Script Analysis: “The Tomorrow War” — Part 6: Takeaways

A week-long analysis of the science fiction script and movie. Download. Read. Discuss.

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: Takeaways.

This week, we have been reading, analyzing, and discussing the script and movie The Tomorrow War. In some ways, today’s exercise is the whole point of the series: What did you take away from the experience of reading and analyzing the script?

Written by Zach Dean.

Plot summary: A family man is drafted to fight in a future war where the fate of humanity relies on his ability to confront the past.

SCENE-BY-SCENE BREAKDOWN

If you’re a screenwriter in the genre arena, I have to figure you spend a lot of time mulling over these two words: “What if…” As I have written, those are perhaps the two most powerful words in the creative process:https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/what-if-deb8a16b4d01I’m sure we’ve all heard some variation of the idea, ‘If you could go back in time and kill Adolf Hitler…” That concept is about going into the past to change the present.The Tomorrow War is a spin on that: What if you could go into the future to change where the present is currently headed?Combine that central conceit with movies like Predator, War of the Worlds, Edge of Tomorrow, and Independence Day, each involving a global assault by alien creatures, then you have a story which slots in nicely with Hollywood’s longstanding business model: Similar but different.https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/hollywood-and-the-similar-but-different-business-model-58df837bac5cSingle Protagonist (Dan). Clear conscious goal (defeat the aliens). Emotional connection (his family). Underdog (aliens = Overlords). Ticking clock (must fight for seven days). Catchy title (The Tomorrow War).You can see why a studio (or in this case the streaming service Amazon) would be receptive to the story concept…In and of itself!The fact that Zach Dean wrote a solid script which hits all of the marks means this project is as close to a “no-brainer” as there is as far as Hollywood decision-makers is concerned.I look forward to digging into the story and its characters to see why it has been such a success with audiences.https://www.slashfilm.com/583015/the-tomorrow-war-was-apparently-a-big-hit-for-amazon/

PLOT

In many respects, the plot structure for The Tomorrow War echoes the tripartite structure of The Hero’s Journey:Separation. Initiation. Return.Or:Life. Death. Resurrection.In The Tomorrow War, the Protagonist (Dan) begins in the ordinary world (his suburban neighborhood and family life). When he gets drafted into fighting against alien invaders (Whitespikes) in the future, that separates him from his old life. The war experience represents his initiation into not only an extraordinary world (the Future filled caught up in a war for the survival of the human race), but also a “war” within himself to discover who he truly is.[We will get into this in our Characters discussion, but at the beginning of the story, Dan is so caught up in closing a “deal” which can “save the world,” his drive to be “the best” driven by a troubled relationship with his father, that he is neglecting familial responsibilities, particularly noticeable with regard to his wife (Emmy). Thus in a way, all of the fighting and pyrotechnics of the future war serves Dan’s personal transformation to discover what is truly important to him].Near the midpoint of the story (75), Dan has a near-death experience. Directly after, he meets his now adult daughter Muri, not only a colonel in the army, but also a lead researcher into finding a way to defeat the Whitespikes. Again, we will get into this in the Characters discussion, but what Dan learns about his role in Muri’s life (iPad photos of her past show him as less and less of a presence) and his own drunk-driving car-crash death feeds his psychological transformation.Then the Return. In this case, it’s back to the Present where the Tomorrow War becomes Today’s War (in Russia).Thus, the overall structure of the plot aligns with the trajectory of the Hero’s Journey., but several things to note:— The script is long (150 pages). So is the movie (138 minutes). These type of science fiction spectacle movies give a writer some leeway in terms of page count. What’s helpful in this script is the shift from the Future to the Present on 114. In other words, just about the time a conventional two-hour movie would be wrapping up, The Tomorrow War sets into motion a whole new scenario: Finding the alien ship on Earth in the present and wipe out the aliens before they get a chance to replicate.— That said, everything that happens occurs after conventional page count (especially true if you buy into the restrictive Save the Cat paradigm). For example: Dan doesn’t enter the Future until 45–48. So much for the “break into Act Two” on 25!— The story’s midpoint, as noted above, doesn’t occur until 75. While that is precisely the middle of the script as written, it lands 20 pages or so after a conventional midpoint.— The end of Act Two / All Is Lost point (here where adult Muri dies and Dan is plunged back into the Present) hits on 113. Again, 20 or so pages after the conventional page count.Which is to suggest — once again — that page count, what happens and where it lands is less important than the characters and their journeys. If a writer can make us (audience) care, that is 99.9% of the battle.And what is the universal point of human connection in this story? It’s about a guy who’s so caught up in pursuit of “business” success, he’s missing out on what’s truly important: his family. We’ve seen that story 100s of times… and we’ll see it again 100s more. Because everybody knows the challenge of balancing their personal and professional lives.I can hear you saying, “So Scott, you’re telling us that this bombastic science fiction movie about people fighting aliens for the survival of the human race is really about a guy fighting to become the family man he needs to be?” And my answer is this: From a psychological perspective, that is precisely the point. Consider the very last lines of the script:Emmy turns Dan to her. She looks into his eyes. He’s here.EMMY
You’re back.DAN
I’m home.THE ENDThat’s the emotional moment the story builds to, the feeling the writer wants the audience to carry away with them. Yes, Dan has helped to save the world. But like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, he has also save himself… and found his way home.

