Film Banging: Avengers – Alien

As in our previous installments, the standard disclaimer about using linear mediums as an example for running RPGs definitely applies: We know how these scenes end in the original movie, but if this were an actual RPG each scene could end in any number of ways.

It’s been awhile since we banged Alien, so you might want to review The Art of Pacing before we dive into The Matrix as a way of understanding how bangs can be used.

SCENE 1 – BANG: “You’re strapped to a chair. Electrodes have been attached to your head.”

The agenda is: Will Morpheus break?

This particular scene – the interrogation of Morpheus – is heavily broken up using the technique of simultaneous scenes: This single scene will thread its way through multiple scenes with Neo and Trinity. As it progresses, there are a number of interesting techniques to notice.

First, the Wachowskis use a series of escalating bangs. The injection of the silver fluid into Morpheus’ neck. The agent entering to say, “There may be a problem.” Agent Smith telling the other agents to, “Leave us.” And so forth. Note that, frequently, the Wachowskis will cut on the bang.

Note that the stakes for this scene’s agenda are laid in the next scene: If he breaks, he’ll betray the location of Zion and the war will be lost. This is an example of crossover. There’s an interesting effect achieved here by cutting on the bang, using a simultaneous scene to establish necessary exposition, and then returning to the original scene: It keeps the tension in the moment high while clearly communicating the stakes.

Another great example of crossover is when Agent Smith removes his earpiece. That moment both escalates the stakes in this scene while simultaneously having consequences in the simultaneous scenes playing out with Neo and Trinity (since he takes himself “off the grid”).

SCENE 2 – BANG: “You’re going to kill him. Kill Morpheus.” “It has to be done.”

The agenda is: Will Neo believe the Oracle?

Superficially the scene seems to be about whether to unplug Morpheus or rescue him, but that decision is pretty firmly subservient to the question of whether or not Neo will believe the Oracle; whether or not he will embrace the choice she says he’s capable of making.

The other thing to note here is that this agenda is not resolved at the end of this scene. The question of whether or not Neo will believe the Oracle remains unanswered for several more scenes as the stakes continue to escalate.

SCENE 3 – BANG: “Okay. So what do you need? Besides a miracle.”

The agenda is: What is Neo’s plan?

This is a pretty simple, very short, and extremely effective color scene. Viewed from one angle, it’s actually a very simple example of the principle of the second lull: The first lull happens when Neo asks for, “Guns. Lots of guns.” The hypothetical GM doesn’t leave the scene, however. Instead we sustain through Trinity escalating the stakes (“No one has ever done something like this.”). Once she’s done that, we hit a second lull and the hypothetical GM cuts away.

SCENE 4 – BANG: The metal detector beeps.

The agenda here is: Can they rescue Morpheus?

This bang is a beautiful example of understatement. You know he’s loaded to bear. The stakes have been cranked up repeatedly over the last 5 minutes of the film. So the only thing you need to trigger an explosion of awesome is a simple beeping noise.

This scene, as combat, is obviously a textbook example of slow time… quite literally so with the Wachowskis’ use of bullet time and slow motion cinematography.

This is not the end of the scene.

Instead, we sharp cut back to the interrogation of Morpheus multiple times over the next minute or so in order to smoothly use abstract time while hitting the interesting beats of this scene. (“I think they’re trying to save him,” it should be noted, is another example of crossover.)

And the scene still isn’t over. This single combat sequence has flowed smoothly from lobby to elevator to roof. But I want to call attention to this interaction:

Trinity: How did you do that?
Neo: Do what?
Trinity: You moved like they do. I’ve never seen anyone move that fast.
Neo: Not fast enough.

It’s a short little beat, but notice that this is a callback to the agenda of Scene 2. The question of whether or not Neo would believe the Oracle was left unresolved.

Let’s call this an agenda echo. If this were an actual RPG session, the players of Neo and Trinity would have been the ones to introduce this particular echo. But as a GM you can also use little mini-bangs like “I’ve never seen anyone move that fast” to call back unresolved agendas that are haunting your session.

