On my journey to becoming a screenwriter, I’m going to have to write loads of screenplays, and whilst I could potententially write a screen play without doing any research I think that in order to make as good as I possibly can, I need to do as much research as I possibly can. Here is what I have gathered about vigilantes so far, with a specific focus on vigilantes in the UK.

A search for the keyword vigilante-justice on IMDB reveals film titles such as Batman Begins and Spiderman, I mention those two specifically to begin with since they are not, by definition vigilantes. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a vigilante as: “ a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily” The keyword here is punish, and almost every definition I have seen mentions that vigilantes punish criminals. However there is a popular misconception that any superhero (who isn’t working with the police) is a vigilante when many superheroes, including Batman, Spider-man and Superman, refuse to punish or generally if they can, harm criminals, instead they capture them and hand them over to law enforcement. Regarding the UK their are several clauses within the law which could in theory be used to defend a superhero:

“Members of the public (as well as police officers) may take action, including reasonable force, to prevent a breach of the peace, which would not necessarily involve exercising the formal powers of arrest.” Seeing as all criminals superheroes arrest are committing acts which would breach the peace in a large way, and they are members of the public, they would fall very nicely within this category.

One of the conditions that apply if a member of the public wanted to arrest someone is that: “It is not reasonably practical for a constable to make the arrest”. In many cases superheroes go after criminals who have a lot of political power, and have to some extent an influence in the police. In this case the fact that the superhero operates outside of the system means that s/he can perform the arrest without causing negative repercussions on themselves.

In addition, in order to prosecute someone “The prosecution must adduce sufficient evidence to satisfy a jury beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was either: not acting to defend himself/herself or another; or not acting to defend property; or not acting to prevent a crime or to apprehend an offender; or if he was so acting, the force used was excessive.” I think the only point here which might be applicable to your traditional superhero is that the force used might be excessive.

So how does this all help? Why is any of it relevant?

Well as a screenwriter I am trying to create a lot o conflict, because if a few people decide to start a vigilante group and no one opposes it, where’s the story? And in order to create conflict the actions of the protagonist(s) must be questionable at the very least, there must be those who oppose, who think what they are doing is wrong, and there may be some who wish to prosecute them, the law enforcement may be after them. These are all just ideas at the moment but I think it’s worth keeping in mind that stories such as that of the man who threw the teenager of the train, created an overwhelming amount of public sympathy for the man who did the throwing, and at least initially within my story I don’t want everyone to be in the public to be symapathetic with the protagonists.

So in order to create conflict with law enforcement several things can be done (in my opinion), I will list them below:

• Use of weapons
• Use of excessive force, maybe killing some of the criminals
• Going after criminals who the law doesn’t consider criminals/isn’t pressing charges aginst/has declared innocent

Of course this all if the setting is the UK, which due to logistical reason it probably will.

So far this is all I have, more updates coming soon.

Syd Field said in his book that every movie should be a learning experience, and this is what I am trying to do by making this commentary on the film. I have to mention before going on that I am still at the beginning of both books, so this is based on what I have read so far.

The Plot

Both McKee and Field say that a story should follow the three act structure, Field goes on further to say that the acts are separated from each other by what he calls “plot points”. I think this film only has 2 acts, I was going to say that the train robbery was the first plot point however this didn’t spin the action around in another direction, Chon Wang was still trying to find the princess and return her to China. Act 2 begins when the princess tells Wang that she doesn’t want to go to China, and so Wang here starts working against the Imperial Guards, trying to help the princess stay, so the action is completely reversed. Act 1 finishes about 80 minutes into the film, which is where Act 2 should finish according to Field, but Act 2 is rather short, it only lasts about 20 minutes (Field thinks it should last between 40-50 minutes, but then again the whole film is short in Field’s eyes).

McKee further splits the three act structure into sequences, and  those are split into scenes. According to McKee in a well written screenplay every scene must be value charged and the value must switch polarity from the beginning of the scene until the end. For example if at the beginning of the scene someone’s life is at stake, the person should be safe by the end of the scene (if that is the value of the scene). I would say that until the train scene there is nothing at stake; the scene with the Sioux’s after he saved the boy had nothing at stake; and the very last scene had nothing at stake. I think there might be more scenes where there is no value at stake but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.

Character and Characterisation

Robert McKee says that there should be contrast or contradiction between characterisation (what you can see from the subject) and character ( what is revealed about the character from the decisions he makes under pressure). I think the only revealing moment is when Chon Wang stands up after he is shown the Imperial decree and refuses to follow it. Other than that almost all of his actions were expected.

Hopefully I’ll have a little more to say once I’ve gotten through a little more book, but in conclusion I think I can say that the film doesn’t follow McKee’s or Field’s structure’s, and they both say that their formula’s are something that a film needs to be successful, and this wasn’t rated too well. But I still enjoy a good kung fu movie.

Today isn’t my first day on this journey but I’m still at the start. I’ve started off by reading Robert Mckee’s Story Structure and Syd Field’s Foundations of screenplay. I’m also reading and analysing the script of Die Hard, which apparently has a perfect example of the three act structure, which both Mckeeb and Field say is the right way to structure a screenplay. Mckee also mentions it in his book as following his scene-structure perfectly.

I’ve also started keeping an eye on websites like Variety and Hollywood reporter.

I’m also watching loads more movies, and it feels good that I can watch movies and tell myself I’m doing something useful