LJ Idol Presents:

This made me think of an older Cracked podcast I listened to the other day on my way home, in which they were discussing the timing of movies and why those scripts need to be written a certain way to gain production funding and to have a chance of being popular with the public. Supposedly there's this timing formula where people watching/listening to a story of that length need certain things to happen at certain times - i.e., by 15 minutes in there needs to be something that changes the hero/protagonist personally; at 60 minutes, a big action scene or when you know the couple is going to get together; 80-90 minutes in, the low point in the hero's life/experience where all hope seems lost; etc. Which is to say why novels sometimes don't have the same things in the movie, because of timing issues, and why some deleted scenes you think "gee, they should have left that in!" are actually cut out - to meet that formula.