(This post is directed to my fellow moviegoers and Bob.)
I've finally gotten enough tequila inside me to address a pet peeve of mine that's been festering for decades, if not longer.
Have you ever sat down to watch a movie when an animal, usually a dog, has been introduced into the opening scene?
You have? Then you might possibly know where I'm headed with this.
The dog is most likely, killed-off. Am I right?
It gets shot, ran over by a garbage truck, or dies from a rattlesnake bite.
When this happens, we the audience, you and I, collectively sigh. "Oh, no! Not Fido."
Well, I've got breaking news for you moviegoers. The dog's demise is only a ploy. A hackneyed, overused ploy, that a few lazy writers use to push their plot along.
As the movie starts, the camera pulls back to show a wide shot of a crowded park. A few people are picnicking. There's an ice cream truck surrounded by kids tugging at their parents for ice cream money. Old folks are sitting on benches feeding the pigeons.
The camera zooms in and shows us a dog chasing a bouncing ball.
It's a young bulldog with a happy look on his face.
Ominous music fades in.
(Spoiler alert ahead.)
The music is a dead giveaway and pardon the pun.
The dog, that puppy, that baby, that innocent creature is about to meet its demise.
We, you and I, as a responsible audience, at this point, should be asking this poignant question from those miserable, good-for-nothing, booger-eating writers who were about to injure Fido. "Do you really have to kill the dog off?"
WRITERS!
LISTEN UP!
Stop using the death of an animal as a sympathy crutch, then calling it good writing. It's not.
Why don't you use a few clever twists to advance the plot instead? Use the part of your brain that God gave you to write with instead of the mind farts you refer to as ingenuity.
Let the dog live.
The movie could have gone something like this.
(MY change to the plot.)
As the opening scene starts, the camera pulls back to show a wide shot of a crowded park. A few people are picnicking. There's an ice cream truck surrounded by kids tugging at their parents for ice cream money. Old folks are sitting on benches feeding the pigeons.
The camera zooms in and shows us a dog chasing a bouncing ball.
He's a young bulldog with a happy look on his face.
The camera continues to follow along as the dog closes in on the ball.
Suddenly, the ball hits a tree root sticking out of the ground, takes a five-foot jump and smashes into the butt of a well-manicured poodle in the middle of doing her doggy-doo. The speeding bulldog isn't able to stop in time, his foot lands in the middle of the poop "a la grass" and he slides headfirst into the poodle's owner, putting a doo print smack dab on the woman's thigh.
The bulldog's owner, by this time, catches up to his dog, grabs the leash, slips in the same place and falls backward.
You guessed it.
The camera pulls back. Everyone, including the she-poodle, seems to be embarrassed by it all. Everyone except the bulldog. He just appears mildly irritated. Probably because his ball got lost in the hubbub.
Together, both the poodle's owner and the bulldog's owner, rush over to the ice cream truck, dragging their dogs behind them, looking for napkins, paper towels, or anything else with which to clean smeared dog poop off of one's self. The parents and kids line in front of the ice cream truck parted, sensing the urgency of the situation.
Needless to say, the ice cream truck's business came to a halt, as the couple stood off to one side, unceremoniously dabbing at themselves, cleaning up.
The bulldog lives to chase more balls, the dog's owners have cemented a lasting relationship, and the she-poodle has an admirer.
This is how it's done, writers.
REMEMBER IT.
WRITE IT DOWN.
As the camera pulls away and the credits come up, in the background you can see a young toddler reach down to pick up a stick of chocolate ice cream from the ground.
The camera fades to black as we hear a hysterical mother yelling.
"No! Sweetie! THAT'S NOT ICE CREAM.
D-O-N-'T!"
