Why do Back to the Future 2 and Empire Strikes Back feel more like connectors between the first and third movies in each series rather than feel like actual stories in their own right?
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Speaking only about Empire (I canât remember BttF2 very well)âŚ
Up until a few days ago I would have said the reason is that Empire is not complete on its own, that itâs just part of the larger trilogy story/storyform.
However, now that @jhull has found the very compelling two (!) storyforms for Empire, Iâd say that if you feel this way, itâs probably because of the scope of the story. Star Wars (1977) and Return of the Jedi both have more galactic, rebels vs. Empire scope. While Empire Strikes Back is really about Vader pursuing Luke (and Han & Leia trying to escape). Though presumably the Empire was looking for them too, the rest of the rebels are only caught up in this story because Luke is on Hoth (and theyâre all sidelined after the first act).
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possibly because, unlike the other two movies in the trilogy, they end with a clear cliffhanger: marti is stuck in the past; han is frozen, why did obi-wan lie, vader and emperor are still around.
they also have quite a bit of setup that isnât paid off yet, especially bttf2 (like the chicken thing).
ending on a tragedy could also have something to do with it. we donât want it to end this way.
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A non-Dramatica answer would be that they leave lots of âopen loopsâ as @bobRaskoph says.
A question thatâs almost more interesting to me (especially after reading Jimâs analysis of Empire) is how to leave open loops/cliffhangers for the reader while having a structurally complete story in the middle chapter of a series, giving people both a feeling of closure and a sense of anticipation for the next chapter (assuming thatâs what happens).
Also:
is that it? Put more broadly, is there something structurally about the storyform of The Empire Strikes Back that makes it work especially well as a middle chapter of the longer series, or is the open loop aspect mostly storytelling?
http://dramatica.com/dictionary/bad (emphasis mine)
The Main Character ultimately fails in resolving his personal problems
If at the end of the story the Main character is still nagged by his personal problem, then the judgment of the story can be considered bad.
Is this not, in a way, an open loop?
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Yes - this totally makes sense.
Just thinking aloud. In Dramatica for Screenwriters, Armando has a chapter where he explores ways to use Dramatica structure to create suspense, mystery and dramatic irony. Mabye this is a way to use Dramatica structure to sustain tension through a series. (Maybe there are other waysâŚ).
Itâs been a long time since Iâve seen it, but does BTTF2 use one of its story points to set up for part 3? Like doesnât Doc have to do something important for the story of part 2 only to end up stuck in the past in order to do it? I could be wrong about that. But if Iâm not, and Iâm just speculating here, maybe doing that lets the audience know on a linear level that Doc helped explore this sign post in a way to help us move on in part 2, but on a holistic level we know that Doc being stuck in the past means things are still out of balance and thus thereâs still more to this story. Again, thatâs probably not accurate. I only bring it up because itâs the best I can do from memory and because if it is in any way accurate, it seems like a pretty cool way to keep the audience engaged and ready for part 3.
Iâve been wondering something similar about The Last Jedi. Itâs the second part of a supposed trilogy which itself is supposed to be the third part of a trilogy of trilogies. So why does it seem like a standalone, the end of a series rather than the middle, and at the same time completely removed from forty years worth of Star Wars lore? From a non-Dramatica point of view I definitely know what the answer is, but I have no nice way of saying it so wonât go into it. But Dramatica-ly speaking, it doesnât carry any previous story forms or story points forward, wraps up its own story, and doesnât really do anything to suggest that there are story points to be carried forward. So itâs kind of the opposite of the BTTF2 solution I suggested above. It leaves us feeling on a linear level like we know there should be more (even though we know, probably also linearly that the story is over) and we also know holistically that everything is pretty wrapped up. Sure theyâll tack some crap on to have a third movie, but it will be impressive indeed if they can create any semblance of a coherent storyform with the trilogy.
If Jim is correct, then the original trilogy does not have a coherent story form either.
The Neo-Empire and Kylo are still around. The film ends with an assertion that there is still hope. And as much as I donât like this kind of thing, the relationships throughlines between Rey and Kylo, Finn and Rey, and Finn and Rose are not / donât feel concluded. When this movie was over, I did not get the impression that weâre done. I did not feel closure.
40 years of star wars lore have very little to do with the actual movies, and even less with the conclusiveness of any given episode.
Itâs at least a decently told tale, which is fine with Dramatica. With this new trilogy, we have something like this.
