Big picture, including everybody, is that there are zombies chasing them everywhere they go. Which sounds like pursuit.
I could see pursuit as the MC problem. He’s so driven in his career that everything else is pushed aside and suffers.
Oh, no. Is this the Finding Nemo/Collateral storyform again? 
Edit: Finding Nemo has avoid as the problem element.
Right. So now that you see this, go back and see if you can find reasonable arguments for the other elements you proposed, because it’s always smart to cross-check everything.
So many things are.
Turns out it’s the ET storyform. 
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I’ll edit this later to add the other throughlines and the points we already covered.
Goal (Obtaining) - Get to Busan …
Consequence (Becoming) - … Or become zombies.
Forewarnings (Preconscious) - As the threat of becoming zombie food grows stronger, the passengers began behaving more impulsively, until finally the CEO is sprinting threw the train yard throwing people the zombies behind him.
Domain (Physics) - A chemical spill has caused an outbreak of zombies that is spreading throughout South Korea.
Concern (Obtaining) - Everyone is concerned with not begin killed or bitten and getting to safety.
Issue (Self-Interest) - The passengers struggle with doing what’s best for themselves vs helping others.
Problem (Pursuit) - Everywhere they go zombies are chasing them.
Solution (Avoid) - They won’t be safe until the get away.
Symptom (Uncontrolled) - The zombies are overrunning everything, the train, the stations, the country.
Response (Control) - They lock the zombies in the other cars, try to hold them back, and learn how to herd them with Sang-hwa’s cellphone.
Benchmark (Doing) - Progress is measured in how well they can fight and run and do all the things necessary to survive.
Catalyst (Approach) - Conflict increases when people argue not only over the best course of action but when and how to execute that course of action.
Inhibitor (Obligation) - Need examples
###Signposts
Learning - Reports of the spill and news footage of the riots create a feeling of unease among the passengers. The crew learns a homeless man has snuck aboard he repeatedly tells them “They’re all dead”. They try to figure out what’s wrong with the woman who’s having seizures and has a bite on her leg.
Doing - Fighting the zombies on the train. Running to safety.
Obtaining - Seok-woo’s group stages a rescue mission for another group of passengers who are trapped in a restroom. The CEO’s group locks Seok-woo’s group out, trapping them in the zombie zone.
Understanding - The soldiers misunderstand the situation and almost kill Su-an and Seong-kyeong. They realize they’re actually survivors when they hear Su-an singing.
Domain (Mind) - Seok-woo is completely focused on his career. It’s putting a strain on his home left. His wife has left, his mother has to raise his daughter for him.
Concern (Subconscious) - Seok-woo suppresses his emotions as part of his job. He has a cold, it’s just business attitude.
Issue (Closure) - Seok-woo tells his mother he has to work so much because it’s a crucial time for the business. because it’s a very crucial time at work. He tells his daughter that finishing what you start is the most important thing in life.
Problem (Pursuit) - Seok-woo is super driven workaholic who puts business before everything else.
Solution (Avoid) - Realizing he is going to become a zombie, he removes himself from the others so they can survive.
Symptom (Reconsider) - Seok-woo is not a guy that likes to think twice about things. When his ex-wife, mother or assistant suggest he may be doing something wrong, he refuses to hear it.
Response (Consider) - Seok-woo always brushes people off sticking to his convictions that he is right. I’m a great dad. Su-an is fine. I was right to lock you and your wife out.
Unique Ability (Closure) - Su-an finishes singing her song, like her dad told her to, ending the nightmare trip to Busan and allowing the remaning survivors to successfully reach their destination without being killed
Critical Flaw (Preconception) - Seok-woo’s ability to finish what he starts is undermined by people’s preconceptions of him.
Benchmark (Preconscious) - We track Seok-woo’s growth by how he is able to not impulsively try to save his own skin.
###Signposts
Memory - Seok-woo remembers his daughter’s birthday, but forgets he already bought her a Wii.
