Looking at your examples, both scenes have in commmon that a protagonist couple fights a large group of antagonists. There is some dialogue that give "the characters" depth. Meanwhile, it seems that their opponents ("several men" or "creepy aliens") aren't even seen as characters. I haven't read your book or seen the Avengers movie. I assume that it makes sense in the way these stories are told. As action scenes are about emotion rather than motion, these protagonist characters have to be well established, so I can identify with them and cherish their fight against dangerous enemies. When I watch or read such action scenes, I like to see both sides as characters. I may root for one side or against the other, but it's not a given that I perceive a scene the way the author intended. An example that comes to my mind is from an action movie named "Deadly Ransom". The movie directly starts with an action scene: We see the protagonists (a group of commando soldiers) come out of the water, kill several men who are just sitting there or walking around, uttering some one-liners in the process. Then they free a captured CIA agent from the hands of a torturer. Why on earth should I care for a captured CIA agent? But if I don't care, the protagonists are just a bunch guys who seemingly enjoy killing another bunch of guys, whom I don't see doing anything evil. So this opening scene immediately made me hate the protagonists, which was probably not what the movie makers had in mind. Now, in contrast, look at this scene from "Kick-Ass": czcams.com/video/fUdx2siotUo/video.html Originally, I'm not emotionally invested in the protagonist. He's kinda stupid and annoying. But I think we all can feel with him when he got himself into this situation, where he thinks he is doing the right thing and he has a plan, and then the person he confronts is reacting completely different than expected, and he suddenly is in trouble. We may all had an experience where our plans to argument suddenly fell apart. (Hopefully not with armed drug dealers.) So we are relieved when Hit-Girl gets intruduced (it's her first appearance in the movie) and saves the day. Technically she does the same as the aforementioned commando soldiers: killing some people, who are probably bad, but not obviously to an extend where they all deserve to die. Hit-Girl enjoys what she's doing, and as movie viewer, I do too. Why? Because she's so cute and cool, and because they established the characters and set the tone of the movie before starting the action. Now let's look at an action scene I have written for my book. (It's inspired by scenes like that from "Deadly Commando" and my look at such scenes.) A young man, part of the protagonist team that is out to free some hostages, finds himself alone in the jungle and starts to worry whether his partner, an army veteran, was successful. What if he is dead or captured? Then the youngster is alone, trapped between the enemy group and the lone henchwoman the villain sent out as a scout. So, after thinking back and forth, he decides to disobey the orders and to eliminate the henchwoman. (At this point in the middle of the book, the reader knows that she is a criminal who escaped from prison. We saw her several times, though never doing anything really evil.) The action is told from the young man's POV. Since he's not a trained fighter and never killed anyone before, he fails at shooting her and it becomes a brutal fight. At the end, she desperately stabs him in the leg while he strangles her with her own rifle sling. He knows he "crosses the rubicon", he knows that he will feel horrible and nothing will be the same afterwards... (The book then cuts to his veteran comrade and a major plot twist that happens there.) Then it comes back, now taking the henchwoman's POV. She desperately struggles to free herself and eventually succeeds. She finds out that she cut his femoral artery, so the young man bled to death while trying to kill her. She has no clue who this guy even is and why he jumped out of the woods to kill her. (She has been hired after the kidnapping and doesn't even know in detail what her boss is up to.) The idea of the scene is to show typical behavior of protagonists versus henchpeople and the consequences of choosing violence.
I love your insights. Very thought-provoking. One of the things I love about writing is that no matter how much you know... there is more to learn. Thank you for sharing. What is the title of your book? I'd love to check it out!
@@DaveandAngieSmuinThanks. (It looks like my answer got lost yesterday.) The book (only in it's first draft now) is named "Operation Goldener Frosch". It's in German and I put it on Belletristica, to get some feedback.
What is the action scene you picked? Why does that one stand out to you so much?
Such a good video!!
Thank you!
Looking at your examples, both scenes have in commmon that a protagonist couple fights a large group of antagonists. There is some dialogue that give "the characters" depth. Meanwhile, it seems that their opponents ("several men" or "creepy aliens") aren't even seen as characters.
I haven't read your book or seen the Avengers movie. I assume that it makes sense in the way these stories are told. As action scenes are about emotion rather than motion, these protagonist characters have to be well established, so I can identify with them and cherish their fight against dangerous enemies.
When I watch or read such action scenes, I like to see both sides as characters. I may root for one side or against the other, but it's not a given that I perceive a scene the way the author intended.
An example that comes to my mind is from an action movie named "Deadly Ransom". The movie directly starts with an action scene: We see the protagonists (a group of commando soldiers) come out of the water, kill several men who are just sitting there or walking around, uttering some one-liners in the process. Then they free a captured CIA agent from the hands of a torturer. Why on earth should I care for a captured CIA agent? But if I don't care, the protagonists are just a bunch guys who seemingly enjoy killing another bunch of guys, whom I don't see doing anything evil. So this opening scene immediately made me hate the protagonists, which was probably not what the movie makers had in mind.
Now, in contrast, look at this scene from "Kick-Ass":
czcams.com/video/fUdx2siotUo/video.html
Originally, I'm not emotionally invested in the protagonist. He's kinda stupid and annoying. But I think we all can feel with him when he got himself into this situation, where he thinks he is doing the right thing and he has a plan, and then the person he confronts is reacting completely different than expected, and he suddenly is in trouble. We may all had an experience where our plans to argument suddenly fell apart. (Hopefully not with armed drug dealers.)
So we are relieved when Hit-Girl gets intruduced (it's her first appearance in the movie) and saves the day. Technically she does the same as the aforementioned commando soldiers: killing some people, who are probably bad, but not obviously to an extend where they all deserve to die. Hit-Girl enjoys what she's doing, and as movie viewer, I do too. Why? Because she's so cute and cool, and because they established the characters and set the tone of the movie before starting the action.
Now let's look at an action scene I have written for my book. (It's inspired by scenes like that from "Deadly Commando" and my look at such scenes.) A young man, part of the protagonist team that is out to free some hostages, finds himself alone in the jungle and starts to worry whether his partner, an army veteran, was successful. What if he is dead or captured? Then the youngster is alone, trapped between the enemy group and the lone henchwoman the villain sent out as a scout. So, after thinking back and forth, he decides to disobey the orders and to eliminate the henchwoman. (At this point in the middle of the book, the reader knows that she is a criminal who escaped from prison. We saw her several times, though never doing anything really evil.)
The action is told from the young man's POV. Since he's not a trained fighter and never killed anyone before, he fails at shooting her and it becomes a brutal fight. At the end, she desperately stabs him in the leg while he strangles her with her own rifle sling. He knows he "crosses the rubicon", he knows that he will feel horrible and nothing will be the same afterwards... (The book then cuts to his veteran comrade and a major plot twist that happens there.)
Then it comes back, now taking the henchwoman's POV. She desperately struggles to free herself and eventually succeeds. She finds out that she cut his femoral artery, so the young man bled to death while trying to kill her. She has no clue who this guy even is and why he jumped out of the woods to kill her. (She has been hired after the kidnapping and doesn't even know in detail what her boss is up to.)
The idea of the scene is to show typical behavior of protagonists versus henchpeople and the consequences of choosing violence.
I love your insights. Very thought-provoking. One of the things I love about writing is that no matter how much you know... there is more to learn. Thank you for sharing.
What is the title of your book? I'd love to check it out!
@@DaveandAngieSmuinThanks. (It looks like my answer got lost yesterday.)
The book (only in it's first draft now) is named "Operation Goldener Frosch".
It's in German and I put it on Belletristica, to get some feedback.