You're Unpredictable

SPOLIER SOPRANO’S ALERT:

The most common quote I’ve head since The Soprano’s came back is, “it’s not like Tony is going to die.” And the dozens of fans who have said that to me over the last two weeks are probably right; I highly doubt Tony is going to die anytime this season.

These Tony’s-not-gonna-die comments while bordering on fun-extinguishing, do bring up an interesting philosophical story-telling point though that I think a lot of people miss: Unpredictability alone is not what makes movies (or TV shows) suspenseful or good. It is the way the story is told that makes them suspenseful or good.

We all knew the Titanic was going to sink. No big surprise or plot twist there. We knew that ship was going down when we saw the movie title, long before we ever bought our tickets and saw the movie. But when the ship was sinking at a 90 degree angle, and the passengers were sliding down the boat deck hitting everything in sight along the way or falling off the ship and smacking the propellers, those were some pretty tense moments. Not to mention the drama in seeing all the people freeze to death in icy water. Aside from the actual sinking, who didn’t know Jack was going to die at the end? If you are raising your hand right now, I bet you are a big Colin Farrell fan.

I knew how Apollo 13 ended before I took one bite of popcorn. William Wallace’s capture and execution in Braveheart certainly didn’t come as a shock. Although I thought it was a terrible movie, didn’t everybody in the world know how The Passion of the Christ was going to conclude? Whose jaw hit the floor when Harry ended up with Sally? Or that somehow, despite all odds, Tom Hanks was going to meet Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. In Miracle, did you honestly expect the US hockey team to lose to the Russians? And in American Beauty, Lester reveals his pending death in the first 30 second of the film.

Good movies (and shows like The Soprano’s) have such solid stories, great acting and are so well done that certain parts of plot predictability are almost irrelevant. American Beauty is such a splendid film, that despite the audience’s knowledge of Lester’s upcoming death, we are taken on such wonderful journey and the story is so incredible, that Lester’s murder takes a backseat to the events leading up to his death. Just the opposite, in the first season of The Soprano’s, Tony survives a botched whacking. I doubt many people believed that the main character was going to die 10 episodes into their first season; but Tony’s response to the attempted assassination created suspense, tension and other types of unpredictability. This years shooting is doing the same thing in The Soprano’s. Sure Tony probably won’t die, but that doesn’t mean how Carmella, Meadow and Anthony Jr., handle it won’t be gripping, or who steps up to run the “family” during Tony’s absence won’t be unpredictable.

Don’t get me wrong, I love unpredictable plots like in The Godfather, The Usual Suspects and Matchstick Men, but I enjoy movies like Garden State and Ocean’s 11 just as much; even though their conclusion were somewhat predictable. How a story is told, where the story takes us and how we get there, are far more important aspects of a movie than being able to guess that the astronauts will make it home safely, that the bad guy will be killed by the good guy, or that the couple will fall in love.

I would bet that Bradley will win the NCAA tournament before I’d bet that Tony is going to die this season; but that doesn’t mean I will not love every second of the predictable yet amazing journey that will hopefully be Tony’s recovery.