After Earth–Thinking Outside of the Box

To continue my theme of “What do they want/What do they really want?” or the inner need of the character, I take you to a hostile planet—Earth. Or more specifically, After Earth, the sci-fi starring Jaden Smith and his dad, Will Smith. This story is about thirteen year old Kitai, played by Jaden. He is the son of the Prime Commander, Cypher Raige, played by Will, a somewhat absentee father who is ready to retire so he can be what he needs to be for his family.

They are transporting a very bad alien called an Ursa when their ship is hit by an asteroid shower and they crash land on Earth. The only survivors are Kitai and Cypher, who is incapacitated. It is up to Kitai to travel over rough terrain to find the rescue beacon that has become separated from them.

In the beginning of the movie, we see flashbacks of Kitai and his older sister. Remember the ten-minute rule I talked about in my last article? This one happens at around thirteen minutes. Something is wrong in what looks like their home, and she places him in a large terrarium with a clear bubble top. In a later flashback, she calls it a box. Something scary is happening, but we don’t know what yet. We only know that Kitai is in a box.

Kitai is a cadet whose main goal is to become a full-fledged ranger like his dad. He doesn’t pass, however, and is told to try again next year.

Before the ship goes down, Kitai wanders and ends up where the prisoner, the Ursa, is being held. One of the rangers on duty tells Kitai they are going to use the alien for “ghost training,” a trick to become invisible to the enemy. Ghosting “is when you don’t have a trace of fear.”

The ship crashes and Kitai leaves his injured father to find the beacon. The first part of his adventure proves that he really is too young for this sort of thing. He’s frightened at most every turn, but he presses on because if he doesn’t his father will die.

His father can communicate with him from the damaged cockpit. Kitai asks him about ghosting. He tells him he had been attacked by an Ursa and that after landing in the bottom of a river, he knew it was trying to drown him. As he watched his blood in the water mingled with the sunshine, he thought it looked pretty. His fear ebbed away and the alien let him go. And moreover, it couldn’t find him. He realized then that fear was the true enemy, and the alien could smell it. “Fear is not real. The only place fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity, Kitai.” He goes on to clarify that danger is real, but fear is a choice.

After several conflicts and one huge victory where Kitai stands up for himself and refuses to take orders to abort the mission and save his life, (Kitai had followed “orders” when his sister had told him to stay in the box,) he finally reaches the beacon. However, it seems that Kitai and his father weren’t the only ones to survive the crash. The Ursa is alive and well, and intent on killing Kitai.

We learn in the flashback that an Ursa had killed Kitai’s sister while he watched helplessly from the box. Kitai’s inner need is to be let out of the box where he can fight. Throughout the movie he proves this over and over again that despite his age and size, he needn’t be placed in a box. He has worth. He has skills. Had he known then what he knows now, his sister would be alive.

As the Ursa attacks him, he uses the ghosting technique he’d been told about. He lays still, and hears his deceased sister whisper to him that he’s still in the box and it’s time to come out. He also hears his father’s voice teaching him to ghost. “Root yourself in this present moment. Sight, sound, smell. What do you feel?” He becomes one with his surroundings and the fear ebbs away. The Ursa passes right over him. He then stands, opens his cutlass and lops off the Ursa’s leg. As he attacks the Ursa, he becomes the ranger that he’s always wanted to be. He’s stepped outside the box, and despite his size and age, he is a warrior. He kills the Ursa, grabs the beacon and sets it off. Rescue is on it’s way thanks to this brave young man.

At the end, as the medics are working on his father in the rescue ship, he receives the respect he now deserves. Cypher demands the medics to stand him up so he can salute his son. I love what happens next. Instead of saluting back, like the ranger Katai now is, he runs to his dad for an embrace and receives the love he hadn’t felt before.

Katai has come full circle. He’s gained love and respect from his father, and he’s stepped outside his box to become the ranger he so desperately wanted to be.

The final two lines are priceless. Katai, while still clinging to his father says, “Dad, I want to work with Mom.” And Cypher says, “Me, too.”

I think they’re both hanging up their ranger cutlasses.

And You Thought It Was Just A Movie About Penguins

Who doesn’t love a movie about penguins? Especially obnoxiously cute ones that plague a person until he finally accepts them. That’s what this story is about, right?

Sorta.

