Where are all the new ideas?! Every movie is the same tired plot. Every TV show is full of unoriginal characters who we’ve seen over and over again for decades. Even areas of the real world like social media or politics plays out the same narrative year after year in a never ending loop until the end of time. And since we’re just about at the end of time, it’s so refreshing to see one thing came along and completely subvert our expectations. So, when you think about it that way, 2020 has actually been an amazing year.
Let’s start with politics. New characters entered the universe in 2020 but were left undeveloped and lacked any emotional arc, so it didn’t actually change anything. For instance, we could have edited out the entire DNC primary side plot and ended up in the same exact place. BUT, you thought it would impact the story, therefore it brilliantly subverted your expectations, thus, it’s actually really, really good.
What about Trump? The master of subverting expectations. Sure, Obama set up some great ideas. They may not have been the most original but they were interesting enough. But then the first thing Trump did was tear them all down! We gotta say, subverting our expectations of a working healthcare system was so ahead of its time it’s literally sickening.
Oh yeah, remember when they tried to impeach Trump but then nothing actually happened? Wow, nothing like a boring mutiny set piece to really throw the audience off. Do we even have any expectations left for 2020 at all?!
Hm. I’m beginning to think subverting expectations isn’t actually good, though. I think it might actually be ruining things when it’s overused just for the sake of surprising us.
In any event, fast forward to now. Let’s talk about it. The 400 pound pandemic in the room: coronavirus. If you had told us we’d spend a chunk of this year quarantined in our house, we would’ve said, “no way!” That’s just terrible writing. We already did the plague thing in the original trilogy, why would you repeat it?
So they knew about this disease months in advance and could have been preparing, but instead decided to subvert our expectations by allowing this super-plague to ravage our country? Wow, big respect! That is some next level subversion that the world may never recover from. So far 2020 is on track to be the most incredible year to date due to the genius idea to entirely subvert all possible expectations.
That said, “The Last Jedi” still sucked.