Movie Patterns

What are Movie Patterns? If you enjoy big blockbuster type movies, you may not want to read on, this may spoil it for you.

I started noticing patterns big time when I watched the movie Armageddon, but since then, I've noticed them in a lot of older movies as well. In fact, Armageddon seemed to be nothing but patterns once I started thinking about it. I'll pick on Armageddon throughout this category of my blog as I present patterns. Photography by Howard's End.

Movie patterns are like software patterns, you'll find them all over the place once you know what they are. They are things that are repeated over and over in modern movies, sometimes in slightly different form, but the basic premise is the same. Patterns are also the reason why I much prefer IFC (Independent Films Channel) and independent films in general anymore, they don't always have the same patterns over and over. You can notice these patterns on TV as well.

Here are some examples:

Sing-Along

This pattern seems to be in almost all “standard” movies. There is some song (or songs) in the movie that the target audience can sing-along with. This type of pattern must be a big hit with the movie test audiences, sometimes there are even more than one. You will usually find the entire cast that is present in the scene singing along with whatever song is taking place. I guess you might find audiences singing along also, but I never watch movies in the theatre any more. I don't remember the sing-along in this movie, but there was at least one.

Hate -> Love Buddies

This occurs sometimes as the main plot of a movie, for example, Midnight Run with Robert DeNiro and Charles Groden; or sometimes as a subplot, such as Armageddon with the Bruce Willis / Ben Afflek characters. The patterns basically goes that two people start out hating each other and end up loving each other (or at least a large amount of respect). As with the Willis / Afflek relationship, many times there is a son / daughter thrown in as the cause of the friction.

The Roger Ebert Monster Ending Pattern

I call it this because I remember Ebert mentioning it once a while ago. This pattern basically states that the monster (or bad guy) is never dead the first time you think they are. They may show up several more times before they are really killed. This is in so many movies, you ought to be able to remember some yourself. Men In Black; Die Hard; etc...

The Big Walk

I'm not sure what else to call this one. It's where you see a line of people walking down a hallway (or something like that) to “their destiny”. The first time I remember seeing it was in The Right Stuff, when the astronots were walking down the corridor in their full space suits. And then it was repeated exactly in Armageddon. I've seen it in other places as well.

That's it for now, I'll put more movie patterns out there as I think of them.