Here's a biggie, which I've noted a few times this week: If you have a Big Story, you need to have a Small Story, too. That is, there needs to be something going on at a personal, intimate level. Many reasons. First, it provides a point of emotional focus. Second, it creates a way for the script reader to enter into the story in a specific and personal way. Third, it can provide another layer of meaning, beyond what's happening in the plot, the events. That's my first takeaway. Plenty others. How about you?

While I generally agree with Scott about the need for a Small Story, I disagree as to how well the Small Story logic is executed (as I posted in yesterday's topic on the Psychological Journey). Even so, I bought the character and the story because the emotional throughline of the Small Story works. And that's my biggest takeaway: there is a margin for error in a story as to facts and story logic. Up to a certain point, the audience will forgive those lapses. (Accept for, perhaps, astrophysicists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson) Where there is little or no margin for error is in conveying the emotional truth. An audience won't buy a story that feels wrong. Another takeaway for me was how, in addition to emotional vulnerability, Ryan also comes equipped with physical vulnerability, problems adapting to outer space. It's her first mission in space. She has trouble holding down food (Page 5). She drops a bolt (Page 9). And there are 3 dialogue beats about her consistently crashing the simulator for the re-entry vehicles (Pages 37 ,38, 55) that are her only hope of getting back alive. All these issues are in service of creating suspense: does she really have the "right stuff" to handle the catastrophic circumstances that overtake her?

My takeaway: If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. I enjoyed the movie but didn't connect with the Stone's story and was taken out of the movie a few times as others too have expressed, but it did great box office and has a 97 percent on Rottentomatoes. But maybe years down the road on my own "ride", I’ll re-watch this movie and fall in love with it. I missed yesterday's discussion, so here are a few of my observations. I'm piggybacking heavily from Scott and what others already discussed, and I tried framing it in HJ terms from a post Scott did awhile back. Life before Fade in: --Stone, works in biology field. At a hospital, I think. --daughter killed --Shut down from life. Escapes into work and drives away from home -- ends up in on space mission. Fish out of water for a biology person. Separation --obsessive worker. stays to herself. -- won't listen to Matt. Ignores his orders. Later feels guilty about this. She puts lives in danger. --detaches (sperm visual imagery, her white space cord dangling from her suit) Initiation: --alone. in space. away from Matt. Has to fight to live. Spinning, screaming, completely freaked out. Can’t handle it. --Matt rescues her (visual imagery: conception?) Sexual overtones? Matt: I know, you never realized how devastatingly good-looking I am. But I need you to stop staring and help me with the tether. --resistant to him. Complains about being pulled along, nudged to survive. -- Matt’s death. Lets go. Doesn't have a choice. Him & Her or just him. Stone still resistant. He tells her to go home, but she wants to go rescue him. Her emotional state: she’s afraid to go on without him. -- Matt's voice still nudges her on. He tells her how to get Home/Earth. -- gets into ISS (visual imagery: fetus position) --Matt’s voice is gone. She’s on her own. -- Going to die moment. She’s completely vulnerable. Hears dogs and baby. Gives up. -- Unconscious in form of Matt. Wants to live. Return -- rides back to Earth/Home -- In water (amniotic fluid?). Life emerges from water. -- On land... lays down. Struggles to get up. Then in crawling position. Then to feet. Then begins to find her footing and walk. I know I missed some visual imagery. Anyone else see any? Other observations: 1.) Matt: I'm going to miss the sunrise the most. He mentions this because it's his last mission, as in retirement. But then he mentions it again with his last moments with Stone. Can that be considered a foreshadowing event? 2.) stories as a motif: Matt's are about living back on Earth/home. Good and bad, but full of living moments. Later, he tells Stone she's going to have a hell of a story to tell when she gets back home, which she brings up at the end. 3.) Matt and Stone a.) The way they handle accepting death. Matt is a peace with it. When Stone faces death, she admits she's really scared. But later, returning home: Stone: Reminds me of a story, Houston -- … Never-Never mind the story, Houston. Never mind the story. It's getting hot in here. Okay. All right. Okay. All right, the way I see it, there’s only two possible outcomes. Either I make it down there in one piece and I have one hell of a story to tell, or I burn up in the next ten minutes. Either way, whichever way... no harm, no foul! Because either way... it’ll be one hell of a ride. I’m ready. She's resolved her inner conflict. She's like Matt now. b.) Stone: They can’t hear us. Matt: We don’t know that. That’s why we keep talking. If somebody is listening, they might just save your life. Set your watch for ninety minutes. Is this about the hallucination scene, to herself, about herself? Did she quit listening to the part of her that the wants to live, by shutting down any connection to a real life? It is during Matt's reappearance/her unconscious, she reconnects with the desire to live. And just before that, during the Aningaaq sequence, Stone is in her most vulnerable state. She admits she's afraid. She admits she is alone on Earth, that she is lonely, which is contrast to Matt who referenced he used to look down on Earth, knowing Mrs. K was there -- fwiw. However, hearing from Earth/Home brings her joy, more pointedly the noise of the baby. I read that as Stone admitting that she does have the desire to live, and to possibly even wanting to raise a child again. 4.) I couldn't figure out Matt's second story. The girl Matt was chasing, what/who was she holding hands with?

