Bad Plot Twists vs Good Plot Twists (Writing Advice)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ค. 2024
- Learn what separates a bad plot twist from a good one. Examples from Star Wars, Fight Club, Game of Thrones, and more!
Get Brandon's horror/thriller novel BAD PARTS:
- AMAZON (USA): amzn.to/3esTFYC
- AMAZON (UK): www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088QLMWKW
- AMAZON (CAN): www.amazon.ca/dp/B088QLMWKW
- AMAZON (INDIA): www.amazon.in/dp/B088QLMWKW
- AMAZON (AUS): www.amazon.com.au/dp/B088QLMWKW
- BARNES & NOBLE: tinyurl.com/BadPartsBN
- AUDIBLE: www.audible.com/pd/Bad-Parts-...
- OTHER RETAILERS: books2read.com/badparts
Get Brandon's supernatural thriller novel ENTRY WOUNDS:
- AMAZON (USA): amzn.to/2XL737v
- AMAZON (UK): www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B097YGX2DH
- AMAZON (CAN): www.amazon.ca/dp/B097YGX2DH
- AMAZON (INDIA): www.amazon.in/dp/B097YGX2DH
- AMAZON (AUS): www.amazon.com.au/dp/B097YGX2DH
- BARNES & NOBLE: tinyurl.com/EntryWoundsBN
- AUDIBLE: tinyurl.com/EWAudible
- OTHER RETAILERS: books2read.com/EntryWounds
Follow Brandon McNulty:
WEBSITE (Join my mailing list!) - brandonmcnulty.com/
TWITTER - / mcnultyfiction
FACEBOOK - / mcnultyfiction
SUBSCRIBE to Writer Brandon McNulty here: / @writerbrandonmcnulty
DISCLAIMER: Some of my videos and/or descriptions contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. This helps support the channel and allows me to continue to make videos like this. This does not affect my review of products. All opinions are my own. Thank you for the support!
#WritingAdvice #WritingTips #Writing #author #betterstories #authortube #booktube #authortuber #howtowrite #BrandonMcNulty #WriterBrandonMcNulty #BadParts #writingcommunity
0:00 Intro
0:33 What is a Plot Twist?
1:43 What makes a GOOD Plot Twist
3:10 Bad Twist 1 - Forced Twist
3:30 Bad Example 1 Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker
5:37 Good Example 1 Avengers Endgame
6:45 Bad Twist 2 - Bailout Twist
7:14 Bad Example 2 Training Day
9:11 Good Example 2 Terminator 2 Judgment Day
10:36 Bad Twist 3 - Repeat Twist
10:52 Bad Example 3 Star Wars Return of the Jedi
12:14 Good Example 3 Game of Thrones Season 3
13:56 Bad Twist 4 - Obvious Twist Villain
14:13 Bad Example 4 Incredibles 2
15:58 Good Twist 4 Fight Club
18:39 Outro
=======================================
CHECK OUT MY OTHER VIDEOS:
Mastering Scene Structure:
• Mastering Scene Struct...
Writing Scenes that Flow:
• Writing Scenes That Fl...
5 Fatal Mistakes that New Writers Make
• 5 Fatal Mistakes that ...
5 Time-Saving Tips for Writers (And Readers!)
• 5 Time-Saving Tips for...
5 Scientific Inaccuracies in Movies, TV, & Books
• 5 Scientific Inaccurac...
Query Letter Survival Tips
• Query Letter Survival ...
The BEST Writing Exercise Out There
• The BEST Writing Exerc...
How to Write a Book Pitch
• How to Write a Book Pitch
Writing Villains #1 - Start with Your Hero
• Writing Villains #1 - ...
Writing Villains #2 - Goals
• Writing Villains #2 - ...
Writing Villains #3 - Motivation
• Writing Villains #3 - ...
Writing Villains #4 - When to Introduce Your Villain
• Writing Villains #4 - ...
Writing Villains #5 - Plot Points for Villains
• Writing Villains #5 - ...
Writing Villains #6 - Impacting the Hero
• Writing Villains #6 - ...
The Anatomy of Story REVIEW:
• The Anatomy of Story R...
Save the Cat Writes a Novel REVIEW:
• Save the Cat Writes a ...
=======================================
The twist from Fight Club is the best twist I've ever seen in a movie because when you watch it again you see like 500 clues and can't believe that you didn't notice them the first time around.
The ending of Fight Club is a letdown non-ending though.
Like the line about cigarette burns that movie projectionists use to switch reels but the rest of us don't notice and then we actually see Tyler flash on the screen for a split second in the movie, so fast that you definitely don't notice it the first time.
@@lucas.warhero the one that blows my mind is near the beginning of the movie, the narrator asks "If you woke up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?" And as he says this the camera pans to Tyler Durden passing by him in the airport. And somehow it just flies over the entire audience's heads.
The first act being really kinetic and entertaining helps conceal the eventual twist. It becomes pretty apparent during the later scene where Tyler is literally feeding the Narrator lines while he's arguing with Marla that something is amiss, though. @@heebsgames
@@cockoffgewgle4993 My first viewing, the scene where I started to realize something was wrong was when Tyler asks him "Why do you think I blew up your apartment?" The narrator meets Tyler for the first time on an airplane home and discovers his home in ruins right after. So the timing didn't line up for Tyler to have been the culprit unless Tyler had known the narrator for longer than that.
The Sixth Sense, The Prestige, and The Usual suspects all had great twists. The best thing is not only the twist, but when the audience realizes the clues were right in front of them all along... :)
The Usual Suspects is extremely well written, yeah. When the detective looks at his wall and items.... And you just go "shiiiiiiit!"
Usual suspects was unimpressive imo. Maybe bc I saw the Key and Peele parody skit first.
The Sixth Sense and The Prestige: Yes!
The Usual Suspects: I've always hated that movie. Granted, the twist at the end is very beautifully filmed (the camera alternates between detective Kujan's mug falling in slow-motion while we can read the realization from his face; the flashbacks, and the other character's pace changing in real-time; in fact, it's done better than the finale in Inception), but that is the movie's only positive feature. Then comes our realization: what does the twist actually mean? The bulk of the movie is merely a boring mediocre crime story with no likeable characters, finishing with a tacked-on twist that merely serves for shock value. The whole movie was made merely for the twist, but has no interesting story that stands on its own. What's more, because of the twist, the whole plot becomes a lie, a dream, an "everything wasn't real" movie.
Sixth Sense's twist was fantastic the first time you see it, but on rewatch it makes very little sense.
I am not a fan of the Usual Suspects but definitely agree with the other two.
I have to defend TRAINING DAY, and I'm glad to see that others are too. Yes, it is very coincidental that Smiley, the gang member, would happen to be that girl's cousin, but the movie is making a statement about karma and the nature of justice. Jake did a good deed near the start of the film and showed heroism that Alonzo would have ignored, and sure enough, that good deed is what came back to save him later. Jake can show empathy while Alonzo can't, and that's what makes him a hero.
Maybe that's the meaning of the snail joke...
I agree, and I feel like you can do 1 of those 1 in a million shots, something like that happened to me before.
I cut day camp, never have before, my first time doing it. My mother, who never, absolutely never comes a certain way on the road, on that day, on that 10 minute window came down that street, when she was supposed to be at work. Odd random coincidences do happen, and technically speaking it wasn't out of the realm of possibilities in my mind.
That gangster dude probably had a lot of cousins, and if he's a criminal he's probably got a lot of cousins or people on the streets he knows that he may have done that for. If it happened twice I would have raged, but seeing that it was set up, it didn't feel wrong to me.
To add on to that. The only thing Alonzo couldn’t control about his plan ended up being the good deed that Jake did.
I agree..I almost saw it as being biblical..like a higher power protected him after his good deed…like good deeds over evil deeds…the reason why he was there in the first place
Like a miracle!
It doesn’t sound very impressive on paper, but The Sixth Sense’s plot twist got me. It’s one of those plot twists where you need to rewatch the movie and you can see the build up to it and things that now make sense. Any plot twist that has the viewer rewatching or re-reading the story is the sign of a good plot twist.
If you liked 'The Sixth Sense', then I'd like to recommend 'Fall'.
Sixth Sense blew my mind
@@reubenmanzo2054What year is that movie Fall release? 2022?
@@cheswyneyman5480 Sounds about right.
