About As Much As Meets the Eye

Let me start out by saying that I do not condone the Michael Bay hate bandwagon. True, his track record isn’t the best, but the guy still gets a lot more vitriol than he deserves. He’s a visionary, and more importantly, he isn’t the least bit pretentious; he knows his movies are dumb and mindless. Half the time he outright admits that they’re bad. Bay’s primary – hell, only – concern is being smash bang awesome, and in a weird way, you have to respect that. His work is fun to watch, even if it’s badly written, and given that he doesn’t write his films personally, I really do think that he could make a great movie if handed a good script and forced to shoot it as-is. Now, would I be saying all of this if he weren’t an alumnus of my alma mater? Probably not. I can admit my biases. In any case, I describe Michael Bay as a visually skilled director who doesn’t much care for thematic elements. And if that’s the best thing you can say about him, well, that’s what I’ll say.

Of course, there are also rumors that he was awful to Kate Beckinsale when they were filming Pearl Harbor together, and that he made her feel ugly. So never mind. Hate away. I'll be over here when you're through.

The only universe in which this is a photo of an ugly woman would be that Twilight Zone episode where all the 'attractive' people had pig faces.

  

Anyway, Transformers!

Qualitative statements first: Transformers, viewed objectively, is a perfectly capable and enjoyable movie. But there’s a caveat to that statement, because the assessment only applies if you’re willing to pretend that the film isn’t based on an existing property. As a Transformers movie, it’s actually pretty bad, and to me, at least, that makes all the difference.

Before this film came out in 2007, you could get your Transformers fix in three main forms. First and foremost were the Hasbro action figures – that goes without saying – but the characters also made plentiful appearances in comic books and on television, with Sunbow’s 1984 cartoon series probably standing as the most well-known iteration. Admittedly, I haven’t read any of the comics, but I have seen my fair share of the Sunbow cartoon over the last year, so consider those my credentials for the writing of this blugpost.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the franchise, the Transformers are not that complicated. The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, are good. The Decepticons, led by Megatron, are bad. They fight. The end. And believe me, they will fight over literally anything. Often it’s for control of Cybertron (their home planet) or a stash of Energon (a rare energy source), but it really doesn’t matter. You could toss a pizza in the middle of them and shots would be fired over it. Cybertronians can’t even eat pizza. That’s just how much they hate each other.

This is all a long way of saying that when you look to adapt the Transformers license, you’re given well-established sets of both protagonists and antagonists to make use of. The writers of Transformers, however, clearly weren’t interested in doing this, and where they did, they chose the wrong group, taking a random assortment of Decepticons and saddling them with the unenviable task of carrying the film’s first two hours. Now, Megatron is a good villain, but he isn’t activated until just before the final battle. Starscream is a great villain, but he’s wasted here, with nothing particularly interesting to do and none of his personality coming across. The rest of the Decepticons… well, they barely even have distinct identities, let alone compelling ones. So I suppose in that regard, the writers stayed pretty true to the canon.

Call me a racist, but they all look the same to me. Decepticons, I mean.

Thank goodness, Optimus Prime & Co. do finally show up as well, but when you really look at the plot, you can’t help but notice that they are, against all logic, actually given less agency within the film than Megatron’s crew, with all of their would-be heroics being co-opted by any one of the four – count ‘em, four – distinct groups of humans that were needlessly shoehorned into the screenplay.

The main character of Transformers is Sam Witwicky, a human, and despite what I just said in the above paragraph, I completely understand the desire for a human protagonist. Transformers is reimagined from the original backstory to take place in a much more realistic setting, so there’s a strong need for an audience surrogate as alien robots begin appearing in what is, for all intents and purposes, our world. If it were you in that situation, you’d be pretty flustered, and no one plays flustered quite like Shia LaBeouf. So that’s fine. The real trouble is that, in addition to Sam, major screen time is given to the group of hackers that uncover the Decepticons’ plan, as well as the soldiers that figure out how to kill them. Throw in the government agents from Sector 7, who were kind enough to find the film’s MacGuffin – the AllSpark – before the movie even starts, and Sam and the Autobots are saved the trouble of actually having to accomplish anything at all.

When all is said and done, the Autobots have little to do in the film besides provide exposition, a task that could easily have fallen upon Bumblebee alone had he not been arbitrarily robbed of a voice. (Every other iteration of the character can speak just fine.) In fact, if I were rewriting this script, and the Transformers were not a pre-existing license, my very first change would be to cut out all the Autobots but Bumblebee.

