No he didn’t, he had no idea John was even there that night. Hans had a plot, set it into motion, and John unexpectedly began to oppose him, becoming the antagonist to his story… when looked at in a particular way.
No, John was on suspension when Hans called the police and specifically made the demand for John to participate. And if not for this, John would be as he says, still at home watching Captain Kangaroo.
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That’s why I brought up the distinction. I don’t know that I can look at that way because it isn’t their dynamic.
I guess it’s sort of like asking who the sidekick is between Han and Luke. The only answer is Neither of them.
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i think you’ve slightly muddled this up and taken a technique as fact.
it was the screenwriter, steven de souza, who said that, not mctiernan. he was talking about a specific brand of genre movie - in this case ‘action’ - and offered it as advice for getting past writer’s block.
Do you have any advice for screenwriter’s block?
If you’re writing the kind of pictures I do, and you find that you’re stuck, it may be because you’re spending too much time in the head of your hero. If you’re doing that, it’s because you may have the mistaken impression that the hero of your story is the protagonist. If you’re doing genre, the protagonist is the villain. Who’s the protagonist of Die Hard? It’s Hans Gruber who plans the robbery. If he had not planned the robbery and put it together, Bruce Willis would have just gone to the party and reconciled or not with his wife. You should sometimes think about looking at your movie through the point of view of the villain who is really driving the narrative.”
it’s certainly great advice and highlights that antagonists are most often the catalysts of plot, rather than protagonists.
it does not, however, make sauron the protagonist of lotr, no matter how you shake it.
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I remember seeing somewhere that Thanos was the Protagonist of Endgame. It was “his” movie more than any of the Avengers.
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Think of Rally Racing… 47 is the driver, but Diana gives the calls or instructions.
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yeah, i read that about iw too.
makes sense. we follow thanos’ character arc/emotional journey, whereas we don’t with the avengers; we had those in the gazillion set-up movies and, of course, endgame.
we don’t really get anything approaching those kinds of arcs/journeys with gruber and sauron; they don’t learn anything about themselves across the film or book’s narrative, nor do they really change at the end.
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I guess that leads to another question then.
Is Character Development required for a good story?
- Absolutely! Story don’t go if the character won’t grow!
- No, the story is the story even if the character is a block of stone.
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I think it depends on what game it is, for example a game that has a character that is constantly on the screen and in loads of cutscenes and such needs to have some sorta character development in the story. Even 47 has a lot in Mendoza and Carpathian mountains and throughout the seconds entey in the trilogy.
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i guess it depends on the format/medium.
i can’t think of a film that doesn’t have character development and is still a good read/watch. i can think of a few where nothing much happens that are cracking though (jim jarmusch is very good at this).
on that same token, i can think of plenty of great short stories or sketches which are entirely plot driven with little or no discernible change in the protagonist’s development.
i was always taught that good, long form stories are the ones where the characters and their development drive the plot, as opposed to the other way around, and that advice has (so far) never been wrong.
can anyone think of any films that are considered great by the majority of people that don’t have any character development…?
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It depends on the category of the story.
Most of them, yes, they are character centric.
But if we take something like detective stories, especially short stories, then it’s more of an option (but it can elevate them). they’re event / resolution centric.
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Do any of the Bond movies show any character development of the main character at all? What about something like Mission Impossible? Does Ethan Hunt develop in any meaningful way? What about Raiders of the Lost Ark? Does Indiana Jones develop much in that?
I’d say Memento is a great example of a movie that, by definition, Cannot have any character development since the movie basically runs backwards.
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Character development is a loosely utilised story-driven device used in many fictional or non-fictional forms of literature. It can sway in many directions; a character may feel sadness, happiness, anger, contempt, dorcelessness, etc. I won’t say character development is required for a story, but it is one of many literature devices that can enhance one.
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True, but I do see a few critiques of movies and shows complaining about lack of character development (the Rings Of Power gets this criticism a lot) as if lack of character development, by itself, makes the thing bad.
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good shout!
off the top of my head, both the daniel craig one’s i’ve seen (casino royale and skyfall) have him go through emotional journeys.
on her majesty’s secret service certainly does; that’s one of the few where the character development goes beyond one movie before being reset.
i’d have to watch the others again, but those are ones off the top of my noggin.
i’ve only seen 1 and 2, and he definitely goes through development in the first. i’d have to watch the second again.
i’d say so, yeah.
another great shout.
it runs both ways in parallel (black and white bits are going forward in time). i’d say he does develop since he gives himself a way to ‘cope’ with his condition.
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He becomes japanese in one
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that’s fucking gold, jerry!
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weirdly, he looks like my older brother.
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