Preconscious - Seok-woo panics under pressure and locks Sang-hwa and his wife out with the zombies.
Subconscious - Seok-woo breaks down in the bathroom, overwhelmed by everything and fearing he may have had a hand in everything that happened. He confesses to Su-an that he is afraid.
Conscious - Seok-woo finds peace in his final moments by being swept away by thoughts of his daughter.
I think that “learning to control the zombies” with the phone, with sound and the tunnels is definitely part of it.
Add to this that how they are doing it, when the are doing it also adds to the tension.
I think this is not quite right. Him being slow adds to the conflict for me.
I did not see a ton of Obligation in the movie, and the scenes that stand out as possibilities are all in the RS unfortunately. For instance, Seok-woo feels obligated to take his daughter to Busan (thus pausing the conflict in that scene). But suddenly I can feel why in a movie about “me first” is thrown off when someone is feeling Obligated to someone else.
Learning something isn’t Learning, per se. There has to be some kind of problem associated with learning it. Like, “They have trouble learning what is going on outside the train, but they know it’s bad for them when they are told they are not making their first stop.”
I always try to tie Closure to it’s affect on the OS. So, things like “he calls his buddy so he can escape a never-ending quarantine and put an end to his involvement with the zombie outbreak.” He (effectively) puts a closure to the problem for our key players by wrestling the final zombie and then tossing himself from the train.
Those are my thoughts, but otherwise really good work!
Agreed. Maybe I can find something on a rewatch if I’m looking out for it.
Absolutely.
Much better. I was rushing earlier and this signpost felt kind of weak to me.
I really feel strongly about finishing the song being Su-an exercising his unique ability in the OS. He even lectures her in the car in the beginning about how she should’ve finished it. Maybe reframing it as “Su-an finishes singing her song, like her dad told her to, ending the nightmare trip to Busan and allowing the remaning survivors to successfully reach their destination without being killed.”
I can definitely see these, especially him wrestling the final zombie and ending his life. The first one doesn’t seem like it ties to the story resolving successfully though.
Thank you, sensei.
I think you are right—I was ending the story too soon (with him) and it still could have been a failure had they been shot. She couldn’t finish the song earlier because, as she says, “You weren’t there.” Now she’s finishing it, which means he’s “there”, and it buttons up whether or not they are zombies.
It doesn’t tie to the successful resolution of the story, but it ties Seok-woo as an MC to the OS. Without this earlier example, it would seem like a deus ex machina if it showed up later for the first time.
I decided instead of reaching and fudging some points, I’m going to leave them open for other folks to suggest ideas or until I can rewatch.
###INFLUENCE CHARACTER - Su-an / Sang-Hwa
Domain (Universe) -
Benchmark (Progress) - Need examples
Unique Ability (Openness) - Su-an and Sang-hwa have a lack of openness when it comes to their beliefs. Unlike everyone else in Seok-woo’s life (analyst Kim/his mother) who seem to roll over for him, their unwillingness to re-evaluate makes them uniquely able to influence him.
Critical Flaw (Denial) - Need examples
Signposts
Present - Su-an is extremely unhappy living with her father. She wants to leave to see her mother immediately. Seok-woo agrees to take her to Busan, forcing him to miss work.
Past - Sang-hwa demands that Seok-woo apologize for what he did, but he insists he was in the right to lock them out.
Progress - After being bit, and now turning into a zombie, Sang-hwa gives his life to slow the advancing zombies and buy everyone time to break into the next car.
Future - Seok-woo’s final act of sacrifice is so that Su-an and Sang-hwa’s wife can live on. Knowing they won’t have future if he doesn’t act drives everything he does in the last act.
This one is a doozy. i have ideas for some of the empty spots, but it’s hard to frame them in terms of the relationship and not the people in the relationship. Also need to clear up how some of these story points actually play out in the throughline theoretically.
