulftastic

The boyfriend in 'Pitch Perfect' is waste of space, and adds nothing to the film.

The Culture Bunker

The Bruce Banner/Black Widow subplot of "Age of Ultron" was an absolute load of tosh. And the lads who wrote the subsequent Avengers films seem to have agreed, as it was written off fairly sharpish.


The Culture Bunker

Quote from: thecuriousorange on July 17, 2019, 11:07:48 PM
????
Bennett and Matrix, presumably, the film concluding with the latter plunging his long hot pole into the former.

bgmnts

Quote from: thecuriousorange on July 17, 2019, 11:07:48 PM
????

Well kind of, there is a tension between Arnie and lady actor and at the very end they walk off together with Alyssa Milano after giving each other a loving look.


Blumf

Commando is a closet Disney film. Like most Disney animations you start of with a father and daughter, with an unmentioned missing mother. Then the father gets a wicked step-mother (Bennett) who mistreats the daughter. Classic mid-20C Disney!

All it's missing is some musical numbers, which I'm sure were filmed.

oy vey

It's for the ladies, surely? Or more specifically, the romantic ones (most). There are romantic men out there too. It's not gay...

Just this week I was able to persuade Mrs Oy to watch Rocky 1 to 3 on the promise of the romance subplot. She was not disappointed, while i got to relive the childhood delights of watching guys pummel themselves to near brain damage. Everyone's happy.

On point, I do think more than half the movies out there with romance subplots would play just as well without them. No question. It's probably worthy of a thread trying to list them. But female viewings will likely diminish if you strip out the romance.

As a further example, I was trying to figure out how I could possibly persuade Mrs Oy to sit through The Thing (as you know it has a cast of only men + shall we say "unique" creature). Any penetration only happens on a cellular level. Mrs Oy also loves dogs. It's never going to happen. I will go for Big Trouble in Little China instead, for reasons we have discussed.

BlodwynPig

American romance is the worst sort of romance. Have you seen the lame sex scenes? Only Manhunter got it right!

St_Eddie

Quote from: Blumf on July 18, 2019, 12:18:24 AM
Commando is a closet Disney film. Like most Disney animations you start of with a father and daughter, with an unmentioned missing mother. Then the father gets a wicked step-mother (Bennett) who mistreats the daughter. Classic mid-20C Disney!

*clears throat*

Fuck you, Disney.

Gregory Torso

I like them, I think they're good and I won't watch a film unless there is a handsome man getting of with a sexy lady in it.

græskar

According to a video by Lindsay Ellis I recently watched, it's probably because studios hold the opinion that women won't watch movies unless there are female characters. But there has to be a justification for a female character, otherwise - so they think - she might just as well be a man. So the romantic subplot is the justification for the female character being there.

Gregory Torso

Surely it's because everyone is deeply, desperately alone and unhappy and disatisfied with this shit life, and seeing a sexy man kiss a nice lady momentarily distracts them from the pointless pathetic blind chase for something meaningful in this life,

Also bollocks to all this "romance is for women" shite.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: græskar on July 18, 2019, 10:19:14 AM
According to a video by Lindsay Ellis I recently watched, it's probably because studios hold the opinion that women won't watch movies unless there are female characters. But there has to be a justification for a female character, otherwise - so they think - she might just as well be a man. So the romantic subplot is the justification for the female character being there.

So fucking yesterday that mindset. Even then I thought it was disgusting. An industry full of BEIGE SEX PREDATORS AND EP/WEIN/STEIN-A-LIKES. The most dangerous sort of men are the beige men with their twisted worldview on romance. Take a dollop of good old-fashioned 50's chivalry and irradiate it with sociopathic narcissism. Essentially Twin Peaks Season 3.

Absorb the anus burn

Romeo And Juliet.

I was hoping for some kick-ass action between the Montague and Capulet street gangs, but it was all about this soppy pair of teenagers fawning over each other and totally ruining the story.

Jerzy Bondov

Pretend for a moment that you're a retired US Special Forces colonel and a group of mercenaries kidnap your daughter in order to blackmail you into carrying out a coup in Latin America, but you manage to make your way to the mercenaries' island hideout where you impale their leader with a pipe. Not only do you rescue your daughter, but you also avert global war. Imagine how STEAMED, HOW CHEESED OFF you would be if you didn't also get to cop off with a stewardess.

Sebastian Cobb

If there wasn't the love interest in Roadhouse you wouldn't get him to utter the wonderful line 'nobody wins a fight'. Makes you think.

Jerzy Bondov

Guys I've just brought down a corrupt business magnate and released the town of Jasper, Missouri from his cruel stranglehold and there's NOBODY FOR ME TO COP OFF WITH. WHAT  THE FUCK GUYS

Blumf

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on July 18, 2019, 10:26:04 AM
Romeo And Juliet.

I was hoping for some kick-ass action between the Montague and Capulet street gangs, but it was all about this soppy pair of teenagers fawning over each other and totally ruining the story.

West Side Story is much better for the action. You get to see the ancient and mysterious far eastern martial art of Jazz-Tap.

Not even John Wick gives you that kind of gritty action!

lipsink

Didn't t they usually have them in action films to offset the homoerotic undertones of the relationship between the hero and the villain or other bromances. I didn't see any romance in Commando I have to say.

In Batman Begins the Katie Holmes character was originally going to be Harvey Dent which would've been interesting them being childhood friends. Perhaps the studio got nervous about it being a bit too 'gay'.

græskar

Quote from: lipsink on July 18, 2019, 12:27:56 PM
Didn't t they usually have them in action films to offset the homoerotic undertones of the relationship between the hero and the villain or other bromances. I didn't see any romance in Commando I have to say.

In Batman Begins the Katie Holmes character was originally going to be Harvey Dent which would've been interesting them being childhood friends. Perhaps the studio got nervous about it being a bit too 'gay'.

Good point, no homo is also a very important consideration for any respectable production.

oy vey

The major studios turned down the script to Back to the Future because of the mother-son romance subplot. Until Spielberg just about convinced them it would be charming. It's political correctness gone mad.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Blumf on July 18, 2019, 12:19:25 PM
West Side Story is much better for the action.

Sleepless in Seattle is a veritable bloodbath.

Shaky

Quote from: oy vey on July 18, 2019, 01:27:28 PM
The major studios turned down the script to Back to the Future because of the mother-son romance subplot. Until Spielberg just about convinced them it would be charming. It's political correctness gone mad.

Not sure what the big deal was, really. You never even see them take their clothes off.