Spectacle Creep in Media.

[Kuzu]

You guys have probably heard the term "power creep" thrown around in a few communities; when new content starts outstripping and overshadowing the old content.  This is Power Creep's related cousin, Spectacle Creep; when a work increasingly raises the scale and stakes of it's setting, largely making the series` roots feel small and insignificant by comparison.

Probably the most famous example of this is Dragon Ball; series started as a gag parody of Journey to the West, then slowly transitioned to a martial art epic, and now it's literally about God level fighters who can destroy planets with ease. A far cry from those gag parody roots isn't it?

 

Most media that expand beyond a certain point generally reach this point it seems like; look at the MCU, the franchise starts with Tony Stark building a makeshift suit in a cave with a box of scraps. And literally climaxed to a galaxy level threat just a little over two years ago, and is now transitioning into a multiverse scale. 

 

So in general, how can this be managed?? If things keep escalating, it can start violating the willing suspension of disbelief and create a disconnect between the fans who remember what the series began as, but if you try to scale things down to a "manageable" level, it'll feel insignificant by comparison. Who cares what a small time threat to a city is doing when the Universe is at stake after all. 

 

So how can power creep/spectacle creep be handled in media without getting too big or too small?

[Wraith]

The biggest way to manage it is to just end things before they get too out of hand. Fullmetal Alchemist will never suffer from spectacle creep because the conflict ended in a place that was appropriate with the scale and tone they'd set up.

Assuming that's not an option, a franchise just has to be true to it's origins and learn how to iterate on those origins in a meaningful way. Scale began to stop meaning anything in Dragon Ball not just because it got too big, but because it was one of the only ways they knew how to iterate on what had otherwise become a formula IE: Dragon Ball Super presents yet another tournament arc and has no idea how to make it interesting besides scaling up the scope and stakes. Blowing up the spectacle to insane degrees is an easy way to make a new iteration feel different when it really isn't.

On the flipside, the Broly movie isn't really about the scale of the conflict. It pairs all that stuff down to focus on a pure, old school story about Goku and Vegeta encountering a new enemy and I think it's better for it. It's why I disagree pretty heavily that scaling down would make things feel less significant. It was the opposite for me.

A good way to avoid that is to just not settle into a formula at all. Put characters like Goku and Vegeta in different situations entirely that test different skills that they aren't used to using and it'll feel new again. Battle of Gods felt like it was kind of taking the piss out of what Dragon Ball had become more than anything. Vegeta was completely outmatched and had to rely on his social skills to navigate Beerus's landing and Goku had to rely on others to seek power.

[Salamander]

One strategy is to go personal instead; develop a conflict that is particularly personally meaningful to the protagonist, having to do with their friends or their backstory or whatever.  Think early Ace Attorney versus later Ace Attorney.  Of course, this has its limits too; there are only so many things you can reveal about a person's past or so many times their friends can be put in the dock.  It's also often the case that a series will do both at once, making things especially personal and putting the fate of the entire planet, universe, multiverse etc. at stake; thinking about Doctor Who here.  At the end of the day, though, compelling writing is what really wins out; a well-written low-stakes story will trump a badly-written high-stakes one.

[Kuzu]

I do agree Broly is a good example of this working, but it mainly works so well because Goku and Vegeta aren't the main characters of that film at all. All of the emotional investment is in Broly's character.

 

In fact DMC4 and 5 did something similar by focusing on Nero instead of Dante and/or Vergil, and it made something amazing.

 

So shifting the focus around to characters who haven't been exhausted of interesting traits is a good method of avoiding it.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

A better way to manage it is to go along with the Falling Action of the plot and cool things down before the next major threat. Like a roller coaster, you hit a peak, then fall to a lower level, only to stay like that before rising to a higher peak again. After the heroes deal with the threat to the world, they have a nice relaxing moment to themselves, a slice of life where they enjoy their time until the next threat interrupts it and starts the next arc. There’s nothing wrong with returning to smaller stakes to cool down, as it can help build into the next large stakes story.

Dragon Ball actually did this too, but the problem is that they’re not entirely memorable to the epic threats of the world/universe stories it gets into.

Then there keeping threats localized. Not going to far out of the boundary of scale—keep the threat to a city, region, or planet and not go further than that. This is why the Joker from Batman can still surprise you in how dangerous he can be, as while he’s a major threat, he tends to stay within the bounds of Gotham—which makes his danger more notable in the occasions he decides to venture outside of Gotham to terrorize another place.

The main point here is to avoid one-upping yourself in terms of setting scale and instead focus on the type of stakes. You can also spread threats out more, having more than one danger to the city/planet/galaxy/whatever setting you have. Make different types of conflict too: people are used to seeing person vs person, but there’s person versus nature, and person versus society, and person versus themselves.

