Film Courage: What makes a great story? Jack Perez, Filmmaker: Oh, my…what makes
a great story? Wow. That’s a good question. I have a friend who gets on me because I don’t
care a lot about plot. And I think there are two camps (maybe?) there
are people who care about character and there are people who care about plot. I think there just has to be a reality to
it for me because…you know it’s funny, I was talking to my students about this, there
has been thing in recent years and it’s not new but the last 5-7 years where the value
of the story is related directly to whether or not the audience can not directly anticipate
what the ending is going to be. In other words the twist has suddenly become
the gold standard of a great story. Because if I didn’t see it coming that’s
when it’s a great story. “You got me!” I feel like that’s kind of cheap. So I feel like it has to be character-based,
the characters have to be real and I’m almost forgive a plot that is not so clever if the
characters are strong and real. To me that’s my standard at least. Film Courage: So if the characters feel too
much like they are acting, even though it’s a great story, you didn’t see the ending
coming, to you that doesn’t… Jack: I think characters that serve the plot
are less interesting than characters that motivate the plot. Like there is a certain philosophy…I’m
certain you guys have talked about this…whether it’s easy for me or it’s something I happen
to subscribe to but if you can create a character first…if you can create a character in a
certain number of situations, not necessarily outline the entire movie (although it depends
on the movie) but if you have a full character that’s real and you put something in front
of them, in a way they will begin to write the movie. You know how they are going to react to whatever
they put in front of them because they are now these dimensional characters as opposed
to let’s have this happen, let’s have this happen, let’s have this happen and
make sure that they do these things that are pre-ordained. And I think that’s what creates a feeling
of artifice or I’ve seen it all before or boring. So to me if you create a real character whatever
happens as the result of those characters interacting is bound to be more interesting
than something that has just been constructed. Like I was attached to a big studio movie
not too long ago. And the script was green lit and everybody
loved it and I was reading this thing and I’m like “I don’t understand this…?” And it’s not a complicated movie. This was a movie with dinosaurs and fighting
and all that. And I’m reading this thing and I’m like
“Why is this guy doing this?” And I went to the writer and I said “This
doesn’t really make much sense. In the first act you talk about how this guy
was scared of heights.” There was this whole dialogue about how he
was scared of climbing the mountain and then later he is on a tightrope fighting a Pterodactyl. What’s going on with that? And he goes “I just thought that tightrope
thing was cool.” And I’m like “Yeah, but it doesn’t make
any sense.” You set up this guy…you can’t just put
stuff in because it’s cool. I mean people do it all the time. You set up this guy But as a director of this thing…I was looking
at it like how am I supposed to direct this thing with any kind of confidence or authority
if I don’t believe this thing? So I think there’s a lot of writing where
“It would be cool if this happens. And let’s have this happen and that would
be cool too.” You have this pile up of cool shit but it
doesn’t have any resonance because it’s not based in any kind of reality or at least
any kind of consistency. Does that make any sense? Film Courage: It does so that character’s
“arc” didn’t cross over to the tightrope scene? Did the character go to a fear-based weekend
[to overcome his fear of heights]? Jack: Or have him acknowledge that when it
got to the tightrope scene, he was scared…he was overcome by…but it’s almost this negligence…not
even negligence, it’s almost like apathy. It’s like “Who cares whether it makes
sense as long as it’s cool. And I think the coolest movies that have the
coolest shit still are weighted or rooted in some sort of reality that they, that the
writer has believed and maintained as sort of an assembly thing that just happened to
be exciting but don’t really trace back to something or make sense for the character. That’s really what it is, does it makes
sense for the character? Would he do that. So the example I always give to my students
is if we’re walking along the street and all of the sudden a mugger jumps out and grabs
your bag and runs and that’s all we have in terms of the only idea we can come up with. The next scene (if we know who we are) we
