The Way

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO DID WHAT)

Does anyone know the way? / Did we hear someone say?
We just haven't got a clue what to do
Does anyone know the way? / There's got to be a way
To Plot Buster!


Many people recognise the process of Plot Busting either as the well known party game where players have to describe the plot of a movie in as few words as possible without using any words from its title, the absolute classic example of which is "police chief kills big fish," or even from their time at school, "summarise the following movie in one hundred words or less."

There are clearly different degrees of Busterisation. The school assignment example represents what would be considered as Regular Plot Busting, and the party game would be referred to as Extreme Plot Busting.

For the most part, the sort of Plot Busting that this blog is concerned with is either Regular or Advanced. And perhaps it would be useful to anyone interested in trying out a bit of Busting for themselves, if some rules were established to guide them. A kind of Plot Buster Training Program, if you will.

All the Plot Busters that feature here start with a brief introduction, stating the name of the film, the year it was released, who the director was, and who the stars are that will feature in the description. These introductions are not an essential part of the Plot Busting process, though.

So, the first rule of Buster Club is...

Rule #1 State the outcome of the plot first. There is nothing more important.

Rule #2 Never use character names from the plot, always refer to the performers by name. This is because the names of performers are generally more recognisable than those of the characters they play. For example, everyone will recognise Johnny Depp, but they might not be able to put a face to Gilbert Grape.

Rule #3 Ignore details that don't affect the eventual outcome of the plot. It is essentially the degree to which you do this that determines whether you are performing Regular, Advanced or Extreme Plot Busting.

Rule #4 Ignore the order in which the plot is played out in the movie. In particular, if the director has been monkeying about with the chronology of events in the movie (examples include Memento (2000) and Pulp Fiction (1994) ) don't be afraid to restore them to real-time. And only introduce a detail as it is necessary to the explanation. So don't mention something first just because it happened at the start of the movie, if its relevance only becomes apparent at the end.

Rule #5 There are no rules, except for Rule #1, of course. There are only guidelines.


For anyone with an interest in Extreme Plot Busting there are a number of additional guidelines that apply when it is carried out in competitive situations, like party games, or quiz nights.

Extreme Plot Busting games usually require players to stick to a specific movie genre.

Usually the descriptions are expected to be proper sentences, but that makes one word Busts impossible, which can limit the fun, so may be ignored.

Players can Bust the same movie plot as someone else, if they want to. But Busts themselves must be unambiguous. There's no point in coming up with a shorter description if it could be applied to more than one movie.

The winner is the person who comes up with the shortest description, that at least one other player can recognise. (This aspect of Extreme Plot Busting can lead to much argument. I have been in situations where competitors pretended never to have heard of The Wizard of Oz (1939)! Team playing is the only effective way of avoiding such gamesmanship tactics. Players are split into teams, and must describe a movie for their team members to recognise.)

To summarise, the supplementary rules for combat Busting are:

Rule #6 Use character descriptions only. In other words no names (character or actor), no words from the movie's title, and no quotations (that's another game.)

Rule #7 The description must be unambiguous. If anyone else in the game can identify another movie that fits the Busted description, then the description is disqualified.

Rule #8 Someone must recognise the movie from its Busted description.

Rule #9 The shortest description wins.