I read somewhere that there are only 7 basic movie themes. And all the rest are variations of those.
Does anyone know what they are?
Nope. Only one. It’s called the monomyth.
The Way-Too-Different Partners
The Rag-Tag Bunch Of Misfits Prove Everyone Wrong
The Unconventional Hero Teaches Folks a Thing or Two
The Road Trip Where Everyone Is Changed
The Unrequited Love Story
The Monsters Are Coming!
Someone (make it George Bernard Shaw or Winston Churchill, since they seem to be awarded all apocryphal quotes) once said that there are only two plots: 1) someone takes a trip, 2) a stranger comes to town. Works for me.
There’s also Vladimir Propp’s seven spheres of action (a google search on this should yield a few decent sites). I’d like to think that this translates to 7 “archetypal” stories, but from what I’ve turned up, it’s “the” seven stock character types (hero, villain, mentor, etc.).
I tend to subscribe to what they tought us in English class in High School:
man vs. nature
man vs. man
man vs. society
man vs. himself
man vs. god/religion
man vs. technology/progress (i suppose this could fall into the “society” category)
good vs. evil/law vs. chaos
they are reversible, of course, but you can pretty much boil everything down to those seven.
doesn’t really account for different genres, you know, comedy, satire, drama, tragedy, etc.
Some thoughts on the subject.
<flash back to final curriculum writing project> Argghh!!! </flash back to final curriculum writing project>