An Open Letter To Writers: Please Stop Being Lazy

Before I get into the lengthy letter itself, let me address the reader. Going forward there will be seriously large spoilers for the anime Ajin, the Fox TV series Gotham and the movie Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, in that order. I have to go into detail to explain how the writing was so pointlessly lazy. So if you haven’t seen any of those and don’t want them spoiled, skip this article.

Dear writers of nerd-focused visual entertainment:

I think it is long past time to stop using pointlessly lazy writing to drive plot or action forward. And please don’t try to tell me it doesn’t happen — below I will detail a few examples of some of the recent wave of such abuses of your audience’s intelligence. And I’m not talking about super-specific inside baseball stuff, like “Hey, US sub conning towers didn’t have those types of masts in WWII!” Sure, I would rather that didn’t happen, but I will likely not notice it along with anyone who isn’t a truly obsessed WWII sub fanatic.

No, I mean plain, everyday simple knowledge gaps and logic holes that make your otherwise supposedly bright heroes seem like idiots (or worse, the people around them that support them seem like complete morons — what I call the Cops/Soldiers/Security Always Do Dumb Things plot device trope).

Let’s start with the otherwise excellent Netflix anime series Ajin. This show sets up with the premise that 17 years prior to the story time the world discovered the existence of people eventually called Ajin, who were immortal by way of being able to resurrect within a few seconds of dying. Some of these beings (no longer considered human) could use this power to manifest a physical creature, invisible to non-Ajins, called a “black ghost” that looks like variations on a loosely wrapped mummy’s bandages, if they were all black.

In the last episode of the series, the main bad guy, Sato, goes up against what he describes as the best fighting force in Japan, the national police anti-terrorism force the Special Assault Team. He staged things so they would show up, since he believes they are better fighters than the Japanese Defense Force, having actual combat experience in fighting terrorists, where the JDF has none. This is important — he picks them because they are the most experienced. They happen to also be a police force.

He even accounts for the fact that they have instructions on how to stop an Ajin — just keep killing him before he regenerates. And that is what they do, in a very well-scripted rotating series of squad double or triple taps to the center mass, and it works like a charm, until the sniper Sato had put in place starts picking them off. Once they drop the gurney he was on, the regular shootings stop long enough for Sato to regenerate (a minor quibble — a well-trained force would have kept shooting him while others dealt with the sniper). And that’s where the dumb takes over.

Sato is laying on the gurney in full clothes, without having been frisked or searched, with a Bluetooth headset clearly visible to all SAT members, still in his ear — and a sawed off shotgun hidden in his overalls. Seriously?

Sure, the SAT had special instructions on how to deal with Sato the Ajin, but Sato the terrorist combatant would still have been treated like any other — stripped, searched and all possible weapons and communications removed. Whatever else they were told to do, the SAT squad was at its core a police force. This is one of the worst examples of the Cops/Soldiers/Security Always Do Dumb Things trope, made even more egregious because the SAT team was set up to be excellent at what they do. Except basic police work, I guess.

That aside, I still strongly recommend checking out Ajin. It is otherwise well written, and the main character is a very complex, not altogether sympathetic young man. And that made this lazy writing so much the worse.

Moving on to Gotham, which has become (OK, some say always was) a treasure trove of lazy writing. This may be true, but I will focus on one thing in the latest episode. Currently a former police detective, Jim Gordon is being held in lockup at the Gotham PD headquarters (I can’t say precinct, because so far it seems this enormous city only has the one) for his own safety as the show’s version of Azrael is hunting him down. During a discussion with Captain Barnes (the always good Michael Chiklis) the power goes out in the building. It being Gotham and all buildings being gothy and dark, it gets really dark inside even though it is daylight outside. And, oh yeah, because no emergency generator kicks in. Not even any emergency battery-powered door lights. Nada, zip, zilch — darkness. All so Azrael’s attack can look even more Gothamy.

