Editing 657: Movie Narrative Charts

*A [http://xkcd.com/657/large/ larger version] of this image can be found by clicking the image at xkcd.com - the comic's page can also be accessed by clicking on the comic number above.

{{incomplete| Needs more?}}

=== {{w|Lord_of_the_Rings_film_trilogy|Lord of the Rings Trilogy}} ===

A mass of colored lines weaves back and forth across the chart, representing various characters. Sauron is represented by a red bar at the bottom contained within a huge black bar with branches, that in turn represents his army of nazgul, orcs, etc. Major locations (Moria) and plot points (the breaking of the fellowship) are marked. Gandalf, especially at the beginning, jumps all over the map in a short time. Eagles appear and then disappear a couple of times. Treebeard's line is flat except for the march to Isengard. At the end, the ship to the West drifts off into a corner. The hobbits start off in the top left with Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin with Bilbo with them for a short time because of the party at the beginning.  They go off on their adventure and briefly encounter Gandalf.  They are then split up for a short time but meet back up at Weathertop when the Nazgul attack and they meet Aragorn (Strider at that point). They meet up with the rest of what becomes the fellowship of the ring at the council of Elrond at Rivendell. The newly formed fellowship Then must venture into the mines of Moria which is referenced in comic [https://xkcd.com/760/ #760] and comic [https://xkcd.com/1218/ #1218]. After the Balrog and the death of Boromir the fellowship splits up. Frodo and Sam take the ring and go off on their own to destroy it and sneak into Mordor with the help of Gollum. Merry and Pippin end up getting captured by the Uruk-hai however are rescued by Eomer and his army. Eomer and his army then reunite with Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn briefly while Merry and Pippin find Treebeard and flood Isengard. While Merry, Pippin and Treebeard are floodin Isengard Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas fight at Helm's Deep with Gandalf and Eomer and Theoden.  Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas go to wake the army of the dead while Pippin goes with Gandalf and Merry goes with the Rohirrim.  All of these people rejoin for the battle of the Pelennor fields where Eowyn kills the withc king after Theoden dies along with Denethor.  The orcs and men and oliphants are all destroyed and Aragorn releases the army of the dead.  All the surviving members of that battle go to the Black Gate except Eowyn and Faramir.  Sam and Frodo destroy the Ring, Gollum dies and everyone that is still alive is there for Aragorn's coronation. Everyone gos bak to their respective homes except for Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Bilbo who get on a ship to the west.

Luke, mostly accompanied by R2-D2, joins and parts from other sets of characters. There's a dotted alternative path on Jabba's line for the special edition. Yoda appears about halfway through (where Luke's Jedi training is marked). All the surviving lines group up at Endor except for Vader, the Emperor, Luke, and Lando; after the climactic duel, the latter two join the rest.

=== {{w|Jurassic_Park_(film)|Jurassic Park}} ===

The human characters are in black; dinosaurs are in red. Dilophosaurus appears briefly to eat Nedry and then fades out again. The three raptors are together at the beginning, but split up about halfway through. One has a dotted portion of line between "locked up" and "escapes." In the meantime, they cut off the lines of Arnold and Muldoon. The raptor lines all end when t-rex's swoops down to meet them at the end, and all the surviving humans leave together.

=== {{w|12 Angry Men (1957 film)|12 Angry Men}} ===  

The joke in the 12 Angry Men graphic is that in the movie all 12 jurors (the angry men) are in the same room for the entire duration of the movie. They never move and they all always interact with each other, hence their lines stay straight and close to each other.  

This is actually not entirely true as the movie begins in the court room and a couple of times during the proceedings a few jurors goes into the washroom and have a brief discussion there, and finally in the very last scene two jurors have a brief exchange in front of the courthouse. But basically there is no need for such a narrative chart, and that is the joke.

=== {{w|Primer_(film)|Primer}} ===

The last box is a movie called Primer from 2004, which became a cult classic.  It is about a group of engineers who discover a way to time travel, but only in one direction (backwards) and only at the speed of regular time (i.e. you have to stay in the time machine for one hour to move an hour back in time). Because of this, the story ends up having multiple versions of the same person existing at the same time; the plot and time-travel mechanics are notoriously hard to follow, so that it is almost impossible to figure out where each character is at one time, as the comic illustrates.

The chart for ''Primer'' is referenced in the title text of the fourth image in the [[what if?]] ''{{what if|101|Plastic Dinosaurs}}''.

These charts are a reference to the map by infographic pioneer {{w|Charles Joseph Minard}} that details the movements and losses of Napoleon's troops on his failed conquest of Russia.

''' [Characters starting or leaving not in battle/avent-areas and not on the left/right side of the chart] '''

*Jabba Special edition [green dotted line, marking an alternative way for Jabba that unites after a little loop with Jabba main line.]