Hey guys, I’m Dev and I love a good act 2.
Getting past the sophomore slump is a big test for any Hollywood trilogy.
Like, you want people to stick around for your big finale, right?
We would be honored if you would join us.
Well, a perfectly executed second act can guarantee moviegoers will line up for the third.
We won’t spoil ‘The Last Jedi’ in this video,
but it’s clearly solidified the sequel trilogy in the hearts of fans.
Today, I want to take a look at how ‘Star Wars’ and other big name trilogies hook audiences with classic Hollywood storytelling techniques,
and explore
How Act 2 Makes a Trilogy Epic
Before Marvel changed the movie industry with their shared cinematic universe,
Trilogies were all the rage.
And a lot of them were patterned on concepts originally developed for standalone screenplays,
including the classic three-act structure.
Most mainstream stories can be divided into three parts:
The Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution.
Act 1 and 3 are fairly self-explanatory,
The first movie is the introduction to the world,
and the third is the big climax,
but just like an Oreo, the middle is usually the best part.
The Confrontation is when shit gets real.
It’s when our characters are at their lowest, usually after suffering
A Major Defeat
When it comes to nailing the second act of a trilogy, it’s hard to top ‘The Empire Strikes Back.’
The Rebels are coming off a huge victory at the end of the first movie.
but the sequel opens with the Alliance base on Hoth getting absolutely smashed by Imperial walkers,
and things just go downhill from there.
This deal is getting worse all the time...
Our protagonists are flung to different corners of the galaxy.
Leia’s lifelong cause is in tatters,
Han gets stabbed in the back by his second-best friend,
I'm sorry.
and Luke bails on Jedi training to get his hand sliced off by Papa Vader.
I'm not afraid.
You will be.
The characters are at rock bottom, and it’s hard to imagine their world getting any worse.
In the last shot, everyone’s just staring out the window going “oh shit, what do we do now?”
Because they have no idea how they’re going to get out of this extremely bad situation,
and neither does the audience.
(and sometimes the director, am’rite)
But you’re sure as hell gonna stay tuned for Act 3 to find out.
‘Empire’s’ prequel counterpart ‘Attack of the Clones’ never hits the same tragic lows.
Our heroes foil an assassination attempt,
Successfully track down and kill a bounty hunter,
And fall in love.
The final shot of ‘Clones’ is supposed to be a tribute to ‘Empire,’
but it’s set at a beautiful wedding on a paradise planet.
Like, there's nothing to worry about there except sand, maybe?
I don't like sand...
He's got his droid buddies... He's got his girl...
She forgave him for killing that whole village.
Women, children, she didn't care
Yeah, well, it's when you do it the second then, then it's like, 'too much.'
You're breaking my heart!
Sure, Anakin loses a hand, but there’s no overwhelming tragedy that propels the story forward.
‘Attack of the Clones’ fails to make the stakes real and impactful for our heroes.
The only real consequence is a war between clones and robots that you have to watch a tie-in cartoon to actually see.
For the Republic!!!
Personally, I think it's worth the six seasons and the movie.
Six seasons and a movie? Six seasons and a movie!
But 'Rebels' is better and you wouldn't be wrong for not watching it.
In most trilogies, the second act has to suck for our heroes,
because it’s the best way to build up tension for the climax.
‘The Matrix Reloaded’ ends with Zion on the brink of destruction,
Morpheus losing his belief in a savior,
I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me...
It’s devastating and heartbreaking, but there’s also that little bit of hope,
Which honestly doesn’t need to exist in Act 2.
There’s no light at the end of the tunnel in ‘Empire’
and there’s no hope when you hit rock bottom,
which is exactly what the second act symbolizes.
In ‘The Dark Knight,’ Batman stops the Joker,
but he loses the bigger battle for Harvey Dent’s soul.
The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance.
Bruce’s dream of a city that no longer needs him is destroyed by his failure to protect Gotham’s White Knight.
By the end, he’s hunted, villainized and alone.
He’s doomed to be Batman for the rest of life,
at least until the third movie.
But to learn that lesson and become that person, he had to utterly fail in Act 2.
It’s like Harvey says: ‘The night is darkest just before the dawn.’
And I promise you, the dawn is coming.
Another essential Act 2 element is
Emotional Setback
In the three years between ‘A New Hope’ and ‘Empire,’
Han and Leia have developed extremely complex feelings for each other.
He’s a cocky asshole, and she just wants to reach the good man she knows is underneath.
C'mon. Ahh, c'mon!
You're imagining things.
The whole film builds to their first kiss in the belly of a space slug,
which makes it even more devastating when they’re torn apart at the moment they acknowledge their love.
I love you.
I know.
A good act two doesn’t just impede our protagonist’s quest,
it throws an emotional wrench in the works, too.
With all the backstory out of the way,
the second act has space to build on the personal relationships between our heroes,
and the characters' internal struggles become just as important as stopping the bad guys.
If you want us to stick with the story, we need that human connection.
The audience has to be as heartbroken as Leia when Han gets frozen,
so we’re invested in his safe return in the sequel.
Leia!
One misstep with ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ is that Neo and Trinity’s relationship never really changes.
They’re a happy couple when it starts, and by the end they’re closer than ever.
Morpheus is bummed about his ship blowing up, but that’s just a thing that happens.
