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THE MIDPOINT TWIST/TURNING POINT
aka
- The Mirror
- The Reversal
- The Mindfuck Moment
- The Commitment to the Journey
I’ve read a lot of different descriptions of this over the years, but none really group all of what I consider to relevant into one bite-size package. So here I’ll summarize in a way that I hope will be useful.
This is a pretty fundamental element in a TV or movie script that you may not even be aware of.
Basically, right at the midpoint of the story, smack in the middle of the second act (as opposed to a commercial TV "act"), there is
a moment where everything changes. It's a context-shifting point in which the curtains is raised for the first time, enlightening the protagonist and/or audience to what is really going on, what the stakes are, etc.
To pull out a fanfilm example, Dennis’s script for “The Tressaurian Intersection” features a classic example of a Midpoint Twist. Just after the Exeter secures the Starbase-destroying “weapon” the Tholians appear and it’s revealed that the “weapon” is their property, and that it is a “prototype” of something bigger, affecting the goals and enlarging the problem.
In short, at the midpoint new information causes the protagonist’s course to be changed. Some for-instances:
- Star Wars: Our heroes are off to deliver the plans to Alderaan, but discover the Death Star instead and have to shift from merely delivering the plans to rescuing the Princess.
- Breaking Bad (pilot): Walter White has been reacting to his terminal cancer diagnosis but when he realizes a former student of his is a wanted meth producer, he turns this into an opportunity to reclaim his self worth and make money for medical bills by blackmailing the former student into partnering with him to make and sell meth.
- The Wrath of Khan: Kirk discovers that Khan is the one after Genesis and this changes him from reacting to his midlife crisis to actively fighting to save the ship and stop Khan.
Now, it’s important not to think of this midpoint just in M. Night Shyamalan “twist” terms. The midpoint twist isn’t necessarily a big twist like what “I see dead people” means. It’s frequently more of a Turning Point, a reveal in which the course of the story pivots from one trajectory to another and the problem deepens.
As the a.k.a.s above indicate, there’s more than one thing that can happen at this point beyond a Turning Point :
The Mirror
Another thing which frequently happens at the midpoint is that the action reflects the ultimate resolution of the story. For instance, if the hero ultimately wins at the end, the midpoint is a small victory for her, but if the hero ultimately loses at the end, the midpoint is a low point (whereas the culmination of the second act tends to be the opposite of the climax: if the hero wins at the end, his lowest point is at the end of the second act).
Jumping back to a
Trek example here, above I related the
Khan Turning Point, but in this same moment there is a Mirror of the ending: at the end Kirk outsmarts Khan but at a cost (Spock’s life), but here is the smaller reflection of that as Kirk outsmarts Khan but the Enterprise is damaged and Peter Preston dies.
The Reversal
Meaning a reversal of expectations. Although it doesn’t always happen here, a classic “reverse” frequently occurs at a film’s midpoint. A fun example is in
Ghostbusters. For the first half of the second act Venkman is trying to put the moves on Dana, but when he shows up for their date it turns out she’s possessed and starts putting the moves on him instead, and now he rejects her.
The Mindfuck Moment
Sometimes the midpoint is real mind bender where you realize that what you thought was going to happen isn’t going to happen. Take Friedkin’s
To Live And Die In L.A. in which ($poiler Alert!) the nominal protagonist Richard Chance is blown away at the middle of the story, leaving his up-to-now unsure new partner to take over the narrative. But, dead or not, Chance “lives on” because his partner becomes more and more like him. so by the end, basically he's become Chance.
The Commitment to the Journey
In “The Tressaurian Intersection” the Turning Point here is where Garrovick decides to commit himself to a course of action even though he has done his duty from Starfleet’s point of view: he has secured the “weapon” that destroyed the Starbase, and could fly home and let Starfleet analyze it, but he decides instead to investigate further and risk everything to save a race he actually hates.
Finally, from a protagonist point of view, the midpoint can often be seen to be the moment at which the hero goes from being r
eactive to the problem (Garrovick trying to locate the weapon before the Tressaurians can use it again) to
active in trying to resolve the true nature of the problem as revealed by the twist (Garrovick discovers the weapon is a prototype of something far more dangerous).
Discuss.
