Changing Back Stories/Cutting Corners?

[stra gilr]

LOl...never one to back away from a good arguement me ..errr....I mean discussion ...LOL...there have been lots of different comments about this in various threads lately.....so I thought...well why not have a proper reasoned intelligent debate on this.

So what do you think?

Changing back stories...Is it ever justified, if so under what circumstances? If not why not? Is cutting corners OK? If so.. Why? If not... Why not? Is Daniel Bennett doing this too much, not enough, or do you not care one way or the other?

I am going to get some lunch while I think about this.... and then post some pearls of wisdom.. ..about this later.

[stra gilr]

I was so engrossed in the cricket...and in celebrating afterwards..... ... I forgot to come back to this....shock...no one has taken up the guantlet..

I just read redbats post on another thread and thought I would cut and paste it to here..as it is excellent.

REDBATS

post Today, 09:33 PM

See, if they actually went the whole hog and completely revamped the show, made it into a one-hour weekly show rather than a daily half-hour one and renamed it "Murder Bay", all of this death and kidnapping and blackmailing and stalking would be right up my alley and it would be great. But condensing it all in to a little show called Home and Away, which has a huge history behind it and a status quo and charm that people love it for, is just, to me at least, off putting.

I dont mind these kind of storylines - really like them in fact -when they are handled well and occur infrequently, when they are properly developed as a result of a long chain of events and come about as the result of certain characters naturally developing personalities. I dont enjoy them when they are coming at us scatter-gun fashion, one after another, week in and week out, a big mad rush of OTT-ness, with not even enough time for the dust to settle after the last one before the next big psychotic-homicidal-character altering-history rewriting avalanche is upon us. As Di said above, there are other ways to bring in high viewing figures, apart from these constant life-threatening scenarios. Served up every once in a while they are a nice bit of excitement and a treat to the regular viewers, but every flipping week? It just gets tiring. And boring. And, I have to say, it seems like incredibly lazy writing.

Like, at the meetings every Monday morning, the guys are there going "RIght, another week of episodes to plan. Now we have to be sure to keep the viewing figures up, so what should we do this week?" "Oh,heck, the blackmail, murder, accidental death, shocking family secrets and endangered life scenarios have been working out okay for the last few months now, why break with tradition, lets just come upwith a bit more of the same then we can all knock off early and go for a few tinnies at the local." Come on!

I love action. I love intrigue. I love bad guys and deception. I love ruthless villains who get away with things they shouldnt. I love all of these things and Id be thrilled that they were in Home and Away, if only there wasnt such a flipping senses numbing overload of it, rushing along at a breakneck pace, that doesnt even leave you enough time to focus. If the writers could just pace themselves with all this stuff, just a little bit, and build back in some of the lightheartedness and fun this show used to deliver, Id enjoy it so much more. Although even at that, this year is a little hard to swallow. For example, how many of the residents of the Bay in this years season (whether they are still around or have already left) are guilty of murder/manslaughter? I can think of five straight away (not including Ric, Im not quite clear on that whole deal with his dad, I believe he died of a heart attack or something but was it the fact that Ric pushed him that brought it on?). Another thing thats been bugging me lately is the amount of death that is present in nearly every characters family. Is there a young person in the show that doesnt have either a dead mother, a dead father, or both? Is there an older character on the show that doesnt have a dead husband or wife? Never mind "Sons and Daughters", another possible new name for this show could be "Widows and Widowers". And if all these rumors about Flynn being killed off are true.... Sheesh.

To sum it all up, Im quite disillusioned with the show right now and all these exciting developments just make me roll my eyes and sigh now rather than want to tune in and watch it. I was a big Dan Bennett shipper in the early part of the year but his style of storytelling has completely worn me out and I really couldnt be bothered keeping up. The only way he could possibly redeem himself for me is by bringing back Dodge, and bringing him back as the ultimate bad guy of the show that he always had the potential to be. Previous writers have shyed away from this, citing the characters as one-dimensional and out-of-date, but if theres one thing Dan Bennett seems to enjoy writing about its messed-up, psychopathic nut-jobs, and a character like Dodge would seem ripe for the picking for him to resurrect and have some fun with. So my message to Mr. Bennett at the end of this rant is - bring back Dodge and make him your nastiest, bestest, scumbaggiest villain yet...and all is forgiven.

If not...

Oh well. Heres to a few more life-threatening tragedies and shocking secrets then.

Cheers.

RB has covered other points too...but since when have threads on this site stayed solely on topic...LOL...

Anyway ....my take..after several celebratory drinks...hic...hic...is that rewrites are Ok *sometimes*. I just about coped with the re write of Barry's life story because it was actually a really good story and there had not been a lot about his early life before hand. But.... if they go nowhere with this story now, and its just done and we move on to the next one I shall be disappointed and it will have been a complete waste. Re writing Eric/Rics life history on the other hand was IMO teriible. It did not make sense and the story line was not worth it either. Other less iritating ones ...but also not necessary...included for example... givng Irene a criminal record in the middle of the custody battle...when she ahd just returned from jury service...., and when she had worked for years in a school...who would by law have done police checks before employing her.The same dramatic effect could have been acheived in other ways...a criminal record is or being a killer seem to be the main *dark screts* which crop up these days.

