The Force Awakens - Initial

The recently released "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is turning out to be a good example for this generational analysis, for reasons beyond its massive popularity. Since it's science fiction - set neither in our current time period nor our planet - we can use the generational model to see how it works in unfamiliar settings. It has new characters which we can compare with generational attributes, and old characters to serve as a cross check. And it can be categorized using the Four Stories model, as well.

First, which of the Four Stories does it follow? Let's try using this not-too-spoilery synopsis as a starting point (although this analysis will definitely in SPOILER status before the end):

Former Stormtrooper Finn and scavenger Rey join together with Resistance pilot Poe to find Luke Skywalker and save the Republic from Kylo Ren and the New Order. 

Of the characters named, Poe is out for half of the movie, and Luke doesn't show up until the very end. The main characters are Finn and Rey, with Kylo Ren as the antagonist - the face of the New Order. These are all that might be considered as protagonists, even if other new and old characters show up. We should probably consider the Story in terms of Finn and Rey.

Is it a story of Doom and Damnation? While the good guys don't completely triumph - the New Order is still around at the end -  the bad guys take a beating, and there's no moral ambiguity in the results. Definitely not this one.

Is there any Redemption going on - any bad characters turning good? The only person who might fit is Finn, and about the first thing we see him do is NOT shoot at captured civilians. There's nobody who starts from a morally compromised position that gets Good by the end - certainly none of the main or supporting characters. Keep looking.

There are a number of Millennial actors in the main roles, and it was released in 2015, when the real world was in a Crisis period - perhaps it's a Hero story? The good guys do win, and there is a notable loss along the way. However, they don't really win because of their teamwork - not the way the Avengers win against the Chitauri, say, or Captain Miller's squad saves Private Ryan. Even after leaving the New Order, Finn initially doesn't consider joining the Resistance to be a compelling alternative. Poe shows up in the final battle as a Resistance pilot, but his orders are less about "let's keep it tight, stay on target," and more "Shoot more stuff!" While Rey doesn't join the final battle willingly - she was captured by Kylo Ren.

Considering Rey in particular, though, we see her starting out good, but ignorant of important truths about herself - for example, that she is strong with the Force. Not only does she have to find that out along the way, much of the story is about how that happens. The primary conflict is spiritual in form, between the Light and Dark sides of the Force. The climatic battle  - the one which continues even after Starkiller Base has been mortally damaged - is between Rey (in white, representing Light) and Kylo Ren (in black, for Dark). The final image is of her encounter with a religious (in all but name) hermit, living high above a ruined Temple. Finn's arc, too,  is based on a moral choice - he abandons his training and his uniform because it's the right thing to do. (It seems clear this is his real reason, even if he helps Poe because he needs a pilot, too.) It's the Prophet story that fits best.

This makes it an interesting mirror of the original Star Wars movie, now sub-titled A New Hope. Writer/Director George Lucas (born 1944) was  of the Boom generation, the post-World War II Prophet archetype, as were Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.   (Harrison Ford, born 1942, is of the next-eldest Silent generation, missing the Boomer cutoff by five and a half months.) That story, though, fits well with the Hero archetype, with Luke being brought into a fight for freedom from tyranny, with winning as a result of teamwork and sacrifice. While Luke makes the final shot that destroys the Death Star, it's only after previous attempts by other units revealed how it might be done, and the support of his wingmen, plus a big helping hand from Han and Chewie. It all came together - working as a team, that is, with losses along the way - in such a way that allowed success.

Which means that the saga started with a Hero story told by Prophets, and now continues with a Prophet story being told by Heroes. Perhaps it will continue that way - there's still more to say about it, here.

Star Wars and Jaws, Boomers and Prophets

As I was finishing up the previous Four Stories post, I could hear it already: What about Star Wars? What about Jaws? If they were the reason for the recognized change to the Boomer filmmakers, why aren't they in there - in fact,  aren't they Boomer stories?

Well, the short answer is that they don't work with the Prophet Story, at least not as simply as Rocky and others do. Jaws matches better with the Hero Story: Brody succeeds, but only with the help of others and the loss of Quint and the Orca.

