Kung Fu Panda opened a few days ago. I went to see it, because the kid wanted to see it. He’s into karate, takes lessons, all that. So Sunday we went and saw this film.
It was not good. About halfway through the film, I was ready to stab tenpenny nails into the palms of my hand just to give me some relief from watching this thing. I didn't enjoy it.
And yet, it’s popular, it's gotten lots of good reviews, people in general seem to enjoy it, and the kid loved it. The other kids in the theater loved it, too. And that’s really what it is about. I enjoyed the fact that my kid liked the film, and that’s pretty much good enough for me, even if the film itself wasn’t.
But I'm not really the best person to go by. I have a hard time with a lot of movies. They all have the same story. All of them. All they ever are is a story by the numbers. You change the setting and the characters names and you’ve got a new film to suck people of their cash. People don’t even realize, and Kung Fu Panda is as formulaic as they come. I see movies like this, and I go, yep, here's that part of the story, and next they are going to do this other thing, and sure enough, they do. There is almost never any variation.
Want to be a screenwriter? As a public service, I have created and supplied to you a handy little list of things you must have in any film. Just fill in the blanks for the following plot points with whatever lazy ideas for settings and characters you want, and start peddling it to the studios. Then they can hire some comedian to punch it up with a funny joke or two for the preview to make people think it’s worth seeing. Then sit back and let the major bucks roll in. At least the major bucks you get for being a screenwriter, i.e., chump change.
Just keep it to about 90 to 120 minutes or so. The rule of thumb is that a page of properly written script is about a minute of screen time, sort of approximately. Most screenplays are about 120 or so pages long. Read a few scripts, get yourself some screenwriting software, and always remember to leave an opportunity open for a sequel.
Have at it!
Plot point 1: Set the scene. Establish the locale of your film. Is it in New York? Is it in China? Set the main character. Is it a poor father? A cartoon panda? None of it matters. Really, it doesn’t. Just make sure the character is not doing well in whatever situation he is in. He is unhappy, or a loser, or is not doing well as a parent.
Plot point 2: Create a situation whereby the main character is either forced to change or is presented an opportunity to change. Have the bad father be told that he’s a schlub and must do something about it or else. Have the panda go to see some local festival. Again, it really doesn’t matter, as long as something comes along to force an alteration in the life of the main character.
Plot point 3: Because of the situation in plot point 2, the main character is put into a new situation, different from the original one in plot point 1. The bad father takes a job. The panda gets selected as a karate master. Whatever it may be, they are NOT good at it. Still the schlub.
Plot point 4: Because they are not good at what they are doing, they are derided and disdained. Those who they are working with don’t like them, and for good reason. They stink, and are a fool. Not only that, but because they have been thrust into this situation, a bad thing will happen. Why? Because the job they are failing at is necessary to something vital.
Plot point 5: After repeated failings at various things, a particular disaster strikes. A villain gets out of jail; the parent causes the child to hate him due to some other idiocy. Details are unimportant. The main thing is that after this disaster, the main character is brought down very low. The low point. The dad gets fired from his job; the panda has to evacuate the town, something. Just an emotionally down point. This occurs after the main character starts doing a bit better at the situation, giving them hope. The training starts going well for the Panda, for instance. The reason for this is that when the disaster strikes, you get the idea of promise and hopes lost. The main character, realizing he is totally incapable and out of his league leaves, or runs away, or disappears. All with the intent of not coming back and failing. The main character thought he was doing well, but he turns out to be nothing but a schlub after all. And now, he's an even bigger schlub because he let everyone down. Or ruined Christmas. Or something like that.
Plot point 6: A mentor figure suddenly shows up and speaks to the main character. The mentor is usually a male. He is a father type figure seen earlier in one of the preivious plot points, it doesn't matter where, when, or who. Just stick one in anywhere so he can be used at this point in the story and then basically thrown away. They say wise things to the main character, and will give him some insight. Think of Leslie Nielsen talking to Robert Hays in Airplane. Hays gives up trying to fly the plane, and Leslie Nielsen talks to him and gives him the strength to go on. “Just win one for the zipper.” In Kung Fu Panda, it’s his father. In Night at the Museum, it’s a wax Teddy Roosevelt. In Lion King, it’s that monkey character talking to Simba. And on and on and on. It does not matter what the film is about, who is in it, what they say, or where it is set. Animated feature or live action film. It doesn't matter.
