Hi, I'm Michael.
This is Lessons from the Screenplay.
Whenever a new Mission Impossible movie is coming out,
the focus always seems to be on whatever crazy, new,
incredibly dangerous stunts Tom Cruise is doing in the movie.
Admittedly, this is pretty awesome,
but it can sometimes make the Mission Impossible films
seem like nothing more than flashy action movies.
And while they certainly have no shortage of action...
(explosion)
...there's another kind of tension at the heart of the series.
They are actually heist films.
This has always been true of the franchise,
even going back to the original Mission Impossible TV show.
And perhaps more than any other kind of sequence,
heists present the hero with an incredibly clear-cut goal and difficult obstacles,
creating high-stakes scenes designed to keep the audience guessing.
So today, my mission is to compare two heist sequences
from different Mission Impossible movies...
To examine the way they establish goals and convey detailed obstacles…
...and how they ultimately subvert expectations by taking an impossible situation,
and making it even worse.
Let's take a look at Mission Impossible.
Just like any sequence in a story,
the engine that drives a heist forward comes from the protagonist's desire.
In the first Mission Impossible, Ethan wants to steal the NOC list—
a record of every secret agent and their true identity—
because he thinks it will help him find the person who set him up.
“I deliver the NOC list, Max delivers Job.”
In Rogue Nation, his goal is...also to steal a list.
“Lane had a ledger.
It contains the identities of his operatives, his terrorist associates,
the entire inner workings of the Syndicate.”
Once the goal is established, the first big problem is clear:
both of the lists are located in highly-secured facilities—
there's no way Ethan could get to them on his own.
So to achieve the desire, the protagonist is going to need allies…
"We're going to need some help."
or in this case, a team.
Each team member is designed to have a specific characteristic
that will help the protagonist achieve their goal.
In Rogue Nation, Ethan partners with Benji, who we've seen is a tech wizard...
...and Ilsa, a new character who we've seen is a superspy in her own right.
In the original Mission Impossible, Ethan recruits two new people.
Luther, who is great at hacking...
...and Krieger, who is great at being Jean Reno.
This team assembly phase allows the writers
to tease the kind of obstacles our heroes will be going up against...
"This is the Mount Everest of hacks."
...but it also serves to start creating tension.
In both films, the writers give us reasons to suspect
that one of the team members is what John Truby calls, a "Fake-Ally Opponent."
In his book “The Anatomy of Story,” Truby explains:
"The fake-ally opponent is a character who appears to be the hero’s friend
but is actually an opponent.
Having this character is one of the main ways you add power to the opposition
and twists to the plot."
In both heists, the newest members of the team are former agents who have been disavowed.
“She's bad news.”
Ethan is about to put his life in their hands, and isn't sure they can be trusted.
Unfortunately for him, he has no choice.
He's going to need their help if he wants to achieve his desire,
because standing in their way are a number of very big obstacles.
In a heist sequence, obstacles are the forces of antagonism that the heroes struggle against—
they are what creates drama.
So once the team has been gathered,
both films waste no time in establishing the difficulty
of the mission they're about to attempt.
“It's much worse than you think.”
“It's impossible.”
To keep all this exposition engaging,
both films cut away from the team to show the actual location of the heist.
In the first film, Ethan's narration combines with the visuals
to create a kind of tour of the vault system.
Ethan: “The only person allowed in the room has to pass through a series of security checks.”
We see that the computer terminal is guarded by voice activation…
“William Donloe.”
…retinal scans, temperature fluctuations, and even a pressure-sensitive floor.
Ethan: “All three systems are state of the art."
(alarm sounds)
Rogue Nation uses this cutaway technique in a different way.
Rather than simply providing a tour of the obstacles in the system,
the script visualizes the brainstorming process,
letting us see which security systems they could easily fool...
Benji: “Well that’s easy.
We just impersonate the agent who stole the ledger in the first place,
and I get to wear a mask.”
...and which ones they can't.
“Ok, I don’t get to wear mask.”
By letting us actually see the obstacles the team is facing,
we get a very clear understanding of each of them—
and the better we understand the obstacles, the more effective they are.
So now that the heroes know precisely what they're up against,
it's time to formulate a plan,
and it's at this stage that the two films differ the most.
In Rogue Nation we know all the main steps of the plan beforehand,
and are even shown what success looks like.
Ethan: “One of us needs to enter the torus and change the security profile…
…so that the other one can access the computer without being caught.”
In the original film, we don't learn what the team's plan is
until the next stage of the heist...
execution.
As the heist begins in Rogue Nation,
we’ve already been told the centerpiece of the plan,
but the details leading up to it are surprises.
Ethan and Ilsa parachute in, as Benji does tech things and enters the building.
And with a quick reminder of the obstacles and stakes…
“Two and a half minutes to switch the security profile,
thirty seconds to escape through the service hatch.”
...it's go time.