Fun note: the generations of our Orca team are GI ("We delivered the bomb") Quint, Silent ("...she's wrong.""No, she's not.") Brody, and Boomer ("This was no boating accident!") Hooper, and it's Brody who helps get the naturally antagonistic Hero and Prophet to work together. 

Star Wars, on the other hand, can be seen as either a) Luke learning about the mystical Force and using it to go after the corrupt and evil Empire, or b) Luke and friends working together to take out the Death Star, losing Obi-Wan and Alderaan along the way. The sequels head much more in the Prophet Story direction, with a case to be made that the military part of the Battle of Endor was less important than Luke standing up to the Emperor and declaring himself a Jedi. In any case, while the Prophet Story is strong, these entanglements made it an inferior initial example. 

(I have not seen The Force Awakens as of this writing - It should make a better case yet for where the Galaxy was around the Battle of Yavin. A year ago, I suspected that it would support that as a Crisis period, and I've seen nothing yet to change my mind, there.)

When I started looking at this, I did expect that Prophets would prefer Prophet Stories, and similarly for the others. It's often the case, but not every time, nor even for all the significant ones (those that make money, win awards, or become cultural touchstones). Divergent, written by a young Millennial, is a full Prophet story, all about Tris taking on a corrupt system by the power of her own personal superiority. 

I have some thoughts on why this happens, and understanding that is part of what I hope to work out, here.

Four Stories

If history can by analyzed according to generational attributes....

And if the events of the present day can be analyzed similarly....

Then what might be seen upon applying similar analysis to narrative artworks, such as literature, film, television, and theater?

One might find that they can be categorized as one of four Stories, which can be summarized as:

1. Stories of Heroic Struggle

2. Stories of Doom and Damnation

3. Stories of Moral Certainty

4. Stories of Personal Redemption

each matching with a particular generational archetype. Each Story has a heyday as their associated archetype matures, then fades away with them as well. While that doesn’t mean a particular Story doesn’t happen at other times, it probably will happen less, and be appreciated less.

So, as the Hero archetype grows up, Stories of Heroic Struggle become common. These can be identified by the following attributes:

* The good guys win.

* Winning is achieved through teamwork.

* There is a sacrifice required as the price of winning.

* Change is possible, but not without real costs.

While we can expect that the main characters are from Hero generations, such as G.I.s (born 1901-1925), we might see this Story happening with other archetypes as well. It is likely to go out of style as the realities of war and the disappointments of the eventual peace make Heroes and their Heroics seem a naive concept.

Examples: The Lord of the Rings; The Hunger Games; Harry Potter; Captain America: The First Avenger; How to Train Your Dragon

The fall of the Heroes will bring forth a darker and much less hopeful sort of story. This Story is not not about winners or losers: There are victims who are Doomed and perpetrators who are Damned.

* The winner  - if any - is probably not a good person.

* What victories exist are for nefarious purposes.

* Those who aren’t victorious are likely dead or otherwise doomed

* Change is futile - the universe resists it.

Here, the usual focus is on Artists, those born too late to be heroic in the previous Crisis. From an early age, they have to acknowledge their imperfection compared to those who, though only a few years older, are seen as the world's saviors. The works themselves are often well-crafted and adored by critics. Still, they have an inherently negative and tragic tone, which may be the reason they seem active only for a fairly short period. 

Examples: The Godfather; Bonnie and Clyde; Chinatown; Dr. Strangelove; Annie Hall

A desire for optimism and hope may be the birthplace of the Stories of Moral Certainty, where

* The good guy wins, often in a spiritual or religious context.

* Winning is due to personal, intrinsic moral superiority, often in opposition to corrupt or evil societal structures.

* The story is about becoming the (moral and superior) person you’re meant to be. 

* Change comes from within, and depends on knowing yourself.

This Story is likely to be focused on the Prophet archetype, and taking on the corruption of the system in support of spiritual and religious objectives. At some point, though, the simplicity of their success - through being a better person or wanting it more or other completely inherent character attributes - is insufficient, and more is desired. 

