01HNNWZ0MV43FF 3 days ago

Not a movie but most motorsports do not follow the monomyth. The cars or trucks or tractors compete, but none of them are designated protagonist. The progression is usually from slower and cheaper vehicles to more expensive and faster ones, to build excitement for the audience.

The adventure of the individual vehicle is that it prepares for the races, it practices, it tunes, then it competes, and then it either wins or loses. And then, budget permitting, it prepares for the next race.

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mrob 3 days ago

This can be generalized to stories about any kind of real-life racing. For example, there's a whole genre of videos about the history of speedrunning video games (competing to complete the game in the fastest time), popularized by the works of Youtuber SummoningSalt:

https://www.youtube.com/@SummoningSalt/videos

These are presented in an entertaining way that's full of twists and drama, but because they're non-fiction they can't be forced into any pre-existing structure.

noworriesnate 3 days ago

This reminds me of Dwarf Fortress, a game famous for its auto-generated stories. Boatmurdered is one such story—it’s brutal, fascinating, it’s in this uncanny valley halfway between random and an actual story. And it definitely isn’t formulaic (except for the fact that everyone always dies in the end; the game’s motto is Losing is Fun).