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# Story Crisis, Story Climax 1

Using Film Structure to Outline Your Novel

By Stephen J. Carter

Copyright 2014 Stephen J. Carter

3rd Edition 2017

Storyworks DBM

Smashwords Edition

Discover other titles by Stephen J. Carter:

Story Crisis, Story Climax 2

Storyworks Monthly 1, 2, 3

Storm Ring

New Siqdor

Bangkok Z

Infection Day

Toey's Burden, Part 1

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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## Table of Contents

3rd Edition Foreword

Introduction

Plot Pressure Points

ACTION/ADVENTURE GENRE

The Flight of the Phoenix

National Treasure

Kill Bill: Vol. 2

Flightplan

Sahara

Red Eye

16 Blocks

Blood Diamond

The Day After Tomorrow

Action Adventure: Postscript

DRAMA GENRE

In Good Company

Man On Fire

Shall We Dance?

Derailed

Vantage Point

Drama: Postscript

HORROR GENRE

28 Days Later

28 Weeks Later

Constantine

The Ring Two

White Noise

I Am Legend

Horror: Postscript

COMEDY GENRE

Secondhand Lions

Meet the Fockers

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed & Fabulous

The Game Plan

Surf's Up

Comedy: Postscript

HISTORICAL GENRE

Apocalypto

The Last Samurai

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Seraphim Falls

Pathfinder

Historical: Postscript

SCIENCE FICTION GENRE

Equilibrium

Paycheck

The Jacket

I, Robot

Alien vs. Predator: Requiem

SF: Postscript

FANTASY GENRE

Lord of the Rings 1: Fellowship of the Ring

Lord of the Rings 2: Two Towers

Lord of the Rings 3: Return of the King

Beowulf

Fantasy: Postscript

3rd Edition Afterword

Review

About the Author

Other Titles

Connect

## 3rd Edition Foreword

My basic premise in _Story Crisis, Story Climax 1_ is that the compressed, focused approach to storytelling taken in film has much to teach novelists. As time goes on I find more ways we can benefit from such a study. In the 2nd Edition I supplemented the movie analyses with a closer look at the two stages present in any plot pressure point: the _problem_ , and the _decision_ that results. A story moves from the Act 1 opening problem, disruptive and inciting, to the Crisis and climactic solution in Act 3.

In this current 3rd Edition I have added a brief look at _story arc_ in each film, which reaches from the Act 1 Turning Point 1 decision to the Act 3 Crisis decision. Stripped to its essentials the story arc reveals a greater or lesser _change_ in the life of the protagonist. The Act 1 problem and the Crisis decision are chosen by the writer to produce a specific change, and this determines the content of Acts 2A and 2B.

In _Story Crisis, Story Climax 2_ , the next book in this series, I look at thirty new films and conduct the same problem/decision analysis of the five plot points in a story's four Acts, but with an emphasis on story _momentum_.

## PART ONE

##  Introduction

In the pages that follow I present a detailed _story_ analysis of forty recent Hollywood motion pictures, drawing on multiple theoretical sources. Primary among these are the practical ideas of the elements of screenwriting structure popularized by the renowned screenwriter, teacher, and theorist of writing for film, Robert McKee.

My object in this is to uncover how we can apply knowledge of film structure to writing a novel. An understanding of plot points and momentum gives a framework into which you can deploy your storytelling ability. Such a knowledge will tell you where and when to apply this.

In _Part One_ I will briefly explore those elements of a formal film story that McKee identifies – the Inciting Incident, the two major Turning Points, the Midpoint, and the closing Crisis Problem, Crisis Decision, and Story Climax. In addition we will consider the role of theme (controlling idea). In _Part Two_ I will analyze the films, one by one, to uncover how these elements work, or fail to work, in each film.

Let's dive right in with a sample screen story analysis, demonstrating the approach to be taken in this book. I will analyze William Wyler's _Ben Hur_ , made in 1959, as it's a compelling example of this kind of four-act structure.

Ben Hur (1959)

Director: William Wyler

Writers: Karl Tunberg (screenplay); Lew Wallace (novel)

Star Rating: 4.9

Early Action / Background

The story's setup is familiar. The family of an aristocrat in Judea, Judah Ben Hur (Charlton Heston), at the time of Christ, is arrested on a pretext when he refuses to collaborate with the new governor, Messala (Stephen Boyd), in putting down an insurrection.

Theme

This movie's overarching theme concerns moral decision-making when such a decision leads to an adverse outcome. The story's controlling moral idea is the protagonist's unflinching sense of moral duty placed opposite his one desire, a sworn oath to take revenge on Messala for his treatment of Ben Hur's family. Ben Hur always chooses the virtuous course of action, except in this matter of revenge. Loving one's enemy, not seeking revenge, is a difficult and vital element in the new teaching of Christ that forms the background of the story. Ben Hur's own life is intended as an example of that teaching in action.

This analysis will now consider how the movie's five plot points create the story's deep structure: in Act 1 the Inciting Incident and Turning Point1, in Act 2 the Midpoint and Turning Point 2, and in Act 3 the Crisis Decision and Climax. Note in what follows how each interacts with the story's theme, and how each produces a turning in the story, or reversal.

Act 1

Betrayed into Slavery

Inciting Incident

Most Hollywood movies register this plot element fairly early in the story. This incident presents a problem that disturbs the balance of forces in the protagonist's life. It demands a response of some sort. At this point the protagonist usually just wants to restore things to how they were before, but it's in the nature of this incident that going back to how things were – is either impossible or not a desirable solution. There is only going forward. The protagonist is forced into this first accommodation on his journey to solve the problem, and thus arrive eventually at a new balance of forces in his life.

Problem: This film's Inciting Incident is in the scene of Ben Hur's mother and sister being arrested and imprisoned after his refusal to betray Judean insurgents against Roman rule.

Decision: He must decide whether to betray his countrymen to help his family, or remain loyal to his countrymen and bring about a horrific outcome for his family. When he chooses the latter, he is sent to the galleys, and his mother and sister are enslaved. The theme postulates that this is the price of making this choice. The 1997 movie 'Gladiator' employed a very similar structure.

Turning Point 1

Problem: The slave ship that Ben Hur is imprisoned on is sunk in battle.

Decision: In the heat of battle Ben Hur rescues the general, Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), who held the power of life and death over him. When he saw that Arrius would die without assistance Ben Hur immediately helps his enemy, who would still hold that power over him if the Roman forces prevailed. He again chose against his own self-interest.

The turning: This action takes Ben Hur out of the galley and into a position in a Roman household – his servitude condemned to die on the galleys has ended. The momentum prior to this was down for Ben Hur; his rescue of Arrius is a reversal of fortune, turning momentum up.

Act 2

A Freedman's Return

Midpoint

A movie's Midpoint is important structurally because it invests the story with symmetry and coherence, which the audience feels subconsciously. It functions as a sort of hinge: until the Midpoint the story's place-of-action, the protagonist's circumstances or affiliation, and his state of mind and attitude are all of a piece, consistent, and this shifts so that what comes after this differs markedly from what came before. More importantly, the story's thematic position usually shifts as well. Any psychological growth that unfolds in the protagonist would reflect the shift in theme.

Problem: This movie's Midpoint is a large banquet scene in Rome, when Arrius announces his decision to give Ben Hur his freedom, and adopt him, thus bestowing on him Roman citizenship. Ben Hur has for several years been in charge of racing the Roman general's chariots in competition.

Decision: He sincerely accepts this gift of freedom, but declines the offer of adoption.

Until this point in the story he was a slave and a Judean; after this Midpoint he is a freedman seeking his family, and briefly he was potentially a Roman citizen if he'd accepted the adoption. His first action as a free man is to inform Arrius of his decision to return to Judea to find and free his family.

Ben Hur's theme concerns revenge. In the story's first half the desire for revenge kept him alive, gave him a purpose when nothing else could. After this Midpoint, however, it prevents him from opening up and fully embracing life again.

Turning Point 2

Problem: Ben Hur meets Sheik Ilderim (Hugh Griffith) at a desert oasis, en route to Judea, and drives the Sheik's chariot. He gives the team of four spirited white horses the best workout since they were last driven by the Sheik himself, years earlier. The Sheik offers him the post of trainer and charioteer.

Decision: This would have been in Ben Hur's self-interest, but again he declines. He will continue on to Judea to honor his obligation to his family.

The turning: He declines yet another opportunity for advancement and security.

He arrives in Judea, sees his villa now fallen into near ruin, meets with his former betrothed, Ester (Haya Harareet), and her father. He asks the Roman administrator about his mother and sister, and is told they must be dead. His mother and sister are secretly released from prison when it's discovered they are lepers.

Act 3

A Champion's Revenge, and Penitence

Crisis Problem

Ben Hur arranges with the Sheik to be his charioteer in an upcoming chariot race in Jerusalem. The Sheik mentions that Messala always appears in such races, and hints that the racing Circus has no law.

Crisis Decision

Ben Hur realizes he can have his revenge on Messala in the Circus and suffer no reprisal. That is his Crisis Decision, to fulfill his desire for revenge in the Circus.

He does achieve this, and is shocked to learn how hollow it is. As mentioned earlier, this story is reprised in the more recent film 'Gladiator,' with important differences. In the latter for the protagonist, Maximus, redemption comes not as a religious gift, but as death itself, and an expected reunion with his dead wife and son. Maximus, like Ben Hur, scrupulously honored all his obligations, and took revenge for a great wrong. For Ben Hur there was a profound spiritual awakening, for Maximus there was none.

Story Climax

The strength of any story climax is determined less by the size and scope of the climactic action, and more by the internal intensity of the crisis decision that leads into that action. This is what makes the chariot race scene such a breathtaking climax. It does carry out his crisis decision to finally achieve a material victory over his enemy, but it also carries out and shows its emptiness. The theme comes full circle as well, from the dire outcome from choosing not to betray his countrymen (Inciting Incident), to doing the right thing by the Roman general, Arrius (Turning Point 1), to Ben Hur's growth into spiritual maturity and the positive outcome this delivers (Climax). The ostensible climax of the chariot race is thus a setup for the deeper climax of Ben Hur's awakening to the new message of forgiving one's enemies. In achieving spiritual maturity Ben Hur invites an inner peace, and regrets and atones for the pride of desiring revenge. He feels a profound sympathy for Christ's suffering which he witnesses, and indeed feels an order of spiritual awe – agape.

Slow Curtain

In the deeper climax, quieter, almost contemplative after the noise and excitement of the Circus, Ben Hur finds and releases his mother and sister from the leper colony, knowledge of which Messala spitefully gave him as a last parting vindictive act. Ben Hur takes his leprous mother and sister into Jerusalem just as Christ's trial is finishing, and whom he sees and tries to help on the climb to Golgotha. He is truly at this point more devastated over this stranger's suffering than over his own family's pain and loss. But then he realizes too that he knows this man, who had once given him water years before on his painful way to the galley. Ben Hur is rising out of himself, out of his preoccupation with his own suffering.

At the moment of Christ's death, as thunder and lightning fill the night sky, Ben Hur's mother and sister are cured of their leprosy. He sees them on the staircase restored to full health, and runs to embrace them. They look to the sky, to a new world they have seen arise.

It still rocks, after all these years!

Summary

The structural elements discussed above involve first, an Inciting Incident _problem_ , followed by corollary problems that arise later, near the end of Act 1, Act 2A, Act 2B, and before the Crisis Decision of Act 3. Next, following each problem a _decision_ is made by the protagonist which usually produces a _turning_ (in momentum direction). Also, the Inciting Incident, major Turning Points, and the Crisis/Climax all bring the audience back time after time to the story's cluster of controlling ideas (on revenge, doing his duty, and not acting in his own self-interest).

I will now consider each plot point, coming next.

## Plot Pressure Points

Writing this book has brought home to me the paramount importance of a story's theme. The _controlling idea_ , as McKee calls it, does not inevitably percolate to the surface as a story is written. It is usually necessary to excavate the primary idea among many such competing ideas that help shape the story. The story focuses on some specific issue in the human condition, and gradually isolates a critical moral premise implicit in that issue. The theme and its moral premise then is the central issue behind the characters, places, and events of the story. It manifests tangibly in the story as a series of unspoken questions that one or more of the characters struggle with, especially the protagonist. As the story unfolds key dialogue (often) turns on these questions, and the answers provided in the story action do evolve.

The moral premise is implicitly introduced in the Act 1 Inciting Incident. In many stories the position taken on it shifts radically during the Act 2A Midpoint. Also, it's returned to in either or both of the Act 1 and Act 2B Turning Points. The Crisis Decision is the last occasion the protagonist faces it. When the theme is clear to the writer it is much easier to turn the story – create turning points. Lastly, knowing your characters means knowing where they stand on that moral premise, and _why_.

The basic unitary component in a story is the scene. How does a scene work? First, a scene's point of view character has a _desire_. He or she takes _action_ on that, and meets _opposition_ from a character or an inanimate force. Several action / opposition beats occur as a scene unfolds. This conflict results in a _change_. That is how McKee defines a scene: desire, action, opposition, change. The building-up of such pressure occurs as readily over a sequence of scenes, and over a series of sequences to form one Act, as within a single scene. Whenever such pressure (cathexis) reaches the breaking point, a _turning_ occurs (catharsis), whether at the level of a scene, a sequence of scenes, or most importantly at the end of an Act. This discharge of pressure also changes the story's momentum direction. Every scene thus _turns_ the story. The five major points of catharsis, or _plot pressure points_ , turn the story's basic direction.

Everything in the writing process flows from an understanding of these two elements: the scene, and theme. This will become clear as you read through the story analysis of specific movies. When you understand scene dynamics then its various applications in Turning Points, Midpoint, and the Crisis/Climax becomes much easier. In effect planning your story's events becomes much easier. Moreover, knowing your story's theme will tie that process together, and facilitate the decisions that characters reach. If you change the story's theme you change the forces the protagonist faces, and thus the decisions he makes, and thus the story itself.

I will now go into more detail about each of these pressure points, and theme.

Inciting Incident

The first important structural moment in a story is its Inciting Incident. McKee defines this as an event that "radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist's life." It turns the prevailing momentum in place at that point. Momentum is defined as the direction of the protagonist's fortunes. Positive or up momentum refers to an improvement in his (or her) fortunes, and a negative or down momentum to a worsening. Thus a 'reversal of fortune' is when the prevailing momentum is _turned_ , as in a turning point. Even the Inciting Incident qualifies as a turning point, the story's first, in the sense that it turns Act 1 momentum, however briefly.

The incident in the Inciting Incident is not an internal event in the protagonist's consciousness – not an internal crisis or mental awakening. It is external, a negative or positive event (from the protagonist's perspective) occurring out there in the story world. It functions as an incitement, producing an effect that is both external and internal.

The external incident could be in his career (losing a job), his circle of friends (death of a mentor), his family (a child is kidnapped), or his financial affairs (a sudden loss, or windfall). The immediate internal effects (imbalance) are a series of negative emotions. For example, following the death of a mentor, the protagonist may experience shock, anger, grief. The imbalance usually spreads to other areas of his life.

Seeing his predicament, the protagonist wishes he could turn back the clock, just go back to how things were. That initial reaction leads to a more reasoned decision, which then is acted on.

John Truby believes the Inciting Incident can also serve to "connect need and desire" in the protagonist. When the story opens he is deficient in some way, in a state of paralyzed "need and weakness," and the incident structurally incites, provokes him into action. Granted, this assumes the incident follows activates some latent 'tragic' loss or flaw in the protagonist, driving his desire. Not all stories have such a layering of motivation, however.

A person might hypothetically respond to such an incident by giving up, adjusting to the reduced circumstances, and shrugging off the new imbalance in his life, which sadly is how it often goes in real life. Thus these two sides of the Inciting Incident mentioned above, the incitement (a problem) and the response (a decision), need to be strong enough dramatically to launch the events of the story. The incitement should be powerful enough to provoke the protagonist into a lasting desire for change, and the protagonist should have the internal strength to respond with an unequivocal decision. He cannot be overwhelmed.

Steven Pressfield on his website suggests that an Inciting Incident can also contain a surprise. He cites the film _Chinatown_. The protagonist had been hired as a private detective by the wife of a cheating husband, but then the Faye Dunaway character walks in and reveals that _she_ is the real wife, and she surely didn't hire him, and threatens to sue. This is wholly unexpected, and it causes the viewer to replay in his mind what came before, realizing that everything he thought he understood is false. _Chinatown's_ Inciting Incident jeopardized the character's professional reputation, his career, and his film noir air of insouciance. He feels embarrassment and self-doubt, which provokes a desire to restore his credibility, to prove himself to her by solving the case. In a murder-mystery, for obvious genre reasons, this makes for a very canny and effective Inciting Incident.

For each movie discussed in these pages I will isolate and define the Inciting Incident to show how it sets events rolling internally for the protagonist, and externally for the story overall. Although actual Inciting Incidents are as varied as the characters whose lives they affect, their functional role in a narrative varies little from story to story. This finite dramatic principle, once understood, can be given infinite expression in concrete story situations.

To better understand the Inciting Incident as a discrete story point, let us set side by side below the Inciting Incidents from several of the movies to be considered later in this book.

_Flight of the Phoenix_ (2004)

The incitement: The Phoenix propeller-driven airplane crashes in the desert. At this stage the plane and the desert are the forces of opposition.

The response: Capt. Towns' (Dennis Quaid) response is scarcely adequate: his decision and action is to suggest that everyone sit tight and wait for rescue. He has little desire at this stage to actively lead these survivors, although as the pilot he is the nominal person in charge.

_Flightplan_ (2005)

The incitement: Kyle (Jodie Foster) is on stress medication since her husband's suicide. After boarding the plane with her daughter, she falls asleep, and awakes to find Julia missing. She realizes she's been under pressure, and is not operating at 100 percent. The opposition at this point is her own mental state, and her earlier misfortune.

The response: Frantic with worry over Julia, she decides and takes immediate action, looking for her daughter and securing the flight crew's cooperation in a plane-wide search.

_Sahara_ (2005)

The incitement: Dirk Pitt (Matthew McConaughey) and his partner-in-arms, Al Giordino, drop off the two doctors, Eva Rojas and her boss, at an upriver port on the Niger. Pitt and Giordino are stopped by several of Colonel Kazim's patrol boats. They escape from a sustained attack by soldiers on the 4 boats and the machine gun-equipped jeeps onshore. Pitt realizes the attack was intended for the doctors who are investigating a plague. Kazim is the opposition antagonist.

The response: Pitt decides they must go back and help the doctors. Committing to this will make them Kazim's target, thus embroiling them in a conflict that will take them far from their original hunt for treasure.

_Red Eye_ (2005)

The incitement: Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdam) catches the 'red-eye' flight home after a business trip. She first meets Rippner waiting at flight check-in, then in a coffee shop, and then again on the plane where he is to be her seat neighbor in a two-seat window row. This makes for a very understated incitement; Rippner is the opposition.

The response: An internal 'warning alarm' goes off for her at this apparent co-incidence of their having adjacent seats, but his charm wins her over. She does nothing more beyond this, a non-response to an understated incitement that builds suspense.

_16 Blocks_ (2006)

The incitement: Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis), a NYC cop nearing retirement, is driving the police car he was assigned, escorting a witness, Eddy, set to testify at a trial. Traffic gets bumper to bumper; he parks and ducks into a liquor store for a 26er of Canadian Club whisky. Meanwhile a hitman in a 'street' disguise starts banging on the car's rear-passenger window where Eddie is sitting. The gunman suddenly produces a high-powered silencer-equipped machine gun from under his ragged coat and steps back, all business now. The opposition at this point is whoever he works for.

The response: Shots ring out and bloodspatter appears around a hole in the window. It's not Eddy's blood, but the hitman's, who has been shot by Jack from across the street (an immediate decision and action). This escort detail has just turned into something quite different – Jack now knows Eddy is no ordinary witness in no ordinary trial.

Turning Points

The turning point dramatic principle, also known as a _reversal_ , is another essential element in storytelling.

A movie's major turning points (TP1 in Act 1, TP2 in Act 2B) turn the plot in a new direction – they change momentum. The momentum direction, up or down, is simply whether a scene makes life better (up) or worse (down) for the protagonist. A story's changes in momentum thus describe _reversals of fortune_ for the protagonist. A major turning point scene is just an ordinary scene (desire, action, opposition, change) with a decision integrated in the change at the scene's end. The protagonist takes _action_ to fulfill a _desire_ , meets _opposition_ in a series of action/reaction beats, and reaches a _decision_. Thus, to write a major turning point scene, the writer plans beforehand the p.o.v. character's desire, the opposition, and the decision reached. I advise doing such a simple plan for each major turning point.

In fact many writers swear by such a process, and they advise preparing such a brief description for all of the scenes in your novel. If you have 70 scenes planned for, then write a 3-line description in point form for all of the 70 scenes, stating the goal, the conflict or opposition encountered in that scene (3 or 4 beats), and the decision the p.o.v. character reaches at the end (or the change produced). In my own case, the single most important thing I did when writing my first novel was making such a scene list. I literally mapped it out as a long series of ascending steps on a stairway on three poster-sized leaves of chart paper. When my enthusiasm and confidence waned, that scene list got me back on track.

At any rate, following the Inciting Incident the protagonist's decisions and actions are set in a definite direction in response to the upset presented by the Inciting Incident. This continues until pressure builds enough, culminating in a major turning point scene where the action / opposition beats require a new decision from the protagonist, and that _turns_ the story in a new direction. This intense turning we designate after the fact as TP1, and _it_ defines the end of Act 1, not the other way around. TP2 at the end of Act 2B is functionally similar – it turns the story in a direction that diverges yet again from the direction maintained throughout Act 2B.

Let us look at a case study of this from _Flight of the Phoenix_. A passenger, one of the survivors of the crashed aircraft, flees into the desert during the night. When this is reported, a female passenger remonstrates with Towns to set out after him. The survivors all share a clear desire: to survive. The man who flees wants to escape their wreck of an aircraft and their own collective inertia. What Towns wants is for the group to stay together, to wait for rescue. Towns catches up to the man later, learns of his fears and desires, and his fleeing makes a sort of sense. The Captain suddenly sees what they need, he has an idea, and they start back. When they arrive at the aircraft he rallies them all to work together and make their aircraft flight-worthy again. The plan is received with enthusiasm. The scene opposition is Towns' own initial reluctance, then his long trek pursuing the man, and his initial reluctance to listen to the man's concerns. The scene thus started with a shared desire; Towns encounters opposition (in himself and others); and a decision is made. The last scene in this sequence turns the momentum from the pessimism and passivity of earlier scenes to one of optimism and action. The decision gives them a goal.

The Inciting Incident delivers the protagonist's changed circumstances and he makes his first response to that; Turning Point 1 is where he fully commits to the new solution (rebuilding the Phoenix). A regular-length story needs a minimum of five major turning points: the Inciting Incident and TP1 in Act 1, the Midpoint in Act 2A, TP2 in Act 2B, and the Crisis Decision in Act 3. A major turning point in effect closes out an Act. Turning points don't automatically give focus and intensity to a story. Too many, and the story becomes spectacle. If the reversal in a turning point scene diverges too far or too abruptly, the story may slide into satire.

As with the Inciting Incident, this finite principle of turning points, once understood, can give the writer infinite opportunities for expression in concrete story situations. For each movie discussed in these pages I will identify and define the major Act 1 and Act 2 Turning Points, to show how each turns in a necessary new direction the desires, actions, and decisions of the protagonist.

Let us briefly set side by side below the first major turning point (TP1) from several of the movies to be considered later in this book. I will look at three elements: the _problem_ and the _decision_ that lead to the turning (TP1), and the change in _momentum_ that results.

_Flight of the Phoenix_ (2004)

Problem: The passengers of the downed aircraft all want to survive. One of them panics and runs out into the desert. The pilot, Towns, reluctantly sets out to bring him back. The opposition he faces now is not only the desert and himself, but potentially the worried survivors he is responsible for.

The turning: Before this Towns' fortunes got worse (down), from the crash to the man's fleeing into the desert. The momentum turns (up) when the man gives him an idea.

Decision: On their return to the camp Towns proposes to everyone that they rebuild the plane. The disparate group of survivors is now a team with a purpose, due largely to Towns' re-emerging leadership.

_Flightplan_ (2005)

Problem: Kyle escapes onto the plane's other levels and carries out two more searches, one alone and another with the flight crew and Captain Rich's (Sean Bean) cooperation. The searches turn up nothing.

The turning: In such a closed space a missing object or person would invariably turn up. It begins to look like Kyle imagined boarding with her daughter.

Before this momentum is moderately up, she expects to find Julia. Her reversal of fortune occurs gradually, and our sympathy for her finally breaks, until we assume she is delusional from grief. It is a gradual reversal, and mirrors her own gradual loss of belief in her sanity.

_Sahara_ (2005)

Problem: One of Kazim's platoons swoops down on Rojas and her boss in a Mali village where everyone has died from the plague. Kazim arrives by helicopter, questions her boss, casually executes him, and orders his troops to find Rojas, who is hiding in a well. Pitt and Giordino witness all this from the roof of a nearby building. Before seeing this Pitt just wanted to carry on with his hunt for US Civil War treasure. Giordino had had serious doubts and wanted to call it off.

Decision: They go down and kill the soldiers looking for Rojas. The three escape in one of their jeeps.

The turning: Their fortunes turned down with the Inciting Incident decision to go back and warn Rojas. After seeing the murder their desire to help intensifies: they kill the soldiers and commandeer one of the jeeps, and momentum turns up. They are more receptive now to her claims of Kazim's possible role in the plague.

In Act 1 Pitt and Giordino are introduced as adventurers; with the murder their desire and goal shifts, they become investigators of an environmental conspiracy. Their help to Rojas deepens with later decisions.

_Red Eye_ (2005)

Problem: Rippner soon reveals his true purpose. Lisa's father is being held and will be killed unless she arranges that the usual room at the complex assigned to a high political family is changed to one overlooking the harbor. She wants to ensure that her father survives, and does not want to enable a terror attack.

Decision: She leaves a message on the bathroom mirror, but Rippner bursts in and renews his threat.

The turning: Act 1 introduces two people on a plane who are at odds, so momentum is down; it briefly turns (up) when she tries to leave a message.

_16 Blocks_ (2006)

Problem: After catching a taxi, Jack and Eddy go into a bar where Jack's supervisor, Frank Nugent, is waiting for them. Nugent begins the 'blocking' for how Eddy will be framed: for ostensibly grabbing a gun, firing off a shot that lands in the wall (which Frank directs a cop to do), and who is then to be shot while resisting arrest. We learn that the trial is for racketeering and related criminal charges against NYC cops, and Eddy is the vital witness, for which he is now being removed. The opposition against Jack and Eddy is these corrupt cops, including Jack's supervisor.

Decision: Mosley fires a sawed-off shotgun under the counter, hitting one of the cops in the leg who was setting up the cover story and preparing to shoot Eddy. They leave by the back exit, barring the door as they go out.

The turning: Momentum was up since Jack shot the assassin outside his car (Inciting Incident). True, things were technically getting worse for Jack, but he took up Eddy's cause, so at a deeper level his fortunes are improving (he's doing the right thing). It abruptly turns up even more when he again saves Eddy in the bar. In Act 1 it's a neutral witness transport, a day in a cop's life. It turns when he prevents an attempt to frame and kill the witness.

Midpoint

As stated earlier, a movie's Midpoint invests the story with an internal balance which the audience feels subconsciously. Before that point in the story everything has one coherent, consistent set of meanings, and after that point a new set of meanings emerges. Why is this so important? It's analogous to the planes and points of intersection in a perspective painting, or the 3D vectors of force in a sculpture. Just as symmetry is critical in the visual arts, it is no less so in the arrangement of scenes that precede and follow a story's Midpoint.

The Midpoint also signals a shift in the protagonist's position on the story's thematic moral premise. The protagonist's decisions and actions in part constitute a struggle with that, and thus the shift is a culmination. In screenwriting parlance the Midpoint is sometimes referred to as the First Culmination. The Crisis/Climax of Act 3 constitute the second and final culmination. I caution about imposing such a theme shift on the events of your story, let it grow out of the characters' decisions.

As with the previous sections, let us look briefly at the Midpoint in several of the movies to be considered later in this book, set side by side below. I will look at the scene's opening problem and closing decision, the momentum change, and any shift implied in the story's thematic moral premise.

_Flight of the Phoenix_ (2004)

Problem: Arab nomads raid their camp a second time (they raided earlier in Act 2). Towns and several others give chase and manage to kill the raiders, and take one prisoner whom they bring back. Elliottt quite suddenly murders the bound Arab in cold blood on the grounds they didn't have enough water to keep him alive. Any hope the audience placed in Elliottt is erased by this abrupt psychotic act.

Before this Midpoint Elliottt, as the aeronautical engineer guiding their work seemed the story's likeliest potential protagonist. After this point it is Towns who steadily emerges as the group's responsible, moral leader.

Momentum: After the Turning Point 1 decision to rebuild the plane, Towns' and the survivors' fortunes are up as their work progresses. It continues up when they repel the Arab bandits' first attack early in Act 2. The momentum only turns down when Elliottt kills the prisoner, at the Midpoint.

Theme Shift: The story suggests that any group project requires a leader, and thus it explores what effective leadership is. The moral premise in the first half was that a leader is anyone with the necessary technical knowledge and skills to coordinate a project, i.e. Elliottt. In the second half that premise shifts and leadership is defined in moral terms. When Elliottt kills the prisoner it's abruptly shown what a true leader cannot be.

_Flightplan_ (2005)

Problem: Kyle has another confrontation with Carson, the air marshal, who reveals that Kyle's daughter in fact died with her husband several days earlier, and Kyle has since suffered a 'psychotic break'.

Decision: Exhausted by the search, Kyle accepts this, and a grief counselor sits with her.

Momentum: Before this Midpoint Kyle's search is a rational act by a desperate mother, and it seems that her daughter has in fact disappeared. Momentum is up, finding Julia seems imminent throughout the three searches. After this point her fortunes turn down, and we reluctantly conclude she's an unreliable anti-hero struggling with her own inner demons.

Theme Shift: The first half moral premise suggests that appearances aren't what they seem – don't judge. Indeed none of the characters are what they seem: the air marshal, the stewardess, and even Kyle. In the second half Kyle will be vindicated, she turns out to be sane after all, as she appeared at the start. But frankly we cease to care long before that. Momentum stops working in this story because if she's insane her perceptions are unreliable, her missing daughter is a delusion, and thus her fortunes cannot reliably improve or get worse. If she's insane then what the audience sees is all happening in her mind.

_Sahara_ (2005)

Problem: The rebel Tuareg leader, whose men apprehend the three travellers, listens as Pitt explains that the water in the wells was poisoned by Kazim's partner, a French company run by Massadre. Pitt asks the Tuareg leader for help, but the leader refuses, saying that his one duty is to take care of his people.

Until this Midpoint the focus has been on solving the mystery of the plague and Kazim and Massadre's involvement; after this point the focus shifts to shutting them down.

Momentum: It continues up as the three gain access to Massadre's facility, where they see the criminal activity, but they're caught, and their fortunes turn down.

Theme Shift: The story's environmental message is the theme. The message is wrapped inside a light adventure story. Presumably the intended shift is Pitt's conversion from an adventurer to environmental activist.

_Red Eye_ (2005)

Problem: Lisa did all that Rippner asked, making the phone calls ensuring the political family is moved into a new (targetable) suite at the condominium.

Decision: To stop the plot she knows she needs to escape him, and time is running out. She knows she has to act before he deplanes with her. When the plane lands she sprays aerosol in his eye and flees up the aisle seconds before it's clogged by departing passengers

Momentum: There is little physical movement by the characters in the first half, and Lisa's fortunes are steadily down. With her sudden exit from the plane momentum turns up.

Theme Shift: The first half moral premise seems to be one of non-violence. Lisa does not immediately take on Rippner because presumably she's never had to fight back before. Her attitude shifts, she becomes a fighter more than equal to those who would harm her, her father, and others. The premise clearly shifts as well: i.e. appeasement kills, while fighting back at least gives a victim a chance.