CHARACTERS

I have this theory that there is something going on in terms of character archetypes in stories. We see five of them over and over again: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster.The Protagonist represents a forward-moving dynamic, a character or characters most often driven by a conscious goal.The Nemesis represents an oppositional dynamic, a character or characters pushing back against the Protagonist. Typically, this is the source of the story’s central conflict.The Attractor is a character most associated with the Protagonist’s emotional life, someone or something connected to their heart.The Mentor is a character most associated with the Protagonist’s intellectual life, someone or something connected to their mind.The Trickster is a shapeshifter, switching from a Protagonist’s ally to enemy… enemy to ally. They pursue their own ego-needs. If that aligns with the Protagonist’s goal. great. If not, so be it.Here is my take of the key characters in The Tomorrow War:Protagonist: DanIt’s his story. He’s the one at the center of the narrative. All the other characters are connected to him. Plus critically, he’s the character who undergoes the most significant personal metamorphosis (psychological).Conscious Goal: Save the world.Nemesis: WhitespikesAttractor: Dan’s family members, most notably Muri (daughter) and Emmy (wife). In Act One, Emmy reaches out to Dan to be present for his family, in essence to reconnect with his heart. But it’s really the relationship with Adult Muri (between 75–113) which provides the emotional “bridge” for Dan to rediscover his love for his family.Mentor: There are the usual suspects like Hart and Dodd, who provide all the exposition setup about the war in the future, but notably there is a surprising figure who plays a key role in saving the day: Martin, the science geek introduced in Act One, a guy who is obsessed with volcanoes. His insight provides the big clue which helps Dan and team to locate the buried alien spaceship.Trickster: I think there are two of them. First is Dorian. He switches from cynic to team member, evolving from selfish to selfless. Then there is Dan’s father James. He is an “enemy” to Dan in that due to his father’s alcoholic behavior, Dan is determined to achieve something “great” to separate himself from his father’s own life-path. Unfortunately, by following that path, Dan sets himself up to replicate his own version of being a failed father, his obsession with “saving the world” and what that external validation will (supposedly) mean to him leading him away from the very thing he needs most: his family. However, James becomes an “ally” (quite literally) as part of the team who goes to destroy the aliens aboard the spaceship. Indeed in the end, James becomes part of the family as he meets his granddaughter for the first time.One final note: There are a bunch of team members who get introduced upon the story’s shift into the Future. Even though they are each given a distinct personality, the simple fact is fundamental narrative function for these characters is to get whacked by the aliens. See: Star Trek’s “red shirt” meme.