At this moment, all the crossover elements that have been getting sprinkled through these scenes are abruptly brought to a climax as both scenes are resolved simultaneously and we discover that “Will Morpheus break?” and “Can they rescue Morpheus?” are actually both the same question. (Or, at least, both have the same answer.)

This true unification of two simultaneous scenes into a single conclusion answering both agendas won’t happen often, but when it does the payoff is huge and immensely satisfying.

Before the scene comes to an end, however, the mini-bang of “He’s not going to make it” triggers another seemingly impossible feat that calls back to whether or not Neo is the One. This moment lasts from “I knew it, he is the One” until Morpheus asks, “Do you believe it now, Trinity?” Which is, in itself, an incredibly elegant moment because the Wachowskis are layering in the Trinity/Neo love story. And that love story is also linked to the question of Neo being the One (due to the prophecy the Oracle gave to Trinity).

SCENE 5 – THE BANG: “They’re not out yet.”

The agenda is: Will Neo escape?

Note the interesting technique here of delivering the bang at what is essentially the end of the previous scene and then performing a sharp cut to the scene itself. I’d never really considered doing something like that in an RPG until just now, but I think it has a lot of potential.

A little later in this scene there’s an escalating bang when Trinity says, “I want to tell you something… Everything the Oracle told me has come true. Everything but this.” This has the effect of connecting this scene to the escalating meta-scene of, “Will Neo believe the Oracle?”

SCENE 6 – THE BANG: “Agent Smith shoots the phone. Trinity just barely escaped. But your exit has been destroyed.”

This is a new bang. And what makes this scene particularly fascinating is that it links, “Will Neo believe the Oracle?” explicitly to “Will Neo escape?” through his physical mastery of the Matrix and his interactions with the agents. (“He’s beginning to believe.”)

Now all of these agendas – Will Neo escape? Will Neo defeat Smith? Will Trinity love Neo? Will Neo believe the Oracle? Will Neo become the One? – have been welded into a single mega-agenda. Everything between this moment and Neo’s escape from the Matrix is a single scene despite, once again, a multitude of location shifts. (Note that the individual agendas will be knocked down one at a time as we build to the culmination of the mega-agenda: Neo abandons the identity of Anderson. Trinity confesses her love. Neo ascends the rules of the Matrix. Neo defeats Smith. Neo escapes.)

The other thing of interest here is how this single combat scene flows fluidly across all four types of pacing timing: Slow time during the fight in the subway. Then a sharp cut to the street corner where Neo steals a phone. Now time from that moment until he reaches the crowd, then a shift back to slow time for the chase through the apartment building. Abstract time moves him to the hotel, now time takes him into the hotel, and then a final culmination of slow time (once again emphasized with actual slow motion) as he enters the hotel room (and lasting until the EMP blast).

SCENE 7 – THE BANG: “The Proximity Alarm screams. There are Sentinels. You’ve got five, maybe six minutes.”

One could argue that this is actually the same scene despite its completely different locale (since the agenda is so closely linked), but in practical terms this is probably another simultaneous scene with multiple crossovers (Tank’s assistance, the need for Neo to escape before the EMP blast, Trinity’s kiss) that serve to raise the stakes in Neo’s mega-agenda scene.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

About 15 years ago, there was a time when The Matrix pretty much perpetually lived in my DVD player. I was living in a studio apartment at the time and, whenever the mood would strike me, I’d hit the play button and let the movie spool out. I’ve probably watched the movie – with varying degrees of attention – several hundred times. Like pretty much everything the Wachowskis have done, it’s a brilliant and revolutionary piece of cinema.

Back in 2007, I mentioned the movie as part of Random GM Tips: Running Combat. I recommended that GMs watch movies like The Matrix – or 300 or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – while narrating the action as it occurred on the screen; as if they were describing it to their gaming group. The idea was that it would build your action vocabulary, break you out of your habits, and expand the dynamic range of your combat descriptions.

