God gives Bruce a mop. Together they clean the floor.
“No matter how filthy something gets, you can always clean it up!” says God. “You want to see a miracle, be the miracle. The problem is you keep looking up.” Bright lights go on as God walks up the ladder.
Bruce is by himself and looks up at the moon, as order is restored to the city. Bruce is stuck in traffic. He helps push a motorist’s car that has stalled. Bruce disconnects the computer so that people can solve their own problems. Bruce apologizes to Evan and congratulates him on getting the anchorman job. Bruce accepts the position as the comic news reporter. Bruce stands up next to the homeless man and holds up his own sign: “What he said.”
Sam will not pee on the sidewalk. Bruce runs upstairs and carries down the chair so that the dog will pee. Grace’s sister comes to collect her things from the apartment. Bruce gives her the photo album. She tells him Grace prays for him every night.
Bruce searches for messages from Grace at the computer. “Dear God, help Bruce,” appears. Bruce watches Grace cry as she prays for him. Bruce walks in the rain in the middle of the street. He gets down on his knees to pray. “I don’t want to be God! I want you to decide what is right for me! I surrender to your will!” Bruce gets hit by a big truck! A surprise plot twist. This is also the protagonist desperation scene that usually occurs at the end of act two.
CLIMAX SCENE Bruce walks through the clouds of heaven and meets God, who says that “Bruce has the divine spark: the gift of bringing joy and laughter”. God gives Bruce back the prayer beads. He wants Bruce to pray for what he really cares about. Bruce wants Grace to be happy. That is his prayer! God says that he will get right on it, then pokes Bruce in the chest with his fingers. This shocks Bruce back to life!
RESOLUTION SCENES Bruce is now on the street where he was hit by the truck. He is receiving electrical shocks. Bruce next wakes up in a hospital bed with a doctor standing over him, telling him that he is lucky to be alive. Over the side of his bed is a bag of blood: AB Positive.
Grace comes into the room and hugs Bruce. He apologizes, then realizes that he has the prayer beads in his hands.
The last scene takes place at the “Be the Miracle” Community Blood Drive. Bruce is covering the story for the TV news. He introduces Grace as his future wife to the audience. They are surrounded by members of the community.
“BE THE MIRACLE!” says Bruce. Grace pushes Bruce forward to donate blood.
The homeless man holds up a sign: “Armageddon Outta Here.” The face of the homeless man morphs into the face of God.
THE END
COMMENTARY Bruce Almighty is a non-sequel megahit; an original story without a builtin audience. It is the kind of story that any writer could develop without having to worry about obtaining rights to existing material. Magic and Humor are the key to success. Show the audience things they do not see everyday and make them laugh.
Does this movie fit the standard first ten minutes of a classic Hollywood story design? What is the inciting incident? Bruce loses the anchor job he wanted. He flips out and gets fired. Now let’s go back to the very first scenes to see what information the writer gave the audience.
What is Bruce’s goal? His objective? Material things. Fame. Life on his terms. He wants one thing more than anything else. Bruce wants to be the TV anchorman. This is a concrete goal, but it is also a unique objective: only one person can be the anchorman. Bruce has competition because Evan also wants to be the anchorman. The way to guarantee conflict in a movie is to create a unique object that only one character can possess, have the protagonist and the antagonist both desire it, then have them fight for it. This is setup in the first ten pages of the script; the first ten minutes of the movie.
What is Bruce’s personal problem? His Achilles heal? His weakness? Bruce is very selfish! Bruce only cares about himself and his desires. How is this established in the first ten minutes? What is the relationship with his girlfriend Grace like? He blew off his girlfriend over the picture book in the beginning of the story because he was worrying about his job. His character arc goes from selfishness to giving to others. Bruce goes from being completely selfish to giving his blood at the community blood drive.
And the writers did a great job in developing this character arc in small incremental steps. They set him up as being selfish because he will not help Grace with the family photo album (a “we” thing), because he wants to see his TV newscast one more time (again and again).