Examples: Forrest Gump; Rocky; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Tron; Almost Famous

The Story of Personal Redemption comes to the fore with the Nomad generation, the one that is mostly marked as “Bad” from the start.

* The main character starts with clear faults to be resolved, often morally ambiguous, or just Bad.

* Placed in a situation where he has to grow, the flawed main character moves away from Bad and towards Good

* Victory comes from doing the right thing, that Bad person succeeding in moving beyond flawed beginnings.

* Change consists of self-improvement, and overcoming your faults.

Redemption stories start being made as the fairy tales of the Prophets lose their drawing power, seen as too simple and unrealistic to be interesting. It's more appealing than self-actualization to Nomad generations, who have to work through being told that they are Bad early on. It’s not unusual to see the two paired up, though, with the moral purity of the Prophet becoming the source of the Nomad's redemption. As the Nomads grow up,  expectations for the latest generation improve, and the Heroic Story takes hold again. 

Examples: Pulp Fiction; Groundhog Day; A Christmas Carol; Iron Man; Lost (TV series); The Kid (Charlie Chaplin)

Needless to say, these broad strokes leave room for plenty of exceptions, alternatives, and loopholes. The line between self-improvements that makes you Not Bad and that which makes you Even Better is not always going to be clear. If there are multiple storylines, they may use different Stories. Some bad films will follow these precisely, while there are probably good films that don't. . 

It still should be a useful starting point. 

Synthesis

I didn't really try to put together a generational model of stories. It started taking shape, though, after I had read through Generations and The Fourth Turning, and was understanding the larger model. I started seeing patterns visible in works from Harry Potter to Hamlet, from Buffy to Gatsby. Some of it was - and probably still is - confirmation bias and apophenia. There still seems to be something there, though, and that's what I'll be digging into here.

This is is a synthesis of observations, like the generations of filmmakers, with expectations from the model, like the personality traits. There are parts that start from the books, such as Luke, Han and Obi-Wan being Hero, Nomad, and Prophet. Others were observations that appeared unasked, probably because they follow easily -  that the 75th Hunger Games, and the Crisis they unleash, are right about when we expect it (~80 years after the Dark Days, clearly the previous Crisis). Still others are attempts to fit observations, hopefully without forcing them. One of these would be what happens with the generations of filmmakers - why there is this perceived change with new generations.

 There are three particular interactions with the generational model that will be considered:

First are the characters themselves and what archetypes they fit.   Are they intensely moral and pure of purpose? Are they misfits and criminals? Are they trying to follow the rules, or is the story about breaking them? Do they match with the attributes predicted by Strauss & Howe, and does that affect how the story works? 

Second is the question of where the characters fit in an historical context. Is there a major war going on, suggesting it's a Crisis period? Or do people talk about a war in the recent past, and what they did there? Are there strong religious or spiritual implications for what is happening, suggesting an Awakening? 

For stories set in the present day, this may not be immediately useful, since we should already know what's happening, now. Eventually, though, signposts to the past become helpful - that The Best Years of Our Lives is immediately after a Crisis war is an important item to know, for a trivial example. It's even more helpful with historical, speculative, or science fiction, where there may be hints we can glean from noting, say, that there sure are a lot of soldiers around the Bennet sisters.

Finally, there appear to be particular kinds of stories that break well along generational lines. The relatively recent GenX films aren't quite the same as the Boomer stories before them, or the (presumably) Artist stories before that.  It's as if particular generations want to create narratives that fit a more general narrative structure that is comfortable to them. We might expect, for example, that Heroes write Hero stories, ones that hew closer to Joseph Campbell. Does the story match the creator, or are there other influences?

That third one is what's up next. It's more than simply an attempt to explain what distinguished the mid-90s Xer filmmakers from the mid-70s Boomers. It suggests what different stories there are for different generations to tell.

Previously on ...

The story-specific model I'm proposing here has been worked out based on stories that I've seen and read, and sometimes I've blogged about them before.

Here are some previous posts on stories viewed from a generational perspective.

Captain America and The Winter Soldier

Tammy (The Melissa McCarthy movie, a not-quite-Redemption story.)

