A clever teenager hacks a military computer to play a nuclear war game only to trigger the computer into preparing to “play” a real nuclear war.

Karel:
>>>>But it doesn?t promise me a full story.

Yes — but…

Yes😕 A too common problem with spec loglines is that they set up initial situations that offer so many possible objective goals for the protagonist to choose from. It is essential for the logline to specify which one the protagonist selects.

But: in this case, what other possible objective goal is there for the protagonist than to stop the computer before it’s too late?

That said, I concede that for a spec script by a newbie, it is paramount that the logline deliver a fully fleshed out plot. As Woody Allen says, “Good ideas are a dime a dozen: ‘It’s the then what?’ that kills you.” For loglines, the “then what” is the objective goal that follows from the inciting incident, that drives the plot. And, imho, the failure to spell out an objective goal is what kills a lot of loglines.

>>what the challenges are exactly in Act 2

The obstacle for the protagonist is that after he’s arrested, nobody will let him near a keyboard. He isn’t allowed to interact with the computer until Act 3 –after he persuades Steven Falken, the man designed the computer “war game”, to come out of self-imposed retirement. (Falken is the character with the subjective problem; he must overcome his existential fatalism, his resignation to an inevitable nuclear apocalypse.)

>>>Is there an MPR?
Funny you should ask! I’ve been binge watching my favorite and most familiar movies to study the MPR (Midpoint Reversal), to figure out how it’s set up, what happens.

In “War Games” I have tentatively assigned the MPR beat to the 61st minute, just past the 1/2 way point in terms of total viewing time. At that moment, the teenage protagonist discovers that the computer program is still “playing” the game, that it is counting down (ticking clock!) to the moment when it will launch nuclear every nuclear missle in the US arsenal. For real.

Up until this discovery, his immediate objective goal has been defensive, to convince the adults that he is not a Soviet spy, that he made an honest mistake. He is in reactive mode rather than proactive.

But after the discovery, he flips (reversal) into proactive mode with a new (reversal) objective goal.? He must stop the computer program before time runs out.

Classic Aristotle:? Anagnorsis (discovery or recognition) leads to Peripeteia (reversal of fortune or intention).

variable:

While Nir’s version certainly does conform to the standard formula, I believe my version? more accurately states the dramatic problem? ?We just see this film differently.? That happens. ?As I noted? 95%+ of the time we are? in total agreement.? And in those rare instances when we aren’t, it’s an opportunity for friendly and fertile discussion.

(BTW,? as I assume you noticed, my 1st version of a logline? for the movie “Black Book” inaccurately represented the plot.? Having not seen the movie, I relied on? the summary and reviews at IMDB.? ?Then I viewed the movie and offered a revised, more accurate logline.? I? thank you for bringing the movie to my attention.? Because teasing out a logline? was instructive given how the plot unfolds is, well, somewhat problematical.]

Valentin:

Yes, indeed, the? MPR (mind point reversal) entails a complete change of the protagonist’s objective goal from what it was at the end of Act 1.? And the teenager actually makes 2 discoveries in the course of the MPR:? 1]The system is still planning to go to war.? And then, 2] The system’s designer didn’t die after all; he just retired and became a recluse resigned to humanity eventually going to hell and extinction in a nuclear holocaust.

So what should the logline include for a plot that involves an MPR the creates a new objective goal?? On the original goal, the ultimate goal as a result of the MPR?? Both?

At 35 words, I think your version is an improvement of my version 1.0 in terms of clarifying the protagonist’s struggle.? But? I think it can be trimmed a bit.? The way I see it,? being in custody is one hurdle he must overcome in order to pursue his objective goal of finding Steven Falken, the system designer.? It provides an opportunity to showcase to the audience just how clever he is.? But I don’t think the logline needs to be cluttered up? and lengthened with it.? The focus should be on the ultimate goal — not any particular intermediate complication to achieving it.

So here’s my version 2.0

When a clever teenager hacker inadvertently triggers the U.S. nuclear launch missile system into war mode, he must locate and? persuade the reclusive, enigmatic system designer to help him stop the countdown.
(32 words)

I included the words “help him” because in drama, while the protagonist can certainly have help and guidance,? he isn’t supposed to subcontract the final solution to some one else.? Or to mangle a metaphor, he’s not supposed to pass the baton off to someone else to cross the finish line.? He must solve the problem, finish the race himself.

