xhonzi said:

cutnshut said:

Alien has 7 acts

xhonzi said:

No it has 3 acts... and maybe 2 other non-act thingyies.

cutnshut said:

thats great but its still 5 acts :p

It's true. It's 5 segments. But, as far as I understand the 3 act structure, it makes sense to call them prologues and epilogues, because the central 3 Acts ARE the 3 Act structure.

I was thinking about this one the other day. It has been asserted (not by me, but I think I agree with it) that all stories must at least loosely follow the three (AKA five) act structure. That it's some sort of hardcoded expectation in human DNA. If a story is told without act structure... people wouldn't know that it was over. Or that it had started. Some would say a story without act structure is not a story at all.

So, Aliens has 5 acts (I can't deny it anymore, and Cut'n'shut isn't here to gloat). I still thing P,1,2,3,E are good names for the acts (vs 1,2,3,4,5) since the central 3 and the three. Is this the (or one of the) reasons that people are so attacted to Aliens? Does the 5 act structure set it apart from all of the other 3 act movies and make it seem more epic? Does it scratch some sort of preternatural itch that we as humans (or at least MEN) have for a 5 Act yarn- that they reduced 3 act structure just isn't getting?

What do you think?