Originally Posted by
godisawesome
I think this backs up the idea that a huge chunk of it comes down to EXECUTION; a story should hang together and work well when viewed from its endpoint, even if the first experience through it had u expected twists and turns.
The Red Wedding works perfectly on rewatch because you can see all the flaws, desperation, warning signs, and fatal decisions coming together that put Robb Stark unarmed before a treacherous ally, and how that treacherous ally also doomed himself and bit off more than he could chew even before Arya came knocking/cooking.
A film like The Prestige has an utterly perfect mystery and crazy plot, but also works perfectly on rewatch; the film basically pulls a change-up regarding who it’s protagonist is and flat out deceives the audience in an incredible way on the first watch, but holds together even better on a rewatch.
At the same time, even a somewhat predictable and conventional story can become astounding with excellent execution and perfectly timed if minute differentiations: Avengers Endgame becomes an easy film to understand and predict at a certain point... but that does nothing to stop its appeal, while Greg Weisman comic shows, like Spectacular Spider-Man and Young Justice are arguably more faithful to the comics than the comics are to themselves, and is almost overdosing on familiar tropes... but it works, really, really well.
The problem with some stories is that when viewed backwards... they start to disintegrate.
HIMYM’s ending crashed headlong into the last two seasons which arguably disprovEd its central points while the ending was simultaneously rejecting the ethos of the late two seasons. Basically, the last two seasons either couldn’t have happened the way they did, or the ending and to change.
Dany’s fall in Game of Thrones and Jaime’s relapse to Cersei’s pet both clash with some of the central precepts of the very season they flip back in; Jaime’s rejection of Cersei at the end of the penultimate season and his history with the mad king create a narrative and character arc that can’t suffer the kind of relapse the finale wants, while Dany’s emotional state gets so awkwardly handled that instead of her madness making sense, it just kind of comes from nowhere. There were easy ways to make either outcome for Dany and Jaime work (have Dany’s rampage triggered by the death of one of her dragons on the city, rather than an episode before, and maybe have Jamie come intending to kill Cersei himself to spare her humiliation but make sure it gets done, as an appropriate twisted ending for the two of them.)
The Sequel Trilogy just ends up suffering massively because each film horribly jars with the previous one when viewed backwards, and reflects even worse towards the OT. TFA upended the happy ending of ROTJ, which might be tolerable with a good ending to its story, only for TLJ to come in and upend characterization and drama from TFA (particularly regarding how loathsome Kylo was and if Finn was the male lead, how much spine and humanity Rey had, and Luke’s value as the MacGuffin), before TROS came in and upended some of TLJ’s decisions while still honoring the ones that upended TFA... resulting in a giant mess that basically shoots the OT’s ending like a sad puppy.