Writing my entry tonight kinda sideways because Joy is laying right up against my lap and I can’t put my iPad on top of her to type. Such is the state of things, and I am powerless to change them.
I’m rewatching Andor Season 1 and y’all…it is…so…good. Objectively too slow in the first three episodes (the first two, specifically and most egregiously), but I just got to episode 4 and now we’re cooking! It just builds and builds and builds from there. Brilliant show.
I was texting my friend Matt and the subject of “slow” came up, and it had me thinking: I might define that term differently than others out there. Slow, to me, is when a show/movie/book is wasting time. It has nothing to do with, say, how many explosions there are, or how slow or fast everyone is running. You can have twenty minutes of two people in a room talking to each other, and it’s possible for that not to be “slow.” To be compelling doesn’t require anything other than high stakes. And even then, relatively high stakes. Nothing starts at a 10 and stays there, because then it’s not really a 10, is it? That’s going to become exhausting, at least, if not outright boring (and slow!) because the “10” is always relative—you start at zero and you build from there.
Which is to say: slow to me has nothing to do with any sort of external markers like chase scenes or “action.” It’s simply a matter of: is this scene compelling? If it’s not, then we’re wasting time, and that’s “slow.”
It also depends a lot on genre expectations, for sure. If you are doing an action story, well then…you need to get to the action within an expected timeframe. Time spent away from the promise made by the genre is danger-zone. Still comes back to the same thing, though, because no action movie is all action: is the scene compelling? Lots of ways to make a compelling scene, even in an action movie, without the action-action taking place. Humor. Romance. Character development. Just needs to be compelling.
Beyond that, and this is really what my friend and I were talking about: it depends on what kind of stories one likes. Lots of people find “slower” stories to be boring, while other people hang on the characters’ every word—when it’s well done. That’s mostly down to genre, too, I suppose; genre, and style. Not all genres are my cup of tea, nor styles. But I can still appreciate when they’re well done.
…but I think we can ALL agree that when what we’re watching isn’t compelling, it feels like our time is being wasted (and it is)…and THAT is “slow.” And boring.
Night night.