Serendipity Writes the Plot: Difference between revisions

* The limits of CGI regarding the [[Uncanny Valley|depiction of organic shapes and natural surfaces]] is the reason [[Pixar]]'s first feature film was about [[Toy Story (franchise)||toys]]. As the technology improved, they worked their way up to [[A Bug's Life|bugs]], then [[Monsters, Inc.|furry/scaly monsters]], then [[Finding Nemo|fish]], and finally, [[The Incredibles|human]] [[Up (animation)|beings]].

** A horror movie producer couldn't afford decent special effects for the monster. He teams up with the director to use camera tricks to make the monster into [[The Unseen]].

** From the trivia in the movies Imdb entry, "The scene showing the production of the fictional low budget horror film was based on how [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0507932/ Val Lewton] produced ''[[Cat People (film)|Cat People]]'' (1942)."

* Originally, [[Godzilla]] was going to be rendered via claymation for the original 1954 film ''[[Gojira (film)|Gojira]]''. However, due to budget and time restraints, he was portrayed in classic guy-in-rubber-suit fashion and has been so ever since.

* In the ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]],'' the scene with the swordsman involved Indy disarming the man with his whip. But [[Harrison Ford]] was sick with [[Oregon Trail|dysentery]] at the time, and asked if he could just shoot the man, which the final cut had him doing.

*** Not quite. Although it's a fairly low-budget episode (mostly pre-existing sets, and only two additional actors), the blackout gimmick was part of an NYC blackout storyline running through one night of NBC programming. The characters in ''[[Mad About You]]'' knocked out the power, and characters in ''Friends'' and one other show (can't recall which one right now) suffered through it since those shows were all set in New York. The ''[[Seinfeld]]'' folks wouldn't play, though. A better example of this in ''Friends'' would be The One Where No-One's Ready, which, with the exception of the credit sequence, takes place entirely in Monica and Rachel's apartment and features only the main cast. Even the final scene is in a very uncomplicated set with only one additional actor.

* ''[[Star Trek]]'': Originally, going down to the planets involved the crew boarding a shuttle and flying down, but the cost of doing landings would have been too expensive, thus, the transporter was created.

** Played straight with the model used to depict Romulan Warbirds in the original series. A technician apparently dropped the model before filming, and there wasn't time to fix it or come up with a new one, so they used the Klingon Warship's model instead. This led to the conclusion that Klingons and Romulans formed an alliance, with warship sent over to the Romulans and cloaking device sent to the Klingons. Consequences of this action influenced the storyline of the entire franchise forever.

* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' had this, with the character Dax. Jadzia Dax was a "joined species," an alien who was actually two entities sharing one body. Both entities (Jadzia, the "host," and Dax, the "symbiont") were intended to remain on the show for the entire run, but Jadzia's actress Terry Ferrel left the show. The writers killed off Jadzia, but kept Dax, and gave it a new host, Ezri. The suddenness of Jadzia's death and Ezri's arrival worked greatly into the storyline, with Ezri Dax's main conflict being her having to form new relationships with people who'd already been her (Dax's) friends, and in Worf's case, husband.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': The TARDIS was originally going to be a big, magnificent vehicle. Except the show lacked the funding, so they said that it can disguise itself as anything it wants. Then ''that'' turned out to be too expensive, so it stayed as a police call box.

* While not a technical difficulty, during series 3 of ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', Chris Barrie had complained that between his character on that show and the one in [[The Brittas Empire]], he was suffering from 'git overload' and desperately wanted to play someone heroic and likeable for once. The writers took that desire and turned it [[Up to Eleven]] by creating [[The Ace|Ace Rimmer]].

* [[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]] originally was going to have a massive fight scene between the FBI and the central antagonist of the first season, a Terminator called Cromartie. When the budget turned out to be too low for it, the writing team got creative. This resulted in a [[Nightmare Fuel|chilling,]] [[Nothing Is Scarier|minimalistic]] sequence where Cromartie slaughters the FBI agents (mostly off-screen) and tosses their bodies into the hotel swimming pool. All while [[Johnny Cash|Johnny Cash's]] [[Crowning Music of Awesome|''When The Man Comes Around'']] plays...

* In ''[[City of Heroes]]'', you could not initially wear a cape. In real life this is because the developers couldn't figure out how to implement [[No Flow in CGI|decent cape physics.]] In game, new heroes could not wear capes out of respect for Hero 1, who [[Heroic Sacrifice|went on a suicide mission]] to stop the [[Alien Invasion]] that [[Kill'Em All|wiped out the beta.]] The city representative gave a mission where you could read the history of Hero 1 and visit his memorial. Upon completion you get the option to wear a cape.

** By the time ''[[City of Villains]]'' arrived this was a bit of [[The Artifact]]. But Lord Recluse will not let you wear a cape until you prove you're bad enough to go to Paragon City, smash lots of property, take out a chunk of [[Redshirt Army|Longbow]], beat up a hero and take his cape for yourself.

** The gas zombies in [[Dead Rising 2]] are accompanied by green fog because it makes it easier to render the increased amounts of zombies.

* As indicated above, multiple disc games often make certain areas inaccessable after certain points in the plot, to save on space on each disc. Each disc usually has some big event occur at the end of the disc that will remove access to certain side areas that are no longer useful to the plot in the next disc. It's annoying if you needed a certain item for a side quest, but allowing the developers to not have to try and fit the entire world and everything in it on the last disc, freeing them up some space for ending cutscenes, boss data, and the very definite final dungeon.

** A very eerie example was the lack of the World Trade Center in the New York Skyline. Due to memory limitations, the sections of the skybox including the World Trade Center had to be removed, and the creators justified it saying that they had been destroyed in a terrorist attack before the game started. Keep in the mind that the ''[[Harsher in Hindsight|game came out in 2000.]]'' <ref>It's not ''that'' prescient, mind-- people forget this because 9/11 eclipsed it, but Al Qaeda operatives had already attempted to bring the World Trade Center down in 1993, with a truck bomb.</ref>

* ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War|Deus Ex Invisible War]]'': The final level at {{spoiler|Liberty Island}} was frozen over and much of it cut off due to the fact that the console version of the game would not be able to handle swimming and larger maps. The map size is true of every level (though isn't as blatant because they are all new otherwise) and such limitations due to console hardware are ''always'' cited as the game's reasons for failing and hatred from the fanbase.

* ''[[Donkey Kong]]'': The original arcade game had a chubby, mustachioed Mario (then known as Jumpman) wearing a hat and overalls due to technical limitations. The technology at the time would not have been able to show Mario's hair sticking up when he fell, a mustache would be easier to show than a mouth at that resolution, overalls were the only piece of clothing that could also been seen with 1981 graphics, and only square hit boxes were possible. These same traits would latter come to benefit Mario again in his Nintendo64 outings, which have aged considerably better than other early 3D games as a result.