_16 Blocks_ (2006)

Problem: Jack and Eddy are forced to walk the streets and use the subway as the pursuing cops close in.

Decision: They arrive at Jack's ex-wife's apartment, the dialogue indicating their separation resulted from the demands of the job and his drinking. Eddy gets a glimpse into Jack's earlier life. They set off for the courthouse.

Momentum: Their fortunes were improving since Jack first saved Eddy's life. Momentum turns down because Jack clearly condemns himself for something, despite helping Eddy. We don't yet know that Jack was in fact at one time a member in his supervisor's gang.

Theme Shift: In the ex-wife's apartment we sense there's a reason why Jack believes that people can't change. The earlier scenes of his protecting Eddy seemed a hero cop routine. Here we see both sides: the past Jack, and the reformed one. A current reform is happening now, as he re-examines his life. We don't learn of Jack's criminal past until TP2, when the shift in moral premise occurs.

Crisis Decision / Climax

The span of a story, like a bridge, reaches from the Inciting Incident to the Crisis/Climax, from a basic Inciting Incident _problem_ to the Story Climax _solution_. Each problem that arises between these two plot points leads an immediate local decision (solution), plus they all lead to the eventual Act 3 Climax. The Crisis/Climax includes a Crisis Problem, a Crisis Decision, and the Story Climax. With the Inciting Incident an original problem (often a disaster) profoundly upsets the balance of forces in the protagonist's life. It is so disruptive the hero cannot fail to respond, and he does so with a proposed solution which usually requires considerable time.

As a writer your first task is to decide on your story's Inciting Incident and its Crisis/Climax. The two are like two halves of a whole, each requires the other. More on this later.

The easiest way to explain this is by showing it. In _Flight of the Phoenix_ the story opens with the crash of the Phoenix in the North African desert. The group of survivors' first task is to get organized and start making efforts towards their survival. Their problem then is: how to survive. Towns' Inciting Incident Decision is to do nothing, just wait. I won't repeat here my earlier coverage of this. Suffice it to say that the survivors respond enthusiastically to Towns' plan to rebuild the Phoenix, a plausible course of action because Elliottt is an aeronautical engineer. The Crisis/Climax in Act 3 begins with a final setback, a Crisis Problem, and is followed by the Crisis Decision and Climax. The Crisis Problem is a corollary of the original problem of how to survive.

In the Inciting Incident a problem is presented, and the hero responds with a solution or decision. After that events proceed and four iterations of that opening problem arise. A new problem appears in each of the successive story plot points. In _Flight of the Phoenix_ , the man running away in the night is the first of the four iterations. Towns heads out, returns with the man, and announces his plan. That is the Turning Point 1 problem and decision.

The next iteration is some days later when the bandits attack again (the first was an attack earlier in Act 2). The group repels, pursues, and kills most of the bandits, and take one prisoner. After returning to the camp, with the prisoner tied and sitting to one side, Elliottt gets up and shoots him point blank. The group reacts with horror, and Elliottt explains they can't afford to share their dwindling water. That is the Midpoint problem, when the story's position on its theme will shift.

It's days later and work is progressing. Responding to questions, Elliottt reminisces with pride of his favorite aircraft model, one he built as part of his work. It comes out that his job was to design and build such models, under three feet in length. It turns out he never in fact worked on a full size aircraft. The group reacts, believing that their technical chief is a designer and builder of toy airplanes. That is the Turning Point 2 problem, and leads to Towns making another decision.

The next, fourth iteration will be the Crisis Problem in Act 3, when Elliottt demands an apology from Towns after being confronted by the others over his drinking more than his share of the water during the night. He explains he worked when others slept, and thus deserved the extra ration. He threatens to stop working unless Towns' apologizes. They're close to their goal, but Elliottt is ready to jeopardize it all in this power struggle with Towns. This Crisis Problem should be the worst problem they face thus far. They can't finish the Phoenix without Elliottt's technical knowledge. This leads to Town's Crisis Decision, he gives Elliottt what he wants, and apologizes.

To consider the Act 3 Crisis/Climax requires that we look at this larger problem / solution dynamic, and how each local problem / decision fits into a narrative arc between the Inciting Incident and the Crisis/Climax.

Looking deeper, the first iteration was the passenger who fled (TP1). The next three were problems brought about by Elliottt, and those three escalate: i.e. Elliottt as erratic, unstable, when he kills the prisoner (Midpoint); Elliottt as not a real aeronautical engineer (TP2); and Elliottt in his argument with Towns (C/C), refusing to work. The first and second of these were aspects of his behavior and his past, respectively, but the third is a willed current action, a threat that he delivers to the group. It is therefore the worst problem thus far.

Note the linkage between the Inciting Incident and the Crisis/Climax. Normally the Inciting Incident is the first action taken by the antagonist against the hero to achieve _his_ (the antagonist's) negative goal – thus directly linking the Inciting Incident to the eventual outcome in the Crisis/Climax. Alternatively, the Inciting Incident is the antagonist's first attempt to defeat the hero and achieve his goal; and in the four iterations of that the antagonist tries four more times, and is finally defeated by the protagonist in Act 3. Again the two are directly connected. In _Flight of the Phoenix_ the connection is different in two ways. First, there is no antagonist who acts against Towns, except for Elliottt. The project of rebuilding the Phoenix becomes the spine of the story that carries on to the story's end. Second, the important decision to rebuild the Phoenix comes in TP1, at the end of Act 1. Thus it is TP1 that connects to the Crisis/Climax, not the Inciting Incident. As long as a problem/decision in Act 1 connects with the outcome solution in Act 3, then story dynamic is fulfilled. Following Towns' Crisis Decision to apologize, the final critical steps are taken, the rebuilt plane is hauled to the nearby shale-hard badlands, the engine is tested and starts. They pile into position on the wing and take off.

Let's look at another example of an unfolding problem/decision arc. In Red Eye Rippner, sitting next to Lisa, threatens to kill her father unless she cooperates (Inciting Incident problem). Her response is to go along, she has no solution yet. The first iteration (TP1) is her realization that time is running out, she'll be killed when they land, her body dumped, and her father killed regardless. Her decision is to try to leave a message on the bathroom mirror, but Rippner bursts in, stops her, and escalates his threat. The second iteration (Midpoint) is when they're landing, time is up, her father and innocents will soon die unless she acts. She decides, and gets away from him in the confusion of passengers disembarking the plane. He pursues her, causing mayhem. The third iteration (TP2) is the terrorists are shown preparing to launch a missile from a yacht. Lisa phones her assistant as she runs through the airport, instructing her on getting the political family out of the targeted suite. The fourth iteration (Crisis Problem) is she's on the highway in her car, trying to phone and warn her father, but he isn't answering. Moments later she arrives at her father's home and sees Rippner's man standing on the low porch closing his phone, reaching into his shoulder holster as he turns towards the door. Realizing he's about to re-enter and kill her father, she decides (Crisis Decision), swerves the car hard, drives across the front lawn and slams through the porch, instantly killing him. She runs inside but can't find her father, even as Rippner arrives outside. He bursts in. A cat and mouse pursuit inside the house follows, closing with a fight on the staircase. Her father staggers out and Rippner is finally killed.

Again, note the link between the Inciting Incident and the Crisis Climax. The antagonist takes action against the protagonist, and that is the Inciting Incident problem. That action is part of the antagonist's plan to achieve the endgame outcome he desires. Rippner in _Red Eye_ picks Lisa as the condo official on whom to apply blackmail pressure to have the suite of the targeted political family changed. The problem in the Inciting Incident (for the protagonist, Lisa) is thus an action he takes as part of his plan.

At its most basic a story unfolds with a dire problem that upsets the balance of forces in the life of the protagonist. She comes up with a solution and begins putting that into action, encountering one problem after another along the way.

In the Act 3 Crisis Decision the protagonist devises a solution to be put into action in the Climax. It's a do-or-die moment. In addition much of the process of the Crisis Decision might not be shown – the audience sees the beginning of it, or the final preparations for the action to come. They're shown enough to realize a decision has been made in response to this final problem. The Climax itself is a series of action/reaction beats (i.e. a chase, then a fight, then some bargaining, then a treacherous countermove, the fight resumes, death, etc.) which flow directly from the protagonist's Crisis Decision.

The concept of an implied _Obligatory Scene_ may also appear in Act 3. This is a 'what-if' that has hovered in our mind since the Inciting Incident: namely, what if the protagonist were to face the most focused expression of opposition to his goal, what would his decision and response be? This isn't always used. A superior Crisis/Climax series of scenes usually deploys some version of the obligatory scene concept.

The closing pages of Act 3 will usually have a slow curtain scene that shows the new equilibrium in the life of the protagonist.

Theme

I have returned fairly often to theme in these pages because getting a handle on this makes planning your story's major plot points much easier, with less backtracking later on. In terms of theme a big part of each plot point (Inciting Incident, TP's, etc) is how each reveals a different position on the story's moral premise.

Generally, the premise is implied in the Act 1 early action, then is more overtly presented in the problem of the Inciting Incident. In the Act 2 Midpoint it can shift, which would change the meaning of story events after that point. If it retroactively changes the facts of an earlier event then it also changes the meaning of those earlier scenes. This is the case when we learn that Kyle in _Flightplan_ is delusional from grief. It changes everything that came before that point. Then in the Act 3 Crisis Decision the position on the premise may evolve again. Lastly, this is often reflected in the protagonist's psychological growth (or deterioration) in the story.

In _Flight of the Phoenix_ the moral premise proposes what true leadership is. At the start Towns is apparently a cynical washed-up pilot who does the bare minimum in managing and piloting the Phoenix. He's not a leader in any sense, though the potential is there. In Turning Point 1 he chooses a more active leadership role when he rallies the disparate group of survivors with a plan to rebuild the Phoenix. In the Act 2 Midpoint when Elliottt murders the bandit prisoner, Towns holds the team together and leads them back to their work. He now thinks of others before himself. In the Act 3 Crisis Decision Elliottt demands an apology (undeserved) from Towns over the missing water and Towns quickly sees the need to apologize. He's now a true leader, fully putting the team's welfare before his own. Elliottt loses stature in the story as his inability to lead becomes increasingly apparent. This theme is revisited four times during the story.

Thus theme can also be a useful tool to develop complexity in your characters. Try to shift the protagonist's position on the story's moral premise at least once (at the Midpoint). This evolving position can work well as a central feature in your protagonist's psyche. Moreover, set about defining each of your principal character's positions, and why they each came to think the way they do. That will take you a long way to understanding the characters' deeper differences.

Theme appears in the deep background of the story, in the speech, decisions, actions, and psychological growth of the characters. It can also be framed as an implied question. In many _novels_ such a character-driven thematic Climax is often more important than the plot Climax. A novel can do this extraordinarily well. Such an emphasis on a change in attitude (or a shift in the hero's philosophy) _is_ often a novel's true Crisis/Climax, and the protagonist walks away a wiser, more enlightened person. In film, however, any such internal change _must_ be shown in external behavior, and thus through action. A movie Climax is the final action by the protagonist that literally delivers the answer (to a thematic question) in a physical form, and which objectively changes his life. Let me add here that novels are becoming more cinematic, and we now externalize a novel's crisis/climax as films do – the protagonist's internal decision leads directly to action against opposition forces and reaches a final goal.

The rest of this book will move through all fifty movies, one by one, identifying and showing the role of each plot point as it appears in each film, and the problem/decision arc this involves. For example, seeing fifty Inciting Incidents, each in their story setting, one after another, reveals how it works, if only through repetition. It's the same for other story points: Turning Point scenes, Midpoints, and the Crisis/Climax. By giving one story example after another I hope to show plot points in action.

The movies were chosen at random; they were simply movies I happened to see during a certain time frame. I've arranged them here by genre. The masthead of each movie analysis gives its title and year of release, the director, the writer(s), and a personal star rating out of 5 which I assign each film. The rating is purely my own evaluation of how well the movie fulfills the structural story elements – pressure points – discussed above.

## PART TWO
## ACTION/ADVENTURE GENRE

They say we only use a fraction of our brain's true potential. Now that's when we're awake. When we're asleep, we can do almost anything.

Inception (2010)

## Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Director: John Moore

Writers: Scott Frank, Edward Burns; Lukas Heller (1964 screenplay)

Star Rating: 3.8

Early Action / Background

Captain Frank Towns has been flying the 'Phoenix' for many years now on runs over the desert of North Africa. The cargo plane has seen better days. So too has the crew, who have come to see themselves as little better than their junk Phoenix.

Theme

The story here is similar to a coming-of-age tale, where the protagonist explores his capabilities, gains knowledge and begins to actualize some of his potential. In this film Towns (and the plane) rises like a mythical phoenix, regaining a lost capability. Part of his potential was his ability to lead, a skill lost in the fires of failure and cynicism, and which he regains in full by the end.

Act 1

Phoenix Down

Inciting Incident

Problem: The Phoenix propeller-driven airplane crashes in the desert.

Decision: Capt. Towns' plan for dealing with the situation is scarcely adequate. He suggests that everyone sit tight and wait for rescue. The 'Captain' apparently has no desire to lead these survivors.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: One of the survivors panics and runs out into the desert. Towns heads to bring him back. While talking to the frightened passenger he has an idea.

Decision: On their return to the camp Towns proposes to everyone that they rebuild the plane. The disparate group of survivors is now a team with a purpose, due largely to Towns' re-emerging leadership.

Act 2A

Restored

Midpoint

Problem: Arab nomads raid their camp. Towns and several others manage to kill the raiders and take one prisoner, whom they bring back. Elliottt quite suddenly shoots the bound Arab point blank. Any hope the audience placed in Elliottt is erased by this abrupt psychotic act.

Decision: Towns leads the survivors back to their work on the Phoenix.

Before this Midpoint Elliottt, as the aeronautical engineer guiding their rebuilding of the Phoenix, and as the story's emblematic carrier of knowledge and culture, seemed the story's likeliest potential hero. After this point it is Towns who steadily emerges as the group's responsible, moral leader, through his decisions and actions.

Theme Shift: If this story's theme is that any group undertaking requires a leader, then this film explores what constitutes effective leadership. The moral premise in the first half was that a leader is anyone with the necessary knowledge and skills to coordinate a project. In the second half it's the leader's moral outlook. When Elliottt kills the prisoner it's abruptly shown what a leader is not.

Act 2B

Fraud?

Turning Point 2

Problem: Elliottt reveals that his aeronautical engineering knowledge and experience is for 'model' aircraft. The others angrily conclude they're rebuilding from a design for a toy plane, with a mad engineer as their design chief.

Decision: Towns takes their focus off Elliottt's qualifications, and leads them back to work.

Act 3

Flight

Crisis Problem

In due course the plane is finished, but no one is overly optimistic, except Elliottt. Several team members complain over Elliottt drinking more than his share of water during the night. Elliott explains he deserved it because he was working longer hours. He resentfully demands a full apology from the Captain, on the others' behalf.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Towns swallows his pride and apologizes to Elliottt. Towns is now a full leader, able to make the welfare of the others his overriding concern.

Climax

The Phoenix succeeds on their one-chance flight, with all the survivors boarding and taking position on the wing. The plane taxies away across the desert flatlands, as yet more Arab raiders arrive to give chase.

The flight itself sees the band of survivors take a shared pride in their achievement, as the desert landscape passes below.

New Equilibrium

The Phoenix Captain, crew, and passengers achieve their own rescue, and fly on to their original destination a very changed group. Towns has rediscovered a life-purpose based on a primary value: proactive leadership. Elliottt has his triumph, but at what cost? He can grow and learn from his ordeal, if he chooses. The others have experienced being part of something greater than themselves. The new equilibrium has improved every one's lot.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The story arc stretches across connecting the Act 1 TP1 decision to the Act 3 Crisis decision. In each decision the protagonist commits to the subsequent action he (or she) takes.

In TP1 Towns proposes to his fellow survivors that they rebuild the Phoenix. It's a great speech, but what does he believe? He is still the somewhat embittered, selfish Captain who's grown unaccustomed to truly leading. He proposes rebuilding the Phoenix to give them hope, to keep them occupied, moving forward. In the Act 3 Crisis decision Towns swallows his pride and bows to Elliott's unreasonable demand. He apologizes to Elliottt so the project can be finished. He acts for the 'greater good' of all the survivors.

Thus Towns went from launching their rebuilding project to yielding to Elliottt in a power struggle. The change that occurs between these two decisions is what the story is about – (moral) leadership and survival. The writer uses this to create content for the middle Acts, namely to show Elliottt's inability to lead. First he executes a prisoner to conserve water (Act 2A); later he admits he's an aeronautical model engineer, thus making his knowledge of aircraft design suspect (2B).

Protagonist and antagonist are usually flip sides to each other. Elliottt stays the same, egocentric and immoral. Towns grows, on the one hand regaining a lost moral sense and on the other he becomes able to lead. They couldn't have achieved this without Elliott's aeronautical knowledge, and Town's inspiring leadership. Showing such an internal change in the protagonist as part of the external change of circumstances is now fairly standard in movies and novels.

Momentum

As stated above I will address momentum direction in _Story Crisis, Story Climax 2_. For now let us take note of shifts in fortunes as events in the four Acts move against the protagonist (down) and with him (up), also known as a reversal of fortune and its opposite. I will briefly state the shifts in momentum direction following each film.

For Flight of the Phoenix: Act 1 is down; 2A up, 2B down; Act 3 up.

## National Treasure (2004)

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Writers: Jim Kouf, Cormac & Marinne Wibberly; Oren Aviv, Charles Segars (story)

Star Rating: 4.2

Early Action / Background

As a child Ben Gates received from his grandfather the 'torch' of hunting for treasure, which he has followed ever since. Ben was just finishing the last leg of his most recent search, following a series of clues that took him to the Arctic. His arch-rival, Ian Howe, another treasure hunter (who believes ethics are for wimps), gets there before him. Howe cryptically reveals that he has an even bigger 'treasure catch' in the works.

Back in Washington Ben and his friend go to the Smithsonian and see the Declaration of Independence. With this and other clues it suddenly clicks for Ben that Howe intends to steal that document. They meet with the museum's Director, Abigail Chase, who doesn't believe their story, and Ben cannot divulge his evidence without implicating himself. She concludes they are 'treasure hunters'; Ben replies that no, they are more in the line of 'treasure protectors', a distinction his grandfather would have approved.

Theme

The controlling idea is that to Ben Gates 'treasure' consists of valuable artifacts vital to the nation's history. His obsession with treasure is more a species of selfless, eccentric patriotism. Ben Gates is himself a national treasure, preserving and protecting the nation's heritage. In this light the treasure hunt becomes something quite different.

Act 1

Treasure _Hunters_

Inciting Incident

Problem: In Gates' opinion the Declaration of Independence is at risk of being stolen by treasure hunter Ian Howe. Ben identifies so strongly with his nation's history that he takes this threat to the Declaration personally.

Decision: Ben decides to warn the museum curator, Abigail Chase, of this imminent crime. She rejects his eccentric warning, calling them treasure hunters. Not long after Ben 'steals' the Declaration in order to 'protect' it, and flees. Knowing already how Ben thinks, Abigail figures it out and gives chase.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Abigail catches up with Ben.

Decision: After much acrimony back and forth Ben and Abigail learn they have a shared desire: to save the Declaration. They decide to collaborate in protecting it. The proximity of the Inciting Incident and TP1, the latter coming almost immediately after the former, weakens the Act 1 structure.

Act 2A

Treasure _Protectors_

Midpoint

Problem: They arrive at Ben's father's home, who initially won't help what he sees as Ben again throwing his life away on 'treasure'. He removes the document from the tube, and is appalled that it's the real Declaration. He dusts off one corner on the reverse side, and sees a corner of a map – to (what else?) a treasure.

Decision: The father comes round despite himself, grudgingly agreeing to help. The chase is on.

Until this point Ben was an eccentric treasure hobbyist and felon; after this Midpoint the museum curator and his father come to believe in and support his mission.

Theme Shift: The story's moral premise in this first half was that a preoccupation with treasure can destroy a life, as his father believed. After this the three of them appreciate that the real treasure collectively is a nation's history, and the values, principles, and artifacts that embody that; and the real treasure individually is the relationships that make up a life. This shift is accomplished in National Treasure in the healing of the father/son relationship.

Act 2B

Howe Steals the Declaration

Turning Point 2

Problem: Howe's team is still pursuing Ben's team.

Decision: Ben's team splits up, and Ben gives the Declaration in its tube to Director Chase.

Act 3

Real Treasure

Crisis Problem

Ben and his father rendezvous with Abigail in an historic Washington building. As they make their way to the basement, Howe catches up with them. He demands and receives the Declaration. As he leaves he permanently closes off their exit route. Having little choice they descend deeper, making several surprising discoveries.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

After a series of dead ends Ben begins doubting and second-guessing himself, wondering if his father was right about his treasure obsession. He's about to give up this and all future quests when his father objects, saying he's proud that Ben has never, in all these years, lost faith. From this he admits that he's learned something truly valuable from his son. This Crisis segment is half about restoring and repairing the father-son bond. His confidence restored Ben figures out how to get past the dead-end chamber they're trapped in.

Climax

They gain entry to the vault and discover a huge, literal treasure there.

The next day Ben watches as a sting operation nets Howe and his associates, and the Declaration is found in their possession.

New Equilibrium

In voiceover Ben admits he gave all the treasure to museums around the country. The story's overall reversal sees Ben living a slightly more normal life with Abigail Chase, yet with his dreams of treasure intact, the value of which are now acknowledged by his father. This realization has peeled away the father's pedantic, solemn mask, which he had adopted in reaction to his own father's 'obsession' with treasure.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Act 1 Ben decides he will steal the Declaration to protect it (from Howe). In TP1 he and Abigail realize they want the same thing, to protect the document and what it represents, and thus they start working together. For years Ben has been a treasure hunter, piecing clues together in a search for treasure and personal gain. But here, he's acting to protect the document and the treasure of American nationhood. This was always Ben's primary value, and the source of his passion for history and treasure.

In Act 3 they're trapped in the underground chamber. Ben uses his skill to escape the danger they're in and protect his father and friends. Following their escape a literal treasure of lost historical documents and gold is revealed. Thus Ben sets aside (in Act 1) his past motivation of hunting for treasure and becomes a protector, and (in Act 3) he saves those he loves and becomes a treasure receiver.

Thus the story arc change between the two decisions is one of redemption. In the end Howe's unrepentant hunt for treasure is rewarded with capture and prison.

Recall that the content of the middle Acts is usually dictated by what happens in the two story arc decisions and the change they show. The middle Acts need to show Ben's preoccupation with 'treasure' receding. Thus, Ben and the others are shown at his father's home (Act 2A), where the father's skepticism solidifies Ben's transition from hunting for treasure to protecting America's valuable history. In Act 2B, when Howe is gaining on them Ben has his team split up, entrusting the Declaration to Abigail. He thinks of it not as a treasure but as part of their history. Moreover, their relationship moves forward as his preoccupation with treasure recedes.

This sets up Ben's moment of self-doubt in Act 3 when he blames himself for getting all of them in this situation. His father counters that he's proud of how Ben never gave up, stuck to his guns, and that in the end he was right.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Writers: Quentin Tarantino

Star Rating: 4.0

Early Action / Background

This movie's back story is, of course, 'Kill Bill Vol. 1', which saw Beatrix Kiddo go on a royal rampage of revenge. But she has yet to kill Bill. Bill shows up unexpectedly on the happy occasion of Kiddo's wedding rehearsal. He is welcomed by the groom, and is to be the sole guest from the bride's side.

Theme

The movie implicitly argues: when revenge is justified, it's better to proceed all-out, no holds barred, and perhaps achieve a rough justice. This is far better than to spend your life with the knowledge of a deep injustice you did nothing about. This seems on the surface a healthy philosophy, yet could such a life produce real fulfillment and peace of mind? What we admire in Kiddo is her loyalty, energy, love of family, and the principled stand she takes. And through it all is her irrepressible love of life and her unflinching willingness to act on what she believes.

Act 1

A Wedding Buried

Inciting Incident

Problem: A few moments after Bill's arrival at Kiddo's, Budd, Elle and two other assassins arrive. The normal routine of her life, such as it was, is about to be profoundly upset. What followed became notorious as the massacre at the El Paso Wedding Chapel, in which Kiddo herself, apparently, dies.

Decision: Kiddo wakes up in a coffin, six feet under, and proceeds to dig her way out in a matter of seconds. The humor of this works well, and it shows her manic determination to protect her daughter and have her revenge. The source of the enmity between Bill's gang and Kiddo was covered in the Kill Bill, Vol. 1. Her ultimate goal is killing Bill.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: After Kiddo's escape from her literal early grave, she comes roaring in on Elle, who reveals that she killed Kiddo's revered master, using poison. A flashback shows this.

Decision: In the fight that follows, Kiddo impales and blinds her opponent by swiping out Elle's one remaining eye. Kiddo leaves her howling in the trailer at the mercy of the Great Mamba, her own poisonous gift that she earlier sent to Budd.

Act 1 thus re-introduces Kiddo as a hated victim – beaten, shot, and buried alive. Act 1 ends when she decides to stop being a victim, and takes spectacular revenge on Elle, the killer of her mentor.

Act 2A

Find Bill

Midpoint

Problem: Kiddo does not know where Bill lives.

Decision: She arrives at Esteban Vihaio's compound across the border, a desert brothel. Kiddo finds out where Bill is now, and sets out.

Until this Midpoint Bill has been elusive, spoken of but never present; after this point he is front and center as the villain that Kiddo has been hunting. The Midpoint has been a lull in Kiddo's rampage of revenge. She no longer seems 100 percent sure of herself.

Theme Shift: In the first half she seizes revenge as her goal, all-out. In the second half she revisits why. She pauses, if only to hear him out.

Act 2B

A Mother Again

Turning Point 2

Setup: After arriving at Bill's ranch, to her initial relief Kiddo sees her daughter is still alive, playing in Bill's living room.

The turning: Kiddo's role as mother is brought into the foreground for the first time.

Act 3

Kill Bill!

Crisis Problem

Much additional verbal fencing occurs between the two. Not only has Bill taken from her everything and everyone she loved, he even withheld the knowledge of her daughter's welfare. Her original preference to seek Bill's death for her fiance's death becomes an overwhelming need.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

She decides afresh that she must kill Bill.

Climax

With typical Tarantino flair her killing of Bill is an elaborate Zen-like unfolding, using her master's secret 'Five-point palm of death' maneuver. Bill had always wanted to learn this very maneuver, and now he can. After receiving the coup de grace, he rises and arranges his suit, walks away, and dies before taking his fifth step, when his heart collapses.

New Equilibrium

The story's overall reversal has Kiddo in a motel room with her daughter, her journey of revenge completed, her enemies vanquished. She lies curled in a fetal position on the bathroom floor, weeping. Her daughter is watching a cartoon. Kiddo comes out into the main room, her spasm of anguish behind her.

As Bill insisted earlier, she is indeed a killer. But she's also a mother.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the Act 1 TP1 Kiddo arrives at Budd's trailer to uncover Bill's location, but Elle has already dispatched Budd. Elle reveals it was she who poisoned Kiddo's venerable Master. She takes Elle's one remaining eye, and leaves her screaming in the trailer. Taking her eye, like poision, puts Elle on a path to imminent death – she's prey now for the Great Mamba, the weapon she used against Budd. Kiddo's decision precisely matches the punishment to the crime.

In the Act 3 Crisis decision when Kiddo sees her daughter is still alive, with Bill, she realizes his action was intentional, denying her even the knowledge her daughter was alive. Again she decides that she must kill Bill. The two decisions show a woman with an intense, albeit excessive, sense of justice, and the passion to act on it. The story reveals no observable change in her; and the story arc change is simply what's slowly revealed in both Bill and her. She kills out of revenge and a misplaced sense of justice. Bill is an opportunist who kills to enrich himself.

In addition the middle Acts seem largely unrelated to what's revealed of the protagonist and antagonist, which weakens the story's coherence. Act 2A shows her at Vihaio's desert brothel trying to locate Bill; Act 2B shows her surprised and overjoyed at her reunion with her daughter.

In Act 3 her revenge quest resumes, less a rampage now than a cautious, almost meditative interview.

Momentum

Act 1 is down; Act 2A up; Act 2B up; Act 3 up.

Comment

Quentin Tarantino is famous for defying and denying the multi-Act structure. Yet he does observe a rhythm of repeated, escalating reversals. His films usually have a spare plot, though there are enough surprises to maintain a momentum in the events. Frankly, why we keep watching is the complexity of language delivered in the long fencing dialogues, which provide much humor and reveal much about each character. The dialogues alternate with explosions of violence. Visually the scenes of violence have a complexity, humor, and visual richness that make a consistent counterpoint to the dialogue. It's startling and refreshing that films so lean in story can be so rich, complex, and entertaining.

## Flightplan (2005)

Director: Robert Schwentke

Writers: Peter A. Dowling, Billy Ray

Star Rating: 3.4

Early Action / Background

Kyle, an aircraft designer, and her daughter, Julia, are returning to America after Kyle's husband's apparent suicide in a European city. They board the flight early and settle down in their seats.

Theme

'Things are not what they seem,' could be the byline for this movie. Kyle in Act 2 appears to be different from who she had seemed to be (to herself, the flight crew, and the audience). By the end she is vindicated. The air marshal and stewardesses are not how they at first appear. The Muslim passengers are also not who they appear to be. Kyle's basic question is whether she's sane.

Act 1

Missing

Inciting Incident

Problem: Kyle is on stress medication since her husband's suicide. She falls asleep on the plane, and awakes to find Julia missing.

Decision: Frantic with worry, she conducts her first search for her daughter.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Kyle escapes onto the plane's other levels and carries out two more searches, one alone and another with the flight crew and Captain Rich's cooperation. The searches turn up nothing.

Decision: She fears she may be delusional because there's no Julia on board.

As a novel this ambiguity would be very effective, but for a movie audience identification with the protagonist is more visceral, and necessary. To suspend that identification would need much more preparation. Ironically, the result of this is we continue supporting the hero, and blame the story for the confusion and ambiguity over Kyle's mental condition.

Act 2A

Delusional?

Midpoint

Problem: Another confrontation with Carson, the air marshal, ensues, who then reveals the 'truth' – Julia (the daughter) died with the husband several days ago, and Kyle has since suffered a 'psychotic break'.

Decision: Kyle is overwhelmed by this news and gives herself up. She is escorted to a therapist onboard who gives her 'grief counseling'.

Before this Midpoint, the audience assumes that Kyle is a reliable protagonist, and her daughter has in fact disappeared. After this point we reluctantly conclude she's an unreliable anti-hero struggling with her own inner demons.

Theme Shift: The first half moral premise seems to be: Don't judge a book by its cover. Apparently none of the characters are what they seem: the air marshal, the stewardess, or Kyle. In the second half there is no shift in the theme, except that Kyle turns out to be sane after all, as she appeared at the start.

Act 2B

Proof

Turning Point 2

Problem: After receiving stress meds from the therapist, Kyle sleeps. She wakes, still convinced by Carson's tale of her madness. She is shocked to see a child's happy-face drawing on her window, and remembers that Julia drew it moments after their boarding. She realizes that she may, in fact, be sane after all.

Decision: If so, then Julia must have been taken and hidden, Kyle realizes. She decides not to present this evidence, yet.

Setup: Carson relays a message to the Captain ostensibly from Kyle with demands that a ransom be paid, that the plane be emptied, with the added threat to blow it up if he fails to fulfill these demands.

Act 3

Real Terrorists

Crisis Problem

They land, the passengers disembark, and a satchel is brought on board. Kyle is in the dark about the ransom. Seeing the Captain's hostility to her as he exits the plane, Kyle knows something is wrong. She takes a stewardess aside who had earlier seemed nervous, and questions her. She finds out about the air marshal and the ransom. The stewardess deplanes and hurries across the tarmac.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Kyle decides to fight back directly, no holds barred.

Climax

Kyle finds the hidden room in the bulkhead, and her daughter, drugged and unconscious. Kyle returns to face Carson, who still assumes she's incapacitated with grief.