The Hunger Games (And more Games.)

Coriolanus (about the play, but also considering President Coriolanus Snow.)

Walter Mitty (With bonus references to Falling Down.)

Edge of Tomorrow

Heroics (Looking across several films and such)

Guardians of the Galaxy (Which turned out to be Nomad characters, Hero story)

Lego

The Force Awakens (what we know so far, anyway. And by so far, I mean as of a year ago.)

The Shadow (1995 film)

Chef

Influences (An extended look at when Generation X began making a difference in films.)

Stories. (No really)

Children (As in "How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?" or treating fictional characters as "real")

Rosencrantz

Ahab

King Lear

Bodhi (How to remake Point Break, if you really think that's a good idea.)

Compare and contrast The Apartment and Wall*E

Now (as in Spectacular)

Maleficent (Even female Nomads end up as bad guys.)

Bad (Because that's the easy way to find Nomads in stories.)

A New Generation of Filmmakers

I've been going on for a bit on the generational model because having a shared vocabulary is necessary for my ultimate goals here. When I start going off about how Katniss is a Hero or why Willy Loman is like Polonius because they are both clearly post-Crisis foolish Nomads, it's reasonable to explain the terms up front. 

What has come before should be sufficient, though, to get started. So let's take a look at this idea began, that different generations view stories differently. 

Strauss & Howe go into it a bit themselves. In The Fourth Turning in particular, they spend several pages (my copy has it on pages 75-79,  in the chapter Seasons) aligning the proposed archetypes with myths. They point out that stories are often about young heroes with old and wise mentors (like the first Star Wars movie), or about youngsters taking on entrenched institutions (The Emperor's New Clothes, say). Corresponding Artist and Nomad myths are suggested, although (no surprise) they are not considered as significant. In Generations, contrasting narratives of the GI generation are presented, between the mid-1940s repayment of George Bailey's debt by his grateful neighbors, and the elders in Cocoon (1985) who are seen "draining the strength of unborn aliens, and then flying off to immortality while leaving their own children behind." The impact of narrative and myth on archetype, and on how we internalize the world around us through story, has evidently been a natural match with generational models.

It was a couple of years after Generations was published that there was a notable turning point in how different generations saw film, in particular.  In 1994, the Best Picture Academy Award was seen as a competition between Boomer mash note Forrest Gump, and Pulp Fiction from voice-of-a-new-generation Quentin Tarantino. The same year, New Jersey convenience store worker Kevin Smith filmed Clerks, about being a convenience store worker, at the convenience store where he worked. A year after that, aspiring actor Jon Favreau worked with aspiring director Doug Liman and some of his aspiring actor friends to pull together Swingers, based on Favreau's experiences as an aspiring actor in Los Angeles.

Even if one did not like these films, it was clear that they weren't quite the same as what had gone before. They aggressively reference other films, talking about how they were made, lifting camera  shots, and discussing specific plot points. They examined unexpected topics, like what hit men discuss before a job, or the subtleties of acceptable encounters with the opposite sex. They are profane - all three of their entries in IMDB have a count of how much profanity is used, and Clerks nearly received an NC-17 rating purely on language and descriptions (not portrayals) of sexual acts. And all of them were created by members of Generation X, a Nomad generation comprising those born from 1961 through 1981. 

Both Swingers and Clerks reference two movies that were twenty years old at the time: Star Wars and Jaws. At least one person thinks Pulp Fiction has a reference to Rocky, which I'm going to run with, too... These three films had also been indicators of a change in Hollywood - not only the start of blockbusters but of a different sort of movie, ones unlike those that had been recently popular. Again, whether you liked the change doesn't reduce that the change happened. And that time, the creators - Lucas, Spielberg, and Stallone (who famously wrote the script for Rocky, then made being cast in the lead a point of its sale) - were of the Prophet archetype Boom generation,  born between 1942 and 1960. 