My initial intention in film banging The Matrix was primarily to focus on how they wove scenes – particularly combat scenes – across multiple locations. As I began breaking the film apart, however, I discovered just how much the Wachowskis also had to teach me about effective pacing. I was not anticipating the creation of new concepts like agenda echos, meta-scenes, mini-bangs, and mega-agendas when I started writing this essay. I’m not even entirely sure how best to realize some of these incredibly complex ideas at the gaming table.

Which I guess, ultimately, brings me back to what I said at the beginning of The Art of Pacing: RPGs are a fresh-faced medium. And we still have a lot to learn about how to master this new art.

Go to The Art of Pacing

As I mentioned in the first installment of Film Banging the problem with using films as fodder for talking about RPG techniques is that it can be very easy for the linear nature of the medium to leak into the discussion. We know that Luke Skywalker is “destined” to go to the Death Star and blow it up because we’ve seen the movie. So if I talk about Obi-Wan saying that he wants Luke to join him on Alderaan as an example of what a scenario hook looks like, am I saying that every scenario hook needs to be a railroad?

So, as before, we’re going to pretend that the outcome of each scene hasn’t been predetermined. And I’ll try to emphasize that by discussing the different outcomes each scene might have.

We started our analysis of The Avengers at the beginning of the film. But it turns out that the beginning of most films look a lot alike: There are a bunch of color scenes setting up the exposition of the film with an occasional conflict scene tossed in to keep things lively. So for Alien we’re going to skip to the middle of the film.

SCENE 1 – BANG: “The communication panel pings. It’s Ash. He says there’s been a change in Kane’s condition: He’s awake.”

The agenda is: What are we going to do about Kane?

(Or, alternatively, the GM can think of it as: Are they going to figure out there’s something wrong with Kane before an alien bursts out of his chest?)

The film actually visits this agenda over and over again through a sequence of scenes following the facehugger latching onto Kane, starting with Ripley facing a choice about leaving the airlock sealed to prevent contamination. (In an RPG the first such scene would probably be the exploration party deciding whether or not to bring him back to the ship at all, but the film skips that decision point.)

You see this technique used frequently in horror stories: When the audience knows (or suspects) the doom that’s coming, the repeated opportunities for the characters to avoid their doom are suspenseful. For the characters, these opportunities are frequently powerful crucibles in their own right and can become points of strong contention after the fact. (“If only you had fucking listened to me, Bobby wouldn’t be dead!”)

So, for example, in this scene there are multiple moments in which a different choice might have resulted in a different outcome: Kane is having problems with his memory… maybe we should give him a medical scan (which would have revealed the creature incubating inside of him)? We’re supposed to go straight to cryo (in which case, Kane would have gotten frozen before the creature burst out of him)… but we’re all hungry and cryo will go easier if we’ve got some food to burn.

This technique can be tougher to use in an RPG because PCs tend to have a more ruthless survival instinct than literary characters. “Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure” is their motto. So if you want to offer them repeated opportunities to “escape their doom”, then you need to spike the pot a bit: Make it cost (and cost dearly) to pursue the safer or more expedient course.

SCENE 2 – BANG: “Kane’s chest explodes in a fountain of blood.”

The agenda is: How will the crew react to Kane’s death?

This bang kinda speaks for itself. It’s one of the most famous bangs in film history.

The agenda, you’ll note, is not particularly compelling. (A strong and memorable bang can make up for a pedestrian agenda.) But the other interesting thing about this scene is that it’s about color and not conflict: The alien kills Kane (who I’m assuming is a feature, not a lead), but the only moment that even comes close to conflict is Ash insisting that they don’t fight the creature.

This scene doesn’t end in the dining room: That’s just where the bang is located. The scene (and its agenda) continues through the funeral and the ensuing ordnance discussion (where we’re introduced to the electric prod and the motion detector). We can imagine this scene ending when somebody at the table says, “Okay. Enough talk. We’re leaving the bridge and going bug hunting.” That signals the GM that it’s time to move on to the next scene.

SCENE 3 – BANG: “You can’t understand it. All the power on Deck 3 is out. It’s a black pit down there.”

The agenda is: Can they catch the xenomorph?

