What Sequels Teach Us About Developing Character

I hated the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark. No, not the Citizen Kane homage rosebud scene at the end – I loved that – but the ending of the movie. I didn’t want it to end. I hadn’t enjoyed a film that much since, well, Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, or Jaws. I wanted it to continue. I wanted more.

I got more and I didn’t want it.

Why don’t sequels do well? Obviously, I’m not alone in feeling the way I do about Raiders or Star Wars or Jaws or any other great character-rich, dynamically set film that pulls you in and doesn’t fully let go even after the end titles trail up and we see that film certification symbol fade out. So, why is it that more of what we love, we hate? Well, maybe not hate, but not love quite so much. What’s going on here?

Perhaps like many of you, I get excited when I hear shooting has started on a new installment of a film series I enjoy. Back when I saw the first leaked images of Jones on horseback going up against a German tank in the employ of the Afrika Corps, I was “giddy as a schoolboy.” I couldn’t wait to for that thing to be in the can and out in the theaters. I was thrilled, anxious and ready for the journey. But then another feeling took hold. Again, like many of you, when mention of a sequel or prequel leaks out, a small fear creeps up the back of one’s neck that somehow curiosity will lead to a deep regret, rivaling that of John Hurt’s as he poked his nose over that egg in Alien. And, like John, our feelings are often very well justified. Because many times, almost always, if anyone’s counting, sequels fail to capture the magic of the first film. “You just can’t repeat it,” many repeat. Well, I’m not so sure about that. I don’t think it’s that the filmmakers are not trying hard enough, I think it’s more that they’re trying too hard.

People change, and so should characters, right? Well, not quite. I have been wondering for a long time now, why it is I can’t fully enjoy Return of the Jedi, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, any Rambo emptying a SAW past First Blood, or any Rocky beyond the bell where an out-of-breath voice gasped wisely, “No rematch!” And where an equally wise one gurgled out, “Don’t want one.” Well, a little voice, similarly exhausted, tells me this could be said of Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John, Radar, Burns and Hot Lips Houlihan. Of the cast and crew of the Minnow, and that other ship, where some rogue muttered, “Look, I’m not in this for your revolution, sister. I’m in it for the money.”

What am I talking about here? It’s what has been defined as Character Development. Somewhere along the way character development, the arc or course a character’s actions, words, and behavior take along a story line has been replaced with something different, something not-so-natural, not-so-healthy, something very formulaic. The increase in depth of a character’s personality, is, we are told, a sure sign of good writing, good acting, and lot’s of other good stuff. It signals to us that the characters are being fleshed-out, are growing, just like us. Changing, just like us. And doing the things we normally do, like becoming superhuman, multi-dimensional, and, best of all, not at all in it for the money.

I’m here to say that it isn’t working. Not for me, anyway. Using Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces as a tuning fork, Lucas played the characters of Star Wars with perfect pitch and tone. He hit every note right. Yes, I happen to like Luke Skywalker as an innocent, awkward, and yes, sometimes dopey farm boy, a kid out of his element fighting a huge empire. I don’t know many farm boys who have much experience fighting huge empires (though that’s no reason to deny them the job). I also happen to like Han Solo looking out for number one, and of course, also watching his trusty sidekick Chewie’s back. Sure I want Han to come to the rescue every now and then, saving everybody and maybe the universe, too. But not as a full-time job! And I want him complaining about his predicament with every discharge of his blaster all the way down the celestial pike. What I don’t want to see is his transformation into a benevolent, altruistic, selfless stick figure, volunteering for the toughest assignment without so much as a quip, an insult or at least a good joke. In Return of the Jedi, his character became flat and blocky, more inert than when he was frozen in carbonite.

