8 Things WWE Can Learn From Star Wars: The Force Awakens

2. Bring Back The Old Storytelling Spirit

The three Star Wars prequels told the story of the downfall of a single individual, with the Star Wars setting, including the rise of the Empire and the fall of the Republic, as a backdrop. With all the politicking and personal melodrama going on, the prequels were short of adventure and that swashbuckling sense of fun. The Force Awakens returns to the idea that this is a space opera with elements of epic fantasy, not a soap opera with elements of sci fi. It takes the story of the most famous film trilogy of all time and tells us what happened next: it's event based, not character based. There's a reason WWE's storylines have begun to feel so wishy washy, so shapeless and difficult to follow. Look at Roman Reigns. He's a tall, handsome guy who's the latest in a long line of family members to become a professional wrestler. He's at odds with the men and women who run the company, yet receives opportunity after opportunity at the top title in the business. Unlike others who've been in his position ('Stone Cold' Steven Austin or Daniel Bryan, for example), Reigns is rarely if ever messed with by those in charge. In fact, at least once the Authority actually asks him to join them, and continues giving him opportunities at the title even after he says no. Despite this, when his latest attempt to win fails, he goes ballistic and flattens everyone, including his boss, who gave him the title match in the first place and who wasn't responsible for him losing. Those are the events that took place. You can see that the character beats are entirely different. The story is based around the character and his feelings: he feels marginalised, excluded and screwed over, and takes matters into his own hands. The things that happen to him simply don't match the way we're being told he feels. Pro wrestling stories may be based on getting characters over, but the best of them are fundamentally event-based, not character-based. Wrestler A does this to Wrestler B, who responds by doing that, and we have the basis of a feud. The thought processes, emotions and dialogue of a character or characters are what add colour and flavour to that narrative, but the narrative itself is centred around what happens to those characters.