I really don’t understand how anybody couldn’t spot the Sixth Sense plot twist fairly early on in the movie.
im not even a writer but these videos have helped me articulate to my friends and family my opinions on tv shows and movies.
Same
Partners in crime! 😂
I totally love these videos for the exact same reasons. I also almost also completely agree for the same reasons, and of course, don't always have the proper understanding to articulate those opinions. So if I want to be really lazy I just send these videos after saying:" it sucks, here's why [link to video]." 😂
It also helps increase appreciation for certain classics and understanding as to why they hold up in time or not.
I was just joking about something similar with a friend few hours ago: "For some reason I keep watching videos about how to be competent at creative writing and I'm not even planning to write shit".
Novelist here and his videos have helped me to narrow down how to become a great storyteller. 😊
Me too but I’m learning more about creative writing
Because so many people remember Norman Bates, they often forget that "Psycho" starts with a whole story starring Marion Crane. It's such a massive break in linear storytelling, especially for its time. It is THE definitive "main character switch" of filmmaking and I'd say it's a better example of exactly the style of the first season of "GoT."
Psycho is especially good, because it introduces Marion as a sort of anti-hero as well AND it gives you a big red herring (at least in the Hitchcock movie) with the color of her dress.
This guy only watches fantasy and capeshit. 90% of his examples are from such rubbish.
Great example. And it's not only a plot twist, it's also a genre twist: it's start like a crime fiction novel, it turns into borderline horror with the grandfather/grandmother of slashers.
Sticking with Hitchcock, who's stories are full of awesome and well done twists, who can forget the main twist in Vertigo? The twist renders the main hero's guilt as pointless. Turns out he wasn't guilty, he was set up to witness a woman commit suicide, which was actually not the case.
@@valentinegonsalves7322 No, it doesn't. Scottie is an awful character with lots of things to feel guilty about, if not the Madeleine thing.
.
I always loved the killer reveal(s) in the original Scream film. The whole story was about guessing who the villain was and basically everyone was suspected and dismissed at least once.
That was an insane reveal!
"I'm feeling WOOZY, man!"
my brother and i quote this bit to each other frequently. 😂😂😂
The best part was that they tried to be SUPER obvious about it on purpose, because Scream was intentionally being meta with the reveal. They knew the easiest way to make the audience think it wasn't him was to make it look very much like it was.
I always like twists like the end of Usual Suspects which make you rethink or recontextualize the entire movie you just watched.
Eh. not as big a fan of that one. I like it when you can go back and figure out what "really" happened (like in Fight Club, especially the book), whereas in Usual Suspects it could all just be made up.
@@robertdullnig3625 - exactly. The whole of Usual Suspects is fabricated, but it actually subverts the whole 'plot twist' idea, I bet that the vast majority of viewers watch it and think "Aha! He's Keyser Soze, everything makes sense now", but it doesn't - it actually completely invalidates everything you just watched.
I also love the movie for how Spacey delivered the twist. It's a great moment. But I think the twist in Primal Fear is better. It's my second favorite after Fight Club.
Spoiler warning, but I don't think it invalidates anything.
I always interpreted the story as being generally true, but with names and specifics placed to taunt the detective. If literally everything was made up it would feel pointless, but I think the complete recontextualization is absolutely believable and very interesting @@RebelWisdom
@@flipperwhale7276 to be honest I can barely remember the plot now, but I remember at the time realising that no part of it made sense. then I read an interview with the director where he basically admitted the entire film was a wind up. the exact quote was something like - he couldn't believe they got away with it and thought people would lynch them for wasting their time. so I'm pretty confident on this reading.
The Training Day example where you mentioned the twist came about from an overwhelming improbable event reminds me of the quote "the difference between fiction and real life is that fiction must make sense". Lest we forget about that time an assassin botched his job and hid out in a restaurant only for his target to decide to unwind from a failed assassination attempt in the same exact restaurant. The assassin then successfully kills his target and a chain of alliance makes this spiral into WWI.
They showed this in kingsman and it’s pretty well crafted. Shows him fail and then shows him in the restaurant as franz Ferdinand gets stopped on his alternate route. It’s pretty cinematic imo
I thought WWI happened because a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry.
It wasn't a restaurant. Gavrilo Princip went to a deli and bought a sandwich and sat out on a bench to eat.
Ferdinand's driver made a wrong turn and drove past Princip while he was eating.
It's not as staggeringly unlikely as you make it seem. Princip wasn't so much hiding out as eating out in the open. There were a bunch of assassins who all tried to kill Ferdinand so no one was actually looking for Princip. And Ferdinand didn't pop inside for a bite to eat. He just had made a wrong turn and was turning around to go back. It's certainly weird that he just happened to drive by Princip, but again, Princip wasn't the only one trying to kill him. He just happened to drive by one of the ten or so people who were after him.
@@WeirdVideoGames Princip, as his name suggests, was one of two principal conspirators, with Danilo Ilić, and he wasn’t eating a sandwich. He was looking to get a second shot at Ferdinand. He did get lucky, but it wasn’t random.
@@malvoliosfI see. I looked it up and the sandwich thing was a myth. I must have read about it before it was debunked. There were six assassins, but yes, Princip was one of the main conspirators.
I really hate stories that subvert expectations without ever meeting them.
Yeah no. I can't tell you how many time this happens in today's movies and shows. It the whole "You think you know but you Don't thing."
It lead your audience up with a pay off that you didnt set up and must go back to explain.
"It subverts your expectations!"
"WHAT expectations?!"
*looks at Ryan Johnson*
@@LendriMujina If I go to an Italian Restaurant I've patronized for twenty plus years. The food is so consistently good that the waiter brings you whatever the special of the day is. Imagine my horror when he brings me Tilapia & raw broccoli.
Marvel's decline at the box office can be traced to bait & switch tactics as well as crappy CGI.
@@LendriMujinaUsually the explanation that gets subverted is "expecting a good movie."
About a favourite plot twist -- Hot Fuzz. I love how they portrait Timothy Daltons character as an "obvious villain" but overcome the expectations totally later 🙂
Yarp!
Whilst also confirming that he is the villain, just not the only one and for completely different reasons.
I also love this twist because of the comedic aspect to it. Everything builds up to this intricate reason, but nope, they just want to win the best town award.
Exactly 😀@@murphm2010
Honestly most Twilight Zone episodes have great twists. The one where apparently aliens are invading an old lady’s house and it turns out she is the alien also the one where this girl is wrapped in bandages the whole episode and when then unwrap her and she looks normal and everyone else around her looks scary are some of the greatest episodes.
3 words: To Serve Man
@@derekhandson351 💯
Palpatines return in Rise of Skywalker is like if Hitler was somehow releaved to be alive and in a robot body in the Arctic with ten thousand nuclear tipped U boats and zombie cyborg Nazi troops and announces himself like a WWE announcer. And gives a 24 hour timelimit to surrender or every nation gets nuked.
"We decoded the Intel from Argentina, and it confirms the worst, somehow Hitler returned."
Would love to see that made into an actual movie to satirzie bad Hollywood writing.
Heard that one before
Well, that did kind of happen in a very silly sci-fi channel movie, also: Wolfenstein.
Zombies would be more believable. However having generations of living, breathing people living, and maintaining these ships under ice of decades, that's a different story.
@@anticitizenokapi4634iron sky, is a movie
I love the plot twist in Dickens' "Great Expectations" when the protagonist (Pip) discovers his secret benefactor is not Miss Havisham (the wealthy spinster he works for) but a coarse convict named Magwich. When this twist is revealed, Pip refuses to accept any more of Magwich's blood money. As if that weren't bad enough, Magwich also turns out to be the father of Pip's first crush, Estella. While Pip thinks she has a noble background, she is actually from the lowest level of society. A big deal in the 1850s.
And then Pip moved to South Park.
I absolutely hated great expectations the first time I read it at like 14. I was too young to really fully understand the dialogue and time period. But since rereading it a few times it has become one of my favorites of his work and probably in my top 10 novels in general.
For Evelyn deaver, her name is essentially evil endeavor. So it was pretty much told from the first introduction.
Yeah, but that's not obvious to most audiences
@@aardvarkscanfly that’s what made it clever on the second watch.
Incredibles 2 is still mid.
It's a movie for children, clearly it would be the person with "Evil" in their name
The person who made that twist was a moron.
