The Art of Bait-and-Switch

Twisting expectations (mild spoilers)

BY: Dominic Ciolli

            As general as a statement this is, everybody goes into everything with expectations.  Things they think will happen, things they hope won’t happen, things they think might happen, and things that they know will happen.  This last expectation, the belief of certainty, is the most fun to play with in terms of movies or TV shows, particularly in adaptations but it can also happen in original works as well.  While the bait-and-switch maneuver is risky, when it works it pays off immensely; when it doesn’t work…well, it can create a cement-shoes effect and cause the movie or show to implode.

            “Bait-and-switch” literally is a form of retail fraud where a store lures consumers in with advertisements of products at low prices, but once inside the store the consumers find out that the product they came in for is “out of stock,” but hey, there are plenty of similar—and more expensive—products in stock!  What luck.  What I am talking about, however, is not so much pure deception as trickery.

            A prominent recent example comes from the first of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Batman Begins.  In the first quarter of the movie, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is training under Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) as a member of the League of Shadows, an organization led by Ra’s al Ghul (Ken Watanbee).  After Bruce refuses to execute a common criminal, at the order of Ducard, a fight breaks out which destroys the League of Shadows’ headquarters and results in the death of Ra’s.  In the last quarter of the movie, however, it is revealed that the Ra’s who perished in the headquarters was only a decoy and that Ducard is the true Ra’s al Ghul.

            Another example in recent years comes from the CW show and Ciolli guilty pleasure, Arrow, a reimagining of DC’s Green Arrow.  The show follows Oliver Queen in the first year of his return from being shipwrecked on an island—on which he trained to become the bow-wielding vigilante known only as “The Hood Guy.”  Flashbacks also show the viewer the first few months of Ollie’s time on the island.  It is during the flashbacks that the show’s bait-and-switch takes place.  To make a long (and incredibly convoluted) story short, Ollie gets captured by a military team and tortured by Deathstroke.  DC Comics fans—as well as those who watched the Teen Titans cartoon—know that Deathstroke’s real name is Slade Wilson.  A few episodes after Deathstroke’s introduction, however, Ollie runs into Slade Wilson, who reveals that the man who tortured Ollie was Slade’s former partner, Billy Wintergreen. 

            The most recent instance of the comic adaption bait-and-switch comes from Iron Man 3, released almost a month ago.  In the film a terrorist named the Mandarin wrecks havoc on the United States.  When a Mandarin attack—an Extremis bomb detonated at Grauman’s Chinese Theater—critically wounds Tony Stark’s friend and former bodyguard Happy Hogan, Tony goes after the Mandarin.  During this pursuit, however, he discovers that the Mandarin is simply a character created by Aldrich Killian and played by a man named Trevor Slattery. 

            All three of these examples are twists, but the nature of the twists differs from conventional movie and TV twists.  I think it is safe to say that the two most famous twists in entertainment come from Planet of the Apes and The Sixth Sense.  The twists in these are that the planet on which the apes rule is in fact the planet Earth thousands of years in the future and that Bruce Willis is in fact a ghost, respectively.  These twists come out of nowhere, aside from subtle foreshadowing, completely taking the viewer by surprise.  Bait-and-switch twists, however, involve the movie or show blatantly lying to the viewer, relying on a prior level of understanding to exploit.  In the case of Batman Begins, Nolan used Neeson’s reputation as playing a mentor (primarily due to his role as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace) to trick the viewer.  Arrow used fan’s prior knowledge of Deathstroke’s real name to create an expectation and then stymie that expectation.  Iron Man 3 used extensive trailers and media releases to create the belief that the Mandarin was the primary villain, only to pull the rug out from viewers in the middle of the second act. 

            Bait-and-switches can be very fun, using fans’ own knowledge against them.  Keeping them on their toes, creating a sense of paranoia where their own belief that they know the answer creates doubt about the answer.  But they can also be very risky, failing badly if the switch is not executed properly.  My brother Jack looks at one such case: Iron Man 3.