Speaking of what was popular before Jaws, Star Wars and Rocky: people such as William Goldman will refer to 1967's Bonnie and Clyde as a watershed moment in film. Classic films from the next few years include the Godfather I and II, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, M*A*S*H, Chinatown... But clearly something happened that made THEM seem different, too. Why is it Bonnie and Clyde that gets the notice - and why does it mark such an explosion of notable films? These do have a different feel from, say, the grand scope and magnificent vistas of David Lean films, or the Biblical epics produced over the previous decade. We might want to consider 1941's Citizen Kane (directed by GI Generation Orson Welles, born 1915) another point of significant change - although there's a case to be made for the biggest selling film of all time as of 1938: Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves,

As with the Crisis and Awakening periods previously discussed, noticeable changes appear to happen in film on a recurring basis. With that twenty year period, not to mention explicit mentions of "new generations of filmmakers," we can reasonably suggest that the reason for the differences - the "Why" - is generational. 

Less certain, though, is "What?" What is different, what (if anything) can be used to define the change?

Crisis and Awakening

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

As Abraham Lincoln noted, the American Civil War occurred about 90 years after the Revolutionary War. The bombing of Pearl Harbor was 81 years after the Secession Winter.  88 years before the Declaration of Independence was the Glorious Revolution.  Major wars like these seem to repeat quite regularly. Predictably, even. 

Less obviously, the Progressive Era of the late 1800s was about halfway between the Civil War and The Great Depression. The Great American Awakening was about 40 years before the American Revolution. Spiritual upheavals like these, too, recur on some predictable schedule, one that has been observed at least as far as the early 1500s, with the Protestant Reformation. 

Taken together, there is a recurring cycle comprising major conflicts every 80-100 years, and spiritual upheavals  about halfway between them. Different mechanisms have been proposed for how this is so consistent over a period of centuries. In the Strauss & Howe model, this cycle is driven by those generational archetypes  - and vice versa. As mentioned, the archetypes are dependent on what happens during childhood and young adulthood:

* Artists are born during a secular Crisis (like World War II)

* Prophets are raised after the Crisis, becoming young adults who drive and support the Awakening. 

* Nomads are born during a spiritual Awakening (like the Great Awakening in the 1730s)

* Heroes are brought up after the Awakening, becoming young adults who unite to take on enemies during the Crisis.  

The particular group of archetypes active at any point in time influences the kind of period that it is.  During periods of major secular conflict, the Hero archetype - who were brought up to work together and taught that they were Special -- are  young adults. They bring a unified front against outstanding problems, which problems are often pointed out by the older Prophet generation. Meanwhile, the practical and cynical Nomad generation can temper extremes and set up executable plans for victory, however it is defined. In World War II, goals were set under the leadership of FDR, a Prophet of the Missionary generation. Mid-level management was by Nomads from the Lost generation, such as Eisenhower and Patton. Young Heroes from the GI generation - JFK, Glen Miller, Ronald Reagan - battled together on air, land, sea, and elsewhere, to win whatever the cost. 

For the spiritual upheavals, on the other hand, the influence of the practical (and cynical) Nomads is mostly absent. The young adults at this time are passionate Prophets, raised in a postwar period that was safe and confined and perhaps  self-righteous, as defined by the formerly triumphant - now older - Hero generation. Rather than taking on management roles, the middle-aged Artists (raised and carefully protected during the crisis period) instead help guide the Prophet generation's passion, identifying areas where justice is yet to be served.  With this group of generations, the result is a wave that assaults existing societal structures,

Causes and Effects

What causes these proposed differences in generations?  

To introduce this, consider the different historical and social events recognizable by a 10 year old child (born 2005) 30 year old young adult (born 1985), or middle aged 50 year old (1965). None remember JFK. The youngest doesn't remember 9/11. The oldest was allowed (required) to walk to school as young as 8, while the youngest may be accompanied at all times, still. The middle one was a child when the Internet exploded with the invention of the World Wide Web. Experiences such as these impacted who they are and what they do. And many are shared across multiple years, so that say, those born during about 1982-2004 have much in common with this hypothetical 30-year old. 

