In Media Res
If there’s one thing I hate about today’s movies in shows it’s that they try to start “in media res.” What that translates to is, “in the midst” of things. It’s a way for writers to begin things in the middle rather than start from the beginning. Recently, it’s just become lazy story telling.
Movies and shows today are bad. One of the reasons is that they don’t start from the beginning where you’ll spend time getting to know about the characters and their situations. If you look at the 80s, a most excellent time period for movies and shows, they told stories in a very linear structure.
In The Karate Kid, there’s no big explosion or huge action scene when it starts. Daniel and his mom drive cross country where you see how bad those apartments are, how rough a time Daniel has making friends, and that he tries to do the right thing before getting his ass kicked by Johnny. That’s a good 15-20 minutes before that action scene with Johnny.
In Die Hard, you don’t see John McClane mowing down a bunch of people. You see how he hates flying, how there’s trouble with his wife, how good Holly is at her job, that Holly works for a good and kind man, and that John misses her and won’t cheat on her when he could. Again, another 20 minutes or so goes by before the terrorists seize Nakatomi Plaza. When he first kills a terrorist, he hesitates because he’s a cop and that’s what he’s been trained to do.
Those 20 minutes may be slow to some, but they give you time to care about the character. You understand what’s going on in their lives and how crummy it is, what they wish for, and how hard they have it. Because of all that, you start to connect with the character.
The most recent thing I watched was The Lone Ranger. And while that had is more of a frame narrative because of the flashbacks, the premise stands. I just watched it and I don’t really remember what happened except there was a bank robbery with the Lone Ranger and Tonto. I had a couple of questions like why were they robbing a bank, what did it have to do with the plot, I thought this was an origin movie so when did they meet? Questions like that tend to pop up when you don’t do a linear story.
In the also awful, Agents of SHIELD second episode, there was an explosion in the plane then it went back to the beginning of how that happened. Even though I did have the pilot to stand on, a bunch of similar questions popped into my head.
You need time to understand the situation and care for the characters. By cutting that out and just adding a bunch of explosions, people won’t be able to connect with the story beyond the most superficial way.
However, you can do a story right by opening with an action scene.
Star Wars opens up with such a scene. The Big Bad Ship is attacking the Small Ship. You have no idea what’s going on, but you know that the Big Bad Ship is the oppressor because of its size and color and the way that the scene is shot. You also know that there’s no escaping it. Now while that would be a good scene all on its own, what makes it work is that it sets up the entire story of the Empire and the Rebellion. Those themes and opposing sides will resonate throughout the entire movie.
A more recent film and one of my favorites, The Matrix, also does the same thing. Trinity is able to kill a squad of cops with some amazing and crazy skills. Yet we soon see her run from the Men in Black because she’s terrified of them. You’re left wondering why is she so afraid of them if she could do what she just did, and what is this world? That works because like Star Wars, all those questions will be answered, and you’ll learn more about the Agents and how powerful those gatekeepers are and that they must go through them.
Afterwards, both those movies spend a good 30-45 minutes with little to no action and plenty of character and world building.
Movies and shows today have none of the subtleties in themes, worlds, or characters that those movies and shows in the pat had. You can clearly see that when you compare remakes such as Total Recall, Evil Dead, Red Dawn, and (probably) Robocop. The remakes clearly lack what made the originals good. While some of it has to do with the wooden acting, lack of charisma, over reliance on CGI, or dumbing it down for a PG-13 rating, it’s hard to build a house when the story’s foundation is shaky.
Marc Johnson
