Movie Narrative Charts
by Jeff
(You absolutely have to click on the image to see it larger. It is quite detailed and impressive.)
Image text: In the LotR map, up and down correspond LOOSELY to northwest and southeast respectively.
Lord of the Rings is pretty self-explanatory if you have seen the movies based on the series by JRR Tolkien. It is important to note that the chart is based on the movie, not the books. Second, is the original Star Wars trilogy. If you haven't seen those, stop what you are doing right now and go get them. Third, is the original Jurrassic Park movie.
The joke in 12 Angry men graphic is that in the movie all 12 jurors are all in the same room the entire movie. They never move and they all always interact with each other, hence their lines stay straight and close to each other.
The last box is a movie called Primer from 2004, which became a cult classic. It is about accidentally discovering time travel. The plot is so convoluted and mixed up with the time travel between the original person and the so-called time travelling "double" that it is almost impossible to figure out where each character is at one time...as the comic illustrates.
UPDATE: These charts are roughly a reference to the map by Charles Joseph Minard that details the movements and losses of Napolean's troops on his failed conquest of Russia.
Example can be found here.
November 2nd, 2009
i’ve seen all those movies and i still don’t get it… the LOTR diagram corresponds to what, the shape of the northwest and southeast shape of the U.S.?
November 2nd, 2009
I translated it roughly as time is on the horizontal axis and north/south is on the vertical axis.
November 3rd, 2009
Time is definitely on the horizontal axis. The meta-text says that the vertical axis is roughly northwest/southeast for LOTR. Presumably, the vertical axis is virtually meaningless in absolute scale for the others.
November 2nd, 2009
I really dig this a lot. Awesome narrative timeline format.
November 2nd, 2009
Here is the embedded Movie and a collection of resources i put together for you guys:
http://www.tanglax.com/content/primer