Splash (1984) seems so clear and straight forward. Watching it as a good example of character justification, I noticed a couple of puzzling storyform points.
This is how I’ve previously understood the story. Madison is a Doer. She’s a mermaid separated from her home. There are conflicts associated with her not being human, such as the way she eats lobster, having to learn the language, being chased by a scientist because of what she is, etc.
The objective story is clearly in the physics domain. It’s about obtaining. Dr. Cornbluth is fixated on obtaining her as proof that mermaids truly exist.
This jibes with the Main Character, Alan, who expresses anxiety in the bar near the beginning of the film about his inner desire about meeting a woman and having a child. His fear that this won’t ever happen has earlier seemed certain when his girlfriend leaves him. He admits something in his chest “isn’t working”. Later, he talks of a memory that he saw something odd when he was a child, but shrugs it off in embarrassment. Madison, the good impact character, nudges him to say what he saw. He finally commits an act (spoiler) by rescuing her from the lab and jumping in to save her from military divers sent to re-acquire her (OS Concern: Obtain).
But now I’ve been focusing on noticing the justification levels, signpost by signpost, for both change and steadfast characters. Quite a way through the movie, Alan competes with his brother in tennis while chatting about these troubling questions on his mind. This seems like a physical act of a Doer trying to deal with his problem. He’s questioning why Madison doesn’t seem like a normal woman. Yet, one of the first scenes shows him in a bar after his fiancee left him. Admittedly, he tells his brother “I don’t want to get drunk!”
The bar scene could be interpreted as a concern about his future (if he’s a Doer) or one about inner fears/desires (if he’s a Be-er).
So, perhaps Alan was written as a typical Doer for Western audiences who must come to grips with his mental attitude so he can fix the external situation. Madison’s impact on him seems to impact his mind. She coaxes him to admit his love for her when giving him a mermaid statue.
Yet this makes Alan a stop change character by definition. He seemed in earlier viewings as a start character who must rise to the occasion and admit his love for Madison, unlike his earlier experience with his fiancee. This would instead mean that he has a trait which must be removed in order to change, assuming everyone else is concerned with a physics related plot (Obtain).
Is Splash crooked in terms of a storyform main character?
The other interesting point I found was a likely goof in the Story Limit. Interestingly, this seems a timelock story, as opposed to option-lock romantic comedies. Madison says she says she has six days on land. Beyond that, she can never return to her watery home. It winds up with her taking Alan back to her home, as he recalls he breathes underwater when he’s with her.
This timelock is made even clearer by momentary clips of the moon in a night sky. She says she has six days. It’s tricky to tell when those six days begin. As I understand the Dramatica point of story limit, once you have one more bit remaining, you’re in the story climax. This would be the point when she’s captured and Alan eventually goes in to rescue her.
There’s a clip at the statue at night in which she says she has five days left. However, a couple of days (and nights) or so have elapsed. Was this scene copied and pasted to a later point in the script? The time references are off, which is funny for a story based on a time limit.