omnifarious | The plot is not the story, nor is it the most important part

One interesting phenomena I've noticed recently is a tendency to categorize something (and often dismiss it) based on plot mechanic. "The Hunger Games" has been compared to numerous other 'many enter, one leaves, and everybody watches' stories, especially ones involving children. "Limitless" gets compared to any other story involving medical intelligence enhancement and apparently "Flowers for Algernon" is the canonical example.

I find this sort of distressing. There is a great deal more to a movie than its plot mechanic. Plot is simply the skeleton of a story, not the most important part. It's true that if the skeleton has problems it has a serious negative effect on the whole story, but a story is not its skeleton.

"The Hunger Games", for example, is a story about severe oppression. The games are only a symptom of that oppression. They are certainly not the defining feature of that movie.

Anyway, this is just a minor rant. :-)