While I haven’t been able to find a citing of the first use of electrical emergency power in mission-critical municipal buildings, the Uniform Building Code which had such requirements dates back to at least 1976. Sure, Gotham is a mish-mash of time periods, but mostly in design and aesthetic. The technology is thoroughly modern — cops use Glocks and people have cell phones. It could be argued that the Gotham PD headquarters hasn’t been brought up to code, but that seems like a stretch, in a city where the PD’s budget has been regularly supplemented by graft and corruption payoffs for decades. At least Gotham has a few cops with a flashlight at easy reach, so that’s something.

Seriously, Azrael’s attack would have been even more impressive and showcased his superhuman speed, strength and agility if it had happened in bright light and the cops could do nothing about it. But (sips tea), that’s none of my business.

Finally we get to the most egregious example of lazy writing I’ve seen in probably decades, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Where to begin with this movie? From the stupid “Martha? Martha! Best bros!” reason for ending the actual title fight, to the completely unnecessary “I’m going to almost drown getting the spear! No, I’m the one going to almost drown getting the spear!” waste of time scene that did nothing to advance the plot (other than someone grabbed the spear) and nothing at all to advance the characters (we know they love each other, come on), this movie is rife with bad writing. But I will stick to just two.

First up, bad research. Bruce Wayne/Batman goes through a whole bunch of World’s Greatest Detective moves early on to find out who is behind a series of criminal activities, when he only has the name “The White Portuguese” to go on. Turns out, after much skulduggery, he discovers it is not a person, but a ship! Which he could have figured out in about a second using a basic Google search.

All ship arrivals and departures are logged by the local port authority and/or harbormaster. This used to be published in the local paper of record, but is now generally available online. So even though he wouldn’t have confirmation, it should have been an option to explore the minute Bruce first heard the name. Assuming the World’s Greatest Detective knew how to use Google.

But wait, you say, it was a ship running cargo for Lex, so he clearly paid people off to hide it! Well, that isn’t in the movie, so thanks for making stuff up to apologize for bad writing, but even if it was the case, it would have taken two seconds of throwaway dialogue to establish that — Alfred (at a computer): “It doesn’t appear in any shipping registry, sir.” Bruce: “Someone with deep pockets must have paid off the harbormaster and port authority officials.” And… end scene!

Second, the final battle and Superman’s “sacrifice.” Doing something completely out of character and astonishingly illogical just to try to recreate a death scene from the comic book appearance of Doomsday is astoundingly bad writing. First problem with this battle: Batman had two options when Doomsday fell to Earth on an island — bring the spear to him (uninhabited island) or bring him to the spear (empty industrial district next to a very inhabited city). Wrong choice, Bats.

But worse is the destruction of Doomsday. Wonder Woman should have plunged that spear into Doomsday (or a combo of Wonder Woman and Batman), not Superman. She could have done it with the free hand that wasn’t holding the lasso. Or Bats could have started it and Wondie driven it home with her super strength. Neither would have been hurt by exposure to kryptonite.

I’ve read arguments that such a move would not have been true to Superman’s character, that he wouldn’t have put those two in danger when he could face it himself. Even if that is the case (which I doubt), it is completely against character for both Wonder Woman and Batman. Neither one of them would have let Superman risk himself and — much more importantly — the mission to stop Doomsday and save the cities, by that idiotic and pointless sacrifice. Certainly not any version of Wonder Woman or Batman ever in a comic or in animation.

Good writing solution? Make Batman too injured to do it (he is human after all) and make Doomsday punch Diana so hard he knocks her into the inhabited part of the city, injuring civilians. Supes realizes Doomsday has to die now, before he can hurt more innocents, and, boom, logical reason and better motivation for the sacrifice.

Thank you for making it this far with me, writers, and I hope I have reached you with this entreaty to stop taking the lazy path to achieve a plot point. Treating us nerds as people who don’t care as long as the fan service is there is an insult.