Evil Overlord List # 81 If I am fighting with the hero atop a moving platform, have disarmed him, and am about to finish him off and he glances behind me and drops flat, I too will drop flat instead of quizzically turning around to find out what he saw.
Romantic comedies are stories about relationships. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, hijinks ensue, boy loses girl, boy eventually wins girl back. Without the meet-cute, or the meet-awkward or the meet-whatever, there is no story. I will be the first to admit that romcom is not exactly my go to genre, however a good writer takes their story tips where they can be found and I believe that a good action-adventure writer can learn an important tidbit from (gasp!) romantic comedies.
A good action adventure film is also about relationship. (Anyone who says differently was probably involved in Transformers 2). Yes, an action movie is about the explosions, yes it’s about the stunts and yes, there is the love interest with his or her requisite URST (unresolved sexual tension) that is obligatorily resolved somewhere deep in the heart of act two, but there is a more important connection at work in the action-adventure genre; the relationship between the hero and the villain.
In order to write an action-adventure story that will stand the test of time I submit that you must consider the relationship between the hero and the villain as important as the boy-girl shenanigans in a romantic comedy. Think about it, Star Wars, Die Hard, The Silence of the Lambs, all classics, have thrillingly evil villains who through word, blood or deed are quite thoroughly tied to the hero. In short the stronger the personal connection between hero and villain, the better the film.
All relationships are defined by moments. Small instances and interactions snowball into relational explosions that drive your characters into the good, the bad or the ugly. In order to cement the relationship of your hero and your villain there must be a moment that I am affectionately calling the "meet-epic". Feel free to coin your own term. This moment can be found at any point during the story, where the hero and villain at last come face to face, clash and then live to fight another day. Joss Whedon’s Serenity is a film that set this moment up quite nicely.
Serenity is a nifty little gem of a film. If you haven’t seen it, go netflix it right now. Seriously, I’ll wait.
Alrighty, now that you’ve experienced the glory that is cowboys in space, awesome dialogue and kick ass characters galore, we can move on.
Serenity’s meet-epic happens fairly early in the story when Mal (Nathan Fillion), our hero, allows himself to be lured into an ambush set by our villain, The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in order to save his lady-love, Inara (Morena Baccarin). The trap springs, allowing Mal and The Operative to take each other’s measure. It is a fraught moment that reveals both Mal’s cunning and the Operative’s fanatical belief that he is in the Right. The situation quickly devolves from a game of wits into a knock down, drag out brawl wherein The Operative reveals his scary ninja skills and Mal manages to get his ass quite thoroughly kicked. Until, through trickery of her own, Inara manages to bail Mal out of trouble by temporarily incapacitating The Operative.
Our hero’s escape made, this chase very suddenly gets quite personal for our formerly emotionless villain. This is no longer just a mission, there are now personal stakes. The Operative cannot allow himself to have lost to the hasty, reckless mess that is our hero. This confrontation sets the stage for the rest of the film. The Operative does not even have a name, the audience is not given one scrap of personal information about him until the very end of the story and yet we have everything we need to know about him, because he is utterly defined by his conflict with our hero.
There are many other films that use this technique of binding characters in mortal combat, Die Hard, The Matrix and Casino Royale to name just a few. All have moments where the hero and villain takes the other's measure and declares through word or action "Game on". The meet-epic is of incredible importance when writing an action-adventure that will last. So, when next you sit down to write, ask yourself where does this scene fall in your script? How does it define both the hero and the villain? How does it raise the stakes? And how can you make it better?
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