What're Your Guy's Thoughts on These Types of Homages?

[powerplantanimations]

I saw this video with the Akira slide and I've been wondering if people get pulled out of a movie or story when they see something like this? What's your philosophy on them?

For me I honestly don't know where I stand with them lmao. Like on one hand, I think I'd prefer when people reference obscure work the audience won't have any idea where it's from since it's funny seeing people go "IS THAT WHERE THAT CAME FROM!??!".

On the other hand we wouldn't get scenes like "HEEEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" or the bolder chase scene from Indiana Jones which... apparently was taken from Castle of Cagliostro.

I will say, not a fan when shows do a reference that's used excessively (even I'm a little bit "ehhhhhhhhhhh" on certain jokes/references in my comic in retrospect) (like after my first season, I'm cutting down on references so the comic can stand on its own).

[NickRowler]

I have seen people talk about the issues of over referencing media with Star Wars being the biggest victim to this. You don't need to even watch the original film to know stuff like Yoda or Darth Vader because it is so in grained in pop culture. I have also seen some people also not realize a Star Wars reference is a reference. If most scifi space parodies feature things like Lightsabers and spherical space ships, someone might think of these as tropes instead of a reference if they don't know what Star Wars is.

I think I'd prefer when people reference obscure work the audience won't have any idea where it's from since it's funny seeing people go "IS THAT WHERE THAT CAME FROM!??!".

The main downside to this is if you get too obscure you might fall into the Family Guy issue where people have no idea that it's a reference.

[powerplantanimations]

That's actually the goal there for a lot of great shows. Simpsons for example is probably a big one where I'm constantly going "Whoah.... I did not know they take this much from movies I've never heard of" whenever I comeby the source material.

I'm not exactly sure how it's a negative for Family Guy or how it's a trap.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Being on the 'living under a rock' end in terms of pop culture awareness, I personally don't find them too immersion-breaking because even if the source material isn't that obscure, I probably won't know where it came from

I think when that many people do it, by that point it's more of a trope than an homage XD

[darthmongoose]

I like Akira bike slide or Wilhelm scream homages because you don't need to know where they're from and they're not distracting. A Wilhelm scream is just a cheesy scream sound effect, but if you know it's a Wilhelm scream you'll go "Ha! It's a wilhelm scream!"

Like in Steven Universe, there's an episode where Steven completes this obviously staged test the Gems set up to boost his confidence, and then at the end, they all clap for him, and it shows each of the gems clapping one by one. If you know it's an Evangelion homage, it adds a little extra fun with the parallel, but if you don't know, it's still an effective way to show the sort of.... fakeness of the gesture with how weirdly flat and staged it feels, because that's why it was effective in Evangelion. It's a good homage. See also: All the Hitchcock homages in Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, where the highly dramatic and intense film style of Hitchcock is applied to a ridiculous scenario to create a mix of drama and humour that's just excellent.

I'm less of a fan of homages where it's a joke and the funny thing is just... that you recognise the thing, and if you don't recognise the thing, it's just... nonsense. Like when I was a kid, I never got why there were so many characters saying "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me!?" because obviously I hadn't seen Taxi Driver, a movie for adults from many years before I was born, and without context there's nothing inherently funny about somebody saying "you talkin' to me?" in a New York accent... and yet it was in everything, and the joke was literally just "it's a famous line from a film".

[RobertBMarks]

I think it really depends on how well it is integrated into the story. I've seen them done very well, and very poorly.

Funnily enough, for examples, I think I can draw upon Ernest Cline books for both:

• In Ready Player One, Cline fills the book with pop culture references, and makes it very clear where each one is from. Some have criticized this obviousness, but speaking as somebody who has edited books for publication, I'd say Cline got it right by doing this - the world of the novel is stagnant and trapped in the pop culture of the past, and while somebody my age would know what Back to the Future is, a teenager who has never seen the movies might not (and this is a thing one has to think about when writing for a general audience). The end result is that every reference adds to the worldbuilding and the characterization of the narrator, and because it is properly integrated, it feels right.

• In Armada, Cline takes the same approach to pop culture as he does in Ready Player One, and it falls flat on its face...and the reason has everything to do with the worldbuilding. While Ready Player One takes place in a world that is stagnant and living in the past, Armada does not. The end result is dialogue that comes across as artificial and something that no human being would actually say. It's shoehorned in, not integrated at all, and it feels wrong.

So, really, I think integration is the key to making a reference work.

[TroyVSTheWorld]

This is why I like to hear my Wilhelm Scream early in the movie--Smart directors know you gotta have the Wilhelm in every film, but, it removes the viewer from the experience momentarily. It can be jarring, especially in non-comedic, high stake moments. So when it gets done 5 minutes into the film, you don't even have to worry about it anymore. The homage is there, the spirit is maintained, and you haven't really hurt the flow of the film.

[system]

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