A few years ago I wrote a 10 minute play with Chris from my old improv group that The Dare Project in NYC was kind enough to produce. Our play was about a video game character who is sick of being the unappreciated villain, so she decides to go “game jumping” in order to become a hero. Because it was a 10 minute play, we set our play primarily in a group therapy session where she is talked back to her senses by other video game baddies.

While writing it, we explored about how fun it would be to bust her free, to expand her journey out into other game worlds, but the 10 minute limit kept us on target for a tidy finish. I bring this up because Disney is releasing this:

It’s got me thinking about a few things. First: change. We’re living in a time of drastic, tumultuous change. Most of us are being forced to adapt quickly to fit ourselves into a changing economy. Society is changing, geopolitics is changing, the planet is changing. This reality is frightening for a lot of people – but Change is the essence of our present situation. We adapt or we die.

The stories we’re telling each other are increasingly about coping with this upheaval. The hero goes on a journey, she has to change to achieve her goal. Or, the world is suddenly changed for our hero, and she has to discover what that means and how she can process this. Those are the archetypal “hero’s journey” and “spiritual quest” stories. They’re ancient. And they totally work for us today.

I saw the above trailer for the “video game character who wants to change” movie before Brave – which is about “a princess who wants to change her fate.”  Change is in the air. I’m happy to look back over the projects I’m developing and see that they’re nearly all about this in one way or another. Me and Chris were on to something with that video game story, clearly.

The other thing it’s got me thinking about is a Production Company who wants stories like this?