This video was very entertaining and interesting. I have definitely thought of movies having low points and high points and the mood changes of the characters before but never thought to graph it. It really emphasized the dramatic changes in mood in stories.

Holy Grail Shape

It got me thinking about some of my favorite movies and the shape of their stories. I thought about a bunch of different types of movies (action, comedy, romance, drama) but ended up thinking about how interesting of a story shape Monty Python and the Holy Grail is. I have seen the movie dozens of times and know it so well so I did a story shape for it.

The movie starts off at a pretty high point, it is following King Arthur around and you don’t get much more well off than being a king.

He then goes through some trials trying to find knights to join him court at Camelot.

He finally finds several Knights to join him and there is much rejoicing. Yay!

They are all then given a quest from God to find the Holy Grail. This is the ultimate high point in the movie.

Immediately they run into trouble.. the French. They are taunted and assaulted with farm animals. They end up retreating in defeat.

Things continue to get worse as they split up, each part of their group experiencing little success at finding the Grail.

They then rejoin each other and seem to be on their way to finding the Grail after meeting a certain enchanter.

They win a battle and find the location of the Grail.

Then movie then takes a surprising twist and our heroes’ good fortune runs out as the movie ends.

The way the movie began and ended was what made me want to create a story shape for it. It just seems  so rare for a movie to start off at such a high place and then end on such a down note.