Plot point 7: Because of the inspiring talk by the mentor, the main character gathers new strength of self. They go back to the situation they ran from. Inexplicably, they now are able to do all the things they were not able to do before. And really, it doesn’t need to be explained. They are suddenly totally competent in what they were doing, when 7 minutes before, they were an utter failure. The main character takes the lead and prepares for the final battle, or confrontation, or thing they must do.
Plot point 8: Once all the preparations are done, they engage the enemy or the situation. This is the climax of the film, and it takes a few minutes. People run around, yell, scream, and make monkey faces. Whatever. The situation is of no importance as long as there is lots of yelling and screaming.
Plot point 9: The enemy is defeated, or the situation is resolved. The people who originally derided the main character in his new situation now are his friends, and have found great respect for him. There is often a crowd around saying yay for the hero or just a party with lots of people in it. Something that says everyone is all right.
That’s it. Just about every single movie is a variation on the above points, and not much of a variation. If you want to be poignant, the mentor figure dies. If you want to have a happier ending, the mentor sticks around to congratulate the main character at the end of the film.
Want a romantic comedy? Toss a girl in to a few of the plot points, and simply have her look at the hero in a winsome manner. It doesn’t matter what she says, what she does, or what she feels. Want a tear jerking romantic film that is not a comedy? Don’t have jokes, and make the girl die or have the romance be wrecked at the end. Want a science fiction film? Set it in space, and have a robot or two. Want a war film? Set it in WWII, and have Nazis. Want to be really creative and arty? Have a twist at the end. Want to win an Academy Award? Make it about the Holocaust.
The details are of no consequence. It’s always the same film, every time. Don't believe me? Take this list in to the next movie you see, and check off the plot points as they happen in order. One by one.
Then you can be like me and never allow yourself to enjoy anything.
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10 comments:
You know, Jon, I have had this same feeling nearly every time I go see a movie. It gets ingrained into us so much, that we come to expect every movie to be the same, and then, the sad part is, so many people get to thinking life will be the same.
They feel unconfident and bored. Then they expect something will happen to make it change. Something that will get them into some new situation. And eventually, they will save the day, regardless of failures along the way. Whatever problem that comes along, it will resolve itself in the next 30 minutes.
I wrote once about this, only I equated it to television: I called it the Sit-Com syndrome. When people get themselves into a situation, like marriage, having children, having an affair, having a jerk for a boss... they truly expect the problem to resolve in episodic fashion... and if it doesnt, then they skip out on the wife, the job, the kid, find another vice, or whatever... just as long as it resolves in their own head... regardless of the true consequences.
Life has real problems. Some can be fixed if we take action. Some just cant. That's just the way it is. We must learn patience, and value what we have, for as long as we are given the opportunity.
Another great article, Jon. Again, good food for thought.
Well, you can't hate ALL movies, so there must be some plot formula that does work for you. As most every genre has a some sort of formula that is used, what would that be then? Or if they don't follow a formula, how do they deviate from them?
The movies that I like are those that disguise the formula well enough from me so that I don't notice it while watching. So if I'm seeing a movie and don't realize that the formula is being followed, then that is a good flick. It just doesn't happen very often.
As someone who has taken a few screenwriting classes, I have to say you are completely correct on everything you state. There is a little more to it, but every film does in fact follow the same "formula." The problem is, if they don't follow the formula, most people become bored with the movie very fast and don't enjoy it. Studies have actually been done that prove this. If a movie doesn't hit things at just the right beat, people get antsy and can't follow things anymore.
Here is a book that I read for the screenwriting class. It is actually quite http://www.amazon.com/Gardners-Guide-Screenplay-Successful-Script/dp/1589650263/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213402224&sr=8-1interesting:
the parameters of a movie are like other artforms.
A tune isn't a tune if it's out of time, or too many sharp notes. A poem is hard to hold if it doesn't rhyme (broad sense of the word). A painting is on a standard canvas. A painting that is 2 inches by 4 feet doesnt' feel right. A gemstone is calibrated. A portrait has a smile. A movie has a certain structure too. Movies who dare to step out of the box risk rejection, too...
It's a business, and the movie industry must go with what makes them money. So it is very much a business, but very little to no actual art.
When you have a paint by numbers scheme set up, even if you use different colors for the different numbers each time you paint, it's still paint by numbers.
A piece of music can be anything. It is not constrained by tonality, rhythym, instruments, or any other such thing. There are western types of music, eastern, different musical scales, different instruments. Painting starts with a blank canvas. It can be a Picasso or a Rembrandt.