Risking it all to save her daughter, she turns the tables on him. Carson has locked the plane's doors. She slams him with a fire extinguisher and retreats to the bulkhead room, Carson still in hot pursuit. She locks herself in. His timed bombs explode as he had planned, but killing him instead of Kyle and Julia. The plane is engulfed in fire and smoke. Moments later she emerges from the swirling flames carrying her daughter.

Kyle and her daughter are escorted into the airport, and she pauses and bows to the Muslim passengers she had earlier falsely accused.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Kyle's TP1 decision, after her first search for her daughter turns up nothing, she realizes her behavior is of someone suffering from delusions, because there's clearly no Julia on board. Her self-doubt begins. In her Crisis decision she's just learned from a stewardess of the air marshal's plot to frame her for a big payday and kill her and Julia. Her pent-up rage and maternal instinct is unleashed, she starts to fight back.

The story arc's two decisions reveal Carson's meticulous plan to literally drive Kyle insane: over guilt and the vertigo caused by elaborate hallucinations, beginning with her husband's suicide (who Carson in fact murdered). The detachment and thoroughness of his plan is revealed gradually, as surprising to us as to Kyle. This is the main change in the story, arc creates, the revealing of the antagonist's identity, intention, and how far he was willing to go. Thus the story arc's change is one of revelation.

The middle Acts are used to show Kyle's transition from believing Carson's elaborate narrative of her delusional state to realizing it was all a fraud (in 2A his full narrative is presented, in 2B proof of its falsity emerges). With that Kyle is unleashed to take back her life, rescue her daughter, and arrange Carson's timely demise.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Sahara (2005)

Director: Breck Eisner

Writers: James V. Hart, Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer; Clive Cussler (novel)

Star Rating: 4.0

Early Action / Background

Dirk Pitt of the scientific research ship, NUMA, is collecting samples from a skiff off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria, when he sees Eva Rojas being assaulted on the shore. He swiftly makes it to shore and subdues her attackers. Rojas, a field doctor with the WHO, was examining victims of a deadly plague coming downriver from Mali. Pitt manages to secure the use of a NUMA launch to investigate the possible wreck of a US Civil War ironclad along the Niger River, and its cargo of Confederate gold coins. Rojas and her boss arrange to hitch a ride with Pitt upriver to the Mali border, where they hope to isolate the origins of the plague.

Theme

Pitt is initially a typical piratical adventurer, in his case hunting for Civil War treasure. His social conscience is awoken as he's drawn into helping Rojas and the WHO rescue a nation from corrupt business interests and an indifferent government.

Act 1

Treasure Hunters

Inciting Incident

Problem: After Pitt and his partner-in-arms, Al Giordino, drop off the two doctors, they are stopped by several of Colonel Kazim's patrol boats. They escape from a sustained attack by 4 boats and machine gun-equipped jeeps onshore.

Decision: Pitt realizes the attack was meant for the doctors, and decides he must help them. Committing to this makes them Kazim's target, thus embroiling them in a conflict that apparently takes them far from their original treasure adventure.

**Turning Point 1** (commits the story)

Problem: One of Kazim's platoons swoops down on Rojas and her boss at a Mali village where everyone has died from the 'plague'. Kazim arrives by helicopter, questions her boss, executes him, and orders his troops to find Rojas, who is hiding in a well. Pitt and Giordino witnessed the murder from the roof of a nearby building. Before seeing this Pitt wanted to carry on with his hunt for US civil war treasure. Giordino has serious doubts and wants to call it off.

Decision: They go down and kill the soldiers looking for Rojas. The three escape in one of their jeeps.

In Act 1 Pitt and Giordino are adventurers, treasure hunters; with the murder their new desire to help Rojas turns the story, and they become investigators of an environmental conspiracy.

Act 2A

Plague-For-Money

Midpoint

Problem: The rebel Tuareg leader, whose men had stopped the three travellers, listens as Pitt explains that the water in the wells was poisoned by Kazim's partner, a French company run by Massadre. Pitt asks the Tuareg leader for help. The Tuareg refuses, saying that his one duty is to take care of his people.

Until this Midpoint the focus has been on solving the mystery of the Kazim / Massadre involvement; after this point the focus shifts to shutting them down.

Theme Shift: Pitt, an accomplished man of action who can more than defend himself, becomes an investigator with a social and environmental conscience.

Act 2B

Capture

Turning Point 2

Problem: Pitt, Giordino, and Rojas enter the French company's desert facility, and discover it's being profitably used for nuclear waste disposal disguised as a solar power generating plant. The toxic waste has been poisoning the region's water table and is causing the deaths.

Decision: As Pitt tells the other two it's time to call in the cavalry Massadre's men arrive and apprehend them.

Act 3

Shut Down

Crisis Problem

Pitt and Giordino escape while being transported to Kazim's HQ, return to the Tuareg leader, again ask for help, and are again turned down. The Tuareg gives them a vintage 1912 touring car that his forces captured from Kazim.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Pitt takes full responsibility for stopping the water poisoning, and to that end decides to break into Massadre's facility and shut down the hidden waste disposal.

Climax 1

They gain entry by posing as Kazim himself entering in his own vehicle. Discovering the Frenchman's intention to blow up his own facility to destroy the evidence of its illegal purpose, Pitt pursues him to the roof and rescues Rojas from being spirited away in Massadre's helicopter. Meanwhile Giordino gets the bomb Massadre's man planted. The waste disposal is out of operation and Rojas is safe; but Massadre and Kazim are apparently free to continue their depredations another day.

Climax 2

Fleeing the facility, they are suddenly being pursued through the desert by Kazim in his helicopter gunship. Thus the action resumes, moving towards a resolution of the story's treasure element. They throw dynamite behind their jeep to conceal themselves in the swirling sand, which causes a small landslide that unearths a buried US Civil War 'ironclad'. They make their last stand from inside the wreck, firing an antique cannon at the helicopter and destroying it. Crates of Confederate coins had spilled out during Kazim's missile attacks. Once Kazim is down, his army in the valley mysteriously surrenders. Pitt, Giordino, and Rojas emerge from the ironclad to discover that the Tuareg have come after all, and line the ridges above – all round Kazim's trapped military.

New Equilibrium

The NUMA outfit is compensated by the US government for their losses, and given a sweetheart deal for future operations.

In a swanky Paris restaurant sits Massadre. A tall glass of apparently fresh sparkling water is poured by the waiter. In fact however, it's the same water from the same source as the villagers in Mali received, delivered by a CIA operative and friend of the NUMA head, posing as the waiter.

Pitt and Rojas are lying on a beach in a secluded cove, with Kazim's car parked not far away. They run into the water, laughing, carefree.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Pitt's TP1 decision he puts into action his intention to help the two doctors, and he and Giordino move in to intercept the soldiers holding and interrogating Rojas and her boss. In the Crisis decision he sees the need to stop Massadre's poisoning of the water and to that end they break into the desert facility. The first decision is to help and rescue a friend and her boss; the later decision is to stop a regional plague before it goes global. The story arc's change is one of escalation.

The middle Acts are used to intensify the escalation: first accelerating it by exposing Massadre and Kazim's plot (Act 2A), then interrupting it when Pitt and Giordino are captured (2B).

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B up; Act 3 up.

## Red Eye (2005)

Director: Wes Craven

Writers: Carl Ellsworth, Dan Foos

Star Rating: 4.7

Early Action / Background

Lisa Reisert works as a competent, personable manager of a high-profile condominium complex with clients among the state's moneyed and political elite. She is held against her will on an airliner under a blackmail threat to murder her father. The blackmailer, Jackson Rippner, was hired by an unidentified group to provide details and access for a terrorist hit on a serving US Senator staying at Reisert's building.

Theme

The controlling idea is that terror tactics against high-profile targets will represent a lucrative new income source for organized crime. This story shows how a blackmail/contract killing could occur in any developed country. If Lisa is to survive, she is required to be a _soldier_ in an undeclared, unacknowledged war, while remaining ostensibly a civilian.

Act 1

Blackmail

Inciting Incident

Problem: Lisa catches the 'red-eye' flight back home after a business trip. She meets Rippner waiting at flight check-in, and then again on the plane, where he is to be her seat neighbor in a two-seat window row.

Decision: An internal 'warning alarm' goes off for her at this apparent co-incidence, but his charm wins her over.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Rippner soon reveals his true purpose – her father is being held and will be killed unless she arranges that the usual room at the complex assigned to a high political family is changed to one overlooking the harbor.

Decision: She leaves a message on the bathroom mirror, but Rippner bursts in and renews his threat. Thus Act 1 introduces two people on a plane who are at odds; it turns when it's revealed that one is a blackmailer arranging a terror hit.

Act 2A

Or a Terror Attack?

Midpoint

Problem: She did all he asked, making the phone calls ensuring the political family is moved into a new suite at the condominium.

Decision: To stop the plot she knows she needs to escape him, and time is running out. She knows she needs to act before he deplanes with her. When the plane lands she sprays aerosol in his eye and flees up the aisle seconds before it's clogged by departing passengers. He scrambles after her, shoving passengers aside as she exits the plane. A stewardess calls ahead to airport security to apprehend her over her irregular exit from the plane.

Up until this Midpoint the story was one passenger's flight through hell. After this point the story becomes her dash to prevent the terror hit at the condominium and her father's murder.

Theme Shift: The first half moral premise seems to be one of non-violence. Lisa does not immediately take on Rippner because she has never had to fight back before. After the Midpoint she changes, and becomes a fighter more than equal to the evil of those who would harm her, her father, and others.

Act 2B

The Hit Foiled

Turning Point 2

Problem: Men on a luxury yacht a mile offshore from the condominium haul up a bag from the bay. They lift out a shoulder-mounted missile system. The hit on the condo suite is seconds away.

Decision: Fleeing through the airport, Lisa phones her assistant to get the political family moved out of the harbor-side unit. The family exits the unit seconds before the missile slams through the unit's windows, exploding out in a fireball that destroys the suite.

Act 3

Safe

Crisis Problem

Lisa tries repeatedly to reach her father by phone from her SUV as she rushes along the freeway.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

She realizes she must physically get to her father's home if she is to stop his murder.

Climax

Driving along her father's street she sees Rippner's man on the low porch close his cell phone and reach into his shoulder holster. As he turns towards the door Lisa turns hard and drives across the lawn, slamming into him. She exits the vehicle and rushes inside. Rippner arrives seconds later and stalks her through the house. For him it's now as personal as it is for her. She kills him in self-defense after he injures her father. She and her father stagger from the house as police and SWAT vehicles arrive.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Lisa's Act 1 decision she tries to leave a message written in steam on the airliner's bathroom mirror, before she's violently stopped by Rippner. In her Crisis decision, after preventing the hit on the official, she realizes the only way to stop the murder of her father is by intervening herself. She accelerates her vehicle to get there in time.

Her first decision to resist Rippner is passive, an appeal for help that he brutally quashes. Her later decision is visceral, proactive, fully committed, totally willing to use violence if necessary. The story arc change is again one of escalation in what Lisa is willing to do. We assume that Rippner's success in the past was likely due to never facing someone willing to counter his aggression with an equal determination and ferocity.

The middle Acts are fairly standard. Further information is presented that reveals this is a terror hit against a political official (2A); then the political hit is foiled (2B). This sets the stage for Lisa committing to stopping Rippner from murdering her father himself. Note that Act 3 usually makes the struggle and climactic conflict personal for both antagonist and protagonist, so Act 3 in a sense always escalates the motivation just before the final confrontation.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B up; Act 3 up.

## 16 Blocks (2006)

Director: Richard Donner

Writers: Richard Wenk

Star Rating: 3.8

Early Action / Background

Jack Mosley is a cop nearing retirement in a NYC precinct. He's pulling his last shift before a long weekend when he's assigned an escort detail to the city courthouse. Based on his seniority, he would be within his rights to refuse the assignment, but as a conscientious career cop, he accepts it. The detail is to escort a witness, Eddy, to testify in a trial downtown.

Theme

The story's theme concerns moral choice, which by definition is voluntary – a decision each individual makes alone, consciously and deliberately. Can a person change from a life of negative choices to one of positive, ethical choices? The story's moral premise is that people _can_ so change. Eddy knows this; Mosley learns it as the story unfolds.

Act 1

Mosley's Last Detail

Inciting Incident

Problem: Mosley is driving the police car he was assigned. Traffic gets bumper to bumper; he parks and ducks into a liquor store for a 26er of whisky. Meanwhile a hitman in a 'street' disguise starts banging on Jack's rear-passenger window where Eddie is sitting. The hitman suddenly produces a high-powered silencer-equipped pistol and steps back, all business now.

Decision: Shots ring out, bloodspatter appears around a hole on the window. It's not Eddy's blood, but the hitman's, who has been shot by Jack from across the street. This escort detail has just turned into something quite different – Mosley now knows Eddy is no ordinary witness in no ordinary trial.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: After catching a taxi, Jack and Eddy go into a bar, where Jack's supervisor, Frank Nugent, shows up. Nugent begins the 'blocking' for how Eddy will be framed: for ostensibly grabbing a gun, firing off a shot that lands in the wall (which Frank directs a cop to do), and who is to be shot while resisting arrest. We learn that the trial is for racketeering and related criminal charges against NYC cops, and Eddy is the vital witness, for which he is now being removed by these bent cops.

At the outset Mosley just wants to finish this witness transport. Eddy wants to present his evidence in court, and Nugent wants to prevent that. Mosley's desire shifts to wanting to protect Eddy and ensure that the trial goes ahead.

Decision: Mosley fires a sawed-off shotgun under the counter, hitting one of the cops in the leg who was setting up the cover story and preparing to shoot Eddy. They leave by the back exit, barring the door as they go out.

Mosley is now as much a fugitive and target of the cops' hunt as Eddy. In Act 1 it's the story of a witness transport, a day in a cop's life. It turns when the cop intervenes in an attempt to frame and kill the witness.

Act 2A

Helping Eddy

Midpoint

Problem: Jack and Eddy are forced to walk the streets and use the subway as the pursuing cops close in.

Decision: They arrive at Jack's ex-wife's apartment, the dialogue indicating their separation resulted from the demands of the job, and his drinking. Eddy gets a glimpse into Jack's earlier life. They set off for the courthouse.

Everything about Eddy, his stance, attire, and mode of speech all suggest much the same thing – disappointments, yet despite it all he's still willing to do the right thing by appearing in court.

Until this Midpoint the two seemed very different, in race, background, job, and attitude. Yet it turns out they're much the same. After this hinge point they will be allies fighting a common enemy.

Theme Shift: In the ex-wife's apartment we don't know yet why Jack is so regretful, pessimistic, and believing people can't change. This scene shows the real impact that his criminal past had on his marriage and family. The earlier scenes of his protecting Eddy seemed a hero cop routine. Here we see both sides, the past Jack, and the reformed one. This is all retrospective however, as we don't learn of Jack's criminal past until TP2, which is also when the shift in moral premise occurs.

Act 2B

Stand-off

Turning Point 2

Problem: The cops have caught up with Jack and Eddy, and a stand-off in a bus is about to go down. The passengers and Eddy (in disguise) are to be evacuated.

Decision: Jack tells Eddy to go ahead on his own and make his appearance in court. Jack knows the bus will be stormed and destroyed. Mosley is willing to sacrifice himself to ensure the right thing is done in the trial.

The turning: at first it seems a little over-the-top that Mosley would sacrifice himself to help a stranger. Then we learn that he was originally one of the six corrupt cops. Thus at this point his guilt in part motivates his actions. This is what the best screenplays achieve – a revelation that compels us to replay earlier scenes and character decisions, bringing us to a new understanding as the story unfolds.

Act 3

Making Good on the Past

Crisis Problem

Not taking Jack's advice, Eddy returns to the bus. Mosley drives it away on its wheel rims, and they flee on foot to an ambulance driven by his wife whom Jack called earlier.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Mosley decides that he will testify. He confesses the truth to Eddy, about having done this sort of thing before (kill a witness about to testify against the police). He also decides to send Eddy off to catch a bus for Seattle to his sister's, where he can pursue his dream of starting a bakery.

Eddy affirms the movie's theme – people can change. Mosley had said earlier that most things in life change all the time, but not people, people never change.

Climax

Eddy leaves for the bus station. Mosley arrives at the courthouse, and is confronted by his superior, Nugent, who tries to intimidate him into giving up. He phones the cop in the lobby with orders to take him out. Mosley comes up in the elevator, and calls for the assistant D.A., who comes out. The bad cop calls out, 'He has a gun!', and there's an exchange of gunfire. But the shot is from a sniper on the mezzanine level who saw the bad cop preparing to shoot before the warning shout is made. The sniper shoots the bad cop as the latter is taking aim.

New Equilibrium

It is a year later. The trial succeeded in securing convictions. Mosley, among friends, receives a birthday cake from Eddy, still out in Seattle. The cake has written on it several names of men in history who 'changed' profoundly, and afterwards did much to help their fellow man. Jack Mosley's name is the last name on the list.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the Act 1 TP1 Mosley puts his career and life at risk when he shoots under the counter and stops Nugent's plan to frame Eddy. Before this he could have walked away. In the Act 3 Crisis decision he decides that he will testify against Nugent, the boss he served as a hitman in the past. Recall the theme: it's never too late for anyone to change.

In Act 1 after years of being a 'bad cop' he decides not to do today what he's done in the past; he defies Nugent and helps Eddy. The story arcs from that decision to his decision to testify against Nugent. The arc shows his internal journey, and by extension the change that occurs in the story – redemption.

As argued earlier, the middle Acts are used by the writer to support the change shown in the story arc. Thus Act 2A shows Mosley helping Eddy repeatedly: after leaving the bar, in the subway, and at his ex-wife's. In 2B they're trapped by Nugent's cops on a bus, and in the standoff Mosley tells Eddy to escape and appear as the witness. He intends to sacrifice himself in a shootout on the bus to see justice done.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Blood Diamond (2006)

Director: Edward Zwick

Writers: Charles Leavitt (screenplay); C. Gaby Mitchell (story)

Star Rating: 4.3

Early Action / Background

It's a time of civil war in 1990's Sierra Leone. Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman, finds a rare diamond while working in an open-pit diamond mine, and buries it, hoping to reclaim it later.

Theme

The film's theme does not focus on individual morality, it is ideological. In this story of Vandy and Danny Archer it is suggested that individuals are mere pawns of social forces. Historically, African states could not ultimately succeed because the aspirations of the majority were largely ignored. On the other hand, the nationalist movements in such nations destroy both technical infrastructure and civil society, leaving kleptocratic failed states in their wake. The movie does not confront that dichotomy.

It is acknowledged that the lives of ordinary blacks caught up in this are _worse_ today than under colonialist rule. The lives of blacks and whites alike have been wholly ruined – people such as Vandy and Archer.

Act 1

Seeking Treasure

Inciting Incident

Problem: Archer is imprisoned for smuggling, and there meets Vandy. He hears talk in the prison of a recently-found, magnificent blood diamond, linked to Vandy.

Decision: Archer is unable to ignore such an opportunity, but multiple subsequent reversals of fortune will ultimately lead him to deliver the diamond to those he originally fought against.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Archer needs a way to strike a partnership with Vandy.

Decision (turning): After the two are released Archer pursues Vandy and proposes a deal – with his military skills he'll escort Vandy back through hostile country to the mine to regain the diamond. They will then split the proceeds, giving each of them a much better life.

Act 2A

Haunted

Midpoint

Problem: Archer continues to be haunted by the loss of his family and livelihood.

Decision: Late one evening he confesses his checkered life to a journalist, Maddy Bower. He admits to his crimes. He also describes the atrocities committed against his family (torture and murder) by native rebels fighting against the (pre-Independence) white Rhodesian government.

Until this point Archer has seemed a self-serving mercenary seeking a diamond treasure. After this Midpoint, the treatment he received from Rhodesia's Marxist rebels explains the illiberal attitude he holds towards black African national independence movements.

Theme Shift: In the first half the journalist, and we, assume Archer was one of the white oppressors, and the black rebels the resistance. We learn that he was just a man protecting his family and the life he had built. Our sympathy for both sides in the Rhodesian conflict is engaged. A psychological shift occurs in all three characters: Archer, Vandy, and Bower.

Act 2B

Pursued

Turning Point 2

Problem: The Sierra Leone military and a small band of former Rhodesian mercenaries active in the civil war have been pursuing Archer and Vandy. The mercenaries intercept and try to kill Archer, but he kills 3 of them in a shoot-out.

Decision (turning): the mercenary captain, an old friend that Archer had fought alongside in many battles, tries to trick him and kill him, but Archer anticipates the move and kills the Captain. Archer is mortally wounded, however, and the Sierra Leone military is closing in.

Act 3

Sacrifice

Crisis Problem

Wounded by the mercenary, Archery can't continue. Vandy carries him.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Archer and Vandy continue on, climbing to the plateau despite Archer's injury. Archer asks to be set down, and sends him ahead to the waiting helicopter, secretly dropping the diamond in Vandy's backpack. The Sierra Leone forces are within shooting range. Vandy looks back and realizes that the injured Archer intends to hold off the pursuing troops. He is torn, but realizes he must carry on for his family's and his people's sake.

Climax

As Archer waits, he phones Bower, asking her to get Vandy a lawyer, to help him fight for his people. He mentions that Vandy has the diamond, which could be used to finance his struggle. She can hear that he's injured, and he admits that he feels he is now receiving what a man such as he deserves. Bower is devastated as he says goodbye. He dies on the hillside moments later, before the Sierra Leone troops arrive.

Theme Closure

In the world of this story Archer's character arc takes him from being a mercenary seeking advantage to being someone willing to sacrifice himself to help Vandy and the cause of a just independence. To achieve this required putting to rest the demons of bitterness and a desire for revenge that had driven him since his family's murder.

Vandy started out concerned solely with making a better life for his family. His character arc takes him to a role as a spokesman for justice and democratic renewal for his country. After knowing Archer, Vandy sees that dispossessed whites like Archer also suffered terrible loss and injustice. The closing scene shows Vandy standing to make a speech in a packed assembly hall.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

Archer's Act 1 decision is a business proposal he makes to Vandy, that they both can have a financial gain if they work together. Vandy provides the diamond's location, and Archer provides the protection necessary to make the journey. In his Act 3 decision he cedes the diamond to Vandy and sends him on to survive and carry out his struggle for his family and country. The story arc thus connects a pragmatic business decision for personal gain to an idealistic decision to help the independence struggle. The story arc change is again one of redemption.

The middle Acts support that change. In Act 2A Archer divulges to a journalist what had driven him to fight in the past – the torture and murder of his family by rebels. In 2B the kind of men he fought alongside is shown: Archer is forced to kill an old military comrade pursuing him, to prevent his own murder. We realize that the self-sacrifice Archer makes later in Act 3 on Vandy's behalf is truly a sacrifice, because he had suffered as much as the rebels had. Doesn't this make for an interesting structure? The middle Acts thus qualify and reframe the redemptive change presented in the story arc.

If you can, embed information like this in your story, and thus invite the reader later to reinterpret the action unfolding at that time.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Director: Roland Emmerich

Writers: Roland Emmerich, Jeffrey Nachmanoff

Star Rating: 4.0

Early Action / Background

Jack Hall, a committed environmentalist, who has done climate research all over the world over the years (leading to a marriage breakdown), has created a climate model that more accurately reflects the reality of the planet's climate trauma than any other model.

A series of scenes in different locations depicts the escalating extreme weather occurring around the world: Hall and his two assistants are doing research on an Arctic glacier; Hall is at a climate change conference in India where he meets an older UK researcher, Terry Rapson; Hall is unable to connect with his son, Sam, when he drops him off at his school; a helicopter crashes (due to extreme weather) in the U.K.; a severe storm that hits L.A. is an early warning.

This opening series of scenes introduces multiple story-lines, less because the dramatic structure requires this than to include in the story the many disparate parts of current climate discourse.

Theme

The story's controlling idea concerns how human indifference is allegedly driving the world to an inevitable, imminent climate disaster. An emotional father/son relationship is used to dramatize the issue. Hall's concern and love for his family reflects his desire to protect the environment.

Act 1

A Climate Crisis Builds

Inciting Incident

Problem: The LA storm morphs into a weather event the likes of which has never been seen; Hall receives a call from Rapson, greeting him with the words, "It's started."

Decision: He signals by his silence that he will follow Rapson's advice, and use his model to map out a plan. Rapson adds that no one else has the knowledge to do this. It all depends on Hall.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Hall's son, Sam, has arrived in NYC for a school conference; storms are appearing and disappearing, raging across the continent, and in NYC, where the ocean's level is rising; Sam rescues a girl from his school's team and they and others retreat to a hotel lobby.

Decision (turning): When Sam phones his father as the storm escalates, cutting off NYC, Hall gives some necessary advice to survive the coming rapid chill conditions. He decides with his ex-wife, Laura, to journey through the storm to rescue his son. This becomes the emotional core of the story around which to build and humanize the climate discourse.

Act 2A

Disaster Hits

Midpoint

There is here the signature scene of Hall and his two assistants walking by the icebound Statue of Liberty. Hall's rescue trip and Sam's efforts to survive the storm in NYC with a small group of students are the two plot-lines, intercut with many scenes of dire climate events unfolding around the world.

Before this point the global climate scenario is shown unfolding; after this Midpoint the worst has happened, and humanity seeks ways to cope.

Act 2B

The Eye of the Climate Event

Turning Point 2

Problem: Scenes of the climate disaster fallout continue: the government response, mass evacuations, and one of Hall's assistants dies.

Decision (turning): The eye of the storm is moments away. All seems lost, and the other assistant urges Hall that it's time to quit. Despite the overwhelming power of the coming climate event, Hall simply will not lose faith that Sam is still alive, regardless of the forces working against them.

Act 3

Survival and Recovery

Crisis Problem

The storm descends suddenly, freezing buildings instantly, coating them with ice. As the wind dies down to nothing, they are trapped in the street, in the literal eye of the storm.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Despite the risk Hall moves quickly to heave his unconscious assistant down a chute into a building's basement, and follows him. At the bottom he gets them into a sealed room.

Climax

The next day Hall and his surviving assistant find and rescue Sam and his friends.

Slow Curtain

The Vice-President has a public epiphany on 'climate change' after receiving news of the President's death. He awakens to the reality of the environmental crisis facing the planet.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

Hall's Act 1 decision to journey to NYC to rescue his son connects to his Act 3 decision to take extreme measures to survive the flash-freeze in order to – rescue his son. There is no observable change at this personal level for the protagonist in the kind of decision made. Beyond that in Act 1 the climate events are imminent, storms are careening in and sea levels are steadily rising. By Act 3 the storms have largely locked in around the world and done their huge damage. In NYC the largest storm of all is still unfolding, and Hall is at its eye just before the flash-freeze. The external change in the climate shown in the story arc is profound: one of deterioration.

The middle Acts are used to show aspects of that deterioration. In 2A Hall passes an icebound, snow-covered Statue of Liberty in a frozen NYC harbor. Meanwhile his son is burning books to stay warm in the building they're holed up in. In 2B a rapid flow of scenes show the fallout of climate events around the world.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Action Genre: Postscript

The one scene no action story can be without...

There is considerable genre overlap in the movies of recent years. All genres use the same basic 4-act structure, with Turning Points that close off Acts 1 and 2B, and a Crisis/Climax as the culmination of Act 3 and the story overall. Genre differences lie in the effect on the audience that storytellers seek to create in that specific genre.

Robert McKee has said that Action/Adventure films are stories of excitement. The intended effect is to give the audience a repeated and escalating experience of excitement over the story's events. This is very different from the suspense that crime drama, or the dread and fear that horror, seek to create.

The original action movies were the matinee adventure serials, i.e. westerns, SF, and the early Tarzan and superhero movies. The indispensable generator of excitement in such movies is the choreographed fight and chase scenes, which have become visual clichés of the genre. They're still widely used to good effect. This does not preclude the presence of such scenes in other genres, in drama, horror, or even romantic comedies.

Such scenes will not likely continue to be indispensable, no device ever is. Thus, for the present the challenge in creating Action/Adventure stories is finding ways to position the physical fight and chase at the heart of the story, in the decisions the protagonist makes within the Inciting Incident, the TP's, and the Crisis Decision. In the future the challenge will be finding alternative means for generating excitement.

We're inclined to assume that a story is fundamentally constituted out of conflict, and the most visceral expression of conflict is in a physical altercation. And the lead-in to that is often a chase. Admittedly we accept these as givens. Yet consider the movies of Europe, Japan and elsewhere, which use these two devices sparingly.

## DRAMA GENRE

Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting.

Man on Fire (2004)

## In Good Company (2004)

Director: Paul Weitz

Writers: Paul Weitz

Star Rating: 3.2

Early Action / Background

This movie depicts what happens when a company faces a corporate buyout, and the turmoil it causes for virtually everyone.

Dan Foreman, a division manager in a company that sells magazine advertising, has built an effective team and risen to his position through hard work. Dan wakes, sees a pregnancy test kit in the trash, and leaves for work worried that his daughter is pregnant.

Theme

The movie explores the nature of real leadership through the conflict between a superficially successful and narcissistic younger man, Carter Duryea, and the older Foreman, responsible, successful, and unselfish. Duryea learns that authority comes not from success, power, and wealth, but from how you treat others.

At first Duryea's basic preoccupation is with how to achieve greater success. As he matures emotionally his question becomes how to live his life with authority. He realizes he needs to find something he believes in.

Act 1

Hostile Takeover

Inciting Incident

Problem: Dan Foreman is demoted in favor of the newly-arrived Duryea, who is parachuted in after a company buyout.

Decision: Foreman decides he'll accept this arbitrary corporate action, and does so with grace and humor. It will be such responsible decisions and behavior that 'educates' Duryea on real leadership.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Duryea announces in a speech to the staff that two employees need to be fired to meet their budget, a task Foreman is given. Not welcomed by the staff, and feeling attracted to Foreman's daughter, Alex, Duryea invites himself to their home for dinner to salve the wound of his own recent broken relationship, and to get to know Alex better.

Decision (turning): Foreman accepts his new boss's graceless self-invitation, choosing not to create conflict based on a personal affront.

Momentum before this was down, and turns up as Foreman's leadership stands out – as one who acts for the good of those around him and their organization, not for himself.

Act 2A

Narcissism Fails

Midpoint

Foreman and his wife are at the bank signing a second mortgage so their daughter can attend an NYU writing program, as Duryea signs divorce papers at the office – the two scenes counterpoint Foreman's generosity and taking responsibility to Duryea's preoccupation with self.

The divorce is causing Duryea to re-examine his life.

Until this Midpoint Duryea seeks only to justify his conduct; after this point he steadily makes positive changes in all areas of his life. This personal growth is mirrored in the decline of the company's fortunes before the Midpoint, and afterwards in the company's steady improvement.

Theme Shift: In the first half Foreman is suffering in his career and family despite living a less selfish life, while it's the reverse for Duryea. After this Midpoint the tables have turned. Duryea can see the worthiness and depth in Foreman's career and family life; he finds he wants to learn how to live his life with a similar internal authority, and be fulfilled. He learns that it flows from simply how he treats others.

Act 2B

Duryea's Blunder

Turning Point 2

Problem: Duryea has been secretly dating Alex.

Decision (turning): When Foreman finds out he makes his displeasure known with a punch to the jaw. Alex follows her father out into the street and tries to explain. Foreman decides to step back and give his daughter space. Alex is clearly thinking of ending the relationship. Duryea knows he's bringing pain to others, and in the process ruining his own life, but he's not ready yet to change.

Act 3

Taking Responsibility

Crisis Problem

The buyout CEO, Kenny G, arrives and gives an empty, slick speech, and asks questions that Foreman gives solid answers to. Later, a Kenny G sycophant VP warns Foreman he'll fire him for criticizing Kenny G.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Duryea suddenly threatens to quit if Foreman is fired, so the VP fires both of them. Surprising even himself, Duryea has started making tough calls to help others.

Climax

As Foreman and Duryea meet the firm's most important client, Foreman rescues the firm from a deteriorating situation that the new management has allowed to develop. The line that clinches the deal is when Foreman admits to punching Duryea for calling him a 'dinosaur'. Like Foreman, the client had been feeling excessive pressure to change in ways that he believes wouldn't help his company. The next day, it is the sycophant VP and Duryea who are fired, and Foreman is promoted back into his former position. Duryea has learned that responsible, selfless decisions lead to positive outcomes for individuals and the company.

