@cattlebattle said:
Well, unless they were going to have an apocalyptic event with characters dying...they did need the simulation format
Yeah, but the simulation format doesn't necessarily require the cliche of "it was just a dream," as I describe above.
I don' know, I for one enjoyed the episode, I thought all the points I made about each characters development was good...and I'll tell you right now, even after I did figure out it wasn't real (the point where Superboy and M'gann are addressing their classmates in costume at Happy Harbor High..I figured it was too soon for a reveal like that) I was still at the edge of my seat to see what happened, then found the ending great as we're left with Miss Martian balling in Captain Marvels arms with a great look of concern on everyones' face as Megans powers have been revealed to be more than originally expected....Plenty of shows use common science fiction tropes such as the "dream" episode, its just how well its written and the lasting effects is what it comes down to.
It's not that I disagree with you that there was character development, I just feel like you're saying the episode as a whole was good because, other than the really bad parts, it had some good parts. As I'm more critiquing it's bad parts than the episode as a whole—especially since those bad parts are easily avoided—I don't think your points about character reveals necessarily conflict with my perspective. Remember, my original critique was "it was just a dream = lame." It was not "there was nothing good at all in this episode."
I still believe, however, that everything that was of worth in this episode (the megan reveal, the character development, the JLA cameos, the fight sequences) could have been handled in a number of other scenarios or even with the exact same setup but with an up-front reveal. They weren't significant enough to warrant the cliche. Also, this episode didn't affect the status quo of the show at all—which is the primary problem with "just a dream"—even if it offered a few small new perspectives to the viewer on the characters.
I mean a well excepted "dream" episode in cartoon history is "Perchance to Dream" a Batman episode, everyone loves that episode due to its a look at Bruce Waynes life if he never became Batman.......basically an alternate, what if tale. Same premise for this episode, If The League falls in combat would the Team be able to step up...even in the face of everything getting worse
Again, the concern is not generally with the concept of "dream-space" sequences, but with the specific cliche of "it was just a dream," which is a unique play on viewer expectations. If you want examples of dream-scape tales being told well and avoiding this trope, look at the works of Neil Gaimen: Mirror Mask, Sandman, and Coraline to name a few. The difference is that the viewer, and often the characters, are aware what's going on so the author isn't laying on false tension for a "gotcha" twist at the end. The author is instead allowing a little dramatic irony to inform the situation so that the audience always knows the true stakes of any given situation. For a story that full-on does the "it was just a dream" twist and yet manages to succeed despite this, check out Pan's Labyrinth.
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