We have the classic Hollywood ten minute opening:
Introduce the protagonist with an empathy scene (in a hairnet). Show the protagonist’s dream (he wants to be the anchorman). Show the antagonist (Bruce complaining about God).
Create an inciting event which changes his world (Bruce gets fired).
Who is the real antagonist of BRUCE ALMIGHTY? Bruce! Bruce is his own worst enemy and the character he must overcome before he can find happiness. He blames God for all his problems. What about the prayer beads? This is a great prop that was used by the writers to convey much meaning in the story, especially as it was moved from character to character. This is a great cinematic device. Grace gives Bruce the beads in the car. Bruce uses the beads to pray for a sign from God. He drops them on the floor of the car and, when he tries to find them, he crashes the car into a pole. Then he gets angry and throws the beads into the lake. Later, when Bruce and God are walking on water, God picks up the beads and takes them with him. In the end Bruce has the beads with him in the hospital when Grace comes back to him. It is an object that represents faith and hope in this story.
Once Bruce got God’s power, what did he do with it? He abused it. Bruce got back at everyone he was mad at. He used the power for his own pleasure and personal gain. Selfishness to the max again! But then he discovered that he did not have the power to make Grace love him again. It was only when he realized that he could not win her back by power that he begins to change.
How does Bruce win back Grace? He wins her back through an act of selflessness. He wants Grace to be happy, even if that means her being with someone else. So God gives Grace the man who loves her most and will make her happy, which is Bruce. She prayed to God to help him. It was God answering Grace’s prayers for Bruce to be contented with life and their love all along. So this was a nice plot twist, where the hero wins by letting himself lose.
THE MATRIX TRILOGY MATRIX $171,479,936
MATRIX RELOADED $281,553,689
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS $136,924,212
The first MATRIX movie was not a megahit, but it did create an audience for the second movie of the trilogy. Matrix Reloaded grossed over $280 million in the U.S. Domestic Box-Office. This was a highly anticipated movie that everyone had to see, yet, it was also universally proclaimed to be a critical disappointment. Many believe that the failure of Matrix Reloaded doomed the third part of the trilogy, Matrix Revolutions, which has grossed less than the first movie. Although not all three gained megahit status, much can be learned by studying the story structures found in these movies in the hope that they may lend some
light as to why this trilogy failed to maintain a mass audience appeal.
The first movie introduced the main characters and their primary objective: free the human race from the Matrix. Neo was deemed to be the ONE who would be able to do this. The movie is a “coming of age” story in which the hero develops the powers to save the race from enslavement to the Machines. Morpheus took on the role of the protagonist supporter, who helps Neo become the man he is destined to be, while Trinity is cast as the traditional “love interest.” The antagonists are the Machines which have conquered the humans and enslaved their minds within the Matrix while using their bodies as an energy source for the machine world. The antagonist supporters are the agents, led by Agent Smith. He is the primary villain of the first movie. Neo chooses to fight the agents in order to save Morpheus’s life, even though the Oracle has prophesied that one of the two must die. Neo is killed by Agent Smith, but then
is brought back to life by Trinity’s kiss, becomes the ONE, manipulates the Matrix, and destroys Agent Smith. The resolution scene of the movie shows Neo in the Matrix but warning the powers that be that he will challenge them to free mankind.
The first movie follows standard Hollywood story design with Neo as the protagonist overcoming obstacles to save the world from villains, who desire to enslave mankind. There are plenty of surprise twists, including Neo coming back from the dead, but ultimately in the climax scene, he prevails and destroys his opposition. The film is filled with amazing special effects and a stunning production design that made it the must see film of 1999. These factors led to the initial popular success of the second movie. Everyone wanted to see the sequel. They had to see this movie. But the reason that the second movie failed was that the characters became much less emphatic: Neo, with his Superman capabilities, became a comic book character with whom the audience could no longer identify. He was no longer personally in jeopardy. Neo was not at risk. It was Trinity, the love interest, who seemed destined to die. Yet, Neo also had the ability to bring her back to life by removing a bullet and massaging her heart with his hand. Neither of the characters are really in jeopardy in this movie. The audience no longer cared or remained emotionally involved. The climax scene had a classical Hollywood structure: the protagonist was given a choice of either saving the world, or the woman he loved. Neo chose not to save the world. He chose to save Trinity. So much the worst for Zion. To make matters even worse, at the end of the Matrix Revolutions Neo no longer believes that he is the ONE. He abdicates from his mission. This conclusion was emotionally disappointing for many people, and the word of mouth got out. After a great opening weekend, the box-office dropped 60 percent for the second weekend.
