Hmm. @Gregolas and others, Prish’s question made me realize that Fantasy does make a nice MC counterpoint.
So, I don’t think we should discount the OS Problem being Determination – needing to determine that the Earth can support life again, BnL’s determination (in the secret video message) that the Earth is not safe, humans being determined as unfit for colonisation, etc.
Expectation could probably work as OS Problem too (which would also give MC Issue of Fact vs. Fantasy counterpoint). Maybe even better than Determination… Hmm…
The Issue/theme level seems to be extra difficult because until you’ve broken it all down, you don’t know if they were simply weighing Threat against Security throughout the movie, or if they were exploring threat v security, threat v fact, threat v fantasy, security v fact, security v fantasy, and fact v fantasy. Maybe we should uncheck all Issue level choices and just look at the problem level for now?
Or is this a case where it would help to try to see if we could pull three options from beginning, middle and end for one of them?
I think that’s reasonable. But I would leave the OS Issue of Experience in for now, is that okay?
What about this:
####Main Character Problem: Unproven
I could see MC Problem of Unproven working reasonably well – Wall-E is lonely, but seems driven by this dubious (Unproven gist) idea he will one day find a friend, and experience happiness and camaraderie like the people on TV. (The whole idea of a robot having friends is kind of Unproven.) He faces conflict in the area of Unproven as on the ship he is considered an unproven quantity, suspected of being contaminated.
That would set MC Symptom to Non-Accurate and MC Response to Accurate. This is well-demonstrated with his constant falling apart (outside of tolerances), which he responds to by fixing himself in a sort of adequate, “good enough” way.
The cricket that gets run over a few times also demonstrates Non-Accurate/Accurate Symptom & Response – he gets squished sort of carelessly or erroneously, but then picks himself up again. (I guess the same could be true for how Wall-E has to bury himself under the dirt to avoid the totally Non-Accurate flames of Eve’s ship; this method of saving himself is adequate, if only barely.)
Ooh there might be something there … that commonality between the cricket and Wall-E’s various damages seems important!
Yeah - this is a hard one to drill down into. Going down one rabbit hole feels right in the domain you are looking at, but it throws up issues in other domains.
If OS domain was Manipulation. I was thinking that the Issue could be around Thought vs Knowledge
We see the passengers finally engage with their surroundings and each other.
The captain in interested in learning about the history of Earth.
It did allow the OS Problem to be Unending - which I thought was a good fit. The Axiom was not to return to Earth - it is to stay in space indefinitely.
Saying all that - the other choices it threw up didn’t seem to work too well. Or not well enough on first look.
I haven’t had a chance to delve into OS Domain as Activity yet. My brain is struggling enough as it is with seeing if OS Domain of Manipulation works at all.
I can see your point - and it is quite a strong one. I originally wanted to put the OS into Activity - but there are things that I struggle to work into that. I guess I am trying to work out how the recolonizing of Earth drives the conflict throughout the rest of the story. It seems to go unnoticed for pretty much 2/3rd of the film, and even the first time it is somewhat broached, when the Captain finds out that there is a plant - but then it is missing - he goes “oh well - back to normal”.
I do agree that there is a lot of doing after the manipulation has been dealt with. Time wise, though it isn’t a long sequence between AUTO being defeated and them getting back to Earth. I wonder how much of that was story weaving though.
Also, the going back to Earth was driven a lot by Eve wanting to get the parts for Wall-E. It was really only the Captain also wanting it that solidified that direction. (Does that make the Captain the Protagonist?).
I was thinking about seeing if we could clarify Eve’s throughline - as that might help us work out some of the others. If she is a change character - what does she change from and to? That should link in with her Problem/Solution|Symptom/Response shouldn’t it?
I will try to find some time to play with OS in Activity
It might help to consider the Author’s point of view. What does the Author think is the source of the conflict? Even if the characters are okay with “going back to normal”, does the Author think that’s a good thing?
Also, I don’t think that attaining the recolonisation of the Earth is the actual Goal – focusing on the attainment would be Obtaining. It’s more for humanity & robots to show that they’re capable of living again, to wake up and do something about it – and the recolonisation is the best way to demonstrate that.