know what’s going to happen. Like for me if a mugger pulls out a, I’ll
probably fall down on the ground and cry and weep and hope for it to be over. On the other hand if I had created, if you’re
a former cop or you were in the war or… Film Courage: Navy Seal. Jack: Or whatever. Or somebody who has been mugged a couple times
and carries brass knuckles and mace…whatever the deal…what happens as the result of that…mugger
pulls a and goes off running. It’s either a chase or it becomes us going
to a bar or crying together, but at least you know…or it’s a fight. But you don’t have the pressure of “Ok,
now I have to come up with the next thing. Now I’ve got to come up with the next thing.” Because if the character is built, then they
will dictate to you in a way what will happen which is actually less pressure on the writer
because now you don’t have the burden of having to make up every thing. The characters are in fact writing the movie
to a certain extent. Film Courage: They talk about having that
dialogue test where if someone is just reading a character and then people need to try to
figure out who is speaking and if your character is authentic enough, we should all know. Jack: Be able to identify, yes. In fact there are things where, there are
situations where my writing partner Jim and I were first coming up with one of our films
LA CUCARACHA way back in the nineties. One of the first images that came to mind
was this idea of a man in a wheelchair in almost this TRUE GRIT sort of scenario where
he was rolling into this town sort of with blazing in a wheelchair in Mexico. That was the first thing. We didn’t even know how it got there, but
that was the image and it was amazing. And we were like “Holy shit! That’s amazing. We’ve got to make this movie. We’ve got to write this. We’ve got to figure out.” And the irony was by the time we had created
this character and scenario (this writer that goes down to Mexico who is really not a tough
guy at all and everything goes wrong) by the time we finish this finale which is the seed
of the whole thing. As much as we wanted this bad ass thing to
happen, it didn’t make any sense any more, it was like too big, it was out of character. It didn’t make any sense any more. It was too big, it was out of character. It didn’t make sense that this would happen. And we kept trying to force ourselves into
writing this thing and it’s like No…it’s not going to be that because that’s not
true to the thing that we actually wrote. I mean it depends on your philosophy. A studio is not going to give a about
that. A studio is going to say “Put the
wheelchair thing in because it’s awesome.” But a writer with any kind of conscious is
going to go “No, that doesn’t work or they are going to really have to find a way
to justify.” I always heard that that was Hitchcock’s
thing. I always heard that Hitchcock came up with
a series of really cool set pieces like I want to chase across the faces of Mount Rushmore
but I don’t know how it happens. And then he would lay it on the writer to
some how get…”I want a Mount Rushmore thing. I want a crop dusting thing. That will be awesome. I want to stage and shoot those things.”And
now it’s your job Mr. and Misses writer to figure out how to make it make sense. Of course he had the luxury of…the writer
still has to figure it out thought. And when you watch NORTH BY NORTHWEST and
you look at it, you’re like “Wow, that’s a lot of effort to get this guy. Really? They are going to bring him out to a corn
field and they are going to try to get him with a crop duster.” Why doesn’t someone just pop out and
the guy? Isn’t that easier? Should their just be a ? Why is there a crop duster? Well it’s because Hitchcock came up with
this awesome idea and the writer is going “Okay well if I maneuver this enough, maybe
no one will notice this is insane. So I don’t know, I guess it really does
depend on the philosophy of the writer or the filmmaker.
I haven't paid any attention to TLoU to comment on that front, but...
Regarding Star Wars and Game of Thrones, it was less "characters in service to the plot" so much as A) in Star Wars' case, there was no united vision between the directors and while there initially WERE established characters, the ever-shifting direction from film to film muddied what the characters actually were (eg. Finn going from Finn to "REY!"), and B) in Game of Thrones' case, the last season was rushed for ultimately futile ends (getting booted from their future project because of how rushed GoT was) and the characters suffered for it.
Basically what I'm saying is that it seems less "the characters served the plot" so much as "the plot superseded the characters."
