Could problems of the Past have anything to do with the appearance at the Rust-eze tent? Lightning wants this high profile status, and that’s a problem because he’s stuck being a spokesman for a lame, small medicated bumper ointment company where he must be surrounded by rusty cars?
(Edit: this would have to do with the past in that he has a past relationship with Rust-eze that he contractually can’t get out of)
Cool! Plus, isn’t using ointment to cover up your rust kind of like covering up your past, hiding your age, that kind of thing? “Ughh. I hate rusty cars. All this Past is not good for my image”
Question for you guys. If you’re still a bit stuck on Do-er vs. Be-er MC (and I can see why), can you look at the IC? Not sure if that’s mostly Doc or anyone else, but maybe it would be simpler to see if they’re a Do-er or a Be-er.
This brings me back to a question I’ve had before and never asked because it didn’t seem like a very important distinction when I could just go for the most dramatic option available. But my first thought was “the Past is not good for my image” seems like conflict, but not necessarily a problem. As far as Dramatica and Jim and all are concerned, are conflict and problem interchangeable? Are problems worse than conflict? If they aren’t the same, is conflict enough, or does it need to be a bigger problem? Or am I getting it backwards and it’s not enough to have a problem because there needs to be more conflict?
This is a good idea. Except I would get into all the nit picky overthinking just as much. Is the IC supposed to be a Be-er, or is it more about how he’s influencing the Do-er MC to be a Be-er? Does Doc have a fixed Mind, is he influencing Lightning’s Mind? He seems to be influencing Lightning’s Situation. He’s the one that sentences Lightning to fix the road and makes sure he only has a gallon of gas. Isn’t that an IC throughline of Universe?
By the way, I definitely think Doc feels like a Be-er. “Get that race car out of my town! What? Have him fix the road? Okay, whatever. Have him fix the road!”
I figured the King’s speech was OS Attitude v Approach. I feel like I may be reaching rather than using what’s in the movie, but I’m thinking when Doc comes into the court room and sees Lightning, he remembers being a race car and what it was like for him and wants Lightning out of his courtroom. The audience wouldn’t know until later in the film that it was a memory behind this-as opposed to a preconscious reflex stemming from a prejudice against race cars or something-until it’s revealed in a later SP.
We’ve gone deep into this analysis, and despite my best Conragonistic efforts to talk us out of it, I’m feeling pretty happy with our MC Universe, Problem of Hinder storyform. Even if Jim were to come say, no, you’re all wrong, I still feel like we’ve got some great arguments and I’ve learned some good stuff from the interactions in this thread. Thanks, @Lakis, @Hunter et al for going so far into it with me!
That said, we still haven’t figured out those darn drivers! I’ve just about argued myself into seeing it as Action, but all the choices we’ve made force Decision. So now I’m wondering, can the Decision driver be the LACK of a decision? As in, the three way tie failed to offer a decisive champion? (Did someone bring this up already? I feel like I got this idea from someone else)
Actually, we can enter Changed, Stop, Do-er, Linear, Spacelock, Failure, Good, Physics, Obtaining, Attitude, Hinder in 11 of the 12 Questions and get everything but the Signposts filled out. So, our major Storyform choices don’t actually force anything.
That is an excellent question. I wish I knew.
Honestly, I like the Signpost order a bit better for Decision than for Action, but only so much. Originally, I was having a hard time pinpointing the decisions or deliberations that could mark turning points. But, now I have some.
The problem is that I can also pinpoint actions near the same locations as these…
Plus, most of these feel more like they were forced by a previous Action, as indicated.
*Throws things on the floor in frustration*
This is the biggest part of the theory that I just can’t wrap my head around. Driver is more difficult for me than the RS seems to be for most everyone else. (Interestingly, I actually understand the RS fairly well, I think, due to knowing some non-English words for various relationships.)
Ah, maybe I was thinking of one of the forms I was trying to get that kept forcing decision.
Perhaps you could, if so inclined, start a new thread to share some insights?
I would say refusing tire changes and getting flats don’t drive the story. They lead to a tie, but it’s the tie that drives the story. And though I’ve waffled on this, I think refusing the change could be a decision followed by the flats that lead to the decision of a three way tie.
The decision to roll through the night led to tearing up the town. Also, tearing up the town doesn’t change the course of the story. Doc dismissed the case, after all. It’s only after the decision is made to make him fix the road that the story changes.
The King crashing doesn’t stop Lightning from crossing the line. Making the decision to go back and help stops him, and the action that follows-pushing the King across the line-solves all the story problems.
That’s it. I’m sold on Decision now. Same thing we had about 100 posts ago!
Drivers are super hard for me too! The whole chicken-egg thing makes it super hard.
