Pigs Doing Backflips

From the Hollywood to English dictionary:

set piece, n. an elaborate sequence which sees either a chase, fight, or other action taking place in an original and memorable way. Trailer moments.

For my money, there are two types of set pieces -- organic and stupid.

As the word implies, the organic ones happen naturally and serve the story. Again, obviously, they arise most readily in action flicks because, um, they're action flicks. There's no action if you don't have Neo going all slow motion on somebody, or Harrison Ford falling a nautical mile out of a drainage pipe, or Jason Bourne just trying to brush his teeth.

But in comedies it's trickier. Especially with more character-based comedies. Because these are typically stories that wouldn't have set pieces. If you're dealing with two reasonably intelligent characters, odds are not good that they would actually end up hanging off a cliff with lemmings running up their pant legs.

What complicates matters is that studio execs love the idea of set pieces. Why -- because it's an easy critique. To the point that the phrase has become the go-to response for less than energetic development execs. They use set pieces as a crutch, because no one is calling bullshit.

Hey, here's an idea. Let's list every movie that tanked last year. I bet they all had set pieces.

Set pieces - as a tool for selling a movie - may have had a place five or ten years ago. I'm not arguing that it didn't make sense to look at it like this: Some movies had natural set pieces. Those set pieces were used in trailers. The movies made big ass money.

But trailers -- like everything else -- evolve. I'm not convinced set pieces sell movies like they used to, because audiences have evolved. They won't be fooled again. Good, natural set pieces sell movies -- but that's because those movies have naturally big moments.

Maybe I'm just sensitive to this right now, because I've been handed the note to add a few set pieces. But you don't just slap some hijinks in. Audiences are smarter than that. Juno -- like it or not -- made a hundred million dollars by at least showing some respect for their characters.

You want to force set pieces just to say you have set pieces? Then you're going to end up with The College Road Trip. Which will make some money, but that's because of the names and the marketing dollars, not because anyone finds tasers to the gut or pigs doing backflips funny.