Surprised to see that Saw wasn't on here. Probably the best twist ending I've ever seen, and what makes it so great is that the reveal is right in front of your face the entire movie, and none of us suspected a thing.
Also, I think the training day twist was okay. It wasn't the best twist of all time, but it was perfectly serviceable, inoffensive, and undeserving of being a bad example.
My favourite plot twist might be the revelation at the end of Memento.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
Leanord, the film's lead, has anterograde amnesia and is searching for his dead wife's killer. The film has a non-linear narrative and opens on a photo of a dead body, making the viewer think that the person he killed was his wife's killer and the film will show the events leading up to it. However, in the final scene, we discover that he's ALREADY killed his wife's killer, but due to his amnesia, he wasn't content in just experiencing the moment once, so he intentionally adjusts his own evidence to make his search for someone else.
This is a very surface level explanation but the execution of this plot twist is brilliantly done.
I think I get where you're coming from, but I strongly disagree that we, the audience, "discover" Lenny has already (SPOILERS) killed his wife's killer. I mean, sure, Teddy says he did...but as soon as he said it, I didn't believe him. Why on earth should I believe Teddy if the movie strongly implies that he lies constantly?
At the end of the day, the audience has virtually zero proof that Lenny already killed who he was trying to kill. All we have is Teddy's word, nothing else. And, again, Teddy is a liar. Thus, for me, we know close to nothing regarding Lenny's personal history in the end.
Not saying that I don't like Memento. I enjoyed quite a bit. But for me, it's a pretty inconclusive movie. Just my 2 cents, I guess.
Edit: a spoiler warning
@@tentativaX that’s fair enough, good points, I guess if you see a twist coming it does affect how you interpret it
@@tentativaX At the same time, he also has no reason to lie, since Leonard won't remember it anyway. That scene seemed to me to be the film being honest with us, even if we can never be sure.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks I still think he could have reasons to lie. Teddy likes using Leonard for his own ends, and knows that Leonard writes down everything, and takes picture evidence, so that he will be able to learn about it later. If Teddy really was telling the truth, he risks Leonard writing it down. Not necessarily that it would be a bad thing, nor that Teddy wasn't actually telling the truth, but the argument that "he'll forget anyway" doesn't actually hold water, because he can write it down and learn again later.
@@j-rey- I don't think Teddy was lying, but I also think it doesn't matter anyway; the point of the story (as far as I remember; but I watched Memento quite a long time ago) was that Leonard was lying to himself! He was so obsessive in "avenging" his wife's death and gratifying himself by killing, over and over again... He's pretty much the same tragic guy as the protagonist in The Prestige (2006). If you haven't watched that movie (or even if you have), watch it again, and then notice in the cast list during the closing titles someone credited with the character name "Leonard"...
I am going to have to respectfully disagree about Training Day. I love the twist, and I don't think your criticism is entirely fair. 1) it's not deus ex machina, because Jake's actions early in the film save him later. 2) it's not "like the powerball," since Alonzo knew this girl had gang connections, so it makes sense that he has a working relationship with the gangsters in question. 3) it's thematic. Jake acts heroically despite Alonzo telling him not to, because Jake is moral and Alonzo is corrupt. Similar to people of his neighborhood turning on him at the end, this scene is another example of Jake's corruption coming to bite him in the ass.
I agree. Even though it’s incredibly unlikely, it supports the theme that it is worth doing good even if it’s not high profile or a big fish, directly contradicts the villain’s point of view, and is a payoff for the hero sticking to his morals. It’s basically required for the movie to feel like it had justice and appeal to the audience instead of a portrayal of corruption and how good cops get killed either in the street or by bad cops. It also supports the first-day-on-the-job lesson that living and dying can be just luck. Plus, the hero’s ingenuity and courage are demonstrated right afterwards when he goes to confront the bad guy directly in his own neighborhood. And the whole neighborhood just lets it play out as a punishment for how bad the villain is. So yes it’s insanely unlikely but fits in to the story of the movie.
I agree. I can see how it would annoy some and look lame on paper. But it absolutely works in the context of the film and scene.
And re: the criticism of it being better that the "hero" saves themselves. No. That isn't the character of Jake in this film, he's innocent, naive and being led on a string by Alonso for the whole film. His standard "heroism" comes later when he confronts Alonzo. And, as you say, it's his morality which saves him, so it's thematically relevant. And it's not like the film is hyper-realistic in general, it's rather over the top.
Generally, I'd hesitate to rely on theme as a "get out of jail card". The audience is sitting watching a story unfold before them in the instant, considerations of theme or any deeper meaning come later. That "later" might be milliseconds, it might be hours or, worse, it might be never. Most people in the audience aren't going to try to rationalize implausibilities outside the mechanics of the basic storytelling - especially if they are frustrated by an incident which is virtually impossible within the logic of the world of the story.
Theme is something which is hopefully embedded in the story but it's unspoken and doesn't usually rise to the surface unless it's consciously considered. Most people don't consciously consider the themes of a film they are watching.
If a writer has to try to justify what appears to be a story fault by pointing to something which most of the audience are never going to consider then they can't complain when they receive criticism.
N.B. I haven't seen Training Day, so this is a general point, not a criticism of this particular film.
This twist belongs in a fable style story, not in an action thriller. Something Christianity-themed or like _Bulletproof Monk._
I enjoyed the Training Day twist for the reasons you listed. I'll add that it wasn't an unbelievable coincidence IMO. Courtesy of the law of large numbers, coincidences like that happen. In a large city like LA, millions of people interact daily; that frequency inevitably leads to unexpected outcomes. History is replete with examples of "unbelievable" coincidences. Take the incident in which Union soldiers happened upon a copy of Lee's battle plan for Antietam that had been lost in a farm field by Confederate soldiers. Anyone (or no one) could have found the plans but Union soldiers found them. It led to a turning point in the war and President Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Or another from the same era not all that different from Training Day: Just a couple years before John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln, Edwin Booth saved Robert Lincoln's life by rescuing Robert from being hit by a moving train after he fell off the platform onto the tracks. Edwin Booth was John Booth's brother and Robert Lincoln was President Lincoln's son.
My favorite plot twist is probably The Prestige. It changes the movie while also adding so much to it.
My favorite is The Sixth Sense. For one thing, it was so well stealth foreshadowed that on rewatching you can't believe you didn't see it coming. When it came out, this is what the buzz on it was about, the fact that it had this amazing plot twist. And it also completely reversed all of the relationships. But perhaps most of all, because although it was a complete sucker-punch surprise, it felt organic, and pieces held together better with the twist than without it. It felt like exactly the thing that would naturally have happened given the situation that the movie had set up. The twist resolved tension rather than created it.
When I originally watched it, I could just feel throughout the movie that something was fundamentally wrong with it, but couldn't quite put my finger on why. When the reveal came, everything suddenly made sense.
one thing i've always liked about the fight club twist is that when he's visiting the support groups he mentions he never uses his real name, which should immediately draw attention to the fact that we as the audience do not know his real name but instead of making us ask the question of what is it, it instead seemingly suggests to us that his name is unimportant even though it isn't.
It also doesn't make sense that he changes his name for every different support group, that would get confusing af for him. He'd either just use one false name or use his real name.
I have mixed feelings about Fight Club’s twist. It’s well crafted, and the way the movie handles the twist after the reveal is really well done, but the multiple personality twist in any movie just seems so hackneyed to me. (One of my favorite movies is Adaptation, and I love how that movie makes fun of multiple personality twists.)
Also the fact we never hear narrator's real name until the plot twist
@@erakfishfishfish i love fight club's twist. i'm not a huge fan of the movie. i don't think it handles its themes particularly well.
Fight Club is one of my favourite films but I don't really care about the twist. To an extent, I don't like it because it undermines the film as a whole, the friendship between Jack/Tyler, everything they've done together, and so on. The film works perfectly well without the twist. @@erakfishfishfish
I loved Westworld season 1 twist, the way they made it look like everything was happening at the same moment in time but it was actually years appart was awesome. Didn't see it coming.
Seems everyone else figured out the twist immediately.
That was a great twist but the problem with Westworld is that they felt the twists had to keep coming in the later seasons. The follow up twists were lame and forced.
Anyone who says that they figured out that young william and the man in fucking black werethe same person. Theyre just lying
Sesión 1 its as perfect as it can be done
The plot twist in Hoodwinked is still to this day my favorite, simply because all you have to do is pay attention the story of what everyone's alibi is and the culprit is someone you kind of push to the side. It has such good storytelling.