And that is certainly how it plays out in “War Games”.? Even? At the climax, it’s the teenager — not Falken — who figures out the solution to the crisis he set in motion.

fwiw

Nir Shelter:

>>>The mission of a logline is to describe a plot ? period.

I distinguish between means with ends.? The purpose — the objective goal — of a logline is to, as you say, “get a script read, sell a concept, attract an actor.” Describing a plot with the basic formula elements is usually the best means to that end.

>>’?You can have a logline that perfectly conforms to the standard formula, but if it doesn?t have a story hook?’ ? It means the concept is either flawed or not worth pursuing, either way, it?s not the structure of the logline that?s the problem rather the concept itself.

My point exactly!

I see a logline as a sales tool. And? in sales the proverbial saying is: “Don’t sell the steak — sell the sizzle”.? So while a correctly formulated logline is necessary, it isn’t? always sufficient. I believe that in addition to? describing the steak, a logline also needs to pitch some sizzle .? It needs a strong hook.? (I further believe that is the very 1st question a screenwriter needs to ask of his premise:? What’s the sizzle? What’s the story hook?)

>>>Years ago, I read the book War Games before seeing the film, so my take is based more on the novel

I only saw the movie, and as you well know, characters and plots can and do metamorphize in the process of adaptation.

>>>The computer at some point determines that the practice rounds it?s playing with the Mathew Broadrick character are real

From FADE IN to FADE OUT, the computer program doesn’t know the difference. At the start of the MPR (midpoint reversal) when David, the hacker, realizes that Joshua, the computer program, is still planning to launch missles, there is this exchange:

David: “Is this a game or is this for real?”
Joshua: “What’s the difference?”

Joshua never learns the difference. The only lesson Joshua (eventually) learns is that nuclear war is a lose-lose exercise. There is no way for it to achieve the objective for which it was created — to win the ultimate “war game”.?

[A lesson mere humans had learned by that time. It was well-established military doctrine that neither side could win a nuclear war.? The purpose of over-arming with nukes was to deter, not prevail.]

>>> In contrast, his hacking into the computer is an event of his own doing, under his control,

Not exactly. In “War Games, the inciting incident occurs in the 24th minute of the film, when the teenager reads an ad for a new video game in a computer magazine to be released for Christmas. It’s already been established that he is an avid video war game player– that’s how he’s introduced. The ad hooks into his passionate interest in video war games. He’s too eager, too impatient to wait for the game’s official release.? So he hacks into what he believes is the company computer with the new video game.? Only to finally realize…

That’s what a credible inciting incident does — it hooks into a psychological need or passion. It motivates (incites) the protagonist to respond. Respond in a way that overthrows his status quo with consequences he cannot anticipate or imagine. This is what we mean when we say there must be a a cause-and-effect relationship between the inciting incident and the resulting action.

(Yes, the film violates the rule that the inciting incident must occur in the 1st 15 minutes of the film. It does so because it has a lot of expositional pipe to lay before the plot is credible.? The plot premise doesn’t work as long as humans are in the execution loop at individual missile silos.? So the prologue, the 1st ten minutes, is devoted to cutting them out of the loop.)

>>he?s arrogant

Arrogance is not/has never been a feature of Matthew Broderick’s screen persona. In his two iconic roles (“War Games” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”), he plays a charming teenager with a mischievous streak. If the director wanted an arrogant protagonist, he cast the wrong actor.

If I must brand him with a flaw, then I would say it’s a penchant for mischief.? And not with malicious intent. He’s not hacking to harvest social security, credit card and bank account numbers for profit. He hacks systems because he can — for the sheer fun, the adventure, the dopamine hit. And in this film, he hacks because he wants to play a new war game.

Even if I accepted the characterization of arrogance, I think his cleverness is of greater dramatic interest and import because of the irony.? Because it is more relevant to how the plot unfolds. His character strength enables him to precipitate the dramatic problem in Act 1 — and solve it in Act 3.

Now then.? I firmly believe that in drama there needs to be a character arc.? But after considerable study and movie watching, I no longer subscribe to the rule that the protagonist — and only the protagonist? — can own the critical?character arc, the one on which the outcome of the plot hinges.? That to qualify as a protagonist, a character must have a character flaw, specifically a flaw that he — and only he — can and must overcome in order to solve the plot problem.