Note that the “GM” doesn’t waste time describing a bunch of time in which the search turns up nothing of interest. Instead, he cuts straight to the moment where a discovery has been made. (At a gaming table, we could imagine a Search check being made. Alternatively, a GM could easily ask the PCs what their search pattern is going to be and use that to determine what anomaly they encounter first.)

There’s actually a whole sequence of bangs through this sequence:

• “The motion sensor triggers. There’s something behind the spacesuits.”
• “You find the shed skin of the xenomorph.”
• “You spot the cat hiding behind some crates. It hisses loudly. You realize it’s not looking at you any more. It’s looking over your shoulder.”
• “Water is dripping down on you from the water tanks… Wait. That’s not water. It’s red. It’s viscous. It’s blood.”
• “You hear Brett screaming.”

I mentioned in Film Banging: The Avengers that Whedon used escalating sequences of bangs. Scott and O’Bannon use the same principle here to structure a compelling search sequence.

Consider how similar lessons can be applied to your dungeon design: What’s the bang for each room/encounter? How can the PCs move towards the bang? How can you move play efficiently to the next bang instead of dwelling on material that isn’t compelling or meaningful?

SCENE 4 – BANG: “There’s only one possibility. The alien is moving through the air ducts.”

The agenda is: What’s the new strategy?

‘Cause the old one sure as hell didn’t work. In the movie, this scene gives us the idea of sealing the exits from the air shaft and driving the alien into the airlock. It also gives us flamethrowers.

In an RPG scenario we could imagine this scene going a different way: Maybe the PCs decide to make a break for the shuttle. Or they have someone cover the second entrance to the air shaft instead of sealing it. Or multiple people enter the air duct.

SCENE 5 – BANG: “Dallas! I’ve got a second trace on the motion sensor. It’s in there with you.”

The agenda is: Can Dallas survive?

Finally, we have a pretty straightforward conflict scene. It takes the somewhat unusual form of consisting almost entirely of opposed Stealth and Perception checks. (By the time the xenomorph catches up to Dallas in the air shaft, it’s already too late for him.)

If I was running this scenario at the table, I might embrace the structure of the scene by having Lambert’s player go into another room. She can get useful information from the motion tracker (which I’ll provide by sending her text messages on her cell phone), but she’ll have to shout it. Meanwhile, there’s an egg-timer and Dallas’ player only has 30 seconds to figure out which direction to go next based on his own Perception checks and whatever Lambert is screaming at him. (This is an example of a metagame special effect. But I digress.)

Go to : The Art of Pacing – Film Banging: The Matrix

To explore the concept of bangs with a little more specificity, let’s break down some scenes from popular films. What we’re looking for here is a better understanding of why a particular scene has been chosen and how that particular scene begins.

The danger with this sort of analysis is that we’re looking at a linear medium. Unfortunately, one of the problems with analyzing the techniques of RPG play is that it’s difficult to establish common reference points: Whereas we can all pop in a Blu-Ray and watch the same movie, even groups running identical scenarios won’t necessarily have similar experiences.

For the purpose of this exercise, therefore, we’re going to pretend that these movies aren’t linear experiences. Even though, in reality, the outcome of each scene has already been predetermined we’re going to act as if that isn’t true. I’ll try to emphasize this by discussing the different outcomes a given scene might have.

Let’s start with The Avengers.

THE AVENGERS

At the beginning of the film, an evacuation has been ordered at the tesseract facility. The leads for the first several scenes are Nick Fury, Agent Coulson, and Agent Hill.

SCENE 1 – BANG: “Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the tesseract. It’s a spontaneous event. We can’t shut it down.”

The agenda is: How is SHIELD going to react?

The agenda of this scene is interesting because of the way that it ties into the entire “Phase II vs. the Avengers Initiative” conflict that lies behind the entire film. It’s expressed most directly through the debate between Agent Hill and Director Fury, but we could also imagine a scenario where Fury reacts to the bang very differently: He chooses not to evacuate the facility because the work on the Phase II prototypes is too important to be disrupted (and the rest of the movie looks very different).

Most of this scene is color.

