Narratives Theories Research Task

Narrative is used for story telling in a way in which the audeince becomes intrested in a certain film, simply because of the way the story is being told. Narratives are important because without it, the audeince wouldnt be as intrested in the film. Some storytellers start off a story with "Once upon a time.." and thats usually when the audeince for the story is little kids,however "Once" means that the story is set in the past using a past tense and "upon a time" means that the story is in a world thats different to our own. Stories that start with "Once upon a time.." are usually fairytales which makes the story sound more intresing and magical which could make the children want to listen to the story. At the end of the story good defeats bad and its the same sort of ending for films aswell because in most films the hero always wins which brings me to "character type". Character type is just basically defining what each character type in a film is, for example:

• The Hero is the one that leads the narrative and they are usually looking for something or going on an adventure where they try to solve a mystery or rescue someone.
• The Villian is the one that has conflicts with the hero where he or she try to take over the world and kill the hero.
• The Heroine is often described as a prize for the hero.
• The Father offers a reward to the hero because they managed to complete their quest.
• The Helper is often described as a "side kick" because of them helping the hero.
• The Donor is able to give something to the hero so they can complete their mission, i.e. a clue or even a special power.
• The Mentor teaches and sometimes guides the hero throughout so the hero knows what he's looking for or what he's got to do to complete the quest.

An example of a film which features most of the character types are "Meet the Spartans".


The Hero in "Meet The Spartans" is King Leonidas, he's the hero because his mission is to stop Xerxes from buying the land in which the spartans live. The Villian is Xerxes because he's the bad guy that tries to bribe the king into giving him the land, and when the king refuses Xerxes sets out to humilate and almost kill Leonidas. The Heroine is the kings wife Queen Margo. She is the heroine because aswell as trying to send out more troops to her husband to help him, its almost as if she's a prize to the king because of all the work he has done being king. The Helper/sidekick in the film are the kings soilders, they're the helpers because they are the poeple that help him along the way.

2008-Meet The Spartans-Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.
 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/meet_the_spartans/
http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/meetthespartans