Contextually light spoilers ahead.

In 2009 a little television show that could was born. The name of that television show is Community. It’s no small secret that I’m a huge fan of the show. That show as created by a man named Dan Harmon, who has also brought us (along with his crazy visionary pal, Justin Roiland) Rick and Morty. The first several seasons of Community (the strongest seasons of the show) were directed by a duo named the Russo Brothers.

Anthony and Joe Russo directed and were executive producers over much of the earlier seasons of Community, and also directed many episodes of another critical hit television show Arrested Development.

The two made their entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Captain America: Winter Soldier which, in my opinion, is Marvel’s most mature film in their ever increasing library of box office hits.

Now I’m going to make a couple of statements that I can’t verify, and for all I know are complete bullshit in the following paragraphs, but I noticed something while watching Captain America: Civil War for the first time on Thursday night, that I really bought into while re-watching the film on Saturday night.

BUT FIRST.

Let’s talk about Dan Harmon’s Story Circle.

The Story Circle is a tool that is a direct corollary or descendant of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth structure. The monomyth isn’t what’s important to Civil War, and it really isn’t important to Dan Harmon’s success elsewhere.

What Dan Harmon does with that Story Circle is. He codifies it in a way that basic actions and motivations can be mapped out structurally for any character in any episode. No that’s wrong. This isn’t a tool that writers can use, this is a tool writers should use. If every character on screen has an identity and a motivation to exist in the space of the screen, then the audience is left with a richer story to experience. When you evolve a character from existing to advance the plot as a device, a joke or as a relatable but unrefined figure of some sort (authority or innocence seem to be the two that are frequently used), the story and audience benefit from that growth.

Let me show you a scene from The Big Bang Theory.

This scene contains a stand in character police officer, whose only job is to be a stand in or ‘threshold guardian’ who acts as a viewing piece for the audience while Sheldon rattles off nerdy nouns and gets a big laugh. Because he’s so nerdy. This is the only joke that The Big Bang Theory has ever had. Hundreds of episodes and a ridiculous number of seasons tell the same joke over and over. Nerdy people like nerdy things, and we sound ridiculous liking them. It is cheap hack writing.

The police officer has no motivation that we know of. His character is flat, and exhibits no growth.

Let’s contrast this with a similar stand in on Community.

What’s the difference between the two characters? I would argue that police officer in The Big Bang Theory has a singular motivation, to leave the scene and flee the geek. Now when we observe Officer Cackowski, we see a different type of stand in character. He has depth and humor. He is a character who has a fully fleshed out and realized world, however small that world might be relative to the Community universe. We can infer that he has a life, a passion, and cares about certain things. He’s intentionally humorous, and not just a broad authority figure, but as a unique character. This is something we see routinely in all of the greatest of television shows. Seinfeld’s myriad of stand in characters, as well as those we see surrounding the universe of 30 Rock all have this type of minor character fleshing going on.

I guess the argument that I’m making, is that there is value when a minor character has been realized and brought to the audience in a way that makes them memorable. We all remember Leo Spaceman and Officer Cackowski. I don’t remember the Officer from The Big Bang Theory. Why not? He added no character value to the scene.

This phenomenon has largely, in my opinion, been contained to television until recently. In television show creators have a toy box to play with in the audience’s relationship to main characters of the story. We know those main character so well, getting them to feed off of auxiliary individuals is necessary to keep the show compelling.

Now how do I connect this to the latest MCU event spectacle?

Civil War follows this character development process. Every character we see on screen has a grand motivation for being there. There is no stand-in character who doesn’t seem to have their own miniature arc of development in the movie. T’Chaka, Sharon Carter, Aunt May even Jim Rash’s M.I.T. Liaison cameo all have these small moments of characterizing pop and flavor. [Speaking of which, is it too much to ask the Russo’s to have Chevy Chase bickering with Stan Lee on being a super hero authority in the next film? That’s not movie breaking is it?]

Don’t leave it to my judgement alone. The Onion already hysterically satirized this very concept.



How do you give Jeremy Renner fourish minutes of screen time and do the character of Hawkeye justice? How do you that with twelve other major characters? How do you do that with twelve minor characters as well?

This is masterful universe building at its finest.

I can’t say that Joe and Anthony Russo were heavily involved in the script. I imagine they had input, but part of me couldn’t shake the feeling that I was seeing something on the silver screen, that I had witnessed hundreds of times at home on my little Vizio in my bedroom. Namely this. A reverence and respect for the identity of every character, however small.

We know who these characters are. With the exception of T’Challa we didn’t really need to spend more time getting to know them. We can relate to Lang reacting to meeting Steve Rogers. It’s how we would feel if we met Steve Rogers. We can smile when we see Bucky and Sam nodding at Captain America after he finally mans up and owns his affections.

I for one am an advocate for this kind of big screen storytelling. I think the serial nature of the MCU is addicting, and I hope it continues for a long time.

Am I seeing connections that don’t exist? Let me know what you think!