Cirrylius' Outer Planes as Movies, now in full thread format to prevent thread derail

[Jurai]

I once had to make this kind of infodump to a group of stoner gamers in college. Things being what they were, I described each one as being trapped inside a particular genre of movie, with all the attendant conventions and tropes becoming more or less forces of physics:smallbiggrin:

Outlands: a documentary
Beastlands: the kind of animal documentary they show to eighth graders
Abyss & Pandemonium: horror movie
Celestia: Lifetime TV with a fair dollop of adventure movie
Bytopia: whatever gossipy stories the settlers of the old west told each other before they left
Ysgard: action movie, glorious war movies
Acheron: gritty depressing war movies

-the discussion mostly broke up at that point to discuss finer divisions of genre and individual movies as planes with more complicated natures, but I'd like to think I got something across to them:smallredface:

Elysium: Memorial Biopic
Beastlands: Animal Documentary
Arborea: Party Comedy
Ysgard: Glorious War Movie
Limbo: Dada Comedy
Pandemonium: Suspenseful Horror Movie
Abyss: Brutal Horror Movie
Carceri: Prison Drama
Gehenna: Will Ferrell Comedy Cringe Comedy
Baator: Courtroom Drama
Acheron: Gritty War Movie
Mechanus: Videotaped Device Assembly Instructions
Arcadia: Children's Television of the 1970s
Mount Celestia: Children's Television of the 1980s
Bytopia: Industry Documentary (a la How It's Made)
Outlands: A movie marathon of all genres.

DISCUSS!

[Cirrylius]

*glances around*

Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but the idea doesn't seem to have caught on:smalltongue:

[Jurai]

Well, 'tis better it not catch on than to catch black lightning from Afroakuma.

[Eldan]

Elysium could be a travel documentary. You konw one in the style of "These islands are very beautiful, etc." Also, Baator is 1984 with more magical weather.

[Cirrylius]

Well, 'tis better it not catch on than to catch black lightning from Afroakuma.

...black lightning notwithstanding.

Anyway, I wasn't suggesting it should be a topic. That was kind of the point of the part at the end- even at the time it'd been obvious that trying to match in-Movieverse genre conventions wouldn't allow for much flexibility, not to mention the constant temptation to assign movies due to plot and content instead of convention. I think I realized that when someone blurted out HUMAN CENTIPEDE for one of the lower planes and I had to ask myself if there were really enough subgenres of tortureporn to go around.

It was the attempt to explain how the outer planes are physically and narratively different because they are fundamentally ideas that sparked my memory. I was just sharing an anecdote.:smallbiggrin:

[Jurai]

Yes, but it caught my interest as a topic to pursue, so it's now a separate thread rather than a derailing hazard.

[Cirrylius]

Oh. Fair enough.


Elysium could be a travel documentary. You know one in the style of "These islands are very beautiful, etc."

My kneejerk reflex is to say Elysium is whatever children's TV genre Sesame Street is- not because it's Stupid Good or anything, but because it stresses the importance of small-scale tolerance, cooperation, and kindness over larger, loftier goals.