THEMES

My theory is that good stories have multiple themes. The tendency to think of theme as the “premise of the story” or the “moral of the story” diminishes the potential value of this narrative element. Plot answers the question, “What is the story about?” Themes answer the question, “What does the story mean?”In The Tomorrow War, here are some of the key themes:--Family / Home: This is an obvious one as it speaks to the endpoint of Dan’s psychological metamorphosis (as noted previously, the final line of dialogue in the script is Dan saying, “I’m home”).--Survival: The instinct to survive speaks to the most primordial part of the human brain, the so-called “lizard brain.”https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/where-addiction-meets-your-brain/201404/your-lizard-brainWhereas in some stories, survival may be metaphorical in nature, in The Tomorrow War, it is intended quite literally, not only the survival of the story’s key characters, but also the human species as a whole.--The Parent Path: In the realm of the Hero’s Journey, this is often where the Protagonist begins their adventure. They are caught up in a path which has already been laid out for them. The path of the “should,” the conventional way of being, the Parent Path. Thus, the events the Protagonist experiences in the plot can be seen as incidents which provoke the character to shift away from the Parent Path while discovering their own path, one which leads to their authentic life.But from a writing standpoint, the most important theme is when we may call the central theme. It’s the theme that touches every scene, every character, and every event.In The Tomorrow War, I think it’s the theme of predestination.https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/the-theology-of-cinema-predestination-e56b9e824f19Or if you prefer, fate.Given the fact that the world is being destroyed 30 years into the future, that seems like a nearly inevitable fate. Conscripting humans to leap into the future to fight the aliens is an attempt to circumvent fate, however, given the fact that at the beginning, humans are being slaughtered as the aliens grow in numbers and skills, it seems like a plan predestined to failure.That’s a Big Picture version of the theme. There is a Small Picture version of it as well as it plays out in Dan’s life. The “deal” he is so obsessed with finalizing in Act One represents his attempts to differentiate himself from his father’s failed path. But in trying to separate himself from his father, Dan does – in fact – create a parallel path toward failure. In other words, in trying to circumvent his father’s failure as a parent and family man, Dan’s obsession is leading him down his own path toward failure.Thus, Dan’s journey in the Big Picture (trying to save humanity from the aliens) presents a new path for him in the Small Picture (saving himself by reconnecting with his family and his heart).If the story did not have that dynamic in play, then it would be nothing more than a bunch of humans and aliens slugging it out with zero emotional impact. It is Dan’s psychological journey which provides the story its emotional meaning as he creates a path toward reconciliation and life, rather than alienation and death.

DIALOGUE

As much as I may be tempted to highlight, “SPRAY AND PRAY,” or the more inspirational, “Be willing to do what others won’t,” I’m going to go with this:MURI (CONT’D)
Ninety miles an hour down a
mountain road with an eight degree
grade... after how many beers?
(pause)
You weren’t so lucky.
(she remembers)
I was there in the ICU. I heard
your last heartbeat on the monitor.
Heard the alarms. They pushed me
away and I watched them shock you,
over and over and over.
(seeing it in her head)
And then you were gone.Dan is speechless.MURI (CONT’D)
Mom tried to help me detach from
you but I just... couldn’t.
I wanted you to see me. I wanted
you to hear me. I wanted you to
save our family. To fix it. To not
give up. To not walk away. But you
couldn’t see what you had in front
of you.Dan is crushed, horrified, filled with guilt --DAN
Muri. I haven’t done any of that.MURI
You haven’t done any of that...
yet.He looks off, ashamed.This is Dan’s “come to Jesus” moment. It’s akin to Scrooge seeing his life visualized for him by the Ghost of Christmas Future. It’s George Bailey seeing what life in Bedford Falls would be like if he “hadn’t been born.”This is a pivotal moment in Dan’s psychological metamorphosis and it plays directly to what I would argue is the story’s central theme: predestination.Is it possible to change the future? Yes, the answer turns out, but only by changing the present. In Dan’s case, it really means the present. As in, he needs to quit trying to escape his father’s destiny (from the past) and being consumed what his legacy will be (in the future). And he can only do that if he sees “what’s in front of” him.That’s why the story shifting from the Future to the Present in Act Three is an inspired writing choice. It allows Dan to change in the present, which in turns alters his future.

Here’s a set of scenes tracking the Dan-Muri relationship including the exchange featured in the dialogue above.

Major kudos to Jodi Lustig for doing this week’s scene-by-scene breakdown.

To download a PDF of the breakdown , 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.

For Part 4, to read the Themes discussion go here.

For Part 5, to read the Dialogue discussion go here.

To access over 100 analyses of previous movie scripts we have read and discussed at Go Into The Story, go here.

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