LOL I like the plot twist in Hoodwinked because even though it's completely predictable, I loved it anyways. :)
Fight club is my favorite especially because everything the two of them do together feels normal, and only until later do you notice while one is talking to other people, the second is just watching and listening like a normal person. It’s brilliant and believable.
My favorite twist would've been the reveal of Darth JarJar, but Lucas got cold feet after fan backlash to jarjar in E1
“Meesa Darth Jar Jar”
No one actually believes that. And it stopped being funny in the Noughties.
@@intergalactic92
I literally actually believe that.
It would have been a TON better than what we got.
Fantastic plot twist in The Others with Nicole Kidman. It's foreshadowed the entire movie and reframes the whole story, as well as our understanding of the characters.
Yep, I never saw it coming
Weirdly enough, I would count this as a "Bad" twist as I spotted it pretty early on. Goes to show you might not fool everybody and you need to make the story entertaining enough without relying on the twist.
@@lekoptaBy any chance, did you know the movie was supposed to have a twist? I saw it when it opened and had no idea there was a twist component to it, so it worked great on me. I'd imagine if I had known there was a twist to the story, I might have been looking for it and found it earlier.
I just watched this movie the other night for the first time. Heard the ending was a shocker so I was excited to see it. I was quite certain the ending couldn't possibly be that she was actually dead and THEY were in fact the ghosts because it seemed so blatantly obvious to me that was the case. I mean, impenetrable fog surrounding the place, could you make it more obvious? I actually thought they were purposely making it look like that was the case so they could shock me at the end with something else. Boy was I disappointed when that was literally the ending. LOL
@@sheshotjfk8375 A) Telling someone there's a plot twist primes them to find the twist. Ideally you go in without that prior knowledge.
B) Can't please everyone but The Others certainly pleased most people. Brains are all different.
C) I'm sure it was more effective in 2001 when the narrative tropes had been less well-used.
A great twist movie is The Prestige because they were able to drop hints so well into the movie that you didn’t notice until afterwards. It all made sense but it wasn’t obvious.
One of my favorite is from The Usual Suspects. The reveal is masterfully built up, you suspect all of the guys in the line-up, at various points in the movie. So well done.
No matter how convenient Training Day's plot twist is, I still love that movie to the death😂
Denzel is AMAZING in it. Absolutely hypnotic performance
As a brilliant character study, I think we can forgive a bit of the lame plot contrivances.
Something I've always considered with regards to writing plot twists is what I like to call "The Fundamental Assumption". This is something your audience is led to believe throughout the story and is often reiterated by other characters in order to disguise a future plot twist. It's something that should be established very early and that your audience should never be given any cause to question, even though it is an incorrect assumption to make.
For example, the fundamental assumption of Scream (1996) is that there is only one killer. We're never shown the possibility of there being others until the end of the movie, and the whole cast always refers to the killer as a singular entity. The fundamental assumption of Planet of the Apes (1968) is that the setting is a far away planet.
A common fundamental assumption is that characters are who they say they are, as we take their identities as certainties in the story and usually assume that narration is reliable. Another common fundamental assumption is that events are presented linearly.
Time jumps are a good way to establish a fundamental assumption as well, such as in The Sixth Sense (1999) where we jump ahead after seeing the main character shot and dying only to see him walking around and living his life down the road. We assume that he survived the gun shot and it changed him somehow, but the passage of time leads us to not question how the original event played out. Another iteration of this is in Lucky Number Slevin (2006), where we get both a time jump and an identity assumption working in tandem.
In general I think it's helpful to identify what is the fundamental assumption that you need your audience to believe in order to lend impact to your twists, and what are ways that you can introduce or inform this assumption throughout your story. It's also useful to identify this so that you can avoid any inferences that may undermine this.
I hope this is helpful to someone!
I think it'll be helpful to me. I'm writing a story and the twist is that one of the main characters is the victim of an overpowered amnesia spell that makes her forgotten by everyone. Any media, memories or anything tied to her are wiped clean. I think my instinct to reiterate that there were only 4 members of her family, and not 5, is correct. :3 I'm still in the rough draft phase but I think this will help a lot. Thanks :)
So like misdirection? The audience is led to believe one thing, when really it’s the other.
One of the best twists are in OldBoy. The final twist is so powerful and at the end of the movie but it comes after several other twists. It's unexpected and very surprising but actually makes sense from all the info we have had before.
The Handmaiden also had a series of twists that were carefully hidden in a very, ahem, hot setup.
Same here
Since I always wished I could have experienced Psycho "blind", I highly appreciate the Red Wedding twist. After it was over, I was wondering if this how the original audience of Psycho felt.
Psycho was the very first movie that did not allow entrance after it had started. What this meant was that lines would form outside movie theaters and people would see the lines and want to see it also. It was brilliant marketing by Hitchcock. Also, the twist in the middle of the movie just was not done at that time, so it came as an extreme shock.
That thought reminded me of reading the original Jekyll & Hyde: In all later renditions I have seen, it is shown from the beginning what is going on. But in the book... it is only revealed entirely in a letter at the very end. Up until then, it is all seeing people wondering about this Hyde person and what is going with him.
So I wondered also, how that impacted the very first readers who did not have "Jekyll and Hyde" ingrained as a saying that everybody knew the basics of.
Probably not the same, sitting through like half an hour and getting invested in a character is very different from spending hours and hours of tv over several years with them.
The Training Day twist isn't the best ever, but I think you don't give it enough credit. Training Day is a movie about two fundamentally different approaches to life. Alonzo Harris has the approach that the world is there to serve him, whereas Jake Hoyt's approach is that he's there to serve others. There are actually two different twists: the one you showed, in which Hoyt is let go by a stranger because of his earlier behavior, and Harris's later betrayal by people he considered to be friends (or at least loyal to him in some sense) due to his earlier behavior. The twist you discuss here is foreshadowed by Alonzo telling him earlier that he was wasting his time preventing drug addicts from raping the young girl, which the audience is meant to revile at, and so it feels good to see Jake rewarded for his earlier courage.
Yeah, there are probably better ways it could be executed. It is a bit convenient. They could have revealed it in a different way than checking his pockets before shooting him. But thematically, it fits with the plot.
Agreed. I almost don't call it deus ex machina because it's more like karma. Sure, the odds are absurdly low, but Jake did something good and was rewarded for it. If this is bad writing, the end of Toy Story 3 has to be bad writing as well. Instead, I think it's a heartwarming morality tale.
@@garretchristensen I simply cannot consider it Deus Ex Machina BECAUSE the writer set up that wallet and then paid it off with this reveal. Which is GOOD writing. To call it a bad twist because of how unlikely it is does not give it enough credit. Deus Ex Machina is a plot device where a character is saved by something that came out of nowhere, where the writer's hand visibly reaches into the story to help their character. This writer established that Jake saved this girl, that he had this wallet in his possession, and saving this girl actually saved him. Set up and pay off. Good writing.
Thematically it works, but it's not completely unreasonable that the criminals they encounter at the beginning of the movie are somehow connected to those at the end. Not the best, but it doesn't break the movie for me.
It also works in an in-world sense. While Alonzo is cunning and ruthless, he's also shown to be short sighted and underestimates others. Killing Jake was likely one of those "I'll figure it out" sorta things and what the girl said to those 2 junkies probably stuck in his mind and gave him the idea to use those guys in the first place. He never considered that Smiley or his 2 friends would be the gangbanger she mentioned or that Jake would have held on to the wallet or even had it because what are the odds right? Plus, he only knows loyalty through intimidation and bribery. The fact that Smiley would let Jake go over family is something he wouldn't even consider (the way he tries to use his son in the apartment fight shows this).
Also notice how Alonzo asks the girl where her cousins are from to confirm, because she said it moments earlier. Alonzo could have set Jake up to be killed by anyone, anywhere with all his connections. But he decided to go to THAT neighborhood. Not saying he knew exactly who her cousins were. But a sociopath like Alonzo would definitely get a kick out of it. Not a coincidence because it was on purpose. The wallet was a setup and payoff to the good nature of Jake.
My favorite plot twist is- spoiler alert for Attack on Titan
Reiner and Bertholt being the armored and colossal titans respectively. It’s set up perfectly and it makes a second rewatch of the show even better though to be fair all the twist in the show do. I still remember when it was revealed how stupid I felt for not realizing earlier when they showed all the evidence.
