THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER 102, PT. 2: STARTING FROM STAKES

 

As I was rewatching 102 this weekend trying to sort through some of my reactions to the Sam/Bucky scenes, I noticed the main scene between them and NotMyCap John Walker has a similar interplay of comedy and conflict. And yet it doesn't seem to suffer any of that Just bros joshing, um why are we here exactly? of those scenes.

So I thought I'd dig into it and try to understand it better. 

The scene takes place on a road after Sam and Bucky's first battle with the Turkey Hand Mask Face League™. It has three main sections: Bucky and Sam walking when Walker and Battlestar show up; the four of them in Walker's jeep; Sam and Walker talking briefly after Bucky gets out. 

It also has a very clear thrust: Walker is trying to get Bucky and Sam on board with him. Writer Michael Kastelein does a great job of making that goal visual. The scene begins with Walker driving up, opening the jeep door for them to hop in. They refuse, and he follows. 

You could have the scene on mute and you'd still completely understand the goal of the scene.  

On the road, Walker talks like they're all on the same page, even calling back the Sam joke about the Big Three, complete with Bucky's refusal to accept wizards as a thing. 

But here mentioning the Big Three is at the service of Walker's goal:

Walker: ...So we gotta work together.

Bucky: Just because you carry that shield doesn't mean you're Captain America.

Walker: Look, I've done the work, okay? 

I love this line. It's such a douchey 2021 way of thinking about being Captain America. It tells you so much about how Walker thinks.

Bucky: You ever jump on top of a grenade?

Walker: Yeah, actually I have, four times. It's a thing I do with my helmet, it's a reinforced helmet, it's a long story.... But look, it's 20 miles to the airport, you guys need a ride. 

Finally, they get in. 

Mostly this interchange is serious and direct: Do this. No. But it ends on a funny note, as Walker turns Bucky's doubt about his credentials into a nerdy moment of explaining his special method of jumping on grenades.

Getting in the car, we start with serious conversation about the bad guys, the four of them trying to figure things out. We get a little business around Redwing, which is funny because it's already been established Sam is so overprotective of his device, and also because Bucky gives great stare.

Then we go back to Serious Talk* about the efforts to restabilize the world post-Blip and how Walker and his partner fit into that. 

*I'm always fascinated by how writers get exposition across without killing a story's momentum. This scene has plenty of information-to-share--the world Post-Blip; NotCap's role; his past experience; the hack; Lemar's identity and role. But it doesn't drag the scene down, I think in no small part because it's all being delivered in the context of the bigger interpersonal conflict between Walker and Sam and Bucky.  

I wonder if having the characters driving doesn't help, too. Even as we're having information downloaded to us, the scene tells us things are moving.

And for the second time Walker makes his pitch.

Walker: If you guys joined up with us...

Bucky: No. 

Battlestar: Man, I got mad respect for both y'all, but you were kind of getting your asses kicked til we showed up. 

Bucky: Who are you? 

Battlestar: Lemar Hoskins. 

Sam: Look, I see a guy hanging out of a helicopter in tactical gear, I need a lot more than "Lemar Hoskins". 

Battlestar: I'm Battlestar, John's partner. 

Bucky: "Battlestar"? STOP THE CAR.

Bucky exits.

This is really the climax of the scene, and again it leads from clear desires. Walker wants them to join up. Bucky wants nothing to do with him.

But the moment is also scripted like a joke. We start with the set-up, aka  the problem: Who is this guy?  His answer creates a complication: "Lemar Hoskins" tells us nothing. Hoskins' subsequent attempt to explain himself opens the door to Bucky's great punchline: Basically, #!%! this guy. 

Back on the road, Walker tries to pitch Sam one more time. And actually the moment works very similarly to the last one. We start from Walker making a sales pitch, this time a much more authentic and personal one:

Walker: I get the attitude. I'm not trying to be Steve, I'm not trying to replace Steve. I'm just trying to be the best Captain America I can be. That's it.  

Then we get the complication:

Walker: It'd be a lot easier if I had Cap's wingman at my side. 

And the "punchline": 

Sam:It's always that last line....

Sam exits. 

++

So what've we got: Clear, opposing desires that drive the scene -- Walker's to get Sam and Bucky onboard, and Bucky's to reject him--which have pretty high stakes. Walker needs Sam for legitimacy. Meanwhile, Bucky absolutely cannot accept this guy who has replaced Steve without earning it. 

Compare that to the 2 Bucky/Sam scenes from yesterday: What are the characters' desires there, other than to push each other over on the playground? 

In the Walker scene, Comedy get sprinkled throughout, but always emerges from the characters' goals. There's no joke here that feels like an aside or off topic, and the scene moves through those moments briskly.

At the same time, The scene keeps leaning into the classic joke structure of set up/complication/pay off. I don't want to overstate the significance of that choice, but I do wonder if it doesn't yield a kind of funny bone osmosis, the joke structure giving the scene a humorous energy. 

Again, compare that with either of the Bucky/Sam scenes. The second, at the shrink, has plenty of set up--You guys need to make up, to which they say No. And it has some pay off--I'm afraid I can't change/Let's go our separate ways when this is over.  

But there's not much in between either to complicate or justify those pay offs. 

The first scene doesn't even provide much of a set up. Neither character is given a motive that drives the scene in any kind of personal stakes-y way. 

Which leads us back to that improv idea: Try to be funny and you won't be. Try to be true to what you want and eventually you'll be hilarious.

THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER, Ep. 102: FORCED FRIENDSHIP

In the days before TFATWS dropped Disney released  a clip from the second episode in which Bucky and Sam bicker about wizards and Redwing. It's a classic MCU kind of moment, meta and quippy and demonstrative of the characters' playful, bickering friendship.  

Other parts of 102 showcase the same dynamic. We get staring contests, marriage counseling. And the underlying premise seems to be that these two have problems they need to work out. 

