[…] Ah, Star Wars. I will never stop talking about it. […]
Was The Last Jedi a bad movie?
Critics think it's great...
...but for audiences, this is the worst-rated Star Wars Movies ever. Yep, even worse than The Phantom Menace.
I'm still on the fence.
However, there is one glaring problem in Star Wars Ep. 8:
There are too many characters.
Let me show you how they could have fixed this problem, and how you can fix this problem in your own writing:
Warning! Star Wars Episode 7 + 8 spoilers ahead!
Four main characters.
At least seven more secondary characters (which gives us seven more character arcs. How long is this movie again?).
Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot of characters... but consider that the writers are trying to take each of the main characters on a separate Hero's Journey...
The Original Trilogy had:
Even then, Vader only had maybe three scenes of development:
How many scenes does Kylo get? And Finn, and Rey, and Poe?
Three major problems will arise when you have too many main characters:
My mom is a smart lady. She has also seen all of the Star Wars movies... multiple times.
But when she was trying to watch Episode 8, and we had to jump between...
...all while trying to keep up with the driving conflict of the imminent destruction of the Rebel Fleet...
She should have walked out of the theater with a rush of excitement and emotion. Instead, she had only questions about "what the heck did I just watch."
For great swathes of the movie, all of our main characters ran around on different adventures.
When you have too many characters, it can feel more like you’re telling several different stories at once - all of differing quality.
What you want... is to give your audience one really good story that involves a ton of sympathetic characters and plot lines that feel immediately important.
Game of Thrones (Both the Novels and the TV Series) does an excellent job with this.
Sometimes it feels like watching "Hero of the Week..."
...but with it's vast amount of character backstories and relationships, we have known since the start that there is an inevitable convergence point.
This gives the story a sense of "one-ness" that the latest Star Wars simply lacked.
I don't care about Poe Dameron.
I don't have a good reason to hate General Hux (unlike Tarkin, who was torturing the princess, and blew up her planet in front of her).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0qLzsIhUMk
I also have no reason to care about Finn (his enthusiasm for survival was charming in Ep. 7, it feels manufactured in 8).
Each of these characters need more space to develop. Because they were trying to accomplish so much with
Not an easy question.
The best answer:
"Only use as many characters as you need to tell the story. No more."
Sleek, tight writing is good writing - because that's what most people want to read. Note: you can have sprawling, epic fantasies with 400k+ words, and still have sleek, tight writing. See: Brandon Sanderson.
Minimize distractions for your audience, and you will engage more of them, and leave a stronger impression. Follow the signs to see if you have too many characters.
You can also use Mary Robinette Kowal's formula if you're writing a short story. I believe it also works for longer works of fiction (novellas, novels, epics).
You just wrote a book (or a Star Wars screenplay)... and you've decided that you have too many characters.
What now?
You have three options:
I'm going to use Star Wars as an example for each of these:
The new trilogy tried to do this with our old favorites: Han, Luke, and Leia.
The Force Awakens ends with the dramatic death of Han... but then they gave us two more characters: Luke and Leia.
Game of Thrones (both the HBO series and the Novels) does this extremely well. In fact, it's become a staple of the series.
When you have too many characters, don't be afraid to kill them. This makes the series feel visceral, raw, and urgent. You have to keep reading/watching because you want to make sure your favorite character survives.
For instance, I have a friend who started watching Season 1 recently.
He was a big fan of Eddard Stark - and even believed that Ed was the main character...
And if you look at screen time, the main character of Season 1 was clearly Eddard Stark...
At least until George R.R. Martin decided to clean up his cast a bit.
Some quick options off the top of my head:
Death is not the only way to remove characters from your story.
Sweeping old, less-important characters under the rug is a time-honored tradition.
BB-8 got swept aside in Episode 8. Why? I don't know. Maybe he wasn't selling enough toys.
From a story-telling standpoint, this was a good idea. BB-8 was not critical to the story they wanted to tell.
Here's a few other characters who could have gotten the sweep:
Now this is what the New Trilogy should have done from the start.
This is also what I recommend most new writers do when they edit any first draft.
Chances are... you have some redundant characters. Maybe they're cool, maybe they have some great dialogue or personality traits.
But we want to tell sleek, powerful, so-bold-they-cut-to-your-core stories.
Extra characters - even when they're cool - are dead weight. The ability to murder your darlings will separate you from the amateur writers.
(Or, in Star Wars' case, it could have made a much better and longer-lasting series. Instead, now we're left with a bloated, forgettable cast).
Ask yourself this:
If you have an answer... chances are, you can merge or cut that character.
In the marketing world... stories sell products. So you have to be good at telling them.
Powerful advertisements do not focus on huge lists of benefits and features. Instead, the best ads focus on one big idea.
Watch any commercial - and you'll notice they are trying to pluck one emotion in particular.
You have an entire lifetime to write interesting, engaging characters. You do not need to fit them all into one script, short story, or novel.
I'm not saying you need to cut down your cast until you only have one character left...
...but too many characters will slow down your story.
Use these three tools to start cutting, and you'll find the diamonds in your story shine so much brighter for it.
Find three of your favorite books/movies/TV episodes. Write down at least one character from each that could be cut out in some way.
How would you do it? How does removing them improve the story?
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I shared your post with my 19 year old avid Star Wars fan, and Fan Fiction blogger. When your post came across my WP feed, I was surprise to see it. My son has been keeping me (like your Mom, has seen the original Star Wars movies when released). Anyway, my son was impressed with your post and enjoy and read to me your Mom's reactions to seeing the movie. Good post and thank you for sharing.
That's wonderful. I'm glad he enjoyed it. As to the writers destroying Star Wars... I still haven't decided.
On the one hand, they were trying to do some pretty interesting things: end a legendary trilogy, make a unique Star Wars plot, etc. But on the other hand, I almost got up and left the theater in the middle of that movie it made me cringe so much.
Thank you for your comment Denise!
Sorry, what I was trying to type was my son has been keeping me posted on the reviews of the movie since released. He has been so disappointed to see the movie writers destroy what made Stars Wars the classic film it was and should be. Thank you.
thank you for the write-up i havent watched it yet, reading through peoples reviews
I'm still wrestling with it. There were moments of a good movie inside of that... pile.
I'm sure some great writer could make a large cast work, but ot for me! Mines large enough and Im itching to ditch a few, but first need to finish the revision so can 'see' them all better.
I have a critique partner, who has a huge cast if characters and I can't really tell them apart. Unfortunately, when I gently commented on this she defend why. *Shrug* Maybe it'll work out, but Imop shes giving herself a major headache.
I did give what tips I know on making sure the dialog, body beats, and personality aren't humm... 'hero in a can.' So, it's up to her to use this info or not.
Thank you for sharing your tips, I've bookmarked this page. ?
If they all seem kinda "samey" then yeah - that could be a problem. When critiquing, I try not to tell people HOW to fix their problems... rather I try to highlight the problem I had with their writing.
"All of your characters are blending together." is more helpful than "You should kill X, and merge Y and Z together-" because writers are creative. Which means... we don't take kindly to other people telling us HOW to create.
As for your cast - I think you should consider your character numbers WHILE revising.
The best advice I've heard on this:
"Keep cutting characters until the story simply can't happen. Then add one back."
That's a simple way to make sure you have just the right amount of characters...