Or even better [Spoilers for Season 4], the plot twist from "Memories of the Future".
Before this, we view Eren as an innocent product of his father's actions and after that, we know that he inflicted all this to himself.
AoT is a masterclass in plot twists, but I still think the basement and the season 4 one mentioned above are better than the warrior plot twist, simply because it recontextualizes EVERYTHING. That's why aot is possibly one of the most rewatchable shows I've ever seen
A bad plot twist in anime is Aizen being the reason on the attack on soul society it was so obvious it was him it wasn’t funny.
I also love the way it's revealed. no dramatic music, no building up tension. everything feels normal, and then they reveal it out-of-the-blue. I remember squinting at the subtitles and hitting pause to make sure I didn't somehow misread it.
@@jtmassecure4488 Disagree. I binge-watched Bleach up until the 124th episode (even the Bount arc... I've tried to wipe that from my mind) but even Kubo himself didn't know who the bad guy was until he was able to talk about who would actually work with his editor. Something he was very lucky to do. I don't think he realized how lucky because when he tried to do the same thing in the next seasons, it failed. :/ But that first one was excellent. *shrug*
The final plot twist in Ender's Game was awesome. It was a bit clumsely done in the film, but in the book it was set up brilliantly. It changed everything, turning the entire series of books that followed into a completely unexpected deeper and darker direction, re developments of characters and plotwise.
Total Recall 1990 was packed with well-executed plot twists, too many to list. And the final plot twist, the planting of the plausible possibility that Quaid was in fact still at Rekall, dreaming the dream exactly as he had ordered, is haunting.
What I also like is a slow-motion plot twist, as in the Dune series. When the protagonist family, with each new book, gradually turns into being recognised in hindsight by the readers as (the) horrible villains, merely at war with far less sympathetic villains and mostly themselves.
Finally someone mentions Ender's Game! Must gut-wreching and cruel plot twist I've ever read!
„Everybody's a Skywalker” is the best summary of every Star Wars movie ever.
It's ironic that Richard Matheson's I Am Legend has what's maybe the greatest plot twist of all time, yet Hollywood repeatedly squanders it.
A movie faithful to the book would be amazing.
Mind giving context?
@@cancelmenowDoItNoBalls The setting is a post-apocalypse where a disease has spread, turning everyone into vampires. The main character - "The Last Man On Earth", as the story is also known as - is struggling to survive, slaying vampires in hopes that somebody else is safe.
The twist is, the vampires are still fully sapient. Instead of a hero who's the last hope for humankind, the main character is someone they see as a cold-blooded serial killer who needs to be stopped. One of the titles is "I Am Legend" is because he is the monster of _their_ legends.
How Hollywood fumbles it is by still portraying the vampires as in the wrong even post-reveal, with the main character doing a "heroic" last stand. Which is *not* how the original story ended.
@@LendriMujina That is a really good plot twist
@@LendriMujina
The story depends on the reader's imagination and subverting assumptions made from unreliable narration, can't easily visualize it on screen.
My favorite plot twist is from a video game, Knights of the Old Republic. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but the plot twist is a revelation of your (character’s) identity. And that’s why I never saw it coming and it was so brilliant. I never in a million years would have questioned my own identity. Love your channel!
Yes! I came here to name the same twist! To this day I haven't seen a.better twist.
Oh yes, brilliant twist!
Best part is when it flashes back to all the seemingly innocent conversations with other characters which actually foreshadowed the whole thing. "The force can do incredible things even [redacted]" (if you know, you know.)
@@intergalactic92 Plus it'll influence the dialogue on whatever your final planet is - I enjoyed keeping Korriban for last for this reason, but I'm sure it'd be great on any planet.
Fantastic game. Fantastic twist.
Two other movies with incredible plot twists that blew my mind at the time were The Others and The Sixth Sense. I feel like the twist in The Sixth Sense literally made M. Night's career, and he's been trying to recapture the same kind of impact it had ever since.
I loved the twist in the sixth sense. Totally did not see that coming, but the twist in Split had an ever bigger impact (on me at least).
My two favorite plot twists are from 'Fight Club' as you mentioned here, and from 'Sixth Sense' with such a rug-pulling plot twist, the likes of which M. Night Shyamalan hasn't been able to re-create ever since.
The grass did it!
I just rewatched T2 and amazed how many false leads there was to make the T1K look like the good guy with Arnold faked to be the villain, until it is revealed at the corridor shootout.
Yep, I was very fortunate that I went into the movie blind when I first saw it. Such a "WOW!" moment when it happened.
To be honest I thought it was obvious. Arnold wasn't killing people but the "cop" was.
Unfortunately, the trailer had already spoiled it for many people. I can only imagine how upset everybody who made the movie was with the person who made the trailer.
Same. I went in without even seeing a trailer and was totally surprised. I thought the "twist" was that the savior from the future this time was going to be an amoral badass (and probably learn to care from having to take care of young Conner). I still remember the fun shock of the switch. Not so lucky with Sixth Sense where the trailer totally spoiled the movie.
Which is why I still have an aversion to trailers.@@WriterBrandonMcNulty
Yes, that twist probably works better for people seeing it today, since anyone who saw any trailers when it was released knew it well in advance. Same with The Sixth Sense...while everyone knows the famous twist at the end, as written it contains two, the first being the line "I see dead people," which was of course also in every trailer.
One of my favorites is the True plot twist in Shutter Island. It is smaller in scale in comparison to the first, but the implications are insane and you end up feeling worse for the main character's fate. Finally, thank you for your content Brandon, I love it, have a great day.
I just read that book recently and maybe I’m stupid, but I’m not sure what you’re referring to. I must have missed something. The last couple pages of that book were really confusing to me, so I probably did. I really liked the plot twist that I did understand in Shutter Island, though.
@@bluecannibaleyesI've only seen the movie but the plot twists are
* MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, IF SOMEONE HASN'T SEEN IT GO WATCH IT NOW*
1) That Teddy is actually Andrew Laeddis and he's just a patient at that establishment.
2) His wife, Dolores, wasn't killed in a fire by a certain Andrew Laeddis. She actually burned down their apartment intentionally and they moved to the lakehouse where she killed their children (acts that earlier were attributed to Rachel Solando who doesn't exist). Teddy (who's actually Andrew) then killed his wife and he constructed the whole investigator thing because he can't deal with the guilt and trauma.
When i went to see it, a friend of mine said: "I wonder what you will think of the twist" so I knew something was up. And so when I watched it, it was pretty clear to me what was going on. It kinda ruined the movie for me
The problem for me with Shutter Island is they spend too much time throwing so many red herrings out there that by the time they get to the truth I am bored and the twist is far less interesting than the red herrings were.
@@armandbiro2954 There's also the twist after the relapse that he is faking it because he WANTS to be lobotomized so he can forget everything.
Fight Club is my pick for movies,
For tv shows, Black Mirror the episode Shut Up and Dance. I will never get over how SHOCKED I was at the very end when it was revealed what Kenny was trying to hide. Absolutely gutting.
Loch Henry’s twist was also mental… which one was Shut Up and Dance again (Idm for spoilers)
I still absolutely love the revelation in The Sixth Sense. It's set up so perfectly in my opionion!
I think my favorite twists come from a show called “Dark” on Netflix. It’s a show about time travel, and it forms a very confusing “knot” of events happening to cause others to happen, and so on and so forth, but so many times throughout it, we’re shown what caused certain events, and those branches become the twists themselves. Also, certain reveals of characters identities can completely change how everything is looked at. My favorite twist (I’m going to be vague to avoid spoilers), is when the main character time travels to try and stop the event shown at the very start of the show, only to reveal the true cause of it.
Yes, it is a great series with so many incredible good plottwists. Like it is the mother and grandmother of plottwists at the same time 😉
Great show- but confusing as hell! 😩
@@DexterMorgan-mh4vy Honestly, I want to see some behind the scenes footage of the writers room where they tried to connect all of those dots. I had to consult the charts on Wikipedia after each episode to understand what was going on. XD
That show was a masterwork. I also went online to look up the family trees to make sure I understood everything (“wait…he really IS his own father?!?!”) and I can only hope that my plots and their twists come off even half so well constructed.
@@BellydancerMaliha Are you writing a time travel story?