Not only does it matter what events are shared but how old each was at the time. A child may quickly take it for granted that all information everywhere is instantly accessible. A major economic downturn affects the older person set in their ways differently from the child who can't really do anything but adapt to her family's change in income. We can expect that people who are in the same stage of life during particular historical events will have related outlooks. People are especially going to be impacted by what happened during their youth, which is to say about their first 20 years. The years right after that, when they are young adults starting families and careers, will largely complete their view of the world and how it works. If childhood is relatively stable (think 1950s) and young adulthood triumphant (Nixon resigns!) outlook will be different from a turbulent childhood (say the 1890s) that leads into mixed success as adults (like World War I). 

Bringing it back to my main goal here, these related outlooks are likely to affect how they view stories, whether in film or video or text. 

Bulworth

I'm not going to go too far into how Bulworth is clearly an Artist story.  (Which it is). After all, haven't yet described here how they end up as stories of the Doomed and the Damned, victims and perpetrators. 

And would at some point like to talk a bit about how Warren Beatty (Silent, 1937) was one of the drivers behind New Hollywood, particularly with his involvement in Bonnie & Clyde. 

All I'm going to go into here, though, is how I was watching this 1998 film about a senator who sets up a mafia hit on himself and thinking

<spoiler alert>

 "It would make perfect sense for the GenX Halle Berry character to be the real assassin - Nomads are usually the amoral ("bad") ones after all."

And moments later, that very character gives Senator Bulworth a perfectly cogent analysis of how African-Americans really need jobs, and how World War II yielded a lot of jobs that fed directly into the Civil Rights movement,  hitting instead on pragmatic and pecuniary touchstones for Nomads in general and GenX in particular.

And THEN, moments after that, we find out that, while she isn't exactly the assassin, she is working directly with him, looking for a ten grand payday.

Go figure. 

Generational Attributes

Below we have some attributes of the different generational archetypes - the recurring sorts of generations - as originally proposed in the book Generations. It included many points of comparison between the generational archetypes - that is, the recurring sorts of generations.  Authors Neil Howe and William Strauss identified them  by comparing contemporary and historical figures to find what they had in common.

The listing below is of positive and negative attributes noted from members of these archetypes. This comes from a single chart, which includes a dozen more points of comparison, so there are certainly additional details on how generations change over time. As we go along, we will find more, but this should be a useful overview to investigate  how we can distinguish characters who belong to different generations.  

Archetype	Positive Attributes	Negative Attributes
Hero	Rational Selfless Competent	Overbold Unreflective Insensitive
Artist	Caring Open-minded Expert	Indecisive Guilt-ridden Neurotic
Prophet	Principled Resolute Creative	Ruthless Selfish Arrogant
Nomad	Savvy Perceptive Practical	Amoral Pecuniary Uncultured

For example, let's consider John McLane of the movie Die Hard, and which of the above attributes describe him best. He's clearly not an Artist, by this standard, as he matches none of those attributes. (We might consider him an Expert policeman, but even that pushes beyond the Everyman story there.) He's a bit more of a Hero, although he isn't really Selfless - he is as threatened by Hans Gruber's gang as anyone else, so whatever he does helps him, too. He is also relatively sensitive and reflective, particularly when talking with his other cop friend on the ground. He's not even too bold, really - he tries to get the police to take care of the issue early on. There's a better fit still with the Nomad attributes, but he's neither amoral or in it for the money, and the practical step would have been staying out of the way once he escaped. 

But is he ruthless? He kills every terrorist  he can. Arrogant? Yippie-ki-yay... Principled and resolute? Definitely. Creative? Let us count the ways. We can suggest, then,  that he is probably part of a Prophet generation, and that his story will be what fits a Prophet.

And we'll soon get to what that means....

In Generations, incidentally, Strauss & Howe use different names for these archetypes. The above versions came into use a few years later. I'll include them here because I may lapse into them sometimes: 

Hero: Civic

Artist: Adaptive

Prophet: Idealist

Nomad: Reactive

Starting Out With Generations

Why does it make sense that Maverick should be more of a troublemaker?

