Battle of Titans

Talking about writing, that moment in plot when the protagonist and antagonist have a massive battle. 

Watching these two heavy weights go at it creates memorable moments in film and sometimes in cinema. One of the major reasons a film would be successful.  

I’m going to be using Dwayne Johnson as an example.. A LOT.. A few of reasons for that. 1, because he’s constantly used in heavy weight battles. Secondly he’s on fire at the moment and 3rd, he’s a pretty cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything. 

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You need this massive battle, audience loves to see two heavy weights going at it (not necessarily big guys physically fighting) I mean experts. For example, cities best detective vs criminal mastermind. You’ll see that in the Usual Suspects and LA Confidential. It’s just not as exciting if you see average detective vs average criminal, there’s potential for it to be much more. 

Fast Five is an example of not only a heavy weight battle, it also places two heavy weight actors Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson against each other. Another great example of this is Heat, two leading actors of that time Robert De Niro vs Al Pacino. 

Also another example that DIDN’T happen, it should have but it didn’t. Arnold Schwarzenegger vs Sylvester Stallone. There was a prime time someone could have done this battle and ended up with a historic battle in cinema, but the opportunity was totally missed.  

Using Fast Five again (because it’s a very simple example) the film also uses these two heavy weights coming together, forming an unstoppable team that faces an even bigger enemy. Unfortunately, in Fast Five it wasn’t as powerful as it could have been, maybe because we didn’t see the real antagonist being a bad guy. He pops up and it’s like oh, there he is, he’s bad… go get him. 

One of the reasons writing in wrestling is so damn important. They have heavy weight battles all the time.. most recently The Rock vs John Cena. That was heavily hyped up and it paid off massively.

It wasn’t as hyped as The Rock vs Hulk Hogan, if you haven’t seen it. here’s the link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK_1uzHKXLA&feature=my_favorites&list=FLgeXSfPvjaYVZPETERW4NIQ

 It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. You’ll also notice at the end they make peace. They also end up teaming up and becoming an unstoppable force against a greater enemy.  

You can also go the opposite way and get comedy, actually just watched Walking Tall today (yep Dwayne Johnson film). One thing I noticed was in stead a battle of titans they have these 2 utterly useless characters that go at it and you get comedy. They’re both useless, they’re shooting each other but all they manage to do is miss and destroy everything in the room. 

If you want the battle of heavy weights you have to really set up these two characters. If one character’s weaker than the other it will fail. 

Do it right and you’ll have a battle that the audience will love and remember.