Except in fact the episode doesn't really lay out what those problems are. Their first scene together, the Redwing/wizards bit, lays out what we might call the Plot Journey of the series, the Euro Mystery Super Soldier Thanksgiving Turkey Hand Mask Group.

But the more personal level of their series journey and relationship, which we'd also expect to be front and center here, is barely mentioned. Bucky shows up asking about why Sam gave up the shield. But his vibe is Your fifth grade best friend telling you you shouldn't have stolen that candy bar from CVS, not Guy who just watched his friend betray the last wish of the most important man in his life. (#BuckyCapIsEndgame)

And even if he had come on stronger, the scene's real estate is tilted entirely toward the Turkey Mask story. The comedy is in fact one long riff on that.

The same happens in the Bucky/Sam shrink scene. The shrink says she's brought these together to work out their differences. Hijinks ensue. But until the very end of the scene, there's nothing underpinning those gags, no sense of the deeper pain or conflict that the comedy is emerging from or resisting. The only moment of real conflict we've seen between these two characters at this point is Sam coming out of Isaiah's house furious that no one told him there had been a black super soldier. It's a doozy of a moment, precisely because it speaks so specifically to Sam's own story and struggles. 

Sam giving up the shield could be equally personal for Bucky. Not only is it a betrayal of Steve, it's a betrayal of everything Bucky's been through. There's a moment in the shrink scene where Sam says his decision has nothing to do with Bucky. It's an outrageous claim. Bucky was fighting alongside Steve and a version of that shield long before Sam was born. He gave his life to the belief in what that shield stood for, and endured 70 years of hell as a result. Of course Sam's choice has something to do with him.

But instead until the very end, when Bucky finally shares his own self-doubt as a result of Sam's choice--a great moment, the scene plays as just two kids goofing around in front of their annoyed teacher. And it's fun to watch to some extent, but it also feels disconnected from anything real. 

There's that old saw, If you're having trouble at the end of your movie, look to Act One. TFATWS doesn't give us real stakes and conflict in the Bucky/Sam relationship at the start, just laughs. And so then at the end when we need them, they're not there.

For me the other takeaway is the relationship between comedy and conflict. One of the key principles of improv is don't chase the laugh. It won't work, and it'll make the scene feel artificial. 

Instead, be true to the scene and the relationship, and the comedy will not only, it'll strengthen and clarify the relationship you're building. 

In the main Sam/Bucky scenes in 102, we get a lot of jokes. But disconnected from the real stakes and issues of their lives, the scenes start to feel well, scripted. Honestly, it makes sense that the wizard scene would be used in trailers. It feels like that's what it was written for.

Tomorrow for contrast I'm going to look at the Bucky & Sam/John Walker scenes in 102. The same interrelationship between comedy and character or conflict is at work, but the results are much stronger.

THE FALCON AND THE SNOWM, er WINTER SOLDIER, "PILOT": SHRINK SCENES

Do you love a good shrink scene? I do, I really do. 

It can be a great way to reveal character, especially in the case of someone like Bucky Barnes, who a) doesn't want to talk about anything, so that the reveals the scene is going to offer will feel earned, rather than like exposition; and b) we actually don't know that well. 

Bucky has been in a bunch of Marvel movies, but even so he hasn't had too many personal moments. What exactly is his deal right now?  We don't know, and as F&WS starts we don't have that many ways into finding out, either. With Steve gone there's only a couple characters that really know Bucky.

And so we get a shrink scene, which begins with the shrink asking Bucky about his most recent nightmare. And while he'll keep deflecting about that throughout the scene, the heart of her question really is exactly what we want need to know: My dude, what is going on inside of you? 

At the very end, having dodged and woven and kidded around, he finally gives us that. And it's got great poignant bite to it: Other than a breather in Wakanda he's been doing nothing but fighting for 90 years.

The other thing about the scene is how smartly it gives us a whole structure and set of references by which to understand Bucky going forward. First of all, we find out he's got this project of reengaging with people he helped or hurt as Winter Soldier, trying to make amends. It's a nice engine for story itself, especially given the fact that the way Bucky is fixing his mistakes is the opposite of what he's agreed to. 

Which leads to the other fun reference point set up here, The Three Rules he and his shrink have come up with: Nothing illegal. No one harmed. And a clear announcement to those involved that this is him trying to make amends. 

Ground rules are always great. They have an in-built Chekov's gun quality: we know they're going to come back somehow, and so they create anticipation in us. It becomes a game for us to wait and watch. 

 Amy Aquino is so good as the tough but funny Dr. Raynor.

So a shrink scene: It gives us a way into the character. It builds out a bunch of reference points we in the audience having heard now look for. 

And in this case it also it sets up Bucky's real quest on the show. The scene doesn't end with Bucky finally revealing something of what he's feeling, but goes on to have the shrink call Bucky to a bigger question: What do you want?

That's his mission in the series, to figure out what to do with this new life he's been given. 

As I'm writing this I've only watched the first two eps, so I don't know if this will bear out, but it's possible that this particular shrink scene is also a great example of a shell game. 

The scene is played with the classic Marvel combination of laughs and heart. He's the handsome rebel whose refusal to follow the rules is a source of delight. 

But if we step back, the data we've been given is actually that Bucky is not following the program they've set up, and not coming clean about it either. These are pretty big warning signs about his mental health. We could very easily get to episode 5 or 6 and have Bucky completely meltdown. And yet if that happens it'll likely be a great surprise.  

Comedy, it turns out, is like a redwood. It can hide so much in its shadow.  

 

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 7, "JUSTICE LEAGUE": HOW TO SELL A DYSTOPIA

This week I'm looking at some of the techniques Chris Terrio, Will Beall and Zack Snyder use in the new "Snyder Cut" of JUSTICE LEAGUE.   

At the end of JUSTICE LEAGUE, the film suddenly leaps to some point in the future in which Darkseid has in fact finally arrived on Earth and basically destroyed it, with the help of his very own Robin, Kal El. This timeline gets alluded to a number of times in both JUSTICE LEAGUE and BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN. Bruce keeps having these crazy "Knightmares" about it and at the end it seems to have finally arrived. 

