All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
Do character arcs have to exist in action films? If you ask by the book writers, the answer is always yes, or if you enter a contest or pay for coverage the answer still seems to be yes...
I would love to hear what people think the character arc of the main characters in the following movies...
-John Wick -Olympus Has Fallen -Taken -From Paris with Love
Character arcs are good but not essential. There have been many great movies that host zero character arc, but tell a an awesome story.
Story is everything in film. Without it, it will fall into the category of just another film. Characters come second. If the story you want to tell has a great character arc. Great. If it doesn't, then that's fine. Tell it anyway.
If you want a good example of one, my favourite is probably Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) in There Will Be Blood. His acting emphasizes how great the writing was.
John Wick is crap IMO, but that's not for the lack of character arc, that's just because Keanu Reeves is just terrible.
Do character arcs have to exist in action films? If you ask by the book writers, the answer is always yes, or if you enter a contest or pay for coverage the answer still seems to be yes...
I would love to hear what people think the character arc of the main characters in the following movies...
-John Wick -Olympus Has Fallen -Taken -From Paris with Love
Any insist or discussion would be amazing.
The short answer is no IMO and that applies to all films.
Interesting point. And the necessity of a character arc persists at every level. Annoyingly. Perhaps if you pitch the character as a taken-like force of nature that changes all around him rather than change himself.
In short - if you're going to break the rules - make a point of breaking them. It might even be a selling point if handled the right way.
Even if that character is say for instance, driving around in circles in a fast race car on a track with lots of action, cars smashing into each other, hitting walls etc...
Even still, the character, has a reason for being in that race. What is the reason? He's flirting with death? Loves to live on the edge? Has a secret wish to die? Is determined to beat a woman in that race because he loves her and wants her to quit racing? Or, because he hates her and wants to prove his male superiority? Who knows? But the reasons of the character drives the action.
That character might not even be human, it might be nature in the form of an abstract kind of character, but still, if you don't have character, no matter what action you've got going on, even if it's big time bombs and alien technology, still, it's just fluff if you don't integrate motive and character into it.
About ten years ago in the filmmaking world you'd always get people asking whether they should shoot film or video?
It was always a question that answered itself...at the point you've developed your craft to the point when it's a genuine option to shoot film, you'll already KNOW when you need to shoot film..it will be an artistic choice you make not just to shoot film, and not just any film but you'll be choosing a particular kind of film that's best for your needs.
Until that point, shoot video.
I kind of feel that way about this question.
You don't need character arcs in an action film, certainly not for the central character (eg Indiana Jones), but if you're not going to have one, you're going to need to know a lot about scriptwriting and constructing a story to achieve the same kind of emotional impact, narrative drive, thematic sense/meaning etc that you would have if you did.
Taken, from the examples you gave is a good point to jump off from. The character arc of the central figure is of a man who is completely disconnected from his family and who consider him outright pathetic because they do not understand his world. They prefer the rich guy, who represents financial power in general and the kind of power that separates the main character from his daughter (the financial power of the Arabs who buy women illegally). Then the world of the central character and his family's world collide. The whole story is essentially his attempt to reconnect with his family, both emotionally and physically.
Without that emotional connection to the film, the tension in the action sequences wouldn't be there. The central character has a relatable goal and we can then empathise with him as we go into an alien world.
It's a straightforward, but effective way to write a story.
If you're going to do it another way, there should be a reason, and there and you should have strong ideas on how to replace the things you are going to lose (arcs for secondary characters, massive forces of antagonism, enormously interesting characters, set pieces and dialogue etc) otherwise there's a significant chance you'll end up with a very thin story that is all on the surface...things blowing up for little reason....which is what 99.9% of pro-pro action stories end up like.
Is my character the type that is going to change as a result of events happening to them and around them? If yes - they have a character arc. If no - they don't.
Indiana Jones, Inspector Clouseau, Sherlock Holmes, James Bonds, Hannibal Lechter and a slew of other characters really are just our tour guides as we are taken through a series of comedic, interesting, horrific, events etc. What was Javier Bardem's character arc in No Country For Old Men - nada. And he made the movie great because he didn't change his evil ways regardless of events. Granted, there are tons of great movies with wide character arcs (Pacino in the Godfather comes to mind). But to ever think of it as a requirement as just wrong IMO.
I guess I'm just testy today. But the more I write and the more I read scripts I like the more I get tired of so called gurus and formulas they peddle.
