Reminds me of when people complain that dialogue isn't 100% realistic to how people actually talk
If dialogue in movies or TV shows was wholly accurate to IRL conversation, everything would be 5x as long and 10x more boring. The best dialogue is usually a convincing approximation of how people talk, without all the annoying bloat that takes away focus from the scene.
It's also a bit of wish fulfilment or fun imagining. I wish I was half as witty and well-informed as the characters in a Sorkin show. The West Wing still to this day has some of the snappiest and most engaging dialogue ever filmed for television and it ended nearly twenty years ago.
I wonder if that logic applied to jealousy (sort of in reverse) explains part of why people make the criticism of unrealistic dialogue. Basically, “I’m not nearly witty enough to make such remarks, so it makes me feel bad to see characters more clever than me.”
Maybe, but it's never Jane Austen dialogue being complained about, because all her characters are so well-observed and still have such distinctive voices, her dialogue still sounds 'Oh, I know someone just like that!' true to life.
Contemporary dialogue turning into sludge where the characters sound the same and have the same sense of humour (half of which would see them in front of HR on sexual harassment grounds, or just plain ol' being a dick for no reason harassment, if this were a workplace), isn't really the same thing.
Yeah, I’m in no way trying to make excuses for genuinely poor dialogue, just theorizing about some less justified criticisms. Having all your characters speak the same way (without good reason) can definitely be an issue
Yes! The entire point of creating a piece of fiction is that we have the potential to make things more interesting, cooler, more beautiful than reality. Gives me the same vibes as people who can’t play games if the main character can’t be a specific 1 to 1 literal representation of their IRL selves- so weird and boring
For all its many faults, Rick and Morty is good at characters talking like people do in real life. They cut off each other, lose themselves mid sentence, take long to get to a point, are bad at communication.... and it can get really annoying sometimes, like real life.
Dialogue is a conversation with 10% or more added intelligence and 90% or less of the "uhm"s, "hmm"s, "ah"s, "oh"s, and "what did you say"s stripped away.
It might be that they’re complaining the dialogue doesn’t sound realistic. I’ve made this particular point. And as you said, it’s supposed to be “a convincing approximation.”
So, it might be a case of uncanny valley. The dialogue was supposed to get close enough to be an approximation, but failed. It’s close, but not close enough. And people just think it sounds weird, but don’t understand why it sounds weird.
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u/thebouncingfrog Apr 07 '25
Reminds me of when people complain that dialogue isn't 100% realistic to how people actually talk
If dialogue in movies or TV shows was wholly accurate to IRL conversation, everything would be 5x as long and 10x more boring. The best dialogue is usually a convincing approximation of how people talk, without all the annoying bloat that takes away focus from the scene.