But hold on, I think a race ending in a three-way tie has to be an Action driver, not a Decision driver.
(Yes, I think lack of a Decision could be a legitimate Decision driver, like a jury coming back and saying “we’re hopelessly deadlocked”. But, I’d say that rolling a die or picking a name from a hat or deciding a winner based on a sporting contest are all almost certainly Action-driven. Still, this question is worthy of a separate thread.)
Meanwhile, Lightning refusing a tire change could be a decision (though that wouldn’t necessarily make it the driver). It could be the First Driver if it feels like it really forced the three-way tie and that it really was a decision, not something he “just did”.
I would definitely agree that coming in first is an Action. But being unable to decide who was first seems much more like a decision. It even forces the action of another race.
Look at Rocky. If he goes down in the first round by knockout, that’s an action. But that’s not how the winner was decided. After twelve rounds both boxers were still standing and Apollo Creed only won by decision. And Rocky, despite all the boxing and training, is a Decision-driven story.
Here are the two instances that really confuse me with the drivers in this movie:
With that said, the lower score on Rotten Tomatoes, and the seemingly easy Signpost orders for both Action and Decision, I’m wondering if this is a Story Point that didn’t fully make it into the movie. (Other than the virtually absent OS SP 3). If that’s the case, then perhaps the story isn’t entirely complete but comes darn close.
I think we might need some additional help for this point…
Wow, this has been a long thread! Very instructive though–I feel like I’ve learned a lot. Thanks @Hunter and @Gregolas for all the good discussion.
Reading the last few posts, I kept bouncing back and forth between Action and Decision myself.
I argued earlier that Decision makes for a better signpost order (especially when we were looking at the PSR) but that’s only true for parts of it; I actually think Action makes more sense in places. I also think there are places where neither option makes sense. For example, I think the discovery that Doc is the Hudson Hornet happens right in the middle of the movie, which would suggest that either Signpost 2 or 3 should have something about Memory or the Past in it, but there’s no option for that with either Decision or Action.
So I guess I’m throwing my hands up on this too.
OS Signpost 3 is Learning - Lightning learns how to drive on the dirt track, he learns who Doc really is, and the media learns (from Doc) where Lightning really is. Do those count?
I check everyday to see when everyone’s come to a consensus!
How can we tell whether
a. there’s something off with the structure of Cars itself
b. we’ve missed something in our analysis (i.e. we’ve gotten one or more of the story points wrong)
c. we’ve failed to encode our current choices correctly (or have misunderstood possible ways to encode)?
I feel pretty good about most of our analysis but I’m not seeing how we can cross the finish line (so to speak). Even if we get to consensus on the Drivers, I am having trouble seeing how the Signposts line up with either choice (Actually I feel pretty good about the OS, but IC and MC not so much).
what about RS of Becoming? The relationship changes from Judge/Prisoner to Role Model/Fan?[quote=“Lakis, post:143, topic:1515”]
How can we tell whether
a. there’s something off with the structure of Cars itself
b. we’ve missed something in our analysis (i.e. we’ve gotten one or more of the story points wrong)
c. we’ve failed to encode our current choices correctly (or have misunderstood possible ways to encode)?
[/quote]
Here’s the thing. If you take a Rubix Cube apart and put it together with one piece turned wrong, it becomes unsolvable. But someone who has a mixed up Rubix Cube can only discover that it was put together wrong once they know how to solve a Rubix Cube. In the case of Dramatica analysis, I’m afraid I’m not able to solve the cube just yet.
I’m in consensus with whatever @Lakis and @hunter go with. I just need to close my eyes while that particular band-aid is ripped off. Up to them if we keep discussing before asking you to jump in, Jim.
This is thread is pretty long so I’m not sure what all you guys have covered, but you may have jumped around a bit. Normally, you would try to encode the IC and RS before worrying about Signposts, I think.
Is the IC Problem Disbelief? Did you look much at that? It seems to make a lot of sense, but having only read a synopsis and skimmed the script a bit, my opinion counts for very little!
Is it? I’m not in front of my laptop. But I remember no one believes Doc can beat Lightning in the race, and I think no one believes Doc was the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
Cool! I was thinking that maybe Doc impacted Lightning by being skeptical about the glory of winning the Cup? Does that come through in the film? Also it sounded like he was spurned by the cup organizers or his sponsors, which is what really ended his career – they didn’t believe in him anymore.
As a matter of fact, I believe he mentions that it’s “just an empty cup”
He crashed and couldn’t race anymore, ending his …hopes and/or dreams?
Presented as @mlucas suggests, though, in that Doc was ready to come back, and expected a great welcome. He didn’t get that welcome. Instead, they “moved right on down to the next rookie waiting in line.”