MONDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:
GOAL ORIENTED
The most debated and disappointing film of summer 2008 had to be THE HULK sequel/reboot with Ed Norton as Bruce Banner. It managed to make even less money than the Ang Lee original!
And that first film
proved to be less than incredible. It dropped off a staggering 70% its second weekend,
and continued to drop in it's third weekend - landing at #5 with an additional 56% drop. You may think
that's all about money and business and stuff that doesn't matter to us as writers, but
it's *really* the audience's reaction to the movie. For a film to continue making money it
needs good "word of mouth" (people recommending the film to their friends) and repeat
viewers (people who liked the film so much they pay to see it again). When a film has a
drop over 40% it usually means people are telling their friends they *didn't* like the film.
So why didn't people like the Ang Lee THE HULK?
The film seems very slow paced and aimless. It seems to take forever to get going -
even though a bunch of things seem to be happening. We have the love triangle
between Bruce Banner and Betty Ross and Talbot, we have the repressed memories of
Bruce's family, we have the military vs. science story, we have... no shortage of things
happening. So why did the film seem so slow?
Basic story problems! None of the characters have goals!
Story works either one of two ways:
1) The protagonist is trying to achieve a goal... but the antagonist gets in the way.
2) The antagonist is trying to achieve a goal... put the protagonist gets in the way.
A really good movie does both.
In DIE HARD John McClane's goal is to reunite with his estranged wife. Why can't he
do that? Because she's been taken hostage by Hans Gruber and his gang. Hans' goal
is to rob the Nakatomi Tower's safe of millions. Why can't he do that? Because
McClane keeps getting in the way (and steals the detonators he needs to blow the
safe). The protagonist's goal is in direct conflict with the antagonist's goal - and that
creates both conflict and drives the story.
What is Bruce Banner's goal in the story? What does he want?
Bruce doesn't seem to want anything. He has no goal that drives the story. He's not
searching for the people who killed his parents, he doesn't want to marry Betty, he's not
fighting to find a cure for cancer so that his best friend can live, he's just there. Nothing
is driving him, so nothing is driving the story.
Basic story has a character with a goal... and someone or something that prevents him
from achieving it (and creates conflict). The story is the character struggling against the
obstacle to reach the goal. That's Story 101 - and it's missing from THE HULK.
Okay - we don't have a protagonist with a goal, but all is not lost... we can have an
ANTAGONIST with a goal and have the protagonist be the obstacle. In most scripts -
especially action and thriller scripts - the villain's plan drives the story. In SUPERMAN
Lex Luthor comes up with a scheme to buy up cheap desert land... then create an
earthquake that will knock California into the Pacific Ocean so that he ends up with
beachfront property. The person who gets in the way of this scheme - Superman. Most
stories are fueled by the antagonist's goal. The antagonist is going to do something
and the protagonist must stop them. That's true of Rom-Coms like MY BEST FRIEND'S
WEDDING as well as action films like GOLDFINGER... but it's especially true of
superhero movies - Lex Luthor is always coming up with some new scheme or the
Joker has a plan for world domination and Batman must stop him. The antagonist's
goal is usually the spark that starts the story... and what keeps the story moving
forward. The harder the antagonist works at achieving his goal, the more the
protagonist must struggle to stop him. This is what creates the escalating conflict that
makes a story exciting.
So who was the antagonist in THE HULK? What was the antagonist's goal? How does
the Hulk (or Bruce Banner) get in the way of that goal?
You'd think that someone at Universal might have noticed that neither the protagonist
nor antagonist had a goal... that *nothing* is driving this story at all! This is a big event
movie with a budget of well over $100 million - and it doesn't have the very basics of a
story - a protagonist fighting to achieve a goal and an antagonist that gets in his way (or
an villain with a plan that the hero gets in the way of).
THE HULK doesn't really kick into gear until very late in the film when the Army
captures him... at that point we have both a goal and an antagonist. The Hulk's goal - to
escape the military base. The antagonist - Colonel Ross ad the Army. The Army's goal
- to capture the Hulk and run some experiments on him to see if he can be used as a
weapon. Of course, the Hulk is right in the cross-hairs of that goal. Their goals clash -
they are in direct conflict with each other... and for a few scenes we have a pretty
exciting movie.
Remember that *every* character in your script has a goal and will be actively trying to
achieve it. Harrison Ford tells a great story about playing a bellboy in DEAD HEAT ON
A MERRY GO ROUND - after trying several different readings of his line, the star of the
movie, James Coburn, pulled him aside and told him, "You're trying to get a good tip".
Ford did his lines again - using that goal - and this time the line worked. His character's
goal in the scene was to get a tip.
GOALS OR MOTIVATIONS?
Don't confuse motives and goals.
THE GOAL is what the character wants.
THE MOTIVATIONS are why they want it.
You can have a dozen motivations, but if you have more than one goal you are in
trouble. The villain's goal usually drives the story -= so if a villain has more than one
goal you end up with more than one story... fighting for the audience's attention. The
same is true of the protagonist - if he has two goals you are splitting the script into TWO
stories - and that's liable to be confusing.
It we look at a film like UNFORGIVEN, the original title of the script gives us a major
clue to the protagonist's goal... and the villains goal. The script was originally called
THE CUT WHORE MURDERS.
Clint's goal is to get revenge for the prostitute with the cut face - to kill the men
responsible. There were two cowboys who actually did the cutting, but they did it under
the protection of Gene Hackman's sheriff. For Clint to get revenge, he has to deal with
Hackman, too. That's all one goal, all one central conflict, all one story. Clint's goal is
revenge.
WHY he does it is a whole other issue. For the $500? To get off that damned farm?
Because killing is in his blood? Probably all three of those and more...
But I think the way the movie ends the main reason why he takes the job is because
he's violent by nature... and needs to kill some people. The character arc in the film
takes him from a pig farmer to a guy who just opens fire in a bar killing anybody who
gets in his way. He learns that valuable lesson - sometimes you just have to kill people.
Of course, that's motive - not goal.
One goal - kill the guys responsible for cutting up the whore.
Maybe many motivations... but those are things that we can't see.
Bruce Banner's nightmares are *not* a goal - they are a motivation. A goal must be
something tangible - something we can see or that we can see accomplished. A goal is
a character's purpose in the story, so if they have no goal - they have no purpose in the
story and you should cut them. Of course, that would be tough to do with Bruce
Banner/The Hulk - he's the protagonist!
Maybe Universal should have hired someone to ask these basic story questions:
1) Who is the protagonist?
2) What is their goal?
3) What or who prevents them from achieving their goal? (Antagonist)
4) What is the antagonist's goal?
5) Why is the protagonist the one person who most gets in the way of the antagonist
achieving their goal?
Pretty basic stuff... but stuff that nobody thought of when they made THE HULK. The
reason why THE HULK continued dropping every week? The reason why nobody went
to see the film for a second time or recommended it to their friends? None of the
characters have a goal... and stories are goal oriented. The Ed Norton sequel got some of that right, and some of it wrong.
If there *is* a next film, maybe they'll get it all right?
What's *your* protagonist's goal?
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