Are Super & Myth Movies Only about FIGHT v. FLIGHT?

A Screenwriter Asked:

Hey, Stan, 

I find myself thinKing about your stuff; the thing I like best about “Moral Premise” is it’s the book to turn to when you’re suddenly asking, “Why am I writing this again?”   

It seems to me that all the “myth” movies, from Superman to Spiderman to Batman to Iron Man to Gladiator to Matrix all are about the responsibility of saving everyone when you have the power.   

I just read an outline for Gladiator, and I could see that Maximus (Russel Crowe) wants “nothing to do with politics” but gets pulled into a battle with evil.  It’s like the Edmund Burke quote: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  Is this the point of all these movies?   

Is my moral premise: 

 “Running away from evil leads to disaster and isolation; but  

Facing and fighting evil leads to victory and freedom and togetherness”? 

I guess my question is, do I have no wiggle room here?  Should I embrace that moral premise, and stop wondering why I’m writing this??? 

Thanks,  Mike

Dear Mike:

I think most of the “super” stories can be defined by a moral premise that you articulated. But in such clear cut hero/villain stories I think there are dual moral premises that are related to a foundational one, like what you suggest. We might call these “secondary” moral premise statements, which are organically related to the foundational one. But it’s the secondary premise that is more likely to connect to non-super human audiences.

But in both cases the values in conflict must be universal … if you want to avoid niche audiences.

What you wrote:

Running away from evil (isolationism) as a value to find happiness vs. Fighting evil (engagement) as a value that leads to happiness...

...is the proverbial FLIGHT v FIGHT dilemma. It is definitely a universal concept that appears at all levels of the humanity condition.  It's evident in (a) a confrontation I witness on a street corner between a pimp and a whore, or (b) the Bush Foreign Policy Doctrine vs. the Obama Foreign Policy Doctrine. Fight or flight is everywhere and the answers are not easily answered.

You are perfectly safe keeping this simple and direct moral premise as the heart of your story, if that is what you focus on.

But you can give your story more personal and human death by looking deeper into the “human” story that exists in the “super human” diegesis.

For instance:

THE INCREDIBLES is also about:

Battling adversity alone leads to weakness and defeat; 

but Battling adversity as a family leads to strength and victory. 

BLIND SIDE (yes it’s about fight vs. flight) is also about:

Courage to do what is difficult but foolish leads to dishonor;  but

but Courage to do what is difficult and wise leads to honor.

SUPERMAN II (1980) is also about:

Pretending to be someone we’re not leads to fragility; but

Being whom we were made to be leads to superlatives.

DARK KNIGHT (2008) is also about:

Revengeful, self-service leads to nihilistic  desperation; but

Sacrificial public service leads to purposeful hope.

And there are manny other examples.

So, I think your fight or flight is a good place to start, but I think you can also go deeper, to another layer, that will give the basic “super” movie an even more “human” connection that everyone in the audience will get. Not everyone will get “saving the world” because they can’t. But the secondary moral premise (exampled above) are value dilemmas we all deal with.

This moral identification is one of the  20+ techniques filmmakers and authors use to get audiences/readers to identify with their characters on a physical, emotional, and moral level.

Since you have been writing "short" stories for years, and your material is well accepted by the mainstream public, (if I were you at this point), I’d just write it and see if a moral premise (at the secondary level) doesn’t pop out later on. Don’t feel you have to figure it out beforehand. That can be a hinderance. Trust your instinct.

stan

The Truth of Myths

[This post was written in conjunction with my post on NOAH. ]

The best movies are myths.

The best movies tell the truth.

Many people confuse "myth" with something that is not true. But that is an incomplete definition. More completely, myths are the external stories that reveal the inner truths about a culture. The external story of a myth may be true or fictional, but the internal story of a myth is true. That is, the inner moral premise of the story-myth is true and helps define the culture that passed on the story. In this way the concept of "myth" is similar to the concept of "logos" or the "logic" of a culture. 

More formally:

A MYTH is the outer or physical spine of a story that caries within its moral spine an internal and universal truth.  The truth of a myth is the moral premise of the story -- i.e. what the story is really about.

Why are many movies about real events, in an eternal sense, not very accurate?

In the realm of successful filmmaking the outer story is almost always, partly or completely fiction. The reasons are several:

1. there is limited time to tell the whole story
2. there is limited audience attention for the boring parts
3. there is limited money to produce the whole story
4. there is limited retention by the audience to comprehend all the causes that effect the story's outcome. 

