Writing Effective Found Family Films (Part 2)

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Found Family:

It’s A Disaster

Nothing forces people to form a family faster than a disaster – a plane crash, shipwreck, or a natural disaster such as an earthquake, tidal wave, or tornado. Yellowjackets tells the story of a girls soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness during a flight to Seattle for a national tournament. Bound as a sports family, they are now working together to stay alive and hope they’re rescued.

Lost and even Gilligan’s Island followed a similar premise of survival, hope, and rescue among a group of people who only have a flight in common. Lost In Space is an example of the Robinson family, a co-pilot, a stowaway, and a robot trying to make it through each day, and possibly even return to earth.

Sports Films

Speaking of Coach Carter, team sports movies are strongly favored by the found family paradigm.

A League of Their Own has the found family concept baked into the title. Friday Night Lights, both the movie and TV series, features 6 – 7  revolving characters who are different but connected to the team’s goal of winning state championships. But they’re also seeking individual glory.

Cast of A League Of Their Own. Photo courtesy of Prime Video
Sports team movies almost always have strong Why Nows? and ticking clocks because the stories usually revolve around a crucial 2 – 3 month season. High school football is only 8 – 10 weeks of play. Even losing one game is a major event on the way to the ‘big game’. This creates tons of opportunities for conflict among the players.

Miracle about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team is a strong entry in the found family sports world with an intense narrative drive that brought a group who had no chance of winning to eventual Olympic fame. The players fight constantly and the path to glory seems unlikely – until they do win it all.

War

War movies are great examples of a found family story. Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, The Dirty Dozen, Dunkirk and others many times show a group that is put together from various parts and must accomplish a dangerous goal. They may start off as strangers, but by the end of the film they’ve bonded at a much deeper level because of the intense experiences, and become, at least reflect, the values of a family.

Strange Worlds

Found family has a strong component of growth. Usually in the main character but also across the board in the group.

Star Wars (the original) is a great found family film. In short order, Luke Skywalker gains a mentor, a sister, a kick-ass buddy, a few droids, and other various players to help him accomplish his goals. Notice the strengths of this group. It will take them all to succeed, but also change the timid moisture farmer into the greatest hero the galaxy has seen.

Star Trek, the movie reboot, tells the origin story of the crew who became an iconic group of adventurers all trained by StarFleet to be parts of a starship’s crew. In the process of exploring, they became family. The various sequel series also show this strong Found Family overlay continuing.

Picard and his TNG group, Janeway, Pike, Burnam – all have a found family component in the crews they lead. The various members gave the show a strong energy both from their differences and how they banded together to help each other.

Consider this intro from the bible written by Gene Roddenberry in the 80’s for the series The Next Generation:

“A large part of the success of the original Star Trek series is attributable to the fact that it is not a star and co-star series, but a family ensemble in which the continuing characters felt great affection for each other, allowing the audience to identify with and share that same feeling of affection.” 

Or this exchange from Star Trek: Into Darkness which shows the unique dynamic between three of the characters and why Found Family films work so well:

KIRK
Spock, nobody knows rules better than you,
but there has got to be an exception.

SPOCK
None. Such action violates the Prime Directive.

MCCOY
Shut up, Spock. We’re trying to save you, damn it.

SPOCK
Doctor, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

KIRK
Spock, we’re talking about your life!

SPOCK
The rule cannot be broken

(signal breaks up)

KIRK
Spock! Try to get him back online.

CHEKOV
Ninety seconds to detonations.

KIRK
If Spock were here and I were there, what would he do?

MCCOY
He’d let you die.

The Expanse continues this sci-fi concept of found family, but perhaps even more so in that the Rocinante crew is fused into a group by the deaths of their compatriots and is on the run from many forces.

Superhero Teams

How many superhero groups have a Found Family element? Fantastic Four, X-Men, Metal Men, The Boys, Doom Patrol, Teen Titans, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. Not to forget the biggies like The Justice League and The Avengers.

The found family dynamic is very strong in many of the Avengers films. In Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers splinter along ideological lines with various members either supporting Cap or Iron Man. What once held them together now splits them. But they are a team again in lockstep when Thanos attempts to destroy the universe.

The stresses of the storyline shows the conflicts inherent in any group and the subsequent bonding details – how they can instantly become family to fight for the fate of all humans and aliens, their original stated found family purpose.

The ultimate found family superhero film has to be Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse where various manifestations of the same superhero have to fight villains from different dimensions.

Funny People With Funny Lines

The Office (both UK and US versions), Friends, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock – all hilarious offerings to the found family pantheon.

Skewing comedic types in a found family format is great fun because you can exaggerate them and play them against each other. Consider these dialogue zingers:

Sheldon Cooper, The Bing Bang Theory, “I always listen to myself. It’s one of the great joys of my life.”

Chandler Bing, Friends, “I say more dumb things by 9:00AM than most people do all day.”

Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation, “There’s only one thing I hate more than lying: skim milk. That’s water lying about being milk.”

Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock: “Good God, Lemon, your breath! When did you find time to eat a diaper you found on the beach?”

Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld: “She’s a sentence finisher. It’s like dating Mad Libs.”

Michael Scott, The Office: “I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.”

The interactions are epic and fruitful for comedic harvest. Goofballs abound in Stripes, Ghostbusters, Men In Black, and The Goonies as they all humorously make their way to their goals, daily or otherwise.

Oooh – Scary Kids

Zombieland, Night of the Living Dead, Love and Monsters, 28 Weeks Later, Anna and the Apocalypse, Mad Max: Fury Road all shift the stakes on the Found Family paradigm to desperate survival with compatriots thrown together by catastrophic situations.

The simple way to get maximum conflict out of any situation is to increase the heat and bring everything to a boil. That’s when characters really become what they do, not what they say.

A found family will splinter quickly in any of the post-apocalyptic scenarios because they hold no special bond beyond the shared self-interest that brought them together. Once that self-interest becomes strongest and foremost and any shared interest diminishes, that’s when things really go awry for the group. This makes for max conflict.

Villainy?

Sure, villains can be found family too. In the Spiderverse films, the villains from the different dimensions band (and bond) together. There’re dozens of villain teams in Pokémon. Justice League has evil counterparts called the Crime Syndicate of America. The Frightful Four are a Fantastic Four villain group comprised of Wizard, Sandman, Paste-Pot Pete, and Madam Medusa.

Although they are now basically do-gooders, the men and women of Leverage were all criminals. Suicide Squad anyone?

As mentioned, heist movies like Oceans 11 are about criminals who pull together to rob something. The Thomas Crown Affair, The Great Train Robbery, Dead Presidents, The Town, etc. All show a wildly different crew of baddies working together to accomplish something.

Surf and Mirth

Even beach movies can have a found family element to them. Disney’s Teen Beach Movie and High School Musical take maximum advantage of the Found Family paradigm in featuring characters who have similar goals.

Some hearken back to the original Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello films (or Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens most recently) with characters Big Drag, Deadhead, Bonehead, and Sugar Kane who frequented the beach in films like Beach Blanket Bingo for one stated purpose – fun! Okay, so not the most compelling of Found Family agendas but the principle is still valid.

Bring It On, Pitch Perfect, The Breakfast Club – all teen-oriented found family films.

In Conclusion

Some movies/TV/books/situations work better than others for found family paradigms. But the strengths of disparate members pulling together for a common goal is a terrific one to explore for your next script.

Handling any group of characters, especially in a film, is difficult. The theory and practice behind found family narratives makes it just that much easier.