The Lack of Change = A Dull Story
There’s a recent movie that got extremely high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (88%) called “Everybody Wants Some!” If you watch the trailer, it looks like an interesting story about college during the late 1970s. However, the trailer basically shows you all the best parts of the movie. Why this movie was rated so highly by the critics is beyond me since if you watch it, you’ll notice that nothing much happens.
The basic story is that the hero is a baseball player attending college as a freshmen. The whole story takes place right before college starts, so the hero moves into a house, meets his baseball team, goes to parties, meets some girls, goes to bars, and at the end, goes to class.
If this sounds incredibly dull, you’re right. There’s basically no story. Remember, story is about change. In “Everybody Wants Some!” the hero begins the story as a naive freshman and ends the story getting laid by a girl he likes before attending his first class and falling asleep. That’s it.
Imagine how exciting “Star Wars” would have been if Luke had wanted to get off his uncle’s farm and by the end of the story, he finally steps across the border of his uncle’s farm and that’s it. That’s about how exciting “Everybody Wants Some!” is.
The huge problem is the lack of change. The hero and all the other characters remain essentially the same from beginning to end. There’s no sense of direction or conflict. The whole movie is about a bunch of college kids drinking, going to parties, going to bars, meeting girls, having sex, and goofing around with each other.
There’s one scene where the hero and some other characters play the arcade game Space Invaders. There’s little reason to show them playing this game since it has no relevance on the rest of the story. Even watching this scene is pointless because it reveals nothing interesting about the characters.
“Everybody Wants Some!” is an example of a movie that’s more about remembering the past without any story to keep the action focused. When you see a movie like “Die Hard,” you immediately want to know how it will end. Will the hero defeat the terrorists or will the terrorists win in the end?
When you watch a movie like “Everybody Wants Some!” there’s no sense of direction, focus, or change whatsoever. It’s just one scene after another of college kids having fun. Despite the critical acclaim, it’s boring to watch from a story teller’s point of view because there is no story. There’s just a lot of happy 70’s memories and that’s it.
Watch “Everybody Wants Some!” to see how the lack of foreshadowing and conflict drains the life out of any story. Without a flawed hero striving to achieve a goal, without a mentor teaching the hero a new skill, without a theme guiding the story, without an ally mirroring the hero’s own goals, there’s nothing. “Everybody Wants Some!” is a strange movie that promises nothing, leads nowhere, and finishes on a simple, dull note.
Why critics found this movie worthwhile is a mystery since audiences apparently didn’t like it as much as the critics did. For an example of lifeless story telling, watch “Everybody Wants Some!” The biggest challenge will simply be keeping your eyes open the whole time without your mind wandering off.
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