people often say Your heroes are only as good as your villains. But bringing antagonism to life on the page is harder than it seems. A great villain is probably what viewers leave talking about the most. It’s been almost 15 years dark knight After its release, Heath Ledger’s Joker was still considered one of the greatest villains on screen.
But the Joker isn’t the only villain in this movie, and it’s the sheer power that Christian Bale’s Batman faces that makes the character’s emotional journey so compelling.
Your goal is to make your heroes feel like their goals are insurmountable, no matter what genre you’re writing in. One of the easiest ways to approach a script to ensure there’s great conflict is to delve into the three main areas of confrontation.
Robert McKee discusses “opposing forces” in depth in his infamous seminars, webinars, and books. This is your gateway to learn what they are and some of the recent examples that have appeared on your screen so you can also know where to find them.
degree of confrontation
1. Interpersonal communication Antagonist
The first level of confrontation is internal antagonist (or Intrinsic/Interpersonal) This is the inner flaw, confidence, trauma, etc. that your character will have changed by the end of the movie. They may not change in the way we expect the hero to, which is an anti-hero arc. For these examples, we’ll look at the more common changes from flaw or confidence to a triumphant ending.
Traditional screenwriting books tend to treat the inner antagonist as a simple flaw. For example, the innocent Barbie doll in last year’s hit movie, Carl Frederickson in the Pixar movie up Very grumpy. That’s a good start, you know why they are the way they are, but it’s up to you to show it.
Barbie is innocent because she is “typical Barbie” and only knows life in her bubble. Carl Frederiksen was not only grumpy, but also lonely at the loss of his wife and regretful of dreams that never came true. This isn’t a simple, one-word flaw, but a fully realized character who doesn’t realize how much they’re actually holding themselves back in their lives at the moment.
When you write, every beat is challenging your characters’ known ways of thinking, believing, and acting in order to become better, and they resist throughout. They may try a new path, but it’s never the “right” path until the very last moment, the climax of the film, when the audience sees how your character has changed.
Read more: ‘Back to the Future’ screenwriter says scripts are different: Every character needs flaws
“Upward” (2009)
2. Personal Antagonist
personal opponent It’s the “human versus human” conflict between what we traditionally think of as villains/antagonists that propels the protagonist into becoming the hero we want them to be. Your character may encounter one main antagonist, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others. The trick is to make sure they push your protagonist in different ways to challenge their way of life.
A simple way to think of it is that your protagonist moves back and forth on an emotional line or emotional spectrum. If the defect of simplification is “childish,” then the other end of the spectrum would be “corrupt” or “boring.”
If it’s “grumpy,” the other end may be happy. Your protagonist may not be at one end all the time at the beginning of the film, but can move back and forth before reaching the other end, or make progress while still in the middle.
After all, humans are more complex than simple “good and evil.” But it helps to imagine them moving back and forth along the range, two steps forward, one step back.
non-personal opponent
Technically speaking, the second level of confrontation is personal opponent But we’ll get to that later.
The third level of confrontation is non-personal opponentwhich is a force far greater than any one person, although there may be one person representing the transpersonal (which would occur at the “personal” level). This is an area that houses large social institutions, such as Gotham City’s government and criminal organizations batman Movie.
It can also be a major natural event you see in a movie, e.g. tornado/tornado and san andreasor something like that abandon or The Revenant.
This also includes society’s collective beliefs, such as gender roles in Barbie dolls or the industrial-military complex Captain America: Winter Soldier.
This is also usually represented by an individual who speaks on behalf of the institution.
Read more: 3 reasons why Twister is a disaster movie
“Twister” (2024)
3. Positive Antagonists and Negative Antagonists
Audiences learn where the protagonist falls on the emotional spectrum based on the personal antagonist they are exposed to. This allows the audience to also put these antagonists on the same page and see who pushes the protagonist in a positive direction and who challenges the protagonist in a negative direction.
Kristen Bell’s inner conflict is reflected in dark knight Consisting of the Joker (the Joker) and Harvey Dent (before he became Two-Face), the former being the passive antagonist and the worst version of the “vigilante”, the latter being the active antagonist representing humanity and heroic goodness .
Comic book movies make it easier to study and see how these levels of antagonism manifest, but you can see it in every genre. Let’s look at some examples from recent movies. We’ll keep it broad and try not to give away any of the ending, but there are some spoilers!
No
The central idea is No It is “people and people” and “people and animals”. The film highlights the differences in how humans and animals interact, and the respect and humility required.
ProtagonistOJ is a good guy, but he has a hard time doing it Fight back and take control (interpersonal opponents) Save his family’s horse farm in a world where exploitation and spectacle do not exist. when External world events (transpersonal opponents) Arrival, OJ, His sister and their new friends (aggressive rivals) Fighting to save their farm and themselves, a very different approach to competing farms run by one man former television star (villain antagonist).
selma
This is a film about How our society treats older adults (adversaries other than individuals). it surrounds Thelma, a 93-year-old widow, mother and grandmother She lost many friends and Determined to be self-reliant, even in the face of the real struggles of aging (interpersonal rivals). She became the target of a phone scam and lost thousands of dollars, so she decided to help by finding Liar (negative personal opponent). For this reason, she An old friend who is content living in an assisted living facility (a positive personal counterpart)Selma looked down upon him for this.
The film has a very small cast, but even those not listed here are all at different points in the emotional arc that Selma struggles with, challenging our own perceptions of how to treat aging friends and family view.
challenger
This is an emotional short drama that tells the story of three people All main characters have different flaws/interpersonal rivals—Tashi wants to be in control of her own destiny and won’t give up control. Her husband Art doesn’t know how to assert his wishes with Tashi. Tashi’s ex-boyfriend Patrick is extremely arrogant and takes his talents and relationships for granted. of.
Of course, these three people are Each other’s personal rivals, both positive and negative, in different ways. Tashi asked the two to get better and prioritize their tennis careers. Both challenged Tashi to love something other than tennis. When Tashi steps in, Art and Patrick challenge each other’s loyalty to their partnership.
world of tennis And the brief window in an athlete’s life that they have to compete, the pressure it creates, and the impact it has on the athletes’ families who are invested in them—all of that makes up transpersonal counterforce The entire film is framed by this as we watch a present-day tennis match and flash back to the events that led these three men to this moment.
This soapy, dramatic film centered around three people still manages to introduce antagonistic forces in complex ways that deliver a heavy emotional toll on the viewer.
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There are countless ways to push your protagonist and shape who they ultimately become. The harder you push them, the more viewers will cheer them on and invest in their journey, so use all the power you can on these pages.
Read more: Harnessing empathy to create better villains
