Twenty-Five
Resolution
“An end … is that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by necessity or as a rule, but has nothing following it.”
(Poetics, Part VII)
Act Two was all about the pursuit of the hero’s objective that had been set up in Act One, and it concludes with the end of that pursuit. So as our metaphorical curtain rises, we find our hero now in Act Three, the Beginning of the End.
Once again, let’s follow our film examples to their resolution and look for useful patterns.
Act Three of Star Wars goes something like this:
With the empire closing in, and no time to mourn his lost friend, Luke and the rebels are debriefed on the death star’s one weakness. Thinking the plan to be a suicide mission, han says so long and takes off. luke says goodbye to the princess and boards his x-wing.
On the death star, vader deploys tie fighters to deal with the threat, and in the first trench run battle, vader manages to destroy all the rebel ships.
As luke attempts to reach the ventilation port, his wingmen are all disabled, leaving him alone. Then, trusting in the force, he turns off his instruments. Before vader can blast him, a returning han solo disables vader’s ship. Luke fires with pure intuition. hits. The death star is destroyed.
Luke and Han receive a hero’s welcome, complete with medals. The rebellion and the galaxy have been saved.
And that’s the end of Star Wars, at least until the sequels and prequels. Let’s compare it to Act Three of Some Like It Hot.
As the boys hastily pack to flee, joe, pretending to be junior on the phone, breaks things off with a devastated sugar.
While discussing whacking little bonaparte, spats and his goons spy Joe and Jerry escaping and recognize them as the witnesses.
A wild Chase Ensues Through The Hotel.
Joe and Jerry hide in the banquet room as the mob convention convenes. Little bonaparte has an assassin kill spats and his gang. Joe and Jerry flee while federal agents descend on the room.
Another chase, with more mobsters this time, ensues. Our boys realize their only hope is to escape on osgood’s yacht.
But while they almost make it out, Joe, dressed as Josephine, watches sugar sing, and despite the fact that it will expose him, he kisses her and tells her not to give up on love.
The mobsters chase Joe and Jerry who escape on spats’ gurney.
On the dinghy to the yacht, Joe finally comes clean to sugar, telling her who he really is and that she deserves better. But she chooses him anyway. And despite learning that daphne is actually Jerry, osgood wants to marry him still. After all, nobody’s perfect.
And that concludes Some Like It Hot.
So what beats do these Act Threes share in common?
First, we start the act in a similar place, with our heroes dealing with the immediate consequences of the defeat that ended Act Two. For Luke, it is the death of his mentor. For Joe, the end of his relationship.
At the start of Act Three of Shawshank, Andy actually confesses to killing his wife. Of course, he didn’t really do it. But he’s lost all sense of his innocence, the one thing that’s been giving him hope. That’s the emotional consequence of how much his captors have broken him.
Benjamin searches desperately for Elaine, only to find she’s quit school. Harold, hysterical, takes Maude to the hospital. Michael mournfully returns home to his family’s compound. Elliot gives a tearful goodbye to his only friend.
In each case, what we see is the AFTERMATH of the Big Gloom, a beat that reveals what life for our hero is like due to their loss—
—until some new event snaps them out of it and reignites their commitment to a goal.
Luke learns what must be done to stop the Imperial threat once and for all, just as his departing buddy wishes, “May the Force be with you.” Joe and Jerry, witnessing yet another mob hit, realize they’ve escaped one threat only to become ensnared by a larger one.
In Shawshank, while talking to Red in the prison yard, Andy’s own words convince him that he must either get busy living or get busy dying.
E.T. miraculously returns to life. Benjamin learns where Elaine’s wedding will be held. Jerry flees, convincing Marge of his guilt. Harold learns his soul mate has died.
In each instance, some kind of CATALYST engages, either internally or externally, that makes our hero realize they simply can’t persist in this Gloom, but must redouble their efforts to accomplish either their original objective, or one that has emerged as more urgent.
As a result, they put some kind of PLAN into action. For Luke, that involves exploiting the Death Star’s vulnerabilities. For Joe and Jerry, it means figuring out a way back onto Osgood’s yacht.
For Andy, it’s putting the final touches on an elaborate escape. For Elliot, it’s finding a way to the UFO landing site. For Ben, it’s getting to the church on time. For Jake, it’s luring the police away so he can arrange passage for Evelyn to Mexico.
But by now, the forces aligned against our hero are more powerful than ever, truly testing their resolve and ability, requiring them to make use of all they’ve learned and all the ways in which they’ve changed to even attempt to overcome them.
And this leads to our CLIMAX. For Luke, it’s an exciting trench battle on the surface of the Death Star. For Joe and Jerry, it’s a madcap chase for their lives through the hotel corridors.
