Screenwriting Lessons: “The Wizard of Oz” — Part 5: Final Struggle
Everything in the story leads to this culmination point.
Everything in the story leads to this culmination point.
Joel Coen of the Coen brothers has said: “Every movie ever made is an attempt to remake The Wizard of Oz.” True or not, all I know is I constantly reference the film in my teaching. Why? Because it contains so many classic narrative elements.
Therefore I was inspired to take on a week-long series focusing on screenwriting lessons we can draw from The Wizard of Oz.
Today: Final Struggle.
We may tend to think of the climax of a story as the Big Battle… Protagonist versus Nemesis in the ultimate test to see who will win the day. And there are plenty of movies in which this is the case:
- The Matrix: Neo vs. Agent Smith
- The Silence of the Lambs: Clarice vs. Buffalo Bill
- Casablanca: Rick vs. Major Strasser
- Gladiator: Maximus vs. Commodus
- The Lion King: Simba vs. Scar
- Alien: Ripley vs. the Alien
- The Apartment: Baxter vs. Sheldrake
- Up: Carl vs. Muntz
- Unforgiven: Munny vs. Daggett
- Mad Max: Fury Road: Furiosa vs. Immortan Joe
However sometimes the Final Struggle is less a physical battle than it is a psychological one. For instance, we see this dynamic in The Shawshank Redemption with Red’s story wherein he confronts a choice: Follow the path Brooks laid out — in effect one that says, “Get busy dying” — or live up to the promise Red made to Andy by going to that field with the tree, then heading off to Mexico to meet up with his old friend (“Get busy living”).
It’s largely a psychological struggle, not a physical one.
The same holds in The Wizard of Oz. If I say ‘Final Struggle’ in relation to that movie, your mind may lock in on this scene:
It’s Protagonist vs. Nemesis with Dorothy prevailing by slaying the witch (“I’m melting!”), but here’s the thing:
The movie is not over. Not nearly!
There’s another 10+ minutes left:
- The Witch’s guards, happy to see the witch dead, allow Dorothy and her friends to go free.
- They travel to Oz.
- They confront the Wizard who brushes aside the Wicked Witch’s broom and tells Dorothy to go away.
- Toto pulls back the curtain revealing the Professor and his controls which create the illusion of the Wizard of Oz.
- Chastised, the Professor fulfills the wants of Dorothy’s three friends: a diploma for Scarecrow, a medal of valor for Lion, and a testimonial heart-shaped watch for Tin Man.
- The Professor declares he will take Dorothy back to Kansas via his hot air balloon.
- Instead, the Professor flies away leaving Dorothy stranded.
- The Good Witch shows up and tells Dorothy she had the power to go home all along. Dorothy just has to click her heels and repeat, “There’s no place like home.”
This moment, I would argue, is the Final Struggle as it poses two existential questions to Dorothy:
- Do you really believe you have the power to go to Kansas?
- Do you really want to go back to Kansas?
Again, the Nemesis is dead. Dorothy’s struggle is largely an internal one which she resolves by repeating the mantra over and over, proving that she does, indeed, believe that “there’s no place like home”.
As a result of her adventure in Oz, Dorothy has overcome the “troubles” and “clouds” which distressed her originally in Kansas to now embrace the idea that her Uncle and Aunt’s farm is, indeed, her home.
Plus, she fends off whatever skepticism she might have had about the magic way to return home and embraces the power of that saying: “There’s no place like home.”
A psychologically based Final Struggle, not a physical one.
Physical or psychological, it’s almost inevitable that our stories will have a Final Struggle of some sort. Whatever it is, it should provide a compelling and satisfying ending for a reader or moviegoer.