To explain that, here's a look at the generational model previously mentioned, from the book Generations or its follow-up The Fourth Turning. It looks at historical events as a repeating cycle involving four different generational types. Each generation consists of individuals born over a period of about 20 years, who as a result share a common historical perspective:

Prophet - Children during a post-war period of conformity and stability. They later oppose those existing organizations, taking disciplined moral stands, while being resistant to alternative points of view.  The Boom generation (born 1943-1960) is the current Prophet archetype.

Nomad - Raised during a period of spiritual tumult and social upheaval fomented by the previous Prophet generation.   Seeing the results of moral certainty at a young age, they become known for being pragmatic and cynical. They can also get a reputation for being "bad," one that starts soon after their first members are born. Generation X (born 1961-1981) is the current Nomad type.

Hero - Born during a tumultuous but exciting period as old social structures are torn down, allowing individualism to shine forth. They become paragons of teamwork, taking on major enemies like slavery and Nazis, then building up new organizations in the aftermath.  Current Hero generations include the GI Generation (born 1901-1925) that were young adults during WWII, along with Millennials, (born 1982-2005).

Artist - Going through childhood during major crisis periods like the American Revolution and World War II, Artist generations value compromise and fairness.  The Silent generation (born 1926-1942), along with the generation currently in childhood (born since 2005) are Artist archetypes.

This blog will investigate the extent to which these generational types affect the kind of stories that are written, and which ones succeed in connecting with their audience. Not only is any creative person a product of their generation, each member of the expected audience will be as well. There are biases, expectations, and perceptions of their world that make different stories personally resonant - or baffling.

Which brings us back to Tom Cruise (born 1962), who is part of Generation X - a Nomad generation - the "bad" ones. That's one reason why being more of a jerk works as a character trait in Top Gun, just as it worked in Edge of Tomorrow. (And Rain Man, and Taps, and...) 

Top Gun

Lots of people liked Top Gun. It made over $300 million dollars, at a time when 1/3 of that was a major milestone for movies. Tom Cruise, who had proven himself a solid lead in Risky Business, was now seen as a bona fide bankable star. It even lead to increased recruitment for the U.S. Navy, perhaps due to its view that, a decade after the end of the Vietnam War,  the military was again competent and effective.

Acknowledging that it's not a great movie, though, should be uncontroversial. Critic's reviews are middling at best. It was nominated for no major awards, although it did win an Oscar for Best Song - "Take My Breath Away." The love scene set to that song is probably one of the most memorable things about the movie, along with the impressive aerial sequences and - for a certain segment of the audience - the beefcake volleyball scene. So what went wrong?

Or perhaps, really, what could have gone better?

Maverick could have been a much bigger jerk. And he should have been.

To see why, let's take a look at the possible directions of a movie about a Navy pilot going to Top Gun "best of the best" school:

1) Pushed aside by political forces he can't control, iconoclastic Maverick has to reach inside himself to learn to be the exceptional pilot that nobody believes he is.

2) Bad boy Maverick overcomes his faults of arrogance and impulsiveness to become a true leader.

3) When young but promising Maverick and the rest of the Top Gun team face an unstoppable adversary, they have to learn to fight together for anyone to survive.

The black-visored enemy in the Indian Ocean is ominous but not a real danger to the carrier or the United States. While the Top Gun pilots work together, the real challenges Maverick faces are internal. So, are they about recognizing his strengths (option 1), or overcoming his faults (option 2)?

What would Maverick find if he was to reach inside himself? Probably arrogance and impulsiveness. Besides his natural piloting skills, he has a strong personal / professional relationship with Goose, a way with the ladies, and ... that's about it. Nothing about him - nothing we learn in the entirety of the movie - says that there are strengths inside that he's ignoring, that he just has to let himself go and be free.

What Maverick does have to do,  is learn how not to be an insufferable arrogant jerk who thinks The Man is keeping him down. He needs to realize that a Mach-speed flyby of a busy airfield is not cute. And that in competitions with rules, following the rules is part of winning the competition. Even if they seem arbitrary and pointless, like "hard deck is 10,000 feet"

That this is Maverick's problem should be clearer. While everyone tells Maverick where he's screwing up, he always has an out: 

• Risked his plane in a rescue - from a situation that may have been his fault in the first place - and buzzed the carrier, but manages to get his Top Gun shot anyway.  
• Goes below the hard deck to target Jester and gets off with a warning - even after another dangerous "flyby stunt." 
• Iceman points out that he is "unsafe," and that he should have been helping Cougar and Merlin rather than messing with the MiGs. 
• Charlie tells him his improvised maneuvers are seriously flawed, only to say she's falling in love with him later.
• Loses Goose permanently,  although the official inquiry says it wasn't his fault. 