CAUSE and EFFECT

Related to this is the natural law of cause and effect.  Natural Law requires that every effect is preceded by a cause. In storytelling this is a powerful and necessary concept. The best stories set up the cause before revealing the effect, we call this "foreshadowing." When a story event occurs, the audience will only accept it if the writer has already revealed the cause. When the writer does not reveal the cause and something just happens out of the blue, the audience is taken out of the story as they mentally try to figure out WHY that particular thing could have happened. Writing critics call this "writer's convenience." Readers and movie goers don't like it. Logic is too much a part of our lives; there must be a reason for everything.

Unfortunately, when you stop to think about this, the cause and effect pattern reaches back indefinitely. It is also true that some events, if not all events, have multiple causes. A car accident in an intersection isn't simply the result of one driver running a red light. That may appear to be the KISS cause, but other causes include:

• The driver (of the car being hit) not approaching the intersection with more caution
• The signal light being red/green, and not green/red, or yellow.
• The "emergency" or "motivation" that caused the driver to run the red light.
• The distraction that caused the hit driver to not be more carful.
• The invention of the signal light.
• The invention of the automobile
•  etc.

ADAPTATIONS

For these reasons a story about real events, portrayed in a motion picture, is "adapted." Even a very long book of the real event is going to be adapted, if for no other reason than the book has to be written and read in linear time, when in fact the real events happened simultaneously. So, imagine then how a movie is an adaptation of a book that is an adaptation of real events. 

Knowing this should remove all need to get bent out of shape about why a movie doesn't get the facts right. My guess is any critic of such a movie cannot get all the facts right even if given all the time he or she needs to tell the truth. My wife and I can't remember what we just said to each other five minutes ago. So, why should we demand the impossible of authors and producers when we're going to do no better. Even sacred religious books like the Bible, do not tell you everything that happened, or what all the causes of the events were, or how physically it happened, or exactly in what order it happened.

Logic of Myths & Stories from a Moral Premise Workshop Slide

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis had a number of discussions (documented in essays) about this, in reference to stories in the Bibles. Tolkien finally convinced Lewis that in fact the Bible contained myths. That does not mean Tolkien and Lewis believed the Bible stories were false.  It means that the Bible could not be fully complete and that the purpose of the Bible stories (whether they are literally true or symbolic) was to convey the deeper, moral truths that are universal to all time and places. Thus, as Lewis and Tolkien articulated it, the story of Jesus is a true myth. This is also the reason that some theologians refer to the stories of creation, the flood, and Jonah as myths. They may be trying to convince us that such stories are NOT true. But the best way of calling them myths is that they can't tell us all the truth of the events, but they DO convey the moral and spiritual truth that is ultimately important. 

MOVIES: NECESSARILY MYTHS

So, a motion picture is necessarily a myth, which is the external, outward, physical, or visible spine of a story. And that story (or myth) carries within an internal, inward, psychological or invisible spine which is the universal, eternal, moral premise.

While the outward and visible on-the-screen story (the myth) must be at least partially fictionalized, the inner truth encapsulated in the myth is absolutely and universally true -- at least in the narratives that are popular with general audiences.

It is for that reason, that some movies which reference real events almost always begin with the words, "Inspired by...", "Based on...." or my favorite from AMERICAN HUSTLE, "Some of this actually happened."

Debate whether a movie about historical events is true or false is, therefore, a waste of time and a fallacious exercise. By necessity a linear told story will always be partly fictionalized. BUT the story still may be about something that is universally true.

DOCUMENTARIES

People sometimes suggest that if truth of the real events are important a documentary should be consulted, or a historian's book. But the reality is that documentaries and books all have human authors who have agendas, opinions, and points of view. They may not pretend to be myths, but at some point they too will be fiction. (Again, because, all writing requires interpretation of real, simultaneous events with myriad of causes.)

THE MORAL PREMISE

This then, is the purpose of The Moral Premise statement -- to help us understand the central universal truth of the story  -- around which are hopefully supportive mythic elements.

NARNIA: THE DAWN TREADER - Without a clear hero and villain how successful will it be?

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER (2010)


Directed by: Michael Apted
Writers: Christoper Markus, Stephen McFeely et al based on the writings of C.S. Lewis

Georgie Henley - LUCY PEVENSIE
Skandar Keynes - EDMUND PEVENSIE
Ben Barnes - CASPIAN
Will Poulter - EUSTACE SCRUBB

Storyline: Lucy and Edmund Pevensie return to Narnia with their cousin Eustace where they meet up with Prince Caspian for a trip across the sea aboard the royal ship The Dawn Treader. Along the way they encounter dragons, dwarfs, monsters, and a band of lost warriors before reaching the edge of the world.

