Pacing, How to Make or Break a Story

     So my husband and I recently watched Part One of the movie version of Wicked. It was an interesting experience... Maybe we're overly critical, but there were a few issues that we both had with the film. 

    Firstly, there was the fact that a movie set is supposed to make you feel like you're actually in the world of the story, and there were a few scenes that accomplished that, but more frequently it felt like an overdone stage production. Which when you're actually watching a stage production isn't an issue, especially because you aren't getting close ups of the set and props, etc., but for a movie this can be a huge issue. It was frustrating to have overly fake thatching and the like shoved in our faces, or how massive "stone" or "brick" buildings had a complete lack of any lichens, moss, or even just normal weathering on them. It had a phoney perfection that was visually jarring. Despite all the flourishes of the sets, all that stood out was the lack of minute details. And perhaps that was also due to every single set being over the top, but in an annoying, showboating way, not in an awe-inspiring one. Sure, there were beautiful sets, but they lacked the contrast necessary to do them justice. 

    However, the biggest issue for both of us was the pacing. The movie's pacing was frustrating. They dragged everything out while simultaneously adding very little of substance to the story. The only truly new additions to the story that I noticed were made were in the very beginning about Elphaba's childhood, and even then they weren't actually plot necessary. Basically they slowed everything down to the point that the whole experience was disengaging as a viewer.  My husband had to ask for clarification on plot points repeatedly because things were moving so slowly that he was sure he must have missed something. He hadn't. It was just a drag. I only knew what was happening because I was already entirely familiar with the story, having previously seen a stage production of the musical. Even multiple songs lost their impact because they kept interrupting the natural culmination of them to add in some "fun" new interlude. Overall, it was something of a let down, and speaks to a broader issue in all forms of story-telling: pacing.

    The rate at which a story is told vastly impacts the engagement and information retention of the audience. If you have too much going on in a short period of time, especially if it doesn't have an obvious linear progress, it gets very confusing and people are going to lose track of what is happening and who characters are. The same is true if you move things too slowly, stretching content out as torturously as if you'd put the narrative on the rack and are wringing every ounce of anything out of it, despite the narrative being half-starved and already suffering from a lack of filling. Genre also plays a big part in appropriate pacing. You don't want a murder mystery to have the slice-of-life vibes of a Jane Austen novel, or vice versa. Pacing creates or lessens tension. 

    That was the big failing of the Wicked movie: it was supposed to have some tension and suspense. There was supposed to be concern about what was happening to the talking animals in Oz. There was supposed to be romantic tension between the male lead and the two female leads (Ugh! Love triangles are the worst!). There was supposed to be conflicted feelings about that romantic tension, but a lot of it just fell flat. It was too drawn out and affected to truly draw the audience in and keep them engaged. We probably would have turned the movie off early if it weren't for a combination of morbid curiosity and a misplaced hope that there had to be MORE going on than we were initially being presented with. Tragedy of tragedies, there was not.