And what I find striking is that after a four hour movie and also a trilogy that struggles a considerable portion of the time to tell a story that is not overwhelmed by its own despair, here at the end when confronted with a universe that seemed borne of an even deeper despair realized -- Lois is dead; Harley is dead; who knows what happened to Arthur or Diana; oh and Clark is a mindless killing machine -- I found myself all in. 

To me, that Snyder could generate that reaction is an amazing magic trick.  And I want to know how he did it. 

++

Let's breakdown that scene. It has three main parts: 

1. We introduce most of our team and our problem: Get to shelter before Superman comes to kill us. 

In a way this opening is a Jump Right to the Good Stuff version of what makes every super hero movie initially exciting--revealing the team. And in this case we add to the sweetness of that with all kinds of fun little reveals.  Alongside Batman and Cyborg we have not Diana or Arthur but villain Mohawk-Stroke and a very pissed off Mera, who alludes to bad things having happened to Arthur. Also, we've got Barry, but one with seemingly a lot less joy and a lot more years on the meter.  

The make up of the team begs all kinds of new questions and promises all-new relationships to watch develop. Mera especially immediately presents as a bad ass with fresh energy.  I want more.

2. Question: Who has Bruce Ever Loved? 

This line from Mera could have been just a thrown elbow on the way to trying to find shelter in their Terrible No Good Bad Day Universe. But instead it brings on the heart of the scene, which is Batman dealing with his history and the last member of the team, the Joker. 

The Joker reveal is of course a huge charge for the scene and the promise of this future. In large part the delight of it is just watching Bruce forced to interact with him. Again, who doesn't want more of that? 

Their interaction also sets up what is effectively the C-conflict of the Knightmare movie: How long will Bruce keep the truce that the Joker offers? The writers even give us the totem of the playing card and the ritual of tearing it up to embody the ticking clock on this peace.

But the thing I most love about that moment is the way that it draws into the story the key element of Bruce's story that has yet to be explored: the brutal death of Robin. BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN introduced the idea, but then neither of film dug into it. And yet it's this enormous part of his back story and also one would think his ongoing decision making.

Bringing it up here both serves as a promise that finally we're going to dig into this cool and dark part of Bruce's life, and as a kind of fulfillment on the promise of its mention in BvS. "We've haven't forgottten," the writers are telling us. "We've been waiting. And now finally we get to go there." 

3. "He's here." (And not in a good way.)

I said Batman vs. Joker is the C-Conflict of the Knightmareverse. The A-Conflict, aka the central quest of this timeline, is to pull an ENDGAME. We see references to it woven throughout the scene. To paraphrase a very famous 2000s-era TV tagline, "Save the journalist, save the world."

It's immediately interesting because How exactly do you do that? Fun questions, high degree of difficulty, Survey Says Count Us In. The scene doesn't need to do anything mroe than reference that impossible goal to create that hook. (And the fact that saving the universe is embodied in saving Lois also resonates deeply. Amy Adams's Lois is everything.)

Meanwhile, the scene began with the ticking clock of Bad Clark, who I'd call the B-Conflict of that universe. Surviving Clark looks to be the constant, ongoing threat and obstacle of their quest and their life in this terrible future. 

And so having set him up as the danger at the beginning, we end on him showing up. It's both a book end telling us the scene is over, and yet also constitutes a beginning. We literally leave the scene as it's effectively starting. Which is another great way to tease interest. 

++ 

So, Ways to Make Me Desperately Want your Sequel Dystopia: Give me a team roster. Have some twists in it. Reference an impossible quest. Bring to the surface a relationship and story that we've been waiting to see. And end on a beginning (of a seemingly impossible fight).  

One other thought: Have the world we're entering into look totally different than anything we've seen before. Where much of the Snyderverse is dark, rainy and/or claustrophobic the Knightmareverse has a desert wideopen-ness to it that feels entirely fresh. Even if it is a wasteland, the fact that it's so open and the palette is so different draw me in.  

Wow, that's a lot of writing on the Snyderverse!

Next week I'm going to dig into the start of FALCON AND THE SNOWMAN WINTER SOLDIER and some other TV stuff. Then the week after we'll jump into some Oscar nominees.

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 6, "JUSTICE LEAGUE": MARTHA MANHUNTER AND SCENEWORK AS ROAD TRIP

This week I'm looking at some of the techniques Chris Terrio, Will Beall and Zack Snyder use in the new "Snyder Cut" of JUSTICE LEAGUE.  

Today a friend sent me a link to PITCH MEETING, the super fun Screen Rant YouTube series where Ryan George plays both the writer and exec pitching movies and TV shows. 

As funny as it is, it's also really insightful about the problems with different scripts. George did an episode Sunday about the Snyder Cut, and it highlights some key issues with the film. For instance, each of the new characters either gets a Save the Cat vehicle-based accident or is in a vehicle-based accident themselves. 

 Also, Diana's Save the Cat with the Semi-Nihilists--We actually want to blow things up, but not yet--makes no sense whatsoever either as an effective form of villainy or in its resolution (Diana literally blows out the wall of the building she was supposedly trying to save). 

 

There's another moment George highlights that I think is actually really interesting to consider. It's the scene between Lois and Martha Kent. Martha has lost her farm and moved to Metropolis. And she comes to Lois to try and help her to return to the world.

It's a lovely, quiet moment, which is part of what makes it so effective. In a film filled with costumes and punching, having two normal people just sit and have a heartfelt conversation about real things rises to the top. 

But the scene ends with the reveal that Martha isn't Martha, but Martian Manhunter, a character who we've known in previous films as General Swanwick, U.S. Secretary of Defense. The scene is the first time we've met the real Martian Manhunter, which all in all is a really strange choice. The point that George rightly makes is that inserting MM here undermines the emotion and honesty of the prior scene.