How many Agent Smiths can you fit in one courtyard? If Neo always had the ability to fly away from a courtyard filled with Agent Smiths, what took him so long? How many Agent Smiths can Neo defeat leads to the question of how many Agent Smiths can a teenager destroy playing the video game? The Matrix Reloaded theatrical release became nothing more than an advertising promo for selling Matrix video games and DVDs, which now have a greater profit margin (and gross revenues) for the Hollywood Studios than money received from theatrical releases alone. It is no wonder that the theater audiences could no longer become emotionally involved with characters that were reduced to video game action figures. Warner Bros. was determined to build on the momentum of the first two movies, but they realized that there would be problems with audience acceptance of the third movie of the trilogy. In order to avoid bad word of mouth they released the movie worldwide on the same day. It had a great first global weekend, but then audiences failed to return during the second week. The U.S. Box-Office Grosses for Matrix Revolutions is the lowest of the trilogy.
The Matrix trilogy is often complimented for introducing metaphysical discourse to the general movie public. Issues concerning appearance versus reality and determinism versus free-will are thrown into the dialogue between the action filled sequences. Books such as The Matrix and Philosophy edited by William Irwin, are dedicated to discussing philosophical issues raised in the movie. The Oracle was introduced in the first movie to bring up issues of Free Will and Determinism. She continued to play a pivotal role in the second and third films. There is a symbiotic relationship between humans and machines. Humans have become dependent on machines and technology for their survival. This is shown and discussed in the city of Zion when Neo speaks with one of the Elders. But in Zion, it is humans that are transforming the technology more than the technology transforming itself. It was the creation of Artificial Intelligence by humans that empowered the Machines to revolt. Both the Terminator and Matrix movies start from the same premise: Intelligent Machines declare war on the human race. But the Matrix movies takes this premise to the extreme in having machines enslave humans and use them as an energy source.
The Matrix Reloaded continued to explore the journey of a futuristic messiah who would save the human race from enslavement. But Neo’s objective changes from the first to the third movies: in the first Matrix movie his mission is to save humanity from the Matrix, but by the end of the third movie the best that he can accomplish is to end the war between the machines and the humans: the Matrix survives and the machines dominate the world after Neo’s sacrifice. In this sense, the ending is an emotional disappointment for the audience.
In the climax scene of the second movie, the Architect explains that Neo was the sixth anomaly, and that this would be the sixth time that Zion gets destroyed. Neo then no longer believes that he is so special. What is so great about being THE ONE when there were five other ONES before you? Why bother to save Zion when it has been saved, then destroyed, five times before. Why not instead save the life of Trinity, the woman he loves? This is the choice that Neo makes at the end of the second movie.