New Equilibrium

It is months later and Duryea drops into the office to see Foreman, and is clearly benefiting from the time off, in all ways. When Foreman offers him a job Duryea declines graciously (he's learning), explaining that he wants "to find something he believes in," as Foreman has (last Theme Shift).

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the TP1 Foreman accepts Duryea's self-invitation to dinner at Foreman's home, a continuation of sorts of the hostile takeover. He responds patiently, calmly, with the same tolerance he exercised as a management executive, qualities that helped the company succeed. The fact that Duryea lacks those qualities would eventually jeopardize the company's operations. In the Crisis decision Duryea, having become more responsible, stands up for Foreman. What he's learned is the moral dimension of leadership that would help him to be an effective manager, with his employees' loyalty. That story arc of two decisions shows a change in Duryea, his coming-of-age.

Note that Foreman's Act 1 goal was to restore conditions to how they were before the hostile takeover. Showing Duryea's growth helps achieve this, as he's the one in charge of the transition team. At a critical moment he helps Foreman, as stated above. Thus the middle Acts are used to show Duryea's maturing.

Momentum

As momentum tracks the protagonist's fortunes, it works differently in an ensemble film like In Good Company, where it mirrors the two principal characters.

Foreman: Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3, up.

Duryea: Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Man on Fire (2004)

Director: Tony Scott

Writers: Brian Helgeland, A. J. Quinnell (novel)

Star Rating: 3.6

Early Action / Background

Creasy is a killer-for-hire, a career that causes him no end of self-recrimination. He seeks a job as a bodyguard to survive on, but only if it requires no killing.

Theme

What happens when a man near the end of his rope is saved by a girl's love, and that girl is murdered. Having lost the one thing he cares about, he decides that all that's left to him is reprisal. The story accepts the validity of 'revenge', while not flinching at showing its cost.

Creasy's moral premise at the opening is that killing is what has estranged him. So he changes that.

Act 1

On Fire With Love

Inciting Incident

Problem: Creasy reluctantly accepts a bodyguard assignment, one lined up for him by his handler, Rayburn, a retired intelligence operative who knows Creasy's 'talent for death'. He is profoundly weary of his chosen profession, of seeing death.

Decision: He has only one unspoken, self-imposed rule: business-only, no friendship(s) with the client or her family. He completely breaks this rule, to his own ultimate benefit, for it brings him back from a living death.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The client's daughter, Pita, takes it as her personal mission to break through Creasy's reserve and isolation. She seeks his friendship relentlessly, nothing he does can dissuade her.

Decision (turning): He finally lets her in. He agrees to teach her competitive swimming. Over the ensuing weeks a surprising joy overtakes him at being fully present in the life of another, something he hasn't allowed himself in years.

Act 2A

Creasy's Fall

Midpoint

Problem: Pita is kidnapped.

Decision: This is Creasy's worst fear come true; he blames himself.

Before this Midpoint he went to great lengths to protect Pita from harm, and takes a bullet as she is kidnapped. After this point, with the girl gone and in mortal danger, his emotion is more that of a father's all-sacrificing love for his child.

Theme Shift: It comes in TP2, after receiving news of Pita's death.

Act 2B

Pita's Death is Reported

Turning Point 2

Problem: News surfaces of Pita's death.

Decision (turning): Creasy is enraged, and he dies to the renewed life in him. To have lost what he so resisted, after earlier losses in his life, makes his rage all the worse. He believes he has nothing to live for, except to avenge her death. He failed to protect the one who had fought to see him redeemed.

Theme Shift: In the first half Creasy is shown having rejected killing. In the second half he fully embraces it again, at first to fee and expiate his hate, in the end to fulfill his desire to protect Pita.

Act 3

Bringer of Death

Crisis Problem

Creasy vows to Pita's mother, Lisa: "I'll kill them all," which he proceeds to do, methodically, mercilessly. He hunts down and kills the organizer, the two hired kidnappers, the handlers, and others. The joy, love, and protectiveness are gone. All that's left is revenge. This is a problem because he's reverted to what he swore he would never become again.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

When news comes out that the girl is still alive Creasy realizes he became a virtual demon of death, dispensing it with little regard for anything but his own pain and loss. He knows he's betrayed the spirit of Pita's gift to him, of his new life. He decides to offer himself as the ransom to ensure the handover of Pita goes ahead, and then do what's necessary to ensure she is not killed later.

Story Climax

In his secret plan he knows that Pita will always be in jeopardy as long as the terrorist boss still lives. The handover occurs; he returns the child to her mother and kills the driver who was in on the setup. He then walks up the embankment to the overpass where the boss's limousine is parked, and is shot several times as he approaches the car. He hauls open the door and shoots the boss. Moments later the car speeds away. Creasy falls by the guardrail, looks down at the car holding Pita and her mother, and dies.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the Act 1 TP1 Creasy allows the friendship with Pita to begin, and it unfolds quickly over the following weeks. He is as though reborn, and life acquires a purpose for him again. The reprisal he takes when her death is reported reflects his manic hate, and the risk that poses. In the later Crisis decision he takes an action of extreme self-sacrifice – killing the gang leader who would retaliate against him and Pita if the gang leader is left alive. The story arc change is one of emotional maturing and healing for Creasy.

The middle Acts are used to show the cause of his fall, the kidnapping (Act 2A), and then the prelude to his fall when her death is reported (2B).

In Act 3 his acts of extreme revenge are shown, after which she emerges unharmed. That becomes the Crisis problem, and Creasy makes his sacrifice to ensure she suffers no reprisal.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Shall We Dance? (2004)

Director: Peter Chelsom

Writers: Masayuke Suo, Audrey Wells

Star Rating: 3.6

Early Action / Background

A married probate lawyer, John, is living a life of stifling routine. While riding the train home from the office, he looks up and sees a dancer, Paulina, standing at a classroom window, looking out into the night. Another day, at about the same time, he sees her again.

Theme

When does an interest, an enthusiasm, become a true passion? John's interest in dance deepens as the weeks pass. Various events are shown that illustrate his level of commitment. As always, the story's major reversals must turn on this theme, on how John answers this question of his commitment. By the end, the real test of a true commitment is John's willingness to share this new passion with his wife, who was very eager to share in this. Once he did that, dance renewed his entire life – his marriage, family, career, and himself.

Act 1

A Casual Enthusiasm

Inciting Incident

Problem: John sees Paulina from the train a third time, and he can't deny the feeling of estrangement he feels.

Decision: He impulsively gets off and walks to the school. He has disrupted his routine for the first time in years. At the school he has his first dance lesson, and never looks back. Externally this may not seem an extraordinary action. It's quite understated, which ironically makes this a more powerful inciting incident.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: A few lessons later Paulina gives John a one-on-one lesson. They leave together after an intoxicating lesson, and he makes a gentle attempt at intimacy.

Decision (turning): She bridles and coldly asks him not to return to the school if he's only 'after her', and to return only if he 'loves dance'. He stops attending the class. This is another very simple, understated event which does provide a pronounced reversal of emotion and tone.

Act 2A

A Passion Forsaken

Midpoint

Problem: John's co-worker, Link, who in class is defiantly gay, and enthusiastic, at work lashes out at co-workers who ridicule him – he defends his love of dance.

Decision: Observing this exchange, John is reminded (and ashamed) of his own suspended passion for dance.

Until this point John's enthusiasm was casual; after this Midpoint it steadily becomes more of a true calling.

Act 2B

Link's Fall

Turning Point 2

Problem: At a competition John's partner is humiliated, and Link has a brief triumph, only to be humiliated when his make-up and dyed hair run under the heat of the lights.

Decision (turning): John feels partially responsible for the disappointing evening, and again withdraws from the class.

You might well wonder why this scene is there. Perhaps it signals that humiliation, disappointment, and setbacks are part of any passionate endeavor. It also provides a needed turning point, and thus a momentum counterpoint to the positive enthusiasm John felt on his return to the class. By withdrawing from the class a second time, his commitment to the art is being tested. Perhaps his action of withdrawing is too sudden (insufficiently motivated); structurally, however, it serves well the larger story.

Act 3

A Shared Passion

Crisis Problem

John returns to the school late one evening after receiving a letter from Paulina. They commiserate and exchange stories from their past; she thanks him for reawakening her love of dance, and he thanks her for introducing him to it. He says it changed his life. She announces her decision to return to London to resume her interrupted dance career. He feels a gap in his life since abandoning dance.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Their talk plants the seed for him to decide, soon after, to share his newfound love of dance with his wife, Beverly.

Story Climax

John shows up at Beverly's job in a department store holding a bouquet of flowers, and gives her a first dancing lesson. With this is the promise that their marriage, perhaps as stale as everything else had been in his life, may undergo a rekindling.

Theme Shift: John comes to realize that passion also means not shutting out those he's close to, i.e. his wife and daughter. When he welcomes them into his new avocation in dance, he welcomes them both fully back into his life.

New Equilibrium

John and Beverly arrive at Paulina's send-off party, where he dances once with Paulina, and then joins his wife for a longer, more intimate dance. Gradually they're surrounded by many people dancing.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In TP1 John uses dance to make a sexual advance on Paulina. She rejects him, knowing he's confusing the intense experience of dance that evening for a sexual attraction. She sees it as a betrayal of dance, of John's wife, and of their friendship. In the Crisis decision, after his long talk with Paulina, John realizes that dance can intensify all parts of his life if he honors it. Following that realization he brings Beverly into his passion. Thus his life is revitalized – family, career, and friendships. The story arc change goes from lifeless appetite to a balanced passion, properly expressed; the change is one of opening up.

The middle Acts are used to show John struggling to find a balanced way to bring dance fully into his life. He learns that staying away from the class is no solution, nor is returning to the class (Act 2A). He misses it, and seeing Link fiercely defend himself against mockery for his interest in dance brings it all back (again 2A). In Act 2B he sees Link's humiliation at a dance competition. John is torn, he's miserable either way, if he stays away from the class, or if he returns to it.

It's only in Act 3 when he includes his family in this new interest does he find balance.

Comment

I learned a lot about structure from this movie because, as noted earlier, many of the scenes are quiet and seemingly non-dramatic. You have to dig deeper into what the story's theme is before the logic of several of the scenes becomes apparent. It also showed how simple, understated scenes can affect our emotions, and provide a strong reversal when required.

## Derailed (2005)

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Writers: Stuart Beattie; James Siegel (novel)

Star Rating: 3.6

Early Action / Background

Charles Schine is a hardworking married guy who has built a good life with his equally earnest wife. Medical treatment for their daughter's degenerative illness has become onerous. They have saved for 8 years to cover the anticipated medical bills.

Theme

Wheels within wheels of deception can only corrupt anyone who lets himself get drawn in. Charles' basic question becomes how he can extricate himself from the situation his lies have created. His deeper question is why he let this happen in the first place.

Act 1

Into the Trap

Inciting Incident

Problem: Charles meets Lucinda on the evening commuters' train, and they arrange an assignation in a hotel, where they are attacked by one LaRoche. They are robbed, Charles is beaten up, and Lucinda is raped.

Decision: Charles wants to report it to the police but she says her marriage would be over if they do. Feeling responsible and guilty for not protecting her, Charles agrees. It might have been a one-time mugging, but as he doesn't report it his life is about to be disrupted by blackmail, betrayal, and murder.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The blackmail begins with LaRoche's demand for $20,000. Charles wants to protect Lucinda and believes if he pays, the nightmare will end. So he pays the money. When a friend at work, Dexter, offers to beat up LaRoche, frighten him, and thus end the blackmail, the friend is killed.

Decision (turning): Charles doesn't report Dexter's murder, again to protect Lucinda, because going to the police could bring on a reprisal against her.

Act 2A

Falling Deeper

Midpoint

Problem: LaRoche comes to Charles' home posing as one of his colleagues, and takes Charles aside to demand a further $100,000. Charles now wants primarily to protect his family, who, like Lucinda (he believes), are innocent.

Decision: Thinking he has no choice but to pay the additional money, he uses their savings for the daughter's treatment.

Until this Midpoint Charles believed he could appease LaRoche by meeting his demands; after this point he comes to realize that only a detached use of violence can end the demands.

Act 2B

Coming Clean

Turning Point 2

Problem: After making the payoff Charles goes to a bar, and is confronted by a policeman, Detective Church, about Dexter.

Decision (turning): Although Charles' highest priority is to protect his family, he later decides to take the risk and come clean with the detective the next day. He feels responsible for involving Dexter, and regrets his own escalating lies.

Act 3

Exits the Trap

Crisis Problem

He goes to Lucinda's office to warn her of his going to the police, only to discover she was only a temp there, and that for some reason she was just playing a role as a senior bank official. He sees her soon after with LaRoche – as his friend, accomplice, and obvious lover. He learns that her 'marriage' had just been part of the ruse.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Realizing he has betrayed his marriage and his daughter's future health, all based on a lie, he resolves to undo the harm he has done, and get the money back. He also learns that if he goes to the police, the money would be impounded by the courts. He has no choice but to get the money back himself.

Theme Shift: Until this point Charles has refused to resort to violence. He now believes it is sometimes necessary.

Story Climax 1

Charles rents a room at the same hotel, adjacent to the room where Lucinda's new shakedown will occur. He waits in the lobby. Lucinda walks in with the next mark, and they check in; LaRoche and his assistant show up, enter the elevator. Charles runs up the stairs, subdues LaRoche outside the room, then hauls him in. A gunfight ensues: Lucinda is shot and dies in the struggle; the assistant bursts in and Charles kills him, and LaRoche is wounded.

Story Climax 2

The action cuts to a prison classroom.

Sitting at the front of the classroom, Charles is handed a test booklet that fully outlines the scam that LaRoche and Lucinda ran, and asking him to come to the prison laundry. He encounters LaRoche there, who is now out for revenge for Lucinda's death. Charles reveals he planned this very confrontation. Slipping Dexter's knife from his sleeve he kills LaRoche with a deep abdominal thrust.

New Equilibrium

Charles got back the money for his daughter's treatments. By killing LaRoche, he protected his wife, and by doing so with Dexter's knife, he honored his memory. Detective Church, somewhat implausibly, is waiting for him in the prison lobby as LaRoche's body is removed and Charles receives first aid. Church confronts him, suspecting that Charles went there with the premeditated intention of killing LaRoche. Charles gives Church a non-committal look. The detective, as a friend to Dexter who was ill-served by the justice system, indicates that he chooses 'not' to act on his suspicion.

Charles walks out of the prison lobby.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

Twice in Act 1 Charles decides not to report a crime (LaRoche's attack on him, and murder of Dex) in order to protect Lucinda, which was a con to set up the blackmail. By doing this he implicates himself, thus precluding going to the police later. His Crisis decision, coming after he uncovers the con, is an attempt to undo the damage he's done. Going to the authorities now won't solve the problem of the money being impounded, thus he has to solve it himself. His earlier moderate skirting of the law (not going to the cops in Act 1) makes necessary his far more illegal use of violence to regain what's lost. As in most stories, his Act 1 decision gets him in trouble and then compounds it (Inciting Incident and TP1); his Act 3 decision will either get him out of trouble, or in even deeper. The two decisions' story arc change is one of reversal, restoration.

In this story the middle Acts' function is first to show Charles falling deeper into the blackmail trap (Act 2A), and then his willingness to step back and come clean to the police if it were possible (Act 2B). He only then takes matters in his own hands because his daughter suffers if he steps back now.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Vantage Point (2008)

Director: Pete Travis

Writers: Barry Levy

Star Rating: 3.7

Early Action / Background

This movie is like watching a mystery where the scene that depicts the crime is shown over and over in real time, going a little further into that scene each time. Each screening of the crime, an assassination, is from a different character's vantage point, and reveals more clues of what really happened. It may sound repetitive, yet there are compensations: each re-screening provides differing perspectives and reveals new information. Moreover, more of the early action in the scene is omitted with each rescreening.

The multiple perspectives do not create a totally new reality from each person's vantage point, which may disappoint postmodernists.

The action of that sequence shows US President Ashton being shot at a pre-summit celebration in a Spanish city square. We assume he has been killed by a shooter posted somewhere in the square.

Theme

The story's thematic field is appearance vs. reality. With each successive scene our mistaken interpretation of the action depicted up to that point is reappraised in the light of new information. With each scene we have to reinterpret the _preceding_ action. The story changes, present and past, as we watch it unfold. The film's moral premise is not to be too eager to judge, because our knowledge is always provisional.

Act 1

Assassination?

Inciting Incident

Problem: The action is shown from Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes' perspective. After the shooting a curtain flutters in a hotel room window overlooking the square.

Decision: Barnes tackles an undercover Spanish cop, Javier, and tries to save people from a bomb about to explode.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The same action is shown from an American tourist's perspective, Howard Lewis. He replays his videocam footage of the shooting for Agent Barnes. Barnes sees the female terrorist, Veronica, toss a large satchel under the stage, and he reacts to this, seeking to disperse the crowd.

Turning point reframing: we learn that the assassination was a ruse to deflect the Secret Service team's attention.

Act 2A

False Flag?

Midpoint

Problem: The action is from President Ashton's perspective. The President's 'double' is brought in to appear in the square after the President's security team receives actionable intel about an imminent terrorist assassin threat. Ashton himself, in a hotel room with his Secret Service team and aides, watches the hit unfold on TV, and understands that it was done with the express purpose of provoking a US retaliatory strike on Morocco, the source of the intel.

The terrorist, who in fact is the Spanish cop, Javier, bursts in, kills all of Ashton's aides, and ends the sequence walking towards Ashton himself, prone on the floor, fearing for his life.

Before this Midpoint we assume that one of the vantage points will present the truth of what happened. After this point we doubt that any perspective is intended as authoritative.

Act 2B

Abduction?

Turning Point 2

Problem: The action is from the Spanish cop's perspective. He speaks with Veronica in the square moments before the assassination of (we now know) the double. Javier is sent off on the real assassination mission at the hotel. At the hotel he gains entry, goes up, kills the Secret Service team and aides, and grabs Ashton, dragging him to the elevator, where he's thrown on a stretcher, injected, and taken down to a waiting ambulance.

Turning point reframing: we now learn that the real President apparently was the target after all, but for abduction.

Act 3

Coup d'Etat?

Crisis Problem

Barnes sees his Secret Service partner, Agent Kent Taylor, on the TV truck's live video feed. When Taylor says he's calling from across the city, and Barnes sees him on the video entering the square again, he knows Taylor is using misdirection. Taylor is on his way across town to meet with the ambulance holding the President.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Barnes realizes that Taylor is the key to whatever's happening.

Turning point reframing: we learn the bomb too was another deflection. If that's true, Barnes knows that the real hit is yet to come, though he doesn't know yet what that might be, or how Taylor fits into it.

Barnes decides that he must keep tabs on Taylor, and begins an all-out pursuit.

Thus far we've had multiple vantage point interpretations: an assassination, bombing, and abduction scenarios, with more to come.

**Story Climax**

In a borrowed car Barnes pursues Taylor while the ambulance (unknown to Barnes) is being driven from the hotel to a rendezvous point. We see the American tourist, Howard Lewis, rescue the young Spanish girl he had helped after the bombing in the square. Barnes kills Taylor, runs to the ambulance, and there kills the head terrorist, Suarez, who had been about to shoot Ashton.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

Barnes' first decision is in response to seeing a video replay of what he just experienced, thus giving him literally a new perspective. This establishes the dynamic of previous action being reframed by providing earlier info that reveals our misreading of the current situation. In the Act 3 Crisis decision Barnes again sees a video feed, and this time it reveals his partner's collusion with the terrorists, by far the most surprising reframing thus far. Each reframing produces a new understanding of the situation. Then Act 3 returns to current real time and shows the resolution by stopping Barnes' partner and the terrorists, and rescuing the President.

The connection between the two story arc decisions is that a misreading keeps being revealed. I hazard that the writer may have planned on two such occasions in the story, and then expanded it to a progression of revelations going back further in time with each Act until the Crisis.

Thus the middle Acts are used to suggest, through repeated revisions of reality, that reality depends largely on where and when an observer is looking from. Act 2A invites speculation of a false flag event, and Act 2B presents the most recent perspective: an abduction. The middle Acts are unconventionally more important than Acts 1 and 3 because it's in Acts 2A and 2B that reality is reframed most dramatically.

**Comment**

All stories introduce new information as the action unfolds to shape the audience's emotional response. In this film the new information is from further back in time, thus re-shaping how we understand the present action. It also maintains our interest and builds suspense.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Drama: Postscript

The only form of drama left standing...

A vital dramatic principle concerns the gap between the hero's expectation of how someone else will respond to his action, and how that other person does in fact respond. The hero's expectation emerges out of who he is, his indefinable identity. He takes action to elicit a desired response, but the response he gets is something quite different. The distance between the two, between the expectation and the outcome, is referred to as the dramatic gap. An awareness of this, and actively using it as a writer, is part of what produces strong turning points.

Think of this as 'method writing', where the writer becomes first one character, putting on that identity like a suit of clothes, seeing the world through that character's eyes, and feeling what he wants most. Thus what behavior that character would most want to elicit in others is understood by the writer. Then rising out of the protagonist, the writer takes on the identity of the antagonist, and sees the world through _his_ eyes. By looking through the lived experience of both the hero and the antagonist, going back and forth, the writer sees the gap emerge between the two, and how each side misunderstands the other. Out of this you can then create actions and responses that resonate for the audience. This is one way of achieving psychological realism.

Drama is the genre in which this principle reaches full maturity. Originally a drama was a story in which the hero willingly, tragically, misunderstands his world. Acting on his flawed view produces adverse outcomes for the hero and everyone around him.

The most popular form of modern drama is the crime story. An investigator, because of who he is, is uniquely positioned to puzzle out the clues, to take action that bridges the gap that exists for everyone else seeking to solve the crime. No one else can properly understand the small, closed world of this specific criminal and his crime. They consistently act in ways they expect will elicit flight and surrender by the criminal. But only the investigator is able to do this. His ability also means, however, that his expectations of others outside the closed world of the crime, and his actions towards them, produce responses that are unexpected and often comic.

Elements of the Action /Adventure genre are easily included in a crime drama, which may account for the modern crime story's position as the preferred form of contemporary drama. There is, however, a good number of non-crime dramas released each year.

## HORROR GENRE

Nun: _A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape. Can bend_

to repeat itself, time and time again.

Mama (2013)

## 28 Days Later (2003)

Director: Danny Boyle

Writers: Alex Garland

Star Rating: 3.8

Early Action / Background

Britain has fallen victim to an island-wide contagion. Upon infection, one succumbs almost immediately to such symptoms as violent seizures, a hunger for uninfected human flesh, and an intense revulsion to light.

Theme

In technical terms, this is a story of a pandemic infection that affects the entire island of Britain. Thus the small number of still-walking zombie-like residents are not zombies, they're still alive but with no remaining self-awareness. Thus the story is not at the comfortable distance of an implausible supernatural horror – this film's pandemic infection could conceivably occur. This story decision renders the movie more plausible, more real. It worked, as this film has become arguably the leader of its genre.

The device of having the protagonist wake up at the story's opening is like the audience itself waking up to such a world. It adds to the realism. Everything in the story has this goal, to enhance the quality of this being an everyday world gone horrifically wrong, which also enhances the audience's emotion of horror at seeing everything so thoroughly turned upside-down.

Act 1

Waking to a Sleeping World

Inciting Incident

Problem: Jim wakes up in a hospital, very disoriented after what must have been a long period of unconsciousness. He exits the hospital still in his patient's gown, and wanders around a London seemingly empty of people. The streets, stores, subways, shopping malls are all empty.

Decision: Close to sundown he meets a woman, Selena, in a small corner store. She rescues him from roaming bands of 'infected' who come out at night to hunt. They spend the night in the store, sleeping on the floor.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: They visit his parents' home, which is as empty of people as everywhere else, and where he finds a poignant message left for him by his parents. His family and everyone he knew is gone.

Decision (turning): When an infected attacks them in the house, Selena kills the attacker with a ferocity that rivals that of the infecteds. We will learn that this sort of extreme, preemptive self-defense is necessary to survive.

Act 2A

Into the Country

Midpoint

Problem: They meet a young girl and her father, who have turned their top-floor apartment into a fortress, with double-barred iron gates on the stairs just below the top floor. They spend the night with the girl, Hannah and her father, Frank.

Decision: They hear a broadcast from a secure survivors' facility out in the country, guarded by a military unit commanded by Major Henry West. Uncertain whether to trust this broadcast they decide to make the journey there.

Act 2B

Sanctuary

Turning Point 2

Problem: They arrive in the area immediately outside the facility, and ring a civil defense siren. As they wait Frank is infected when a drop of blood falls into his eye from a corpse suspended above them. He pushes Hannah away, and tells them to leave him there, as he tosses the vehicle keys to Jim. He rapidly goes into convulsions, emerging moments later with a mighty hunger, and attacks.

Decision (turning): Frank is shot by one of the guards from the facility, who was positioned sniper-style nearby, observing. Jim, Selena, and Hannah go with the guard.

Jim has been presented as a passive protagonist, and has not thus far made any of the plot point decisions.

Act 3

Betrayed by Uninfected

Crisis Problem

Over dinner Major West admits to Jim that the broadcast was just to bring in women for the men there. Jim is knocked unconscious and taken out for execution. Selena and Hannah are taken upstairs to be prepared.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Jim escapes the execution, hides in a pile of corpses, and passes out. When he wakes he notices through tree branches a jet passing overhead, leaving a white jet stream across the sky. In other words, outside the isle of Britain life goes on undisturbed. He stands and sees he is on the perimeter of the base.

He decides to rescue Selena and Hannah, or die trying.

Climax

He makes his way forward, killing several guards on the way. Once inside the main building he releases an infected that the Major had locked up for clinical study, and the infected promptly runs amok, killing several guards. Jim goes to the upper floor, releases the girl, and enters the last room to help Selena. Thinking he's an infected, she very nearly kills him. They prepare to get away in the vehicle when the Major arrives. He wounds Jim, complaining, "You've killed my boys." West is killed, and they escape.

New Equilibrium

Jim wakes in a peaceful, clean room. He goes outside and helps spread out on the ground a huge, rescue message – 'HELP' in sewn-together pieces of fabric – as military jets fly overhead. They dance on the grass in this pastoral, seaside setting, confident they will now be rescued.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The TP1 decision shows a passive Jim who looks on in shock as Selena abruptly bludgeons an infected just in time. He agrees with her decision to spend the night in the store. In his Crisis decision he's lying near a mass of corpses looking up through a tree's foliage at an airliner's jetstream crossing indifferently overhead. He realizes whether they live or die is on him, and decides to return and rescue Selena and Hannah, if he can. The two decisions show a change of awakening: from passivity before and after the infection, in London collectively and in Jim, to a full-on willingness to take necessary action. In his approach to the converted manor house he kills a series of guards with the same lightning-like ferocity he'd observed in Selena.

The middle Acts are used for contrast, to show their journey. They travel through a pastoral countryside – from a city that's now a post-apocalyptic shell to the manor house sanctuary which would soon become a new, worse nightmare. Act 2A shows the journey; Act 2B shows their arrival, and escorted entry into a country house with sinister high-security trappings. The story arc of Acts 1 and 3 shows the new post-infection reality; the middle Acts show a transition through all that had been lost.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## 28 Weeks Later (2007)

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Producer: Danny Boyle

Writers: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fesnadillo, Enrique Lopez Lavigne, Jesus Olmo

Star Rating: 3.6

Early Action / Background

Don Harris and his wife, Alice, are attacked by infecteds in their home where they have barricaded themselves during the closing days of a contagion. Harris was able to get out, but instead of going back to fight off Alice's attackers, he panics and leaves her there. He flees their home, with other infecteds in hungry pursuit. He survives. Their children were visiting friends in another country.

Theme

The controlling idea is surviving through _loyalty_ to other individuals, not institutions. An individual cannot effectively survive by himself, he needs others. By contrast, an institution sent in to help a city survive, for example when the military gives help to this city, fails utterly. It is only two individuals within the military contingent who prove effective in the end, by acting outside the military rules.

Act 1

Contagion and Betrayal

Inciting Incident

Problem: The two children return to Britain and this city, passing through a heavily fortified Green Zone manned by the military.

Decision (turning): The children, Andy and Sally, are ambivalent when re-united with their father, Harris. It is not the expected warm homecoming.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The children depart the quarantine area, against the rules, grab a scooter, and ride to their family home. In the upstairs master bedroom, Sally finds their mother, Alice, alive and not infected; she is inexplicably immune to the contagion. They quickly exit the house into the arms of waiting soldiers, alerted to their presence. They are all returned to quarantine, Alice included.

Decision (turning): A full family reunion follows, leading to family discord, as Andy and Sally now know their mother didn't die at the hands of her attackers, contrary to what their father told them. He left her there to die. Again a possible homecoming turns down.

Act 2A

Quarantine Breach

Midpoint

Problem: Harris visits Alice in quarantine. As a passive carrier she is immune herself, but can pass it on to others. When he kisses her, her saliva infects him. He goes into convulsions, emerges an infected, and kills her.

Decision: None.

Until this Midpoint the story has focused on their world of perimeter zones and security measures; after this point they face the worst possible outcome: re-infection.

Act 2B

Containment Fails

Turning Point 2

The army's rules of engagement for responding to a deteriorating situation are: 1) kill infected; 2) containment (kill all within the outbreak area); 3) Code Red: extermination (destroy the entire district).

Problem: Several survivors are stranded in a warehouse near where the rooftop snipers' mission graduated to 'containment'. Among them are the two children; a sniper, Sergeant Doyle, reluctant to continue killing infected; and a female military doctor, Scarlet. They realize they can't turn themselves in because the army is now on Code Red, and will shoot-on-sight anyone from the infected area.

Decision (turning): They have to run, and make their way to a park in another district where the sniper has arranged with a helicopter pilot-buddy for airlift out. Institutional loyalty in the military contingent has broken down; it cannot achieve its mission.

Act 3

Code Red

Crisis Problem

They reach the park and wait for evac. Scarlet explains to Doyle that medically the children have an infection-resistant mother, and their DNA thus holds the clue for any eventual cure. Thus their new mission is to get the children to safety. But the infecteds have fought their way out of the containment area and pursue the four.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

They set off again. En route they arrange by radio with the pilot for a new evac pickup point in a stadium.

Climax

Pursued by infected they reach a car just as the smoke from chemical weapons comes rolling up the street. Infected die like flies. The four shut themselves inside the car, but when it won't start Doyle selflessly gets out to push, meaning certain death from the chemical agent. He winds a towel around his face for protection. Scarlet takes over driving as an army mop-up crew proceeds up the street using flame-throwers on wounded and walking infected. Doyle is set on fire while pushing the car, and dies in agony as they pull away. Helicopter gunships pursue the car, using strafing fire in their attempts to destroy it. Scarlet drives through a subway entrance, down the stairs and into the ticketing area. They get out and descend to the train level in the hope of using the tunnels to reach the stadium. Harris appears, kills Scarlet, and bites/infects his own son, Andy. Sally kills him with multiple shots to the chest. The two children flee into the tunnel.

They emerge at the stadium, run to the waiting helicopter, and are flown out across the channel.

New Disequilibium

28 weeks later. Paris has been infected, and the contagion has gone global.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The protagonist is Sally, the antagonist her father. His Act 1 backstory decision was to abandon the mother and then conceal that from the authorities and his children. Sally's decision reveals the truth when she questions him. In the Crisis decision (the 2nd one) Sally again confronts the father, now infected, in the subway, and kills him when he bites his son.

Thus in the Act 1 TP1 Sally has loyalty to her brother and mother, and she wants to trust her father, but she's suspicious of his survival, and of all the security. By the 2nd Act 3 Crisis decision she's learned that trusting those in authority (the army, doctors, officials, and their father) gets people killed. The story arc change is apparently a loss of trust in authority.