It does seem that Wall-E may not have the clearest structure; it certainly isn’t as easy to narrow in on things like with say Collateral, Whiplash or The Princess Bride. Of course, it is a film where the two principal characters can barely speak, so that might make things a bit muddier!
Something clicked after reading your previous post, “…Wall-E is lonely, but seems driven by this dubious (Unproven gist) idea he will one day find a friend, and experience happiness and camaraderie like the people on TV. (The whole idea of a robot having friends is kind of Unproven.) …”
There is one thing mentioned in a Screenplay Systems weekend seminar by Chris in the 90’s about Michael in the Godfather that comes to mind about Wall-e. When Michael was outside the hospital with the cig…something about innate stuff, an element that bugs everyone if they have to explain or understand it, but Michael had it, then. Gotta run…back later…but Wall-e was created with a connection to people in his programming. When he is watching the only connection he has to people, now, maybe his hardware is learning how its supposed to be with connection to people, hence he should have a life like peoplel. Maybe, he is like Michael, somehow?
I see the recolonization as more of a Signpost/Journey problem. I’m largely leaning toward Mike’s idea that the goal is to wake up and live life and to start Doing things.
The captains “back to normal” attitude shows that he was nervous at the idea of “waking up” as we’ve been discussing it. He was content to continue doing nothing.
There was something in one of Jim’s articles about how if you went below the element level of the Dramatica chart, you’d go back around to Activity, Situation, Fixed Attitude and Manipulation. What I’m finding is that all levels seem to have a bit of that. The humans are STUCK on the Axiom, they don’t MIND living this sedentary life, DOING nothing, while letting the robots basically CONTROL THEIR MINDS, BEHAVIORS, and everything!
I just read Jim’s latest article on Narrative First. Is there a way we can use that idea to look for The Dramatic Question of the OS Story here? Or is that something that’s really meant for an overall complete story? It’s too late, and i’m starting to lose coherent thought here, so i’ll stop there.
Did Jim just tell us to quit posting on this thread? Haha.
I’m pretty sure I’d have the same troubles with any known GAS too, so I didn’t assume it was the movie.
I’d still like to look at problem quads, but is there a way to look for the hole? It might be hard to tell if there’s elements missing or if the wrong problem quad is being used.
When I saw the movie in the theater, I felt there was more than one story emphases going on, no balance of one major and one minor. The characters were delightful but weighted with an oddness. Now I wonder if there are three or four.
Wall-e and earth-plant-roach, Wall-e and Eve, Wall-e and humans on ship, and then the humans had their own storyform – all with their own os mc Ic rs.
I definitely don’t think Wall-E is a broken storyform. Resolve is fine: Eve clearly changes while Wall-E remains steadfast. And the four throughlines are quite clear in terms of what they’re about, and do seem to fit into a good Domain arrangement with some thought.
My feeling with Wall-E is that some of the story points aren’t illustrated all that clearly, leaving us scratching our heads in a few places. Maybe this fits under “incomplete storyform” – there are probably some gaps, but nothing that actually breaks structure.
Still, I think we could explore further and try to find a “primary” candidate storyform. We’ve done pretty well down to the Issue level, and haven’t had much discussion at the Problem level yet. I’m excited about the Non-Accurate/Accurate OS & MC Symptom/Response.
Im excited too. But I was hoping to get everyone on the same page before we moved on. We may not be able to do that though.
I’m pretty wore out today and probably checking out until tomorrow. I might also try to look through the movie one more time to get a refresher before going to problems.
Okay, so i couldn’t help myself. Some of this has been covered and what i’m adding below isn’t very detailed and could use a few more examples from the movie. But, I think:
OVERALL STORY
Problem: Determination
The humans have decided not to go back until it has been determined that the Earth is ready for them. Auto does its best to prevent this determination.
Solution: Expectation
The humans need to stop expecting the robots to do everything and start expecting something of themselves.
Symptom: Non-Accurate
I think trashing the planet and leaving the robots to do the clean up and cater to every desire/need is seen by the humans as within tolerances, but I don’t think it’s seen that way by the author.
