Movies with a small premise that were big hits

jedion357's picture
jedion357
January 27, 2015 - 12:25pm
Rewatching Predator today and musing about how small the premise is: mercenary team recruited for a plausible deniability mission to cross a border and recover a "cabinent minister" from some rebels. Meanwhile an alien predator is hunting for trophies and bad stuff ensues.

Arguably Predator has been a huge entertainment property spawning multiple movie series: both the the Predator series and the AVP series (I consider them separate entities), comic books and novels.

Since I've mentioned the Alien property through AVP: Alien was the same thing small premise and big hit. Truckers in space diverted to investigate a signal and bad stuff ensues.

Star Frontiers can be the same way Merc or corporate employees given a seemingly benign job and bad stuff ensues.

The Die Hard franchise, early on, was a small premise as well.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!
Comments:

Mother's picture
Mother
January 28, 2015 - 11:35pm
Top Gun, Jaws, Dracula (various stories)

Film/Movies lend themselves to small premises. It's hard to tell an involved story in 2 hours. Grandiose ideas seem to fail more often than not.  Maybe there is a lesson in there about using a narrow focus for storytelling.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
January 29, 2015 - 6:37am
Star Wars was large in scope but focused primarily on one character (the entire story rotates around Luke). Honor Harrington novels are that way for the most part- on a reread I tend to skip the chapters that give you a glimpse of the political maneuvers of the enemy. Although there are the occassional sub plots following certain characters that do catch my attention like Aubrey Wanderman in Honor Among Enemies.

Mother is quite right about large scope and involved stories being tough to translate to a 90-120 minute movie format. Transformers Age of Extinction got lost in its own story and sub plots and went miserably awry.

ET is another small premise and big hit.

Close Encounters is essentially a simple story but I really dont know what to make of it despite having enjoyed watching it in the past: its just illogical.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Sargonarhes's picture
Sargonarhes
January 30, 2015 - 6:59am
I guess this should make me glad hollywood isn't taking any notice of anime like Gundam or Legend of Galactic Heroes. Espicially LoGH because that series is political hell from both sides, the pros and cons of both Democracy and Autocracy. War, politics and their relationship. Hollywood would fumble it make something a mess. Which also thinking of it, another reason why JMS has dropped the idea of making Lensman into a movie. It's not really a simple premise either.
In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
January 30, 2015 - 6:31pm
And yet Game of Thrones is hugely popular and that is by no means simple. Of course its an HBO property and they seem committed to getting that blond chick naked at every opportunity so that could be some of the popularity. My sister in law is adamant that its porn- chose not to argue as I've got season 3 on hold at the library.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
January 30, 2015 - 7:56pm

Two things

1) Star Wars is the story of Adikin Skywalker, his origin, rise, fall into darkness, and eventual redemption by his son.

2) The blonde chick on Game of Thrones came out last year and said she would not get naked on screen again. Keep up.

Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
January 31, 2015 - 4:23am
rattraveller wrote:

2) The blonde chick on Game of Thrones came out last year and said she would not get naked on screen again. Keep up.



Only just discovered GoT and still have to get season 3 from the library- sucks being hold # 46 on 26 copies
but I will try to keep up. So if the blonde chick is not getting nake then who? After all the network that produces this is known for T&A.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
January 31, 2015 - 5:11am
Considering how fast characters are killed off on GoT they keep the naked coming. Still the story is leaving most characters behind and you don't see some for several episodes. Kinda like when players can't show upconsistently and you have to leave them out.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

Rum Rogue's picture
Rum Rogue
February 1, 2015 - 12:14am
rattraveller wrote:
Considering how fast characters are killed off on GoT they keep the naked coming. Still the story is leaving most characters behind and you don't see some for several episodes. Kinda like when players can't show upconsistently and you have to leave them out.


GoT season 5 preview
Time flies when your having rum.

Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time.

jedion357's picture
jedion357
February 1, 2015 - 6:22am
I'm just glad they haven't killed the dwarf yet, I love that character.
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Rum Rogue's picture
Rum Rogue
February 1, 2015 - 7:00pm
jedion357 wrote:
I'm just glad they haven't killed the dwarf yet, I love that character.


Too true!!  I might have to stop watching the show if that happens.  Just between him and the Unic there are some great scemes in the works.
Time flies when your having rum.

Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time.