Have I got a movie for you! All right, so what this movie needs is for the protagonist to
pretend he’s a knight. Trust me, it’s for a good reason. Once he’s accomplished that, he will
gain attention and fame as this false knight. Of course, he can’t go the whole movie faking it, so
he will eventually have to earn a true knighthood on his own merits. This movie will truly move
people; they’ll see that they can change their life course.
I know what you’re thinking. Knights? Really? Yes, it has to be about knights, but trust
me, this will totally work. We set the movie in medieval times, which was the peak of the
knight’s status in society. You see, in medieval times, the knight was a man who people stared
at in awe, which is how our protagonist must be perceived for the movie. But, we’re not settling
for just a medieval setting to get the job done, no siree. Most of the movie will take place at
jousting competitions. Why jousting competitions and not in the heat of battle? Frankly, the
protagonist needs an audience and jousting has a whole lot of that. I’ve never heard of a war
happening in a stadium with a charge for admission, have you? No, jousting is perfect because
not only does it provide a stage for our false knight to show off his skills, there’s usually royalty
running the show and they are likely to take notice of our protagonist. Remember that need for a
true knighthood? Well, only royalty can do that and they’d have to witness his ability in order to
dub him a knight.
On to characters, now. Starting with our protagonist, he’s set up as a squire for an older
knight. This way, we get him into the whole world of knights early, so when the knight for
whom he squires dies, our main character can swoop in and easily assume the dead knight’s
identity. That’s how we accomplish the whole “pretend to be a knight” requirement. In order to
gain the fame, we have a character to help that, too. He’s actually Chaucer, the guy who wrote
the story that inspired this movie in the first place. Anyway, we make Chaucer out to be a gifted
storyteller (I know, duh) who has the job of announcing our hero before all of his jousting
matches. He is an eloquent character and is able to make our protagonist seem larger than life to
the crowds that gather to watch. His stretching of the truth aids in the pseudo-knight’s rise to
fame. We also have a mysterious character who turns out to be a prince that disguises himself in
order to compete in the jousts. Most knights forfeit because they find out about the royal
participant, but our guy isn’t a knight, remember. So this will be the royalty we need in order to
get the protagonist that true knighthood. The prince will be impressed with the gumption shown
by the hero, which leads to a returning of the favor. Pretty clever, right?
Don’t worry, we’ve got some parts in this that guarantee to mess with the viewers’
emotions. First of all, the protagonist is a low-born kid whose father miraculously got him into
the whole squire thing to escape his fate of mending nets all his life like his father. Can you say
“underdog?” That little bit really hits home when he returns to find his father after all those
years to tell him he changed his fate. Oh, and just for extra tear-jerking, we made the father go
blind. We also have a plan to drive the audience mad with hate when the antagonist outs our
hero as the phony his is at which point his is promptly arrested. It’ll look like his chance at
becoming a knight is over thanks to his rival, and that’s when the hate will boil over in the mind
of the viewer. We also make the antagonist pretty smug, which everyone hates.
Does it all make sense? Of course! I wouldn’t waste time pitching this movie if it didn’t
all work. He’ll be able to fake the whole knight thing because he was already the dead knight’s
squire. Plus, people don’t know what every knight looks like since it’s in medieval times so as
long as he looks the part, he’s set. And it’s not unreasonable for him to be good at the joust
because he’s helped out in so many of them as a squire. We also put in a comical training
session with the other squires to satisfy that doubt, too.