Freedom Baird
Non-Linear and Interactive Narrative
Week 8 - April 3, 1996

Generating a morphology for a film genre

For the assignment I chose the genre of futuristic-cyber-cop movies. I viewed two movies, RoboCop and Demolition Man, analyzed them, and developed a system of morphemes for each. The patterns that I discovered are quite striking, and are recognizable in many other films of this genre (Total Recall, Running Man, Blade Runner, etc.) The story pattern can be summarized as follows:

* In the future a city is in trouble, besieged by crime at the hands of a manufactured/programmed criminal.
* An ordinary, but competent cop (the hero) has a life altering experience, and undergoes a transformation.
During this transformation the cop is made into a cyborg, physically and/or with programming.
* The transformed cop is called upon to save the city.
* A female cop partner befriends the hero, and helps ease his adjustment to life after the transition.
* Two villains are in conflict w/ one another as they wreak criminal havoc in the city.
* The hero battles his cyborg opponent and wins.
* The hero confronts his maker, the older of the two villains, and learns that he has been manipulated by him.
* The hero destroys all the villains and lesser bad guys.
* The hero bonds platonically with female-cop-partner.
* The hero finds his sense of self.
 The fact that stories can be analyzed in this way reflects issues that a culture continually tries to work out in its storytelling. This, among other things, is the story of the male mid-life crisis. In real life the middle-aged man, trying to effect some sort of transformation, buys a motorcycle ‹ the next best thing to being a cyborg ‹ and tries to have some heroic adventures, without cheating on his wife, to whom he remains faithful throughout his transition. The programming against which he rebels represents his job/boss.

I generated a set of morphemes for each story.

RoboCop morphemes
Demolition Man morphemes

 Morphemes common to both stories are: * cityscape
* briefing
* meets partner
* incedent/mistake
* transformation
* reunion
* missions
* competition
* revenge
* discovery of programming
* battle of robots
* exposure
 I'd guess that there are many many futuristic cyber-cop stories comprised of this set of morphemes, roughly in this sequence.
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baird@media.mit.edu