I think there is a bit of a problem on the internet specifically reddit and Twitter where a "controversial" piece of popular media comes out and there is a lot of negativity around it which causes them to think they are actually huge failures. All of those properties mentioned above are hugely profitable, and while some fans of the first game don't think sequels like the Last of Us two should exist doesn't really matter because if it is a commercial success its existence is justified from a business standpoint.
This sub definitely does not like Duckman and neither do I, but he does have a talent for getting publicity for his game and because that has (with addition to the game's story) attracted the worst of the internet and people; Months from now most criticism regular people might hear of the game might be thought of as just the trolls who are massively transphopic and have harassed actors who were in the game and will blow it off since it seems inevitable for the game to be a huge success.
You're entitled to your opinion but I think it's odd that your using a video about writing stories in movies as reference to why a movie, a long running tv series and video game "failed". Especially considering the fact that the most people generally agree that star wars and GoT were unsatisfying because of the constant changing of directors and a lack of source material, respectively (In the case of GoT, the writers confirmed this verbatim)
Also, I'm a bit confused by how you're defining what failure is:
Now if you're talking about audience reception, I'd be interested to understand how you think this relates to success. I haven't played TLOU1 or 2 but let's say I did and I hated it. Does that make the thing itself a failure? Just because I don't like it? I just get the feeling that people are starting to translate their dislike for something into an overall view that the thing is in some way a failure but that's just my opinion
Nope. It's your opinion of course, but that is a very accepted and a very good way to write a story. Just because someone doesn't write characters well doesn't mean it's because they had an ending in mind and wrote towards that.
In fact, most things written have an ending in mind. I didn't watch the video though, and frankly I'm not going to if it is at all advocating what you're saying in the title. Just because bad writers make characters serve the plot instead of be a part of it doesn't mean writing ending first is bad. I can't stress enough how important it is in writing when you know where you're going with the story
> failure
Eh, that's pretty subjective. Depending on what your metrics are, that could be accurate but not necessarily so.
I don’t think anything you listed was an actual failure outside of people on the Internet not shutting up about them.
I really don't see how this applies to GoT or Stars Wars. The issue with both is they didn't have an ending, or a roadmap for their stories planned out at all, not that they worked backwards from it. And I have no idea how Druckman writes his stories but has he confirmed he plans them out backwards?
That’s why Last Jedi is my favorite of the three. It’s the one that focuses on characters the most, which leads to them making choices that are unexpected but well justified.
While i agree that this is a valid point i think theres a lot more to it then that.
Star Wars- This has been talked to death about, but most agree its biggest problem is that the triolgy wasn't planned at the start which is ironically the opposite of this video because Disney had no ending for them to build toward.
GoT-This ones a lot closer but the problem is the ending was garbage and while everything else sucked it was ironically better then the actual ending (which isn't saying much lol). GoT's biggest problem is that the writers clearly wanted to be done with the series and tryed to get the seasons out as fast as possible. Here's hopping they never recover from doing that.
TLOU2- This game just focused to much energy on the message the writter wanted to say instead of the actual story and the characters in the story. I mean think about it non of Abbys friends are developed at all except for Owen (and that barely counts as character growth) and you learn more about them HOURS AFTER THEIR DEAD. The writer trys to make the player feel guilty except any decent writer can think ahead that the player wont give a shit once Abby and her friends do "the bad thing". Once that happens Abbys an her friends are forever the people who did "the bad thing" and you lost your chance at sympathy as a writer. This also goes without mentioning Ellie and her side characters who are also dont develop at all (except for that baby twist designed to make you feel something for Dina in the Ellie boss fight). I still dont think the games story is nearly as bad as other people say it is, but its pretty obvious that Abby's character (and her friends for that matter) got her character "foot" shot right at the start of the race and never could recover from that. Having the story start with Abby and her friends could have helped a little bit, but the second she kills Joel for most players she becomes a target to kill and thats it.