It’s a good hook for ‘Revolutions,’ but the second act needs an emotional cliffhanger too,
an internal struggle that defines what our characters are fighting for.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be romance.
Great Scott!
After nearly destroying all existence in ‘Back to the Future 2,’
Doc Brown kinda loses his taste for time travel.
And then I'm gonna destroy the time machine!
Destroy it? What about all that stuff about humanity? Where we're going and why?
The risks are just too great, as this incident proves. And I was behaving responsibly!
Just the imagine the danger if the time machine were to fall in the wrong hands!
He’s horrified by the power in his hands, and he swears to destroy the DeLorean once and for all.
But by the end,
he’s got a family,
a giant flying train,
and a more chill perspective on the whole ‘playing god’ thing.
Your future hasn't been written yet! No one's has! Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one! Both of you!
He’s a more complete person when the story finishes,
thanks to the emotional turmoil he went through in Act 2.
It’s the same with Luke in ‘Empire.’
For three years, Darth Vader has haunted his nightmares.
After Obi-Wan’s murder, Luke has been holding back all this rage so he doesn’t fall to the Dark Side,
and then the monster that did it turns out to indeed be the father.
You are the father!
NO!!! NOOO!!!
It’s a devastating moment that kickstarts his emotional growth into the fully-realized being he becomes at the end of the trilogy.
Then he goes and fouls up again,
so it’s up to ‘The Last Jedi’ to set him on the road to redemption.
The second act lets us know the road a hero has to take in order to triumph,
and sets up their journey by
Revealing the Arc.
One of the reasons everything sucks for our protagonists in Act 2,
is because they’re still in the middle of their character arcs,
and they’re just not equipped to succeed yet.
In ‘Return of the Jedi, Luke has grown into a stoic warrior.
He’s mind-tricking people and whatnot,
You will take me to Jabba now.
I will take you to Jabba now.
And he even builds his own lightsaber.
But in ‘Empire,’ he’s still angry and impatient,
You must complete the training.
But Han and Leia will die if I don't!
and he nearly gets himself and all his friends killed in a botched rescue attempt.
In order for Luke to grow, we need to see him fail.
Compare him to Anakin in ‘Episode 2.’
If you are suffering as much as I am, please tell me!
He’s feeling the same emotions as Luke,
Namely, being treated like a kid by Obi-Wan, crying about it and shit.
but unlike his son, Anakin gives in to his anger and slaughters a whole village of Tusken Raiders.
I killed them. Every single one of them!
He doesn’t learn any lessons.
He even tells Padme and she’s totally cool with it.
They're like animals! And I slaughtered them like animals!
To be angry is to be human.
And because he never faced repercussions for his misdeeds,
he never grows as a character,
he just keeps falling further into villainy.
DO NOT WANT
It’s an inversion of the classic hero’s journey,
where the protagonists only succeed by learning from their mistakes.
I've come back to complete my training.
No more training do you require. Already know you that which you need.
They need a better understanding of the world around them,
or the right set of companions to see them through their quest.
They’ll get there by the climax,
possibly during it,
but in the second act, they’ve still got a long ways to go.
In ‘The Dark Knight,’ Batman alienates most of his friends and takes the rap for Harvey Dent’s killing.
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
I killed those people. That's what I can be.
No, no, you can't! You're not!
I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be.
Then he retires for eight years because he fracked up so bad.
In Act 3, he’s finally ready to let other people into his life and become the symbol Gotham needs,
all thanks to the insight he gained after being brutally outsmarted by the Joker.
I took Gotham's White Knight and I brought him down to our level.
It wasn't hard. See, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.
It’s a compelling arc for our hero,
which is something the ‘Matrix’ sequels never really introduce.
Neo has already finished his growth in the first movie.
He went from civilian sheeple to godlike Kung Fu master,
and then he just kind of stays there for acts 2 and 3.
He learns things, struggles and makes decisions,
but he’s pretty much the same bland Christ figure throughout.
Pretty much like Superman.
He's doing his Superman thing.
The whole dying and coming back to life thing would have worked so much better in the third movie,
but once you’ve conquered death itself, where else can your character possibly go?
It’s not like you need anything big to keep the audience engaged,
I mean, Marty McFly’s hangup is pretty simple.
He flies off the handle when people call him “chicken, McFly...”
Nobody calls me... Chicken...
But when he sees the consequences,
he keeps a cooler head and saves himself from a life-ruining decision.
30 years ago, your father tried to prove he wasn't chicken and he ended up in an automobile accident.
Oh, you mean with the Rolls Royce?
Part 2 introduces us to the issues Marty needs to overcome,
so we can cheer him on when he finally gets over it in Part 3.
I said that's ten, you gutless yellow pie-slinger!
He's an asshole! I don't care what he says, and I don't care what anybody else says, either!
Look, don’t get too confused by all these rules.
You can read a million books about screenplay structure and still create ‘The Room.’
Well, whatever.
But you’d be surprised at how many movies stick pretty close to the outline,
and if you zoom out a little farther, you can apply the same lessons to an entire trilogy.
It’s a lot more work to earn people’s attention, not to mention money, for three connected films,
and the structure can leave the second movie in an awkward place.
But Act 2 has an important job,
It’s the meat of the plot, the lynchpin holding the whole narrative together,
and when it’s done right,
A great Act 2 is where a story turns into a saga.