Why This is Good

If you’ve worked with me on a consultation or read my blogs, you’ll notice that I frequently use the term hero to describe the protagonist, or main character of a script. Many of the people I learned from and have studied choose hero as their preferred term-Michael Hauge, Eric Edson, Chris Vogler, still others choose to say protagonist. It’s important to note that those of us who say hero in reference to the protagonist have chosen this term not because the hero always acts heroically, but because the word represents the hero of any given story-whether that hero is really a heroine, a tragic hero, or never really is heroic or admirable at all.

There is a difference between acting heroically when the need arises and being the hero of a screenplay. The hero of the script is the person who moves the story forward and causes the events in the story to take place as a result of their attempt to achieve a goal. The hero, in this sense, is not necessarily the most heroic or admirable character in the story. The hero may have no special powers or traits that make him or her special. The hero may be a jerk that only has a few minor redeeming qualities. The hero may turn the other way and act cowardly when an opportunity to save someone comes along. The hero of your script is not necessarily a superhero or someone who would save a kitten from a burning building. They are simply, the main character who moves the story forward and causes the action of the story to occur. The hero of your screenplay cannot be reactionary or passive, and cannot wait for others to prompt him or her to action at every turn.

Conversely, the antagonist may also be called the nemesis or villain, when in reality they may be a pretty nice guy. As long as they are opposing the hero, they are playing the role of the villain in the story. Just as Wicked twisted the story of The Wizard of Oz to make the traditional villain the hero, your story may be about a bad guy working to achieve a goal against the forces of the good guys. Your hero in screenplay terms might not be a hero at all, while his or her nemesis might be a true hero outside of the definitions of screenwriting and the context of your story.

As long as you’ve made your hero likable and sympathetic enough that the audience is rooting for their success, the goal they are pursuing does not have to be an honorable one. The so-called hero of many gangster, crime, or teen comedies is often someone we would not admire or wish to win in real life, and not someone we would normally call a hero in the same way that we would call a soldier, police officer, or teacher a hero.

The character leading the action of the story is the hero, no matter how nefarious that action may be.  The Godfather movies get the audience to root for people who we would not want to see succeed in real life. We get behind ruthless killers who perpetrate crime and corruption. In Gone in 60 Seconds we like the “heroes” who are car thieves and want them to win, even though they are committing a crime that in real life we would not admire. In Ocean’s Eleven we want the group of con artist swindlers to rob the casino, despite the fact that it is morally and ethically wrong. Like the kids at school, we love Ferris Bueller and want him to get away with ditching school and fooling all the adults around him, but Ferris is no hero, and if he were your son or brother in real life, you’d be outraged at his disrespect for authority and concerned about his attitude and morals.

In A Fish Called Wanda, we root for the team of thieves to succeed in their robbery even killing dogs is okay because we’re so on their side and want them to win, but imagine hearing this story on the news-a band of criminals who steal diamonds, betray each other, try to seduce a lawyer to help win their case, and attempt to murder a key witness, and in the process kill her innocent dogs instead-we would be outraged and horrified at the depravity, and no one would call them heroes . A charismatic, charming hero doesn’t have to be heroic or noble at all, as long as we like them and want them to win.

It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good. And if you’re like me, you’re trying to put your finger on exactly why it wasn’t good. Bruce Willis is always a treat in any movie, the premise was intriguing and offered limitless possibilities for satire and social commentary. It had the potential to satisfy our seemingly insatiable appetite for doomsday future dramas in which the machines we built to help us end up being our downfall (I don’t know about you but movies and TV have convinced me that the future ultimately leads to computers killing or enslaving us all-Terminator, The Matrix, Battlestar Gallactica, I Robot, Blade Runner). And it wasn’t a bad movie, it just wasn’t very good.

What was good:

The makeup. There was something creepy about how perfectly smooth the surrogate skin was. All of the surrogates look like they’ve got Oprah’s best makeup and lighting crew following them wherever they go. Plus all of the actors-including the myriad of gorgeous extras-walked, talked and looked just a little off, their eyes seemed a little dead, their faces apathetic, unmoving, their motions as smooth and mechanical as their skin. It was also fun to see juxtaposition of the perfect surrogate and the “operators” all of whom were dull, flabby, pale, blotchy-skinned greasy-haired older shadows of their idealized surrogate selves. I don’t know how the makeup artists were able to make the actors look more made up and perfect than they normally do in regular movies, but they did a great job.

The special effects. There were some great moments of faces being torn off to reveal the robots beneath. The movie was glossy, fun, and the effects were flawless. Coordinating as many extras as they did to all simultaneously fall down dead on the street must have been difficult, and I’m also impressed that the casting directors were able to round up so many ridiculously good looking people to work as extras to populate the surrogate world of physical perfection. Why aren’t all of them already actors and/or models?

Bruce Willis. You gotta hand it to the guy, he is good at playing the wounded, good guy out for truth and justice. He has so much charisma that you can’t help but watch him in any scene, and he was the only one who was more attractive than his surrogate counterpart.

What wasn’t good:

The death of the son. While I’m a firm believer in a character having a wound or past trauma, in this case, it felt very contrived and phony, as if the writer imposed this past upon the story. It didn’t fit his character  but seemed like it was tacked on, so that he could share common ground with his nemesis, whose son is also killed. The fact that his son died seemed to have little to do with the story, the theme, or the way in which Bruce ultimately overcame the bad guy in the end. In order for a wound to work to build a character arc and allow the theme to be fully realized, it needs to be something intrinsic to what the character needs to do in order to save the day in the end. Clarice had to overcome her self-doubt and fear that she wouldn’t be able to save the senator’s daughter, just like she wasn’t able to save the lambs. Shrek had to learn to be open to love and let people into his heart after being rejected so many times in his past. But having a dead son had nothing to do with Bruce Willis saving the world.

The nemesis. James Cromwell plays Canter,  the inventor of the surrogate technology. His original intentions to help the paralyzed has gone horribly, superficially wrong, and now he feels the only solution is to kill everyone. His dastardly plans are not based in any logic, and wouldn’t benefit him at all, or provide him with the satisfaction of revenge. Since the simple solution Bruce offers in the end is much more logical, practical, and less evil, it begs the question as to why Canter didn’t do the same thing.

The car chases. Too many, too cheesy and too overdone. Car chases have their place in action and caper movies, but there are so many more exciting, interesting things the writers could have done with this weird future world-like the chase through the freight-car jungle of the Dread Reservation, it’s disappointing that they fell back on such an overused convention.

The premise. The idea is fascinating, and makes you think about our current society and how close we’re getting to this type of reality. With the abundance of plastic surgery, the obsession with youth and beauty, and the increasingly isolated, computer based lives we are leading, the idea that someday no one would leave their house doesn’t sound too far off. But they didn’t use this premise to explore these parallels, nor did it even seem that bad. Crime and disease have gone down 99% in the surrogate-based future, everyone is happy, safe and perfect. What difference does it make if you aren’t real if everyone around you isn’t either? Other than the feeling that it just isn’t right, the story does not explore the dark side of what this lifestyle does to a person, or what it means to be human and live an authentic life. It’s such a great premise, it could have been done very well, but it just fell short of making you think about and dread the possibilities it explored.