A while back I heard of a script-writing rule where, on page 10, there should be some hint as to what the hero wants. I would like to go a step further and use the character prompt that I’ve learned: What do they want/What do they really want? This suggests that even the character may not know what he really wants by page 10, (which translates to ten minutes into the movie,) but the audience should get some hint. I have found as I’ve researched movies, that this ten minutes isn’t a hard and fast rule. However, certainly within the first act, stories often reveal the inner need to the audience without the character’s realization.

As a novel writer, I want to portray my characters as realistically as possible. Often, people don’t know what they really want. And if you want a believable character arc, you probably shouldn’t have them figure it out too soon, either.

In Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Tom Popper, played by Jim Carrey, is an obsessed businessman who has fractured his family because he was never there for them. (Haven’t we seen this story premise before? Liar, Liar perhaps?) This is ironic, because as we see in the first few minutes of the film, Popper’s father was never there for him, either. But he loved his son, keeping in touch as best he could via short wave radio and giving him really cool stuff from his adventures. At this point, we can see what Popper’s issue is, but does Popper?

Something happens that suggests Popper is on the cusp of self-discovery. No, it’s not when the penguin arrives from Popper’s deceased father. This moment does kick off Act 2, however. Popper’s ordinary world is about to be rocked. But, about 15:30 minutes in, Popper meets Mrs. Van Gundy played by Angela Lansbury, who owns Tavern on the Green, a restaurant in Manhattan. He is going to try to talk her out of her property for the firm for which he works.  They approach a table near the window which she has had reserved for their meeting. He asks to have their conversation at another table. Why? We don’t know yet. I love that the writers set up a little mystery here.

During the course of their discussion, Mrs. Van Gundy tells him she doesn’t want to sell to just anyone. The staff is family to her. Popper says, “There is nothing more important than family.” This comment slips on by without much notice. However, the astute audience can see that Popper’s family, both the one in which he grew up and his present family are broken. Even Popper, himself, doesn’t realize what he’s just said. Mrs. Van Gundy presses him about his family, and we find he doesn’t want to talk about his father. Upon mention of his father, he glances toward the empty table where he and Mrs. Van Gundy were going to meet. Ah. We know something has happened at that table, and it probably has to do with why Popper went from a starry-eyed child who idolized his dad to the cynical adult who can barely talk about him.

Enter several more penguins due to a communication glitch, and Popper’s small problem has turned into a big one. He has to get rid of six penguins (and later eight as two have had eggs hatched.) During the course of the movie, Popper goes from trying to get rid of his new charges to fully accepting them. This could be in large part because the penguins are bringing his family together. His teen daughter doesn’t think he’s lame anymore, and his ex-wife is seeing a different side to him that she likes.

At approximately 55 minutes into the movie, he and his ex-wife have decided to have dinner together. The Poppers have their “date” at Tavern on the Green and are offered the same table where he had previously refused to sit. He again makes excuses not to sit there, and he opens up to his wife why he doesn’t want anything to do with that table. It seems, when Popper was a kid, his father would take the family to Tavern on the Green whenever he’d come to town and they’d sit at that table. It was the only time he could see his dad and where he received cool souvenirs from far off lands. Now, I thought something horrible had happened at that table, but I was pleasantly surprised when he tells his wife, “It’s actually a good memory. Sometimes they are the worst.”

This little insight and the hints dropped up to this point reveal the protagonist’s inner journey. We saw the first glimpse back in the beginning when he refused to sit at the table. Does he hate his dad? Not really, just disillusioned. He wants what any kid wants—to have his family together. (Of note: a scene prior to this shows him having dinner at his own table at home with the penguins. It’s chaotic, but totally comfortable for Popper because he is with his new family.)

As is the way with character arcs, the character must begin at one point and finish at another. Popper was pretty low before his penguin family moved in. His family was broken, his ex-wife was dating someone else, his teen daughter could barely be in the same room with him. He had, however managed to maintain a relationship with his son, which I find refreshing. There was one person who believed in him, just as he had believed in his own dad at that age. By the end, Popper’s family is whole again, and he even takes them to Tavern on the Green where he has reserved the dreaded Table. He no longer has to avoid it because he’s completed his character arc, and can make good memories with his family. He begins with a line that his dad had probably said to him many times. “I’m going on a trip, and I’m going to be gone a very long time.” His son looks dejected, just as Popper no doubt did every time he heard this from his father. However, he springs a surprise.  He tells his family they are all going with him.

Where? Popper has arranged to return the penguins to their native Antarctica. What the Poppers witness is a huge family reunion as each penguin finds its own family unit they had left behind. What once was broken is now together again. And that is what this movie about penguins is all about.