Part 1. Hereâs a bunch of important things weâre going to talk about and the important things that are happening.
Part 2. Haha, no, none of thatâs important. Itâs all stupid and lame just like your heroes who are all failures and no different than the bad guys.
(Part 3 will probably say No wait, Rey is still awesome and important! But Iâm guessing)
I mean, I suppose it could be possible to get a third of the way through a story, then start waving your hands in the air and saying âno, wait, let me start overâ and still end up telling a tale that makes sense and includes the first third of the story that you already dismissed, but itâs going to be really hard to do. [quote=âbobRaskoph, post:8, topic:1587â]
The Neo-Empire and Kylo are still around
[/quote]
Same at the end of New Hope. But that doesnât carry the story forward. With TLJ, we know that the good guys (those war profiteering bastards!) are still around for another generation or so to fight and thatâs really all it felt there was to say. Weâll get another movie that says See? Here they are still fighting! But whatâs the point? Snoke is dead and we know that the good guys really arenât that good and the bad guys not that bad. As far as TLJ is concerned, the important part was that everybody could fail at everything and still be around to inspire a generation. Thereâs no more specific goal being carried forward to be accomplished in the next movie. Whatever goal they have in the next one will solely exist in the next one.
Iâm not much of a relationships guy, I guess, but i donât see this dragging the story forward. I mean, in a way other than asking âso are you guys gonna kiss, or what?â We already know that Rey can kick just everyoneâs ass, including Kylo. I guess they could subvert expectations yet again and have Kylo beat her in the last movie, but I do not get the idea that that will happen. If the next movie has only those relationships to look forward to, that just seems to me like a few loose, but very unimportant, threads. [quote=âbobRaskoph, post:8, topic:1587â]
40 years of star wars lore have very little to do with the actual movies, and even less with the conclusiveness of any given episode
[/quote]
If you take the galaxyâs greatest hero who fought the galaxyâs greatest villain, the guy who never considered killing the most evil person ever because he saw the faintest glow of good within him, and then suddenly tell us that same guy was about to murder his nephew so he wouldnât grow up to be a whiny idiot, then you remove your story from forty years worth of other stories that this story is trying to fit into. If you have forty years of treating The Force like this sort of religious experience (with one misstep of trying to give it a really stupid scientific explanation-but that didnât change how The Force was treated) and then start treating The Force no different from the force used by the kids at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, you remove your story from the grander scheme. I can easily imagine Rian Johnson telling us the only reason Luke couldnât use The Force in the beginning as easy as broom kid is because heâs the Star Wars equivelant to a Muggle or a Squib or whatever. You can still have a self-contained storyform when doing that, but you absolutely keep your story from fitting in with any greater narrative by ignoring or going against everything that came before.
[quote=âGregolas, post:9, topic:1587â]
Itâs all stupid and lame just like your heroes who are all failures[/quote]
just a slight exaggeration there
because context doesnât matter?
okay, star wars used to be extremely black and white and now it isnât.
The goals carried forward from empire:
- save Han. pretty separate prologue from the rest of the story.
- finish lukeâs training. luke comes back in the next one, and is apparently done.
[quote]
Iâm not much of a relationships guy, I guess, but i donât see this dragging the story forward. I mean, in a way other than asking âso are you guys gonna kiss, or what?â[/quote]
Presumably there are more ways of concluding relationships than âkissingâ. We did not wait for Luke and Darth to kiss either.
he exploded the first death star and convinced darth to kill his master. truly the galaxyâs greatest hero.
how is darth the galaxyâs greatest villain?
pretty sure he considered that a lot in a new hope and empire. and how much thought did he put into helping palpatine?
Letâs say thatâs true. So what?
⌠I suppose this is too off-tangent for this thread⌠we might want to stop or continue else where
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Probably so. Up to you. I donât think Iâd disagree with some of what you said, but think maybe I couldâve worded a couple things more clearly.
Taking all of my personal distaste for this movie out of it, the point I wanted to make was that I donât see any way for this trilogy to even be a successful tale when the second part has told us that nothing in the first part was important. Only reason I brought that up was as a contrast to the idea that BTTF2 was using a story point important to part 2 to set up for part 3 (again, Iâm getting this from memory, could be wrong) One of these movies uses a story point to expand into a separate story, the other movie seems to try to cut itself off from every available thread and still expects to have another story that follows and makes sense. One feels like the middle part of a trilogy, and one-at least for me-defintiy does not.