Home Alone analysis

analysis
#61

IC Symptom and Response: Process & Result
How does the IC in Home Alone (the mom, the old man) see Process as the symptom, and response with Result?

Well, driven by his intolerable (non-accurate) family situation, Old Man Marley sees the problem as the continuing argument between him and his son which makes him “not welcome” in his granddaughter’s life. He responds by getting the only results he can: seeing her at her choir practice, and sending her a check for Christmas presents.

Kate (Kevin’s mom) is driven by her intolerable situation (being away from her son) and her rather poor, non-accurate parenting. She sees the process of trying to get a new plane ticket, trying to get home, etc. as a problem, and responds by pointing out the repercussions (Result) to her and her little boy. And doing whatever she can to get results: “can’t you ask someone else to bump their seat” and “I’m not leaving here unless it’s on an airplane”.

Here is again her Symptom of Process (getting upset at the whole awful process):

AGENT:
I’m terribly sorry, ma’am, but we’re doing absolutely everything we can. (Signals the next person in line to come to the counter)

KATE:
Go ahead. Wait, I’m sorry. Excuse me. You’ve got places to go, people to see. You’ve got a ticket there. That’s good. Excuse me. Look, I have been awake for almost 60 hours.I’m tired and I’m dirty. I have been from Chicago to Paris, to Dallas, to… Where the hell am I?

And her Response of Result (doing whatever it takes to get results):

KATE:
And I don’t care if I have to get on your runway and hitchhike. If it costs me everything I own, if I have to sell my soul to the Devil himself, I am going to get home to my son.

Finally, we begin to see her embrace her Solution of Accurate (riding in a van with polka bums is good enough):

GUS:
If you don’t mind going with polka bums?

KATE:
No, I’d love to.

#62

I’m not sure if we illustrated the Story Driver of Action, but here are a couple:

  • the tree falling onto the power lines, which prevents the alarm clock from going off
  • Harry and Marv happen to spot Kevin and follow him
#63

Buzz eats all the cheese pizza, Kevin decides to retaliate and gets in trouble.

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#64

Below is the Story Engine Settings report for the Home Alone storyform we came up with. @chuntley or @jhull, wondering if you might be interested in taking a look, with the possibility of adding this to the Dramatica site based on our group analysis?

STORY ENGINE SETTINGS:  "Home Alone (1990)"

CHARACTER DYNAMICS:
MC RESOLVE:  Steadfast
MC GROWTH:   Stop
MC APPROACH:  Do-er
MC MENTAL SEX:  Male
OC RESOLVE:  Change

PLOT DYNAMICS:
DRIVER:  Action
LIMIT:  Optionlock
OUTCOME:  Success
JUDGMENT:  Good

MAIN CHARACTER
(Kevin McCallister)
DOMAIN:  Universe
CONCERN:  Progress
ISSUE:  Threat vs. Security
PROBLEM:  Hunch
SOLUTION:  Theory
FOCUS:  Determination
DIRECTION:  Expectation
UNIQUE ABILITY:  Security
CRITICAL FLAW:  Wisdom
BENCHMARK:  The Future
SIGNPOST 1:  The Present
SIGNPOST 2:  Progress
SIGNPOST 3:  The Past
SIGNPOST 4:  The Future

RELATIONSHIP STORY
(Mother and Son)
DOMAIN:  Psychology
CONCERN:  Being
ISSUE:  Desire vs. Ability
PROBLEM:  Test
SOLUTION:  Trust
FOCUS:  Determination
DIRECTION:  Expectation
CATALYST:  Ability
INHIBITOR:  Value
BENCHMARK:  Becoming
SIGNPOST 1:  Conceiving
SIGNPOST 2:  Conceptualizing
SIGNPOST 3:  Being
SIGNPOST 4:  Becoming

OVERALL STORY
(Securing The Home - Alone)
DOMAIN:  Physics
CONCERN:  Doing
ISSUE:  Experience vs. Skill
PROBLEM:  Non-Accurate
SOLUTION:  Accurate
FOCUS:  Determination
DIRECTION:  Expectation
CATALYST:  Skill
INHIBITOR:  Fact
BENCHMARK:  Obtaining
SIGNPOST 1:  Understanding
SIGNPOST 2:  Learning
SIGNPOST 3:  Doing
SIGNPOST 4:  Obtaining

INFLUENCE CHARACTER
(Kate McCallister / Old Marley)
DOMAIN:  Mind
CONCERN:  The Preconscious
ISSUE:  Worry vs. Confidence
PROBLEM:  Non-Accurate
SOLUTION:  Accurate
FOCUS:  Process
DIRECTION:  Result
UNIQUE ABILITY:  Confidence
CRITICAL FLAW:  Knowledge
BENCHMARK:  The Subconscious
SIGNPOST 1:  The Conscious
SIGNPOST 2:  Memory
SIGNPOST 3:  The Preconscious
SIGNPOST 4:  The Subconscious

ADDITIONAL APPRECIATIONS

GOAL:  Doing
CONSEQUENCE:  Being
COST:  The Preconscious
DIVIDEND:  Progress

REQUIREMENT:  Obtaining
PREREQUISITE:  Becoming
PRECONDITION:  The Subconscious
FOREWARNINGS:  The Future
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#65

Hey all, looking at the storyform I just noticed the very fitting position of IC Signpost 2: Memory – forgetting Kevin!