That’s not a good sign.

But it’s also not far off from the state that the film is in now. Quick! Which one of the Autobots is killed in the movie’s final battle? Well?

Time’s up. His name was Jazz, he was Optimus’ second-in-command, and he was the black one. You probably didn’t know any of those things, though, because the movie devotes all of ten seconds to developing his character before demoting him to a piece of fancy scene decoration. I will remind you now that this film is well over two hours long.

So what would I do to turn this back into a true Transformers movie? It’s as simple as returning the focus to where it belongs and clearing out superfluous plotlines. Sam can stay, for the reasons explained above. Mikaela can stay too, because of…

… story structure. I’d even be okay with letting the soldiers keep their first few scenes, since it is a pretty cool way to reveal the Decepticons. But everyone else has got to go, and fork over their valuable screen time so that we can actually get to know the Autobots. Bring them in earlier, and have them go after the AllSpark with Sam and Mikaela, fighting Decepticons along the way. There’s a wealth of backstory to mine here, and the Autobots’ different personalities would… their personalities…

Okay, real talk.

As beloved as the Transformers may be to some, the early days of the cartoon didn’t worry much about well-crafted characters, with the exception of a few standouts. All of the bots are distinct from one another in theory, but there are so many of them, with so little focus given to each one, that after just a three-month hiatus from watching the show, the ones I remember as more than just a name could be counted on two hands: Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Rodimus Prime, Galvatron (who’s just an upgraded Megatron), Blur, Grimlock, Ultra Magnus, and someone named Omega Supreme, if I’m not confusing him with a Taco Bell menu item.

He transforms into a rocket surrounded by a mile of circular train track, which is somehow even more conspicuous than a giant robot.

So yeah, the bar may not have been set very high, but the fact that the film still falls well below it makes the writers’ abject failure all the more frustrating. They weren’t dealing with an entire army of Autobots here; they intentionally limited themselves to five, which is more or less on par with what an episode of the show would use – in a script about one-sixth the length, no less. Moreover, I’m sure that, had the writers gone looking, the comics would have offered up a wealth of in-depth characterization for each of the movie’s supporting Autobots; in the grand scheme of things, Jazz, Ratchet, and Ironhide are all top-tier characters. Hell, comic book Ratchet got several-month story arc devoted to him, while film Ratchet has only a handful of meaningful lines, one of which is a thinly veiled boner joke. The fact that the 1984 versions of these characters are more nuanced than the 2007 versions is disheartening, to say the least.

I’ll reiterate: none of this matters that much if you aren’t already a fan of the subject matter. The existing plot, while a little lazy, works fine with the human characters in place, so as long as you don’t go into the movie wondering if Wheeljack if going to show up, you’ll be fine. And honestly, most people who went to see the film in 2007 probably weren’t die-hard Transformers G1 fans, so there was no real need for the filmmakers to cater to that group. But what gets me is the simple fact that they absolutely could have catered to that group, while still making a great movie in the process. Instead, they chose the easy way out, cashing in on a name while including only the most basic fanservice.

Oh well.

It’s still better than G.I. Joe.

Which is a shame, because that show KICKS ASS.  

Live and Let Drive (A Post-Credits Postmortem)

Now that we’re through the basics with last week’s post, it’s time, as promised, to get into the good stuff! In choosing the subject of my first real, honest-to-goodness blugpost, it would be tempting to start with a film that I absolutely love: a movie whose ins and outs I’m intimately familiar with, like The Princess Bride. Or an all-time classic, like Casablanca.

I’m gonna start with Cars 2.

Yes, this Cars 2.

If that sounds off-putting, that’s sort of why I picked it. I don’t imagine that many people reading this will be all that familiar with the movie, unless you somehow arrived here by Googling the title (in which case, Hi!). And that’s fine. But I hope you’ll keep reading anyway. Because as I said last week, one of the things that I’d really like to try and do in this blog is take a good hard look at movies that the general public tends to ignore, or not take seriously. If this doesn’t end up being the most thorough and honest analysis of Cars 2 to be found on the internet… well, I’d actually be kind of excited. Because that would mean someone out there is the same beautiful kind of crazy that I am. And better at it, to boot. But I digress.