The middle Acts are used to show the failure of all the elaborate security measures in place. There is the quarantine breach (Act 2A) which will lead to selective killing of the infected. Then the containment fails (2B) which will lead to killing all within the outbreak area. Last, Code Red is invoked (late in 2B), leading to killing everyone in the district. Two soldiers help the adolescents get clear of the district only by no longer acting as part of the assigned security force. Sally survives by not trusting any of that, and then she carries her brother, and the infection, to Paris.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 down.

## Constantine (2005)

Director: Francis Lawrence

Writers: Kevin Brodbin, Frank A. Cappello; Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis (comic book)

Star Rating: 3.0

Early Action / Background

An itinerant warrior of Christ, John Constantine, is often called to do exorcisms, whereby he returns the denizens of Hell to their home. In Mexico the discovery of the spear used to end Christ's earthly life on the cross is found. This spear is to be a sought-after prize for the re-opening and re-empowering of Hell in the lives of mortals.

Theme

Constantine had few doubts about the necessity or morality of his fight. However, that changes as he's forced to confront why an apparent 'innocent' was consigned by Gabriel to Hell. The story turns on a fallen angel (Demon-father) deceiving an angel (Gabriel) in order to gain advantage, and using a falsely accused human soul to achieve this.

Act 1

Justice Received

Inciting Incident

Problem: A young woman, Angela Dodson , seeks John Constantine's help in proving her sister was not a suicide. She asks so her sister's burial can be in consecrated ground.

Decision (turning): Constantine reluctantly agrees to help her if he can. By agreeing, he has placed himself in judgment of the verdict of Heaven, and of the faith needed in his line of work.

Turning Point 1 (commits to the story)

Problem: After a good friend is murdered by one of Hell's agents, Constantine suddenly sees from Angela's perspective the dire reality of being in Hell. He calls in a favor from a warlock on a ritual that enables him to travel to Hell. Once there he discovers that Angela's sister did, in fact, kill herself.

Decision (turning): Realizing that to help her further would be to defy Heaven, Constantine concludes Angela is mistaken.

Act 2A

Justice Denied

Midpoint

Problem: Angela refuses to accept his conclusion.

Decision: Constantine escorts her to Hell so she can see for herself.

Act 2B

Another Murder

Turning Point 2

Problem: Another friend of Constantine's, his technical assistant, is murdered.

Decision (turning): Constantine swears the killer will be punished, and proceeds to assemble a high-powered crucifix-gun.

He knows he's acting out of frustration, because this will not answer the dilemma around Angela's sister.

Act 3

Injustice Exposed

Crisis Problem

Constantine kills the chief agent of Hell, who says as he dies that it doesn't matter, because it's 'the woman' (the sister) that the great Demon-father needs in order to achieve his cross-over to Earth.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Constantine now has a valid justice-related reason for bringing the sister out of Hell, for if she stays there the Demon-father will return to afflict the Earth. He resolves to bring her back from Hell.

The Climax

Constantine employs a prohibited means to get to Hell. He arrives in the past at the sister's side at the moment she leaps to her death. He discovers that another woman had taken her place, and that the sister was framed and murdered. Constantine returns to Earth and the hospital, arriving at that past moment of her suicide, as she lands in the fountain. Gabriel is there, standing over the soul of the framed suicide, and is about to dispatch her with the spear of Christ, which will open a gateway from Hell to Earth.

Constantine has only one way to save the woman's soul, and the world. He arranges his own death, which brings Satan to claim his released soul. Constantine explains that, by the act of claiming his innocent soul (dying selflessly to lure him there), now allows Constantine to rescue Angela's sister's innocent soul from Gabriel.

Satan sees the threat, and kills Gabriel to save himself.

Slow Curtain

Constantine and Angela's sister both make the transition to Heaven.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In this story the law of Heaven and nature is applied on a basis of logic and rules. In Act 1 Constantine tries to help Angela, but when he sees in Hell that her sister was in fact a suicide, he bows to the rule of Heaven. In Act 3 he learns of the Demon-father's deception of Gabriel, and thereby breaking Heaven's rule. Constantine can thus use the same rule to outwit the Demon-father by sacrificing himself, and trapping him in his lie. The Demon-father withdraws to escape the repercussions this would bring. Thus the story turns on using deception to break the rule of Heaven to gain advantage.

In Act 1 an innocent suffers because of the lie; in Act 3 Constantine uses that, trapping the Demon-father in another lie, to rescue an innocent soul. The story arc change is thus one of inversion – Constantine turning the tables.

The middle Acts don't give much support to this. There is the suggestion, due to Angela's unshakable belief, that justice may have been denied (Act 2A). In 2B the forces of Hell try to warn off Constantine by murdering another of his friends. Act 2A seems like an extension of Act 1, and Act 2B could just be Hell retaliating for Constantine's past interference.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down: Act 3 up.

## The Ring Two (2005)

Director: Hideo Nakata

Writers: Ehren Kruger, Hiroshi Takahashi ( _'Ringu'_ screenplay, 1998); Koji Suzuki (novel)

Star Rating: 3.2

Early Action / Background

Rachel Keller has resettled with her son in Oregon to escape Samara, the woman whose spirit is trapped in a virtual, infernal, otherworldly 'well'. The opening action shows a male university student trying to dupe a female student into watching the notorious videotape that summons Samara. He dies when the female student covers her eyes while the tape plays through. Samara is re-introduced, and the 'tape' can still summon her, as before.

Theme

The film's controlling idea is the integrity of the soul. The first movie showed the havoc that a soul committed to evil can bring to the lives of innocent people. This film's moral premise is that Keller feels an obligation to close off Samara's access to this world, to protect future innocent victims. She may feel it necessary to make the worst sacrifice that could be asked of a mother.

Act 1

Samara Returns

Inciting Incident

Problem: Keller watches the news that describes a male student's bizarre death, and goes to the crime scene. When she examines the body she realizes Samara is back.

Decision: She flees with her son, Aidan.

Turning Point 1

Problem: After putting her son to bed, his screams bring her rushing back. She sees Samara climbing down the wall.

Decision (turning): She takes her son and escapes the house as large cracks rend the walls.

Act 2A

Samara's Past

Midpoint

Problem: One of Keller's male co-workers helps them move to a house in the country, and while Keller goes into town, he is left to babysit. When he gives Aidan a bath Samara tries to claim the boy. Keller arrives, breaks down the bathroom door, and holds Aidan underwater to banish a younger version of Samara from his soul. The co-worker, seeing this, believes Keller has been abusing her son. Later as Aidan is put into the ICU Keller is told she may lose custody of him.

Decision: None.

Until this Midpoint the story has focused on Keller and her son; after this point the focus is on her efforts to get to the source of the supernatural events.

Act 2B

Aidan's Possession

Turning Point 2

Problem: The trauma that Aidan experiences due to the separation from his mother delivers him into Samara's power. He wakes in the hospital and asks for his mother. The nurse refuses.

Decision: Aidan/Samara kills the nurse. Later, when the co-worker visits Keller's home, and Aidan is there alone, Aidan/Samara also kills the co-worker.

Act 3

Samara, RIP

Crisis Problem

Keller returns home. Seeing her co-worker dead in his car, she realizes that Samara has possessed her son. She goes to her bedroom, and breaks down in grief. She believes Samara has won.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Falling asleep, she has a dream in which Aidan comes to her and asks her to release him – by killing him.

**Climax**

Keller again holds Aidan/Samara underwater in the bathtub, and Samara leaves Aidan's body. But she knows that Samara will just repossess Aidan unless Keller can terminate Samara's access to this world. After putting her son to bed, she gives herself to Samara, and traps her in her well. Samara 'dies'. Keller wakes and takes comfort in the fact that her son is finally safe.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In TP1 Keller physically flees Samara whose supernatural state in the well gives her the power to come among the living and take possession of a victim. By the Act 3 Crisis Keller has learned the living cannot escape Samara physically in this life, and can only do so outside life and the body. In her last decision Keller allows Samara to possess her; her spirit goes to the well, dies, and thus she can trap Samara there. The story arc change is one revelation, a new understanding.

The middle Acts are used to show how she gains this knowledge. In 2A she learns about parts of Samara's life when she was still alive. In 2B with her son's possession she learns she can expel Samara if the host appears near death. It's this that gives her the idea of trapping Samara by luring her in, being possessed, and dying before Samara can escape.

Comment

Why is Japanese horror cinema so viscerally frightening? It's clearly not related to filmmaking style, or structural elements of the writing as discussed here. I live in Thailand, and the horror genre of local filmmaking is very popular and widely available to other Asian audiences. In some societies there seems to be a greater awareness of potential phenomena beyond this objective world. I get the impression the resonance of Asian horror is simply a matter of belief. Asian filmmakers and audiences do believe in the supernatural. This is not just an entertaining story genre, it's something real in their lives, and this translates to the screen. You can watch a 2-minute clip from any Japanese horror film, even the most poorly-done, and a feeling of dread comes crawling through. It's much the same for many Thai horror movies on shoestring budgets. One of only a few universal rules of art, of any art, is the respect the artist pays to his material. For the most part Western filmmakers do not respect the horror genre, at least in part because they don't believe that negative supernatural phenomena exist and can impact our lives. On the other hand, the fact that Western _audiences_ enjoy Asian horror argues that Westerners do believe in such phenomena.

At any rate, Asian horror films' global audience is well-deserved.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## White Noise (2005)

Director: Geoffrey Sax

Writers: Niall Johnson

Star Rating: 3.4

Early Action / Background

Newly married Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton) and his wife are looking forward to starting a family. One day the wife disappears. Hours, then days pass, and Jonathan reports her missing. Three weeks later her body is found. Jonathan is devastated. As he struggles to cope, all appliances in his home start going haywire on a regular basis, and finally he moves.

Theme

The theme explores _why_ we believe what we believe. Jonathan's journey is to discover when he should accept the reality of something outside our system of beliefs, and when not. He suspects there may be a cost involved.

Act 1

Inconsolable

Inciting Incident

Problem: A man Jonathan has never met before comes into his office, gives him his business card, then turns and leaves without a word. Jonathan follows the man, and is told that if he wants to contact his dead wife, to come see him. He leaves. Jonathan dismisses him as a sadistic crank, and tries to put it out of his mind.

Decision: Feeling increasingly as though some presence accompanies him everywhere, Jonathan refuses to entertain such a false hope. But his refusal is weakening.

Turning Point 1

Problem: Jonathan succumbs and visits the man, who shows him a room of sophisticated electronic gear for monitoring 'electronic voice prints'. A woman arrives who vouches for the man, and claims he helped her.

Decision (turning): Jonathan concludes it's all a misguided process of grieving, and again refuses to go further with it.

Act 2A

Contact

Midpoint

Problem: Unable to refuse it any longer, Jonathan sets up his own EVP equipment in his apartment. Returning for another visit, he learns the man was murdered, his home ransacked.

Until this point there was no suggestion of risk in believing or disbelieving; after this Midpoint he sees that his mentor paid with his life, and some threat may face him as well.

Act 2B

Proof

Turning Point 2

Problem: Jonathan adds to his equipment, and one day intercepts a clear, chilling EVP contact, showing a child's death at the scene of a car accident.

Decision (turning): He leaves on an errand and sees the woman from the EVP vision drive by in her car. Realizing either the EVP message was mistaken or the accident has yet to occur, he investigates and sees her child through the window, unharmed, shouting for help. He breaks the window and rescues the child, but is unable to help the woman. Her eyes bore into him from beyond the window. He realizes this is proof the phenomena exist.

Act 3

Redemption

Crisis Problem

After much further work with the EVP equipment Jonathan establishes regular contact with his dead wife. He receives her directions to go to an abandoned building downtown.

Crisis Decision

Believing that whatever she asks of him is valid and necessary, he trusts it. He leaves for the building.

Climax

He climbs to an upper floor of the abandoned building and discovers a large bank of monitors, part of an EVP suite as elaborate as his own. He goes deeper inside that room. He comes upon one of his co-workers from his office torturing a victim strapped to a chair. He sees that the co-worker is a serial killer who used EVP's to contact evil voices to lead him to victims. He suddenly understands that the man very likely tortured and killed his wife months earlier. He also sees that she has contacted Jonathan to stop this killer, and prevent his doing any further harm to others. Jonathan rescues the woman and kills the co-worker.

However, the evil EVP's are able to materialize enough energy to knock Jonathan off a ledge. He falls to his death – and to a reunion with his wife's spirit, now finally at peace.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Jonathan's TP1 decision he rejects again the counsel of a new friend that he can contact his dead wife. In his Crisis decision, following the proof he experiences with the woman trapped in the car, he receives instructions from his wife to go to an abandoned building downtown.

The two decisions show a change from disbelief to belief. Thus the middle Acts are used to show how his mind was changed. In Act 2A he feels a compulsion to explore the EVP phenomena for himself, and soon makes his first contact. In 2B he receives directions from a woman's spirit to save her daughter in an imminent accident. He does so, and thus receives proof that such contact is possible.

This sets up the Act 3 contact of Jonathan by his wife and the confrontation with her abductor.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## I Am Legend (2007)

Director: Francis Lawrence

Writers: Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman (screenplay); Richard Matheson (novel)

Star Rating: 2.8

Early Action / Background

A new genetically-modified measles virus that provides a cure for cancer is announced. Initial patients started contracting rabies, however, calling for quarantine measures. It then metastasized, became airborne, the contagion mutated fast enough that it was incurable and untreatable. It began in NYC, ground zero, where the first cancer patients were treated with the modified virus. Dr. Robert Neville, a renowned geneticist, has committed himself heart and soul to finding a cure. He also believes it's crucial he remain at 'ground zero' in order to have access to human test subjects from the original infection to use in his ongoing drug trials.

Theme

The film's theme is that a true 'legend' may not behave anything like a conventional hero. Neville believes that using nightstalkers as test subjects is a necessary evil, if a cure is to be found. He's a legend for finding a cure, but at what cost. In the end, his immoral use of nightstalkers affects his conscience and thus his sanity.

Act 1

His Mission Begins

Inciting Incident

Problem: In a flashback Neville is taking his family through the NYC quarantine facilities to a waiting helicopter. A landmark NYC bridge is hit by military jets to prevent panicking crowds from circumventing the quarantine. The bridge explosions deflect a second helicopter, causing it to collide with his family's helicopter, and they're killed.

Decision: He has no other purpose now but finding a cure to the disease that indirectly killed his family.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Neville captures an infected human test subject, a female nightstalker, from the dark basement of a derelict building. The infected have the extreme viciousness of rabies-infected victims, and survive by feeding off other humans, and die if exposed to daylight. The woman's mate willingly risks his own life by emerging half into the daylight to protect her, which no nightstalker has done before.

Decision: None.

Act 2A

Madness

Midpoint

Problem: Neville is in the habit of returning to a video store each day to make small talk with 'mannequins' he has set up there, to give himself the illusion of social interaction. He sees a mannequin representing the video store owner set up on a street in front of the building, which he's sure wasn't his doing. He believes someone is baiting him, mocking his behavior. He stops, challenges the 'store-owner', shoots him, and shoots into the surrounding buildings. He's then caught there in an actual trap similar to the one he uses to catch test subjects. He struggles, and finally escapes. As he flees his dog is bit.

Decision: He returned with the dog, which will soon be infected.

Until this Midpoint it's assumed that Neville is a courageous surviving doctor seeking a cure; after this point it appears Neville is borderline sane, but still a genius who may indeed find a cure.

Act 2B

Suicide Mission

Turning Point 2

Problem: When the dog turns into a canine nightstalker, Neville is forced to kill it. His mental state deteriorates further.

Decision (turning): That night he sets out on a suicide mission to the docks, to kill as many nightstalkers as he can, using a vehicle. When Neville himself is about to be killed someone arrives, dispatches the attackers, and rescues him.

Act 3

Finding a Cure

Crisis Problem

He wakes in his living room, his wound treated. He has breakfast with his rescuer, Anna, and her son. Both are uninfected. She wants them to escape to a colony of survivors up in Vermont. He sees this as a problem because his one purpose is to find a cure.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

He agrees that Anna and her son should flee, but says that he must stay.

Climax

A chaotic army of the infected, which followed Anna's vehicle, attacks Neville's fortress. He leads the two into his laboratory where he remains within a secure area, behind a thick plexiglass barrier. The nightstalkers arrive in the basement. Neville gives Anna a test tube containing blood diluted with what he hopes is an antivirus agent. He tells her to get it out, and use it to inoculate the remaining uninfected. He pushes them deep inside a hidden alcove where they can hide until the attackers leave. He dies fighting the attacking infected, as they will not leave until taking their revenge on him.

New Equilibrium

Anna arrives at the Vermont facility. In Voiceover she tells of how Neville's research did indeed lead to a cure that stopped the infection. She says it made him into a legend.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The story asks whether a greater good, finding a cure, justifies the injustice of using nightstalkers as test subjects.

Neville's Act 1 decision is he captures a female nightstalker to use in this manner. Her mate grieves and risks his life trying to save her. Neville knows his action is unjust, immoral, but he believes it's warranted. In the Crisis decision, when invited by Anna to escape with her and her son through to a survival colony, he elects to stay. He knows his work is likely done (he's finished a prototype cure), but he can't leave this place where his family died. Perhaps he also stayed to face nightstalker retribution. In the first decision he took the female victim without qualms. In his last decision he seems to acknowledge his culpability, and that he didn't have the right to use them as he did. The story arc change is one of redemption.

The middle Acts are weak in their support of this. In 2A his compromised sanity is shown in his visit to the video store, where he's taunted, and caught in a trap like those he uses to catch nightstalkers. In 2B his infected dog turns, and in a rage Neville goes on a suicide mission to kill as many nightstalkers as he can. The middle Acts are like background that shows his deterioration.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Horror: Postscript

How to show an apocalypse of loss...

In movies in the Horror genre (and Apocalyptic sub-genre) the story often shows a world moving towards, and reaching, a state of utter ruin. Such a story's relentless downward momentum means that the primary move in scenes is down (showing loss), with shorter countermove scenes that are up (showing gains). The Midpoint scene in a horror story usually shows such a temporary gain before further, deeper losses. In the Act 3 Crisis/Climax it turns moderately up as the hero salvages a fragment of normality, of his former life and world. The agent of loss is often supernatural – because that produces an effect of paralyzing fear, or true horror. Many horror stories now follow a momentum of: Act 1 down, Act 2A down, Act 2B down, and Act 3 up. Sometimes in Asian horror even Act 3 is down.

The how of horror writing is a matter of juxtaposing initially a sliver of barely noticeable abnormality – in a landscape of the starkly normal. Up until the Midpoint the writer slowly increases the collision-like intensity of those isolated moments of abnormality, and that undercurrent steals up on the audience/reader, evincing an effect of discomfort, fear, and then horror. If before the Midpoint the hero struggles to identify the source of his own discomfort, after the Midpoint his struggle shifts to one of direct conflict with its source. At each stage his fortunes reverse, and he falls deeper. The artfulness in this is knowing at each stage how much of the source of horror to reveal, and how much to escalate.

Perhaps the reason that recent Japanese horror movies have been so effective is the willingness to move forward slowly, and once the full horror manifests, not to be sidetracked by questions of rationality, plausibility, common sense. The lesson is simple: if the foundation is gradually and systematically laid, almost any horrific culmination, no matter how rationally implausible, becomes very believable (even a possessed videotape).

## COMEDY GENRE

## Secondhand Lions (2003)

Director: Tim McCanlies

Writers: Tim McCanlies

Star Rating: 3.9

Early Action / Background

Two old scalawags, Hub and Garth, who made millions in a variety of suspect ways 40 years earlier, have settled down in a derelict old house miles from any city.

Theme

The tall tales Garth relates to Walter are a recurring fantasy flashback that captures the essence of the two old men's early life and friendship. The theme here is on friendship, between contemporaries and generations. It focuses on how friends, young and old, help each other in vital ways. It's a coming-of-age story about how Walter gains an inner strength and confidence.

Act 1

Castaway

Inciting Incident

Problem: Hub's late 30's daughter arrives with her son in tow, Walter, whom she apparently intends to leave in Hub's 'care'. The two old dudes don't welcome such a crimp in their style, but allow it all the same. The incitement: as a result their lives, and Walter's, will be changed in startling and wonderful ways.

Solution: Walter gets mysterious glimpses into Hub and Garth's history when he looks through a trunk stored in his new room. Garth sits the boy down and tells him the first in a series of tall tales of their youthful exploits in the French Foreign Legion in faraway Araby.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Walter runs away after reaching the breaking point over misadventures in the company of his 'uncles'.

Decision (turning): When his attempt to flee fails, Walter hesitantly enters his uncles' world, and is surprised at how free he suddenly feels. He starts by emulating Garth – he phones his mother and tells a tall tale of his own about their mistreatment of him.

Walter goes further when Hub suggests how the boy can vindicate himself, by 'helping' them scare off Hub's other gold-digging relatives who are due to show up soon.

Act 2A

Home at Last

Midpoint

Problem: Walter wakes late at night and discovers Hub out in the back yard sleepwalking. Ill at ease, the boy is concerned for his uncle who, after Garth's stories, is now becoming a strangely romantic figure.

Decision: Garth joins Walter and they watch together, not interfering as Hub wrestles with his demons.

Act 2B

Hub's Return

Turning Point 2

Problem: Walter wakes and discovers Hub out sleepwalking again. Hub awakes and is ashamed, knowing the years are catching up with him. It becomes clear he misses his one true love, Tiffany, who had figured prominently in Garth's last story.

Decision (turning): Hub is tired of life – Walter suddenly sees all this, and pleads with his uncle not to die. He explains that they (meaning he) will love and miss him as much as he still misses Tiffany. Hearing her name uttered after so many years releases a dam of memories and emotions in Hub, and he silently weeps. The boy hugs and comforts his uncle. Hub recovers, and gruffly says it's time to turn in. The blocked emotions that were surely killing Hub have been released by a boy's love, a signal to Hub of what his purpose perhaps could still be.

Act 3

With a Little Help from My Friends

Crisis Problem

Walter's mother returns and asks about the huge hidden stash of money that Walter had told her about.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Having gained the self-knowledge and confidence to oppose his mother, Walter decides not to tell her where the money is hidden.

**Climax**

This of course has repercussions. Walter is attacked by the mother's oafish boyfriend. A resident tiger (which the uncles had adopted in an earlier escapade) got loose the day before and fled into the corn field. It now emerges and rescues Walter from the attacking boyfriend. The tiger, however, is shot in the scuffle, and dies. Hub comforts Walter: "It's how the old boy would have wanted to go, with his boots on." It's not lost on Walter that Hub is half talking about himself. Walter, Garth, and Hub have each helped each other – to grow into adulthood, to find self-worth, to want to live again.

New Equilibrium

A 'Voiceover' by Walter as an adult, years later, recounts that when the two old men did eventually die, they did so with their boots on. In his 'declining' years Hub had found a sense of purpose – in friendship, in helping others, and of course in new adventures. We are left wondering if Walter's last harrowing tale of his uncles' final adventure in a restored World War I biplane is his own version of a French Foreign Legion story – one told now to us in his uncles' honor.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Walter's Act 1 TP1 decision he enters his uncles' world of tall (or true) tales and for the first time starts feeling the possibilities life could offer. In his Act 3 decision, after spending several weeks there, he now feels confident enough to stand up to his mother and her boyfriend.

The story's background shows two old men's early life in a series of flashbacks told by Garth to young Walter. The foreground is Walter's gradual coming-of-age, which is also the story arc's change: becoming a lion, let us say. Thus one end of the story arc is Walter's first entering his uncles' world, and the other end is his defiance of his mother's attempt to use him to get the uncles' money. Hearing Garth's stories is the vehicle of Walter's maturing.

As we've seen, the middle Acts often focus on one aspect of this process of change: Walter's maturing, and a slow eclipse out of adulthood for the uncles. Both 2A and 2B feature Hub's sleepwalking, a device the writer uses to dramatize Hub's passing into old age, which Walter and Garth then react to. In 2B Hub comes to terms with it after an appeal from Walter, who senses Hub is prematurely letting go. It's by helping Hub that Walter makes his last push into adulthood.

Following this is their hilarious confrontation in Act 3 with Walter's mother and boyfriend, and then the voiceover slow curtain by Walter as an adult describing Hub and Garth's last excellent adventure.

## Meet the Fockers (2004)

Director: Jay Roach

Writers: Greg Glienna, Mary Ruth Clarke, John Hamburg (screenplay); Jim Herzfeld, Marc Hyman (story)

Star Rating: 3.8

Early Action / Background

Greg Focker and Dina Blake are engaged and invite Dina's parents, Jack and Pam, to Florida to meet Greg's parents, Bernie and Roz. They accept, and Greg books the flight.

Theme

The controlling idea here is to show the potential humor implicit in conflicting loyalties: i.e. a younger vs. an older generation, a prospective father-in-law vs. son-in-law, Anglo vs. Jewish, upper middle-class vs. working class, Protestant non-sensuality vs. Jewish sensuality, and more. Greg is the story's neutral center, and the action is framed in counterpoint to him. Then again, the film might just be lampooning a series of stereotypes.

Act 1

Let the Games Begin

Inciting Incident

Problem: Greg and Dina had planned on taking their time driving to Florida, letting the two sets of parents meet and get acquainted long before they arrive, the longer the better. Jack Blake refuses, proposing instead that he and Pam drive down in the 'Blake tank', an awesomely gauche, jet-black RV (with its secret hi-tech CIA espionage suite). Greg gives in, consoling himself that he and Dina will at least be driving down alone. Jack, boasting of the family RV's 'tank'-like virtues, hands Greg a brick, and suggests he give it his best shot, "Just see if you can damage the tank!" A gleam enters Greg's eye, and he lets rip.

Solution: The tank impressively repels the brick, which alas bounces off to shatter the rental car's windshield. Dina, offended by this gratuitous machismo, insists that she and Greg join her parents in the drive down to Florida. Greg reluctantly agrees.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Having arrived 'chez Focker' Jack proposes a friendly icebreaking game of family football, announcing "I can judge a man by how he handles himself on the sports field," glancing meaningfully at Greg. Seeing the fake-out Jack is planning, Greg warns his father and they plan a fake-out of their own.

Solution: It backfires and instead Greg is injured. Jack feels a twinge in his back and complains loudly. They all ignore Greg and commiserate with Jack. Even worse, in Jack's eyes Greg proved his theory in spades.

Act 2A

Exposed!

Midpoint

Problem: Jack meets the cook's son, who bears a passing resemblance to Greg, and Jack assumes Greg has gratuitously sewn his wild oats hither and yon, and now is looking to sew some more on Jack's little lamb. He's appalled, and phones a former CIA contact to look into it. (The punch-line follow-up comes in Act 3.)

Act 2B

Greg Babysits

Turning Point 2

Problem: Both families go out on a marathon shopping excursion. They leave Greg behind, still in a neck-brace, to babysit Jack's 2-year old nephew.

Solution: They arrive back to find both the baby's hands glued to an empty Seagrams bottle, the TV loudly showing a pay-TV movie of epic 'Saw II'-type violence, and the dog barking – pure bedlam. The TV is turned off and the dog quieted, and the baby utters his very first word; Jack and Pam are thrilled. Then he says it again, "ath-hole", grinning with pride. Jack's suspicions are vindicated yet again.

Act 3

All's Well That Ends Well

Crisis Problem

Over dinner they play a game of honestly reporting on something from the family history. Greg goes up and starts talking. Unfortunately Jack had earlier, before the dinner game started, slipped Greg some sodium pentathol to finally get the truth about the cook's son. Greg proceeds to admit a series of humiliating details from the past.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

The morning after the dinner Greg and Dina decide, despite everything, to recommit to each other and their stalled engagement plans.

Climax

Jack drives away with the baby in his RV, upset over the resumed marriage plans. He phones again his CIA contact and finds out Greg is definitely 'not' the cook's son's father. He's confused. He turns around and starts driving back, only to see Greg and Bernie, who were pursuing him, get hauled over by the cops. Jack stops and remonstrates with the cops, who book all three of them. In the jail they're reconciled, and the truth comes out, that Dina is pregnant.

They return to the Focker home and Jack learns that everyone knew about Dina's pregnancy except him. He sees anew how unworthy his suspicions of Greg were, and welcomes the boy into the Blake family.

The humor in this movie is all about setup scenes (problems), with punch-line (decision) action coming either at the end of a scene, or sequence of scenes. For instance, there's the setup of Jack slipping Greg sodium pentathol in one scene, and the punch-line action of Greg going onstage to bare his soul before the entire family in the next scene. Much of the humor comes from such setups, a structural project as difficult as devising a problem/decision arc.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The plot's problem / decision series each time shows Greg facing a very unfair situation, and how when he then attempts some minor act of satisfaction it backfires on him hugely. The solution usually involves his being further humiliated while another (undeserving) family member benefits at his expense. The TP1 decision is that Greg and Dina will have to make the long journey to Florida with her parents in Jack's SUV. For some reason Greg and Dina want to get both families together. We're left wondering why. In the problems that follow Greg's situation in Dina's family worsens. But then in the Crisis decision he and Dina recommit to each other and their stalled marriage plans. The story arc change is one restoration: from a possible imminent separation to the engagement being back on. The Act 1 problem is only implied, so this is just my interpretation.

In any event, the middle Acts are used to show both Jack and Greg, at different times, acting in a selfish way that each later regrets. In 2A Jack pursues his suspicion that Greg had fathered a teenager now working as cook for the Focker family; in 2B while babysitting Jack's 2-year old nephew Greg vents his frustrations with Jack, the hilarious results of which are seen when the family returns from the mall. Both feel ashamed of their pettiness.

In the Act 3 climax it's revealed that Dina is pregnant, thus revealing the source of Greg and Dina's tension.

Momentum

As the protagonist, Greg suffers one reversal of fortunes (down) after another. Thus the momentum is consistently down with Greg's misfortune, with brief upturns at the end of each segment. This fuels the punch-line ending of each sequence of scenes, and supplies a turning point (briefly up) at the plot points.

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

##  Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005)

Director: John Pasquin

Writers: Marc Lawrence, Katie Ford, Caryn Lucas

Star Rating: 4.2

Early Action / Background

Abrasive, caustic, combative loose cannon, Gracie of the FBI, against all logic is appointed as PR person for the bureau, and assigned an equally abrasive, fast-talking bureau agent as her bodyguard, Sam. She's given a choice: accept her new partner or be fired. She accepts. Let the games begin.

Theme

Gracie believes an aggressive stance is the only way to stand her ground and make her way in the world. This seems to bring a lot of conflict into her life, however.

Her recurring question is whether there's a way to stand her ground that doesn't antagonize others. In the past her best efforts only led to her being exploited even more, so she got in the habit of preempting that, which again only made things worse. Not only is she unhappy, she's in more conflict than ever and still being misused. She wants to find a better way.

An obligatory scene consistent with this theme would show her doing what feels right even if it involves giving in to someone else, and letting an advantage slip away. She'll do it without worrying about the repercussions and watch as perhaps friendship, advantage, and peace of mind magically flow her way.

Act 1

Partners at Odds

Inciting Incident

Problem: When Miss America (Gracie's close friend) is kidnapped in Las Vegas, Gracie and Sam are dispatched to 'liaise' with the FBI office in Vegas. Gracie and Sam are scrapping all the way there. Gracie's professional and personal life had already been disrupted by this collaboration.

Decision: In the context of this delicate liaison operation in Vegas, she knows that unless she holds to a minimum her conflict with Sam, the FBI, and the local cops – then disaster looms. The ice she's walking on just got a whole lot thinner.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The Vegas FBI boss sends Gracie and Sam back to New York.

Decision (turning): But Gracie can't abandon her friend, Miss America, in her hour of need, and decides to stay and help, despite how this will jeopardize her FBI job. Thus not only is Gracie not avoiding trouble, she's inviting more into her life.

Act 2A

Real Partners

Midpoint

The two agents spend the night at Gracie's apartment, and slowly start talking of their childhood, and a thaw develops between them. They are starting to be real FBI partners.

Until this point in the story they were in constant conflict; after this Midpoint they start seeing the other's point of view, becoming not only partners, but friends.

Theme Shift: Instead of trying to control herself and the events of her life, Gracie allows camaraderie to occur with Sam.

