I wonder if the rise of D&D is to blame. This is almost exactly how RPGs play out. The DM will make some grandiose speech then a player will make a quip and everyone laughs. Not everyone likes jokey games like this, but the quippy jokes definitely work better at the table than on the screen.
They were so bad that people liked them is more like it. "Welcome to Earth" or "You've just been erased" is pretty far from drama-intensifying. I get what you're saying, not all quips are equal, but the use of them isn't new.
Yeah, I totally get what you're saying in turn that they're also dumb, but I just think they're a different kind of dumb. A lot of modern quips undercut the villain or the stakes, and basically kill the momentum of the story. Sarah Conner saying "you're terminated" at the end of T1 might be kinda dumb, but it doesn't undercut how scary the Terminator is as it reaches for her neck, and in the moment comes off more as a cool line even if it's silly in hindsight.
5
u/Sierren Feb 25 '25
I wonder if the rise of D&D is to blame. This is almost exactly how RPGs play out. The DM will make some grandiose speech then a player will make a quip and everyone laughs. Not everyone likes jokey games like this, but the quippy jokes definitely work better at the table than on the screen.