Response: Accurate
The humans try to clean up after themselves…by sending a bunch of robots to do it for them. When it’s determined that it’s just too bad for the robots to take care of it, the CEO tells the others to just stay away.
Main Character
Problem: Unproven
looking to the author again, here. The original idea was about the last robot still working on earth. No one ever told him he could quit. It wasn’t proven that his efforts were no longer needed.
When he meets Eve, there’s nothing proven about her. Most of all, it’s unproven that she will remain 100% focused on her directive rather than becoming his friend.
Symptom: Non-Accurate
The trash is not cubed and stacked.
Wall-E seems to be outside of the tolerances of the other robots.
Response: Accurate
He builds skyscrapers out of the trash.
He tries to fit within tolerances as he searches for Eve.
Because, as an audience member, I don’t like to look at what I think the author is saying but rather what the movie is showing me, I’m updating the MC problem. I’m also going to try to make the symptom/response more specific.
Main Character
Problem: Unproven
-Wall-E would like to have more to his existence than trash cleaning, as evidenced by the way he watches the VHS of “Hello, Dolly” seems to want a hand to hold. He is lonely and has only a roach for a friend. We as the audience see that he is probably the last working robot on earth, but this is an Unproven to Wall-E who keeps working because, again, it’s Unproven to him that the humans are not returning.
Symptom: Non-Accurate
-WallE is seen as a foreign contaminate by the other robots.
-John expects Wall-E to take his empty cup, which is not Wall-Es directive.
-WallE finds himself in the Captains room where the other robots are pampering the Captain
Response: Accurate
-WallE tries to be still the other robots being cleaned and examined by the Axiom so they won’t notice him until he can get away.
-He refuses to take John’s empty cup and leaves, causing John to fall out of his hoverchair.
-WallE messages the Captains toes to fit in.
Rather than Thought vs Knowledge, could this be the Captian going through a Concern of NOT Doing into a Sign Post/Journey of Gathering Info?
“I was thinking about seeing if we could clarify Eve’s throughline”
I was hoping to look at this after we moved on from the OS problem quad. @mlucas, any other thoughts on what I’ve got about OS and MC problem quads above? Is that how you were seeing them as well? Do they still feel like they work?
Sorry it’s taken me so long … been busy and getting into the mindset of a film really does take time!
I love your Overall Story Problem and Solution illustrations. Those are definitely along the lines of what I was thinking. You could also say for the Problem that Auto & BnJ have pre-determined that the Earth is not ready for settling. (And in the first Act, you could see all the Wall-E’s determination to keep building trash towers as problematic too, from the OS perspective. It’s not really helpful, and wore all the other Wall-E models out.)
For your Symptoms, remember that Symptom is actually what the characters see as the problem, what they focus on, so it’s good to think of that too, not just Author perspective. (It’s both Author and character perspective.)
With that, I’d go more with:
OS Symptom: Non-Accurate
The Earth’s being unable to support life (it’s outside of acceptable tolerances)
Auto’s acting outside of acceptable tolerances (he’s supposed to be a servant), his misleading them and being truthful about the plant and the reason the Axiom can’t go home.
Some of the humans (esp. the Captain) being to see their weakness, obesity, laziness, inability to walk etc. as a problem.
The “rogue robots!” are seen as faulty, acting outside of tolerances.
Wall-E is seen as a contaminant (@Gregolas you had this in the MC Symptom but I think it also fits in OS from the other robots’ perspective)
Wall-E circuits get toasted and he starts to act weird (Response: Eve tries to find another circuit that’s accurate enough to fix him)
The ship tilting.
For most of those, the OS Response is to try and correct the problem by making things adequately – making the robots behave by correcting their malfunctions, etc.
Main Character Problem: Unproven
As the last robot on Earth, Wall-E is lonely and driven towards something completely unproven for him: friendship.
(echoing your point here @Gregolas) Wall-E is driven to find friendship from a completely dubious source – Eve.
Problems of being suspect, being dubious etc. dog Wall-E on the Axiom. He is truly unproven here – he’s a Wall-E model, meant for Earth only.
I like your MC Symptoms & Responses, they fit nicely along with the other ones I mentioned. The trash not being cubed & response of making a perfect skyscraper works great, I wouldn’t remove that!