I really appreciate these videos. I'm an aspiring writer and your advice has really helped me deal with my writers block. To answer your question, my favorite movie twist is The Sixth Sense. I know its predictable in hindsight, but I'll always remember my first viewing as a kid and how caught off guard I was.
Thanks! And unfortunately I had that one spoiled on me, so I never got to experience it for what is was
I agree. Another plot twist I enjoyed (also from an M. Night Shyamalan movie) was Mr. Glass in Unbreakable.
When I've had writer's block, it's always been resolved by undoing what I've written back to the point that a character made a decision. I give the character a new decision and then the plot works out much better.
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty That sucks. I hate when I know the twist. I recently watched Orphan with my wife, and I knew the twist from a TH-cam video. It really made the movie flat.
Watching the movie a second time, knowing the twist, it was fair. We had chances to see it coming, just misinterpreted what we were being shown.
My favorite twist is in the Dune sequels. The first book has you thinking it's just a standard Hero with a thousand faces tale with a sandy futuristic local. Turns out in the follow up novels the legacy of the 'hero' Paul was much more complicated and ultimately tragic. To paraphrase Frank Herbert 'charismatic leaders should come with a warning label: May be dangerous to your health'. It's set up perfectly with plenty of foreshadowing and for anyone that just reads the first book, it's just a fun immersive space adventure.
THIS.
I’m hoping beyond hope that Villeneuve sticks with the books if he does a Dune Messiah movie. I think he will.
But the whole time I’m watching these movies and hear people talk about heroic Paul Atreides, I think, “Just wait…”
Herbert completely subverts his “hero” in a tragic but realistic way, which makes it much more riveting than a standard story. That nihilistic heart of Paul’s (and Leto’s) stories are a large part of what make the series so legendary.
I think this is very much made clear by the end of the first book. We already know that billions will die, and Paul feels it has gone past the point where he could change it. So it is a kind of twist, or unexpected development certainly, but I think it comes around during the first book.
12:40 The only unthinkable thing is expecting a character played by Sean Bean to *_not_* be killed off
One of my favorite plot twists comes from the Netflix show The Haunting of Hill House. It still gives me the creeps every time I think about the revelation of who is the "broken neck lady".
Somewhat agree, still remember how they visualized/shot it with her "dropping" through the different moments we've seen
100% agree. Hill house, and basically everything Mike Flanagan has done, was brilliant!
That's the example I was gonna give. Very unique and disturbing concept for how a "haunting" is supposed to work.
@@loco_logic it's so tragic, imagine briefly going back in time to warn yourself but you are unable to and by fucking it up you predestine yourself into the trap.
That show is amazing.
You know someone's gotta say it, Spiderverse and the identity of the Prowler as Uncle Aaron is a fantastic use of a plot twist. Two leyers of twist too, because first Miles finds out, then Aaron himself gets his own personal plot twist when he realizes his nephew is Spiderman
It was especially surprising for me, because I expected him to be Hobie Brown like in the old Animated Series and the comics.
Of course, I completely forgot that this is a world where *Miles* is Spiderman, not Peter. Of course the Prowler would be a different person here!
It wasn’t much of a plot twist to me, because Uncle Aaron is the Prowler in the Ultimate comics, where Miles originates from. Also, it just feels like an “of course” plot twist. “Of course the cool uncle is secretly evil! What other role could he possibly fill in the story?” I’m not denying the sadness of it, but as an audience member, it was a tad predictable.
Also that miles himself is an anomaly and the spider glitching in the first film
@@roguebarbarian9133 caught me off guard tbh, but the again I was a 12 year old who didn't know shit about Miles and that he exists till the movie.
That was so gut wrenching, both of their reveals.
My favorite plot twist comes from Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Prestige’. The reveal of the twin brothers was so clever
Westworld season 1. I wish I could delete any memory of this and watch it again. That reveal at the end. Persons you thought would eventually fight each other are actually the same, everything is told in separate timelines. Many mini twists. Love it.
One additional plot twist is in the classic "Sunset Boulevard." From the beginning we know a man has died in a pool. We quickly learn Norma Desmond is delusional, but don't realize she's dangerous till she shoots Joe Gillis, the man she thinks she loves. Then there's "Soylent Green." That one blew my mind! ("Soylent Green is people!") And don't forget the final moments of "Easy Rider."
Loved Sunset Blvd. I need to rewatch it again sometime so I can discuss Norma in a future video
The Usual Suspects is an obvious example of a well-executed twist, but it also benefits from having been released at a time when audiences weren't conditioned to expect a twist.
I don't know how we got a discussion of plot twists without talking about Kaiser Soze or seeing dead people. Both were about the biggest/best twist reveals I've ever seen at the movies.
I alas figured out the twist when i realised Kaiser Soeze meant Emperor or Master of the Word in Turkish...
I love how well-put-together and structured these videos are, really makes you pay attention
Thank you!
My favourite plot twist is Daisy Johnson being the saboteur in the episode "The Team". You don't see it coming because not only she's the main character of the show, she's also the one who's been actively helping the human characters and agreeing with all their demands.
Agents of SHIELD is truly the king of plot twists.
The twist in Crazy Stupid Love is probably one of the best twists in romcom history.
Certainly "Sometimes they don't even know they're dead." ranks at the top of my list, but my favorite twist of all time was when Sgt. Schultz successfully impersonates a general in Paris to trick the Gestapo into leaving them all alone.
lol
The Sixth Sense had an excellent plot twist that made you reconsider all of the events of the movie, and it was subtle and well done. Too bad Shyamalan has been chasing that high since because he often throws in dumb, unearned twists in everything now.
Fight Club, The Sixth Sense and Primal Fear. Also, King Candy's real identity from Wreck-it Ralph is underrated, that is an awesome twist for a children movie
Primal fear is a hugely underrated film! Ed Norton is such a brilliant actor
The Sixth Sense was a hell of a twist!
I think my favourite plot twist is from Return of the Jedi. Death Star Operational. It practically undermines the entire premise of the Rebel attack.
Most definitely an underappreciated moment.
Also I love the little details with it. The Imperial fleet was hiding in wait, not guarding. They were jamming the shield sensors, which is only something you would bother doing if the shield was working and you wanted your opponent to think it wasn't. The twist was the Empire trying to bait the rebel fleet into having their snubfighters all crash into the shields, but Lando saw through the tactic.
It was such a good twist because it played out with both sides acting in a clever way.
@@jacevicki Yes, but the destruction of the Rebel Fleet is almost a sideshow. The true prize is a new apprentice. The whole thing was really set up as a honey pot for Luke, and he fell right into it.
"It's a trap!"
But I have heard people say that the Emperor could’ve given decoy coordinates that would’ve led them to a ambush without giving them the opportunity to destroy the Death Star.
A Beautiful Mind had one of the most amazing plot twists I’ve ever seen✨
I personally always loved the twist in The Prestige revealed at the very end for Christian Bale's character(s) 😉. It's one of those situations when the simplest explanation is so obvious that it gets overlooked by both the viewer and his character's rival in the movie. But the impact of the sacrifices that have been made to uphold the secret really hit hard once the twist is revealed.
I especially admire a good ending plot twist. They are so hard to pull off but can re-frame the whole story retrospectively - so, the Keyser Söze reveal at the end of The Usual Suspects. Oh, and gotta love Spike's slow-burn transformation in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after the chip in his head makes him unable to attach non-demons.
I would say my favorite plot twist is from Memento but there are so many great ones in that movie I can't pick just one.
His car is not actually his car!!!!!1!
@@schwarzerritter5724 haha right, along with his cloths and his life
The Fight Club = What a narration. What a movie.
The Prestige = What a fiction. What a magic.
I love arrival and the plot twist that the flashbacks are actually flash forwards.
Arrival is my favorite movie for this reason. It subverts the Kuleshov Effect by inverting the typical association that you would assume because two scenes are connected by following one another
A twist I enjoyed in an otherwise slow movie was The Others, with Nicole Kidman. Spoilers ahoy:
.
.
.
I really liked how the ghost didn't know she was a ghost, but also liked how one of the children did know and was trying to protect her from the knowledge.
Albeit, I think
SPOILER
“The Sixth Sense” does it better.
@@charlesgbertrand Also without the slowness...
@@charlesgbertrand I actually thought The Others did that better. In The Others, the twist is also the explanation for pretty much everything that's happened in the story. In The Sixth Sense, it's almost like a bonus reveal, since the main thrust of the story is Cole learning to cope with his powers, which could've happened either way.
