You only have to destroy the Death Star
Something I try to remind myself when writing epic-themed stories — which is a lot, recently — is that my hero doesn’t have to fix The Big World Problem by the time the end credits roll. Rather, he just needs to achieve the small, specific goal I’ve set out for him. He only has to destroy the Death Star.
Yes, that task should be exceedingly difficult. But it’s several orders of magnitude away from The Big World Problem.
Darth Vader and the Empire are still very much kicking at the end of A New Hope. Nazis are alive and well at the end of Raiders, The Guns of Navarone, and every WWII epic you’ve seen. By the end of The Matrix, Neo has learned something of his powers, but the world is largely unchanged.
In fact, the rule seems to be that it’s only at the end of a trilogy that the hero really transforms the world. And you don’t get to make a trilogy unless the first one works. So make the first one at human scale.
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April 25th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Serenity seems like a good example of this too. Mal and co. don’t bring down the big bad Alliance–but they do spread the word about one of the Alliance’s major SNAFUs.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
If indeed a trilogy is the initial aspiration, I believe one must at least create a legitimate tie between the immediate demands of the plot (blowing up the death star, etc) and the internal or thematic journey of the character.
This character based payoff is essential to the rousing satisfaction (felt by the audience either intuitively or analytically) felt upon completion of the task. Blowing up the death star would be terribly uninteresting if it didn’t necessitate a “step into a larger world” for Luke. The initial defeat of Smith would be totally unsatisfying had Neo not needed to “wake up” to the truths of his existence.
Regardless of the scale, it need always be human. Make the first installment the first step of human development. Make it awakening.
April 25th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Brace yourself for Inglorious Basterds…
April 26th, 2009 at 12:24 am
Interesting…the victory at the end of The Matrix was Neo’s killing Agent Smith, whom they unceremoniously brought back in Reloaded (I don’t even remember what the explanation was). Maybe that’s (one of the reasons) why it was so bad. I mean, at least they skipped a movie before bringing the Death Star back, and didn’t make Luke be the one who had to destroy it again.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:52 am
In my paper about The Hero’s Journey I diffrentiate between the microcosm and the macrocosm.
In movies the hero usually tries to reach his goal on a microcosmic level, which primarly affects his life and the lives of (some) people around him.
In contrast to it, the mythic hero of epic tales (myths etc.) reacts on a macrocsmic level. His behaviour or his achieving of his goal often affects world history.
April 26th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Yeah, good point. These are all trilogies though, so the first film tends to focus on the ‘birth’ of the hero. All we need by the end is a proof of concept- do they have the chops?
The guns of Navarone is the obvious exception, but this is a ‘mission movie’. From the very start, the stakes are specifically laid out- this won’t win the war, but it will help.
April 26th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Good point. I think this is true for books, too.
April 26th, 2009 at 6:17 am
@Kristan Each story has a common structure… see The Hero’s Journey. So yes, it’s in books, screenplays, (almost) any narration you can think of. ;)
April 26th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Sarah, while uses of the monomyth you mention are vast, surely you don’t think it to be the only valid dramatic structure?
April 26th, 2009 at 6:52 am
That’s freaking brilliant. Best post of under 500 words I’ve ever read.
April 26th, 2009 at 7:03 am
About trilogies: I don’t know about THE MATRIX, but while Lucas hoped there would be more STAR WARS movies made after the first one, that was nowhere near a certainty, so he made sure that the first one was a film that could stand on its own. (Especially since franchise trilogies were much rarer in 1977 than they are today.) And as said, the “birth of a hero” story is the best way to have a story woven into a much more epic tapestry.
It’s been a while since I saw Wagner’s RING cycle, but in that, isn’t the birth of the hero in the third opera, SIGFRIED? Would be interesting to break that down…
April 26th, 2009 at 8:26 am
@Nick There’s a little word I put in brackets ;) No, I don’t think it’s the “only” valid structure… but it’s a very common structure.
April 26th, 2009 at 8:28 am
But what if someone doesn’t want things to be different and their goal is to keep things from changing?
April 26th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Ethan, I’m not sure if your speaking about the character or the creator, but in great drama I think there must certainly be some element of change. That being said, I’m not rigid as to what exactly is changing.
While many stories choose to affect change in the main character by pitting him or her against various opposition, there are plenty of other ways to satisfy conflict and make compelling drama.