I have a very interesting relationship with Cars 2. I’d call it a pretty forgettable movie, and its reputation as the all-time worst Pixar film – a ranking I actually disagree with – hasn’t helped matters. But in spite of all of that, I’ve seen it a few times now, and I just… can’t… bring myself to say that it’s bad. It isn’t great, but it’s far from awful, and it’s actually pretty fun while you’re watching it. That’s respectable. For any animation studio other than Pixar, it could even be considered a sort of faint praise. And yet, in this case, it’s not. The movie didn’t leave the same bad taste in my mouth that other, legitimately terrible movies do, but it felt… wrong. Not wrong in a ‘crime-against-nature’ way. Objectively wrong. Like on a test. Except that the question was an opinion question, so getting it wrong should have been impossible. Is this making sense? No? Perfect. We’re all on the same page.

Let’s Git-R-Done!

From a narrative perspective, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Cars 2’s plot. The plot of Cars 2, for those of you who didn’t see the movie/don’t remember it/everyone, is as follows: Lightning McQueen, our hero from the first film, enters the World Grand Prix, a globetrotting series of races meant to promote Allinol, a new alternative fuel. A new addition to Lightning’s pit crew is his best friend Mater, who comes along because he’s been feeling left out lately. After cars begin spontaneously exploding during the races, however, it becomes clear that something is afoot, and Mater is unwittingly recruited by a pair of spy cars to help get to the bottom of things and stop the terrorist who is responsible. None of that is a joke.

But I will say it again: there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that plot. It’s well paced, the action is mostly driven (heh… driven) by character beats, and its logic is internally consistent. There’s a serviceable explanation for why Lightning and Mater are there, and even though I immediately wished that Pixar had saved the wonderful spy setpieces for one of their better properties – Incredibles 2, anyone? – the premise is actually put to decent use in the Cars universe: it milks the ‘spy car’ trope for all it’s worth, and having the villain’s scheme center around Allinol is pretty clever.

Also, the female spy's name is Holley Shiftwell. As in, she shifts well. Get it? It's a sex pun. In a Pixar film.

Another potential cause for concern is that Cars 2 is Mater’s movie through and through; Lightning plays a decent-sized role, but he doesn’t have much agency. So yes, it’s Mater’s movie, but – my inherent dislike for Larry the Cable Guy aside – there’s nothing wrong with that, either. Mater was a pretty static character in Cars, and this should have been his chance to learn and grow. In his best moments, there are hints of depth to his character, and if Pixar wanted to explore those depths, well, I was all for them giving it a try.

The real problem with Cars 2 is that Mater has absolutely no business being the main character in this particular script.

Mater’s arc in this film begins with him feeling insecure, afraid that he might not be good enough for his friends. Before long, though, spy hijinks – spyjinks? – ensue, and take the forefront. By the film’s end, Mater gives up espionage to return to Radiator Springs, content with the knowledge that he can be himself. As Lightning explains, if other people don’t take Mater seriously, they’re the ones who need to change.

Logistical flaws notwithstanding, that kind of message doesn’t do the movie any favors. It’s valid, and I’m firmly in the ‘be yourself’ camp, but it would work much better if Mater had actively sought out the spy lifestyle, or at least fully committed to it after a certain point. Unfortunately, that never happens. He simply bumbles his way through the plot as the same old Mater from the first film, and is rewarded by being told he was perfect all along. I’m glad he learns something, but learning not to change is basically a zero-sum proposition, one that plays a large part in making the film feel unnecessary and pointless.

The bigger issue with Mater’s arc, and the one that makes me say he shouldn’t be starring in this movie, can be expressed as a single question: If Mater needs to learn to accept himself… is the best way to teach him that really to have him thwart an international terrorist?

I’m not saying that simply to be snarky. It’s a genuine question that should always be kept in mind when writing a story: Is this sequence of events the most organic way to teach my character what he or she needs to learn? Obviously, the more nebulous the lesson, the more wiggle room you have. ‘Take charge and be a leader’ works in any number of plots; ‘Come to terms with the fact that your father was a pirate’ is trickier. Still, no matter how many options are at the writers’ disposal, the best movies are going to be the ones that deal most poignantly with their characters’ shortcomings.