The signposts for all the other throughlines look really good too, just kind of eyeballing them. Especially MC Kevin’s – from:

  • his present unfair circumstances being punished,
  • to how things are changing with everyone gone, including conflict from devolving back to a scared little kid,
  • to feeling guilty over past actions ("I’ve been kind of a pain lately. I said some things I shouldn’t have. I really haven’t been too good this year.),
  • to wishing for his family to be home on time for Christmas and setting everything up for their return, including buying groceries.
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#66

Hi @mlucas—

I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but I just finished watching it again with the family (love John Candy)

Kevin is a Changed Main Character. He goes from pretending to be violent to all out violence. Be-er to Do-er.

Marley is the sole Influence Character — You and I moment in the church.

And conflict in the OS is seen in Mind. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is a huge a—hole to everyone else in the narrative (and everyone suffers because of it)

Stop the activities and there would still be a problem. Stop the bad attitudes and all is right with the world. :muscle:

Merry Christmas! :christmas_tree::gift:

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#67

Merry Christmas Jim!

Hmm. I’ve been thinking about your ideas and trying to keep an open mind, but I’m having trouble seeing things your way.

Regarding the OS… To me, it seemed that the “being an a–hole to each other” wasn’t the source of conflict, it was more like the status quo that existed before the story starts, the “love-each-other-hate-each-other” of normal family life. It’s even shown to be continuing at the end of the film (not something that was resolved) when Buzz yells “Kevin what did you do to my room!”

Whereas by ending the problematic activities (burgling and chaotic family travel), the story’s difficulties are resolved.

On Kevin, I saw him as a Do-er from beginning to end … he pushes Buzz at dinner, and one of the first things he does home alone is toboggan down the steps and out the door. We must be seeing his throughline differently? I saw all the traps and home protection and fighting the Bandits as mostly in the OS throughline, with a portion of MC woven in (“I’m capable of taking care of things”). The real personal stuff was conflict over whether he’s capable of packing a suitcase (beginning) versus him buying Christmas groceries for the whole family (end), showing his Steadfast-Stop growth.

How would you describe Kevin’s personal issues & perspective?

To me, Marley definitely seemed a Changed character at the end, with how he gives up his fear and worry based perspective about his son and rejoins the family for Christmas.

How do you see Marley influencing Kevin toward real violence?

Anyway, Merry Christmas :christmas_tree: again, and thanks for commenting!

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#68

The real question is how do you not see Kevin as having a Changed Main Character Resolve? He starts the story hating his family and wishing them to the cornfield, then fights to defend their castle. And he doesn’t feel like he has to explain himself.

That’s a complete 180 from the beginning.

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#69

I’m also having a hard time seeing the OS in Mind, but I do think (just to repeat something I said earlier in the thread) that Kevin is a change character of SOME kind.

He starts out clearly saying “I wish I had no family” and ends up really happy that they’re back home. It feels like a huge shift. I just can’t see that as a steadfast growth. It feels way too clear a reversal.

My question for Jim, which I think could clear a lot of our confusion up, is what do you think is the OS goal? It feels too external for me to see it any other way, so this might clarify it for me.

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#70

There’s a lot of underestimating going on—from everyone. The crisis prevention line, the cops, the headcount, the burglars and how “stupid” kids are, the scary guy next door, whether or not the scary’s guy son will welcome him home, whether or not Kevin can take care of himself (he can), Candy and his “bums” who aren’t there for Christmas, the stopping distance required to avoid hitting the lawn decoration, the cheapskate who didn’t leave a large enough trip, the amount of time it takes to make their flight, the value of a watch that looks like a Rolex, the amount of money needed to pay for 12 pizzas, the reality of Kevin’s house party, and eventually whether or not two crooks can beat a kid, and when they think they have him beat in the house he set them up in.

Also, the kid and the neighbor have one thing in common: they’ve both been physically abandoned by their families. And they both have different approaches towards facing that abandonment. (Though eventually one adopts the others approach).

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RS Hand-off in Home Alone?
#71

Let me be clear that I’m open to the idea that I’m seeing it wrong and Kevin is a Changed main character. For now I’ll argue for Steadfast because I still think that position deserves some advocacy …

I didn’t see him as hating his family from the beginning. His very first line is “Mom, Uncle Frank won’t let me watch the movie, but the big kids can. Why can’t I? … It’s not even rated R.” He goes on to complain about “nobody’ll let me do anything”. Just after that is the suitcase bit, which I think is crucial. Kevin admits he doesn’t know how to pack a suitcase because he’s never done it before, and politely tries to get advice on how to actually do it. But no one will help him, they just repeat that he’s helpless and incompetent.