But for me, what's equally strange is that while I agree that on the page this is a terrible idea, none of that translated to my actual viewing experience. The MM reveal had my eyes rolling for sure, but it didn't take away from the prior scene.

How is that contradiction possible? 

In part, I wonder if it's as simple as that fact that after all superheroing we are hungry for a moment that is quiet and personal. 

Also we're hungry for a moment with Lois, who after being initially so central to the Snyderverse, in some ways the emotional grounding point, has here been so absent. 

And even if everything Martha says is in reality manipulative garbage concocted by MM--and rewatching it, there is a truly messed up quality to some of what he has to say--the moment that their conversation allows Lois, the space she gets to simply unwind in her grief, is absolutely real and authentic.

But maybe it's also true that because we have no sense this is a con job until it's over, there's absolutely no wink wink about it, that end reveal can't quite touch the effect of the scene. It doesn't matter, in a way; we've already felt all the feelings, ridden the ride and gotten the prize.

I wonder if there's not something to learn in that. If you take us on a journey and it's emotionally vulnerable and real, maybe you can ruin the landing without necessarily destroying what you've already given. It doesn't matter if Vegas sucks, in a way, if the road trip to get there through the desert in the middle of the night was meaningful.

 Having said that, this moment is absolutely crazypants.

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 5, "JUSTICE LEAGUE": SOMETIMES SLOW IS BETTER

This week I'm looking at some of the techniques Chris Terrio, Will Beall and Zack Snyder use in the new "Snyder Cut" of JUSTICE LEAGUE.   

 

Look, I love a long super hero movie as much as the next nerd, assuming that it's fun -- which is a big assumption when it comes to the Snyderverse. Bleak, they do in spades. Fun, not so much. 

Still, four hours is a lot of anything, except maybe a medley of songs by Stephen Sondheim. He is everything. Happy belated birthday, Stephen! 

In any normal circumstance, a studio would insist on a cut shorter than four hours. It's just too much. But given the Snyder superfans, the Ray Fisher revelations and Whedon backlash and also just the pandemic, the Snyder Cut got carte blanche. 

Which has meant we get to see the good and the bad of what happens when you do a four hour super hero movie. Like, for instance, you get more exposition. There are definitely a fair number of scenes of people in costumes standing around explaining things at each other. It's the main reason I don't recommend watching the film straight through, in fact; those moments really start to wear thin. 

At the same time, the length allows Snyder to take his heroes through much more intricate emotional arcs. Every character in JUSTICE LEAGUE (except Aquaman, for some reason) gets to go on a really full journey over the course of the film, with plenty of time to resist and struggle and not totally learn yet but almost before finally understanding and getting with the program. The length Snyder was allowed to work with meant he didn't need to rush through anything. He could let each journey take as long as it needed and go wherever it wanted.

And in the process he finds all kinds of interesting stuff, particularly in Clark's post-resurrection moments with Lois and his mom, and in Cyborg's relationship with his father.

Again, the movie is entirely unusual in this way. Even if you're Spike Lee or Aaron Sorkin, you probably don't get to turn in a 4 hour script and expect it to be produced. 

But even so, for me the patience that Snyder exhibits and the stories that come from it is a good reminder of the great stuff waiting to be discovered in all our work.

There's a famous story about David Lynch directing TWIN PEAKS. The actors would do a scene, and then when they were done Lynch would tell them to do it again, "But slower". Which threw many of them; especially in TV, directors are always worried about scenes moving efficiently. So they'd resist. But Lynch just kept coming back with the same request. 

And what they often found was that there was so much more waiting for them in the scene. If you've seen the last season of TWIN PEAKS, you can see lots of examples of this--moments that you can't figure out why they're there, or why they're going so long, but then the longer they go suddenly the more interesting and emotional they become. You still might not now what the hell is going on, but now you feel it in the key of awe instead of frustration. 

Writing scripts, we want everything to be breezy and read fast. But what would happen if sometimes in the writing we tried instead to write more, to go slow?  

Maybe we'll discover something amazing.

 

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 4, "JUSTICE LEAGUE": HOW TO MAKE A HENCHMAN SING

This week I'm looking at some of the techniques Chris Terrio, Will Beall and Zack Snyder use in the new "Snyder Cut" of JUSTICE LEAGUE. 

The Bad Guy who is not The Bad Guy is not normally that interesting of a character to watch. They can be compelling, sure, but usually their defining characteristic is just that they are really tough to defeat. The Villain gets all the cool character development and zazzle; the Not-The-Bad-Guy usually gets just a little flair--he has an accent, or he wears a lot of buttons. That's it. He's really not a person as much as the Act Two Obstacle. 

Now JUSTICE LEAGUE is unusual in that it was not designed to be The Villain's main event. This really is Steppenwolf's film. So more character development was going to be necessary. 

Still, his status as Henchman was almost inevitably going to undermine some of the seriousness with which we would take him. Not that we don't think he couldn't stop our heroes, but he's just not The Guy, you know? He might be the baddest of bad asses at deciding who gets a table, but in the end who cares, it's not his restaurant. 

But look at what the writers do with that: rather than trying to avoid the problem, they make it part of Steppenwolf's character. He's constantly having to report back on his progress to the Haunted Mansion's Head Ghoul, and more than that he's constantly getting tonguelashed by him. Terrio, Snyder and Beall give the character this whole backstory of having tried and failed to betray Darkseid. He's only in this job of hunting and destroying planets as punishment for what he did, and he doesn't like it. 

All of that backstory is key. First, it aligns Steppenwolf with us. We all want to get past this Ragnarok cosplay party and finally meet Big Drunk Odin. 

Quiet on set. Would someone please get Mr. Darkseid a Mead?

But it also makes him harder to pin down. The typical henchman has no desires but to fulfill the boss' request. You don't watch DIE HARD wondering if Alexander Godunov is going to betray Hans Gruber. That's not how these things go.