The original Cars does this exceptionally well. When we first meet Lightning McQueen, he is shallow, selfish, and obsessed with winning. That competitive nature makes him push his trailer to drive all night, and the resulting accident leaves him trapped in a small town, where he ultimately realizes that there is much more to life than fame. The obstacles he encounters along that journey are personal, flow inevitably from Lightning’s own actions (I can’t stress how important that is), and target his flaws with almost surgical precision.

The plot of Cars 2, on the other hand, comes straight out of left field. Mater’s in Tokyo, eats too much wasabi, goes to the bathroom, and BLAMMO! He’s a spy.

Mater doesn’t set anything in motion, but rather hops aboard a story already in progress. Yes, to the writers’ credit, the ‘be yourself’ theme is treated more than just an afterthought: Mater turns out to be terrible at deception (i.e. being someone else), and is most helpful to his fellow spies when he makes use of knowledge he gained as a tow truck. The villains are ‘lemons’ whose self-hatred is channeled into resentment of other, superior cars. I get it. Self-acceptance is built into this story, and it IS something you could conceivably learn from being a spy… but it’s pretty far down the list of teachable moments. When placed in contrast to its much more grounded and low-key predecessor, the experience of watching Cars 2 just feels… off. Like if The Breakfast Club had a sequel where Bender has to fight an army of giant robots. With such a shift in tone, the least they could have done was give the movie a subtitle.

The Spy Who Towed Me. Goldbumper. Drive Another Day. It's not hard.

So, how do we account for this plot/motive disconnect? I’m no expert, but thus far I’ve come up with two distinct ways to build a premise, if you’re looking to get good character development out of it. The first is to start with the scenario. You take a stab at what a protagonist might learn from the experience, and reverse engineer your character flaws from there. The other option is strictly linear: build your character, find their flaw, and construct a series of occurrences that would cure it. The first is easier – and I say that from experience – but I imagine the latter nets you a stronger story. Looking at Cars 2, I can’t imagine that its writers used either method. They certainly didn’t use the second. My best guess is that the studio wanted a Cars sequel starring the franchise’s breakout character, and happened to have a spy story lying around. I could be wrong, and probably am, but if this movie really was built from the ground up, the writers responsible would seem to have lost sight of everything that Pixar has spent the last 20 years excelling at.

Of course the film is executed well; some of the dialogue is iffy, but other than that it’s all solid. In fact, it’s probably the best possible execution of this particular script. That’s why I can’t say that it’s a bad movie. Pixar doesn’t make bad movies. Or didn’t, until Brave happened. (But more on that later. Wink.) At the end of the day, Cars 2 is just thematically handicapped. And that handicap is something that not even the best animation studio on the planet was able to overcome entirely. The result is a kind of Frankenstein’s monster truck: the parts are all there and working, but it doesn’t have a soul. One thing it does have: lots and lots of Larry the Cable Guy.

That’s funny right there. 

But seriously, you can’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t see this movie.

Keep to the Code

So here we go! Introductions are done with and it’s time to sink or swim. Or at least tread water for the time being, because the introductory business isn’t quite over with. You see, in drafting up what will hopefully become some of my subsequent entries, I found myself referring again and again to the criteria that I use to break down stories, rules of thumb that required long digressions to properly explain. I don’t much want to do that in every post, so I’m going to try and get some of the exposition out of the way now, as it were. And because everything is better with pirates, I’m going to do it by looking at Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the first and best film of the franchise, which premiered 10 years ago today.

Feel old yet?

Now, if any of you are rolling your eyes at my movie choice, saying that the Pirates movies are just mindless blockbusters that have no business being used as examples of filmmaking done right, you’d best stop reading now. Not because I have any great love for the Pirates series – although I do – but because if there is one thing I have absolutely no intention of doing in this blog, it’s taking movies at face value. Good movies can have bad reputations, and even bad movies can do at least some things well. And let me tell you, beneath all the (supposed) corporate stink and (very real) Johnny Deppitude of these films lies some very solid and intelligent storytelling. What I’m going to do today is break down that storytelling, at least in the context of the first film, and look at why it works so well. Any elements of theory that I come across will be marked and subsequently handled by my good friend – and master of expository dialogue – Mr. Joshamee Gibbs.

He keeps the information in his mutton chops.

Savvy?

Good.

Now let’s go catch that horizon.