The Matrix is a virtual reality world constructed by the Machines in order to keep the humans sedated so that they can be used as batteries to fuel the energy needs of the Machines. The Architect is a program in the Matrix, as is the Oracle. The Architect is the program that creates and maintains the Matrix system as an efficient order that will generate the most energy possible from the farm of human batteries. The Oracle is the program that generates the belief in some humans that they have free choice in order to keep them functioning within the Matrix. Neo is not a program, he is a human that has been released from the Matrix by the efforts of Morpheus, Trinity, and the other free humans. He is believed by Morpheus to be the reincarnation of the first human who freed himself and others from the Matrix. These free humans have escaped to the city of Zion. Here, they bred other humans who have not been born as servants to the machines and stage a resistance to the control of the machines. Morpheus believes that Neo will be able to control the Matrix, free the enslaved humans, and end the war with the Machines. The Machines have been fighting this war for over a hundred years. They have destroyed the city of Zion many times before, but they have not been able to create the perfect Matrix which will enslave all humans. Some humans always escape and free others. An Anomaly to the Matrix designed by the Architect is always generated each time a new Matrix system is created: this Anomaly is just intrinsic to the Matrix design process. A perfect Matrix that does not generate an Anomaly cannot be created. But if an Anomaly becomes too powerful, and starts to free too many humans, the Matrix becomes a failure for the Machines. It is the Oracle’s task to point the Anomaly back to the source of power controlled by the Machines so that he can be recycled, Zion can be destroyed, and the optimal generation of battery energy from the human farms can be maintained. Neo is just the sixth Anomaly in the history of the Matrix system.
Humans want to believe that they are free; that they can make choices in their lives. This is the function of the Oracle: to help some believe that they can make choices. Ninety-Nine percent of the humans can be happy with the illusion of choice. The other fraction breaks out of the Matrix and goes to Zion. These are the ones that free themselves from the Matrix, the world of machin- generated illusions. Cypher was one such character, who then came to regret his choice. Cypher was not happy living in ‘the Desert of the Real” and betrayed Morpheus and the others so that he could return to the Matrix and live a life of bliss in ignorance.
Then, there is the Anomaly, the ONE (or A ONE), like Neo. He is the One that can alter the Matrix and shift the balance; free more humans than the system can withstand. That is his threat to the machines and the reason why, if he is too powerful, he must be returned to the Source. This is also the function of the Oracle; to show an Anomaly the way back to the source so that the Anomaly can be assimilated and transformed back into human nutrition.
Neo is different from the others because this time he has released a new force which threatens to destroy the power of the Machines: Free Agent Smiths. Agents are sentinel programs created by the Machines to live within the Matrix and to prevent humans from escaping from bondage. Agent Smith wa
s just one of these programs. But when Neo destroys him in the climax scene of the first Matrix movie, Neo also transforms Agent Smith. Neo unwittingly leaves something of himself in Smith, enabling Agent Smith to also become free of the Matrix and the Machines. This is revealed when Agent Smith gives his control communication ear piece to Neo as a gift. Like Neo, Agent Smith is now a free agent but with the ability to reproduce at will. He is also instilled with a hatred for humans. Not only do the Agent Smiths want to destroy Neo, but they also want to destroy ALL the humans. This poses a critical threat to the Machines for if the Agent Smiths destroy all the humans, they will also destroy the Machines who need the humans as a source of energy. It is this fact that enables Neo to negotiate with the Machines and end the war against the humans. It is only Neo that can destroy the Agent Smiths because he created them by leaving part of himself in them…he destroys them by allowing the machines to funnel energy through him as a weapon. This process is successful but also ends in his death. Neo sacrifices himself to save the human race. At the end, the Machines transport away the body of Neo towards the source of all energy, perhaps to be transformed and reincarnated one more time.
Neo’s victory is not a triumph over the Machines. The Machines still dominate, and the Matrix still exists. The Matrix is not destroyed in the climax scene. All that occurs is that the pending annihilation of the humans in Zion is stopped. A few humans survive the onslaught of the Machines.
In the resolution scene of the movie, three characters are shown within the Matrix: the Architect, the Oracle, and the little girl. The Architect and the Oracle are the duals of each other and are both needed to maintain the Matrix. The Architect does agree to allow any human to become free of the Matrix and go to Zion if they so choose. But, he does not agree to free all the humans, for to do so would remove the source of energy needed by the Machines to survive. The Machines and Humans will accept a symbiotic relationship in which they will need each other in order to exist. But there is a new addition: the little girl. She represents a human who can live in the Matrix without purpose. She never had a purpose besides being an object of love for her parents. In the new Matrix design, humans will be able to experience the world of the Matrix without being enslaved to serve the Machines. This is the new dawn that has been brought forth by Neo through his sacrifice.
The Megahit Movies Page 40