When you write a story, be it a book, play, movie, whatever, as the author there are certain things you can and cannot control.

Things you CANNOT control: your story staying relevant, the way people interpret your story, the things people want to see happen with your characters (hello fanfic), basically anything involving how other people react to your story.

Things you CAN control: literally EVERYTHING that happens IN THE STORY.

And I understand, I really do, that sometimes when you are writing, scenes just kind of occur. But as the author, you can ultimately adjust those scenes or scrap them altogether if they somehow damage the narrative.

Because as a reader and as a movie watcher, nothing pisses me off more than a scene that just abso-fucking-lutely ruins what could otherwise be a great story. Especially when, in less than a minute, I can come up with a solid alternative to said stupid choice that would have worked just as easily without turning the story into a shit show.

This happens a lot. Way too often, in fact. So I’m going to bitch about the most recent one to catch my ire. (That’s more of an audible pun… sorry.)

*spoilers for Passengers following*

Apparently in Passengers, which I was excited to see, dude-man wakes up early due to a glitch or some shit, but purposefully wakes space-woman up out of her deep space sleep just so he won’t be lonely. Also he was apparently lurker-watching the sleeping passengers and became fixated on her. And it fucking sucks. He didn’t have to wake her up, he just didn’t want to be alone, which okay, I get, nobody wants to live like that, but he just condemned her to the same shit. Reviews apparently prefer the word “creepy” when talking about this movie, so…

Anything, anything different could have been done here. There was some glitch that woke her up. Or her vitals were dropping and the computers couldn’t fix it, and if he didn’t wake her up she would die. Or he was sick and needed someone to help him and she was a doctor. Or something on the ship needed a minimum of two people to accomplish. The AI went wonky and he needed her help because she was good with computers. Something. Anything. Fuck’s sake.

Some valid fucking reason for him to have woken her up, then continue with the drama, let her be pissed that he woke her, and eventually get over is as she comes to accept that he did it because he had a fucking reason to do it. Not have her come to accept it because otherwise she’ll be all alone if she doesn’t. Then there can be the struggles of whatever deep space shit they have to deal with to continue on with the movie.

Dammit all to hell.