Today’s our first day, so we’ll start with an easy concept: Protagonists. Who can tell me which character is the hero of Black Pearl? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

 If you said Captain Jack Sparrow, give yourself a pat on the back. If you said Will Turner, on the other hand, go ahead and take a gift basket, because that’s the correct answer. Yes, Jack is easily the most entertaining character, and he does get his turn as the protagonist eventually, but for now, it’s dear William who undergoes the biggest change, venturing into the unknown á la the circular journey model*. Jack, meanwhile, is more like the Obi-Wan of the story: he was involved in past events, and conveniently arrives just in time to guide the hero to where he’s headed, but he’s a bit too familiar with all the strange goings-on for the audience to really relate to him. (That’s just the first film, of course. If we’re looking at the original trilogy as a whole, he fits the Han Solo mold to a T.)

No fear have ye of narrative theory, says you. Properly warned ye be, says I.

Mr. Gibbs Says: Many years ago, there lived a comparative mythologist who went by th’ name o’ Joseph Campbell. Stories were his greatest love, and he dedicated years t’ compiling all the various cultural mythos of mankind’s history. In studyin’ these myths, which came from all the farthest corners o’ the earth, he noticed somethin’ strange. No matter when or where these tales be from, they be naught more than variations on a singular theme: man’s journey to the darkest, foulest depths o’ the unknown, and back again. Some call it th’ Hero’s Journey, others, th’ Monomyth. And while ye’d be wrong to assume that all stories must follow its pattern exactly, it be an absolute truth that th’ more satisfyin’ of ‘em tend follow that self-same circular pattern. What be the steps? Aye, there be no end to the variations, but I be partial to Mr. Dan Harmon’s version, which is as such: First we meet our character, well-adjusted and at peace in his natural environs. But sure as you’re born, it won’t be but a moment before a change in the wind comes along. He wants something, you see, wants it desperate-like, even if he can’t say exactly what it is. By and by he sets out, into a world about which he knows nothing, always searching, always being tested, stripped down to the strongest, most bare version of hisself. And then, one day, he finds it. His treasure, his goddess, what have ye. It may not be what he thought he wanted, but by gum, it be what he needs. Bein’ as such, he takes it, only t’ find that this new world won’t be givin’ it up without a fight. So fight he does, and wins, too, though the cost be great. And when all be said and done, he returns home a changed man… ‘acourse, more often than not, he brings a slice o’ the new world back with ‘im.

As you can see, that story is vague enough to fit just about any mold, especially when you factor out my colleague’s tendency to hyperbolize. It doesn’t so much fit Jack or Elizabeth, though, at least not in this film. They’re both round and well-built characters, but they stay mostly static, something that, contrary to certain assumptions, is perfectly fine*. It’s in Will, therefore, that we ultimately find our match.

Mr. Gibbs Says: A round character be different from a flat one in that there be a complexity to their motives and personality. A static character be different from a dynamic one in that their motives and personality, complex or no, remain unchanged at film’s end. Ye can be one, t’other, or both… it don’t much matter which.

When we meet Will Turner, he’s living a simple life in Port Royal. He’s a blacksmith’s apprentice, and also an orphan, because of course he is. He secretly loves the governor’s daughter, and – this is the important bit – he really, really hates pirates. Like, so much, you guys. Just pure hate for pirates. To the point where he calls Jack an ‘it.’ Watch the scene where he tells Elizabeth he has pirate blood. You’d think he’s telling her he has AIDS. Pirate AIDS. PAIDS. It’s bad, is what I’m saying.

So that’s where Will begins. It’s only natural, then, that in order to save the woman he loves, Will is forced to become what he hates. He learns that his father was a pirate, meaning his lost heritage is also the sole cause of all his troubles. He joins forces with Jack Sparrow, a pirate. He steals a ship, something that pirates do. And make no mistake: the film doesn’t do this simply for the sake of irony. Will is made to hate pirates because, in the context of the film, that hatred proves to be what is holding him back. That is his gauntlet. Those are the trials he has to face. Rescuing Elizabeth is his goal, but in reality, it turns out to be the easy bit. His 'treasure,' narratively speaking, is the pirate side of himself, through which he can break free from the landlubber identity that, in retrospect, was clearly stifling him. Indeed, our real feeling of satisfaction comes when Will finally admits, both to Barbossa and himself, that yes, his father was Bootstrap Bill Turner, yes, his blood can break the curse, and yes, the pirates need him alive, so would they kindly set Jack and Elizabeth free before he blows his own head off. By the film's end, he’s prepared to risk his own neck yet again to save Jack from the noose, because he now knows that it’s possible to be both a pirate and a good man.