PREFACE

I must first say that I have a great fondness for the Narnia tales and C.S. Lewis in particular. We read the Chronicles to our children several times as the grew up. I have read much of Lewis' theological material and have always recommended it. Although he is at times deep and hard to understand in a single sitting. My favorite of his  tales is his Space Triology, which may someday find its way to the screen.

Before I get to the heart of the problem with the VDT story, here's a sidebar about the difference between allegory and myth, and why didactic presentations rarely work.  (See also: Why Story's Work, Part 1.)

ALLEGORY NOT MYTH
The Narnia movies have left me underwhelmed. And only when I saw the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (VDT) did it occur to me perhaps why. I had originally thought it was the presence of Aslan, showing up at the end almost like Billy Graham at the end of his association's movies, giving an invitation to become a Christian, in so many other words. At the end of VDT Aslan says to the kids on the beach who are lamenting having to return to the real world (Earth, I guess) and never seeing Aslan again. (quoting from the book, which is in the movie):

ASLAN: But you shall meet me, dear one.
EDMUND: Are--you there too, Sir?
ASLAN: I am. But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.

This ruined the movie for me.  It was Billy Graham. It was like plastering the "moral premise statement" on the screen in type: "Attention audience, this is what the movie is about... pay attention and go to church."  BTW: Bible devotees notice the Old Testament reference to Yahweh with Aslan's utterance, "I AM."

What occurred immediately in my mind is how J.R.R. Tolkien disliked Jack's stories because they were like poster allegories for Christianity and not myths (like Lord of the Rings) that could exist on their own merit. (see second comment below)

So, it is perhaps upon that foundation that I became aware of the real story structure problem that at least exists in VDT, and which explains why the movie is not doing what it could be doing had they fixed the structural issues. This all has to do with the audience connecting with the characters. Or, to utter it in other words: identifying with and becoming a part of the story symptomatically - imbued - being "in the scene" emotionally.

NARNIA VS. HOLLY & IVY

Stan Williams, Rumer Godden, Trudy Williams (1985, NY)

Narnia VDT will be popular, but mostly by virtue of the capital it has created as a series of children story books, which are far different than a mainstream movie. Indeed I am still working on a script based on famous Scottish author Rumer Godden's THE STORY OF HOLLY AND IVY (SOHI). Back in 1985 I owned the theatrical rights to the story for a year or so, met Rumer with my daughter Trudy (who was instrumental in getting Godden to pay attention to our petition), also took a meeting with Kermit Love (the puppet master of Sesame Street after which Kermit the Frog is named - that's Trudy with Kermit and his creation SNUGGLES  in his NY studio), and with Bill Wiitala and James Leach wrote a screenplay. We even got as far as pitching it to Disney.

Trudy with Kermit Love (d. 2008)

Trudy with the SNUGGLES.

A day after watching Narnia: VDT with my story students, I happened to be reviewing Kermit's notes on our then current SOHI screenplay, and juxtaposed his comments next to a couple of letters I had received from Mrs. Godden. Both had their opinion of what the movie version of SOHI should be in terms of characters. Ms. Godden was begging that the story be told straight ahead like a good children story without all the plotting so evident in movies. That was the "charm of children stories, they're not complex," she argued. But Kermit, being in the movie and television business for some time, saw it differently. His notes points out that SOHI has no over arching antagonist that prevents from Holly finding her "Grandmother's" home.  Yes, there is Abracadabra the Toy Store owl. But he only operates in the toy store, at night, and then only ineffectively -- i.e. small role. Kermit was right. And that is something that must be fixed if we're ever going to make a movie of SOHI. Kermit also points out that the main character is a little girl, the clear protagonist, but that there is not a leading starring role that can pre-load the project to attack financing.


BACK TO VDT
Kermit's concern over the the SOHI are similar to what I see is the problem with VDT, AT LEAST IN THE MOVIE VERSION.  But my prediction is that word of mouth promotion will be moderate. The reasons are here: (forgive me for not elaborating)

Edmund wants the power, but Caspian the better swordman.

