Script Analysis: ‘Rocketman’ — Part 4: Themes

Read the script for the award-winning film and analyze it all week.

Reading scripts. Absolutely critical to learn the craft of screenwriting. The focus of this bi-weekly series is a deep structural and thematic analysis of each script we read. Our daily schedule:

Monday: Scene-By-Scene Breakdown
Tuesday: Plot
Wednesday: Characters
Thursday: Themes
Friday: Dialogue
Saturday: Takeaways

Today: Themes.

I have this theory about theme. In two parts. First, a principle: Theme = Meaning. What does the story mean? Second, while there is almost always a Central Theme, there are multiple other Sub-Themes at play in a story. Therefore the question: What does a story mean takes on several layers of meaning?

Time to ponder themes in Rocketman. You may download a PDF of the script here.

Written by Lee Hall.

Plot Summary: A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John’s breakthrough years.

Writing Exercise: Explore the themes in Rocketman. What is its Central Theme? What are some of the related Sub-Themes?

Major kudos to John Klein for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown for Rocketman, go here.

For Part 1, to read the Scene-By-Scene Breakdown discussion, go here.

For Part 2, to read the Plot discussion, go here.

For Part 3, to read the Character discussion, go here.

You may download 100+ movie scripts from the last decade — free and legal — here.

I hope to see you in the RESPONSE section about this week’s script: Rocketman.