Needs Help: Road Movie

I just ran across this YKTTW discussion from a year ago for a proposed "Cross-Country Tour" trope. It didn't get anywhere, largely due to a heated discussion of whether or not it's a duplicate of the Road Movie and/or Road Trip Episode tropes.

I don't have a strong feeling any way, but I do think there's some sort of gap that's not addressed by either Road Movie or Road Trip Episode — namely, "characters go from point A to point B across a large distance". It might be as simple as expanding Road Movie to cover more than just films, or updating Road Trip Episode to be less series-centric, but I thought it was worth consideration and decided to get some others to ponder it.

Thoughts?

—R.J.

Opening.

I was part of that heated discussion from last year. My opinion at the time was that the idea encapsulated by the trope was already present in Road Movie, which after all is a story centering on traveling from Point A to Point B and what happens along the way, quite often as a means of examining/showcasing the scenery or culture of wherever the work is set.

So my idea was and still is to expand Road Movie to include all media, come up with an appropriate name, and make Road Movie a redirect to the new trope (if we decide to change the name). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a Road Movie in print.

I'd say merge. Call it Road Trip Plot.

Ooh, Road Trip Plot, I like that. I could start a YKTTW. Road Movie would be a redirect to Road Trip Plot, I assume. As would Road Trip Episode.

edited 6th Sep '14 7:58:13 AM by gallium

I like Road Trip Plot, though I'm not entirely sure if merging Road Trip Episode with it is a good idea. Then again, that's only because we already have several other episode-related tropes, and the meta-question is why they're tropeworthy and Road Trip Episode isn't.

—R.J.

Well, that's something to think about—I guess one would have to look at the various "episode specific" tropes and how they're defined and used. Is there a substantive difference between Road Trip Episode, which of course is one episode of a longer work, and Road Trip Plot for when it's the entire plot of the work? Probably.

If no one objects I'll start a YKTTW on Road Trip Plot today, including all the examples listed in Road Movie as well as the examples listed in the old "Cross-Country Tour" YKTTW listed above.

Road Trip Plot works for me.

YKTTW created for Road Trip Plot.

^Link.

Now that I'm poring through examples, "road movie" has already been used for several other genre. The Stand is on there.

A troper in the YKTTW suggests that this is Going to See the Elephant. Thoughts?

Going to See the Elephant is "starting a trip sets the plot in motion" while this is "the story revolves around a trip". I doubt that it's mergeable.

Yeah. Going to see the Elephant is when the destination starts the plot. A lot of times with a Road Trip Plot the destination doesn't matter. It the journey that counts.

So, I've been thinking about this...would the easiest solution be to rename the trope we already have? Change Road Movie to Road Trip Plot (or another name, I guess, after having a crowner) and then sort the items appropriately?

I can get behind that.

—R.J.

Cool.

Any other thoughts? Is a crowner on "rename to Road Trip Plot" appropirate?

I'm not that interested in how to fix things technically, but I very much support merging Road Movie and Road Trip Episode under Road Trip Plot.

So, can somebody hook a crowner for "rename to Road Trip Plot"?

Make a crowner as per How Crowners Work. Then holler a mod using any post in this thread.

Okey dokey, single prop crowner on renaming Road Movie to Road Trip Plot and expanding the trope to all media has been created.

EDIT: crowner here.

edited 2nd Oct '14 3:04:00 PM by gallium

Since "Road Movie" is a standard industry term, I suggest, if we rename this, that we not only keep the old name as a redirect (as we would in any case), but also mention the term "Road Movie" early in the description, so that people looking for that movie trope know they've found the right one.

I'm ok with that suggestion. It is an industry term and we do make a point of mentioning those.

I was proceeding on the assumption that Road Movie would be a redirect, and it would certainly be no problem to include a line in the definition mentioning "Road Movie" as the term used in the motion picture industry.

Calling crowner to rename. Do we want to do an alternative names crowner?