PROTAGONST? There is no clear or single imperfect but striving protagonist that dominates the screen time, passion for the goal, or is a person we're deeply attracted to. And the stakes for not reaching the goal are uninspiring, if they are mentioned at all.  King Caspian wants to find the seven swords and the seven Lords, but it's never a do or die mission for him. Indeed Narnia is at peace and everything seems to be going fine. This voyage is a last campaign promise but with no clear urgency. Lucy and Edmund show up, but they're not sure, for some time, why they were brought back to Narnia, and they never have the goal that Caspian owns. Indeed what Lucy and Edmund's goal seems to be (from fade up and black) is to go to and live in Narnia. But while there, Lucy and Edmund are support players to Caspian who has to live with what happens. Lucy and Edmund do not have anything invested long term. They are there for a holiday, almost. Then there's Eustace. Now, Eustace has an arc (perhaps the only one)

Reepicheep and Eustace working together at last.

from being bratty and mean to being respectful and friendly. Eustace also has a clear Moment of Grace when his greed turns him into a dragon and he changes his attitude. But Eustace does nothing until 2/3 through the movie to endear us to him, he does not dominate the story, he makes no moral decision at critical turning points, and and he has nothing invested in achieving the end goal. He is the only one, however, that has a clear, passionate goal -- to go back home. But no one is driving the story, except the author. Caspian, Lucy, Reepiceep, Edmund, and Eustace are, in some regard, co-protagonists, but the classic structure of a story that engages an audience is missing. And then there is this...

Is this a book we should be reading?

ANTAGONIST? There is no clear personified antagonist. Yes, there are obstacles, but they are not always the result of a single force that is obstructing their goal. Yes, there is the Green Mist that influences the crew with thoughts of envy, pride, greed, power, and other evil things, and yes each temptation does slow down or threaten to throw the mission into chaos. But each of these, until the final battle, is dispatched with barely a struggle, albeit Eustace struggles more than most although being a dragon does have it's virtues. We also have no clear idea WHY the evil mist does what it does. "Good" antagonists possess a motivation that they believe is virtuous; there's a logic to their deeds. But not in VDT -- the evil is just there.  And finally, we have the sea monster for the closing act. It's a mighty fight, requires everyone to work together, but from whence did this monster come morally? What is its goal? Is it just confused and wanting attention?

NEXT TIME

On the beach before the effects crew arrives.

Those are the serious problems with VDT as a stand-alone movie. I think it works okay as a childrens' story and as a chapter in the larger Narnia epic. But the problem of adapting a novel and making it work for the big screen is clearly evident here. What's the solution. right now, I don't know. But if Doug Gresham and Walden want to hire me for the next episode I'm available. The problem is that there is a need for both Gresham and Walden to stay true to the source material. That is their goal. And as long as they keep true to that goal, the movies may be less than fully realized. To fully realize The Chronicles as mainstream movies, with on-going success, requires that the basics of movie stories be observed. Adaption means adapting it to the medium, not just making pictures and recording sound, but changing the structure of the story as well.

BTW: the acting, photography, and effects are terrific.

THE MORAL PREMISE

I am at a loss on this. It seems everything is in play. Edmund wants power, but quickly understands his place under King Caspian. Lucy wants to be beautiful like Susan, but quickly burns the spell that allows it.  Eustace is greedy, and at a MOG becomes a dragon, which changes his attitude. (This had the most potential, also because the story is told by Eustace. But the movie's goal and Eustace's goal are not aligned until way too late.  Caspian and Reepicheep seemingly have no vice (although in the book Caspian struggles with pride and selfishness -- and adventures of his own with little thought of his kingdom). There is a moral story going on between Eustace and Reepicheep -- as Reepicheep helps Eustace understand friendship, loyalty, and what it means to be valiant. But their tag team match has little to do with the major spine of the movie -- to find the lost Lords and swords -- although their teamwork at the end helps the Treader accomplish the goal -- and it is Eustace that finds the last sword and places it on the table.

The net result is a lack of focus. As I illustrate many times in my book,  THE MORAL PREMISE, unless the movie is about one true thing at a psychological or moral level, and unless that one thing is consistently portrayed in every one of the main character arcs, the movie will never do well at the box office. Narnia VDT fits that bill, unfortunately.  It fails to connect. The business it does do will be spending the capital purchased by the popularity of the books. But as a movie, it falls flat.  See any number of other posts herein, on other movies, where this isn't true.

AVATAR'S Grace Augustine

Here's a link to Amy Julia Becker's blog entry on the transformation of AVATAR's Dr. Grace Augustine. It's a good piece. Amy was reaching out asking for reaction so I set about to comment in the blo's com box, but I couldn't help resist a little elementary instruction about myth to the previous comments. James Campbell and Christopher Vogler write well about myth... oh, yes, almost forget -- there's J.R.R. Tolkein.