All in all, if you want to avoid spectacle creep, you need to try something different, explore a new avenue that gives a whole different conflict or stakes to the story. There should be more to a story than simply wowing the audience.

TL;DR—we need a shift from the DBZ idea of stories.

[Kuzu]

The DBZ idea of escalation is pretty easy to fall into, so its understandable why its so common. Easiest way of improving on the original is to just do it bigger and better.

And I touched upon how lowering stakes can sometimes backfire; like for instance, I did not give a single shit about the Beach City episodes of Steven Universe no matter how hard I tried. And it was aggravating whenever they would be on in-between hiatuses. 

 

Avatar is also a good example of how to avoid it; it establishes its central goal early on as well as its time frame, so the writers already had an ending in mind, it was forging the path there that was difficult. And sure, while there is a slight escalation in scale by the end, the central goal is still the same, defeat the Fire  Lord and save the world. 

[Wraith]

Is it common? I don't recall many series having the "Dragon Ball problem" beyond Dragon Ball.

[Kuzu]

I think Dragon Ball is used not because its the only one to do it, but because its the most known example among our generation of a media that constantly escalates its conflict. It predates Dragon Ball actually, but that's public zeitgeist for you. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 11/13/2021 at 1:56 PM, Kuzu said:

The DBZ idea of escalation is pretty easy to fall into, so its understandable why its so common. Easiest way of improving on the original is to just do it bigger and better.

And I touched upon how lowering stakes can sometimes backfire; like for instance, I did not give a single shit about the Beach City episodes of Steven Universe no matter how hard I tried. And it was aggravating whenever they would be on in-between hiatuses. 

I haven’t watched a single episode of Steven Universe or even looked at its wiki, so I really can’t comment on that.

I think a better example would be Justice League back in the early 2000. Or Gargoyles of Disney’s. They deal with major threats, then have a cool down period that isn’t as intense and sometimes even funny—also helps that they have more than one major threat in the setting. So villains are after the heroes, other villains are targeted other villains, and each one only has power based on how they wield it. 

There’s also another and more long lasting way to avoid spectacle creep: multiple factions. One way to stay fresh is to have more than two parties (ideally five at minimum) at odds or in league with the other. After dealing with one conflict between two factions in a story, you can start another one with another two.

My two examples of this are League of Legends (which is really blowing up due to the release of Arcane on Netflix) and Arknights—each has at least a dozen countries and factions that are part of their regions, and each character has rivalries or connections with the other.
 

LoL has managed to keep it’s lore and stories interesting for over ten years (with a number of retcons and reworks to get things right) and had made every character an individual with their own desires, beliefs, rivalries, etc. As a result, this allows them to make stories with lots of spectacle, but focused in a particular setting or event—whatever’s going on with one group, there’s a different group is dealing with something else, whether it’s an opposing group or villain, or a major threat that the world isn’t aware of.

Arknights, a character-based tower defense game with a surprisingly vast lore or characters, makes stories that are spread out between the cast. There’s the main story, which is dealing with a major terrorist uprising caused by an oppressed group who are dubbed the Infected (the terrorist group is called Reunion), then there’s the people they fighting, which is actually between two countries out of many. Meanwhile, there’s a third party, the Protagonist faction of Rhode Island’s, that seeks to find a solution to the infected problem but is forced to get involved in the conflict to do so. And while that’s going on, there’s side stories dealing with independent characters affiliated with Rhode Island that are investigating or tending to other problems around the world, one of which was a crossover with Rainbow 6 Siege that dealt with a civil war and ending with the destruction of a mutant abomination that is unnatural to both Arknights and Rainbow 6, but ironically born from the fusion of both continuities.

To make all of this work, this is where the Setting comes in as important, as it helps organize the characters.

Here’s the setting for LoL, called Runeterra:

Every faction you see has well over a dozen important characters. Within their borders, these characters clash or align with their fellow citizens—Zaun and Piltover (which is this years focus of the game) have different people that work with or against each other, be it Piltover vs Zaun, or Zaun vs other Zauns. Outside their borders is the same thing, characters aligning or clashing with each other, most notably Demacia and Noxus, who are mostly against each other, while Noxus has often recruited people from Zaun to aid in their goals. And then there are groups in the setting that transcend those borders to fight a greater evil, the previous Sentinel of Light event that brings people from all of these nations together, many of whom who still hate each other like a Noxian and an Ionian (for context, Noxus invaded Ionia in the past and ruined their peaceful island, and the Ionians fought back and have since been enemies) but are forced to put aside their differences to a common goal.

