Misused: Impossible Mission

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this — it looks like a trope that was launched without sufficient (any?) time in YKTTW. Or, to quote Inkblot here, "The description's just a confusing list of related tropes. It needs to be cleaned up."

I think the problem is twofold:

First, the trope itself reads like a story structure — an assignment, a planning session, a caper, a psuedo-crisis, and a resolution. I guess it's meant to be a narrative pattern like The Hero's Journey, but I'm not entirely sure this one is universal enough to be a trope.

Second, it appears that most inbound wicks for this page are using it wrong, as an alias for Impossible Task instead.

I'm not sure what to do with Impossible Mission, though I'm tempted to just shoot it. It certainly doesn't seem to be thriving, and I suspect the fuzzy definition and misuse makes it hard to salvage.

Your thoughts?

—R.J.

That is a really vague definition and name.

Yes, it's rather characteristic of an earlier era of TV Tropes, when naming rules didn't exist and descriptions, for all their brevity, often didn't stay objective or on point.

I agree, what the hell is trope supposed to be? It's so vague and undefined that I don't anything here is worth saving. I also think it should be shot and have done.

The way I get it is it is an episode of movie that basically channels Oceans Eleven or Mission Impossible and have to complete a really hard mission or heist with a lot of buildup and everyone getting a job to do, at the end of the episode they do it.

Honestly something like that is everywhere from Star Trek Deep Space Nine to GTA San Andreas. And this is woefully underused if that is the case.

edited 1st Feb '15 11:02:40 PM by Memers

Part of the problem is the name itself — it's been misused too many times as a catchall for "ridiculously difficult task," even though the trope (assuming it's tropeworthy) would not apply.

I'm still not convinced this is tropeworthy, but at a minimum it needs a name change.

—R.J.

Its kind of a preexisiting term for these types of plots, even Whos Line Is It Anyway named their game after this style of plot. I could see a rename to Impossible Mission Plot or something.

A vast majority entries fall under Heist Film or a spy variant of Heist Film though.

I'm still inclined to say shoot it.

—R.J.

Oh I think it could be sent back to YKTTW as the page itself is horrible, the concept itself is a trope.

This

The execution itself sucks, but from what I can tell, I think this page is meant to relate to any plots that fit the "team of experts" setup that Mission Impossible, The A-Team, Leverage, Burn Notice, and a couple of others work on.

Is it possible to combine this with Heist Film, since they both follow the same approximate formula? Quite often these appear as parodies of the Heist Film. EDIT: Or they just are a Heist Film.

edited 18th Feb '15 2:13:49 PM by Wutaz

Its a trope that is used in Heist Film. It is also used in undercover/spy shows like Inglourious Basterds and Mission Impossible as well as some military movies and most video games with multiple characters that work as a team on one objective but are played or played with separately and such.

Like Mass Effect 2 would be this I think but it is not a Heist Film.

edited 18th Feb '15 2:51:04 PM by Memers

I think the important factor there is that the crime story is more of a style of conflict resolution than a genre, a collection of various story beats and moments. That's why the same elements from say, espionage and theft or whatever can be similar. Or hell, really, it just comes down to the fact that covert organizations use plenty of similar tactics and avoid similar issues.

War films about special forces with teams made up of hand picked soldiers as well as counter-terrorism teams like Ghost In The Shell follow this but only for specific episodes built around the entire team follow everything.

The important things are

• the team is hand picked with each person having a specific special ability.
• Team leader usually comes to recruit in person, if it's a film. Series then the recruit thing is a backstory.
• The big event happens and everyone plays their role in it.
• the mission could not have been done without every single member of the team.
• There is very often a traitor in the mix who comes to light near the end of the mission especially if it's a spy or military film.

edited 1st Mar '15 7:05:58 AM by Memers

Seems like The Caper or The Con, which are already fairly close to each other as it is.

And what would that have to do with the name "Impossible Mission"?

—R.J.

A side trope to those actually, Impossible Mission would be more Spy, counterterrorism and military style version of Heist Film.

Heist Film itself is a full on genre though but Mission Impossible clones did not quite get that far.

As an example the Suicide Mission in Mass Effect 2 is not The Caper, The Con, or even a Heist but it does quite follow what I would say is the Impossible Mission trope.

edited 1st Mar '15 10:04:08 AM by Memers

I'd definitely agree on that there. As said, I think this trope is about the "Team of Specialists carrying out a mission" format, which can cover both espionage, military, heists, and so forth.

Maybe it can be salvaged as a supertrope, but I strongly believe it needs to be renamed at a minimum.

—R.J.

Clock is set.

What are we counting down to?

—R.J.

I think supertrope here is the best option, but it does need a better name.

We need to determine: What is the supertrope about?

Missions that can be only solved by a team of varied specialists? Seemingly-impossible missions that are solved in every episode? Or something else?

Varied team of specialists tackling a seemingly impossible task seems to be the answer to me.

edited 27th Apr '15 12:56:08 AM by Prime_of_Perfection

I have no idea what would be a good name for it, the current does make it sound spy film exclusive so making it a supertrope would probably guarantee the need for a rename.