Oh god I hate it sooooo much 🤬

They absolutely ruined Tomb Raider with a schlecht “survivor” reboot and then did a movie version of it. Ugh!
That was a couple of years ago now but it still stings. They destroyed the character.

What had been a woman with competance, style, skill, agency and buckets of badassery was turned into a mere victim. A pathetic reactive character in her own aeries, toting a crappy bow and arrow because that was popular at the time from Hunger Games.

All survivor genre stuff in general though is weak and crappy.there are so many series that focus on that aspect of a character.
Everyone “survives” to varying extents, some a lot more than others, but that should never be elevated to a prime character trait, unless it's a story about a drowning rat🤣

I quite enjoyed Vincent Price in The Last Man On Earth, which I think qualifies as survival fiction. I don't recall him having a bow or any arrows mind. Then there was The Omega Man with Charlton Heston which was based on the same book. Then Will Smith did one using the actual book title, I Am Legend. I preferred the first two.
I suppose most zombie stuff is survival fiction and they always bored me to tears, apart from I Walked With A Zombie (1943) - none of your brain eating in that one.

Ironscarf wrote:
I quite enjoyed Vincent Price in The Last Man On Earth, which I think qualifies as survival fiction. I don't recall him having a bow or any arrows mind. Then there was The Omega Man with Charlton Heston which was based on the same book. Then Will Smith did one using the actual book title, I Am Legend. I preferred the first two.
I suppose most zombie stuff is survival fiction and they always bored me to tears, apart from I Walked With A Zombie (1943) - none of your brain eating in that one.

I put those in a very different category- Post apolitical survival thrillers.

The protagonists aren't defined by a trait of being a “survivor” in those, they're action heroes. They have a lot of agency and competence, they're not just getting by.
A “survivor” is a far more pathetic character.

So it seems like you have an issue with people struggling with the elements and nature and all and a medium somehow making that look badass? I don't know, I never really had the same issue, if anything, action heroes make me cringe who easily shoot their way through enemy bases and all. But since getting sorta “primal in spirit” was a huge selling point of survival in the first Predator film and as I've heard it's a main theme in a more recent one (haven't seen that one). I guess being competent as a member of a tribe, from an underdeveloped culture doesn't necessarily count as the same as Jack or Jill from New York drinking their own piss under a bamboo tree but still, the 1st Predator film did make the very thing you took an issue with kinda look badass, so I'd like your take on it.

Your know what I hate, stories that pit the main characters against each other. Like they have to betray others and make“alliances” and I really hate it when people start to emulate that in real life. Terrible genre

lothar wrote:
Your know what I hate, stories that pit the main characters against each other. Like they have to betray others and make“alliances” and I really hate it when people start to emulate that in real life. Terrible genre

Ugh. Me too!

Subset of that is having two protagonists battle each other (especially in superhero genres and in shonen anime). It is ridiculously contrived and always feels like the writers are shut-in teenage-brained but middle-aged super geeks arguing about “who'd win.” They really have to stretch to come up with reasons for the fight, but they have to make it happen. It's the worst form of fan service, imo.

I am, however, a fan of a secret bad guy in the midst of the good guys all along – provided there are clues. Extra points if bad guy turns against his original bad side to join good guys after hanging out with them awhile.

I hate it when isekai is just a cheap excuse so the writer could use our time's lingo and references in a middle ages fantasy setting and otherwise it's completely irrelevant who the protagonist was in this life (he or she carries over memories from a past life but no trauma or personality flaws he'd have to overcome and also no useful skills or knowledge that would affect things in their new life). That's why I don't even consider a lot of stuff isekai that gets the label (and honestly, who needs AI with an industry that already has this little originality?)

11 isekai releases (from the Winter season if I'm correct, and some of the titles:)
The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World
Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill
Farming Life in Another World
Handyman Saitou in Another World
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement

I never resonated well with classic fantasy settings for anime either, but what really irritates me is when the show's trying to make it relatable by filling it with MMORPG menus and gamer talk. But some people are into these, so to each their own.

You know Robinson Crusoe and The Most Dangerous Game were good. Even Romancing the Stone and Allen Quartermain movies as far as the survival aspects go, but it really gets tiresome when every walk in the desert turns into no water death marches with mirages. Once you've seen something like Road to Morocco or the jungle march in Hot Shots part Deux, you just can't see the survival cliches and not start laughing.

InkyMoondrop wrote:

11 isekai releases (from the Winter season if I'm correct, and some of the titles:)
The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World
Campfire Cooking in Another World with my Absurd Skill
Farming Life in Another World
Handyman Saitou in Another World
Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement

There was a soap opera entitled Another World and regular people waking up and finding themselves awash in daytime soap opera cliches can be very funny. See the John Candy movie Delirious That's survival for laughs and that's all its worth anymore.