Act 2B

Her Boss's Rejection

Turning Point 2

Problem: Gracie arranges to access a suspect's criminal record at the Vegas FBI HQ, but is intercepted and they are all hauled in. The Vegas FBI boss confronts her with what her New York boss had said, that he "doesn't want her on the team anymore."

Decision (turning): Saddened by this news of her rejection, Gracie is forced to reconsider her abrasive manner, which brings her closer to Sam. She's now not just trying to get along for appearance's sake, she truly wants this change.

Act 3

Above and Beyond

Crisis Problem

Gracie finds out that Miss America and her press agent are to be left tied up at the Disney World Treasure Island exhibit, and drowned when the 'ship' sinks into the exhibit's sea.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

She decides to do the hero thing: intervene and make a rescue.

Climax

When Gracie rescues Miss America and the agent her clothing gets caught under a ship's cannon, which at that point is underwater. Gracie faces drowning.

And Sam comes to her rescue.

New Equilibrium

Gracie and Sam have become good partners and friends. They're even fighting and scrapping like friends. It doesn't look so different from how they started out.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the Act 1 TP1, despite her abrasiveness with colleagues Gracie shows her capacity for friendship in her decision to stay in Vegas / L.A. to help her friend, Miss America. In the Crisis decision she goes all in to save Miss America's life in the abduction situation. Thus her two decisions show Gracie capable of being a non-abrasive and loyal friend. The story arc change is one of escalation, and contradiction. Her willingness to help Miss America escalates, and the trouble she keeps finds herself in at work also escalates. This contradiction between her personal and work life is the source of the humor.

Gracie wants to solve this contradiction. In Act 2A her journey to self-understanding begins in a conversation with her new partner during a sleepover they're forced into (a new friend). But in Act 2B she learns second-hand of her rejection by her NY boss (more trouble).

The full shift in her thinking comes in the Act 3 Climax when Gracie herself faces death at the abductor's hand, and Sam comes to her rescue. She finally understands that trying to control herself and everyone around her is not only impossible, but is largely the source of the conflict ruining her work relationships.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Dan in Real Life (2007)

Director: Peter Hedges

Writers: Pierce Gardner, Peter Hedges

Star Rating: 3.0

Early Action / Background

Dan (Steve Carell) arrives at his parents' home and meets his brother's new girlfriend, Marie (Juliette Binoche), a woman he just said goodbye to, moments earlier, after meeting and spending several innocent hours together in a bookstore in town, talking. A spontaneous bond had developed.

Theme

This movie's controlling is the struggle between competing values. The protagonist is torn between loyalty to his brother and the love he feels for the brother's girlfriend. In the story's 2nd half it's the familiar 'love conquers all' motif, following the awkwardness of the 1st half where it's seemingly 'love justifies all'.

Act 1

Love - Wrong All Around

Inciting Incident

Problem: Meeting Marie a second time, Dan and Marie are shocked to learn that her boyfriend, and Dan's brother, Mitch Burns (Dane Cook), are one and the same. Dan realizes he will have to deal somehow with the attraction he feels for his brother's girlfriend, and accept this emotional loss. He's in the strange position of missing and regretting the loss of a friendship that didn't occur.

Decision: At the opening night festive dinner his is the only sour note, which he can't seem to help. He let his feelings come partially out in the open.

Turning Point 1

Problem: Dan goes to confront Marie in the bathroom, about to insist that they put what they feel behind them. He gets inadvertently pushed into a shower when his daughter bursts in, and then Marie is forced to enter as well to maintain Dan's concealment, as the daughter talks with Marie.

Decision (turning): Dan resolves that the next morning he'll admit all to Mitch, but his brother preemptively speaks movingly of his love for Marie, and Dan can't bring himself to ruin the moment.

Act 2A

Doing the Right Thing

Midpoint

Problem: Dan's mother is worried over his odd behavior, and arranges a blind date. This turns into a double date with Mitch and Marie. Dan and his date, to Dan's surprise, do hit it off, and dance the night away; and Marie meanwhile finds herself feeling jealous. The next day, after both have felt the pain of losing the other, Dan and Marie feel an attraction during a game of touch football.

Decision: They acknowledge they each have feelings for the other.

Until this point Dan firmly wished to eradicate what he felt, while Marie thought it all a harmless joke – in other words the emotion and turmoil were all on Dan's side. After this Midpoint the emotion and turmoil are on both sides – and the problem as well.

Act 2B

Mitch the Fraud

Turning Point 2

Problem: It's an evening of family performances, when everyone comes forward and sings or acts in a sketch. Mitch gets up to sing out his love for Marie, and he drags Dan along to play back-up guitar, and it ends with Dan singing the second half of the song, singing of 'his' love for Marie. The performance ends in disarray.

Decision (turning): Marie had read an old first novel of Dan's, and realized that all of Mitch's romantic lines to her were from Dan's book. She admits this to Dan. She realizes that her love always was for Dan, not Mitch, and that she can't maintain the innocent deception any longer. She breaks it off with Mitch, and leaves the family home.

Act 3

Love All Around

Crisis Problem

Dan and Marie go bowling and the last tag-end of their 'falling in love' occurs, both now knowing they've fallen 100% for the other. Dan's kids suddenly arrive at the bowling alley, the lights are turned up, they're discovered, and Marie flees again.

Crisis Decision

Dan decides to pull back 100% from this doomed relationship, and admits to everyone how he messed up. He admits the same to his daughters, and apologizes. It's only in the process of talking to them that he realizes how much he loves Marie, and decides, now with his daughters' encouragement, to go after her, or lose her forever.

Climax

His daughters go with him and they all stand outside the fitness center looking in at her on a Nautilus running machine. She looks up and sees them all watching her. Smiling, she breaks down with joy and relief.

New Equilibrium

Their wedding reception is held in the yard at the family home, and all is forgiven.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In his TP1 decision Dan realizes how wrong on so many levels his love for Marie is, and decides he'll admit all to Mitch and call it off. In his Crisis decision he realizes how much he loves Marie, despite its inappropriateness, and decides he'll go after her or lose her forever.

From the Act 1 to Act 3 decisions he changes from pulling back from a relationship to going all in. The story arc change is one of belief. He comes to believe their love is not only real but valid, and he can no longer deny it.

The middle Acts are important as they are used to show how the love is not wrong, and in fact valid. Both sides are shown in this change in belief. At first he sees how wrong it is, and calls it off (2A). Then Marie learns that Mitch's romantic lines to her (on which her love is based) were lifted from Dan's book, and she sees that her love was really for Dan (2B). Thus the change is that the Mitch / Marie love was based on a deception, and the Dan/Marie love is real.

A little pat perhaps, but it works.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## The Game Plan (2007)

Director: Andy Fickman

Writers: Nichole Millard, Kathryn Price (screenplay); Audrey Wells (story)

Star Rating: 3.8

Early Action / Background

Joe Kingman, star quarterback of the city's football team, is living a shallow, partying, bachelor's life, over-the-top with a celebrity's megalomania.

Theme

The theme is that we are willing to do extraordinary things for those we love. It's that willingness that gives life meaning, not success and self-promotion. Since losing her mother Peyton is fully aware of this; Joe has yet to learn it. The strength of this bond means a family member can voice needed painful truths when we most need to hear them. It also plays on a new motif: the child-man receiving life-lessons in wisdom from a child.

Act 1

A Reluctant Father

Inciting Incident

Problem: An eight year old girl, Peyton, literally shows up on Kingman's penthouse doorstep, and claims to be his daughter. A confrontation ensues.

Solution: She announces that she'll be staying with him for a month while her mother does urgent volunteer work in Africa. Kingman's life is about to be very thoroughly disrupted, which it turns out is what he needs.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: After Joe inadvertently leaves Peyton in a nightclub, which is splashed in the next day's tabloids, he appears at a press conference to argue he's not an irresponsible parent. The irony in this is rich. The media rejects his slick explanation.

Solution (turning): Peyton charms and manipulates the journalists where Joe couldn't, and then presents Joe as in fact an attentive parent. Peyton shows herself as adept as her father, and Joe shows the first hints of warming to the child. We expected this disaster to be salvaged; the reversal is we didn't expect Peyton to do the salvaging. Nor did we expect her to begin emulating her father's narcissism.

Act 2A

Team Mascot

Midpoint

Problem: Joe has been taking Peyton to her ballet classes since she moved in. The ballet teacher, Monique, maneuvered Joe into taking on a role in the ballet performance. It's the night of the performance, and Joe's football team shows up to watch.

Decision: Joe and Peyton are a hit, and all in the team are moved to tears by the performance. Joe's willingness to risk ridicule shows he now feels like her father.

Until this point Kingman firmly fended off any role as the girl's father; after this Midpoint he happily begins accepting this role.

Act 2B

A Daughter at Heart

Turning Point 2

Problem: Peyton is mildly injured while celebrating with Joe and the team. Peyton's guardian shows up at the hospital and demands Joe turn the child over into her care. Peyton overhears Joe's agent, Stella, commenting that it would be best for everyone, and especially for Joe's career, if Peyton were to return to her guardian.

Decision (turning): It turns out that Peyton's mother died in an accident a few months earlier; Peyton was not adjusting well, and decided to run away to live with her father. She now agrees to return to the guardian – to give Joe the freedom she thinks he needs.

Peyton hides her past and present pain for Joe's benefit. This false solution creates the Crisis Problem of both being miserable without the other.

Act 3

A Father at Heart

Crisis Problem

They're both miserable. Joe is bereft, and cannot return to his old lifestyle. In the crucial end-of-season game Joe is not playing at his usual high level, and snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. He 'concedes' after a minor injury and asks the coach to send in a replacement.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

He's sitting in the change room, his face covered, when Peyton shows up and challenges him to get back in the game. He sees she's right, and decides to re-enter the game.

Climax

After Peyton's pep talk Joe returns to the field and this time snatches victory from the jaws of defeat.

New Equilibrium

Joe has the chance to make a one-line, mostly-true media promotion spot his agent has arranged for a burger chain sponsor, for a cool $1 million. Showing his preference now for being a good parent over boosting his cash flow, he turns them down.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the TP1 Peyton salvages a potential disaster at the press conference, winning over the journalists and dispelling the perception that Joe is an irresponsible parent. In the Crisis decision Peyton again marches in to 'parent' her father, and convince him to get himself back in the game. In the first decision she knows she's manipulating the journalists in a good cause. In the second she acts as a daughter, out of a real concern for her father. Thus the story arc change is one of realization, with each gradually moving into their new family roles as father and daughter.

The middle Acts are used to show this journey. Joe is shown overcoming what prevents him becoming a sincere father when he gets fully involved in Peyton's life, for example in her ballet class (Act 2A). Act 2B shows how much this meant to Peyton when she agrees to do what she didn't want, to return to the guardian – for Joe's benefit.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Surf's Up (2007)

Director: Ash Brannon, Chris Buck

Writers: Don Rhymer, Ash Brannon, Chris Buck, Christopher Jenkins

Star Rating: 4.0

Early Action / Background

Big Z dropped out of surfing competitions years earlier because he found it ruined the pure joy of catching a perfect wave, and riding the epiphany of bliss down its inner curl. He was desperate to escape the hell of the competitions. After putting out a cover story of his own death, he was surprised to see his surfing record turn into legend. To wit, Cody Maverick became one of his greatest admirers, or at least of the legend.

Theme

The story's theme is about finding that center of unattached joy in any activity. Ego-attachment in the same activity leads to comparing and competing with others, and the joy drains away. Big Z originally blamed the act of competing itself for the loss of joy he experienced, but he learns that the fault lies with the ego involvement that competition can bring on. Surfing can, like any activity, become a metaphor for _living well_.

Act 1

A Competition

Inciting Incident

Problem: Cody, an Antarctic penguin with big-time surfing competition aspirations, receives an invitation to compete in the Penguin World Surfing Championships. A talent scout vessel arrives in Antarctica making a tour visiting all prospective invitees. But Cody has no way of making the journey.

Solution: He catches a ride at the last moment.

Whatever the outcome at the competition, Cody will either devote his life to competition, success, and the inner void this may bring, or he'll find joy in living and surfing well.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Cody learns, to his delight, that Big Z is still alive, and to his horror, that the layabout, dried-up nobody on the island he befriended is, in fact, Big Z in disguise. His aversion turns instantly (and hilariously) to a groveling hero worship.

Decision: Big Z is reminded of everything he sought to escape, and he already regrets this uncovering of his true identity.

Act 2A

Mastering Technique

Midpoint

Problem: Big Z has been trying, without much success, to tutor Cody on becoming a master of the board, a zen and the art of surfing.

Decision (turning): They have a breakthrough. Cody finally understands that making his own board can teach him, like nothing else can, that the razor's edge skills of surfing come from knowing the inner 'wave' in the grain of the wood, and flowing with that in his own movement through the water. He and the board and the wave become one.

Until this point it seemed to Cody that surfing was a sport like any other, with little of value to learn beyond the technical skills involved; after this Midpoint it's clear it can be a metaphor for learning life skills, which is what Big Z is really trying to teach Cody.

Act 2B

Lose the Ego

Turning Point 2

Problem: Cody surfs with his new board and combines some of this new 'board' knowledge with his technical skill. His surfing skill-set improves markedly. He can now briefly lose his ego in the joy of just doing it, but he is still caught between surfing and his ego. He doesn't yet understand.

Decision: For his part Big Z is inspired seeing Cody take such a joy in surfing, and joins him in the water. It is Big Z's first time surfing in years.

Act 3

Zen and the Art of Surfing

Crisis Problem

Cody decides to enter the competition, but for the wrong reasons. He's not doing it for the satisfaction of being one with the wave, but for the glory of achieving victory over other surfers.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Big Z and his daughter are both disappointed that Cody has given priority to winning.

Climax

It's the day of the competition. Big Z joins him in the water and they surf their hearts out, and feel the true joy of it. A Zen and the Art of Surfing attitude takes hold, and Cody finally understands. He is within seconds of triumph, but seeing other surfers suddenly in danger, he chooses to sacrifice victory to give them help. Moreover, he feels no disappointment over not finishing, but rather a deep satisfaction over the choice he made.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the TP1 decision, when Big Z's real identity is revealed Cody instantly becomes a devoted fanboy, much to Big Z's alarm. In the Crisis decision Big Z and his daughter are again disappointed to see Cody give priority to 'winning' when he enters the competition for the wrong reasons. But then in the Climax Cody forgoes victory to go help surfers in trouble. Thus the TP1 and Climax decisions show a change in Cody – he's learned what Big Z hoped he would learn about the competitive ego vs. taking a simple joy in any endeavor.

The middle Acts are used to show this process. In 2A Big Z teaches 'board knowledge', and in 2B for the first time Cody is able to let go of ego and just surf. Big Z is so taken by what Cody has learned he joins him surfing, the first time in years for him.

Comment

Cody came to understand that the balanced attitude to competition is to go into it taking a genuine satisfaction in the sport, in his own mastery, and holding in his mind the intention of giving it his absolute best. Having learned this, he can now 'live' it.

Big Z now understands that he didn't need to escape competing through extreme anonymity, but just through holding such a correct inner attitude.

## Comedy Postcript

When a story leads from error to good sense...

The hero in a comedy usually displays a lack in his personality which, while it may be severe, is not overtly harmful to himself or others. Such a comedic flaw is immediately apparent, and is something we laugh with. Some comedies depict the flaw manifesting in the hero's desires, decisions, and actions, time after time, without any internal movement in the character towards a resolution. The events of the story reach an inevitable Crisis/Climax, but the comically flawed characters remain unchanged. This is often the comedic norm.

Other comedies show the hero coming to terms with his lack, understanding it and resolving it. In such stories the comic elements are integrated within a problem/decision arc, thus allowing a flawed, vulnerable, funny comic hero to understand and grow beyond his or her condition. 'Miss Congeniality: Armed & Fabulous' is a good example of this. Writers sometimes fear jeopardizing the very source of a story's popularity, the laughs. But it is worth the risk – showing such growth humanizes the character, and can in fact enrich and intensify the humor.

## HISTORICAL GENRE

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

W. Durant, and title card: Apocalypto (2006)

## Apocalypto (2006)

Director: Mel Gibson

Writers: Mel Gibson, Farhad Safinia

Star Rating: 4.8

Early Action / Background

The story's protagonist, Jaguar Paw, lives on the inland perimeter of the coastal Mayan civilization in Mexico in the late 15th Century. Jaguar Paw is in a hunting party with his age-mates; he is carving up the largest of three boars they have just brought down, and dividing select parts of the carcass. One of their members is mocked about his impotence by being given the animal's testicles. An aside: it is refreshing to see native North Americans portrayed with characteristics that transcend culture and exist in every time and place (humor, kinship bonds, obscenity, deference to authority, etc). This is no 'Dances With Wolves'.

Theme

Jaguar Paw's world is as complex and dangerous a world as that of Europe in that time period. He finds ingenious solutions at each stage of his descent. Each major reversal delivers him to a further level of loss, until the extreme is reached early in Act 3.

Mel Gibson's tagline for Apocalypto was a quotation from historian Will Durant: "A great civilization is not destroyed from without until it has destroyed itself from within." This film rhetorically asks: Is the West destroying itself? It may be of interest that Native American groups applauded this movie. European leftist media condemned and dismissed it as the work of an ideologue.

The story's controlling moral idea is that survival is the individual's responsibility. Native Mayan institutions (priests, royal family, civil administration) that Jaguar Paw might look to for assistance turn out to be unreliable. The only assistance he receives is from life-long fellow hunters.

Act 1

A New Ending

Inciting Incident

Problem: After the hunting party's return home a different native group attacks the hunters' village to secure slaves. Jaguar Paw, emerging from a dream-premonition of imminent danger, wakes his wife and son and takes them to a large well on the village perimeter. As the attack escalates he lowers them into the well by rope. Against their appeals, he tells them he will return, and goes back into the village to help repel the invaders.

Decision: Resist and survive. He kills several, and nearly kills the leader's lieutenant, Middle Eye, who is saved when the leader intervenes. When Middle Eye learns the identity of Jaguar Paw's father, he executes the father to punish Jaguar Paw. He and other captured warriors are led away. The children and elderly are left behind to fend for themselves. The protagonist has lost everything – his family, village, and freedom. This represents the first level down.

Turning Point 1

Problem: After a long, torturous trek through the forest and the city environs, they arrive in the capital. The royal family is in state, presiding at the sacrifices held to appease the Mayan pantheon of gods, who have brought drought. The captured people of the forest mistakenly assume they will be put to work as slaves. This is the hero's next level down.

Decision: At this point Jaguar Paw knows that all he can do is submit to his fate.

Act 2A

Sacrifice Averted

Midpoint

Problem: The middle-aged male captives are led up the long stone stairs of the central pyramid, where they see they are to be sacrificed. One of their number is placed on the altar and ritually killed – his heart is removed and burned in a pyre. Jaguar Paw's wife is shown in the well back in the village, appealing to the sky, speaking to Jaguar Paw, "Come back to us!"

Decision: Jaguar Paw can sense her summons, and pushes himself forward to be sacrificed next, so his spirit can come back to her. He is pulled out, placed on the altar, and the knife is about to descend into his chest.

A solar eclipse occurs, throwing the land into darkness. The head priest nimbly exploits the moment, asking the gods for a sign that they are satisfied with the sacrifices, even as the eclipse wanes and the sun's disc reappears. The priest announces to great acclaim that the gods have drunk their fill, and the rest of the scheduled sacrifices are cancelled.

This Midpoint moment is the extreme of Jaguar Paw's misfortunes, his descent. After this he slowly climbs back, and through ingenuity and luck finds a way to survive.

Act 2B

Escape from Execution

Turning Point 2

Problem: When the priest instructs the slave-trading leader, Zero Wolf, that the captives are to be "disposed of", he leads them away from the temple precinct to an open field, with the forest in view in the distance. The captives are released in pairs, told to run, and are to be used as target practice. Jaguar Paw and another are the last to be released, and run in diagonal swings across the open field, avoiding the spears, arrows, and javelins that rain down, until the other captive in Jaguar Paw's pair is hit, and then Jaguar Paw is wounded in the side. The friend tells Jaguar Paw to run, "Save yourself!"

Decision: The leader's son runs out to dispatch them. By working together Jaguar Paw is able to seize the leader's son's knife-hand, reverse the blade and drive it slashing up across the throat of his attacker, who had just dispatched the other captive. The leader's son staggers back, and dies. The slave-trading group is shocked.

Zero Wolf, the leader, is enraged, which will rapidly change to an obsessive desire for revenge. They leap to give chase, as Jaguar Paw staggers into the corn field heading for the forest beyond. The story's arc has stepped up, with Jaguar Paw gaining his freedom. But for how long? He is now a fugitive being pursued by men utterly bent on his destruction.

The story now becomes one man's rousing struggle to evade pursuit and take revenge on his tormentors. By taking full responsibility for his own survival, Jaguar Paw rises here to the first level on his climb back to regaining control over his own life.

Act 3

A New Beginning

Crisis Problem

After using his hunting skills to strike back in the area beyond the cornfield, Jaguar Paw stands before a river and waterfall with no way back through his pursuers, who appear behind him just out of range.

Crisis Decision

Running forward he leaps into the waterfall and falls to the foaming cataract far below. He surfaces, climbs out onto a rock, and shouts defiance up at his former captors. The leader announces they will all jump into the falls. Alarmed at seeing several of them make the leap Jaguar Paw turns and runs into the forest. He runs a bit further, then slows, and stops dead.

He turns and decides, saying aloud, "This is my forest. It is time for them to be the prey."

He goes on the attack, luring, taunting, deceiving, trapping, and killing his tormentors, one by one. Jaguar Paw has climbed up another level.

Climax

Torrential rains begin. He kills several more from their band, and also the slave-trading lieutenant who has tormented him throughout this ordeal. Moments later he pretends to be cornered by the leader, allowing him to shoot an arrow into his upper chest, thus luring him forward; the leader hits a tripwire that brings the knife-studded boar-killing trap swinging round deep into his chest. Impaled by six long knives, the leader stares into Jaguar Paw's eyes, his obsession undiminished. He dies.

Two more in the slave-trading party remain. Jaguar Paw, slowed down now by two serious wounds, staggers out onto the beach, moving down towards the water. The two follow him out, knowing they finally have him trapped. Jaguar Paw has stopped, he stares out into the bay. The two behind also stop, and stare.

All three are looking, incredulous, at several large ships moored in the bay. Two cutters have been launched, and in the small vessels stand a landing party of Conquistadores, looking with interest at their hosts on the shore. Seeing his opportunity, Jaguar Paw turns and lurches back, edging around his pursuers, who completely ignore him. He slips back into the forest.

Jaguar Paw escaped his tormentors, who will in turn be pursued by the European invaders. A human truth comes through, that people think and act as individuals, within the constraints of their society. All institutions in all societies eventually fail. It's foolish to idealize the institutions of one society while condemning those of another.

New Equilibrium

Jaguar Paw arrives at the well, now filled by torrential rains, and rescues his wife and family.

He stands on a ridge with his wife, looking down at the European ships in the bay. She asks: "Should we go down to them?" He answers: "I think we should go into the forest, and make a new beginning." This echoes the words of another group leader that Jaguar Paw's hunting party met in the forest in the film's opening scene, fleeing one of the many marauding, Mayan, slave-trading bands. It is a positive new beginning for Jaguar Paw and his family, a negative one for the aboriginal nations of the Americas.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Act 1 most of Jaguar Paw's tribe has been killed or is in captivity; he and his fellow hunters have been force-marched to the capital. He had assumed they were being driven into slavery, but now (in the TP1 decision) he sees they are to be sacrificed to the gods. He accepts his fate. In the Crisis decision he has been pursued and hounded by Zero Wolf and his band, has just survived a 100-foot dive, and turns towards his persecutors. He decides, "It's time for them to be the prey." The story arc's two decisions take him from submission to his own and his tribe's imminent end, to his turning the tables. The story arc change is one of liberation, a comeback from extreme defeat and loss.

The middle Acts focus on how this liberation comes about, the intervening steps. Act 2A depicts how their sacrifice is called off; 2B shows Jaguar Paw's surviving the impromptu target practice execution. The long pursuit unfolds in an extended Act 3.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## The Last Samurai (2003)

Director: Edward Zwick

Writer: John Logan

Star Rating: 3.8

Early Action / Background

Captain Algren of the US army, haunted by his role in the US Indian wars, has become an alcoholic and has fallen to working in a circus.

Theme

The controlling idea is the notion that the introduction of technology into a feudal, pre-industrial society does great harm.

Act 1

Algren's Fall

Inciting Incident

Problem: Retired US soldier Capt. Algren accepts an offer by a visiting Japanese military officer to train a modern Imperial army, using Western tactics and technology. He is walking into a political struggle during a period of rapid change. The army will be used against traditional Samurai.

Decision: He accepts, unaware of the Imperial Army's plans.

**  
Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: General Omura orders Algren and the newly-trained Japanese Imperial troops into their first battle, and they are routed. Algren is taken prisoner by the Samurai, led by Katsumoto.

The turning: Algren is now among his employer's enemies, and will have an opportunity to see the country from their perspective.

Decision: As a prisoner, Algren cures himself of his alcoholism, and is drawn into a tense stick duel with a Samurai, who acts on behalf of a boy whose father Algren had killed in battle. He is defeated and left on the ground in the rain.

Act 2A

Going Native

Midpoint

Algren takes Samurai swordsmanship lessons, and dons a kimono, symbolically acknowledging the value and honor of the Samurai code. He has turned a corner, as his actions clearly no longer seek passively to destroy the Samurai. He gradually becomes a trusted member of the community.

Until this point he led a false life, helping those in Japan who sought to exploit this time of change; after this Midpoint he chooses to live and work in his adopted community.

Theme Shift: In the Indian wars that Algren fought in years earlier (backstory) he was indifferent to the cost of his actions to others. In the story's first half he approached his mission in Japan in the same way, as just a job, still indifferent to its cost to others; in the second half as he grows to respect, then love, the people who welcomed him, his indifference turns to compassion and gratitude.

Act 2B

His Return

Turning Point 2

Problem: Algren makes a trip to the city, is allowed to return to the Western side, and sees a Samurai warrior publicly humiliated. He learns that the captured Katsumoto will be executed.

Decision: Deciding to help, he is able to rescue Katsumoto.

The turning: Algren decides to help the Samurai side in their struggle.

Act 3

' **Lord Jim' Algren**

Crisis Problem

Katsumoto tells Algren that there is no way for the Emperor to hear the Samurai's words, meaning that they cannot rise to a level to speak directly with the Emperor.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Algren replies to Katsumoto, "We will make the emperor hear your words," (through their actions).

Climax

The Samurai in their final doomed battle succeed initially, but subsequently the Emperor's disciplined use of rifle-equipped troops decimates the Samurai. Katsumoto is given an honorable death by Algren, the only survivor.

New Equilibrium

Following Katsumoto's death in battle, Algren takes his friend's words to the Emperor, words against the national policy of Meiji Westernization. The emperor pensively responds that this policy will be reconsidered, given that there is value in "who we are" and "where we come from."

In the closing scene, Algren's long search for self-acceptance and a home ends with his return to build a life with Taka among the Samurai.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the TP1 Algren as a prisoner of the samurai enters a stick duel; he's defeated and humiliated. To regain his health and honor will clearly be a long journey for him. In the Crisis decision he's now a close friend and advisor to Katsumoto, and advises that they will find a way to ensure the Emperor hears their petition. He thus journeyed from abject humiliation to having a place of honor among the samurai. The story arc is mildly similar to Apocalypto, a comeback story that vindicates the protagonist's earlier defeat and loss. In Apocalypto Jaguar Paw travels through to liberation for himself and his family; for Algren he journeys to self-acceptance and a home of honor among the defeated samurai.

The middle Acts are employed to show how his slow acceptance by the samurai comes about (2A), and his estrangement with the Western side when he temporarily 'returns' (2B).

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 down.

##  Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

Director: Peter Weir

Writers: Peter Weir; Patrick O'Brian (novel)

Star Rating: 3.4

Early Action / Background

The Surprise, an older, midsized Royal Navy man-of-war, has seen considerable action opposing enemy ships in the wars against Napoleon's emerging pan-European empire. Though the Surprise is not the ship she once was, her crew is perhaps better than any other in the navy.

Theme

The controlling idea is to depict naval combat in the context of the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin.

The naval combat thread depicts the reality of Napoleonic Era naval technology. It involved inadequate intelligence (months old reports), pursuit using only line of sight surveillance, and artillery whose accuracy depended entirely on the training a captain provided his men, at his own expense.

The friendship thread is weak.

Act 1

The Chase Is On

Inciting Incident

Problem: Having received Admiralty instructions to seek and destroy a French ship whose captain carries urgent intelligence, Aubrey launches the hunt. A thick fog descends and their quarry, a larger, faster French ship suddenly appears behind them, her cannons inflicting considerable damage on the Surprise.

Decision: None.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: They're en route to an Admiralty repair yard.

Decision: Aubrey announces a change of plans – they'll do the repairs themselves and resume the chase.

Act 2A

Friendship at Risk

Midpoint

Problem: A crisis occurs in the Aubrey/Maturin friendship. They arrive at the Galapagos after completing repairs, where Maturin, an avid amateur naturalist, is to disembark to collect unrecorded insect specimens. When the French ship suddenly reappears Aubrey announces that the pursuit is to resume, breaking his earlier promise to Maturin. An argument ensues.

Decision: The hunt proceeds, but meets with little success. They again return to the Galapagos, fulfilling the earlier promise.

Before this point the two men were shipmates, their friendship untested, with little success in their naval pursuit. After this Midpoint, the friendship is strengthened, and their fortunes at war improve. The Aubrey/Maturin books are a profound meditation on friendship. This is not reflected in the film.

Act 2B

Maturin's Discovery

Turning Point 2

Problem: Maturin is on an excursion at the Galapagos when he crests a rise and spots the French ship at anchor in a hidden cove.

Decision: He hurries back across the island to inform Aubrey of his discovery. The Surprise tears off in pursuit.

Act 3

The Chase Resumes

Crisis Problem

The French were tipped off, and fled just in time to again evade capture.

Crisis Decision

Aubrey decides that an unconventional approach is needed if they are to succeed against this far superior vessel.

Climax

In an elaborate deception Aubrey gives the French the impression the Surprise has been hit. When the French close in for the kill, the superior English gunners and crew dismast the French ship, and the Surprises board her for a hand-to-hand resolution. The Surprise prevails.

New Equilibrium

The French, however, employed a counter-ruse when they display their 'dead' captain in the surgeon's hall. A lieutenant off the Surprise was given command of the captured French ship, and embarks for the RN South Pacific Station. Somewhat later Aubrey figures out the ruse. Realizing the French captain is alive and well and doubtless planning further insurrection on the captured ship, he sets about to give chase.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The first decision is Aubrey's change of plans following the damage done to the Surprise, that they'll do the repairs themselves in a sheltered cove. The Crisis decision is Aubrey's plan for an elaborate deception to defeat the superior French vessel. Both are simple tactical decisions, and don't reflect any change in the ship's status or in Aubrey's approach to their mission. This makes the story seem a bit flat, uneventful.

The middle Acts fare much better. In 2A Aubrey has to break a promise to Maturin in order to pursue the French ship, which suddenly reappears, and Maturin is resentful. The promised excursion is delivered when the French ship evades them. In 2B while on his excursion Maturin stumbles on the enemy vessel in a bay. He rushes back to the Surprise and the chase resumes. This blending of the Aubrey/Maturin friendship with the naval mission works fairly well. For the story arc to work there would need to be change of some sort. If the friendship was breached in Act 1 and then restored in Act 3, that change could then be followed by the mission in the Climax much as it plays already.

I repeat that the story arc between two decisions is a story's single most important structural feature.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B up; Act 3 up.

## Seraphim Falls (2006)

Director: David Von Anchen

Writers: David Von Anchen, Abby Everett Jaques

Star Rating: 3.6

Early Action / Background

Three years earlier, not long after the end of the US Civil War, a Union cavalry unit led by Major Gideon was still seeking Confederate officers to stand trial. They came to former Confederate Colonel Carver's large home, and Gideon orders his men to search and empty the house. One of the soldiers sets fire to the house, which Gideon allows, believing the house to be empty. Carver's wife and infant son, however, who are still in the upper nursery, die in the fire. Carver swears vengeance on Gideon.