Put another way, think of this example as Avatar/Legend of Korra on a more larger, but even more divided scale—imagine if Aang and Korra were both alive together as dual Avatars and part of an organization called “Avatars of Balance” or something, and this organization wants to keep the world balanced and at peace. But this time it’s not just Fire Lord Ozai they need to deal with, but the Amon and Equalists, Unalaq, the Red Lotus, and Kuvira’s Earth Empire all at once, all of them occupying the same time period and setting together that Team Avatar has to deal with simultaneously. Ozai wants world conquest, Kuvira wants to eliminate Ozai and wipe out the Fire Nation so they can never be a threat again (essentially committing genocide, how’s that for extra irony?), Amon wants world wide elimination of bending, Unalaq wants a worldwide theocracy that merges the spiritual and material worlds, and the Red Lotus wants to bring down every government and anyone with authority at any cost.
 

Each faction would be at war with the other and would need to pick their targets—not just Team Avatar in quelling the threats, but the Ozai in which territories to conquer, Amon on which threat to attack and debend, the Red Lotus on which nation to destroy, and so forth. It also presents interesting conundrums that give you more options in creating conflict for storytelling: if the Avatars deal with Ozai, they’ll just make it easier for Kuvira, Amon, or The Red Lotus to take advantage of the Fire Nation; eliminate Kuvira, and Ozai has even less to oppose him; deal with the Equalists or the Red Lotus, who could unwittingly aid the Avatars by serving as an independent group that keeps the other warring factions in check, and you make the Avatars load of problems that much heavier; and so forth. (After typing this, I have to say that this would make for an very interesting fanfic, wouldn’t you say? Maybe even work as an alternate setting!)

If anything, I think the multiple faction route is the best way to avoid spectacle creep—you don’t have just two powerful parties, but several in the same setting. And sure, while one or two might be the main ones to worry about, the other factions aren’t a slouch and will gladly replace one of them in a heartbeat to become the next top threat if any one of them gets caught slipping.

Another example to illustrate this? Batman Arkham series. Each game ups the threat and the scales—you start off from an island, then it expands to a city (but no further than that). You’re dealing with the Joker as the top threat, but once he’s gone, the Scarecrow takes his place and goes beyond what the mad clown and many other villains had accomplished. It’s intense, and it has high spectacle, but it doesn’t fall to spectacle creep—or maybe it does to some, but it still avoids a lot of the pitfalls brought up in the topic.

If I’m honest, spectacle creep is easy to avoid when you don’t pile on so much on so few. A perfect imbalance, you could say, where things teeter one way, then the other based on who does what and where.

[MetalSkulkBane]

Dragon Ball sounds like Power Creep to me. Goku just grew too strong. That's kinda problem with most Shonen, most of them about main protagonist slowly turns into demigod. That's one of the reasons is why even most beloved manga end after 10-15 years (with few exceptions of course).

But back to spectacle creep, the simplest cure is variety.

Take Sonic.

Spoiler

IDW started with Neo Metal and psychical treat of giant Kaiju, followed by Zombie Apocalypse and now Starline's more thoughtful planning.
Archie had god-like Enerjak followed by Scourge being a royal pain for 8 issues and finally Iron Dominium, with New Mobotropolis getting taken over and then Mecha Sally.
Notice that Enerjack is oldest arcs here and yet he was the Strongest Villain. But somehow we're not bored, because each arc had to be tackled differently.

or Ben 10, hero that transforms into various aliens.

Spoiler

He fought Cthulhu like being at one point. Next arc was about hunter that could transform into natural predators of his aliens. Later there was Villain with personal connection to Ben, followed by Alien Invasion, then some government conspiracy stuff and finally Time War.
Ben 10 has it's own problem with Power Creep (he keeps getting new transformations, so some of them are OP), but by keeping thing changing rather than growing bigger, villains from very first show could still be a treat in 4th show.

Marvel movies are kinda mixed bag on this.

Spoiler

Take Shang Chi (minor spoilers). The main villain was small-ish, personal and decently interesting. But then there is a secret villain, a world treating stuff. And it's SO BORING. Movie would been way better without him.
Yes, Thanos was a giant galactic treat and it was a blast. But it took all the heroes to take him down. Next movies can be smaller. If Spider-man next movie would be Kraven Last Hunt, I would be thrilled to see it, even though Kraven will never destroy half of galaxy.
Honestly, it's kinda good that Iron Man died, because his armors were main source of Power Creep. Captain America in Endgame was equally strong as he was in First Avenger, but Stark kept getting bigger and cooler armors.

In summary, go with variety, not size.