I have an idea. It might even pass for a theory. It goes something like this:

In Ridley Scott’s Alien, Ripley made a interesting heroine because we didn’t expect her to be the heroine. Let’s face it, Tom Skerritt had higher billing and thus, a greater chance of coming out of that pickle with a heck of a lot more than a highly lubricated pile driver alien jaw through his head, or worse. So did John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto, and Ian Holm. Sure, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, by rising to the occasion and becoming the hero achieved the unexpected, it’s true. Yet her actions were not out of character. Why not? Because we had already been shown hints of her strength. No, not in any oiled-muscle, gearing-up scene – as in Aliens, and now almost every other film which has a David on the way to slay a Goliath – but in her behavior toward Ian Holm’s Science Officer Ash. When Ash makes the rash decision to violate quarantine protocol and let the landing party re-enter the ship and mind of Conrad’s Nostromo, she’s pissed. He blatantly disregards her authority. Soon after, she confronts him and lays down the rules. That’s all that was needed. Hints are what we like. Not HITS, as in ‘…over the head.’

Aliens changed things. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this film, as I do many of James Cameron’s. But it’s another good example of writing going past the point of believability that is more distracting to me, and maybe others, than an audio pop, a jump cut, or violating the 180 rule. With this sequel the filmmakers decided to develop her character into a somewhat neurotic and unstable fusspot, suffering from insomnia, and having to still feed the same moody cat after 57 years. This is fine and understandable, and, very much in keeping with her character and what she’s been through, but it doesn’t really explain the superhuman strength and Delta Operator focus we see in her later on in the same film. Where did her fear go? And where did those skill sets mysteriously come from? Hicks? Spunkmeyer?

Surrounded by goo-oozing aliens, pulsating eggs, and god knows what else, she charges back into the breech and certain death to find that darn cat again. Well, no, not really. But it might as well have been the cat. Instead, it’s the little girl, Newt, perhaps the most obvious in a long list of Cameron tributes to Gordon Douglas’ original “bug hunt” flick Them! Ripley crawls into the growling belly of the beast with little more than a souped-up pulse rifle and spare magazines. And all through this mission, which would make John Rambo pause, she’s not even breathing heavy. While in the first movie, Alien, just one of those creatures hiding somewhere on a ship the size of Greenland made her hyperventilate into something resembling sheer panic. Justifiably so. But here, she calmly, and very professionally goes about her new task of rescuing a small girl from amongst several hundreds or maybe thousands of “Ripley’s bad guys”. Let’s not forget, this is within the dark, dank depths of a burning nuclear power plant that is about to do an impression of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst. Sure, the mother instinct is a crucial element of the theme here, mother vs. mother and all that. But, still, her behaviour takes on a super hero quality that transforms the story into more science fantasy than fiction. Where the original rules set down by the writers are being violated by who else, but the writers, in situations where anything, even the absurd is possible and to be expected. This is not to be confused with a suspension of disbelief. Rather, this is an expelling of belief that the setting and situation the writers have created for us is being transformed into a veritable Westworld run by renegade deus ex machina.

Alien Resurrection displays more character development with our hero Ripley going gothic with touches of arcade Street Fighter and left-over marine grunt mixed-in. Granted, to be fair she is merely a shadow of her former self, quite literally. She’s a clone. This time, an off-the-rack Ripley with a shelf life much longer apparently, than a synthetic Bishop, Ash and, while we’re at it, a Zhora, Priss or even Rachel could ever hope to get from the original manufacturer. But this unreasonable facsimile is just that, unreasonable. She’s not a whole lot of fun, either. Because we can guess rather confidently from the opening shots of her determination, that here sits our hero. This isn’t character development. This isn’t even a character. Unless you happen to be considering the cartoon variety.