Theme

The film's controlling idea is forgiveness and redemption. Only by truly forgiving can a wronged man (Carson) find authentic peace. If a person cannot forgive, then he must purge his negative, violent emotions and become, in effect, a neutral agent in exacting revenge. The better route, however, is through forgiveness. Only by appealing for, and waiting for, that can the man who did the wrong (Gideon) escape his guilt and find a deliverance of sorts from his evil action. I don't think it unreasonable or supernatural to believe that actions have a karmic register that has a real-world effect. Both sides need to fully enact this compassionate response, or remain imprisoned in a hell of hate, revenge, and guilt.

Act 1

Penance

Inciting Incident

Problem: It is three years later and Carver is pursuing Gideon through a winter forest. Gideon is shot and wounded, and forced to run. Escaping across a freezing river, he removes the bullet and staunches the wound with a fire-heated tool. It's clear this pursuit will continue; Gideon's very survival is in doubt.

Decision: None.

Turning Point 1

Problem: Gideon arrives at a homestead where he stays overnight. He buys a horse from the homesteader, but the man's son steals Gideon's purse of gold.

Decision: Gideon doesn't reveal the theft to the homesteader, but when he leaves he tries to give him needed advice.

The turning: We see Gideon's honor, his principles. He is not the man we expected, he's apparently a good man trying to make amends for a past mistake.

Act 2A

Gideon Forgives

Midpoint

Problem: Gideon arrives at a waterhole in the desert watched over by an old Indian shaman, who demands his horse as payment for using the waterhole. While seeing the demand as unreasonable, nonetheless Gideon obliges. The shaman later gives the horse to Carver.

Decision: None.

In this Midpoint the film comments on atonement. The strange exchange at the waterhole perhaps symbolizes restoring balance by taking from the one who took (Gideon), and giving to the one who lost (Carson).

Act 2B

Gideon Concedes

Turning Point 2

Problem: Stalemate. Gideon has killed several of the killers hired by Carver to hunt down his enemy. Gideon is in the desert, without a horse, and still being pursued. Hiding inside a dead horse's carcass, he springs out and kills the last of Carver's men. He challenges Carver to just let it go. Carson has been defeated by Gideon.

Decision: Refusing to end it by simply killing his pursuer, Gideon will not compound his earlier existential mistake, as that route would give him no peace.

The turning: Carver's inability to forgive has ironically turned him into a vicious tormentor. He becomes what he believes Gideon was. Gideon takes Carver's horse and rides off. He shows Carver an undeserved compassion – Gideon forgives the man who cannot forgive him.

Act 3

Unforgiven

Crisis Problem

Gideon has Carver's horse, but no bullets. He's on the border of ultra-arid badlands.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Gideon comes upon a traveling tonic seller in a wagon, Madame Louise. In a trade with Louise he exchanges the horse for a single bullet.

Climax

In the confrontation between the two men, Gideon's resourcefulness and talent with a gun and bowie knife are superior to Carver's. So far, he has resisted killing Carver – out of guilt and a sincere desire to atone, and make peace. Gideon gains the upper hand, but then turns the gun on himself and wraps Carver's hand on the pistol grip. He tells him to go ahead, and have done with it. Carver can't do it and breaks down. The two stand up, stagger, and walk together a ways, supporting each other. Then they part and slowly go off in separate directions.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the Act 1 decision Gideon doesn't inform the homesteader of the son's theft, trying instead to help the son with kindly advice. In the Crisis decision he offers a trade with Mme. Louise: his horse for a single bullet. This has the same problem as in Master and Commander. The two decisions don't reflect a change in the protagonist, or the dilemma he faces. Gideon's first decision could have shown the selfish, indifferent man he presumably was when Carver's house was set on fire. Then the Crisis decision could show his change of heart, a marked change from the man he was.

At present the middle Acts show Gideon's ongoing attitude of generosity to Carver. In 2A by his action he forgives Carver's obsessive need for revenge. In 2B he forsakes using his victory over Carver, again pleading for forgiveness. These two middle Acts would work well as they are if they supported such a change of heart. As it is they only serve to show Carver's intransigence. It's not satisfying because we expect to see change of some sort in a story. The lack of real internal change in the two men is presumably the intended theme.

The fallen angel of the title ostensibly refers to Gideon, though Carver is the one who truly falls.

Comment

The only revenge that Carson is able to take is simply withholding his forgiveness, but ultimately he only harms himself. The rest of his life would embody that failure.

Gideon is now content because he never really expected forgiveness. In the moment he surrendered, willing to die at Carson's hands, he finally forgave _himself_. I expect that Gideon went on to live a full life – forgiven, by God and himself.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Pathfinder (2007)

Director: Marcus Nispel

Writers: Laeta Kalogridis, Nils Gaup

Star Rating: 3.0

Early Action / Background

A young Viking child, Ghost, is left behind in America after a raid by his Viking warrior band. He is discovered by a woman who adopts him into her tribe.

Theme

The film's theme seeks to define moral leadership. Any leader who succumbs to his own violent emotions will not effectively serve his people. He must define his people's interests and take the necessary actions to serve those interests. This includes exercising violent retaliation when necessary, but it's crucial that this be done without any personal animus. Ghost partially achieves this.

Act 1

A Vengeful Heart

Inciting Incident

Problem: It is years later, Ghost has grown to manhood – and the Vikings attack again. The raiders destroy Ghost's village and his adopted tribe. He has lost his home and people, the source of balance and purpose in his life.

Decision: His quest becomes to exact revenge for this loss.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The last surviving members of his tribe are being killed.

Decision: Ghost counter-attacks, discovering he can wield the iron Viking sword not unlike a Viking. He kills the outlander torturing a tribal elder.

Act 2A

An Alliance Fails

Midpoint

Problem: A neighboring tribe's warriors, whom Ghost convinced to flee to a safe, fertile valley beyond the mountain pass, return to help Ghost. They succumb to the fieldwork of traps and spring-loaded projectile mines which Ghost set for the invaders. The Vikings pursuing Ghost appear and slaughter without honor the many trapped and wounded warriors.

Decision: Ghost does not launch an immediate emotion-driven reprisal. He withdraws and prepares.

Until this point the conquering Vikings might still have chosen an honorable path; after this Midpoint any such path is closed to them, and the sworn enmity between the two sides can only escalate.

Act 2B

Heeding a Vision

Turning Point 2

Problem: His own tribe's surviving leader, Pathfinder, is captured and tortured.

Decision: Ghost receives from Pathfinder a vision to use his trickster spirit-animal to deceive the invaders. Ghost thus pretends to lead the Vikings towards the location of the second tribe's new village.

Act 3

A Pathfinder to Peace

Crisis Problem

The tribes of this coastline will be in peril from future Viking invasions if any survivors of this current raiding party return to their homeland.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Ghost has come to believe that all the invading Vikings must be killed, to protect all the tribes. He is taking a necessary action on behalf of his people, untainted by personal desire or rancor.

Climax

Ghost destroys all the Vikings as he leads them along the mountain pass. They fall to their deaths when he arranges that they all climb joined together by a climbing rope, for safety. Except for one, who anticipates Ghost's tactics and climbs up to finish him off. Ghost finally kills him by summoning an avalanche (a power afforded by his native occult knowledge). He thus secures his people's safety.

New Equilibrium

Ghost staggers into the second tribe's village to deliver the symbol of authority to the woman chosen to be ruler of all the tribes, Starfire. Ghost drapes the Pathfinder's sacred leader's robe around her shoulders, thus investing her with the mantle of tribal leader. Her faith in him, and her love, has been richly rewarded.

At the end Ghost serves a role different from what it had been at the start. He is now a finder of paths for his people. For all the native nations of America he is a pathfinder to peace through strength and vigilance. He dedicates his life to patrolling the coastline – to watch for the return of the Vikings.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the first decision Ghost seizes the Viking sword and wields it against those who have attacked and killed most of his adopted tribe. His immediate focus is reprisal, and he kills the Outlander torturing the tribal elder. In the Crisis decision Ghost realizes all the coastal tribes will be in peril from future Viking invasions. He decides that to protect all the tribes all the survivors in the Viking raiding party must be killed. The earlier decision was an act of pure emotion; this later one is a strategy coolly arrived at to accomplish a specific goal. The two decisions produce a change of expansion. The threat itself expands, and his understanding of it. That change reflects a change into moral leadership, involving on occasion the use of violent retaliation.

The middle Acts support this by showing two intermediate steps in this transition: trying an alliance with a neighboring tribe (Act 2A), and heeding advice given to seek his spirit-animal vision (Act 2B).

## Historical: Postscript

To show the past is to create a different world.

In the Historical, SF, and Fantasy genres the writer creates a simulated world that seems markedly different from our own. Creating such a portrait of place requires that the writer invent enough specific elements to make that imagined place recognizable and intelligible, alongside other elements that signal its differentness. It's unavoidable, however, that our own current cultural beliefs and assumptions form the foundation of this past world being depicted. A historical film fails when the presence of such beliefs in the portrait of place is too blatant.

## SCIENCE FICTION GENRE

_I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate._  
Blade Runner (1982)

## Equilibrium (2002)

Director: Kurt Wimmer

Writer: Kurt Wimmer

Star Rating: 3.5

Early Action / Background

A future society has overcome the problem of conflict, civil strife and war by formalizing the chemical suppression of the problem's source, human feeling. This is accomplished via a new wonder-drug, 'Prozium', which all residents are required to take each day, by law. They have created a society free of all conflict – and all feeling. Generations have passed since this change was initiated, and people are forgetting what was lost. Cleric is one of the elite officers in the Praetorian Guards, assigned to protect 'Father', the society's leader. His duties also include making visits to homes to investigate whether residents have hidden away proscribed items (proscribed because they evoke feelings, thus undermining the effect of the Prozium). Anyone with such items found on their premises is 'processed' as a sense offender, and executed by 'combustion'.

Theme

A perfect society will have extreme hidden costs for its alleged perfection. In this case it's the suppression of emotion through technology and police state tactics.

Cleric's recurring question concerns the suppressed role feelings can have in his life, and whether a society that eradicates them to achieve peace comes at too great a cost.

A plausible Obligatory Scene would show him surrendering absolutely to feeling, and seeing the benefits, and dangers, of doing so.

Act 1

Brothers' Keepers

Inciting Incident

Problem: Cleric suspects his partner and best friend, Errol Flannery, of sense offenses. He apprehends Flannery in a factory reading a proscribed book of poetry by Yeats.

Solution: Cleric executes Flannery, as per a new directive from Father. The seed of emotion has been planted in Cleric's path.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Something has been gnawing at the back of Cleric's mind since he executed Flannery. It's not guilt, which would be suppressed by the Prozium, but more a state of thought-discomfort. Cleric stopped taking his Prozium, and was assigned a new partner, Brandt, who is now monitoring Cleric, just as Cleric had monitored Flannery.

Decision: They investigate a woman's apartment and find a hidden room of proscribed objects. He returns there later, explores the room, and switches on a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Cleric is so affected by the beauty of the music he breaks down, weeps. He is now subject to the same forces for which he executed his best friend.

Act 2A

Feeling Takes Over

Midpoint

Problem: Cleric rescues a dog from extermination, and later kills eleven other Praetorian officers in order not to have the dog taken from him.

Decision: He can see that feeling is taking over his life, but refuses to back his way out of such sense offenses.

Act 2B

Resistance

Turning Point 2

Problem: Cleric goes to the reading hall where Flannery attended lectures, and breaks through a wall into an antechamber to the underground, literally. After meeting Jurgen he is invited to join this resistance. He freely joins. They then lay out their plan to attack the state government and assassinate 'Father'. They ask him to join the attack.

Decision: He accepts.

Act 3

Restoration

Crisis Problem

Many of the top Resistance members are arrested in a government sweep. Cleric gains entry to the elite compound, and learns the sweep was his fault. His defection had been a ruse by a government cabal to plant a mole in the resistance. He also learns that Father died years earlier, and his public persona has been perpetuated to maintain public order.

Crisis Decision

Cleric realizes that all is now at risk, that the resistance is far more than simply getting back sense experience. He goes on full offense.

Climax

Cleric fights and defeats the Praetorian Guard, and secures the release of the imprisoned Resistance members who were slated for execution. A much larger fight, the beginnings of a movement for liberation, ensues between the freed Resistance members and government supporters.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Cleric's first decision he follows state directives assiduously, having a woman arrested when her hidden room of proscribed objects is found in a sweep. But when he returns out of curiosity he's deeply affected by those same objects. He opens himself to the emotion these artifacts inspired, and in so doing he's committing incipient treason. In the Crisis decision he realizes the resistance movement he sought to join is not only about the freedom to open oneself to proscribed emotions, but also removing rigid state control of every aspect of human life.

The change produced is one of transition. Controlling potentially violent emotions in the public becomes an effort to control as much thought and emotion as possible. In this context Act 3 will show the defeat of those forces around 'Father' imposing this control. The middle Acts show two intermediate steps in this journey: Cleric opens himself completely to emotion (Act 2A), and a resistance is launched (Act 2B).

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## Paycheck (2003)

Director: John Woo

Writers: Dean Georgaris; Philip K. Dick (novel)

Star Rating: 3.7

Early Action / Background

The protagonist, Michael, is a reverse engineer who does specialized jobs for Sci-Com clients, and has his memory wiped after each job. His skill is highly valued, and is used on sensitive, secret projects. He receives a far more lucrative offer, involving a wipe of 3 years.

Theme

What happens if a person who in the past possessed knowledge to which a future version of himself no longer has access? He can either become his own adversary, or collaborator. The movie (implausibly, in my opinion) proposes that a person's identity is constituted solely through the accretion of cognitive memory.

Act 1

Two Michaels Compete

Inciting Incident

Problem: Michael is offered an 8-figure contract for a revolutionary three-year wipe project, to which he reluctantly agrees. At a party before the project he meets and befriends Dr. Rachel Porter. The money is deposited in his bank account, and the project begins; he wakes and is told, "You're done." The wipe of his memory means that his identity is now different, and the memories that now surface will be different as well.

Decision: He feels an intense disquiet, but as yet has no response.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The $93 million he was paid has vanished. He transferred it out of the account himself four weeks earlier, replacing it with an envelope containing 19 objects. He flees the bank, is captured, interrogated, escapes again, and phones a friend from a hotel room.

Decision (turning): He knows he has to solve a mystery that his earlier self laid out for this future version of himself.

Act 2A

Two Michaels Collaborate

Midpoint

Problem: He has methodically solved most of the clues he left for himself, except the last.

Until this Midpoint in the story the Michael from the missing three years has directed this current Michael's actions. The former Michael's knowledge is imparted in clues to avoid being sabotaged by Sci-Com. After this point, as the current Michael comes to understand more he progressively initiates more of his own actions, eventually deciding to bring down Sci-Com itself. He's been working in collaboration with himself, bringing together the Michaels from before, during, and after the wipe.

Act 2B

Sci-Com Retaliates

Turning Point 2

Problem: Michael meets Rachel at his favorite restaurant, but he sees through the ruse. She's an impostor sent by Sci-Com to kill him, which he deflects.

Decision: The real Rachel arrives, a shootout ensues, and they flee on a motorbike stolen from a BMW showroom.

Act 3

Taking Down Sci-Com

Crisis Problem

Michael realizes his machine would destroy the world. He receives proof of this by seeing miniaturized newspapers from the future imprinted on a stamped envelope he left for himself.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

He decides that the machine must be destroyed.

Climax

He and Rachel go to Sci-Com HQ where this time Sci-Com operatives try to kill them both. He prevails and the machine is destroyed.

New Equilibrium

In their new home Michael (of the present) and Rachel discover a simple, surefire method that the earlier Michael (now gone) devised to leave them access to $93 million – a lottery ticket from the future.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In his first decision Michael knows he has to solve the mystery that an earlier version of himself left for him to solve, and what he did to prevent its use by the authorities to remove the threat his earlier self had become. It's very convoluted. He accepts the challenge, knowing there must be a real danger that justified these precautions. In his Crisis decision Michael learns that Sci-Com's machine accurately predicts the future, and its use can only end in destruction for all. Thus he decides the machine must be destroyed, and wiped from this timeline so it's never restored.

The story arc decisions produce a change of escalation (of the threat) and revelation (of the mystery). The middle Acts are thus used to show how he solves the mystery and stops the escalation: he collaborates with the earlier Michael (Act 2A); and he anticipates and preempts Sci-Com's retaliation (Act 2B).

Act 3 then shows the defeat of the forces at Sci-Com using this technology to expand their power.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## The Jacket (2004)

Director: John Maybury

Writers: Massy Tadjedin; Marc Rocco, Tom Bleecker (novella)

Star Rating: 3.5

Early Action / Background

Jack Starks, a former US soldier from the Gulf War, helps a young woman and her daughter with their stalled car. A cop stops to help, is shot and Starks is framed and convicted for it, largely due to his memory loss around the incident. Starks is committed to an insane asylum.

Theme

This is a science fiction romance. Using time-travel foreknowledge a young man helps a young woman avoid depression, and in the process they fall in love. When his consciousness state is altered in a 'sense deprivation tank', he travels in time. The theme is thus that consciousness is implicated in the unfolding of the future and past, further implying that time is, in a sense, influenced by consciousness. This is an unusual, exceptional premise.

Act 1

A Dark Future

Inciting Incident

Problem: Starks awakes in the asylum, convicted of murder. He is drugged and forced into the sense deprivation tank kept in the morgue. He has a blackout and vividly relives a nightmarish wartime experience.

Decision: None.

Turning Point 1

Problem: Starks is put into the tank again. But instead of a flashback to a remembered experience in the Gulf War, he is transported to the future. It's Christmas Eve and he meets a depressed woman, Jackie Price, who helps him. At her place he sees his army 'dog tags'.

Decision (turning): He understands that he must have died before this future moment, and that this woman is that child he helped in the past at the stalled car, now a grown woman. He also realizes he can do nothing because his real body is in the tank, in the past.

Act 2A

Trips

Midpoint

Problem: Dr. Becker, the head psychiatrist at the asylum, is holding a group session with all the patients. Becker's behavior shows he's willing to take unethical risks to cure a patient. Starks befriends and questions a fellow patient who knows about the tank, who advises him, "The more you freak, the more you'll trip."

Decision: None.

Before this both Starks and we are uncertain whether he time-traveled or just experienced a drug trip. After this Midpoint, his periods in the tank are clear time-travel excursions.

Act 2B

Proof

Turning Point 2

Problem: Starks is put into the tank a third time. He pretends to resist, but in fact wants to confirm that it's real. He time-travels again to the future, and Jackie's job at the diner. He helps her, they bond romantically, and he learns the time-travel is real.

Decision (turning): He decides to confront Becker over how he (Starks) dies at the asylum in the future.

Act 3

Escape to the Future

Crisis Problem

Back in his own time, Starks helps Dr. Lorenson (Jennifer Jason Lee) at the asylum with a young patient, and gains her trust. He knows that his death is to occur in two days' time, and that he can't change that fact.

Crisis Decision

He returns to the future, and confronts Becker as an old man over the three dead patients (from bad tank trips). A defiant Becker shows no remorse, they argue, and Starks wakes up. Lying in the tank, he decides he can intervene, now in the past, and help Jackie have a better life, in the future.

Climax

Starks writes a letter to the child's mother, and gets Sorenson to take him to the woman's home. He meets the daughter (a much younger Jackie) again at the door. He leaves the letter explaining the pain the mother's alcoholism will cause her daughter as an adult. The mother is devastated when she reads the letter.

Starks arrives back at the asylum, falls on the ice as he gets out of Sorenson's car, and suffers a fatal head trauma. Barely conscious, he begs Sorenson to put him in the tank.

New Equilibrium

He arrives back in the future outside the diner. Jackie is about to leave in her BMW. Her life is transformed; she's successful, and apparently never succumbed to depression. Clearly her mother gave her a different life after Starks' warning.

Starks gets in her car and they drive off.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In Starks' Act 1 TP1 decision he suddenly understands that the woman he's now with is the child he helped years before at the stalled car. He also knows his real body is in the tank in the past. In the Act 3 Crisis decision, having just returned from the future where he confronted the asylum doctor, Stark now decides how he can intervene here, in the past, and help Jackie have a better life, in the future. He figures out if he can change the mother's attitude in the past it might change the child's future as a young woman. The story arc change is that perhaps the future can change the past.

The middle Acts are used to question and then prove (to Starks and us) that the 'trips' he takes in the tank were not drug trips (2A), but occasions of time travel (2B). He travels through his consciousness to another point in objective time, though of course his body is still in the tank in a different time.

Momentum

Act 1 up; Act 2A down; Act 2B down; Act 3 up.

## I, Robot (2005)

Director: Alex Proyas

Writers: Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman; Isaac Asimov (novel)

Star Rating: 3.3

Early Action / Background

In this film's dystopian future synthetic life-forms serve as domestics and factory labor. Primary among their programming protocols is an injunction against taking any action that would cause harm to humans, or failing to take action to prevent such harm. Del Spooner, a city cop, has a personal history of animosity to robots/synthetics because his wife died in an incident involving robots. The robot was not to blame, but Spooner has his suspicions.

The story opens with Spooner chasing what he believes is a robot that has just stolen a woman's purse. It turns out the robot was trying to help the woman, a fact that gets Spooner in trouble at the precinct.

Theme

The controlling idea is the possibility that once artificial intelligence gains some measure of independence of thought and action, can political independence of action be far behind? And if so, then a robot insurrection would be a possibility. This would be Spooner's worst nightmare. The theme shifts to Spooner – he has a change of attitude on the issue of robots' rights.

Act 1

Robot Serfs

Inciting Incident

Problem: Spooner is summoned to investigate a friend's suicide, Dr. Alfred Lanning, the head scientist at US Robotics (USR), the company that manufactures the top line of robots on the market. Lanning left Spooner a holo-message in which much is left unexplained.

Decision: Spooner swears he will uncover it, as Lanning had hoped.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The investigation proceeds. Spooner questions several at USR, and a female scientist is assigned to liaise with him, Dr. Susan Calvin, a friend of Lanning's who had worked closely with him. A robot is apprehended behaving strangely, and when interrogated reacts with extreme anger, a capacity robots never displayed before.

Decision (turning): The robot is charged with the murder of Lanning.

Act 2A

Robot Insurrection

Midpoint

Problem: Spooner's investigation uncovers another exceptional robot at USR, Sonny – sensitive, intelligent, and with a very human-like artistic yearning. Sonny's drawing leads Spooner to a nearby train yard, where he discovers a colony of discarded robots forming the early stages of a robotic insurgency. Some robots there are friendly, others aggressive.

Before this Midpoint it was a story of a human society with robots with some independence of action; after this point it's a story of robots in full opposition to the human authorities.

Act 2B

Robot Allies

Turning Point 2

Problem: Returning to the train yard Spooner is told of plans for a violent takeover against humans to be launched soon.

Decision (turning): Spooner is as shocked to learn he has robot allies as the imminent attack. He warns the city.

Act 3

Robots' Inalienable Rights

Crisis Problem

A full-scale robot takeover is launched and the robots make initial gains.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Learning that the head robot at USR is leading the rebellion, Spooner decides to neutralize the leader and stop the takeover.

Climax

In a shootout at USR against the takeover robots, Spooner disconnects the neural net core that maintains the head robot's link with her army of drones. The attempted takeover ends.

New Equilibrium

In a voiceover narration, we are told that the new line of USR robots that the head robot had 'turned', have now had that programming removed. Even so, they are more human-like than any previous model. The promise of a peaceful insurgency continues to draw 'retired' robots to the train yard. It turns out the dreams that Sonny described, his most human-like characteristic, lead him to the hillside where he gives a rousing speech to a gathering of robots. Watching from a nearby hill, Spooner now understands and accepts the need for Sonny's message on robots' rights.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In the first decision Spooner interviews a robot in connection with the suicide of the head scientist at United Robotics. The robot's behavior reveals its culpability in the scientist's death, and Spooner has the robot charged with murder. In Act 3 they face an imminent AI rebellion. Spooner learns that the head USR robot is leading the rebellion; he decides to neutralize the leader and stop the rebellion. The two decisions produce a change of escalation, from murder to widespread revolt and plans for a takeover.

The middle Acts are used to show another side of the robots' new ability: Sonny, intelligent and artistic, becomes Spooner's AI ally (2A), and other allies come forward (2B).

This sets up the Act 3 showdown with the violent, political side of the AI struggle.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A up; Act 2B down; Act 3 down.

## Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Director: Colin Strause, Greg Strause

Writers: Shane Salerno; Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett ('Alien' characters); Jim Thomas, John Thomas ('Predator' characters)

Star Rating: 3.0

Early Action / Background

A predator ship was passing the Earth when aliens on board attacked the two surviving predator warriors, killing one, and causing loss of control of the ship. It enters Earth's atmosphere and crashes on the outskirts of a Midwest US town, mortally injuring the remaining predator. Several alien drones of both sexes escape into the surrounding forest. They set about reproducing in their distinctive way.

Theme

The primary controlling idea is that during a crisis institutions may often deem certain individuals expendable to bring about the containment of a threat. The story argues that individuals' chances for survival improve if they regard assistance offered by state institutions with some skepticism.

Act 1

Invasion

Inciting Incident

Problem: The bodies of several human victims turn up – campers, hikers, hunters, and police. The local sheriff calls in the National Guard. The arrival of these two advanced, aggressive offworld civilizations – 'predators' and 'aliens' – does not good look for this small community.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: The story has two ostensible protagonists – Dallas, a pizza deliveryman, and Kendra, a military officer home to visit her husband and young daughter. Dallas meets his friend, Carrie, at the high school swimming pool. Her ex-boyfriend and his friends show up, attack them, and Dallas pushes them into the pool. Hatched aliens underwater attack them, killing two of the boys. The rest try to flee, but fall prey to other aliens.

Solution: Dallas and Carrie manage to escape because he thinks fast and doesn't rely on a predictable escape response.

Act 2A

Predator Mops Up

Midpoint

Problem: The main predator, one among several, having arrived on Earth to kill and mop up the escaped aliens, surrounds and starts destroying an alien nest in the sewer. But some aliens escape through the sewer manholes onto a downtown street, and then into a hospital, where mayhem breaks out. The predator follows, bursting up through the street pavement.

Act 2B

Kendra Suits Up

Turning Point 2

Sheriff Morales has his hands full, and helps Dallas into a gun-shop to suit up with appropriate hard-diplomacy gear. Kendra enters the shop with her daughter after escaping an alien at their home who had killed her ineffectual husband. They receive word that the National Guard unit tried fighting the aliens downtown, and were all killed.

Act 3

Survivors

Crisis Problem

The sheriff, on the perimeter of town supervising the evacuation, receives instructions from National Guard HQ to go to the center of town to be airlifted out in 15 minutes. Dallas, Carrie, Kendra, and her daughter arrive at the sheriff's rally point and object to the plan because the center of town is where the aliens are most concentrated.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

Kendra proposes instead to exit town from the hospital roof in a crisis-evac helicopter. The sheriff, obedient to authority, disagrees, and they split into two groups, letting survivors make up their own minds. Most go with the sheriff, foolishly putting their trust in government. Kendra and Dallas are skeptical of the Guard's irrational plan, and make a plan of their own.

Climax

Dallas and Kendra arrive at the hospital to find it overwhelmed by aliens. They fight their way up the fire stairs to the roof, where Dallas's brother, using a predator's weapon, kills several aliens as the others flee to the waiting chopper, which Kendra is able to pilot. He arrives at the helicopter just as Dallas shoots two pursuing aliens shoots from inside. They lift off the roof. Meanwhile two military jets arrive and bomb the hapless survivors waiting downtown, destroying the entire town.

New Equilibrium

The survivors in the helicopter touch down outside the city limits in a forest glade. They leap down and are immediately surrounded by armed National Guardsmen, who order them to lay down their weapons. The guardsmen stand down, gather up the weapons, and orders are issued to establish a perimeter. Dallas and Kendra breathe easy, knowing they've reached safety.

Back on the hospital roof the last surviving predator fights the last surviving alien. They both make killing strokes, and both die, thus ending the predator/alien incursion on Earth, for now.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The story has two protagonists: Dallas and Kendra. In the first decision, by Dallas, he's shown reacting quickly to human attackers by pushing them in the pool, and then eluding the hatching aliens. In the Crisis decision, by Kendra, she questions the planned crisis-evacuation destination in the town center. She sees that this puts them in worse danger, and questions what the authorities' motivation is. She's willing to think the unthinkable, that they're being setup for extermination.

The two decisions produce a change of expansion and redefining of the threat. It expands from the aliens hatching in Act 1, to the government's collusion in eliminating residents who may already have been cocooned by the aliens.

The middle Acts frankly don't offer much support to the story arc. Act 2A shows the predator mopping up aliens, and 2B shows Kendra getting ready to fight for her survival.

Momentum

Act 1 down; Act 2A down; Act 2B up; Act 3 up.

## SF: Postscript

What if the future happened differently?

No two views of a future are identical.

The future invariably happens differently from what we expect largely because we can only hypothesize one change at a time, when potential areas of change are infinite.

Thus robotics, AI, the means for space travel, time travel, are all singular, plausible innovations that produce a different 'future' world.

Moreover, a different time _is_ a different world, whether the time concerned is an actual past, or a speculative future. The SF genre usually occurs in a future, though because it involves a change of one technological or social aspect of _our current_ world, it might technically be considered, in effect, a speculative past.

The appeal of SF is in seeing how such a change of our current scientific, technological, social development ripples out through a future society (which is us, once removed). Writing SF means hypothesizing such a change, then extrapolating the effects that would have.

## FANTASY GENRE

Frodo: _I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee...here at the end of all things._

The Lord of the Rings 3: The Return of the King (2003)

##  Lord of the Rings 1: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Director: Peter Jackson

Writers: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Star Rating: 4.2

Early Action / Background

This movie was an adaptation of the popular and well-known J.R.R. Tolkien classic. The film's back-story: the human warrior chieftain, Isildur, won possession of the one 'ring', the Elf-fashioned ring that bound and held the power of the original nine rings. Violating his sacred oath to destroy the ring, he chose to keep it, which began the destruction that would follow an object of such power. Much later the Hobbit who would become Smeagol, or Gollum, would kill to steal the ring. Later still, the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins would find it and keep it, just as Gollum had. Bilbo possessed it still, there in the Shire, a fact until now unknown to the dark forces at large in Middle Earth.

Theme

This epic story's Controlling Idea is that the tides of history are often decided less by those in the halls of power, their diplomacy, plans, and mighty armies, and more by the efforts of the small and powerless, and often by happenstance. It's no coincidence that this epic centers on the efforts and nobility of heart of the halfling folk, the Hobbits of the Shire.

Aragorn's recurring thought is his surprise at being trusted with the responsibility of guiding the Fellowship. His humility is sincere. He immediately sees the correctness of Frodo's decision, when the Fellowship is broken, to go on alone as the Ringbearer.

Frodo's recurring question is the age-old question all heroes ask: why has this task been given to me? Am I worthy of it? What can I possibly do in the face of such enormous forces, such implacable hate?

Act 1

The Quest Begins

Inciting Incident

Problem: Bilbo Baggins reluctantly attends his own birthday party. Having grown tired of his quiet and suffocating life in the Shire, Bilbo decides to leave, and does so in a most surprising way – by putting on the one ring, the ring of power. This causes him to disappear to mortal eyes, but also to become visible to the non-mortal, non-human, single, malevolent eye of the dark Lord of Mordor – Sauron. The moment Bilbo slipped the Ring on his finger Sauron knew that the ring still existed. He also knew the kind of creature who possessed it, and the ring's approximate location. Bilbo had made a grievous error. The wizard Gandalf, due to arrive in the Shire, will be appalled.