Take, for example, the stories assocciated with moral exemplars. They themselves do not change, but through their steadfast dedication to their ideals, effect change in others. Wall-e doesn’t change, but effects everyone he means. Mary Poppins, Speed Racer … these characters don’t change, they create change.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:18 am
IIRC, when Lucas condensed the plan for his original epic into a single movie (the only one he thought would be made), he slapped the grand finale onto the end. In other words, destroying the Death Star was originally the same as, say, destroying Barad-Dur.
Furthermore, if the Star Wars saga had continued from there (as the novels did), we would have seen how destroying a second Death Star was, yet again, not a fix-all. Likewise, viewers of Matrix: Revolutions were dissatisfied because there was no guarantee that the war was truly over.
The point about an epic getting by with limited plot goals stands; my point is that trilogies don’t necessarily wrap up all the threads, either. (Except for LotR, which strongly implies the end of an age, paving the way for the non-magical world we know.)
April 26th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Love this. Thanks.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Excellent point, John. I always like to use the example of “The Limey” which opens with a black screen and Terence Stamp’s gravelly voice intoning “What happened to Jenny? Tell me what happened to Jenny!” At the end of the film he has Peter Fonda by the throat and finds out what happened only it’s not what he expected. Movie over. Simple goal resolved.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Hmm.. Two more posts on this and we’ll all be megablockbuster ready.
April 26th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
“Likewise, viewers of Matrix: Revolutions were dissatisfied because there was no guarantee that the war was truly over.”
This presupposes that the end of the war (in the sense of one side “beating” the other) was the culminating act as set up by the previous installments. It wasn’t.
From Smith’s monologue in the first film through the finale of the last, mankind and machines were become equally valid living entities. As Neo grew to understand the choiceless and deterministic artificial mentality of the machines(which had essentially evolved to equal human complexity), Smith in turn grew to experience (and ultimately frustratedly reject) the extremes of humanity.
Neo came to defeat him and achieve peace in the final installment because he is able to freely choose the end of conflict, and accept the fate placed before him. (He reconciled fate versus free will, blah blah.) It’s his maturity in this sense that is the payoff.
The fact that elements in the plot establish this as an act of surrender is just dramatic icing on the cake.
April 26th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Apparently no one told the Bush administration that this is only true in the movies. “You only have to capture Saddam, then everything will be OK!”
April 26th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
John, this is probably the funniest post I have ever read from you. Great job, guy!
April 26th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
It’s funny. I think one of the reasons why I didn’t like the second and third Matrix movies was because the story was suddenly not intimate. It was better when it was just a simple, contained story. When it got more complex, it became a lot less interesting. The small, specific goal is often much more interesting than the big one.
Same with Pirates of the Caribbean. When the budgets expanded, the movies suffered.
On a side note, I think this is related to why the latest Star Wars trilogy doesn’t hold a candle to the first one. There was just too much. When Lucas had to limit himself due to the technology and budget, it made for much better storytelling. The focus was on the story and characters. When technology changed, and he could do anything he wanted, the story and characters suffered.
April 27th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Interesting point. Spot on I would say. Thank you.
It is also great to hear that a pro has to remind himself sometimes :-)
April 27th, 2009 at 1:51 am
‘When technology changed, and he could do anything he wanted, the story and characters suffered’
I think that’s probably true of the world as a whole and not just Star Wars :)
Don’t also forget Lucas’ sure-fire formula for a trilogy that gets more exciting as the movies go on. Just add an extra battle to the finale!
Star Wars = 1 battle – Attack on the Death Star Empire = 2 battles – Leia, Lando etc escaping from Cloud City + Luke vs Vader Jedi = 3 battles – Lando vs Death Star II, Han, Leia & Ewoks vs Stormtroopers + Luke vs Vader/Emperor
You can never have too many battles going on at once!
April 27th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Oooh, does this mean you’re planning “Preacher” as a trilogy? :)
(Film 1 – books 1 to 3 – end with Jesse saving Cassidy from The Grail Film 2 – books 5 and 6 – end with the war in the desert and Jesse falling from the plane Film 3 – books 7 to 9)
You can have that one for free.
April 27th, 2009 at 5:45 am
“I only have to destroy the Death Star” is my new personal mantra, John.
Thanks!