SCENE 2 – BANG: “There’s a huge burst of energy from the tesseract! Loki appears, wielding some sort of high-tech, spear-like weapon. It looks a lot like a Phase II weapon.”

The agenda is: Can SHIELD stop Loki from stealing the tesseract?

There’s also an interesting secondary agenda: Can they evacuate the compound before it collapses?

Note that both agendas are simultaneously set up with the bang.

This scene is obviously all about conflict and it lasts from Loki’s appearance until he makes his final escape: Martial arts flurry in the lab. Converting the featured characters of Hawkeye and Selvig. Bluffing Agent Hill. Car chase. Helicopter chase. The whole thing.

Let’s take a moment to imagine the agenda questions being answered differently during the actual play of an RPG: Maybe Coulson deprioritizes the evacuation of the facility and with his assistance they’re able to get the tesseract to the helicopter before Loki can get it. As a result, they lose the Phase II weapons (and a lot of their researchers), which will probably have a negative impact on their long-term resources. On the other hand, they’re able to secure the tesseract onboard the helicarrier. (Which is, of course, where Loki will end up targeting it next.)

SCENE 3 – BANG: “Your ruse has worked perfectly: You’re tied to a chair and being ‘interrogated’ by a Russian general. He’s got a couple of thugs flanking him. And there’s a table full of gleaming torture instruments shoved off to one side. You hear a large freight train go rumbling by outside.”

The agenda is: Can Natasha identify the other players in the general’s sale of illegal arms?

Natasha is the lead here, of course. The bang and agenda here are actually inconsequential (although if Natasha had followed up on this information she might have discovered that the thugs Loki was hiring came from this guy’s network). They’re really just providing contextualization for the next bang: “Agent Coulson calls. Barton’s been compromised.” That’s what the scene is really about: Is Natasha going to prioritize her personal commitment to Barton or the time she’s sunk into her current investigation?

Interesting note here. Whedon actually closes the scene with what could be interpreted as another bang: “Oh no. I’ve got Stark. You’ve got the big guy.” This prompts a scene which is actually not found in the movie (during which Natasha plans her operation to recruit Banner), but it’s an example of how effective it can be to deliver a bang and then immediately cut away from it. You’ll leave your players in anticipation of what the resolution of that bang will be.

SCENE 4 – BANG: “As you enter the house, you see the little girl hop out a window on the far side. The whole place looks abandoned.”

The agenda is: Is the Big Guy gonna show up?

The leads here are Banner and Natasha.

Note that you could also express this as, “Will Natasha successfully recruit Banner?” And while there is an element of that in the scene, it’s clearly a less interesting agenda and Whedon knows that. Which is why the question of Banner’s anger is introduced in the second line of the scene, the question of Banner being recruited doesn’t show up for another two minutes, and the scene ends when it’s clear Banner is able to keep it under control.

The important lesson to take away here, I think, is that the agenda of the scene is not always what the characters are talking about on the surface.

We’re also seeing how often Whedon employs escalating bangs throughout his scenes: There’s a girl asking you for help. The girl disappears. A beautiful superspy seems to materialize from behind a wall.

SCENE 5 – BANG: “The Council is demanding to know why you’re trying to reactivate the Avengers Initiative.”

The agenda is: Can Nick Fury convince the Council to activate the Avengers assets as a response team?

Mostly self-explanatory. Note that the conflict in this scene isn’t actually resolved. It is, at best, postponed. Remember that the big agendas will probably only be resolved over the course of multiple scenes.

On a personal note, I found this scene interesting because my initial impulse was to describe the bang as, “Sir. The Council is calling.” This bang is actually used later in the film and it works there because the circumstances of the call make it a big deal. Here, though, Whedon’s instinct is right: He cuts straight to the call.

And that would probably be the right call at the table, too: There’s really no reason to think that Nick Fury isn’t going to take a call from the Council at this point; ergo the decision to “pick up the phone” is not a meaningful choice and a harder frame is almost certainly the stronger, better choice.

Go to : The Art of Pacing – Film Banging: Alien