Most people hate the trope where “it was all a dream”. They find that it makes the entire story pointless. That’s not wrong. All the growth, all the loss, it was all for nothing. The character wakes up to find that everything is as it was at the beginning. Only, they might feel a little different because of what they dreamed. Okay, so maybe there’s a little growth. Just a little.
A lot of the time, though, the trope of everything being a dream is used to get out of whatever situation the writer got themselves in to. It’s not about the main character using their experiences in the dream to grow as a person. The trope is more about erasing what happened. Think back to one of the most infamous uses of “it was all a dream.” Patrick Duffy’s character was killed off Dallas after being hit by a car. Ratings dropped. Rather than come up with compelling stories to keep people interested after the loss of a main character, the writers of Dallas decided to bring Patrick Duffy’s character back. Another character woke up, went to the shower, and found that his character was alive and clean. The entire season where he was dead was a dream. Many things from that season were erased from continuity, but let’s also ignore the stuff that remained.
While Dallas was on the air, an unrelated movie was released that made everything out to be a dream. It wasn’t a case of not knowing it was a dream. The audience knew the whole time because a character had passed out on the beach, transitioning into the extended dream sequence. It was set up as a movie that was all a dream. But it still suffered from the same effects of that trope.
The Pirate Movie was a loose adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance, a well-known pirate musical. Mabel (Kristy McNichol) was studying abroad in Australia. She went to a pirate festival and saw a sword demonstration hosted by an American (Christopher Atkins). He invited Mabel on a boat cruise, but she was left behind when all the other girls got on the boat and took off as she approached. One thing led to another and Mabel passed out on a beach. In her unconscious state, she dreamt about the sword instructor, now named Frederic. He was a pirate in the 1880s in love with her, and he had to get rid of his pirate clan so he could marry her.
The majority of The Pirate Movie was the dream sequence. That synopsis might not represent that well, but the non-dream stuff is maybe five minutes of the hour-and-forty-minute runtime. The dream was the adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance. A young man was apprenticed to a bunch of pirates, thought he was old enough to leave the apprenticeship, fell in love, found out his birthday was on February 29th which meant he had fewer birthdays than necessary, and had to put his love aside due to his duty to the pirates. The basic story structure was there, though references were made to modern pop culture, and some original songs were thrown in to fit into the early 80s music vibe. That made sense, since it was a modern girl’s dream.
Let’s get into the dream. This is a post that started out with my mentioning the trope that everything was a dream. That’s the majority of The Pirate Movie. It began in 1982, ended in 1982, but had an 1880s dream sequence in between. One thing that I’ve never understood about the “it was all a dream” moments in television and movies is when part of the dream doesn’t involve the character who is dreaming. There were wide swaths of The Pirate Movie that followed Frederic, with Mabel nowhere to be seen. Whenever I’ve had a dream, it’s from my point of view. I understand the movie not having Mabel’s point of view in terms of camera work. Few movies have pulled off the through-their-eyes camera work. But the fact that there were things that Mabel wouldn’t have seen, even though it was her dream… That’s where the suspension of disbelief kind of outdid itself. I don’t dream of other people’s points of view. I haven’t heard of anyone dreaming like that. Yet movies do that frequently with dream sequences.
The most irritating part of The Pirate Movie was the ending of the dream sequence. Because it was a dream, anything could happen. It didn’t go so off the rails as to turn the swashbuckling musical romance into a fantasy or anything, but the dream did influence how the story concluded. Frederic discovered that his apprenticeship to the pirates did not end after twenty-one years, as he thought. The contract said his twenty-first birthday. He was born on February 29th, meaning that, although twenty-one years had passed, he had only had five birthdays. He still had sixteen birthdays to go. It meant that he couldn’t run away and marry Mabel. It was going to be a sad ending. But it was a dream. Since it was Mabel’s dream, she could just give it a happy ending. That’s what the Pirate King (Ted Hamilton) told her. So that’s what she did. Mabel changed the ending of her dream so that she would live happily ever after. Until she woke up, at least.
A weird thing happened when Mabel woke on the beach. Most movies with extended dream sequences have the character wake and use their experience in the dream as a catalyst for what to do in their real life. The Pirate Movie went a step further. Mabel had come out of her shell in her dream. She was going to come out of her shell in real life to have a lasting relationship with the sword instructor. The weird thing was that the sword instructor seemed to have been affected by the dream as well. He treated her like the pirate apprentice Frederic had, rather than how he actually had in the opening of the movie. Add the wedding ring becoming reality into the mix and the dream had a much larger impact on the real world than a dream really would.
The Pirate Movie was ninety percent dream and ten percent modern day. That may be giving modern day a generous percentage. Either way, there was much more dream sequence than reality sequence. The stakes weren’t all that high, since the audience was shown that it was a dream. The ending of the dream story felt like a cop out, since the character was able to force a happy ending because she was controlling her dream. It did have more of an effect on the real world than most “it was all a dream” scenarios, though. That was something a little different that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Kind of like the whole Dallas “it was all a dream” reversal of a character’s death.
Before I wrap things up, I want to mention one other movie covered for Sunday “Bad” Movies that featured an extended dream sequence. Holly’s Holiday had a woman fall into a coma where she dreamed about a mannequin coming to life and the romance they shared. Most of the movie was a romantic comedy about Holly and her mannequin boyfriend. In that movie, the dream section didn’t have a direct effect on what happened in the real world. It simply helped Holly open her eyes to a potential romance that had been in front of her the entire time. The dream changed her enough that she could go on and change her life.
The ”it was all a dream” trope has become so overly saturated that people have been tired of it for years. Yet, there are still numerous movies and television shows coming out that use the trope. It could be for a scene. Something crazy happens that could change the course of a story. A character wakes up and you realize that everything you just saw didn’t matter. The trope could be most of the movie, with the main character maybe learning something about themselves, maybe not. Sometimes the dream could even have consequences, whether intentional (as in the case of the end of The Pirate Movie) or unintentional (as in the case of some continuity beats in that season of Dallas), on what would happen after the character woke. Many times, people simply feel cheated since they had been following a story that kind of never happened.
Using a dream sequence in a story can be a difficult thing to pull off. Dreams can give insight into the psyche of a character as much as their waking life could. They can enhance the story being told by sharing what the character’s mental state may be. The problem comes when the dreams get a little too story-based. When dreams become plot points rather than insights, people can feel cheated. The plot points, in most cases, are rendered ineffective when the character wakes up. There are exceptions for sure. But dreams are usually better utilized as character moments than story moments. It was all a dream is a twist that happens after dreams that have story beats. It renders the story beats pointless, for the most part, which causes the irritation. After seeing this twist time and time again, people have grown tired of it. I can’t say I blame them.
Here are a few notes to close this out:
- I mentioned Holly’s Holiday (week 421).
- Christopher Atkins was in Shakma (week 58) and The Pirate Movie.
- Finally, The Pirate Movie featured Stan Rodarte, who also appeared in Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (week 372).
- Have you seen The Pirate Movie? What did you think of it? What do you think of the “it was all a dream” trope? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
- If there’s a movie that you think would fit into Sunday “Bad” Movies, drop it in the comments. You can also find me on Twitter to suggest movies.
- Sunday “Bad” Movies is on Instagram, too!
- Easter is coming up next weekend. It’s also a franchise week. I didn’t quite go with an Easter theme this year. That was my mistake. I did go with something very conservative, though, and something that I probably should have seen by now. I’ll be checking out the Atlas Shrugged film trilogy for next week’s post. Perhaps you’ll join me by reading the post when I toss it up? That would be nice. See you then.
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