Are animated movie plots just one big cycle?

J

jcarddd

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Someone from another site I visit mentioned this, along with the following descriptions:


_____ is a member of a group/species/community of similar things/beings that longs to be more than just another member of that group.

Through some sort of unexpected adventure, ______ (and the audience) discovers that there's more to themself than meets the eye, and realizes they are special or different in some way that makes them not like the group they belong to.
A bad guy seeks to hurt _____'s chance at breaking out/new friends/family, and so ______ must use special talents (because none of the friends have these special talents) and innovation (because few of the friends can even innovate) to rescue them from the villain's evil plans.
Along the way, _______ makes some new friends in strange places, and these new friends DO have special talents and are each unique in their own way. With the help of the new friends, ________ defeats the villain, and then tells his/her original family/clan that he/she is different and special and introduces the new, sometimes scary friends to the family/clan.
Then Smashmouth's "Rock Star" starts playing (or some sickly Randy Neuman song) and everybody lives happily ever after in their new life (until the TV series starts and blows off the film's ending).

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I confess I got a laugh out of it, but is it really that far off the mark?
 
That's interesting. The person who came up with this makes a few valid points but it's not the case in all animated movies, like:

Disney's Hercules
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Lion King
Toy Story
Monsters, Inc
Shrek

The list goes on.
 
There is a pattern, but I don't think he's quite identified it. It sounds mostly like Happy Feet (minus the bizarre change in direction 2/3 into the movie). It almost describes Shrek, but that didn't really focus on any sort of "special abilities"... I really think he wrote that template around Happy Feet.

Also, what's with the Randy Newman hate? Pixar uses him a lot, but I don't see how that makes the movies predictable. And his songs are usually good. One of his songs creates the most powerful moment in Toy Story 2.
 
There are lots of theories on the exact number of different story types there are in the world, with numbers running from 3 to 7. This specific one looks to me like a smart-aleck version of Joseph Campbell's archetypal Hero's Journey that's trying to make fun of animated movies. Campbell often called it the Monomyth because it seemed to describe aspects of stories that cut across cultural, temporal, and societal boundaries. I'm not sure how seriously I'm supposed to take it or how novel the writer thought he/she was being, but:



This describes characters from Perseus and all of Zeus' kids in Greek mythology all the way forwards to The Matrix's Neo and Harry Potter. The easiest way to do this is to make the kid an orphan, or to give them a mark of some kind that identifies them as the hero. HP actually does both, just to be sure. You could call it the pre-requisite to Campbell's "Call to Adventure" -- the call comes to the one who is special because he or she is special. If they weren't special, they wouldn't be the one to get the Call.

Well, stories have antagonists and the hero of the story has to be the one to defeat them, right? Otherwise, he or she ain't gonna be the hero of the story. And, just as the hero needs to be special to get the Call to Adventure in the first place, what makes the hero special is what will let him or her defeat the antagonist. Otherwise, what's the point of being the hero?

Stories have supporting casts. Campbell divides these into the "mentors" who show you the path (akin to Morpheus in The Matrix or Dumbledore in HP) and "companions" who walk the path with the hero and are often key to the hero's success, but who are not the main hero of the stories (Trinity in The Matrix, or Ron and Hermione in HP). Of course they have skills that the hero doesn't have, since they're either teaching those skills to the hero or they're a balance to the hero's deficiencies. Even Superman needs a Jimmy Olsen.

This is the Return of the Hero. The hero returns from the adventure, wiser and often with a boon or a gift for the society as a whole, which then learns to accept him/her. If you look at the hero's journey as a metaphor for one's own rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, this is a symbol of taking up your role within the larger society.

So, Campbell discussed all of this with more depth and rigor, except for the Randy Newman/Smashmouth part ;). But he would agree that all stories ARE the same and that's exactly why we keep retelling them.

Besides, a cliche is only a cliche if it's badly done. Execution counts for a whole lot.

-- Ed
 
Well put Ed.

The Ancient Greeks stated there were only three basic structure to a story:

Man VS Man
Man VS Nature
Man VS Himself

It pretty much describe every ancient Greek play ever written :p
 
Well one since animation is not a genre but an artform it's wrong to say all animated movies have a formula.

And I could use the same argument and shoot it back on live action horror movies, action films, dramas, romantic comedies etc.

A typical horror film:

1. Group of teens either go on a road trip or have a party. Lots of foul language, graphic nudity, and sex.

2. They get stranded or drunk and encounter a serial killer that's back from the dead or some creature thing. More foul language and graphic nudity.

3. They all die one by one. More foul language and graphic nudity.

4. Hero kills killer.

THE END
 
Um...haven't we already had a thread like this in the last few months?Correct me if I'm mistaken but I think it was either on this forum or the D/P forum. :confused:
 
Oh yeah, I forgot the OR IS IT endings :D The killer gives some sign that he's still alive for the sequel... that has a different director, a lower budget, and even more unneeded excessive violence, foul language, graphic nudity, and sex then the original.

Then that's followed by about 20 more sequels and then a "VS" movie or some other lame spinoff/crossover.
 
Somebody once told me that there are only two types of movie story structures; the stranger comes to town or the hero's journey.

But it should be clear as day to see why so many studios keep going back to this formula. It may be tired, but it still brings in the green and if you spend close to a hundred million dollars on an animated, you can bet they want it to appeal to a HUGE amount of people. But I think many of the people who greenlight these scripts have it wrong. I honestly believe that kids and families will go to these films reguardless of the story as long as it looks cute and makes cute jokes. And if The Incredibles proved that a human story can still be cute and even entertaining, why don't we have more of them?

I don't hate these films based around cute animals. I thought Over the Hedge and Surf's Up were very well-written and directed animated films, but I wish more of these studios would start taking more risks in their stories outside of their cute animal bubble.
 
Granted, I like Pixar, but with the exception of The Incredibles, they all do follow the same path for the most part, with a couple little twists that differentiate them from the pack.
 
Not exactly. Finding Nemo is a very different film from Cars, which is a very different film from Ratatouille, which is certain to be extremely different from Wall-E.
 
A lot of twists. In fact, the only Pixar movie that fits your descriptions is A bug's Life and maybe Ratatouille but I haven't seen it yet.
 
If you look at it a certain way yes but most plots in modern (2001 and up) animated films are just a group of random animals wanting adventure or to do something dangerous and then theres some random villain who gets in their way.
 
21st century animated films which don't follow that formula (from Jerry Beck's Animated Movie Guide):

Recess: School's Out
Shrek
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Osmosis Jones
Blood: The Last Vampire
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
Spriggan
Waking Life
Monsters Inc.
Jimmy Newtron: Boy Genius
Metropolis
Escaflowne
Mutant Aliens
Lilo and Stitch
Hey Arnold: The Movie
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
Spirited Away
Jonah: A Veggie Tales Movie
Eight Crazy Nights
Treasure Planet
WXIII: Patlabor the Movie 3
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
Rugrats Go Wild
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Sakura Wars: The Movie
Millenium Actress
The Triplets of Belleville
Tokyo Godfathers
Shrek 2
Kaena: The Prophecy
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
The Incredibles
The Polar Express
Muhammad: The Last Prophet
Sky Blue
Appleseed
Robots
Steamboy
Howl's Moving Castle
The Corpse Bride
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Cars
A Scanner Darkly
Monster House
Everyone's Hero
Renaissance
Blood Tea and Red String
Hair High
Paprika
Arthur and the Invisibles
Meet the Robinsons
Aqua Teen Hungerforce Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Shrek the Third
Tekkon Kinkreet
The Simpsons Movie
The Ten Commandments
Beowulf
Persepolis
 
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