InkyMoondrop wrote:
So it seems like you have an issue with people struggling with the elements and nature and all and a medium somehow making that look badass? I don't know, I never really had the same issue, if anything, action heroes make me cringe who easily shoot their way through enemy bases and all. But since getting sorta “primal in spirit” was a huge selling point of survival in the first Predator film and as I've heard it's a main theme in a more recent one (haven't seen that one). I guess being competent as a member of a tribe, from an underdeveloped culture doesn't necessarily count as the same as Jack or Jill from New York drinking their own piss under a bamboo tree but still, the 1st Predator film did make the very thing you took an issue with kinda look badass, so I'd like your take on it.

Hahaha, not at all.
That's “survival” rather than survivor. Different again.

It's my fault, I didn't explain it well.

It's a relatively new genre, the ideas is basically “victim” as hero. If that means anything?
A person who is manly a victim, who has to survive a terrible situation and that's yor hero in this genre.
Older movies that fit into this are not Robinson Crusoe or Predator, Omega Man or whatever, this would be more like focusing on Jamie Lee Curtis's character in Friday the 13th. If she was the chief protagonist and the full focus was on her and not Michael or any other victims.

This is a genre that elevate victimhood to sainthood.

If the first Predator film was this sort of story then the full focus would be on the rebel woman that's captured from the camp.

So Robinson Crusoe if Friday was the protagonist.
“Most Dangerous Game” still fits or at least the original story because in that the protagonist is kind of pathetic having to learn as he went. Just a sap in the wrong place who barely survives by his wits. How about “the Naked Prey”? Where the guy is naked and alone and hunted?

Jamie Lee Curtis was the protagonist totally in “Halloween ” the first movie is all about her victimhood. That franchise is known for that as opposed to have it be about killer like Freddie and Jason.

Seems like a specific application of the action vs. reaction plots. If so, I do agree that an entirely reactive character is boring af. (Arthur Dent and Rincewind are the biggest exceptions as the best reactive characters in existence – although neither are victim characters.)

I like when a main character starts as reactive but changes to active. Most superhero stories are like that. A character has his life disrupted and has to react, but then chooses an active role. A lot of fantasy is that way too. Minor conflict followed by call-to-action.

I think people have trouble writing “active” characters because it's hard for so many of us to understand the motivation to choose adventure/peril over comfort.

Whodunnits are fun because the detective is inevitably an active character driving the story. The culprit often becomes reactive to try to cover tracks. And a reactive antagonist can be a lot scarier than an active one. A villain who is not controlling the narrative is a dangerous animal. (So, I guess for me, I like when protagonist and antagonist swap driving forces partway into the narrative.)

The Last of Us is not quite working for me as a TV show. Yes, it is because there is too much focus on representing everyone instead of telling any sort of story. There is just a very vague “we have to get to the cave” goal in mind.

What I do like about it, is that whenever there is a big survival decision to be made, they spend most of an episode flashing back to a part of a character's history that explains why they are making the dumb choice. Even if it is just why Ellie does not abandon the Mandalorian when he is hurt, or simply why they don't open a certain door when they visit Ron Swanson. These filler episodes are by far the highlight of the 9 episodes, the rest is pretty forgettable. At least it is better than Andor.

@ozoneocean One of my dream projects would be to do a series about Rogue and her months/years in the Savage Land. I would love to see a spin-off of Pinky TA that explored her years in the wasteland before she joined the military. Tie it into key points of the main series, where we see how Pinky gained a certain skill, or how things went badly when she made the wrong choice.

Yeah, The Last of Us didn't do it for me either. I never played the games and I kinda enjoyed the show, I'm sure it's rock solid as an adaptation, but it wasn't the extraordinary thing you'd expect based on reviews. It obviously dwells in the same slow-burning drama with a heavy atmosphere style The Mandalorian offered, giving it a little Logan-style badass, since young girls need to get extra badass when paired up with older father figures… It's definitely a more relatable post-apocalyptic tale with some originality and I love that such games are written and made (even if it bored me to death how Death Stranding was more like a huge cutscene interrupted with a few parts where you got to walk from A to B), but these articles just started popping up on my feed about how this scene is the most brutal death shown on TV, or how this other one is the most dramatic moment ever, that will leave you in tears and I was like… wow. These people must really have low standards. I'll watch the second season when it comes out. It's the kind of show I have no serious problems with, but also nothing about it stands out for me as memorable and in the pace everything comes out and gets ultra-hyped, in 5-6 years, people will barely even remember.