Another good example of an obvious villain twist is Lyle Rourke from Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Rourke dropped subtle hints to his treachery throughout the movie, such as when he and Milo first met, and Milo expresses excitement over the trip, Rourke says “Yes, this should be enriching for all of us.”
And when they drive toward Atlantis, Rourke ominously says “This changes nothing” to his partner’s comment about people living in Atlantis.
And even if these hints were too obvious for you, I’m betting you weren’t prepared for the ENTIRE crew to turn bad.
It’s been built up nicely, and you can believe it considering there was literally a scene where Milo bonds with the crew and hears that they’re all basically in it for the money.
I would argue that Rourke being the main bad guy isn’t even really the twist; it’s the fact that the crew turns out to be in on it. It makes perfect sense: the crew has a much longer history than this one expedition, and they naturally would have worked with Rourke and his dubious morals, probably doing messed up stuff in the process. They’ve all been established in a previous scene to be primarily motivated by money, and most of them treated Milo like crap for a good portion of the first act.
In retrospect, I feel like, in universe, it’s almost more surprising that the crew switches back to Milo’s side than their initial reveal of being on Rourke’s side to begin with.
@@CyberDrewan
But as they're loading up the crystal, Milo appeals to their morality by using their histories against them (Audrey's family opening another mechanic shop, Vinny owning a chain of flower stores, etc.). That made Audrey felt guilty about exploiting a civilization for her own benefit and she was the first to leave Rourke and join Milo. Plus, Vinny's reasoning to Rourke:
"We've done a lot of things we're not proud of. Robbing graves, eh, plundering tombs, double parking...but nobody got hurt. Well, maybe somebody got hurt, but...nobody we knew."
Spending time in Atlantis let the crew get to know the Atlanteans better so after Audrey joined Milo, the rest of the crew (minus Helga and the soldiers) joined them as well.
There's also the fact that Rourke was the first in the ship in the first moment of danger, whereas in any other case, the Captain is always last. It's a detail you wouldn't pick up in a first viewing, but on a second viewing, you see that he was willing to leave everyone else behind early if it meant he'd survive.
@@AdderTude All of what you said is true. It’s essential to the arcs of both Milo and the non-soldier crew that the crew switches back to Milo’s side. It’s well set up by Milo bonding with them earlier in the movie, and the “twist” of them switching sides is just as important as their original reveal to be in on Rourke’s plan.
The point I was trying to make was that Rourke’s original reveal, while it is a pretty obvious that Rourke is bad news, the true shock comes from the rest of the crew being in on it. Yeah, it’s obvious in retrospect that there’s going to be some conflict later on, as most of thre crew is uncharacteristically silent and are not acting like themselves. However the point still stands that the whole crew being in on it initially helps the shock factor of the twist. Not only is Rourke heartless enough to steal the one thing that was keeping a whole civilization alive, he has enough charisma and history with the rest of the crew that he could get everyone else to go along with his plan.
The Prestige is probably my favorite twist ending. Love how layered the twists are and the whole movie is building up to the end and it just unravels everything.
My favorite plot twist is from Moon. I like it because i creeps up on you so subtly, you're not sure exactly WHEN the plot turned.
Great movie!
Oldboy (not the crappy Spike Lee remake) has the best plot twist in anything I’ve ever seen.
Not only does it change our perception of Oh-Dae-Su and his relationships with the people closest to him, but it works because almost EVERY single character is an unreliable narrator in one way or another.
Which leads to that ICONIC double twist. One of the best pieces of foreign media I’ve seen, and easily one of my favorite films.
What was the double twist? I've seen it but I can't remember what you're referring to.
@@TristanCleveland
keep it secret, keep it safe.
;)
I shouted out the Handmaiden in another comment. Maybe a bit too indulgent in some of the more salacious scenes, but due to the themes of the movie prehaps it was some meta commentary. But that aside, the twists were earned and satisfying.
The Prestige has a great plot twist! The reveal in the end has all to do with the name of the film. Clever and well executed
The Prestige had _three_ plot twists!
My favourite Nolan movie!
I've seen that movie, but what was the plot twist? I don't remember. That he had a twin? I kind of saw that coming
@@johnnyrico707 Warning: Spoilers for The Prestige (2006).
The twists at the end were:
1. Alfred Borden and Bernard Fallon were actually twins, who swapped roles at each performance of The Transported Man; (I too saw this twist coming; but the reveal was beautifully presented, parallelling Angier's performance of his trick on stage, with Freddie Borden at his execution falling through the trapdoor, cut to the rolling red ball and Alfred Borden revealing himself to Angier.)
2. Robert Angier is actually Lord Caldlow; (That reveal was also nicely done, with Angier/Caldlow visiting Borden in prison, all dressed up and his hair gelled into two points at the sides, a subtle reference to a "Mephisto" character.)
3. Angier has been killing his duplicates (or, in essence, _himself_ ) each night at the final version of his show (The Real Transported Man). (This was the ugly shock that doesn't come into full realization until the final frame of the movie.)
@@yurenchu wow. I'm going to have to watch it again! Very cool insights. Thank you!!
This was extremely useful. Thanks! My first novella, "The Godmother", is told in the first person as a woman appears to set out to protect her goddaugher against a potential future threat but as the plot unfolds it gradually becomes clear that she is in fact the deluded villain on course to murder a perfectly innocent child. Different readers spotted the twist at different moments throughout the story which I am actually a bit chuffed with.
having test readers tell you which clue they spotted as 'the one' is extremely valuable. I've had to rework clues so that they transitioned smoothly from first to the last just before the 'reveal'. An astute reader identifying the 2nd or 3rd is perfect, but you want very few needing the last to get the message.
One of my favorite plot twists, and one I am surprised was not included in the video, is the 6th Sense. It is so mind-blowing that it warrants an immediate re-watching of the movie to observe all of the hints that indicate the protagonist has been deceased the entire time.
Completely agreed!! That's the one I commented on here about, too lol. Also I see your pfp is paper mario! Did you ever play Super Paper Mario?
@@JonathanGilmer Oh I see your comment now lol. Yes Paper Mario TTYD and Super Paper Mario were my two favorite videogames growing up. Timeless classics.
@iamzachhunter I know right? I love the original Paper Mario, too, but TTYD is probably my favorite! I actually thought the twist at the end of Super Paper Mario was pretty good. I didn't really expect it!
For #4, the best "hidden villain" has to be Burke in Aliens. Choosing the most "good guy" actor on TV for the role was a stroke of genius.
Aliens was my first experience with Paul Reiser and I hated Burke so much I found it really difficult to like any character he played in later shows and movies.
Except Aliens came out in 1986, long before Mad About You, or even My Two Days. At the time we only knew Paul Reiser as Axel Rose's partner in Detroit who covered for him while he went to Beverly Hills.
Nah, he was a total corporate weasel. No one trusted him right from the start, not the marines, not the audience, and definitely not Ripley. And the reveal of how involved he was in the fate of the colonists just cemented his sleazebag nature (in fact if anything the Company sent him specifically to get rid of him. He was liable and culpable in everything that happened).
@@rickdesperAxel Foley. Axel Rose is the lead singer for Guns n Roses. Now I actually forgot Reiser was even in Beverly Hills Cop, so nice little bit of trivia.
The twist in the original is much better.
I have always loved the twist of Shutter Island. Did not see it coming at all.
The first and second twists in Predestination are some if the most mind-blowing for me.
It’s not often mentioned because it doesn’t really have much impact on the film story it’s revealed in but the twist of the dead guy on the floor in SAW being the mastermind literally blew me away. It was a similar impact to the Tyler Durden reveal for me when I first saw Fight Club.
one interesting topic would be, how NOT to write bad decisions/mistakes. Because there are certainly some things that can't be justified as "well, this character isn't perfect and flawless" (I'd say, the ending to Platinum End is one example)
The Game is an interesting movie in this regard because it has like a dozen twists, many of which are even in universe acknowledged as twists
...ah heck, I just lost.
This movie came to my mind as well. One of my all-time favorite movies.
I loved how you ripped Star Wars Ep. 9 to shreds, but on Training Day, I think something that has unbelievable odds is satisfying to many movie goers. We all fantasize about an against-all-odds rescue. It also has a bit of karma in it, as we all hope that good deeds we've done will somehow be rewarded. This also included the hope-for-mankind trope, where these evil, irredeemable, murderous gangsters are taken by our hero's care of the sweet girl cousin safe in her bed on the phone and thus show mercy.