I think that a lot of HAA viewers may well be people who dip in and out so for them its not really noticebale, and they may be do not care. Its the long term die hard fans, like us , who notice these things. I suspect we are in a minority.

I agree with redbats that some of it seems like incredibly lazy writing. I wish they would stick to the characters and who they are, play around with them a bit if they absoutely have to, but not make major changes for the sake of a bit oif drama that we will have forgotten about next week when wondering which poor sod is going to be killed of next.

[Ryan]

I have to say that I don't mind if the back story doesn't match up with what is written on the site, because I watch a show, I don't watch a site.

So if the site says someine has two brother and he ends up having three, as long as he's never had a set no. of brothers I'm fine with that changing. Had someone said however on the show he had two brothers and a third turns up then I'm not happy.

[hattie]

I agree with Redbats and stra gilr , this re writing stuff smacks of laziness. If they make a habit of changing these things it will become a laughing stock.

Rics re write was ludicrous in the extreme. I am a nurse..the diabetic thing came out of the blue. How the heck did this kid survive on the streets or in the bush for months with no insulin, which you need a script for? He is always eating the wrong stuff in the diner too.

The Kim and his Dad and his Mum story was good, I suppose they just about got away with that, but unless they use it poperly and develop it it well.. as stra gilr has said...it will be a waste. The stuff on the main site is not that important, but Kim and Barry have mentioned a lot of little things over the year or so that they have been in the show and now they have contradicted them all. I noticed but the in the end thought.... "oh well wtf."

I agree with Redbats and Di..the show is not always recognizable these days. Thats a shame. Its losing its charm.

[Milco]

I don't think its every really "justifed", and its is as you say lazy writing. That does not mean to say that they should never do it. I think they got away with it over the Kerry Hyde story because it was a good story. I think I would have have liked this story even more though if it had fitted with an established back story because it would have been part of the characters journey. If changing the past is going to be a regular thing then I think it will spoil things so I hope they dont do it again. The changes made to Ric's past was awful.

[emzyflower]

Were the changes made with Ric when the new dude took over?! Perhaps he wanted a new direction to take the charcter to, to distinguish his styles from the previous persons?!! Either way it should be credible with history!

[Ashirr-Leigh]

Nah, I don't think it's justified.. it's the opposite, it's just laziness really! If it makes a good storyline then fair enough but when it seems totally pointless (like Ric's diabetes) then it's just stupid.

[Taz]

What happened with Ric was absurd.It did not make any sense and I still have not got my head round it.

I watched the episode about Kim's Mum and it was good. But I am a bit uncomfortable about the changes in past history. It is laziness. If they get away with it once they will think they can keep getting away with it. Where will it stop? Minor changes, or adding detail is OK but wholesale rewrites is not really justifed in my view.

[wanda]

What an excellent post by Redbats ...and Stra Gilr.....great idea for a thread.

I agree with practically every word Redbats wrote ...all these deaths ,life on the line ,dark sectrets are all well and good in there place occasionally , but week after week they are becoming a joke.

The changes to the back stories too ,once in a while OK we can suspend disbelief ,but if every time there is an idea for a ''great story'' and they change and manipulate a character just to fit it , then again it becomes ridiculous.

Stories should be character driven ,not the other way around ....the accusation of lazy writing sounds harsh , but I too am disappointed in the quality of recent months.

[Hils]

This all comes back to character – yet again! For a character, and a story about that character, to work the writer has to know what makes him or her tick. The back story is important as it puts the meat on the bones, and helps us to understand who someone is. Each character has his or her own idiosyncrasies and they have made some sort of journey to get where they are now. Sometimes it is possible to “get away with it†as you put it, but the end result is that the story is no longer about the character. It does not ring true, and in the end it debases what happens. Robbie and Tasha are prime examples. They were well defined clearly drawn characters when they arrived. Now, because they were manipulated to fit particular story lines, it seems that that individuality has gone along with all that endeared us to them; they are virtually unrecognizable as the characters whom we first met. If comments on this site are anything to judge by, then they have gone from being hugely popular to something of a joke.In my view a well drawn character will tell the writer what the story is going to be and how it will develop, and not the other way around.

Hyde’s recent story was a good story, and the acting was superb. If I had seen this story without knowing Hyde’s history I would have been blown away. A story about a guy who discovers his Dad killed his Mum to save him. It’s got it all, but it does not fit with the Hyde I thought I knew. It does not ring true. At the end of the day Home and Away is not a series of stories about random characters, it is a long term series about characters that viewers have come to know and care about over time. I just hope that this story does not spoil Hyde in the way that other stories and manipulations have spoiled and changed other characters.

As Redbats has said, and I entirely agree with him about this –

“I don’t mind these kinds of storylines - really like them in fact -when they are handled well and occur infrequently, when they are properly developed as a result of a long chain of events and come about as the result of certain characters naturally developing personalities. I don’t enjoy them when they are coming at us scatter-gun fashion, one after another, week in and week out, a big mad rush of OTT-ness, with not even enough time for the dust to settle after the last one before the next big psychotic-homicidal-character altering-history rewriting avalanche is upon us.â€

The accusation of lazy writing may indeed sound harsh, but it seems apt.