[Tornado]

I think the bigger problem with this sort of thing is when media pulls the bigger threat out of its ass to keep the heroes in check. That's what became synonymous with Dragon Ball even beyond jokes about power levels: The heroes work and work and work to kill the newest bad guy by the skin of their teeth and then some random guy shows up about 10-ish episodes after the climax of that arc and beats the shit out of them with no effort despite how breathlessly the story had talked about how powerful the heroes had become. It even did it with the heroes somewhat frequently, like when Trunks showed up and immediately killed the fucking shit out of Freiza. Bleach had the problem a lot as well, compounded with Kubo constantly inventing terrible new characters whenever he wrote himself into a corner.

Compare My Hero: ONE'S JUSTICE which, while having its own problems in its story development and character usage, does generally take pains to show the villains and the heroes working to better themselves in their own time in order to battle the other one; so the times it pulls stuff out of its ass to say why some fight went in an extremely one-sided direction when one of the parties wasn't expecting it isn't usually as hopelessly shonen.

 

 

 

This also is by no means an anime-specific thing either. The Star Trek franchise suffered from this hard following TNG; even before the JJ Abrams movies recontextualized the series so everything following them is now about saving the universe.

[Kuzu]

2 hours ago, Tornado said:

 

Compare My Hero: ONE'S JUSTICE which, while having its own problems in its story development and character usage, does generally take pains to show the villains and the heroes working to better themselves in their own time in order to battle the other one; so the times it pulls stuff out of its ass to say why some fight went in an extremely one-sided direction when one of the parties wasn't expecting it isn't usually as hopelessly shonen.

Its funny you mentioned this because My Hero Academia has arguably run head first into this trope as of the latest chapters.

Spoiler

Literally introducing a new character never before seen, and having the most busted superpower in the setting so far, and she's immediately pitted up against the main villain, and dies soon after, but not before crippling him in the process. 

It's the most divisive the series has been in recent times, so time will tell if it can stick the landing and avoid it.

 

 

@CrownSlayer’s Shadow That sounds good in theory, but probably requires way more effort and resources than most creators are probably willing to put in. I admit I don't know much about LoL or Arknights, but I'm sure it took a long ass time to build up such a setting. 

Franchises that can afford to slowburn like that are generally ideal, but not many franchises can get to that point sadly. Future-proofing is hard. 

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

6 hours ago, Kuzu said:

 

@CrownSlayer’s Shadow That sounds good in theory, but probably requires way more effort and resources than most creators are probably willing to put in.

It doesn’t, and quite frankly, that’s the problem—creators not willing to put forth the effort and resources. Little wonder why they run into this problem when more effort to plan around and develop it could avoid the issue entirely.

 

6 hours ago, Kuzu said:

I admit I don't know much about LoL or Arknights, but I'm sure it took a long ass time to build up such a setting. 
 

For LoL, about 10 years with a number of reboots to the 150+ individual characters they’ve made over the course of its life.

Arknights has been around for a fifth of that time (2 years), and it’s already breezed past LoL or even the first 2 generations of Pokémon in terms of cast size. (Which means I don’t want to hear anyone complaining about Sonic having too many characters)

Mind you, I’m not sure how long Arknights has been in development prior to release, but it’s been moving at a lightning pace while keeping its world consistent on top of promotional materials, and even an upcoming anime. But the point isn’t to emulate than it is to learn from them. Arknights and LoL have at least 10 different factions (Arknights actually has maybe double that, but I’m generalizing here), each with characters that have goals, allies and grievances among others. If you want to avoid spectacle creep, you need to diversify things to where you can always produce a new type of conflict.

6 hours ago, Kuzu said:

Franchises that can afford to slowburn like that are generally ideal, but not many franchises can get to that point sadly. Future-proofing is hard. 

Is it really? Or are these franchises just poorly managed by people trying to follow or jump onto the trends they see? Do they even care?

One thing about future-proofing is to not worry about current trends—they may not always stay current, especially when something new rises over time. Future-proofing isn’t so much hard than it is tedious, and not everyone is willing to go through that effort. So it’s little surprise when those that do not only stand out, but last longer in the process.

It’s not always the case, but generally speaking putting in effort yields results.

[Kuzu]

Yes, but consider this...money, and that being the primary goal of most publishers in the end.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

On 11/15/2021 at 3:12 PM, Kuzu said:

Yes, but consider this...money, and that being the primary goal of most publishers in the end.

I’ve considered it—if my advice was followed, they’d be saving a lot more money in the long run, maybe even earn more in the process.

Planning things is far cheaper than implementing them. I know that from personal experience with my own projects, and that’s usually what the most successful do (along with a little risk and luck).

Edit—what exactly does this have to do with Spectacle Creep tho? Sounds like it has more to do with not knowing how to budget than avoiding burn out in a setting.

Edit 2—also, you don’t even have to play League of Legends, but seriously, watch Arcane. Just watch it for fun, and nothing more—it requires zero knowledge of LoL, and if you want a quick show to make your day, this is it.