As the third act of this John Candy comedy seemed to kick into gear, Emma Samms’ remarked, “He seems to have this control over me. It’s like I don’t have a mind of my own.” Hmm… control. Could that be the symptom or problem in the objective throughline?
Already I reasoned several characters were appearing routinely per signpost. John Gable (Candy’s character) clearly seems the main character. He begins forming a romantic relationship with Janet/Louise (Mariel Hemingway’s Impact Character). He’s also the protagonist caught in a world of the television soap opera he writes, trying to prevent the Sherwoods (antagonists) from rewriting what he planned in the show bible for future episodes. This is interesting in that one might overlook them for the Hedisons who appear each signpost and take up considerable screentime with their own bickering. However, I see them as contagonists. They are trying to hinder Jack Gates/Gable’s character from putting the secret “metapill” to the market first. The true shifts in the story, however, at the Act breaks are really caused by the Sherwoods’ writing of events. If there’s any doubt, Gable confronts the Sherwoods after he’s awakened from his dream. “You’re not going to get away with this.”
I suspect John plays the change character and he’s a Be-er. The conflict is in his mind as he struggles personally with trying to attract the attention of narcissistic actress Laura (and within the dream world, Rachel Hedison). He ultimately changes and winds up skating with Louise during the epilogue and Janet within the soap opera.
Everyone in the objective story is concerned with Obtaining. The Hedisons want to get their metapill to the market first and gain all the fortunes. Mariel’s character has a father who developed the metapill to begin with. She tries to give the formula to Gates’ character, the “Wolf of Wall Street”. This concern nicely calls for Gable’s own concern to be Inner Desires. He wants to attract the attentions of Laura and clearly Candy was cast in the role because his physical girth doesn’t make him appear one’s image of a heroic heart throb. This puts Mariel’s character in the concern of Future.
Now, we get to the issue and element level. Rachel expressing how she doesn’t feel like she has a mind of her own — because both Gable and the Sherwoods’ hired hack writer are controlling these soap opera people like pawns. There are other examples of control… and uncontrol. Fortunately, both elements show up within these issues in the following domains: “Hope” for Jack Gates (John Candy) in Mind, “Self Interest” for OS in Physics. As mentioned before, the struggle to get the metapill out first clearly matches “self interest”. The Sherwoods are acting out of self-interest by leaving Jack Gates out of the loop and hiring their hack writer to redo his stuff.
It comes down to whether “Control” is the symptom or the problem. If Jack truly is the change character, then his problem would match that of the objective story. Mariel’s character would share the objective story’s symptom. I want to put Jack’s issue as Dream rather than Hope, because his struggle takes up more screen time having a crush on Laura, the woman who isn’t genuine about her affection for him. She’s out of his league.
Lastly, I identify the Limit as an Option lock. It seems to involve the number of ways characters can obtain the formula… and what the hack writer, Fetterman, must do to rewrite Jack’s plan for the show bible.