Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies [Paperback]

9781932907353_p0_v1_s260x420What’s a MITH? Not a myth, you moron, a MITH.

Well, that’s something you’ll have to find out for yourself. I had to after reading “Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies” and I wasn’t sure I’d get anything out of it.

I mean on the cover it seems cutesy, but the introduction almost suggests it’s going to tell us something we already know. Does it? Well, upon reading the first chapter, I found I couldn’t stop reading, and that’s because Blake Snyder does tell us stuff we already know, but then… he surprises you too.

What’s a MITH? Once you discover what it is you’ll find it almost impossible to watch “Alien,” and “Jaws” again without referring back to the book and the themes Snyder so classifies with amusement. “Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies” breaks down almost every story ever told and shows us that there are always common links that bring them together as on story.

What does Snyder prove by this book? He shows us that there’s really no such thing as originality in the world of fiction. There never really was. Everything is derived from something. Every single story has been recycled, rehashed, and approached from different angels for decades in books and movies, and… there’s really nothing wrong with that.

From the individual prophesized to bring a certain part of a world to peace by fighting an evil force, to a knife wielding psycho, it’s all relative and it’s all so much fun to read. Snyder’s writing doesn’t have a single air of pretension to it, so “Save the Cat!” goes down smooth and has an utterly wonderful sense of entertainment to it.

Snyder single handedly brings down some of the best and worst films ever made, and reveals to us that we’re essentially watching the same stories over and over, but with a greater creative angle. Stories most times are really just the same concepts redone, but there’s no reason why we can’t put a new twist every now and then. That’s what storytelling is. Snyder’s novel is great, and as a film freak, I loved reading his dissections of so many movies in simple pleasing bullet points.