But in the original Mission Impossible,
we know their goal and we know the obstacles,
but when it comes to how they're going to pull it off, we're completely in the dark.
“And you really think we can do this?”
This lets the reveal of their plan be part of the fun.
“We’re going to do it.”
The team shows up as firefighters, responding
to fake alarms set off by Luther's hacking skills…
...which allows them to access a maintenance room and gain access to the ventilation ducts.
Meanwhile, Claire changes disguises so she can covertly poison the coffee
of the only person who has access to the terminal, William Donloe.
And finally, the film reveals the heist's centerpiece.
This is the point of no return.
The team is fully committed, and now it's all about building tension.
So how do these heist sequences build tension?
First, they both feature a "ticking clock."
In the first “Mission Impossible,”
they have a small window of time in which the poisoned man is...incapacitated.
In Rogue Nation the ticking clock is a literal ticking clock,
counting down how much air Ethan has left.
This is one of several visual cues the films use to convey to the audience
how close the team is to failing...
(Beeps)
...another great way of creating tension.
But the best way to create tension is to subvert the audience's expectations.
So now: everything must go wrong.
In the Rogue Nation heist several problems arise.
First, Ethan drops the cards he needs to swap when he's hit by the robotic arm...
...then the water flow is turned back on,
so he has to use even more oxygen to retrieve them...
...and once he does they've been mixed up
so he's unsure which is the correct one to insert.
And all the while Benji is moments away from being caught
as the ticking clock is ticking down to Ethan's death.
In Mission Impossible, Ethan's initial descent is interrupted by the arrival
of William Donloe.
But once he is out of the picture, things go smoothly.
The temperature is fine, sound is within limits,
and Ethan is well above the pressure sensitive floor…
…that is, until a rat appears and Krieger can't keep it together,
resulting in one of the most famous moments in film history.
This is the crisis of the sequence,
and a great example of why it's important
for the obstacles to be clearly communicated to the audience.
We understand that if Ethan touches the floor, or makes a sound,
or doesn't get the right card inserted in time,
the mission will be a failure.
And now that everything has gone wrong,
we are glued to our seats and dying to know what will happen next.
In Rogue Nation, Ethan manages to get the proper card secured just in time,
while in the vault sequence Krieger manages to lift Ethan back up,
and he's able to secure the NOC list.
This appears to be a victory, but in Mission Impossible not even the escape is simple.
In the original film, as Ethan reaches safety, Krieger snatches the disk from Ethan,
and in doing so drops his knife.
This provides one last moment of suspense,
but more importantly confirms that Krieger cannot be trusted.
In Rogue Nation, Ethan drowns and Ilsa has to jump into the tank to save him,
making us think that we can trust her.
“I misjudged you.”
These last-minute twists underscore the fact that these heists
aren’t really about the thing being stolen.
Both of these sequences begin at almost exactly fifty minutes into the runtime—
the midpoint of both movies.
Up until this point, Ethan has been totally focused
on stealing the thing that will lead him to the antagonist,
and by the end of the heist, he's gotten it.
But instead of solving Ethan's problems...
(yell)
...these heists have actually just created new ones...
...forcing the fake-allies to reveal themselves as opponents...
…and spinning the plot in a different direction,
creating a new mission for Ethan in the second half of the movie that will seem just as impossible.
The Mission Impossible films demonstrate how thrilling it can be
to watch people improvise within established constraints after a plan goes wrong—
much more fun than watching a perfectly executed plan would be.
This is true not only of heist sequences, but of storytelling in general.
Stories are often simply about someone who wants something,
tries to get it, and then improvises as everything goes wrong.
And this is compelling when the audience has a clear understanding of the character’s goal,
the obstacles they face,
and how they plan to get it.
And with each new entry to the franchise,
we get another fun example of how to get in,
get out, and get away
with yet another “Mission Impossible.”
Ethan’s team has to go to some pretty extreme lengths to get the data they’re after.
Unfortunately in the real world, getting hacked is a lot easier.
A few weeks ago, my Spotify account was hacked,
exposing someone out there to all of my awesome playlists.
This was one of the few remaining accounts I had created with my “lazy” password,
and a breach on another site meant that suddenly several of my accounts were vulnerable.
This underscores why it’s so important to use a password manager like Dashlane.
Dashlane generates secure passwords for you,
and can fill them in automatically on websites and apps
so you don’t have to worry about remembering each one.
This frees you up to create a unique password for each account,
so if one site gets breached it doesn’t mean that all your passwords are now vulnerable.
I really can’t stress enough how important this is,
and how useful it is to have a password manager like Dashlane.
And what’s great is that you can create an account with Dashlane for free,
so there’s really no excuse not to.
So head to dashlane.com/lfts to create a free account today,
and if you want to sign up for the premium service you can get ten percent off
by using the code “lfts.”
Thanks to Dashlane for sponsoring this video and for keeping our passwords secure.
Hey guys, hope you enjoyed the video!
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in the upcoming weeks and months,
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Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.