Indiana Jones doesn't have an arc.. sure he sees the power of God but he does not change. In Die Hard, John McClane does not change at all. No Country for Old Men - no changes Oceans 11, 12 and 13 they never change. Still crooks til the end. James Bond never changes ever. Clarice Starling in SOTL never changes. Sure she is wiser at the end but she's still the same. You could even say Luke Skywalker never changed. Yeah he becomes a Jedi and is more mature but he doesn't really change.
Depends on the movie and the character IMO. BUT if you pay for coverage notes, from many sources you will hear it loud and clear if your character doesn't have some transformational arc. You may also hear it if you don't have an inciting incident on page 10 or 15 or an act turn near 26... some people have these things drilled into them by schooling or things they've read or by gurus. Tell a story. If it is a good story, regardless of structure or character arcs, it will get attention. Just HARD getting through the gate of readers (also writers trying to make it probably with much more schooling than us).
What you have to realise is that most of the stories we are discussing in the thread were written by the greatest novellists who ever lived. They're not even the top screenwriters, they're the greatest writers who ever lived.
People who knew story structure so intimately, they knew exactly when and how to deviate from standard story-telling and how to control audience reaction.
Take No Country...he takes one of the most hackneyed stories of all time, then he builds the story to the point the audience thinks there's going to be a traditional climax between three parties; the person we assume is the main character, the sheriff and the antagonist. Then he makes the entirely conscious to deviate from the standard plot and skips over the climax entirely and goes into a fourth act.
Why does he do this? To make the form mirror his theme: That there is no benevolent, conscious entity presiding over our lives, it's just random chance. He breaks the standard structure to illuminate his thematic point.
The characters don't have arcs because there is no overriding "sense" in the world. There is no guiding force orchestrating our lives for the better. The form mirrors the story and the theme he's telling.
When you are at that level, in total command of the craft, you can do anything because it's all conscious and you are making specific choices for specific reasons.
But for every Cormac McCarthy there are probably 100 million people who don't understand structure to this degree who simply hear "You don't need character arcs" and set about writing a formless mess, that has no structure at all, let alone such a well developed theme.
That is why the gatekeepers and people giving coverage keep coming back to Blake Synder like rules....because they receive tens of thousands of scripts that don't work, written by people who have yet to master basic story structure and have no idea how to develop a more complicated story.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created a character so good they're still making films and TV programmes about him hundreds of years later, but he wrote the stories from the POV of Dr Watson, precisely because he knew that the audience would only be able to relate to this genius through the eyes of an ordinary man.
How many amateur writers/scripts have you come across where the writer is able to tease out the back story of the central character so artfully as Hannibal Lecter does with his psychological manipulation of Clarice Starling? Or has created such an iconic antagonist as Lecter himself?
This is absolutely the standard we should be aiming for, but the gulf is absolutely huge.
One of the scripts mentioned in the OP was Olympus has Fallen
Carson isn't the final word on scripts, but I agree with his overview here, particularly the point that the script isn't great, but that it's better than any amateur action script he's read because at least it's a story and not just random action sequences.
Most wannabe screenwriters don't get to rung one on the ladder because they never take the time to develop standard competence, let alone develop the really intricate stuff.
If you're going to do it, you need to know how and why to do it.
As testy as writers get about the rules, people on the production side of things get even more testy at so much wasted time and talent. So many wasted stories that could have been something good, if they'd just been more cohesive.
I agree that there are films out there where the main character do not change during the story. However, I have also been in situations where I have optioned/sold features and every time, the producer has asked for a rewrite, they have asked for the main character to go through a change. Learned something from the journey. So, is it necessary? No. But, most producers/directors seem to want it. Up to you what you do.
Again - the question is - is it required? The answer to me still remains no.
Yes - there are thousands of great scripts with character arcs. There are a ton of them without.
In terms of rules and guidelines - I think that all writers should learn them. It's part of the craft. But that is step 1. The basic framework. Step 2 is to trust when you should ignore them AND recognize their temporary nature.
I used to trade stocks and there use to be a standard never violate rule that a stock had to have a price to earnings ration of 20 (basically a 5% return/profit as related to the stock price) before you ever considered buying. Then Apple, Google, Amazon, Tesla et al came along and all those brokers were left in the dust). The industry got cluttered with gurus who would tell you how to make a million in the market yet they never made a dime themselves other than the books they sold.
I see movies ruined by formulas (The Martian comes to mind as I'm writing). A great human interest story showing the triumph of one man's ingenuity ruined by such a hackneyed. formulaic ending that made be groan as I was watching.
Yes - learn the basics of the structure. But tone, pace, character and clarity should drive you more than was the theme stated on page 10.
Pages: 1, 
Author
Character Arc in Action Films
Logged
Locked Board