You want to do all four domains? … If so, fine by me.
OS: Activity: the people on earth try to get up to Elysium while the people on Elysium keep them out.
MC: Situation: Max received a toxic amount of radiation and only has five days to live.
IC: Fixed Attitude: Frey has one goal in her life, get to Elysium and cure her daughter.
RS: Manipulation: Frey’s love & devotion to Matilda leads Max to accept his fate.
@Writegeist? @Sean? What do you guys say?
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Well done! I agree. Definitely fits with the aggressive actions Delacourt uses to keep people off the habitat… Also, as a sideline, with the OS Story as Activity, we are given our Growth setting, which happens to be “Stop.” In that vein, maybe Max needs to stop thinking only of himself and consider other people? That could be too obvious. Or maybe I’m trying to stuff “stop” somewhere where it doesn’t fit.
At this stage, I think it might still be a little too early. We haven’t isolated Max’s concern & issues. So, if we’re all in agreement on the domains, it’s @Sean’s turn to isolate the throughline concerns.
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OVERALL STORY CONCERN: Obtaining (Make everyone a citizen of Elysium)
MAIN CHARACTER CONCERN: The Future (Max doesn’t want to die from radiation poisoning)
INFLUENCE CHARACTER CONCERN: Innermost Desires (Frey is driven to save her daughter)
RELATIONSHIP CONCERN: Changing One’s Nature (Max tries to convince Frey he is a changed man. Frey needs Max to realise the potential he has.)
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I agree with all your choices… We are trucking right along… Next up is me! Do I take Problem?
Sorry for dropping off the radar this weekend, but the dreaded Honey-Do list turned up the heat with extreme prejudice! I should be able to hit the analysis again on Monday. Thanks for your patience… And the three rooms that I re-painted look great!
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Okay, I’m going to take a shot at this (and I’m fully expecting to get shot back at):
MC Issue: Choice; Max is constantly being given choices by those around him. Should he stay at his dead-end job or should he get back together with his buddies and start jacking cars again. Should he choose selfish or selfless behaviors? Should he choose to ask the big question about the father of Matilda.
IC Issue: Dream; Frey dreams of a time when Matilda will live without the disease. That dream runs up against the reality that she sees all around her.
Relationship Issue: Responsibility; The conflict between Max and Frey comes down to who is responsible for changing how things are. Max isn’t willing initially to be the catalyst for change; all he wants is to be healthy again, to take back what the society has taken from him. Frey is someone who has accepted the responsibility as a nurse to help others (including Max when he is injured, even though it puts her life in peril) and as a mother of a child with an unknown father.
OS Issue: Morality; What are the moral choices that all the characters must wrestle with? Is it moral to blow spacehips out of the sky (oops, space) if they threaten our children (“Do it for the children!”)? Despite what the laws say, should I help the people I care about, even if they are criminals, even if I don’t agree with how they are living their lives?
How’s that, sirs?
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Looks like you’re not getting the resistance you were expecting. Shall we do the final step and tackle problem?
I guess so. Clearly I didn’t read my audience well… And, yes, Problem ahoy! Are you next, @Jerome? [There are only three of us; you’d think I could keep it straight…]
OS Problem: Temptation: Despite all the dangers, despite the risk of being shot down, or turned back, the citizens of earth risk everything for a shot at making it to Elysium and saving either themselves or their loved ones.
MC Problem: Temptation: The same goes with Max, he’ll risk everything for a shot at saving his own life.
IC Problem: Oppose: Max won’t help Frey save her (their?) daughter, Matilda.
RS Problem: Avoidance: Frey avoids getting involved with Max, Max avoids his responsibilities as a friend / father.
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For some reason, the word “temptation” bothered me… I had to see if it had a wider meaning than what I thought it had. So, I checked on the Dramatica dictionary and the definition helps: “the urge to embrace immediate benefits despite possible consequences.” (On the other hand, “conscience” definitely isn’t Max’s problem.) Everything on the space habitat deals with the immediate: “We have to deal with this NOW!” And Max’s line about having to get to Elysium “right NOW!” also fits in. We can talk about the possible weakness of the IC and RS problems another time 
Good job.
Hm… looks like Elysium holds up from a storyform point of view. From my perspective, what doesn’t work with the story is the lack of counter balance on the OS Issue.
In the OS Story, the counter balance of Morality is Self-Interest. By focusing on only one side of the issue, in this case Morality, the earth bound citizens seem to live only to serve their heartless masters, creating a cartoon, black and white situation that didn’t make much sense. Why aren’t the poor rising against the rich? Why aren’t the rich helping the poor? Isn’t it in their long term self-interest to do so?
By not addressing those counter points, the story felt like it had big holes in it.
You put your finger right on the problem… As much as I had problems with the RS (because I really felt like the story lacked heart; I had a hard time believing the relationship between Frey and Max… and they worked so hard at the beginning to get us to feel for these two people as children), my real problem came with both the Delacourt and Kruger characters. There was that sense of cartoonish-ness, fable-ness about it from that direction. Bad Guys - Rich; Good Guys - Poor. It’s never that simple and movie-goers sense that even if they can’t put their fingers on why (like we can with Dramatica).
Thank you for suggesting doing an analysis of the film. Hope we can do this again soon!
Great working with you both… I’ve learned one thing: Just because you have a storyform, it doesn’t mean you’re going to come up with a good final product. It takes more than that. But I am less critical of the movie than I was before we did this.
Thanks!
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All,
Thank you for all working through Elysium and looking for its storyform. It was interesting to see you all work through it, and I wish I could have joined in at the time.
@Writegeist, interesting note you mention. I had a similar feeling with Michael Clayton - the first viewing I really didn’t get it. I didn’t think the story was broken, but I didn’t engage as i thought I would have. On rewatching though, and seeing the storyform broken down in front of my eyes, it dawned on me just how good that movie is. Now it is one of my favourite films. I wonder if I just missed it first time around, or if my perception of it changed when it worked so well in storyform.
@brendon_oloughlin It was a fun process. I think the more I work through these story analyses, the better I’m able to synthesize the information that Dramatica provides. Like I told someone (maybe @jhull), I wish I’d had Dramatica theory in college; I would have knocked those humanities essays out of the park every time
I certainly wouldn’t say that Elysium is a favorite now that we reviewed it. But I just dislike it now rather than despise it. I’m a big fan of Matt Damon, too, which is sad. My feeling is that what really bothered me the most was the mishandling of the relationship story (seemed forced upon us, especially with the long prologue about the two kids’ relationship; it was like “okay, okay! we get it! these two kids like each other and this will be important later!”) and the watered down objective story with the inhabitants of Elysium. I think I’m bothered the most by the squandering of a potentially great idea. Then again, as someone said, it takes as much work to make a bad movie as it does to make a good one. You can have a solid storyform and still strike-out. There’s no guarantee and certainly no formula.
My job now is to work from the other side of Dramatica: rather than reverse-engineering completed stories, I’m trying to work toward a story that not only has a solid storyform but also works for a readership. Also not an easy task.