what’s wrong with the third act, anyway?

Of late, a boisterous, magnificent third act has become more than just a norm in a blockbuster film. It’s as if a film’s blockbuster status is negated if it doesn’t have a huge third act with lots of explosions. Man Of Steel and Star Trek 2 both have had huge, destruction-y, action-packed third acts with whole cities being levelled and explosion going off without any necessity except to satiate the public’s supposed hunger for disasterporn. This results in a third act that ends up being completely devoid of any emotion or humanity, and an emotionless scene is just not worth having. This, in turn, necessitates an emotional “beat” to be hackneyed into the act just so that the scene doesn’t feel absolutely lifeless. And the result? A messy third act that satisfies only on a very superficial level.