Been meaning to watch this for two weeks since it came out. Other than a few examples mentioned here (Fight Club blew my mind, such a pity most people don't understand that film), another of my all time favourites (it was one of the first 18 movies I saw in the cinema, so that's probably also why it has a spot in my psyche) is Lucky Number Slevin. When the twist happens it makes you look back over the whole movie and realise that there were clues, and that it actually makes WAY more sense with the twist in place than it did before when you didn't know what the twist was.
We missed out on the Jar Jar Binks Sith Lord twist
My favorite plot twist it indubitably in The Prestige, my favorite film. Very clever and well foreshadowed. I also happen to have something in common with Borden. Something that cannot be acquired (unless you know a man named Nicola).
I really like that one too. In true Nolan fashion, it's so well hidden on the first viewing but so blindingly obvious on repeat viewings. I remember showing that film to my housemates. One had never seen it before, the other had never seen it once. The latter was losing his mind throughout while the former was completely oblivious. Extra entertainment for me.
The twist is handled well, but the movie itself is meh. I dislike how we're led to believe we're watching a story set in the real world, then suddenly there's a fantasy element to service the plot.
This falls into my favorite category of twists: the twist that you are directly told early on, but predisposed not to believe. Everyone tells Hugh Jackman's character that the other magician is using a double, but the audience is led to believe there is something more. Similar to The VVitch, though handled quite differently.
Got it, so do I. That's what I like in the movie, there are not too many movies with people like us lol
@@real.ocelot And we're the best sorts of people. 😏
I’m sorry, but your example from training day is incredible. I get that you’re trying to create the dichotomy between early and late in a movie, but it really works in that specific scenario.
6th Sense is one of my favorites. Just like Fight Club, I was completely surprised by the ending, and then watching it again, I see all of the clues that went into it. One of the best in my opinion.
My favorite plot twist is Brandon McNulty making a longer than usual video that has so much great information in it. That and The Usual Suspects.
Haha thanks!
I'm surprised The Usual Suspects was not mentioned actually. Maybe because there is no obvious "opposite" bad plot twist?
The training day twist absolutely works. If you know Latino families, you know how big they are, they all know each other AND stay in regular contact with each other through their big family parties & traditions. This is not a stretch at all.
Exactly. I know a Latino family that has over three million people in it. The family reunions are loco.
I live in a much smaller city than New York, but I have a friend who is Latina. On multiple occasions, she has told me of these coincidences of people she knew who knows someone else she knew from her past and so on and so forth. She lives in a predominantly hispanic/latino community. It's nowhere near as big as New York City, but it does show how tight that community is that they have these connections with each other.
The plot twist in Saw is my personal favorite. When the twist reveals itself, the hair on my arms literally stood up and I had goosebumps.
Some of my favorite twists come from The Twilight Zone: The Eye of the Beholder and A Nice Place to Visit specifically. The way that they're executed and built up are so brilliant and they really make you think. Also love the Usual Suspects, though I admit the realization seemed a bit weak since the stories referenced were minimal and didn't pertain to the actual plot.
Also the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man." I still get shivers. But "The Eye of the Beholder" is my favorite.
@@j-rey- Was going to mention "To Serve Man". That one always stuck with me.
I know every TTZ fan is crazy about The Eye of the Beholder, but After Hours and the Lateness of the hour are my favorites. Those plot twits not only change the whole story, but the way we view ourselves as humans. The Invaders is another in my Top 5 list.
@@sylviatamieanan4088 The same could also be said about The Monsters are Due on Maple Street. Realizing that *censored*
Hey Brandon just wanted to let you know how helpful these videos have been to me. I’m currently in the planning stages with the characters and world building of my book series. It’s the first one i’ve ever written and all your videos have helped me so much I’ve been binging them. I think I have a really good idea and i’m taking my time with it. I will definitely be buying copies of your books with how much your vids have benefited me
Thank you! Glad you're finding them helpful. Best of luck with your book series--and remember to stay persistent!
Also, thanks for checking out my books. Please leave reviews when you finish--reviews are a big help
My favourite is in Arcane. Can't tell more for spoiler, but the way they completely change the story is pure genius.
The prestige is probably my favorite twist. The entire movie tells you how tricks work, then the characters constantly argue for different possible explanations of how it's performed, yet by the end they reveal it was exactly what they said it would be the whole movie yet it still feels like a twist
One twist I liked which stuck with me when I was younger came from a bit unconventional of a source: a web game on Neopets, "NeoQuest II".
The game is a swords-and-sorcery RPG. The plot seems very basic: A curse has been cast on the kingdom by an evil wizard, and you, a knight named Rohane, have to defeat the wizard.
After the wizard is dead and the kingdom is saved, though...
Rohane wakes up as the captain of a spaceship, and finds he's trapped in a simulation booth. Other characters in the party are the crew, trapped in the same way. The player thought they won after beating the wizard, but no - *it was only the game's first act.* The party has to go back into the simulation to try to get answers, and the RPG setting resumes.
The truth is, the ship's been hijacked by a computer virus that's set it on a collision course with a star. The virus itself, taking the form of a mutated dragon within the RPG, is the *true* final boss.
What I like about this reveal is, even though the world is revealed to be fake, what goes on there still has consequences in the "real" world, and not in the usual "if you die in the game, you die for real" way.
I should give it another playthrough, I never got the rewards for finishing the higher difficulties...
Good video, great advice…as always. Maybe not my favorite plot twist but certainly one of the biggest ones in cinema-right up there with Vader- would have to the ending of Planet of the Apes. Agree or or disagree?
Agreed. Phenomenal ending
The ending to the original Planet Of The Apes movie was brilliantly executed. The fact that they pretty much told us where they were with the human relics discovered and their insistence to cover it all up was a great foreshadow.
A good plot twist is one that genuinely shocks the audience and catches them off guard, but isn’t just some random nonsense thrown in for the sake of being unpredictable. It should be a twist that the audience could have seen coming and maybe even _should_ have, but didn’t. It’s very satisfying when a story can pull this off.
To the early Endgame revelation, I would add that they also very smartly avoided the "bailout twist" WHILE making the most of "changing direction of the plot" with a SECOND twist (enabled by the first, because a significant amount of time passes between Infinity War and when the Avengers make a second attempt to resolve the plot). That is, they gave Tony Stark a daughter, and then used that early revelation as motivation for him to reject the offer to build a time machine for the Avengers. So, while they've shown that the Infinity gauntlet grants a wish to the owner, they've also demonstrated that the Avengers can't just "genie wish" their way to a neat-and-tidy "bad dream" solution, where we wake up someday without having known about any consequences.
Taking away the expectation of a clean ending (twice, in fact) gives everyone the uneasy "What now?" mindset, ramping up the tension for everything that follows. Even when the audience fully knew that the MCU was going to do "the time travel thing" we expected.
The problem with Leia being a Skywalker was due to a script change. The initial concept was there was another Jedi.
When Luke leaves Dagobah in ESB, Obi-Wan says Luke was their last hope while Yoda cryptically replies there is another. Clearly it wasn’t Leia they were talking about considering Obi-Wan and Yoda were quick to sacrifice Han and Leia to keep Luke falling to the dark side.
Yeah, I read about how Luke's sister was originally supposed to be a separate character, then they made it Leia in order to be more economical with the script.
Oddly enough, the twist ended up being foreshadowed in Empire with Leia "sensing" Luke in distress in Cloud City.
@@WriterBrandonMcNultyI'd have killed off Han in the final battle, to tie up the love triangle without having to make them siblings
@@WriterBrandonMcNultyThat's the original Brackett script for ESB. Anakin isn't Vader in that version, and appears to Luke as a force ghost!
I'd have kept the Vader twist, but had Han die to tie up the love triangle without incest!
@@oliverford5367 That would make sense that it was a script change in ESB, not ROTJ. It is pretty heavily implied at the end of ESB that Leia at least has the Force.
George Lucas has said that Luke's sister was supposed to be another character in Episode 7, but he was afraid he wouldn't be able to get the cast back together, so he was forced to include it in Return of the Jedi to tie up the loose ends in Empire Strikes Back. Unfortunately there wasn't enough time to introduce another character, so he begrudgingly made it Leia.