That’s another concept at work, and one that I’ve arrived at without Mr. Gibbs’ help: Character development that is thematically unified with the plot of the film. Will’s emotional journey, from pirate racist to actual quasi-pirate, is tailor-made to suit the trials he must undergo. No, there’s nothing particularly innovative in the way Black Pearl handles it, but I never said the movie was groundbreaking, just competent (and also, a lot of fun). These aren’t things that only great movies do; they’re things that only bad movies tend to forget.

Something else worth mentioning about the cyclical journey is the fact that it should, ideally, be cyclical. Our protagonist has changed, and in most cases, they take that change with them into their old life. It’s what gives us a sense of closure, that the film has truly reached its end. Things may never be the same – and probably won’t be, if the story is halfway decent – but we’re safe in feeling that the hero’s work is done, at least for a time. I don’t want to say that Black Pearl ‘gets this right,’ because that implies that any other ending is ‘wrong,’ and that simply isn’t true. What I will say is that I was far more satisfied at the end of Black Pearl, seeing Elizabeth and Will back at Port Royal, than I was during their final goodbyes, after they had become Pirate King and Pirate Grim Reaper, respectively. (Spoilers.) True, some characters have greatness thrust upon them and are destined to hold on to it for the rest of their lives – Luke Skywalker, for instance – but plenty of others are happy to set their greatness aside once it is no longer needed. Will and Elizabeth always struck me as the latter type, but for the sake of time, their fate beyond Black Pearl will have to be a topic for another day, and another blogpost.

There’s been a lot of talk thus far about characters, and the roles they play in a story, but we haven’t yet said much about the stories that those characters play roles in. So… what is a story? Easy! We don’t even need Mr. Gibbs for this one. A story is a sequence of events. And technically, that answer is true, but there’s more to it than that. A good story is a sequence of related events, a cause and effect chain that logically moves from one scene into the next*. A capable audience can make inferences when they have to, and it’s always nice to respect your viewers’ intelligence, something the Pirates films do often, but there’s a limit to how much legwork you can burden a filmgoer with before they decide that you’re just bad at storytelling. Flow is key.

Mr. Gibbs Says: Perchance in yer travels ye’ve come across a pair o’ gents by the name o’ Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I reckon they’ve got their fair share of experience, tellin’ stories for nigh on twenty years now. As be the case when ye do something for a length of time, these two developed a kind of system for to be checkin’ their work against. Accordin’ to them, a story at its most concise can be linked together, plot point to plot point, by a mere two words: ‘therefore,’ and ‘but.’ Cause, effect, and conflict, that be what it all boils down to. The farther ye stray from these two words, venturing into the territory of ‘ands’ or ‘thens,’ the more vexed and disjointed your story becomes, and the bigger danger it be in. For y’see, a story needs momentum t’ survive, sure as a pirate needs rum, or sea turtles need… whatever sea turtles need. Leafy greens, I s’pose.

Say what you will about the Pirates films, friend, but darn it all, have they got some good flow going. With a decent chart and some patience, you could likely map all four of them out, cause and effect, start to finish. It wouldn’t be easy – On Stranger Tides is the only one that can be described as strictly linear – but really, could you imagine how boring movies would be if flow and linearity had to go together all the time? Simplicity is never bad, let me be clear about that right now, but in skilled hands, it’s hardly the only option.

The films also gain bonus points for being intensely character driven: far be it from these sea dogs to blindly stumble from setpiece to setpiece. Each one has a single, underlying motive that drives their every decision; keep all those motives in mind and the endless double-crossings become a lot easier to grasp. At times the interactions seem almost chess-like… again, when you can follow them.

Perhaps an example is in order. In my experience, flow is most easily picked up on when going in reverse. Simply choose an event and trace its cause and effect chain backwards. If you arrive back at the beginning of the film, or at least the first 20 minutes, you’re in good shape. In franchises, some occurrences have origins that go even further back. (Fun fact: Jar-Jar is responsible for the destruction of Alderaan. Search your feelings; you always knew it to be true.)

