How to train your Dragon and in the mean time write a kick ass movie...

I'm from the Snyder-Ackerman school. Blake Snyder taught me how to break down a story and Hal Ackerman taught me the process of building a story.

Walking out of the movie theatre this weekend after seeing the excellent "How to Train Your Dragon" I was ticking off beat points, recalling the inciting incident and identifying the universal device. It was awesome. Makes me think I am finally learning something.

Off the top of my head;

**** Minor, vaguely referenced Spoilers ****

The opening image and the final image were complete opposites.
Fun and games were funny, scary and action packed.
All is lost was heart breaking.
A and B stories intersected perfectly at the beginning of Act 3.
They actually stormed the castle.
The universal device was spaced evenly and called back at the end.

**** Done ****

Most people think their rebellious artistic side are selling out by following a template to write their stories. Well who fucking cares? If you can keep a theatre full of six year olds rivited to the screen so much so that my son wouldn't take his eyes off the screen to lean over and tell me he wanted this movie on DVD... 10 minutes before it ends, you're doing it right.

Go see "How to Train Your Dragon". Good stuff.

Oh, and fuck 3D, it's just fine on normal mode.


-Jim