But in telling us that Steppenwolf wants out and has tried to betray Darkseid once already, the writers open the door to the possibility that he might do so again. 

And just like that, it's not so clear how this story is going to play out. Is it actually going to be the Super Friends vs. Steppenwolf the whole way through? Or is this one long Meet Cute which ends with everyone teaming up to take down Blue and Balding? 

I kept waiting for Darkseid to finally show up in some way and take the team on. But he never makes it across, and yet it works just fine because the writers turned the problem of Steppenwolf into opportunity.

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 3, "JUSTICE LEAGUE": THE SCREAM

This week I'm looking at some of the techniques Chris Terrio, Will Beall and Zack Snyder use in the new "Snyder Cut" of JUSTICE LEAGUE.

After rewatching BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, I have to say I went into JUSTICE LEAGUE once again skeptical. BvS is just such a bloated story, built mostly around dudes that should know better wanting to throw punches. Even as I appreciate Bruce Wayne's motivation in theory-- Superman done broke Metropolis, yo--there's just nothing endearing in his character. In a sense Diana and Alfred pop as hard as they do precisely because Bruce is such a stone cold pill. 

And in the abstract the way Chris Terrio and Snyder start JUSTICE LEAGUE feels like more of the horrible same: seriously, watching Superman scream as he dies in slow motion is the second most Snyder-y thing a Snyder film could do (the most Snyder-y thing being destroying any and every city).  

But it actually ends up being this brilliant device to both initiate and unite the threads of the story. The sound waves of his death literally awaken the Mother Boxes, opening the main problem of the story. And their progress across the planet ends up allowing the story to touch upon the other heroes that we'll be meeting in this film, heroes whose journeys in a sense truly begin with Superman's death. The vacuum his absence creates draws them out of the shadows where they've been hiding. 

There is no better real estate in a film than the opening. It's the one moment you definitely have the audience's attention. When a film goes the extra mile of trying to capitalize on that attention with an evocative or iconic visual, it's often a big win.

At four hours long, there's a lot in JUSTICE LEAGUE that's probably just going to wash over you. But I'll bet if you asked people what they remember, they're all going to include that opening (also, that crazy ending). And not just that it was a slomo of Superman screaming, but how the waves introduced us to everyone important in this story. 

A great moment.

FREAKS & GEEKS, "PILOT" PT. 3: THE POWER IN BURYING THE PROBLEM

 

It's a Sunday Craft Service! Because who doesn't want to talk screenwriting over brunch!

Normally in a film or TV episode you want to give a clear indication early of each character's problem. It locks the audience in, in that it gives them a sense of what they're in for: Destroying the Death Star before it destroys them; bringing down Fred Hampton so the Feds will release you; tanking the National Women's Conference so as to finally stop the Equal Rights Amendment (episode 108 of MRS. AMERICA, which is such a great mini-series).

And so the pilot of FREAKS AND GEEKS has Sam and his friends being bullied right from the opening. This is what they're going to be dealing with, the pilot tells us. 

But when it comes to Lindsay, things are a lot less clear. First she's standing up to the bully and trying to hang out with the freaks; that continues for a bit, but then she's confronting those who make fun of the slightly disabled Eli and inviting him to Homecoming--and then that goes bad, and she's fighting off her teacher pushing her to return to her geek roots.

There's a realism to her aimlessness, and as audience we stay with her in large part because she's such an endearing character. But what exactly is her story about? Writer Paul Feig doesn't let us know until nearly the end, when her brother basically asks her the very same thing. What is going on with you? 

And out of nowhere we get this incredible story of her being alone with her grandmother when she died, and how frightened she was. Lindsay tries to comfort her by asking if she sees anything, a light or something else hopeful. "No. There's nothing." 

I mean, JESUS Linds. 

And now we get to what's been going on with Lindsay: All the certainty we live with, the sense that things are fine, everything is going to be fine, it's all bullshit. "She was a good person her whole life, and that's what she got." She's trying to figure out how to live with that. 

You can't open a pilot on an insight like that. I mean, probably you could, dear writer, and it would be amazing. But the rest of us, that's a moment that is only going to have power if you build to it as a reveal rather than starting from it.

And in doing so, Feig's script shows that it's possible to withhold a character's problem--or at least the clear specifics of that problem--without undermining that character's journey. In fact, the reveal has this magical time-traveling quality to it, drawing our minds back through everything we've seen and casting it in a whole new life. 

Linda Cardellini is so good in this. She gives nothing away of the horror Lindsay is going through. With the reveal, suddenly we discover that every moment of the pilot she's been putting on this very brave face.

Usually the character's problem creates the road for us. We may not know where it turns, but we know what we're on. 

 

But in the case of Lindsay, the problem is instead the key that unlocks or recasts where we've been.  Which is really satisfying to experience.

 

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PART 2: DIANA AND THE COST OF A BIG WIN

I'm fascinated by Trailers. I don't mean ads for movies. I mean characters that seem to trail behind the main action. The story is here, and they're somewhere else on a whole different mission, or at least not really up to speed.

You see characters like this especially in serialized storytelling. Basically they're the keepers of the future; they're where the story has room to grow. 

So in the Star Wars prequels, we meet Mace Windu in Episode One, but he's not a major character. He's a Trailer, his moment to come in the next film and the one after that. 

If you've seen the recent series HOLLYWOOD, Joe Mantello's studio head Dick Samuels is a Trailer--and one my favorites in recent memory. That series presents as all about these talented young people trying to get in the business. And then all of a sudden in episode three we discover Samuels is gay, and has spent his whole life in the closet and celibate so as to advance in the industry. And his story becomes one of the most heartfelt and powerful of the series. 

I say that Trailers are characters who protect the future of a series. But along the way they can also inject something new and different into the present. Diana in BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN is a case in point. As the title of the film makes pretty clear, this is not her story. She's being set up here for her own film and for JUSTICE LEAGUE, where she's much more central. 

