Epilogues?

Yes. You write it - you are the writer.

IF it is a

NATURAL part of the story then yes, you would write it.
Your job is to tell all of the story, and NOTHING more then the story.
And nothing that isn't part of the story.

As the Mad Hatter so eloquently stated "Start at the beginning and when you come to the end ...... STOP."

If the epilogue isn't really part of the story then it will get cut by the director.

Could you point to a film that has an epilogue so I know exactly what you mean?

-Derek

Saving Private Ryan is a good example of the traditional epilogue with the old man at the cemetery.

However, many people think that those pages after the bad guy is stopped at the end (after the end climax) is an epilogue. Like the twenty minutes after the ring is destroyed in LOTR.

Ah, okay, LOTR makes sense. The Scouring of the Shire (from the book) takes the adventure on some more, but I guess the part where Frodo sails off to the Grey Havens is an epilogue. Or one heck of a long denoument.

I thought Saving Ryan's Privates qualified as a bookend, like Titanic and others.

-Derek

A think of a bookend as prologue and epilogue that are out of time with the rest of the story.

I am also reminded of The Fugitive and other 60's TV shows that actually had Epilogue written on the screen at the end before the final scene. A scene that just wrapped things up.

I was thinking

epilogue with LOTR.

I also tend to think of epilogue as that one little scene that leaves an opening for the sequel.

NH, are you perhaps thinking of the little scenes that are now coming at the end of quite a few films where you see something happen with a minor character?
Like the monkey getting a coin at the end of Pirates, or the girl bringing home a kitten in Flushed Away?

Although a bad movie, Marie Antoinette ended before she gets her head lopped off (her claim to fame). Similar to what you are doing.

I, for one, felt cheated that it ended so abrupt and at an odd place in her story without any hint of what was to come. Sure, I know the history as do many people about her death, so I imagine Sofia Coppola wanted to end it where it did for that reason.

However, Magellan, is lesser known in popular culture.

With that said, ending it before his claim to fame you need to establish what happens and I suggest a black screen and post script.

I hope that throughout the script you have a deeper goal for your protag other than making it around the world, otherwise your protag has no arc to his need/goal.

I caution you that leaving audiences wanting more is not always a good thing, unless you have a sequel in the works.

I caution you that leaving audiences wanting more is not always a good thing

Click to expand...

picnic at hanging rock - the absolutely most frustrating leave you hanging ending with no resolution flick i ever saw. it was several years ago and i still remember it so, maybe it's not a bad thing.

Nikee, I so completely agree. The whole movie built up to . . . nothing. I still think it sucked. I don't think it was great, or noble, or original. It was planned, yes, appreciated, no. That's why you never saw anything like 'from the writers of Hanging Rock, or from the producers of hanging rock'. No one would pay to see more of . . . nothing. Gee, thanks. And you took my seven bucks for what? I'm still pissed, not intrigued.

Sorry, NH, I intended to respond to you, but got side-tracked by that (inappropriate omitted)

There are so many ways to leave it cliff-hanging. Meeting the next deadly intimidating island tribe, a storm rages and sails are hanging in the wind, three sheets gone. (That's where the drunk acting 'three sheets to the wind came from, by the way'.) Hell, the sun sets that way, the main characters can say "We started chasing the sun", "Yeah, let's catch it", whatever.

You have a good idea here, but only a couple producers will tackle something this expensive. I write 'sea stories' some, as a former ship's captain. I stopped because they are so expensive to produce, didn't think mine could make the cut. Now I'm rewriting two earlier novels. Who knows?

If you need some incredible music to help inspire you, check out Canadian Stan Rogers. His music and lyrics are phonomenal. He died young, but you can still get the music. He has the feel of what you are writing, if you can capture it in script form, you win. I never could.

Blade Runner had an epilogue too -- I wasn't sure whether I liked it being there.

You never know, they might buy it as a trilogy and make them all at once, then you have a trailer for the next installment.

I'd try to make each one as stand-alone as possible.

WARNING!
The following is one of Joe's rants. Feel free to skim through.

Christopher Columbus was but one movie, as was many done for historical figures, like most recently with Queen Elizabeth, Marie Antoinette, etc...

Hell!!!! The entire Book of Exodus was made into just the Ten Commandants. And all the Gospels were made into a whole slew of Jesus films (yet one film each).

What I recommend is that you take the common theme or personal struggle that Magellan had through out his life and eliminate those scenes that do not follow your logline.

What is your story about (and don't say Magellan's life). What about his life makes a story? With Aviator, they dealt with and only showed Hughes' OCD and how everything else was affected by it, but they still showed how he came about, how he struggled and succeeded to what we know him as today.

You don't have to go a to b to c... all the way to z. A good story teller tells a story from a to d to m to z and the missing parts are not missed because of the way the story was told and background info was intertwined effortlessly so we know it without seeing it. I'm not saying tell not show, but you can't show everything. be selective.

The great biographical stories and films are ones where is doesn't matter who they were, but what they did. You could almost take Queen Elizabeth out of the screenplay and replace her with a fictitious Monarch and they story would still be good. Tell Magellan's story, not his life.

If I were you I would divorce myself from the obvious love you have for Magellan's entire life and like a bitter divorce, rip it apart down to 120 (130 at the most) pages.

Now of course, keep what you have. If a producer loves your script you will have plenty of material to add to in the rewrites, or you may be lucky enough to sell the whole thing as a trilogy, but don't shoot yourself in the foot for sake of historical (and complete) disclosure.


That's enough ranting for today.

These of course are my opinions and you should do what you feel is best.