Last Man Standing–Wonderful, Until It Rains

I love Last Man Standing, starring Tim Allen playing Mike Baxter. The humor is quippy without being clichéd, the characterization is spot on for each member of the cast, and it’s set in Denver. What more could I want?

I’ve enjoyed each episode, (and yes, I’ve seen every one of them since 2011,) but the one that aired on January 31, 2014 entitled “Taser” had one plot element that stuck out like a sore thumb hit with a hammer. (Nod to Allen’s previous sitcom, Home Improvement.)

This particular episode is set during Valentine’s Day. About midway through, there is a steady rain pouring outside the kitchen window. Did I mention this was set in Denver. And it’s Valentine’s Day. February. According to weatherspark.com, Denver’s average rainfall in February is 4% for light rain, 1% for both drizzle and moderate rain. It didn’t even tabulate heavy rain, which was in the episode. Buckets of rain, the likes you would see in late April or May. . .or in the upcoming movie Noah.

So, just as I rhetorically asked my husband, “Why is it raining in Colorado?” the doorbell rang in the Baxter household on my TV screen. As often happens in this family, no one answered it right away. When someone finally opened the door, the character, Kyle, boyfriend of one of the daughters, was standing there soaking wet. To understand what happened next, I have to tell you that Kyle had carved a little bluebird out of a bar of Irish Spring soap for girlfriend Mandy for Valentine’s Day. He enters the house dripping wet, and when he sees Mandy, he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out bubbles. Lots and lots of bubbles. “Oh,” I said to my husband. “That’s why it’s raining!” To make matters worse, it stopped raining immediately after this scene. The next scene took place in the kitchen where two of the characters walked in from outside bone dry.

Yep. Even TV giants like Last Man Standing can screw up a good story. I can hear the writers as they story-boarded.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if Kyle carves a bird out of soap, and then it rains and dissolves in his pocket?”

“But, it’s February in Denver. It would be snowing, not raining.”

“Yeah, but we need lots of water to make the joke work. No one will notice.”

I’m standing on my writing craft convictions with my hand raised yelling, “Ooo! I noticed!” These professionals used a contrivance to make something work. Now, I’m not saying I’m never guilty of that. On the contrary, I’m famous for trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. (And apparently for using clichés, but I digress.) That’s probably why I’m sensitive. If I can’t get away with it, neither should people getting paid a kratillion more dollars than me.

So, I think the takeaway here is obvious. Don’t make it rain when it should be snowing just to make something work. But, do watch Last Man Standing. It is one of the few family-friendly shows that isn’t afraid to discuss today’s issues in a hilarious way. (Hopefully that keeps me out of trouble with the network. . .as if they would actually read this.)

Heaven Is for Real–I Know This Firsthand

After reading the book, Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo (with Lynn Vincent,) I was struck once again by the fact that this world is not our home. “For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come” (Hebrews 13:14 NLT.) I’ve witnessed this first hand.

I’ve had three encounters with the unseen world in my lifetime.

“Who is with you?” the nurse asked. “Jesus,” she replied.

• My husband’s grandmother lay in a hospital room dying. She’d always been afraid of death, afraid of the cold ground, afraid to be left alone. She was a believer, but this one promise eluded her. Her roommate suddenly died in the night. The nurses, aware of Grandma’s fear, asked if she’d like to be removed from the room. Grandma smiled sweetly and said, “No, I’m alright. He’s here with me.” She gazed at the corner of the room, the bare corner. “Who is with you?” the nurse asked. “Jesus,” she replied. Grandma saw Jesus, who had come to allay her fears, perhaps instruct her that she need not be afraid. Grandma died a few days later. Her face, that had been pinched in pain for many years now looked like that of a much younger woman. Pain and wrinkle free, the thing that struck us most was the absolute peace draped over her body like fine linen. Grandma had seen Jesus, and He had taken her home.

“It’s okay, …I know I’m going to heaven.”

• My grandfather, also lay in a hospital room dying. Grandpa was a self-proclaimed atheist. As my mother visited in those final days, she would ask him if she could tell him about Jesus. He’d refuse every time. His last day, she came in and insisted she talk to him before he left her. He smiled and said, “It’s okay, Kathy was here. We talked and I know I’m going to heaven.” Thing is, I’m the Kathy to whom he referred, and I was over 5500 miles away in Germany. The day before, my mother had called to tell me Grandpa was dying. I knew he hadn’t accepted Christ as his Savior. More than wanting to keep him with me, I wanted his salvation because I know I will see my loved ones again—and this loved one was especially dear to me. I stood in my kitchen that evening, cleaning up after supper and praying, when I suddenly stopped and gasped. “Please don’t let Grandpa slip into eternity without knowing You!” Then, peace entered my being. The next day my mother called. Grandpa had died. I began grieving, knowing he was gone—forever. But then she told me the account that I mentioned above. He had seen me, Kathy. We talked. Mom and I compared when that conversation might have happened, and we determined it was at the same time I gasped that prayer. Now, I don’t know if it was really me, an angel that looked like me, or even perhaps the sister who had died five years before I was born and could have been my twin. I don’t know. But God knows. He sent someone in there who looked like me because, quite frankly, I had my Grandpa wrapped around my finger. How could he say no to me?