Even when his mom singles him out and punishes him, he doesn’t start out saying he hates them; it’s the other way around: “Everyone in this family hates me”. Only at her suggestion does he wish for them to disappear:

KATE: Then maybe you should ask Santa for a new family.
KEVIN: I don’t want a new family. I don’t want any family. Families suck!

I thought his personal issues were well established prior to that. Not about hating his family but about being stuck being a little kid, who’s a lot more capable than everyone gives him credit for. It’s that “I’m more capable and grown-up than you think” perspective that he’s steadfast on.

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#72

So if he wasn’t a little kid, all his problems would disappear?

#73

Yes. (At least his personal problems; he’d still have to defend the house etc.)

#74

Jim, I don’t want to be a roadblock here … and I can see the view you and @jhay are espousing, with Kevin as a Changed main character. To do so I have to shift my thinking about the narrative, and look at Kevin’s “little kid who’s seen as incompetent” issues as just a piece of a bigger personal issue, that of hating his family. Almost like they’re the reasoning behind (or justification for) his personal issues, rather than the issues themselves.

There are still some things that confuse me in that shifted view (esp. IC throughline and IC resolve), but I’d be interested in exploring it further. So if you don’t think there’s any more to be gained by use each advocating different MC Resolves, I’m happy to step back and explore the storyform further with Kevin as Changed MC.

(My biggest curiosity is around Marley – I definitely agree about the You and I and same abandonment issues, but to me it seems like Marley was influenced by Kevin to take a different path.)

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#75

The thing with Kevin is that he wants everyone to treat him like an adult—and he wants everyone to know it. At the end, he’s asked what happened, and he answers, “oh, you know, stuff.”

Now he is thinking like an adult. Not needing validation anymore. He just takes care of business and doesn’t care what people think of him.

In the beginning, “Everyone hates me”—and they do. They actually hate him and don’t waste anytime telling him. But he takes it farther—he wants them all dead and gone. He’s being “childish” about it.

The reason why it feels like Marley and Mom “change” is because you’re looking at problematic attitudes. They used to hate him—now they think he’s cool.

Resolution is a change of attitude—not shooting a laser missile into an exhaust pipe. So that change of attitude feels like a subjective change—when really it’s an objective look at how a change of mind can “fix” things.

Marley still believes what he tells Kevin in the church—there’s just been a change in attitude that resolves his relationship with his son. Subjectively—what he told Kevin still applies.

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#76

Okay, this makes a lot of sense to me. Thanks for communicating it so clearly.

Darn, I feel like I need to watch this movie again now. It’s always felt a lot like Star Wars to me, but now you’re giving good reasons why it may actually be more like Zootopia (I know Zootopia has MC Physics, but I actually have not seen a single analysed film that has OS Mind, MC Psychology!).

Come to think of it, in your mentorship program I never got to the OS Mind assignments section. So having less experience there might be biting me.

I had thought Kevin’s going from “everyone hates me” to “I wish them gone” was actually the influence of the mother, making him react like an impulsive child (IC Concern: Preconscious). There was something that bugged me about that though, something not quite IC-like, but I thought it was just because it’s only a 100-minute film so maybe something was missing.

Wondering if @jhay or @Gregolas have any thoughts at this point? I think Jay was hoping you’d offer ideas on the OS Concern & Goal… Unless you’d rather one of us take a shot at that? Is it something like “everyone needs to be more considerate” (Conscious)?

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#77

Zootopia is a great example. Marley’s “change” is a lot like Nick’s “change” to a cop.

And I really like the Goal encoding—Everyone ends up more considerate—all across the board.

The boogeyman next door genre was my first clue. Marley felt a lot like Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Everyone bring a jerk to everyone else was my second lol.

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#78

Funny how the phrasing can really make a difference. When you earlier said everyone was a being an a–hole / jerk, that meant nothing to me, like background noise. Maybe I have a blind spot there, growing up with 4 siblings and probably being the jerk myself sometimes? But needing to be more considerate – suddenly I can see how that fits the cops hardly bothering to check the house “tell them to count their kids again”, the airline staff and other passengers who won’t help (at least until they get every last bit of jewelry), the bandits leaving the water on, etc.

It’s weird, I haven’t totally given up on the previous storyform we had yet, like I can still see both working. But I’m willing to admit it’s probably due to a blind spot of mine. It might be a danger of writers doing analyses – faced with a blind spot, we make up a different but still-valid narrative that matches on the surface. Like I (along with Jay & Greg) told myself a story that wasn’t actually Home Alone, but fit a lot of the surface “stuff” in Home Alone.
(Perhaps the same thing has happened before with a talented novelist and a superhero movie? If so, I’m in good company… :slight_smile: )

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#79

Hah!

Oh, and I also think it’s a Decision Story :slight_smile:

#80

Actually that doesn’t surprise me. When I tried really hard earlier to picture your OS Mind, MC Psychology narrative ideas, the only way I could do it was to shift the story drivers!