#show format

Data collected 15 Dec 2021 to 06 Jan 2022, Sample Size of 450

What is your opinion on the show's monster of the week format?

Unfavorable - 3.6%

Lean Unfavorable - 20.0%

Neutral - 33.8%

Lean Favorable - 30.0%

When I sat down to write this I thought I had a much clearer idea of how to write this than I did, and quickly found out that not only the show format but the format of this blog would be difficult to nail down. For the blog, I’ll try to keep it simple: just text posts of ideas mainly focusing on Characters, episodes, character and story arcs, etc. (with the occasional actual script if I can manage it). As far as the show goes, here’s where the brain storming comes in. 

1) Choose your own adventure

Here’s where it gets interesting. When thinking about video game related visual media (TV, Movies, comics etc), The main difference between these two mediums is the aspect of choice. In Video games you choose pretty much everything you do. which way to go which people to talk to, how to approach enemies, etc. In visual media, you are primarily receptive to the message the director envisions and how the artists bring that to life. and in video games as well there are definitely elements/messages that the directors of the game want you to receive, elements you have no choice in. The task then becomes how to create an element of choice while maintaining the cohesiveness of story telling and the integrity of the messages communicated by the Game director. 

To do this, consider the aspects of Breath of the wild in which you have no choice......

On the large scale, there’s very little. Other than the Great Plateau, there’s not much you can’t skip. However, contained within the great plateau, there is a lot of story content. The call to wake up, the description of the Sheikah Slate as something “familiar yet new”, The Old man, the Sheikah Towers Rising, Zelda’s call for help, The Old Man’s quest, shrines, and subsequent History of Hyrule as explained by the king. From there, you can choose to follow the Last King of Hyrule’s Orders to find Impa in Kakariko Villiage, or you can just go wherever. Perhaps here is where we could end the first episode? From here you choose where to go? you can decide to go in the direction of Kakariko village, or choose one of the other cardinal directions and explore. Hyrule Field to the north, to the east would be Kakariko, Faron to the south, and the wasteland/desert to the west. from there episodes would get tricky and here’s where computer animation would most likely come in handy. Each episode could feature link going to each of these places, where the story of each place would remain the same but the equipment he would be wearing could change based on what he had done before then. 

The main problem with this is the same one the game itself has. That being the difficulty of telling a story that is cohesive and has building action. if really the only thing that happens is the equipment changing or the characters acting and reacting in the same way to link and the troubles they have, it gives little to no value to the choices that the viewer is allowed. To give someone a choice and ultimately make that choice meaningless is worse that giving them a choice in the first place when it comes to this kind of media.

So with all that being said, I’m not sure how fond I am of taking the show to that kind of format. I think it would be a pain to produce and a very difficult to write in a way that means something. 

I have another idea of a format for the show, but for now I’m going to save that for another post.