WARNING: Film Plot Spoiler – Pitch Black (2000)
This post is a review of an excellent film that I wish was a book.
Narrative Opening – Richard B. Riddick.
They say most of your brain shuts down in cryo-sleep, all but the primitive side, the animal side—no wonder I’m still awake.
Transporting me with civilians sounded like forty, forty-plus, heard an Arab voice, some who-do holy man, probably on his way to new Mecca, what route, what route. Smelt a woman, sweat, tool belt—leather, prospector type. Free settlers and they only take the back roads.
And here’s my real problem—Mr Johns. Blue eyed devil, planning on taking me back to slam. Only this time he picked a ghost train. A long time between stops, and a long time for something to go wrong.
This film uses the ‘W’ plot line, where you begin with the regular action, but then comes trouble. Later on in the movie, the characters appear to work their way back to normal. Then all hell breaks loose, and the main characters are in a life threatening situations. After a few deaths, the protagonist of the story wins through and is back in typical life situations.
This movie uses dialogue to hint at trouble, then trouble arises. This version is not as bad as ‘The Martian‘ where a character says “That’s assuming nothing goes wrong.” and then within a minute crisis occurs. That version was terrible. Having read the book, The Martian, the novel and then seen the movie. They are quite different. In a movie, you can only show activities that can be obtained on Earth. Whereas in a book you use imagination, and that can do anything and go anywhere. – Back to Pitch Black…
Pitch Black W Plot – Time stamps taken from my DVD of the film
0:00 – Hook: Opening narrative and spacecraft hit by meteor storm particles that resolve in a lack of control and crash on a planet.
16:00 – Exposition: Introduction of Riddick, the narrator and assumptive protagonist. Where he is, what he wants and the current situation. He escapes showing flexibility in his limbs. Also, three suns and no night-time on the planet proved to exist.
25:00 – Turning Point One: Protagonist is disturbed and the introduction of antagonistic forces.
27:00 – Protagonist captured again.
28:00 – Protagonist reveals that his eyes can see in the dark and is not happy with daylight. Not suitable for a planet that has no night-time.
32:00 – Sub Plot Introduction: Alien animals eat meat but don’t like the light.
35:00 – Promise of the Premise: Riddick let out of restraints as he didn’t kill the surviving passenger, but the aliens did.
44:00 – Increasing the Stakes: Impending Eclipse and have to move quickly before the aliens of the dark come and kill everyone.
47:00 – Midpoint: The Character Johns found out to be a mercenary and not a policeman. Also, Johns had a morphine addiction and didn’t give morphine to help Carolyn Fry’s dying crewman. So Johns the Antagonist?
50:00 – Eclipse starting, and alien Antagonists enclosing.
53:00 – Turning Point Two: Eclipse happens when the characters are a distance from the found shuttle craft and escape—Characters need to go out in the dark, with the aliens.
66:00 – Beginning Act III: Reaffirmation of goal and subplot subjects become apparently involved.
74:00 – Climax: Riddick has a battle with Johns the antagonistic mercenary.
83:00 – Electric lights go out and only left with flames of fires—As with all good stories when you think things can’t get worse, make them, even more, worse—it starts to rain putting out the fire flames. Aliens move in and take a few characters to eat. Characters find shelter.
85:00 – Riddick off to ship but Carolyn Fry goes after him. Riddick tries to turn her to leave the others.
91:00 – Carolyn Fry pushes back and convinces Riddick to go back for others.
94:00 – Riddick, the protagonist in trouble and Carolyn Fry, asked to leave him by other survivors. She wants everyone to survive.
95:00 – Carolyn Fry dies trying to help Riddick—he didn’t like that at all as he never wanted his life to be someone else.
97:00 – Riddick kills some alien animals as payback for killing Carolyn Fry and the mark of the protagonist.
98:00 – Back to the normal lifestyle.
This movie would have been a terrific novel but there isn’t one – Very sad!
Crime Fiction: Hardboiled Detective 