Maverick really needs Redemption: He needs to be saved, or to save himself. That's difficult, though, if it's not clear that he has significant faults. When his serious and dangerous errors are discounted - ignored, overlooked, missed - we have to find some other way for him to succeed, something else to overcome.  In Maverick's case, there isn't much to work with. Not only does that make his own arc more difficult to manage, it removes effective ways for Charlie or Goose or Iceman to interact with him, too.

It does seems like the movie was meant to go in this direction. Iceman wins the Top Gun award, not Maverick, who learns important lessons like "You Never Leave Your Wingman." The flaws pointed out by characters as noted above are in the movie, so you can get this narrative out of it, if you like.

Still, it would work better if Maverick was more of a pompous ass right from the start, and if his actions had consequences rather than punchlines. Have Cougar's weapon's officer point out right away that hotdogging the MiG-28s was what got them in trouble, rather than waiting until Iceman can suggest it half a movie later. Make the penalties for breaking the rules impact the Top Gun award, which will let the audience (as well as Maverick) know what is really acceptable, and what is not.

It's worth noting that Cruise's character in Edge of Tomorrow doesn't have this problem: With the fate of humanity on the line, he practically refuses an order to go into battle, going so far as to attempt blackmailing the general orchestrating the assault. (Spoiler alert: It doesn't work.) This gives him a huge karmic hole to climb out of, so when Sergeant Farell declares that "Battle is the great redeemer," we know it's the truth and a necessary goal.

Welcome

This is a blog about stories, and storytelling, and how they work or don’t.

That’s the plan. Nothing more nor less, ultimately.

In part, it will be about how particular types of stories work better or worse during particular periods of time. Consider popular movies made at the start of the New Hollywood period, for example:

• Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• M*A*S*H* (1970)
• The Godfather (and The Godfather Part II, of course) (1972/74)
• Chinatown (1974)

With those that started being made only a couple of years later

• Jaws (1975)
• Rocky (1976)
• Star Wars (1977)
• Airplane! (1980)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

They are different in tone, in outlook, in what happens to protagonists and how antagonists are handled. What changed? Was it that Spielberg and Lucas showed up, or is something more fundamental behind it? Had the audience changed, and if so, how?

It should not be unreasonable to expect audiences to change over time. If, as here, the change is rather sudden, one would expect a reason for it, some shared experience that caused everyone to view the world in a different way. And while that can happen, one might expect such shared experiences to be obvious. Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives, for example, was released in 1946, as troops returned home from World War II. Husbands and fathers and boyfriends coming back to their former lives, changed by their wartime experiences, was common to people across the country. Was something like that happening in the middle of New Hollywood? And can we use these observations to understand why the stories started to change so much when they did?

Assuming this all pulls together as expected, it should result in additional ways to understand how stories connect. If it really works well, it should yield tools that can be used to adjust what is happening in a story, so that it 

• Matches with how our minds handle story structure
• Fits with personality types we appear to expect, and the places they are expected
• Works as well as possible with the target audience for the story.

A primary tool for all of this will be generational analysis, in particular the model set up by Neil Howe and William Strauss.  Its view of  repeating historical patterns helps to identify broad social experiences that may show why the sort of story people expect today are notably different from what was expected in the 1960s or the '80s or the '40s. 

A basic summary of how this generational model works will be necessary. While one could pick up a copy of the original Generations or The Fourth Turning, having a summary focused on the goal at hand has its advantages. After a few days of setting that up, we’ll be able to examine stories that work within that framework. 

Before that, though, I’ll put some skin in the game by giving an analysis of a film that was popular, made a lot of money, but isn’t considered a “great” movie - that is, it didn't quite work.