Decision: Gandalf relieves Bilbo of the ring, and the latter leaves on his trek to live among the Elves. The ring passes to Bilbo's nephew, Frodo, whom Gandalf charges with the task of carrying it safely to Rivendell. Frodo sets out on the journey, accompanied by three Hobbit companions and their new protector, a human, Strider, the future Lord Aragorn. As the Ringbearer, Frodo's life will be taken over by this responsibility.

**Turning Point 1**

Problem: At the Council of Elrond an Elf Lord calls to decide what is to be done about the one ring, which all had believed was destroyed. They conclude that it must still be destroyed; and the only way of doing so is to cast it into the pit of Mount Doom. Several present at the Council eagerly step forward to carry out this task, but suspicions between Dwarves, Elves, and humans alike make any choice impossible. Moreover, Gandalf reminds them of the ring's endless power to corrupt any who possess it.

Decision (turning): Into the clamor Frodo sends his small voice, volunteering to be the one who will carry it. Gandalf painfully sighs, knowing the risk and burden Frodo is taking on. He does not want to see the ring's terrible power taint his favorite folk in the world.

A vote is taken and it is decided – Frodo shall be the Ringbearer. Several step forward to rally round Frodo as his protectors on this quest, and form a Fellowship of the Ring: a Dwarf, Gimli; an Elf, Legolas; two humans, Aragorn, and Boromir; a wizard, Gandalf; and four Hobbits, Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo - nine in all. And nothing will be the same for any of them again.

Act 2A

The Fall of Gandalf the Grey

Midpoint

Problem: Gandalf falls at the bridge of Khazad-Dum, deep inside the Dwarves' ancient mines of Moria. The Fellowship's flight had come through the enormous strain of fleeing Saruman's forces, and worse, Sauron's outriders and winged nazgul. But this was the cruelest hit of all. Gandalf faces the Balrog, ordering the Fellowship to flee and escape the mines, as he holds off this dark-winged serpent. Gandalf succeeds in sending the serpent back into the pit, but at the last moment is himself dragged down. His last words to the Fellowship, as he slips into the abyss – "Fly, you fools!"

Decision: The four Hobbits are overcome with grief, especially Frodo, as they emerge from a rent in the mines onto a snowy hillside. This price is too much, the Hobbits want to turn back, but Aragorn harshly drives them on, and remonstrates especially with Frodo, charging him to keep to his oath. Frodo is shamed, and agrees.

Until this Midpoint Gandalf was their leader; after this point Frodo and Aragorn step forward to shoulder more of the rigors of their quest.

Act 2B

Lady Galadriel's Counsel

Turning Point 2

Problem: The Fellowship arrives on the outskirts of Lothlorien, one of the forest homes of the elves. They are escorted to meet the Lady Galadriel. She speaks, internally and separately, in the minds of each member of the Company, telling each a different version of the threats they face.

Decision (turning): After a muted celebration, when all have fallen asleep, Frodo wakes and walks down into a glade. Galadriel quietly joins him, and bids him look in a silver ewer filled with water. He looks into this 'mirror', and sees an image of the Shire under attack, all its inhabitants enslaved by Sauron's forces and being led away, and then all of the world falling into war. Galadriel tells him, "This is what will happen, Frodo, if you fail in your quest." Frodo re-commits to his quest. He truly understands now what the Fellowship's oath had bound him to, as the fallen Gandalf, and Aragorn, had tried to warn him. He either fulfills the quest, or the world falls under the sway of evil.

Act 3

The Breaking of the Fellowship

Crisis Problem

The Fellowship is on the verge of destruction. The pursuing Orcs and Uruk-hai have overwhelmed their small band in the forest along the banks of the River Anduin. Merry and Pippin are captured and carried off, to be taken back to Mordor, for the Dark Lord doesn't know which halfling possesses the ring. Boromir, who had found the temptation of the ring too much, tried to kill Frodo to gain it. If Frodo stays with the Fellowship, they would all have been tested and tempted by the ring, and would inevitably have fallen into discord.

Crisis Decision

Frodo knows suddenly what he must do, he must carry the ring and fight its power, if he can, all the way to Mount Doom – alone. Aragorn stops him as the fighting swirls around them in different parts of the forest. Frodo tells him of his decision. Aragorn at first objects, knowing the burden is too much, but then reluctantly agrees, well aware of his own ancestor's failed bid to destroy the ring. He sees that Frodo is right, and they say a sad farewell, for this is the breaking of the Fellowship.

Climax

Frodo is rowing one of their boats out into the Anduin when Sam comes running, leaps in the river, and swims out to join his friend. Frodo is in fact relieved, for the prospect of facing alone the journey, Mordor, and the Dark Lord had filled him with a dread he likely could not have endured. The quest is joined, and their journey to Mount Doom begins in earnest.

Slow Curtain

Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, the remnants of the Company, resolve to pursue the Orcs who have abducted Merry and Pippin. They can at least try to rescue their two Hobbit friends. Aragorn says with relish to his Elf and Dwarf friends, "Let's kill some Orc!" And the chase is on.

Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam resume the Fellowship's quest, with very little hope it can be fulfilled.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In his first decision Frodo volunteers to carry the one ring to the pit of Mount Doom to be destroyed. All present at the council of Elrond are mutually suspicious of any other candidate for the task, and thus Frodo is given it by default. He volunteers fully aware of what dangers the mission will involve. In the Crisis decision Frodo sees the power over men's hearts the ring exerts, and that he has no choice but to go on without the Fellowship if the mission is to be fulfilled.

As we've seen, escalation is often the change that two story arc decisions produce. In his first decision Frodo shoulders primary responsibility for carrying the ring; in the later decision he takes on the burden alone when that becomes necessary.

The middle Acts support this escalation, first with the fall of Gandalf (2A) which begins the isolation that will end with Frodo's decision to go on alone, and next with Galadriel's counsel, showing Frodo what the effects of failing in his quest will be. Both intensify the isolation Frodo is forced to choose in Act 3.

## Lord of the Rings 2: Two Towers (2002)

Director: Peter Jackson

Writers: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Star Rating: 3.9

Early Action / Background

This movie continues the story begun in 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. There are two primary plot-lines in 'The Two Towers': 1) Frodo and Sam's journey; and 2) the actions undertaken by Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. The two towers of the title are Saruman's keep at Isengard, and the human stronghold at Helm's Deep.

Act 1

Gandalf the White Returns

Inciting Incident

1) Frodo and Sam have struck off on their own to fulfill the Fellowship's quest – to reach Mordor and Mount Doom, and there destroy the Ring. They know there is no turning back.

2) When Merry and Pippin were abducted by Sauron's forces (mistaken for the Ringbearer), Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli take up the pursuit, to rescue their Hobbit comrades.

Turning Point 1

1) Frodo, Sam, and Gollum cross the marsh, where Gollum saves Frodo from the _lights_ given off by fallen warriors held in the marsh. Frodo discerns value in Gollum's advice and trusts him. Thus the apparently untrustworthy Gollum proves his worth.

2) Gandalf the White, having returned to his friends after falling into the chasm and subduing the Balrog, now frees King Theoden of Edoras from Saruman's sorcery.

Gandalf's return is the story's most profound reversal.

Act 2A

Aragorn Falls

Midpoint

1) Understanding Gollum's addiction to the ring, Frodo defends him against Sam's baiting. This hinge Midpoint shows Frodo imperceptibly passing over from the Fellowship's cause to the Ring's side.

2) In a parallel hinge-moment, Aragorn falls while fighting the Orcs / Urukhai, and is left for dead.

It is the darkest point in both plotlines.

Act 2B

Aragorn Returns

Turning Point 2

1) Frodo knows Gollum would not survive their approach to Helm's Deep. Decision: He thus turns Gollum over to Faramir of Minas Tirith, but Gollum feels betrayed. Frodo knows it will make him forever an enemy.

2) Aragorn rides into Helm's Deep where the inhabitants of Edoras have retreated – a great homecoming and welcoming ensues.

Like Gandalf's return, this is a profound reversal, from Aragorn's possible death to his triumphant return.

Act 3

Reprieve

Crisis Problem

1) Frodo confronts the nazgul at Osgiliath, and is injured.

2) Theoden at Helm's Deep, despairing over the inexhaustible horde of Mordor's forces sent against them, says bitterly, "How can anyone defend against such reckless hate!"

3) A third plot-line here was Merry and Pippin's escape from their Orc captors, and their meeting with the Ents. The two Hobbits had tried to convince the Entfolk to join in the attack on Isengard.

Crisis Decision and Climax

1) Frodo escapes only by putting on the Ring. Sam speaks up in Frodo's defense to Faramir, who now understands, and is astounded by the horrific burden the two halflings labor under. He honors their courage and sacrifice, and releases them.

2) Aragorn sees the truth in Theoden's despairing outburst, yet will not yield to it, and says to Theoden: "Ride out with me!" (Let us meet hate head on).

Gandalf the White arrives on a distant hillside, accompanied by the forces of the Rohirrim, and the tide of the battle turns.

3) The Ents, slow to anger, only rallied to the battle when they saw the devastation that Saruman brought upon the forests around his stronghold.

Slow Curtain

The story's primary reversal (to a new stasis in human affairs) sees Helm's Deep saved; Saruman's and Sauron's forces are held off because the alliance held. Humans and Elves fight side by side as Gandalf arrives at Helm's Deep, leading a great host of the forces of Rohan and Edoras.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

The story has two plotlines: Frodo, Sam, and Gollum's mission towards Mount Doom; and Aragorn leading the hobbits and humans to Helm's Deep.

Gollum saves Frodo from the dangerous lights given off by fallen warriors held in the marsh, thus proving to Frodo his (Gollum's) worth and loyalty. In that plot's Crisis decision Frodo can only escape the nazgul by putting on the ring, which Sam insists to Faramir was necessary. Shocked at the burden the hobbits have taken on, Faramir honors them and releases Frodo. In the first decision Frodo trusts and praises Gollum for his loyal help, despite suspecting Gollum's true nature; in the later decision he risks donning the ring to escape the nazgul (and save the mission). The story arc change in this plotline is the rising risk in Frodo's decisions.

The middle Acts are used to show Frodo's compassion, despite the quest's rising risks. He defends Gollum against Sam's suspicious baiting (Act 2A), and he turns over Gollum to Faramir to protect him because he thinks Gollum wouldn't survive Mount Deep (2B).

In the second plot in Act 1 Gandalf returns to his friends in the broken Fellowship, and proceeds to free King Theoden from Saruman's sorcery. In the Crisis decision Aragorn hears Theoden's despair over the Orcs' "reckless hate", and gives a martial solace by replying "Ride out with me!" Gandalf earlier had generously freed Theoden from the sorcery, and now Aragorn offers to stand by him in battle. Both Gandalf and Aragorn help Theoden when needed. The story arc change is less a change than a parallelism – Gandalf and Theoden in TP1, and Aragorn and Theoden in the Crisis. The Fellowship lifts up and inspires him and others to meet the struggle ahead.

The middle Acts of this Aragorn plot are used to show the two extremes in his fortunes: his fall while fighting Orcs and left for dead (Act 2A), and his return when he rides into Helm's Deep (Act 2B). Aragorn is clearly the 'king' who will return in the third story in the series.

The story arc decisions do not show an objective change in the external threat, but rather how the Fellowship meets it with a steadfast, steady purpose.

##  Lord of the Rings 3: Return of the King (2003)

Director: Peter Jackson

Writers: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson

Star Rating: 4.0

Early Action / Background

Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli set out from Helm's Deep, arrive on horseback at the ruins of Isengard, and there find Merry and Pippin enjoying a day of rest after going with the Ents in their siege of Saruman's stronghold. The two plot-lines from 'The Two Towers' continue here: the Frodo/Sam journey to Mount Doom, and the alliance of human, Elf, and halfling forces gathering at Minas Tirith.

Act 1

The Onslaught Begins

Inciting Incident

1) Smeagol (Gollum) speaks to his vicious alter-ego in his reflection in the pond, who divulges his plan to let the enormous spider in the cave near Mordor kill the Hobbits, so he can get back his precious, the ring.

The Ringbearer's quest will thus face another major barrier.

2) Pippin uses the palantia to see Mordor, which also enables Sauron to see him. Gandalf rescues Pippin at the last second and questions him harshly about seeing Mordor's forces so near Minas Tirith. Gandalf realizes they must warn Minas Tirith, and sends Aragorn to gather other human forces to join in that city's defense.

The alliance will face there the full fury of Sauron's onslaught.

Turning Point 1

1) Frodo, Sam and Gollum have arrived at the long stairs cut in the cliff-face leading up to Mount Doom. The stairs are also adjacent to the large portcullis leading to Minas Morgul, where Sauron's forces have gathered, and which Frodo needs to pass to get to Mount Doom.

2) Gandalf is with Pippin at a frontier stronghold, and assigns the Hobbit the task of covertly lighting the signal fire. Pippin succeeds, and the signal is visible in Rohan, asking the Rohirrim to come and assist in Minas Tirith's defense.

Act 2A

Frodo Betrayed

Midpoint

1) Gollum steals lembas bread from Sam's pack and throws it away, to incite Sam to speak against him, which he hopes will divide Sam and Frodo. It works as predicted, and Frodo asks Sam to stay behind. Sam is devastated by this final rupture in their friendship.

2) The weak and cowardly king at Minas Tirith, Denethor (John Noble), sends his dutiful son, Faramir, back to certain death defending Osgiliath.

Act 2B

Frodo Falls

Turning Point 2

This TP2 of the third volume in the Lord of the Rings trilogy makes this the moment of penultimate darkness. Ultimate darkness will come at the pit.

1) Problem: Frodo is too weakened by the climb to fight the spider in the cave. Despairing, he runs from the spider and hides. Galadriel speaks to him in a vision. She repeats her earlier injunction: "This task has been appointed to you, Frodo of the Shire. If you do not fulfill it, no one will."

Decision: Frodo sees his duty, knows what will happen if he fails, and turns back to face the spider. He falls. The enormous spider spins a cocoon around him, and leaves him in the cave.

2) Problem: The siege of Minas Tirith is fully under way, with Orc/Urukhai forces pouring across the defenses.

Decision: It truly seems that defeat, and the end, is near. Gandalf and Pippin catch a moment to speak of this endgame behind a locked door. Pippin asks Gandalf about the afterlife. Gandalf speaks of the 'white city of joy', and describes it. Pippin is greatly cheered, and replies, "Well, that's not so bad, is it?" Gandalf smiles, and agrees.

Act 3

Ultimate Darkness

Crisis Problem

The moment of ultimate darkness arrives.

1) Sam followed Frodo, after the Ringbearer was carried away by Orcs and taken to their lookout post near Mount Doom. He releases Frodo and they battle their way out of the post. They cross the last, smoking, sulfurous marshland surrounding Mount Doom. Frodo is sincerely grateful for Sam's loyalty, and comments that there'll be no lembas for their return journey. Sam replies, with a sad smile, "I don't think there'll be a return journey, Master Frodo."

2) Gandalf despairs as he sees Minas Tirith's imminent fall, and laments: "I sent Frodo to his death for nothing."

Crisis Decision

1) Frodo and Sam reach a joint decision: to accept with good grace that the quest will kill them, knowing nonetheless they must see it through.

2) Aragorn replies to Gandalf that what they can do is give Frodo extra time to destroy the ring – a diversion.

Climax

1) Frodo is standing on the edge of the abyss in Mount Doom, fully seduced by the one ring's power. He claims it for himself, just as Isildur did so many years ago. Gollum sees Frodo's lust to possess his precious and its power, and rushes him. Frodo slips the ring on his finger, turns invisible, and they struggle on the edge, oblivious to the precipice just inches away. Gollum bites off Frodo's finger and slips the ring on his own finger. He capers on the ledge. Frodo reaches after him, desperate to have the ring back. Gollum slips, and falls into the abyss. Frodo hears Gollum's scream, and rushes forward following him over the precipice. The ring dissolves in the fiery lava of the pit, and as the sound of Sauron's shrieks rend the sky, Sam comes to the edge. He sees Frodo hanging from the edge by one hand, and hauls him to safety.

2) Everyone in Minas Tirith believes the quest has failed, and that the Ringbearer and his friend are dead. In a last defiant gesture against tyranny and the coming genocide Aragorn surges out in front of this allied army of Rohirrim, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits, and holding his sword high, shouts: "For Frodo!" He charges forward. As their forces hurtle headlong after him, the sound of Sauron's shriek reaches a new height, as the certain knowledge reaches him that the one ring has been destroyed.

The Orc and Urukhai forces' strength, coming as it does from Sauron's dark arts, is suddenly broken, and the Dark Lord's legions begin imploding, shrinking in on themselves, falling into gaping holes that open up in the earth around the formerly surrounded, doomed cell of alliance forces. Sauron's army disintegrates as it falls to its end, even as they turn and try to flee.

New Equilibrium

This third movie in the series has an extensive denouement sequence.

Frodo and Sam are rescued from the overflowing river of lava around Mount Doom following the destruction of the ring.

Frodo awakes to a joyous reunion with the surviving members of the Fellowship.

The Hobbits are honored at Aragorn's marriage to Arwen.

The Hobbits return to the Shire.

Frodo surprises his friends with his decision to accompany the Elves to their ancestral home, in a different dimension from this.

And Sam settles down to a long life of domestic peace with his new wife in the Shire.

The world of Middle Earth is again at peace.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

There are again two plotlines: Frodo, Sam, and Gollum proceed together, and Aragorn moves towards Minas Tirith with the human forces.

In Act 1 Frodo arrives at the long stairs to Mount Doom, and his friendship with Sam is showing the strain of Gollum's subversion. In the Crisis decision Sam releases Frodo after his capture by Orcs. They decide together to follow through with their quest, and accept death with good grace if it comes to that. The two decisions show the breach in their friendship being restored. Losing Sam's friendship would have been his last loss before dying in the failed quest. Frodo and Sam did not yet know of Gandalf's survival and return.

The middle Acts of this Frodo plot show him betrayed by Gollum (2A), and his fall to the spider (2B) following his last moment of self-doubt before Galadriel appears to him and reminds him of his fated, appointed duty.

In the Aragorn plot in Act 1 Gandalf gives Pippin the task of lighting the signal fire. He succeeds and the signal is visible to the far-off Rohirrim. In Act 3 Gandalf, seeing Minas Tirith's imminent fall, despairs to Aragorn that "I sent Frodo to his death for nothing." Aragorn replies that what they can do is give Frodo additional time, by providing a diversion. These two decisions, first Gandalf encouraging Pippin, then Aragorn encouraging Gandalf, don't show a change, but underline how mutually supportive the Fellowship has become, despite their imminent downfall at Sauron's hands.

The middle Acts of this Aragorn plot first show a contrast to the Fellowship when Denethor of Minas Tirith callously sends his son Faramir to certain death against the Orcs, which Faramir accepts without complaint (2A). Act 2B then provides another moment of accepting their dire fate when Pippin asks Gandalf of the afterlife, and the wizard speaks of the "white city of joy".

Both plotlines setup Frodo and Sam's arduous entry into Mount Doom in Act 3, in a sense the Climax of all three Lord of the Rings movies.

## Beowulf (2007)

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Writers: Neil Gaiman, Roger Avery (screenplay)

Star Rating: 4.0

Early Action / Background

A monster, Grendel by name, has plagued the kingdom of Denmark for many years, repeatedly attacking the royal castle and its mead hall whenever festive celebrations are held.

Theme

A leader is unavoidably required to exercise power. A foolish, immature, narcissistic leader will use this power for his aggrandizement, not for the benefit of the organization. In this case it's a king and his kingdom. This story shows us that a successful, effective, well-loved king and leader can only emerge from a person who is a mature, moral individual. Beowulf's awakening is his gradual realization that he has not been a virtuous, mature man, and thus not a good king.

Act 1

A Bargain: Something for Nothing

Inciting Incident

Problem: Grendel attacks again a gathering in the royal mead hall, and slaughters many celebrants. King Hrothgar issues a call for heroes to slay Grendel, which would put the realm forever in such a hero's debt.

Solution: Time passes, and Beowulf arrives to take up the challenge. Whatever the outcome of facing the monster, Beowulf's life will be changed irrevocably.

**Turning Point 1** (commits to the story)

Problem: Beowulf defeats the monster. He awakes the night after slaying Grendel to discover all his men hung upside down from the hall's rafters. The king informs him it is the work of the monster's mother.

Decision (turning): Arriving at Grendel's cave to exact revenge, Beowulf is seduced by the beautiful witch, who offers a deal: he swears to leave her in peace and keep her golden horn in exchange for her promise to make him a king of great authority and renown. He awakes and leaves the cave, but without the golden horn, which has vanished.

The reversal – instead of Beowulf's expected defeat or victory over Grendel's mother, he is seduced and strikes a bargain. Moreover, in folk legends any sort of 'bargain' is a familiar turning point.

Act 2A

Becoming a True King

Midpoint

Problem: The years pass. Beowulf is at war with a neighboring kingdom when an enemy warrior is captured who has sworn to kill Beowulf. The warrior does not recant his oath, standing face to face with the king.

Decision: Beowulf magnanimously orders the man released.

Before this Midpoint the story revolves around Beowulf's megalomania; after this point he moves steadily towards being a more responsible ruler, placing his people before himself.

Act 2B

Confronting Grendel

Turning Point 2

Problem: More years pass, bringing prosperity. The golden horn is discovered in a field by a peasant, and attacks mysteriously resume against the realm.

Decision: Beowulf is about to go to the cave, but before leaving he apologizes to Queen Wealthow for his weakness as king. He enters the cave with the golden horn and tosses it to her, asking that she leave things as they were. The witch tells him it is too late, and her enormous dragon-son expels him from the cave with fire. The dragon flies out, and is launched on an attack against the castle.

The turning: Beowulf's stature as a heroic and accomplished ruler is in ruins. The prosperity he brought to the kingdom was un-natural – an unearned gift which Grendel now intends to revoke.

The witch in their first meeting rewarded his narcissistic immaturity with the deal; now she uses the same deal to punish his humble maturity.

Act 3

Paying the Bargain's Debt

Crisis Problem

Beowulf understands that the dragon must be killed, not for glory, but to protect the realm and its people.

**Crisis Decision** (commits to the ending)

He thus decides, in the full maturity of responsible leadership, to slay the dragon or die trying.

Climax

The king's arduous combat with the dragon unfolds, with the dragon seeking to kill the Queen and Beowulf's young lover. He strives to protect his wife, and is finally able to drive his arm into a deep wound in the beast's chest and, taking hold of its heart, rip it out. The dragon in its death throes falls to the rocky beach far below, dragging Beowulf with him.

New Equilibrium

The witch returns over Beowulf's funeral pyre, taking a last kiss. We see the true king that Beowulf had become. By learning humility and magnanimity, by giving his life, he delivered the kingdom to safety.

The witch sees Beowulf's lifelong friend and warrior-comrade, Wiglaf, standing on the beach, gazing longingly at her. She comes in to shore, and he walks slowly out towards her – the endless cycle of pride, lust (ambition), and corruption is about to be repeated yet again.

Story Arc: Two Decisions

In his Act 1 decision Beowulf, prideful, vain, and irresponsible, is seduced into accepting a deal with Grendel, giving him the external appearance of a king's authority and renown. In Act 3, after bringing ruin on his realm, Beowulf becomes a mature, contrite, responsible leader. He decides to do what his kingdom requires of him, to slay the dragon. He knows he can't even take solace in death if he fails, for then the realm would fall to even worse ruin. He has no choice but to kill the dragon. The two decisions bring about a change of growth, Beowulf's evolution into a true king to his people.

The middle Acts are used to show Beowulf's first kingly act, by ordering a man released who had sworn to kill the king, and wouldn't forswear it (Act 2A). Then Beowulf is shown confronting his worst mistakes, by apologizing to Queen Wealthow for being a poor husband, and returning to the cave to confront Grendel (Act 2B). He is spurned and expelled, and the witch's full measure of hate for man is unleashed.

Act 3 sets up Beowulf's confrontation with the dragon, and dying as he finally defeats this weapon of Grendel.

## Fantasy: Postscript

What's missing from every modern world?

In the Fantasy genre, as in Historical and SF stories, the story world is apparently different from our own. It's not a difference of time but of a society in an imagined past where supernatural powers routinely exist alongside our own natural powers. If Horror depicts the conflict and deterioration that flows from dark supernatural powers, Fantasy shows the reverse.

The popularity of George R. R. Martin's _"The Game of Thrones"_ stems from the fact that a Fantasy story is being told very much like a Horror story, with all of its familiar darkness, fear, and pessimism. Breakout popular genre series like this often bring in elements from other genres. The clear risk is that by violating genre conventions the story may very well be rejected by readers and audiences, unless the story justifies the change. At any rate, such Dark Fantasy will surely continue as its popularity is now established.

##  3rd Edition Afterword

I have used the terms story arc and problem/decision arc in these pages. A story arc would resemble, for example, the Lions Gate Bridge in Vancouver, a long sweeping structure between two piers – the two decisions the protagonist makes. One decision is when he commits to the story (TP1), to solving the problem, and another near the far shore where he commits to the ending, to coming through the antagonist's endgame. The problem/decision arc, by contrast, resembles the Pont Neuf in Paris with its five piers, which reveal a story's four sections (Acts 1, 2A, 2B, 3) and the five problem/decisions within.

By way of example, in Lions Gate story arc terms, in the Flight of the Phoenix Captain Towns' Act 1 decision is to give a rousing speech to the group of survivors, inspiring them to rebuild the Phoenix aircraft so they can fly back to safety. His Act 3 Crisis decision is to give Elliott an undeserved apology, as Elliott demands. Thus Towns went from launching their rebuilding project to yielding to Elliott in a power struggle so the Phoenix can be finished. The change that occurs between these two decisions is what the story is about – leadership and survival, and this then can direct the writer to what the middle Acts might focus on (Elliott's instability, unreliability). Work out who the antagonist is, and what he wants and opposes, as that character will take the other side of the change that happens.

In I, Robot, Spooner in Act 1 charges one unstable robot with murder; in the Crisis decision he goes after the leader of the robot insurgents who's planning a political takeover. The change between these two decisions is one of escalation and rebellion; accordingly the middle Acts can show why the rebellion is happening by having Spooner meet up with robot insurgents and loyalists (Sonny) as part of his investigation. This is simply one way to ensure the problems and decisions you come up with for your novel all fit together logically, and serve the story's theme (reflected in the story arc change).

In Pathfinder the protagonist Ghost counter-attacks and kills the Viking outlander who was torturing an elder in his adopted tribe (after most of his tribe is killed). His implied intention is to launch repeated guerrilla attacks and have his revenge. Then in the story Crisis he reaches a strategic decision to kill all in the Viking band in order to prevent word of their location leading to future Viking attacks. The change here is one of leadership and strategic thinking. The middle Acts show his move from revenge, to an alliance, to listening to his spirit-animal. His goal and manner of approach evolve in tandem. The middle Acts always present important, necessary steps in the protagonist's journey to finding a solution to the original Act 1 problem.

Turning to the Pont Neuf problem/decision arc and its five piers, the writer works out what sort of problems would best express the kind of change desired, to be shown incrementally, to which moves the characters to the Act 3 Crisis. Such problems will simultaneously produce internal changes in the protagonist (if so, then possibly just before the TP1, or at the Midpoint, or just before the Crisis decision). Bear in mind that these problems are usually actions taken by the antagonist, to achieve his primary desire in opposition to the protagonist. So the nature and reason for the antagonist's opposition also need to be accounted for.

For example, in Flight of the Phoenix the writer needs problems in Acts 2A and 2B which reveal leadership, or its absence, in Towns and Elliott. The problems chosen were when Elliott suddenly and without warning executed a prisoner (Elliott as unstable); and when he reports casually that he's a model aircraft engineer (Elliott as not a real engineer). On both occasions Towns is shown being the opposite, a responsible leader. Certainly, other middle Act problems with Elliott might have been chosen. Moreover, if a different Act 3 Crisis problem and decision had been chosen, describing a different story arc change, then different middle Act problem/decisions would also have been chosen.

There is another component in writing which I have thus far treated as static – namely, character desire. When a character is given a single, direct, prevailing desire, she becomes an actor in moving story events forward. That works very well most of the time, and makes for a sensible restriction to a character's persona. But just as dialogue is simulated speech – reduced, compressed, and making semantic leaps – in the same way a character's primary wants are a reduced, compressed, constructed simulation of the endless complexity of a real person.

A character's desire can change in response to new knowledge about his environment or other characters that emerges as a result of story events. It can also be information the writer withholds from the reader to build suspense. Those are routine ways that a character's desire might change. A more satisfying reason would be change resulting from a character's inner growth. Looking yet again at Flight of the Phoenix, at the start Captain Towns simply wants to reach his flight destination. After the crash he wants to sit tight and wait for rescue. After the problem of the man fleeing into the desert he wants a team-uniting project: to salvage and rebuild the Phoenix. After that he's willing to accommodate and placate Elliottt in order to move forward on the Phoenix. At one level these can be seen as mere shifts in intention in response to changed circumstances. But at another level they represent a subtle shift in Towns' desire. He goes from doing only what's necessary in his job as pilot to seeing what's possible (a new Phoenix), to inspiring the others, and even to suppressing his irritation with Elliottt in order to truly help the passengers survive. This stronger, different desire reflects his growth as a person and leader. Isn't that what makes this story intriguing and moving? We get to see Towns expand beyond his comfort zone, act upon a more mature desire, and become a genuine leader.

In 16 Blocks Jack Mosley starts out just wanting to finish the witness transport to the court downtown. In the Inciting Incident he wants to stop the assassin from killing the witness. Then in Turning Point 1 he wants to prevent his boss from framing and having Eddy killed. These are shifts in intention that serve the same continuing desire (to do his job). In TP2 he wants to die on the bus as he holds off the encircling cops until they bomb it (to kill the witness), so that Eddy can covertly get away to a waiting hospital ambulance (to take him to the court). When Eddy foils that plan Jack's desire shifts again. He sees that what he really should do is step up and take Eddy's place as the witness, and thus come clean to the court on his own role in the police gang. By admitting his criminal past his desire comes to be focused on helping others instead of himself. He truly changes as a person.

In my novels I tend to work out the story arc change first, and then build in character desire and goals to fulfill that. Only in a few short stories has it occurred in the opposite direction, focused on character first. Frankly, the two approaches did not seem so radically different.

This then is one way forward the novelist can take. Create a story arc of two decisions for your novel. Define the change that occurs between those two decisions. On that basis create middle Acts that support, inflect, or qualify that change. That's it in a nutshell.

In Story Crisis, Story Climax 2 I continue this analysis applied to thirty new films. I look also at the protagonist's goals, how the middle Act goals veer a bit from the one story arc goal. A goal always implies what's at stake if the protagonist fails. A novel won't state this directly, but it needs to be clearly implied.

I very much hope my analysis of the films in this book has helped you better understand the components of the storytelling process.

I wish you every success in your writing. May you always take joy in the stories and story worlds that find a home in your imagination!

## Review

I'm thrilled you read _Story Crisis, Story Climax 1_. If you enjoyed it please consider posting a short review at your preferred online eBook retailer. A review just needs to say one or two things that you enjoyed in this book. Thanks!

All the best...

Stephen J. Carter

## About the Author

Stephen J. Carter is a Canadian writer living in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He spends his time travelling in the real worlds of Thailand and Malaysia when he's not travelling in story worlds of the imagination.

## Other Titles

I have two completed series, _Storyworks Monthly_ and _Crisis Climax_ , and two ongoing series, _Zero Point Light_ and _Z Inferno_. I hope to write the first novels in two new series in 2017, one in the paranormal genre and another in military SF, and both with dystopian elements.

STORYWORKS MONTHLY (Short Fiction)

Storyworks Monthly 1, 2, 3

ZERO POINT LIGHT (SF)

Storm Ring

New Siqdor

Z INFERNO (Horror)

Bangkok Z

Infection Day, Parts 1, 2, 3

Toey's Burden, Part 1

CRISIS CLIMAX (Writing Skills)

Story Crisis, Story Climax 1 (Using Film Structure to Outline Your Novel)

Story Crisis, Story Climax 2 (What Story Arc in Film Can Teach Novelists)

The Holographic Self

## Connect

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