The majority of these rules which make every movie the same come from actual guides on screenwriting, the oft-invoked stone tablets brought down from the mountain by Lawson, McKee and Snyder. Those are the tried-and-tested formulas that mostly every Hollywood films is based off of, but cinema's been around a lot longer than any of those guys and their textbooks. There are just as many unwritten rules about things that every film absolutely every film must include in order it be a success, rules that have seeped into the popular consciousness so much we even apply them to our everyday life. We guarantee there isn't a single film you watched at the multiplex this cinema that didn't involve at least the hints of a romantic subplot. Oh no, aliens are going to destroy the Earth and Tom Cruise is the only one who can save us, by dying and coming back to life repeatedly until he knows their weakness! Oh, also, he fancies Emily Blunt. Oh no, Ronan The Accuser is going to get enough power to destroy an entire planet and then possibly conquer the universe! Oh, and Chris Pratt fancies Zoe Saldana. Romantic subplots get shoehorned into every. Single. Movie. Regardless of how appropriate it is, or whether it'll totally derail the plot by having to take time for canoodling. As Roger Ebert put it, Pearl Harbour is about how, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. The Harry Potter films pushed the romance to the forefront, even when loads of people were getting murdered by evil wizards. Annie Hall even started as a murder-mystery with the romance in the background, only for the plot to get totally excised in favour of the love story, effectively creating the modern rom-com. Why, why, why? Because Hollywood says so, that's why, and it's never going to change.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