In most plots, that is the certainly the case.? BUT: rules are supposed to be tools. They are not inviolate commandments chiseled in immutable stone on Mt. Sinai. Paradigms are supposed to be guidelines, not arbitrary and inflexible Procrustean beds into which every protagonist must be forced to fit.

In “War Games”, the teenager regrets having unintentionally triggered a nuclear war. But his remorse changes nothing; it does not give rise to an insight, an epiphany, that solves the plot problem. The character who must arc, who must overcome a fatal flaw if there is to be a chance to stop the “war game” is Dr. Steven Falken, the “father” of “Joshua”.?

If Falken doesn’t arc,? doesn’t? flip-flop on his fatalism, the world is doomed.

So the film? seems to violate the rule that the protagonist must own the character arc as well as the action line.? In “War Games” the two are split between two characters:? the teenager owns the action line — but the computer scientist owns the character arc.

Consequently,? I see no need to conjure up a flaw — any dramatically significant flaw — to describe the protagonist in the logline.

Nir Shelter:

For the record, my responses in this? thread? are based on a re-view of the movie.? Twice. (It’s? in my DVD collection.)

>>but that?s universally recognised as a symptom of youth? and as such, it?s not so much a flaw as an essential part of being a teenager.

So is recklessness, imprudent risk taking — which David is? certainly guilty of.? The fact it’s a salient attribute of the teenage psyche does not disqualify it as a character flaw.? ?A flaw is a flaw? because of its negative?consequences .

[Actually, I think that most of the principals in the film — David, Falken, McKittrick in particular — suffer from hubris, in the classical Greek sense? of excessive behavior, an imbalance of values.? David is too? impatient to wait and too clever at hacking – – and has too little respect for boundaries. McKittrick suffers from too much faith in computers.? Falken? suffers from too little faith in humans to avoid nuclear catastrophe.)

David is McKittrick’s unwitting nemesis, the poetic punishment of McKittrick for putting too much faith in computers.? If McKittrick hadn’t persuade the military to take humans out of the loop, the problem that David unwittingly creates by being too clever would have been manageable; humans would have provided the breaker fuses in the circuit to avoid a nuclear catastrophe.]

Anyway, I see no prospect at arriving at a consensus about David’s character flaw.? Let us agree that we disagree.

The meta issue for me is this: the only flaw that qualifies to be in a logline is one that the protagonist must overcome or else he will fail to achieve the objective goal.? He will fail to solve the dramatic problem.?

Too often,? it seems to me, writers insert a character flaw into a logline? because they have read that the character should have one — but overcoming the flaw in the logline is not directly related to the solution of the dramatic problem.? ?If the outcome of the plot doesn’t pivot on overcoming the flaw in the logline,? the flaw? doesn’t belong in the logline.

I believe that in “War Games” the outcome of the plot does not pivot on David overcoming his character flaw — whatever it may be.? ?(If it does, I would like for someone to cite me the scene, dialogue and action beat that indicates otherwise.)

The outcome unambiguously does pivot on Falken overcoming his.

(Oh, and I still believe that the most important element in a logline is the hook.? It’s the sizzle — not the steak — that gets scripts read.)

Nir Shelter:

I need to clarify? my demented thinking in regards to “the steak” versus “the sizzle”.? (Actually sparring with you over this film has clarified my thinking? on an aspect of loglining that has simmered on the back burner of my brain? for some time. So thanks.)

I think we’re on the same page on the primary purpose of a logline. However, in my case I also read from an extra page. ?I employ two loglines for my stories.

1] A?”steak” version to organize and clarify my thinking — the development phase. It’s a straight forward road map laying out the basic plot elements.

2] A?”sizzle” version that I use pitch the plot to others — the promotional phase.. This version puts an emphasis on the hook of the finished product.

My impression is that most loglines posted here are about story ideas in the development stage.? So you are absolutely correct to focus on what is needed to produce a “steak” logline with the essential plot elements as outlined by Karel under “The Formula”.

But I believe when it comes time to promote a finished product, a writer ought to consider whether there is a need for a “sizzle” version. If a writer can compose one logline well suited to the purposes of both phases (development and promotion) — great! But I have not found that to be the case with my own scripts.

Loglines are a tool.? And sometimes the tool may need adjusting, depending on the purpose, the task at hand.

fwiw