April 27th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Rather timely post as I have an action comedy that follows ahero through his FIRST adventure. He doesn’t save the world, but look at how many heroes don’t. The heroic nature of getting a guy across town works, some heroes save their mall from robbers. Scale is not what sells, it’s quality of character and dialog.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:36 am
This is one of my great beefs with the last X-Men movie, that it doesn’t grow the stakes in a world-altering fashion. At the climax of the second movie, every person in the world is going to die, at the end of the third it’s just whoever happens to be near this one facility.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Thanks for the post, John.
It made me think of Little Miss Sunshine. Each character only changes slightly, but it’s enough.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
This is all true but I don’t think you should give this sort of advice to “Joe Nobody”.
I can see people writing their first (and crappy) script about the day their uncle went to the farm and got kicked by a horse and then leaving the horse out of it, so Spielberg will have to pay them more if he wants another Oscar (I mean, besides the one he’ll get from the first part of the movie).
You should put all of your heart, all of your soul and all of your best ideas in EVERY script you write. What if, afterwards, I need to make a trilogy?
Then you figure that out afterwards. Unless you’re Brad Pitt you don’t meet Jennifer Aniston and save your best lines to hit on Angelina Jolie.
Just my 2 Euros, anyway.
April 27th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Thanks.
April 27th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Tim W (#22) – spot on. The failure of the last two Matrixes and the last two Pirates movies are REMARKABLY similar. No wonder, because they were results of an identical process: both franchises had first installments that weren’t expected to have sequels. Both franchises’ latter two movies were then shot at the same time, without the scripts for the third installments even remotely finished. Go back and watch the first installments over again, and they’re so clearly superior to the latter two it’s depressing.
April 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The Back to the Future trilogy had the same problem (and was, I believe, the first time two sequels were filmed at the same time), although the last one wasn’t too bad. I have watched the second one, I think, a couple of times and couldn’t tell you what it was about. Whatever the story was, it wasn’t memorable enough for me to recall it.
April 27th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
@Michael:
As counter-example to all sequel/trilogy rules: Aliens. Godfather II. And to some degree, the Harry Potter movies.
@Jack:
It was Preacher that got me thinking about scale and stakes. But no, it’s not like there’s a secret master plan for a trilogy. I’ll be delighted if one movie gets made.
April 27th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
The great thing about Aliens is that the story was still a fairly intimate one. It didn’t try to have a bigger, more complex goal. And at the centre of the film is a simple story of Ripley trying to overcome her (literal) demons in order to become whole again.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Michael, We’re all entitled to an opinion, but let’s not be spreading false information. The Matrix was always planned as a trilogy.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I am not sure though if I would have been as satisfied by the end of Star Wars with only destroying the Death Star if I did not know it was a trilogy. I was very little when I saw it & I remember being unsatisfied by the fact that Darth Vader merely spun away. However, I knew I could always watch the next movie.
I think it depends on what you set up. Guns set up destroying the guns, which was an enormous feat, to do their part in the war.
Still, I think that satisfying films solve the larger, thematic question. In the way in which the Guns team destroyed the guns, there was hope for a larger war, as insurmountable as that feat also seemed.
Take a more character-driven story like About Schmidt. What made the movie universal was the sort of quandary everyone could relate to. The way in which Schmidt resolves it brings insight to the universal quandary so even if no one saves the universe, in a way, he saves, or is saved in, his universe in a universal way.
May 10th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Actually, I have one alternate reason for the issues with the last two Matrix films. The first film was written as a single, freestanding work, and, literally, physical training, fight choreography and learning of lines went on for, what, 3 to 5 years? The actors put their souls into it, and it WORKED. It broke boundaries, used creative CGI, and it was cool.
The second and third? Overuse of CGI (because hey, how else can you show massive battle scenes with robots?) the exact same fight moves, used even less, as the prior films (and the fighting styles seemed much more stale as a result), with the ending meant not to end a series of films, but to be a tie-in to the MMO to continue to movie series.
Wait, what?
Yeah, The Matrix Online. It was a shitty MMO that had maybe a million people playing it, at most, a few years ago. I don’t even know if it’s still running, but that’s my explanation for it.
As for other examples of trilogies sucking, but the first movie rocks?
Often directors get great ideas for a final battle or fight scene or way to end the series, but have trouble contriving a good way to tie all this together.
Other times it’s the fact that people don’t notice that the writing is the same quality throughout, but the novelty of a new idea keeps the audience interested in the first film, which quickly fades away in future films in a series.
Savy?