this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Entertainment
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It depends on what you mean by tonal shift.
“The Prestige” is a popular film, but I didn’t like it. The film starts as story about stage magic. The film promises there is no magic, everything is a trick. It then switches to a story with magic. I kept waiting for it to be a trick. I don’t know if this counts as a tonal shift.
Comedy in the Avengers movies maybe doesn’t count as a tonal shift because it happens so fast. It’s an action film, there’s a quick joke, then back to the action. It’s done this way on purpose and it’s done well. Contrast “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”. In that film there’s a scene where Poe Dameron is leading an attack against an enemy ship. The tone is dramatic action. Suddenly he interrupts the action with a prank phone call. Instead of being one line and going back to the action it goes on for maybe a minute. I think this is a shift in tone and it made the film worse.
“Breaking Bad” started as a drama/dark comedy. Does trying to do both count as shifting tone? It had trouble with the dark comedy bits, they ended up as awkward and unfunny. Later seasons focused on the drama and the show was better for it.
On the other hand “Barry” was one of the best TV shows ever made, and it straddled comedy and drama the whole time.
My final answer is: audiences like a tonal shifts executed well, but dislike a tonal shift done poorly.
This is definitely my answer, too.
I can't help but think of a conversation I once had as part of a creative writing community, where we were talking about stuff like tonal shifts, genre shifts, and so on. It started because someone was writing a story that started as one genre and then switched to a very different one halfway through. The general conclusion was that while this can be done well, and be very compelling when it is, more often than not, it's done badly.
Massive shifts in tone or genre can completely ruin the pacing of the story, because just as the audience is getting into the flow of one thing, they're suddenly jerked out of it to go into a different direction. It's like accelerating up to maximum speed and then suddenly slamming on the brakes so you can change direction: sure, it's unexpected, but nobody in that car likes being thrown forward to smack their head on the dashboard or have their seatbelt cut into their neck. I think that's the issue Star Wars: The Last Jedi had. The dramatic tension in the attack against the enemy ship (a fast-paced scene) comes to a very jarring halt because of the sudden shift to the prank call comedy, which then continues for a whole minute, a much slower pace for the scene. The fact that Poe has time to mess around for a whole minute detracts from the sense that it's a vitally important mission.
It also collides with an audience issue: the audience for genre/tone #1 will start reading/watching/playing because they're promised genre/tone #1, and they can get pretty grumpy about that being changed without warning - especially if they actively dislike genre/tone #2. They will feel like they've been lied to and tricked into consuming something they would have known in advance they wouldn't enjoy if they'd known it would switch to genre/tone #2 halfway through. Meanwhile, the audience for genre/tone #2 will skip the film/book/game because they think it's about genre/tone #1, and so won't even know there's something in it that would appeal to them. The only audience that will be satisfied is one that likes both #1 and #2, which depending on the genres/tones, can massively reduce the potential audience. And even the ones that like both won't be happy if the two are smooshed together in ways that aren't satisfying or don't make sense.
The only "magic" in the Prestige is the cloning device, which I feel fits with the theme. Actual magic would allow for him to just teleport, but he has to make do with cloning himself and killing the original.