But each moment that she shows up, the film absolutely comes alive. I think that's precisely because she's not trapped in the guys' inevitable Fight-to-the-Death-until-We-Hug-it-Out-Over-Our-Momses. She's on a different mission entirely, one much more personal. And she's got a whole different take on life, one capable of humor and wisdom. Just a moment of that is like water in the desert at times here.

I'm pretty sure she's the only character that smiles in the whole film.

Diana fully steps on the stage in Act Three, and once again that makes for a big boost. It seems so counterintuitive to have a character who suddenly makes their presence felt only at the very end. But in fact after all the strum und drang of the other two, a different set of colors and skills is exactly what the third act needs. 

Trailers are often my very favorite characters in a series. And I suspect I'm not the only one. Because they're like Story Santas--all they do is give gifts. And Diana is a great one.  

(So is Joe Mantello. Definitely worth checking out HOLLYWOOD if you haven't already.)

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The other big lesson for me watching BvS is about the nature of success in a good story. Big wins are earned through big sacrifices. It's a simple as that. You want to defeat Doomsday in a satisfying way, it can't be as simple as More People Punching. You need real loss. 

It's the same lesson you see in RETURN OF THE JEDI, but for the opposite reason. EMPIRE ends with so much having gone wrong--Han Captured,  Luke's Hand Gone and His Dad the Monster that has been Terrorizing the Universe. These are bad things. Overcoming them should require a lot of the characters. 

And on the Luke side of things, a lot is sacrificed. Luke walks away from Ghost Mentors, confronts the Emperor alone -- and only survives because his dad sacrifices his life. 

But on the Rebellion/Death Star side of things, the film kind of pancakes, precisely because no one we care about actually loses anything. Harrison Ford famously asked to die in that movie, and there's good story sense to that idea. It's the big finish, everything riding on this. In order to earn that win, somebody big needs to lose. 

The death of Superman is a big shot in the arm, too. A gap creates its own kind of momentum; things want to rush in to fill it. And so we get the end scene of all the people at the candlelight memorial, and that incredible statement, which might be the most hopeful thing in the entire Snyderverse. 

Meanwhile Diana and Bruce step forward to plan for the future.

I've been rewatching FRINGE, an old favorite show. In episode 421 villain William Bell puts it just right: "In the vacuum created by the loss of what is most precious, opportunity abounds."

I feel like I need a poster of that hanging on the bulletin board above where I write.

RELEASE THE SNYDERVERSE! PT 1: MAN OF STEEL, STORY WEAVER

So just now HBO has...say it with me...Released the Snyder Cut!

(Does anyone else get a major Harry Hamlin/Kraken Vibe anytime that phrase gets used?)

I'll be honest, I have not liked the Snyder take on the DC Universe. I find it violent in a way that doesn't seem to work, in that some of the heroes, especially Superman, don't seem to notice or care about the victims their Fights Through Cities are causing. 

How do you grow up in Smallville and then allow yourself to be a part of having it trashed? There's cornfields in every direction, Super Bro. Use your head smarts.

But in anticipation of today's release I wanted to give the Snyderverse a second chance. So today and tomorrow, I'm going to drop a couple thoughts about cool writerly-ish things I take from MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN vs. SUPERMAN. 

Then over the weekend I'm going to finish up on the FREAKS & GEEKS pilot.  And next week I'll take on JUSTICE LEAGUE.

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You know the thing that hits me hardest rewatching MAN OF STEEL, other than Tornado Dog and the 9/11-esque-but-worse destruction of Metropolis?

It's the way that Snyder fights to weave together things that every other interpretation of Superman's origins have kept apart. You look at the original SUPERMAN: structurally it starts with a prologue that's about 30 minutes, because Krypton is a really full story of its own to tell.  You really can't just start with Kal rocketing away; you want the audience to know his parents, because their sacrifice and love is in a sense the real rocket ship, baking pathos and empathy into our understanding of Superman's character before we've ever met him. 

But that's a lot of story real estate to invest for a group of characters you're never going to see again.

Then you've got Jonathan and Martha to introduce and develop, who like the Kryptonians are really their own discrete thing. And before you know it it's been 45 minutes and we've yet to get to Metropolis or meet Lois Lane, who is the greatest human character in the DC Universe. 

If you have not read the recent Greg Rucka Lois Lane comic, do yourself a favor and pick it up. She really is the greatest character in the DC Universe.

In SUPERMAN the approach to all this is basically a baton-relay. Krypton hands off to the Kents hands off to Metropolis and Lois. And it works just fine. I still think we have yet to find an interpretation of Clark and his story that hits like that one does.

But still, it's all a bit of a shaggy dog. Also, it's been done now. 

So what does Snyder do? We still start on Krypton, and it still takes a while. But then Jor-El keeps coming back into the frame. He's the AI in the ship that Clark discovers, explaining his origins, a la the original SUPERMAN. But then he comes back again as an active character helping Lois escape the ship and bringing the fight to Zod.  He's a part of the film almost the whole way through, in fact. 

Similarly, rather than hand off to Smallville, the film goes right from Krypton to Adult Clark. And that allows Lois to join the action almost immediately. In fact she drives quite a bit of the early action, including hunting down Clark's identity--a crazy bold choice, and yet one that absolutely fits her character. Of course she should discover who he is, and on her schedule not his. She's Lois !%#!%! Lane.

And just like that she and Clark can be a real team the rest of the story, working with his dad to stop Zod. 

So where SUPERMAN has these pretty distinct sections that never fully cohere, MAN OF STEEL works really hard to weave all the elements into one story. It's a creative approach to Superman, but classic screenwriting. You don't want loose ends; you want everything to lock in on a common goal.

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There is one downside to this approach: We really don't get to know Clark. When we meet him he's doing the strong silent savior type. And in those early scenese we get cutaway glimpses of his childhood. But mostly those moments tell the story of his father teaching him to keep his identity a secret (even when it means letting his dad get murdered by a tornado). 

