WHEN IS IT OKAY TO SUBVERT EXPECTATIONS?

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We’re sticking with Star Wars, folks, since that was our theme for the Scriptshadow Newsletter. If you didn’t receive the newsletter, go here to find out how. Now I’m well aware that today’s topic is a contentious one. I never thought a screenwriting term would become synonymous with the destruction of one of the biggest franchises of all time. Yet Rian Johnson’s brazen decision to zag at every plot point we thought The Last Jedi was going to zig on, introduced the term, “subverting expectations” to the general public.

What expectations am I talking about? Instead of Luke accepting the lightsaber, he throws it away. Instead of the main villain thriving and growing stronger, he’s killed in the middle of the movie. Instead of Rey’s parents being relevant to the mythology, she’s a nobody. Instead of Luke using his massive knowledge of the Force to battle Kylo and defeat the First Order, he’s a hologram who was never really there.

While some moviegoers found these choices exciting, most fans had a problem with some are all of them. Which is too bad. Because you know what? Subverting expectations is one of the single most important tools in a screenwriter’s arsenal. If you don’t know how to subvert expectations, you shouldn’t be writing movies. The opposite of a subverted expectation? Is a met expectation. And if you meet expectations over and over again in any script, you are boring your audience. These people didn’t come to your movie to see exactly what they expected. They came to be surprised on some level. That’s the exciting part of moviegoing. It’s, “Luke, I am your father.” It’s “I see dead people.” It’s Thanos gets killed within the first 20 minutes of the movie.

So the question becomes, why is it that Rian Johnson’s expectation subverting failed so badly yet there are many instances in film where subverted expectations not only worked, but created iconic moments? And how can you effectively use subverted expectations in your own screenwriting?

The first problem here is something you won’t have to deal with until later on in your careers when you become a 7-figure quote screenwriter. Rian was playing with a beloved world and characters. Therefore, he was subverting expectations based not just on this movie, but on many that came before it. I don’t think Rian respected that as much as he could’ve. He seemed to be more into doing what he wanted rather than what was right for the franchise.

However, one of his early choices is something that is relevant to any writer. And that is never prioritizing a surprise over character. Luke throwing the lightsaber away in a comical manner isn’t something Luke Skywalker would do. Now Rian would probably argue that it’s something HIS version of Luke Skywalker would do. But it’s clear at this point that he fundamentally didn’t understand the character. The actor who played Luke publicly contested this over 30 times. My feeling is that Rian wanted Luke to throw that lightsaber over his back so badly that he created that moment then retroactively built his Luke around that choice. The lesson here is to get into your character’s head and be honest with what he would do in that moment. If you choose to subvert expectations in a way that is inconsistent with that person, the audience won’t buy it.

The next big lesson with expectation subverting is that you don’t want to do it too much. Because if you do, two things happen. One, we start to EXPECT the subvert, which defeats the whole purpose of it. And two, we become AWARE OF THE WRITER. A subverted expectation is a heightened moment that draws attention itself. Do it over and over and the audience starts thinking about the person doing it rather than characters experiencing it, which breaks the suspension of disbelief. The very nature of subverting expectations requires that you carefully pick and choose the moments when you do so. Rian relied on subverting so often that each successive surprise lost impact.

To expand on that, you need to meet the expectation to subvert the expectation. Stories are a dance. And most dances follow a set sequence of steps. This is why it’s okay to write 30 pages of screenplay that follow a traditional storytelling pattern. You’re luring the audience into a sense of comfort. But there are times when you’re dancing that you improvise or break into freestyle. And the same goes for storytelling. Every once in awhile, you throw something at the audience that they don’t see coming. Let the audience be right about a bunch of things so that when you do subvert an expectation, it’s a surprise. Rian was so set on making some arthouse Star Wars masterpiece that he forgot the basics. And the basics dictate that, for most of your screenplay, you are following a structure.

This next decision by Johnson is probably the biggest because it implied a disregard for the well-being of the Star Wars brand. And that was killing Snoke in the middle of the movie. Clearly, this was going to be Rian’s defining moment, the thing that pushed Last Jedi into ‘classic’ territory. But by destroying the ultimate villain, he drastically lowered the stakes. If the puppet master stops pulling the strings, there’s no more puppet show. Which is why YOU DON’T WANT TO SUBVERT AN EXPECTATION IF IT LEAVES YOU STRANDED ON AN ISLAND LATER ON. Sure, it would be shocking to kill John Wick in the middle of John Wick 3 and have Halle Berry’s character take over the protagonist role. But is that in the story’s best interest? Make sure to project where your subverted expectation takes you before you write it. Because, if you’re not careful, you could kill your movie right then and there.

Finally, we have what Rian was accused most of, and that’s subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations. What does that mean? It means that the act of subverting the audience’s expectation is more important to the writer than writing what is best for the story. It means going into a scene and saying, “I need to do the opposite of what the audience thinks I’m going to do. I’ll try to have it make sense but even if it doesn’t, I’m doing it.” For a movie to work, the choices need to feel organic to the story. The characters need to act in a way that’s consistent with how they’ve been acting. Once you start messing with that cause you want to jolt the audience, you’re playing with fire.

Now that does’t mean there aren’t shades of gray here. Sometimes you know your script needs a jolt and maybe that jolt doesn’t entirely jibe with what your characters would do, but you go back and add a few set-ups that make it, if not believable, plausible. But if you get sloppy, you get the Charlize Theron Is A Superhero Too twist in Hancock. I don’t know if Rian set out to subvert expectations just to do so, but if this were a court case, there sure is a lot of evidence to support that claim.

Okay, let’s wrap this up. Screenwriters everywhere – YOU SHOULD BE SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS IN YOUR SCREENPLAYS. To what degree will depend on the genre, the type of movie you’re writing, and how good you are at the practice. Just like some writers are better at dialogue than others, some writers are better at subverting expectations than others. They effortlessly do it in a way that’s both invisible and believable. Just remember that, above all else, a subverted expectation must feel organic. As long as the choice is a natural extension of the story, we’ll love it. Now go subvert away!

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