I Want Control!

Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books?  Didn't they rock? 

For those of you unfortunate enough not to know what I'm talking about (I weep for your childhood!), Choose Your Own Adventure books (there were nearly 200 of them published between 1979 and 1998) allowed their readers to determine how the story unfolded.  You'd get through a few pages and then be asked to make a decision about what should happen next.  It'd go something like, "If you want to follow the mysterious man into the alley, turn to page 52.  If you'd rather head home instead, turn to page 71."  Each book had multiple endings, and I used to love working my way through all of them.  I thought these books were the coolest, little nerd that I was.  (I obviously wasn't alone, as this children's series sold over 250 million copies during the '80s and '90s.)

About five years ago two former classmates of mine from graduate school came up with the brilliant idea to make a Choose Your Own Adventure DVD.  They got William H. Macy and a bunch of other celebs to provide voices for the animated characters, and the DVD went on to win all sorts of awards. It turned a child's passive movie-viewing experience into an active one, as kids could use the DVD controls to guide characters' actions and explore eleven different variations of a tale about the Abominable Snowman. 

With ever-shortening attention spans and the trend toward increasingly interactive technologies, I'm frankly surprised we haven't seen more of this kind of entertainment.  Then today I saw a Variety report about the planned film adaptation of You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero! by Bob Powers, which is kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book for grown-ups.  Its cover includes a sly nod to the CYOA franchise through a banner that states: Book One in the 'Just Make a Choice!' Series. Your Choices. Your Story.  More Than Thirty Different Ways to Ruin Everything.

Its description reads: "In this book, YOU, the reader, are a thirtysomething part-time actor/full-time waiter suddenly caught up in a kidnapping. Julia, the girl you went out with last night, has been TAKEN HOSTAGE. What will you do? Will you go to the police and ask for help? Will you burst into the hideout, killing everyone in sight, then tell Julia that she shouldn't misinterpret this as some sort of big commitment? Or will you unplug your phone and just get really, really drunk? The choice is yours!" 

So I'm all worked up thinking that this is going to be the most awesome movie ever... until I realized that the script is simply going to be based off of events in the book and the audience won't have any control whatsoever.  Granted, that kind of thing would be extremely difficult to pull off logistically -- would the movie have to stop, wait for a theater-wide vote and then start up again with the corresponding sequence?  Or could individual decisions be allowed by employing several theaters for one screening ("To go to the police, head to Theater 6; to burst into the hideout, go to Theater 10...")?  That certainly sounds like a money-losing proposition for the studio and the cineplex -- unless ticket prices were raised accordingly.  Might it be the kind of unique film that people would actually pay more to experience?  I'm not sure, but even if You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero! doesn't let its viewers dictate the action, I'd bet we'll see a film that does sooner rather than later.  Why?  For the very same reason that 3D movies are all the rage right now and why motion-generating seats are being installed in cineplexes: theaters need to find new ways to attract patrons who've realized they can save a heck of a lot of money, time and hassle by staying home and popping a rental (cough cough, redbox, cough cough) into the ol' DVD player. 

I, for one, would be willing to pay more for a Choose Your Own Adventure-type movie -- at least once.  It seems like You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero! would've been the perfect opportunity for Hollywood to try something significantly different, but alas, perhaps no one wants to experiment in these shaky economic times.  I guess we'll just have to keep waiting to gain control of characters up on the big screen -- or yell really loudly at them and see if they ever pay attention.  "Spock, don't lose your cool!  Kirk's trying to trick y----aww, nuts."

Comments

[Angela]

I thought movie theaters didn't even make any money off of ticket sales. Maybe they'll just play out a couple of options in the movie.. like it has different endings. I don't see how that can turn out well.

[Fiirvoen (Jason)]

Run, Lola, Run....Clue. The multiple ending thing has been done successfully.

I can see them picking the optimum story line for the theater but then adding all of the decisions back in for the DVD...

[Erika Olson]

Angela - Yeah, I'm not totally sure about the financial operations of theaters but I'd bet you're right that the bulk of their profits come from the ridiculously priced snacks. And yeah, simply showing a few different endings back to back would be pretty lame.

Jason - Well, I'd have to argue your statement that Run Lola Run had multiple ENDings... it was really more like the entire movie was comprised of three different tries at her infamous sprint, and those three instances may or may not have been subtly connected. (Totally loved that movie, by the way.) As for Clue, they only showed one ending per screening in the theater so the only unique thing about that was that you could've seen one of three endings based on which showing you attended.

So there's definitely never been a movie (shown in a theater) where there are not only multiple conclusions, but also several points along the way where the story could branch off in different directions... all based on what the VIEWER(S) wanted the main character to do. It'd probably be a spectacular failure if someone ever tried to do it, the more that I think about it. But I do still think it would be a cool thing to experience from a filmgoing perspective.

And I agree that they'll probably handle You Are a Miserable Excuse for a Hero! in the way you described above.

- Erika

[kristin]

I had forgotten all about those books until this post! Wow, a huge part of my childhood rediscovered, thanks! I'm not sure about a movie version though, it would be cool but I don't know how it would work.

[Fiirvoen (Jason)]

My point for those movies, is that you don't have to have a consistent chronology to be successful. The alternate takes in each of those were what made them special. I think a film could be done where all of the points are explored within the film (not at the audience's choosing, but just a one-by-one run through similar to Run-lola-run which showed the consequences of the different choices.), but I still think that they would just pick one storyline in the movie theater or a limited number and include the rest on the DVD...

[Erika Olson]

Jason -

A ha, I gotcha now. I hope there's someone out there in Hollywood who's ready to break the mold...

[*kristYn from CALI*]

OMG!!!! i LOVED those books!!!!

awwww... i wish i had one *right* now to read! they were the BEST!

:D

'cept now i feel really old...
(says the 23 year old poster, haha)