TV and movies are full of great lines, but many of the best are placed as either openers (“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”) or to punctuate a defining character moment (“So I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse”) or to signal rising tension (“We’re going to need a bigger boat”). Life lesson great lines are often preceded by a moment of silence to ensure the audience focus, followed by another to let the impact land, e.g., “Do or do not, there is no try.”
I love the writing that tosses crazy good lines in the middle of dialog and you either catch it or you don’t.
There’s a new series on Netflix I have playing in the background called “Altered Carbon”. It’s got the high-repeat-excellence of Joel Kinnaman (acting gold from “The Killing”).
Blah, blah, blah story background, blah, blah merc with morality, no more setup.
Our hero rolls up on a dude he has conflicted with a few times and who would rather see him dead than again. Other dude pulls a blaster, points it at our main character and drops some drivelous “I warned you if I ever saw you again..” blah, blah, or “now I’m going to…” blah, blah, and our protagonist grabs the gun out of his hand and educates with “See, if you want to lose a fight, you should talk about it first.”
That’s good writing.
I haven’t been watching closely enough to form a recco for this Neuromancer/Blade Runner/techno-dystopian murder mystery. A lot of the story premise seems rich (except for maybe the rogue, misunderstood, paranoid, second-generation female cop), but I’ve got a couple dozen things in the queue in front of Altered Carbon (including sleep), so it most likely won’t rise above ‘background noise’.
“If you want to lose a fight, you should talk about it first.”