I really need a scene in Justice League where Clark describes this moment, and they're all like Wait, What? 

So we get a clear sense of the conflict in that for Clark, but beyond that we don't learn too much about who he is. In fact the little vignettes that are offered each nod to a much bigger journey that Young Clark has been on that we have not been privy to. In doing so they tend to create distance between him and us, rather than forging a connection. 

The result of all this is when Adult Clark is in scenes where he has to express a desire--as with the priest--or ask questions of his AI Dad, there's a flatness to the scenes, an affectlessness that is strange. If we entered into those moments with a clearer sense of who Clark is or what his life is like beyond Nomad Hero, I think they'd play much stronger. 

I'd like to say it was possible to weave the stories together and still build Clark out more. It certainly seems like it should be possible. But there's always tradeoffs, too.

 

FREAKS AND GEEKS, "PILOT" PT. 2: COOL TEACHER

The thing that turned my head about FREAKS AND GEEKS is a really small moment that happens about halfway through the pilot.

Lindsay's guidance counselor Mr. Rosso is trying to get her to open up about what she's going through. When nothing works, we get this: 

ROSSO: Okay, I see the problem here. Let's just rap as people, okay? No pressure. From now on, I'm not Mr. Rosso, guidance counselor.

LINDSAY: You're not?

ROSSO: No. I'm just Jeff, your friend who cares.

LINDSAY: Jeff.

ROSSO: Exactly. And you're not Miss Weir, high school student. You're Lindsay, a girl who seems like she needs a friend. So, come on, Lins. Talk to your buddy, Jeff. 

I've seen scenes like this a million times, and so have you. It's the set up for pretty much every sketch or teen movie comedic scene about adults trying to relate to their kids.

But that is not how Paul Feig writes it. In fact this moment comes at the end of the scene. Lindsay stares at Rosso, then shuts him down. "Jeff, I never felt better in all my life." Rosso lets it go with just a quip: "Well, then maybe someone should tell your face." 

In part, the scene offers a signal or code key as to the nature of this world I'm entering. Yes, it's 1980, and high school, so I can expect amazing music and a lot of foolishness. But this isn't a High School is Crazy sketch show. It's going for something more grounded and real. 

But I also love it for the way it uses the audience's awareness of the genre to grab us. Adults being dumb is a sweet spot for teen stories. And going for that laugh is normally a means of engagement. We lean in precisely because of how foolish the adults behave, or the obstacles their cluelessness create.

But here instead Feig and Allen grab out attention by not going for that laugh, by setting up but then defying our expectation. Wait, what is this thing that I'm watching?  I want to see more.

Dave Allen's performance as Rosso is another key part of the scene's success. He's definitely a little ridiculous; but he does not give off the John Hughes Adult-as-Buffoon vibe.  And Feig gives the character a nice callback at the end. While trying to comfort Lindsay about being stuck working at the dance, Rosso inadvertently says exactly the thing she's most needed to hear all episode, that life is okay. 

And that's the show--awkward people who often look silly but mean well and help each other even when they don't know it. 

TOMORROW: LINDSAY AND THE QUEST TO DISCOVER HER QUEST 

UPDATED: With the release of JUSTICE LEAGUE tomorrow I'm going to post about MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN Thursday and Friday, and we'll save Lindsay for the weekend.

FREAKS AND GEEKS, "PILOT" PT. 1: THE STRUGGLE IS ALL

Last week I watched FREAKS AND GEEKS for the first time. 

I'm an embarrassment, I know. I apologize to the pantheon of comedy gods, the 1980s and the Li'l Baby Jesus. 

I was really impressed with the pilot, written by Paul Feig. It was not at all what I expected, far less an SNL/John Hughes take on the 1980s, much more grounded.

And so for the next few days I'm going to point out some writing choices I really appreciate from it. Then on Friday I'm going to head back to the finale of EUPHORIA. 

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There's a great moment late in the FREAKS pilot where our favorite freshman Sam Weir ask upper classperson Cindy Sanders to go to the upcoming school dance.

Going to the dance is not Sam's central storyline in the pilot, but on a couple prior occasions he has gotten indications that maybe Cindy would not reject him if he asked.

On his way to what we think is the climax of Sam's main pilot story, dealing with Alan the Bully, he runs into Cindy, and instead of joining his friends he stops on impulse to ask her.  And it's your classic high school scene, lots of hemming and hawing and awkwardness that we love to watch because we have all been there. 

Feig breaks the moment into three parts: First, they meet and there is awkward conversation where Sam asks what Cindy--who is dressed in her cheerleading outfit--is doing, and she laughs and says she's cheering at the game. Nice job, Sam.

In the second beat, she notes that she has to go, but as she walks away he calls her name, she stops, and then he can't get the words out. 

In the third, she points out again that she has to go, again he struggles, but this time he finally asks and gets her response. 

So it's your classic three beat structure, with each successive beat including a reminder by Cindy that she has to go, putting further pressure on Sam and also increasing the sense of him kind of screwing this whole thing up (although not too heavily). 

And the scene is broken up by cutaways to Sam's friends Neal and Bill confronting Alan, which is also a scene about summoning courage. Interestingly, they take their leap before Sam does, right at the end of their first beat. 

And that actually ends up serving Sam's story line really well. Their fight with Alan becomes a way of externalizing the battle going on inside of Sam. 

(Also, it is hilarious.)

 It also allows his struggle to go on longer than it probably could have on its own. Or let me put it this way--if Feig had stayed on Sam the whole time, the struggle probably would have had to get absurd to keep things from losing steam. Which might have been funny, but it wouldn't have landed emotionally the way it does. 

After all that, Cindy says no. But it's interesting, it doesn't feel like a failure. The way the scene is set up, the battle is in the quest to ask, not in the answer. Having taken his shot, Sam has succeeded. 