It’s the rain-choked passage through putrid sewers into freedom. It’s a desperate bike ride across a moonlit sky. A shoot-out with ruthless kidnappers. A drive off a cliff. A church brawl.
It could be a fiery courtroom speech. A bold declaration of love. A priest demanding the devil take him instead. Climaxes come in all shapes and sizes. But in all of them, some things are fairly consistent.
First, as it represents the ultimate confrontation between the hero’s desire for their objective and the forces opposing it, this beat has the greatest stakes and the most conflict, resulting in the highest point of physical and emotional action.
And in the beat’s final moments, as the action builds to a crescendo, the hero will DO something that they could never have done before, something that demonstrates how far they’ve come, how much they’ve changed.
So Luke, whose job was once maintaining the technology back on the farm, turns off his ship’s computers, fully trusting in the Force, in his own intuition, for the first time.
Joe, knowing full well he’s compromising his chance at escape, exposes his true identity to Sugar in order to prevent her from giving up on love. For the first time, he puts someone else’s welfare ahead of his own.
John Book, without a weapon, uses non-violence for the first time to stop the corrupt cops from harming his new community.
Richard Hoover gets up on stage and dances with his daughter with wild abandon, for the first time unafraid of what others think of him.
In each instance, we see a character put themselves on the line, take a tremendous risk, make a sacrifice, maybe even abandon the thing they had sought for so long, to accomplish something much more significant.
And win or lose, as a result of this action, a new character emerges. Luke the callow, impetuous farm boy is now Luke the daring, galaxy-saving warrior. Joe the deceitful, selfish cad is now Joe the selfless and honest monogamist.
Rick Blaine, the apathetic cynic, has become the optimistic patriot. Andy Dufresne, the meek pushover, is now the stalwart man of action. Benjamin Braddock, once aimless and adrift, has purpose and resolve. Harold, obsessed with death, has a newfound love of life. And Michael Corleone, the man who wanted nothing to do with his family’s business, is now its ruthless patriarch.
In Aristotle’s terms, this climax reveals the hero’s Change of Fortune, manifested by the character overcoming or being overcome by their primary flaw, their hamartia.
And as a result, a NEW EQUILIBRIUM is revealed.
We see Luke receiving his medal, lauded as the hero he’s become. We see Joe and Jerry heading off into the sunset, matrimonial bells ringing for them both.
Andy and Red embrace on the Mexican beach that will be their new home. Ben and Elaine stare off into space as they sit in the back of the bus, their exciting future now once again fraught with anxiety and uncertainty.
Harold dances, full of life. Jerry is taken into custody, case closed and onto the next. Michael shuts the door on his wife as his associates now kiss his ring as their new Godfather.
Oedipus, blinded, staggers off into the wilderness, destined to be a despised outcast for the rest of his days.
And as the curtain comes down on our story for the last time, we’ve resolved the dramatic question posed at the beginning.
Did he get the girl? Did he get the guy? Did he escape? Win the battle? Solve the crime? Pull off the crime? Get his buddy home? Make partner? Finish the race? Did she get what she wanted? Did she get what she needed? Or did she get something else entirely?
Fade out. The End.
And those are the Stepping Stones of Act Three. Once more, they are:
- AFTERMATH
- CATALYST
- PLAN
- CLIMAX
- NEW EQUILIBRIUM
Again, the precise number of beats may vary, depending on the unique needs of the story.
For instance, a character might remain in the aftermath of the Big Gloom for longer, as in Some Like It Hot, or they might immediately snap out of it and start pursuing their Act Three goal, as in Star Wars.
The catalyst that provokes that goal might be abrupt, as in E.T., or it might be more gradual, requiring several different events, as in Chinatown.
The final climactic confrontation could be reached quickly, without need for much planning, as in Fargo, or it might require lengthy preparation, as in The Shawshank Redemption.
And we might get a sense of the new equilibrium in just a single brief episode, like in The Graduate, or it might require tying up many loose ends, as in The Return of the King.
But what is almost always certain is that the Third Act will have the fewest number of beats of the three, since the story’s momentum is now at its highest, driving relentlessly from that Big Gloom to our final resolution.
And while it may be the shortest act, over and over, in movie after movie, we can observe a similar pattern of episodes, one that corresponds nicely to Aristotle’s description of The End.
Once more, don’t believe me? Then see for yourself.
Assignment #9: Third Act Beats
You guessed it, watch the third acts of the two movies from the previous assignments, noting the various events that make up the Resolution. Can you identify the major Stepping Stone beats? Do the same patterns emerge?