Whoever this was stood by his side, and he was filled with peace.

• My father, a strong man of faith, lay in a hospital room dying . He was in Oregon, I was in Florida. I promised my mom that I would be there as soon as I could get a flight out. When I arrived, she met me at the airport. Before my bags even arrived she told me to brace myself. Immediately, I imagined the worst. My daddy had slipped away before I could say goodbye. But, no. She said that, the night before, she told him I was coming. He looked confused. He said, “But Kathy was already here.” She argued, repeating that I was on the way and that my flight would arrive the next day. He shook his head. Apparently I—or the angel, or my sister—visited him. Whoever this was stood by his side, and he was filled with peace. It would be several weeks before he walked into eternity. My mom and sister (the living one) took nighttime vigils with him the last few days so he wouldn’t be alone. One night, he stirred and I stood by his side. When he saw me, he startled. I stroked his hand and said, “It’s okay, Dad. It’s me, Kathy.” A look of relief flooded his face. It could be my writer’s imagination, but did he think I was that other Kathy who had come to usher him home? At that point, I don’t believe he was ready to leave Mom yet.

Little Colton Burpo has it right. Heaven is for real. It thrills me that his story is being made into a motion picture. I may, someday, put my experiences with the after-life into a book, but for now, I pray that everyone goes to see this movie.

How important is it to get our stories of faith out there? According to Entertainment Weekly, the director, Randal Wallace (Secretariat)  was quoted: “I’m amazed it got to me. I’ve been around churches all my life and I’ve been exposed to a lot of material that would be categorized as inspirational. Most of the stuff is anything but inspirational for me. But I found this story to have an incredible intrigue and emotional power,” he said. “It speaks to the cynic in most of us.”

Here is the trailer of Heaven Is for Real. Just watching it brought tears to my eyes. I have a feeling I will be a mess when I see this in the theater.

Original Story Ideas—A Sarcastic Woody?

I’ve been working on a story idea for eight years. It started out as an apple seed and has grown into a maple sapling. How did that happen? Apparently this is normal in the writing world.

The Pixar giant, Toy Story (1995), was originally pitched as a sequel to the Pixar short, Tin Toy (1988), where the title character, Tinny, gets lost on a family trip and ends up joining forces with a sarcastic ventriloquist dummy in search of a new home.

What? That is nothing like the Toy Story we all know and love.

Neither is another idea that was scrapped. Shortly after the familiar characters were established, Pixar presented a draft to Disney in 1993 where Woody’s character was a sarcastic jerk who insulted the other toys. Again—what? Apparently, the film was deemed unwatchable. Imagine that?

If it takes highly paid professionals several stabs at coming up with a workable storyline, there is hope for the rest of us.

Go to “33 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the Toy Story Trilogy” to find out thirty-two other things you probably didn’t know about Toy Story. If you’re really a Pixar geek, be sure to scroll down to the comments and see the corrections to this list that Craig Good, the supervising layout artist offers.

Mandy Patinkin’s Favorite Line From The Princess Bride

And it’s not what you think. http://screen.yahoo.com/popular/princess-bride-star-patinkin-reveals-122547140-cbs.html

Kinda cool when a writer’s words impact the actors who say them years later. Strive to write words that make impact.

Gravity–Don’t Let Go

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the inner and outer journeys of characters. The methods to learn these journeys are out there. There is GMC (Goal, Motivation, and Conflict), Identity and Essence, Hero’s Journey/Character Arc. We’ve plotted out their skeletons. We’ve drawn their lives on snowflakes. We’ve interviewed them asking increasingly hard questions. I can’t stress enough how important it is to not only see a character move across the page, but we must know why they are moving.

I usually tout DreamWorks or Pixar for creating story lines that are so pure in their simplicity that they’re easy to pick apart and learn how to do all of the above. Who knew a complex movie, such as Gravity—that took the powers-that-be four years just to come up with the technology to film it—would also illustrate the outer and inner journeys so beautifully.