Feig gives him a little reward for his courage, too, in the form of Cindy offering to save a dance for Sam. Which then becomes in the final scene this wonderful little reprise--they go out on the floor, and at first Sam just stands there and is unsure. 

But then once again he takes the plunge--and more quickly than before--and we watch him have a great time. 

For me part of the lesson is Feig's brilliant use of intercutting to extend and externalize Sam's conflict. It's just a great idea.

But the scene is also a reminder about remembering where your story really lives. Sam's journey in the pilot is not about Cindy or Getting a Date; it's about the battle to be courageous. Keeping focused on that struggle generates all kinds of empathy and delight.  

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Interesting side note: In the original script for the pilot, this sequence goes really differently. During the Homecoming game, Cindy sees Alan picking on Sam, and Neal and Bill step forward, getting ready to fight Alan with him. Then Cindy steps in with the other cheerleaders and calls Alan out, shutting him down. 

And it's out of that experience that Sam gains the courage to ask her. 

It makes more sense structurally; it is a bit weird that after an entire pilot about Sam and his friends being bullied, he's not there for the climax of that story at all. 

But I much prefer how they shot it. It gives Bill and Neal agency of their own; they actually choose to fight Alan. And the way they shot the pilot makes things much harder on Sam. He doesn't have Cindy having just helped him there to stoke his confidence. He has to take the plunge on his own.

TOMORROW: THE COOL TEACHER

A WEEK OF WANDAVISION BONUS EPISODE: DEEP DIVING INTO A SCENE FROM 108

Before moving on from WANDAVISION, I thought it might fun to dive into one short dialogue scene that I loved from episode 108 (by writer Laura Donney), and think about why it works. 

It's the flashback about two thirds of the way through the episode where Wanda sits staring at a sitcom as she reels over the death of her brother Pietro.

After a couple lines getting Vision into the room, the scene has three main parts: 

1. Vision tries to understand why Bryan Cranston getting crushed by a roof on an episode of MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE is funny; 
2. Vision asks Wanda how she's doing, she shares the sense of being overwhelmed and he reflects on that;
3.  Vision laughs at something onscreen, then apologizes, and she reassures him it was in fact funny, which makes him very happy. 
   

Within that second, main part, here are the beats: 

• Vision offers to listen if that would help Wanda; 
• Wanda wonders why he would think it would;
• Wanda tells him it wouldn't; 
• Wanda apologizes and does share what she's going through, how overwhelmed she feels. 
• Vision responds by saying he doesn't think her loss will overwhelm her, and explains why by sharing his own experience being alone. 
  

Part of what's interesting about the scene is how little conflict there is. Usually conflict is the engine of story. Also it's the mask in which you can safely hide exposition (aka a person telling us directly how they're feeling). But other than a moment at the beginning, there's just not much of that there. It's like the setting itself, completely with flash or drama.

And yet the scene flows really well and the things that Wanda and Vision reveal feel earned. 

Maybe that's because there is actually conflict in the scene, in the form of the pain that Wanda is going through, the loss she's suffered. What possible value could some sort of disagreement or misunderstanding add to that? It's like a guy wearing a hat on a hat but it's also at a funeral and so why is he doing headwear anyway?  

So that's my first thought: The scene works as well as it does because it stays always connected to the reality of the moment it's in. It doesn't let external notions of writing structure or anything else get in the way of trusting in the truth of the situation.

It's also a scene in which each character shares something that is both personal and also deeply insightful. Wanda describes what it's like for her to be grieving. Her metaphor of the waves knocking her down is evocative of her experience and also gives words to many other people's experience with the nightmare that is loss. 

Vision's response has the same two components. The beginning and the end are together this profound thought about grief--that it is love persevering, and so it won't destroy us. It can't all be sorrow, can it?, he asks, in a line I am deeply envious of.

In between he shares about himself, his experience of always being alone. In a sense this has nothing to do with what we're talking about. And for the character of Vision it's actually not an attempt at self-disclosure as much as an observation on his existence. 

But for us in the audience (and Wanda) what he's saying is moving and eye opening. You see Vision different after that scene.

So for me, the second reason this scene is so strong is that it gives us new things to chew on--first, new insights into Wanda and Vision; and second (and maybe more importantly) new insights into our lives. Literally, we walk away from that scene with a new way to think about grief. When you can deliver a gift to the audience while still staying grounded in the reality of the characters and their relationship, you've got them for life. Who doesn't like a surprise goody bag?

The other thing that I love about the scene is the bookends. We open with and on humor, and after we've taken the journey with Wanda and Vision through life and loss the writing circles back to it, and it's at one and the same time a surprise, because it's such a different tone than where the scene has been, and yet also fulfilling, in that it feels like we've come full circle.  

The opening of a scene is like the set up of a joke. Returning to it at the end is naturally satisfying for the audience. 

But the ending doesn't just return to the initial subject. It comes back to Vision's need. He wants to understand humor. At the beginning he tries and fails. At the end he laughs, thinks he's failed and Wanda tells him no, it's funny, and his reaction is Yes, it is, right?

Paul Bettany's performance is so perfect at capturing the quiet comedy of Vision's need to get this.  

This a two minute scene, but only twenty lines of dialogue, and most of them just a couple words, a single sentence. But there's just so much there. Brava, writer Laura Donney!

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So I've been doing this for about three weeks now, mostly as a sort of practice run to see if it could work. I'm not totally sure that Blogger is going to be the platform I need it to be. I may take a couple days and try to migrate it to WordPress. 

Either way, here's my plan for the rest of the week: I'm going to talk about the pilot of FREAKS & GEEKS, which I saw for the first time last week *hangs his head in shame*.

Then for the next two weeks I'm going to dive into the Oscar nominees for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted, which will be announced today, and see what cool tricks we can find there. 

UPDATE (3/17):  With the release of the Snyder Cut I'm going to do some pieces on the Snyder DCverse at the end of this week and at least the start of next week. But we will get to the Oscar nominees right after that!