Which brings me back to Luke, Leia, and Han (sorry Chewie). Principle players in the original Star Wars, they had their respective characters fleshed-out in fine form by the third act, the battle. We loved it, as did most of planet Earth. Which doesn’t really explain why the creators of the third installment, Return of the Jedi, would want to change that. Of course, we want change, but not at the expense of the things we have loved which connected us to it in the first place. I don’t want to see new facets of a character if I feel the filmmakers are showing me these new facets, these changes, these twists because they’ve exhausted all their original ideas in earlier installments and are now resorting to drastic means to keep the gravy train rolling, with add-ons that are more a product of meetings with merchandisers than anything else. If that’s the case, if in fact the characters are out of ammo, fleshed-out as far as their flesh will go – inevitable no matter how rich the character is written initially – then give us a new character or another adventure. For example, look what was done with the exceptional Leigh Brackett and Larry Kasdan penned Empire Strikes Back, a rare winning sequel. It had taken the original idea, expanded on it and led us to places undreamed. Yet, all the while, retaining the character traits of all in attendance and firmly anchoring us to the original franchise without so much as a hiccup in believability or anything that a healthy smack on a cockpit control panel couldn’t fix. That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how you do it. You don’t pervert the characteristics of each member of a story, transforming them beyond believability, simply to get more mileage out of them or to justify a production, an episode or a sequel. Lovers of the original film, the fans, will rebel against that. They want to see more of what they love. They don’t want to see entirely new characters masquerading as the old ones for no other reason than to reel-in a duped loyal fan base at the box office. Not a good idea.

Which leads us to Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Certainly, it was no Raiders, no Last Crusade nor my and many others’ least favorite, Temple of Doom. Simply, it just didn’t measure up. But, with that said, I did enjoy it and was happy to see the settings and the characters, well, some of them, again. I missed Sallah, and Marcus. Who didn’t? I wasn’t crazy about the time period, though I’m a big fan of cold war anything. But for me, Indy belongs in a pre-atomic age, when leather satchels, whips and dusty bomber jackets were worn by men other than those without a cause to rebel against. That’s a change that didn’t need to be. “Yeah but it’s twenty years since they made Last Crusade!”, they cried. So? Harrison Ford is an actor, so are the other people in the film who call themselves actors. Hollywood makes magic, doesn’t it? Now, more than ever, we’re constantly told. There is no reason why we couldn’t have had this fourth Indiana Jones installment, and most likely the last, set in the mid-forties. In an attempt to make the story more ‘real to life’ they made it too real, and lifeless. Was this another mistake by Spielberg? Judging not by the reviews, which I never judge anything on anyway, but by the fans and of course, my own feelings, that humorously understated line by Last Crusade’s last Templar knight comes to mind: “He chose poorly.”

Before I forget, I want to mention one other thing about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that bothered me. Something on the poster, something about Indy was missing. His smile. Indy wasn’t really smiling. They continued the poster style, keeping it consistent with the serial nature of the cliffhangers that Raiders re-pioneered, if I can say that in mixed company. And I applaud that with gusto. But they changed the illustrated Indy too much by leaving out that cockiness, even after 20 years. If he’s not going to smile, not going to be displaying that adventurous grin, not going to display that false bravado, that winning lovable mixture of Joel McCray, Bob Hope, and yes, Han Solo that made Indiana Jones come alive for us, making even the most harrowing situation and death defying stunt seem fun and something we’d like to try at home, then why bother? They missed it with the poster. So, right out of the gate, they went in the wrong direction, with the wrong approach. Sure, he’s 20 years older, so what? Ever hear of people like John Glenn, Malcolm Forbes or Michael Korda? There are plenty of examples of men and women in their middle and senior years pursuing endeavors that healthy college kids would run from. So, for a character like Indiana Jones to run out of steam, it’s disappointing to say the least, and certainly not a topic for a sequel. Frankly, I think they played on the age element far too much in order to introduce a new angle to Indy. A big mistake. They didn’t need a new angle. I think even a poor story – and this one was not up to par with the previous three by any stretch of the imagination – could have been a heck of a lot more fun and much better cinema if they retained the Indy that we knew and loved in Raiders, felt a bit distanced from in Temple of Doom and re-united with in Last Crusade. That’s my feeling. But heck, I’m making this up as I go along.

Here’s a plea to budding writers out there:

If you want to write such huge character changes, don’t experiment with an existing, beloved creation, adding-on simple shock value and steroids or fatigue and a lack of collagen. You may hit on a winner, and you may not. In the meantime, though, you’ll be changing irrevocably the things from the original that we grew with and held close to our hearts. Don’t do it.

Start with a new, original story. There, you can experiment with a clean slate and see for certain why the lines are forming, along the story arc and around the block. In the meantime you may find quite unexpectedly that the big screen isn’t the only place where your character is being developed.