Only in movies do we suggest that a formula is appropriate as an art form. It's not really. It may be appropriate to make money, but you would not put a paint by numbers oil in the Louvre.
I enjoy some movies, but only such that this formula is so heavily disguised or is distracted from that I can't just see the train coming. It is like the M. Night Shymalian films where everyone knows there is going to be a twist at the end. It has become expected and perfunctory and is not very entertaining.
Movies from different parts of the world have different formulas. Bollywood, for instance, has a much different formula, but the films all follow it much more closely than American films.
Really, music has its formulas too. There are boy bands, female pop divas etc. etc. Even rock and roll has the three chord "POWER CHORD" formula, the swing drum rhythm and the verse/refrain, verse/refrain, bridge guitar solo refrain formula. Different classical composers each offered their own formula, and many composers that followed them copied that formula as well. I don't think that there really is any sort of breakthrough art. Everyone is following a pattern set up by those before them.
It's not art if done by the numbers. Formula is formula, and to suggest anything otherwise is an exercise in self-delusion.
It makes money, but that's all that can be said of it.
So I pondered this, probably too much...
First off, yes, there are formulas, or to put it another way: most art takes place within a certain structure. I think you nailed it when you said, (paraphrasing like crazy here) that the best art makes you forget the structure and just see the art. Sousa marches, which are brilliant, follow an incredibly rigid structure, but I love each one. But you can lay them down side by side and they're identical in form.
Gilbert and Sullivan: pretty damn formulaic. But wonderful.
Geniuses of art bend the structure, but (usually) don't break it. Mozart was a genius within the structure of a symphony; Beethoven was a genius who bent that structure; Stravinsky completely ravaged the structure and created amazing music.
At some point, if you go too far out the structure, you get something that most people don't understand; you've eliminated their frame of reference. Modern art, modern classical music, modern architecture, avant garde film... I'm sure you've seen examples in each that don't delight you, they just piss you off. At least I know that's true for me: The artist went way outside my comfort zone. Sometimes I can follow what he or she was doing and appreciate it from a purely analytical approach, but emotionally it's totally lost me, because I don't know how to internalize it.
If you want to read how much structure there is in motion pictures, and why it's there, and how a good screenwriter can capitalize on it to make a good, enjoyable movie, read Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman.
Part II, or where I get really obsessive:
Since I read this backwards from your review of WALL-E, I wondered: how much does Pixar follow this formula? So I decided to create a 9x9 grid, mapping the 9 Pixar features to Jon's 9 plot points.
It turns out that only a couple of their films really follow this formula. "A Bug's Life" is the closest match -- and gee, it's also in my opinion one of the weakest of their films. It matches 8 of the 9 (there's not really a Yoda figure). "Cars" (in my opinion a Pixar movie so bad I can only call it "mostly really good") matches 7 points (protagonist isn't a shlub, no stunningly awful thing happens). However, the #3 match was "Ratatouille", which I think is one of their best, and really quite an original movie on the whole. Several only match 3-5 points, and only "Bug", "Cars", and "The Incredibles" (another excellent, highly original film in my opinion) match 6 or more.
But yes, most movies follow an arc, as do most novels: we watch as our protagonist undergoes the transformational event of their life. If it's about anything less, you're heading toward the territory of Andy Warhol's "Sleep". This is why sequels tend to suck, by the way: didn't we already see this guy's transformational event? You mean it gets worse? (or more lovely, or more intense, or more gory, or whatever. Or whatever happened to our hero gets undone, which is a bummer.) We already went through an emotional arc with this guy/girl; now we have to do it again. That's not entertaining; it's exhausting.
But if Pixar has a go-to formula, it's kind of the opposite of the one you outlined: a character (Woody, Sully, Marlin, Mr. Incredible, shiny slacker car) is one happy guy. He's good at what he does; in fact, he's kind of smug about it. Then Something Happens, and he's no longer in his happy place. He then undergoes an epic quest, which is transformational -- but the transformation comes from within. He isn't handed his answer by Yoda; it's beaten into him by the journey he goes through.
Sometimes, there isn't even a "bad guy", other than as a McGuffin (Sid; the dentist); there's just a challenge that needs to be met. Our hero's transformation isn't to become a Kung Fu master, or a great baseball player, or get laid; he becomes a better *person* by learning a Valuable Lesson: hey Woody, it's better to have friends than go it alone. Marlin: at some point you need to let your children go. Mr. Incredible: It's OK to be better than others. (And isn't that an odd one -- I can think of only one other story in my experience with that particular moral!)
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