Writing a Two-Part Story: Across the Spider-Verse and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

Two part one movies came out this year- Across the Spider-Verse and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. I was blessed enough to see both in theaters. And after watching both, it's made me think about how each handles writing the first part of a story and what we as writers can learn from them.

So we're going to dive into both movies today and do just that. Because while both movies are good and I love them both in different ways, I think one handled being a part one better than the other (can you guess which?). I'm also looking forward to comparing them again when part two comes out for each.

Spoilers for both movies ahead!

The Goal

Deciding to undertake a two part story is tricky. You have to give viewers (or readers) a complete story, even though it's only the first part. Each story must stand on it's own and follow plot structure, but also be the first half of a larger story.

This is accomplished by giving the characters two goals. The first will be resolved in this story. The other is the overarching goal and will be resolved in the second part of the story.

In Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, the overarching goal is stopping the Entity, a sentient AI, from taking over the world. But the movie goal is to get the key that unlocks the computer the Entity is stored on.

In Across the Spider-Verse, the overarching goal is stopping the Spot from ruin Mile's life the way he feels Miles ruined his. However, it seems to lack a movie goal. You could say escaping Miguel or returning to his own dimension, but since he doesn't even leave his world or meet Miguel until well over halfway through the movie, that doesn't work. This is one of the biggest problems with this movie for me.

The Characters

A two part story needs plenty of characters to carry it. Yes, it could work with just a few, but that's much harder to pull off. But since we're going to be spending two movies (or books) with these characters, they need to be well-developed and have strong arcs across the stories.

Now, both Spider-Verse and Dead Reckoning are populated with characters we already know well from previous movies. But they also both introduce new characters (as they should) to keep the plot interesting.

In Dead Reckoning, we get Grace, a thief who gets tangled up with Ethan and eventually joins the IMF. Her arc is going from being a loner to being part of a larger organization (and a family of sorts). And I guess in the next movie we'll see her continue to hone her skills.

Since she's the only new character we get, there's lots of time to develop her character. We get to see her face challenges and overcome them. We learn some of her backstory and start to understand her. That will probably continue through the next film.

Spider-Verse, on the other hand, introduces a slew of new characters. Miguel, Hobie Brown, and Pavitr Prabhakar mostly, but there's also people like Gwen's dad or Jess Drew (plus a hundred other Spider-People, give or take). This movie is two and a half hours long, but because it spends so much time in the Normal World, we barely get to meet or know any of these characters.

The movie shows us that they're going to be in the sequel, and we'll probably learn more about them (especially Miguel), but since they're also bringing back all the Spider-People from the first movie, I doubt we'll get much more development. I adore Hobie and Pavitr, but I so wish we'd gotten to learn more about them as characters.

As a writer, you probably won't have the luxury of getting to write a two part story about well established characters. So you need to make sure you use the ones you have well, letting us learn about them and show us how they change over the course of the story.

The Villain

As with any series, a two part story needs an overarching villain to give us a boss to defeat at the end of story two. He'll probably also have some henchmen we'll have to defeat or befriend along the way. Most of these won't be defeated at the end of the first part, leaving us fully aware of the stakes and who we're facing as we go into the second story.

Dead Reckoning's main villain might be the Entity, but the main human villain we're facing is Gabriel, a man who Ethan has a personal vendetta against. He's a great antagonist because of that history and the fact that he's a ruthless killer. He stands against everything Ethan fights for. As for the Entity, it's a unique villain for Ethan because of its non-physical nature and ability to control anything digital.

Spider-Verse's main villain is The Spot, which is honestly quite a twist. As Miles says, he looks like a Villain of the Week. But that's what makes the twist so surprising. Of course, once again we don't know he's going to be the main villain until well over halfway into the story, so it's hard to feel the threat. Miguel also may be a villain, or he could just be an antagonist. It's hard to say from this movie.

You need to set up your villain for the series early on and show how much of a threat they are from the beginning. Then, keep reminding us through the story how bad they are and how much we need to stop them.

Dead Reckoning starts with the Entity faking a sub attack and blowing up a Russian submarine, then continues to work against us the whole story. Spider-Verse only shows Spot as a bumbling villain until the halfway mark where we learn there's much more to him than he seems. We fight other Spider-People more than him.

The Climax

Both parts of your story need a strong climax, even the first one. It might not be as hard or as big as the one in the second will be, but it needs to be there. We need it to feel like the story is coming to a close, even if our protagonist fails to defeat the villain in the battle at this point.

Dead Reckoning's climax pulls out all the stops. We jump off a mountain onto a train, then crash the train and have to speed fly away so we don't get caught by the IMF. Ethan doesn't catch the villain, but he does come out triumphant by not getting arrested. While we know the story's not over, the movie feels done because we had that climactic sequence.

Spider-Verse's climax I guess would be Miles escaping back to what he thinks is his dimension. But there are two problems with it. 1) It doesn't involve the villain in any way (unless again, Miguel is going to be one). And 2) It's too early, leaving us with another 15-20 minutes of story after it. It's a big, showy scene, but it doesn't feel like the climax of the movie.

Your story doesn't have to end with a big, flashy fight scene between the hero and the villain. But you need to give us some kind of climatic moment and make it feel satisfying, even if the hero doesn't win.

The Ending

And of course, the ending of the first part of your story needs to be good. It needs to leave us satisfied while also leaving so many questions that we have to come back for part two. This is where I feel Spider-Verse fails while Dead Reckoning succeeds.

Dead Reckoning's movie goal is to get the key to the Entity. At the end of the story, Tom Cruise speed sails away with the key in his hands. He's achieved the goal. He still has to stop the Entity and its henchmen, making us come back for movie two, but we still feel content with this ending.

But since Spider-Verse doesn't have a well-defined movie goal, when the story stops as Miles is captured by his alter ego and Gwen gathers the Spider-People to rescue him, the story feels unfinished. Like it was ramping up, only to have its momentum cut off short. Miles doesn't win anything and the story leave us feeling content. It leaves us wanting more, but in a bad way. (Especially when you see it in theaters and the next movie won't come out for a year or more at this point.)

You need to find a way to make your first part end satisfactory. There needs to be a bit of resolution, even with a cliff-hanger. And that's why I feel like Spider-Verse is a slightly weaker movie than Dead Reckoning.

Do you agree with my assessment? Do you have any tips for writing a two part story? Tell me in the comments!