With Black Pearl, the process is fairly easy, even if we start quite late in the movie, but since I can hear your increasing boredom from here, I’ll go with the short version and just look at the first act*.

Mr. Gibbs Says: There be no hard and fast rule when it comes to act-breakin’ a story. It’s a subjective process, and should you and I test it out on anythin’ more than the most formulaic of plots, it would be a veritable fool’s wager to say that our results wouldn’t be at least a mite different. Me? I side with Film Crit Hulk in sayin’ that an act break happens every time yer character makes a choice that there be no comin’ back from. A-course, I also see no practical use in act-breakin’ most films, so make of that what ye will. Still, it’s a good concept to be aware of.

To find our first act, we look for the first thing Will does with irreversible consequences. That would be freeing Jack from jail, since it’s at that moment that he officially allies himself with a pirate and thus, becomes one himself. And why does Will free Jack from jail?

Hold on tight, mates. There be squalls ahead.

Will frees Jack from jail à because he needs Jack’s piratey experience à because he’s going to Isla de Muerta à because Elizabeth will be there à because she’s been taken by the cursed pirates à because they think they need her blood à because they think she is Bootstrap’s daughter à because she lied about her last name à because she thought they would let her go if they didn’t know she was the governor’s daughter. BUT they actually took her à because Pintel and Ragetti saw that she had the Aztec Gold à because the pirates were in Port Royal looking for it à because it called out to them after Elizabeth fell into the water while wearing it à because she fainted à because Commodore Norrington proposed and she didn’t want to marry him.

See that? I know, I split it into more pieces than I really needed to, but the fact remains that the entire first act is set in motion by a single character beat*. That’s good storytelling. I should point out that Elizabeth is only wearing the medallion on that particular day because she had a dream about it the night before, but as a general rule, something has to break the characters’ initial routine, and a dream is pretty unobtrusive as far as instigating events go.

Mr. Gibbs Says: The cap’n is a bit generous when it comes to deciding what constitutes an actual “story beat.” T’ say it in broader terms, a beat would constitute any significant change in the shape that the story’s been takin’. That said, authorities on the topic tend to be a touch more conservative in how many real beats they feel a story be allowed.

The second and third movies in the original trilogy share their sense of flow with the first, which on paper, is a big thing they have going for them. However, it also leads to one of the duology’s biggest problems: Bloat. Terrible, awful, no good, very bad, utterly inescapable bloat. I have a hobby of doing mental rewrites on scripts that I consider flawed (a hobby that you’ll hopefully see more of if this blog takes off), and At World’s End is easily the biggest challenge I’ve come across so far. No matter how chaotic things appear, every event in the film – and I mean every event – is the direct result of something that came before. You have to respect that level of intricacy, but the result is that you can’t just pinch out a boring or obtuse sequence and stitch the edges together, like the fun but unnecessary Pelegostos in Dead Man’s Chest. Writing out a scene in World’s End means playing catch-up on that plot thread for the rest of the movie, and more often than not, you’d need to make changes going backwards as well. Outside of a page one rewrite, World’s End is really as efficiently told as it can be, given the circumstances. I’d love to explore that claim further, or even refute it, but that will have to wait until later. For now, suffice it to say that there’s a definite lesson to be learned from this third Pirates film. Mr. Gibbs?

Mr. Gibbs Says: Good plot flow can elevate a yarn, that much be true, but it be dreadful bad luck to indulge in too much of a good thing.

Thankee, sir.

And there you have it! My (embarrassingly cursory) analysis of what I consider to be one of the all-time great summer blockbusters, and with it, a good starter kit of tools for screenplay dissection. Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you all that there are plentiful exceptions to every rule when it comes to filmmaking. The work of Quentin Tarantino, for example, is fantastic, but much of it would fail all of my tests spectacularly. So, you know, grain of salt and all that. Keep the concepts in mind, but don’t to get too vexed over whether or not something follows the rules exactly… they’re more like guidelines anyway.

I know this probably hasn’t been fun – certainly less fun than watching the film itself would have been – but I hope it was tolerable. Like I said in the beginning, getting all of the theory out of the way at once allows for more interesting talk going forward. If nothing else, I hope it gave you something to think about, and I hope most of all that you’ll be back next week, when I finally start the good stuff. Because it be too late to alter course now, mateys. And dead men… tell no tales.

They certainly can’t blog.

Mr. Cotton Says: ...