Take The Island

Chapter Ten of my Indie-Film Journal A Virus Ate My Movie!

Storming the castle

Is there a clearer example of how to set up your finale than Wayne’s World? Wayne actually looks at us, the audience, and TELLS US what he’s about to do. And then does it! It feels fresh because of the style and the characters but it’s almost laughable how un-sneaky it is. And yet we NEVER NOTICE.

Because it’s so good.

At minute 88, Wayne (Mike Myers) looks straight at the camera outside of Cassandra’s loft and declares (as if he’s literally the screenwriter counting down the things we’ve got to see get fixed):

“I lost my girlfriend,” says Wayne.

“I lost my show, I lost my best friend… I’m being sh*t on! Sh*t on I tell you!”

Then he goes back to the donut shop and plans the finale. Blake calls it ‘storming the castle.’

Wayne’s gonna need a team (everyone does), and when he turns around his crew answers, right on cue, with “we’ll help!”

They make it so obvious we don’t even realize we’re getting a screenwriting lesson masquerading as a movie.

As I mentioned, the job lay-off actually produced great results. Instead of…