Paul, your comments remind me of something screenwriter James DiLapo said in an interview I did with him:

“Emotional authenticity, even with a period piece, is more important than historical authenticity. If you can get the audience to feel as if they are there with the characters in that setting, experiencing the world that they are in, that’s the closest we can come to being there. We can’t recreate a world, but we can recreate the emotions of it.”

You can swap out "scientific" for "historical". Same thing. Up to a point, of course. You have to hit a baseline of authenticity to create a sense of verisimilitude. As per giving Stone physical vulnerability, good point. Any time we can service a Protagonist's underdog status, that's almost invariably a good thing.

Excellent post, Jem. Some really strong and interesting observations. Short of time, but let me pull two points from your comments as takeaways: * The use of callbacks: How Stone says at least a couple of lines first said by Matt, such as "Reminds me of a story" and "have one hell of a story to tell." Beyond the effect of demonstrating her embrace of Matt's Mentor wisdom and demonstrating another stage of her metamorphosis, there is something just satisfying for a script reader to see a well-crafted callback. * Love the whole fertilization imagery you picked up on! Had never thought of that, but Stone spiraling away from space ship like a lost sperm, combined with the image of Stone later once she enters the ship, sheds her clothes and floats like an embryo, to her submersion in the lake like amniotic fluid, to her 'birth' as she emerges from the water. Really plays to the idea of rebirth that is at work thematically in the story. Re not connecting with Stone's story: No shame in that, jem. I know a lot of people who had the same experience. And once I learned that in an early draft of the script, Stone did NOT have a daughter, rather she acknowledged having a dog, I knew that the lost daughter dynamic was something of a secondary consideration - at least temporally - in terms of script development. So I get how it could feel grafted on, manipulative, inauthentic, etc. That said, here's something to think about. Each of us can ask this: Imagine YOU were given Gravity as a writing assignment. The studio notes: We love the whole stranded in space setup, but the Protagonist needs something going on in her personal life. It can't just be about survival. Come up with a take on that. What would you do? How would you craft a meaningful, compelling, and simple backstory for Stone that would not require breaking away from the continuous timeline (i.e., no flashbacks, cutaways). Included in that task, make that backstory thematically consonant with the Plotline (i.e., space, survival, solitude, etc). I'm not sure there IS a better backstory than the one the Cuarons came up with. Elsewhere Paul made the point he didn't think the movie needed that type of backstory. The fact the studio pressed Cuaron to add a love interest (a guy who worked at NASA who would be communicating with Stone as part of ground crew) suggests they wanted even MORE of her backstory, not less, so my guess is were you to go in to pitch that idea -- We don't need any backstory for Stone -- you wouldn't get the assignment. So what WOULD you do other than the lost daughter story? I'm sure there are other possibilities, but as I say, not sure any would work as well as this one, even with its shortcomings for some people.

Scott, My problem with the Small Story in "Gravity" is not just that it was fumbled in the Intuit and hallucination scenes, but that it was underdeveloped, underplayed. It wasn't adequately established for me to believe it. Isn't the usual rule of thumb that the magnitude of a dramatic problem is in direction proportion to the amount of screen time that focuses on it, that has characters talking about it, that shows the consequences, the duration and intensity of the suffering? The script introduces us to a highly functioning adult who exhibits no symptoms of her Small Story problem. We the audience have no clue. Finally Ryan tells Matt about his deceased daughter on page 31. In 50 words. Ryan doesn't refer to her daughter again -- not another syllable -- until page 52. She's too busy struggling to merely survive all the problems in the Big Story. And, of course, that's where the audience's attention is also focused. So for another 31% of the script there is 0.00% clues about how big the death of her daughter looms in the Small Story. And then there are only 13 words more before her "all is lost" emotional collapse. The Big Story has given Ryan more than enough justification to collapse emotionally. The Small Story? Not enough, imho.

Futherless, As to how to do it differently: why not a counterpoint to Ryan's Small Story of looking backward at the loss of her daughter? To wit, Matt is looking forward to the birth of either his first son (an unexpected middle age bonus baby) or his first grandson. Any day, now. Thus they would have bonded on 2 levels, in the Big Story as professionals, in the Small Story as parents. Of course, this would have required re-engineering the story somewhat, but it would also have made his death more meaningful (which is to say, it would have been an even stronger emotional moment). All the while, being faithful to the operative metaphor of death and rebirth.