Domain (Psychology)
Concern (Becoming) -
Benchmark (Being) - The relationships are all measured in terms of being there for each other.
Signposts
Becoming - The father / daughter relationship is stagnant, an afterthought, and they are growing apart.
Conceptualizing - The father/daughter relationship is pushed apart by the scheme to ditch everyone else on the train.
Being - All the relationships grow closer together when they’re finally reunited after being separated.
Conceiving - The father/daughter relationship finally gets the idea that it’s always there even if they’re not together.
Yes, it’s about how Seok-woo looks at his daughter’s future.
More to the point about Sang-hwa is that he helps EVERYONE. He is the one trying to lock the door, for instance.
You actually don’t need examples here. This is not a change character, so you don’t see this.
Because this is a horror movie, the storyform/meaning is not really the priority. So these may not even be in there.
I think it’s as simple as “Seok-woo is not a committed father.”
This feels like a stretch to me. But I think that’s relevant because that is how they ended this relationship—and it felt like a dumb moment. He would have run, and didn’t. Totally broke me out of the story when this happened. But the filmmakers didn’t have many other options. He couldn’t sacrifice himself—the homeless guy does, and Sang-hwa does too. This would have been one moment of Conscious too far.
I think it’s like Anti-Becoming: they recognize the breakdown in the family.
And Seok-woo finally gives over to being a father, and makes the heartfelt promise to get her to her mother.
Very true. Will add that.
Absolutely. i was trying to think of examples of hinder stopping the influence on Seok-woo, but couldn’t pull anything from memory. It’s probably not encoded at all.
Right. Also, the cheerleader wants the baseball player to commit to the relationship / baseball player doesn’t want to commit to it.
I agree. I think it could’ve been stronger if he was tempted to leave her, but she begged him to stay. The relationship isn’t developed to the point where you feel like he’d decide to stay with her on his own.
Great examples. Will add these.
I actually realized there is an example of this.
Early in the movie when Su-an wants to leave, she makes a big deal about how she doesn’t want to be a bother, she can go by herself.
If she went alone, so as not to be a burden, then no more Su-an, no meeting Sang-head and no movie. 
I don’t think so. If hinder worked here, then Seok-woo would not have said, “I’ll take you.”
Sorry you missed the convo.
Quite alright. The day it got rolling was also the day that my family was dealing with stomach bugs and a several hours long wait at the ER to get a 4 yr old stitched up. We’re all good now and I enjoyed catching up on it afterward.
Yikes! Glad to hear everyone is better now.
How would this apply to something like Silence of the Lambs where the OS Universe is ‘killer on the loose’? I suppose the strict border there would just be the cell walls? Or is there maybe something in the movie that suggests the killer is only operating in a particular city?
In some OS Universe stories, there is just something wrong (stuck) with the universe without it being specific to any location. So yeah, killer on the loose, or innocent man found guilty (The Fugitive).
I think Mike’s comment was referring to this story.
He was referring to this story specifically. That said, I could see a strong argument for the OS Physics and RS Psychology domains in Silence of the Lambs. (Clarice and Hannibal’s mind games go both ways.)
I think it’s an older analysis and there’s no way to see that thought process that went into those choices.
Anyone up for a rewatch and a new thread to see how we feel about the analysis?
In that case the question would be why does this story need a border? Couldn’t ‘killer on the loose’ be translated into ‘zombies on the loose’? Or even just ‘zombies exist’?
I suppose for this story the answer would be ‘yes, but that’s not this story’ and it’s not that moving zombies mean it can’t be Universe, but rather that moving zombies is part of the context that puts this in Physics instead of Universe. Fair enough. Just thought there might potentially be some deeper Understanding lurking in the corners I could try to chase down.
My question wasn’t about this movie, by the way, just the nature of a border requirement.
I think the “border” distinction in this case is the conflict isn’t from zombies existing, it’s that they’re actively spreading. The transmission of the infection is an out of control process. Does that help at all?