Beware. Major spoilers ahead. To see my safe movie review go to Theater Popcorn in my Teeth.

With only two characters on camera, and one of them George Clooney doing his trademark shallow loveable annoying guy shtick, it stands to reason that the other character would have depth. Clooney’s character, Matt Kowalski, is a veteran shuttle commander on his last mission. Sandra Bullock’s character is Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first mission. Bullock’s story is the one we’re interested in because it has depth.

I found it interesting that the tag line for the movie, Gravity, is “Don’t let go,” and one of the quotes as said by Clooney to Bullock is, “You have to learn to let go.” Opposite thoughts, yet they encompass Bullock’s character, Ryan, completely. One represents the outer journey, the other the inner journey.

First, the outer journey, or the actions of the character (movement on the page.) Ryan is on her first shuttle mission, servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. She, along with Matt and a third astronaut named Shariff, are spacewalking. Ryan and Shariff are working on panels while Matt is trying to break the spacewalking record by circling the shuttle in his jetted suit. The unthinkable happens and a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite creates a debris field and Houston aborts the mission. The debris hits, taking out Shariff first, and Ryan is flung into the darkness with nothing but Matt in her ear via the radio trying to calm her down. He manages to reach her and pull her back to the shuttle, but it has been destroyed. They decide to try to make it to the ISS (International Space Station,) using Matt’s thrusters, which run out of juice, but they are still able to drift toward their goal. The crew has evacuated in one of the modules, and the second module has apparently accidentally deployed its parachute and is useless for returning to earth. It can, however be used to reach the Chinese space station to retrieve another module. As the two astronauts pass by the ISS they must grab hold of it or they will miss it entirely. Ryan gets tangled in the tethers of the deployed parachute, but grabs Matt before he drifts away. Matt tells her she must let go to save herself as he is pulling her out with him. (Now, here is one of the goofs, one that my practical hubby jumped on right away. You can read about it at IMDb.) Matt unhooks from Ryan and quips about being assured of breaking the spacewalking record. The rest of the movie is about Ryan trying to stay alive and her physically demanding attempts to get back to earth. . .alone, because she is now the sole survivor.

Now for the internal journey, or the “why” of the character (why she does the things she does.) When Ryan and Matt are making their way slowly to the ISS, he gets her talking. All we know at this point is that she doesn’t like his country music and she seems hyper-serious. We also know that she’s a perfectionist because she had refused to abort the mission until her job was done. She tells Matt that she is named Ryan because her father wanted a boy. Could this be why she’s a perfectionist? Trying all her life to live up to Daddy’s expectations? Hmm… This drive is what helps her outer journey of not letting go. We also learn that she had a daughter who had died in a schoolyard accident. Now we know why she’s serious and why Matt’s charm falls flat. She’s still grieving, and she must learn to let go.

From the time Ryan begins her fight to stay alive, (her outer journey,) what is really happening on the inside is that she’d be just as fine dying to be with her daughter. Yes, she fights like crazy, making her way to the Chinese space station because her perfectionist nature is driving her. (The character has a reason—inner journey—for why she does the things she does—outer journey.) However, she is soon out of options. The module’s thrusters are out of fuel. She makes the decision to give up and turn off the oxygen so she can drift away into eternal sleep. Enter Matt knocking on the portal. He enters and gives her a pep talk using his witty charm. He also tells her of a trick to get the module going again. (This is what is referred to as “the help” where the character is helped by someone to make their final decision. This help can be an actual person, a voice from the past, or, as in this case, a near-death hallucination.) Ryan wakes up and realizes Matt isn’t really there, but his voice is still in her head. She rallies and manages to turn the oxygen back on. In doing so, she makes the decision to continue fighting for her own life (outer journey,) but to let her daughter go (inner journey.) She looks toward heaven and talks to Matt, asking him to find her daughter. She has now fully dedicated herself to healing, knowing that her trusted mentor will be with her daughter.

Note how simple Ryan’s journeys are. She’s a perfectionist because of her father, which helps her outer journey of “don’t let go.” She’s grieving, which dictates her inner journey of “learn to let go.” Director Alfonso Cuarón has said that the thematic element of the film is “the possibility of rebirth after adversity.” What better way to show this than to heal the inner journey through outer conflict?

As we watch movies and read books, we need to be aware of the outer and inner journeys. A good story will have both, and we need to be sure our own characters not only move on the page, but have a reason to do so.