There are two easy ways to tell if a movie’s structure is flawed or not. First, just study the opening and ending scene. Second, analyze the villain.
The opening scene should define the hero’s goal and the main conflict between the hero and the villain. Study the opening and ending scenes of great movies and you’ll see how this principle works:
- “Rocky” – Opening scene shows Rocky fighting in a dingy gym and losing, but when the other boxer cheats by head butting him, Rocky gets mad and fights back to win. Ending scene shows Rocky fighting in front of a national televised crowd and a packed arena where he’s fighting Apollo Creed, the heavyweight champion of the world.
- “Star Wars” – Opening scene shows Darth Vader trying to capture Princess Leia. Ending scene shows Darth Vader trying to blow up the planet that Princess Leia is on.
- “Legally Blonde” – Opening scene shows Elle preparing for a dinner date with her boyfriend, who she thinks is going to propose to her. Ending scene shows Elle’s boyfriend offering to take her back, but Elle turns him away.
- “Little Miss Sunshine” – Opening scene shows Olive mimicking a beauty pageant winner on TV. Ending scene shows Olive competing on stage in a beauty pageant.
Watch the opening scene to “Little Miss Sunshine” and you can see the hero, Olive, dreaming about competing in a beauty pageant. Immediately after we learn what the hero wants, the next short scene introduces the conflict where her father believes the world is made up of winners and losers. Therefore the entire story conflict is about defining what a winner really is.
The opening scene sets up the story and the ending scene answers that questions posed by the opening. First, will Olive get to compete in a beauty pageant and the answer is yes. Second, how will Olive deal with the dilemma about the world being divided into either winners or losers? That’s when Olive and her family learn that being a winner is simply about doing your best.
Notice how the opening scene and the ending scene work together to tell a complete story. Now look at what happens when the opening and ending scenes don’t work together:
- “Don’t Worry Darling” – Opening scene shows the hero enjoying herself at a party with her husband and friends. Ending scene shows the hero stepping through a door to escape the virtual reality world that she’s living in. (Notice that the opening and ending scenes have no relation with each other?)
- “Mortal Engines” – Opening scene shows London, rolling on wheels, hunting down and capturing a much smaller town that’s also rolling on wheels. Ending scene shows the villain dying when London rolls over him. (The opening scene simply sets up a conflict between larger cities that capture and devour smaller cities so the ending fails to logically conclude the opening scene’s conflict.
The opening scene in “Mortal Engines” promises a story about cities rolling around, devouring other cities for their resources. Yet this entire rolling city concept is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story.
Based on the opening, you would expect “Mortal Engines” to somehow conclude with two cities trying to devour each other, but all this rolling city concept is largely forgotten to create a generic story. The ending has little to do with the opening beyond seeing the villain get run over by a rolling city. This disconnect between the opening and ending scene creates a flawed story.
When outlining your own story, make sure your opening scene and ending scene show the beginning and end of a complete story. Doing this will help structure your story correctly right from the start.
A second way to identify a flawed story is to look at the villain. The best villains represent an evil version of the hero or the hero’s worst nightmare. In “Thelma and Louise”, the women are oppressed by men so their worst nightmare is to have a villain (the police) hunting them down and threatening to imprison or kill them.
In “Rocky”, the villain is Apollo Creed, a powerful and skilled boxer that’s everything Rocky wishes he could be. The key to a strong story is having a strong villain.
That’s why it’s easy to spot a flawed story just by looking at the villain.
Is a cloud with a face on it an evil version of the hero (the Green Lantern)? Nope. Is a cloud with a face on it the worst nightmare of the hero? Nope. A cloud with a face on it isn’t a very frightening or intimidating villain, especially if we only see it in the end.
Compare the weak villain in “The Green Lantern” with the villain in “Die Hard”. The hero in “Die Hard”, John McClane, is a smart and skilled New York police officer but the villain is Hans Gruber, a smart and skilled leader who has surrounded himself with an army of deadly killers. If John McClane were to become evil, it’s easy to see how he could become someone like Hans Gruber.
When your villain is an evil version of the hero, that essentially forces your hero to fight an alternate version of themselves. This forces the hero to examine who they really are. Will they become arrogant and uncaring like the villain to get what they want?
Look at another superior movie flop in “The Flash”. In this movie, there really isn’t a villain forcing the Flash to fight and grow. Instead, the Flash spends his time trying to alter his past with hardly a villain around to challenge him in any way. Without a strong villain, no story can hold our interest for very long.
So the lesson is clear. If you want to create a strong story, start with a powerful villain. Make this villain threaten the hero to force the hero to react and change. Without a strong villain, you will never have a strong story.
So there are two ways to analyze a story. First, make sure the opening and ending scenes tell a complete story. Second, analyze the villain to make sure the villain is a worthy opponent to your hero.
Sign up to take a FREE course about how to write scenes in a screenplay.
